Day by Day: The Nineties

DAY BY DAY

The Nineties 1990–1999

Smita Avasthi

Day by Day: The Nineties Copyright © 2004 by Facts On File, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information contact: Facts On File, Inc. 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Avasthi, Smita. Day by day : the nineties / by Smita Avasthi. p. cm. Includes index. eISBN 978-1-4381-2436-0 1. Nineteen-nineties. 2. World politics—1989– 3. Civilization, Modern—1950– I. Title. D856.A93 2003 909.82´9´0202—dc22 2003049296 Facts On File books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk quantities for businesses, associations, institutions or sales promotions. Please call our Special Sales Department in New York at (212) 967-8800 or (800) 322-8755. You can find Facts On File on the World Wide Web at http://www.factsonfile.com Cover design by Cathy Rincon Printed in the United States of America VB TB 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is printed on acid-free paper.

CONTENTS EDITOR’S PREFACE INTRODUCTION LIST OF ACRONYMS YEARLY SUMMARIES MONTHLY AND DAILY CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS

iv v xiii 1

1990

4

1991

139

1992

281

1993

415

1994

549

1995

687

1996

819

1997

951

1998

1081

1999

1217

EDITOR’S PREFACE through E list international affairs for any given date, while columns F, G, and H deal mostly with U.S. domestic developments. Column I— Science, Technology, & Nature—covers both U.S. and foreign accidents, weather phenomena, natural disasters, and technological advances. Cultural events and personal items that do not have political implications are found in Column J. Each year is preceded by a monthly summary of events to include developments that cannot be fixed to a single date. Day by Day: The Nineties includes an index designed to facilitate references to specific events. For this reason it is keyed to dates and columns rather than page numbers. A list of acronyms has also been provided.

Day by Day: The Nineties is part of a decade-by-decade chronology of world events that begins with Day by Day: The Forties. The series is designed to provide both a quick reference to specific events and a broad overview of the years during and after World War II. Most of the material in Day by Day is based on the Facts On File News Services’s World News Digest, supplemented by major newspapers and scholarly reference works. The emphasis throughout is on events of public record, reported in the news media. The enormous number of events covered in the volume makes it impossible to treat any single one in great detail. Readers interested in more information are advised to consult one of many reference works on the period. Entries in Day by Day are grouped into 10 categories, designed to facilitate the location and comparison of events. In general, columns A

iv

INTRODUCTION Community (EC), the Arab League, and the Gulf Cooperation Council. In a “notification consistent with” the War Powers Resolution, U.S. president George H. W. Bush officially informed Congress that he sent U.S. forces to the Persian Gulf on August 10, 1990. Bush did not invoke the controversial 1973 law, which would have given Congress a say in the deployment. In addition, reservists were called to augment what is known as “Operation Desert Shield,” the first time since 1968 that reservists have been called to active duty in a foreign crisis. The U.S. forces led an international team of allies, and at least 10 nations sent troops to the region. On January 16, 1991, allied forces launched a full-scale attack against Iraq. More than 15,000 allied air sorties (8,000 of them combat missions) were flown in the first week of the bombing campaign alone. The roundthe-clock bombing of Baghdad continued for several weeks, and the intense military campaign ravaged Iraq, prompting humanitarian crises as epidemics of disease broke out in the country. Massive fires and oil spills led to environmental disasters throughout the Persian Gulf. On February 27, 1991, Iraq agreed to comply with UN resolutions demanding the Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait. In response, U.S. president Bush stated the allied forces would cease offensive operations at midnight, 100 hours after the ground offensive began and after the allies flew 106,000 air sorties and lost 36 aircraft in combat. During the six weeks of war, an estimated 85,000–100,000 Iraqis were killed or wounded, and the attack devastated Iraq’s infrastructure. On April 6, 1991, the government of Iraq accepted the terms for a permanent cease-fire stipulated in UN Security Council Resolution 687, bringing a formal end to the Persian Gulf War. However, it was not until November 10, 1994 that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein signed a statement declaring that Iraq “recognizes the sovereignty of the State of Kuwait, its territorial integrity and political independence” and that it accepted the border between Iraq and Kuwait. Despite this declaration, the UN Security Council retained its oil and general trade embargoes on Iraq in a November 14, 1994, vote. The tensions between Iraq and the international community, as evidenced by the continuing UN embargo against the country, persisted throughout the decade. While the military campaign was relatively short, disputes over the UN arms inspectors resulted in several diplomatic crises, and the UN maintained its embargo against Iraq, although it launched a foodfor-oil program to aid with the humanitarian crises that beset Iraq after the allied bombing campaign in the Persian Gulf. Another international military campaign was conducted in Yugoslavia as the republic broke down and a bloody civil war erupted. On March 16, 1992, Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic announced his republic no longer recognized the legitimacy of the Yugoslav federal government, and the Serbian National Council, which represented ethnic Serbs in Croatia, declared an independent republic in the southwestern Krajina region of Croatia. Yugoslavia’s defense secretary, Colonel General Veljko Kadijevic, told the federal collective presidency that “Yugoslavia has entered a state of civil war” on May 6, 1991. In the years that follow, violence tore apart the former Yugoslav Republic, and the conflicts

The end of the 20th century was marked by both beginnings and endings as nations throughout the globe underwent political changes. During the 1990s, several countries ended their systems of government and embarked on new phases in their history, reimagining their communities and redrawing their maps. The breakup of the Soviet Union came on the heels of the dissolution of communism in Eastern Europe, and the formal reunification of Germany led to new ideas about communities in the West. At the same time, a crushing civil war in Yugoslavia exposed how atrocities can be committed to exterminate communities in the name of ethnic purity. Ongoing violence related to ethnicity was also evident in African nations, as civil wars in Liberia, Rwanda, and Somalia killed hundreds of thousands of people. Iraq’s attempted takeover of Kuwait prompted an international military action in the Persian Gulf. In Latin America, a violent coup rocked Haiti, while several other nations, such as Brazil and Chile, were returned to democracy for the first time in more than 20 years. Questions of self-determination continued to affect Asia. Indonesia went through radical changes when a referendum bestowed independence in East Timor, and China regained control over Hong Kong from Britain. The issue of what constitutes a community and a nation rose to the forefront of political strife as the countries around the world struggled to reimagine themselves. The United States enjoyed a period of economic prosperity toward the close of the century. While the first few years of the decade were marked in economic lethargy, the country passed several milestones in the stock market, and the federal budget reached a surplus in 1998 for the first time in nearly 30 years. The political climate was shaped by issues of gender equity as questions of sexual harassment affected every branch of the federal government. Allegations of sexual harassment rocked both the navy and the army, disrupted the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and compelled the resignation of Senator Bob Packwood (R, Oreg.). One such scandal even prompted the House of Representatives to impeach President Bill Clinton. In the midst of these concerns came instances of both foreign and domestic terrorism against the U.S. government. The World Trade Center in New York City suffered an explosion, and U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed. A federal building in Oklahoma City was also destroyed in one of the worst cases of domestic terrorism in the nation’s history. In response to escalating terrorism activity and to bloody civil unrest around the world, international organizations intervened in several conflicts by sending peacekeeping missions to nations such as Somalia, Haiti, Indonesia, Bosnia, Liberia, and Rwanda. Global peacekeeping efforts marked the 1990s, as both the United Nations (UN) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) led campaigns in nations rocked by civil wars while attempting to respect those countries’ domestic policies. In contrast to peacekeeping efforts over internal ethnic strife, the UN took action against Iraq in 1991 after the nation forced the annexation of neighboring Kuwait in August 2, 1990. The invasion of Kuwait prompted international outrage from the UN, NATO, the European v

installed its first democratically elected government, reflecting changes brought by the destruction of the Berlin Wall in 1989. On October 3, 1990, Germany became a unified nation for the first time since the end of the Second World War. In addition, many Eastern bloc countries launched a new phase in their history with multiparty democratic elections during the decade. The formal end of the cold war was marked on November, 19, 1990, at a summit held by the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Additionally, NATO was expanded during the 1990s, and the Warsaw Pact, created in 1955, was dissolved on July 1, 1991. U.S. president Bush and Soviet president Gorbachev held the first post–cold war superpower summit on July 30, 1991. As old divisions fell, Europe reached a new stage of unity when, on January 1, 1999, the European Union (EU) launched a common currency unit known as the euro in many nations, including France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Germany. One significant reason for the breakdown of Eastern and Western divisions in Europe was the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In the 1990s, the Baltic states in the Soviet Union made the first moves toward secession. On March 11, 1990, the parliament of Lithuania declared the republic’s independence from the Soviet Union. This act was quickly followed by Latvia and Estonia, and on May 12, 1990, the three countries signed a pact to revive the Baltic Council, which existed before the Soviets’ annexation of the region in 1940. The Soviet government denounced the declarations of independence as invalid, and a period of negotiation and economic threats reflected the USSR attempt to contain the crisis. However, several Soviet states followed the path of the Baltics, and on July 24, 1991, Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev met with 10 leaders of the 15 Soviet states, who agreed on power-sharing provisions in a treaty. Only a few weeks later, on August 18, 1991, Soviet hard-liners attempted a coup against Gorbachev, prompting massive protests throughout the USSR. Particularly vehement against the coup was Russian Federation president Boris Yeltsin, who addressed 150,000 people at a protest rally held on August 20, 1990, in Moscow. On that same day, over half a million other activists demonstrated against the coup attempt. In the face of internal and international condemnation, the rebellion was quashed by the end of August 21, 1990. But despite the attempted coup, the Soviet Union, formed in 1922, officially disbanded on December 25, 1991, and 11 of the 12 Soviet republics formed the Commonwealth of Independent States, or CIS. While there were some skirmishes regarding the independence movement, including the slaying of 15 pro-independence protestors in Lithuania on January 13, 1991, the dissolution of the Soviet Union was generally smooth and nonviolent. However, internal strife plagued some of the recently formed countries, and one conflict that gained prominence took place in Chechnya. After clashes, Russian forces launched a full-scale offensive on Grozny, capital of Chechnya, on December 31, 1994. By the time of that assault, only about 100,000 people remained in Grozny, down from a prewar population of 400,000. Clashes within Georgia and conflicts between Armenia and Azerbaijan also continued throughout the decade. Other significant events that took place in the 1990s in Europe included the peaceful division of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia on January 1, 1993. Turkey launched violent campaigns against Kurdish separatists and debated the place of the Islamic religion in its political sphere. Italy suffered a massive political corruption scandal. Violent riots shook Albania over pyramid investment schemes in January 1997, and political protests in Romania erupted in violence in June 1990. Sectarian violence persisted in Northern Ireland, particularly during traditional parades in the summer months; and on March 20, 1993, a bomb in Warrington, England, killed two boys, ages three and 12. They were the youngest victims of such violence, and their deaths prompted an estimated 15,000 people to attend a protest on March 28, 1993; the demonstration has been called the largest ever protest criticizing the Irish Republican Army (IRA)

resulted in what observers called the worst human rights abuses in Europe since the end of World War II. Over a dozen peace accords were reached and broken, and international efforts to find diplomatic solutions were continually thwarted. On February 29, 1992, Bosnia held a referendum, which eventually prompted the area to declare its independence from Yugoslavia. On April 27, 1992, the Yugoslav republics of Montenegro and Serbia proclaimed a new “Federal Republic of Yugoslavia” with a revised charter that tacitly acknowledged the independence of Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, and Macedonia. The fighting in the former republic of Yugoslavia killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, and international organizations attempted to intervene with both sanctions and humanitarian aid. On May 30, 1992, the UN voted to impose sweeping international sanctions on Yugoslavia as a means of ending the bloodshed in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The body also insisted that the Serb policy of expelling non-Serbs halt immediately. However, paramilitary groups continued to massacre people based upon ethnicity in a campaign of forced expulsion and extermination known as “ethnic cleansing.” Amid widespread reports of atrocities in Bosnia, the UN Security Council created a war crimes commission for the region in October 1992. On February 28, 1994, NATO fighter aircraft conducted their first combat action in the organization’s 45-year history when they shot down four planes in violation of the UN’s no-fly zone. The following November, NATO warplanes bombed the Udbina air base in the Serbheld Krajina region of Croatia in the biggest air raid carried out by NATO since it was formed in 1949. In an attempt to protect civilians, the UN designated several “safe zones,” including the city of Srebrenica, in May 1993. However, in July 1995, Bosnian Serb forces captured Srebrenica, and, as mass graves were discovered later, the city eventually represented the inability of peacekeeping forces to protect civilians. The war finally came to an end on November 21, 1995 when the presidents of Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina agreed to a pact. A NATO peacekeeping force of 60,000 troops was deployed in Bosnia to sustain the accord. The war claimed an estimated 250,000 lives, and its campaign of ethnic cleansing shocked the Western world. War crimes tribunals continued to operate throughout the decade, and in June 1996, rape was treated as a war crime for the first time. Upon the heels of this bloody conflict came an uprising in Kosovo. Problems in Kosovo emerged at the beginning of the decade when, on July 2, 1990, Albanian members of Kosovo’s parliament declared that Kosovo was independent from Serbia. However, on September 28, 1990, the Serbian parliament completed its effective annexation of the province. The conflict in Kosovo was overshadowed by the civil war, and when peace accords finally took effect, ethnic Albanians launched several attacks for the independence of Kosovo in February 1998. The ensuing Serbian violence against ethnic Albanians outraged Western nations, particularly since it followed a war that called attention to attempted genocide through ethnic cleansing. The attacks prompted NATO to launch its first assault on a sovereign nation in its 50-year history on March 24, 1999. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia indicted a sitting head of state for the first time on May 14, 1999, when it indicted Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic for “crimes against humanity” stemming from the forced deportation of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo. On June 9, 1999, Yugoslavia signed an agreement with NATO, pledging to withdraw all of its forces from the Serbian province of Kosovo, and NATO formally ended its bombing campaign against Yugoslavia on June 20, 1999. While the war in the former Yugoslavia dominated much of the European theatre during the 1990s, the decade was also marked by the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The breakdown of the Soviet Union and the reunification of Germany, along with the end of communism in several Eastern European countries in the late 1980s, created an entirely different political climate in Europe. Without the Eastern bloc, the very concept of the cold war became obsolete. In April 1990, East Germany vi

as 800,000 Burundians fled to neighboring African nations, including Rwanda. After the April 1994 death of Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira, intense fighting disrupted the nation, and by March 1995, observers reported that the country was practically at a stage of civil war. In July 1996, the main Tutsi party in the coalition government, the Union for National Progress (UPRONA), rejected president Ntibantunganya and the 1994 accord that established the coalition government. Setting off international condemnation, Burundi’s Tutsi-dominated military announced that it seized power in a coup and named Major Pierre Buyoya as president on July 25, 1996. It dissolved the parliament, declared political parties and demonstrations illegal, and closed off the country’s borders. Burundi also repatriated thousands of Rwandans, as it was one of the African nations that had attempted to handle a massive exodus from Rwanda during 1994. For the next several years, the influx of Rwandan refugees led to severe problems in Zaire, Tanzania, and Burundi. International organizations were stunned by the speed of the exodus and the enormous numbers of the refugees in Rwanda. Camps were set up, but violence often plagued those areas, so many refugees were slain after fleeing ethnic cleansing in their country. In addition, poor sanitary conditions caused diseases to flourish, and hundreds of people died each day during the Rwandan refugee crisis. The influx of refugees led to violence in Zaire, and, as it highlighted the nation’s problems, the government of President Mobutu Sese Seko came under attack. In the face of a final rebel assault on the capital, Kinshasa, President Mobutu relinquished power on May 16, 1997, ending nearly 32 years of dictatorial rule. The following day, Laurent Kabila, a veteran guerrilla fighter, declared himself head of state and changed the country’s name to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. However, fighting persisted in the nation as several rebel groups emerged. On August 31, 1999, two rival factions signed a peace agreement aimed at ending the country’s civil war. In addition to these conflicts, intense fighting besieged Somalia, where violence erupted in November 1991 and continued to flare, drawing international attention. In response to the ongoing factional clashes, UN peacekeeping troops arrived in the country in August 1992. However, sporadic fighting kept causing unrest, and, on June 5, 1993, a series of well-orchestrated attacks killed 23 UN peacekeepers. It was the worst single-day death toll for UN soldiers since 1961. The assault was launched after UN troops inspected munitions depots controlled by General Mohammed Farah Aidid, the most powerful warlord in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. In August 1996, Aidid died from gunshot wounds sustained in clashes, but his death did not resolve the conflict. One week in December 1996, renewed clashes left more than 300 people dead. One year later, on December 23, 1997, leaders of rival factions in Somalia’s sixyear-old civil war signed a landmark peace plan. The Middle East was also marked by violence during the 1990s. Fighting continued in Lebanon, and prolonged terrorist activity in Israel throughout the decade stressed that nation’s ongoing strife. Two of the most violent outbreaks in Israel took place in 1990 and 1994. On October 8, 1990, Israeli police opened fire on stone-throwing Palestinian protesters on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City, killing at least 19 Arabs and wounding more than 100 others. In the second incident, a U.S.-born Israeli settler sprayed Palestinians with automatic rifle fire at a mosque in Hebron, leaving 40 worshipers dead and 150 wounded on February 25, 1994. The massacre was the worst in the West Bank since 1967. This assault was even more significant, for it came in the wake of a landmark peace agreement signed in September 1993; however, it was staged by a lone gunman, Baruch Goldstein, and the peace arrangement stayed in place, despite the violence that the attack sparked. The historic peace accord, signed by Israel’s prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, and Yasser Arafat, the chair of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), on September 13, 1993, committed Israelis and Palestinians to share a land that they both claimed as their own. It also set up

in Dublin. On April 10, 1998, political leaders tentatively agreed to a groundbreaking settlement aimed at ending the long-running sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland, and voters cast ballots for the country’s local legislature the following June. In September 1997, Scotland and Wales formed new assemblies that gave the regions a degree of political autonomy that had not been seen in hundreds of years. Great Britain suffered an emotional loss when Princess Diana died at the age of 36 in a car-crash accident on August 31, 1997, a death that shocked the world. When we turn to the African part of the world, we can see that violence affected many nations, and the practice of ethnic cleansing was not limited to the European theatre. In Africa, the 1990s were marked by coups and ethnic strife, and many long-standing conflicts in the Middle East continued to rock the region with terrorist activity, despite a landmark Israeli peace accord signed in September 1993. Coups were staged in several African countries, including Sierra Leone, Mali, Qatar, Niger, Cosmoros, Ivory Coast, and Guinea-Bissau. Intense fighting in Liberia, Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia, and Angola sparked international intervention as millions of people died in those wars. At the same time, South Africa gained international praise when it ended the apartheid system of racial separation and enfranchised its black citizens for the first time. In terms of Africa’s more violent conflicts during the 1990s, a bloody war in Liberia degenerated to tribal warfare in June 1990. On September 10, 1990, Liberian president Samuel Doe was killed by rebels led by Prince Yormie Johnson. Doe’s death resulted in more chaos, and, on September 20, 1990, Johnson declared all-out war on the remnants of Doe’s army and the forces of rebel leader Charles Taylor. By October 1992, Taylor’s rebels controlled most of Liberia, along with members of a rival rebel movement, the Independent National Patriotic Front. The UN Security Council approved an arms embargo against Liberia on November 19, 1992. The fighting persisted during the coming years, and by September 1994, approximately 150,000 Liberians had been killed in the civil war, and more than half of the population of 2.3 million people was displaced. In fact, by October 1994, refugee camps in Burkina Faso and Guinea were home to more Liberians than any Liberian city except Monrovia. Despite peace accords, sporadic violence plagued the nation throughout most of the decade. On August 2, 1997, former warlord Charles Taylor was sworn in as president of Liberia; his election marked the nation’s first balloting in seven years of civil war. While the fighting in Liberia was perpetuated by rebel groups, Rwanda was beset by ethnic fighting from the onset of the 1990s. In February 1993, rebels in Rwanda broke a peace accord when they launched an assault in order to stop an ethnic-cleansing campaign staged against the Tutsis by the Hutus. The violence reached astonishing proportions after Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira and Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana were killed in a plane crash on April 6, 1994. Fighting erupted almost immediately in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, as groups of Hutus and Tutsis roamed the streets, shooting, knifing, and hacking civilians to death. The violence included massacres of civilians, such as a brutal incident on April 13, 1994, when 1,180 Tutsis, 650 of them children, were killed in a church in Musha, 25 miles (40 km) east of Kigali. Estimates suggested that 10,000 and 20,000 died within the first week of violence in the region. In addition, 2 million people were displaced by fighting within Rwanda, and another 30,000 fled to neighboring countries, including Burundi, which also faced ethnic strife between Hutus and Tutsis. By the time the war ended, over half a million ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed. In January 1997, a Rwandan court handed down its first sentences in its attempt to punish the people responsible for the massacres during the civil war in 1994. The problems in Rwanda were linked to clashes in Burundi, even before the April 1994 death of both the nations’ presidents. A coup attempt in October 1993 led to the death of Burundian president Melchior Ndadaye, the country’s first democratically elected leader. The attempted coup sparked violence between Tutsis and Hutus, and as many vii

in over 150 years of British rule, and prodemocracy parties won a majority of seats. On February 24, 1994, Hong Kong’s legislature approved a series of democratic-reform proposals, and China responded by threatening to disband all elected bodies in 1997. When power over Hong Kong reverted to Chinese authority at midnight on June 30, 1997, the transition was remarkably peaceful. Hong Kong and China struggled over the issue of democratic reforms, but no violent crackdowns marked the reemergence of Chinese sovereignty over the former British colony. At the same time, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan faced violent upheavals during the 1990s. In March 1992, the leftist Khmer Rouge launched a new offensive, prompting the Cambodian government to strike back. On September 24, 1993, Norodom Sihanouk assumed the title of king, a position he had abdicated in 1955. Although he set up a dual premiership between his son and the incumbent premier, Hun Sen, a bloodless coup in July 1997 ousted Prince Norodom Ranariddh, leaving control of the government to Hun Sen. On August 5, 1998, Hun Sen was declared the winner in Cambodia’s national elections, but rumors of election fraud sparked protests throughout the country. In Sri Lanka, the Tamil rebels continued to launch offensives throughout the decade. In August 1990, the estimated death toll from the conflict stood at 3,350, and the ongoing violence left even more people dead. On May 1, 1993, President Ranasinghe Premadasa was assassinated in Colombo, the capital. After several major offensives in 1995, Sri Lankan troops captured Jaffna, the center of the Tamil movement, in December 1995 in what some observers called the most significant victory in 12 years of war. Afghanistan also suffered from rebel uprisings and a coup. On April 28, 1992, Afghanistan’s collapsed communist government relinquished power to a commission of mujaheddin rebels headed by moderate Islamic leader Sibghatullah Mojadidi, formally ending 14 years of rule by Sovietbacked regimes in Afghanistan. However, in January 1994, General Abdul Rashid Doestam and Premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar staged an offensive against the government in the capital, Kabul. Within six months, the fighting left an estimated 2,500 people dead. In February 1995, the Taliban, a band of militant Muslim students, emerged as a major force in the nation, and in September 1996, the group seized control of Afghanistan, executed President Najibullah Mohammed Rabbini, and imposed strict Islamic law throughout the nation. The Taliban’s restrictions on personal power and its systematic oppression of women drew international condemnation. Only three countries recognized the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan until September 1998. At that point, the Taliban continued to shelter accused terrorist Osama bin Laden, who was thought to have planned twin bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on August 7, 1998. In response, Saudi Arabia cut its contact with the Taliban, leaving Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates as the only two nations in the world that recognized the group as the official government in Afghanistan. Militant Muslim groups also wreaked havoc in Egypt and Algeria, while ongoing conflicts between India and Pakistan continued to foster animosity between the two nations. Violent skirmishes in Kashmir occurred throughout the decade. Both nations conducted underground nuclear tests in May 1998, prompting fears over the countries’ access to nuclear weapons. Violence between those nations over the disputed region of Kashmir broke out again in May 1999, and after less than one week of fighting, about 300 people died. On May 26, 1999, India launched a series of air strikes on a band of Islamic militants. On July 11, 1999, military commanders endorsed a plan for ending the recent conflict, which represented the heaviest fighting in the region for almost 30 years. India and Pakistan went through several separate crises during the decade as well. On May 21, 1991, former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in Sriperumbudur, sparking violence across the nation. Another incident of bloodshed came from sectarian violence in the country on December 6, 1992. The Ayodhya mosque, a longtime area of

principles for interim Palestinian self-rule. On July 5, 1994, Arafat took the oath as head of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), the temporary Palestinian governing body. The formation of the PNA and the enactment of the September 1993 peace accords was one of the most impressive events that took place in the Middle East during the 1990s, and it represented a new era in Israeli and Palestinian relations. While violence continued to pepper the region, the steps toward sharing the land were unprecedented and garnered much hope and attention. In 1994, Arafat and Rabin were presented with the Nobel Peace Prize, as the world recognized their diplomatic achievement. The September accords survived the assassination of Israeli prime minister Rabin on November 4, 1995. His funeral was attended by 5,000 mourners, many of whom had been at odds with each other or Israel for years, such as representatives from the PNA, Egypt, Oman, and Qatar. While Rabin’s assassination stunned Israel and the world, his commitment to peace endured, despite continued incidents of terrorism. Another significant moment in the 1990s that offered hope to many nations was the dramatic changes that occurred in South Africa. On February 11, 1990, South African black nationalist leader Nelson Mandela was freed after more than 27 years in prison, and in September 1991, South African president F. W. de Klerk outlined his government’s proposals for a new constitution that would provide suffrage to the country’s black majority for the first time in modern history. The changes brought about a good deal of violence in the townships, but de Klerk and Mandela continued to work together toward ending the apartheid system of racial separation and black disenfranchisement in the nation. In December 1993, de Klerk and Mandela accepted their joint Nobel Peace Prize award to recognize the progress made in South Africa. On May 2, 1994, Mandela claimed a landslide victory for the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa’s first all-race elections, declaring that black South Africans are “free at last.” A week later and on the eve of Mandela’s inauguration, de Klerk declared, “We have opened up a new era of hope, security and bright future beyond words.” For the remainder of the decade, violence in South Africa was accompanied by this sense that the nation had opened a new chapter in history, as the country reimagined itself without the apartheid system of racial separation that hindered the progress of South Africa for decades. The explosive changes that rocked Africa and the Middle East were some of the most prominent events in the world in the 1990s. During this same period, countries in Asia also went through series of transformations, particularly when it came to questions of self-rule and autonomy. In July 1990, Mongolia held its first free parliamentary elections since 1921. In South Korea, Kim Young Sam took the oath of office on February 25, 1993, and he thus became the nation’s first civilian president since 1961. President Lee Teng-hui retained power in Taiwan’s first democratic presidential election, held in March 1996. Myanmar also held its first elections in May 1990; however, the ruling junta refused to turn power over to the winning opposition party and kept one of its founders, the Nobel Prize–winning Aung San Suu Kyi, under house arrest from 1989 until at least the end of the decade. On February 23, 1991, the government of Thai premier Chatichai Choonhavan was ousted by the military in a bloodless coup led by General Sunthorn Kongsompong, abolishing the 1978 constitution and imposing martial law. These changes in the Asian countries show that the region was struggling in response to calls for democratic reform. In China, prodemocracy activists received much attention, in the wake of the violent crackdown on protesting students in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989. Many prodemocracy dissidents faced arrest, and 66 of them were released in January 1991 after their cases were completed. However, by the end of October 1996, all key members of the prodemocracy movement in China were either imprisoned or exiled. China’s stance against democracy was underscored by its response to the status of Hong Kong. In September 1991, Hong Kong held its first direct elections viii

elections in December 1990, and Reverend Jean-Bertrande Aristide was overwhelmingly chosen to lead the nation. However, his tenure was abruptly ended when Brigadier General Raoul Cédras staged a coup on September 29, 1991. The military takeover sparked protests in Portau-Prince, the capital, and elsewhere in the nation. As stories of humanrights abuses emerged, the coup in Haiti brought also international condemnation, and, on July 31, 1994, the UN Security Council cited the need for “an exceptional response” to the crisis and authorized a U.S.-led multinational invasion to restore Aristide to power. The following September, Haiti’s military government narrowly avoided the planned invasion by relinquishing power to Aristide. As we turn from the Americas to the United States, we find that the 1990s was marked by partisan politics as the Republicans won control of both seats of Congress in November 1994. It was the first time in 40 years that the GOP dominated both the House and Senate. However, William Jefferson Clinton (D, Ark.) beat out incumbent President George Bush in 1992 and Congressman Robert Dole (R, Kans.) in 1996. With Democrats in charge of the executive branch of government and Republicans in control of Congress, the 1990s were beset by partisan squabbles. The divisiveness was also evident on many social issues, such as abortion rights. For example, on January 25, 1991, Utah governor Norman Bangerter (R) signed one of the most repressive abortion laws in the U.S. The bill prohibited abortion in nearly all cases. Less than one month later, on February 18, 1991, Maryland governor William D. Schaefer (D) signed into law a measure designed to protect a woman’s ability to obtain a legal abortion, even if the Supreme Court is to overturn its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. The contrast between the two bills shows the range of opinions on that controversial issue. Likewise, race relationships, sexual harassment, discrimination, and gay rights were publicly debated during the decade, and people reflected on social and political differences. At the same time, the 1990s made some breakthroughs in the United States’s diversity. For instance, in January 1990, L. Douglas Wilder (D, Va.) became the first black governor to take office in the nation. Dr. Antonia Coello Novello became the first female and the first Hispanic surgeon general in February 1990. Other women who pioneered in the political arena included Janet Reno, who became the nation’s first female attorney general in March 1993, and Madeleine Albright, whose December 1996 appointment as secretary of state made her the highest-ranking woman ever in the federal government. While women made strides in terms of political representation, questions of sexual harassment dominated the public sphere in unprecedented ways. During the 1990s, every major branch of the government faced a crisis regarding sexual harassment allegations and litigation, and these issues were among the most debated questions of the time. In the legislative branch, Senator Bob Packwood (R, Oreg.) faced allegations of sexual harassment immediately after his reelection in November 1992. By February 1993, no fewer than 23 women had come forward to accuse Packwood of unwanted and persistent sexual advances, and a lengthy investigation ensued. On September 6, 1995, the Senate Select Committee on Ethics voted 6-0 to recommend the expulsion, the most severe punishment that the panel could recommend, of Packwood. As no senators have been expelled since the Civil War, Packwood announced his resignation the following day. In addition to this scandal in the federal legislature, allegations of sexual harassment rocked the judicial branch as well during the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Judge Clarence Thomas in October 1991. On October 6, 1991, Anita Hill, a tenured law professor at the University of Oklahoma, publicly accused Thomas of sexual harassment. The charge sparked an emotional and contentious national debate, and Thomas “totally and unequivocally” denied Hill’s charges. On October 11, 1991, Hill calmly testified under oath that Thomas had made sexually harassing statements and acted inappropriately from 1981 to 1983, and Thomas offered his repudiation of what he called “lies,” “sleaze,” “dirt,” and “gossip” the following day. After one of

dispute, was the site of clashes that left more than 700 people dead. That fighting represented the worst violence in the country since it gained independence in 1947. Pakistan was also beset by internal strife as political scandals rocked the nation. In April 1997, the Pakistani parliament repealed legislation that gave the president unilateral power to dismiss the prime minister. This action came in an attempt to stabilize the fluctuations in the country’s government. On October 12, 1999, Pakistan’s armed forces staged a bloodless coup, toppling the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The military takeover was the fourth coup in Pakistan’s 52-year history. Governmental upheavals also affected Indonesia, which underwent radical changes. In June 1996, the government’s efforts to undermine an opposition party led to street riots, and dissatisfaction with President Suharto continued to prompt sporadic protests until 1998, when the demonstrations escalated. In May 1998, weeks of massive protests and riots in Jakarta led to the May 21, 1998, resignation of President Suharto, who had ruled the country for 32 years. On June 7, 1999, Indonesia held its first fully democratic election in 44 years. While Indonesia was transferring its power, the question of independence in East Timor further rocked the nation. In January 1999, the Indonesian government gave its first indication that it would consider independence for the area, and the following September, a referendum was held on East Timor’s status. As the citizens voted overwhelmingly for independence, the opposition launched a campaign of violence. The fierce attacks in East Timor prompted the UN to send in troops. The changes that occurred in Indonesia during 1998 and 1999 forced the nation to reimagine itself at the close of the twentieth century. When we turn to the Americas, we see that many nations suffered from internal strife and political changes, yet few of them attracted a great deal of international attention. In North America, Canada redrew its map for the first time since 1949 when it designated the area of Nunavut from the Northwest Territories in April 1999. Latin America faced numerous domestic crises and triumphs, and several nations, including Chile, Brazil, Paraguay, and São Tomé and Príncipe, all moved toward democracy with free elections during the 1990s. However, Venezuela and Peru gave considerable power to those nations’ presidents during the decade. Several countries were affected by drug-related violence, particularly Colombia, whose president, Ernesto Samper Pizano, faced allegations that he accepted money from drug cartels. Cuba made significant moves toward recognizing Catholicism, and Fidel Castro met with Pope John Paul II on November 19, 1996. For the first time since 1969, Christmas was celebrated in Cuba in 1997. The following January, Pope John Paul II made his first official tour of the nation. In Panama, the country gained control of the Panama Canal in December 1999. Latin America also faced ongoing guerrilla warfare in several nations, including Colombia, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Peru. Mexico began a period of unrest when the Zapatistas attacked four towns in Chiapas, assaults that the insurgents characterized as a “declaration of war” against the federal government on January 1, 1994. This war continued for the remainder of the decade. In Nicaragua, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro beat President Daniel Ortega Saavedra in national elections held in February 1990. This surprising victory ended Sandinista rule in the country for the first time in 10 years. The change in government caused the Sandinistas to take up arms, but the violence in the country soon dwindled as Nicaragua began a new phase in its history. Guatemala reached a breakthrough peace accord in its 35-year civil war in September 1996. El Salvador officially ended its civil war on December 15, 1992. The 12-year war in El Salvador had an estimated death toll of 75,000 by the time the fighting ceased. In addition to these significant events throughout Latin America during the 1990s, Haiti was the source of much debate during the decade. On March 10, 1990, General Prosper Avril resigned in the midst of massive demonstrations launched by Haitians. Haiti held its first democratic ix

and Maryland. During the 1990s, antiabortionists launched a campaign of violence, during which they murdered people who worked in clinics. In addition to these pressing questions, a flurry of school shootings, particularly the deadly incident on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Colorado, brought the issue of gun control to the political debate. While these debates continued, the 1990s was also known for incidents of race-related violence. One of the most notable events that called attention to race relations in the United States was the riots in Los Angeles after the verdict in the case of Rodney King. On March 3, 1991, black motorist Rodney King was stopped by Los Angeles police officers after a highspeed chase. He was severely beaten by those officers, and the incident was recorded on videotape, which exposed the public to the assault. On April 29, 1992, a jury acquitted the four officers of charges filed as a result of King’s beating. The acquittal sparked riots in Los Angeles that were the worst since the 1965 Watts riots in L.A. The violence died down by May 3, 1992, but the riots brought the issue of race relations to the forefront of U.S. discourse. Riots due to race also erupted in Washington, D.C., and New York City during the decade. Another case that brought the issue of race to the public’s attention was the trial of former football player O. J. Simpson. After a prolonged, televised chase in California, police arrested Simpson in June 1994 for the death of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. The ensuing trial riveted the nation, and the October 3, 1995, acquittal prompted even more debate, as the case highlighted issues of race, class, and gender. The O. J. Simpson trial was known as the trial of the century for its sensational hold on the public imagination. While those cases prompted debate, they did not shock the American people as much as a single incident in Oklahoma City. On April 19, 1995, a massive car bomb exploded outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 169 people and wounding more than 400 others. It was the deadliest terrorist attack ever in the United States. The crime was considered even more tragic because several children were in the building at a day-care center at the time of the assault. The bombing was called the deadliest act of terrorism ever committed on U.S. soil, and it stunned the nation. What was particularly unnerving about the bombing in Oklahoma City was that it was perpetuated by a decorated veteran of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Timothy McVeigh. On June 2, 1997, McVeigh was convicted on 11 charges related to the bombing in Oklahoma City. Other acts of terrorism plagued the United States during the 1990s, both domestically and abroad. Unlike the attack on Oklahoma City, though, these assaults were generally not committed by U.S. citizens. A bomb exploded in the parking garage of the World Trade Center in New York City on February 26, 1993, killing five people and injuring 1,000 others. On October 1, 1995, a federal jury in New York City ended the biggest terrorism trial in U.S. history when it convicted 10 militant Muslims on 48 of 50 conspiracy charges stemming from a failed plot to bomb the UN headquarters building and other city targets and to assassinate political leaders. The militants included Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, a blind cleric from Egypt, accused of leading his fellow defendants in plotting a “war of urban terrorism” in response to the U.S. government’s support of Israel and of Egypt’s current secular regime. Anti-American sentiment in other nations was also evidenced by a bomb attack on a military complex in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. servicemen and wounded several hundred others on June 25, 1996. It was called the most deadly guerrilla attack on Americans in the Middle East since 1983. The U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, were bombed on August 7, 1998. The Nairobi blast killed at least 247 people, including 12 U.S. citizens. In Dar es Salaam, 10 people were killed. More than 5,000 people were wounded in the attacks. U.S., Kenyan, and Tanzanian officials asserted that the bombings were aimed at the United States, and the investigation linked a wealthy Saudi businessman, Osama

the most bitter and divisive confirmation battles in the 202-year history of the Supreme Court, the Senate confirmed Thomas as the court’s 106th associate justice on October 12, 1991. It was the closest vote for a Supreme Court justice in the 20th century. In terms of sexual harassment scandals in the 1990s, the one that attracted the most attention involved President Clinton. On May 6, 1994, Paula Corbin Jones filed a federal civil lawsuit accusing Clinton of making “persistent and continuous” unwanted sexual advances toward her in May 1991. The accusations sparked controversy, and questions of whether Clinton would face the charges while in office continued until May 27, 1997, when the Supreme Court unanimously rejected Clinton’s request to delay proceedings in a sexual harassment suit until he left office. The ruling in Clinton v. Jones was the first time that the high court ruled that sitting presidents may be sued for actions outside the realm of their official duties. However, accusations made by Jones were overshadowed by allegations that Clinton engaged in a sexual relationship with a 21-year-old intern at the White House, Monica Lewinsky. The scandal involving Clinton and Lewinsky reached news offices late on January 20, 1998, and by January 21, the story had ballooned into what was called the greatest crisis the Clinton White House ever faced. On January 26, 1998, Clinton stated, “I want you to listen to me. I’m going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time—never. These allegations are false. And I need to go back to work for the American people.” This oft-quoted denial of his relationship with Lewinsky became significant as the investigation continued. In September 1998, independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr, who was appointed to investigate the financial scandal known as Whitewater, delivered his official report to Congress. On December 19, 1998, the House voted to impeach President Clinton for his conduct in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. In near party-line votes, the House’s Republican majority won passage of two articles of impeachment accusing Clinton of committing perjury and obstruction of justice. However, on February 12, 1999, the Senate voted to acquit Clinton of impeachment charges in the Lewinsky scandal, ending the second presidential impeachment in U.S. history. The 45-55 tally for Article I, the perjury charge, was 22 votes short of the 67 needed for conviction; Article II, the obstruction charge, failed in a 50-50 vote, 17 short of the two-thirds majority. The fact that neither charge gained even a simple majority was seen as a humiliating defeat for the 13 House Republicans who presented the case to the Senate. The Lewinsky scandal received a good deal of media coverage and public interest, particularly since Lewinsky did not file charges against the president. Tellingly, then, sexual misdeeds that received the most attention in the 1990s did not allege sexual harassment itself, as Lewinsky never suggested that Clinton forced unwanted sexual advances on her. While issues of sexual harassment dominated much of the social discourse during the 1990s, the decade was also a time of landmark legislation and judicial decisions. Major initiatives that were passed in the 1990s include the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, the Freedom to Access of Clinic Entrances Act of 1994, and gun control legislation codified in the Brady Bill of 1993. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 prompted debate over free-speech rights and what “standards of decency” may include. In October 1997, the Supreme Court refused to consider an appeal of a lower court ruling, and by doing so, Oregon became the first state to implement a statute allowing physicians to prescribe lethal prescriptions to terminally ill patients. In April 1996, Clinton signed the Line-Item Veto Act, which gave him unprecedented power over appropriations bills; however, on June 25, 1998, the Supreme Court ruled, 6-3, that the Line-Item Veto was unconstitutional. Other issues that affected the political discourse during the 1990s included a Colorado amendment regarding gay rights, California’s propositions over immigration and affirmative action, and abortion-rights bills throughout many states such as Utah, Pennsylvania, x

reached an agreement to balance the federal budget by 2002 on May 2, 1997. The historic deal included tax cuts and reductions in discretionary spending favored by Republicans and funding increases for education, welfare, and health insurance for children backed by President Clinton and the Democrats. On September 30, 1998, Clinton announced that the 1998 fiscal year had ended in the first federal budget surplus since 1969. The surplus totaled about $70 billion. The changes in the federal budget were mirrored by fluctuations in the stock market, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average went through one of its most profitable periods in U.S. history. In January 1990, the Dow reached a record high of 2,810.15. On March 29, 1999, the Dow closed at 10,006.78, finishing the day above the 10,000 level for the first time ever. It was the seventh time in just over four years that the benchmark stock average broke through a socalled millennium level, and it represented one of dozens of records set during the decade. The enormous, unprecedented growth in the stock market boosted consumer confidence, inspired new investors to enter the world of mutual funds, and reflected the economic turnaround that occurred between 1990 and 1999. In terms of economic legislation, the 1990s were marked by partisan conflicts regarding appropriations bills, and the government shut down during the presidencies of both George Bush and Bill Clinton. The 1996 budget needed no fewer than 12 continuing resolutions or “stopgap bills” to keep the government afloat while Congress and the White House struggled to agree on spending levels. The sense that the federal government was beset by partisanship seemed increasingly evident during one of the investigations of the Whitewater real estate venture that involved President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. The economic scandal involved a tangle of records of the Clintons’ personal finances before 1992, when Clinton assumed the presidency. In January 1994, Attorney General Janet Reno appointed Robert Fiske to investigate the now-defunct land deal; however, Kenneth Starr, a former top government lawyer during the administration of President George Bush, took over the position on August 5, 1994. Starr’s investigation led to the convictions of James McDougal, Susan McDougal, and Governor Jim Guy Tucker (D, Ark.) on fraud and conspiracy charges on May 28, 1996. However, Whitewater’s web of economic misdeeds failed to capture vast amounts of public attention until Starr’s investigation turned from its analysis of finances to Clinton’s relationship with Monica Lewinsky. That Starr’s report on Whitewater ended up as an investigation of sexual liaisons and perjury caused debate during the 1990s. The animosity between the Republicans and the Democrats was notable during these investigations, and Americans throughout the country held widely divergent positions on the scandals that affected the Clinton administration. Part of the reason for the economic boom of the 1990s stemmed from increased use of technology. Computers became household items in the 1990s, and the popularization of the Internet prompted some people to dub the era as the “information age.” At the same time, the United States continued to explore space and develop new satellite technologies. On April 25, 1990, the space shuttle Discovery successfully deployed the Hubble Space Telescope in an orbit 381 miles above Earth. In December 1993, astronauts aboard the Endeavour repaired and released the Hubble telescope, prompting President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore to telephone and congratulate the Endeavour crew on fulfilling “one of the most spectacular space missions in all of our history.” Other achievements in space over the course of the decade included the launch of the Mars Observer in 1992 and the successful completion in 1994 of Magellan’s project to map 98% of Venus’s surface. On July 4, 1997, the Mars Pathfinder landed on Mars, and Sojourner, a roving robotic explorer vehicle, explored the geology of the planet. Pathfinder was the first spacecraft to reach Mars since two NASA Viking missions landed there in 1976. Additionally, space exploration during the 1990s pointed to the end of the cold war, as U.S. and Soviet scientists worked together in unprecedented ways. On June 29, 1995, the U.S. space shuttle Atlantis docked

bin Laden, to the terrorist acts. On November 4, 1998, a grand jury issued an indictment against bin Laden, charging him and five members of his alleged terrorist group, Al-Qaeda. The State Departments offered rewards of $5 million—the largest ever offered by the United States for the capture of a terrorist—for information leading to the conviction or arrest of bin Laden and Muhammed Atef, described as bin Laden’s top military commander. In addition, Clinton imposed economic sanctions on the Taliban militia in Afghanistan for allegedly harboring bin Laden in July 1998, and by that September, Saudi Arabia had suspended diplomatic ties to protest the Taliban’s support of bin Laden, leaving Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates as the only countries that recognized Taliban rule in Afghanistan. In terms of U.S. military intervention during the 1990s, America was primarily committed to peacekeeping missions rather than forcible invasions. With the notable exception of the Gulf War in 1991, U.S. military action consisted primarily of sending troops to areas beset by civil conflict, such as Serbia, Liberia, Somalia, and Haiti. Debate over these missions affected the nation, but the question of who had the right to serve the United States as a soldier was a bigger issue in the public consciousness during the decade. Gays in the military became a topic of heated conversation, and the Clinton administration came under fire when it announced a policy known as “Don’t ask, don’t tell” in January 1993. The following September, the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy toward the sexual orientation of members in the military was codified by an appropriations measure. For the next few years, the constitutionality of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was tested in court cases, and on February 14, 1997, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California, upheld the policy on homosexuals in a 2-1 decision. In addition, the military faced challenges to its exclusivity when female cadets petitioned for the right to be admitted to the Citadel and the Virginia Military Institute (VMI). On January 30, 1994, Shannon Faulkner attended her first classes at the all-male military academy, the Citadel, in South Carolina. The following July, a court ruled that the Citadel had to accept women to its corps of cadets. In September 1996, VMI decided to accept women in its program, an act that ended the last state-funded, allmale academic institution in the United States. On August 18, 1997, female students enrolled at VMI, ending 158 years of male-only education at that college. As always, U.S. foreign policy included economic components, and, throughout the decade, people debated the trading status of nations thought to perpetuate human rights abuses, particularly China. The United States generated great international controversy on March 12, 1996, when President Clinton signed into law a bill that penalized foreigners who invest in Cuba. The Helms-Burton Act continued to cause debate for the rest of the decade. U.S. trade entered a new era when Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) into law on December 8, 1993. The pact, which went into effect on January 1, 1994, lowered or eliminated tariffs and removed other restrictions on trade and investment between the United States, Mexico, and Canada. These foreign economic decisions came during a period of great prosperity in the United States. The 1990s started out in an economic recession, with high unemployment rates and low consumer confidence. President Bush caused controversy on June 26, 1990, when he admitted that the budget deficit required “tax revenue increases,” sparking an uproar because the vow “Read my lips: No new taxes” had been an oft-quoted promise during Bush’s 1988 campaign. On August 15, 1991, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the fiscal 1992 federal budget deficit would reach a record $362 billion. During the next three years, the economy turned around, and the United States entered a period of growth. By October 1994, the federal budget deficit stood at $203.4 billion for fiscal 1994. That was the smallest deficit reported since 1989. The economic recovery continued, particularly after Congress and the White House xi

Trust of Washington State, and three Seattle artists to reject possible grants and Murry DePillars, dean of the School of the Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University, to resign as an NEA review panelist. On November 5, 1996, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, California, ruled, 2-1, that the federal government cannot force the NEA to use standards of decency when giving grants to artists, arguing that such stipulations represent an unconstitutional curb on freedom of speech. However, on June 25, 1999, in National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 8-1, that the federal government was allowed to consider standards of decency when awarding federal arts grants. As the conflicting court decisions suggest, the issue was not nearly resolved by the end of the decade. In September 1999, controversy over an exhibit of contemporary British art at the Brooklyn Museum of Art led New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani to threaten to end city subsidies to the gallery. Giuliani’s opinions were reinforced by a non-binding resolution passed in the U.S. Senate on the issue. However, the Brooklyn Museum of Art filed a lawsuit and opened the show as scheduled on October 2, 1999. In addition to debates over censorship, popular culture in the United States was marked by violence and scandals in the world of sports. On April 30, 1993, Monica Seles, the world’s top-ranked female tennis player at the time, was stabbed in the back by a fan of rival Steffi Graf, the world’s second-ranked woman. In a similar incident, figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was assaulted on January 6, 1994. The attack launched a flood of media attention, particularly when it was linked to Kerrigan’s skating rival, Tonya Harding. On January 27, 1994, Harding admitted that “some persons that were close to me may have been involved in the assault.” In the wake of that statement, Harding was banned from the sport. In other sports scandals, the International Olympic Committee faced the biggest crisis in its history in December 1998, amid allegations that committee members had accepted bribes in return for naming Salt Lake City, Utah, as host for the 2000 winter games. However, this scandal was not as alarming as an attack staged during the 1996 summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. On July 27, 1996, a homemade pipe bomb exploded at an Olympic Games site, killing one person and injuring 111 others. The park bombing was the first terrorist attack at the Olympics since the 1972 games in Munich, Germany. While this overview of U.S. politics and social concerns provides only the smallest glimpse into the major events that shaped the 1990s, it shows that the United States was trying to find a way to balance personal freedoms and civil liberties with social and cultural traditions. The politics of sexuality were underscored in the country during the 1990s, as the nation faced the impeachment hearings of Bill Clinton, debate over what constitutes “obscenity” in art, arguments over whether gays could serve their country as part of the armed forces, and sexual harassment lawsuits. At the same time, economic booms and technological advances resulted in high standards of living while terrorist threats and anti-American sentiment found their way to U.S. soil. The end of the millennium represented a period of anticipation and change throughout the globe. During this period of change, however, the notion that all nations exist on a single planet was stressed throughout the decade, primarily due to environmental concerns and growing communications technologies. Toward the end of the 20th century, countries from around the globe expressed an awareness of the environmental problems caused by industrialism. The debate over how to best handle problems such as global warming and the hole in the ozone layer was not resolved by the end of the 1990s, but the attention paid to the planet’s resources on an international level was considered unprecedented. The millennium ended, then, with a sense of unity, despite differences, as global awareness shaped the way that we imagined the future.

with the Russian space station Mir as the first of seven dockings scheduled to occur prior to the beginning of construction on the planned international space station. The following day, the U.S. astronauts gave their Russian colleagues chocolates and flowers and, in return, received a traditional Russian greeting of bread and salt. Both crews were congratulated by U.S. vice president Al Gore and Russian premier Viktor Chernomyrdin. In March 1996, U.S. biochemist Shannon Lucid joined the Mir crew, thus becoming the second U.S. astronaut and the first U.S. woman to live on Mir. With the planned space station in mind, Mir was abandoned after being in space for 13 years when the final crew departed the station in a Soyuz capsule on August 27, 1999. Other major achievements in science during the 1990s included groundbreaking research on the treatment of AIDS, the mapping of genomes, and stem cell research. Much of this research caused controversy, and debate over fetal tissue research and medical uses for embryonic stem cells continued throughout the decade. Genetic engineering also came to the forefront of public debate when, on February 23, 1997, researchers in Scotland reported that they had created the first genetic clone of an adult animal, a Finn Dorset lamb named Dolly. The lamb had a genetic makeup identical to that of her mother, and the breakthrough prompted worldwide speculation worldwide about the dangers of human cloning. Additionally, evidence of the big bang theory of creation was presented in April 1992, and the top quark was discovered in March 1995. In the midst of all of these scientific advances, many Americans became more involved in personal technology. In July 1999, a study found that more than 40 percent of U.S. homes had a computer, 25 percent were connected to the Internet, and 94.1 percent had phones by the end of 1998. The report also noted a growing “digital divide” in information access drawn along financial and racial lines. The disparity between who had in-home technology was one of the many questions raised by the sudden popularization of computers. Another prominent issue was that of free speech and censorship. The Telecommunications Act of 1996, which included clauses about “decency” and specified concerns over the Internet, prompted a good deal of debate. In response to fears of governmental censorship of these new forms of communication, on August 17, 1996, computer hackers illegally entered the Department of Justice’s site on the World Wide Web and posted obscenities, sexually explicit pictures and harsh criticisms of the Communications Decency Act. The concern over free speech also dominated the arts during the 1990s. The issue began to cause controversy when Congress adopted decency standards for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in 1990. Throughout the decade, questions of obscenity led to indictments and lawsuits. In April 1990, Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center was indicted by a grand jury on obscenity charges for displaying an exhibit of photographs by the late Robert Mapplethorpe; however, local lawenforcement officials were barred from shutting down the exhibit. The focus on censorship was underscored on June 29, 1990, when the NEA rejected grant applications from four artists who were approved by the review panel. The artists—Karen Finley, Holly Hughes, John Fleck, and Tim Miller—all incorporated issues of sexuality into their work, and the idea that the government was withholding funds based upon the explicit nature of their art sparked controversy that continued throughout the decade. For instance, on November 1, 1990, New York Shakespeare Festival producer Joseph Papp refused to accept two NEA grants totaling $323,000 in protest of the NEA’s consideration of “general standards of decency” when making awards. On May 12, 1992, Anne-Imelda Radice, the acting head of the NEA, went against the recommendation of review panels and its advisory council when she rejected two applications for grants to support exhibits that involve sexual material. The decision set off another firestorm of controversy, prompting Beacon Press, the Artist

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LIST OF ACRONYMS AARP ABA ABC ABL ABM ACDA ACLU ACS ACT ACTU ACTWU AD ADA ADFL AFC AFDC AFL-CIO AFT AFTA AID AIDS AIPAC AIS ALP ALPA ALS AMC AMD AMEX AMR ANC AOC AOL AP APA APEC APFA APWU ARENA ASARCO ASE ASEAN ASX

AT&T ATF ATP AWACS AWB

American Association of Retired Persons American Bar Association American Broadcasting Corporation American Basketball League Antiballistic Missile Treaty Arms Control and Disarmament Agency American Civil Liberties Union Association of Caribbean States American College Testing Australia Council of Trade Unions Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union Democratic Action (Venezuela) American Dental Association; Americans with Disabilities Act Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire American Football Conference Aid to Families with Dependent Children American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations American Federation of Teachers ASEAN Free-Trade Area Agency for International Development acquired immunodeficiency syndrome American Israel Public Affairs Committee Islamic Salvation Army (Algeria) Antigua Labour Party Air Line Pilots Association amyotrophic lateral sclerosis American Motors Corporation Advanced Micro Devices American Stock Exchange advanced meat recovery African National Congress Australian Olympic Committee America Online Associated Press Allied Pilots Association Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Association of Professional Flight Attendants American Postal Workers Union Nationalist Republican Alliance (El Salvador) American Smelting and Refining Company American Stock Exchange Association of Southeast Asian Nations Australia Stock Exchange

AWS AZT BBC BCCI BCOA BDP BEC BIS BJP BLDP BLP BNDES BNL BNP BOC BP BPF BRA BSE BSP bST CARE CARICOM CART CAW CBO CBOT CBS CCAR CCC CCM CCP CD CDC CDR CEA CEQ CERN CERT xiii

American Telephone and Telegraph Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Association of Tennis Professionals Airborne Warning and Control System Afrikaner Resistance Movement (South Africa) Solidarity Electoral Action (Poland) azidothymidine (zidovudine) British Broadcasting Corporation Bank of Commerce and Credit International Bituminous Coal Operating Association Botswana Democratic Party Bose-Einstein condensate Bank for International Settlements Bharatiya Janata Party (India) Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party (Cambodia) Barbados Labour Party National Development Bank (Brazil) Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (Italy) Bangladesh National Party British Oxygen Company British Petroleum Belarussian Popular Front Bougainville Revolutionary Army (Papua New Guinea) bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) Bulgarian Socialist Party bovine somatotropin Cooperative for American Relief Everywhere Caribbean Community Championship Auto Racing Teams Canadian Auto Workers Congressional Budget Office Chicago Board of Trade Columbia Broadcasting System Central Conference of American Rabbis Commodity Credit Corp. Chama Cha Mapinduzi (Zanzibar) Cambodian Communist Party (Cambodia) Democratic Convergence (El Salvador) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Democratic Convention of Romania Council of Economic Affairs Council on Environmental Quality European Laboratory for Particle Physics Computer Emergency Response Team

CFC CFE CGG CGT CGTP CHA CHP CIA CIBC CIS CITES CJD CNN CNPC Cocom Codesa Comecon Comex CONCACAF COO COPS CP CPD CPI CPP CPR CPSC CRS CSCE CSIS CSSD CSU CTBT CUF CUNY CUPUW CWA CWC D D.A. DAX D.C. DDC DDI DEA DFLP DFP DHT DIA DIH DINA DKB DLP DMK DMZ DNA

DNC DPP DPS DYP EBRD

chlorofluorocarbon Conventional Forces in Europe Compañía General Geofíscica (Peru) Confederación General del Trabajo; Confédération Général du Travail Peruvian General Workers’ Federation Chicago Housing Authority California Highway Patrol Central Intelligence Agency Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Commonwealth of Independent States National Council for the Defense of Democracy (Burundi) Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease Cable News Network China National Petroleum Corp. Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls Convention for a Democratic South Africa Council for Mutual Economic Assistance Commodity Echange Confederation of North, Central American and Carribbean Association Football chief operating officer Community Oriented Policing Services Communist Party Coalition of Parties for Democracy consumer price index Cambodian People’s Party cardiopulmonary resuscitation Consumer Product Safety Commission Socialist Renewal Movement (Colombia) Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe Center for Strategic and International Studies Czech Social Democratic Party Christian Social Union (Germany) Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Civic United Front (Zanzibar) City University of New York Canadian Union of Postal Workers Communications Workers of America Chemical Weapons Convention Democrat (United States) district attorney German Stock Exchange District of Columbia zakitabine didanosine Drug Enforcement Agency Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine Dominica Freedom Party dihydrotestosterone Defense Intelligence Agency Defense Intelligence Headquarters (Japan) Direeción National de Inteligencia (Chile) Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank (Japan) Democratic Labour Party (Barbados) Dravida Munnetra Kazagham (India) demilitarized zone deoxyribonucleic acid

EC ECB ECE ECM ECOMOG ECOWAS ECU EEA EEOC EFTA EIB ELN EMS EMU EOE EOHR EPA EPL EPLF EPR EPRDF ER ERA ERISA ERM ERP ESA ETA EU EURECA EZLN FAA FALN Fannie Mae FARC FBI FCC FDA FDIC FEC Fed FEMA FERC FIFA FINA FIS FLEC FLNC xiv

Democratic National Committee Democratic Progressive Party (Taiwan) Democratic Socialist Party (Montenegro) True Path Party (Turkey) European Bank for Reconstruction and Development European Community European Central Bank Economic Commission for Europe Emerging Company Marketplace Economic Community Monitoring Group Economic Community of West African States European Currency Unit European Economic Area Equal Employment Opportunity Commission European Free Trade Assoication European Investment Bank National Liberation Army (Colombia) European Monetary System economic and monetary union equal opportunity employer Egyptian Organization for Human Rights Environmental Protection Agency Popular Liberation Army (Colombia) Eritrean People’s Liberation Front Popular Revolutionary Army (Mexico) Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front emergency room Energy Resources of Australia Employee Retirement Income Security Act exchange rate mechanism People’s Revolutionary Army (Argentina) European Space Agency Euskadi Ta Askatasuna European Union European Retrievable Carrier Zapatista National Liberation Army (Mexico) Armed Forces of Angola; Federal Aviation Administration Armed Froces of National Liberation (Puerto Rico) Federal National Mortgage Association Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia Federal Bureau of Investigation Federal Communications Commission Food and Drug Administration Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Federal Exchange Commission; Federal Election Commission Federal Reserve Board Federal Emergency Management Agency Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Federation Internationale de Football Association Federation Internationale de Natation Islamic Salvation Front (Algeria) Cabinda Enclave Liberation Front (Angola) Corsican National Liberation Front

FLP FMC FmHA FMLN FNM FORD FRAPH FRC Freddie Mac Fretilin FRG FSB FSLN FTAA FTC Funcinpec

FWS FZLN G-7 G-8 GAO GATT GBL GCC GDP GE GIA GM GMHC GNP GOP GOPAC GPC GPS GRO GST GTE Hamas HCFA HDTV HDZ HHS HIV HMO HUD HVO HZDS IAAF IAEA IAHRC IAM IBF IBM

ICC ICJ ICM ICRC IDA IDCP IDE IFOR IGC ILGA ILGWU

Fiji Labour Party Federal Maritime Commission Farmers Home Administration Farabundo Martí National Liberation (El Salvador) Free National Movement (Bahamas) Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (Kenya) Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti Fatah Revolutionary Council Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. Revolutionary Front for the Independence of East Timor Guatemala Republican Front Federal Security Service (Russia) Sandinista National Liberation Front (Nicaragua) Free Trade Area of the Americas Federal Trade Commission United National Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful and Cooperative Cambodia Fishing and Wildlife Service Zapatista National Liberation Front (Mexico) Group of Seven Group of Eight General Accounting Office General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade gamma butyrolactone Gulf Cooperation Council gross domestic product General Electric Armed Islamic Group (Algeria) General Motors Gay Men’s Health Crisis gross national product Grand Old Party (Republican Party) Grand Old Party Political Action Committee General People’s Congress (Yemen) Global Positioning System Gamma Ray Observatory goods-and-services tax General Telephone and Electronics Islamic Resistance Movement Health Care Financing Administration high-definition television Croatian Democratic Union Department of Health and Human Services human immunodeficiency virus health maintenance organization Department of Housing and Urban Development Croatian Defense Council Movement for a Democratic Slovakia International Amateur Athletic Foundation International Atomic Energy Agency Inter-American Human Rights Court International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers International Boxing Federation International Business Machines

ILO IMF INC INF INLA INMIK INS INTERFET IOC IPO IRA IRL IRS ITS KANU KCTU KDP KFOR KGB KIO KKK KLA KTCU L.A. LAFD LAPD LCD LDP LEAP LegCo LF LHC LIUNA LPGA LRA LSD LSO LSU LVF MDA MDN MDP MDS MENA Mercosur MFDC

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Interstate Commerce Commission International Court of Jurists International Creative Management International Committee of the Red Cross Islamic Democratic Alliance International Drug Control Program intact dilation and extraction Implementation Force (NATO) intergovernmental conference International Lesbian and Gay Association International Ladies Garment Workers Union International Labor Organization International Monetary Fund Iraqi National Congress Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Irish National Liberation Army UN Mission in Kosovo Immigration and Naturalization Services International Force for East Timor International Olympic Committee initial public offering Irish Republican Army Indy Racing League Internal Revenue Service Intermarket Trading System Kenya African National Union Korean Confederation of Trade Unions Kurdistan Democratic Party Kosovo Force (NATO) Soviet State Security Committee Kachin Independence Organization Ku Klux Klan Kosovo Liberation Army Korea Confederation of Trade Unions Los Angeles Los Angeles Fire Department Los Angeles Police Department Lesotho Congress for Democracy Liberal Democratic Party Light Exoatmospheric Projectile Legislative Council (Hong Kong) Lebanese Forces Large Hadron Collider Laborers International Union of North America Ladies Professional Golfers’ Association Lord’s Resistance Army (Uganda) lysergic acid diethylamide Legislative Service Organization Louisiana State University Loyalist Volunteer Force Muscular Dystrophy Association Mobilization for National Development (Haiti) Mongolian Democratic Party Movement of Democratic Socialists (Tunisia) Middle East–North Africa Economic Conference Southern Common Market (South America) Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (Senegal)

MFN MGM MIA MiG MIT MLB MLC MLS MNR MOMA MOSOP MP MPA MPLA MPRP MRTA MSNBC MST MTCR MVP NAACP NAFTA Nammco NAP NAR NARAL NAS NASA NASCAR NASD NASDAQ NATO NBA NBC NBK NCAA NCSL NCUA NDP NEA NEAR NEC NEH NFC NFL NFP NGA NHL NHLPA

NHTSA

most favored nation Metro Goldwyn Mayer missing in action Mikoyan-Gurevich fighter jet Massachusetts Institute of Technology Major League Baseball Movement for the Liberation of Congo Major League Soccer Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (Bolivia) Museum of Modern Art Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni Peoples (Nigeria) member of Parliament marine protection area Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (Peru) Microsoft National Broadcasting Corporation Landless Movement (Brazil) Missile Technology Control Regime most valuable player National Association for the Advancement of Colored People North American Free Trade Agreement North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission New Aspiration Party (Thailand) National Alliance for Reconstruction (Trinidad and Tobago) National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League National Academy of Sciences National Aeronautics and Space Administration National Association for Stock Car Racing National Association of Securities Dealers National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation North Atlantic Treaty Organization National Basketball Association National Broadcasting Company National Bank of Kenya National Collegiate Athletic Association National Conference of State Legislature National Credit Union Administration National Democratic Party (Egypt); National Democratic Party (Suriname) National Education Association; National Endowment for the Arts Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous National Economic Council National Endowment for the Humanities National Football Conference National Football League New Frontier Party (Japan) National Governor’s Association National Hockey League National Hockey League Players Association

NIE NIF NIH NKP NLA NLD NLRB NOAA NOW NP NPF NPR NPT NRA NRC NRO NSA NSC NSF NTSB NTT NYC NYSE NZF OAS OAU OCSS ODS ODS OECD OIC OMB OPEC OPIC OPON OPSEU ORA ORI ORT OSCE OSHA OTS PAC PacTel PAGAD PAIGC PAL

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National Highway Traffic Safety Administration National Intelligence Estimate National Ignition Facility National Institutes of Health New Korea Party National Liberation Army (Northern Ireland) National League for Democracy (Myanmar) National Labor Relations Board National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association National Organization for Women National Party (South Africa) New Frontier Party (Japan); National Patriotic Front (Liberia) National Public Radio Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty National Rifle Association Nuclear Regulatory Commission National Reconnaissance Office National Security Agency National Security Council National Salvation Front (Romania) National Transportation Safety Board Nippon Telegraph and Telephone New York City New York Stock Exchange New Zealand First Organization of American States Organization of African Unity Southern Sierra Peasant Organization (Mexico) Civic Democratic Party (Czechoslovakia) United Democratic Forces (Bulgaria) Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Organization of the Islamic Conference Office of Management and Budget Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Overseas Private Investment Corp. Special Purpose Police Detachment (Azerbaijan) Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union Organization of Armed Resistance (Niger) Office of Research Integrity Obshchestvyennoye Rossiskoye Televidyeniye (Russia) Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Occupational Safety and Health Administartion Office of Thrift Supervision political action committee; Pan-Africanist Congress (South Africa) Pacific Telesis Group People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (South Africa) African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde Philippine Airlines

PAN PAP PASOK PBB PBS PC PCB PDC PDI PDM PDP PDS PECDAR PEN

PETN PELP PELP-GC PGA PKK PLA PLC PLF PLN PLO P.M. PMDB PNA PNC

PNP PNP POW PP PPP PRD

PRDS Pres. PRI Procup-PDLP PSA PSAC PSC

PSD PSL PUK PUP PUSH PVV

R RAF RCD RCMP RFE RICO

National Action Party (Mexico); National Advancement Party (Guatemala) People’s Action Party (Singapore) Panhellenic Socialist Movement Partido Progressista Brasileiro Public Broadcasting Service personal computer polychlorinated biphenyl Christian Democratic Party (Panama) Indonesian Democratic Party People’s Democratic Movement (Papua New Guinea) People’s Democratic Party (Nigeria) Democratic Party of the Left (Italy) Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction International Association of Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists penetaerythritol tetra nitrate Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine–General Command Professional Golfers’ Association Kurdish Workers Party People’s Liberation Army (China) Palestinian Legislative Council; public limited company Palestine Liberation Front National Liberation Party (Costa Rica) Palestine Liberation Organization prime minister Brazilian Democratic Movement Palestine National Authority Pacific Nuclear Council (Japan); Palestine National Council; People’s National Congress (Australia) People’s National Party (Jamaica) Philippine National Police prisoner of war Popular Party (Spain) Pakistan People’s Party; United Development Party (Indonesia) Democratic Revolutionary Party (Mexico); Dominican Revolutionary Party (Dominican Republic) Republican Democratic and Social Party president Institutional Revolutionary Party (Mexico) Clandestine Workers’ Revolutionary Party Union of the People–Party of the Poor prostate-specific antigen Public Service Alliance of Canada Parti Social Chrétien (Belgium); Partido Social Cristiano (Ecuador); Partido Social Cristão (Brazil) Social Democratic Party (Portugal) Polish Peasant Party Patriotic Union of Kurdistan People’s United Party (Belize) People United to Serve Humanity Flemish Liberal Party

RMT RNC RPF RPR RSI RTC RUC RUF S&L S&P SADD SAM SAMPEX SAR SAT SBA SDA SDI SDJP SDP SDS SDS SDSM SEC SEIU SESC SFOR SIDS SIV SLA SLD SLORC SLP SOHO SPD SPDC SPLA SPP SPS SS SSA SSI START SUV SWAPO SWAT TB THAAD TIMSS

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Republican (United States) Red Army Faction (Germany) Congolese Rally for Democracy Royal Canadian Mounted Police Radio Free Europe Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers Republican National Committee Rwandan Patriotic Front Rally for the Republic (France) repetitive stress injury Resolution Trust Corporation Royal Ulster Constabulary Revolutionary United Front (Sierra Leone) savings and loan Standard and Poor’s South African Development Community surface-to-air missile Solar, Anomalous and Magnetospheric Particle Explorer Special Administrative Region (Hong Kong) Scholastic Aptitude Test; Scholastic Assessment Test Small Business Administration Party for Democratic Action (Bosnia) Strategic Defense Initiative Social Democratic Party of Japan Social Democratic Party (Sweden) Union of Democratic Forces (Bulgaria) Serb Democratic Party (Bosnia-Herzegovina) Social-Democratic Union of Macedonia Securities and Exchange Commission Service Employees International Union Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission Stabilization Force sudden infant death syndrome simian immunodeficiency virus South Lebanon Army Democratic Left Alliance (Poland) State Law and Order Restoration Council (Myanmar) St. Lucia Labor Party Solar and Heliospheric Observatory Social Democratic Party (Germany) State Peace and Development Council (Myanmar) Sudan People’s Liberation Army Socialist People’s Party (Montenegro) Socialist Party of Serbia Schutzstaffel (Nazi secret police) Social Security Administration Supplemental Security Income Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty sport-utility vehicle South West Africa People’s Organization Special Weapons and Tactics tuberculosis Theatre High-Altitude Area Defense Third International Mathematics and Science Study

TNSM TPLF TVA TWA UAE UAR UARS UAW UBP UC UCK UCLA UCR UCSF UDA UDF UDM UDN UDP UDP UDR UL ULFA UML UMW UN UNAM UNAMET UNC UNDP UNESCO UNFPA UNHCR UNICEF UNIFIL UNIRD UNITA UNITE UNMIH UNMOVIC UNO UNOS

UNOSOM II UNP UNPROFOR UNSCOM UNTAC UNTAET

Tehriq Nifaz Shariat-I-Mohammadi (Pakistan/Afghanistan) Tigray People’s Liberation Front (Ethiopia) Tennessee Valley Authority Trans World Airlines United Arab Emirates United Arab Republic Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite United Auto Workers United Bermuda Party University of California Kosovo Liberation Army University of California, Los Angeles Radical Civic Union (Argentina) University of California, San Francisco Ulster Defence Association United Democratic Forces (Bulgaria) United Democratic Movement (South Africa) National Democratic Union (Brazil) Union for Democracy and Progress (Niger) United Democratic Party (Belize) Ulster Defense Regiment (Northern Ireland) Liberal Union (Andorra) United Liberation Front of Assam Communist Party of Nepal United Mine Workers United Nations National Autonomous University of Mexico UN Assistance Mission in East Timor United National Congress (Trinidad and Tobago) UN Development Program United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UN Population Fund United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees United Nations Children’s Fund United Nations Forces in Lebanese National Union of Independents for Democratic Renewal (Niger) Union for the Total Independence of Angola Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees UN Mission in Haiti UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission National Opposition Union (Nicaragua) United Network for Organ Sharing

UPI UPN UPRONA UPS URNG URW USAID USC USDA USFSA USIA USSR USW UTA UTO UV UWP VA VAD VAT VDT VIP VMI VSNL WB WBA WBC WBO WCRP WEF WEU WHO WIC WIPP WIRE WJC WNBA WTO XTE YPFB ZANUPF ZCTU

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United Nations Operation in Somalia United National Party (Sri Lanka) UN Protection Force UN Special Commission Un Transitional Authority in Cambodia UN Transitional Administration for East Timor United Press International United Paramount Network Union for National Progress (Burundi) United Parcel Service Guatemala National Revolutionary Unity United Rubber Workers U.S. Agency for International Development University of Southern California U.S. Department of Agriculture U.S. Figure Skating Association United States Information Agency Union of Soviet Socialist Republics United Steelworkers of America Union de Transports Aeriens United Tajik Opposition ultraviolet United Workers Party (Dominica/St. Lucia) Veterans Administration ventricular assist device value-added tax video display terminal Virgin Islands Party Virginia Military Institute Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (India) Warner Brothers World Boxing Assoication World Boxing Council World Boxing Organization World Climate Research Program World Economic Forum Western European Union World Health Organization Women, Infants and Children Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Wide-Field Infrared Explorer World Jewish Congress Women’s National Basketball Association World Trade Organization X-ray Timing Explorer Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos Zimbabwe African National Patriotic Front Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions

Y E A R LY S U M M A R I E S

2—1990–1999

Asia & the Pacific

Iraqi troops and tanks storm into Kuwait and seize control of the oilrich desert sheikdom, prompting condemnations by the UN Security Council, NATO, and the EC.

In a startling political upset, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro defeats incumbent pres. Daniel Ortega Saavedra in national elections, ending the 10year rule of the Sandinista National Liberation Front in Nicaragua.

Amid violent protests, Bangladeshi president Hossein Mohammed Ershad announces his resignation from office.

Yugoslavia enters a state of civil war as fighting in Croatia escalates and the federal collective presidency breaks down.

Violence breaks out in Somalia’s already devastated capital between fighters loyal to interim president Mahdi and to Gen. Mohammed Farah Haideed.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti’s first freely elected president, is overthrown in a coup d’etat led by Brigadier General Raoul Cédras.

Indian Congress (I) Party leader and former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi is assassinated in Sriperumbudur. Violence erupts throughout India as the news about Gandhi’s assassination spreads.

Talks at the Earth Summit are attended by 117 heads of state and government, reportedly the most ever assembled at an international conference.

Czech premier Vaclav Klaus and Slovak premier Vladimir Meciar agree on a plan for a peaceful division of Czechoslovakia into two independent states.

Pres. Joaquim Chissano of the Mozambique government and Afonso Dhlakama, the leader of the rebel Mozambique National Resistance, Renamo, sign a peace accord to end Mozambique’s 16year-old civil war.

The 12-year Salvadoran civil war, which took 75,000 lives, officially ends.

The death toll in India related to the Ayodhya mosque exceeds 700, the worst bloodshed since 1947. . . . Officials of Afghanistan’s collapsed communist government relinquish power, ending 14 years of rule by Soviet-backed regimes in Afghanistan.

Israel’s prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, the chair of the Palestine Liberation Organization, reach a breakthrough accord for interim Palestinian selfrule.

Yugoslav president Dobrica Cosic is ejected from office.

In Burundi, paratroopers storm the national palace capture and kill Melchior Ndadaye, elected president in the nation’s first democratic poll. An estimated 30,000 Hutu civilians flee to neighboring Rwanda.

For the first time, two high-ranking military officers receive prison sentences for rights abuses perpetrated during the reign of Chilean general Augusto Pinochet.

President Ranasinghe Premadasa of Sri Lanka is assassinated in Colombo, the capital.

The European Economic Area Agreement and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) go into effect.

The Channel Tunnel, hailed as one of the foremost engineering achievements of the 20th century, is inaugurated.

Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa’s first black president. . . . Rwandan pres. Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundian pres. Cyprien Ntaryamira are killed in a plane crash, sparking a massive wave of violence.

Haiti’s military-led de facto government relinquishes power and restores the democratically elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, averting an invasion by the U.S.

An alliance of forces loyal to General Abdul Rashid Doestam and Premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar launch an assault to oust Afghanistan’s president Burhanuddin Rabbani.

The presidents of Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina agree to a pact to end a nearly four-year-old war that has claimed 250,000 lives. NATO deploys peacekeeping forces to sustain the accord.

Chechen resistance fighters clash with Russian forces.

Yitzhak Rabin, 73, Israel’s prime minister, is assassinated in Tel Aviv. The shooting stuns the nation and the world.

Peru and Ecuador agree to demilitarize more than 200 square miles (518 sq km) in the Cordillera del Condor mountains.

The Taliban, a faction comprised of religious students who took up arms in 1994, emerges as the most powerful military force in Afghanistan.

The United Nations AIDS program estimates that at least 1.3 million people died from AIDS or AIDSrelated illnesses in 1995 and that HIV is expected to cause more than 3.1 million new infections in 1996.

Turkish soldiers renew an army offensive against the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

A truck bomb explodes by a military complex near the Saudi Arabian city of Dhahran, killing 19 U.S. service personnel. It is the most deadly guerrilla attack on Americans in the Middle East since 1983.

The government and the leftist Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union (UNRG) sign an accord hailed by both sides as a major breakthrough in efforts to end Guatemala’s 35-year-long civil war.

A court in South Korea convicts and sentences to death former South Korean president Chun Doo Hwan for his role in the 1979 coup that brought him to power, for the subsequent massacre of prodemocracy demonstrators and for accepting bribes.

1997

The territory of Hong Kong reverts to Chinese sovereignty, ending 156 years of British colonial rule.

Diana, Princess of Wales, 36, dies after suffering grave injuries in a car accident in Paris.

Zairian president Mobutu Sese Seko relinquishes power, ending nearly 32 years of dictatorial rule over Africa’s third-largest country.

Colombia becomes the first and only country in the world to legalize euthanasia.

Fighting breaks out in Cambodia, and First Premier Prince Norodom Ranariddh, is ousted by Hun Sen in a bloody coup.

1998

UN member states vote in favor of a treaty authorizing the creation of a permanent international court for the adjudication of war crimes.

Political leaders agree to a groundbreaking settlement aimed at ending the long-running sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland.

Nigerian-led peacekeeping troops under the ECOMOG banner oust Sierra Leone’s military government from power.

Pope John Paul II makes an unprecedented tour of Cuba.

Amid widespread protests and rioting, Indonesian pres. Suharto resigns, ending his 32 years of nearly autocratic rule over Indonesia.

1999

According to UN experts, the global population reaches 6 billion, doubling since 1960.

Britain’s Parliament officially devolves political power over the province of Northern Ireland to a new provincial government, granting Northern Ireland home rule for the first time in decades.

Niger president Ibrahim Mainassara Bare, 49, is assassinated, apparently by members of his presidential guard.

Panama assumes control of the Panama Canal and the surrounding canal zone from the U.S. . . . Canada officially redraws its map to include the new territory of Nunavut.

Indonesia undergoes the first democratic transfer of power in the nation’s 49-year history. In a separate referendum, residents of East Timor overwhelmingly vote for independence from Indonesia, prompting a wave of violence in the country.

1991

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1996

Europe

The leaders of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe hold a summit in Paris that formally marks an end to the cold war.

Germany becomes a united nation for the first time since the end of World War II.

An international force led by the U.S. launches air and missile attacks on Iraq and Iraqi-occupied Kuwait. . . . The Soviet Union officially disbands and is replaced by a Commonwealth of Independent States made up of 11 of the 12 former Soviet republics.

Africa & the Middle East

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1990

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

1990 The Hubble Space Telescope was put into orbit in April 1990. It is seen here anchored to the payload bay of the space shuttle Endeavour.

6—January–September 1990

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Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

To quell an ethnic war between Azerbaijanis and Armenians, Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev sends in troops.

Dissidents launch another attempt to overthrow the regime of Liberian president Samuel K. Doe.

The U.S. administration of the Panama Canal Commission is handed over to Panamanian control.

At least 210 people are killed and more than 700 injured when a crowded passenger train collides with a freight train near the city of Sukkur in the worst rail disaster in Pakistan’s history.

Cuba’s representative to the UN, Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada, takes over as president of the UN Security Council. It is the first time since 1957 that a Cuban has held the post.

Tens of thousands of people participate in a massive prodemocracy rally in Moscow, the largest unofficial demonstration in the Soviet capital since 1917.

South African black nationalist leader Nelson Mandela is freed after more than 27 years in prison.

In a startling political upset, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro defeats incumbent president Daniel Ortega Saavedra in national elections, ending the 10-year rule of the Sandinista National Liberation Front in Nicarargua.

About 600 people establish the Mongolian Democratic Party, the first opposition party in modern Mongolian history.

Namibia, formerly known as SouthWest Africa, becomes the world’s newest independent nation, ending 75 years of South African control.

The Supreme Soviet of Lithuania declares the republic’s independence from the Soviet Union. Although the declaration is called invalid by the Soviets, it is the first Soviet republic to attempt to secede.

Lesotho’s military ruler, Maj. Gen. Justin Lekhanya, sends King Moshoeshoe II into temporary exile in Britain after a bitter power struggle.

Chile and Brazil return to democracy when Patricio Aylwin and Fernando Collor de Mello are sworn in as those nations’ respective presidents. Ertha Pascal-Trouillot is chosen by opposition leaders to lead the government following the resignation of Haitian president Prosper Avril. It is first time since Duvalier’s overthrow that Haitian civilians have chosen their leader.

Taiwan’s National Assembly reelects Pres. Lee Teng-hui to a six-year term.

According to organizers, 200 million people in 140 nations celebrate Earth Day 1990, making it the largest grass-roots demonstration in history.

East Germany installs its first democratically elected government, and Lothar de Maiziere becomes the nation’s premier.

Lebanese kidnappers free U.S. hostage Robert Polhill after more than three years in captivity.

The largest native land-claim accord in Canadian history gives the Inuit more than 135,000 square miles of land and a total of C$612 million in compensation over the next 14 years.

Amid demonstrations in Nepal, King Birendra legalizes political parties.

In Paris, officials from 40 nations sign an accord to create the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

The presidents of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia agree to coordinate political and economic strategies and sign a treaty reviving the Baltic Council, a group that existed until the 1940 Soviet annexation of the Baltic region.

After years of conflict, the Yemen Arab Republic and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen merge into a single nation, the Republic of Yemen.

In Colombia, security forces seize 18 tons of cocaine powder and semirefined cocaine in the largest drug raid in the nation’s history.

The worst cyclone in India since 1977 batters the states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu for two days, killing 450 people and destroying thousands of homes.

The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe adopts a declaration on human rights and commits its 35 member nations to multiparty free elections; the separation of political parties from the state; independent judiciaries; respect for minority rights; and the freedoms of expression, organization, and assembly. It is believed to be the first time that the Soviet Union signs a document pledging a multiparty system.

In Romania, thousands of students riot in Bucharest, and 10,000 armed miners from the Jiu Valley beat students, ransack the headquarters of opposition parties and newspapers, and rough up the foreign press.

In Liberia, fighting between rebel factions and governmental troops degenerates into tribal warfare.

Forensic experts in Chile excavate an unmarked grave containing the bodies of opponents of Augusto Pinochet who were apparently executed by army troops after Pinochet took over in 1973.

Chinese students mark the first anniversary of the crackdown on the prodemocracy movement with the largest display of open defiance against the government since that time. Demonstrations for Chinese democracy are held in Hong Kong, Japan, and other Asian countries.

Leaders of the NATO nations agree to a dramatic series of changes in military strategy and state they will seek a joint declaration of nonaggression with the Warsaw Pact nations.

Albanian members of Kosovo’s parliament declare that Kosovo is independent from Serbia. The move is denounced as unconstitutional by the Serbian government.

The government of Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi cracks down on opponents advocating a multiparty political system, and violent street demonstrations and riots erupt.

A group of 100 black Muslims in the Caribbean island nation of Trinidad and Tobago stage a coup attempt against P.M. Arthur N. R. Robinson.

The ruling Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party retains control of both houses of parliament in the first free elections in Mongolia since the communist takeover in 1921.

Iraqi troops and tanks storm into Kuwait and seize control of the oilrich desert sheikdom. The UN Security Council, NATO, and the EC condemn Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. The UN Security Council votes to impose a sweeping trade embargo against Iraq and occupied Kuwait.

The Estonian parliament passes a resolution stating that the republic is no longer part of the Soviet Union, and Karelia, an autonomous region of Russia, declares sovereignty. The parliament of Armenia votes to declare independence, and Tadzhikistan declares its sovereignty.

Saddam Hussein issues presidential decrees declaring that Kuwait is Iraq’s 19th province, renaming Kuwait city with the name it had before World War I, Kadhima, and shaving territory off the “province” of Kuwait to be called “Saddamiyat al-Mitlaa” in his honor.

In addition to an ongoing dispute over a blockade formed by the Mohawk nation, other blockades are erected at Seton Portage and Longlac to draw attention to demands for native rights in Canada.

In Sri Lanka, the death toll from the latest outbreak of civil war and related ethnic violence reaches 3,350. At least 2,000 of the dead were civilians.

Representatives of East Germany, West Germany, and the four victorious Allied World War II powers sign a treaty that ends the powers’ responsibilities over Germany and paves the way for a fully sovereign Germany to be reunited.

The Serbian parliament strips the Kosovo region of its status as an autonomous province of Serbia, in effect completing its annexation of Kosovo.

Liberian president Samuel K. Doe is killed by rebels led by Prince Yormie Johnson. The remnants of Doe’s army loot and burn the capital city, Monrovia.

Brazilian investigators discover a mass grave that may hold as many as 1,700 bodies.

Despite the opposition’s victory in May elections, the ruling military government of Myanmar continues to delay surrendering power and jails six opposition leaders on charges of spying and fomenting unrest.

World Affairs

Europe

In Vienna, an unprecedented seminar is attended by top military officials from 35 European and North American nations, including representatives of NATO and the Warsaw Pact as well as nonaligned countries.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

January–September 1990—7

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

L. Douglas Wilder (D, Va.) becomes the first elected black governor to take office in the United States.

Ousted Panamanian dictator General Manuel Antonio Noriega surrenders to U.S. officials after he takes refuge in the Vatican’s diplomatic mission in Panama City.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches a record high of 2,810.15.

The space shuttle Columbia conducts the longest flight of a U.S. space shuttle.

Cartoonist Charles Schulz of the “Peanuts” comic strip is named a Commander of Arts and Letters by the French Culture Minister in Paris.

Dr. Antonia Coello Novello is confirmed as surgeon general. She is the first woman and the first Hispanic to hold the position.

Former president Ronald Reagan gives videotaped testimony that he did not order any illegal acts in the Iran-contra affair.

Federal regulators seize Florida’s largest thrift as well as two of California’s largest savings-and-loan institutions.

Voyager 1 cameras take pictures of the solar system while 3.7 billion miles from Earth.

The continuing failure of long-term negotiations between Major League Baseball team owners and the players’ union postpones the formal opening of spring training.

Eighty-seven people are killed in a fire at an illegal social club in the Bronx . It is the deadliest fire in the continental U.S. since 1977.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Edward J. Derwinski authorizes compensation to Vietnam veterans suffering from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The Amalgamated Transit Union begins nationwide strike against Greyhound Lines Inc.

An air force SR-71 Blackbird supersonic spy plane sets a transcontinental speed record.

Two thieves steal 13 artworks from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. As the paintings are estimated to be worth $100 million, it is considered the largest art theft in the world.

Ryan White, 18, a hemophiliac teenager who became a national symbol of the difficulties faced by children with AIDS, dies of complications from AIDS in Indianapolis.

A federal jury convicts former national security adviser John Poindexter on all five felony charges facing him. He is the highest-ranking official convicted of criminal charges in connection with the Iran-contra arms scandal.

Buffalo’s subway and bus system temporarily shuts down from lack of funds. It is the first such closure involving a federally subsidized mass-transit operation in the U.S.

The U.S. space shuttle Discovery successfully deploys the Hubble Space Telescope in an orbit 381 miles above Earth.

Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center and its director, Dennis Barrie, are indicted by a grand jury on obscenity charges for displaying an exhibit of photographs by the late Robert Mapplethorpe. Judge Carl B. Rubin bars local law-enforcement officials from shutting down the exhibit.

Dalton Prejean becomes the first person executed under a 1989 ruling that permits states to impose the death penalty for crimes committed by 16- and 17-year-olds.

A report by the bipartisan Arms Control and Foreign Policy Caucus shows that 11 of El Salvador’s 15 highest-ranking officers, who received U.S. training, commanded troops that are responsible for killing civilians, torturing prisoners, causing disappearances, denying medical attention to victims, and falsifying information to conceal abuses.

Commerce Department data shows that sales of new houses declined 1.6% in April, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 546,000, the lowest number of new houses sold since Dec. 1982.

More than 200 noted scientists from around the world, including three Nobel laureates, announce a boycott of Chinese scientific meetings until dissident physicist Fang Lizhi is allowed to leave China.

Portrait of Dr. Gachet by Vincent van Gogh becomes the most expensive painting sold at auction when it goes for $82.5 million.

Federal agents arrest 174 suspected members of the Los Angeles-based Crips and Bloods street gangs on drug and weapons offenses. Suspects are seized in California, Arizona, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Washington.

Nelson Mandela meets Pres. Bush at the White House in an unprecedented visit between an African National Congress leader and a U.S. president. Mandela also addresses a joint session of Congress.

Pres. Bush announces a moratorium on offshore oil exploration for large areas of the coastal U.S. but leaves some key areas—off of Alaska, North Carolina, the midAtlantic states, and the Gulf Coast—open to lease sales for drilling.

According to data from the National Severe Storms Forecast Center, the first half of 1990 saw the most violent weather in the U.S. in 40 years with a total of 726 tornadoes in the first six months of the year.

The National Endowment for the Arts rejects grant applications from Karen Finley, Holly Hughes, John Fleck, and Tim Miller. Each of the artists were approved by the review panel and deal with issues of sexuality.

Pres. Bush signs into law a landmark civil rights bill that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities.

Five former officials of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) and a Colombian businessman are convicted in Tampa, Florida, for laundering $32 million for Colombia’s Medellín drug cartel.

Two barges carry partly refined oil collide with a Greek tanker in Galveston Bay on Texas’s gulf coast, spilling 500,000 gallons of heavy crude oil into the bay.

The White House directs NASA to appoint an outside task force to examine the space program’s longterm direction.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America suspends two congregations for five years for ordaining a gay man and two lesbians in defiance of church policy.

Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Barry (D) is convicted in federal court on one misdemeanor drug possession count and is acquitted on a second. A mistrial is declared on the 12 other misdemeanor and felony drug charges.

Pres. Bush officially informs Congress that he sent U.S. forces to the Persian gulf in a “notification consistent with” the War Powers Resolution. Bush orders the mobilization of a limited number of U.S. military reserves to augment Operation Desert Shield. It is the first time U.S. reservists have been called to active duty in a foreign crisis since 1968.

Pres. Bush signs the federal Oil Pollution Act.

The unmanned U.S. spacecraft Magellan attains orbit around Venus and begins a mapping mission projected to cover as much as 90% of the planet’s surface.

The Screen Actors Guild women’s committee finds that actresses in films, television and commercials get fewer roles and are paid less than actors.

Three youths—Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, and Raymond Santana— are sentenced to maximum possible sentence of five to 10 years in prison for the near-fatal rape and beating of a female jogger in NYC’s Central Park.

Former CIA agent Thomas Clines is convicted on charges stemming from his participation in the illegal shipment of weapons to the Nicaraguan contras.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) files a $200 million civil suit against Neil Bush, Pres. Bush’s son, and the other directors of Silverado Banking, Savings and Loan Association.

At the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, a four-year-old girl with a rare immune deficiency becomes the first person to undergo experimental treatment using a genetically engineered human gene.

The Motion Picture Association of America states it will replace its “X” rating with a rating called “NC-17,” meaning that no one under age 17 will be admitted.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

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8—October–December 1990

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Dec.

World Affairs

Europe

The Council of Europe unanimously approves a membership application by Hungary so it becomes the first Warsaw Pact nation to join a Western political organization.

Germany becomes a united nation for the first time since the end of World War II.

The leaders of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe hold a summit in Paris that formally marks an end to the cold war.

The UN Security Council votes to dissolve the U.S.-administered UN trusteeship over a string of Pacific islands captured from the Japanese during World War II. The vote formally ends the U.S.’s 43-year trustee relationship.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Israeli police open fire on stonethrowing Palestinian protesters on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City, killing at least 19 Arabs and wounding more than 100 others.

In Nicaragua, 200 rebels seize the northern town of Waslala following weeks of unrest.

Thousands of Hindus storm and occupy a Muslim mosque in the Indian holy city of Ayodhya before they are driven out by police.

Mary Robinson becomes the first woman elected president of Ireland and the first president since 1945 who is not supported by the Fianna Fail political group.

The Mozambique legislature adopts a new constitution designed to establish a Western-style democracy.

The presidents of Brazil and Argentina sign an agreement renouncing both the use and development of nuclear weapons.

Emperor Akihito is formally enthroned. According to Japanese historians, he is the 125th monarch to sit on the Chrysanthemum Throne of Japan. His wife, Empress Michiko, is enthroned in the same ceremony.

The Bulgarian Grand National Assembly confirms the country’s first multiparty government in 40 years.

Pres. Kenneth Kaunda signs a constitutional amendment permitting the formation of opposition parties in Zambia for the first time since 1972.

Reverend Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a leftist Roman Catholic priest, is elected president by a landslide in Haiti’s first democratic elections.

Amid violent protests, Bangladeshi president Hossein Mohammed Ershad announces his resignation from office. In response, about 100,000 marchers celebrate wildly, and Chief Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed is named the new president of Bangladesh.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

October–December 1990—9

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Senate confirms, 90-9, Pres. Bush’s appointment of David H. Souter to the Supreme Court, and he is sworn in as the nation’s 105th Supreme Court Justice.

In the first organized nationwide protest against the U.S. intervention in the Persian Gulf, thousands of Americans stage antiwar marches in as many as 20 cities, including New York; Seattle; San Francisco; Washington, D.C.; Atlanta; Boston; Dallas; and Cleveland.

The government temporarily shuts down when Pres. Bush vetoes the stopgap measure because “it disciplines the United States Congress,” which, he claims, repeatedly evade budget decisions by passing interim spending authority.

The space shuttle Discovery deploys the Ulysses spacecraft for a surveying project to the Sun’s polar regions.

Three members of the black rap music group 2 Live Crew are acquitted of obscenity charges by a jury in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Pres. Bush signs legislation to protect Native American grave sites and to return remains and cultural artifacts to the tribes.

Pres. Bush signs a bill on comprehensive immigration legislation.

The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejects a proposed “one-step” licensing procedure for future atomic power plants, a measure initiated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The Mount St. Helens volcano in Washington State erupts in its largest blast since the U.S. Forest Service reopened the crater to the public in 1987, after the 1980 explosion.

New York Shakespeare Festival producer Joseph Papp informs the NEA that he refuses to accept two grants totaling $323,000 in protest of the NEA’s consideration of “general standards of decency” when awarding grants.

A state district judge in Clarkston, Mich., dismisses murder charges against Dr. Jack Kevorkian, an Oregon physician who created a device to assist individuals in committing suicide.

The U.S. suspends its $2.8 million military aid program to Guatemala, citing Guatemala’s failure to curb human rights abuses.

Data suggests that federal government funding provided only 17% of state and local budgets compared with 25% during the 1970s.

Four of the astronauts aboard the Columbia space shuttle beam the first-ever classroom lesson from space to 41 middle-school students assembled at two NASA centers in Huntsville, Ala., and Greenbelt, Md.

Pope John Paul II endorses a statement against anti-Semitism drawn up by Jewish and Roman Catholic representatives.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

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Nov.

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1990–1999—3

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Pres. Bush signs into law a landmark civil rights bill that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities.

Ousted Panamanian dictator Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega surrenders to U.S. officials. . . . Pres. Bush officially informs Congress that he sent U.S. forces to the Persian gulf in a “notification consistent with” the War Powers Resolution.

Pres. Bush announces a moratorium on offshore oil exploration for large areas of the coastal U.S. but leaves some key areas—off of Alaska, North Carolina, the midAtlantic states and the Gulf Coast— open to lease sales for drilling.

The U.S. space shuttle Discovery successfully deploys the Hubble Space Telescope in an orbit 381 miles above Earth.

The National Endowment for the Arts rejects grant applications from Karen Finley, Holly Hughes, John Fleck, and Tim Miller, prompting debate over notions of “obscenity.”

Law professor Anita Hill publicly accuses Supreme Court nominee Judge Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment, sparking one of the most bitter and divisive confirmation battles in the 202-year history of the Supreme Court.

Terry A. Anderson, the longest-held Western hostage in Lebanon, is freed after 2,454 days in captivity. He is the last of 17 Americans held captive in Lebanon between Mar. 1984 and Dec. 1991 to be freed.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the fiscal 1992 federal budget deficit will reach a record $362 billion.

California scientists isolate “stem cells” whose divisions give rise to all the red and white blood cells in the body.

The Biblical Archeology Society of New York announces that it will publish a “facsimile edition” of the previously unpublished sections of the Dead Sea scrolls.

A jury acquits four white LAPD officers on all but one charge stemming from the beating of black motorist Rodney King. The verdict prompts the worst riots in L.A. since 1965.

Reports show 14 female naval officers and 12 female civilians were sexually abused at the September 1991 Tailhook Association aviators’ convention in Las Vegas.

The Census Bureau reports that in inflation-adjusted terms, median household income fell to $30,126 in 1991 from $31,203 in 1990. The number of Americans living below the poverty level in 1991 reached its highest level since 1964.

In a major finding, astronomer George Smoot announces the discovery of faint temperature variations in the most distant matter yet detected. These irregularities offer long-sought evidence to support the Big Bang theory.

Mona Van Duyn is named the U.S.’s first female poet laureate.

William Jefferson Clinton is formally inaugurated as president of the United States.

A bomb explodes in a garage below the World Trade Center in New York City, killing five people. It is the deadliest bombing in the U.S. since 1975.

Pres. Clinton signs the Family and Medical Leave Act, the first legislation to pass under the Clinton administration.

U.S. vice president Gore and Russian premier Victor Chernomyrdin sign an agreement that calls for the two countries to jointly design and build an international space station, closing decades of cold war competition in space.

Monica Seles, 19, the world’s topranked female tennis player, is stabbed in the back by an attacker who claims to be a fan of Steffi Graf, the world’s second-ranked woman.

In a case that captivates the nation, O. J. Simpson is charged in the slayings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman after leading police on a televised 60-mile (95-km) chase.

The state-financed Citadel military college in Charleston, South Carolina, is ordered to admit a female student, Shannon Faulkner, to its all-male cadet corps.

Exxon Corp. agrees to pay $20 million in damages to Alaskan natives whose hunting and fishing grounds were polluted when the Exxon Valdez tanker spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989.

A powerful earthquake strikes Los Angeles, leveling buildings and collapsing freeway overpasses.

Nancy Kerrigan, the favorite to win the women’s U.S. Figure Skating Championship, is assaulted by associates of rival skater Tonya Harding.

A massive bomb explodes outside a federal office building in Oklahoma City, killing more than 100 people. It is the deadliest terrorist attack ever in the U.S.

The Clinton administration ends a 30-year immigration policy when it announces that Cuban boat people seeking asylum in the U.S. will henceforth be summarily repatriated to Cuba.

Chemical Banking and Chase Manhattan announce the largest bank merger in U.S. history, involving a stock swap worth about $10 billion. The deal will create the largest bank in the U.S., to be known as Chase Manhattan.

The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis docks with the Russian space station Mir.

Members of the Southern Baptist Convention vote overwhelmingly to formally repent for their church’s past support of slavery and to ask forgiveness from all African Americans.

Pres. Clinton chooses Madeleine K. Albright as secretary of state, making her the first woman to fill that post and the highest-ranking woman ever in the federal government.

The army investigates allegations of sexual assault and harassment at the Aberdeen training center in Maryland.

A federal jury convicts James McDougal, Susan McDougal, and Gov. Jim Guy Tucker (D, Ark.) on fraud and conspiracy charges brought during an investigation of the Whitewater venture.

A team of physicists announce that, for the first time ever, they created atoms of antimatter, which has the same mass as regular matter but an opposite electric charge.

A pipe bomb goes off at an Olympic Games site in Atlanta, Georgia, killing one person and injuring 111 others. It is the first terrorist attack at the Olympics since 1972.

In Clinton v. Jones, the Supreme Court unanimously rejects Pres. Clinton’s request to delay proceedings in a sexual-harassment suit until he leaves office.

Pres. Clinton issues new, classified nuclear-strike guidelines to top military officials in the first adjustment in U.S. nuclear-defense strategy since 1981.

The White House and Republican congressional leaders reach an historic agreement to balance the federal budget by 2002.

Mars Pathfinder, an unmanned spacecraft launched by the NASA, lands on Mars. . . . Researchers create the first genetic clone of an adult animal, a Finn Dorset lamb named Dolly.

Jane Alexander states she will resign as head of the NEA, citing the hostility by conservative members of Congress as one of her reasons .

The House votes to impeach Pres. Clinton after an investigation into allegations that Clinton had a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a 21-year-old White House intern.

A grand jury issues an indictment against Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden, charging him in the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Pres. Clinton announces that the 1998 fiscal year resulted in the first federal budget surplus since 1969.

Two teams of scientists report that they completed a map of the entire genome of a microscopic worm. It is the first time that scientists have deciphered the entire genetic map of a multicellular animal.

The International Olympic Committee faces a bribery scandal related to how cities are chosen to host the Olympic Games.

The Senate votes to acquit Pres. Clinton of impeachment charges in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, ending the second presidential impeachment in U.S. history.

A six-year-old Cuban refugee, Elián González, is found off the coast of Florida; his case sparks extended controversy.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above the 10,000 level for the first time ever.

In a landmark observation, two teams of astronomers announce the first discovery of a system of multiple planets orbiting a star other than the sun.

The Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame opens in Knoxville, Tennessee. It is the first hall of fame dedicated to any women’s sports.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

10—January 1–6, 1990

Jan. 1

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

U.S. president Bush and Soviet president Gorbachev exchange videotaped New Year’s greetings, and portions air in the two countries. . . . Fifteen nations establish a $1 billion fund to help stabilize the zloty, the currency of Poland.

In Czechoslovakia, Pres. Vaclav Havel announces amnesty for 20,000 prison inmates. . . . Romania’s provisional government disbands the Securitate, and the National Peasants Party is formally revived. . . . Corneliu Bogdan, 68, Romanian ambassador to the U.S., 1967–78, dies from a stroke in Bucharest. . . . A giant video screen collapses during New Year’s celebrations at the Berlin Wall. . . . Poland implements a radical economic-reform program. . . . Reports confirm that 7,000 died in Romania’s Dec. 1989 revolution. Vaclav Havel, Czechoslovakia’s noncommunist president, pays official visits to both East Germany and West Germany. . . . A National Salvation Front official claims that more than 30 members of the Political Executive Committee, the Romanian Communist Party’s outer politburo, are under arrest. . . . Evangelos Averoff, 79, former Greek foreign minister, dies of a heart attack in Athens.

Jan. 2

Jan. 3

Jan. 4

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

After an oil spill from an Iranian supertanker off the Moroccan coast, a tug begins towing the tanker to sea. . . . Reports emerge that dissidents launched another attempt to overthrow the regime of Liberian president Samuel K. Doe. Charles Taylor, a Liberian exile, claims responsibility. . . . In Israel, a Shamir aide denies knowledge of any telephone taps in science minister Ezer Weizman’s or other cabinet members’ homes. Arafat adviser Bassam Abu Sharif, in Baghdad, and Iraqi officials question Shamir’s move to fire Weizman.

The Panama Canal Commission is handed over to Panamanian control when Fernando Manfredo, deputy administrator since 1979, takes over as acting administrator. . . . Two Roman Catholic nuns are killed and another nun and a bishop wounded in an attack near Ojo de Agua in northeastern Nicaragua. The government and church officials blame the contras for the killings.

Reports emerge which increase the casualty toll in the Dec. 28, 1989, Newcastle earthquake to 12 dead, and 150 injured.

Gen. Doe states that two groups of rebels invaded Liberia from the Ivory Coast. He claims one group reached Monrovia before abandoning their arms and surrendering. The other group attacked a customs post in the frontier town of Butuo and killed a sergeant before the army intervened. . . . Israel’s Likud-Labor coalition government survives its latest crisis with a compromise that allows Science Minister Ezer Weizman to remain in the cabinet but with a reduced role.

The Pro-Canada Network, a liberal lobbying group, claims that 72,000 Canadian jobs have been lost because of the U.S.-Canada trade accord.

After tram workers refuse to sign a new contract, the government cuts off electricity to Melbourne’s entire tram system.

Ousted Panamanian dictator General Manuel Antonio Noriega surrenders to U.S. officials, 10 days after taking refuge in the Vatican’s diplomatic mission in Panama City. . . . Col. Roberto Armijo steps down as head of the new Panamanian Public Force, less than two weeks after he assumed the post. . . . Peruvian officials say their nation will be represented at international drug talks scheduled for February in Colombia.

The worst series of brush fires since 1983 sweeps southwestern New South Wales and northern Victoria. . . . Vietnamese Communist Party officials announce that the party’s secretary general, Nguyen Van Linh, will resign at an upcoming meeting of the Central Committee.

South African foreign minister P. W. Botha pays a surprise visit to Hungary, the first time a South African foreign minister visits a Warsaw Pact nation.

Share prices on the London stock exchange close at 2,463.7, exceeding the record set in 1987 . . . Employment Secretary Norman Fowler resigns from the cabinet, and Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher names Housing and Planning Minister Michael Howard as his successor.

The African National Congress “unequivocally condemns” Hungary for meeting with Botha.

Foreign journalists are barred indefinitely from Azerbaijan. . . . Reports emerge that detail Causescu’s population-growth program, which aspired to raise Romania’s population to 30 million from 22 million and encouraged every Romanian woman to bear a minimum of five children. . . . Romania’s National Salvation Front announces it will field its own candidates in April.

Liberian president Doe blames the Ivory Coast recent invasion on allowing dissidents to use its territory as a base and warns that he may send troops across the border. The Liberian government also blames Libya and Burkina Faso for training the rebels. . . . Reports surface that a progovernment Arab militia massacred more than 2,000 black villagers in a central Sudanese town at the end of December 1989.

The Extraditables claim they kidnapped wealthy Colombians in order to raise funds for the “war against the political oligarchy” and for “construction of popular housing.”. . . Chilean president-elect Patricio Aylwin announces an agreement to eliminate the military junta that currently rules the nation. . . . Alberto Lleras Camargo, 83, president of Colombia, 1945–46 and 1958–62, dies of lung cancer in Bogota, Colombia.

At least 210 people are killed and more than 700 injured when a crowded passenger train collides with a standing freight train near the city of Sukkur in the worst rail disaster in Pakistan’s history.

A general strike called by nationalists paralyzes much of Bulgaria. . . . A small group of former dissidents form a Helsinki Watch Committee in Bucharest to monitor human-rights practices in Romania.

Although Pres. Doe’s reports suggest that fighting has calmed, refugees claim the Liberian army is burning homes in border villages and chasing people into the bush. . . . Iraqi president Saddam Hussein offers a three-point plan aimed to negotiate a permanent end to the Iran-Iraq War.

The Human Rights Committee of Peru’s Senate reports 3,198 people were killed in political violence in 1989, the highest total in a decade of political violence, bringing the death toll of the period to more than 17,000. . . . Gen. Fernando Matthei of the Chilean air force and Gen. Rodolfo Stange of the paramilitary police, both believed to be unsympathetic to Pinochet, agree to remain in their posts following Pres. Aylwin’s inauguration.

In India, 11 cities in Jammu and Kashmir are placed under curfew in response to rumors of mass demonstrations by militant secessionists. . . . The first group of former political prisoners tied to the American-backed regime in Saigon during the Vietnam War is allowed to immigrate to the U.S.

Several days of nationalist rioting in the Azerbaijan republic culminate in the destruction of Soviet border stations separating Azerbaijan from Iran. Moscow sends in troops. . . . Poland’s Central Committee of the United Workers’ Party votes to debate disbanding of the party and reforming it to unite the entire Polish left. . . . Soviet foreign minister Edvard Shevardnadze visits Romania and vows Kremlin support for any future political system that emerges in that country.

The New York Times reports a recent attack on nine villages in southern Kordofan province, Sudan, suggesting that the militias have become more active under the regime of Gen. Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir. . . . Iran faults the Jan. 5 Iraqi bid to end the war but does not reject it outright.

Jan. 5

Jan. 6

India and Sri Lanka reach an agreement on the withdrawal of the final 25,000 Indian peacekeeping troops from Sri Lanka.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

January 1–6, 1990—11

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

Rep. Robert Garcia (D, N.Y.) resigns his House seat less than three months after he was convicted of extortion and conspiracy involving Wedtech Corp., a defense contractor.

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Pres. Bush names Deane R. Hinton as ambassador to Panama.

Federal medical authorities report that the spread of AIDS in the U.S. appears to be falling below anticipated rates.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The United Mine Workers union and Pittston Co. announces a tentative agreement on a new contract that may end a bitter nine-monthold strike. . . . A runaway barge dumps 10,000 gallons of gasoline in the Monongahela River, about 15 miles south of Pittsburgh.

Patrick Kelly, 40, a black Americanborn fashion designer, dies in Paris of a bone-marrow disease.

Jan. 1

The Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches a record high of 2,810.15 . . . . A major oil spill from a pipeline is discovered in the Arthur Kill shipping channel in New York Harbor.

Alan Hale Jr., 71, an actor best known as the skipper on “Gilligan’s Island,” dies of cancer of the thymus in Los Angeles.

Jan. 2

General Motors unveils a prototype of an electric car that offers performance rivaling that of many gasolinepowered automobiles. . . . A federal judge rules Pan American World Airways cannot be sued for punitive damages by families of the victims of Pan Am flight 103, which was destroyed by a terrorist bomb over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988.

Pres. Bush extends economic sanctions against Libya for the fifth year. . . . Human Rights Watch accuses the Bush administration of “widespread disregard for human rights.”

A federal appeals court in Philadelphia overturns the first verdict in the U.S. that required a tobacco company to compensate the family of a smoker who died of cancer. . . . Former FDA chemist David Brancato pleads guilty in a Baltimore federal court to charges that he received $16,000 in illegal payments in 1988 and 1989 from generic-drug manufacturers Par Pharmaceuticals and Quad Pharmaceuticals.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Reports surface to show that confessed spy Klaus Fuchs was not instrumental in the development of the Soviet hydrogen bomb.

Jan. 3

Harold Eugene Edgerton, 86, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and credited with inventions in photography, dies of a heart attack in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Bush administration offers $3 million to aid the relocation of contra rebels who wish to return to Nicaragua from bases in Honduras. . . . Pres. Bush expresses concern that the U.S. invasion of Panama injured U.S ties with Latin American nations and plans to send Vice President Dan Quayle to visit several Latin countries to help repair the damage.

Jan. 4

(John) Arthur Kennedy, 75, stage and film actor, dies of cancer in Branford, Connecticut.

Ian Charleson, 40, British actor, dies of AIDS in London.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 5

Jan. 6

12—January 7–11, 1990

World Affairs

Jan. 9

Jan. 10

Jan. 11

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Hungary, Foreign Ministry spokesman Horvath admits the security service illegally bugged phones to keep track of its opposition. . . . More than 5,000 demonstrators in Sofia’s central square shout down Bulgarian premier Georgi Atanasov. . . . Reports emerge that Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev sent troops to Georgia to keep peace between ethnic groups. . . . Lord Gerald Austin Gardiner, 89, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, 1964–70, dies in England. . . . The British government discloses Thatcher’s foreign-affairs adviser, Sir Percy Cradock, made a secret visit to Beijing in early Dec. 1989. . . . Italy’s “Leaning Tower” of Pisa closes to tourists for a minimum of three months for safety constructions. . . . Thousands of Romanians stage nationwide demonstrations complaining of the high-profile role of ex-communists in the provisional regime.

Western diplomats and relief officials claim that between 300 and 1,500 people were killed in a massacre of black villagers in Sudan in Dec. 1989. The Sudanese government puts the number of dead at 214 and vows further investigation.

President Alfredo Cristiani discloses that members of the military were involved in the Nov. 1989 slayings of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and the housekeeper’s daughter at the José Simeón Canas University of Central America in San Salvador.

The Khmer Rouge guerrilla group announces its troops attacked Battambang, Cambodia’s secondlargest city.

The Organization of American States condemns the search of the Nicaraguan ambassador’s residence by U.S. troops in late Dec. 1989.

Peter Koch, the East German government official in charge of disbanding the security service, reports that 60,000 Stasi personnel are still on the government’s payroll. . . . Major Ion Bundea is convicted of firing on army officers in Sibiu, Romania, during the Dec. 1989 uprising and is sentenced to a nine-year prison term. . . . Protests against Bulgaria’s plan to reverse discriminatory policies toward the nation’s Turkish-speaking minority reach a halt when talks are held.

Reports surface that the Iranian foreign ministry sent a delegation to Moscow.

Reports emerge that a cracked Hydro-Quebec transformer has leaked more than 9,000 gallons of oil contaminated with toxic polychlorinated biphenyls into a tributary of the St. Lawrence River. . . . U.S. troops in Panama surrounded the Peruvian embassy after two Noriega associates take refuge there.

In India, at least 13 people are killed and as many as 100 wounded in clashes between protesters and police in Kashmir. Ten deaths occur when police fire at stone-throwing demonstrators. Two other protesters are killed in Sopur. . . . Five children drown when a 36-foot pleasure fishing boat capsizes and sinks off Snapper Island in Nelson Bay, New South Wales. Marine police rescue the other 43 people aboard the vessel. . . . Reports suggest that Australian police have brought separate charges against a 36-yearold man and a 16-year-old boy for allegedly starting or failing to extinguish blazes in Cooma and Albury.

The US drastically cuts funding of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization because of its decision to work with the Palestine Liberation Organization. . . . Separately, Ahmed Jabril, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General Command, dismisses reports that link his group to the Pan Am Lockerbie bombing as “media fabrications.”

British Secretary Peter Brooke finds “common ground” after speaking with political leaders in Northern Ireland. . . . Suzuki Motor Co. Ltd. of Japan agrees to build Hungary’s first automobile plant. . . . In Armenia, legislation that incorporates Nagorno-Karabakh into a socioeconomic plan and allows citizens of the enclave to vote in the Armenian republic passes. . . . Japanese premier Kaifu begins a tour of Europe by announcing $1 billion in aid to Poland and Hungary. . . . . The National Salvation Front lifts restrictions on the travel of Romanians abroad.

President Mohamed Siad Barre dissolves Somalia’s government, accusing its members of failing to solve the country’s political and economic problems.

Brazilian justice minister Saulo Ramos reverses an earlier decision to force gold prospectors out of Roraima . . . . Enrique López Albujar, Peru’s defense minister until May 1989, is shot and killed. Officials believe Maoist Sendero Luminoso guerrillas are most likely responsible.

An Indian intelligence official is shot to death by unidentified gunmen in the town of Berwa.

The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, the Soviet-bloc trade organization, agrees to adopt a free-market approach in their trading policies after a summit in Bulgaria. . . . The USSR upgrades the Palestine Liberation Organization’s mission to Moscow as an “embassy of the state of Palestine in the Soviet Union.”

The Presidium of the national Supreme Soviet declares the law passed Jan. 9 in Armenia is unconstitutional . . . . 20,000 Lithuanians hold a nationalist rally in the republic’s capital, Vilnius. . . . Romania’s exiled king Michael, speaking in Switzerland, restates his desire to return home.

Iran and Iraq agree to send foreign ministers to Moscow for talks on ending the Iran-Iraq War.

The UN halts informal contacts between UN officials and representatives of the popular fronts of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

In response to the Jan. 10 Supreme Soviet’s ruling, Armenia passes legislation to override national laws. . . . Pres. Gorbachev visits Lithuania to convince the Lithuanian Communist Party to rejoin the national Communist Party. . . . Azerbaijanis blockade local government and Communist Party offices and briefly seize a radio station in Lenkoran. . . . French foreign minister Dumas visits Bucharest and announces a package of economic assistance for Romania.

Amnesty International charges that Saudi Arabia allows torture and has “a clear pattern” of political detentions without trial. The Saudi government denies that it holds any political prisoners and says that, obeying the laws of God, it does not permit torture.

Jan. 7

Jan. 8

Europe

Chinese premier Li Peng lifts martial law in Beijing, which ends nearly eight months of military rule. . . . A Cambodian government statement acknowledges fighting near Battambang but asserts that the Khmer Rouge forces were repelled.

Reports show that a record number of murders, 4,015, were committed in 1989 in Medellín, known as the cocaine capital of Colombia.

Prime Minister V. P. Singh visits Punjab and offers to help find jobs for Sikh soldiers who deserted the Indian army after the assault on the Golden Temple at Amritsar . . . . Deputy Foreign Minister Zhou Nan is chosen as the Chinese envoy in Hong Kong. . . . Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, the geographical center of the 1989 democracy movement, is reopened to the public for the first time since the military crackdown.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

January 7–11, 1990—13

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

State and federal officials criticize Exxon for its slow response to an underwater pipeline oil spill into New York Harbor on January 1–2. Exxon is also faulted by Carol Ash, regional director for the New York State department of environmental conservation, for slow reaction to help the cleanup effort at Pralls Island.

In a speech, Pres. Bush outlines his goals to cut capital gains taxes and to introduce a Clean Air Act and tougher antidrug and crime legislation. . . . The Supreme Court refuses to hear an appeal on a libel suit filed against Peter Matthiessen for statements in his 1982 book, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, which detail a shoot-out at the Pine Ridge Indian reservation.

The Bush administration calls off plans for U.S. Navy ships to monitor airborne drug traffic off the coast of Colombia.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Bronislau (Bronko) Nagurski, 81, U.S. football player, dies of cardiopulmonary arrest in Minnesota.

First Chicago Corp.’s First National Bank of Chicago lowers its prime lending rate to 10%, and other money-center banks follow.

The federally funded National Assessment of Educational Progress reports that the reading and writing ability of U.S. students did not significantly improve during the 1980s, despite some advances by minority pupils.

Jan. 8

The space shuttle Columbia is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The Supreme Court reaffirms its stand by ruling out the use of illegally obtained evidence in a criminal trial.

AT&T files a suit against MCI Communications Corp. and Pioneer Teletechnologies Inc. for illegal marketing practices.

The Bush administration denounces a Democratic proposal to reduce the Social Security payroll tax.

Jan. 7

Jan. 9

Drew Middleton, 76, reporter for The New York Times, dies in NYC after suffering from heart ailments.

At an annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society, scientists announce that the Milky Way, Earth’s home galaxy, is being pulled by two gravitational sources, one of them far outside the galaxy. . . . The FDA informs Symbion Inc., the manufacturer of the Jarvik-7 artificial heart, that the device will be recalled.

Jan. 10

Jan. 11

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

14—January 12–17, 1990

World Affairs

Jan. 12

Jan. 13

Jan. 16

Jan. 17

Africa & the Middle East

Violent protests begin in Bucharest. . . . Bulgarian citizens are granted freedom of religion while the nation reasserts its borders. . . . An interior-ministry officer is killed, purportedly by Azerbaijani police. . . . Romania outlaws its Communist Party. . . . In Bulgaria, an accord is reached by the protesting Turkish-speaking minority and government officials after four days of talks.

Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak dismisses Interior Minister Zaki Badr, who had been the leader of Cairo’s hard-line policies against Islamic fundamentalists since 1986.

At an anti-Armenia rally in the Azerbaijan capital of Baku, Azerbaijani youths go on a rampage. Armenians are beaten, shot, stabbed to death, and burned alive, while homes and shops are looted. . . . Gaspar Miklos Tamas, a member of the Alliance of Free Democrats, is the first in his party to win a parliamentary seat by election in Budapest . . . . Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev expresses openness to a multiparty political system in the USSR . . . . In Romania, the National Salvation Front restricts political rallies to Cismigiu Park.

An Egyptian human-rights group charges that torture and sexual abuse of both political and regular prisoners “now appears to be a matter of policy by security forces.” The report was drawn up before the ouster of Interior Minister Zaki Badr.

Reports suggest that at least 30 Azerbaijanis were killed in Baku in the Jan. 13 riots. . . . More than 50,000 prodemocracy protesters rally in Sofia. The demonstration is described as the biggest in Bulgaria since Nov. 1989. . . . A fire at a discotheque in Zaragoza, Spain, leaves 43 people dead. . . . Corsican separatists blow up 60 cabins in Bastia and detain residents in the area by about 60 armed men from Corsican National Liberation Front while the bombings are carried out.

Jan. 14

Jan. 15

Europe

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council meet in Paris.

To quell an ethnic war between Azerbaijanis and Armenians, Soviet president Gorbachev declares a state of emergency in Azerbaijan and approves the airlifting of 11,000 military, KGB, and interior-ministry troops to the republic to restore order. . . . Algirdas Brazauskas is elected head of the Lithuanian Communist Party. . . . Bulgaria becomes the last Soviet bloc country to end the domination of the Communist Party . . . Thousands of protesters storm East Berlin headquarters in response to the slow pace of reform in Germany.

An unprecedented seminar attended by top military officials from 35 European and North American nations, opens in Vienna. The gathering includes representatives of NATO and the Warsaw Pact as well as nonaligned countries. . . . The UN Security Council calls for a greater role in the settlement of Cambodia’s 11-year-old civil war. It is the first major diplomatic initiative regarding the Cambodian conflict since Aug. 1989.

More than 6,000 miners strike in the Silesia coal region in Poland. . . . Elena Petrescu, 103, mother of Elena Ceausescu, dies in Bucharest. . . . Talks between Bulgaria’s communist government and the political opposition start in Sofia.

China and Hong Kong announce they will not obey a global ban on ivory trading, intended to save Africa’s elephant herds from extinction. . . . The U.S. vetoes a resolution in the UN Security Council that would have censured U.S. troops for raiding the home of the Nicaraguan ambassador in 1989.

An oil slick of unknown origin begrimes the northern shore of Madeira, Portugal. . . . (Eugene) Charles Hernu, 66, French defense minister, 1981–85, dies of a heart attack near Lyons. . . . East and West Germany’s Evangelical churches agree to reunite, reversing a 1969 decision. . . . The Kremlin orders troops in the Transcaucasus region to fire on militants in self-defense and to protect civilians. The official death toll in the area reaches 56.

Walter Sisulu and other senior members of the African National Congress arrive in Zambia for talks.

The United Democratic Front, the antiapartheid coalition and African National Congress ally, announces that it will defy government restrictions by reopening its offices and resuming public activities. The special meeting of the African National Congress’s executive council formally opens.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front reconsiders a proposal to renew peace talks with the Salvadoran government after the murder of leftist political leader Manuel Antonio Colindres. . . . A colonel, two lieutenants, and five lower-ranking soldiers are arrested for the 1989 slaying of six Jesuit priests and others in San Salvador.

British foreign secretary Douglas Hurd arrives in Hong Kong for the first time since assuming office.

Protests are staged in Montreal, Toronto, and other major cities in response to planned cutbacks in service on Via Rail Canada.

More than 5,000 people attend a demonstration in Mongolia, making it the largest protest in modern Mongolian history.

A Brazilian federal judge orders the closing of a road that leads to the world’s largest modern tin mine because it illegally cuts across a reservation of the Waimiri-Atroari Indians . . . . Cutbacks in service on Via Rail Canada go into effect.

Amnesty International accuses Hong Kong authorities of forcing the repatriation of Vietnamese refugees who are in danger of persecution in their homeland. Both the Hong Kong government and the British Foreign Office reject the Amnesty allegations as unfounded.

The union at Brazil’s state-owned oil company Petroleo Brasileiro, S.A., goes on strike.

British foreign secretary Hurd asserts that if Britain and China cannot reach agreement regarding Hong Kong, then the U.K. will make its “own decisions” on democratic reforms. . . . Reports suggest that more than 800 Chinese were sentenced to prison for involvement in the prodemocracy movement.

In Colombia, the Medellín drug cartel issues a declaration of conditional surrender, claiming it will halt its bombing and assassination campaign and all other illegal activity in exchange for an amnesty or pledges not to be extradited to the U.S. The cartel begins releasing some of the 20 hostages it seized.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

January 12–17, 1990—15

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

William L. Roper, a physician and White House adviser, is named director of the federal Centers for Disease Control. . . . Joseph Sill Clark, 88, reform-minded Pennsylvania politician, dies of unreported causes in Philadelphia.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Reports emerge that retail sales climbed 5% in 1989, the smallest rise since 1982. In response, the Dow Jones Industrial Average drops 71.46 points, the biggest drop since Oct. 1989.

The space shuttle Columbia retrieves a bus-sized scientific satellite from its falling orbit and stores it in the cargo bay for return to Earth.

Laurence J. Peter, 70, Canadianborn author and educator, dies in Palos Verdes Estates, Calif., of complications from a stroke he had suffered in 1988.

L. Douglas Wilder (D) is sworn in as governor of Virginia by U.S. Supreme Court justice Powell Jr., and thus becomes the first elected black governor to take office in the U.S.

The astronauts aboard the Columbia hold an upbeat news conference from space.

An Exxon Corp. spokesman reports 130,000 gallons of oil have been recovered from the spill in New York Harbor. Half of the remainder of the 446,000 gallons of the spill evaporated.

Jan. 13

The Denver Broncos advance to the Super Bowl with a 37-21 victory over the Cleveland Browns in Denver. The San Francisco 49ers beat the Los Angeles Rams, 30-3, in the National Conference championship in San Francisco.

AT&T’s long-distance phone operations are severely curtailed for nine hours by a computer software fault.

The FDA halves the recommended dosage level of AZT for treatment of AIDS.

Officials announce looser restrictions on entry permits for foreign travelers to the U.S. who are infected with HIV.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp announces plans to end the coinsurance program. . . . In Kirkpatrick Co. v. Environmental Tectonics Corp., the Supreme Court rules unanimously that a company can bring suit against a competitor for bribing foreign officials. . . . In Swaggart Ministries v. California Board of Equalization, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that states may require religious organizations to pay sales tax on religious materials that they sell.

Jan. 14

Jan. 15

The Bush administration intensifies its attack on the proposal by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D, N.Y.) to cut Social Security taxes. . . . Two units of the BCCI, an international bank, agree to plead guilty to reduced charges of money laundering in a Tampa, Fla., federal court. The case, the first in which the U.S. Justice Department has charged a major international bank with money laundering, is the result of a two year “sting” investigation. The Federal Reserve Board reports its industrial production index advanced 0.4% in December 1989. The U.S. merchandise trade deficit widened to a seasonally adjusted $10.5 billion in November 1989, the year’s largest monthly gap. . . . In Guidry v. Sheet Metal Workers Pension Fund, the Supreme Court unanimously rules out seizing the pension benefits of a former union official to pay back union funds that he embezzled.

Jan. 12

Jan. 16

The National Transportation Safety Board reports 11 fatal air crashes involving U.S. commercial air carriers in 1989, the most per year since 1968.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts Hank Ballard, Bobby Darin, the Four Seasons, the Four Tops, the Kinks, the Platters, Simon and Garfunkel, and the Who.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 17

16—January 18–23, 1990

World Affairs

Jan. 19

Jan. 20

Commercial air service between Argentina and Britain is renewed. British Airways PLC and Aerolineas Argentinas inaugurate the service, which had been suspended since the 1982 Falkland Islands conflict.

Jan. 22

Jan. 23

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Ecuador’s Supreme Court orders the arrest of former president León Febres Cordero Rivadeneira on embezzlement charges.

The Chinese government frees 573 people arrested during a military crackdown on prodemocracy unrest in Beijing in 1989. . . . Mongolian authorities announce a ban on protests.

In Poland, workers at four of the five mines hit by strikes end their job action. However, workers at the fifth mine remain on strike, and workers walk out at a mine in Lubiaz. . . . The Soviet national Communist Party Central Committee appeals to Armenians and Azerbaijanis to put down their weapons. . . . Aldo Gucci, 84, the last surviving son of Guccio Gucci, who founded the well-known Italian leather-goods firm, dies of unreported causes in Rome.

Col. André Neptune, his wife, and their maid are shot and killed by unidentified gunmen in a suburb of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, near the home of presidential candidate, Hubert de Ronceray. . . . In El Salvador, soldiers arrested Jan. 13 for the Nov. 1989 slaying of six Jesuit priests and two others plead not guilty. The suspects include Col. Guillermo Alfredo Benavides Moreno, the highestranking soldier ever detained in connection with human-rights abuses in the decade-old war.

Rodolfo Aguinaldo, governor of the Philippine province of Cagayan, steps down under pressure from Pres. Corazon Aquino. . . . Tomisaburo Hashimoto, 88, powerful figure in Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party, dies of pneumonia in Tokyo.

Soviet troops, in an attack spearheaded by tanks and armored personnel carriers, force their way into central Baku, the capital of the Azerbaijan republic. Heavy gunfire is reported. . . . In Yugoslavia, 1,654 delegates open negotiations, providing an opportunity for the Communists to find solutions to the nation’s economic and ethnic problems.

In Haiti, Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril declares a state of siege and begins arresting and deporting a number of opposition politicians following the Jan. 19 slaying of André Neptune. Hubert de Ronceray, a presidential candidate, is arrested and forced into exile in the U.S. Louis Roy, founder of the Haitian Red Cross, is arrested.

Rioting breaks out in Srinagar, triggered by India’s decision to impose central government rule in Kashmir after the resignation of Farooq Abdullah . . . . China adopts a press code that expands government control over foreign journalists. . . . Naruhiko Higashikuni, 102, a member of the Japanese imperial family, dies in Tokyo.

In India, 50 people are killed and 100 wounded as army troops open fire on Srinagar residents defying a government curfew. This action sets off a string of violent riots. Foreign ministers of Pakistan and India meet in New Delhi. . . . Separately, Indian prime minister V. P. Singh announces that his government has decided to reject a $470 million settlement agreement with U.S.-based Union Carbide Corp. to provide compensation for a 1984 gas leak in Bhopal. . . . More than 2,500 people stage a peaceful prodemocracy rally in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, defying a Jan. 18 ban on demonstrations.

Czechoslovakian premier Marian Calfa resigns from the Communist Party but remains the head of government. . . . Bulgaria’s state news agency reports that ousted Communist Party leader Todor Zhivkov has been placed under house arrest on charges of inciting ethnic hostility, misuse of government property and money, and malfeasance in office. . . . In Poland, Lech Walesa, the founder of the Solidarity labor movement, appeals to striking miners to return to work.

Jan. 18

Jan. 21

Europe

Reports emerge that 50,000 civilians have been killed thus far during the civil war in Somalia.

Thousands of people in Baku, Azerbaijan, defy a ban on demonstrations and hold mass funerals for those killed in the attack on the city. The funerals coincide with a general strike. . . . In a speech to the congress, Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic accuses Slovenia of attempting to break up the party “into six autonomous organizations (representing Yugoslavia’s six republics),” so the Slovenes can “rule their own feudal estates.”

Talks between Walter Sisulu and the ANC’s external leadership end with the willingness of the guerrilla organization to engage in peaceful negotiations with the South African government. . . . Reports confirm that Gen. Michel Aoun shut down most newspapers based in east Beirut for refusing his demand that they not refer to Elias Hrawi as president or Selim al-Hoss as premier. He kept newspapers published in Muslim west Beirut from being distributed. The Phalangist party, the Lebanese Forces’s parent organization, protested by suspending news coverage in its media outlets.

Louis Roy, founder of the Haitian Red Cross, is deported.

Mutinous Azerbaijani military cadets fire on troops in Baku. The Azerbaijani Supreme Soviet condemns as “unconstitutional” the military occupation of Baku, and threatens an Azerbaijan secession from the Soviet Union unless troops are promptly withdrawn. . . . Slovene delegates walk out when the Serbian-led congress votes down Slovene resolutions. Prior to the walkout, the delegates vote to allow a multiparty system, overturning a 1972 constitutional provision.

Kuwaiti police disperse thousands of peaceful prodemocracy protesters with tear gas, water cannons and stun grenades since the rally was declared illegal. . . . In Egypt, police open fire to disperse protesting fundamentalists in Asyut, a hotbed of Muslim militancy. One demonstrator is killed and 12 arrested.

Haiti’s ambassador to the U.S., François Benoit, resigns in response to Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril’s recent actions.

A congress of Yugoslavia’s ruling Communists indefinitely adjourns, and the Slovene party considers a break with the national party. . . . Hungarian Premier Miklos Nemeth states the USSR agreed in principle to a withdrawal of Soviet forces from Hungary. . . . Turkish foreign minister Mesut Yilmaz accuses Soviet troops of a “massive violation of human rights” in the Azerbaijan region, where the official death total reaches 93.

Jewish residents of Azerbaijan begin arriving in Israel. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir announces “special measures” to bring Azerbaijan Jews to Israel as refugees.

The Haitian government imposes censorship, permitting only officially approved news to be broadcast. . . . In Colombia, Medellín cartel boss Pablo Escobar Gaviria vows to continue a war with the Cali cartel. . . . British Columbia premier William Vander Zalm unveils a compromise plan designed to salvage the Meech Lake accord.

Two people are killed when security forces fire on a crowd of protesters who threw cinders at a UN vehicle in Srinagar. . . . Foreign Minister Gareth Evans announces that Australia is ending its ban on visits to China by government officials.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

January 18–23, 1990—17

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Washington, D.C., mayor Marion S. Barry Jr. (D) is arrested by city police and FBI agents for allegedly purchasing and smoking crack cocaine. . . . In N.Y.C., black groups boycott two grocery stores owned by Korean immigrants in the wake of allegations that store owners beat a Haitian woman. . . . Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan blasts R.J. Reynolds’s introduction of the Uptown cigarette, charging it is “cynically and deliberately targeted toward black Americans.”

Reports indicate that housing starts fell 8% in Dec. 1989, its lowest level in seven years. . . . The government’s index of consumer prices rose 4.6% in 1989, the highest rate since 1981.

Harvard University researchers challenge claims about the ability of oat bran fiber to lower blood serum cholesterol levels. . . . Astronauts aboard the Columbia receive a telephone call from Pres. Bush in the White House.

Rusty Hamer, 42, former child actor, is found dead of a selfinflicted gunshot wound in De Ridder, La.

In response to the Jan. 18 charge, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. cancels its plans to test-market a new cigarette, Uptown, aimed at African-American smokers. . . . Arthur Joseph Goldberg, 81, former U.S. secretary of labor, 1961–62, Supreme Court Justice, 1962–65, and United Nations representative, 1965–68, is found dead of heart disease in Washington, D.C.

According to the American Lung Association, $40 billion is the midrange of the annual cost for health care necessitated by air pollution from automobiles. . . . Pres. Bush cautions Congress not to exceed his cost estimates in passing his proposed clean-air legislation.

A Kentucky journalist and antisegregation activist, Anne Braden, is named the winner of the first Roger Baldwin Medal of Liberty, awarded by the ACLU.

Jan. 18

Jan. 19

The Columbia lands safely at Edwards Air Force Base, concluding the longest flight of a U.S. space shuttle.

Barbara Stanwyck (born Ruby Stevens), 82, movie and television actress, dies of congestive heart failure in Santa Monica, Calif. . . . Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson is officially stripped of three world records because of his admitted use of performanceenhancing drugs.

Jan. 20

Jan. 21

A federal jury in New York convicts a former Cornell University graduate student for setting loose a program that disrupted a nationwide computer network in Nov. 1988.

The 101st Congress reconvenes to confront legislation still pending from 1989, including bills on clean air, child care, education, housing, and drugs and crime.

Jan. 22

A federal judge in Los Angeles orders the extradition of Bruno Karl Blach, a retired grocery clerk who was accused of killing three prisoners while serving as a guard in a Nazi concentration camp in World War II.

Cartoonist Charles Schulz, who draws the “Peanuts” comic strip, is named a Commander of Arts and Letters by the French Culture Minister in Paris. . . . . Roman Catholic auxiliary bishop Austin Vaughan claims that New York governor Mario Cuomo (D) is at “serious risk of going to hell” for his views on abortion.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 23

18—January 24–28, 1990

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Hungary passes legislation guaranteeing freedom of religion. . . . In Bucharest, the government outlaws unauthorized demonstrations. . . . Nearly daily battles between armed demonstrators, ethnic Albanians, and Serbian paramilitary riot police begin in Kosovo. Much of the violence takes place in Podujevo, but clashes are reported in other Kosovo communities. . . . Azerbaijani troops break a blockade at Baku harbor by shelling oil tankers taken over by nationalist forces.

Jan. 24

Storms with winds of more than 100 miles per hour claim at least 94 lives in Western Europe. . . . Troops round up members of a militant faction of the Azerbaijan Popular Front in Baku and seize a storehouse of weapons and ammunition.

Jan. 25

The first detailed political statement from Nelson Mandela in 26 years is published inside South Africa. . . . Torrential rains cause flooding that leaves at least 24 people dead, 32 missing, and thousands homeless in Tunisia.

In Haiti, Lt. Gen. Prospev Avril states he intends to lift the state of siege and pledges to proceed with scheduled elections.

In Poland, the United Workers’ Party votes itself out of existence and re-forms as the leftist Social Democracy Party. The delegates adopt new bylaws and a democratic-socialist platform. . . . A cease-fire takes effect when the Azerbaijan Popular Front and the Armenian National Movement agree to begin peace talks. . . . In East Germany, another mishap is reported to have happened at the Bruno Leuschner nuclear plant in Greifswald on Nov. 24, 1989. . . . The People’s Chamber approves legislation to free East Germany’s state media from communist control and to end state censorship.

Jan. 28

Four Indian air force soldiers are shot and killed by militants in Srinagar, while in Handawor, nine people are killed and 40 wounded when police open fire on a crowd of protesters. Indian officials report that about 70 people have been killed in the last five days of violence. . . . Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto becomes the first modern head of government to give birth while in office.

Haiti’s largest foreign-aid donor, France suspends its financial aid to protest the state of siege. . . . Archbishop Lewis Samuel Garnsworthy, 67, outspoken former Anglican archbishop of Ontario, dies in Toronto after suffering from cancer.

Reports show that Great Britain was the hardest hit from a wave of storms in Europe since 46 people died there. . . . In Poland, the United Workers Party opens its congress.

Jan. 27

Asia & the Pacific

Brazilian president-elect Fernando Collor de Mello begins a world tour. . . . An Israeli tied to Colombia’s drug cartels, Arik Afek, who helped plan security for Pres. Bush’s planned visit to Cartagena, is found slain. . . . Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela, reputed leader of the Cali drug cartel, offers to surrender in a letter. . . . Argentine defense minister Italo Luder resigns.

The Bulgarian government announces it will remove the Communist Party’s control of military and police forces. . . . In Romania, interim vice president Dumitru Mazilu resigns. . . . Separately, Deputy Premier Gelu VoicanVoiculescu reveals the bodies of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu were buried in secret in Bucharest after their execution in Dec. 1989. . . . AP reports that, from the storm begun Jan. 25, there have been 19 deaths in the Netherlands, 10 in Belgium, eight in France, seven in West Germany, and four in Denmark.

Jan. 26

The Americas

The Australian government charges Ukrainian immigrant Ivan Timofeyevich Polyukhovich, 73, with war crimes allegedly committed during the Nazi German occupation of the Soviet Union in World War II. He is the first person to be charged under Australia’s War Crimes Amendment Act, passed in 1988.

A South African newspaper reports that President F. W. de Klerk, in a closed-door speech to police officers, said the police would no longer be used to fight political battles.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

January 24–28, 1990—19

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

A federally funded study on black, inner-city teenagers finds that pregnant teens who had abortions did better economically, educationally, and emotionally than those who had children.

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Retired air force major general Richard V. Secord is sentenced to two years’ probation for making false statements in the Iran-contra arms investigation.

Empire of America Federal Savings Bank is seized by federal regulators because they deem it insolvent.

IBM joins Siemens AG of West Germany in researching and developing a new semiconductor, or memory chip. . . . . Japan launches a satellite toward the Moon to test methods and equipment for future planetary probes.

Madge Bellamy, 89, Hollywood actress, dies of a heart ailment in Upland, Calif.

The Senate votes to sustain President Bush’s veto of a 1989 bill that would have prohibited Chinese exchange students from being deported.

General Electric’s NBC unit announces an agreement with Philips Consumer Electronics Co. and Thomson CSF of France to develop high-definition television for the U.S. market.

A Colombian Avianca Airlines jetliner crashes in Cove Neck, N.Y. Seventy-three are killed and dozens more are injured.

Ava Lavinia Gardner, 67, one of Hollywood’s best-known movie stars from the 1940s, dies of pneumonia in London.

In a letter to Pres. Bush, Manuel Noriega claims to be a prisoner of war because he surrendered to U.S. authorities in the wake of the Dec. 1989 invasion of Panama.

Federal banking regulators announce their intention to sanction Neil Bush, one of Pres. Bush’s sons, for alleged “conflicts of interest” while the director of a Denver-based savings and loan bank.

The Dark Half by Stephen King tops the bestseller list. . . . Lewis Mumford, 94, American cultural critic, urban planner, historian, and political commentator, dies in his sleep in Amenia, New York.

The Miami Herald reports that Arik Afek, found slain on Jan. 24, told friends that he had traveled to Colombia with Secret Service agents four times to help them prepare for president Bush’s trip. . . . U.S. vice president Dan Quayle begins a visit to Panama, Honduras, and Jamaica in an effort to reassure regional leaders about U.S. policy in the wake of the December 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama.

Jan. 24

Jan. 25

Jan. 26

Jan. 27

A U.S. Secret Service agent confirms reports that the Secret Service questioned Arik Afek on the military capabilities of the Medellín cartel.

Investigators find that the Colombian Boeing 707 jet that crashed on Jan. 25 had apparently ran out of fuel and that none of its four engines were functioning at the time of the crash.

The San Francisco 49ers win Super Bowl XXIV with a record-breaking score of 55-10 over the Denver Broncos.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 28

20—January 29–February 3, 1990

World Affairs

Feb. 2

Feb. 3

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Haiti, Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril ends a state of siege. . . . A resolution passes by the City Council of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, which declares English the city’s official language, sets off controversy in Canada. . . . In Nicaragua, President Daniel Ortega agrees to allow Catholic priests to say mass at prisons and military bases. . . . Argentina’s chief of intelligence, Juan Bautista Yofre, resigns. He is the fourth major government figure to resign since the beginning of 1990.

An emergency congress of the ruling Bulgarian Communist Party begins.

In response to clashes between Christian soldiers and militiamen in Lebanon Gen. Michel Aoun declares that only his men have the right to carry weapons, claiming “there are no armed elements outside the framework of the army.” . . . In South Africa, Clayton Sizwe Sithole is found hanged in a police cell.

The Ontario Court of Appeal declares unconstitutional a provincial regulation that provides for religion classes in the regular curriculum of public elementary schools. . . . Reports that tiny microphones were found in Argentine president Carlos Menem’s official residence and in his private home emerge.

In NYC, Salvadoran president Alfredo Cristiani meets with UN secretary general Javier Pérez de Cuellar. They reach an agreement to try to revive peace talks with the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front rebel organization that stalled in Nov. 1989.

Frantisek Pitra, a hard-line Communist, resigns as the premier of the Czech republic. . . . McDonald’s opens its first outlet in the Soviet Union and serves more than 30,000 people on its debut day, setting an international record.

In Lebanon, fighting begins when army troops loyal to Gen. Aoun move against the Lebanese Forces, led by Samir Geagea. . . . Reports emerge that almost all Western relief workers have been evacuated from Juba in Sudan, which is under siege by rebels. . . . In South Africa, Pres. F. W. de Klerk announces an investigation the death of Clayton Sizwe Sithole. He also states there will be a probe into allegations that a secret police unit ran death squads to assassinate antiapartheid activists.

In Haiti, Prosper Avril states at a news conference that seven opposition politicians exiled under the state of siege may return to Haiti and will have “all necessary guarantees to participate in elections.” The seven include Hubert de Ronceray, Antoine Izméry, Max Bourjolly, and Louis Roy.

Cuba’s representative to the UN, Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada, takes over as president of the UN Security Council, the first time since 1957 that a Cuban has held the post.

After nearly daily battles that started on Jan. 24, army units move into Kosovo province under a state of emergency. The official death toll reaches 19, with most of the victims ethnic Albanians. . . . Storms begin in Great Britain that continue on the continent for the next three days and take over 50 lives. . . . Reports emerge that a Soviet nuclear submarine sunk off Norway in 1989 is leaking radiation. . . . In Bulgaria, Premier Georgi Atanasov and his entire 22-member cabinet resign.

The UN World Health Organization estimates there were 215,144 AIDS cases worldwide by the end of Jan. 1990, up from 203,599 at the end of 1989.

A military court in Bucharest sentences four Ceausescu aides of complicity to commit genocide to life imprisonment. . . . Yugoslav president Janez Drnovsek meets with Kosovo’s political leaders. . . . Armenian and Azerbaijani negotiators hold peace talks. . . . A congress of the ruling Bulgarian Communist Party elects Alexander Lilov as party chairman.

South African president de Klerk lifts a 30-year ban on the African National Congress and promises to release activist Nelson Mandela shortly. Celebratory marches are held in major South African cities.

The question of German reunification dominates the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. At the meeting, West German chancellor Helmut Kohl outlines a plan for reunification that has been discussed by U.S. secretary of state James Baker and West German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher.

In Bulgaria, Andrei Lukanov is nominated and confirmed as premier with a unanimous vote at a parliament session.

The South African government gazette publishes the names of at least 165 people whose names and words will no longer be blacklisted from publication. The list includes Oliver Tambo, Joseph Slovo, and ANC secretary general Alfred Nzo.

Jan. 30

Feb. 1

Africa & the Middle East

About 20,000 people demonstrate in Bucharest, Romania, while an equally large counter-protest is staged in support of the interim regime. Police and soldiers protect Corneliu Coposu, the Peasants Party leader, from a mob. . . . Former Bulgarian leader Todor Zhivkov is placed under formal arrest and is transferred to a prison in Sofia. The prosecutor’s office announces indictments against two Zhivkov associates for “malfeasance in office.” . . . The final report into the 1989 tragedy at Hillsborough Stadium that killed 95 football fans rejects the British government’s plan for an ID card scheme and calls for phasing out standing sections for fans at stadiums.

Jan. 29

Jan. 31

Europe

Ricardo J. (Ricky) Bordallo, 63, governor of the U.S. territory of Guam, who was convicted in 1987 of bribery and extortion, wraps himself in Guam’s national flag, chains himself to a statue in Guam, and shoots himself in the head.

South Korean transportation minister Kim Chang-keun announces plans for a new international airport and two new rail lines.

Reports surface that a prominent Chinese dissident, Liu Qing, was released from prison in Dec. 1989, 10 years after his arrest.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

January 29–February 3, 1990—21

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The FDA approves the use of fluconazole to treat fungal infections in AIDS patients. . . . Marilyn Harrell pleads guilty in federal court to charges that she embezzled $4.5 million from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney formally unveils the fiscal 1991 defense budget.

Pres. Bush sends to Congress a $1.23 trillion budget for fiscal 1991 that does not raise taxes, abides by the federal-deficit ceiling set by law, and sets forth several domestic initiatives. However, it also embodies only slight cuts in real defense spending and larger cutbacks in a variety of domestic programs. Bush’s budget is quickly attacked by key Democrats in Congress as unrealistic.

While reporting on the Jan. 25 crash, The Wall Street Journal cites a 1989 study by MIT and the U.S. Air Force Center for Studies and Analyses that found that Colombian airline Avianca has the second-worst fatality record of any air carrier in the world.

A federal judge orders former president Ronald Reagan to provide excerpts of his personal diaries for use in former national security adviser John Poindexter’s Irancontra trial. . . . Salvadoran president Alfredo Cristiani visits the U.S. to discuss U.S. aid to El Salvador and possible peace talks with leftist rebels.

The Senate authorizes $9.7 billion in funding for the State Department and related agencies in fiscal 1990 and 1991.

Jan. 30

Pres. Bush delivers his State of the Union message and declares that political changes in 1989 brought about a “new era” in world affairs.

Pres. Bush proposes that the U.S. and Soviet Union reduce forces in Central Europe to 195,000 troops on each side in his State of the Union address. . . . A grand jury in Los Angeles charges Mexican officials in the 1985 torture and slaying of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent.

Federal regulators seize MeraBank because it is in violation of new savings-and-loan industry capital requirements.

Jan. 31

Attorney General Richard Thornburgh recommends the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate former Housing and Urban Development officials.

The State Department proposes an increase of $50 million in aid to El Salvador in fiscal 1991. . . . Iranian-American businessman Albert Hakim is sentenced for a misdemeanor in the Iran-contra arms scandal.

John J. Phelan Jr. states he will resign as chairman of the New York Stock Exchange at the end of 1990. . . . Chrysler announces it will close its St. Louis, Mo., car plant, the third to close since 1987.

More than 700 eminent American scientists, including 49 winners of the Nobel Prize, urge Pres. Bush to take action on global warming.

Peter Racine Fricker, 69, composer, dies of unreported causes in Santa Barbara, Calif.

Feb. 1

California senator Joseph Montoya is convicted on seven counts of extortion, racketeering, and money laundering.

The Justice Department agrees to treat ousted Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega as a prisoner of war, but that designation makes no difference to Noriega’s case. . . . Pres. Bush orders a state-controlled Chinese corporation to divest itself of the controlling interest in an American aircraft-parts manufacturer purchased in 1989.

Federal regulators seize CenTrust Bank, Florida’s largest thrift, declaring it insolvent.

Pres. Bush names 13 scientists and engineers to his newly created President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology and taps D. Allan Bromley to serve as the chair of the council.

Mel Lewis (born Melvin Sokoloff), 60, jazz drummer and orchestra leader, dies of cancer in NYC.

Feb. 2

Jan. 29

Jockey Bill Shoemaker ends a farewell tour preceding his retirement with a fourth-place ride aboard Patchy Groundfog at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, Calif.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 3

22—February 4–9, 1990

Feb. 4

Feb. 5

Feb. 6

Europe

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Polish president Wojciech Jaruzelski indicates that the main reason that Poland has not yet joined Hungary and Czechoslovakia in pressing for withdrawal of Soviet troops is concern over possible disputes with a reunified Germany over its eastern border with Poland.

The Slovene branch of the ruling League of Communists secedes from the central party, a serious blow to Yugoslav national unity. . . . Tens of thousands of people participate in a massive prodemocracy rally in Moscow, the largest unofficial demonstration in the Soviet capital since the 1917. . . . Storms continue throughout Europe. . . . Silviu Brucan, a leading spokesman for Romania’s provisional regime, resigns from the ruling front’s executive council.

Masked gunmen stop an Egyptian bus filled with Israeli tourists and open fire with automatic weapons and grenades. Eight Israelis are killed, and 17 are wounded, one of whom later dies. It is the worst anti-Israeli terrorist incident in Egypt since 1979. Egyptian Pres. Hosni Mubarak expresses his revulsion at the incident to P.M. Yitzhak Shamir of Israel. . . . Suspected far-right extremists escape after shooting out windows at the British embassy in Pretoria and painting pro-Boer graffiti on the building.

Rafael Angel Calderón Fournier of the opposition Social Christian Unity Party is elected president of Costa Rica. . . . The government admits that Argentina’s intelligence agency planted tiny microphones throughout Argentine president Carlos Menem’s official residence and in his private home and offices.

The International Monetary Fund approves $723 million in standby credit for Poland.

Hundreds of right-wing skinhead protesters march through a demonstration for reform in Leipzig while shouting Nazi slogans. . . . The Financial Times reports that storms in Europe took 29 lives, 23 in France. . . . East Germany’s communists lose their government majority when eight opposition figures are added to the coalition cabinet.

In South Africa, police report incidents of serious violence in 11 black townships nationwide, including a major clash between police and protestors in Tembisa. Conservative Party officials state they are mobilizing discontented whites, registering them to vote, and planning a freedom march and general strike to demonstrate white anger in South Africa.

In response to the Jan. 29 Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, resolution to make English the city’s official language, opposition leaders John Turner and Audrey McLaughlin ask P.M. Brian Mulroney to endorse a resolution reaffirming Canada’s commitment to bilingualism.

A three-judge panel in Seoul sentences a dissident student, Lim Su Kyong, to 10 years in prison for making an illegal visit to North Korea in 1989. A Roman Catholic priest, Reverend Moon Kyu Hyun, who accompanied Kyong, receives an eight-year sentence.

The World Bank approves two loans to Poland totaling $360 million.

The West German government outlines a plan to establish the West German mark as the single currency for East and West Germany. . . . Interior Minister Atanas Semerdzhiev announces that Bulgaria’s secret police has been disbanded. . . . Despite the Jan. 28 cease-fire between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, an Azerbaijani blockade of Armenia, protest strikes in Azerbaijan, and sporadic clashes between Soviet forces and Azerbaijanis continue.

The Soviet Communist Party Central Committee votes to renounce the party’s constitutionally guaranteed monopoly on political power. It is a historic victory for Pres. Gorbachev’s plan for “democratization.” . . . Janez Drnovsek, Slovene representative to the Yugoslavian presidency, discloses that the military presence in Kosovo will increase.

Jesse Jackson, a U.S. civil-rights leader and former presidential candidate, begins his first visit to South Africa since 1979.

The Haitian government declares a general amnesty for political prisoners to mark the fourth anniversary of the fall of Pres. Jean-Claude Duvalier. . . . A forest fire in the Poco das Antas Wildlife Reserve in Brazil threatens the last population of the nearly extinct golden lion marmoset. . . . In Peru, Henry Pease, a candidate from the United Left in upcoming elections, is hit in the knee by shotgun pellets when police break up a campaign march.

The state education commission adopts new restrictions that make it more difficult for Chinese students to study abroad.

Premier Lukanov appoints a cabinet composed entirely of communists in Bulgaria. . . . East Germany accepts responsibility for the crimes of Nazi Germany against the Jews. . . . Reports emerge that the Bucharest government banned adoptions of Romanian children by foreigners. . . . Sir Ernest William Titterton, 73, British nuclear scientist, dies in Australia. . . . Georges de Mestral, 82, Swiss inventor who created Velcro, dies in Switzerland.

While Ethiopian government troops are occupied with resisting Tigray People’s Liberation Front forces, another rebel group, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front launches an offensive against the strategic port of Massawa.

The Ontario government and five Indian bands on Manitoulin Island reach historic land-claim settlement; the bands will receive a total of approximately C$8 million. . . . P.M. Mulroney forcefully defends Canada’s bilingual tradition in a speech. . . . According to Nicaraguan rebel reports, Enrique Bermúdez was ousted as commanding general of the contras. . . In Brazil, president-elect Collor states his administration will create an environmental secretariat.

Hungary reestablishes diplomatic relations with the Vatican. . . . In Bucharest, the new Council for National Unity convenes its first session and decides to expand the interim parliament to accommodate newer parties.

Iran’s supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, reaffirms a yearold death edict on British novelist Salman Rushdie. . . . Namibia’s Constituent Assembly votes to adopt a constitution that will give the country the most liberal multiparty democracy in Africa.

The Nicaraguan government frees all remaining political prisoners as a gesture of goodwill two weeks before national elections. . . . In Peru, reports confirm that Interior Minister Agustín Mantilla tendered his resignation after police wounded a presidential candidate at a political demonstration on Feb. 7.

Feb. 7

Feb. 8

Feb. 9

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

The World Health Organization approves a plan to aid Romania since the country is suffering an epidemic of AIDS in children

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

South Korea’s ruling Democratic Justice Party and two opposition groups formally merge into one party. Students in Seoul battle riot police in two days of protests over a party merger. In Kwangju, 1,000 students clash with police following an antigovernment demonstration.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

February 4–9, 1990—23

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The Washington Post reports that federal prosecutors are currently investigating Houston developer Robert L. Corson in connection with savings and loan fraud. Corson is described as a “known money launderer” with reputed links to the CIA and organized crime.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle The National Football Conference defeats the American Football Conference, 27-21, in the National Football League’s annual Pro Bowl All-Star Game in Honolulu.

Feb. 4

In Selma, Ala., in response to the firing of its first black school superintendent, Norward Roussell, a group of black students walk out of Selma High School, and school officials close the city’s schools for a week to prevent further disturbances. . . . Ed Herschler (D), 71, who served three terms as governor of Wyoming, dies of cancer in Cheyenne.

A federal judge orders former president Ronald Reagan to give videotaped testimony for use in the Irancontra trial of John Poindexter.

A 12-person Superior Court jury in Anchorage, Alaska, begins hearing evidence in the criminal case against Capt. Joseph Hazelwood, master of the Exxon Valdez at the time of the the ship’s oil spill. . . . Reports indicate that productivity among the nation’s nonfarm businesses rose just 0.9% in 1989, the smallest gain since 1982.

The House passes legislation that makes it easier for U.S. citizens to register to vote. . . . The Los Angeles board of education votes to require all schools within the Los Angeles Unified School District to convert to a year-round schedule. . . . Officials of the Roman Catholic Franciscan order announce that Rev. Bruce Ritter, the head of Covenant House in NYC, the nation’s largest shelter for runaway youths, is stepping aside temporarily in the wake of allegations that he had sexual relations with three male runaways.

Secretary of State James Baker begins a visit to the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania. . . . Pres. Bush starts a three-day tour of military bases and weapons facilities in an attempt to win public support for his recently released fiscal 1991 defense budget.

Pres. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers issues its first annual economic report, lauding the free-market beliefs that guided fiscal policy during the Reagan administration and issuing ambitious goals for the 1990s. . . . Agriculture Secretary Clayton Yeutter unveils recommendations for a new farm bill that proposes “flexibility” and “positive incentives” to meet environmental and market concerns. The bill, however, avoids specifying cuts in farm subsidy programs asked for in the administration’s budget proposals.

Rock singer Billy Idol suffers compound fractures of his right leg and forearm in a motorcycle accident in Los Angeles.

Feb. 6

A bipartisan group of legislators introduces legislation in both houses of Congress to strengthen laws against job discrimination that were weakened by several Supreme Court decisions in 1989.

The House and Senate approve $42 million in emergency aid to Panama. . . . Former president Reagan invokes executive privilege and refuses to surrender his diaries in the Iran-contra hearings. . . . Congress approves $10 million in aid to “support the democratic transition in Eastern Europe.”

New York City files a damage suit against Exxon Corp. over the January pipeline spill of 567,000 gallons of heating oil into the Arthur Kill waterway off Staten Island. . . . An American Transport and Trading Co. tanker spills nearly 400,000 gallons of crude oil a few miles off Huntington Beach, Calif.

Nathan (Nat) Wartels, 88, founder and former chairman of Crown Publishers, dies of pneumonia in NYC.

Feb. 7

A proposal by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D, N.Y.) to reduce the Social Security payroll tax encounters significant opposition. . . . The FCC accuses two Nynex Corp. units, New York Telephone Co. and New England Telephone and Telegraph Co., of overcharging customers by $35.5 million and orders them to return the money and pay a $1.4 million fine.

CBS News suspends satirical commentator Andy Rooney for three months without pay in response to remarks that Rooney allegedly made that were derogatory to blacks and homosexuals.

Daniel P. Kearney resigns as president and CEO of the Oversight Board of the Resolution Trust Corp.

Susan Eisenhower, granddaughter of former president Dwight D. Eisenhower, marries Soviet scientist Roald Sagdeyev in Moscow.

The first test of student geography skills administered by the National Assessment of Educational Progress shows that U.S. high school seniors lack geographical knowledge. . . . In Alabama, about 150 students and sympathizers launch a sit-in at Selma High School to protest the firing of the city’s first black school superintendent, Norward Roussell.

John Gotti, reputed head of the Gambino crime family, is acquitted in NYC of assault and conspiracy charges involving the 1986 shooting of a carpenters’ union official. . . . James Fleming Gordon, 71, retired federal judge, dies of complications from lung surgery in Sarasota, Fla.

Former president Reagan agrees to provide videotaped testimony for the Iran-contra trial of former national security adviser John Poindexter.

Feb. 5

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 8

Feb. 9

24—February 10–15, 1990

World Affairs

Feb. 10

Feb. 11

An unprecedented meeting of the foreign ministers of the 16 NATO nations and the 7 Warsaw Pact countries convenes in Ottawa. . . . The release of Nelson Mandela is applauded by the UN, the EC, the Commonwealth, and the Organization of African Unity. Leaders of several countries, including the U.S., praise the release.

Feb. 12

Feb. 13

At a landmark conference in Ottawa, the Soviets tentatively agree to limit their total number of troops in Europe to 195,000, all in the central zone, giving the U.S. a manpower advantage.

Feb. 14

Feb. 15

The presidents of the U.S., Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia meet in Cartagena, Colombia, and pledge to fight against illegal narcotics trafficking. . . . Negotiators for Great Britain and Argentina agree to fully restore diplomatic relations that were cut after a 1982 war over the Falkland Islands.

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

James Baker becomes the first U.S. official to testify before a committee of the Soviet parliament. He is also the first secretary of state to visit Bulgaria as he flies to Sofia to meet with Pres. Petar Mladenov and Premier Andrei Lukanov after testifying. . . . West German chancellor Helmut Kohl meets with Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev to discuss Germany’s reunification, and they agree on a number of issues as momentum toward the reunification of East and West Germany grows.

In Ethiopia, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front claims to have captured Massawa in one of the greatest rebel victories of the nearly 30-year-old Eritrean war, Africa’s longest.

In Bulgaria, 30 reformists quit the Communist Party and form the Alternative Socialist Party. . . . Secretary of State Baker meets with Romanian interim president Ion Iliescu and interim premier Petre Roman.

South African black nationalist leader Nelson Mandela is freed after more than 27 years in prison; he gives an address that backs the African National Congress’s armed struggle and calls for the complete destruction of apartheid.

Colombian drug traffickers begin to admit journalists to a complex of three drug-processing laboratories near the town of Turbo. Reporters state the complex, capable of producing as much as 20 tons of cocaine a month, is larger than any yet discovered by the authorities.

Hungary revives dual citizenship for Romanians of Hungarian descent for the first time since 1979. . . . Three days of demonstrations are held in Bucharest by thousands of junior military officers who call for the dismissals of Gen. Nicolae Militaru and Interior Minister Mihai Ghitac. The officers disobey orders by participating in the protests, and the statecontrolled press characterizes the protests as a “mutiny.”. . . Rioting begins in Dushanbe, Tadzhikistan, when several thousand people launch a protest in front of the CP headquarters.

In Israel, Trade and Industry Minister Ariel Sharon announces that he is quitting the cabinet, which sparks controversy.

A fire ignites at the Tyre King Recycling Ltd. dump in Ontario and burns for more than two weeks. . . . The New Democratic Party wins its first parliamentary seat in Quebec.

Western Australia premier Peter Dowding resigns after serving just under two years as state leader because of his role in a scandal involving mismanagement at a joint state government-private business enterprise known as WA Inc. Deputy Premier David Parker resigns as well.

After a meeting in Bonn, West German chancellor Kohl and East German Premier Hans Modrow agree to open talks on uniting the monetary systems of the two nations . . . . . Reports from the KGB estimate that 786,098 people were shot to death as enemies of the state during the reign of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. . . . In Tadzhikistan, a mob storms the Communist Party headquarters.

In South Africa, the far-right Conservative Party files formal charges of treason against Mandela for continuing to advocate armed struggle, and CP leader Andries Treurnicht states that president F. W. de Klerk no longer has the support of Afrikaners. It is also reported that the fighting in Natal since Mandela’s release resulted in the deaths of 50 people.

Colombian drug traffickers announce they will turn over to the government the three drug-processing laboratories and 15,000 barrels of chemicals used to refine cocaine that were shown to journalists Feb. 11. . . . Guerrillas of Colombia’s leftist National Liberation Army announce that they kidnapped David Kent and James Donnelly, two U.S. citizens, to protest Pres. Bush’s visit and drug policy.

Carmen Lawrence is unanimously elected by an emergency meeting of the Labor Party Caucus in Perth as the state’s first woman premier in Australian history.

The Soviet media reports pitched battles between Tadzhiks and police and interior-ministry troops. Clashes erupt in other parts of Tadzhikistan as well. . . . The Supreme Soviet convenes in Moscow, and Pres. Gorbachev calls for tough new laws to counter ethnic strife.

The African National Congress holds a preliminary meeting in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. . . . Before embarking on a trip to West Germany, Israeli foreign minister Moshe Arens states that Israel can back a united Germany if it is “a democratic Germany fully conscious of the responsibilities that it has towards the Jewish people.”

Ernesto Díaz Rodriguez, a long-term political prisoner, begins a fast to press for UN scrutiny of the human rights situation in Cuba. . . . Some 10,000 people march in Bogotá, Colombia, to protest Pres. Bush’s visit. . . . Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney admits that the Feb. 12 election result shows that the Progressive Conservatives are losing support across the country.

At least 91 people are killed when an Indian Airlines passenger jet crashes while preparing to land in Bangalore. . . . U.S. defense secretary Dick Cheney starts a tour of South Korea, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Japan.

Communist Party and government leaders of Tadzhikistan resign after outbursts of ethnic strife . . . . Romania’s interim premier Petre Roman vows a probe of the military’s actions in Timisoara after days of protests. . . . A debate on reunification in West Germany’s lower parliamentary house produces heated exchanges. . . . Sweden’s premier, Ingvar Carlsson, resigns after a heated economic debate. . . . (Edward) Guy Schofield, 87, British newspaper editor, dies in London.

As many as 15,000 right-wing whites attend a rally in Pretoria to protest Pres. de Klerk’s legalization of the African National Congress and freeing of Mandela, one of the largest crowds of whites at a political gathering in South Africa in years.

The National Liberation Army abducts a U.S. priest, Reverend Francisco Amico Ferrari, along with two U.S. citizens kidnapped on Feb. 13, to protest Pres. Bush’s drug policies in Colombia.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

February 10–15, 1990—25

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The goal of a “sustainable” society is set forth by the Washingtonbased research organization Worldwatch Institute, which warns that without change, a period of global degradation will be reached within 40 years.

NASA’s Galileo spacecraft completes a “celestial billiard shot” around Venus. The craft makes its closest approach to Venus, about 10,000 miles above the surface.

Jill Trenary wins her third U.S. Figure Skating championship.

The Soviet Union launches a new team to the space station Mir from the Baikonur space complex.

Donald and Ivana Trump announce they are divorcing. . . . Todd Eldredge wins the men’s title in the U.S. Figure Skating championship. . . . The Eastern Conference wins NBA’s All-Star Game. . . . James (Buster) Douglas scores one of the greatest upsets in the history of boxing when he knocks out undefeated heavyweight champion Mike Tyson.

Franklin R. Collbohm, 83, pioneering aviation engineer, dies in Palm Desert, Calif., after suffering a stroke.

The National Book Critics Circle presents awards to E. L. Doctorow, Michael Dorris, Rodney Jones, Geoffrey C. Ward, and James Clive.

Pres. Bush indicates that he will not immediately ask Congress to lift economic sanctions against South Africa in a news conference.

The American Bar Association votes for the first time to support a constitutional right to abortion.

The White House announces the U.S. military presence in Panama is now equal to the number of troops before the invasion.

Drexel Lambert Group Inc. file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from creditors.

According to a report by the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, the U.S. is decades behind many other countries-in the development of new birth-control methods. . . . The Justice Department files suit against six locals of the International Longshoremen’s Association in a move to end alleged influence by organized crime.

Feb. 10

Feb. 11

Feb. 12

Feb. 13

Voyager 1 indicates that its cameras took pictures of the solar system while 3.7 billion miles from Earth. . . . A rocket launched from Cape Canaveral puts two satellites into orbit to test reflection techniques.

A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., indicts Mayor Marion S. Barry Jr. (D) on eight counts of drug possession and perjury.

Feb. 14

Keyes Beech, 76, foreign correspondent who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1951, dies of emphysema in Washington, D.C.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 15

26—February 16–21, 1990

World Affairs

Europe East German premier Hans Modrow agrees that Poland should be included in reunification plans. . . . Romania’s interim defense minister Gen. Nicolae Militaru resigns, and Col. Gen. Victor Stanculescu replaces him. . . . Vladimir Vasilievich Shcherbitsky, 71, former member of the Soviet Politburo, dies in the USSR.

Feb. 16

Feb. 19

Feb. 20

U.S. secretary of state James Baker calls on the UN to adopt a global antinarcotics program. . . . Foreign ministers of the EC, meeting in Dublin, for the first time give unanimous approval to German unity. . . . The United Kingdom announces that it will unilaterally lift a ban on new investments in South Africa. The move angers members of the EC, which opposes easing economic sanctions against the white minority government in Pretoria until it makes greater steps to abolish apartheid.

Feb. 21

The Americas

Namibia’s Assembly votes to elect SWAPO leader Sam Nujoma as the nation’s first president. . . . . The partially burned body of Kenyan foreign minister Robert Ouko is found in Koru. . . . Army troops overrun the east Beirut headquarters of the Lebanese Forces in Ain al Rummaneh.

Asia & the Pacific A drafting committee gives final approval to a new constitution for Hong Kong, ending several years of negotiations over the island’s political future.

In Lebanon, Samir Geagea’s militiamen launch an attack on the army helicopter base at Adma. However, a shaky cease-fire brings at least a temporary halt after two weeks of fighting between rival Christian forces in Lebanon that has killed over 600 people. Gen. Michel Aoun takes advantage of the pause to evacuate his men from Adma, leaving it to Lebanese Forces control.

In Cuba, the Central Committee of the Communist Party announces a campaign to “perfect” and “revitalize” the nation’s political system.

In Romania, 1,000 anticommunist demonstrators storm the government’s headquarters and seize Interim Deputy Premier Gelu VoicanVoiculescu, before being persuaded by soldiers to leave the building.

In Israel, Trade and Industry Minister Ariel Sharon formally resigns from the cabinet.

Some 50,000 National Opposition Union supporters gather in Nicaragua for UNO’s final rally, which is described as the largest anti-Sandinista demonstration ever staged in Managua.

About 10,000 people rally in Nepal, even after 700 political dissidents were jailed prior to planned demonstrations. . . . Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party is a surprise winner in general elections for the lower house. . . . About 600 people establish the Mongolian Democratic Party, the first opposition party in modern Mongolian history. A series of prodemocracy protests begins in Mongolia.

In Romania, interim president Ion Iliescu calls for measures to strengthen the military and police after days of protests. . . . A Bulgarian government decree is made public that grants private farmers the right to choose methods of farming and to export produce. The decree sets no limit on the amount of land a private farmer can cultivate.

Three members of Lesotho’s ruling six-man military council and a fourth senior army officer are arrested for apparently plotting against the government of Major Gen. Justin Lekhanya. . . . Students begin to protest in the Ivory Coast by boycotting classes. . . . In South Africa, Defense Minister Magnus Malan confirms accounts of the existence of the covert unit euphemistically named the Civil Cooperation Bureau.

Bank clerks, prison employees, and construction workers strike, as Peru’s economic crisis deepens. . . . In Colombia, Amico Ferrari is freed after a Feb. 15 abduction. He conveys a list of targets of the National Liberation Army, including the U.S. ambassador to Colombia, Thomas McNamara, and U.S. military advisers in the country.

In Nepal, a general strike is called by the Movement to Restore Democracy, an alliance of banned political parties. . . . In an attempt to calm protests, Kashmir governor Shri Jagmohan dissolves the state legislature since rumors of election fraud anger Muslim separatists. . . . . U.S. defense secretary Dick Cheney meets with Defense Secretary Fidel Ramos to discuss aid and the future of U.S. bases in the Philippines.

The city of Bremen becomes the first West German city to declare a freeze on accepting East German resettlers. . . . Reports state that Albania is encouraging limited foreign joint ventures. . . . In response to the unrest, the National Salvation Front calls for new laws to maintain public order in Romania.

Government investigators state that Kenyan foreign minister Robert Ouko was shot once in the head.

Looting for food by groups of women and their children breaks out in the city of Córdoba, and riots spread in Argentina.

In Nepal, police open fire on protesters in the village of Jaddukuha, killing at least 3 people. Reports indicate that at least 12 people died in violent demonstrations that started two days earlier.

Polish premier Tadeusz Mazowiecki declares that Soviet troops will remain in Poland until the “German problem” is resolved. . . . Romania’s Col. Gen. Stanculescu assures reporters that the Securitate has been disbanded.

Maj. Gen. Justin Lekhanya. strips King Moshoeshoe II of his powers in Lesotho, a landlocked state completely encircled by South Africa.

In Argentina, looting spreads to Rosario, the site of rioting in 1989. The riots continue and spread to other cities, including a suburb of Buenos Aires.

Feb. 17

Feb. 18

Africa & the Middle East

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

February 16–21, 1990—27

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Former president Reagan gives videotaped testimony that he did not order any illegal acts in the Irancontra affair.

Federal district judge D. Brooks Smith approves a $30 million settlement of 20 lawsuits against Ashland Oil Inc. for a 1988 fuel spill into the Monongahela River. . . . Reports state the U.S. merchandise trade deficit shrank in 1989 to $108.58 billion, the smallest gap since 1984.

The R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. comes under fire for its plan to introduce a new cigarette, Dakota, aimed specifically at young, white, poorly educated, blue-collar women. The controversy comes in the wake of a furor involving another Reynolds cigarette, aimed at black smokers, that had been withdrawn in January following complaints that the company was exploiting African Americans.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Keith Haring, 31, New York graffiti artist, dies of complications from AIDS in NYC.

According to federal tax officials, many U.S.-based companies with foreign owners are currently undertaxed.

Feb. 16

Feb. 17

Feb. 18

The R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. denies Feb. 17 reports that Dakota is intended to appeal only to young women. . . . Francis Keppel, 73, U.S. commissioner of education, 1962–66, dies of cancer in Cambridge, Mass.

Miners at Pittston Co. vote to ratify a new contract and end a 10-month strike. The previous contract expired more than two years earlier. . . . The FDIC sues the Drexel Burnham Lambert Group, along with Shearson Lehman Hutton Holdings Inc., for allegedly participating in a scheme to defraud the failed Guaranty Federal Savings and Loan Association of Dallas.

The Supreme Court rules that a program for disabled children from poor families had been illegally restricted. . . . The Supreme Court states a woman could not use her Fifth Amendment right to refuse to reveal the whereabouts of her abused son. . . . Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan states cigarette smoking costs the U.S. more than $52 billion a year. . . . The Supreme Court lets stand a ruling by a federal appeals court that looks with disfavor on use of quotations from unpublished materials without permission.

Exxon Corp. agrees to renew the cleanup of Alaska beaches soiled by the Exxon Valdez oil spill in March 1989. . . . Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan presents a semiannual monetary policy report to the House Banking Committee’s subcommittee on domestic monetary policy. Greenspan expects the economy to grow modestly in 1990.

Federal district judge Barbara Rothstein strikes down the federal law enacted in 1989 to outlaw desecration of the American flag. . . . The Supreme Court rules that the Office of Management and Budget overreached the law in curbing health and safety disclosure regulations.

The U.S. State Department issues its annual report on the status of individual human rights around the world. Because of the revolutionary changes in Eastern Europe, the report argues that 1989 is likely to be considered “a watershed year regarding the worldwide cause of human rights.” The reports condemns other nations for human rights abuses, including China, Cuba, Israel, Cambodia, and El Salvador.

Soviet astronauts Aleksandr Viktorenko and Aleksandr Serebrov return safely to Earth after spending more than five months on the space station Mir.

Feb. 19

Feb. 20

Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca makes the first of several appearances in a nationwide campaign to improve Chrysler’s image. . . . Reports suggest that executives of Drexel Burnham Lambert Group Inc. received bonuses totaling between $300 and $350 million shortly before the firm filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. . . . The Supreme Court rules that interest-bearing promissory notes issued by a farmers’ cooperative are securities subject to federal regulation.

Feb. 21

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

28—February 22–27, 1990

World Affairs

Feb. 22

Feb. 23

Foreign Minister Gyula Horn expands on his notion that Hungary should have a nonmilitary role in NATO.

Feb. 24

Feb. 25

Feb. 26

A multinational Cambodian peace conference convenes in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Australia reveals a new peace plan.

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Czechoslovak and Soviet deputy foreign ministers Evzen Vacek and Ivan Aboimov, respectively, announce a basic withdrawal pact concerning Soviet troops.

After days of peace in Lebanon, Samir Geagea declares the interChristian war is over, but Gen. Michel Aoun warns the mediation is temporary . . . . Although the king’s palace in Lesotho is reported surrounded by soldiers, Maj. Gen. Justin Lekhanya denies that the monarch is under house arrest.

In Argentina, Buenos Aires authorities declare a provincial state of emergency and announce measures to provide food to the poor, suspend tax payments, and lower utility rates.

Japanese government leaders accept U.S. defense secretary Dick Cheney’s plan for withdrawal of 5,000 U.S. troops stationed in their country over the next two to three years.

Former Swiss justice minister Elisabeth Kopp is acquitted in Geneva of divulging official secrets. . . . The U.K. government formally lifts the investment ban and a ban on the promotion of tourism in South Africa.

In Kenya, memorial rites for Dr. Robert Ouko spark violence as riot police armed with tear gas and clubs clash with demonstrators. . . . About 200 students hold a peaceful sit-in at the Roman Catholic cathedral in the Ivory Coast.

José Napoleón Duarte Fuentes, 64, president of El Salvador, 1980–82 and 1984–89, dies in San Salvador.

Cambodian radio reports that forces loyal to Hun Sen’s government recaptured the town of Svay Chek. . . . In India, 400,000 proindependence protesters march peacefully in Srinagar in the largest such demonstration in decades.

Candidates backed by the Lithuanian nationalist organization win a majority of the seats in the Supreme Soviet in the first true multiparty contest in the USSR in 70 years. . . . Alessandro (Sandro) Pertini, 93, president of Italy, 1978–85, dies in his sleep in Rome.

Ivory Coast students end an occupation of a Roman Catholic church after supposedly receiving a promise of safe passage from the authorities. However, the protesters are then allegedly detained and beaten, prompting violent confrontations. Students are joined by striking civil service workers who demand the ouster of Pres. HouphouetBoigny. . . . A string of reports conclude that 70,000 refugees fled to the Ivory Coast and Guinea to escape fighting between the Liberian army and rebel forces in Dec. 1989.

The leader of the opposition Radical Civil Union, Eduardo Angeloz, refuses to join Pres. Carlos Menem’s cabinet in Argentina.

About 200,000 Kashmiri Muslims travel to a Muslim shrine in Charare-Sharif seeking divine help for the pro-independence movement. Indian police claim that at least 50,000 more had to turn back because of crowding on the narrow road from Srinagar.

More than 80,000 people participate in an anticommunist protest in Sofia, Bulgaria, the biggest demonstration since the ouster of Premier Todor Zhivkov. . . . A series of storms begins that cross Europe. . . . The refashioned Communist Party officially changes its name to the Party of Democratic Socialism in East Germany. . . . Hundreds of thousands of Soviets participate in peaceful nationwide prodemocracy marches.

In South Africa, Nelson Mandela gives a major pro-unity speech to a crowd of at least 60,000 in Natal.

In a startling political upset, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro of the National Opposition Union defeats incumbent president Daniel Ortega Saavedra in national elections, ending the 10-year rule of the Sandinista National Liberation Front in Nicarargua. Some 2,000 foreign observers monitor the election, and few irregularities are reported.

Ingvar Carlsson returns as Sweden’s premier by a vote of parliament after his Jan. 15 resignation, temporarily settling what is called Sweden’s biggest political crisis in 30 years. . . . The Soviet Union begins a phased withdrawal of troops from Czechoslovakia under an agreement reached in Moscow. . . . Israeli foreign minister Moshe Arens arrives in Poland and pays homage at monuments to the millions of Polish Jews slain during World War II. In Italy, three North Africans are beaten by a band of white youths. . . . Hungary files a protest over a recent Romanian ban on the import of Hungarian-language books to Romania’s Transylvania region. . . . Poland resumes full diplomatic relations with Israel.

Feb. 27

Africa & the Middle East

Peasants from a Peruvian village capture and decapitate four Sendero Luminoso guerillas. . . . Pres. Menem gives the Argentine military increased authority to repress civil unrest. . . . The first democratic transition of power in Nicaragua’s history starts alongside sporadic confrontations between UNO and Sandinista supporters.

Black nationalist leader Mandela arrives in Zambia for his first trip outside of South Africa in 27 years.

At a Nicaraguan rally of 10,000, Pres. Daniel Ortega states the contras have to demobilize before the Sandinistas give up control of the army and police. President-elect Chamorro urges the contras to disband quickly for a smooth transfer of power.

Senate opposition leader Juan Ponce Enrile is arrested in Manila for allegedly participating in the Dec. 1989 coup attempt. . . . In India, the Congress (I) party of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi faces a election setback in eight states, and at least 82 people are killed in clashes between rival political gangs.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

February 22–27, 1990—29

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Indiana Senate votes down legislation that would ban abortions in public hospitals, except in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the mother’s life, and that would require doctors to test for fetal viability beyond the 20th week of pregnancy. . . . Pres. Bush announces that he asked his domestic policy council to determine what steps can be taken “to restore common sense and fairness to America’s medical malpractice system.”

Foreign trade representative Carla Hills states the U.S. will fight any attempts by Europeans to close their markets to Japanese cars manufactured in U.S. “transplant” factories.

The Justice Department reportedly warns Alaska that it will proceed with plea bargaining talks with Exxon even without the state’s participation, and Alaska officials walk out of the negotiations.

A rocket with two Japanese satellites on board explodes 101 seconds after liftoff from Kourou, French Guiana.

Victor Lasky, 72, anticommunist journalist and author, dies of cancer in Washington, D.C.

Feb. 22

Pres. Bush names Arthur A. Fletcher as chairman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. . . . Bishop College in Dallas, Texas, once the largest black college in the western U.S., is sold in the first bankruptcy auction of an entire college in the U.S.

Retired Lt. Gen. James Maurice Gavin, 82, one of the U.S.’s top combat leaders in World War II, dies of complications from Parkinson’s disease in Baltimore, Md.

Federal regulators seize Imperial Savings and Mercury Savings, two of California’s largest savings and loan institutions.

The U.S. spacecraft Pioneer 11 flies beyond Neptune’s orbit, 2.8 billion miles from Earth, and out of the solar system.

Publisher’s Weekly lists The Bad Place by Dean R. Koontz as the top bestseller.

Feb. 23

West German chancellor Helmut Kohl meets with Pres. Bush at Camp David, Md.

Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, 70, chair of Forbes Inc., dies of a heart attack in Far Hills, N.J. . . . Anthony Richard (Tony) Conigliaro, 45, outfielder with the Boston Red Sox in the 1960s, dies of kidney failure.

The National Governors’ Association adopts a set of six goals designed to boost student achievement in the U.S. by the year 2000. The FEC reports that Sen. Phil Gramm (R, Tex.) raised almost $6 million in 1989, the highest total of anyone running for the Senate in 1990. Rep. Lynn M. Martin (R, Ill.), who plans to challenge the incumbent, raised $1.5 million, the highest total reported to the FEC by a challenger for a Senate seat. The House Energy and Commerce investigations subcommittee criticizes the FDA for allowing the continued sale of a heart valve after the manufacturer learned of fatal malfunctions.

Feb. 24

Feb. 25

Pres. Bush begins negotiations aimed at lifting economic sanctions imposed against Nicaragua in 1985. . . . The Supreme Court declines to review challenges to the military’s policy of barring homosexuals from service.

Rev. Bruce Ritter, founder of the Covenant House network of shelters for runaways, resigns in the wake of allegations that he had engaged in sexual misconduct with young male residents. . . . The Supreme Court rules states can treat mentally ill prisoners with antipsychotic drugs against their will without a court hearing.

Cornell Gunter, 53, lead singer of the Coasters doo-wop singing group, is shot and killed while driving his car in Las Vegas.

Exxon Corp. is indicted by a federal grand jury in Anchorage, Alaska, on criminal felony and misdemeanor charges stemming from the Exxon Valdez oil spill Mar. 24, 1989, in Prince William Sound.

Feb. 26

Feb. 27

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

30—February 28–March 5, 1990

World Affairs

Feb. 28

March 1

The multinational Cambodian peace conference concludes without reaching any agreements, and it is unclear whether talks will resume.

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Greville Maynard Wynne, 71, spy for the British secret intelligence service in the 1960s, dies of cancer in London.

Nelson Mandela gives a news conference in which he expresses support for Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian cause.

The Financial Times reports storms that started in Europe on Feb. 25 have killed 45 people in 8 countries, 14 of them from Britain . . . . Hungary’s parliament amends the constitution to allow direct presidential elections.

In Bulgaria, 20,000 people stage a prodemocracy protest in Sofia. . . . A parliamentary committee reveals that high-ranking officials, including Premier Miklos Nemeth, Acting President Matyas Szuros, and Minister of State Imre Pozsgay, received secret intelligence reports after Hungary revised its constitution in Oct. 1989. . . . Striking workers at two British Aerospace PLC plants approve a pact.

March 2

At the end of a two-day meeting in Lusaka, Zambia, the 35-member executive committee of the African National Congress formally names Nelson Mandela as deputy president. . . . Israel imposes military censorship on domestic and foreign news media coverage of the Jewish Soviet immigration issue.

Around 30,000 people demonstrate in Bern against secret surveillance of citizens, and the march ends in vandalism. The demonstration is prompted by revelations, first made in Nov. 1989, that the federal police had 900,000 secret security files on 200,000 Swiss citizens and foreigners. . . . Gerard Blitz, 78, Belgian founder of the Club Med empire of vacation villages, dies in Paris.

March 3

March 4

March 5

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega calls for an immediate cease-fire with the contras.

Several people are reported to have been killed by bomb attacks on public buildings in Srinagar, India.

In Peru, peasants ambush 20 Maoist guerrillas, decapitating nine. . . . Panamanian president Guillermo Endara begins a 12-day fast in solidarity with the poor. . . . Luis Alberto Lacalle is sworn in as president of Uruguay. . . . Zelia Cardoso de Mello becomes the first woman to serve in a major cabinet post in Brazil.

At least 32 people are killed when Indian security forces fire on crowds of pro-independence marchers in Srinagar.

President-elect Fernando Collor de Mello names José Antonio Lutzenberger, Brazil’s noted environmentalist, as minister of the environment. . . . Reports surface of widespread desertions of army draftees since Violeta Barrios de Chamorro’s election win in Nicaragua. . . . One soldier is killed, and 15 U.S. military personnel and 12 Panamanians are injured in a grenade attack on a nightclub in Panama City. . . . The Alberta government accepts a review panel’s recommendation to bar construction of a C$1.3 billion Japanese-controlled pulp mill until further environmental impact studies are completed.

Indian officials impose an indefinite curfew on Srinagar and the rest of the Vale of Kashmir. Police are ordered to shoot curfew violators on sight.

In Nicaragua, a military helicopter drops a grenade on the home of UNO member Trinidad Ubeda Gonzales as Sandinistas are unwilling to accept election results. Lenin Cherna, director of the state security service, refuses to recognize Chamarro’s authority, stating that “there is going to be a new government, but you cannot change the regime. I will never obey the orders of Violeta.”

Candidates from the Lithuanian nationalist organization solidify their legislative majority in run-off elections as 90 of the 141 seats in the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet are held by pro-independence deputies. . . . Peter Walker, the secretary of state for Wales, announces his decision to leave the British cabinet on good terms.

Black nationalist military officers sympathetic to the ANC overthrow Ciskei’s president-for-life, Lennox Sebe. During the coup, Sebe is in Hong Kong, but his son and three officers are arrested. . . . Mahmoud Hashemi, an Iranian envoy, meets with a Syrian Foreign Minister to discuss the release of hostages in Lebanon.

Eleven opposition groups and one civic group form a coalition to call for free elections and demand Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril’s resignation in Haiti. . . . Argentina unveils a new austerity plan aimed at cutting $2 billion in government spending over the next year.

Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev holds a closed-door meeting in Moscow with Lithuanian Communist Party leader Algirdas Brazauskas in an attempt to dissuade the Baltic republic from declaring its independence from the Soviet Union.

Ugandan wildlife officials report efforts to save the mountain gorilla from extinction is succeeding as the gorilla population increased from 300 to 450 over the four years. . . . Pres. Mengistu Haile Mariam calls for Ethiopia to scrap its economic system and replace it with a liberalized mixed economy. . . . South African soldiers are dispatched to Ciskei by Brig. Joshua Oupa Gqozo, who also expresses his regime’s sympathy for the ANC by releasing 500 political prisoners. . . . In his first news conference in five years, Pres. Félix Houphouët-Boigny blames multinational corporations for trying to destabilize the Ivory Coast.

In Haiti, an 11-year-old girl, Roseline Vaval, is killed by a stray bullet fired by a soldier breaking up a protest in Petit Goave. . . An economic austerity plan is met with protests from Argentine unions, as about 2,500 workers take control of the targeted bank to resist the planned closing. . . . In Cuba, mobs of youths raid two homes where representatives of four human rights groups met to discuss forming a national opposition front.

Fourteen people are killed when army units recapture a Philippines hotel seized by forces loyal to Rodolfo Aguinaldo. . . . In India, security forces raid the homes of suspected militants and arrest more than 100 activists. . . . In Mongolia, 20,000 prodemocracy protesters gather in Ulan Bator in the largest demonstration since 1989.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

February 28–March 5, 1990—31

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The Supreme Court rules Pennsylvania’s death penalty law is constitutional, removing a threat to 13 similar state laws. . . . The Supreme Court states police arresting a suspect in his home can conduct a search to ensure they are not in danger without a warrant. . . . The Supreme Court upholds a search abroad of a foreigner’s property by U.S. officials without a warrant.

Zulu chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi urges Pres. Bush to lift economic sanctions against Pretoria. . . . U.S. humanitarian aid to the contras in Nicaragua expires.

Around 24,000 gallons of heating oil leak from a hole in an Exxon barge at Bayonne.

An earthquake that registers 5.5 on the Richter scale, strikes southern California, causing minor damage to buildings and roadways from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border.

Dr. Antonia Coello Novello is confirmed as surgeon general, the first woman and the first Hispanic to hold the position. . . . Researchers at Harvard University find that thousands of people in New York State die or are injured each year in hospitals because of medical negligence.

A compromise on clean-air legislation is announced by the Senate and White House. . . . Around 3,500 gallons of oil spill from a barge at Exxon Corp.’s Bayway plant. . . . The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approves a license for the Seabrook, N.H., nuclear power plant, despite protests. About 30 protesters are arrested.

The FDA approves the use of AZT in patients who are infected with the AIDS virus but do not have the disease itself. . . . A bipartisan commission recommends legislation to provide health insurance to every American, a plan estimated to cost $66.2 billion per year. . . . A retired federal judge, Arlin M. Adams, is named special prosecutor to investigate allegations that former Housing and Urban Development officials siphoned federal money into housing projects backed by prominent Republicans.

Japanese premier Toshiki meets with Pres. Bush in Springs, Calif., to discuss imbalance between the two tries.

Publishing tycoon Walter H. Annenberg donates an unprecedented $50 million to the United Negro College Fund. The gift is said to the largest ever given for black colleges.

Pres. Bush gives a news conference where he declares a U.S. policy that no new Jewish settlements should be built “in the West Bank or east Jerusalem.” His remarks precipitate an uproar over the next week.

For the second time in two weeks, a federal district judge declares unconstitutional a law that makes it a crime to burn the American flag. . . . The Supreme Court rejects two appeals by death-row inmates to reopen their cases in light of legal rulings since their trials. . . . The Supreme Court overturns a provision of North Carolina’s death penalty law that requires unanimous consent for a jury to consider mitigating circumstances. . . . The Supreme Court condones use of evidence obtained in violation of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel to impeach a defendant’s “false or inconsistent testimony” in court.

Kaifu Palm trade coun-

A nationwide strike against Greyhound Lines Inc. begins by the Amalgamated Transit Union. . . . Exxon suspends its tanker and barge traffic at the Bayway refinery and Bayonne terminal, pending investigations of recent spills. . . . Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Richard Breeden testifies before a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee on the implications of the collapse of Drexel Burnham Lambert Group Inc.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Feb. 28

The continuing failure of longterm negotiations between Major League Baseball team owners and the players’ union postpones the formal opening of spring training.

The National Research Council warns that Pres. Bush’s proposal for a base on the Moon and a manned mission to Mars is “comprehensive and robust” but under current technology such missions pose “unacceptable risks to the crew.”

March 1

March 2

An international team completes the longest unmechanized crossing of the Antarctic continent. The team, which set out on July 28, 1989, used only skis and dog sleds on its 3,800-mile trek. The group is led by Jean-Louis Étienne of France and Will Steger of the U.S.

U.S. space shuttle Atlantis reportedly deploys a $500 million defense spy satellite capable of producing high-resolution pictures of the Soviet Union as well as communications intercepts. Reports of the mission emerge after a touchdown at Edwards Air Force Base since a news blackout had been imposed earlier.

Greyhound chairman Fred G. Currey reveals that the company put aside millions of dollars in a special strike fund to hire and train replacement workers. . . . American Express reverses an effort to loosen ties with its struggling Shearson Lehman Hutton Inc. subsidiary and states it will buy up the remaining 31% of public shares.

New York City’s Roman Catholic archbishop, Cardinal John O’Connor, reveals that priests performed two exorcisms within the past year.

After a delay, the trial of former national security adviser John Poindexter opens in Washington, D.C. . . . The U.S. agrees to remove thousands of nerve-gas artillery shells from a base in Clausen in southern West Germany, where they had been stored since 1967 . . . . A Nicaraguan economic adviser, Francisco Mayorga Balladares, meets in Washington, D.C., with Secretary of State James Baker and asks for U.S. aid.

IBM announces it will not exclusively supply its computers with software made by Microsoft Corp. . . . General Motors announces it will merge two engine manufacturing units into one.

A commercially sponsored television news program, “Channel One,” designed for classrooms debuts in 400 schools. . . . Gary Merrill, 74, actor, dies of lung cancer in Portland, Maine. . . . Hank Gathers, center of the Loyola Marymount college basketball team, collapses during a game and dies less than two hours later.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 3

March 4

March 5

32—March 6–11, 1990

March 6

March 7

March 8

World Affairs

Europe

The UN Commission on Human Rights pass a resolution that expresses concern about human rights violations in Cuba. . . . East German premier Hans Modrow meets with Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, who does not agree to NATO membership for a unified Germany.

In France, a handcuffed and unarmed Algerian suspect is killed by police. . . . Protests against the British government’s new poll tax turn violent and last four days. . . . Election returns in the Soviet Slavic republics of Russia, Byelorussia, and the Ukraine show that radical reformists and nationalists score notable gains. However, as many as 70% of the races are undecided and therefore subject to run-offs.

The UN Human Rights Commission agrees to begin a special investigation into human rights abuses in Haiti.

In an interview, First Secretary Algirdas Brazauskas discloses that Pres. Gorbachev told him Lithuania will have to compensate the Soviet Union with money and territory if it wishes to secede. . . . Swiss president and justice minister Arnold Koller pledges a new law to put security police under the control of parliament. . . . Jay Lovestone, 91, Lithuanian-born former head of the American Communist Party who later became a staunch anticommunist, dies in NYC.

West German chancellor Helmut Kohl flies to Brussels, where he addresses representatives of NATO. . . . Eight nations bordering on the North Sea agree on a pact to cut water pollution.

March 9

March 10

March 11

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Brig. Joshua Oupa Gqozo’s government declares a state of emergency in an effort to halt looting and rioting. . . . The U.S. charges that Libya is producing poison gas at Rabta. . . . Sudanese leader Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir and Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi sign a pact paving the way for a merger between Sudan and Libya in four years.

In Nicaragua, Pres. Daniel Ortega announces a repeal of the decadeold law that restrains freedom of expression.

An Afghan air force jet bombs the presidential palace in Kabul in a coup attempt led by Defense Minister Shahnawaz Tanai.

In Bophuthatswana, a crowd of 50,000 ask for the resignation of Pres. Lucas Mangope and reincorporation into South Africa. Local police open fire, and at least seven people are reported killed and 450 injured. . . . In Ethopia, thousands of students march to demonstrate their support for the planned reforms.

In Colombia, the National Liberation Army rebel group issues a statement claiming it abducted 15 public officials.

Ten prodemocracy activists begin a hunger strike in Mongolia. . . . Fighting between the rival military factions continue in Afghanistan.

In Britain, violent protests of the poll tax continue. The worst violence occurs in the London borough of Hackney, where 60 people are arrested and 29 police officers are hurt after some protesters in a crowd of about 4,000 turn violent.

In Haiti, some 10,00 people attend the burial of Roseline Vaval, slain Mar. 5. in Petit Goave. A soldier and civilian are killed near the town during protests. At least one other person is killed in protests by thousands of demonstrators who burn cars and set up flaming barricades in towns and cities around the country. Several businesses shut down and remain closed for a week. In Port-au-Prince, 3,000 people converge to demand Gen. Prosper Avril’s ouster. . . . In Cuba, mobs riot outside Human Rights Committee director Gustavo Arcos’s home.

Afghan military forces led by Defense Minister Shahnawaz Tanai fail to oust the government of Pres. Najibullah. Afghan radio reports at least 56 people were killed in the revolt.

Western sources claim East German Stasi files and technical equipment are being turned over to the Soviet Union. . . . The Georgian Supreme Soviet condemns the republic’s 1921 forced incorporation into the USSR and demands talks with the Kremlin over independence. . . . In Paris, a cafe owner shoots two Arab youths, killing one.

Opposition leaders keep up their demand for Prosper Avril to resign and call on Haitians to stage a strike if the president does not step down in the next three days. . . . In Colombia, the M-19 rebel group leader Carlos Pizarro signs a peace pact with Pres. Virgilio Barco, ending 16 years of armed struggle.

In Mongolia, 29 people who went on hunger strikes call off their protest after hearing reports of Pres. Jambyn Batmonh’s intention to resign.

In France, a driver deliberately runs down and kills a Moroccan student, according to witnesses. . . . (Robert) Michael Maitland Stewart, 83, retired British foreign secretary, dies in London.

An Iraqi revolutionary court convicts a freelance correspondent for a British newspaper, Farzad Bazoft, of espionage and sentences him to death, ignoring international pleas for clemency. Daphne Parish, 53, a British nurse who drove Bazoft, is sentenced to 15 years in jail. . . . Lesotho’s military ruler, Maj. Gen. Justin Lekhanya, sends King Moshoeshoe II into temporary exile in Britain after a bitter power struggle.

In Haiti, violent protests continue, and soldiers kill eight youths. Pres. Prosper Avril resigns. . . . Cuban security police arrest eight human rights activists, accusing them of holding illegal meetings and claiming they are paving the way for a U.S. invasion. . . . In Nicaragua, the General Amnesty and National Reconciliation Law passes, which grants amnesty to public officials for all economic crimes and to contras and Sandinista soldiers for crimes committed during the contra war.

The Supreme Soviet of Lithuania declares the republic’s independence from the Soviet Union. It is the first Soviet republic to attempt to secede . . . British prime minister Thatcher sends an immediate appeal for clemency to Iraqi Pres. Hussein after hearing of the Mar. 10 convictions of British citizens. . . . Philippe Soupault, 92, French writer and poet who was one of the founders of the Surrealism movement in the 1920s, dies in Paris.

Reports confirm that Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gadhafi has released Abu Nidal (Sabry alBanna), the notorious Palestinian terrorist, from house arrest in Tripoli. . . . In Israel, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir again refuses to put a new peace plan matter to a vote, prompting the Labor ministers to storm out of the cabinet.

Political leaders describe Haiti as on the brink of chaos, with some 20 people having been killed in the preceding 24 hours. Supreme Court justice Ertha Pascal-Trouillot is chosen by a coalition of opposition leaders to lead the government. . . . Patricio Aylwin is sworn in as president of Chile, returning the nation to a democratic tradition that ended in 1973.

Around 5,000 Mongolian Communists gather in front of Ulan Bator’s Lenin Museum to assail the opposition movement.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

March 6–11, 1990—33

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The Senate confirms Clarence Thomas, chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, as a judge on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Wealthy Saudi Arabians donate a total of $2 million to former first lady Nancy Reagan’s antidrug campaign.

William Francis Raborn Jr., 84, one-time head of the CIA, dies of cardiac arrest in MacLean, Va.

Three crew members of Northwest Airlines are arrested upon landing in Minneapolis–St. Paul after FAA officials receive information that they are flying while under the influence of alcohol. . . . A doctor who worked for a city-owned hospital in NYC reaches a settlement in a lawsuit which claims she contracted AIDS after pricking herself on a contaminated needle. . . . A national transportation plan is unveiled at the White House and runs into heavy flak from Capitol Hill and state and local officials.

Following a CBS News report, the White House admits Pres. Bush had been duped into taking a telephone call from someone purporting to be Iranian president Ali Rafsanjani. . . . Former president Richard Nixon gives a foreign-policy speech to the House Republican Conference and holds his first Washington news conference since his 1974 resignation.

The Senate votes to confirm John R. Dunne as assistant attorney general for civil rights. . . . Three Northwest crew members have their licenses revoked by the FAA after blood alcohol tests show they exceeded drinking limits.

The Pentagon unveils a two-year, $2 billion program to combat the smuggling of illegal drugs into the U.S. . . . Oliver North testifies he never hid his contra-related activities from John Poindexter and operated under Poindexter’s instructions.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The U.S. Postal Service proposes a record rate increase that would raise the price of a first-class stamp by 19%, to 30 cents from the current 25 cents. . . . A barge explosion dumps up to 200,000 gallons of heating oil into the Arthur Kill waterway in New York Harbor.

An Air Force SR-71 Blackbird supersonic spy plane, crewed by Lt. Col. Raymond E. Yeilding and Lt. Col. Joseph T. Vida, sets a transcontinental speed record before being retired from service by congressional mandate.

Joe Sewell, 91, baseball player in the 1920s and 1930s, dies in Mobile, Ala.

Teachers in W.Va. leave their jobs to demand better pay and an upgrade of the state’s education system in the first statewide teachers’ walkout. . . . The Labor Department charges Burger King Corp. with violating child-labor laws.

Three people are killed and 162 are injured in Philadelphia when a subway train derails and crashes into tunnel support beams.

A study in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that babies of older mothers are just as healthy as those born to younger mothers and are no more likely to be born prematurely or to die in infancy. . . . The first large-scale study of RU-486 finds the abortion pill to be as safe and effective as surgical abortion.

March 7

Kurt Browning of Canada repeats as men’s titlist at the World Figure Skating Championships.

Sporadic violence begins during the Greyhound strike.

A bullet shot from an overpass pierces a Greyhound bus roof and injured seven people during protests near Jacksonville, Fla.

March 6

March 8

March 9

Studies show that an unexpectedly high percentage of AIDS patients who took the experimental drug DDI through an unusual free distribution system died.

The Houston Post ends a more than month-long series of reports that allege at least 22 now-insolvent thrifts made loans to individuals who have links to the CIA, organized crime, or both.

Martial Jean-Paul Singher, 85, baritone and opera singer, dies of heart disease at in Santa Barbara, Calif. . . . Jill Trenary narrowly wins the women’s title in the World Figure Skating Championships.

The Roman Catholic archbishop of Los Angeles, Roger Mahony, sends a letter to 3,500 priests and nuns in the archdiocese, asking for 10 volunteers to test an experimental AIDS vaccine developed by polio vaccine pioneer Dr. Jonas Salk.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 10

March 11

34—March 12–17, 1990

World Affairs

March 12

March 13

March 14

The two German states, Great Britain, France, the U.S., and the USSR open talks on German reunification in Bonn. . . . Iraq rejects an offer by U.K.’s foreign secretary Douglas Hurd to talk with Pres. Saddam Hussein. . . . The International Monetary Fund approves the first installment of $206 million in standby credit for Hungary.

March 15

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In the midst of an amnesty program for 700,000 illegal aliens, Florentine police clear the city of unlicensed street vendors, mostly from Somalia and Senegal. . . . The Soviet congress holds a special session to consider a package of constitutional amendments. . . . An East German official states 4,000 foreign espionage employees of Stasi will be reduced to 250 by June.

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter starts a visit to the Middle East. . . . Reports surface that Madagascar will permit multiparty politics, ending a ban from 1975. . . . Sudan’s news agency reports that 69 people were killed in Darfur in an ancient feud over grazing rights. Between 2,000 and 3,000 people died in the feud since 1989 alone.

President Gen. Prosper Avril leaves Haiti for Florida on a U.S. military transport jet with his wife and two children. . . . In Chile, Pres. Patricio Aylwin moves to the issue of human rights abuses committed during the Pinochet years by announcing a decree releasing “numerous” political prisoners. . . . Nicaragua’s president Daniel Ortega meets with U.S. vice president Dan Quayle in Chile.

In Ulan Bator, Mongolia, General Secretary Jambyn Batmonh paves the way for the changes at a historic Central Committee meeting when he and the entire Communist Politburo officially offer their resignations. Batmonh vows the Communists will work with opposition forces to make sweeping political changes.

The Soviet Congress repeals the Communist Party’s political monopoly, revamps and strengthens the presidency. . . . Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev calls Lithuania’s Mar. 11 declaration “illegitimate and invalid” and bars negotiations over secession with any of the Baltic republics. . . . The mayor of Florence, Giorgio Morales, resigns after a feud over the Mar. 12 action against street vendors. . . . The Irish Supreme Court refuses to extradite two convicted Provisional Irish Republican Army members who escaped from jail.

Liberian president Samuel K. Doe accuses local government officials of having helped stir the unrest in Nimba County, where the army had been battling an incursion by rebels since Dec. 1989. . . . In Israel, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir fires Labor Party member Shimon Peres, which prompts the rest of the Labor ministers to immediately resign.

Supreme Court justice Ertha Pascal-Trouillot is sworn in as interim president of Haiti. Her appointment marks the first time since Duvalier’s overthrow that Haitian civilians choose their own leader. . . . Brazil’s central bank orders the closing of all banks pending the announcement of president-elect Collor’s economic program. . . . Reports surface that 6 people were killed when a long-standing land feud flared in Piate, an agricultural community in Haiti.

A Philippine military spokesman discloses that suspended provincial governor Rodolfo Aguinaldo is hiding with pygmy tribesmen in the far north of the Philippines. . . . The government of Papua New Guinea withdraws its troops from Bougainville.

In East Germany, Democratic Awakening leader Wolfgang Schnur resigns amid allegations that he had been an informer for the Stasi. . . . The Soviet congress votes to choose the new executive president itself, and then have the president chosen by a popular election in 1995.

Reports emerge that a Libyan factory alleged by the U.S. to be producing chemical weapons is on fire. A spokesman for Libya’s official news agency, JANA, states Libya “does not rule out Israeli or American sabotage.” Pres. Bush denies “absolutely” any American role.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro launches a visit to Brazil to attend the inauguration of Fernando Collor de Mello as Brazil’s new president and to strengthen ties with Latin America.

The Central Committee of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party votes to relinquish its constitutionally guaranteed monopoly on power, and it selects a new reformist leader and an entirely new Politburo. Gombojavyn Ochirbat, a former party official, replaces General Secretary Jambyn Batmonh.

The Soviet congress elects Gorbachev to a five-year term as executive president, and it votes to invalidate Lithuania’s Mar. 11 declaration. . . . A bomb explodes at a mosque in Rennes. Police describe the attack as the latest manifestation of racial tensions in France. . . . In East Germany, Rev. Rainer Eppelmann is named to succeed Wolfgang Schnur as chairman of the Democratic Awakening Party. . . . The Roman Catholic Church and the Soviet Union re-establish diplomatic ties for the first time since 1923.

Iraq ignores international pleas for clemency and promptly hangs Iranian-born Farzad Bazoft, severely straining relations between Iraq and the United Kingdom. . . . Libyan and U.S. officials report the plant at Rabta is extensively damaged from the blaze reported Mar. 14 and will be out of operation indefinitely. . . . In Israel, P.M. Shamir grants recognition to Modai’s group as an independent party allied to Likud. . . . Despite unprecedented protests against the Ivory Coast’s austerity plan, the government announces it will cut salaries for public-sector employees.

Fernando Collor de Mello is sworn in as president of Brazil, marking the first democratically elected regime in Brazil in three decades. . . . The Supreme Court of Canada, in a unanimous landmark decision, rules that French-speaking parents in Edmonton have a right to administer their own publicly financed schools in a case begun in 1982.

Batmonh remains Mongolia’s president, but the state newspaper reports that he has offered to resign tha post as well. . . . In Taiwan, the members of the National Assembly provoke a great furor by granting itself veto power over legislation, the right to meet annually, and a 400% pay raise.

March 16

Dr. Jonathan Mann, the founder and director of the World Health Organization’s Global Program on AIDS, resigns unexpectedly.

Soviet president Gorbachev orders the Lithuanian government to rescind its Mar. 11 declaration of independence by Mar. 19. . . . Ambulance workers across Britain formally end their six-month industrial dispute.

The Israeli Knesset votes out the government of P.M. Yitzhak Shamir after he refuses to accept a U.S. plan for beginning Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

A group calling itself the December 20 Movement after the date of the U.S. invasion of Panama claims credit for the Mar. 2 bombing of a Panamanian nightclub and the crash of two U.S. helicopters. . . . Nicholas Braithwaite is appointed prime minister in Grenada after the governor general, Sir Paul Scoon, persuades Ben Jones to step down. . . . Under the amnesty law, 73 ex-Sandinista soldiers and 11 contras are freed, leaving Nicaragua with no remaining political prisoners.

In Taiwan, demonstrations against the National Assembly’s new authority are held in Chiang Kaishek Square.

March 17

The foreign ministers of the Warsaw Pact nations meet in Prague to discuss the German issue.

The Lithuanian parliament form a noncommunist coalition government and choose economist Kazimiera Prunskiene as premier. Thousands of people stage an antiindependence rally in Vilnius after Soviet military helicopters drop leaflets encouraging ethnic Russians to attend the protest. . . . A national opera house built on the site of the former Bastille prison in Paris has its grand opening.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis march in government-sponsored demonstrations in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, chanting anti-British slogans and expressing support for Farzad Bazoft’s execution.

Antiriot police evict striking workers from Mexico City’s Cervecería Modelo brewery. . . . A restored 19th-century opera house located in Mana´us, Brazil, reopens for the first time in more than 80 years.

South Korean president Roh Tae Woo announces a cabinet shuffle. Although these are the first changes since Roh’s conservative ruling party merged with two opposition parties, only three of 15 new ministers are from the opposition groups.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

March 12–17, 1990—35

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Oliver North admits he saw John Poindexter destroy an order, purportedly signed by Pres. Reagan, that permitted the CIA to become involved in an Israeli shipment of missiles to Iran and referred to the shipment as an arms-for-hostages deal. . . . The U.S. State Department and the White House reiterate U.S. support for Lithuanian selfdetermination but decline to recognize Lithuanian sovereignty.

Nynex Corp. formally disputes charges by the FCC that it overcharged customers for a number of years.

Walter Orr Roberts, 74, climatologist who was one of the first scientists to warn that human technology is changing the Earth’s climate and founded the National Center for Atmospheric Research, dies of cancer in Boulder, Colo.

Swimmer Janet Evans is named the winner of the Sullivan Award as the nation’s top amateur athlete for 1989. . . . Gene Klein, 69, former owner of the National Football League’s San Diego Chargers, dies in La Jolla, Calif., after a heart attack.

Oliver North testifies the secret Iranian arms sales were known throughout the government. North confirms that officials of the National Security Council considered sending then-Vice President George Bush as an emissary to Iran in early 1986. . . . Pres. Bush lifts all economic sanctions against Nicaragua and sends to Congress an emergency request for $300 million in aid to help rebuild that nation’s war-torn economy. . . . Graham Anderson Martin, 77, last U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam, dies of a heart ailment in WinstonSalem, North Carolina.

A House committee unanimously votes in favor of a bill that will give increased authority to the Securities and Exchange Commission to curb program trading. . . . An empty bus is set on fire by a flare in a bus yard in Fresno, Calif., during the Greyhound strike.

The National Academy of Sciences finds that the U.S.’s child-care system is inadequate and requires a major increase in federal spending to meet the needs of American families.

A court challenge to the Seabrook, N.H., nuclear plant is rejected by the U.S. Court of Appeals. . . . California’s Columbia Savings and Loan Association announces a plan to sell off its entire junk-bond portfolio, which was the largest junkbond portfolio ever put up for sale.

Ellen Glasser, a FBI agent, testifies that John Poindexter deleted more than 5,000 messages from his computer as investigations started in Nov. 1986. . . . Talks on opening up Japan’s markets to foreign satellites break off and are not likely to resume. . . . A number of observances are held to mark the fifth anniversary of the kidnapping of Terry A. Anderson, the AP correspondent who is the longest-held Western hostage in Lebanon.

March 13

A $150 million communications satellite fails when it cannot properly clear from its Titan-3 rocket launcher. The International Telecommunications Satellite Organization, or Intelsat, satellite settles into a lopsided orbit ranging from 90 to 130 miles from Earth.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission signs a full-power operating license for Seabrook nuclear power plant. . . . The Labor Department reports that a 530-person “strike force” found alleged child-labor violations involving 7,000 youngsters at Burger King franchises.

MCA Inc. buys Geffen Records from its founder and owner, David Geffen, for a reported $545 million in stock, which makes MCA one of the largest record companies in the U.S.

A record-store clerk in Sarasota, Fla., is charged with selling harmful materials to a minor after he sold the album As Nasty as They Wanna Be by 2 Live Crew to an 11-year-old girl. A judge in Broward County, Fla., rules that same album obscene and bans its sale in the county. . . . Thomas Dudley (Tom) Harmon, 70, football hero and sports broadcaster, dies in Los Angeles after a heart attack.

An International Telecommunications Satellite Organization, or Intelsat, satellite is nudged into a slightly higher orbit by engineers at ground control at Cape Canaveral, Florida, which stretches the life expectancy of the satellite from weeks to months. Martin Marietta Corp., blames the mishap on faulty wiring in its Titan-3 booster rocket.

A firebomb destroys a building that housed a local DEA office in Fort Myers, Florida. No injuries are reported, but officials say that files are destroyed and more than $4 million in damage has been done to the building and its contents.

March 12

Pope John Paul II and a delegation of American Jewish leaders meet at the Vatican for the first time in two years.

The $500 million spy satellite launched by the U.S. in February suffers a “disabling malfunction,” according to U.S. and Soviet officials. The satellite is expected to fall from orbit and reenter the Earth’s atmosphere within four weeks.

March 14

March 15

March 16

March 17

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

36—March 18–23, 1990

World Affairs

March 20

March 21

Africa & the Middle East

An alliance of conservative parties backed by West German chancellor Helmut Kohl scores a surprising triumph in East German general elections. It is the first free election in that part of Germany since 1932 and is also the first national election in a Warsaw Pact nation since reforms in the Eastern bloc in 1989. . . . Soviet forces in Lithuania begin large-scale maneuvers that include almost daily flyovers of Vilnius by military jets.

March 18

March 19

Europe

French foreign minister Roland Dumas states the German moves toward unity should not hinder the attempts by the 12-nation European Community to establish an open internal market by the end of 1992.

Romanians and ethnic Hungarians clash in Tirgu Mures, leaving at least three people dead and hundreds injured in the worst inter-ethnic conflict in Romania since World War II. . . . Although the Mar. 19 deadline is disregarded by Lithuania, Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev meets with Lithuanian deputies and issues a warning against the republic’s printing its own currency, opening its own customs posts, or taking over state-owned enterprises.

Hungarian premier Miklos Nemeth calls for UN intervention in Transylvania. . . . U.S. secretary of state James Baker meets with Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, to attend Namibian independence ceremonies. Canada says it will lift its sanctions against Namibia and provide over $4 million in aid.

An estimated 70,000 Hungarians hold an anti-Romania rally in Budapest. . . . Lithuania forms a paramilitary security force, the Volunteer Society for Cooperation with the Army and Navy. . . . Lord (Nathaniel Mayer Victor) Rothschild, 79, third baron of Rothschild, zoologist, business executive, and a member of the famous European banking family, dies of unreported causes.

Namibia, formerly known as SouthWest Africa, becomes the world’s newest independent nation, ending 75 years of South African control. U.S. president George Bush lifts economic sanctions imposed on Namibia while it was controlled by South Africa.

Romania’s National Salvation Front declares a state of emergency in Tirgu Mures and sends in 500 troops. . . . British home secretary David Waddington announces a new police inquiry of the Birmingham Six, who were serving life sentences for two 1974 bombings that killed 21 people. The six prisoners claim confessions had been coerced. . . . Soviet president Gorbachev bans the sale or ownership of firearms in Lithuania.

In Sudan, reports emerge that fighting between rebels and government groups prevented emergency food shipments from reaching the war zone, threatening hundreds of thousands of people with famine.

Pres. F. W. de Klerk meets with Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze in the first meeting between a ranking Soviet minister and a South African head of state. . . . ANC leader Nelson Mandela meets with U.S. secretary of state Baker in the firstever senior-level contact between the U.S. and Mandela.

A Soviet military convoy rolls through Vilniusto, pressuring Lithuania to back down from its declaration of independence. Lithuania’s head of volunteer security, Gen. Taruiskis, reveals he began to comply with the Soviet order to disarm the force. . . . Ethnic Albanians attack Serbs and Montenegrins in Kosovo in response to rumors that the Slavic minority poisoned Albanian children.

March 22

The Soviet government curbs movements of foreign journalists in Lithuania, gives Western diplomats 12 hours to leave the republic, and restricts entry into Lithuania by foreigners. . . . In Bulgaria, reports emerge that concentration camps during the regime of ousted Communist leader Todor Zhivkov killed or tortured hundreds of prisoners in the 1950s and 1960s. . . . Britain’s Duchess of York (Sarah Ferguson), wife of Prince Andrew, gives birth to her second child in London.

March 23

Reports indicate that the Palestine Liberation Organization has been lobbying the Soviet Union to curb Russian-Jewish immigration to Israel for the past two months.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Violent riots erupt in Haiti and continue for five days.

In Taiwan, protests reach a peak when 20,000 people rally in the park to demand democratic changes and the removal of the aging assembly members.

In a major initiative, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney states that Canada will forgive C$182 million (US$154 million) in debt owed by Caribbean countries. . . . Brazil’s financial markets are at a virtual standstill as they feel the effects of the liquidity squeeze resulting from President Fernando Collor de Mello’s program.

Governor Joseph F. Ada (R) of the U.S. Pacific island territory of Guam signs into law a measure that contains the most restrictive abortion curbs in the U.S.

Thirteen people, including 11 members of a neighborhood defense group, are killed in Petite Goave, Haiti. . . . Nicaragua’s National Assembly grants lifelong immunity to presidents and other officials elected since 1984 and to future ones during their terms of office. . . . Venezuela reaches an agreement to reduce its $20 billion commercial bank debt, becoming the fourth country to do so under the developing-country debt strategy launched by U.S. treasury secretary James Brady in March 1989.

Guam’s attorney general, Elizabeth Barrett-Anderson, files charges against an anti-abortion law to force a constitutional review. . . . The National People’s Congress, China’s parliament, opens, and Chinese premier Li Peng vows that socialism would “stand rock firm” in his country.

Gen. Gustavo Leigh Guzmán, a one-time member of the military junta that ruled Chile for 16 years, is shot 5 times and critically wounded. A leftist guerrilla group claims responsibility for the shooting. . . . Gen. Isidro Caceres, the Argentine chief of staff, dies after a heart attack left him in a coma earlier. . . . Argentina’s Peronist labor leaders orchestrate a national strike that shuts down schools, the state airline, and government offices.

Mongolia’s People’s Great Hural (parliament) chooses Punsalmaagiyn Ochirbat as the new president of Mongolia and Sharavyn Gunjaadorj as the country’s new premier. . . . Taiwan’s National Assembly reelects President Lee Teng-hui to a six-year term. Lee is the only official candidate, and the vote comes amid growing prodemocracy protests in the capital city, Taipei.

Bernardo Jaramillo Ossa, presidential candidate of the leftist Patriotic Union, is shot and killed at the El Dorado airport in Bogotá, the second Colombian presidential candidate to be slain in seven months. . . . Argentine president Carlos Menem appoints Antonio Ermán Gonzalez, his finance minister, to assume control of the central bank.

Taiwan’s president Lee Teng-hui meets with representatives of 4,000 prodemocracy student protesters. He makes promises of democratic reforms but insists that changes will take time. Although protest leaders are not entirely satisfied, students withdraw from the square.

In Haiti, reports suggest that at least 40 people have been killed in riots that started Mar. 18. . . . In Nicaragua, 12 soldiers are killed and 10 people, including 2 civilians, are wounded in a contra ambush of an army truck. Separately, the Nicaraguan contras agree to dismantle their camps in Honduras.

A federal judge in Guam issues a restraining order barring enforcement of a law that calls for the strictest curbs on abortion in the U.S.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

March 18–23, 1990—37

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Walter Staunton Mack, 94, former president of Pepsi-Cola Co., dies of heart disease at his home in NYC.

Teachers in West Virginia return to classes in exchange for a promise by state legislative leaders to work toward increasing teachers’ pay and improving education programs. . . . The Bush administration proposes a five-year, $22 billion program for aviation facilities and equipment, airport improvements, and research and development.

The Defense Department pledges to take steps to aid the press in covering U.S. military operations after complaints that the military obstructed coverage of the 1989 invasion of Panama. . . . The trial of former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos begins in NYC. Marcos is charged with 4 counts of racketeering, fraud, and obstruction of justice.

The Seabrook, N.H., nuclear power plant is turned on, 14 years after construction began. . . . A brief “site area emergency” is declared at the Plant Vogtle nuclear power plant near Augusta, Ga., when the plant suddenly loses electrical power.

The Supreme Court lifts a permanent gag on disclosure by grand jury witnesses.

A district judge rules former president Reagan does not have to provide John Poindexter’s defense team with his diaries since that information is duplicated in Reagan’s taped testimony, which is shown to the jury. . . . Polish premier Tadeusz Mazowiecki and Pres. Bush sign a treaty that will further open Poland to U.S. investment.

The Supreme Court rules migrant farm workers who are injured on the job are entitled to sue employers under the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Workers Protection Act.

The Idaho Senate approves legislation that bans most abortions in the state. The law is designed to give the Supreme Court an opportunity to reconsider its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

Former attorney general Meese testifies John Poindexter did not try to hide details of the Iran-contra arms scandal from Congress.

A state jury in Anchorage, Alaska, convicts Joseph J. Hazelwood, captain of the oil tanker Exxon Valdez, of negligence, a misdemeanor, in the trial involving the worst oil spill in U.S. history. . . . Pres. Bush nominates T. Timothy Ryan Jr. to succeed M. Danny Wall as head of the Office of Thrift Supervision.

New Hampshire’s transportation commissioner, Wallace Stickney, is selected as the new head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Trade negotiators announce a new pact that will make Japanese markets more open to U.S.-made supercomputers.

The Energy Department discloses it is monitoring a hydrogen buildup in nuclear-waste storage tanks at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington State.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Two thieves disguised as policemen break into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and steal 13 priceless artworks. The paintings are estimated to worth $100 million, making the robbery the largest art theft in the world.

The New York Times reports that a team of experts has found a major flaw in the $30 billion space station being developed by NASA. A NASA statement minimizes the problem as remediable without disruption of the schedule, cost, or “overall architecture of the program.”

After four months of negotiations, representatives of Major League Baseball owners and players reach an agreement in NYC on a new fouryear collective bargaining contract.

Cuban-American pop singer Gloria Estefan is injured in Pennsylvania when a truck runs into her tour bus. . . . Christie’s and Sotheby’s announce they will underwrite a $1 million reward for information leading to the recovery of the art works stolen on Mar. 18.

March 18

March 19

March 20

March 21

Daily doses of aspirin can prevent tens of thousands of strokes a year, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Pres. Bush declares he does not like broccoli, causing a reaction among farmers. . . . Van Gogh’s Irises is sold for an undisclosed sum to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, Calif.

Pres. Bush states he is opposed to legislation that would bar the NEA from supporting “obscene” artwork. . . . Rene Enriquez, 58, actor from Hill Street Blues, dies of pancreatic cancer in Tarzana, Calif.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 22

March 23

38—March 24–29, 1990

World Affairs

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Zimbabwe, Patrick Kombayi, who is running against Vice President Simon Muzenda for a parliament seat, is shot and seriously wounded in Gweru by Muzenda’s bodyguards. Debate over whether the shots were in self-defense ensues.

Some 10,000 people march in San Salvador to mark the 10th anniversary of the slaying of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero. . . . Brazilian president Fernando Collor de Mello orders the destruction of illegal airstrips built by gold miners in the Amazon to protect the stoneage Yanomami Indian population.

Chai Ling, one of the leaders of the Tiananmen Square prodemocracy protest, escapes from China, where she had been in hiding for 10 months. . . . India withdraws the last 2,000 soldiers from Sri Lanka and ends a 30-month peacekeeping effort, during which 1,200 Indian troops died. . . . Australian voters return the governing Labor Party to power and give P.M. Bob Hawke a fourth term in office.

Soviet paratroopers seize the Vilnius headquarters of the renegade Lithuanian Communist Party. . . . Kosovo interior minister Jusuf Karakusi, an ethnic Albanian, resigns. . . . The Vatican unveils a decade-long, $3 million restoration of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. . . . Hungary holds its first free multiparty national election since 1945.

Libyan-backed Chadian rebels based in Sudan launch an attack against army positions in eastern Chad. Both Chad and the rebels claim to have killed or captured more than 1,000 of the other side’s men.

Contra leaders state most fighters already in Nicaragua will not disband but will remain armed for a period of months. Only contras demobilizing in Honduras are to give up their weapons under the agreement. . . . Colombian interior minister Carlos Lemos Simmonds resigns, claiming the government’s war on drug traffickers has weakened. Pres. Virgilio Barco names Senator Horacio Serpa Uribe to replace Lemos.

Foreign observers report that country-wide balloting in Bangladesh was marred by widespread fraud and violence that killed at least 26 people. . . . Approximately 13,000 protesters gather in Ulan Bator to demand the resignation of the entire parliament. Sanjaasuren Zorig, de facto leader of the Mongolian Democratic Party, says the protest is prompted by assertions that only socialist parties will be permitted to participate in elections.

Social Democratic Party cofounder and leader Ibranim Boehme steps aside, despite maintaining he never cooperated with Stasi. . . . Student protest leader Chai Ling arrives in Paris with her husband Feng Congde. Both are on a list of “most wanted students” circulated by Chinese police.

In South Africa, police open fire on antiapartheid protesters in the black township of Sebokeng. Hundreds are wounded, and at least 11 die. . . . In the Ivory Coast, 126 teachers are arrested for violating a ban on demonstrations. Doctors launch a 48-hour strike over pay cuts and threaten a walkout to protest the mass arrest.. . . . The foreign ministers of Chad and Libya meet in Libreville to discuss the Azouzou Strip, a territory claimed by Chad but occupied by Libyan troops.

Brazilian president Fernando Collor de Mello drops two provisions of his economic program that ran into staunch opposition from civil libertarians, businesses, and politicians.

Communist Party officials from Tibet, Inner Mongolia, and Xinjiang call on China’s central government to provide more relief funds for their poverty-stricken regions.

The UN approves the deployment of 800 Venezuelan troops to aid the demobilization of contras.

Soviet paratroopers raid a psychiatric hospital in Vilnius that gives sanctuary to ethnic Lithuanian military deserters and arrest 23 young men. Lithuanian president Vytantas Landsbergis sends a telegram demanding a return of the “kidnapped” deserters to Pres. Gorbachev. . . . Czech and Slovak deputies reach an impasse over changing the official name of the nation.

In South Africa, the high level of inter-black violence in eastern Natal province grows even worse as at least 25 people are killed and scores wounded in fighting that lasts two days.

In Nicaragua, after weeks of negotiation, the Sandinista government recognizes the right of presidentelect Violeta Barrios de Chamorro to exercise full authority over the army and security forces after her inauguration. . . . In Peru, weeks of election-related violence begin when two people die in a car bombing in Lima. . . . A delegation from the Guatemalan government holds talks with leftist rebels in Oslo on ways to end three decades of civil war.

The Vietnamese Communist Party adjourns a two-and-one-half week session of its Central Committee. . . . Reports emerge that the Portuguese colony of Macao will grant resident status to a few thousand illegal aliens whose children were already legal residents.

An attempt by Iraq to obtain restricted U.S.-made electronic devices used to trigger nuclear weapons is thwarted in London by U.S. and British customs agents at the conclusion of an 18-month undercover “sting” operation.

In a conciliatory gesture, Lithuania indicates a willingness to discuss independence with the Soviets. . . . Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo mark the first anniversary of the Serbian political takeover with silent protests.

In Haiti, Ertha Pascal-Trouillot’s government restores most of the articles from the 1987 constitution. . . . Colombian president Barco resumes extraditions of drug suspects to the U.S. . . . In Nicaragua, weeks before leaving office, the Sandinistas vote to award property titles to all those living in state-owned houses prior to the Feb. 25 election.

The Philippine army reports the destruction of a large communist rebel base in Lianga, 540 miles southeast of Manila. Fifty-nine rebel troops are reported killed in the two-day assault. . . . The Vietnamese Communist Party expels a senior party official who advocated reform, Tran Xuan Bach, from the ruling Politburo.

Police arrest a retired deputy interior minister, Col. Gen. Mircho Spasov, in response to reports that Bulgaria operated concentration camps during the regime of ousted communist leader Todor Zhivkov. . . . Chancellor Helmut Kohl holds two days of talks with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in London.

In Colombia, the Extraditables, the name adopted by the Medellin drug cartel, threaten to retaliate for Pres. Barco’s decision to reinstate extradition and accuse the government of betrayal.. . . . Mexico announces it will resume a program of swapping debt for equity suspended in 1987.

In Kashmir, 11 people are reported killed in gun battles between separatist rebels and Indian paramilitary units.. . . . Congress (I), the political party of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, loses control of the Rajya Sabha, India’s upper house of Parliament. . . . Andrew Peacock steps down as opposition leader in Australia. . . . About 50,000 illegal Chinese immigrants seeking permanent residency gather in the center of the Portuguese colony of Macao, and more than 100 people are injured in the crush.

March 25

March 26

March 28

Africa & the Middle East

The Serbian government assumes control of Kosovo police after unrest triggered by a rumor that children had been poisoned. . . . Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev appoints a Presidential Council, a 16-member committee of top advisers. . . . Allegations appear in newspapers that link Social Democratic Party leader Ibrahim Boehme to the Stasi secret police.

March 24

March 27

Europe

March 29

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

March 24–29, 1990—39

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

An Wang, 70, Chinese-born engineer who founded one of the world’s major computer manufacturers, Wang Laboratories, dies in Boston of cancer.

Ray Goulding, 68, half of the Bob & Ray comedy team with Bob Elliott, dies in Manhasset, N.Y., of kidney failure.

Eighty-seven people are killed in a fire at an illegal social club in the Bronx borough of NYC Police arrest a Cuban immigrant, Julio González, and charge him with arson and murder. The fire is the deadliest in the U.S. since a 1986 hotel fire in Puerto Rico killed 97 people and a 1977 blaze at a Kentucky nightclub killed 165 people.

Pat Bradley becomes the first woman golfer to surpass $3 million in career earnings when she wins the Turquoise Classic in Phoenix.

Attorney General Richard L. Thornburgh announces that 21 reputed Mafia leaders from New England were indicted by grand juries in Boston and Hartford, Conn. Fifteen men were arrested, including Raymond J. Patriarca Jr., the reputed head of the region’s top crime family.

U.S. Defense Department officials revise downward its tally of the number of Panamanian military casualties in the December 1989 invasion, to some 50 deaths from the 314 initially reported by the U.S. Southern Command based in Panama. This means that the civilian death toll in the invasion, placed at 202 by the Southern Command, is four times that of the Panamanian military death toll.

The Office of Thrift Supervision reports that U.S. thrift industry losses surged to a record $19.17 billion in 1989.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presents its 62nd annual Oscar Awards in Los Angeles. Driving Miss Daisy is voted Best Picture. . . . Halston (Roy Halston Frowick), 57, top American fashion designer, dies in San Francisco of complications from AIDS.

The Supreme Court upholds federal or state restrictions on corporate political spending. . . . Testimony before the House Small Business subcommittee reveals U.S. consumers spend billions of dollars a year on ineffective and potentially dangerous diet plans.

Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater admits the Bush administration is taking a deliberately low-key approach to the events in Lithuania. . . . The U.S. and Mexico agree to consider talks on a free-trade pact between the two nations. . . . A U.S.-financed television station begins testing broadcasts to Cuba, but the Cuban government jams its signal, as promised.

Energy Secretary James Watkins announces the Health and Human Services Department will take over research on the effects of radiation on atomic plant workers while the Energy Department will continue to oversee health and safety programs operated by private contractors at the nation’s nuclear weapons plants. . . . Eastern announces it cannot meet the terms of an earlier settlement, which angers its creditors.

George Lucas’s Lucasfilm Ltd. files a $300 million trademark infringement lawsuit against Luther Campbell, the leader of the rap group 2 Live Crew, for use of the name Luke Skywalker.

The Supreme Court rules that a state appeals court can weigh the factors of a crime and decide whether to impose the death penalty if the jury has considered improper factors.

Congress appears to be divided on Pres. Bush’s low-key response to Lithuania’s political situation. . . . William M. Galvin, one of the key targets in the Pentagon procurement scandal, pleads guilty to bribery, conspiracy and tax evasion in Alexandria, Virginia.

The House approves a bill to create a new cabinet post for environmental protection. . . . The Energy Department discloses that the escape of plutonium into air ducts at the Rocky Flats, Colo., weapons plant over the past 38 years amounts to 62 pounds, enough to make seven nuclear bombs.

The General Accounting Office finds “widespread discrimination” against Hispanics and Asian Americans as a result of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. . . . The Education Department reports enrollment of black students at private colleges rose by 7.1% between 1986 and 1988. Black enrollment at public universities, though, rose by only 0.2%.

The Centers for Disease Control release a study that links cancer to Vietnam service. . . . Veterans Affairs Secretary Edward Derwinski authorizes compensation to Vietnam veterans suffering from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

A U.S. District Court judge rules that Motorola Inc. and Hitachi Ltd. of Japan are both guilty of the patent infringement charges they leveled at one another. . . . The International Tin Council finalizes an agreement with its creditors after a dispute that had lasted five years.

March 24

March 25

March 26

March 27

March 28

A study of women’s health is published in the New England Journal of Medicine and finds that being overweight by any amount increases the risk of heart disease.

The Recording Industry Association of America, a trade group that represents major record companies in the U.S., agrees to place uniform new warning labels on records, tapes and compact discs that contain potentially offensive lyrics.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 29

40—March 30–April 4, 1990

World Affairs

April 1

April 2

April 3

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Ashfaq Majid, a leader of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, is killed by police. According to Indian officials, Majid was shot as he led an attack on a security patrol. That same day, about 50,000 people in Srinagar defy a curfew to march in a funeral procession for Majid. . . . South Korean president Roh Tae Woo and Soviet president Gorbachev agree to make efforts to normalize relations between their countries.

British customs officers uncover evidence of a second Iraqi smuggling operation. . . . Soviet troops in Vilnius seize the state prosecutor’s office and a printing plant that publishes the pro-independence newspaper. The Kremlin ousts Arturas Palauskas, the state prosecutor appointed by the Lithuanian parliament. . . . Estonia’s parliament adopts a resolution characterizing the republic as an “occupied” territory and states that Estonia will enter a “transitional period” that will result in independence.

In the Ivory Coast, Pres. Félix Houphouët-Boigny orders the release of teachers imprisoned for demonstrations. . . . Two Polish diplomats are shot and wounded in Muslim west Beirut.

After two weeks of violent protests and more than 200 arrests, 1,500 students storm the steps of the National Assembly in Quebec City to protest a planned tuition increase at universities. . . . The town of Envigado, Colombia, headquarters of Medellín cartel leader Pablo Escobar Gaviria, is placed under martial law. Police officials state Escobar is offering large cash bounties for dead policemen.

The Arab Cooperation Council, made up of Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, and North Yemen, issues a statement calling Western criticism of Baghdad “flagrant interference in Iraq’s internal affairs.”

A protest in London against new local taxes turns into a riot that injures more than 400 people, including 331 police officers. . . . Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, in a radio and television message to Lithuania, warns the breakaway republic to “immediately annul” its declaration of independence or face “grave consequences.”

A previously unknown group claims responsibility for the Mar. 30 attack on Polish diplomats and states it is a warning to Poland not to fly Jews “to our sacred Palestinian land.”

In Colombia, the Extraditables confirm their return to terrorism and say they will execute judges, government officials, and members of the Cano family, which owns the El Espectador newspaper. . . . Canada reaches an agreement in principle with the Yukon Indians that gives them 16,000 square miles of land in the western high Arctic region and C$248 million.

The International Monetary Fund reports that the U.S. regained the lead as the world’s largest exporter from West Germany in 1989.

The Soviet military bolsters its garrison in Vilnius, Lithuania. . . . A series of prison riots begins at Strangeways Prison in Manchester, England, which was constructed in 1868. The riots spread from prison to prison and last several weeks.

Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe and his ruling party win a landslide victory. . . . Pres. Omar Bashir signs a nonaggression treaty with Pres. Yoweri Museveni between Sudan and Uganda.

In Brazil, a restored opera house in the Amazon jungle is forced to close less than a month after opening because of economic measures imposed by Pres. Fernando Collor de Mello.

The Chinese government seals off most of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and deploys thousands of extra police to prevent a planned silent protest to commemorate the first anniversary of the crackdown on the 1989’s prodemocracy movement.

The Iraqi foreign ministry issues a denial of recent “sting” operations, accusing the U.S. and U.K. of twisting a “small and normal deal” for capacitors into “a suspicious intelligence matter.”. . . Czechoslovak foreign minister Jiri Dienstbier proposes a new European security structure that will include the member nations of NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

A delegation from Lithuania, led by Deputy Premier Romualdas Ozolas, meets with Politburo member Aleksandr Yakovlev for informal discussions. . . . The Estonian parliament passes a resolution stating that the USSR’s latest secession law does not apply to Estonia. . . . Social Democratic Party leader Ibrahim Boehme officially resigns amid allegations that he collaborated with the Stasi secret police.

South African president F. W. de Klerk tells a special joint session of Parliament in Cape Town that he is ordering a nationwide crackdown on violence, in particular sending more army troops into Natal. . . . Iraq’s president Saddam Hussein threatens to use advanced chemical weapons to destroy half of Israel if it launches a preemptive attack on Iraqi facilities.

An armed Haitian soldier seizes control of an empty American Airlines jet in Port-au-Prince and demands to be flown to the U.S.

After a month of scattered prodemocracy protests in Nepal, police open fire on 4,000 demonstrators in Katmandu. Five people are killed. . . . The government of New South Wales decides to scrap plans for a poll tax in the wake of the riots in London.

The UN Children’s Fund reports that the level of child malnutrition in Malawi is second only to that in Ethiopia.

Bulgaria’s parliament passes legislation that permits free, multiparty national elections, adopts constitutional amendments that create an executive presidency, and elects former Communist Party general secretary Petar Mladenov as executive president.

In Colombia, gunmen suspected of belonging to the Medellín cartel kill 16 policemen and kidnap a Liberal Party senator, Federico Estrada. . . . The U.S. arrests a Mexican suspect, Dr. Humberto Alvarez Machaín, in the 1985 torture and slaying of a U.S. drug agent, Enrique Camarena Salazar. The arrest and arraignment cause controversy in Mexican-U.S. relations. . . . Five Central American presidents meet in Montelimar, Nicaragua, and set a deadline for the full demobilization of the Nicaraguan contra rebels.

Thirty-five people are killed when a bomb explodes at a Hindu religious procession in Batala, India. The bombing sets off dozens of Hindu-Sikh clashes that result in 16 more deaths. . . . Australia’s prime minister, Bob Hawke, announces sweeping changes in his 17-member cabinet.

March 30

March 31

Europe

Belgium legalizes abortion, leaving Ireland as the only European nation still banning the procedure. . . . The Soviet Union opens an investigation into mass graves uncovered in East Germany believed to contain bodies of Germans who died in Soviet camps after World War II. . . . Estonian president Arnold Ruutel reveals that Gorbachev warned him against emulating Lithuania’s independence move.

April 4

Reports surface that in the Rwandan capital of Kigali, up to 30% of the people between the ages of 18 and 45 are infected with the AIDS virus. . . . The official Libyan news agency reports that leader Muammar Gadhafi appealed for the release of all hostages to mark the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Salvadoran president Alfredo Cristiani and leftist rebels agree to renew talks on ending the nation’s civil war. . . . Pres. Rafael Callejas of Honduras states that once the contras inside Honduras are demobilized, none will be allowed refugee status. . . . Pres. Virgilio Barco says that if Medellin cartel leader Pablo Escobar Gaviria surrenders he will not be extradited but will receive an impartial trial in Colombia.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

March 30–April 4, 1990—41

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Idaho governor Cecil D. Andrus (D) vetoes a law that bans most abortions within the state. . . . Alfred Renton Bryant (Harry) Bridges, 88, Australian-born U.S. labor leader, dies of emphysema in San Francisco; the city’s mayor, Art Agnos (D), orders flags to be flown at halfmast in his honor.

The Bush administration releases a 216-page annual report of foreign trade barriers to U.S. exports, taking the first step toward retaliation under the so-called Super 301 provision of the 1988 Omnibus Trade Act. . . . Frederick J. Carville, a former Unisys Corp. executive, pleads guilty in Alexandria, Va., to participating in a scheme that involved bribing Pentagon procurement officials.

A pipeline breaks near Freeport, Penn., and spills a mixture of gasoline, diesel fuel and home heating oil in Knapp Run Creek, which flows into the Allegheny.

A study in Science reports the first decade’s worth of microwave temperature data collected by U.S. weather satellites shows no evidence of a global warming from the greenhouse effect. . . . Researchers at the National Institutes of Health say large doses of a steroid hormone given soon after a spinal injury can reduce the chance of paralysis and other disability from the injury.

The Bourne Ultimatum by Robert Ludlum tops the bestseller list.

Outside Nashville, Tenn., a driver operating a Greyhound run is shot in the left arm from a passing pickup truck in reaction to the continuing Greyhound strike.

At least 100,000 people attend a rally near UN headquarters in NYC to urge the USSR to allow direct flights to Israel.

The Federal Courts Study Committee warns the U.S. court system is inundated by a wave of prosecutions under antidrug and anticrime legislation enacted by Congress in the 1980s. . . . The National Assessment of Educational Progress reports that U.S. students have a limited grasp of history and civics.

The Ku Klux Klan broadcasts its first television program on a cableTV channel serving Kansas City.

March 31

Columbia Savings and Loan Association, once one of the thrift industry’s most profitable institutions, announces it is insolvent. . . . Buffalo’s subway and bus system shuts down from lack of funds, the first time this has happened to a federally subsidized mass transit operation in the U.S.

Michigan State center Kip Miller wins the Hobey Baker Memorial Award as the top college hockey player in the U.S.

A strike by the Service Workers International Union against the Kaiser Permanente health maintenance organization begins in seven hospitals and more than 40 clinics in Southern California.

The University of Nevada at Las Vegas (UNLV) wins the finals of the National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball tournament with a 103-73 rout of Duke University. The margin of victory is the largest in the history of the NCAA finals, and UNLV is the first team to score more than 100 points in the NCAA finals. . . . Real estate developer Donald J. Trump opens the Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

The House approves a $2.4 billion supplemental spending bill for fiscal 1990 that includes $720 million in aid to Panama and Nicaragua. . . . The Pentagon reveals previously classified details about the F-117A Stealth fighter.

The Labor Department, revising its March figures, reports 11,000 child-labor violations, and 1,750 businesses are found in violation, including well-known fast-food and pizza chains. . . . The Senate passes comprehensive clean-air legislation, setting tough controls on industry. . . . Eastern Airlines’ unsecured creditors vote to seek a bankruptcy court trustee to run the carrier. . . . . . . Buffalo’s subway and bus system resumes operations. . . Reports emerge that the oil leak in the Allegheny River of Mar. 30 did not cause serious problems.

White House press secretary Marlin Fitzwater confirms that Pres. Bush did not issue an executive order to protect Chinese students studying in the U.S. . . . Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze holds talks with Secretary of State James Baker in Washington, D.C., to discuss the Lithuania crisis and arms control.

The Senate confirms Pres. Bush’s choice, Timothy C. Ryan, for chief regulator of the nation’s savings and loan industry. . . . White House budget director Richard G. Darman asks the House Appropriations subcommittee on treasury, postal service and general government for $626,000 to renovate the vice presidential mansion.

March 30

Israel launches its second satellite into orbit.

April 1

April 2

Sarah Lois Vaughan, 66, jazz singer, dies of lung cancer in a Los Angeles suburb.

April 3

Senior Lionel Simmons of LaSalle wins the John Wooden Award as college basketball’s top player.

April 4

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

42—April 5–10, 1990

World Affairs

April 5

April 6

April 7

Economic ministers of the Group of Seven nations express concern over the recent decline in the value of the Japanese yen.

April 10

Africa & the Middle East

Soviet troops evict pro-independence workers from the state prosecutor’s office in Vilnius. The Lithuanian parliament acknowledges for the first time that provisions of the Soviet constitution may apply to Lithuania’s independence bid. . . . In East Germany, the freely elected Volkskammer holds its first session and elects Sabine Bergmann-Pohl as president of the parliament; she also serves as the nation’s acting interim president.

A Cameroonian lawyer and two others are sentenced to three to five years for subversion. Amnesty International classifies the defendants as prisoners of conscience who were arrested for trying to start a new political party in Cameroon, which is legal under the country’s constitution. . . . Pres. Frank Ravele is ousted as leader of the nominally independent tribal homeland of Venda in a military coup led by Col. Gabriel Ramushwana.

The Irish Supreme Court refuses to extradite to Britain a fugitive, Owen Carron, a former British member of Parliament and a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, who is wanted on weapons charges. . . . Soviet border guards bar U.S. senator Alfonse M. D’Amato (R, N.Y.) from crossing into Lithuania from Ogrodniki, Poland. D’Amato, carrying a visa issued by the “Republic of Lithuania,” announced before leaving the U.S. his intention to test the Soviets’ willingness to accept the visa as valid.

Because of its open-door policy toward refugees fleeing the civil war in neighboring Mozambique, one in 10 people in Malawi’s population of 8 million is now a Mozambican, according to The New York Times.

At least 166 people are killed when a fire breaks out aboard a Danish ferry in the North Sea. Although officials state that about 360 people escaped in lifeboats, it is the worst disaster in the North Sea since a British ferry capsized March 1987. It takes two days to extinguish the blaze. . . . As many as 300,000 Lithuanians hold a proindependence rally.

A crowd of 150,000 gathers in Tel Aviv to protest political scheming in the cabinet and to call for electoral reforms to end the country’s chronic political instability. It is the largest demonstration in Israel since a protest during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

Members of Lithuania’s unarmed volunteer security force, bolstered by a crowd of civilians, prevent Soviet troops from entering a proindependence newspaper printing plant. . . . Demos, a separatist opposition coalition, wins a majority in parliamentary elections in Slovenia in the first free, multiparty voting in Yugoslavia since World War II. . . . The center-right Hungarian Democratic Forum and its allies hold nearly 60% of the seats in parliament after run-off national elections.

April 8

April 9

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Bolivia, construction begins on a U.S.-financed $500,000 base for the nation’s combined antidrug forces. . . . In Mexico, soldiers and police in Michoacán oust opposition supporters from city halls occupied in protest of alleged fraud in municipal elections in Dec. 1989. . . . The Haitian solider who seized control of an empty American Airlines jet on Apr. 2 jumps from the plane and escapes.

In Nepal, Premier Marich Man Singh Shrestha resigns from office, under pressure by King Birendra, who faults the premier’s failure to control protests. . . . Twenty-two people are killed during two days of rioting in the remote town of Kashgar in the predominantly Muslim province of Xinjiang. . . . Elderly members of Taiwan’s parliament pledge to begin stepping down.

Nepal’s king Birendra, appoints a new premier, Lokendra Bahadur Chand, who is instructed to negotiate with leaders of the prodemocracy movement. Later that day, however, police and soldiers fire on 200,000 protestors in Katmandu, killing 50. . . . More than 200 people are killed when a ferry in Myanmar overturns and sinks. . . . Rebels at an Afghan peace ceremony suddenly open fire, killing at least 12 people. . . . The vice chancellor of Kashmir University, his aide, and a businessman are kidnapped by Muslim militants. In Peru, Sendero Luminoso guerrillas attack the U.S.-financed Santa Lucía anti-drug outpost and engage in a pitched battle with helicopters piloted by U.S. civilians and defended by Peruvians manning machine guns.

Nepal’s king Birendra imposes a virtual 24-hour curfew on Katmandu and orders police and soldiers to shoot violators on sight. Opposition leaders ignore conciliatory gestures by Premier Chand, including the release of Singh and other prisoners.

In Peru, Alberto Fujimori, a virtual unknown, receives enough votes in the presidential election to force a run-off contest with the candidate novelist Mario Vargas Llosa. . . . Colombian police capture Jairo Rodrigo Rodríguez, an alleged regional paramilitary leader for the Medellín cartel. Separately, gunmen in Bogotá kill José Humberto Hernández Rodríguez, a member of the party that opposes negotiations with drug traffickers.

After two months of sporadic demonstrations in Nepal, King Birendra legalizes political parties. Birendra also proposes that a limited number of opposition figures be added to the existing cabinet. . . . About 800 people from Mongolia meet for the first national congress of the MDP. In anticipation, Pres. Ponsalmaagiyn Ochirbat bans unauthorized public demonstrations.. . . . About 15 masked rebel soldiers raid a jail in Manila and free Lt. Col. Billy Bibit, ret., who was imprisoned under suspicion of aiding a Dec. 1989 coup attempt.

The first international World Ministerial Summit to Reduce Demand for Drugs and to Combat the Cocaine Threat meets in London. The summit, cosponsored by Britain and the UN, is attended by more than 500 representatives from 112 nations. . . . Forty-two industrial nations agree to create a special bank to aid the economies of Eastern Europe.

In a two-day protest, tens of thousands of people in Georgia mark the first anniversary of the slayings of 20 pro-independence activists. They march to the headquarters of the Soviet Transcaucasian military command and demand the withdrawal of Soviet troops. . . . Four members of the Ulster Defense Regiment are killed by an IRA car bomb. . . . The Soviet Union announces its first trade deficit in 14 years.

In Ethiopia, reports suggest that Pres. Mengistu’s army lost as many as 30,000 who were killed, wounded, or captured in three unsuccessful attempts to retake Massawa.

The Canadian government reaches an agreement in principle with the Dene and Metis peoples that gives them 70,000 square miles and C$500 million in compensation.

In Nepal, an estimated 250,000 people gather at Katmandu to celebrate the king’s Apr. 8 decision.

Contradicting earlier reports, data shows that the 1981 plans made by the World Bank in the IMF for Malawi are not as successful as initially believed. This report is especially problematic, since those economic policies in Malawi were heralded was a model for the rest of Africa. . . . Venezuelan troops under UN command arrive in Honduras to oversee the demobilization of the contras.

Soviet president Gorbachev warns Lithuania that he has not ruled out the possibility of placing the republic under direct presidential rule.

A Libyan-backed Palestinian terrorist group frees three hostages in Beirut, leaving no more French captives in the Middle East.

In Colombia, Gustavo Mesa Meneses, a known assassin for the Medellin cartel, is arrested.

Indian prime minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh charges that Pakistan is aiding Kashmiri insurgents and warns that India will consider a military reprisal. Separately, the bodies of the kidnapped vice chancellor of Kashmir University, his aide, and a businessman are found in Srinagar. . . . In Nepal, opposition forces reject King Birendra’s offer and insist on complete control of any interim cabinet. . . . Tim Fischer is chosen as the new leader of Australia’s National Party.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

April 5–10, 1990—43

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The National Conference of Catholic Bishops hire the public relations firm of Hill & Knowlton and a polling firm, the Wirthlin Group, as part of a campaign to influence public opinion against abortion. . . . The AT&T Foundation withdraws its support of Planned Parenthood because of Planned Parenthood’s support for abortion rights.

Pres. Bush signs an executive order officially ending all U.S. sanctions imposed against Panama in 1988. . . . The U.S. and Japan pledge to eliminate some major structural barriers to free trade.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee approves new clean-air legislation. . . . Woody F. Lemons, the former chairman and CEO of Vernon Savings and Loan Association, is sentenced to 30 years in prison for defrauding the thrift’s depositors.

A privately developed Pegasus rocket is launched from a B-52 aircraft over the Pacific Ocean. The rocket, set free at an altitude of 40,000 feet, falls for five seconds before igniting and flying like a plane during a first-stage burn, then ascending like a missile in second- and third-stage burns, accelerating to eight times the speed of sound. Before tumbling into the ocean, Pegasus releases other satellites for the navy and NASA.

Actor Paul Newman wins a lawsuit filed against him by Julius Gold, a delicatessen owner who claimed that Newman promised him a share of the profits from sales of Newman’s brand of salad dressing.

A federal scientific study recommends a partial logging ban in the Pacific Northwest to save the northern spotted owl.

The board of UAL Corp. agrees to a $4.38 billion buyout led by the company’s employees.

E. L. Doctorow wins the 10th annual PEN/Faulkner Award, for the best work of fiction published in 1989, Billy Bathgate. . . . A jury in NYC orders Vantage Press, the largest ‘vanity’ press in the U.S., to pay a total of $3.5 million to 2,200 authors who filed a class-action fraud suit.

A Chinese Long March-3 rocket launches a U.S.-made telecommunications satellite into orbit, which marks China’s debut in the international launching business. . . . Ronald Ellwin Evans, 56, U.S. astronaut who piloted the command module during the Apollo 17 flight in 1972, dies of a heart attack in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center and its director, Dennis Barrie, are indicted by a grand jury on obscenity charges for displaying an exhibit of photographs by the late Robert Mapplethorpe.

A U.S. District Court jury in Delaware rules that patents on a Genentech Inc. heart drug are valid. . . . Studies indicate legal abortions performed in the first trimester of pregnancy cause little long-term mental distress.

A federal jury convicts former national security adviser John Poindexter on all five felony charges facing him. Poindexter becomes the highest-ranking official convicted of criminal charges in connection with the Iran-contra arms scandal.

The FBI reports that overall crime in the U.S. increased 3% in 1989. Violent crime rose by 5% and major property crimes rose 2%. . . . Ryan White, 18, hemophiliac Indiana teenager who became a national symbol of the difficulties faced by children with AIDS, dies of complications from AIDS in Indianapolis.

Senate Minority Leader Robert Dole (R, Kans.) leads a delegation of senators on a week-long tour of the Middle East.

PepsiCo and the Soviet Union sign a 10-year agreement under which the Pepsi-Cola soft drink will be bartered for Soviet ships and vodka. The accord, valued at more than $3 billion, is believed to be the largest trade pact ever between a U.S. company and the USSR.

New Hampshire governor Judd Gregg (R) vetoes a bill that would have liberalized the state’s abortion laws. . . . . Judge Buckingham of Montgomery County Court sentences eight peace activists for a 1980 protest in which they poured blood over blueprints at a nuclear weapons plant in Pennsylvania. . . . California kicks off a $28.6 million advertising campaign against cigarette smoking, the most extensive of its kind ever launched by a state.

England’s Nick Faldo wins the Masters golf championship in Augusta, Ga. . . . U.S. district judge Carl B. Rubin bars local law enforcement officials from shutting down the Mapplethorpe exhibit in Cincinnati’s Contemporary Art Center.

A strike by the Service Workers International Union in Southern California, started Apr. 2, ends. . . . Greyhound Lines Inc. files a $30 million federal racketeering suit against the striking Amalgamated Transit Union. Since the strike began, buses operated by newly hired replacement drivers have been fired upon more than 25 times.

Playboy magazine founder Hugh M. Hefner, 64, has a son with his wife, Kimberley Conrad, 27. . . . John Henry Faulk, 76, radio host who won a celebrated libel suit in 1962 that helped break the McCarthy-era blacklist, dies of cancer in Austin, Tex.

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney orders an inquiry into why he was not told the truth about the performance of one of the Stealth planes used in the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama. . . . Pres. Bush appoints Richard Armitage to lead the U.S. delegation for talks between the U.S. and the Philippines over the future of military bases.

Eight National Football League players file federal antitrust suits in Newark, N. J. against the league.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 5

April 6

April 7

April 8

April 9

April 10

44—April 11–16, 1990

April 11

World Affairs

Europe

The U.S. rejects the idea of a reunified Germany belonging to both NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

Constantine Mitsotakis is sworn in as the new premier of Greece. . . . P.M. Charles Haughey tours Belfast in the city’s first official visit by an Irish prime minister in 25 years. . . . All ethnic Albanian ministers in the Kosovo provincial government resign, citing pressure from Serbia. . . . The Estonian parliament abolishes the conscription of Estonians into the Soviet military, particularly rejecting mandatory military service.

April 12

April 13

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Reports emerge that the Apr. 10 release of French hostages is part of a deal in which France returns three Mirage jet fighters to Libya. Other elements of the deal allegedly involve the resumption of French sales to Libya and a reduction of the French military presence in Chad. . . . An effort by Israeli Labor Party leader Shimon Peres to form a center-left coalition government collapses. . . . Pres. F. W. de Klerk meets with Anglican archbishop Desmond Tutu and other leaders of the South African Council of Churches to discuss how to end the warfare in Natal.

In Colombia, eight policemen and at least 13 other people are killed when a truck bomb explodes on a highway near Medellín. Eleven vehicles are destroyed in the blast, and more than 100 people are injured.

General Mirza Aslam Beg, chief of staff of the Pakistani army, claims that Indian troops have gathered just 50 miles from the Pakistani border.

East Germany installs its first democratically elected government, and Lothar de Maiziere becomes the nation’s premier. . . . The National Salvation Front, Romania’s interim government, bars a return to the country by exiled king Michael. . . . The U.S. and Czechoslovakia sign a trade agreement to reduce U.S. tariffs on Czechoslovak exports, increase business ties, and facilitate tourism.

An attempt by right-wing Jewish settlers to move into the Christian quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City sparks debate in Israel that lasts for the next two weeks.

The Brazilian National Congress approves the most controversial part of President Fernando Collor de Mello’s economic plan.

In South Korea, Pres. Roh Tae Woo pardons convicted North Korean terrorist Kim Hyon Hui, who faced execution for planting a bomb that destroyed a Korean Air Lines passenger jet in 1987. . . . Separately, workers at the state-run Korean Broadcasting System strike to protest of the appointment of Suh Ki Won as president of the network.

Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev threatens an economic embargo of Lithuania unless it rescinds its bid for independence. . . . The Soviet government admits for the first time the Soviet secret police were responsible for the 1940 Katyn Forest massacre of 4,000 Polish military officers. The apology coincides with the arrival of Polish president Wojciech Jaruzelski for a visit.

Nelson Mandela speaks to the annual convention of the South African Youth Congress, the country’s largest youth organization.

In El Salvador, a state of siege put in place during the rebel offensive of Nov. 1989 is suspended due to demands by the Farabundo Martí Liberation Front.

Mandela admits that the African National Congress has in the past tortured some of its dissident members. However, he states the ANC officials responsible have been disciplined and steps have been taken to insure that it never happens again.

Marco Aurelio Robles, 84, Panamanian president, 1964–68, dies of unreported causes in Miami.

April 14

April 15

A team of scientists assembled by the UN concludes it is a “virtual certainty” that the Earth’s temperature will rise substantially in the 21st century.

In Armenia, 1,000 people attack KGB headquarters in Yerevan, provoked by the arrest of four Armenians on charges of stealing military weapons. The rioters besiege the headquarters for two hours before being dispersed by military reinforcements. One man is reported dead when a homemade explosive device detonates in his hands. . . . At the Vatican Easter Sunday, Pope John Paul II says a prayer for Lithuanian independence through negotiation. Supporters and opponents of the National Salvation Front brawl outside government’s headquarters in Bucharest, prompted by a demonstration in support of the government’s decision to bar King Michael’s return. . . . Lithuanian officials draw up emergency plans on fuel rationing in case the Soviet Union carries out its embargo threat.

April 16

Africa & the Middle East

In Nepal, 15,000 demonstrators gather in Katmandu, where Premier Lokendra Bahadur Chand and other representatives of the government are meeting with opposition leaders. The protesters call for Chand’s resignation and the king’s immediate acceptance of opposition demands for political power. . . . Pakistan denies claims by India that Pakistani soldiers are marching toward the border.

Reports indicate that one of the reasons that mass starvation has been prevented so far during the fighting in Ethiopia is the semicovert delivery of Western-donated food through Sudan to the worst affected areas of Eritrea and Tigre.

Approximately 260 Miskito Indians of the Yatama group surrender their weapons to Venezuelan troops in Honduras, the first rebels to do so. . . . Reports state that the bodies of nine people were found in graves on two farms owned by Fidel Castaño, who is believed to be the military leader of the Medellín cartel in Colombia.

Nepal’s King Birendra announces the resignation of Premier Chand’s 10-day-old cabinet, dissolves the national parliament, and invites opposition leaders to form an interim government. . . . India bans eight militant Muslim organizations in Kashmir and shuts down two Srinagar newspapers. . . . Separately, The New York Times reports that 570 people were killed by Sikh separatists in the Indian state of Punjab since the beginning of 1990.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

April 11–16, 1990—45

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Federal officials report that the return of completed census forms is running significantly behind expectations. . . . The funeral for Ryan White, who died Apr. 8, is attended by more than 1,500 people, including First Lady Barbara Bush and singers Michael Jackson and Elton John.

A U.S. soldier, Roberto Enrique Bryan, who participated in the 1989 invasion of Panama is charged with murder and assault on Panamanians. . . . The FBI arrests Jose Dionisio Suarez Esquivel, an alleged member of a Cuban-American terrorist group for involvement in the 1976 killing of a former Chilean ambassador. . . . Pres. Bush issues an executive order protecting Chinese students in the U.S. from deportation.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Journal of the American Medical Association publishes a study reporting that work environments with high stress and little control over decisions are linked with chronic high blood pressure.

East German conductor Kurt Masur is appointed music director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

The three companies that produce 70% of the canned tuna sold in the U.S. announce they will stop buying tuna caught in nets that also trap and kill dolphins.

The FDA, contradicting an earlier statement it released, admits that over 80% of milk samples tested by the agency are contaminated with small amounts of antibiotics. . . . Pres. Bush’s approval rating among black Americans is at the highest sustained level for a Republican president in 30 years, according to a New York Times/CBS News survey.

The INS creates a special visa for visitors to the U.S. who plan to attend scientific or professional conferences. Individuals who apply for that visa will no longer have to declare on an immigration form whether they are infected with HIV. . . . U.S. president Bush meets in Hamilton, Bermuda with British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

A rally in Portland, Oregon, draws 2,500–3,000 demonstrators protesting the proposed logging ban.

August Wilson wins his second Pulitzer Prize for his play The Piano Lesson. For the Pulitzer Prize in literature, Oscar Hijuelos wins the fiction award for his novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love.

An Indonesian satellite is successfully launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., aboard a Delta rocket. The satellite is destined for an orbit 22,300 miles above the equator and will provide an electronic link for the Indonesian islands.

Soul singer James Brown, convicted for aggravated assault and evading police, is placed in a workrelease program. Brown is expected to speak to young people about the dangers of alcohol and drugs.

Doctors successfully accomplish the first heart transplant between infant twins at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis. The heart of Tyler Whisman (who was born brain dead) is transplanted into his sister, Alison Paige Whisman, who had been born with a fatal congenital heart defect. Spark Masayuki Matsunaga, 73, liberal Democratic senator from Hawaii, dies of cancer in Toronto.

Johns Hopkins University researchers find ordinary doses of the popular nonprescription pain reliever ibuprofen can cause kidney failure in people with mild kidney disease.

The Supreme Court refuses to review a ban on school dances in Purdy, Mo.

April 11

April 12

April 13

April 14

Greta Garbo (born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson), 84, legendary Swedish movie star, dies of unreported causes in NYC.

Reigning Olympic champions Gelindo Bordin of Italy and Rosa Mota of Portugal win the men’s and women’s sections of the Boston Marathon, becoming the first marathon gold medalists to win the prestigious event.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 15

April 16

46—April 17–22, 1990

April 17

Europe

At a conference attended by 17 nations, the EC, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Pres. Bush’s cautious call for more research on global warming draws heated criticism since it delays taking immediate action.

The republic of Serbia lifts the emergency measures it imposed on Kosovo province in Mar. 1989. . . . Top Albanian officials indicate a desire to end a policy of strict isolationism. . . . A series of vigils are held in Britain to mark the fourth anniversary of the kidnapping of journalist John McCarthy. . . . Two Canadian air force fighter jets based in West Germany collide while on a training flight, killing a pilot and injuring three others.

Protests against Jewish settlers climax when Palestinian activists stage the first nationalist demonstration inside the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. . . . Jafta Masemola, 58, founder of the military wing of the South African black nationalist Pan-Africanist Congress, dies after an automobile accident.

The Soviet Union shuts off the flow of crude oil into Lithuania. In response, Lithuanian foreign minister Algirdas Soudargas begins a scheduled visit to Norway and plans to ask the Norwegians for oil. . . . Estonia signs a contract with an unidentified foreign company to print its own currency.

South African president F. W. de Klerk rejects the concept of majority rule, saying it will lead to black “domination,” but he endorses power sharing between blacks and whites.

Nova Scotia premier John Buchanan suggests Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland will have no other option than to join the U.S. if Quebec secedes from Canada over the Meech Lake accord.

The British House of Commons approves a bill to offer U.K. residency to 225,000 citizens of Hong Kong, which will revert to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.

Three of the four natural-gas pipelines serving Lithuania shut down, and Lithuania initiates an emergency program of energy rationing. . . . Soviet foreign ministry spokesman Vadim Perfilyev states the Kremlin is considering further economic sanctions on Lithuania.. . . . Diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Czechoslovakia resume after 40 years.

In South Africa, police open fire on demonstrators in the Orange Free State black township of Rammulotsi, killing five youths between the ages of 13 and 16.

In Nicaragua, representatives of the contras, the Sandinista army, and the incoming government sign agreements on a cease-fire. . . . Colombian police report they foiled a plot by two Spanish Basque terrorists to attack the Medellín airport.

At the end of a two-day conference, 32 nations of the Organization of American States sign a 20point agreement to speed up the war on illegal narcotics.

Both houses of the Federal Assembly approve “Czech and Slovak Federative Republic” as the new official name of Czechoslovakia.

After police fire in South Africa’s Orange Free State black township of Rammulotsi, protest riots over the deaths shake the township.

The U.S. ambassador to Peru, Thomas Quainton, approves the disbursement of a $35 million antidrug package in an agreement with Peru’s defense minister, Julio Velazquez Giaccarini. It is the first time in two decades the U.S. has a military relationship with Peru.

In Poland, Lech Walesa is reelected chair of the Solidarity Union. . . . Pope John Paul II visits Czechoslovakia in his first papal visit to a Warsaw Pact country aside from his native Poland. . . . Erte (born Romain de Tirtoff), 97, Russian-born Art Deco designer, dies in Paris.

Israeli troops raid a Hezbollah base north of Israel’s self-proclaimed security zone in southern Lebanon, killing 6 guerrillas. . . . In Gabon, a month-long national conference on democratic reforms close in Libreville, the capital.

A wave of strikes and work stoppages by Sandinista public-sector workers begins, and the job actions paralyze Nicaragua in the weeks leading up to the presidential inauguration.

Protests begin in Romania during election campaigns. . . . A poll shows a negative rating for French president François Mitterrand for the first time since 1986. . . . Milan Kucan of the Democratic Renewal Party, the incumbent president of Slovenia, wins the presidential runoff election. . . . Tudjman, who campaigned on a pro-independence, anti-Serbia platform, wins the Croatian presidency. Croatia and Slovenia are the first Yugoslav republics to hold free elections.

Lebanese kidnappers free U.S. hostage Robert Polhill after more than three years in captivity. Pres. Bush states if the Iranian government wants improved relations with the U.S., it must release all the remaining hostages being held by its Shiite allies in Lebanon. The New York Times reports that Iran gave Hezbollah increased financial and military aid to persuade Lebanese kidnappers to free U.S. hostages. . . . After 10 days of denials, the Israeli government admits it covertly gave $1.8 million to the Jewish settlers’ cause. . . . The military government of Pres. Ibrahim Babangida survives a coup attempt by junior officers protesting the domination of Nigeria’s Christian south by the Muslim north. As many as 30 people are killed in the fighting.

April 18

April 19

April 20

April 21

April 22

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Millions of people throughout the world celebrate Earth Day 1990 with parades, marches, rallies, concerts, festivals, and fairs in 3,600 communities across Europe, Asia, Africa, and North and South America. Organizers claim 200 million people in 140 nations participate, which makes it the largest grass-roots demonstration in history.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Following King Birendra’s acceptance of a new interim cabinet, opposition leaders promise multiparty elections will be held within a year in Nepal for the first time since 1959.

In Nepal, King Birendra approves the opposition’s choice of Krishna Prasad Bhattarai as premier. . . . A Queensland court agrees to the request of a male criminal defendant that no women serve on the jury deciding his case.

The highest level of rainfall recorded in Australia in 100 years causes severe flooding in Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

April 17–22, 1990—47

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The Supreme Court rules employment discrimination suits under the Civil Rights Act can be filed in state and federal courts. . . . The Supreme Court rules the government may prohibit drugs that are part of religious rituals so a ban against peyote does not violate Native Americans’ right to free religion. . . . Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, 64, civil rights leader, dies of a heart attack in Atlanta.

The Justice Department wins a federal court order freezing 684 accounts at 173 banks across the U.S. that are believed to hold money from Colombia’s Medellín cocaine trafficking cartel.

Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Securities Corp. is censured by the Securities and Exchange Commission for illegally profiting from unauthorized trades in customers’ stock. . . . The Supreme Court states that companies that hire replacements for striking workers cannot presume new hires who are opposed to the union.

The Supreme Court rules that states can make it a crime to possess pornographic photographs of children even in the privacy of one’s home. . . . The Supreme Court approves the authority of federal judges to order local governments to increase taxes to finance school desegregation, even if the tax hike is not permitted by state law.

Reports indicate the U.S. merchandise trade deficit shrank to a seasonally adjusted $6.49 billion in February, the smallest gap since Dec. 1983. . . . A federal bankruptcy court judge removes control of Eastern Airlines from Frank Lorenzo and appoints Martin R. Shugrue as trustee to run the carrier.

A group of congressional Democrats declares the first phase of the census a failure and urges the Commerce Department to consider using statistical methods to correct the totals. . . . Colt Firearms, which halted public sales of its AR-15 semiautomatic rifle in 1989 in the wake of complaints, introduces a new rifle similar to the AR-15.

Lebanese kidnappers call for John Kelly, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, to be in Syria to “coordinate the final measures necessary for the success of the release” of a U.S. hostage. Pres. Bush states Kelly will not be dispatched from West Germany to Syria because the U.S. “does not knuckle under to demands.”. . . pres. Bush meets with French president François Mitterrand in Key Largo, Fla.

The Securities and Exchange Commission approves a securities trading system called Portal, created by NASDAQ. Trades on Portal are negotiated entirely by computer and telephone. . . . The SEC liberalizes the issuance and trading of privately placed securities.

Merck & Co., the U.S.’s largest pharmaceutical company, announces it will offer state Medicaid programs a discount on its prescription drugs.

Senator Sam Nunn (D, Ga.), the influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, urges a reduction in the fiscal 1991 defense budget of as much as $18 billion and a $100 billion cut over a five-year period.

Philip J. Bakes Jr. resigns as president and chief executive of Eastern Airlines.

Frank John Lausche, 94, former governor and senator of Ohio, dies in Cleveland.

The Pentagon puts two F-117A planes on public display at Nellis, Air Force Base, Nev.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

April 17

Researchers discover a gene that is linked to incidence of alcoholism.

April 18

April 19

In basketball, Dale Ellis of the SuperSonics sets a single-game record with nine three-point goals in a 121-99 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers.

April 20

April 21

Bob Davies, 70, basketball star of the 1940s and 1950s, dies of cancer in Hilton Head, S.C. . . . Two professors at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif., conclude that William Shakespeare is the author of all the works attributed to him.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 22

48—April 23–27, 1990

World Affairs

April 27

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Sudan’s military government foils a coup launched by junior army officers and led by retired generals. . . . In Nigeria, 14 officers and 200 lowerranking soldiers are arrested in the April 22 coup attempt.

U.S. officials put drug agents on alert after a Mexican magazine prints the names and locations of 57 agents for the DEA who are working inside Mexico.

Most office buildings and factories in Manila close as businesses observe the first of six scheduled “powerless Mondays,” ordered by the Philippine government to combat a severe energy shortage.

A court in Kosovo province acquits for lack of evidence 14 of the 15 ethnic Albanians on trial in the town of Titova Mitrovica for “counterrevolutionary activities.” The 14 include Azem Vlasi, the popular former leader of the provincial Communist Party.

Zairean president Mobutu Sese Seko ends a 20-year ban on multiparty politics. . . . After an attempted coup, Sudan reports state that 28 officers were shot after a summary court-martial. One colonel was acquitted. . . . A group calling itself Islamic Jihad issues a statement in Beirut, Lebanon threatening to attack Americans around the world unless the U.S. resolution on Jerusalem passed by Congress is rescinded.

The Chilean Supreme Court orders a military court to reopen the investigation of the Orlando Letelier killing, reversing a 1979 order. Separately, Pres. Patricio Aylwin establishes a national commission to investigate the human rights abuses of the Pinochet era and proposes compensation for the victims and their families. . . . In Nicaragua, Miriam Arguello Morales is elected president of the National Assembly.

China and the Soviet Union sign an agreement for cuts in the nearly 1 million troops stationed along the Sino-Soviet border as well as a 10-year pact that calls for increased economic and scientific cooperation between the nations.

Australian prime minister Bob Hawke, Turkish president Turgut Ozal, British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and Sir Paul Reeves, the governor general of New Zealand, observe the 75th anniversary of the Allied amphibious invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula during World War I, which cost 300,000 Allied and Turkish lives.

The British House of Commons votes for changes in abortion laws. . . . The last five prisoners surrender at Strangeways, ending the longest siege in the history of British prisons. . . . Oskar Lafontaine, the West German Social Democratic Party’s candidate for chancellor, is stabbed in the throat at a campaign rally in Cologne. . . . Lithuania cuts off exports of meat and milk to the rest of the USSR in retaliation for the Soviet economic embargo.

In Zaire, Mobutu names a former professor and legal adviser, Lunda Bululu, as premier, replacing Kengo wa Dondo. . . . The U.S. State Department advises Americans to leave Liberia and authorizes U.S. government employees and their families to leave if they wish because of mounting violence.

In Nicaragua, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro is sworn in as president, ending more than a decade of rule by the Sandinista National Liberation Front. In his departing speech, Daniel Ortega lashes out at the U.S. for supporting the contras. . . . In Colombia, a truck bomb explodes in Medellín. At least nine people are killed and 30 others are wounded.

In South Korea, Hyundai Heavy Industry Co. workers strike to protest the continued imprisonment of four union leaders involved in a 1989 strike at the plant. . . . Japan announces it will open its markets to U.S. lumber products.

West German chancellor Helmut Kohl and French president François Mitterrand appeal to Lithuania to suspend its declaration of independence in the first attempt by Western countries to convince Lithuania to retreat.

After a two-day meeting in Paris, West German chancellor Kohl and French president Mitterrand announce their nations will harmonize policies on all European defense and security issues.

Israel declines to release Muslim prisoners as a goodwill gesture on the Islamic holiday of Id al-Fitr, as it has done in the past. . . . Israel’s Supreme Court upholds the eviction of Jewish settlers in Jerusalem. . . . Israeli Labor Party leader Shimon Peres concedes defeat in his fiveweek effort to form a center-left coalition government. . . . In Sudan, four officers are sentenced to jail terms for the April 23 coup attempt, while four others are dismissed from the armed forces and another six are acquitted.

A gunman kills Carlos Pizarro Leongómez in the third assassination of a presidential candidate in Colombia’s election campaign. . . . After months of strikes in Argentina, Pres. Carlos Saúl Menem asks for the power to curtail strikes in “essential services.”

An earthquake in central China measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale kills 115 people. The epicenter of the quake is located about 70 miles southwest of Xining, in the province of Qinghai.

The International Monetary Fund withholds the disbursement of $54 million in loans earmarked for Zaire because it does not meet IMF budgetary targets.

Britain’s Court of Appeal overturns the convictions of three people charged with plotting to kill thenSecretary of State for Northern Ireland Tom King in 1987. . . . The Soviet Union commemorates the fourth anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear-power disaster. However, a series of press reports discloses that more than 3 million people still live in contaminated areas in the Ukraine, Byelorussia, and western Russia.

The leaders of the 10 Christian denominations with a presence in Israel close all their holy sites for the day in an unprecedented protest against the Apr. 7 Palestinian demonstration in Holy Sepulcher.

In Nicaragua, the government introduces a new 1 million cordoba note, worth $7.14 at the parallel exchange rate, and a new 500,000 cordoba note, at the same time slashing in half the value of the cordoba at the parallel rate. . . . Roman Catholic Church officials in Medellin claim they foiled a plot to kill Colombia’s Catholic prelate.

April 24

April 26

Africa & the Middle East

Lithuania’s only oil refinery shuts down for lack of crude oil. . . . East Germany begins making payments to support survivors of the Holocaust. . . . Voters in the East German city of Karl-Marx-Stadt readopt the city’s previous name, Chemnitz. . . . Premier Li Peng visits Moscow in the first trip to the Soviet Union by a Chinese premier in 26 years. Several hundred Soviet citizens stage a demonstration outside the Soviet foreign ministry in Moscow while Li’s delegation is inside.

April 23

April 25

Europe

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

April 23–27, 1990—49

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Pres. Bush signs into law a bill that requires the federal government to keep records on hate crimes. . . . The first black professor at Harvard Law School, Derrick Bell, requests an unpaid leave of absence until the school appoints a black woman to its tenured faculty. . . . The Supreme Court overrules a Minnesota Supreme Court decision that exempts an Amish group from complying with a highway safety law. . . . Common Cause reports that Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D, Tex.) received the most money from PACs from 1983 to 1988 than any other current senator. . . . The Supreme Court refuses to review a ruling that allows a lawsuit for parental rights by a man who donated sperm for the artificial insemination of a woman who is not his wife.

Pres. Bush telephones Syria’s president Hafez al-Assad and thanks him for his role in Robert Polhill’s release. However, U.S. officials report that no dramatic improvement in Washington’s ties with either Syria or Iran is likely in the immediate future. . . . Clifton Reginald Wharton, 90, first black U.S. career Foreign Service officer to attain the ranks of minister and ambassador to Norway, dies of a heart attack in Phoenix, Ariz.

The Supreme Court rejects a challenge by an outsider against the death sentence of a convicted murderer, Ronald Gene Simmons, who does not seek a reprieve.

The House of Representatives approves a nonbinding resolution recognizing a united Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a measure identical to one passed by the Senate and contrary to official U.S. policy. . . . The U.S. approves an increase in funds for the Bolivian military to combat its domestic cocaine industries. . . . Pres. Bush indefinitely delays the imposition of U.S. sanctions against the Soviet Union over the Lithuania crisis. . . . Victor Stello Jr.’s request to have his name withdrawn from nomination as assistant energy secretary in charge of the nation’s nuclear weapons production program is accepted by Pres. Bush.

The Justice Department overturns Georgia’s system for electing superior court judges as discriminatory against blacks.

Pres. Bush restores Nicaragua’s eligibility for credits and loan guarantees. . . . The U.S. and Soviet Union agree to cut their stocks of chemical weapons to a ceiling of 5,000 tons each, or about 20% of the current U.S. arsenal.

The American College of Physicians becomes the first major medical organization to call for some form of nationalized health care. . . . The Washington, D.C., Court of Appeals rules that a lower court erred in ordering a dying cancer patient to undergo a Caesarean section to save her unborn fetus without her consent.

A documentary alleges that U.S. aid to Cambodian noncommunist rebels benefited the Khmer Rouge in its quest to regain power. In response, the U.S. State Department asserts a key objective of U.S. policy is “the prevention of a return to power of the Khmer Rouge.” . . . Defense Secretary Dick Cheney proposes major cutbacks in new aircraft programs as a budget-cutting device. . . . U.S. and Soviet negotiators, meeting in Paris, reach a broad agreement on bilateral trade.

California senator Joseph Montoya is sentenced to 61⁄2 years in prison for extortion, racketeering, and money laundering. . . . The Memphis bank fraud trial of Rep. Harold E. Ford (D, Tenn.) ends in a mistrial.

Pres. Bush decides against identifying Japan and Brazil as unfair trading partners under the Super 301 provision of the 1988 U.S. Omnibus Trade Act.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Albert Salmi, 62, actor from Gunsmoke and Bonanza is found dead from a gunshot wound in a murdersuicide with his wife. . . . Paulette Goddard (born Marion Levy), 78 (according to her account) or 84 (according to officials in Ronco), Hollywood film star of the 1930s and 1940s, dies of heart failure in Ronco, Switzerland.

Former Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. “junk-bond” operations chief Michael R. Milken pleads guilty in U.S. District Court in NYC to 6 felony counts related to securities fraud. . . . Reports show new orders for durable goods rose 6.7% in March, the highest monthly increase since 1988.

The spacecraft Discovery lifts off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., without any hitches, and it attains the highest orbit ever reached by the shuttle, above any traces of friction from the upper atmosphere.

The Supreme Court rules the owners of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 film Rear Window infringes the copyright of the short story on which the film is based. The ruling raises questions about hundreds of classic films. . . . Joan Tower, a professor of music at Bard College in New York, wins the fifth Grawemeyer Award for original music composition. She is the first woman and the first Native American to win the award.

The U.S. space shuttle Discovery successfully deploys the Hubble Space Telescope in an orbit 381 miles above Earth. One of the telescope’s two major antennas snags on a bowed electric cable, blocking the antenna from one-quarter of its turning capability.

Dexter Gordon, 67, jazz tenor saxophonist and actor, dies of cancer in Philadelphia. . . . Media mogul John Kluge, who was named by Forbes magazine as the richest man in the U.S., files for divorce from his wife Patricia.

Ames Department Stores Inc. files for protection under Chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy code.

A panel of scientists convened by the U.S. Public Health Service conclude that there is no persuasive evidence that the fluoridation of drinking water creates a significant risk of cancer.

Joseph Papp, director of the New York Shakespeare Festival, rejects a $50,000 grant from the NEA to protest its stance on “obscene” art. . . . The New York Court of Appeals upholds a ruling that the San Diego Yacht Club is the winner of the 1988 America’s Cup competition against a syndicate from New Zealand.

Pennsylvania governor Robert P. Casey (D) signs the nation’s most restrictive law designed to discourage hostile corporate takeovers. Two suits are filed in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia against the measure. . . . Reports assert the gross national product grew at a 2.1% annual rate in the first quarter of 1990, while inflation soared to its highest quarterly rate since 1981.

The Hubble telescope successfully opens its 10-foot- wide “lens cap.”

Bella Cohen Spewack, 91, coauthor of books to Broadway musicals Kiss Me Kate and Boy Meets Girl, dies in NYC. . . . San Antonio Spurs center David Robinson is named basketball’s rookie of the year, the first unanimous choice for the award since 1984. . . . The Bourne Ultimatum by Robert Ludlum tops the bestseller list.

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Includes elections, federal-state relations, civil rights and liberties, crime, the judiciary, education, health care, poverty, urban affairs, and population.

Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 23

April 24

April 25

April 26

April 27

50—April 28–May 3, 1990

April 28

World Affairs

Europe

The Los Angeles Times reports that millions of dollars of UN relief money for Afghanistan, earmarked for repair of roads and villages, has instead been spent on salaries, offices, and housing for relief workers. . . . Leaders of the 12 EC nations agree to set an examination of proposals designed to increase political cooperation within the community.

April 29

Asia & the Pacific

Syrian president Hafez al-Assad meets with Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev in his first visit to Moscow in three years.

Slain Colombian candidate Carlos Pizarro Leongómez is buried, and 20,000 mourners accompany his coffin in a procession through the capital. His second in command, Antonio Navarro Wolff, states he will replace Pizarro as the group’s presidential candidate.

More than 10,000 riot police assault the Hyundai Heavy Industry Co. shipyard plant in an attempt to halt a 20,000-worker wildcat strike.

Men in the Swiss sub-canton of Appenzell Inner-Rhoden vote to keep the ban on women voting in local elections, the only place in the nation that withholds the right to vote in local elections from women. . . . British Satellite Broadcasting begins its satellite television service. . . . New East German premier Lothar de Maiziere pays his first visit to Moscow and meets with Soviet president Gorbachev.

Panama’s president, Guillermo Endara, embarks on a five-day visit to the U.S.

In South Korea, at least 3,000 Hyundai striking workers clash with police. Protests over the raid spread to Seoul, where more than 1,000 students block traffic and throw stones at police.

Lebanese kidnappers free hostage Frank Reed, the second American captive released in eight days. . . . In Zaire, government security forces attack a political rally in Kinshasa, killing at least two people. . . . During Israel’s independence day celebrations, Pres. Chaim Herzog receives petitions signed by half a million adults demanding reform of Israel’s electoral system to end the paralyzing influence of small parties. . . . The U.S. and South Yemen restore diplomatic relations after a break of over 20 years.

The largest native land-claim accord in Canadian history gives the Inuit over 135,000 square miles of land and a total of C$612 million in compensation over the next 14 years. It also gives the Inuit the rights to oil, gas, and mineral holdings on 14,000 square miles of the territory. In exchange, the Inuit relinquishes their claim to a 772,000-square-mile area. . . . Panama and the U.S. sign three agreements on fighting drug trafficking. . . . Pres. Bush nominates Gilberto Guardia Fabrega as the first Panamanian administrator of the Panama Canal.

In Japan, Foreign Minister Taro Nakayama announces that thirdgeneration Koreans in Japan will be granted permanent resident status and will no longer be required to be fingerprinted. . . . At least 2,000 riot policemen raid the offices of the state-run Korean Broadcasting System in Seoul to break up a strike. . . . Reports surface that China supplied Cambodian rebels with arms.

May Day celebrations and marches are held in Czechoslovakia, Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, and Hungary, and groups stage a prodemocracy rally in Leningrad, where the official celebration was canceled. . . . Soviet president Gorbachev and Kremlin leaders are jeered by thousands of protesters at the May Day parade in Red Square. . . . Hundreds of thousands of people cross between East and West Berlin while leftist youths stage antireunification rallies in both Germanies. . . . The Irish government bans smoking in theaters and buses.

The U.S. suspends the Peace Corps program, with its 130 volunteers, in Liberia because of escalating violence.

In El Salvador, Col. Roberto Mauricio Staben, who is linked to a kidnap-for-profit ring and is frequently accused of human rights abuses, is ousted from his command.

The Chinese government ends martial law in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. Martial law has been in effect since March 1989. . . . Tens of thousands of demonstrators rally to demand the removal of U.S. military bases from the Philippines.

In Washington, D.C., more than 200 legislators from 42 countries call for a “global Marshall Plan” to help developing countries cope with environmental problems. World Bank president Barber Conable states the bank will ask its members to establish a new environmental fund.

In Hungary, Arpad Goncz becomes the parliamentary speaker, which encompasses the role of acting president. West German president Richard von Weizsaecker becomes the first West German head of state to visit Poland. . . . East and West German negotiators finalize terms for the unification of monetary systems and agree to implement the two-for-one rate as the official currency exchange rate, replacing the three-for-one rate.

The South African government and the African National Congress meet in Cape Town for their first formal talks. . . . Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak flies to Damascus, where he is warmly received by Syrian president Assad in the first visit to Syria by an Egyptian leader since 1977.

Law enforcement agents from Ontario, Quebec, and New York State seal off the St. Regis Mohawk Indian Reservation in an attempt to quell a series of gunfights in a dispute over gambling casinos on the reservation. . . . Jamaican prime minister Michael Manley visits Washington, D.C.

OPEC officials meet in Geneva and agree to scale back production to stem tumbling world oil prices.The foreign ministers of NATO adopt a package of proposals related to the reunification of Germany.

In Hungary, Pres. Arpad Goncz appoints Jozsef Antall as premier. . . . Britain’s ruling Conservative Party loses 191 seats, and the Labour Party gains 300 seats. . . . The Latvian Supreme Soviet begins a new session. . . . Bulgaria restores diplomatic relations with Israel after a 23-year break. . . . Accused Nazi war criminal Josef Schwammberger arrives in West Germany after being extradited from Argentina, where he was arrested in 1987.

Ivory Coast president Félix Houphouët-Boigny instructs the interior minister to implement multiparty politics.

In Colombia, security forces start a two-day raid and seize 18 tons of cocaine powder and semirefined cocaine in the largest drug raid in the nation’s history. . . . Separately, a bomb explodes outside a pharmacy said to be owned by Cali drug cartel leaders. Five people are killed and 36 wounded.

May 1

May 3

The Americas

In Czechoslovakia, the People’s Party sparks a furor by using secret-police files to disclose the communist pasts of two parliamentary deputies, both members of the prodemocracy Civic Forum movement.

April 30

May 2

Africa & the Middle East

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

April 28–May 3, 1990—51

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Hawaii governor John D. Waihee (D) appoints Rep. Daniel K. Akaka (D, Hawaii) to fill the Senate seat of the late Spark M. Matsunaga. . . . Hundreds of thousands of people attend an antiabortion rally in Washington, D.C.

A Chorus Line, the longest-running show in the history of NYC’s Broadway theater district, gives its final performance after a run of nearly 15 years and 6,137 performances.

Margaret T. Hance, 66, Republican who was elected the first female mayor of Phoenix, Ariz., dies of cancer in Phoenix.

Connecticut governor William O’Neill (D) signs legislation intended to ensure a woman’s right to abortion even if the Supreme Court were to strike down the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. . . . DuBois Gilliam, imprisoned for his role in the HUD scandal, describes HUD’s fraud and political favoritism. . . . The Supreme Court says the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey can be sued in federal court. . . . The Supreme Court recognizes the authority of states or private parties to challenge mergers as anticompetitive even if they receive federal approval.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The spacecraft Discovery lands safely at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Pres. Bush for the first time thanks Iran for the release of hostages but stresses there are no deals involved in the releases. . . . The U.S. State Department releases its annual list of countries that support international terrorism. . . . A federal judge in Alexandria, Va., dismisses new charges against Thomas Muldoon, the first figure to be reindicted in the Pentagon procurement scandal.

Reverend Henry C. Gregory, 54, pastor whose sermons were broadcast over the radio each Sunday, dies of cancer in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va.

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching finds campus life at America’s colleges and universities is undermined by crime, alcohol abuse, and growing racial and sexual intolerance.

The Senate approves a $3.4 billion supplemental spending bill for fiscal 1990 that includes $720 million in aid for Panama and Nicaragua. . . . Defense Secretary Dick Cheney extends for 45 days a freeze on domestic and foreign U.S. military construction.

The House passes a $1.2 trillion spending plan for fiscal 1991 put forth by the Democrats as “a first step in the process” of working out a budget with the Bush administration.

The FDA approves a test to screen the nation’s blood supply for the hepatitis C virus.

The Washington Post reports the Bush administration passed messages to Iran via Algerian, Japanese, and Swiss intermediaries that parallel Bush’s public statements and were meant to encourage further hostage releases.

The Senate Budget Committee approves a $1.23 trillion fiscal 1991 spending plan that will reduce the federal deficit by $43 billion by spending less on defense and domestic programs than either the House or the White House proposed.The White House reveals Pres. Bush mistakenly underpaid his 1989 federal income tax and remedied the underpayment.

David Rappaport, 38, British-born dwarf who appeared in the television series L.A. Law, dies of a selfinflicted gunshot wound in Los Angeles.

In a case that touched off civil-rights protests, an all-white jury in Houston convicts three white former police officers of murdering a black man who died after a prison beating. . . . A Pennsylvania jury awards the largest libel judgment ever against a newspaper in a suit filed against the Philadelphia Inquirer. . . . The FDA grants formal approval for use of the drug AZT in treating children with AIDS, waiving its requirement of separate testing of drugs in children.

Lithuanian premier Kazimiera Prunskiene meets with U.S. president Bush in Washington, D.C.

Pres. Bush supports William Taylor, a top Federal Reserve Board official, to succeed L. William Seidman as chairman of the government’s program to bail out failed savings and loan institutions.

The First Family responds to controversy when a group of 150 Wellesley students protest an invitation to act as commencement speaker to Mrs. Bush, who dropped out of Smith College to marry.

NASA engineers report that they found a way to correct an antenna problem on the Hubble telescope.

Reports state that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints dropped some Mormon rituals that are offensive to women and to members of other religions. . . . John F. Kennedy Jr. fails the New York State bar exam for the second time.

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Includes elections, federal-state relations, civil rights and liberties, crime, the judiciary, education, health care, poverty, urban affairs, and population.

Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 28

April 29

April 30

May 1

May 2

May 3

52—May 4–8, 1990

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The Supreme Soviet of Latvia votes in favor of a declaration of independence from the Soviet Union and calls for a period of transition to independence. . . . About 2,000 young Serbian nationalists stage a protest march through Belgrade on the 10th anniversary of the death of former Yugoslav leader Josip Broz, Marshal Tito. Police use truncheons to break up the protest. . . . The Greek parliament elects Constantine Karamanlis as the nation’s president. . . . David Hunt becomes secretary of state for Wales.

Iranian and Israeli officials and Lebanese militants begin to trade demands on the possible swap of Western hostages in Lebanon for Shiite Muslim prisoners held by pro-Israeli forces.

In Colombia, seven people are killed in a shoot-out between counterterrorist police and suspected drug traffickers. . . . In Nicaragua, disarmament talks begin between the government and contras.

U.S. Marine sergeant John S. Fredette is shot dead in Olongapo City, near the U.S. Subic Bay Naval Station in the Philippines.

Foreign ministers from East and West Germany and the victorious Allied powers of World War II meet in Bonn to discuss the reunification of Germany.

Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev condemns the Latvian measure in a phone call to the head of the Latvian Communist Party. . . . The English soccer season ends violently when police in Bournemouth clash with 2,500 fans. . . . In Romania, a presidential candidate, Rodu Campeanu, is assaulted by protesters in Braila. . . . The people of Plzen, Czechoslovakia, honor two dozen U.S. veterans, who liberated the city from Nazi German occupation.

In South Africa, the Azanian People’s Organization, a militant blackconsciousness group, accuses the ANC of forging an alliance with F. W. de Klerk’s ruling National Party at the expense of mass struggle by the black majority.

In Nicaragua, Pres. Violeta Barrios de Chamorro pledges to grant the contras a parcel of land on which they can settle as farmers with government aid. The territory will be permanently demilitarized. The accord is called the Declaration of Managua.

Afghan foreign minister Abdul Wakil urges the U.S. to agree to dialogue with his government on the possibility of internationally monitored elections in Afghanistan. . . . In response to the May 4 shooting of a marine, military authorities cancel off-base leave for all U.S. service personnel and their families in the Philippines.

Top finance officials from the Group of Seven nations meet in Washington, D.C., and agree to increase the lending resources of the International Monetary Fund by 50%.

The Soviet government opens eight border points for six hours and allows Romanians to travel freely. . . . The Croatian Democratic Union wins a parliamentary majority in run-off elections. . . . Latvian president Anatolijs Gorbunovs appeals to the Kremlin to discuss independence. . . . Italian regional elections show waning support for the Communist Party and gains for conservative regional parties. . . . In East Germany’s first free local elections, Lothar de Maiziere takes the lead.

Former president P. W. Botha resigns from the National Party to protest the government’s talks with the ANC, while Nelson Mandela, Joseph Slovo, and Alfred Nzo give a positive report on their talks with the government at a rally in Soweto.

Pope John Paul II starts a visit to Mexico.

The World Health Organization (WHO) opens its annual meeting in Geneva with renewed controversy over the PLO’s request for full membership in the UN agency. . . . Czechoslovakia signs a 10-year accord on trade and cooperation with the European Community.

Latvian deputies choose Ivars Godmanis, a noncommunist, as Latvia’s premier. A column of Soviet tanks roll through Riga, the Latvian capital. A leading Latvian trade-union organization vows a campaign of civil disobedience to protest secession. . . . U.S. vice president Dan Quayle visits London in his first European trip as vice president. The trip commemorates the 100th anniversary of the birth of Pres. Eisenhower.

The ANC invites the leaders of four of the six nominally self-governing black tribal “homelands” for a briefing on the Cape Town talks. . . . In Zaire, the cabinet is sworn in by Pres. Mobutu Sese Seko.

Canadian employment and immigration minister Barbara McDougall acknowledges that immigration officials used tranquilizing drugs on illegal immigrants who resisted deportation. . . . In Canada, Fisheries Minister Valcourt releases a federal plan to aid the ailing Atlantic Canada Fishing industry. . . . Pres. Bush’s chief of staff, John Sununu, warns Salvadoran president Alfredo Cristiani that mishandling of the Benavides investigation may jeopardize U.S. aid.

The Group of Seven (U.S., Japan, Great Britain, West Germany, France, Italy, and Canada) makes several decisions about the IMF that are endorsed at a meeting in Washington. . . . Premier Adil Carcani announces that Albania will join the 35-nation Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The Albanian People’s Assembly approves a package of bills for liberal reform and becomes the last Marxist nation in Europe to effect liberalization. . . . Estonian lawmakers pass a resolution declaring the birth of the “Estonian Republic.” The deputies adopt the Estonian flag as the republic’s official symbol and pass legislation that states only laws passed in Estonia are valid on Estonian soil. . . . Cardinal Tomas O Fiaich, 66, Roman Catholic primate of all Ireland since 1977, dies from heart trouble.

About 2,000 Moroccan fundamentalists are beaten and arrested when they stage a peaceful demonstration in Rabat in support of six jailed Islamic leaders. Hours later, King Hassan orders the release of many of the demonstrators and announces the creation of a 37member consultative committee on human rights. . . . F. W. de Klerk begins a nine-nation tour of Europe.

Rafael Angel Calderón Fournier is sworn in as president of Costa Rica. . . . U.S. president George H. W. Bush pledges to seek to increase funding to help cut Bolivian cocaine production. . . . Nicaragua resumes exporting goods to the U.S.

World Affairs

May 4

May 5

May 6

May 7

May 8

Europe

Philippine police arrest two men in connection with the May 4 shooting of a U.S. marine. Police report that an investigation “discounted the possibility of political motive” for the crime. . . . In response to growing public discontent, South Korean president Roh Tae Woo makes a televised speech acknowledging that his administration made mistakes.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

May 4–8, 1990—53

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Robert Tappan Morris Jr., a former Cornell University graduate student, is sentenced in U.S. District Court to three years’ probation for creating a computer virus that disrupted a nationwide network in Nov. 1988.

A federal jury in Portland, Oreg., acquits a self-proclaimed CIA contract agent of lying when he claimed that the Reagan-Bush campaign struck a deal with Iran in Oct. 1980 to hold the 52 U.S. hostages in Teheran until after the election. . . . Two U.S. soldiers who participated in the 1989 invasion of Panama, Sgt. Paul T. Finsel Jr. and Pfc. Mark McMonagle, are charged with murdering a Panamanian. . . . Seventeen Marines are injured in a Sea Knight crash at Twentynine Palms, Calif.

Reports state that the U.S. civilian unemployment rate rose to 5.4% in April from 5.2% in March, the highest increase in more than a year.

A volcano with slow-moving lava compels officials to move the historic Star-of-the-Sea Roman Catholic Church in Kalapana, Hawaii. . . . A study in Science finds that where meat consumption has risen in China, so have the socalled “diseases of affluence” such as heart attacks, cancer, and diabetes.

A bipartisan commission report concludes that U.S. voters are uninformed and apathetic about national elections.

U.S. federal prosecutors file documents in Los Angeles stating that the police chief of Mexico City, Javier García Paniagua, was present at a 1984 meeting of drug traffickers, Mexican law enforcement officials, and others in which Enrique Camarena’s abduction was planned.

In the Greyhound strike, contract talks between the union and management resume under the auspices of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. However, they are halted indefinitely after a nine-hour bargaining session.

A slow-moving lava flow from Kilauea Volcano on the island of Hawaii cuts off road access to Kalapana, prompting Hawaiian governor John Waihee (D) to declare the village a disaster area. The 2,000-ft-wide lava flow is the result of eruptions at Kilauea that began in Jan. 1983.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

May 4

Elton Hoerl Rule, 73, president of ABC, 1972–83, dies of cancer in Beverly Hills, Calif. . . . Unbridled wins the 116th running of the Kentucky Derby.

Charles (Charlie) Farrell, 88, film actor and former mayor of Palm Springs, Calif., dies in Palm Springs after a heart attack.

A settlement is reached in a dispute over the Selma, Ala., school board’s decision not to renew the contract of school superintendent Norward Roussell, a decision that had sparked protests earlier.

Craig I. Fields becomes the deputy director of defense research and engineering. . . . Carl Russell (Spitz) Channell, 44, the first person to plead guilty to criminal charges in the Iran-contra affair, dies from complications after an earlier car accident.

According to a report published in American Psychologist, teenagers who experiment with drugs to a limited extent tend to be emotionally healthier and better adjusted than either total abstainers or drug abusers.

A previously undisclosed meeting between Oliver North and then-vice president Bush is revealed when 1,400 pages of North’s notebooks are made public.

Business Week reports that average compensation for top executives of U.S. corporations rose 3.4% in 1989, the smallest increase since 1970.

Nora Dunn, a cast member of Saturday Night Live, announces that she will not appear on an episode hosted by Andrew Dice Clay, noted for his routines directed against women and homosexuals. . . . Pistons’ forward Dennis Rodman is named basketball’s top defensive player.

The FCC grants a license to Millicom Inc. to test a new type of portable phone network that may emerge as an alternative to cellular systems currently in use.

May 5

May 6

May 7

May 8

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

54—May 9–14, 1990

May 9

May 10

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The U.S. presents opposition to a UN plan to provide direct aid to Third World countries to reduce use of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons. . . . The Lithuanian premier meets with British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who states she “absolutely, unquestionably” supports Lithuanian independence but urges the republic to compromise with the Kremlin.

In Poland, Lech Walesa, founder of the Solidarity union movement, threatens to lead a “permanent political war” that will shake Premier Tadeusz Mazowiecki and the Solidarity-led government. . . . The minority Socialist government of French premier Michel Rocard survives a censure motion over controversial legislation to grant amnesty to politicians in cases of illegal fundraising prior to June 1989. . . . The USSR marks the 45th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany with a military parade in Moscow.

Nelson Mandela starts a six-nation tour of Africa.

NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group decides to decrease its arsenal of nuclear weapons in Europe. . . . In response to a U.S. threat to withdraw crucial funding to the World Health Organization, it defers the divisive PLO bid indefinitely.

The Lithuanian government takes over state television and radio outlets in the republic. . . . In Poland, 10 rail workers start a hunger strike. . . . Desecrated Jewish graves in France call attention to racism and anti-Semitism. . . . F. W. de Klerk confers with François Mitterrand, becoming the first South African leader to meet with a French president since 1947.

Tens of thousands of Algerians stage a peaceful march to show their support for democracy and their opposition to Islamic fundamentalism.

In Nicaragua, 60,000 government workers stage sit-ins and strikes to press for wage increases.

China releases 211 dissidents who were involved in the 1989 prodemocracy movement.

The presidents of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia meet for the first time since the start of the independence push. . . . British publisher Robert Maxwell launches The European, a weekly English-language paper available throughout Europe. . . . In Romania, three Peasants Party deputies resign from the Provisional Council of National Unity to protest the “atmosphere of terror” pervading the elections.

The Financial Times reports that the Ethopian government has lifted its 13-year-old ban on private banking.

The pope holds an unscheduled prayer in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Mexico, for 27 people who died in a plane crash while on the way to see him.

An explosion and fire rip through a Philippine Airlines jet as it prepares to take off from Benigno Aquino International Airport in Manila on a domestic flight. The blast kills seven people and injures 82. . . . A secret Chinese government document made public in the U.S. appears to confirm that Chinese leaders considered the release of detained dissidents a “card” to play for favorable U.S. policy.

The presidents of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia agree to coordinate political and economic strategies and sign a treaty reviving the Baltic Council, a group that existed until the 1940 Soviet annexation of the Baltic region. . . . Around 100,000 demonstrators in Prague demand that former officials be prosecuted for the alleged crimes they committed during Communist rule. . . . Andrei Pavlovich Kirilenko, 84, former member of the Soviet Politburo, dies of unreported causes in the USSR.

South Yemen president Ali Abdullah Saleh announces that the armed forces of North and South Yemen are technically dissolved. . . . In Liberia, rebels seize Yekepa, the site of an iron-ore mine that is Liberia’s biggest industrial facility. . . . The Washington Post reports that powerful old-guard members of the Popular Movement of the Revolution successfully pressured Zaire’s president Mobuto to slow down the process of liberalization.

In Colombia, at least 17 people die and more than 140 are injured when two car bombs explode in front of shopping malls in Bogota. Separately, as many as 10 people die and 40 are injured when a bomb explodes in the nightclub district of Cali. . . . Chile reaches a tentative accord under which it will pay compensation to the U.S. for the 1976 killing of Chilean exile Orlando Letelier and an aide, Ronni K. Moffitt.

P.M. Vishwanath Pratap Singh visits the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu after they are hit by cyclones and announces a total of $70 million in emergency relief funds.

British fears about the possibility of the transmission of mad cow disease to humans are raised when a cat dies from the disease. . . . The West German Social Democratic Party (SPD) posts key election victories in state elections in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia.

Eleven armed dissidents seize control of a radio station in Madagascar. In clashes with security forces, three people are killed and 20 injured. . . . The U.S. and Iran sign an agreement under which Iran will pay the U.S. $105 million to settle 2,795 small financial claims arising from the 1979 Iranian revolution.

Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies approves a constitutional amendment returning control of the nation’s banks to private hands. The banks had been nationalized in 1982.

South Korean police arrest a prominent dissident, Kim Keun Tae, in connection with recent protests. . . . In the Philippines, two U.S. servicemen are shot and killed. Officials cancel all off-base leaves for U.S. military personnel.

Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev declares the efforts of Estonia and Latvia to break with the Soviet Union have no legal basis. . . . At least 200 protesters, some on a hunger strike, take up residence in a tent city erected in Bucharest, the headquarters for daily antigovernment protests. . . . In response to several desecrated Jewish graves, 80,000 march in Paris to protest racism and antiSemitism. Pres. Mitterrand joins the march, the first time a French president participates in a public protest since World War II. . . . Seven people are injured in an IRA bomb attack on the Ministry of Defense’s Directorate of Army Education in London.

In the Ivory Coast, hundreds of lowranking army conscripts, disgruntled over low pay and poor working conditions, stage unprecedented protests. . . . Around 20,000 Jordanians and Palestinians stage a march that ends in chaos when some youths charge across the Allenby Bridge, which links Jordan to the West Bank. More than 50 people are injured when police use tear gas to drive back the crowd.

Nicaraguan labor minister Francisco Rosales declares a public sector strike illegal. . . . The Mexican attorney general’s office creates a new investigative division that will handle special cases, including the 1985 torture and slaying of a U.S. drug agent and his pilot.

Bilateral talks open in Manila. Supporters and opponents of the U.S. bases demonstrate throughout the Philippines.

May 11

May 12

May 13

May 14

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Nearly 100,000 students in 16 cities demonstrate against South Korea’s dominant Democratic Liberal Party in the largest protest in South Korea since 1987. Student protesters in Seoul attack and set fire to the U.S. Information Service building. . . . The worst cyclone in India since 1977 batters the states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu for two days, killing 450 people and destroying thousands of homes.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

May 9–14, 1990—55

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The Senate Ethics Committee votes to broaden an investigation of Sen. David Durenberger (R, Minn.). . . . Pauline Frederick, 84, news commentator and the first woman to moderate a presidential debate, dies of a heart attack in Lake Forest, Ill.

Americas Watch, a U.S.-based human rights group, charges that before and during the 1989 invasion of Panama, the U.S. violated the Geneva Conventions on warfare. . . . Bush administration officials contend that the Bush-North meeting concerned arms sales to Iran but did not address illegal contra aid

The Animas–La Plata reservoir project in Colorado is put on “indefinite hold” after the Fish and Wildlife Service finds the project threatens the endangered Colorado squawfish. . . . The EPA concludes that secondhand smoke causes more than 3,000 cases of lung cancer in nonsmokers each year in the U.S. . . . The Treasury sells $10 billion of new 10-year notes at an average yield of 8.88%, the highest since May 1989.

Singer Tom Waits wins a lawsuit against Frito-Lay and its ad agency, which unlawfully re-created his distinctive voice with an imitator. . . . Singer Sinead O’Connor joins the boycott of Saturday Night Live announced by Nora Dunn May 7 . . . Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist Jimmy Breslin is suspended for two weeks after making racist remarks about a female Korean-American reporter.

A federal appeals court rules that begging is not a form of free speech, so NYC has the right to ban panhandlers from its subways. . . . The Senate Judiciary Committee releases a report that estimates 2.2 million Americans use cocaine at least once a week. . . . The House passes a bill to require companies to grant workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to tend to newborn or adopted children or seriously ill family members.

The U.S. temporarily recalls Alan Green Jr., the U.S. ambassador to Romania, “in light of the reports of irregularities in the Romanian electoral process which raise questions about whether those elections will be free and fair.”

According to The Wall Street Journal, 207 banks needed FDIC assistance in 1989. . . . Three top U.S. bank regulators urge bankers not to curb credit in reaction to stricter government supervision of lending practices.

Walker Percy, 74, author and philosopher, dies of cancer in Covington, La.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Donald Ayer resigns after less than six months on the job. The resignation is prompted by earlier disclosures that he was forced to retract support for tough sentencing guidelines for corporations convicted of criminal activity. The White House nominates William Barr to replace him. . . . U.S. officials announce Pres. Bush’s nomination of U.S. district judge Robert C. Bonner as the head of the DEA.

Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr. states the Endangered Species Act is “too tough” and should be revised to allow more weight for economic factors in deciding the fate of certain kinds of plants and animals, remarks which set off controversy. . . . News of wholesale figures help push up the Dow Jones Industrial Average by 63.07 points, which is equal to 2.3% of its total value. Volume on the NYSE is at its highest in five months.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

In a commencement address at Texas A&M University, Pres. Bush envisions an American landing on Mars by the year 2020.

May 12

The Washington Post reports that U.S.-backed Afghan rebels are heavily involved in the heroin trade.

More than 30 Democrats mail letters to colleagues asking them to join the Coalition for Democratic Values, a newly formed organization of liberal legislators launched by Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D, Ohio). . . . U.S. district judge Gerhard A. Gesell orders Price Waterhouse & Co. to award a partnership to a woman, Ann Hopkins, who was denied promotion in 1983 because of sexual bias. . . . The Supreme Court refuses a suit supported by 30 states seeking liability of asbestos companies for the cost of removing asbestos from state buildings and facilities.

May 10

May 11

In a commencement address, Pres. Bush proposes the creation of a “citizens democracy corps” for American private-sector assistance to Eastern Europe.

The Knights of Columbus, a Roman Catholic fraternal organization, announces it will contribute $3 million of the $5 million needed to fund an antiabortion publicity campaign by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.

May 9

May 13

The Supreme Court rules that price-cutting arrangements that damage a competitor’s business do not necessarily violate federal antitrust laws.

May 14

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

56—May 15–20, 1990

World Affairs

May 15

May 16

An environmental conference by Western nations in Bergen, Norway, concludes with a commitment by most of the 34 nations attending to stabilize carbon dioxide emissions at current levels by the year 2000. Many world powers, including the U.S., do not agree . . . The council of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade grants the Soviet Union observer status in the organization.

May 17

May 18

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Asia & the Pacific The New People’s Army claim responsibility for the May 13 killings of U.S. airmen, which they describe as “a warning,” and threaten more violence unless U.S. bases are removed from the Philippines.

In Yugoslavia, Borisav Jovic of Serbia succeeds Janez Drnovsek in the one-year post of federal president and warns that political differences and ethnic tensions have brought Yugoslavia to the brink of “civil war”. . . . The death count of workers constructing the Eurotunnel reaches eight. . . . Soviet loyalists, believed to be mainly ethnic Russians, storm the parliament buildings in Estonia and Latvia. . . . Pres. Hosni Mubarak meets with Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow, formally closing more than a decade of strained Soviet-Egyptian diplomatic relations.

Pres. Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali from Tunisia meets with U.S. pres. Bush, who praises Tunisia as “an example of pragmatism, stability and progress in the Middle East.”

Nicaraguan strikers ignore the government’s ultimatum, and they are joined by workers from the telephone service, public transportation, banks, the international airport and border crossings.

The first noncommunist government in Yugoslavia since World War II takes office in Slovenia, and Lojze Peterle becomes premier. . . . A British army sergeant is killed and another injured when a bomb rocks their van in London. . . . The federal government in Bonn and the 11 West German states agree to create a 115 billion deutsche mark fund to restructure the ailing economy of East Germany.

In South Africa, a clash between black workers and white officials at an Anglo-American Corp. gold mine kills two whites and injures 18 blacks and whites. Following the deaths, members of the white separatist AWB chant “We want blood” outside the police station. . . . In the Ivory Coast, 1,000 recruits seize control of the country’s main airport and briefly occupy the national television and radio stations.

Nicaraguan president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro agrees to higher wages for state workers, and other measures, ending a week-long strike in the public sector. . . . Representatives of the Salvadoran government and the FMLN rebels hold talks in Caracas, Venezuela. . . . The Dominican Republic holds presidential elections that are so close that a recount is ordered.

Soviet president Gorbachev confers with Lithuanian premier Kazimiera Prunskiene in Moscow in the first meeting with a senior official of any of the renegade Baltic republics.

The South African government sends police and army reinforcements to an Anglo-American Corp. gold mine after the May 16 riot.

In Papua New Guinea, a rebel leader, Francis Ona, declares independence and names himself interim president of the “Republic of Bougainville.”

In Poland, Lech Walesa convinces 7,200 Gdansk shipyard workers to return to work after a four-hour stoppage. . . . A by-election in the Northern Ireland district of Upper Bann returns a representative of the Ulster Unionist Party to Parliament. . . . The finance ministers of East and West Germany sign a treaty setting conditions for merging the economies of the two countries.

In Liberia, rebel fighting escalates to the point where Pres. Samuel K. Doe calls for the entire population to “get their cutlasses and singlebarrel guns and get in the bush” to fight the rebels.

In South Korea, students in Kwangju begin three days of demonstrations to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the 1980 Kwangju prodemocracy uprising, which was violently suppressed by South Korean troops. . . . Reports suggest that riots and fighting between faction groups are occurring in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea.

In Liberia, rebels attack Buchanan, the country’s second-largest city and the chief port for the export of iron ore. . . . The Egyptian government announces that, in an effort to calm Iraqi fears, Cairo won a pledge from Israel that it will not launch a first strike against any Arab country.

May 19

The ruling National Salvation Front and its leader, Interim President Ion Iliescu, wins the Romanian national elections. Opponent Ion Ratiu charges vote fraud and vows to contest the results. . . . The Soviet government publishes a presidential decree allowing Soviet citizens to build, buy, or sell their own housing and to own the land on which their housing stood. It is the first major economic directive by Pres. Gorbachev that uses his new executive powers.

May 20

The Americas

In Colombia, gunmen kill a city councilman from the Patriotic Union. Separately, a member from the Liberal Party is shot and killed in Colombia’s Antioquia province.

An Israeli Jew, described as “deranged” by witnesses, opens fire on a group of Palestinian laborers inside Israel, killing seven of them. The massacre sparks widespread riots in the occupied Gaza Strip and West Bank that last for two days and spread to Arabs inside Israel and to Palestinians in Jordan. Five Gazans are shot to death by troops in the rioting, and hundreds are wounded by live ammunition and plastic bullets. . . . In South Africa, police open fire on protesters in the black township of Thabong, outside Welkom. Four blacks are killed.

Pres. Lee Teng-hui is inaugurated, and he proposes that Taiwan open “channels of communication” with China. Lee also pardons nine imprisoned dissidents. Around 6,500 demonstrators protest Lee’s appointment of Defense Minister Hau Pei-tsun as premier. . . . In South Korea, protests turn violent as police fire tear gas to hold back 10,000 students armed with firebombs and rocks. Fifty people are reported injured, and 200 protesters are arrested. . . . Robert Gates, the U.S. deputy national security adviser, travels to Pakistan and India to discuss tensions in Kashmir.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

May 15–20, 1990—57

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Chief Justice William Rehnquist calls for restrictions on death penalty appeals to federal courts. . . . Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Barry pleads not guilty to six new drug charges. . . . The trial of four Mexicans accused of involvement in the Enrique Camarena murder opens in Los Angeles. . . . A study reveals that married people live longer than unmarried people. The highest death rate is among divorced men.

A presidential commission investigating the Dec. 1988 terrorist bombing of Pan American World Airways Flight 103 criticizes Pan Am. The FAA calls for new steps to improve aviation security and urges U.S. military strikes against terrorist targets.

Congressional leaders and Bush administration officials meet to negotiate the fiscal 1991 budget. . . . Circle K Corp. files for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. bankruptcy code.

Reports surface that 13 people were killed in floods that hit parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana over the last month. A total of 117 counties in the four states are declared disaster areas.

Portrait of Dr. Gachet by Vincent van Gogh becomes the most expensive painting sold at auction (for $82.5 million).

The Senate approves a bill that provides an estimated $2.9 billion in emergency funds over the next five years to help cities and states cope with the costs of the AIDS epidemic.

A privately financed rocket is launched at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, to conduct commercial experiments. The Starfire-1 rocket flies 189 miles into space then coasts for about seven minutes in very weak gravity crucial for the experiments. The payload is parachuted back to Earth 54 miles north of the launching site.

James Maury (Jim) Henson, 53, puppeteer who created the Muppets, dies of streptococcal pneumonia in NYC. . . . Sammy Davis Jr., 64, singer, dancer, and actor who was one of the first black performers to win widespread acclaim from white audiences, dies of throat cancer in Los Angeles.

Arizona governor Rose Mofford (D) signs a law that makes slain civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a paid holiday for state employees.

The General Accounting Office reports that the Bush administration is deeply divided in its attitude toward cigarette exports. . . . Joseph Fama, 19, is found guilty of murder in the death of a black youth, Yusuf Hawkins, who was shot to death after being chased by a gang of white teens in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, in 1989.

West German chancellor Helmut Kohl holds talks with Pres. Bush in Washington.

Dalton Prejean becomes the first person executed under a 1989 ruling that permits states to impose the death penalty for crimes committed by 16- and 17-year-olds. Prejean’s case evoked national protest since he has an IQ of 71, is black, and was convicted by a white jury. . . . Keith Mondello, a member of the mob that attacked a black youth, Yusef Hawkins, is acquitted of murder and manslaughter charges and convicted on lesser counts. His acquittal on the most serious charges touches off a series of protests by blacks in Bensonhurst and Brooklyn.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Edward Derwinski announces that Vietnam war veterans with soft-tissue sarcoma, a rare form of cancer, are eligible for disability payments in a major breakthrough for veterans groups that claim there is a link between Agent Orange and cancer. . . . Another 1,200 pages of Oliver North’s personal notebooks are released to the public. . . . A new federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., begins a probe into the Irancontra arms scandal.

Jill Ireland, 54, British-born actress who appeared in many films, often with her husband, actor Charles Bronson, dies of cancer in Malibu, Calif.

Jose Rafael Abello Silva, extradited from Colombia in 1989, is found guilty of two drug conspiracy charges in Tulsa, Oklahoma. . . . Secretary of State James Baker returns from the Soviet Union and announces a tentative agreement that both sides will reduce their strategic missiles by 30%, each with a ceiling of 6,000 nuclear warheads.

Pres. Bush becomes the first sitting president to play in a Professional Golfers Association event when he plays a round of the Celebrity Classic.

Robert Reischauer, director of the Congressional Budget Office, forecasts that the federal deficit would be between $149 billion and $159 billion.

May 15

May 16

May 17

The Hubble Space Telescope relays its first photographs of the universe. The pictures returned of a nearby star cluster known as NGC 3532 reveal that what looked like an oblong blob in a recent photograph from Earth is instead two stars orbiting near each other.

Randy Barnes sets a world record in the shot put with a throw of 75 feet, 101⁄4 inches at the Jack in the Box Invitational in Los Angeles. . . . Monica Seles, 16, of Yugoslavia ends the 66-match winning streak of West German Steffi Graf, which began in June 1989 and is the second-longest streak in the modern era of women’s tennis.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 18

May 19

May 20

58—May 21–25, 1990

World Affairs

May 23

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

As many as six Palestinians are killed by army gunfire, and a Gazan Palestinian residing in Jordan storms aboard a bus filled with French tourists and wounds at least eight people. Arabs who are citizens of Israel stage a one-day strike as well as violent protests. . . . Riots in South Africa kill three blacks, which spark more clashes. . . . In Liberia, the mutilated bodies of 18 men from the Gio and Mano tribes are found dead. They are believed to have been killed as a warning by pro-Doe militants. . . . In Ethiopia, the government executes 12 officers convicted of taking part in a failed coup attempt in May 1989. . . . In Gabon, Pres. Omar Bongo lifts a ban on multiparty politics. . . . On the Ivory Coast, hundreds of police go on strike, blocking roads throughout Abidjan until Pres. Félix HouphouëtBoigny meets with the dissidents.

Representatives of the Salvadoran government and the FMLN reach an agreement on a “general agenda” to end the civil war. . . . In Colombia, Liberal Party senator Federico Estrada Vélez, 63, a political ally of Gaviria, is slain while driving. . . . The Progressive Conservative government of Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney is thrown into a crisis by the resignation of Environment Minister Lucien Bouchard in response to changes to the Meech Lake constitutional accord being discussed by the government.

Maulvi Mohammed Farooq, the chief Muslim cleric in Kashmir, is shot and killed in his home in Srinagar. Indian security forces fire on a procession of 100,000 mourners in Srinagar, killing at least 60 people.

NATO’s defense ministers agree to review military strategies in light of what they perceive as a significantly lessened threat from the Warsaw Pact.

In Poland, strikes spread throughout the northern region, shutting down the port of Szczecin and disrupting the flow of coal and other goods. . . . The Soviet Presidential Council and the Federation Counsel approve a new economic program.

In South Africa, Law and Order Minister Adriaan Vlok threatens to use gun control laws to crack down on self-styled Boer commando groups. . . . In Gabon, the Gabonese Democratic Party adopts a new constitution for the transitional period. . . . After years of conflict, the Yemen Arab Republic and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen merge into a single nation, the Republic of Yemen. . . . In Jordan, tens of thousands of Palestinians stage marches, and two people are killed when security forces open fire. . . . Police use tear gas to break up a march by hundreds of Palestinians in Jerusalem.

In Canada, Gilbert Chartrand resigns from the Progressive Conservative Party since he cannot accept any changes to the Meech Lake accord.

About 350,000 people gather in Srinagar, Kashmir, for Farooq’s funeral.

NATO’s defense ministers agree that the organization can safely reduce the state of readiness of its forces in Central Europe.

The Soviet government formally unveils its economic-reform program, which includes a plan for a national referendum.

A delegation from the ANC holds its first meeting inside South Africa with white business leaders. . . . In Gabon, Joseph Rendjambe, secretary general of the opposition Gabonese Progress Party, is found dead under suspicious circumstances. In response, riots break out in Gabon’s two largest cities in response that last for a week. . . . The Liberian government admits for the first time that a town was captured by rebels when it reports that Buchanan fell.

Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov presents the economic program to the Supreme Soviet, causing debate. . . . Mikhail Gorbachev tells Lithuanian officials in Moscow that the republic will be independent in two years if it suspends its March declaration of independence. . . . In Poland, Lech Walesa travels to Slupsk for four days of intensive private talks with strike leaders.

To reinforce the 500-strong battalion of French marines normally stationed in Gabon, France starts sending 200 more soldiers to its former colony, Gabon, after recent riots.

Haiti’s interim president, Ertha Trouillot, meets with U.S. pres. Bush in Washington, D.C. . . . In El Salvador, one soldier is convicted and two acquitted in the 1982 killing of a U.S. citizen, Michael David Kline. . . . In Colombia, at least nine people are killed and 20 injured by a car bomb that explodes in Medellín.

Emperor Akihito of Japan expresses his “deepest regret” for the 1910–45 Japanese occupation of Korea during a Tokyo banquet for South Korean president Roh Tae Woo. . . . In an emotional news conference, New South Wales, Premier Nick Greiner announces that Sir David Martin, the state governor, will resign because of ill health.

The Lithuanian government restricts the distribution of gasoline to use for food transport and emergency services and shuts off hot water for both domestic and industrial use. . . . British prime minister Margaret Thatcher breaks ranks with the U.S. and proposes that Britain “set itself the very demanding target” of a substantial reduction in carbon dioxide emissions to help ease the threat of global warming.

In the Ivory Coast, customs officers stage a walkout and obtain a meeting with Pres. Houphouët-Boigny. Firefighters also issue a list of demands. . . . In Lambarene, Gabon, protesters reportedly storm the prison and free inmates. . . . In Liberia, Pres. Samuel K. Doe show his first sign of compromise, when he states he will hold early elections under international supervision if that move will end the fighting.

Imre Finta, a Hungarian emigre, is acquitted in Toronto on charges involving the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Nazi concentration camps. He is the first person tried under a 1987 law that allows Canadian courts to try suspected war criminals for crimes committed outside Canada.

Roh becomes the first South Korean leader to address the Japanese parliament.

May 24

May 25

Africa & the Middle East

Greek premier Constantine Mitsotakis’s new conservative government announces it will establish full diplomatic relations with Israel and it upgrades the status of Greece’s relations with the PLO. . . . In Romania, an international team of 60 monitors conclude that “the (voting) process was flawed,” but not fraudulent. . . . The Supreme Soviet approves legislation making it a criminal offense to insult the nation’s president “in an indecent way” in response to the May Day crowd’s jeers.

May 21

May 22

Europe

The UN Security Council reconvenes in Geneva to hear for the first time from Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat. . . . Argentina wins the renewal of a $1.44 billion loan package from the IMF and announces an agreement with commercial bankers to resume negotiations on the nation’s mediumand long-term bank debt.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

May 21–25, 1990—59

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Supreme Court upholds North Dakota’s regulation of liquor sold at U.S. military bases. . . . The Supreme Court lets stand a federal court order that permanently bars Operation Rescue from blocking access to and from abortion clinics. . . . The Supreme Court upholds a 1984 federal law requiring persons convicted of federal misdemeanors to pay a $25 fine for each count into a Crime Victims Fund. . . . The City University of New York begins to divest its holdings in tobacco companies.

The bipartisan Arms Control and Foreign Policy Caucus headed by Representative Howard Berman (D, Calif.), issues a report showing that 14 of El Salvador’s 15 highestranking officers commanded troops that are responsible for killing civilians, torturing prisoners, causing disappearances, denying medical attention to victims, and falsifying information to conceal abuses. Eleven of the 14 officers received U.S. training. . . . According to a report in The Washington Post, U.S. government agencies supplied the names of suspected communist leaders to the Indonesian army during its brutal 1965–66 crackdown on leftists.

Kidder, Peabody & Co. Inc. announces that it will resume using computerized program trading, a controversial practice that some critics argue is responsible for volatility in the stock market.

More than 200 noted scientists from around the world, including three Nobel laureates, announce a boycott of Chinese scientific meetings until dissident physicist Fang Lizhi is allowed to leave China.

Laker guard Earvin (Magic) Johnson is named the NBA’s most valuable player. . . . The 43rd annual film festival in Cannes awards its top prize to U.S. director David Lynch’s film Wild at Heart. . . . The Supreme Court rules that Mormon parents cannot take a charitable deduction on their federal tax returns for money spent to support their children while they serve as unpaid missionaries.

The House approves legislation that prohibits discrimination against disabled Americans in employment, housing, and public accommodations and transportation.

The House rejects a foreign aid supplemental authorization bill and thereby cuts aid to El Salvador.

The FDIC announces that its insurance fund to protect bank depositors fell in 1989 for the second consecutive year.

The Senate approves legislation that imposes a three-year ban on the manufacture or sale of nine types of semiautomatic assault rifles.

Harvard University president Derek Bok discloses that the university has completed its divestment of all its stock holdings in tobacco companies. . . . Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan calls on states to adopt tough measures to curb smoking by young people.

The House passes a revised comprehensive clean-air bill to send to the Senate. . . . The House approves a pilot program in California on the feasibility of using cars that run on nongasoline fuels. . . . The House votes to enhance warranty protection on antipollution equipment on cars. . . . In congressional testimony, Neil Bush, son of Pres. Bush, denies any wrongdoing as a director of a Denver S&L that failed. . . . The Bush administration states for the first time that it greatly underestimated the cost of the S&L bailout and that new funds are necessary for the program to proceed. Pres. Bush recommends the renewal of most-favored-nation trade status for China. . . . The navy reopens its investigation of the April 1989 gun-turret explosion on the battleship Iowa that killed 47 crew members.

Rocky Graziano (born Thomas Rocco Barbella), 71, middleweight boxing champion who fought in the 1940s and 1950s, dies of cardiopulmonary failure in NYC.

The Journal of American Medicine finds that vigorous exercise for 50 minutes three or four times a week can be as effective as medication in treating moderately high blood pressure.

Charles Ernest (Charlie) Keller, 73, baseball outfielder who played for the New York Yankees and the Detroit Tigers, dies of cancer in Frederick, Md.

Two new studies are published in the New England Journal of Medicine that lend support to the idea that weight gain is genetically influenced.

The Edmonton Oilers win the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup for the fifth time in seven years.

Congress clears and Pres. Bush signs a bill providing $4.3 billion in fiscal 1990 supplemental appropriations, including $720 million in economic assistance for Panama and Nicaragua as well as funds for Haiti. . . . The Senate confirms Pres. Bush’s choice of veteran diplomat Harry Shlaudeman as ambassador to Nicaragua.

Mark Strand is named the new poet laureate of the U.S. The Canadianborn Strand wrote seven books of poetry and is an English professor at the University of Utah. . . . Victor (Vic) Tayback, 60, actor best known for the television series Alice, dies of a heart attack in Glendale, California.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 21

May 22

May 23

May 24

May 25

60—May 26–31, 1990

World Affairs

May 26

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

A French airlift flies about 1,800 people out of Gabon. . . . Separately in Gabon, Pres. Omar Bongo states that multiparty systems have “always been a source of division” and the new system leads to unrest. However, he affirms that he will not renege on his promise to end oneparty rule. . . . More than 60,000 pro-apartheid white South Africans hold a rally against Pres. F. W. de Klerk’s reforms outside Pretoria.

Colombian police report they dismantled a drug traffickers’ bomb factory in a suburb of the capital. Six members of the ring who are allegedly responsible for five bomb attacks in Bogota are captured.

In Pakistan, a group of masked men in cars and on motorcycles fire at crowds. Gun battles between militant ethnic groups, as well as terrorist activity, continues for several days.

Six allegedly armed civilians are shot to death by troops at the railroad station in Yerevan. Debate over whether the civilians were armed leads to violence in Armenia. . . . Poland holds its first free local elections since World War II, and more than 100,000 candidates compete for about 50,000 seats on local councils.

Reports state that many Liberians have been fleeing for Monrovia and Sierra Leone in fear of massacres on both sides as rebels advance.

Cesar Gaviria Trujillo, a strong advocate of the government’s war against drug cartels, is elected president of Colombia.

In Pakistan, 80 people are killed when police fire on crowds protesting the arrests of suspected militants. . . . The main opposition party wins in the first free, multiparty elections in Myanmar in 30 years.

At a meeting of the UN Security Council, the U.S. bows to pressure by Israel and blocks a compromise proposal to send observers to the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

May 27

Africa & the Middle East

May 28

The Arab League holds a summit in Baghdad, Iraq, after weeks of negotiation.

The Provisional Irish Republican Army admits it mistakenly killed two London-based Australian lawyers in the Dutch town of Roermond who were thought to be offduty British military personnel. . . . In Poland, Lech Walesa persuades railroad workers to suspend strikes and to delay a planned national strike. . . . Yugoslav president Borislav Jovic calls for a new federal constitution. . . . In Armenia, clashes between nationalists and soldiers lead to an official death toll of 23. . . . The USSR begins dismantling the controversial radar complex near Krasnoyarsk in Siberia.

Zambia’s 600-member National Council discusses whether to allow multiparty politics. . . . In the Ivory Coast, former railroad workers who demand better unemployment pay block rail traffic and paralyze Abidjan’s port for two days. Pres. Félix Houphouët-Boigny says he will “examine” all their grievances. . . . A bomb explodes in a outdoor market in west Jerusalem, killing one and wounding nine other Israelis. Islamic Jihad, a radical Palestinian group, claims responsibility for the attack.

Chilean president Patricio Aylwin reprimands Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte for attempting to undermine the authority of Chile’s new civilian government. . . . Eugenia Charles is reelected to a third consecutive term as prime minister of Dominica, although her party loses seats in the House of Assembly.

Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto flies to Karachi to hold emergency talks with the chief minister of Sind, Aftab Shahban Mirani. . . . In Myanmar after election results, leaders of the ruling military junta concede and reiterate a preelection promise that the military will turn over power to a civilian government after the newly elected legislators draft a new constitution. . . . Hussein bin Dato Onn, 68, prime minister of Malaysia, 1976–81, dies in Daly City, Calif., after a heart attack. . . . Organizers of a project to broadcast prodemocracy radio programming to China from a French ship terminate the venture after meeting opposition at several ports.

May 29

In Paris, officials from 40 nations sign an accord to create the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

France agrees to reschedule $1.5 billion in debt owed by Poland. . . . Communist Party maverick Boris Yeltsin is elected president of the Russian Federation by the republic’s parliament.

In Zambia, Pres. Kenneth Kaunda states that his nation will hold a referendum to allow the people to choose whether to introduce a multiparty system.

Canadian officials open a visit by Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev by announcing that they will extend a new C$500 million credit line to the Soviet Bank for Foreign Economic Affairs.

The U.S.-based human-rights group Asia Watch reports that widespread human rights abuses by the Chinese authorities continue in Tibet.

The Arab League threatens “political and economic measures” against nations that recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

A powerful earthquake strikes northern Romania. It is centered about 20 miles east of the town of Sfintu Gheorghe and measures 6.7 on the Richter scale. . . . In Poland, a preliminary count shows the only political party to get more than 7% of the seats on the local councils is the Peasant Party. No other party wins more than 2%. . . . French agriculture minister Henri Nallet bans imports of British beef due to fears of mad cow disease.

Israeli security forces foil an attempted raid by Palestinian guerrillas to invade Israel after landing on beaches. The Palestine Liberation Front, a radical faction of the PLO, claims responsibility. Israeli officials call on the U.S. to end diplomatic contacts with the PLO. . . . In Liberia, masked soldiers enter a refugee camp and go on a rampage. They kill one person and abduct 40 men, women and children from the Gio and Mano tribes.

A major earthquake jolts northern Peru. The quake, centered near the town of Moyobamba, measures 6.4 on the Richter scale. . . . In Nicaragua, the government and contras sign an agreement under which the contras will have a degree of autonomy in the territory granted earlier.

Moldavia becomes the first nonBaltic Soviet republic to recognize Lithuania as a sovereign nation. . . . EC agriculture commissioner Raymond MacSharry, states that the commission made the “fullest guarantees” that beef from Britain is safe. . . . Greek finance minister Yiannis Palaiocrassas unveils the government’s budget for 1990. . . . The consortium to build the Eurotunnel secures an underwriting agreement that brings an apparent end to the group’s financing problems.

Yasser Arafat denies that the PLO is connected to the attempted attack on Israel but declines to take action against those responsible. . . . In Liberia, 15 bodies are been found where refugees abducted May 30 were believed to have been taken. Separately, Liberian rebel leader Charles Taylor says he will not be satisfied until Pres. Samuel Doe is removed from office. . . . The Ivory Coast approves of nine opposition parties. . . . In South Africa, 10,000 progressive young Afrikaners gather for a rock music festival that mocks conservatism, militarism, and apartheid.

A strong earthquake rattles Mexico. The epicenter is located about 180 miles southwest of Mexico City, and it measures 6.1 on the Richter scale. . . . The U.S. makes a $60 million payment to Nicaragua from a package of aid approved by Congress.

May 30

May 31

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

May 26–31, 1990—61

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

May 26

Robert Baumle Meyner, 81, governor of New Jersey, 1953–62, dies in Captiva, Fla., due to ill health since suffering a stroke in 1986.

Yugoslavia wins the Association of Tennis Professionals World Team Cup in Dusseldorf, West Germany. . . . Arie Luyendyk wins the Indianapolis 500.

A series of torrential thunderstorms start in the Ohio River valley region.

The New York Times reports that rising food prices forced many states to cut back the assistance for WIC, a federally funded program to prevent malnutrition in pregnant women and infants. . . . The Supreme Court agrees to review the constitutionality of regulations that prohibit federally funded clinics from discussing abortion or providing referrals. . . . Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Barry admits he used crack cocaine in January.

The FDA approves a plan that will provide expanded distribution of the experimental anti-AIDS drug DDC.

The NBA announces it will open its 1990–91 season by playing two games in Tokyo. The contests will be the first regular-season games held outside of North America by a U.S. sports league.

The countdown for the launching of the space shuttle Columbia from Cape Canaveral, Fla., is halted when sensors detect a fuel leak while filling the craft’s external tank.

Greek and U.S. officials initial a new agreement to allow the U.S. to maintain military bases in Greece for eight more years. . . . Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa, arrive in Washington, D.C., for a scheduled four-day visit.

The Commerce Department data shows that sales of new houses declined 1.6% in April, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 546,000, the lowest number of new houses sold since Dec. 1982.

The U.S. Defense Department orders a six-warship amphibious task to sail to Liberia in case an evacuation of U.S. citizens becomes necessary.

Ashland Oil Inc. is ordered to pay $10.3 million to four people who claimed damages from polluting fallout from the company’s oil refinery in Catlettsburg, Kentucky.

May 27

May 28

May 29

The Journal of American Medicine reports that people who try to quit smoking on their own are twice as successful as those who enroll in programs.

May 30

Raisa Gorbachev attends the opening of an exhibit of Russian religious texts at the Library of Congress.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 31

62—June 1–6, 1990

World Affairs

June 1

June 2

June 3

Demonstrations for Chinese democracy are held in Hong Kong, Japan, and other Asian countries on the anniversary of the 1989 crackdown. Protests in Asian countries last for two days.

June 4

June 5

The foreign ministers of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe meet in Copenhagen.

June 6

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In separate meetings, Boris Yeltsin talks with Lithuanian president Vytautas Landsbergis and Marju Lauristin, the deputy chairwoman of the Estonian parliament. . . . West Germany embargoes British beef. . . . Sir Rex Harrison (born Reginald Carey Harrison), 82, British-born film and theater actor, dies of pancreatic cancer in NYC.

Liberian president Samuel Doe appeals for the U.S. “and other friendly countries to bring to an end this six-month-old, Libyan-backed incursion in order to pave the way for a peaceful, free and fair election in 1991.” He states he will not seek reelection.

Peruvian police begin a raid of several hideouts of the Maoist Sendero Luminoso guerrilla group and arrest as many as 35 suspected members of the group.

In Czechoslovakia, a home-made bomb injures 18 people in Prague’s Old Town Square. No one claims responsibility. . . . About 65,000 people march in East Berlin to protest the East German law that authorizes the government to seize land, houses, and businesses controlled by the former Communist Party.

In Liberia, the Red Cross officially begins protecting Gio and Mano refugees in the capital.

In El Salvador, reports confirm that a central piece of evidence in the Col. Alfredo Benavides case was destroyed. Benavides is charged for alleged involvement in the murder of six Jesuit priests in 1989. . . . Forensic experts in Chile begin to excavate an unmarked grave and uncover 20 bullet-riddled corpses. The bodies—preserved because of the desert conditions of the gravesite—are those of opponents of Augusto Pinochet and were apparently executed by army troops after Pinochet took over in 1973.

The threat of protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square is averted as Chinese authorities seal off the square for three days.

The East German government shuts down a nuclear reactor at the Greifswald power plant because of “grave safety deficiencies.”. . . The executive committee of Britain’s Social Democratic Party votes to disband after the party’s humiliating seventh-place finish in a parliamentary by-election in Bootle. . . . In Romania, reports confirm that 14 people were killed by the May 30 quake and more than 200 injured.

According to Ethiopian radio, air force MiG warplanes, which bombed the port of Massawa after its capture, killed 200 people in nine raids. Western officials express fears of a major famine unless the Massawa relief route is reopened.

In Peru, the official death toll from the May 30 quake is 101, although other reports suggest that up to 200 people were killed. Another 1,500 people are reported to have been injured. . . . Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney convenes a series of private meetings with Canada’s 10 provincial premiers in an attempt to resolve the crisis over the Meech Lake accord.

For two days, Chinese students mark the first anniversary of the crackdown on the prodemocracy movement with the largest display of open defiance against the government since that time. About 200 students hurl bottles from windows. One man is arrested in Tiananmen Square. Foreign journalists covering the Beijing University protests are harassed or beaten by police. . . . Over the next two days, demonstrations for Chinese democracy are held in Hong Kong, Japan, and other Asian countries.

Lithuanian president Vytautas Landsbergis, criticizes U.S. president Bush’s decision not to link Lithuania with the Soviet trade pact. . . . In the Soviet republic of of Kirghizia, thousands of Uzbeks riot in the Muslim holy city of Osh over a decision by local authorities to allocate a large plot of land for housing for Kirghiz citizens.

Nelson Mandela starts a six-week, 13-nation world tour in which the issue of sanctions is expected to figure prominently.

The Czechoslovak government interrogates five former members of the Communist Party. . . . Riots in Osh lead to a death toll of 11. The government declares a state of emergency, but the ethnic unrest spreads to Frunze, the Kirghizian capital. . . . The House of Lords rejects a bill passed in the House of Commons that allowed for trials of suspected World War II criminals living in Britain.

In Liberia, rebels attack the world’s largest rubber plantation, run by Bridgestone-Firestone Tyre & Rubber Co. and located about 30 miles southwest of Monrovia. . . . The Ethiopian government announces its willingness to allow the rebelheld port of Massawa to be used to deliver food relief to the warwracked and famine-threatened northern provinces of Eritrea and Tigre.

The Chilean Supreme Court denies a request that investigation into the 1976 slaying of Orlando Letelier be reopened after a military tribunal established that there is no new evidence in the case. . . . The Soviet Union and Cuba hold talks on future trade relations.

Soviet troops rush to Kirghizia and seal off its border with Uzbekistan. . . . Premier Tadeusz Mazowiecki declares that Poland’s transition to a free market is complete. . . . The Czechoslovak government detains Vasil Bilak, rumored to have urged military intervention in Czechoslovakia. . . . Clyde Lee Conrad, a former U.S. Army sergeant, is convicted of treason in West Germany and sentenced to life in prison. . . . Italy joins the embargo on British beef.

The ruling National Party of South African president F. W. de Klerk narrowly fends off defeat in a special parliamentary by-election in Natal, losing ground to the Conservative Party, which is dedicated to preserving apartheid. . . . In Liberia, reports indicate that rebel fighting is only 10 miles from Monrovia’s city limits. Separately, Liberian rebels acknowledge one of their top military leaders—Elmer Johnson, a Liberian citizen who served in the U.S. armed forces—was slain.

Brazilian president Fernando Collor de Mello states Brazil will consider agreeing to preserve parts of its rain forests in return for forgiveness of some of its foreign debt. . . . Separately, Brazil’s Supreme Court rules unconstitutional a presidential decree that curtails the powers of regional labor courts to award salary increases.

Protests in China continue as more than 1,000 students march across Beijing University campus. The rally lasts two hours, after which the students peacefully return to their dormitories.

The Philippine Supreme invalidates rebellion and murder charges against Juan Ponce Enrile, an opponent of Pres. Corazon Aquino. . . . The Foreign Correspondents Club of Beijing files a protest with the Chinese government. . . . Cambodian president Hun Sen and Prince Norodom Sihanouk, leader of a coalition of rebel groups, sign a conditional cease-fire agreement.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

June 1–6, 1990—63

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Presidents Bush and Gorbachev sign more than a dozen bilateral agreements. The agreements call for reductions in arms and freer trade relations between the countries.

The meeting between Gorbachev and Bush ends. The two leaders admit differences over important issues, such as the reunification of Germany and the unresolved conflict over Lithuania. In spite of the differences, both presidents declare that the summit pushed U.S.-Soviet relations into a new era of cooperation. Gorbachev and his entourage fly to Minnesota and California before returning to the Soviet Union.

Dr. Jack Kevorkian admits he helped a woman commit suicide. . . . The Supreme Court rules that police can seize items in “plain view” for evidence even if they are not listed in a search warrant. . . . The Supreme Court upholds a federal law that requires public schools to give student political and religious groups the same access to facilities that other extracurricular groups receive. . . . A federal judge decides the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors violated constitutional rights of the Hispanic population when it drew voting districts in 1981.

After months of strike negotiations, Greyhound Lines Inc. files for protection from its creditors under Chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy code.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Richard William Millar, 91, former chairman of Northrop Corp. and expresident of Bankamerica Corp., dies in Pasadena, Calif., . . . NASA launches an unmanned Delta rocket carrying an X-ray observatory from Cape Canaveral, Fla.

The Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize is awarded to Hayden Carruth. . . . Barbara Bush and Raisa Gorbachev speak at Wellesley College’s annual commencement exercises . . . Stephen King’s The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition tops the bestseller list.

A series of tornadoes and heavy thunderstorms begin to tear through parts of the Midwest, lasting for two days.

Frederick Mellinger, 76, founder of the Frederick’s of Hollywood lingerie chain, dies of pneumonia in Los Angeles.

Robert Norton Noyce, 62, coinventor of the silicon microchip that revolutionized the computer and electronics industries and founder of Intel Corp., dies in Austin, Tex., after a heart attack.

The 44th annual Tony Awards are presented in NYC. The award for best play goes to The Grapes of Wrath, an adaptation of the John Steinbeck novel. Grand Hotel wins five awards, and City of Angels wins six awards.

Reports suggest that the series of tornadoes and heavy thunderstorms that tore through parts of the Midwest starting June 2 killed at least 13 people and injured dozens more. Indiana officials declare a state of emergency after eight people are killed and 150 are injured by the twisters, which are the worst in the state since 1974. Other major tornado damage is reported in Illinois, Wisconsin, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, and Ohio.

The presidents of the Big Ten Conference universities admit Penn State to the conference, which will change its name within 60 days. . . . Jack Gilford (born Jacob Gellman), 82, actor who was once nominated for an Academy Award, dies of stomach cancer in New York.

Thomas Root pleads guilty in Washington, D.C., to five federal charges of forgery and fraud involving the FCC. . . . The New Jersey Supreme Court rules that the state’s system of funding public education is unconstitutional because it benefits wealthy school districts at the expense of poor ones.

The Presbyterian Church revises its statement of faith by including environmental concerns and references to God as both mother and father. . . . Data shows NYC’s Broadway theatre district set a box-office record.

Premier Constantine Mitsotakis holds talks with Bush in Washington, D.C., becoming the first Greek premier to pay an official visit to Washington in more than 25 years.

Moody’s Investors Service Inc. lowers its rating on New York State’s general obligation debt so that only two states, Louisiana and Massachusetts, have a lower rating than New York. . . . The Senate Agriculture Committee bans exports of pesticides that are outlawed in the U.S. The panel then appends that legislation as an amendment to the 1990 farm bill.

NASA returns the spacecraft Columbia to a hangar for repair work, which delays its mission indefinitely .

Judge Jose Gonzalez rules that a 2 Live Crew album, As Nasty as They Wanna Be, is obscene under Florida state law. . . . Mark Messier of hockey’s Edmonton Oilers is awarded the Hart Trophy.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 1

June 2

June 3

June 4

June 5

June 6

64—June 7–12, 1990

June 7

Europe

The foreign ministers of NATO meet in Turnberry, Scotland. . . . The leaders of the Warsaw Pact, meeting in Moscow, proclaim an end to the idea that the West is an “ideological enemy.”

In, Kirghizia, the death toll mounts 48. In response, Soviet interior minister Vadim V. Bakatin calls for “round-table” talks involving the authorities and nationalist elements of all the Soviet republics. . . . European Community agriculture ministers reach a compromise agreement to end embargoes against British beef put in place because of fears of mad cow disease. . . . British prime minister Margaret Thatcher visits the Soviet Union.

South African president F. W. de Klerk lifts the four-year-old nationwide state of emergency in three of the country’s four provinces. . . . Unconfirmed reports suggest that rebels have seized Liberia’s main airport.

Admiral Alfredo Poveda Burbano, 64, last military dictator of Ecuador, dies of a heart attack in Miami, Fla.

Civic Forum and its Slovak sister party, Public Against Violence, wins parliamentary and regional elections in the first free voting in Czechoslovakia in over 40 years.

After over a month of internal haggling, Yitzhak Shamir announces that he has formed a coalition in the Israeli government. . . . South African president de Klerk issues a limited emergency decree in Natal, site of three years of inter-black violence that killed 3,000. . . . In Liberia, a twomonth bout of fighting degenerates into tribal warfare.

José Figueres Ferrer, 83, threetime president of Costa Rica, affectionately known as “Don Pepe,” dies of a heart attack in the capital city of San José.

British prime minister Thatcher travels to Kiev, where she visits a British trade pavilion, places a wreath on the monument to 100,000 people slain by the Nazis in Babi Yar, and attends a meeting of the Ukrainian Supreme Soviet.

The formation of Yitzhak Shamir’s right-wing Israeli government prompts dire forecasts by Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Palestinian leaders. . . . South African president de Klerk releases 48 political prisoners to promote negotiations on constitutional reform between his white minority government and the leaders of the nation’s black majority.

After much negotiation, Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney and provincial premiers reach an agreement on the Meech Lake accord impasse. The agreement finds that a controversial clause stating that Quebec is a “distinct society” complements but does not override the nation’s Charter. The premiers of provinces that oppose the Meech Lake accord agree to submit it to their legislatures or to a provincial vote.

The ruling Bulgarian Socialist Party takes the lead in Bulgaria’s first free national elections in 58 years. . . . The pilot of a British Airways BAC 1-11 passenger jet is nearly sucked out of the plane after a cockpit windshield blows out at an altitude of 23,000 feet. Crew members grab the legs of the pilot and hang on to him for 15 minutes, until the copilot makes an emergency landing.

Tunisia holds local elections, but all opposition parties boycott the voting as unfairly biased, resulting in a 99% victory for Ben Ali’s ruling Democratic Constitutional Rally. . . . In Kuwait, elections for the 50 council seats are held, despite a boycott by opposition leaders. . . . Singer Miriam Makeba returns to her native South Africa, ending a 31-year exile.

Alberto Fujimori is elected president of Peru by a wide margin in the second round of elections. . . . The U.S. and Mexico agree in principle on moving toward talks on a freetrade pact. . . . Panamanian president Guillermo Endara marries a 23-year-old college student, Ana Mae Díaz Chen, in Panama City. The marriage sets off controversy among Panamanians.

India agrees to lift the crippling trade sanctions against Nepal it imposed in March 1989. In return, Nepal agrees to delay acceptance of arms from China and to maintain a dialogue with India on all defense-related matters.

In Romania, student leaders meet with representatives of the ruling National Salvation Front However, they do not reach agreements, and students refuse to abandon the tent city. . . . Tens of thousands of people protest in Sofia, Bulgaria, claiming that Socialists used intimidation and fraud to steal the elections. . . . In Czechoslovakia, reports indicate that several candidates dropped out of the elections to avoid public disclosure of past ties to the secret police.

The bullet-riddled bodies of three prominent Americo-Liberians turn up at a Monrovia morgue. . . . Israel’s Knesset approves a new right-wing coalition government led by P.M. Yitzhak Shamir.

After an electoral review, the Dominican Republic’s incumbent President Joaquín Balaguer, 83, is declared the winner of the May presidential voting by a margin of less than 25,000 votes over Juan Bosch.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the dominant rebel faction, seizes 10 police stations in eastern Sri Lanka and captures about 600 officers.

Peace talks between representatives of Samuel Doe’s Liberian government and Charles Taylor’s NPF rebels are held in Freetown, Sierra Leone. . . . Algeria’s fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front unexpectedly emerges as the winner in local elections. The vote is the country’s first free, multiparty balloting since independence in 1962.

More than 1,000 demonstrators march in Santiago, Chile, demanding that Augusto Pinochet be brought to trial for the executions of the people found June 2 in a mass grave.

In Sri Lanka, police report that hundreds of captured policemen were killed by the rebels. The Tamil spokesmen denies that any policemen were killed.

June 8

June 9

June 10

June 11

June 12

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Western central banks offer Hungary $280 million in short-term loans.

Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev confers with the presidents of the three Baltic republics, proposes to transform the USSR into a confederation of “sovereign states” and asks the Baltic leaders to suspend independence declarations during negotiations. . . . The Supreme Soviet votes for a law to establish freedom of the press. . . . The Russian Federation declares the sovereignty of its laws over federal laws.

The Americas

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

June 7–12, 1990—65

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan takes issue with the growing animal-rights movement and its attempts to curb medical research on animals.

U.S. agents arrest Roderick James Ramsay, a former U.S. Army sergeant, in Tampa, Fla., on espionage charges. He is connected to Clyde Conrad, who was convicted of treason in West Germany June 6.

A British-registered oil tanker runs aground and spills 260,000 gallons of heavy crude oil in the third major spill of 1990 in New York Harbor. The tanker’s first mate, Englishman Geoffrey Frederick Gregory, 52, is arrested for operating a vessel while under the influence of intoxicants and of discharging a pollutant without a permit.

The first woman to head the American Bar Association, Jill WineBanks, announces her resignation.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

June 7

A Titan-4 rocket successfully launches a secret military payload into orbit from Cape Canaveral. . . . An explosion aboard a Norwegian supertanker results in a fire and a threat of a massive oil spill off the coast of Texas. Two crewmen are killed in the explosion and two others are missing and presumed dead. Firefighters work for days to bring the raging flames under control.

Law enforcement officials arrest a Fort Lauderdale record store owner who sold a copy of the banned As Nasty as They Wanna Be to an undercover police officer.

Kerry Kennedy, daughter of the late Robert Kennedy, and Andrew Cuomo, son of New York governor Mario Cuomo, marry in Washington, D.C. . . . Monica Seles of Yugoslavia upsets Steffi Graf to win the women’s title in the French Open.

Thousands of animal-rights supporters march in Washington, D.C., to protest the use of animals for food and research.

A story published in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution reports that the CIA played a key role in the capture of African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela in 1962, which led to his imprisonment for more than 27 years.

The Supreme Court upholds a federal law allowing the president to mobilize the National Guard for training missions outside the U.S. without the approval of state officials. . . . The Supreme Court widens police power to stop, question, and search suspects on “reasonable suspicion” of criminal activity. . . . The Supreme Court strikes down as unconstitutional a 1989 federal law forbidding desecration of the American flag.

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., sentences former national security adviser John Poindexter to six months in prison for lying to Congress about his involvement in the Iran-contra arms scandal. . . . East Germany’s premier, Lothar de Maiziere, confers with Pres. Bush on reunification issues. He is the first East German leader to visit Washington.

Two members of the rap group 2 Live Crew are arrested on obscenity charges after a performance in Hollywood, Florida. . . . Andrés Gómez of Ecuador wins the men’s title over Andre Agassi of the U.S. in the French Open.

June 8

June 9

June 10

June 11

A New York Stock Exchange advisory panel recommends mandatory trading halts at times of extreme stock market volatility.

The three major U.S. television networks—ABC, CBS and NBC— announce that they are changing the way they measure television viewership for advertising purposes.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 12

66—June 13–18, 1990

World Affairs

June 17

June 18

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Chile, the army denies blame for the mass grave since it had been a wartime operation. . . . The Southern Front signs a peace treaty with the Nicaraguan government, the last contra group to do so.

In Sri Lanka, the Tamils ignore a cease-fire agreement, and fighting between army and rebel forces escalates. Rebels continue to attack police stations and eventually capture as many as 20 officers.

Australian industry minister John Button and Vietnamese Commerce Minister Hoang Minh Thang sign an agreement to expand trade between their nations. . . . Australian prime minister Bob Hawke insists that 200 Cambodian refugees who arrived in northern Australia by boat in 1990 have no legitimate fear of persecution in their native country.

In Romania, 10,000 miners from the Jiu Valley region pour into Bucharest. Armed with iron bars, they beat students, ransack the headquarters of opposition parties and newspapers, and rough up the foreign press. Police do not interfere. . . . The Supreme Soviet rejects a plan to triple bread prices but approves the nation’s first corporate income tax. . . . The British government rejects a funding proposal to build a railroad link between London and the English Channel Tunnel.

In an interview in The Wall Street Journal, Yitzhak Shamir charges that the U.S., by allowing “the perception in the Arab world” that U.S.-Israeli relations are troubled, is “to a great extent” to blame for increasingly hostile rhetoric from Arab nations. . . . A 12-year-old Jewish boy is stabbed and wounded by an Arab in east Jerusalem, prompting days of anti-Arab rioting by Israeli mobs.

Chilean general Horacio Toro, head of the civil police, calls for Augusto Pinochet’s resignation as commander in chief of Chile’s armed forces.

The International Bureau of Expositions choose Hanover, West Germany, as the site of World Expo 2000., . . . The Bush administration reverses its policy and announces support for a special international fund to help developing countries reduce the use of chemicals that erode the ozone layer.

The Romanian government reports more than 500 people were injured in the past three days and six are dead. A mob of miners leaves Bucharest. Pres. Ion Iliescu, at a mass farewell rally, thanks them for “doing very good work.”. . . East and West German negotiators reach an agreement about property and assets seized since 1950. . . . The Russian parliament elects Ivan S. Silayev premier of the federation, succeeding Vlasov.

Iran agrees to pay the U.S. oil company Amoco Corp. $600 million for installations seized during the 1979 Iranian revolution. The decision is the first major settlement of more than $1.8 billion in U.S. corporate claims against Iran.

Nicaraguan reports state that more than 14,000 contra rebels out of 16,000 demobilized under an agreement reached by Pres. Violeta Barrios de Chamorro’s government and the contras.

A summit attended by the presidents of Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Honduras opens. Panama’s president sits in as an observer.

Lithuania suspends its declaration of independence. In response, the Soviet government restores 15% of Lithuania’s supply of natural gas. . . . The Romanian government orders an investigation of the June 13–14 riots. . . . Tens of thousands of demonstrators block crossing points on the Greek-Yugoslav border, and accuse the Greeks of discriminating against the ethnic Macedonians in Greece. . . . Dutch and Belgian police arrest suspects believed responsible for IRA attacks against British military targets on the continent.

Kenyan president Moi announces that the Kenyan people unanimously backed KANU as the country’s sole party since a multiparty system would spark tribal divisions.

The presidents of five Central American nations launch a plan for a Central American economic community.

The ruling Bulgarian Socialist Party wins a solid majority in parliament in run-off elections.

In response to the recent violence, the European Community indefinitely suspends economic relations with Romania.

East German officials end a string of arrests that capture nine people wanted in West Germany in connection with terrorist actions by the Red Army faction. . . . Romania’s new parliament votes for legislation that effectively bans protests in central Bucharest. The government arrests three prominent opposition activists.

June 14

June 16

Africa & the Middle East

In Romania, police oust more than 200 youths before burning a makeshift tent city. Thousands of students riot in Bucharest and burn police headquarters. At least 4 are killed and more than 200 are injured. . . . About 30,000 Serbs hold anticommunist rallies in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. . . . Reports indicate that 148 people died and 885 were injured in riots in Kirghiz. . . . Tens of thousands of people stage another round of protests in Sofia, Bulgaria, against election practices. . . . Lord Terence Marne O’Neill, 75, prime minister of Northern Ireland, 1963–69, dies in Hampshire, England.

June 13

June 15

Europe

In Sri Lanka, a second cease-fire between the Tamils and government is declared, and the two sides agree to exchange prisoners.

In Cambodia, forces of the Khmer Rouge and the rebel faction led by Prince Norodom Sihanouk capture Kompong Thom, a provincial capital 60 miles north of Phnom Penh.

In Israel, P.M. Yitzhak Shamir invites Syrian president Hafez alAssad to visit Jerusalem for peace talks to demonstrate its good intentions in the face of U.S. skepticism and Arab hostility.

In talks with U.S. secretary of state James Baker, Nicaraguan president Chamorro indicates that small arms destined for the leftist rebels in El Salvador continue to pass through to the U.S. . . . . Amnesty International reports “widespread” human-rights abuses by Brazilian law-enforcement authorities between 1985 and 1990.

The truce in Sri Lanka breaks down, prompting Deputy Defense Minister Ranjan Wijeratne to tell parliament, “From now on it is all-out war. We will annihilate the Liberation Tigers.” He states 600 rebels died during the fighting. . . . The state of Queensland withdraws its bid for a joint Australian-Japanese “city of the future” development project, giving the venture to South Australia.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

June 13–18, 1990—67

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The House approves legislation to provide a total of $4 billion over the next five years for AIDS health care and prevention. The legislation is sent to a conference committee.

Secretary of State James Baker criticizes the PLO for failing to condemn a raid on Israel and for the anti-American tone of the recent Arab League summit. He also rebukes the new Israeli government in unusually strong terms, citing Israeli officials’ remarks that the U.S. peace plan was irrelevant.

Don R. Dixon, former owner of the now-insolvent Vernon S&L, is indicted by a grand jury in Dallas on 38 counts, including conspiracy and misapplication of funds. . . . The House Banking Committee approves a housing bill that appropriates funding for the construction of rental apartments.

A board of inquiry, authorized by the Norwegian government in consultation with the U.S. Coast Guard, opens a hearing on the June 8 disaster off the Texas coast.

The New York Stock Exchange announces a plan to establish offhours trading systems.

Flash floods inundate Ohio, northern West Virginia, and western Pennsylvania. In Shadyside, Ohio, at least 23 people are killed and 10 missing.

Medieval artworks that disappeared from Germany after World War II are traced to a former U.S. Army lieutenant, Joe Tom Meador, a former art teacher who died in 1980 in Texas. . . . The Detroit Pistons defeat the Portland Trail Blazers to win their second consecutive NBA title.

Rep. Bruce F. Vento (D, Minn.) states to the RTC Oversight Task Force of the House Banking subcommittee on financial institutions supervision, regulation, and insurance that six former executives at two failed California thrifts continued to receive salaries as high as $300,000 months after they stopped working at the institutions.

Pres. Bush declares Belmont County a disaster area, bringing to the total to 17 counties that are federal disaster areas after a series of thunderstorms and floods. . . . The fire aboard a ship that exploded June 8 near Galveston, Tex., is finally extinguished.

George Nakashima, 85, furniture designer who received a gold medal for craftsmanship from the American Institute of Architecture, dies in New Hope, Pa.

The Supreme Court rules hospitals and nursing homes can sue states for higher Medicaid reimbursement rates. . . . Federal agents arrest 174 suspected members of the Los Angeles–based Crips and Bloods street gangs on drug and weapons offenses. Suspects are seized in Calif., Ariz., La., N.Mex., Okla., Oreg., and Wash. . . . Published remarks by Cardinal O’Connor that warn of the danger of excommunication to politicians who support legalized abortion touch off a political outcry. Pres. Bush vetoes a bill that would have eased many of the restrictions of the 1939 Hatch Act, which bars federal employees from engaging in most forms of political activity. . . . Jack Henry Abbott, who won literary acclaim for a 1980 book written in prison, is ordered to pay $7.57 million to the widow of a man he stabbed to death in 1981 after being paroled with the aid of author Norman Mailer and other literary figures.

The State Department decides to withhold economic aid from Romania after learning of recent violence. The decision does not affect food or medical aid.

The ACLU reports that acts of discrimination against people with AIDS increased in 1989.

The Supreme Court rules that a special exemption from patent infringement for drugs, to permit testing, may be applied to medical devices.

Rep. Stephen Solarz (D, N.Y.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Asian and Pacific affairs, warns that tensions between India and Pakistan over Kashmir pose “the most serious threat of a major military conflict anywhere in the world at the present time.”

A 42-year-old construction worker, James E. Pough, sprays gunfire from a semiautomatic rifle at an office in Jacksonville, Fla. Eight people are killed and five are critically injured before the gunman shoots himself to death. . . . The Supreme Court upholds the right of police to videotape drunk-driving suspects and use evidence of slurred speech against them at trial without having advised the drivers first of their constitutional rights. . . . Pres. Bush nominates lawyer Stephen Potts as director of the White House Office of Government Ethics.

The Internal Revenue Service steps up audits of the U.S. operations of foreign banks following the discovery that many of them paid little or no income taxes during the mid1980s.

An alliance of the American Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the Cincinnati Stock Exchange, and Reuters Holdings PLC of Britain announces its plan to establish off-hours trading systems.

According to data from the National Severe Storms Forecast Center, the first half of 1990 saw the most violent weather in the U.S. in 40 years, with a total of 726 tornadoes in the first six months of the year.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

June 13

June 14

June 15

Dame Eva Turner, 98, one of the first British opera singers to achieve international fame, dies in London.

June 16

Harry Gant, 50, becomes the oldest driver ever to win a NASCAR race with a victory in the Miller 500 in Long Pond, Pennsylvania.

June 17

The Supreme Court lets stand a declaration that Cathy Stone Deupree Adkinson is the natural daughter of the late country singer Hank Williams and is therefore entitled to a portion of his estate. Adkinson, 37, was born five days after Williams’s death in 1953.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 18

68—June 19–24, 1990

June 19

June 20

World Affairs

Europe

Five member nations of the EC sign an agreement, known as the Schengen treaty, that will open common borders. The treaty requires ratification and is expected to come into effect in 1992.

In Moscow, 2,744 delegates open a conference to establish a Russian Communist Party.

An international conference on the ozone problem opens in London. . . . The Sixth International AIDS Conference opens in San Francisco. The conference is attended by more than 10,000 researchers and offers 3,000 studies.

Ion Iliescu is sworn in as president in Bucharest. Alan Green Jr., the U.S. ambassador to Romania, boycotts the ceremony. Iliescu appoints Petr Roman as the new premier. . . . The parliament of Uzbekistan declares the sovereignty of its laws over the laws of the central government. . . . Switzerland tightens its immigration laws.

June 21

June 22

Africa & the Middle East

In El Salvador, the second round of peace talks open in Oaxtepec, Mexico.

In Singapore, Vincent Cheng is released from jail after a 1987 arrest and becomes the last of a group of 16 alleged communist plotters to be released. . . . In Kashmir, rebels kill four policemen in a grenade and rocket attack on two Srinagar hotels.

A major earthquake strikes northern Iran, killing thousands of people. The quake measures 7.7 on the Richter scale and is followed by dozens of aftershocks, one of which measures 6.5 on the Richter scale. . . . The PLO’s executive committee in Baghdad, Iraq, issues a statement calling on the Arab League to respond to the “challenge” issued by the U.S. on June 20. It complains that the U.S. has not reacted similarly to “Israeli crimes against Palestinians.”

Haitian Council of State member Serge Villard is shot by gunmen, two of whom are dressed in army uniform. Trade unionist Jean-Marie Montes is also shot.

The East German Supreme Court begins to overturn convictions of those found guilty of political offenses under the former Communist regime and to order compensation to be paid.

Bombs wreck the constituency offices of two cabinet ministers of F. W. de Klerk’s ruling National Party in Johannesburg. Reports surface that Piet Rudolph, the deputy Boerestaat leader, sent a videotape to a newspaper in which he declared “open war” on de Klerk’s government.

The Meech Lake accord, a series of constitutional amendments aimed at persuading the province of Quebec to ratify Canada’s 1982 constitution, dies as the provinces of Newfoundland and Manitoba do not approve the accord.

In Poland, prominent figures in the Solidarity movement break with union leader Lech Walesa. . . . Reports show that negligent safety procedures in the uranium mines in East Germany and Czechoslovakia have caused the premature deaths of thousands of workers. . . . Romanian president Ion Iliescu outlines a plan to create a special antiriot force in Romania made up of “young and determined lads who are morally beyond suspicion.”

June 24

Asia & the Pacific

The process for converting East Germans’ marks into deutsche marks is ratified by both governments. . . . A military court in Bucharest convicts Nicolae Andruta Ceausescu, the younger brother of deposed Romanian president Nicolae Ceausescu, of attempted murder and inciting genocide during the 1989 revolution. . . . The Budapest Stock Exchange, the first stock exchange in Eastern Europe, officially opens. . . . Sixty-one volunteers of the U.S. Peace Corps arrive in Hungary.

The parliament of Moldavia declares the sovereignty of its laws over the laws of the central government. . . . A conservative communist, Ivan K. Polozkov, is chosen to lead the newly independent Communist Party of the Russian Federation. . . . Gabriel Mace, 72, editor-in-chief of the satirical French weekly newspaper Le Canard Enchaine, dies of heart disease in Paris.

June 23

The Americas

Jean Chrétien is elected leader of Canada’s opposition Liberal Party in Calgary, Alberta.

Two large earthquake, aftershocks shake Iran. Accurate counts of the dead and wounded people after the June 21 earthquake are difficult to confirm, but it is estimated that tens of thousands are dead. . . . Israel’s housing minister Ariel Sharon announces that the government will not settle Soviet Jews in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Serge Villard, shot on June 21 in Haiti, dies on his way to the U.S. for treatment. . . . British Columbia premier William Vander Zalm considers the possibility of “sovereignty association” for his province.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

June 19–24, 1990—69

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The trial of Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Barry opens. . . . On the eve of an international AIDS conference, protesters stage the first of a series of demonstrations in San Francisco. The first protest is targeted at U.S. immigration policy regarding people with HIV, so 500 demonstrators march to the local office of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Reports state that the Pentagon will eliminate about 40,000 civilian jobs by Sept. 30. . . . Separately, Defense Secretary Richard Cheney submits to Congress a plan to reduce military forces 25% over a five-year period.

The House approves a $20.8 billion fiscal 1991 energy and water bill. . . . A resolution making the House budget the guide for dividing discretionary spending between domestic and military programs is approved by the chamber.

Danish researchers report that a large-scale study has found that isoprinosine appears to delay the onset of AIDS in some people who are infected with HIV.

American protesters continue to call attention to what they see as the slow rate of progress at the international AIDS conference in San Francisco. The National Research Council reports the AIDS epidemic is continuing to spread in the U.S.

Pres. Bush suspends U.S. diplomatic dialogue with the PLO because it did not condemn the May 30 abortive attack on Israel. . . . Nelson Mandela arrives in the U.S. for an 11-day visit and is enthusiastically received with a ticker-tape parade in NYC. . . . Two explosions on the aircraft carrier Midway kill two crew members and injure 16 while off the east coast of Japan.

Public Citizen’s Congress Watch, a consumer organization, reports that the Bush administration’s efforts to combat S&L fraud resulted in the recovery of less than 2% of the funds that were lost.

The Supreme Court bars a state antitrust suit on behalf of consumers to recover overcharges by public utilities. . . . The Supreme Court rules that editorial statements are not automatically exempted by the First Amendment from libel lawsuits. . . . The Supreme Court rules out political patronage practices in the hiring, promoting, or transferring of most public employees in non-policy-making positions.

The U.S. expresses “willingness to provide appropriate humanitarian assistance, if Iran so requests” after learning of its earthquake. The U.S. and Iran have not had formal diplomatic relations since Iranian revolutionaries held 52 hostages for 444 days in 1979–81. . . . The navy begins an investigation into the cause of the June 20 explosions on the Midway.

U.S. auditors and regulators find instances of fraud in a federal program to sell real estate belonging to S&L institutions that the government seized. Separately, Pres. Bush announces a stepped-up effort to prosecute perpetrators of fraud at S&L institutions.

Marilyn Louise Harrell, also known as “Robin HUD” for her donations to the poor after embezzling millions of dollars from HUD, is sentenced to 46 months in prison and to pay $600,000 in restitution. . . . . Separately, the House Government Operations subcommittee wraps up its investigation of HUD and former Secretary Samuel Pierce, reporting that it had uncovered “widespread abuses, influence peddling, blatant favoritism, monumental waste and gross mismanagement.”

Northrop Corp. and McDonnell Douglas Corp. unveil a $50 million version of the Air Force Advanced Tactical Fighter at Edwards Air Force Base in California. . . . A navy CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter goes down off the coast of Virginia Beach,Virginia, killing all four persons on board.

Pres. Bush steps up efforts to prosecute perpetrators of fraud at savings and loan institutions.

At the International AIDS conference, studies show that some gay men in the U.S. stopped practicing safe sex, which prompts a call for explicit education efforts that are targeted at younger groups in America.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

June 19

June 20

Nelson Mandela is welcomed by an exuberant rally in Harlem before attending a rock concert at Yankee Stadium. The ANC leader dons a Yankee baseball cap and jacket and proclaims, “I am a Yankee.”

Ilya M. Frank, 81, Soviet physicist who shared the 1958 Nobel Prize in physics, dies of unreported causes in the Soviet Union.

June 22

At the International AIDS conference, several researchers report progress toward a vaccine. . . . A Martin Marietta Corp. Titan-3 rocket successfully launches a $150 million communications satellite from Cape Canaveral, Fla. . . . At an international conference in London, scientists report that the ozone layer is being destroyed faster than estimated.

U.S. secretary of health and human services Louis Sullivan closes the International AIDS conference with a speech that is virtually drowned out by shouts, whistles, and air-horn blasts from 500 activists angered by U.S. policies on immigration and research.

June 21

June 23

Studies find that the savings and loan rescue plan will result in a substantial redistribution of wealth to states that housed the most insolvent thrifts.

June 24

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

70—June 25–30, 1990

June 25

World Affairs

Europe

The leaders of the European Community hold a summit in Dublin.

Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic warns that his republic will declare independence from Yugoslavia if the federal system changes to a confederation. . . . Tens of thousands of Moldavians and Romanians converge on the Soviet-Romanian border to condemn the 50th anniversary of Soviet annexation. . . . Eight people are injured when a bomb explodes at a London social club.

June 26

June 27

June 28

June 29

Africa & the Middle East In Zambia, riots begin in response to the 100% increase in the price of cornmeal, the country’s staple food. In the capital, police and troops open fire on stone-throwing university students, and riots last for three days.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Honduras, 10,000 banana workers strike over pay. . . . Brazil’s science and technology minister José Goldemberg reports ranchers and farmers illegally burned 11,600 square miles of forested land in the Brazilian parts of the Amazon jungle in 1989. . . . In Quebec, a parade draws 200,000 people, many of them waving Quebec’s flag and chanting, “Vive le Quebec libre” (“Long live free Quebec”).

Chinese authorities permit dissident physicist Fang Lizhi and his wife, Li Shuxian, to leave the country. The couple has been harbored in the U.S. embassy in Beijing for more than a year.

The Hungarian parliament votes to negotiate Hungary’s withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. . . . The Provisional Irish Republican Army claims responsibility for the June 25 bombing of a London club.

The Brazilian Satellite Research Institute reports that 8% of total Amazon rain-forest area has been destroyed. . . . Brazil announces a plan to reduce tariffs on imported goods. . . . Three Quebec members of Parliament from Brian Mulroney’s ruling Progressive Conservative party resign in reaction to the Meech Lake failure. . . . P.M. Mulroney names Justice Antonio Lamer as the new chief justice of the Canadian Supreme Court.

The Estonian parliament curbs immigration from other parts of the Soviet Union and becomes the first Soviet republic to assert authority over internal immigration. . . . Polish farmers demand a reinstitution of price supports and stage a sit-in in the agricultural ministry building. . . . The Federal Assembly, the first freely elected parliament in Czechoslovakia since World War II, opens. . . . France’s National Assembly bans all tobacco advertising, beginning in 1993.

In a ceremony marking the end of the civil war in Nicaragua, some 100 top contra commanders surrender their arms to Pres. Violeta Chamorro.

The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe concludes a four-week human-rights session. The CSCE adopts a declaration on human rights and commits its 35 member nations to multiparty free elections, the separation of political parties from the state, independent judiciaries, respect for minority rights, and the freedoms of expression, organization and assembly. It is believed to be the first time that the Soviet Union signs a document pledging a multiparty system.

Albanians flood embassies in central Tirana after a prodemocracy demonstration turns into a two-day clash with police. . . . . In Rimini, 246 English soccer fans are deported after an outbreak of violence with Italians.

In Zambia, Pres. Kenneth Kaunda tours riot-torn areas. It is reported that riots killed at least 23 people. . . . Iraqi president Saddam Hussein gives his first interview with a U.S. newspaper in almost six years and states war is “inevitable” unless the U.S. stops Israel from carrying out anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab policies.

In London, representatives of 93 nations agree to banish the production of chemicals that destroy the ozone layer by the end of the 20th century. The nations also agree to establish a global fund to help underdeveloped nations phase out use of those chemicals.

Lithuania’s Supreme Council votes to place a moratorium on the republic’s declaration of independence. A group of demonstrators protest the decision. . . . Polish police use force to oust hundreds of farmers from the agriculture ministry building in Warsaw. . . . Yugoslav premier Ante Markovic unveils the second stage of economic reform to parliament. . . . The Hungarian government unveils a package of emergency budget measures.

A bomb explodes in the home of Clive Gilbert, a Jewish Johnannesburg councilman. . . . In Iran, Pres. Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was criticized when he accepted U.S. aid after the June 21 earthquake, defends his decision. . . . Pres. Kaunda promises a national referendum on whether to allow multiparty politics in Zambia. . . . Separately, police storm the University of Zambia, arrest antigovernment students, beat others, and close the campus.

Officials discover that a U.S. Peace Corps worker, Timothy Swanson, has been abducted from his home in the Philippines. The U.S. embassy orders all of the Peace Corps’ 260 volunteers in the Philippines to be evacuated to the U.S. for their own safety.

The CIA reports that economic austerity measures introduced in China in late 1988 brought a deep recession. . . . India readmits Amnesty International humanrights observers into Kashmir. Observers were banned during the six-month Kashmiri uprising.

Colombian guerrillas of the Marxist People’s Liberation Army release a U.S. gold miner, Scott Heimdal, in return for a $60,000 ransom payment presented by his parents. The ransom payment was mostly raised through donations in the Heimdals’ hometown of Peoria, Ill.

A Kashmiri separatist group shoots and kills the highest-ranking judge in the capital city of Srinagar. . . . Japan’s Prince Aya, 24, marries a 23-year-old commoner, Kiko Kawashima, at a Shinto ceremony at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo in the first major royal marriage in Japan since 1959.

The Soviets reopen the oil pipeline to Lithuania’s only refinery at Mazeikiai. . . . Leading West German industrialist Detlev Rohwedder is appointed to lead the restructuring of East Germany’s state-owned companies.

June 30

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

June 25–30, 1990—71

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Supreme Court rules that a person whose wishes are clearly known has a constitutional right to refuse life-sustaining medical treatment in its first decision on a “right-to-die” case. . . . The Supreme Court rules that states may require a minor to notify both parents before an abortion only if the law offers an alternative for those who do not want to involve their parents. . . . The Supreme Court upholds Minnesota’s provision that minors must wait 48 hours for an abortion after notifying their parents.

Nelson Mandela meets Pres. Bush at the White House in an unprecedented visit between an ANC leader and a U.S. president. . . . Retired Admiral Robert Bostwick Carney, 95, commander in chief of North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces, 1951–53, and U.S. chief of naval operations, 1953–55, dies of cardiac arrest in Washington, D.C.

Armed robbers steal $10.8 million from an armored car on its way to the Federal Reserve office in Buffalo, N.Y. The FBI reports it is the second-largest armored car theft in U.S. history. . . . Sirhan B. Sirhan, the convicted killer of Robert Kennedy, is denied parole for the 13th time.

Nelson Mandela addresses a joint session of Congress.

Pres. Bush reports that the budget deficit requires “tax revenue increases,” sparking an uproar since the vow “Read my lips: No new taxes” was a center of Bush’s 1988 campaign. . . . A bill that appropriates $10.6 billion for the depts. of commerce, justice, and state and the federal judiciary, for fiscal 1991 is approved. . . . Pres. Bush announces a moratorium on offshore oil exploration for large areas of the coastal U.S. but leaves some key areas—off Alaska, North Carolina, the mid-Atlantic states, and the Gulf Coast—open to lease sales for drilling.

Los Angeles and Phoenix set new temperature records of 112 and 122 Fahrenheit degrees, respectively.

The Supreme Court upholds federal affirmative-action policies designed to increase the number of broadcast licenses held by minorities and women. . . . The Supreme Court rules that states may allow victims of child abuse to testify on closed-circuit television to avoid more trauma.

The House approves a $15.6 billion foreign-aid bill for fiscal 1991. . . . Pres. Bush unveils proposals to encourage the growth of free market economies in Latin America, in part by forgiving Latin debt to the U.S. and taking steps to establish a hemispheric free-trade zone encompassing North, Central, and South America.

The Supreme Court rules out a suit that challenges plans to open millions of acres of federal land to mining. . . . The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announces new guidelines that allow the disposal of some low-level radioactive wastes as ordinary trash. . . . The Senate passes an omnibus housing bill for fiscal 1991.

Severe heat and persistent drought conditions in the Southwest feed a series of fires that last three days. . . . NASA discovers a flaw in the Hubble Space Telescope that considerably cuts back its exploratory capability. The defect, an improper curvature of one or both of the mirrors, prevents light rays from coming to a sharp focus and negates use of the telescope’s wide-field camera.

The Supreme Court concludes its 1989–90 term. During the term, the court issued 129 signed majority opinions, the fewest in a decade. . . . Edward Dennis Jr. announces his resignation as assistant attorney general in charge of the criminal division. Pres. Bush chooses Robert Mueller to succeed him.

The U.S. and Japan sign a final agreement that commits both nations to reforming their domestic economies with the aim of reducing the U.S. trade deficit with Japan. . . . The Pentagon announces that the armed services will drop 78 top-ranking officers. . . . The air force suspends an F-15 pilot, Lt. Michael Lynch, for firing a heat-seeking Sidewinder missile at another F-15 during a practice dogfight. The target plane sustained nearly $1 million in damage.

The House adopts an $83.6 billion bill covering fiscal 1991 spending by the departments of Veterans Affairs and HUD, plus independent agencies such as NASA and the EPA.

Fires that swept through Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Montana, and California compel California governor George Deukmejian (R) to declare Santa Barbara and Los Angeles County emergency areas.

Pres. Bush vetoes a bill that would have required workers to be allowed unpaid time off for births, adoptions or medical emergencies at home. His veto draws bipartisan criticism. . . . The Senate approves a plan to increase funds for WIC, a federal nutrition program that aids poor women and children.

The Senate Intelligence Committee votes to cut off covert funds for the military training of the noncommunist Cambodian rebels because of growing concern about the strength of the Khmer Rouge.

The Resolution Trust Corp. announces that it successfully completed the sale or liquidation of 155 insolvent thrifts in the second quarter of 1990, exceeding a goal set earlier. . . . Separately, Common Cause reports that Sen. Pete Wilson (R, Calif.) is the leading congressional recipient of contributions associated with the savings and loan industry.

NASA discovers a fuel leak while test-firing the shuttle Atlantis. The flaw also appeared in the Columbia spacecraft, so NASA grounds the space shuttle fleet until the cause of a fuel leak can be found and fixed. . . . Fire officials believe the blaze in Santa Barbara was caused by an arsonist.

The NEA rejects grant applications from four artists who were approved by the review panel. The artists, Karen Finley, Holly Hughes, John Fleck, and Tim Miller, all deal with issues of sexuality. The decision sets off controversy. . . . Scott Turow’s Burden of Proof tops the bestseller list.

A series of fires started on June 27 are reported to have killed two people and destroyed more than 500 homes. Pres. Bush declares that Los Angeles and Santa Barbara counties are federal disaster areas after fires.

Marquis William Childs, 87, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for 47 years, dies of unreported causes in San Francisco.

A federal judge issues a temporary injunction against Rev. Donald Wildmon’s American Family Association’s pamphlet that criticizes federal funding of sexually explicit artwork by David Wojnarowicz because it places fragments of Wojnarowicz’s work out of context.

Reports surface that Roman Catholic Bishop Rene H. Gracida of Corpus Christi, Tex., excommunicated officials of two local abortion clinics.

The Vatican instructs Roman Catholic theologians not to publicly dissent from church teaching and warns that there is no “right to dissent” within the church.

June 25

June 26

June 27

June 28

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 29

June 30

72—July 1–6, 1990

World Affairs

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Rebel leaders report that all roads linking northwestern Cambodia to Phnom Penh, the capital city, have been cut off by the rebel Khmer Rouge army. Western diplomats report the Khmer Rouge made its greatest gains of the 11-year Cambodian civil war in the past month. The International Red Cross estimates that at least 25,000 refugees fled in June. . . . The official results of the May national election are released by the government of Myanmar and show that the opposition National League for Democracy had easily won the majority of seats. . . . An agreement between Australia and New Zealand establishing free trade in goods takes effect.

Lt. Gen. Henry Dubar, the army chief of staff, reportedly has deserted Pres. Samuel Doe and fled Liberia to Sierra Leone. . . . Bombs in South Africa damage a synagogue and a Hebrew nursery school. . . . In Zambia, Pres. Kenneth Kaunda fires his army commander and names new chiefs of the air force and police. He swears in Lt. Gen. Hanniah Lungu as defense minister. . . . In Israel, the cabinet approves emergency powers for Housing Minister Ariel Sharon to allow him to bypass bureaucracy and launch a crash construction program. He calls for the importation of 90,000 prefabricated trailer and mobile homes over the next two years.

Britain’s queen Elizabeth II makes a rare foray into politics when she pleads for Canadian unity in Ottawa at a ceremony marking Canada Day.

Albanian members of Kosovo’s parliament declare that Kosovo is independent from Serbia. The move is denounced as unconstitutional by the Serbian government. . . . Thousands of East German workers begin a strike for higher wages and a shorter working week. . . . The Soviet Union lifts its economic embargo on Lithuania. . . . A controversial French bill that toughens penalties against racial discrimination passes. . . . Norway’s government declares an oil and gas strike illegal and invokes compulsory arbitration.

The Saudi Arabian government estimates that 1,426 Muslim pilgrims are dead after a stampede in a pedestrian tunnel leading to Mecca. . . . In Liberia, rebels launch an assault on Monrovia, cutting off electricity, food, water, and fuel. . . . In South Africa the ANC and its allies begin a series of nationwide protests against the Natal strife. . . . Reports emerge that Kenyan police raided music shops and arrested several people for listening to “subversive” cassettes.

A strike is called by Nicaragua’s Sandinista-led National Federation of Workers.

The parliament of the republic of Slovenia adopts a declaration of sovereignty asserting that its constitution and laws take precedence over the federal Yugoslav government. Slovenia is the first republic to approve such a measure. . . . West German chancellor Helmut Kohl welcomes East Germany’s decision to hold all-German elections in December.

Shimon Shamir, Israel’s ambassador to Egypt since 1988, resigns, saying he cannot work for the right-wing government. . . . In South Africa, a shadowy group calling itself the White Wolves claims responsibility for bombings on June 29 and July 1. . . . The foreign ministers of Iran and Iraq hold their first direct talks since 1988.

China and Indonesia sign a pact restoring diplomatic relations between the two Asian nations, effective in August.

The foreign ministers of 24 of the world’s leading industrial nations agree to channel economic assistance to Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and Yugoslavia and continue to aid Hungary and Poland.

Bulgarian president Petar Mladenov admits that a videotape that shows him calling for military tanks to quell a large prodemocracy protest in Sofia in 1989 is accurate. Thousands of students mount a protest in front of the presidential building and demand that Mladenov resign. . . . Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev states he will resign in two years if perestroika fails to improve the lives of the Soviet people. . . . Nelson Mandela meets for the first time with Britain’s prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

The government of Kenyan president Deniel arap Moi cracks down on opponents advocating a multiparty political system and arrests two dissidents. . . . Liberia’s head of the presidential guard leaves the country.

A week-long National Affairs Conference ends in Taipei, Taiwan, with a call for democratic reforms.

Leaders of the NATO nations agree to a dramatic series of changes in military strategy and state they will seek a joint declaration of nonaggression with the Warsaw Pact nations.

Serbia dissolves the parliament and government of Kosovo, thus taking direct control of the autonomous Yugoslav province. Police in Kosovo, under Serbian direction, seize radio and television stations. . . . The Federal Assembly reelects former dissident and playwright Vaclav Havel to a two-year term as Czechoslovakia’s president.

In Kenya, security police arrest nine opposition figures.

New measures allow the Indian army and police forces shoot-onsight powers during curfew periods and ban gatherings of more than four people.

Petar Mladenov resigns as Bulgaria’s president “in order not to be a reason to increase political tension.” The resignation brings shouts of victory from 5,000 demonstrators. . . . Thousands of Albanian refugees seek political asylum in nine embassies in Tirana. Riot police seal off the embassy district and attack 10,000 people staging a protest. . . . Hungary approves a plan by Ford Motor Co. to build an $80 million auto plant in Szekesfehervar in Ford’s first venture in Eastern Europe.

A bomb explodes at a crowded bus terminal in Johannesburg, South Africa, injuring 27 black commuters.

July 2

July 3

July 5

Africa & the Middle East

Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic calls for a referendum on reforming the Serbian constitution. His proposal, if approved by the voters of Serbia and Kosovo, in effect revokes Kosovo’s self-governing status. . . . General Jaime Milans del Bosch, 75, a key figure in a failed 1981 Spanish coup, is released from prison in Madrid after serving more than nine years of a 26-year sentence. . . . Norwegian oil and gas workers in the North Sea go on strike. . . . The deutsche mark becomes the common currency for East and West Germany.

July 1

July 4

Europe

July 6

The Nicaraguan government breaks off talks with strikers, declares the strike illegal, and vows to fire publicsector workers who refuse to return to work by July 9.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

July 1–6, 1990—73

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Gen. Michael J. Dugan succeeds retiring Gen. Larry D. Welch as the air force chief of staff. . . . Sen. Charles Grassley (R, Iowa) and Sen. William Roth Jr. (R, Del.), in a letter to the Pentagon’s inspector general, state that they uncovered evidence that the military is still paying ludicrous prices for ordinary items, citing a $999.20 pair of pliers among others.

A federal judge rules that the government-funded Legal Services Corp. cannot deny legal aid to those challenging congressional or state redistricting plans.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A former Nazi rocket scientist who played a key role in NASA, Arthur L. H. Rudolph, arrives in Toronto from West Germany and fights to reclaim his U.S. citizenship.

Salsabil becomes the first filly since 1900 to win the Irish Derby. . . . Cal Ripken sets an American League mark for shortstops by playing in his 73rd straight baseball game without an error.

Former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos is acquitted in federal court in NYC of charges of racketeering, fraud and obstruction of justice. A spokeswoman for Corazon Aquino, now the Philippine president, contends that despite the verdict, evidence in the trial “established what the Marcos regime was all about— unbridled corruption and a total abuse of power.”

Steve Backley of Great Britain breaks the world record in the javelin throw with a distance of 293 feet, 11 inches at a grand prix meet in Stockholm.

The Energy Department estimates that the cost of cleaning up radioactive wastes at nuclear weapons plants will total at least $20 billion over five years.

The National Transportation Safety Board issues an official ruling that blames the pilot of a USAir jet for a 1989 accident at LaGuardia Airport that killed two passengers.

Two Christian Scientists are convicted of manslaughter by a Boston jury because they relied on prayer rather than conventional medical care to treat their 2-year-old son, who died of a bowel obstruction in 1986.

The Office of Thrift Supervision files civil charges against Thomas Spiegel, the former CEO of Columbia Savings and Loan, seeking $24 million in restitution and civil penalties. . . . Separately, the OTS also announces that Neil Bush is required to attend a hearing on charges against him. The OTS states that proceedings regarding failed thrifts will be open to the public.

A small-scale study published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that treatment with a human growth hormone can significantly reverse some of the physical effects of aging.

July 2

July 3

Philip (Phil) Boggs, 40, Olympic gold diving medalist dies of lymphoma. . . . Maurice Girodias, 71, French publisher who defied censorship laws by publishing Nabokov’s Lolita and Miller’s Tropic of Capricorn, dies in Paris of a heart attack.

Mitchell Darryl (Mitch) Snyder, 46, nationally known advocate for homeless people who fasted for 51 days to persuade the administration of Pres. Reagan to turn over an abandoned federal building so his group could establish a homeless shelter, commits suicide over a failed love relationship.

July 1

Paul Wynne, 46, television entertainment reporter who received nationwide attention for a weekly show that detailed his battle with AIDS, dies in San Francisco.

An explosion and fire at a petrochemical plant, Arco Chemical Co., in a Houston suburb kills 17 workers and injures five others. Officials claim the blast did not release any dangerous material. . . . Atty. Gen. Richard Thornburgh states the Justice Department will focus its probe of savings and loan fraud on the 100 institutions that are considered the worst offenders.

July 4

July 5

July 6

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

74—July 7–12, 1990

World Affairs

July 11

July 12

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Kenya, prodemocracy demonstrators gather near downtown Nairobi, despite warnings from Pres. Daniel arap Moi. Police break up the protest with gunfire, clubs, and tear gas. A string of riots erupt that lasts four days.

Albania gives permission for a mass emigration of refugees. . . . Bulgarian student leaders demand the resignations of Premier Andrei Lukanov, Defense Minister Dobri Dzhurov, and Interior Minister Atanas Semerdzhiev. . . . Hungary dedicates a monument to the 600,000 Hungarian Jews slain during World War II. . . . A strike by Norwegian oil and gas workers in the North Sea ends.

South African police arrest nine white men in connection with a series of bombings over the past three months. . . . Israeli jets hit bases belonging to Hezbollah (the Party of God) in Jarjuh and Ain Busear. Police report that at least 14 Hezbollah members killed in the air strikes.

The Group of Seven major industrial democracies holds its 16th annual summit on world economic issues. The meeting is attended by West German chancellor Helmut Kohl, U.S. president George Bush, Japan’s premier Toshiki Kaifu, Britian’s prime minister Margaret Thatcher, Italy’s premier Giulio Andreotti, Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney, French president François Mitterrand and European Community Commission president Jacques Delors.

Czechoslovakia evacuates 51 Albanians from its embassy. . . . Former head of the Communist Party in Prague, Miroslav Stepan, is convicted of abuse of power and sentenced to four years in prison. . . . Riot police break up a silent protest against Serbian rule by 1,500 ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

Reports state that a new group calling itself the White Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the July 6 South African bus terminal bombing. . . . A revived interim parliament opens in Kuwait. . . . In Kenya, riot police and a paramilitary unit fight street battles with rock-throwing demonstrators who loot shops and burn buses and cars. Pres. Moi vows that his opponents will be hunted “like rats.”

In Nicaragua, a strike turns violent and at least four people are reported killed and more than 40 injured. Nicaragua is virtually paralyzed by the strike, and Pres. Violeta Chamorro appeals for calm in an emergency address. . . . Five Cuban dissidents ask for protection at the Czechoslovak embassy. . . . Forty-eight members of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, Peru’s second-largest guerrilla group, escape from a maximum-security prison.

Forbes magazine lists Japanese railway and real-estate magnate Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, with an estimated net worth of $16 billion, as the world’s wealthiest individuals (excluding heads of state).

The Group of Seven hails “the intention of the Soviet Union to move toward a democratic political system, as well as Soviet attempts to reform their economy along market principles.” . . . The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe accords Albania observer status in the 35-nation organization.

Kosovo’s president, Hisen Kejdomcaj, resigns along with two other provincial officials. Yugoslav president Borisav Jovic, a Serb, appeals for a peaceful resolution to the Serbian takeover of Kosovo.

The Group of Seven industrial nations reaches significant agreement on several major issues despite their differing approaches to a world economy rapidly changing because of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. Accords that relate to global warming, farm subsidies, and aid to the Soviet Union are reached. . . . Ambassadors of Britain, France, Italy, Spain, and West Germany in Liberia express horror over the tribal killings of innocent civilians by both sides.

Romanian premier Petre Roman indicates that some coal miners will be prosecuted for their actions during the rampage in midJune. . . . Polish farmers stage a nationwide protest. . . . Soviet coal miners stage a one-day “warning strike”. . . . British home secretary David Waddington refers the case of the Maguire Seven, in which seven people were convicted in 1976 of operating an IRA bomb factory and sentenced to prison, to the Court of Appeal because a report finds several errors on questions of evidence.

Reports indicate that Israel, faced with the continuing influx of Soviet Jews, has a severe problem with housing, so ragged tent towns of poor Israeli families are springing up in cities across the country. . . . In Kenya, minor street clashes are reported, as the government announces an official death toll of 20 in the riots started on July 7, with 73 seriously injured people and more than 1,000 arrests.

A band of 200 armed Mohawk Indians confront Quebec police in a dispute involving tribal land claims over a golf course in Oka, about 25 miles from Montreal. The Mohawks set up a barricade, and one officer is killed. . . . Several Cubans take refuge in embassies over the next three days. . . . In Nicaragua, Sandinista leaders demand talks, and Pres. Chamorro agrees to reopen talks in return for restoring public order. . . . Protesters stage a general strike in Haiti that shuts down most of Port-au-Prince and finds support in the provinces.

Asian diplomats cancel a 28-nation conference to discuss how to handle the overflowing refugee camps for the Vietnamese “boat people.” Asian officials reluctantly conclude that the meeting would be fruitless without a change in U.S. policy that opposes forced repatriation.

A UN plan to evacuate Albanian refugees takes effect as vessels chartered by Italy and France arrive at Durazzo.

The Soviet Communist Party suffers a major setback when Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian Federation, resigns from the party. The mayors of Moscow and Leningrad follow his lead. . . . Armenian gunmen attack a convoy of Azerbaijani buses, killing three.

A second round of peace talks between representatives of Samuel Doe’s Liberian government and Charles Taylor’s NPF rebels are held in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

A strike called by Nicaragua’s Sandinista-led National Federation of Workers ends when the government agrees to a number of the workers’ demands.

India and Pakistan agree to a meeting of their foreign secretaries to discuss the Indian state of Kashmir.

July 8

July 10

Africa & the Middle East

To show opposition to the Serbian takeover, Western diplomats boycott a reception given by Pres. Slobodan Milosevic. . . . Albanian president Ramiz Alia’s regime dismisses hard-liners from the Workers’ Party Politburo and the government in an attempt to defuse growing unrest.

July 7

July 9

Europe

In response to the Nicaraguan government’s threat to fire strikers, Sandinista workers and students engage in scattered protests for two days.

The Indian army takes control of much of Kashmir under new emergency measures instituted July 5.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

July 7–12, 1990—75

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Pres. Bush tells Japanese premier Toshiki Kaifu that the U.S. no longer opposes Japanese aid to China. . . . Commander Robert L. (Hoot) Gibson’s stunt plane collides with another plane during an air race, downing the other craft and killing the pilot, Henry W. Jones Jr., 69, a retired fighter pilot.

The New York Times reports that the federal government pledged $1.85 billion in subsidies to an Arizona insurance executive who put up just $1,000 of his own money in a transaction that allowed him to purchase 15 insolvent Texas savings and loan associations in Dec. 1988.

Michael Drummond, 30, the first person to be successfully implanted with an artificial heart in 1985 as a bridge to receiving a human heart, dies after developing an infection that weakened the donor heart. Although he was given a second artificial heart, he dies of multiple organ failure and a yeast infection in his bloodstream.

Martina Navratilova defeats Zina Garrison in the All England Tennis Championships at Wimbledon to earn a record ninth singles title there.

The Louisiana state legislature approves legislation that bans abortion except in cases of rape reported to the police within seven days, incest, or threat to the mother’s life. The bill sets forth criminal penalties for doctors who perform abortions.

The New York Times reports that Pres. Bush gave the go-ahead for launching of U.S. commercial satellites via Soviet rockets.

Three computer hackers plead guilty in Atlanta to federal charges of conspiring to defraud the BellSouth Corp. telephone company of computer information.

In the first such disciplinary action, NASA grounds two astronauts for violations of safety rules. Commander Gibson is grounded after he collided with a plane on July 7, and navy captain Walker narrowly avoided a “near mid-air collision” in May 1989. . . . Reports conclude that a U.S.-Saudi arms sale worth $4 billion moved quietly through Congress without the usual vocal opposition from pro-Israel forces.

At Wimbledon, Swede Stefan Edberg beats West German Boris Becker to win the men’s title. . . . West Germany wins the 1990 World Cup soccer competition over Argentina in Italy.

Federal mediators declare an impasse in contract negotiations between Eastern Airlines and its pilots’ union. The decision starts a 30-day cooling-off period.

Howard Duff, 76, Hollywood character actor, dies of a heart attack in Santa Barbara, Calif.

In NYC, federal district judge Edelstein orders that monitors be placed at every local Teamsters’ union to observe the 1991 election for national union officers. . . . A federal jury in Birmingham, Ala., convicts USX Corp. and two United Steelworkers union officials of violating federal labor law in connection with a 1983 labor contract. The Senate overwhelmingly approves a wide-ranging anticrime bill that includes a temporary ban on the import or manufacture of nine types of semiautomatic assault rifles.

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney names Henry F. Cooper, a former U.S. arms negotiator, to head the Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”) program.

A Roman Catholic nun from Brooklyn, New York, Sister Mary Rose McGeady, is named the new president of the NYC-based Covenant House shelter for runaways.

July 7

July 8

July 9

July 10

Pres. Bush defends his son, Neil Bush, who is under attack for his role in the failure of a Colorado savings and loan association. At the same time, however, the president promises that Neil Bush will receive no special treatment because he is the president’s son. . . . In what is believed to be the largest settlement ever of a whistleblower’s lawsuit, Textron Inc. agrees to pay the government $17.9 million to settle civil charges that it knowingly supplied the Coast Guard with faulty helicopter engines. Fifteen percent of the settlement is to go to Robert Ballew, the man who disclosed the wrongdoing.

July 11

The House approves a $30.8 billion transportation bill that imposes a penalty on states that fail to enact laws to revoke licenses of drivers convicted on drug charges. . . . The Energy Department discloses that large amounts of radiation were released from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation along the Columbia River in Washington State in a three-year period ending in Dec. 1947.

Several actors visit Capitol Hill to argue against obscenity restrictions. . . . The FCC seeks to enforce a 24-hour-a-day ban on what it deems “indecent” material on radio and TV. . . . In NYC, Asian-American actors protest casting a white lead actor in Miss Saigon.

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Includes elections, federal-state relations, civil rights and liberties, crime, the judiciary, education, health care, poverty, urban affairs, and population.

Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 12

76—July 13–18, 1990

World Affairs

July 13

July 14

NATO secretary general Manfred Woerner is scheduled to become the first NATO leader to visit Moscow.

July 17

July 18

Africa & the Middle East

Forty members of an international team of mountaineers are killed in an avalanche on Lenin Peak in Kirghiz in one of the worst mountain disasters in world history. . . . The Soviet Communist Party closes its congress with Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev in command after he beat a series of conservative challenges. . . . In Albania, 100,000 people participate in a pro-government rally. Meanwhile, 4,000 Albanian refugees arrive in Italy. . . . More than 20,000 people rally in Bucharest’s Victory Square, defying a ban on protests in the center of the capital.

A bomb explodes at a mainly black hotel bar west of Johannesburg, South Africa, killing a black waiter.

The new Soviet Communist Party Central Committee elects a 24member Politburo that reflects Pres. Gorbachev’s aim to separate the party from the central government.

In a direct challenge to the ANC, Mangosuthu Buthelezi formally announces that his group, Inkatha, will convert from a Zulu “cultural and liberation movement” into a national, multiracial political party. . . . Syrian president Hafez al-Assad starts his first visit to Egypt in more than 13 years, ending the long rift that resulted from Cairo’s peace treaty with Israel. . . . In South Africa, a grenade thrown into a bar kills one black man and injures 21.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Gen. Khin Nyuht, head of Myanmar’s military intelligence, announces that opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will not be released July 19, when her oneyear sentence expires in another sign that the military government is not willing to leave power after losing elections.

In Cuba, Fidel Castro denies exit visas to refugees who were entering Czechoslovakian embassy because “experience has shown us this just stimulates more” to leave. . . . In the Dominican Republic, Pres. Juan Bosch calls for a period of national mourning to “bring an end” to the government before turning the reins over to president-elect Joaquín Balaguer.

West German and Soviet leaders hold talks in Moscow. . . . Around 500 Albanian refugees reach Marseilles. . . . Around 100,000 demonstrators stage a rally outside the Kremlin to demand that the Soviet Communist Party relinquish power and turn over its property to the people. Separately, Pres. Gorbachev ends the Communist Party’s monopoly on radio and television broadcasting.

Talks between representatives of the Mohawk Nation, the federal government and the Quebec government break down as they cannot reach consensus over a land dispute. . . . . Czechoslovakia evacuates the dependents of its diplomats from Cuba.

Soviet president Gorbachev agrees to conditions that allow a reunified Germany to become a member of NATO. . . . The East German Interior Ministry confirms that East Germany harbored Palestinian terrorists, including the man believed responsible for killing 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. . . . Arab League foreign ministers announce a decision to boycott companies and other nongovernmental institutions that help Jews immigrate to Israel.

Prominent figures in Poland’s Solidarity labor movement form a new political lobby to challenge the presidential ambitions of Solidarity leader Lech Walesa. . . . The Ukrainian parliament votes to declare the sovereignty of its laws over the laws of the central regime.

The seven Cubans who took refuge at the Czechoslovak embassy hold the original five dissident refugees and five Czechoslovak diplomats hostage. The diplomats are freed after several hours.

A major earthquake strikes Luzon Island, the main island of the Philippines. The quake’s epicenter is located near Cabanatuan, about 55 miles north of Manila, and it registers 7.7 on the Richter scale, making it the strongest earthquake to hit the Philippines since 1976. . . . A crisis in India’s ruling Janata Dal party is averted when the controversial chief minister of the state of Haryana resigns under pressure from P.M. Vishwanath Pratap Singh.

East and West Germany, the four Allied powers, and Poland reach an agreement in Paris on a plan to guarantee Poland’s border with a united Germany, overcoming the last major international hurdle to German reunification.

Ethnic clashes between Kirghiz and Uzbeks resume in the Kirghiz city of Osh. . . . Lithuania’s Supreme Council passes a law that permits the formation of security forces made up of Lithuanian conscripts, a measure that seems to contradict the republic’s freeze on independence-related laws pending formal talks with the Kremlin.

Iraqi president Saddam Hussein charges that some gulf rulers are “inspired by America” to plot to keep oil prices low through overproduction. . . . A stray shell lands near a group of reservists during an army training exercise in Israel, killing five soldiers and wounding 10. . . . The Israeli Supreme Court rules that the emergency powers given to Sharon on July 1 are unconstitutional.

In the Dominican Republic, stonethrowing demonstrators angered by the slow transfer of power to the president-elect clash with police. One person is killed and at least 20 are injured. . . . All the Cubans in the Czechoslovak embassy surrender. More Cubans seek asylum in embassies of other nations for the next five days.

Pres. Corazon Aquino flies to Cabanatuan to survey the damage caused by the July 17 earthquake and declares that Cabanatuan, Baguio, and several other areas in the Philippines are calamity areas. . . . China announces that possession of obscene photographs or films is punishable by death.

The IMF approves Hungary’s emergency budget measures, clearing the way for further aid.

Seven prominent Soviets resign from the Communist Party. . . . Spain recalls its ambassador, Antonio Serrano de Haro, to Madrid after he and Cuban officials disagreed bitterly with each other.

Iraq makes public a letter to the Arab League that charges Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates with taking part in an “imperialist-Zionist plan” to depress oil prices. Kuwait’s ruling emir, Sheik Jabir alAhmad Al Sabah, responds by dispatching envoys to Arab capitals, calling an emergency session of Kuwait’s interim parliament and putting the emirate’s small, 20,000man armed forces on alert.

Reports surface that a wave of kidnappings swept Rio de Janeiro in the first half of 1990. At least 30 abductions had taken place, and $16 million had been paid in ransom. . . . Eleven members of the dissident Pro-Human Rights Youth Association are sentenced on charges ranging from terrorism and rebellion to having contacts with U.S. officials in Cuba.

Secretary of State James Baker announces that the U.S. is withdrawing its diplomatic recognition of the Cambodian rebel coalition and will initiate talks with Vietnam in an effort to end the Cambodian civil war. . . . Yun Po Sun, 92, president of South Korea, 1960–62, dies in Seoul after suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure.

July 15

July 16

Europe

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

July 13–18, 1990—77

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The Senate approves a landmark bill to prohibit discrimination against people with physical or mental disabilities and sends it to the White House.

The Senate Armed Services Committee approves a bill for $288.9 billion in defense spending in fiscal 1991, a reduction of $18 billion from the administration’s request.

The House passes a $20.7 billion bill for the Treasury Department, the Postal Service, and other agencies for fiscal 1991. . . . Reports state that inflation in the 12 months through June reached 9.8%, the highest in eight years. . . . The Federal Reserve shifts toward a looser monetary policy, and the federal funds interest rate falls to about 8.06%.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

July 13

July 14

The U.S. wins the Lacrosse World Series, 19-15, over Canada in Perth, Australia.

Vice Pres. Dan Quayle announces that the White House strongly opposes the U.S. Senate candidacy in Louisiana of former KKK leader David Duke. . . . District judge Thomas Lambros orders the consolidation of thousands of personalinjury asbestos lawsuits into a nationwide class action. . . . James Meredith, an aide to Sen. Jesse Helms (R, N.C.), criticizes the leadership of the NAACP, alleging its members are involved in unspecified “criminal or immoral activities.”

McDonnell Douglas Corp., the nation’s leading defense contractor, announces it will eliminate 14,000–17,000 jobs by the end of 1990 and trim discretionary and capital spending. . . . Pres. Bush revises the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and installs former Texas senator John Tower (R) as chairman.

The White House reports the estimated fiscal 1991 budget deficit ascended to $168.8 billion, exceeding the January forecast of $100.5 billion. . . . . The government finds that retail sales fell 2.8% in June, the biggest monthly drop since 1979.

The White House directs NASA to appoint an outside task force to examine the space program’s longterm direction.

The DEA reports that supplies of cocaine in major metropolitan areas in the U.S. fell in the past year while prices rose.

Reports state that the armed forces accepted 42,000 fewer enlistees in 1990 than at the same point in 1989, a 20% reduction.

The Senate and House begin to work to process the fiscal 1991 spending bills in the absence of a formal budget resolution.

NASA announces that space shuttle flights will resumed in mid-August or early September. . . . Astronauts aboard Mir conduct a space walk that brings them perilously close to exhausting their oxygen supply.

A $50.35 billion appropriations for the Agriculture Department for fiscal 1991 is approved by the House.

According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, blood pressure that is above normal but not high enough to qualify as hypertension can permanently damage the heart and blood vessels and increase the risk of heart attack.

The Senate passes a civil-rights measure designed to overcome recent Supreme Court decisions that make it more difficult for individuals to win job-discrimination lawsuits. . . . NAACP executive director Benjamin Hooks calls James Meredith’s July 16 assertions “sheer nonsense.”

The heavy-metal rock group Judas Priest and its record label, CBS Records, are sued by the families of two youths who shot themselves after listening to the band’s album Stained Class.

July 15

July 16

July 17

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America suspends two congregations for five years for ordaining a gay man and two lesbians in defiance of church policy.

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Includes elections, federal-state relations, civil rights and liberties, crime, the judiciary, education, health care, poverty, urban affairs, and population.

Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 18

78—July 19–24, 1990

July 19

July 20

Europe

Spain suspends a $2.5 million aid program to Cuba and asks the EC to halt all aid projects with Cuba. The EC agrees.

Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski expresses a willingness to resign as Poland’s president before the end of 1990 for an elected successor. . . . Latvia decides to form its own customs service to guard its borders with other Soviet republics. . . . More than 10,000 people in Timisoara demand the release of dissidents and call for the resignation of Romanian president Ion Iliescu.

Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd urges Kuwait and Iraq to settle their differences by dialogue. . . . In Liberia, NPF rebels end peace talks and say they will oust Pres. Samuel Doe by force.

The Haitian government asks the UN to send monitors to observe its election, becoming the first UN member to make such a request. The General Assembly defers action on the request.

A bomb explodes in London’s International Stock Exchange building. There are no casualties since the area was evacuated after telephone warnings were received. The IRA claims responsibility. . . . Negotiations on a treaty that will transform the USSR. into a confederation of sovereign republics open when Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev presides over a meeting in Moscow of the Presidential Council and the Federation Council.

Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak asks Kuwait and Iraq to settle their differences through discussion.

Reports indicate more than a dozen people were killed during ethnic clashes between Kirghiz and Uzbeks in Osh, Kyrgyzstan. At least 100 were seriously injured. . . . Rock performers stage a large concert in East Berlin to celebrate the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. More than 150,000 people attend. . . . Slavic Bulgarian nationalists end a general strike launched to protest alleged discrimination against Slavs in the region by ethnic Turks.

July 21

July 23

The members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) criticize the U.S. for withdrawing its recognition of the Cambodian rebel coalition and also take issue with U.S. policy on Vietnamese and Cambodian “boat people” refugees.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Quebec’s Minister of Native Affairs John Ciaccia announces that the federal government will acquire land in Oka that is the subject of an armed dispute between Mohawk Indians and local authorities. The government also moves a special Royal Canadian Mounted Police assault task force into Montreal in response to demands from white residents that the army clear a blockade of the Mercier Bridge set up by Mohawks on July 11.

In the Philippines, reports estimate that 674 people died and 2,600 were injured in the earthquake that struck Luzon Island July 16.

Reports state that 26 Cubans have sought asylum at the Italian ambassador’s residence and the Spanish and Swiss embassies. In response, Cuban police seal off the Canadian and West German embassies and tighten security around the Spanish embassy.

Israel’s center-left Labor Party chooses to retain Shimon Peres as its leader, defeating a strong challenge by his long-time rival, Yitzhak Rabin. . . . Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak meets with Iraqi foreign ministery Tariq Aziz in Cairo. . . . In the South African township of Sebokeng, Inkatha supporters battle members of the Vaal Civic Association, allied with the ANC. Thirty people are killed. . . . Separately, reports indicate that South African police have arrested as many as 40 Umkhonto guerrillas.

China and Saudi Arabia establish diplomatic relations. As part of the agreement, Saudi Arabia recognizes China as the “sole legitimate government” of the “entire Chinese people.” The move leaves South Korea and South Africa as the only major nations to recognize Taiwan as the legitimate government of China.

The government orders the “organs of social order” to put an end to antigovernment protests in Bulgaria. Police, however, take no action against the tent city set up by protesters. . . . The Ukrainian parliament elects Leonid Kravchuk to the post of president. He vows to seek increased Ukrainian autonomy.

U.S. officials and Arab diplomats note that Iraq has massed 30,000 troops on its frontier with Kuwait. The move is generally interpreted as an intimidation tactic rather than as a preparation for war. . . . Jordan’s King Hussein joins a meeting between Aziz and Mubarak in Cairo.

Civil defense officials in the Philippines report at least 1,621 people died in the July 16 earthquake. . . . In Australia, members of the federal cabinet spar over the findings of a scientific report on logging in southeastern New South Wales. . . . Reports show that 80% of the 500,000 victims of the 1984 Bhopal, India, gas leak have not yet received any of the $470 million settlement from Union Carbide.

Three Northern Ireland policemen and a Roman Catholic nun are killed by a bomb explosion near the Ulster town of Armagh. . . . Greece’s parliament ratifies a military agreement between the nation and the U.S. and Greece to continue the U.S. military presence in Greece but to concentrate it on the island of Crete. Police battle with 2,000 demonstrators in Hania, Crete, protesting the pact.

Bush administration officials announce that the U.S. dispatched air force aerial refueling planes in an emergency training exercise with UAE fighter jets, at the UAE’s request. The maneuvers were backed up by the six-warship U.S. Navy task force on permanent duty in the Persian Gulf. . . . Israel’s National Council for Building and Planning reverses an earlier decision and approves construction of a huge radio transmitter for the U.S. Voice of America.

July 22

July 24

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Quebec’s Human Rights Commission rules that a blockade of food and medical supplies to the barricaded Mohawks is illegal.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

July 19–24, 1990—79

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Sen. Donald Riegle Jr. (D, Mich.) says he will turn over to the Treasury nearly $120,000 in contributions that he received since 1983 from PACs and individuals with ties to the savings-and-loan industry. . . . A $170.7 billion appropriations bill is approved by the House for the departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services for fiscal 1991. . . . PPG Industries Inc. agrees to pay New Jersey $82.5 million for dumping chromium wastes in Hudson County. Justice William J. Brennan Jr. resigns from the Supreme Court after nearly 34 years of service. . . . Herbert T. Jenkins, 83, police chief of Atlanta, 1947–73, with a policy of accommodating civil-rights leaders, dies in Atlanta of a selfinflicted gunshot wound.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle The $21 million Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California, is dedicated with Pres. Bush and former presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and Richard Nixon at the ceremonies. . . . The Senate approves a bill that limits the amount of advertising on TV programs aimed at children and requires broadcasters to provide programming for children.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals sets aside Oliver North’s convictions for deceiving Congress and for receiving an illegal gratuity. It overturns his conviction for destroying government documents so all three of North’s felony convictions are suspended. . . . George Stone, a navy contract specialist, is sentenced to 15 months in prison for his role in the Pentagon procurement scandal. . . . A group of 60 Panamanian companies sue the U.S. government demanding $30 million in compensation for damages incurred during the 1989 invasion.

July 19

July 20

The New York Times reports that an Arizona insurance executive, James M. Fail, who in 1988 won $1.85 billion in federal subsidies to acquire 15 Texas thrifts, was allowed in March 1987 to buy an insolvent Oklahoma bank despite his failure to submit required documents to regulators.

July 21

Kennedy family matriarch Rose Kennedy turns 100. . . . Manuel Puig, 57, Argentine novelist whose 1979 book The Kiss of the Spider Woman was made into an awardwinning film in 1985, dies of a heart attack following gall bladder surgery in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

Reports suggest the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms gave permission for the import of modified versions of semiautomatic assault rifles banned in 1989 by Pres. Bush. . . . Pres. Bush nominates David H. Souter as a Supreme Court justice. Debate over Souter’s politics, particularly his stance on abortion rights, ensues.

The navy suspends a plan to use bottle-nosed dolphins as sentries at a submarine base near Bangor, Washington, an idea that prompted legal challenges from animal-rights activists.

Sen. Tim Wirth (D, Colo.) sends nearly $100,000 to the state of Colorado because it is money he raised from the S&L industry in his career. . . . Walt Disney Co. accepts responsibility for the illegal disposal of hazardous paint thinner and other cleaning solvents used at Disneyland, in Anaheim, California, and agrees to pay the EPA a $550,000 fine.

The House Government Operations subcommittee on employment and housing, which held hearings into allegations of wrongdoing at the HUD Department under former Secretary Samuel R. Pierce Jr., asks the special prosecutor investigating the case to widen his probe.

In a memo, Vice Admiral Joseph Donnell, the commander of the navy’s East Coast installations urges that lesbian sailors be rooted out of the service. . . . The Strategic Air Command ends round-theclock flights of the airborne command planes collectively known as “Looking Glass” in order to save $18 million in fiscal 1991.

Atty. Gen. Richard Thornburgh notes that the Justice Department may need until 1995 to prosecute the savings and loan fraud cases at the 100 institutions on the list.

James David Hart, 79, literary scholar who was the creator and sole author of the Oxford Companion to American Literature, dies of a brain tumor in Berkeley. . . .The House approves a TV advertising bill similar to the one passed in the Senate July 19.

July 22

July 23

July 24

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

80—July 25–29, 1990

World Affairs

July 27

July 28

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev decrees that ethnic militants have 15 days to disarm voluntarily or they will face confrontations with Soviet security forces.

Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak announces that Iraqi and Kuwaiti officials have agreed to hold direct talks to work out their oil and border disputes. . . . Clashes between Inkatha supporters and members of the Vaal Civic Association, allied with the ANC, break out in South Africa’s Soweto township.

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter visits Haiti and says he will return in November to monitor elections. . . . British Columbia’s native affairs minister, Jack Weisgerber, declares that, for the first time in British Columbia’s history, the province will recognize “certain aboriginal rights and interests.”. . . Seven members of Canada’s parliament who left their political parties over the Meech Lake accord announce they will form a bloc in the House of Commons as the Bloc Quebecois (BQ).

Ambassadors of five EC nations in Liberia issue another joint statement expressing their horror over the tribal killings of innocent civilians by both sides. . . . U.S. secretary of state James Baker arrives in Jakarta for talks with the ASEAN ministers from Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.

Poland’s Senate gives final approval on a package of legislation to privatize the economy. . . . The U.S. begins removing its stockpile of chemical weapons from West Germany that has been stored there for 23 years. . . . Stasi’s former chief, Erich Mielke, is arrested by East German authorities and is charged with harboring terrorists.

In South Africa, Nelson Mandela meets with F. W. de Klerk to discuss recent unrest.

In Peru, a bomb explodes outside the presidential palace. Several more bombs, believed to have been planted by Maoist guerrillas knock out electricity in Lima. . . . Representatives of the leftist FLMN rebels and the Salvadoran government reach an accord on human rights, the first such pact in their decade-old war. . . . Quebec’s minister of Native affairs, John Ciaccia announces a government blockade of food and medical supplies to barricaded Mohawks will be lifted in response to the July 24 ruling.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees states that at least 375,000 Liberians have fled to neighboring Ivory Coast, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. Food shortages, malnutrition, and disease are reportedly spreading in Liberia. . . . The European Investment Bank, an EC unit, will lend Czechoslovakia up to $500 million over a three-year period. . . . At the ASEAN meeting, U.S. secretary of state Baker announces a modified U.S. position on the “boat people” issue. The U.S., he asserts, agrees to the repatriation of those refugees who “do not object” to returning. In return, the ASEAN nations agree to continue accepting the refugees. However, they warn that unless a comprehensive settlement is reached soon, their countries will begin to send boat people back to sea.

The Byelorussian parliament passes a sovereignty resolution and expresses the desire to become a neutral, nuclear-free state. . . . The French government releases five men convicted in the attempted 1980 assassination of former Iranian premier Shahpur Bakhtiar. . . . Authorities in West Berlin arrest a 32-year-old West German of Lebanese origin on charges of organizing the 1986 bombing of the La Belle discotheque. The attack, which killed two U.S. soldiers and a Turkish woman, led to a retaliatory air raid by the U.S. on Libya. . . . Separately, West Germany’s leading antiterrorist official is slightly injured in a bomb blast aimed at his car. The Red Army Faction terrorist group claims credit for the attack.

An Italian envoy warns that Liberia is slipping into “anarchy and national suicide.”

Armed with rifles and grenades, a group of 100 black Muslims in the Caribbean island nation of Trinidad and Tobago attack the parliament building, seize the prime minister and several other cabinet officials, take over the government television station where they keep 29 people hostage, and blow up the police headquarters. It is an coup attempt against P.M. Arthur N.R. Robinson. . . . Canadian federal minister of Indian affairs Thomas Siddon announces that the government has bought the 30-acre parcel of land adjacent to the golf course that is at the center of the Mohawk dispute. . . . Colombia’s Medellin drug cartel pledges to suspend the use of violence indefinitely as a good-will gesture to the new administration, but many Colombians are skeptical of the promise.

The Honduran government signs a 12-month, $41 million standby loan agreement with the IMF.

Poland’s Citizens’ Movement for Democracy lobby, formed July 16, opens its first meeting. Members strenuously object to press characterizations of the Citizens’ Movement as a political party. . . . The three Baltic republics refuse to participate in negotiations with the Soviet central government over a new union treaty, which would transform the USSR into a confederation of sovereign republics.

A pipe bomb explodes on a crowded Tel Aviv beach, wounding 18 Israelis and tourists and killing a 17-year-old Canadian girl. Enraged Jews attack Arab bathers and workers and stone cars with Arab license plates. Police detain seven Israelis in connection with the rampage.

Alberto Fujimori is sworn in as president of Peru in Lima. . . . The dispute over land between the Canadian government and the Mohawk Indians continues. . . . In Trinidad and Tobago, negotiations with rebels staging a coup begin, and acting president Emanuel Carter declares a state of emergency and a curfew. Eight hostages, two of them government ministers, are released. In Port of Spain there are outbreaks of gunfire between government troops and members of the sect. Fires rage in several locations as looters ransack stores.

Soviet government data for the first half of 1990 indicates the economy is still in crisis. . . . The Red Army Faction threatens a guerrilla war against the “Fourth Reich” of a unified Germany. . . . Bruno Kreisky, 79, chancellor of Austria, 1970–83, dies of heart disease in Vienna.

Eight Palestinians are arrested for the July 28 bombing. . . . Forty years after it was banned and nearly six months after it was legalized by Pretoria, the South African Communist Party publicly relaunches itself as an open political party at a rally in the black township of Soweto.

The Retail Council of Canada announces that it is taking steps to fight an exodus of Canadian shoppers across the border to the U.S. for lower prices.

July 25

July 26

Europe

July 29

Asia & the Pacific

The ruling Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party retains control of both houses of parliament in the first free elections in Mongolia since the communist takeover in 1921. . . . Ivan Timofeyevich Polyukhovich, a 74year-old accused war criminal, is found shot near his home in Adelaide, a day before his trial was set to begin.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

July 25–29, 1990—81

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The Senate votes 96 to 0 to denounce Sen. David Durenberger (R, Minn.) for improper financial dealings.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Eastern Airlines and nine of its managers are indicted on charges of falsification of aircraft maintenance records from 1985 to 1989. The criminal indictment on maintenance is unprecedented in the airline industry.

Pres. Bush signs into law a landmark civil-rights bill that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities. . . . The House of Representatives votes to reprimand Rep. Barney Frank (D, Mass.) for improper use of his office to aid a male prostitute. . . . The New Jersey Supreme Court rules that warning labels on cigarette packages do not protect tobacco manufacturers from product-liability lawsuits filed by smokers or their families.

General Electric agrees to pay $30 million in penalties and restitution in a case stemming from overcharges on an Army battlefield computer system. . . . A jury in Los Angeles convicts Honduran narcotics trafficker Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros on three counts in connection to the 1985 slaying in Mexico of a DEA agent, Enrique Camarena Salazar, and three other individuals.

According to a Washington Post/ ABC News poll, Americans are increasingly pessimistic about the national economy.

Louisiana governor Buddy Roemer (D) vetoes a strict antiabortion bill passed by the state legislature. . . . A mistrial is declared in Los Angeles in the second trial of Raymond Buckey, the sole remaining defendant in the McMartin Pre-School child molestation case.

The Justice Department closes the criminal phase of Operation Uncover, a 15-month investigation of illegal trafficking by defense contractors in confidential Pentagon documents. The criminal phase ends with the sentencing of Frank J. Caso and John R. Kiely to serve six months in a half-way house and fined each $5,000. . . . An Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter crashes about five miles from Charleston, South Carolina, killing five soldiers and injuring eight others. . . . Separately, a Marine Corps UH-1N Huey helicopter crashes in the Southern California desert, killing two Marines and injuring three others.

USX Corp. agrees to pay $34 million in costs and penalties for discharging untreated waste water from its Gary, Indiana, steel mill.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Louisiana governor Buddy Roemer (D) vetoes the nation’s first bill that requires warning stickers on record albums with explicit lyrics because it is unconstitutional.

Cosmonauts take another space walk from Mir.

Brent Mydland, 37, keyboard player for the Grateful Dead, dies in Lafayette, California.

July 26

The Burden of Proof by Scott Turow is at the top of the Publisher’s Weekly bestseller list.

July 27

Two barges carrying partly refined oil collide with a Greek tanker in Galveston Bay, on Texas’s gulf coast, spilling 500,000 gallons of heavy crude oil into the bay.

The National Governors’ Association agrees to form a committee to examine the S&L bailout and propose solutions to the budgetary crisis it created. The governors also finalize plans for a panel to monitor improvements in education.

Five former officials of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) and a Colombian businessman are convicted in Tampa, Florida, for laundering $32 million for Colombia’s Medellín drug cartel.

The Houston Ship Channel, which leads into Galveston Bay, is closed after the July 28 spill.

July 25

July 28

The west side of Chicago suffers a 14-square-mile blackout after a fire in a malfunctioning transformer damages a Commonwealth Edison generating plant. During the blackout, stores are ransacked and 49 people are arrested.

July 29

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

82—July 30–August 3, 1990

World Affairs

Aug. 3

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific In Myanmar, the League of Democracy demands that the government step down and release all political prisoners, but the ruling military junta shows no signs of handing over power. . . . Reports state that the rate of extinction of animals and plants in Australia is the highest in the world.

Government troops storm into a Lutheran church compound in Monrovia where 2,000 Gio and Mano civilians had taken refuge and kill as many as 600 people. The attack is considered to be the worst single Liberian massacre so far. A spokesman for Pres. Doe claims that the killers are rebels dressed up as government troops, but U.S. officials back up the contention of witnesses that the attackers are Krahn soldiers.

A fierce gun battle breaks out at the television station in Trinidad and Tobago. . . . A Quebec superior court judge refuses to order police to dismantle their barricades in Oka since the Mohawks are defying the law by refusing to dismantle their roadblocks.

Two men are charged in Northern Ireland in connection with the July 24 slaying of three policemen and a nun. . . . The IRA claims responsibility for the death of Ian Gow. . . . West Germany reschedules $1.8 billion of Polish debt. . . . The Presidium of the Albanian People’s Assembly issues two decrees, one permitting foreign investment, the other granting Albanians a limited right to public demonstrations.

In a telephone interview with the BBC, Liberian president Samuel Doe vows to the “fight until the last soldiers in the Liberian army die.”

Trinidad and Tobago’s prime minister Arthur N. R. Robinson, 63, is freed by a rebel faction who shot him in the leg.

Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev and his chief political rival, Boris Yeltsin, agree to cooperate on transforming the nation’s economy to a market system. . . . Bulgaria’s Grand National Assembly chooses Zhelyu Zhelev as the nation’s president. . . . Givi Gumbaridze, Georgia’s president, promises that multiparty elections will be held in October. About 800 protesters end a blockade of a railroad junction in response. . . . Swiss legislation that outlaws money laundering goes into effect.

Talks on oil and border disputes between Iraq and Kuwait in the Saudi city of Jidda break off after only one two-hour session.

One hundred and thirteen black Muslims who staged a coup in Trinidad and Tobago surrender after freeing their remaining hostages at the Red House and the television station. . . . Around 16,000 workers at two major Canadian steel companies go on strike.

Indian prime minister Viswanath Pratap Singh fires Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal, ending a cabinet crisis after Singh forced Lal’s son to resign from a state post in July.

Iraqi troops and tanks storm into Kuwait and seize control of the oilrich desert sheikdom. Reports indicate that at least 200 Kuwaitis were killed or wounded before armed resistance was crushed by the massive invasion force. Moving with unusual unanimity, the UN Security Council, NATO, and the EC condemn Iraqi’s invasion of Kuwait and demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Iraqi troops. . . . The World Bank offers to lend Poland $300 million for basic goods and aid to the unemployed.

Britain and France freeze Kuwaiti assets to keep them from Iraq, and Switzerland monitors Kuwaiti holdings to prevent their seizure. The Soviet Union decides to suspend arms deliveries to Baghdad, until now its ally. . . . Armenian nationalists raid a military depot and steal a cache of flamethrowers and guns. . . . More than 4,000 contract workers take part in a 24-hour wildcat strike on North Sea oil platforms.

Kuwait’s ruling emir, Sheik Jabir alAhmad Al Sabah, flees to Saudi Arabia after the Iraqi invasion. . . . The Israeli cabinet adopts a $1 billion plan to import 20,000 pre-fab and trailer homes.

The government of Trinidad and Tobago confirms 30 deaths in the attempted July coup. Much of the commercial district and suburbs of Port of Spain is in ruins with a short supply of food and medicine.

Philippine communist rebels free Timothy Swanson, a U.S. Peace Corps worker they kidnapped in June. The rebels also free a Japanese relief worker, Fumio Mizuno, who was abducted in a separate incident in June.

Waiving its usual requirement of unanimity, the Arab League passes a resolution condemning “Iraqi aggression against Kuwait.” The measure is approved by 14 of the league’s 21 members. . . . Most European nations, Canada, and Japan freeze Kuwait’s assets to prevent their seizure by Iraq. . . . The Saudi-led six-member Gulf Cooperation Council speaks out against the Iraqi invasion, along with Egypt, Morocco, and Algeria. . . . In a move unprecedented in decades, Soviet foreign minister Shevardnadze and U.S. secretary of state Baker issue a joint statement. It condemns “the brutal and illegal invasion of Kuwait.”

West German chancellor Helmut Kohl and East German premier Lothar de Maiziere sign an agreement to hold all-German general elections on Oct. 14. . . . Hungary’s parliament elects Arpad Goncz to the post of president. . . . Britain records its highest temperature ever, 99 degrees Fahrenheit. London breaks a 50-year old mark with a reading of 95 degrees Fahrenheit.

In Liberia, reports indicate that Prince Yormie Johnson’s rebels are fighting fiercely with government troops within a mile of Pres. Doe’s mansion.

Leaders of the 13 nations of the Caribbean Community and Common Market meet in Kingston, Jamaica to plan for an integrated Caribbean market. . . . The leaders of Italy, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Austria, and Hungary meet.

Aug. 1

Aug. 2

Africa & the Middle East

Ian Gow, an adviser to British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, is killed by a car bomb. . . . A suspected IRA bomb maker loses his appeal in Dublin against extradition to Britain in the first case governed by Ireland’s 1987 Extradition Act. . . . Armenia’s parliament declares that Armenians have a “natural right to self-defense.”. . . The Ukrainian parliament demands its military conscripts serve only in the Ukraine. . . . Albania and the Soviet Union restore diplomatic relations after 29 years.

July 30

July 31

Europe

In Sri Lanka, Tamil rebels kill 140 Muslims at prayer in the eastern town of Kathankudy.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

July 30–August 3, 1990—83

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The House passes an $8.31 billion military construction appropriation for fiscal 1991 that cuts funding for construction on U.S. bases overseas. . . . In Los Angeles, former state policeman Juan Jose Bernabe Ramirez is convicted on three counts in the abduction and killing of DEA agent Enrique Camarena Salazar.

Officials of the Resolution Trust Corp. (RTC) tell Congress that it will need as much as $100 billion in fiscal 1991 to continue the savings and loan industry bailout at its current pace. . . . The Coast Guard reports that 500,000 gallons leaked from a collision in the Gulf of Mexico on July 28.

Ruben Zuno Arce, 60, is found guilty on three counts in connection with the 1985 slaying of DEA agent Enrique Camarena Salazar. . . . The House Armed Services Committee approves a defense authorization bill cuts $24 billion from the administration’s fiscal 1991 budget.

The Texas Department of Health halts fishing after the spill in the Gulf of Mexico. . . . The National Transportation Safety Board ends a 16-month investigation of the Exxon Valdez oil spill and cites failures by the captain, the third mate, Exxon Shipping Co., the Coast Guard, and Alaskan authorities for the accident. . . . The House passes a measure that raises the federal debt ceiling to $3.444 trillion from $3.123 trillion. . . . The House overwhelmingly approves legislation for tougher prosecution of S&L crime.

Superior Court judge Stanley Weisberg dismisses all charges against Raymond Buckey, the sole remaining defendant in the McMartin PreSchool child molestation case, thereby ending the longest and most expensive criminal prosecution in U.S. history. . . . The Senate narrowly passes a campaign-finance reform bill that calls for voluntary spending limits in Senate campaigns.

Science, Technology, & Nature

July 30

July 31

McDonald’s and the Environmental Defense Fund begin to seek ways to reduce the tons of trash generated daily by the fast-food chain. . . . The RTC announces a plan to dispose of $50 billion in real-estate and securities assets by the end of 1990. . . . Texas governor William Clements Jr. (R) declares Galveston Bay a disaster area. . . . A series of budget meetings between congressional leaders and the Bush administration ends after making no progress.

Rep. Floyd H. Flake (D, N.Y.) is indicted by a federal grand jury on 17 counts of conspiracy, fraud, and tax evasion.

Pres. Bush orders economic sanctions against Baghdad and quickly freezes both Iraq’s and Kuwait’s assets in the U.S. . . . The American Legion and the Vietnam Veterans of America file suit to force the federal government to complete a study on the impact of Agent Orange on U.S. troops.

The House passes a campaignfinance reform bill that is weaker than the one passed by the Senate on Aug. 1. . . . The House passes a civil rights measure that is nearly identical to the one passed on July 18 by the Senate. . . . Federal Judge David Kenyon imposes a plan to reset voting districts in L.A. so they do not discriminate against Hispanic Americans.

U.S. intelligence monitors an Iraqi military buildup of 100,000 troops south of Kuwait city.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Actress Meryl Streep releases a report by the Screen Actors Guild women’s committee which shows that actresses in films, television, and commercials get fewer roles and are paid less than male actors.

Oil prices shoot up in frenzied trading in the wake of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. West Texas Intermediate, the benchmark U.S. crude, rises to $23.11 a barrel, up $1.57.

Aug. 1

Aug. 2

Aug. 3

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

84—August 4–9, 1990

World Affairs

Aug. 4

The 12-nation European Community imposes a broad array of trade sanctions against Baghdad, Iraq.

Aug. 9

Iraqi-controlled Kuwaiti radio announces that a new “popular army” is being formed that is open to all nationalities, including the invading Iraqi troops occupying the sheikdom.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Honduras, the government sends in troops to oust striking workers from banana plant facilities and threatens to dismiss the workers.

U.S. Marines begin to fly into Liberia to evacuate U.S. citizens after a rebel leader threatened to take foreign hostages The forces evacuate 73 people, 61 of them Americans. No shots are fired and no one is injured. . . . Conflicts erupt in Kagiso, South Africa.

China halts arms sales to Iraq. . . . Under U.S. pressure, Japan bans Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil imports, blocks Japanese exports to those countries, suspends capital transactions, and freezes aid to Iraq. . . . The government of Papua New Guinea and separatist rebels on the country’s island of Bougainville sign an interim agreement after peace talks in New Zealand.

The Polish government and the Roman Catholic Church decide that all public schools will offer voluntary classes in religious education beginning in the fall.

U.S. defense secretary Dick Cheney meets with Saudi Arabia’s king Fahd. After Fahd gives permission, U.S. president Bush decides to send military troops to Saudi Arabia. . . . Iraq reduces the flow of oil through Turkey, due to the growing world boycott. . . . Two Jewish teenagers who disappeared while hitchhiking are found bound, gagged, and stabbed to death on the outskirts of the Arab sector. Israelis go on a revenge rampage.

Pakistani president Ghulam Ishaq Khan dismisses the government of P.M. Benazir Bhutto, accusing Bhutto of “corruption and nepotism.” . . . In Sri Lanka, reports indicate that Muslim mobs raided the Tamil village of Thirraikerni, killing 40 men, women, and children in retaliation for the Aug. 3 attack. . . . The U.S. holds its first formal bilateral talks with Vietnam on the conflict in Cambodia.

The Estonian parliament passes a resolution stating that the republic is no longer part of the Soviet Union. . . . Despite entreaties from Iraq, Turkey states it will obey UN sanctions and stop ships from loading Iraqi oil at the pipeline terminus.

Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein vows to “pluck out the eyes of those who attack the Arab nation” and declares, “We would rather die in dignity than live in humiliation.”. . .The ANC suspends its 30-year armed struggle against South Africa’s white minority regime. . . . Revenge rampages in Israel worsen after the funerals of the teenagers found on Aug. 6. At least 80 Palestinians are injured by mobs shouting “Death to the Arabs!” and two are killed.

Cesar Gaviria Trujillo is sworn in for a four-year term as Colombia’s president and promises to continue the war against drug cartels. . . . In Honduras, some 10,000 banana workers return to work, ending a strike that began June 25 over pay. . . . Canada’s Liberal Party loses its majority in the appointed Senate for the first time since 1946 when New Brunswick Sen. Margaret Anderson retires.

The Sri Lankan army kills 42 Tamils suspected of participation in a massacre. . . . The premier of the Australian state of Victoria, John Cain, announces his intention to leave the post after serving for nearly nine years.

Iraqi president Saddam Hussein responds to U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia by annexing Kuwait. . . . Liberian rebels release 22 hostages from eight nations who were taken Aug. 6.

Czechoslovakia’s federal premier, Marian Calfa, meets with the premiers of the Czech and Slovak republics, Petr Pithart and Vladimir Meciar, respectively, to discuss Slovak autonomy. . . . P.M. Margaret Thatcher orders British air and naval forces to the Persian Gulf at the request of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. . . . A Swiss Red Cross worker, Emanuel Christen, is released after being held hostage in Lebanon for 10 months. . . . Greek employees at two bases scheduled for closure begin a 48-hour strike.

The evacuation of U.S. citizens from Liberia ends after bringing out at least 125 people.

The federal government, Quebec provincial government, and Mohawk negotiators agree to the intervention of a mediator in a land dispute. Separately, P.M. Brian Mulroney announces that Canadian Forces army troops will be sent to Oka, Quebec, to relieve provincial police forces in the dispute with the Mohawks. . . . In the Dominican Republic, Pres. Joaquín Balaguer sets forth an economic austerity program. . . . Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori announces an austerity program.

In Pakistan, Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi states that tribunals can bar those found guilty of corruption from running in the Oct. 24 national elections. Bhutto supporters call the move a blatant attempt to keep the former prime minister and her allies from regaining power. . . . In Myanmar, government security forces fire on 5,000 prodemocracy marchers in Mandalay. Four people are killed.

The UN Security Council votes unanimously to declare Iraq’s annexation of Kuwait as “null and void” under international law. . . . The International Energy Agency, meeting in Paris, assures that world oil supplies currently remain plentiful and that there is no need to draw on emergency reserves, but it also urges preparation for such a need in the future.

Helmut Kohl and Lothar de Maiziere announce that they will delay an earlier plan and back December 2 for all-German elections instead. . . . The Kremlin agrees to give Armenia’s government sole authority over the collection of weapons from militants. . . . East Germany, in a surprise move, cancels $450 million in contracts for Czechoslovak imports because of financial problems. . . . U.S. secretary of state James Baker talks with Turkish president Turgut Ozalin in Ankara.

Iraq officially seals its borders so only foreign diplomats are allowed to leave. . . . Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd, in his first public comment since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, blasts it as “the most vile aggression known to the Arab nation in its modern history.”

In Peru, inhabitants of slum areas riot in reaction to the economic austerity plan. Police are reinforced by armed soldiers on the streets in an effort to prevent looting, and soldiers kill three people who are burning tires and erecting roadblocks.

In Australia, Victoria’s ruling Labor Party selects Deputy Premier and Education Minister Joan Kirner to replace John Cain.

The UN Security Council votes to impose a sweeping trade embargo against Iraq and occupied Kuwait. . . . Reports suggest that U.S., British, West German, French, and other foreign citizens have been rounded up in Kuwait and Iraq. . . . . . . . The 16-nation Economic Community of West African States agrees to send a peacekeeping force to Liberia. . . . Separately, in Liberia, rebels seize 22 foreigners from eight countries.

Aug. 7

Aug. 8

Africa & the Middle East

The Armenian parliament elects a fervent nationalist, Levon Ter-Petrossian, to the post of president. . . . Reports indicate that 35 British military advisers in Kuwait were seized by Iraqi troops and are being held in a Baghdad hotel.

Aug. 5

Aug. 6

Europe

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

August 4–9, 1990—85

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

A congressional study concludes that testing of DNA genetic material is a valid means of identifying suspects in criminal cases, but it advises that strict standards be set to insure that such tests are performed properly.

In response to reports about Liberia, Pres. Bush authorizes a rescue mission after a meeting at Camp David with Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. . . . The Senate votes for a $289 billion defense authorization.

Congress clears and sends to the president comprehensive oil-spill legislation that covers liability, cleanup, and prevention.

The House and Senate approve legislation that provides $875 million in the coming year and $4 billion over the next five years to help cities and states cope with the rising costs of AIDS. The legislation, known as the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Act, is the federal government’s most comprehensive financial response to the AIDS crisis thus far.

An Air Force internal audit that finds $9.2 million in improper spending on recreational projects is made public. The outlays include $2.2 million to upgrade an officers’ club at a U.S. air base in England and $244,667 to renovate golfing facilities at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida.

Officials grow increasingly concerned about the 3,000 U.S. citizens in occupied Kuwait and more than 500 others in Iraq. . . . The last defendant in the trail of the 1985 slaying of DEA agent Salazar, Javier Vasquez Velasco, 31, is convicted on two counts. None of the defendants are convicted on murder charges.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Aug. 4

The west side of Chicago suffers another blackout when an explosion and fire break out at an electrical substation that Commonwealth Edison was using to supply power to customers hit by the July 29 blackout. Around 25,000 customers in the same area have their electricity cut off.

At a news conference in Washington, Cheney and Powell make public the details of the deployment of U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia. The action, dubbed Operation Desert Shield, is also the subject of a national address by Pres. Bush, who states, “After perhaps unparalleled international consultation, and exhausting every alternative, it became necessary to take this action.”

The Justice Department challenges Georgia’s runoff primary system as a violation of the Voting Rights Act. This challenge also affects Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas since they have similar runoff systems. . . . A former DEA agent, John Anthony Jackson, pleads guilty in Los Angeles to charges that he conspired with two other agents to sell drugs and to launder the profits.

The second Goodwill Games conclude in Seattle, Washington. The Soviet Union wins 188 medals. U.S. athletes come in second, winning 161 medals. Athletes from 35 different countries receive medals.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunges 93.31 points in the biggest one-day slide since the panic selloff of October 1989.

The council of Actor’s Equity denies permission for Jonathon Pryce to repeat his London role in a New York production of Miss Saigon because the union cannot “appear to condone the casting of a Caucasian in the role of a Eurasian.”

Some U.S. oil companies start cutting or freezing prices after public complaints that the companies artificially inflated the price of gasoline after the Iraqi invasion. . . . Oil prices and the stock market begin to stabilize. . . . The United Auto Workers union goes on strike.

The federal agency overseeing the thrift industry announces that it will sue the principal owner of Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, Charles H. Keating, to recover $40.9 million in depositor funds. . . . The Wall Street Journal reports that jet fuel prices rose about 20% since July.

Aug. 5

Aug. 6

U.S. forces take off for Saudi Arabia.

The American Bar Association alters a position it adopted in February by declaring itself neutral on the issue of abortion.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Theatrical producer Cameron Mackintosh announces that he is canceling the planned production of Miss Saigon in NYC, rather than accede to the conditions made by the American Actors Equity on August 7.

Two Soviet cosmonauts return to Earth with 23 space-grown crystals after six months aboard the space station Mir. Besides growing the crystals, estimated to be worth $1 million each, the cosmonauts conducted hundreds of experiments and photographed 8.4 million square miles of the Earth’s surface. The crystals are to be used in semiconductors and computer chips. . . . Forest fires that swept the Southwest and destroyed more than 22,000 acres of Yosemite National Park force the National Park Service to close the entire park to visitors for the first time in its 100-year history.

Canada’s federal sports minister, Marcel Danis, lifts the government’s lifetime ban on sprinter Ben Johnson, who was caught using steroids at the 1988 Olympic Games.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 7

Aug. 8

Aug. 9

86—August 10–14, 1990

Aug. 10

Aug. 11

Aug. 12

Aug. 13

Aug. 14

World Affairs

Europe

NATO foreign ministers back U.S. military moves against Iraq but steer clear of collective NATO action. They state, however, that an Iraqi attack on Turkey will be considered an attack on NATO. . . . Iraq orders all foreign embassies in Kuwait to shut down and transfer their diplomatic personnel to Baghdad within two weeks. The U.S. and the EC reject the order, since they do not recognize Iraq’s annexation of Kuwait. . . . In a landmark decision, an emergency Arab League summit in Cairo votes to send troops to Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states to protect them from Iraqi attack.

A bomb explodes on a bus in Azerbaijan, killing 17 people and injuring 15 others. . . . In Armenia, Pres. Ter-Petrossian states that members of the various militias are allowed to retain their arms as a special security force. The Armenian National Army, however, refuses either to be brought under government control or to give up its weapons. . . . The Presidium of the Russian parliament passes a resolution asserting the republic’s control over all of its natural resources. . . The Lithuanian government and parliament urge Moscow to exempt Lithuanians from the Soviet military draft and to return to the republic all Lithuanian draftees.

Neutral Austria agrees to let U.S. military aircraft fly through its airspace on the way to the Middle East. Similar pledges have been received from the U.S.’s allies in NATO.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Hours before an Arab League vote, Saddam Hussein shocks fellow Arab leaders in a speech that calls, “Oh, Arabs, oh, Muslims and believers everywhere, this is your day to rise and defend Mecca, which is captured by the spears of the Americans and the Zionists.”. . . Assistant Secretary of State John Kelly visits Damascus for talks with Syrian officials.

Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney announces that Canada will send three warships and 800 sailors to the Persian Gulf as part of a multinational force.

Australian prime minister Bob Hawke pledges military support for an multinational force against Iraq.

Reports show Turkey reinforced its border with Iraq with 10,000 additional troops to a total strength of 70,000. . . . Two days after a deadline expired, Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev extends by two months the date for nationalist groups to disarm, since the government received fewer than 2,000 firearms. . . . A former Greek deputy finance minister, Nikos Athanasopoulos, is found guilty of fraud and forgery in connection with the illegal sale of grain to the EC in 1986.

Egyptian and Moroccan troops begin landing in Saudi Arabia. . . . The Washington Post reports that Iraq is jamming the Voice of America, the BBC, and Egyptian and Turkish radio stations. . . . Syria serves notice that it will not come to Iraq’s assistance if it is attacked by Israel and that Syrian forces will join the Arab contingent. . . . Violence breaks out in Ermelo, South Africa. . . . Since Iraq continues to allow refugees to leave via Jordan, 11 U.S. citizens arrive in Jordan

The reputed number-two man in the Medellín drug cartel, Gustavo de Jesús Gaviria is killed in a shoot-out with Colombian antinarcotics policemen.

In Sri Lanka, 33 Tamil civilians at a refugee camp are killed by Muslim villagers. In response, Tamil gunmen kill 119 Muslims in five villages. . . . Pakistan’s new government starts arresting Bhutto allies. . . . According to Asia Watch, both the Philippine government and the communist rebels in that country are guilty of human rights violations.

In his first “peace initiative,” Saddam Hussein links a possible Iraqi troop withdrawal from Kuwait with “an immediate and unconditional Israeli pullout from the Araboccupied territories in Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon, the withdrawal of Syria from Lebanon, and withdrawal between Iraq and Iran,” all to be overseen by the UN Security Council.

In the first known Western casualty in the Persian Gulf, British businessman Douglas Croskery is shot to death by Iraqi soldiers while trying to cross into Saudi territory. Britain protests the “barbarous act.”. . . Pres. Gorbachev reminds republics that his declaration that all independence moves by Estonia and Latvia are invalid is still in effect.

Tens of thousands of Arabs hold a pro-Iraqi, anti-American march in Jordan. Other such protests are held by Palestinians in the Israelioccupied territories and Lebanon and by Arab militants in Yemen, Sudan, Libya, and Mauritania. . . . In South Africa, an eruption of violence starts in the Thokoza township and spreads to Kathlehong, Vosloorus, and Soweto. At least 140 people are killed during the three days of the violence. . . . In Liberia, several Western reporters are beaten by government troops.

In Canada, the Mohawk Nation and the federal and Quebec governments sign an agreement to resume formal talks. Separately, residents of Chateauguay, the South Shore community near the Mercier Bridge, clash with police over the blockade of the bridge by the Mohawks. Police respond with nightsticks and tear gas when hundreds of Chateauguay protesters pelt them with rocks and bottles. At least 38 people, including 16 police officers, are injured.

In Sri Lanka, more Tamil civilians are killed by gangs of Muslims armed with axes. . . . According to a report by a now-exiled Chinese journalist in The London Observer, the Chinese army killed more than 450 people in Tibet in March 1989.

Although the U.S. claims to be acting under Article 51 of the UN Charter, which grants all countries the right of “individual or collective selfdefense” against an aggressor, several nations fault the de facto blockade. They argue a new resolution, Article 42 of the UN Charter, is required to authorize military enforcement of the embargo, and that such a step should wait until there is evidence of significant violations of the sanctions.

Britain states its naval force in the gulf is also prepared to intercept any ships that try to break the sanctions. . . . Armenia’s new president appoints Vazgen Manukian, a nationalist and former political prisoner, to the post of premier.

Jordan’s king Hussein meets in Baghdad with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. . . . The PLO issues a statement claiming it abstained on the Arab League’s vote to send forces to oppose Iraq. However, Egyptian officials maintain that records show the PLO voted against the resolution. . . . . Iraqi officials for the first time indicate that some Americans and other foreigners in Iraq and Kuwait are “restrictees” who will not be allowed to leave until the crisis is over.

In Canada, Gilles Duceppe becomes the first Quebec separatist elected to Parliament. . . . Unrest due to the Mohawk barricade continues as protestors hurl Molotov cocktails at police. Indians from the Long Lake 58 band set up a railway barricade near Longlac, about 180 miles from Thunder Bay, Ontario, to draw attention to demands for native rights.

Pakistan agrees to send troops to Saudi Arabia at the request of King Fahd. . . . A Taiwanese navy patrol boat collides with a boat filled with refugees being forcibly repatriated to China, and at least 21 refugees drown.

The U.S. convenes a meeting of the UN Security Council’s permanent members and puts forward a proposal to reactivate the Military Staff Committee. The committee is a moribund UN body, consisting of the chiefs of staff of the five permanent members, which oversees military enforcement of council resolutions.

Elio Erriquez, a Swiss hostage held in Lebanon for 10 months, is released. . . . The Yakutian Autonomous Republic, a resource-rich self-governing region of Russia, is reported to be claiming sovereignty over its diamonds, precious metals, and raw materials. . . . The Czechoslovak government announces that dissidents who were persecuted by communists from 1948 to 1989 are entitled to share in a compensation pool tentatively set at $95 million.

Jordan’s King Hussein flies to the U.S. . . . Syrian troops begin arriving in Saudi Arabia.

Haiti’s 19-member Council of State, which rules alongside the interim president, passes a vote of no confidence in the administration of President Trouillot. . . . A two-day general strike against Pres. Joaquin Balaguer’s economic plan ends in the Dominican Republic. Reports indicate that 11 people died in violent antigovernment protests. . . . Reports confirm that nine Cubans slipped into the Belgian embassy and asked for asylum.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

August 10–14, 1990—87

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Barry (D) is convicted in federal court on one misdemeanor drug possession count and is acquitted on a second. Jurors are unable to reach a verdict on the 12 other misdemeanor and felony drug charges, so a mistrial is declared on those counts. . . . Pres. Bush leaves for a controversial 25-day vacation at his summer home in Maine, which is to be punctuated by brief trips to Washington. . . . Henry G. Barr, former head of the criminal investigations division of the Justice Department under Atty. Gen. Richard Thornburgh, is indicted by a federal grand jury in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on drug charges.

Bush officially informs Congress that he sent U.S. forces to the gulf in a “notification consistent with” the War Powers Resolution. However, he does not invoke the controversial 1973 law, which would give Congress a say in the deployment. . . . Officials report the number of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia may reach 100,000, twice as many as estimated. . . . The navy orders two hospital ships to the Mideast. . . . Pres. Bush, citing the Persian Gulf crisis, says he will exempt automatic spending cuts on Pentagon accounts related to military personnel if the administration and Congress fail to reach a budget accord. . . . Judge Edward Rafeedie orders the release of Humberto Alvarez Machaín, a Guadalajara doctor indicted in the Enrique Camarena murder, because he was illegally kidnapped from Mexico.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The unmanned U.S. spacecraft Magellan attains orbit around Venus and begins a mapping mission projected to cover as much as 90% of the planet’s surface.

Aug. 10

In the first-ever NFL game in continental Europe, 55,000 fans turn out to watch the Los Angeles Rams defeat the Kansas City Chiefs in West Berlin.

Administration officials confirm that Pres. Bush ordered the large navy fleet assembling in the Mideast to be prepared to use force to prevent any ships—including those carrying food—from breaking the economic embargo of Iraq and occupied Kuwait imposed by the UN Security Council. U.S. officials call its enforcement of the embargo on Iraq an “interdiction.”

Aug. 11

Aug. 12

A U.S. district judge in NYC bars enforcement of an amendment passed by Congress in 1989 that bans obscene messages offered by commercial telephone services because the law “presents a threat of imminent irreparable harm to First Amendment freedoms.”

Defense Secretary Richard Cheney orders cutbacks in two costly navy programs with the aim of saving a total of $7 billion through fiscal 1994, including $2.2 billion in fiscal 1991.

A power outage caused by a fire at an electrical substation forces the shutdown of several businesses in NYC’s financial district. Among those forced to close are the American Stock Exchange and the New York Mercantile Exchange. . . . Rank-and-file Teamster members spurn their leadership’s advice and vote to accept a new contract at UPS . . . . GM and the United Auto Workers union reach a tentative agreement to end a strike.

A U.S. district judge in Norfolk, Virginia, rules that a team of treasure hunters is entitled to keep the largest treasure trove in U.S. history, estimated at $1 billion in gold bars and coins, from a ship that sunk in 1857 off the South Carolina coast. It is the first time that individuals (rather than nations) are found to have deep-sea salvage rights in international waters. . . . Marion Barry announces that he will seek an at-large seat on the Washington, D.C., City Council as an independent candidate.

Pres. Bush states that if Aqaba, Jordan, is “a hole through which commerce flows” to Iraq, it will be blocked by the U.S. Navy.

Pres. Bush accuses congressional Democrats of endangering “the economic well-being of this country” by their failure to take budgetary action. . . . The FDIC announces that it will seek to increase by 30%, or $1.1 billion, the annual premiums paid by banks to its insurance fund.

Pictures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope are made public and reveal 60 stars in a star cluster called 30 Doradus, in the constellation Dorado, heretofore thought to consist of only 27 stars. The area is considered a star nursery, containing clusters believed to be only 160,000–170,000 years old, newcomers within a universe 10–20 billion years old.

Hedley Williams Donovan, 76, editor in chief of Time Inc., 1964–79 who was responsible for the content of Time’s four magazines— Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated—and helped launch Money and People, dies of a chronic lung ailment in New York City.

Aug. 13

Aug. 14

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

88—August 15–20, 1990

World Affairs

Aug. 17

Aug. 18

Aug. 19

Aug. 20

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Pres. Ghulam Ishaq Khan directs the Pakistani criminal code to “conform with the injunctions of Islam,” undoing Benazir Bhutto’s steps to secularize the judicial process. . . . Asia Watch reports the government of Myanmar is guilty of “gross human rights violations.” . . . Indian prime minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh plans to reserve nearly half of all government jobs for people from “socially and educationally backward castes.” He asks that 40% of the seats in Parliament are reserved for lower castes and the poor. . . . Bangladesh sends soldiers to Saudi Arabia.

The Russian Federation and the Baltic republic of Lithuania sign a treaty on trade and economic cooperation that bypasses the central government. It is the first of its kind between two Soviet republics. . . . In East Berlin, 250,000 collective farmers stage protests demanding government support of agriculture.

Iran has a moment of victory when Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein offers a permanent settlement to the IranIraq War that represents virtually a complete capitulation to Teheran’s demands.

In Canada, talks involving representatives of the Mohawk Nation, the federal government, and the Quebec government begin. . . Reports state that the Iranian government appointed Mohammad Hossein Lavasani as ambassador to Canada, a position that had not been filled since 1979.

UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar states that any unilateral U.S. action regarding Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait will violate the UN Charter. . . . The blockade against Iraq goes into effect. The main zones for intercepting ships are inside the gulf near Kuwait, in the Gulf of Oman, and in the northern Red Sea, including the Jordanian port of Aqaba.

A series of reports conclude that the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are beset by environmental problems of monumental proportions. According to Thomas B. Cochran of the private U.S. Natural Resources Defense Council, the Soviet plutonium-weapons center at Chelyabinsk, in the Ural Mountains, is the “most polluted spot on the planet.”

Some 80,000 people sign up in Jordan to join a volunteer force to fight against the U.S. The group, founded by a Palestinian guerrilla, is not part of Jordan’s government. . . . Nelson Mandela meets with Pres. F. W. de Klerk to discuss the violence in South Africa. The fighting returns to Soweto and lasts for two days, killing more than 63 people. . . . U.S. Marines airlift several hundred foreigners from Liberia.

Joaquín Balaguer, 83, is sworn in for a second consecutive term—and his sixth overall—as president of the Dominican Republic. . . . Indians in Canada set up another blockade on Canadian Pacific Rail’s main line outside White River, Ontario.

Soviet foreign minister Shevardnadze says the USSR is willing to contribute military forces to a joint force under the UN flag if the Security Council votes to take action against Iraq.

West German police arrest seven people suspected of supplying Iraq with technology to produce poison gas.

The U.S. Navy halts two Iraqi cargo ships in the Persian Gulf but allows them to proceed after determining that they are empty. . . . Thirty-five Americans held under armed guard in a Baghdad hotel are transferred to another hotel and cut off from contact with the U.S. embassy. . . . The speaker of Iraq’s parliament declares, “The people of Iraq have decided to play host to the citizens of these aggressive nations as long as Iraq remains threatened with an aggressive war.”

A blockade is erected on British Columbia Rail’s main line at Seton Portage by Indians in Canada to draw attention to native rights.

The UN Security Council calls on Iraq to release all foreigners and warns against harming them. UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar states he will send two senior envoys to Iraq to begin talks aimed at gaining the freedom of foreign citizens.

The Serb minority in the Yugoslav republic of Croatia votes on an unofficial referendum on political autonomy. Voting on the initiative has been declared illegal, but it continues over a two-week period. . . . France warns Iraq of “grave consequences” if any harm comes to the 560 French citizens in Iraq and Kuwait. . . . French citizens protest an extension of the high-speed Train a Grande Vitesse (TGV) rail line from Lyons south to Marseille and along the Mediterranean Coast.

The Iraqi ministry of labor and social affairs issues a statement that calls the U.S.-led naval blockade of Iraq “an act of war” and says foreigners, including babies, will suffer the same shortages as Iraqis. . . . Fears of war are amplified as U.S. Navy warships fire warning shots across the bows of Iraqi oil tankers trying to evade the trade embargo. . . . Iraqi troops begin to withdraw from the Iranian territory they still occupy, and the two sides start to exchange prisoners of war.

Iraq orders 9,000 “Western foreigners and Australians” in Kuwait to report to three hotels in Kuwait city. Along with Americans and Britons, there are hundreds of Canadian, French, West German, Australian, and Japanese citizens in Kuwait. Saddam Hussein states he will free foreign nationals if the U.S. withdraws its forces from Saudi Arabia and promises not to attack, and if the worldwide trade boycott of Iraq is lifted.

Like the U.S. and Britain did, the French government orders its navy to use force if necessary to implement the UN embargo of Iraq.

Violence throughout South African townships flares up and lasts four days, leaving more than 500 dead. . . . U.S. Marines airlift hundreds of foreigners from Liberia . . . Two Jordanian soldiers, acting on their own, cross the border to Israel and clash with an army patrol. One is killed and the other captured. . . . Jordan protests that a U.S. warship in the Red Sea turned back a Sudanese vessel at Aqaba to pick up refugees.

In Canada, the blockade set up by Indians from the Long Lake 58 band is dismantled after Canadian National Railways officials obtain an injunction from the Ontario Supreme Court.

UN negotiations about the enforcement of the embargo continue. . . . Iraq threatens to close 60 embassies in Kuwait by Aug. 24, after which all embassy personnel will lose diplomatic status and be subject to internment. The U.S., Britain, France, the Soviet Union, West Germany, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland reject the Iraqi demand as unacceptable.

Romanian workers in Brasov stage warning strikes to protest shortages of raw materials and to demand freedom from government bureaucrats and holdover central economic controls. . . . Armenian guerrillas burn the Azerbaijani village of Baganis-Airum after driving off Soviet troops.. . . . A senior Iraqi official visits Moscow. . . . A cigarette shortage in the USSR causes scores of smokers to block traffic in Leningrad, Gorky, and other cities.

Iraq announces it moved some Westerners to key military and industrial sites to deter the U.S. from bombing Iraqi targets. . . . Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi criticizes Iraq’s use of foreign civilians as hostages and says Libya will send forces to the Persian Gulf if the UN Security Council votes to enforce its naval blockade. He also condemns the U.S. for enforcing a blockade without UN authorization. . . . Liberian president Samuel Doe refuses to agree to any cease-fire plan that requires his resignation.

About 900 soldiers of the Canadian Forces’ 5th Mechanized Brigade replace Quebec police at barricades near Oka and Chateauguay, continuing the conflict begun on July 11.

Aug. 15

Aug. 16

Europe

In Sri Lanka, reports state the death toll from the latest outbreak of civil war and related ethnic violence has reached 3,350. At least 2,000 of the dead were civilians.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

August 15–20, 1990—89

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

James Thomas Foley, 80, the longest-serving federal judge in the U.S., dies in Albany, New York, of a stroke.

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Reports confirm that the Bush administration is expediting arms sales to Egypt and Saudi Arabia and is considering new weapons requests from other Mideast nations, including Bahrain, Morocco, Oman, Turkey, and the UAE

The Energy Department announces a strategy to offset the loss of the oil supply from Iraq and Kuwait by conservation measures such as carpooling, properly inflating tires, and increasing U.S. oil production.

Jordan’s king Hussein meets with Pres. Bush. . . . The Senate Foreign Relations Committee rejects a Bush administration proposal to provide Haiti with $1.2 million in nonlethal training and equipment for election security. . . . In an example of the post–cold war era, the Soviet military attaché in Washington, D.C., gives the Pentagon information about arms that Moscow sold to Iraq over the years.

The EPA finds that almost all major metropolitan areas in the U.S. failed to meet federal clean-air standards for at least several days during the past three years.

A study in the New England Journal of Medicine reports that a widely prescribed drug for Alzheimer’s disease, Hydergine, neither slows nor cures the disease and may actually accelerate the mental deterioration of sufferers. . . . A report in the New England Journal of Medicine finds the hydrogenated fats used in margarine and vegetable shortenings can boost a form of cholesterol.

Actor’s Equity holds a second vote and reverses its Aug. 7 decision about Miss Saigon.

Aug. 16

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney starts a whirlwind tour of five Arab countries to confer with government leaders and visit U.S. soldiers and sailors stationed in the region. . . . The Pentagon commandeers 38 wide-body jets from 16 commercial airlines to help ferry troops and cargo to the Persian Gulf. It is the first time the U.S. invokes the emergency program known as the Civil Reserve Air Fleet since its creation in the 1950s.

The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. merchandise trade deficit fell in June to the lowest level in seven years.

Lew Allen, director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, states that if the flaw in Hubble’s mirror from a spacing error of 1.3 millimeters turns out to be “an essentially pure spherical aberration,” as indicated thus far, it will be “relatively easy to correct.”. . . According to R. Stephan Saunders, the Magellan’s project scientist, pictures received of Venus show ancient hardened lava flows, faults, fractures and volcanic cinder cones.

Carlton Fisk of the Chicago White Sox hits his 328th home run as a catcher, breaking the record of 327 set by Johnny Bench.

Aug. 17

Three NYC teenagers are convicted in the gang rape and beating of a 28-year-old investment banker who had been jogging in New York’s Central Park in April 1989. The youths, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, and Raymond Santana, are convicted on rape, assault, and several lesser charges, but are acquitted of attempted murder. . . . Pres. Bush signs into law a bill authorizing emergency federal aid to help cities and states cope with the rising costs of AIDS.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Terry Mulholland of the Philadelphia Phillies throws the eighth no-hitter of Major League Baseball’s 1990 season., breaking the record set in 1908 and in 1917.

Pres. Bush signs the federal Oil Pollution Act passed recently by Congress.

B(urrhus) F(rederic) Skinner, 86, psychologist who was a pioneer in the field of behaviorism, dies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, of complications from leukemia.

Richard Lee Strout, 92, columnist for the New Republic magazine who won a Pulitzer Prize for lifetime achievement in 1978, dies in Washington, D.C. . . . Yugoslavia wins the men’s World Basketball Championship with a 92-75 victory over the Soviet Union in Buenos Aires.

A federal jury in Minneapolis convicts three former Northwest Airlines pilots of flying a jetliner while intoxicated.

Pres. Bush for the first time refers to detained Americans and other Westerners in Kuwait as hostages but states the U.S. will not be intimidated. . . . Defense Secretary Cheney announces that he obtained permission from UAE to allow U.S. military forces to operate from bases there. . . . Pres. Bush signs a trade bill that makes permanent the 1983 Caribbean Basin Initiative and widens the list of goods allowed into the U.S. under the CBI.

Yosemite National Park in California reopens to the public after closing due to fire damages.

Aug. 15

Aug. 18

Aug. 19

Aug. 20

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

90—August 21–26, 1990

Aug. 21

Aug. 22

Aug. 23

Aug. 24

Aug. 25

Aug. 26

World Affairs

Europe

The Western European Union, a defense grouping of nine member states, agrees to increase its naval operations in the Persian Gulf region and coordinate its efforts with the U.S. . . . EC foreign ministers condemn Iraq’s intention to hold foreigners near military targets and pledge to try to keep embassies open in Kuwait “as long as practically and physically possible.”

P.M. Margaret Thatcher states that Britain will not negotiate with Iraq over Western nationals held in Kuwait and Iraq. . . . Students in the University Square area of Bucharest lead six days of anti-Iliescu demonstrations and are joined by citizens protesting high prices and shortages of goods. Sporadic clashes with riot police occur when rock-throwing militants attempt to block traffic. . . . Karelia, an autonomous region of Russia on the Finnish border, declares sovereignty. . . . Greece says it will send ships to the Persian Gulf.

Iraq offers to free some Japanese and French detainees in a bid to divide the Western alliance.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Vessels arrive at the Yemeni port of Aden, but Yemen’s government does not allow them to unload their oil. . . . In Jordan, Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz urges the U.S. to begin peace talks but warns that Iraq will not be intimidated into first withdrawing from Kuwait. . . . A joint statement is released in South Africa by Chief Buthelezi and F. W. de Klerk, urging an end to the violence. . . . Iraq completes its troop pullout in Iran.

As peace talks wind down, rebels attack a military communications center in San Salvador. . . . In Haiti, 300 demonstrators demand Pres. Ertha Trouillot’s resignation. . . . Rebels of Peru’s largest guerrilla movement use armed force to support a 24-hour strike to protest Pres. Alberto Fujimori’s austerity plan. . . . Mohawk negotiators in Quebec submit a proposal aimed at ending a 43-day armed standoff. Blockades outside White River, Ontario, and at Seton Portage are dismantled after railway officials obtain court injunctions.

The caretaker government of Pakistan publishes regulations authorizing special judicial tribunals to try top officials of the dismissed government of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in the officials’ absence.

The East German parliament approves an electoral law to govern allGerman elections set for Dec. 2. . . . In Romania, 30,000 workers hold a rally and meet with representatives sent by Premier Petre Roman. . . . A Saudi envoy is warmly received when he visits Moscow, even though Saudi Arabia and the Soviet Union do not have diplomatic relations. . . . Smokers upset about the cigarette shortage in the USSR block traffic in Moscow.

Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir attempts to calm the public with assurances that Israel will not become involved in a gulf war. Shamir states that Israeli involvement may deter Arab states from opposing Iraq. . . . The interblack conflict that spread over the past month to townships near Johannesburg results in a death toll of more than 500 blacks. Archbishop Tutu returns to South Africa and calls for an international peacekeeping force.

Reports show that 13 Cubans remain inside the Spanish embassy, and nine are inside the Belgian ambassador’s residence in Havana.

The proceedings of the Australian Senate are shown on television for the first time.

Japan reveals that it will offer compensation to Arab states that are hurt economically by the UN trade embargo of Iraq. Japan promises to send medical personnel and supplies to the U.S.-led gulf forces. These offers are made since Japan’s constitution prohibits any direct involvement in overseas combat activity. . . . The French government dismisses Iraq’s offer to release some hostages as a ploy and reaffirms its solidarity with the countries whose citizens are being held.

The parliament of Armenia votes to declare independence. The resolution asserts Armenia’s control over its economy and natural resources and claims the right to create and control its own army. It also asserts Armenian control over a disputed enclave in the Azerbaijan republic. . . . After weeks of debate, East Germany votes to reunify with West Germany on Oct. 3. . . . Turkmenistan declares its sovereignty. . . . Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev declares illegal an attempt by the Russian Federation to assert control over its natural resources.

The U.S. Marines are withdrawn from Kuwait since the U.S. does not intend to defend the Kuwaiti embassy from the Iraqi army. The U.S. evacuates most of its staff from its embassy in Kuwait City. . . . A convoy of more than 100 people cross into Iraq with assurances that they can leave the country via Baghdad. However, this convoy is not allowed to leave Iraq immediately, despite the reputed prior Iraqi pledge. Iraq allows women and children to leave but retains adult men.

A 3,000-strong military force from the 16-nation Economic Community of West African States lands in Liberia to effect a cease-fire in the Liberian civil war and to pave the way for free elections. . . . The UN Security Council begins a marathon all-night session to confer about the embargo on Iraq.

Russian president Yeltsin calls Soviet Pres. Gorbachev’s Aug. 23 decree an “encroachment upon Russia’s sovereignty” and accuses Gorbachev of undermining their decision to cooperate on reform. . . . .Tadzhikistan declares its sovereignty. . . . Brian Keenan, a teacher from Belfast, Northern Ireland, who has been held hostage in Lebanon for over four years, is freed in Beirut by his pro-Iranian captors.

The South African government imposes a limited state of emergency in strife-torn areas. . . . Iraqi troops surround at least nine foreign embassies in Kuwait City after they refuse to shut down. The troops shut off water and electric lines but do not enter the premises.

Three members of the caretaker administration of Haiti’s president Ertha Pascal Trouillot resign. . . . Colombian attorney general Alfonso Gómez predicts, “It is going to be very difficult to convince our people of the necessity to extradite our nationals given these kinds of verdicts,” in response to the U.S. trial of Marion Barry.

The UN Security Council authorizes a U.S.-led Western naval armada in and around the Persian Gulf to use force to prevent violations of UN economic sanctions imposed on Iraq. The vote is 13 to 0, with Cuba and Yemen abstaining. Iraqi president Saddam Hussein dismisses the Security Council as a puppet of the U.S.. . . . Forces from 16 African nations start a week-long operation to capture sections of Monrovia.

Angry smokers riot in the Siberian city of Chelyabinsk over shortages of cigarettes and food, resulting in hundreds of arrests. . . . . In what is believed to be the largest rally ever by Yugoslav Muslims, 200,000 people honor Muslims slain by Serbian royalists during World War II.

In South Africa, police seal off black areas in townships and confiscate huge numbers of weapons. . . . The Washington Post reports that Jews who left the Soviet Union for Israel fear the dangers of anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union more than an attack on Israel by Iraq. . . . Charles Taylor’s rebel forces stage a mock execution of journalist Stephen Smith, which compels the press to flee Liberia.

In Canada, negotiations between the Mohawks and the federal and provincial governments collapse when the Mohawks demand that they be treated as a sovereign nation and receive immunity from prosecution in the death of a Quebec policeman shot July 11.

The UN announces that Secretary General Javier Pérez de Cuellar will mediate the Persian Gulf crisis. . . . In Liberia, forces from 16 West African states order Prince Johnson to remove his rebels from the Monrovia port area. Johnson agrees to pull out all but a token force.

A total of 178 Yugoslav coal miners die after an underground explosion in Bosnia-Herzegovina. . . . Hundreds of protesters loot the headquarters of the ruling Bulgarian Socialist Party in Sofia. . . . . Spanish ships set sail for the Persian Gulf. . . . Shevardnadze states the USSR will not use military means to enforce the blockade of Iraq but will not object to other nations doing so. . . . France deploys ground troops to join the naval forces in the Gulf.

Iraq’s ruling Revolutionary Command Council decrees that “housing a foreigner for the purpose of hiding him or her from the authorities is a crime of espionage,” and is punishable by death. . . . Mario Pinto De Andrade, 62, one of the founders of Angolan nationalism, dies in London.

Reports confirm that the verdict in the drug trial of Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Barry Jr. outrages citizens in Colombia who view it as a test of whether the U.S. is serious about fighting its drug problem.

In Guam, U.S. District Judge Alex Munson overturns the island’s recently approved antiabortion law, ruling that it is unconstitutional. . . . New Delhi is hit by four days of student riots protesting a new government hiring program that reserves civil-service jobs for those from the lowest rungs of India’s caste system.

In Sri Lanka, Tamil rebels begin a series of attacks in the eastern part of the country.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

August 21–26, 1990—91

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

FBI Director William Sessions names Paul Philip, the agency’s highestranking black field agent, to investigate allegations of racial discrimination within the bureau. Sessions also appoints Thomas Jones, the highest-ranking black agent in the FBI’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., as the bureau’s chief spokesman.

John S. Vento, the third defendant to be convicted in the 1989 racial killing of a black youth, Yusuf K. Hawkins, in the Bensonhurst section of the NYC borough of Brooklyn, is sentenced in NYC for unlawful imprisonment.

U.S. District Judge Daniel Huyett strikes down several key provisions of a 1989 Pennsylvania abortion law. . . . The FEC sues the National Republican Senatorial Committee on charges of illegal fundraising. . . . A federal grand jury in Columbia, South Carolina, indicts five members of the South Carolina state legislature for selling their votes to an undercover FBI agent.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Pictures taken by the spacecraft Magellan are released much earlier than planned. The images reveal a prominent fault line cutting across volcanic plains on Venus.

Pres. Bush orders the mobilization of a limited number of U.S. military reserves to augment Operation Desert Shield. It is the first time U.S. reservists are called to active duty in a foreign crisis since 1968. . . . The State Department reports that embassy officials in Kuwait contacted 1,982 of the 2,500 U.S. citizens believed to be in the country, leaving about 500 unaccounted for.

The price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate, a benchmark grade of U.S. crude oil, soars 9% to $31.22 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Eight years after it was first developed, a genetically engineered rabies vaccine begins to be tested on raccoons on Parramore Island, an uninhabited island off Virginia.

A federal judge in Washington, D.C. dismisses a lawsuit by Charles Keating Jr., former chairman of Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, that challenges the government’s seizure of the thrift. . . . Oil prices rise to $31.93, the highest in seven years. . . . The Dow Jones closes at the lowest point since 1989.

The New England Journal of Medicine publishes a study that finds that phenytoin, a drug given to more than 100,000 head-injury victims each year, is ineffective after the first week.

In response to how Iraq broke its pledge to allow Americans to leave Baghdad, the U.S. State Department calls the development “another stark example of Iraqi duplicity.” . . . Defense Secretary Dick Cheney orders cutbacks in the Army’s newgeneration Light Helicopter program of reconnaissance and attack aircraft.

Aug. 21

Aug. 22

David Rose, 80, Hollywood film and television composer who won a total of five Grammy awards, four Emmy awards and six gold records for his music, dies of complications from heart disease in Burbank, California.

A state district judge in Reno, Nevada, rules that the heavy-metal group Judas Priest is not responsible for the deaths of two youths who committed suicide. . . . Irish singer Sinead O’Connor refuses to allow the U.S. national anthem to be played before her concert.

Aug. 23

Aug. 24

Aug. 25

Reports state that 45,000 U.S. servicemen and women are in the Persian Gulf. . . . U.S. president Bush announces that the Voice of America’s TV Marti, a controversial television station that broadcasts to Cuba, passed a five-month test and will be put into operation on a permanent basis.

Aug. 26

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

92—August 27–September 1, 1990

Aug. 27

Aug. 28

Aug. 29

Aug. 30

Aug. 31

Sept. 1

World Affairs

Europe

The five permanent members of the UN agree for the first time to a plan to end the Cambodian civil war. The plan, however, will take effect only with the approval of the four warring factions.

In Romania, 10,000 employees at a Brasov tractor factory strike. . . . About 15,000 Socialist supporters stage a rally in Sofia and denounce the vandals who looted headquarters as “newborn neo-fascists.” Bulgaria’s new president, Zhelyu Zhelev, also denounces violence in a national radio address. . . . A senior Macedonian politician, Pear Gosev, accuses neighboring Serbia of “threatening to wipe Macedonia off the map.”

The UN plan for peace in Cambodia is endorsed by two rebel factions.

In Armenia, five people, including a member of parliament, are shot and killed in the republic’s capital, Yerevan. . . . The Moscow City Council orders rations after it receives an emergency supply of Bulgarian cigarettes.

In another step toward peace in Cambodia, Khmer Rouge, the most powerful rebel faction, backs the UN plan. . . . UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar flies to Amman, Jordan. . . . OPEC authorizes its members to increase oil production to maintain normal supplies during the Persian Gulf crisis.

Britain refers the case of the Birmingham Six, who were found guilty of two 1974 bomb attacks, to the Court of Appeal. . . . Reports claim the French government imposed tight restrictions on 26 Iraqis in France. . . . In France, 20,000 farmers protest on a “National Day of Action.” Violence breaks out in Angers, Alencon, and St. Lo. . . . Armenia declares a state of emergency and outlaws the Armenian National Army, a paramilitary group. . . . Ethnic Albanians clash with Serbian police in Kosovo.

UN secretary general Javier Perez de Cuellar meets with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz. . . . Officials of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the organization that established the multinational force in Liberia, selects Amos Sawyer, a Liberian exile living in the U.S., to lead a proposed interim government.

Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev hosts an economic summit in Moscow. Separately, Pres. Gorbachev fires Vladilen V. Nikitin as a first deputy premier and chairman of the state commission on food and supplies because of a summer-long shortage of cigarettes and food in the USSR. . . .The Armenian National Army, the largest guerrilla group in Armenia, promises to surrender its arms and disband after soldiers and riot police surround the group’s headquarters in Yerevan.

The World Bank agrees to give Poland a $300 million loan. . . . Reports in the West African press claim Charles Taylor’s rebels killed at least 200 West African civilians in Liberia in retaliation for the participation of their nations in the multinational force. . . . Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz states that Iraq will release all its foreign hostages if the UN guarantees that U.S.-led military forces will not attack Iraq.

France announces a 1.2 billion French franc aid package for its farmers. . . . Representatives of East Germany and West Germany sign a treaty establishing terms for the reunification of Germany and naming Berlin as the new capital. . . . Soviet president Gorbachev states that the country needs a sixmonth period to deal with chronic shortages and inflation before attempting an economic transition.

The Arab League passes resolutions that renew its condemnation of Iraq and call upon it to pull out of Kuwait, pay war reparations, release all foreign nationals, guarantee the safety of all civilians in Kuwait and allow embassies there to function freely. The League also calls on its members to submit any peace proposals for collective action.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

U.S. officials claim that Iraq, in a reversal of its previous orders, instructed its merchant fleet not to resist efforts by U.S. or other naval forces to inspect Iraqi vessels. . . . In South Africa, tens of thousands of blacks commemorate those who died in the clashes, and up to 50,000 march in Soweto in a funeral for eight ANC supporters killed in the unrest.

Quebec premier Robert Bourassa requests the army to dismantle the Mohawk barricades at Oka and the Mercier Bridge. Bourassa states negotiations with the Mohawks broke down, and he accuses them of making “all kinds of unacceptable demands.”

After four days of riots in India, P.M. V. P. Singh vows that his party will not back down from the quota plan. . . . The Washington Journal reports that South Korea plans to provide nonlethal aid to the forces in Saudi Arabia.

Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein issues presidential decrees declaring that Kuwait is Iraq’s 19th province, renaming Kuwait City with the name it had before World War I, Kadhima, and shaving territory off the “province” of Kuwait to be called “Saddamiyat al-Mitlaa,” in honor of Saddam Hussein. . . . Hussein promises to allow the departure of detained women and children. . . . Reports show that Burkina Faso, which is not involved in the West African force, supplied arms and troops to the Taylor-led rebel faction in Liberia.

Two of the 13 Cubans in the Spanish embassy in Havana leave the building. . . . In Canada, a convoy evacuating Mohawks from the Kahnawake reserve near Chateauguay is met by 500 angry Quebec residents, many armed with baseball bats, who throw rocks and bricks. About a dozen Mohawks are reported injured in the incident. In addition, some Quebecois start blocking deliveries of food to the reserve in retaliation for the bridge blockade.

Reports state the small island nation of Tonga took advantage of a legal loophole and claimed the rights to the last 16 unoccupied orbital satellite spaces over the South Pacific region.

Canadian Forces army troops, aided by masked Mohawk Indians, dismantle two barricades erected by Mohawks on roads leading to the Mercier Bridge, after reaching a settlement that does not involve the land claims and sovereignty issues. . . . Ecuador’s Supreme Court acquits former president León Febres Cordero on a charge of embezzling public funds.

Philippine president Corazon Aquino announces her willingness to negotiate with both communist and military rebels to reach ceasefire agreements. . . . The Japanese government unveils a package of economic and logistical contributions to the international effort in the Persian Gulf.

Japanese premier Toshiki Kaifu specifies the aid package pledged on Aug. 29 will be worth $1 billion.

South African president F. W. de Klerk’s ruling white National Party announces its intention to open itself to members of all races.

Finance Minister Antonio Ermán González unveils a new austerity plan aimed at slowing Argentina’s inflation rate to a single-digit monthly level.

In the first release, an Iraqi plane carrying 69 Japanese citizens leaves Baghdad while 143 Japanese men remain behind as hostages. . . . A judicial inquiry commissioned by Pres. F. W. de Klerk’s government finds the police opened fire without justification in Sebokeng, South Africa, on March 26.

Four of the 11 Cubans still in the Spanish embassy leave. . . . In Canada, as 400 dismantle barricades set up by Mohawk Indians in Oka, many Mohawk Warriors flee the area. but about two dozen heavily armed members of the Warrior Society hole up in a former drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinic with about 30 women and children and vow to fight if troops attempt to remove them.

Pakistan’s interim government reveals that former prime minister Benazir Bhutto will be charged with official corruption and abuse of power. . . . The New York Times reports that the rebel Khmer Rouge moved more than 60,000 refugees from camps on the Thai border into malaria-ridden “liberation zones” in rebel-controlled sectors of Cambodia.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

August 27–September 1, 1990—93

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

A U.S. District Court jury in Miami declines to make a monetary award to Eugene Hasenfus, a U.S. mercenary whose plane was shot down over Nicaragua on a supply mission to the contra rebels in 1986.

The U.S. expels 36 Iraqi embassy personnel and restricts the remaining 19 Iraqi officials to within 25 miles of their embassy in Washington, D.C. . . . Pres. Bush praises UN secretary general Perez de Cuellar’s involvement but expresses pessimism about hopes for a diplomatic solution to the Iraq crisis.

U.S. District Judge Thelton E. Henderson in San Francisco bans tuna fish caught by the five nations that fail to limit dolphin kills. . . . The College Entrance Examination Board releases the 1990 results of the SATs and finds that, while scores on the mathematics section of the test remained level, scores on the verbal section declined from 1989.

Pres. Bush briefs more than 170 members of Congress on the Persian Gulf crisis and the U.S. buildup in Saudi Arabia. . . . An eight-member court-martial board at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, believed to be the first of its kind since the Vietnam War, convenes. . . . The National Transportation Safety Board places most of the blame on the navy for a June 1989 accident involving a nuclear submarine and a tugboat.

At least 25 people are killed and more than 350 are injured when a major tornado tears through Will County in northern Illinois, about 35 miles southwest of Chicago.

Preliminary population listings from the 1990 census show that California not only retains its place as the most populous state, but it also grew another 24% since 1980.

Thirteen U.S. servicemen die when their C-5A transport plane carrying supplies intended for the Persian Gulf crashes and burns at Ramstein Air Base in West Germany. . . . The 36 Iraqis expelled from their embassy on Aug. 27 leave the U.S. with their families.

Illinois governor James R. Thompson (R) tours the region hit by a tornado and declares it a state disaster area. Pres. Bush declares it a federal disaster area as well.

Bush states he will not allow Iraq’s holding of Western hostages to “shape the foreign policy of this country.” He also announces a plan to seek billions of dollars from U.S. allies to help pay for the military buildup in the Mideast and to aid those countries most hurt by the UN embargo on Iraq. . . . A U.S. commander notes that the navy is intercepting 75 ships daily in the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the Red Sea, mostly by radio.

The launch of the spacecraft Columbia is delayed when NASA discovers an electronic malfunction in a telescope in the shuttle’s Astro observatory payload for its astronomy mission.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Stephen (Stevie) Ray Vaughan, 35, one of the U.S.’s top blues and rock guitar players, dies in a helicopter crash near East Troy, Wisconsin, that also takes the lives of three members of Eric Clapton’s entourage.

Aug. 27

Aug. 28

Aug. 29

A federal appeals court panel in San Francisco overturns a $5.2 million libel award to singer Wayne Newton against NBC regarding news reports on his purchase of a Las Vegas hotel and casino.

The State Department files a formal protest with the Yugoslav foreign ministry when it learns Shaban Kastrati, 19, a U.S. citizen, has been sentenced to 60 days in jail for alleged complicity in unrest in Albania. . . . Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf vows, “There is not going to be any war unless Iraq attacks first.” . . . A court-martial board in Fort Bragg acquits a member of the 82d Airborne Division of murder during the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama.

Ken Griffey Sr., 40, and Ken Griffey Jr., 21, become the first father and son ever to play on the same team. . . . Nat (Sweetwater) Clifton, 65, one of the first black players in the NBA, dies of a heart attack in Chicago. . . . Burden of Proof by Scott Turow remains at the top of the bestseller list.

Edwin Oldfather Reischauer, 79, one of the U.S.’s leading experts on Japan who served as ambassador to Japan, 1961–66, dies of complications from hepatitis in La Jolla, California.

The French national team sets a new world record in the men’s 4by-100-meter relay at the European championships in Split, Yugoslavia, when it clocks in at 37.39 seconds.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 30

Aug. 31

Sept. 1

94—September 2–7, 1990

Sept. 2

Sept. 3

Sept. 4

Sept. 5

Sept. 6

Sept. 7

World Affairs

Europe

UN secretary general Javier Perez de Cuellar admits he is “disappointed” after meeting with Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz. “I did not find any indication of flexibility, apart from allowing women and children to leave,” he explains. . . . A Lufthansa charter flies 65 Americans and 250 Europeans from 10 nations out of Iraq. Another Iraqi Airways jet takes off with nearly 200 Britons, 22 French citizens, and 47 Americans.

Reports state that the USSR will allow a team of selected U.S. Navy officers to join Soviet warships patrolling the Persian Gulf in order to coordinate procedures in the event that war breaks out. . . . British prime minister Margaret Thatcher states that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein may face a trial for war crimes if any harm comes to hostages currently held in Iraq.

A UN conference on the economies of poor countries opens in Paris. . . . Arab League secretary general Chedli Klibi, a Tunisian, resigns after more than 10 years in the post. His resignation points to growing tensions in the Arab League.

More than 100,000 people stage a general strike in Kosovo to protest Serbia’s takeover of ethnic-Albanian businesses. . . . Shoppers in Moscow grow angry when they discover that bread has virtually disappeared from the shelves of the city’s food stores.

Iraq accuses Egypt of engineering Klibi’s Sept. 3 resignation to take over the Arab League and “make it a rubber stamp for the Egyptian and Saudi governments.” . . . The Times of London reports that a French investigation into the Sept. 1989 bombing of a UTA aircraft over Niger found that the attack was probably a cooperative effort between Libya, Syria, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. . . . Serbian police detain a team from the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights in Kosovo.

Africa & the Middle East In South Africa, police reported that 21 blacks died in overnight fighting.

Two caravans—one carrying 300 women and children and the other 100 people—travel from Kuwait to Baghdad. Two Iraqi airliners fly 300 people to Jordan. . . . Reports indicate the gulf sheikdom of Qatar expelled more than 70 Palestinian families in retaliation for Palestinian support for Iraq. . . . In South Africa, members of Inkatha kill 27 people in a non-Inkatha workers’ hostel in Sebokeng township. When residents of the hostel try to stop the attackers, troops arrive, allegedly open fire and kill nine more people.

Reports state that a team from the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights was expelled from Yugoslavia by Serbian authorities.

In the USSR, details of a plan drafted by a 13-member working group headed by economist Stanislav Shatalin are published. The program would, if implemented, lead to swift and radical economic transformation of the USSR. . . . Reports show France and Britain cut off supplies of military equipment to Jordan because of its links to Iraq.

An Iraqi plane carries 135 Canadians, 12 Americans, and 10 Irish citizens to freedom in Turkey. . . . The New York Times reports that the leaders of the West African forces demanded that Pres. Samuel K. Doe resign.

Reports indicate that West Germany is opposed to providing financing for the U.S.-led military operation in the gulf. Rather, it prefers to provide aid to “those countries that are hit by the gulf crisis and that make a significant contribution to its solution.” . . . The British House of Commons meets after being recalled for debate on the Persian Gulf crisis. The session marks the first time that Parliament is recalled from a recess since 1982.

Reports show that a total of more than 600,000 non-Western refugees have arrived in Jordan so far since the invasion of Kuwait. About 100,000 remain stranded there, while 20,000 continue to arrive every day, but only 10,000 refugees leave daily.

Foreign ministers of the EC nations pledge financial aid to the nations hurt by the UN embargo, but state no direct contributions will be made to the U.S.-led military effort. . . . A series of “freedom flights” from Iraq begin and last for over two weeks. The flights transport citizens of France, Canada, Japan, West Germany, Taiwan, Australia, the Philippines, Ireland, India, Syria, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Trinidad, Singapore, Jamaica, the Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, and South Africa.

A vote in Britain’s House of Commons backs the government’s stance in the Persian Gulf. . . . A total of 111 members of the dissolved Kosovo parliament meet in secret and adopt a new constitution that portrays Kosovo as an independent republic of Yugoslavia.

A three-man delegation from the International Commission of Jurists assails the police in Natal, South Africa, for appearing to side with Inkatha and calls for the deployment of human rights monitors, possibly from the European Community, in the province.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The Canadian army holds control of all barricades around Oka constructed over land disputes since July 11.

Delegates to Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party national congress approve a series of measures aimed at weakening traditional power brokers in the party and making the selection of party candidates and leaders more democratic.

Mongolia’s first democratically elected parliament convenes for the first time and reelects Punsalmaagiyn Ochirbat as president.

The last five remaining Cubans who sought asylum in foreign embassies in Havana leave the Spanish embassy, bringing to an end a 58day crisis that strained ties with Spain and Czechoslovakia. . . . The Quebec National Assembly sets up a 35-member commission to study the province’s future political options in the wake of the failure of the Meech Lake accord . . . . Brazilian investigators discover a mass grave that they believe hold as many as 1,700 bodies.

North Korean Premier Yon Hyong Muk arrives in South Korea in the truce village of Panmunjom to meet with South Korean Premier Kang Young Hoon. . . . New Zealand prime minister Geoffrey Palmer resigns, as his Labour Party prepares for an uphill fight in federal elections.

Colombian president Cesar Gaviria Trujillo offers drug traffickers a chance to avoid extradition to the U.S. if they surrender, confess to Colombian courts, and turn their property over to the state . . . The mass grave discovered in Brazil holds at least two corpses of political prisoners who disappeared in the early 1970s. . . . Amnesty International reports that Brazilian death squads murder hundreds of children each year, often with the endorsement or participation of the police.

Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze and Japanese foreign minister Taro Nakayama release a joint statement condemning Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. The communique is hailed in the Japanese press as an unprecedented bilateral move by the two powers. . . . China states that, starting Jan. 11, 1991, it will obey a global ban on ivory trading. . . . Special tribunals to prosecute former ministers of the government of dismissed prime minister Benazir Bhutto open in Lahore, Pakistan.

The Mercier Bridge, a main commuter artery into Montreal, Canada, is reopened to traffic after a conflict with Mohawk Indians that started July 11. . . . The New Democratic Party scores a historic victory in Ontario, winning an election that gives it control of the provincial government and replaces Liberal Premier David Peterson with Bob Rae. . . . The Brazilian police launch an investigation into the origins of the mass grave found Sept. 4.

The ruling military government of Myanmar jails six opposition leaders on charges of spying and fomenting unrest. Opposition parties won a landslide victory in elections in May, but the ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council continue to delay surrendering power. . . . An unprecedented meeting between the North Korean and South Korean premiers ends without a joint statement or any major agreements.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

September 2–7, 1990—95

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Sept. 2

Pres. Bush ends his controversial long holiday and returns to the White House. . . . David J. Acer, 40, Florida dentist who is believed by the CDC to be the only health-care provider in the U.S. to infect one of his patients with AIDS, dies from AIDS.

The New York Times reports that the U.S. secretly deployed combat aircraft at several Arab gulf states besides Saudi Arabia. U.S. officials state the wider deployment is necessary because Saudi air bases became too crowded.

Judge David Souter, Bush’s nominee for the Supreme Court, receives the top rating from the American Bar Association. . . . Sen. Sam Nunn (D, Ga.), a long-time opponent of abortion, decides that he now supports the right to abortion until the fetus is viable outside the womb.

Bush formally proposes to forgive Egypt’s $7 billion military debt to the U.S. for opposing Iraq and supporting U.S. military moves in the gulf. . . . Secretary of State James Baker testifies before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the gulf crisis and calls the invasion a “defining moment” of the post–cold war era.

Sept. 3

Scientists announce they have identified a genetic defect that appears to cause some cases of osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis.

Pres. Bush declares that there are “clear signs of progress” in the U.S.’s war against illegal drugs, and he vows to continue fighting “until this scourge is licked for good.”

Irene Marie Dunne, 91, popular Hollywood actress of the 1930s and 1940s, dies of heart failure in Los Angeles.

A study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology finds no significant evidence of increased cancer rates during the six-year period following the 1979 reactor leak at Three Mile Island. The review of disease cases in the area suggest the slight increases are “curious” but not “convincing” of a causal link, because the number of cases is too low to be statistically significant. . . . . Launch of the space shuttle Columbia is postponed by a new fuel leak.

The Alliance for Justice, representing about 30 groups, warns that “Judge Souter’s opinions and legal briefs threaten to undo the advances made by women, minorities, dissenters and other disadvantaged groups” while investigating Bush’s nominee for the Supreme Court. Similar reservations are expressed by Arthur J. Kropp, president of People for the American Way Action Fund.

The U.S. decided to approve the export to Brazil of rocket casings that can be used to make an intercontinental ballistic missile, according to The New York Times. . . . A federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, upholds the dismissal of charges related to the Iran-contra affair against former CIA agent Joseph F. Fernandez.

The oil industry unveils an $800 million, five-year plan to combat major oil spills off the U.S. coast.

Eight NYC youths are indicted in the fatal stabbing of a 22-yearold tourist from Utah, Brian Watkins. . . . The Department of Health and Human Services finds that more than 250,000 American adolescents use anabolic steroids for bodybuilding or other athletic purposes.

U.S. officials welcome Colombia’s shift in its policy of extraditing drug lords. “If the government and people of Colombia are now able to enforce their own laws against drug trafficking, so much the better,” says Atty. Gen. Richard Thornburgh.

Budget talks between congressional leaders and the Bush administration begin. . . . The FCC concludes that most television and radio stations regularly overcharge political candidates for advertisements in an audit.

A study in the New England Journal of Medicine finds that nonsmokers who grew up in households where they were exposed to heavy tobacco smoke as children are twice as likely to develop lung cancer as other nonsmokers.

Sept. 4

Sept. 5

Tom Fogerty, 48, rhythm guitarist and cofounder of the rock group Creedence Clearwater Revival, dies in Scottsdale, Arizona, of respiratory failure due to tuberculosis.

In tennis, the U.S. Open men’s doubles title goes to Pieter Aldrich and Danie Visser of South Africa.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 6

Sept. 7

96—September 8–13, 1990

World Affairs

Sept. 8

Sept. 9

Sept. 10

Sept. 11

Sept. 12

Sept. 13

Europe

Iraqi president Saddam Hussein issues an open message to U.S. president Bush and Soviet president Gorbachev, denouncing “foreign intervention” and restating his nation’s intent to keep Kuwait. . . . U.S. secretary of state Baker concludes his visit of the Middle East after obtaining pledges of aid several nations totaling billions of dollars.

Africa & the Middle East In South Africa, 26 people are killed in an Inkatha raid on a squatter settlement in Soweto.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The Dominican Republic’s main labor groups agree to economic and social reforms in talks with the government.

U.S. president Bush and Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev display unity on the Persian Gulf crisis following seven hours of talks in Helsinki, Finland.

A bomb explodes at a recruiting office in Derby, but no one is injured. . . . Police in the town of Novi Pazar use tear gas to quell a clash between followers of the Democratic Action Party and 30,000 adherents of the Serbian Renewal Movement. . . . . Father Aleksandr Menn, a liberal Russian Orthodox priest, is murdered with an ax by an assailant in a wooded area near his home in Zagorsk.

According to reports, Pres. Samuel K. Doe arrived unannounced at the headquarters of the West African force that entered Liberia. He was accompanied by a large entourage of bodyguards. Shortly thereafter, Prince Yormie Johnson and a contingent of his rebels arrived and quarreled with Doe’s men. Gunfire broke out, and 78 people were killed, nearly all of them Doe bodyguards . . . . Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz arrives in Teheran the first high-level Iraqi official to visit Iran since the outbreak of the Persian Gulf War in 1980.

The four warring Cambodian factions agree to accept a UN plan to end the civil war. Western observers and diplomats call the agreement one of the most hopeful signs in 20 years of conflict in Cambodia. . . . U.S. secretary of state James Baker briefs the foreign ministers of the NATO on the summit at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

The mayors of Moscow and Leningrad urge an abandonment of Revolution Day celebrations marking the 1917 triumph of the Bolsheviks. . . . Soviet president Gorbachev sends telegrams to the heads of 15 republics, their parliaments, and local officials, urging a fostering of respect for law and order. “The whole system of legislative, executive and judicial power could break down,” he writes, as a result of ethnic feuds and nationalist violence.

Liberian president Samuel K. Doe is killed by rebels led by Prince Yormie Johnson . . . . Iran and Iraq agree to restore diplomatic relations. . . . Pope John Paul II blesses the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in the Ivory Coast, despite controversy over its cost in a nation saddled with debt. It is the largest Christian church in the world . . . . In South Africa, a group of Anglican prelates led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu meet with Pres. F. W. de Klerk and charge that right-wing whites are behind recent township violence.

Sir Dawda Jawara, the president of Gambia, orders the Economic Community of West African States’ forces to protect Liberians and others from the Krahn tribe from reprisal attacks since Doe was a Krahn.

Soviet president Gorbachev stuns Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov by endorsing the radical 500-day Shatalin program of economic reform during a raucous debate in the Supreme Soviet. The parliament of the Russian Federation vote to endorse the Shatalin plan in conjunction with the republic’s “500-day confidence mandate.” . . . The first two Pizza Hut fast-food restaurants in the USSR open in Moscow.

Nelson Mandela and de Klerk meet, and the ANC leader warns that the authorities’ failure to halt factional fighting threatens South Africa fragile peace process. . . . In Liberia, a new round of fighting between Johnson’s rebels and surviving members of Doe’s armed forces erupts at the executive mansion.

In Chile, Gen. Augusto Pinochet leads a controversial public holiday celebration of the anniversary of the 1973 coup that brought him to power. Many civilians attend alternative ceremonies in honor of former Pres. Salvador Allende Gossens and others who died in the coup. Pres. Patricio Aylwin departs to Antarctica for the day. . . . The Progressive Conservative Party scores a reelection victory in the Canadian province of Manitoba.

In Mongolia, the upper house of parliament chooses Dash Bambasuren as the country’s new premier, replacing Sharavyn Gungaadorj.

Representatives of East Germany, West Germany, and the four victorious Allied World War II powers sign a treaty that ends the powers’ responsibilities over Germany and paves the way for a fully sovereign Germany to be reunited. . . . A 285mile railway line crossing the border between western China and the USSR is completed so trains can run from the eastern Chinese port of Lianyungang to Rotterdam, the Netherlands, a total of 6,700 miles.

The Bulgarian government formally charges 20 people with arson in a fire that destroyed the Socialist Party’s headquarters in August. . . . An explosion occurs at a nuclear-fuel processing plant in the city of UstKamenogorsk. The blast leaves the city shrouded in a dust cloud of beryllium, a nonradioactive but highly toxic metal.

Iran’s supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, condemns the U.S. military buildup in the Persian Gulf and says an Islamic jihad, or holy war, is justified in combating it. . . . Pretoria calls on other nations to help end the bloodshed in South Africa by convincing Nelson Mandela to meet with Chief Buthelezi.

Pres. Alberto Fujimori turns down a U.S. offer of $35.9 million for antidrug operations in Peru, reiterating a long-standing opposition to purely military solutions to the drug crisis. . . . The Canada–Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board, federal energy minister, and Nova Scotia’s provincial energy minister approve the development of two oil fields off the coast of Nova Scotia . . . . Brazil ends measures instituted to protect the nation’s computer industry from foreign competition.

The Pakistani government files two more charges against Benazir Bhutto concerning an Islamabad hotel project and a petroleum contract. . . . Separately, one tribunal dismisses for lack of evidence the corruption case against former petroleum minister Jahangir Badar.

The UN Security Council votes to impose strict limits on humanitarian shipments of food to Iraq and occupied Kuwait.

Two ethnic Albanians are shot dead by Serbian police while purportedly resisting arrest in Kosovo. . . . West Germany and the Soviet Union disclose details of an agreement in principle on German payments for the maintenance and repatriation of Soviet forces currently in East Germany. The nations initial a 20-year friendship pact.

In South Africa, 400 squatters’ shacks are burned down. On a train from Johannesburg to Soweto, 26 black commuters are killed and more than 100 wounded when black attackers shoot and stab people randomly. Reports confirm that at least 731 blacks were killed since the beginning of August. . . . From Liberia, reports surface that rebels engaged in reprisal attacks against the Krahn, Samuel Doe’s tribe, and the Mandingo, who were allied with Doe.

Former president Efraín Ríos Montt, 64, who ruled Guatemala for 18 months after a military coup in 1982, files to run in the November presidential election pending a final decision on his eligibility.

The Sri Lankan army breaks a three-month rebel siege of a fort on the northern Jaffna peninsula with a surprise dawn attack. According to military sources, 12 soldiers and about 100 rebels are killed in the fighting. . . . Amnesty International reports that more than 500 people have been executed in China in 1990, most as part of a campaign to “clean up crime” before the Asian games begin.

King Birendra of Nepal is formally presented with a new constitution that establishes a multiparty democracy in the country. . . . About 1,000 protesters battle with police in Mandalay, Myanmar. . . . Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto is formally charged by a special Pakistani court with abuse of power.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

September 8–13, 1990—97

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle In tennis, Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina wins the U.S, Open women’s title in an upset, defeating West Germany’s Steffi Graf.

U.S. officials announce that Department of Health and Human Services secretary Louis Sullivan selected a Cleveland cardiologist, Bernadine Healy, to become director of the National Institutes of Health. . . . The former immigration processing center on Ellis Island in Upper New York Bay, which served as the gateway for millions of immigrants, is dedicated as a museum after undergoing an eight-year, $156 million renovation.

Nineteen-year-old Pete Sampras beats Andre Agassi in an upset victory in the finals of tennis’s U.S. Open. Martina Navratilova and Gigi Fernandez win the women’s doubles title.

A Cuban American, Jose Dionisio Suarez Esquivel, pleads guilty in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to the 1976 killing of Chilean exile Orlando Letelier. He receives a sentence of no more than 12 years in prison in exchange for his plea.

Sept. 8

Sept. 9

Sept. 10

The three youths convicted in the near-fatal rape and beating of a female jogger in NYC’s Central Park, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, and Raymond Santana, are sentenced to maximum possible sentence of five to 10 years in prison by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Thomas B. Galligan.

Pres. Bush addresses a joint session of Congress and a national television audience to gain support for his deployment of U.S. military forces to the Persian Gulf region in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. . . . A New York Times story reports that a survey of members of the armed services found that sexual harassment in the military is widespread. The survey was conducted by the Defense Manpower Data Center, a Pentagon unit, in 1988–89.

The Judicial Conference of the United States approves a threeyear experimental program to permit radio and television coverage of civil trials. . . . Officials report that Louis Sullivan selected David Kessler as the next commissioner of the FDA, replacing James Benson. . . . The Michigan state legislature approves a bill that requires teenagers 17 or younger to obtain a parent’s or judge’s permission for an abortion.

The House passes an amendment to the Defense Department authorization bill calling for Japan to assume the entire cost of basing 50,000 U.S. troops in Japan. If Japan does not pick up the cost, the amendment calls for 5,000 troops a year to be withdrawn.

Atlantic Richfield Co. (Arco) announces that it will pay $287 million to Alaska in settlement of a 13-year dispute over royalties on oil from the North Slope. . . . The Bush administration joins congressional leaders in advocating an end to the limit on the deposit premiums that the FDIC charged banks. . . . The Energy Department folds its auction of a Jasper, Tennessee, ethanol plant when the bids come in too low.

The Tennessee Court of Appeals awards joint custody of frozen embryos to a divorced couple, overturning a 1989 ruling that gave sole custody of the embryos to the woman. . . . The Senate Judiciary Committee opens hearings into the nomination of David Souter to the Supreme Court. . . . Samuel Studdiford Stratton, 73, Democratic U.S. representative from New York State, 1959–89, dies in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Bush administration officials disclose the U.S. warned Iraq that it will hold Baghdad responsible for any terrorist attacks on U.S. or allied targets carried out by pro-Iraqi or Iraqbased terrorist groups. . . . A Coast Guard officer notes that U.S. forces are boarding three to four ships a day, mainly in the Red Sea, to check cargoes and destinations.

Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan endorses giving the FDIC new latitude to hike bankdeposit premiums, but he cautions that that latitude should be used sparingly because of the dangers of a premium hike.

Ron Townsend, the president of Gannett Television Group, becomes the first black member of the Augusta National Country Golf Club, home of the Masters tournament.

The Professional Golfer’s Association (PGA) begins looking for new hosts that do not violate the new antidiscrimination policies it adopted.

Sept. 11

Sept. 12

Sept. 13

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

98—September 14–19, 1990

Sept. 14

Sept. 15

Sept. 16

Sept. 17

Sept. 18

World Affairs

Europe

Iraqi troops raid the residences of the Canadian, Dutch, and Belgian ambassadors in Kuwait. Western officials at the Canadian mission, including the consuls of the U.S., Britain, Ireland, Australia, and Canada, are briefly detained. Troops release a military attaché from the French residence, but the three citizens who sought refuge there are kept in custody. Iraq’s ambassador to France claims Iraqi actions do not violate international law because Kuwait is no longer an independent nation, but part of Iraq.

Britain announces that it is sending a full armored brigade of 8,000 troops and 120 Challenger tanks to Saudi Arabia. . . . Italy states that it will send a frigate and eight Tornado aircraft to the Persian Gulf to supplement its previous commitment. . . . Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev offers the Supreme Soviet an amended version of the radical Shatalin plan to create a market economy in 500 days. The revision is known as the “president’s plan.”

Wealthy industrial nations agree to increase their aid to the world’s poorest countries at a UN conference in Paris. . . . Freed Western hostages claim that Kuwaiti resistance is crumbling due to the harsh Iraqi response. “For each Iraqi soldier that gets killed, there are at least six Kuwaitis who are killed,” one states.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

U.S. and Australian warships fire warning shots at an Iraqi tanker in the Gulf of Oman after it refuses to stop. The vessel then halts and is boarded. After it is determined that the ship holds no cargo, it is allowed to proceed to Iraq. . . . Two Israeli cabinet members, Finance Minister Yitzhak Modai and Science Minister Yuval Neeman, meet with Soviet president Gorbachev in the highest-level contact between the two nations in 23 years. . . . U.S. secretary of state James Baker meets with Syria’s president, Hafez al-Assad, and foreign minister, Farouk al-Sharaa.

Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney announces that his nation will send a squadron of CF-18 fighter jets to the gulf to provide air cover for two Canadian destroyers on their way to the region. . . . The Canadian federal government, the provincial government of Newfoundland, and representatives of four oil companies sign agreements to pave the way for construction of Canada’s largest offshore oil project located in the Hibernia oil field about 195 miles southeast of St. John’s, Newfoundland.

In the face of criticism that Japan’s contribution to international efforts in the Persian Gulf is insufficient, Japan’s cabinet pledges another $3 billion in aid.

French president François Mitterrand announces that 4,000 soldiers and dozens of planes, helicopters and tanks will be sent to Saudi Arabia. . . . Spanish premier Felipe González’s decision to send three warships to the Persian Gulf draws criticism at home. . . . West German chancellor Helmut Kohl announces a $2 billion package of aid for the gulf effort after meeting with U.S. secretary of state Baker.

Iraq unexpectedly opens the southern border between occupied Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, allowing thousands of Kuwaitis to flee into exile.

Nearly 13,000 workers at Ford Motor Co. of Canada Ltd. go on strike after a contract dispute.

The UN Security Council unanimously condemns Iraq’s violation of the diplomatic outposts.

British prime minister Margaret Thatcher begins a five-day visit to Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Switzerland.

U.S. president Bush, in a videotape broadcast on Iraqi television, warns the Iraqi people that Pres. Saddam Hussein brought them “to the brink of war” by invading Kuwait.

The EC foreign ministers announce that all 12 member nations will expel all Iraqi military attachés and limit the movements of other Iraqi diplomats. . . . In a press conference, U.S. president Bush endorses French president Mitterrand’s request that the UN Security Council extend the embargo against Iraq to include air traffic.

A British Army colour sergeant, Bernard Cox, is shot outside an Army recruiting center in North London. . . . An anti-Socialist rally in Sofia, Bulgaria, draws 30,000 people. . . . Soviet president Gorbachev proposes to hold a nationwide referendum on whether there should be private ownership of land. . . . The Soviet Union and Saudi Arabia restore diplomatic relations after 52 years.

Iraqi troops at the exit point on the border begin seizing Kuwaiti men between the ages of 17 and 45 as they try to cross. Iraqi troops strip refugees of their passports and identity papers. . . . In Liberia, the remnants of Samuel Doe’s army loot and burn the capital city, Monrovia, The soldiers, chanting “No Doe, No Liberia!” burn homes, rape women, and shoot those they suspect of being rebel sympathizers, according to witnesses. . . . Farright white extremist Piet Rudolph, who declared “open war” on the government of Pres. de Klerk and is implicated in terrorist bombings, is caught by police in Pretoria after months in hiding as South Africa’s most-wanted white man.

Canadian prime minister Mulroney names William A. Stevenson to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The 45th session of the General Assembly convenes at UN headquarters in NYC Guido de Marco, Malta’s minister of foreign affairs and justice, is unanimously chosen to serve as president of the assembly for the next year, succeeding Joseph Namvan Garba of Nigeria.

The IRA claims responsibility for the Sept. 17 shooting of British army colour sergeant Bernard Cox. . . . Sir Peter Terry, former governor of Gilbraltar, is shot at his home in Milford, England.

Reports indicate that as many as 10,000 Kuwaitis have left the country, a large number of them wealthy Kuwaiti professionals driving luxury cars. . . . The Transvaal province attorney general Klaus von Lieres states Winnie Mandela, the controversial wife of Nelson Mandela, will be tried on charges of kidnapping and assault. . . . The New York Times reports that Jordan stopped truck traffic at its border with Iraq.

Trinidad and Tobago’s national security and justice minister, Selwyn Richardson, resigns after a coup attempt. . . . Argentina announces that it will send a small force to the gulf region, becoming the first Latin American nation involved in the Persian Gulf crisis. . . . The fifth round of peace talks between the rebel Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) and the government of El Salvador end with little hope of a cease-fire.

The IRA claims responsibility for the attack on Sir Peter Terry, the former governor of the British colony of Gibraltar, who had authorized a security operation that resulted in the slaying of three IRA operatives there. . . . Poland’s president, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, effectively announces his resignation when he asks parliament to set a date for ending his term in office. . . . The Russian Federation’s parliament passes a resolution formally requesting the chairman of the Council of Ministers, Nikolai Ryzhkov’s resignation.

The Washington Post reports that the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait has shifted into a more brutal phase.

Sept. 19

In a nationally televised address, Pres. Corazon Aquino called for a discussion on the “orderly withdrawal” of U.S. troops from the Philippines. Protests against the bases are staged for two days in several cities.

A round of talks on the future of U.S. military bases in the Philippines opens in Manila.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

September 14–19, 1990—99

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The House Special Task Force on El Salvador concludes that “a concerted effort has been made by the armed forces, including the high command, to contain the investigation; to avoid implicating any individual except those charged; and, almost certainly, to prevent the conviction of” Col. Guillermo Alfredo Benavides.

A congressional audit of nearly 100 deals in which the Federal Home Loan Bank Board granted subsidies to private buyers of failing savings and loan associations in 1988 reveals that the FHLBB (now defunct) vastly underestimated the deals’ cost, which in 1988 were estimated to be at $38.6 billion. However, the report claims their total cost skyrocketed to $71 billion. . . . Exxon Corp. completes its second straight summer of cleanup work in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, site of the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

At the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, a four-year-old Cleveland girl with a rare immune deficiency becomes the first person to undergo experimental treatment using a genetically engineered human gene. She is injected with a blood infusion containing her own genetically engineered cells to enhance her production of the enzyme adenosine deaminase (ADA), necessary to keep T-lymphocyte immune cells alive. . . . The White House announces that Pres. Bush will nominate Walter E. Massey as the new head of the National Science Foundation.

E(dwin) Allan Lightner Jr., 82, former U.S. ambassador to Libya, 1963–65 and assistant chief of the U.S. mission in Berlin, 1959–63, dies of heart failure in Bayside, Maine.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Sept. 14

Magellan’s Venus-mapping project formally begins.

The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times publish stories in which Gen. Michael J. Dugan, Air Force chief of staff, reveals classified information on the troops in Iraq and makes controversial remarks.

Sept. 15

The Emmy Awards are presented. The winners for best drama and comedy series are L.A. Law and Murphy Brown, respectively.

Pres. Bush, for the first time, addresses the controversy regarding the U.S. policy toward Iraq before it invaded Kuwait. Bush admits that “with hindsight” he “absolutely” regrets the U.S.’s early overtures toward Saddam Hussein’s regime. But he asserts that the invasion cannot be blamed on a faulty U.S. policy. . . . Manuel M. Caldera pleads guilty in a federal court to conspiring to bribe public officials to obtain navy contracts in the 1970s and 1980s. He is the 35th person convicted in the Pentagon procurement scandal. . . . Defense Secretary Dick Cheney fires Gen. Dugan for publicly discussing confidential elements of the U.S. military strategy in the Persian Gulf crisis.

The New York Post reaches an agreement with all 11 of its unions. . . . The United Auto Workers and General Motors agree on a new three-year contract.

The FBI promotes 11 of the Hispanic agents who won a discrimination lawsuit against the bureau in 1988. . . . Several abortion-rights groups and women’s rights groups urge the Senate committee to reject David Souter’s nomination to the Supreme Court because they fear that Souter will cast the deciding vote to overrule Roe v. Wade.

Former CIA agent Thomas Clines is convicted on charges stemming from his participation in the illegal shipment of weapons to the Nicaraguan contras. . . . The Pentagon issues a list of 151 overseas U.S. military bases or installations that will either close or be curtailed in fiscal 1991 . . . . A GAO report is made public that estimates that the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama cost over $163.6 million.

Butte County, California, officials vote to accept an $11 million state bailout and avoid becoming the first county government in the U.S. to declare bankruptcy . . . . The directors of Fannie Mae elect James Johnson as the new chairman and CEO. . . . The EPA announces nine major companies have agreed to reduce toxic chemical emissions from 40 plants in 14 states.

Theatrical producer Cameron Mackintosh reinstates the scheduled opening of Miss Saigon in NYC after negotiations with Actors Equity. . . . Atlanta, Georgia, is chosen to host the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. . . . Rep. Joseph Kennedy II (D, Mass.) and his wife, Sheila, file for a no-fault divorce.

The Senate Judiciary Committee concludes hearings for David Souter.

The House passes a $283 billion defense authorization for fiscal 1991. . . . The defense subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee passes a $1.89 billion emergency supplemental defense spending bill to cover the costs of the U.S. buildup in the Persian Gulf. . . . The full Appropriations Committee asserts that Congress, not the Pentagon, will control the spending of funds, including the contributions of U.S. allies, in the Persian Gulf crisis.

The Resolution Trust Corp. formally requests Congress for roughly $122 billion in funding for the fiscal year beginning October 1. . . . Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan tells Congress that the Persian Gulf crisis is likely to cut economic growth and fuel inflation. . . . Budget negotiations, resume, with the participants pared down to eight key negotiators.

Hermes Pan (born Hermes Panagiotopulos), 79, Academy Award– winning choreographer who created the dances films starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, dies of unreported causes in Beverly Hills, California.

Columbia’s launch is canceled because of a leak of hydrogen gas during fueling.

Forbes magazine lists Bill Cosby as the world’s highest-paid entertainer with an estimated income of $115 million for 1989 and 1990 . . . . Lisa Olson, a reporter for the Boston Herald, charges that she was harassed by several New England Patriot players in their locker room, causing a furor.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 16

Sept. 17

Sept. 18

Sept. 19

100—September 20–25, 1990

Sept. 20

Sept. 21

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Soviet Union backs an air embargo on Iraq and calls for the foreign ministers of the five permanent UN Security Council members—China, France, Great Britain, the U.S., and the USSR—to underscore the nations’ commitment to pressure Iraq into withdrawing from Kuwait.

The East German and West German parliaments ratify a treaty governing the legal aspects of German reunification. . . . The Bulgarian Grand Assembly confirms a cabinet, three months after the Socialist Party’s victory in national elections.

The U.K., Hong Kong, Vietnam, and the UN High Commission for Refugees announce an agreement to increase the number of boat people repatriated to Vietnam from Hong Kong.

Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev asks the Supreme Soviet for new powers to meet the nation’s economic plight. He rejects the idea that Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov should resign, and Ryzhkov states that he will stay in office. . . . In Poland, the Sejm votes to hold presidential elections in Dec. and to dissolve itself by Apr. 1991. . . . A German immigration spokesman states that only a “handful” of the 80,000 guest workers brought to East Germany under the communist regime will be allowed to remain in the united Germany.

Sept. 22

Sept. 23

Sept. 24

Sept. 25

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

An Israeli reserve soldier mistakenly drives into a Gaza Strip refugee camp and runs into a donkey cart while trying to escape stone-throwers, injuring two youths. A large mob then stones and burns the car, killing the soldier.

Chilean president Patricio Aylwin asks Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte to keep out of politics. . . . In Nicaragua, a national dialogue among the government, businesses, and labor on the new economic program begins. . . . The Medellin cocaine cartel claims to be responsible for the kidnappings of three prominent Colombians. . . . Argentine president Carlos Menem reaffirms his commitment to send troops to the Persian Gulf despite domestic opposition.

Amnesty International reports that 64 people were executed in a single day in China, many of whom were arrested for illegal religious or prodemocracy activity.

Iraq’s ruling Revolutionary Command Council declares there is “not a single chance for any retreat” and tells Iraqi citizens to prepare for “the mother of all battles.” . . . In Lebanon, Pres. Elias Hrawi signs the Taif peace accord, which gives Muslim majority more power, into law, against the objections of Gen. Michel Aoun. . . . Charles Taylor, leader of a Liberian rebel faction, announces a unilateral cease-fire set to take effect the next day.

The Canadian Auto Workers union reaches an agreement with Ford Motor Co. of Canada, ending a strike that started on Sept. 15.

In the Philippines, the government decides to hike fuel prices and to increase police suppression of protests against U.S. military bases . . . . The International Campaign for Tibet reports that China is suppressing Buddhism in Tibet . . . . Thailand’s cabinet lifts a decadelong ban on imported cigarettes but maintains its ban on cigarette advertisements.

Syrian president Hafez al-Assad visits Teheran for talks with Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Pres. Jaime Paz Zamora signs an agreement with leaders of Bolivian Indian tribes that bars timber companies from felling trees in the rain forest where the tribes live, effective October 31.

At a meeting in Washington, D.C., economics ministers from the Group of Seven (G-7), the seven largest industrial democracies, predict continued economic growth despite the strain caused by the Persian Gulf crisis.

Swiss voters approve a 10-year moratorium on the construction of new nuclear power plants.

Angry Israelis attack Palestinian workers, and the right-wing cabinet members call for a draconian crackdown.

In the Dominican Republic, a bomb explodes in Santo Domingo near the headquarters of the National Union of Revolutionary Students, killing three students and wounding three other people.

The IMF’s Interim Committee announces a new effort to aid those impoverished nations whose economies are threatened by the Mideast crisis. . . . Although it is not immediately reported, the UN passes a resolution on a procedural matter that stresses that only the UN’s special sanctions committee has the power to permit humanitarian shipments to Iraq or Kuwait. . . . East Germany formally withdraws from the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact.

The Soviet parliament votes to give Pres. Gorbachev new powers to rule by decree.

Iranian authorities announce that they seized two bands of 29 people trying to smuggle food across a remote border area into Iraq. . . . The Israeli army demolishes at least 15 homes and stores in the Gazan camp. . . . Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir warns that his country is ready to “repay” Iraq for any attack. . . . Delegations from the Angolan and U.S. governments reach an agreement to ship emergency food and medicine to central and southern Angola.

A U.S. DEA agent is wounded by Bolivian drug traffickers in an ambush, described as the most serious confrontation between drug traffickers and Bolivian police and DEA officials in three years.

A group of leaders of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party visits North Korea. . . . Communist rebels announce an end to a cease-fire in Manila and three northern Philippine provinces that were heavily damaged in a July earthquake.

The IMF and the World Bank discuss ways to help nations most severely affected by the Persian Gulf crisis. . . . The UN Security Council votes to extend its land and sea blockade of Iraq to include an embargo on air traffic.

The ruling Bulgarian Socialist Party reelects Alexander Lilov as its chairman after much debate.

Syrian president Assad and Iranian president Rafsanjani conclude their talks with “full agreement” on opposing Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait as well as the buildup of U.S.-led foreign forces in the Persian Gulf. . . . The Israeli Supreme Court approves the bulldozing of 30 Arab buildings around the site of the attack.

Canadian prime minister Mulroney sets forth his government’s agenda for dealing with Indian issues.

Eleven people are killed when a bus carrying them to New South Wales, Australia, from the mountains of the Gold Coast plunges 30 meters over a cliff. . . . In India, violence over job quotas peaks when at least 22 people are killed as stone-throwing students battle police throughout the north.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

September 20–25, 1990—101

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Attorneys general in Alabama and Illinois file suit to stop a deceptive Republican fund-raising tactic. . . . The NAACP contends that Supreme Court nominee David Souter “failed to articulate that level of concern for fairness, equality and justice for all citizens that should be present in any individual taking a seat on the court.” The Alliance for Justice also urges the Senate to reject the nomination.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Federal Reserve ends a longtime ban on trading in securities by commercial banks by allowing J. P. Morgan & Co. Inc. to establish a division to underwrite corporate stocks.

NASA removes Columbia from the launch schedule entirely after a series of delays.

The Olympic Council of Asia bars Iraq from the Asian Games because of its invasion of Kuwait.

Philadelphia Mayor W. Wilson Goode (D), acting to forestall impending bankruptcy of the city, announces plans to freeze city hiring, to defer $90 million in pension payments, and to reschedule payment of a $25 million court settlement over real-estate transfer taxes. . . . The FDIC files a $200 million civil suit against Neil Bush and the other directors of Silverado Banking, Savings and Loan Association.

Two teams of scientists report a major step toward developing a therapy for cystic fibrosis. Researchers find that diseased cells can be “fixed” by replacing a defective part of the cell’s genetic material with doctored cells.

A California superior court judge awards temporary custody of a baby born to a surrogate mother to the baby’s genetic parents. The case is one of the first surrogacy lawsuits involving a baby who is not genetically related to the surrogate, who had been implanted with a fertilized egg. . . . John Anthony Danaher, 91, Republican senator from Connecticut, 1939–45, and U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge, 1954–69, dies in West Hartford, Connecticut.

Sept. 21

The 11th Asian Games, an Olympictype competition for athletes from Asia, open in Beijing.

U.S. District Judge E. B. Haltom imposes the maximum fine—$4.1 million—on the USX Corp. and gives jail terms to two union officials for violating federal labor law in connection with a 1983 labor contract. According to the U.S. State Department, more than 1,900 Americans and their families were evacuated from Iraq and Kuwait during “freedom flights” that started Sept. 7. . . . Pres. F. W. de Klerk meets with Bush in the first visit to the U.S. by a South African head of state in 45 years. . . .Pres. Alfredo Cristiani seeks to persuade Congress to continue providing El Salvador with military aid. He also announces a plan to create a panel of U.S. judges to evaluate the Jesuits’ murder case. Pres. Bush signs into law a $1.6 billion bill designed to improve vocational education classes at high schools across the U.S . . . . A federal district judge in Sacramento, California, strikes down limits on campaign contributions that were approved by voters in 1988.

Sept. 22

Sept. 23

The Senate votes, 94-1, to prohibit employers from discriminating against older workers in providing pensions and disability payments.

The Senate fails by three votes to cut off debate on a bill that would tighten the fuel-economy rules for cars. . . . The Senate votes, 98-0, to ratify two 1970s treaties that limit underground nuclear explosions to 150 kilotons or less. . . . The price of crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange reaches $38.67 a barrel, more than double its price in July.

Sept. 20

The Senate approves a measure that requires TV broadcasters to cut back on the amount of advertising shown during programming aimed at children. It is a reconciliation of measures passed by the House and Senate in July.

Radar images of Venus taken by the robotic U.S. spacecraft Magellan reveal a surprisingly active planet with traces of volcanoes, craters, and a strange crisscross pattern of intersecting fracture lines. Some of the craters are the deepest ever detected in the solar system—twice as deep as the Grand Canyon.

Sept. 24

Sept. 25

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

102—September 26–30, 1990

Sept. 26

Sept. 27

World Affairs

Europe

The World Bank releases a list of the 10 nations that it predicts will be most seriously affected by the Persian Gulf crisis: Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Morocco, Pakistan, the Sudan, Bangladesh, India, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka.

Alberto Moravia (born Alberto Pincherle), 82, Italy’s best known and most widely read contemporary author, dies of a heart attack in Rome.

The attendance of the first official Soviet delegation at meetings coincides with new pledges of technical assistance from the IMF and the World Bank. . . . The European Community pledges 20 million European currency units ($26.2 million) to help clean up East Germany’s environmental problems.

The Polish government begins to transform six state-owned enterprises into joint stock companies, taking the first step in its privatization program. . . . The Social Democratic parties of East Germany and West Germany merge at a conference in West Berlin.

Sept. 28

Sept. 29

Sept. 30

Seventy-one world leaders attend the first World Summit for Children at the UN General Assembly in NYC. . . . Reports confirm the World Bank approved new loans to China, reversing an earlier policy that resisted loans to China because of its 1989 repression of the prodemocracy movement. . . . The foreign ministers of the four victorious World War II Allied powers formally suspend their remaining rights over the two Germanies.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Nicaragua, 2,000 school teachers stage a one-day strike and attempt to march on the National Assembly while legislators debate a proposed law that would replace school directors. . . . The last of the Mohawk Indians engaged in an 11-week standoff behind barricades near Oka, Quebec, surrenders. . . . A 72hour strike in the Dominican Republic starts and gains an unexpected level of support.

The Sri Lankan government announces that it will abandon a key fort in Jaffna because the extreme difficulty of defending the fort outweighs its limited strategic value. . . . Indian prime minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh asks students to stop their protests over job quotas and meet with him face to face.

Ahmed Ben Bella, Algeria’s first president, returns to the country after 10 years in exile in France and Switzerland.

During the strike in the Dominican Republic, violent incidents occur, in which at least one person dies. Several people are injured and at least 300 arrests are reported. . . . Reports suggest that Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney is employing an obscure constitutional provision that has never before been used, in an effort to pack the Senate with members of his Progressive Conservative Party to ensure passage of the government’s unpopular goods-and-services tax plan.

Indian student leaders dismiss P.M. Singh’s Sept. 26 proposal, vowing that they will not agree to talks until the job plan is abandoned.

The Slovene parliament asserts the primacy of Slovenia’s laws over federal laws and Slovenian control of the territorial defense forces in the republic. . . . The Serbian parliament legalizes multiparty elections. It also strips the Kosovo region of its status as an autonomous province of Serbia, in effect completing its annexation of Kosovo. . . . The Kazakhstan government urges the Kremlin to declare an ecological disaster zone around Ust-Kamenogorsk after an explosion on Sept. 12.

In Liberia, a cease-fire collapses when Prince Yormie Johnson’s forces attack the presidential palace, trapping up to 1,000 Doe loyalists. . . . In Lebanon, Pres. Elias Hrawi’s government imposes a siege on the territory controlled by Gen. Michel Aoun, which is about one-third of the 300-square-mile Christian enclave.

The government vows to lower utility bills for poor Nicaraguans and distribute food in a bid to head off nationwide protests threatened by Sandinista unions. . . . The leader of the Mohawks during the protest that started July 11, Loran Thompson, apparently escaped during the confusion that surrounded the Mohawks’ surrender, and a warrant is issued for his arrest in Canada.

Three military officers and 13 other Philippine soldiers are convicted for the 1983 murder of opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr. and sentenced to life in prison. . . . Leaders of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party and North Korean officials sign an agreement to take steps to normalize relations between the two countries

Croatian paramilitary riot police institute house-to-house searches for illegal weapons in the predominantly Serb towns in the republic. There are clashes in several areas, and more than 200 Serbs are arrested.

Lebanese president Hrawi travels to Syria and meets with Pres. Hafez alAssad, apparently to request help in confronting Gen. Aoun. . . . A spokesman for Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir announces that direct flights between the USSR and Israel will begin in October.

U.S. secretary of state Baker meets with Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach in the highestlevel meeting between the two nations since the Vietnam War.

Azerbaijan multiparty local elections are held for the first time since a military crackdown in January. . . . Tens of thousands of people in the Ukraine demand independence from the USSR, demonstrate against the Communist Party and denounce the union treaty proposed by Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev. . . . A group in Knin, the center of the Serb autonomy movement in Croatia, form the Serbian National Council, a self-proclaimed parliament. Serb nationalists erect barricades to keep Croatian police out of Knin.

A rebel army of refugee tribesmen invade the tiny central African country of Rwanda from Uganda in a bid to topple its government. . . . In Liberia, Prince Johnson declares all-out war on the remnants of Samuel Doe’s army and Charles Taylor’s forces.

The Soviet Union and South Korea establish full diplomatic relations.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

September 26–30, 1990—103

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

In its annual report on household income in the U.S., the Census Bureau reports that the median family income rose in 1989, while the poverty rate declined slightly. The bureau notes that the gap between rich and poor Americans widened over the past 20 years.

Secretary of State James Baker confirms that Iraq asked diplomats at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad to name the nondiplomats who took refuge at the embassy. He states that Iraq threatened to execute diplomats if they continue to harbor refugees. . . . Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s reply to a Bush speech aired on Iraqi television, a 75minute speech, in Arabic with English subtitles, is shown in full only by CNN at 1:00 A.M.

Pres. Bush announces that he authorized the release of 5 million barrels of oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve as a “test” to see if the action would dampen surging oil prices.

An earthquake that hits southeastern Missouri registers 4.5 on the Richter scale, making it a relatively minor quake.

Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, announces that the MPAA will eliminate its “X” rating for films and replace it with a rating called “NC-17,” meaning that no one under age 17 will be admitted.

A gunman with a history of psychiatric problems holds 33 people hostage at a hotel bar in Berkeley, Calif. The gunman, Mehrdad Dashti, shoots one student to death and wounds seven others. Police storm the bar and distract Dashti so the hostages escape. Dashti is shot and killed. . . . Public officials at the annual conference of the Congressional Black Caucus in Washington, D.C., charges that law enforcement officials are selectively targeting black politicians for investigation and prosecution. Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D, Mich.) promises that the House Government Operations Committee he chairs will investigate the reports made by the Black Congressional Caucus on Sept. 27.

The House passes legislation to compensate victims of radiation from open-air nuclear tests in the 1950s or from the mining of the uranium used in nuclear weapons. . . . FDIC Chairman L. William Seidman reports that the FDIC is likely to post losses exceeding $3 billion in 1990, about 50% more than estimated.

The four performance artists whose applications for grants from the NEA were rejected in June after being approved by the agency’s review panels file a lawsuit against the NEA in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

Rep. Les Aspin (D, Wis.), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, reports that U.S. intelligence believes that Iraq has developed biological weapons and will be able to deploy them by early 1991.

Four Past Midnight by Stephen King tops the bestseller list.

Sept. 26

Sept. 27

Sept. 28

Sept. 29

The White House and congressional leaders of both parties present a five-year deficit-reduction plan. . . . At the end of fiscal 1990, the deficit is $220 billion.

Comiskey Park, home of the Chicago White Sox since July 1910, closes after the Sox’s final home game of the season, a 2-1 win over Seattle in front of a capacity crowd of 42,849 fans. . . . Patrick Victor Martindale White, 78, Australian novelist who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1973, dies of unreported causes in Sydney, Australia.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 30

104—October 1–5, 1990

Oct. 1

Oct. 2

Oct. 3

World Affairs

Europe

U.S. president Bush addresses the opening session of the UN General Assembly by telling the gathering that he hopes for a diplomatic solution to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

Regional authorities in Kazakhstan ban nuclear blasts at the USSR’s underground testing range at Semipalatinsk. . . . The Supreme Soviet passes a landmark law guaranteeing religious freedom to all citizens. . . . Vuk Draskovic, the head of Serbian Renewal Movement, threatens to mobilize a volunteer armed force to aid Serbs in Croatia. The Serb minority in Croatia declares itself autonomous, citing the results of an unauthorized referendum in which 99% of voters backed self-rule. . . . The Yugoslav federal collective presidency opens a crisis meeting on escalating nationalist tensions and ethnic unrest. . . . French officials strongly deny speculations that France negotiated with Iraq over the Kuwait conflict. . . . Poland’s president, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, signs into law a measure that names Nov. 25 as the date for the presidential election. . . . Ukrainian workers stage protest strikes in support of sovereignty.

At the UN General Assembly, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal Al Saud, urges Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait for the sake of Palestinians who claim a homeland in territory occupied by Israel. . . . French, British, and U.S. military commandants in West Berlin close the last meeting of the Allied Kommandatura headquarters in West Berlin. . . . The Council of Europe unanimously approves a membership application by Hungary, so it becomes the first Warsaw Pact nation to join a Western political organization.

Germany becomes a united nation for the first time since the end of World War II, 45 years ago. . . . U.S. secretary of state Baker and Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze announce they reached agreement on the main points of a Conventional Forces in Europe treaty. . . . In Liberia, the ECOWAS force drives Taylor’s forces out of central Monrovia to the eastern suburbs. The operation is staged in cooperation with Doe loyalists and Johnson’s forces.

Oct. 4

Oct. 5

Iraq delivers a speech to the UN General Assembly in which it blasts the U.S. for sending troops to the Persian Gulf in reaction to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, and accuses the U.S. of seeking a new era of “Western imperialism” in the gulf region.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Iraqi president Saddam Hussein orders the release of nine French citizens who were held as human shields at strategic sites to deter an armed attack. . . . After much debate in the government, Israel announces that it will distribute gas masks to the country’s entire civilian population because of Iraq’s threat to attack Israel with chemical weapons in the event of war. . . . In Lebanon, Gen. Aoun vows to resist the siege, and thousands of his supporters stage a protest against the blockade. Unknown gunmen open fire on the rally, killing at least 25 civilians and wounding more than 80. The government denies any affiliation with the gunmen.

The U.S and Chile sign an agreement establishing a joint council to monitor and expand commerce between the two nations. . . . Loran Thompson, the unofficial leader of Mohawk Warrior Indians in the standoff with the Canadian police and the army, turns himself in. . . . Cuban government officials announce that 38,000 of Cuba’s 50,000 troops have been removed from Angola in accord with a treaty negotiated in Dec. 1988.

The Indian Supreme Court orders the government to delay implementation of a controversial plan to reserve an additional 27% of civilservice jobs for low-caste Hindus.

The Kremlin opens preliminary talks with the leadership of Lithuania in preparation for full-scale formal discussions on independence. . . . In the Ukraine, thousands of students, frustrated by Parliament’s inaction, erect a tent city in Kiev during proindependence demonstrations.

U.S. secretary of state James Baker claims that in exchange for $400 million in loan guarantees for Soviet immigrant housing, Israeli foreign minister David Levy confirmed in a letter that “it is the policy of Israel that immigrants will not be settled beyond the green line,” Israel’s boundaries before the 1967 war. . . . Uganda issues a statement that denies any affiliation with the group of rebel refugees that attacked Rwanda.

In Nicaragua, the National Workers’ Front agree to join a national dialogue with the government and business that started Sept 20. Separately, 200 rebels seize the northern town of Waslala following weeks of unrest. Ten people are killed. . . . Carlos Nu~ nez Tellez, 39, one of the leaders of the Sandinista revolution that overthrew dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle in 1979, dies of heart failure in Havana, Cuba.

A judicial hearing against ousted Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto is postponed after thousands of her supporters storm the courtroom. . . . In Japan, rioting begins after a man is arrested and reports suggest that a policeman accepted bribes from gangsters. . . . The Japanese stock market soars 13.2%, breaking a year-long slump. . . . At least 132 people are killed and 50 injured when a hijacked Chinese passenger jet crashes into two planes while attempting to land at Baiyun Airport. The crash is one of the worst aviation disasters ever to occur in China.

On the first day of German unity, authorities arrest Werner Grossmann, the last chief of counterespionage in Stasi. . . . At Berlin’s unification celebration, violence breaks out when 9,000 opponents of unity including anarchists known as Autonome, break windows, burn cars, and clash with riot police. Police arrest 246 people.

Iraqi president Saddam Hussein makes his first known visit to Kuwait since the invasion. . . . French president François Mitterrand becomes the first Western leader to visit the Persian Gulf since Aug. 2 when he meets with Sheik Zayid bin Sultan Al Nuhayyan, the president of UAE.

Colombian president Cesar Gaviria Trujillo convenes a meeting of the National Security Council to coordinate action “to neutralize the worrying increase in kidnappings in the country and especially in the metropolitan area of Medellin.”

China and Singapore establish diplomatic relations for the first time.

Federal military police seize the headquarters of Slovenia’s territorial militia in the republic’s capital, Ljubljana. The building apparently had been vacated prior to the takeover, but Slovenia nevertheless complains to the federal government. . . . Marshal Sergei F. Akhromeyev, an adviser to Soviet president Gorbachev and former military chief of staff, predicts that the Warsaw Pact will disband as a military alliance in 1991.

French president Mitterrand meets with King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. . . . France announces it will send to Rwanda 150 Foreign Legion paratroopers to protect its embassy and 670 nationals. Belgium states it will send 500 paratroopers and military equipment to Rwanda to protect over 1,600 Belgian citizens there.

Reports indicate that three legal challenges to Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney’s creation of eight new Senate seats have been filed in court.

In Afghanistan, rebels capture Tarin Kot, the capital of Uruzgan Province. . . . In the Philippines, 200 rebel soldiers capture a military outpost at Butuan, 480 miles south of Manila. Another 300 rebels capture a base at Cagayan de Oro, 65 miles southwest of Butuan. The seizures are effected without combat, and no one is reported killed.

The new all-German Bundestag, meeting in Bonn, sets new elections rules for the December general elections. . . . Great Britain announces that it will join the exchange rate mechanism of the European Community’s European Monetary System.

In Rwanda, fighting breaks out briefly in Kigali after rebels infiltrate the capital. . . . Separately, France sends another 150 soldiers to Rwanda. . . . Zaire, acting under a mutual defense treaty, also sends 500 troops to Kigali.

The New York Times reports that the Guatemalan army detained five soldiers for involvement in the killing of an American civilian, Michael DeVine. . . . The New York Times discloses that the Brazilian government in early September uncovered a 15-year-old secret military project to develop an atom bomb. Science and Technology Minister José Goldemberg states that Pres. Fernando Collor de Mello ordered the project halted.

Philippine air force jets force the rebels out of the Butuan base with a series of bombing runs. One pilot is killed in a crash. . . . Riots continue in Osaka, Japan, even after an earlier arrest of two gangsters and the dismissal of the police officer for bribery.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

October 1–5, 1990—105

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The Supreme Court opens its new term with eight justices. . . . The U.S. Department of Education announces that an investigation conducted by its Office of Civil Rights found that UCLA discriminated against Asian Americans in admissions in its graduate mathematics program. Another 75 departments at UCLA were cleared of discrimination charges, however. . . . The House gives final congressional approval to a bill that requires all television sets sold in the U.S. after July 1, 1993 to contain a microchip to decode closed-caption signals for the hearing-impaired.

The House approves, 380-29, a joint resolution that supports the actions “taken by the president with respect to the Iraqi aggression in Kuwait.” . . . Gen. Curtis Emerson LeMay, 83, U.S. Air Force chief of staff, 1961–65 who directed the U.S. bombing of Japan during World War II, dies of a heart attack at March Air Force Base in California.

Pres. Bush signs a stopgap spending bill that expires at midnight Oct. 5 to keep the government running until a new budget is put in place. . . . The Education Department chooses the Student Loan Marketing Association (Sallie Mae) to take over the $8.8 billion student loan portfolio of the failing Higher Education Assistance Foundation.

The Senate confirms Pres. Bush’s appointment of David H. Souter to the Supreme Court by a vote of 90-9.

The Senate approves, 96-3, a resolution that supports action “to deter Iraqi aggression and to protect American lives and vital interests.”

The Committee for the Study of the American Electorate reports only 19% of those eligible to vote cast a ballot in a state primary in 1990.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle A female journalist is barred from the locker room of the Cincinnati Bengals after the Sept. 17 incident with the New England Patriots. The decision to ban a female reporter instead of disciplining and educating team members about sexual harassment is met with outcries. . . . The House clears a conference committee’s reconciliation of legislation regarding the reduction of advertising and children’s programming passed by the Senate Sept. 24.

Oct. 1

Oct. 2

Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, states at a congressional hearing that budget negotiators have “crafted what appears to be a credible, enforceable reduction in the budget deficit stretching over a number of years.”

The Journal of the American Medical Association finds that asthma deaths rose markedly among young Americans between 1978 and 1987, taking the worst toll among children ages five to 14.

The USA Basketball Council approves the inclusion of professional players in the U.S. men’s team at the 1992 Olympics.

The State Department announces it has withdrawn the nomination of Frederick Vreeland as ambassador to Myanmar since the Myanmar government decided it would not accept Vreeland due to statements he made that were critical of the regime.

Oct. 3

Oct. 4

A five-year deficit-reduction plan is rejected by the House, 254-179, causing much debate and resentment. . . . Another stopgap measure to continue funds to the government is passed by the House and the Senate. . . . Pres. Bush vetoes legislation that restricts textile, apparel and shoe imports.

Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center and its director, Dennis Barrie, are acquitted of obscenity charges involving an exhibit of photographs by the late artist Robert Mapplethorpe. The trial is the first in the U.S. in which a museum and its director faced criminal charges over a display of artwork.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 5

106—October 6–11, 1990

World Affairs

Oct. 6

Oct. 7

Oct. 8

Oct. 9

The U.S. asks the UN Security Council to approve a U.S.-drafted resolution condemning Israel for the Oct. 8 killings in Jerusalem. The extremely rare U.S. move against its ally is prompted by fear that it might lose the support of Arab countries in the U.S.-led international consensus against Iraq.

Oct. 10

Oct. 11

The IMF agrees in principle to grant a $2.016 billion standby loan to Brazil.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Former members of the interior ministry, which ran Poland’s security services, are arrested on corruption and murder charges. The suspects served under the Communist regimes from the 1960s through the 1980s. . . . More than 500 teenagers, many of them of North African origin, riot in Vaulxen-Velin, a Lyon suburb because of treatment by French police.

Pres. Mobutu Sese Seko pledges to institute “a full multiparty system” in Zaire. . . . Belgium and France take up positions around the airport in Rwanda to guard their evacuation of hundreds of foreign citizens.

Juan José Arévalo Bermejo, 86, president of Guatemala, 1945–51, whose civilian government is regarded as a bright spot in the country’s modern history of military dictatorships, dies of unreported causes in Guatemala City.

The leader of dissident soldiers in the Philippines surrenders to police after his men occupied two army outposts for 48 hours. After Col. Alexander Noble’s surrender, Philippine authorities round up rebels and arrest more than 150. . . . In Osaka, Japan, reports confirm that more than 2,500 police have been called in to face rioters numbering about 1,500.

The Sunday Times of London reports that Leningrad is a center of organized crime in the USSR. . . . The Socialist Party of Chancellor Franz Vranitzky polls the most votes in the Austrian general elections. The right-wing Freedom Party makes significant gains at the expense of the traditional conservative group. . . . Vasil Mohorita, the first secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, calls for workers to resist the impending privatization of state enterprises.

The Washington Post reports that the UN and Jordanian relief agencies found that nearly 700,000 nonWestern refugees who had fled to Jordan have been evacuated to their home countries. . . . Sheik Rashid bin Said al Maktum, 76, cofounder and vice president of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of the sheikdom of Dubai, dies in Dubai after suffering a series of strokes in recent years.

In its first international treaty since unification, Germany agrees with Czechoslovakia to clean up pollution in the Elbe River. . . . The West German parliament completes ratification of the so-called two-plus-four treaty on German sovereignty. . . . More former members of the interior ministry, which ran Poland’s security services under the communist regime, are arrested, bringing the total up to nine.

Israeli police open fire on stonethrowing Palestinian protesters on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City, killing at least 19 Arabs and wounding more than 100 others. The incident causes great uproar. . . . In Rwanda, the government declares a state of emergency while fierce fighting reportedly continues in the northeast part of the country. . . . Zaire’s news agency reports that its troops fought a twohour battle with the rebels near the town of Gabiro in Rwanda.

South Korean president Roh Tae Woo fires two senior officials after evidence of widespread domestic spying by the military is revealed. Kim Dae Jung, the leader of the South Korean political opposition, begins a hunger strike in response to the evidence. . . . Pakistan president Ghulam Ishaq Khan assures Bush that Pakistan’s nuclear program is strictly for creating energy. . . . The Australian cabinet decides to permit logging in 40% of the forest region of southeast New South Wales.

British security forces claim that they killed Desmond Grew, reputed to be one of the IRA’s most dangerous killers, during a raid. They say IRA member Martin McCaughey was also killed, and three other people were arrested. . . . The Supreme Soviet passes a law that places all political parties on an equal legal footing with the Communist Party. . . . Austrian president Kurt Waldheim asks Franz Vranitzky to form a new government.

Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, responding to the Oct. 8 killings in Jerusalem, repeats his prior threats to attack Israel to defend Iraq and the Palestinian cause. . . . Israel is strongly criticized by anti-Iraqi Arab countries, such as Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. Anti-Israel protests are staged in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan. . . . There are scattered clashes along with funerals in east Jerusalem, in Arab communities in Israel and in the territories.

Forty-seven people are killed in India when one car of a moving train is set afire by terrorists protesting an injunction against a proposed government affirmative-action plan. . . . P.M. D. B. Wijetunge announces that Sri Lankan banking laws will be amended to allow secret numbered bank accounts for foreigners.

In the Ukraine, about 100,000 people take part in a week of street and campus protests in Kiev to support the tent-city residents and the 200 students who are on hunger strikes.

In response to the international outcry, P.M. Yitzhak Shamir appoints a commission to investigate the Oct. 8 Jerusalem clash. . . . About 360 people, mostly U.S. men of Arab descent, are allowed to leave Kuwait. . . . In Rwanda, reports show that more than 1,500 suspected rebel sympathizers have been arrested. Tutsi refugees flee into Uganda and claim that Rwandan soldiers shot and killed hundreds while civilians armed with spears and machetes cut down women and children as they tried to escape.

A rash of antigovernment protests in Bangladesh begins.

Former British prime minister Edward Heath plans to travel to Iraq in an attempt to win the release of sick British hostages held there since Aug. . . . The Soviet coast guard announces the seizure of a Greenpeace ship protesting the planned nuclear tests at Novaya Zemlya. . . . Thousands of workers stage an anticommunist rally in Prague.

The Rwandan government denies massacre claims and states all those killed were rebels. . . . Reports indicate that Lebanese president Hrawi officially asked for Syrian military intervention to end Gen. Michel Aoun’s rebellion.

In Afghanistan, rebels led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Islamic fundamentalist, begin a two-pronged attack on Kabul. . . . The Australian federal cabinet agrees to set standards to lower emissions of gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect. . . . North Korea releases two Japanese sailors who were arrested as spies in 1983.

Europe

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

October 6–11, 1990—107

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Pres. Bush vetoes the stopgap measure passed by the Senate and House Oct.5 because “it disciplines the United States Congress,” which, he claims, repeatedly evade budget decisions by passing interim spending authority. A shutdown of federal operations begins immediately, but it does not affect most departments since it is Saturday.

The space shuttle Discovery is launched from Cape Canaveral to begin a four-day mission to deploy the Ulysses spacecraft for a surveying project to the Sun’s polar regions.

The Collingswood Magpies win the Australian rules football championship, its first title since 1958.

The Justice Department reports that the number of inmates in state and federal prisons across the U.S. reached a record high of 755,425 in the first half of 1990, an increase of 6% since the end of 1989. . . . Scott Milne Matheson, 61, Democratic governor of Utah, 1977–85, dies of bone marrow cancer in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The United Auto Workers and Ford Motor Co. reach a tentative agreement on a new three-year labor contract covering 100,000 workers.

Two papers published in the science magazine Priroda (Nature) are reported in the West. They contradict the long-held Western belief that the Soviet Union developed a deliverable hydrogen bomb in 1953. The study contends that the USSR did not achieve a deliverable Hbomb until 1955.

David H. Souter is sworn in as the nation’s 105th Supreme Court justice.

Coerced by the shutdown of the government, the House passes a new budget resolution which has the same goals as the first agreement but leaves the details, particularly on the contentious subject of taxation, to congressional committees to fill in. New stopgap legislation passes as well.

The 1990 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine Prize is awarded to two American doctors, Joseph E. Murray and E. Donnall Thomas, for their pioneering work in organ and cell transplants.

At the Supreme Court building, David Souter takes the judicial oath, administered by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and assumes his seat at the end of the bench.

Four Annapolis studies are made public that conclude sexist perceptions at military academies lead to sexual harassment and cruel pranks by male cadets. The panels recommend that instruction on discipline and the limits of acceptable behavior be bolstered at the academy. . . . Richard W. Miller, a 20-year veteran of the FBI, is convicted of espionage in his dealings with Soviet agent Svetlana Ogorodnikova. Miller is the only FBI agent ever convicted of spying.

The House approves a Health and Human Services Department reauthorization bill that includes authorization for the largest expansion of the Head Start program since it was created 25 years earlier.

Leaders of American Jewish groups condemn the U.S. move to criticize Israel at the UN as “harsh and hypocritical.”. . . The House of Representatives approves a bill calling for a referendum in Puerto Rico in 1990 to decide on the political future of the island. . . . The U.S. freezes economic and military aid to Pakistan because it suspects Pakistan is developing nuclear weapons.

Oct. 6

Oct. 7

Oct. 8

The Senate adopts the budget resolution passed by the House on Oct. 8. It also approves the new stopgap legislation. Bush signs the stopgap, extending federal borrowing and spending power until Oct. 19.

Oct. 9

Discovery touches down at Edwards Air Force Base in California after successfully deploying the Ulysses spacecraft.

The University of Miami accepts an invitation to become the 10th member of the Big East Conference.

The New England Journal of Medicine reports that drinking caffeinated coffee does not appear to increase the risk of heart disease or stroke among men.

The Swedish Academy of Letters awards the Nobel Prize in Literature to Octavio Paz, a Mexican poet, novelist, and essayist. He is the first Mexican writer to win the Nobel literature award.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 10

Oct. 11

108—October 12–17, 1990

Oct. 12

Oct. 13

Oct. 14

Oct. 15

Europe

The UN adopts a U.S.-backed resolution that criticizes Israel for the killing of 21 Palestinians during an October 8 riot in Jerusalem and calls for an investigation.

German interior minister Wolfgang Schaeuble is shot and seriously wounded after a political meeting in southwest Germany. . . . In the first case of its kind in the Soviet Union, a Moscow judge sentences a leader of Pamyat, Konstantin SmirnovOstashvili, to two years in prison for inciting anti-Semitism.

The speaker of the Egyptian parliament, described as the second most powerful politician in Egypt, Refaat Mahgoub, is assassinated in Cairo by four men wielding machine guns. . . . As Gen. Michel Aoun addresses thousands of his supporters, a Shiite Muslim from southern Lebanon opens fire with a pistol. The shots wound an aide before the assailant is captured, beaten, and reportedly confesses to that he was sent by the Lebanese Communist Party.

The government of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir expresses its “anger and dismay” over the UN vote of Oct. 12. . . . Reports begin to surface that show the UN economic sanctions are starting to have an effect on Iraqi industry, and possibly even on its military forces.

Poland signs a draft agreement establishing diplomatic relations with the neighboring Soviet republic of the Ukraine. It is the first such agreement between a Soviet republic and a foreign nation.

Gen. Michel Aoun, the renegade Christian army commander who defied the Syrian-backed Lebanese government for more than two years, surrenders in the face of a Syrian-led military attack. He is granted asylum at the French embassy, where his presence sparks a diplomatic row between the Lebanese and French governments.

The Israeli cabinet votes unanimously to condemn the UN’s decision to send a delegation to investigate the Jerusalem killings as interference in Israel’s internal affairs, and vows not to cooperate with it.

Hungary’s ruling coalition, led by the Democratic Forum, makes a weak showing in local elections. . . . Voters in the five German states created out of the old East Germany go to the polls, and the Christian Democratic Union of Chancellor Helmut Kohl tops the voting in four of the five states, winning the overall vote by more than 15 percentage points.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awards the Peace Prize to Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev for promoting greater openness in the Soviet Union, helping to end the cold war with the U.S., and allowing former Soviet satellite states in Eastern Europe to regain their independence. Gorbachev, 59, is the first communist head of state to win the peace prize. . . . U.S. negotiators at the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations offer concessions in the hope of meeting a Dec. 31 deadline for a farm trade agreement.

Reports emerge that ethnic Russians and Gagauz (Turkic-speaking Orthodox Christians) in Moldavia have formed their own unofficial republics and declared sovereignty.

French and Lebanese officials meet to ease tensions created when Gen. Aoun found asylum in the French embassy. . . . The Israeli cabinet approves the construction of new housing for immigrants in annexed East Jerusalem. . . . The New York Times reports that pro-Syrian Christian militiamen clashed with pro-Iranian Hezbollah gunmen in Lebanon.

Janez Drnovsek, Slovenia’s representative in the federal collective presidency, storms out of a meeting during a debate over a draft federation plan for the country. . . . U.S. defense secretary Dick Cheney makes his first visit to the USSR.

Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek, breaking with other Israeli officials, states he is willing to meet with the UN mission to investigate the Oct. 8 riot. “Not to do this doesn’t portray strength, it portrays weakness,” he explains.

The premier of the Ukraine, Vitaly A. Masol, tenders his resignation in response to nationalist protests in Kiev. Masol, 62, is believed to be first high-ranking Soviet official ever to step down as a direct result of public pressure.

Rwanda’s president Juvenal Habyarimana holds talks with Uganda president Yoweri Museveni and Pres. Ali Hassan Mwinyi of Tanzania in Tanzania.

Oct. 16

Oct. 17

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

The EC offers $7.7 million in emergency assistance for Romania’s 100,000 orphans.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Le Duc Tho (born Phan Dinh Khai), 78, North Vietnamese Communist official who directed the final military offensive by North Vietnam in 1975 that brought the fall of the South Vietnamese government and the merger of the two nations under communist rule, dies of cancer in Hanoi.

In Nicaragua, former contras take over the Sandinista headquarters in Quilali. . . . The New York Times reports that 40 street children were killed in a 1990 crackdown by police in Guatemala.

In Pakistan, P.M. Benazir Bhutto’s ouster is upheld by a state court.

Three Australian environmental organizations react to the Oct. 8 decision on logging with a boycott. . . . The New York Times reports that a national census found the population of China is at 1.13 billion. . . . The Japanese cabinet approves a plan to send noncombat soldiers to the U.S.-led force in the Persian Gulf. Parliament begins debate on the plan, which, if implemented, will bring the first deployment of Japanese troops abroad since World War II. Leftist rebels of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) attack the army’s main air base at Ilopango on the outskirts of San Salvador. . . . Pres. Carlos Saúl Menem issues a decree severely limiting the right of Argentina’s workers in essential services to strike.

Reports indicate that Khmer Rouge and other Cambodian rebel forces are pillaging the ancient Angkor Wat ruins in northern Cambodia. . . . The premiers of North Korea and South Korea fail to reach any significant agreements at talks in Pyongyang.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

October 12–17, 1990—109

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The Senate approves a measure to revise the Orphan Drug Act of 1983 so it requires drug manufacturers to share marketing rights with other companies that are developing the same drugs. . . . The Senate passes legislation to reauthorize a 1986 program that provides federal funding for childhood vaccines. . . . The Illinois Supreme Court upholds a lower-court decision barring a thirdparty slate of candidates from the November election ballot in Cook County.

Lawrence E. Walsh, the independent counsel prosecuting the Irancontra cases, announces that he is dropping his efforts to prosecute former CIA Costa Rica bureau chief Joseph F. Fernandez.

Congressional and White House negotiators reach a compromise on a package that includes a combination of direct grants and childcare tax credits, for child-care. The measure is the federal government’s first comprehensive childcare program since World War II.

U.S. officials estimate that Iraqi forces in the so-called southern theater rose to 430,000.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Oct. 12

The New York Times reports that after a Florida savings and loan became insolvent in 1988, the federal government repaid most of a loan taken out by a partnership that included Jeb Bush, Pres. Bush’s son.

A New York Times/CBS News poll finds that support for Pres. Bush’s handling of the Persian Gulf crisis dropped to 57% from an initial high of 75%

The House approves a measure that reauthorizes a 1986 program to provide federal funding for childhood vaccines. . . . William Edward Minshall, 79, Republican U.S. representative from Ohio, 1955–74, dies in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Pres. Bush signs legislation to compensate victims of radiation from open-air nuclear tests in the 1950s or from the mining of the uranium used in nuclear weapons.

Pres. Bush signs the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act. . . . The Senate approves a new version of a major civil rights bill designed to modify or reverse recent Supreme Court rulings that make it more difficult to win job discrimination suits. . . . According to a Washington Post/ABC News poll, Pres. Bush’s approval rating has dropped to the lowest point of his administration.

The Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Nobel Prize in Economics to three American economists—Harry M. Markowitz of Baruch College at the City University of New York, Merton H. Miller of the University of Chicago, and William F. Sharpe of Stanford University. . . . Pres. Bush signs two bills that increase the regulatory authority of the SEC. . . . A revision to the farm bill scraps a ban on the export of hazardous chemicals used as pesticides.

Peter MacDonald Sr., the suspended leader of the Navajo Nation, the U.S.’s largest Indian tribe, is convicted in Navajo Tribal Court in Window Rock, Arizona, of bribery, conspiracy and violating the tribe’s ethics laws. . . . The House gives final approval to a major civil rights bill designed to modify or reverse recent Supreme Court rulings that make it more difficult for women and minorities to win job-discrimination suits.

Douglas Edwards, 73, the first American television news anchorman, dies in Sarasota, Florida, of cancer.

Oct. 13

Leonard Bernstein, 72, one of the most talented conductors and composers in American musical history, dies of a heart attack in NYC.

Oct. 14

Oct. 15

A. S. (Antonia) Byatt wins the Booker Prize, Great Britain’s most prestigious literary award, for her novel Possession.

The first known entry of Africanized honeybees, or “killer bees,” into the U.S. is reported by the Agriculture Dept. . . . The Royal Swedish Academy awards the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Elias James Corey for his work in synthesizing chemical compounds. The Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Richard Taylor, Jerome Friedman, and Henry Kendall for their work in the 1960s and 1970s that proved the existence of the quark.

Oct. 16

Oct. 17

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

110—October 18–22, 1990

Oct. 18

Oct. 19

Europe

A ministerial meeting of the Arab League, meeting in Tunis to condemn the Oct. 8 Temple Mount killings, accentuates the inter-Arab split caused by the Persian Gulf crisis when a PLO-drafted resolution condemning the U.S. as well as Israel is defeated, 11-10. . . . The UN General Assembly votes unanimously to send poll watchers to Haiti. It is the first time the UN agrees to verify an election at the invitation of a member state. . . . France asks UN secretary general Javier Perez de Cuellar to investigate reports that Syrian forces executed Michel Aoun loyalists after capturing them.

Premier Petre Roman presents to Parliament a legislation aimed at a Swift transformation of the Romanian economy into a market system. . . . The Conservative Party of British prime minister Margaret Thatcher is upset in a parliamentary by-election in Eastbourne, East Sussex. It is considered one of the severest defeats for Thatcher since 1979, since Conservatives held that seat for more than 80 years. . . . Students in the Ukraine greet Premier Vitaly A. Masoi’s resignation with jubilation, especially after hearing that Parliament promised to take action. They end the hunger strike and disband the tent city, but warn that protests will resume if parliament reneges on its promises.

Soldiers shoot and wound 35 Palestinians in fierce clashes in the Rafa refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip. . . . The New York Times reports that at least 750 people died in the eight-hour battle in Lebanon Oct. 13. . . . Pres. F. W. de Klerk lifts the four-year-old state of emergency in Natal province, the last place in South Africa where it was still in effect. Both the ANC and Inkatha welcome the move, which meets a key condition for continued negotiations with the government. . . . Rwanda’s Pres. Juvenat Habyarimana meets with French president François Mitterrand and accepts a Belgian plan for neutral troops to monitor a cease-fire between his army and the rebels. Habyarimana also calls for the UN Security Council to meet on the crisis and states he will agree to open Rwanda’s borders to all refugees.

UN general secretary Perez de Cuellar tells the council that he will not send a delegation to Jerusalem unless he is assured of Israeli cooperation.

The Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopts a long-awaited plan to reform the nation’s economy. . . . Stipe Mesic, a Croat who is strongly anti-Serbian, is sworn in as the Yugoslav vice president. . . . A military court in Bucharest suspends for lack of evidence the trial of Gen. Iulian Vlad, the former head of the Securitate. Vlad was charged with complicity in the deaths of the more than 1,000 Romanians during the 1989 revolt. . . . Hungary’s State Property Agency opens all stateowned enterprises for privatization.

In the Khan Yunis camp, 10 Gazans are wounded during a violent protest. . . . Police in East Jerusalem use water cannons to disperse Muslims protesting being barred from prayer services at the Temple Mount’s Al Aksa mosque for the second straight week. . . . Koigi wa Wamwere, a former member of the Kenyan parliament and an opponent of Pres. Daniel arap Moi, returns to Kenya after exile in Norway and is charged with treason. . . . Canada announces that it is shutting its embassy in Kuwait.

Protests against the poll tax flare up again, and nine people are injured and 91 arrested during a violent demonstration in London. . . . Some 500 neo-Nazi demonstrators march in Dresden shouting racist slogans and making Nazi salutes. . . . More than 2,000 people attend the first congress of Democratic Russia, an umbrella group of fledgling political parties based in the Russian Federation.

Oct. 20

Oct. 21

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Gareth Evans discloses that his country will back an UN Security Council resolution approving the use of military force against Iraq.

Oct. 22

Norwegian finance minister Arne Skauge announces that the value of the nation’s currency, the krone, will be linked to the EC’s European Monetary System.

Gunmen posing as Lebanese soldiers assassinate Dany Chamoun, head of one of the most prominent Maronite Christian clans and a firm backer of Gen. Michel Aoun. . . . Two Americans who were hiding in Kuwait are arrested and taken to Iraq as hostages. About 1,000 Americans are believed to be trapped or in hiding in Iraq and Kuwait, about 100 of whom are held as human shields. . . . In the worst of a series of attacks by Arabs seeking revenge for the Oct. 8 killings, a Palestinian laborer stabs three Israelis to death in West Jerusalem.

The Supreme Soviet stiffens penalties for “speculation,” or black-market activities. . . . Vasil Mohorita, the first secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, is expelled from the upper house of the Federal Assembly after remarks made on Oct. 7. . . . The New York Times reports that homelessness, once rare in Hungary, is now a growing problem.

Iraqi president Saddam Hussein vows to free all French hostages for its pro-negotiations stance in the Persian Gulf crisis. . . . Paramilitary police are stationed in Jerusalem, and Arabs from the occupied territories are barred from the city. Still, a Palestinian stabs and wounds a Jewish man, two soldiers are wounded in knife and ax attacks, and troops shoot and kill a youth during a protest. . . . . Kenya breaks off diplomatic ties with Norway, accusing it of supporting writer and human-rights activist Koigi wa Wamwere.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The U.S. and the Soviet Union urge the Salvadoran government and the FMLN to refrain from military activity and intensify peace negotiations in their first combined effort to end the civil war in El Salvador. . . . Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter announces that he wrote a letter to Pres. Vinicio Cerezo asking for an investigation into the kidnappings of two Guatemalan human rights workers, one of whom has already been found dead.

In Pakistan, P.M. Benazir Bhutto’s ouster is upheld in a second state court.

Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt is disqualified from the presidential race by Guatemala’s Court of Constitutionality. The court rules that Ríos Montt’s bid violates a constitutional ban on presidential office for anyone who previously come to power in a coup.

China and South Korea agree to open trade offices in each other’s capital cities. . . . Reports indicate that the South Korean government released a dissident churchman, Rev. Moon Ik Hwan, who was jailed after making an unauthorized trip to North Korea in 1989. . . . Kim Dae Jung, the leader of the South Korean political opposition, ends a 12-day hunger strike when government leaders appear willing to compromise on some of his demands. Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad is reelected to a third term in national elections.

Argentine authorities arrest a rebellious colonel, Mohamed Ali Seineldin, who warns of widespread discontent within the armed forces. . . . Canadian federal government officials apply for a court order in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, to halt construction on the nearly completed Rafferty Dam on the Souris River, pending completion of an environmental impact study.

In Myanmar, the monks who refused to minister to government soldiers or their families to protest the killing of two monks and two students by government troops at a protest march in August face a military raid at dozens of monasteries. At least 40 monks are detained by military police.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

October 18–22, 1990—111

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

An Agriculture Department study concludes that the government’s Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) is highly effective in lowering Medicaid costs and raising birth weights of babies. . . . The Senate clears a Health and Human Services Department reauthorization bill that will result in the largest expansion of the Head Start program in 25 years earlier. . . . Pres. Bush signs a bill into law requiring television broadcasters to reduce the amount of advertising shown during programming aimed at children.

Pres. Bush signs the so-called twoplus-four treaty on German sovereignty. . . . Hungarian premier Jozsef Antall confers with Pres. Bush and other officials and receives aid. . . . U.S. Rep. Joe Moakley (D, Mass.) charges that U.S. officials withheld information from Salvadoran officials investigating the 1989 killings of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter.

An emergency measure to continue federal spending authority through October 24 is passed in the Senate. . . . The Commerce Department reports the U.S. merchandise trade deficit rose in August to its highest level since January. . . . A federal district court judge lowers the bail set for Charles H. Keating Jr., the former owner of the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, to $300,000 from $5 million.

The Navajo Nation Council votes to disqualify Peter MacDonald Sr. from running for tribal president in an upcoming election after he was convicted of bribery, conspiracy and violating the tribe’s ethics laws. . . . Congress clears a bill to prohibit trucks and rail cars from hauling garbage and other toxic materials on an outward journey and food and drink on the way back.

The Senate cuts an aid bill to El Salvador that will withhold half of the $85 million in military aid for 1991 unless the rebels refuse to negotiate to end the civil war or launch a major military offensive. All the aid will be lost if the Salvadoran government breaks off the peace talks and if it fails to investigate the case of six Jesuit priests allegedly murdered by army soldiers in November 1989. . . . The House passes a $8.36 billion appropriation for military construction in fiscal 1991.

An emergency measure to continue federal spending authority through October 24 is passed by the Senate, and Pres. Bush signs the extension. . . . The Senate approves a new budget package and sends it into conference with the House. . . . Both houses clear a $20.2 billion spending bill for energy and water projects for fiscal 1991.

In response to legislation that would offset recent Supreme Court decisions, making it difficult for minorities and women to win discrimination suits, Pres. Bush proposes an alternative bill that puts the burden on the individual to prove discrimination and allows more leeway for companies to defend their employment practices.

In the first organized nationwide protest against the U.S. intervention in the Persian Gulf, thousands of Americans stage antiwar marches in as many as 20 cities, including San Francisco; Washington, D.C.; Seattle; Atlanta; Boston; Cleveland; and Dallas. The biggest protest is in NYC with a crowd of 5,000 to 20,000.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D, Mass.), the prime sponsor of the congressional measure on civil rights rejected by Pres. Bush on Oct. 20, calls the new Bush proposal a “cynical attempt to appear to support civil rights while actually satisfying the anti-civil rights forces in his own party.” Many other civil rights activists decry the proposed plan as well.

Pres. Bush vetoes the Civil Rights Act of 1990. . . . Two leaders of a white supremacist group are found liable by a Portland, Oregon, jury for inciting the 1988 beating death of an Ethiopian immigrant. The Metzgers and their group are ordered to pay $12.5 million in punitive and compensatory damages. . . . A Superior Court judge in Santa Ana, California, awards permanent custody of a boy born to a surrogate mother to the child’s genetic parents.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Oct. 18

NASA scientist Arlin Krueger reports that the annual destruction of the ozone layer over the South Pole equals its historic maximum for the second straight year.

Oct. 19

The Cincinnati Reds stun the baseball world by beating the favored Oakland Athletics to win the World Series. . . . Three members of the black rap music group 2 Live Crew are acquitted of obscenity charges by a jury in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

During budget negotiations, the president’s aides—John Sununu, the White House chief of staff, Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady, and budget director Richard Darman—walk out and accuse the Democrats of being unwilling to adjust to an accord.

Pres. Bush halts indefinitely the use of Kahoolawe, a barren Hawaiian island, as a Navy bombing range.

Oct. 20

Oct. 21

Federal regulators file civil charges against the chairman of Centrust Bank of Miami, a now-defunct savings and loan association, seeking $30.8 million in restitution. . . . The White House team resumes budget bargaining.

Oct. 22

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

112—October 23–27, 1990

World Affairs

Oct. 23

Oct. 24

The U.S. joins in a unanimous 15-0 UN Security Council vote to approve a resolution deploring Israel’s refusal to accept the UN fact-finding mission. . . . The foreign ministers of the six Balkan nations—Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Turkey and Yugoslavia—hold a summit in Tirana, the capital of Albania.

Oct. 25

Oct. 26

Israeli officials express the hope that its commission’s report can be given to the UN by the U.S. to serve as a substitute for the proposed UN investigative mission. The U.S. State Department, though, stands by its position that the UN mission should proceed and receive the cooperation of the Israeli government.

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

A 24-hour strike of legal workers paralyzes the French judicial system. . . . Edward Heath, the former British prime minister leaves Iraq with 33 released Britons, although he asked for 200 to be set free.

The Iraqi National Assembly approves the release of French hostages. . . . A car full of Gazan workers is fired on by Jewish civilians, killing one Palestinian and wounding two. A Gazan worker fractures the skulls of two Israelis with a hammer. An Arab stabs and wounds two unarmed female soldiers in Haifa, after which he is caught and severely beaten. In an effort to halt the attacks, Defense Minister Moshe Arens seals off the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and orders Palestinian day laborers in Israel to return home.

Pres. Alberto Fujimori announces a contraception program aimed at cutting Peru’s population growth by more than 50% by the year 2000. . . . Reports surface that an upsurge of kidnappings recently swept Colombia.

In Myanmar, at least 12 opposition officials are arrested, leaving all but three of the 16 members of the executive committee of the National League for Democracy in prison, even though the League won 80% of parliament’s seats in May. . . . Lal Krishna Advani, the Bharatiya Janata Party leader who campaigned for the construction of a temple in Ayodhya, a holy city, is arrested, precipitating the BJP party to withdraw from India’s coalition. . . . Japan announces a national plan to stabilize emissions of carbon dioxide by 2000.

The Supreme Soviet passes a law stating that, pending the completion of a new union treaty, no republic can claim primacy of its laws over national laws. In response, the Ukraine and the Russian Federation vote to defy that measure. . . . The IRA forces three men to drive car bombs to British security targets in Northern Ireland. Seven are killed, and 35 are injured. . . . The Soviets conduct their first underground nuclear test of 1990 in Novaya Zemlya. . . . The Yugoslav government reports a sharp economic downturn over the first nine months of 1990.

In Liberia, rebel leader Charles Taylor refuses to sign a proposal at peace talks held in the Gambian capital, Banjul.

The government of Panama files a $6.5 billion lawsuit against Manuel Noriega in a U.S. district court in Miami. The suit alleges that Noriega used Panamanian Defense Forces as a criminal enterprise that engaged in assassination, torture, diversion of government revenue, illegal sale of visas, and other abuses of official power.

The party of ousted prime minister Benazir Bhutto is decisively defeated by the nine-party Islamic Democratic Alliance (IDA) in Pakistani national elections. Bhutto charges that the government engaged in large-scale electoral fraud to prevent her from returning to power. . . . In India, at least 54 people are killed in clashes between Hindus and Muslims during a one-day nationwide strike called by the BJP. P.M. V. P. Singh asks for a vote of no-confidence to be held on Nov. 7. If Singh loses the vote, the government will fall and national elections will be held.

Czechoslovakia’s Slovak Republic passes a law that makes Slovak the official language of the republic. Until the law’s passage, the Czech and Slovak languages enjoyed equal status in both of Czechoslovakia’s republics. . . . The parliament of Kazakhstan adopts a sovereignty resolution.

Iraqi president Saddam Hussein orders the release of 700 Bulgarians who were prevented from leaving Iraq. . . . The government of Lebanese president Elias Hrawi announces that three of the main Muslim and Christian militias agreed to withdraw from “greater Beirut.” The government begins consolidating its control over Beirut by ordering and supervising the departure of sectarian militias from the capital.

Reports state that, in Mexico, Pres. Carlos Salinas has proposed legislation to limit the use of confessions in court and to require that all interrogations be carried out by lawyers from the attorney general’s office, not by federal police.

In India, riots continue and result in several more deaths. . . . A postgraduate student is convicted of masterminding the 1978 terrorist bombing of a Sydney hotel where the heads of government of members of the Commonwealth of Nations were staying.

Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev issues decrees aimed at stimulating investment, boosting exports, and encouraging citizens to save. . . . A member of the National Democratic Party, Giorgy Chanturia, is wounded by a gunman at a political gathering in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital. . . . Pres. Gorbachev becomes the first Soviet leader to visit Spain. . . . In Hungary, hundreds of taxi and truck drivers start a blockade of traffic to protest a 65% increase in gas prices.

A commission to investigate the killing of Palestinians by police during the Oct. 8 riot in Jerusalem issues its report. Although the threeman panel criticizes senior police commanders for failing to anticipate the riot, their report mainly supports the Israeli government’s account of the incident when it blames the Palestinians for starting it, justifying police gunfire.

While visiting Spain, Soviet president Gorbachev signs 16 bilateral trade, industrial, and investment agreements. Gorbachev and Premier Felipe González, in a joint statement, condemn Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and call for a new Mediterranean security conference to extend the East-West arms control process to Europe’s southern flank and reduce naval forces in the area.

Oct. 27

In Pakistan, the Islamic Democratic Alliance follows up its landslide victory in national elections with a decisive victory in provincial elections. . . . Jim Bolger is elected prime minister of New Zealand when his opposition National Party sweeps a landslide victory in national elections.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

October 23–27, 1990—113

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The House clears compromise legislation that reauthorizes and revises the Orphan Drug Act of 1983.

The navy’s two top officials separately order steps to improve the lot of women sailors and to curb sexual harassment and rape in the service.

The Senate clears a $20.9 billion fiscal 1991 spending bill for the Treasury Department that contains a major overhaul of the federal pay system. . . . The Senate Ethics Committee votes to hold public hearings on five senators linked to indicted savings-and-loan executive Charles H. Keating Jr.

A 14-year-old youth is found guilty in Family Court in NYC for setting fire to an 11-year-old boy. The case drew nationwide sympathy for the burned boy. . . . Rep. Donald (Buz) Lukens (R, Ohio) resigns from Congress under the threat of an investigation into charges of sexual harassment.

The House adopts bill that requires notification to Congress of covert actions by other countries on behalf of the U.S. Direct covert actions by the U.S. are already required to be reported to Congress. . . . Congressional leaders urge further investigations of the condition of women in the navy. . . . The U.S. Senate grants Czechoslovakia mostfavored-nation trading status, which makes Czechoslovakia the first Eastern European country to gain MFN status in the so-called post–cold war era.

Congressional leaders reach agreement on a $140 billion tax plan designed to reduce the federal deficit by $40 billion in the first year and by $500 billion over five years. . . . Another stopgap measure is approved. . . . Congress clears a $19.3 billion fiscal 1991 spending bill for the Departments of Commerce, Justice and State and the judiciary. . . . The House clears the $20.9 billion fiscal 1991 spending bill for the Treasury Department passed by the Senate Oct. 23. . . . Elizabeth Dole, the only woman in the cabinet, resigns as labor secretary to become president of the American Red Cross.

Congress clears legislation to tighten security procedures at major airports. . . . The House passes a bill to reauthorize the CPSC that the Senate approved on Oct. 22. . . . The Supreme Court overturns an Illinois judgment and orders a third-party slate of candidates on the ballot in Cook County.

The Senate passes a bill, adopted by the House Oct. 24, that requires notification to Congress of covert actions by other countries on behalf of the U.S.

The Senate assents to final passage of a bill appropriating $78 billion for housing, environmental, space, and veterans’ programs for fiscal 1991. . . . A strike begins at the New York Daily News, precipitated by a minor incident involving a union driver.

Three former Northwest Airlines pilots who were convicted of flying a passenger plane while drunk are sentenced to a year in prison and are ordered to serve three years’ “supervised release.” . . . Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Barry (D) is sentenced to six months in prison for his conviction on a misdemeanor cocaine possession charge. He is released on his own recognizance until the appeal process is complete.

The navy formally decommissions the battleship Iowa at the Norfolk Naval Base, 18 months after a gunturret explosion killed 47 Iowa crew members. . . . The Senate clears a $288.3 billion defense authorization for fiscal 1991. . . . Congress clears an export-controls reauthorization bill to ease curbs on the transfer of high technology to the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and other areas.

The House passes the housing, environmental, space, and veterans’ bill that the Senate approved on Oct. 25. . . . A $182.2 billion fiscal 1991 spending bill is cleared for the Depts. of Labor, Health, and Human Services and Education. . . . Congress passes laws to restrict logging in Alaska. . . . Congress sends to Bush a housing reauthorization bill reversing a 10-year trend toward reduced spending on housing.

William S. Paley, 89, chairman of CBS, dies in NYC of a heart attack related to pneumonia. . . . The Plains of Passage by Jean M. Auel, is at the top of the bestsellers list.

Congress clears an anticrime bill without its most controversial provisions, such as ones that would restrict appeals by death-row inmates, ban certain semiautomatic weapons, and allow death-row prisoners to appeal their sentence on the basis of racial discrimination. . . . The Senate confirms David Kessler as commissioner of the FDA.

Congress passes a House-Senate conference report approving a $15.39 billion foreign aid appropriations bill for fiscal 1991. . . . Congress sends to the president the first comprehensive overhaul of the immigration system in 66 years.

A grueling fight over a deficit-reduction package, begun on May 15, ends when Congress adopts a fiveyear plan. . . . A bill appropriating $12.9 billion for the Transportation Department is cleared. . . . Both houses clear a bill providing $2.16 billion for the legislative branch, an 11% increase from fiscal 1990. . . . A bill appropriating $11.7 billion for fiscal 1991 operations of the Interior Dept. is cleared. . . . The Senate approves the 1990 Clean Air Act.

Congress approves legislation to reauthorize the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for three years. The reauthorization does not include a controversial provision that would have barred the NEA from supporting “obscene” art.

Oct. 23

Oct. 24

In a major advance, doctors have succeeded in inducing pregnancy in a woman who has gone through menopause, according to the New England Journal of Medicine.

Oct. 25

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 26

Oct. 27

114—October 28–November 2, 1990

Oct. 28

Oct. 29

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Leaders of the EC agree not to conduct separate hostage negotiations with Iraq and express support to the creation of a central bank for the community in 1994. Only British prime minister Margaret Thatcher opposes the bank plan.

In Hungary, a traffic blockade ends when the government announces it will scale back the price increase of gasoline to 35%. . . . The Soviet interior ministry sends troops to Moldavia to prevent clashes between ethnic Moldavians and the Gagauz minority. . . . The Georgian Round Table, a coalition of noncommunist pro-independence parties, triumphs in legislative elections in the Transcaucasian republic. . . . Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev arrives in Paris and signs agreements dealing with economic, scientific, and social exchanges.

Egyptian officials reveal that four Muslim extremists, taken into custody after the shooting of Refaat Mahgoub, confessed to the crime. . . . Amid charges of electoral fraud, Pres. Felix Houphouet-Boigny wins a landslide victory in the Ivory Coast. . . . Israeli authorities reopen the border, but reports suggest thousands of Palestinians were fired by Jewish employers. . . . The Israeli cabinet endorses the findings of the Oct. 26 commission but does not discipline police commanders criticized in the report.

The UN Security Council passes a resolution that makes Iraq liable for damages, injuries, and financial losses resulting from its invasion and occupation of Kuwait. The Security Council’s Military Staff Committee meets at the highest level in UN history to discuss the enforcement of sanctions.

P.M. Jan Syse and her center-right coalition government collapses in a dispute over Norway’s links to the EC. . . . Presidents Gorbachev and Mitterrand sign a friendship and cooperation treaty that pledges their countries to “harmonize their positions” during international crises.

Oct. 30

Oct. 31

Nov. 1

UN secretary general Javier Perez de Cuellar proposes that the 164 signatory nations of the Geneva Convention on protecting civilians in wartime should meet to discuss measures to safeguard Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. . . . The world’s largest industrial countries agree to phase out the dumping of industrial waste at sea by the year 1995 at a meeting in London.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In an interview, Iraqi president Saddam Hussein blames Israel, British prime minister Thatcher and U.S. president Bush for pushing the gulf crisis toward war. . . . Reports surface that 26 blacks were killed in a renewal of factional violence, 16 of them in Soweto, South Africa. . . . Libya expels 145 members of the PLF, a radical faction of the PLO, and closes four training bases used by the guerrilla group.

A three-month-old strike by steelworkers at Toronto-based Stelco Inc. is settled.

Wang Ruowang, a prominent elderly Chinese dissident, is released after 16 months of detention. Wang, an essayist, was held by Chinese authorities since the June 1989 crackdown on the prodemocracy movement.

More than 260 French hostages are flown out of Iraq and arrive in Paris. . . . Memorial, a prodemocracy group, dedicates a monument in Moscow to all Soviet victims of totalitarianism. . . . Workers drill a small hole through 100 meters of chalk marl to connect the two sections of a tunnel between Britain and France under the English Channel.

In Israel, a policeman is stabbed in East Jerusalem, and a security guard is stabbed in the West Bank city of Nablus by an assailant who is then shot to death. A Palestinian is slain by troops, and another is killed and two more injured when a bomb they were assembling in a vegetable market near Tel Aviv explodes. . . . France evacuates its diplomatic personnel from Kuwait. . . . Ten U.S. sailors are killed in a steam-pipe explosion aboard the amphibious assault ship Iwo Jima in the Persian Gulf.

Colombia’s Medellín cartel threatens to execute seven kidnapped journalists. . . . In Canada, Philip Fontaine, the leader of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, announces he was sexually abused as a child by a priest at the Catholic-run school at the Fort Alexander Indian reserve. . . . The chief architect of Nicaragua’s economic program, Francisco Mayorga, resigns as central bank chief. . . . Nestor Perl, the governor of the Argentine province of Chubut, resigns after he is found guilty of embezzlement and maladministration.

Thousands of Hindus storm and occupy a Muslim mosque in the Indian holy city of Ayodhya before they are driven out by police.

About 3,000 ethnic Moldavians attack Soviet checkpoints at the Romanian border during a demonstration to protest the presence of the interior-ministry forces in Moldavia. . . . The German Constitutional Court unanimously rules that only Germans can vote in elections in Germany, striking down laws in Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein.

Reports confirm that the ruling party of Pres. Omar Bongo held on to power in Gabon’s first multiparty election. . . . In Lebanon, Amal chief Berri and Hezbollah leader Sheik Soubhi Toufaili agree to a cease-fire.

The Canadian government, in an unprecedented action, states that it instructed Canadian subsidiaries of U.S. companies not to comply with a new U.S. law that prohibits them from trading with Cuba as part of an export-control bill.

In India, at least six rioters are shot by police, and violence in protests claim another 50 lives. . . . A high court in Nagoya rules that Japanese doctors are not required to inform patients they have cancer, which carries a great social stigma. . . . P.M. Hawke and the leaders of Australia’s eight states and territories agree to a plan for significant governmental reform.

The parliament of the Russian Federation implements a 500-day radical economic-reform program. . . . Sir Geoffrey Howe resigns from the British government in protest of P.M. Thatcher’s continued opposition to greater integration of the EC. . . . The Ukraine becomes the first Soviet republic to issue a form of currency of its own. The move is the result of a secret vote in the republic’s parliament, and the currency is in the form of crudely printed coupons.

The Ethiopian government announces that all Ethiopian Jews are free to leave for Israel. . . . A convoy of emergency food and medicine approved by delegations from the Angolan and U.S. government sets out for central and southern Angola.

Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney announces the creation of a national commission to discuss the political future of Canada in the wake of the failure of the Meech Lake accord.

Militiamen in Moldavia kill six people and wound 30 others during an ethnic clash near Dubossary. . . . In Romania, thousands of workers demonstrate against price hikes, and unions in state-owned industries demand higher wages. Protesters block traffic in Bucharest for four days. . . . Pres. Gorbachev issues a decree ordering Soviet enterprises to surrender to the government 40% of any hard-currency earnings. The levy is, in effect, a new business tax.

Nov. 2

Two Japanese police stations are bombed, and one officer is killed. Officials believe the attack stems from leftist radical groups opposed to ceremonies planned for Emperor Akihito’s enthronement.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

October 28–November 2, 1990—115

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The 101st Congress adjourns, 23 days past its scheduled conclusion. . . . Twenty-seven members of the Ku Klux Klan stage a march in Washington, D.C. Klan members, protected by more than 3,000 police officers, are jeered at and pelted with rocks by 1,200 protesters. Fourteen people are injured, and 40 are arrested.

Congress adjourns without passing a controversial reauthorization of the 1950 Defense Production Act. . . . Before closing, Congress clears an $8.36 billion appropriation for military construction in fiscal 1991.

In the rush to adjournment, Congress fails to act on several pending measures, including funding to carry the S&L bailout through the end of 1990, legislation to shut down financial institutions convicted of money laundering, compromised legislation to reform the system of financing political campaigns, and legislation requiring mandatory inspection of fish and shellfish.

The Supreme Court lets stand a New York court ruling that bars public utilities from including their charitable contributions among business expenses charged to customers. . . . William French Smith, 73, U.S. attorney general, 1981–85, dies of cancer in Los Angeles

Pres. Bush and Secretary of State James Baker rail against Iraq’s treatment of foreign hostages and, openly hinting at the possibility of war, warn that Washington’s patience is wearing thin.

The Federal Reserve honors its pledge to loosen monetary policy if Congress passes a deficit reduction agreement.

A former winery worker from Sonoma County, California, Ramon Salcido Bojorquez, is convicted of murdering seven people during a killing spree in April 1989.

Pres. Bush meets with a bipartisan group of congressional leaders who question why the administration is now making a major issue of U.S. hostages after it downplayed that aspect of the crisis. A number of them express concerns that Bush is seeking to create a pretext for attacking Iraq, while some Democrats suggest that the White House is trying to divert voter attention away from the budget debacle.

Chrysler Corp. and the United Auto Workers reach an accord on a new three-year contract in line with earlier agreements between the union and General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. . . . Separately, Ford Motor Co. reports its lowest quarterly earnings since 1982.

The College Board announces that it approved a series of changes to the SAT that puts less emphasis on multiple-choice questions and more on students’ analytical skills. . . . A former chief of the FDA’s generic-drug division, Marvin Seife, is found guilty on two perjury counts in Baltimore, Maryland, for lying during an investigation of the FDA.

Pres. Bush proclaims, “The American flag is flying over the Kuwait embassy and our people inside are being starved by a brutal dictator. . . . And what am I going to do about it? Let’s just wait and see. Because I have had it with that kind of treatment of Americans, and I know others feel the same way.”

General Motors Corp. announces a record loss in the third quarter of 1990.

The Democratic Party charges that Republicans attempted to intimidate black voters in North Carolina and Texas.

The EPA grants a permit for the Energy Department to start a fiveyear experimental program to bury nuclear waste in a New Mexico salt cavern. The Energy Department still needs approval from Congress. . . . McDonald’s Corp. announces it will phase out its use of polystyrene plastic-foam containers after pressure from environmental groups. . . . Although the House failed to approve funding to carry the S&L bailout through 1990, politicians find a loophole in the 1989 thrift bailout law that frees up funds to compensate for the lost appropriation. The White House announces that Pres. Bush will spend Thanksgiving with U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Oct. 28

The NEA confirms that it will no longer require grant recipients to pledge that they will not use NEA money to create “obscene” art. . . A defunct satellite NYC TV company pleads guilty to obscenity charges in Montgomery, Alabama.

Oct. 29

Oct. 30

Oct. 31

The National Transportation Safety Board places primary blame on United Airlines for a 1989 DC-10 crash in Sioux City, Iowa, in which 112 people died. . . . The New England Journal of Medicine reports that female athletes are not more likely to have irregular menstrual cycles than less-active women.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejects a proposed “one-step” licensing procedure for future atomic power plants, a measure initiated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The court rules the measure would violate the Atomic Energy Act.

New York Shakespeare Festival producer Joseph Papp informs the NEA that he refuses to accept two grants totaling $323,000 in protest of the NEA’s consideration of “general standards of decency” when awarding grants.

Eliot Furness Porter, 88, U.S. photographer whose his work was exhibited at the MOMA and NYC reproduced on calendars for the Sierra Club, dies of cardiac arrest in Santa Fe, New Mexico. . . . Ivana Trump announces that she is filing for divorce from real-estate developer Donald Trump.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 1

Nov. 2

116—November 3–8, 1990

World Affairs

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific The new 217-seat Pakistani National Assembly is sworn in.

Moldavian lawmakers pass a resolution that calls for armed groups to disband, and they set up a “conciliation committee” to discuss grievances. Since Moldavia was once a Romanian region, demonstrators in Bucharest call for the “formation of volunteer units to protect Moldavian integrity.”. . . Thirteen radical Soviet economists, including advisers to Mikhail Gorbachev, assail the president’s compromise economicreform program.

Soldiers assault a crowd forming for a political opposition meeting in Zaire’s capital, Kinshasa. Dozens of people are wounded and hundreds are arrested.

In France, tens of thousands of students, including 30,000 in Paris, begin a week-long demonstration for increased educational funding and increased security. . . . Reports indicate that there were more bank robberies in October in Eastern Germany than in the entire 40 years of the German Democratic Republic. . . . Sir Humphrey Vicary Gibbs, 87, last British governor of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), dies of complications from influenza in Harare, Zimbabwe.

In Damascus, Syria, Amal chief Berri and Hezbollah leader Sheik Soubhi Toufaili sign a peace agreement to resolve the conflict in Lebanon. . . . Former West German chancellor Willy Brandt visits Iraq with $4 million worth of baby food and medicine donated by German companies and assembled by the Social Democratic Party. Officials deny that the supplies are intended as ransom, stating they are humanitarian items exempt from the UN embargo.

Native leaders in the Canadian province of Manitoba urge the federal government to conduct an inquiry into church-run schools for Indians, in the wake of allegations made since Oct. 30 that native children were sexually abused by priests. . . . Haiti’s Electoral Council bars 10 candidates, including three figures tied to the fallen Duvalier family dictatorships, from running in the presidential election.

Environmental ministers from around the world convene at the Second World Climate Conference in Geneva and commit to “active and constructive steps in a global response” to the environmental problems.

Reports indicate 1 million Poles, or 7.5% of the national workforce, are unemployed. . . . Norway’s Gro Harlem Brundtland announces a new budget program aimed at creating 30,000 jobs.

A gunman wearing civilian clothes, in a car with Israeli license plates, drives past a village in the occupied West Bank and shoots to death two elderly Palestinians. . . . About 50 Saudi women from Westerneducated families in Riyadh stage an unprecedented “protest drive” against the ban on women drivers.

Citing constitutional restrictions, Haiti’s Electoral Council states that Pres. Leslie Manigat, who was elected president in a 1988 vote widely considered fraudulent, cannot be reelected until five years after his initial term. . . . The provincial panel to examine Quebec’s political future after the failure of the Meech Lake accord begins formal hearings in Quebec City.

More than 130 countries agree to begin drafting an international plan to combat global warming at the Second World Climate Conference in Geneva.

A gunman is subdued by plainclothes security agents after firing two shots near Soviet president Gorbachev during the 73d annual Revolution Day parade in Moscow. . . . The German cabinet sets a goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by more than 25% by the year 2005. . . . Gorbachev aide Grigory Revenko reveals that the new Soviet Union treaty will permit the Baltic states to leave the USSR if they so choose.

Former West German chancellor Willy Brandt meets with Saddam Hussein, after which the Iraqi president orders the release of 177 hostages. This begins a series of visits by renowned figures from various countries who leave Iraq with hostages.

Two days of bilateral negotiations over the future of U.S. military bases in the Philippines begin, and negotiators announce that all U.S. fighter planes will be removed from the Philippines during 1991. . . . In Pakistan, P.M. Nawaz Sharif lifts a two-month national state of emergency instituted after the dismissal of Benazir Bhutto.

In Moscow, police arrest Aleksandr Shmonov, a 38-year-old unemployed metal worker from Leningrad with purported ties to two radical organizations, on charges of attempted assassination for the Nov. 7 attack. . . . Greek environment minister Stephano Manos announces a plan to fight air pollution.

An Israeli soldier and an Arab gunman are killed in a clash in the occupied West Bank when five Arab guerrillas cross the border to avenge the Oct. 8 Temple Mount attack. . . . Reports state that South African police arrested five Zulus in connection with the Sept. 13 train massacre; four are in Inkatha. . . . Israeli defense minister Moshe Arens declares that Israel will not let the Lebanese government regain control of the self-declared security zone Israel established in southern Lebanon.

Pres. Ghulam Ishaq Khan vows that Pakistan will survive without U.S. aid. . . . P.M. Bob Hawke announces that the Australian telecommunications industry will be opened to unlimited competition by 1997.

Nov. 4

Nov. 5

Nov. 7

Africa & the Middle East

The Moldavian parliament declares a state of emergency in the eastern part of the republic and orders an investigation of the Nov. 2 incident. . . . In Bulgaria, hundreds of demonstrators stage an anti-Socialist rally in central Sofia. . . . Labor Party leader Gro Harlem Brundtland is sworn in as Norway’s premier, succeeding Jan Syse. . . . In Germany, violence between rival soccer fans in Leipzig ends in death when police trying to control fans shoot and kill an 18-year-old, Mike Polley.

Nov. 3

Nov. 6

Europe

Nov. 8

In Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, who was elected to parliament but boycotted ceremonies, is sworn in. . . . Former Japanese premier Yasuhiro Nakasone begins a visit to Baghdad, Iraq.

Nawaz Sharif is sworn in as prime minister of Pakistan in Islamabad, the capital city.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

November 3–8, 1990—117

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Pres. Bush signs into law the Head Start expansion legislation and a bill on a new vaccine program.

Secretary of State James Baker departs for an eight-day tour of Arab and European nations to consult with U.S. allies and “lay the foundation” for the possible use of military action against Iraq.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

More than 600 top scientists, meeting as part of the conference, issue a call for the world’s governments to cut emissions of carbon dioxide by at least half to avert disastrous climatic change.

Reports confirm that John F. Kennedy Jr., passed the New York State bar exam on his third try. . . . The Suns and the Utah Jazz open their basketball season at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium in the first U.S. professional major league regular-season game played outside North America.

Douglas Wakiihuri of Kenya wins the NYC Marathon. Wanda Panfil of Poland wins the women’s race.

Rabbi Meir Kahane, 58, founder of the militant Jewish Defense League and Israel’s extremist anti-Arab Kach party, is assassinated in NYC. His alleged killer, who is wounded and captured, appears to have acted on his own. . . . . In regard to a Republican mailing in North Carolina that allegedly intimidated African Americans, the Democratic National Committee files a complaint in federal court. However, a federal judge absolves the GOP in a mailing relating to a 1982 court order.

Reports indicate that U.S. hostages in Iraq are now free to telephone their families. . . . Bush signs the defense spending authorization for fiscal 1991. . . . The State Department dismisses Felix Bloch, a suspect of spying, on the grounds that he made “deliberate false statements or misrepresentations” to the FBI.

Pres. Bush signs the 13 appropriations bills Congress completed in the last eight days of the 101st session. He also signs a $492 billion, five-year deficit-cutting measure that was the focus of a year-long wrangle among the White House and congressional leaders of both parties. . . . The Wall Street Journal quarterly earnings review report shows that corporate earnings for the third quarter advanced over the year-earlier level for the first time since the second quarter of 1989.

Against predictions, incumbents win nearly all the races they contested in midterm elections. Of 31 senators running for reelection, only one is defeated when Sen. Rudy Boschwitz (R, Minn.) is edged out by Paul Wellstone (D). Only 15 incumbent members of the House are defeated. . . . The Supreme Court rules that maritime law allows an action for the wrongful death of a seaman, but it does not extend to recovery for loss of society or lost future earnings.

Thousands of Jews gather at an emotional funeral in Brooklyn for Rabbi Meir Kahane, assassinated Nov. 5. Rites are attended by leaders of mainstream American Jewish organizations at odds with Kahane’s extremism. . . . Reports state that Pres. Bush extended the service of Gen. Michael Dugan, who was fired as the air force chief of staff, so Dugan could receive a higher pension upon retirement.

Election returns on state measures show that major environmental initiatives have been defeated in at least five states, including California and New York. Proposals calling for state tax reductions or curbs on government spending are voted down in Nebraska, Massachusetts, Utah, and Colorado. . . . NYC’s commodity futures exchanges agree to build new headquarters in the Wall Street area.

The Mount St. Helens volcano in Washington State erupts in its largest blast since the U.S. Forest Service reopened the crater to the public in 1987, after the 1980 explosion. The latest blast hurls chunks of hot rock across the crater from a vent in the central lava dome but does not cause any serious damage. . . . California officials report that they are winning the battle against the Mediterranean fruit fly, but they also warn that the struggle needs to continue.

Herbert Berghof, 81, New York actor, theatrical director and teacher whose students include Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Anne Bancroft, Matthew Broderick, and Geraldine Page, dies of heart failure in NYC.

Dave Justice of baseball’s Atlanta Braves is the near-unanimous choice as the National League’s rookie of the year.

The Justice Department charges Walter Leroy Moody Jr., with murder in the 1989 mail-bomb killings of a federal appeals court judge and a civil rights lawyer. . . . A fire destroys 20% of the sets at Universal Studios in L.A., and police arrest a studio security guard for arson. . . . The FBI arrests 14 members of a Miami-based black religious sect known as the Nation of Yahwehs on 18 counts of racketeering that include 14 killings, extortion and arson. The CDC reports that the death rate from Alzheimer’s disease increased tenfold between 1979 and 1987. . . . The Alan Guttmacher Institute finds that sexual activity among teenage girls rose substantially in the 1980s. . . . William J. Bennett, the nation’s first director of national drug control policy, announces that he will leave his post at the end of the month.

Nov. 3

Nov. 4

Nov. 5

Nov. 6

Nov. 7

Pres. Bush orders as many as 200,000 more troops to be sent to the 230,000 already in and around Saudi Arabia as part of Operation Desert Shield in order to give U.S. forces “an adequate offensive military option” against Iraq. The battleship Missouri is also ordered to the Persian Gulf region.

Pres. Bush promises that he will never again renege on the pledge of “no new taxes” made during his 1988 election campaign.

In an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine, 22 of the world’s leading statisticians propose a new strategy for testing AIDS drugs by using nonhomogenous trials rather than focusing on homogenous groups.

Nov. 8

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

118—November 9–14, 1990

Nov. 9

World Affairs

Europe

German chancellor Helmut Kohl, initially opposed to Willy Brandt’s trip to Iraq, changes his opinion after it becomes apparent that Brandt has widespread support. However, Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium criticize Germany’s endorsement of Brandt’s trip, arguing it violated the EC’s agreement not to conduct separate hostage negotiations with Iraq.

Mary Robinson, a leftist lawyer and former member of the Irish Senate, is declared the upset winner in Ireland’s presidential election. Robinson, 46, is the first woman elected president of Ireland and the first president since 1945 who is not supported by the Fianna Fail political group. . . . Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev becomes the first foreign leader to pay a state visit to Germany since its reunification. Gorbachev and Chancellor Helmut Kohl sign a series of treaties in Bonn, including a nonaggression pact.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Israeli troops attack targets north of Israel’s security zone. No Israelis are killed or wounded in the raids, and no information is provided on Hezbollah casualties. . . . Former New Zealand prime minister David Lange visits Iraq.

Reports confirm that former Peruvian president Alan García narrowly avoided criminal charges for his role in a 1986 prison massacre.

King Birendra approves a new constitution for Nepal that establishes a multiparty democracy, curtails the king’s power, and guarantees fundamental civil liberties. . . . The Immigration Review Tribunal rules methods used to limit visitors to Australia from certain countries are illegal. . . . Transcripts of a 1946 tape are published which suggest Emperor Hirohito believed that if he had tried to stop the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan would have faced a civil war.

Reports confirm that 26 people were killed since Oct. 1 in sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. Those killings bring the Ulster death toll related to such violence to 70 for the year.

In Lebanon, Muslim militias begin their withdrawal of men and weapons. . . . Idriss Deby, a renegade general, and his guerrillas launch another attack against Chadian army positions in eastern Chad for the fifth time in two years.

In Colombia, police and army troops drive back an attack launched by 1,000 members of two guerrilla groups, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the National Liberation Army, seeking to take strategic points in the northern towns of Taraza and Caceres. . . . The Washington Post reports that, since late August, at least nine politicians were slain by groups with various motives in Guatemala.

Chandra Shekhar, 63, is sworn in as India’s eighth prime minister, replacing Vishwanath Pratap Singh. Shekhar’s Janata Dal party, though, only controls 60 of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha (legislature). . . . Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) withdraws a proposal to send noncombat soldiers to the Persian Gulf. Instead, LDP and opposition leaders agree on a plan to send a civilian corps of medical and technical personnel.

A UN treaty on drug trafficking, known as the Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, takes effect.

Macedonia holds multiparty elections for the first time. The ruling League of Communists of Macedonia is voted out of power but runoff elections are still on the schedule.

Libya describes the latest fighting in Chad as “nothing but a tribal and civil war” and states that Libya is still committed to the accord with Habre’s government to submit their territorial dispute over the Aozou Strip along the Chad-Libyan border to international arbitration.

Government statements verify that the Nov. 10 offensive by leftist rebels resulted in the deaths of 40 Colombians. . . . Jorge Carpio Nicolle and Jorge Antonio Serrano Elías emerge as the top two winners in the first round of Guatemala’s presidential elections and advance to a runoff.

A New York Times reporter, Stephen Erlanger, reports widespread criticism by Indonesians of the success of the children of President Suharto in gaining government contracts.

The government of Israel offers to accept a single emissary from the UN Secretary General’s office to study Arab-Israeli tensions, if the Security Council halts debate on the Palestinian situation. . . . Foreign ministers of the 12 EC nations meet in Brussels with their counterparts from Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. The EC ministers express the hope that the North African states will “use their good relations with Iraq” to intercede on behalf of the European hostages. The EC also vows to discourage further missions like Willy Brandt’s to Iraq.

Kirghizia declares itself an “independent and sovereign state” and asserts the primacy of Kyrgyzstan laws. It is the last of the 15 Soviet constituent republics to declare sovereignty. . . . A protest by students in Paris turns violent with looting and clashes with police. Pres. François Mitterrand invites students to discuss demands with him. . . . The British government releases its report on the 1988 explosion on the Piper Alpha North Sea oil platform that killed 167 men. The report criticizes Occidental Petroleum Corp., the platform’s owner, for “unsafe practices.”

Prince Letsie David Mohato is sworn in as the new king of Lesotho after his father, King Moshoeshoe II, was exiled from the country in March. . . . Israeli police announce the promotion of an officer primarily responsible for the deployment of police in the October 8 Temple Mount killings.

In response to recent election disqualifications, Duvalierists set up barricades of burning tires in residential neighborhoods of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince.

Emperor Akihito is formally enthroned. According to Japanese historians, he is the 125th monarch to sit on the Chrysanthemum Throne of Japan. His wife, Empress Michiko, is enthroned in the same ceremony.

Gorbachev warns that a “bloodbath” will result if Soviet republics resort to their own economic systems or establish their own armies. . . . Upon his resignation, Sir Geoffrey Howe attacks P.M. Margaret Thatcher’s stance on Europe during an unusually vitriolic speech in the House of Commons. . . . The first Soviet stock exchange is founded in Moscow by 187 Soviet enterprises and banks. It is unclear when trading will begin.

In South Africa, the commission to investigate charges of governmentsponsored death squads sparks an uproar because its report draws circumspect mild conclusions and is called a whitewash. . . . A 16year-old Palestinian murders an Israeli reserve soldier and is captured. . . . Israeli military authorities jail three Palestinian leaders without trial. . . . The Saudi government upholds the ban on women drivers and threatens protesters with unspecified punishment.

A group of Ukrainian Canadians begins negotiating with P.M. Brian Mulroney to win a government apology and up to C$30 million in compensation for internment during World War I. . . . In Mexico, the government, labor and business agree to extend through the end of 1991 an anti-inflation economic solidarity pact in effect since Dec. 1987.

In Singapore, P.M. Lee Kuan Yew and U.S. vice president Dan Quayle sign an agreement providing for expanded U.S. use of military bases.

In Nicaragua, four policemen are killed in a clash the between police and 300 former contras blocking a bridge on the Pan American Highway at Sebaco.

Pres. Suharto becomes the first Indonesian leader to visit China since 1964. . . . A gunman, David Gray, is shot and killed after he goes on a 24-hour rampage that kills 13 people in New Zealand. It is the worst mass killing in the country’s history. . . . Australia’s opposition Liberal Party reverses a longheld position and announces that it now backs lower immigration rates.

Nov. 10

Nov. 11

Nov. 12

Africa & the Middle East

Nov. 13

Germany and Poland sign a treaty guaranteeing their nations’ current borders. . . . In England, three detectives involved in the case of the Guildford Four are charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. . . . In Germany, the police evict hundreds of young squatters from East Berlin tenements. The confrontation results in more than 450 arrests and 260 injuries. . . . Zviad Gamsakhurdia, is elected president of Georgia.

Nov. 14

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

November 9–14, 1990—119

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Pres. Bush signs a bill into law regarding the labels on packaged foods. . . . Pres. Bush signs into law a bill that requires colleges and universities to publish annual statistics on their graduation rates, crime rates, and security procedures, known formally as the Student Right-to-Know and Campus Security Act. . . . Pres. Bush exercises a “pocket” veto by refusing to sign legislation that would have amended the Orphan Drug Act of 1983.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Freedom National Bank in NYC, one of the largest black-owned banks in U.S., is declared insolvent by federal regulators. . . . Philadelphia Mayor W. Wilson Goode (D) and other city officials unveil a plan to keep the city out of bankruptcy.

The Texas State Board of Education votes to approve a new series of biology textbooks that discuss evolution extensively while ignoring “creationism.”

U.S. secretary of state James Baker completes a tour of Arab and European nations and hails the “extraordinary unanimity and cohesiveness” of the international alliance against Iraq. . . . A delegation of five U.S. House members begin the first U.S. congressional visit China since the 1989 crackdown.

Lynne V. Cheney, the chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, blasts current educational practices in U.S. schools and universities.

Bipartisan concerns mount in Congress and among citizens that Pres. Bush may unilaterally lead the country into a war against Iraq in the Persian Gulf.

Reports confirm that the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, one of the largest health insurers, has agreed to finance an experimental treatment for breast cancer. Blue Cross expresses the belief that its decision marks the first time a private health insurance company will finance an experimental medical treatment.

U.S. Roman Catholic bishops, at their annual meeting in Washington, D.C., appeal for a peaceful solution to the Persian Gulf crisis.

The Supreme Court sets aside a ruling that orders antipsychotic medication to be administered to a death-row prisoner so that he can become sane enough to be executed. . . . Republican and Democratic senators elect leadership teams for the 102nd Congress. Senate minority leader Robert Dole (Kans.) and Minority Whip Alan Simpson (Wyo.) are reelected unanimously. Wendell H. Ford (D, Ky.) is unanimously selected by Senate Democrats as their majority whip.

When discussing justification for the military action in the Persian Gulf, Secretary of State Baker states, “To bring it down to the level of the average American citizen, let me say that means jobs. If you want to sum it up in one word, it’s jobs. Because an economic recession worldwide, caused by the control of one nation—one dictator, if you will—of the West’s economic lifeline [oil], will result in the loss of jobs for American citizens.”

The National Conference of Catholic Bishops produces a set of guidelines for sex education that includes a reassertion of the church’s official condemnation of contraception. . . . The New York Times starts a controversy when it claims that the National Institutes of Health delayed reporting news of an effective treatment for AIDSrelated pneumonia. Federal health officials angrily deny the accusation.

Pres. Bush, in an effort to head off the drive for a special session of Congress to discuss the Persian Gulf, meets with a bipartisan group of about two dozen senior lawmakers, led by Mitchell (D, Maine) and Foley (D, Wash.).

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle A Harvard University divinity professor and chief editor of the Dead Sea Scrolls, John Strugnell, calls Judaism a “racist” and “very primitive” religion that “should have disappeared” in favor of Christianity in an interview.

The Phoenix Suns set an NBA record when they score 107 points in the first half of a game with the Denver Nuggets.

Stormie Jones, 13, a Texas girl who, in 1984, became the world’s first recipient of a heart-liver transplant, dies of heart failure in Pittsburgh.

Derrick Thomas of football’s Kansas City Chiefs sets an NFL record with seven sacks against the Seattle Seahawks in Kansas City, although Seattle still wins the game. . . . In the Soviet Union’s first men’s professional tennis tournament, Andrei Cherkasov wins the Kremlin Cup.

Eve Arden (born Eunice Quedens), 83, film and television actress nominated for an Oscar for Mildred Pierce (1945), dies of cancer in Beverly Hills, California.

The RTC and the FDIC file claims of $6.8 billion against defunct securities firm Drexel Burnham Lambert Group Inc. in connection with losses by savings and loan associations. . . . A show of solidarity for the strikers at the Daily News draws top union officials from across the country, including AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland.

The FDA grants approval to an experimental treatment that uses genetically altered genes to treat cancer. The approval represents the final legal hurdle for the therapy, which was approved by the National Institutes of Health in 1989.

Bob Welch of baseball’s Oakland Athletics wins the American League’s Cy Young Award as the league’s top pitcher.

Aspirin appears to lower the body’s ability to break down alcohol in the stomach, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Simon & Schuster Inc. cancels publication of American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis after Time alleges the novel contains “the most appalling acts of torture, murder and dismemberment ever described in a book headed for the best-seller lists.”

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 9

Nov. 10

Nov. 11

Nov. 12

Nov. 13

Nov. 14

120—November 15–20, 1990

Nov. 15

Nov. 16

World Affairs

Europe

Western nations and Japan begin to formulate plans over the next four days to aid the USSR in its time of economic crisis. German chancellor Helmut Kohl pledges to increase his country’s food shipments to the Soviet Union if shortages develop during the winter, and British foreign secretary Douglas Hurd announces that his nation is establishing a 20 million (US$39 million) “Know-How Fund” to help Soviet managers make the transition to a market economy.

An estimated 50,000 people attend a nationalist rally against both Serbia and Macedonia’s ethnic Albanians. . . . The third anniversary of the 1987 workers’ riot in Brasov is marked with large antigovernment protests throughout Romania. . . . The Berlin government falls when the Alternative List party withdraws from the twoparty coalition because of police action on Nov. 14. . . . French premier Michel Rocard announces the government will spend an additional 4.5 billion francs to meet students’ demands.

Following the Nov. 15 pledges to the USSR, Joe Clark, Canada’s external affairs minister, announces a C$500,000 technical-assistance program to aid the Soviet economic transition, and Japanese banks decide to loan $400 million to the Soviet Bank for Foreign Economic Relations.

Reports state the Albanian parliament adopted decrees to protect foreign investment. . . . About 10,000 people, most of them women, march through Sofia, Bulgaria, in a demonstration against food shortages. . . . Soviet lawmakers give a cold reception to an address by Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev at a crisis session.

Nov. 19

Nov. 20

Gideon Hausner, 75, attorney general of Israel, 1960–63, who led the prosecution of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, dies of cancer in Jerusalem.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Public-sector workers in Peru begin an indefinite national strike. . . . Separately, The New York Times reports the archbishop of Lima has warned that women who practice birth control run the risk of “not going to heaven.” . . . Aristides Sanchez, once a senior contra leader, is arrested in Managua, Nicaragua, after the Nov. 14 shootings.

In Australia, New Zealand P.M. David Lange asks, “Isn’t it a little odd to point a quarter of a million troops in the direction of Iraq, when [the U.S.] just in the last few years walloped Libya, invaded Grenada, stoushed Panama—you name it, they’ve been there. Isn’t it a bit odd that Liberia is an abattoir of carnage and human suffering and we don’t even pass a UN resolution about it?”

U.S. president George Bush pays his first visit to Czechoslovakia since the 1989 collapse of communism in that region. . . . The Supreme Soviet votes to give tentative approval to a proposal by Pres. Gorbachev for an emergency reorganization of the executive branch of the Soviet government.

Riot police clash with marchers in Johannesburg, South Africa, as activists demand the resignation of all black township councilors, who are widely viewed as collaborators with apartheid.

Like the aid packages beginning on Nov. 15, Italian premier Giulio Andreotti offers the USSR a $900 million line of credit.

Ethnic nationalists rout the ruling Communists in Bosnia-Herzegovina in elections, and runoffs are set for December. . . . Barclay’s Bank PLC reinstates 12 women who were forced to retire at age 60 after the Court of Appeal rules that the bank discriminated against women because it allows men to work through age 65. The ruling may affect at least 10,000 women. . . . A crowd of 70,000 and 120,000 hold a peaceful antigovernment rally in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Iraq offers to release all of its remaining foreign hostages over a three-month period beginning at the end of the year, providing there is no outbreak of war with the U.S.led military forces in the Persian Gulf region. . . . At least 126 people board an Iraqi Airways plane chartered by the U.S. government and fly from Baghdad to London. The evacuees are almost all women and children or men of Arab descent.

Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro sends a military convoy to clear barricades that for two weeks have blocked main roads in the cattle-ranching Chontales and Boaco provinces.

The leaders of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) hold a summit in Paris that formally marks an end to the cold war. The highlight of the summit is the signing of a treaty aimed at dramatically reducing conventional weapons in Europe. . . . U.S. president Bush joins efforts made by other nations since Nov. 15 when he confirms that the U.S. is considering sending emergency food aid to the Soviet Union if winter shortages develop.

The head of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Angel Suquia, accuses the government of “abusing” its power by launching an $8 million advertising campaign encouraging the use of condoms. The attack is the fiercest by the Roman Catholic Church on the government during the eight years of Socialist rule. . . . Russian Federation president Boris Yeltsin attacks the proposed government reorganization.

The South African Institute of Race Relations reports that political violence claimed the lives of 3,038 people in the first 10 months of 1990, and a total of 8,577 since September 1984. . . . Iraq states it will add 250,000 troops to bolster the 430,000-strong army it has already deployed in occupied Kuwait and southern Iraq.

A two-day nationwide strike, organized by a coalition of unions and opposition parties, idles much of the Dominican Republic. . . . Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) is accused of using fraud when the party wins elections.

Afghan president Najibullah meets with rebel leaders in Geneva, Switzerland, for talks aimed toward a peaceful settlement of the country’s civil war. . . . The military government of Myanmar sentences two opposition leaders to 10 years in prison. The National League for Democracy won in May elections but has not been permitted to take power. . . . West Australia premier Carmen Lawrence bows to increasing public pressure by forming a royal commission to investigate political corruption in the state.

At the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Hungarian premier Jozsef Antall indicates that the Warsaw Pact will disband, at least as a military alliance, by 1992. At the same conference, leaders of Eastern European countries warn that economic disparities among nations on the continent are spurring ethnic unrest and undermining new democracies.

British prime minister Margaret Thatcher faces a serious blow when she fails to win reelection as Conservative Party leader on the first ballot of a contest against former cabinet minister Michael Heseltine. Falling just four votes shy of the 15% majority required for election on the first ballot, Thatcher vows to go forward into the second ballot. . . . An estimated 20,000 people hold a progovernment rally in Bucharest, Romania.

Israeli soldiers clash with PLO guerrillas near the Lebanese village of Ain Atta, about three miles north of the Israeli security zone. One soldier and four guerrillas are killed. . . . As part of a continued effort to split the international alliance against Iraq, the country states it will free all German hostages as a reward for German chancellor Helmut Kohl’s support for a peaceful end to the Persian Gulf crisis.

Leftist rebels of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front launch a long-awaited fall campaign, attacking army positions in seven of El Salvador’s 14 provinces. . . . Bolivia’s lower house of Congress votes to impeach eight of the nation’s 12 Supreme Court Justices.

Riots that started on Nov. 17 in India leave 120 people dead. . . . The Australian government announces an agreement with national trade unions which provides workers with tax cuts in lieu of a wage increase.

Nov. 17

Nov. 18

Africa & the Middle East

A month-long rash of antigovernment protests in Bangladesh in which students demanded the resignation of Pres. Hossein Mohammed Ershad, threw stones, burned cars, and battled with police comes to a close. Reports show that the government shut down schools and universities, and at least eight people were killed. . . . A three-day flare-up in terrorist violence by Sikh militants in India’s Punjab province begins. . . . China devalues its currency for the second time in less than a year.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

November 15–20, 1990—121

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The FBI announces that it arrested or issued warrants for 30 members of a cocaine ring whose alleged and still-at-large leader, Ramon Torres Gonzalez, is believed to have buried millions of dollars on his farm in Puerto Rico.

In an interview with U.S. television news anchor Peter Jennings, Pres. Saddam Hussein stresses that Iraq wants to begin negotiations to reach a peaceful end to the gulf crisis. However, he also states that his government cannot accept the U.S. demand that Iraq first withdraw unconditionally from Kuwait. . . . Secretary of State Baker flies to Europe for five days of in-depth, country-by-country talks.

Pres. Bush signs into law the Clean Air Act of 1990, calling it “simply the most significant air pollution legislation in our nation’s history.”. . . The Senate Ethics Committee opens hearings in the case of five senators accused of pressuring federal bank regulators on behalf of a political contributor, S&L executive Charles Keating Jr. The senators, known as the Keating Five, are Democrats Alan Cranston (Calif.), Dennis DeConcini (Ariz.), John Glenn (Ohio) and Donald W. Riegle Jr. (Mich.), and Republican John McCain (Ariz.).

The Atlantis is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to carry out a secret military flight.

The U.S. Golf Association, which organizes the U.S. Open, announces that it, like the PGA, will require clubs hosting its tournaments to bar discrimination against women and minorities. . . . The National Council of Churches calls for an immediate withdrawal of most of the U.S. forces from the Persian Gulf and urges that the remaining troops be put under the UN flag.

Pres. Bush signs legislation to protect Native American grave sites and to return remains and cultural artifacts to the tribes. . . . Pres. Bush signs legislation regarding the Consumer Product Safety Commission reauthorization and aviation security.

Former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega makes his first public comments at a court hearing since January when he concludes, “I am now at the mercy of a totally unfair and unjust system who chooses my prosecutors and now chooses my defense lawyers.”

The Federal Reserve loosens monetary policy for the second time in three weeks, as economic statistics indicate that the country is entering a recession.

Scientists from the National Institutes of Health decide to halt experiments on the use of RU-486 as a treatment for Cushing’s disease because of uncertainty about obtaining the drug. . . . New photographs of the planet Venus reveal “features never seen before” on any planet, such as pancake-shaped domes and giant horseshoe-shaped formations.

Alfred A. Knopf publishers announce that Knopf will publish American Psycho under its Vintage Contemporary series.

Two days of antiabortion protests and counterdemonstrations by abortion rights supporters comes to a close. Police in Washington, D.C., made over 650 arrests. . . . William J. Bennett, former White House drug policy director, is selected as the chairman of the Republican National Committee, replacing Lee Atwater.

The FBI announces the arrests of two soldiers and two civilians in connection with a seizure of a huge cache of stolen military firearms and explosives. Army Special Forces Sergeant Michael Tubbs, Army Warrant Officer Jeffrey Jennett, John Tubbs and Stephen Fussell are arrested. The FBI contends that the four are involved in the whitesupremist movement.

Pres. Bush exercises a “pocket veto” of a bill reauthorizing regulatory controls on U.S. exports.

Robert Hofstadter, 75, physicist who won the Nobel Prize in 1961 for his research into the size and structure of the particles that formed the nucleus of the atom, dies of a heart attack in Stanford, California.

Nov. 15

Nov. 16

Nov. 17

The Supreme Court refuses to allow CNN to broadcast tape recordings of telephone calls between deposed Panamanian strongman Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega and his defense attorneys.

Nov. 18

Eight teenage gang members are arrested in Boston for the rape and murder of a 26-year-old black woman as part of an alleged Halloween-night robbery spree. Police describe the slaying as the worst in the city in 15 years. . . . Rep. Ron Wyden (D, Oreg.), chairman of the House Small Business subcommittee on regulation and business opportunities holds a hearing into the FDA’s ban of RU-486. . . . Phillip Mitchell Landrum, 81, U.S. representative from Georgia, 1953–77, dies of heart failure in Jasper, Ga.

The rock duo Milli Vanilli is stripped of its 1989 Grammy for best new artist when it is revealed that its two stars, Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan, do not actually sing on their best-selling debut album. It is the first time the academy has stripped an artist of a Grammy.

The FDA approves the request of an unidentified Virginia AIDS patient to use marijuana to help ease the pain of the disease. . . . The Navajo Nation, the U.S.’s largest Native American tribe, elects Peterson Zah to the new position of tribal president after former tribal chairman Peter MacDonald Sr. was convicted of accepting bribes.

The Department of Energy increases its cost projection for the Superconducting Super Collider to $8.24 billion from $7.8 billion. The Super Collider, a giant particle accelerator designed to study the nature of matter, has been under construction since 1987. . . . The Atlantis lands at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Nov. 19

Nov. 20

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

122—November 21–26, 1990

Nov. 21

World Affairs

Europe

At the close of the CSCE summit, leaders sign a document called the Charter of Paris for a New Europe. The document proclaims an end to “the era of confrontation and division in Europe” and vows “a new era of democracy, peace and unity” on the continent. . . . A UN investigator reports that human-rights violations “occur frequently” in Iran.

Opposition protesters clash with thousands of supporters of P.M. Andrei Lukanov and police in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Margaret Thatcher, the longestserving British prime minister of the 20th century, announces that she will resign within a week, reversing an earlier decision. With Thatcher out of the race for Tory leadership, Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd and Chancellor of the Exchequer John Major enter the contest against Michael Heseltine. . . . The Bulgarian Grand National Assembly debates a 1991 austerity budget proposed by Premier Lukanov while 20,000 anti-Socialist demonstrators chant for Lukanov’s resignation.

Nov. 22

Nov. 24

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council—the U.S., U.K., USSR, China, and France— complete a final version of a peace plan to send to Cambodian factions for approval.

Nov. 26

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro appeases a growing dissident movement within her National Opposition Union (UNO) coalition when she agrees to withdraw a military convoy. She also replaces the police chiefs in the two provinces and agrees to distribute 23,000 hectares of land, in addition to 100,000 hectares already given to former contra rebels. Amos Sawyer is sworn as the president of Liberia’s interim government.

In Bulgaria, the Grand National Assembly approves an amended version of the budget after much debate and many demonstrations. . . . Soviet president Gorbachev unveils his long-awaited plan for restructuring the relationship between the central government and its 15 republics. He reiterates that any republic that wishes to secede from the Soviet Union has to follow a cumbersome procedure that requires two referendums and a five-year waiting period.

Nov. 23

Nov. 25

Africa & the Middle East

Sikh separatists attack three buses near Chandigarh, the state capital and reportedly single out and shoot non-Sikh passengers, killing 25 civilians. . . . Hundreds of fires sparked by the high temperatures and strong winds of the Australian summer hit the state of New South Wales. Fires last for three days; between 180,000 and 200,000 sheep are killed and at least 160,000 hectares of grazing land burned. . . . A more private religious ceremony in Japan officially completes Akihito’s enthronement. In El Salvador, the rebels use an antiaircraft missile to down a military plane in Usulutan province. . . . The Washington Post reports that, in a concession to drug traffickers, the Colombian government has transferred Col. Oscar Pelaez, the director of the judicial police who drug cartels accused of abusing human rights, to a diplomatic post in Washington, D.C.

Boris Yeltsin publishes the draft of a new Russian Federation constitution that puts the republic at odds with the union treaty in several key areas. . . . Opposition protesters clash with thousands of Lukanov supporters in Sofia, Bulgaria.

The Israeli navy sinks a speedboat carrying at least five Palestinian guerrillas heading from Lebanon toward Israel. All of the guerrillas, who belong to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, are killed.

Tadeusz Mazowiecki finishes third in a field of six candidates in Poland’s presidential election. Lech Walesa and Stanislaw Tyminski finish in first and second place, respectively, and will face each other in a presidential runoff. . . . As Iraq promised, 100 Germans fly home, with the rest of the hostages to follow shortly. . . . Australia agrees to provide the Soviets with A$500 million (US$384 million) in export credits toward the purchase of Australian farm commodities.

An Egyptian gunman crosses into Israel and goes on a shooting spree, killing four people and wounding 26. The radical Muslim group Islamic Jihad claims responsibility. . . . A teenage girl approaches an Israeli patrol in southern Lebanon and blows herself up, wounding two soldiers and a civilian bystander. The National Syrian Socialist Party, a Lebanese group, claims responsibility.

Opponents of Pres. Fernando Collor de Mello’s monetarist anti-inflation program win governorships in Brazil’s most populous and wealthiest states in runoff elections.

Reports confirm that hundreds of people were killed in battles between the Indonesian army and separatist Islamic rebels in the westernmost province, Aceh. . . . In India, an attacker on a motorcycle kills 15 civilians. The assault is blamed on Sikh militants. . . . Fires strike Sydney, Australia’s largest city. At Sydney’s inner harbor, more than a hundred picnickers are rescued by helicopter or forced to swim out to boats to escape the fire.

In the largest job action since German unification, most of the 250,000 rail workers in eastern Germany strike. . . . In Bulgaria, Podkrepa, an anti-Socialist independent labor federation that represents more that 500,000 workers, launches a general strike to pressure the regime out of power. . . . Tadeusz Mazowiecki resigns as Poland’s premier after a poor showing in preliminary elections.

The main factions in Liberia’s 11month-old civil war meet for peace talks in Bamako, the capital of Mali.

The central bank devalues the Nicaraguan cordoba in the 44th devaluation since Pres. Chamorro took office. . . . Pres. Bush confers with Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari on issues including a free-trade agreement between the U.S. and Mexico and the use of force in the Persian Gulf.

State authorities declare an indefinite curfew in the Punjab town of Jullundur in India. . . . Amnesty International reports that the army and police force of Papua New Guinea are guilty of human rights abuses on Bougainville island, where at least 19 people suspected of supporting the Bougainville Revolutionary Army were executed without trial in the last two years. . . . Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s prime minister for 31 years, announces he is resigning.

In India, state police arrest more than 500 Sikh religious and political leaders to prevent them from attending a meeting.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

November 21–26, 1990—123

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Pres. Bush goes to Saudi Arabia to celebrate Thanksgiving with U.S. troops deployed in the kingdom as part of Operation Desert Shield.

A U.S. District Court judge in NYC sentences Michael R. Milken, Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc.’s former “junk-bond” chief, to a 10-year prison term, the most severe sentence yet handed down in a series of Wall Street securities fraud cases dating from 1986.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Nov. 21

Pres. Bush makes a whirlwind tour of four different U.S. military sites in the region. As well as shaking hands and signing autographs, he eats Thanksgiving dinner with the troops at two of the stops and makes tough anti-Iraq speeches at all four locations.

Nov. 22

Archie Brown, 79, former West Coast leader of the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union who won a landmark Supreme Court decision in 1965 upholding the right of communists to serve as union officials, dies of lung cancer in San Francisco.

Roald Dahl, 74, bestselling British writer, known for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach, dies of unreported causes in Oxford, England. . . . The autobiography of former president Ronald Reagan, titled An American Life, is published by Simon & Schuster.

Severe flooding caused by two days of torrential rains forces more than 2,600 people from their homes in Washington State. One person is missing and presumed dead. . . . Astronomers atop Hawaii’s Mauna Kea make the first image with a new and innovative telescope that will, upon completion in late 1991, be the largest in the world.

Nov. 24

Astronomers announce a $14 million, 10-year-plus project to map 100 times as much of the universe as had ever been mapped before. The project, known as the digital sky survey, will entail building a new 100-inch telescope, using digital and computer technology atop New Mexico’s Apache Point.

The Supreme Court lets stand a ban on begging in the NYC subway system, refusing to hear arguments that panhandling is a form of free speech protected by the Constitution.

Nov. 23

Nov. 25

Alaska’s oil-spill coordinator reports that about 85% of the shoreline fouled with oil in the Exxon Valdez disaster in March 1989 has been sufficiently cleaned.

Nov. 26

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

124—November 27–December 1, 1990

World Affairs

Nov. 29

Africa & the Middle East

John Major wins 185 votes, two short of the absolute majority needed to win leadership of the British Conservative Party. Michael Heseltine takes 131 votes, and Douglas Hurd wins the backing of 56 Conservative members of Parliament. Hurd and Heseltine withdraw upon hearing the results.

Five Israeli soldiers are killed in a clash with Palestinian guerrillas in southern Lebanon. Two guerrillas are killed in the fighting near the town of Shabaa, in the self-proclaimed Israeli security zone. Hours later, Israeli jets bombard Palestinian bases in southern Lebanon.

The UN adopts a resolution that condemns both Iraq’s destruction of Kuwaiti civil records and its efforts to alter Kuwait’s demographic composition. . . . In talks attended by representatives of the Economic Community of West African States and by Amos Sawyer, the president of Liberia’s interim government, a peace agreement is signed by Charles Taylor, the leader of the National Patriotic Front; Prince Yormie Johnson, the leader of a second rebel group; and Major Wilmott Diggs, who represents the remaining Liberian army of slain Pres. Samuel Doe.

John Major becomes the new prime minister of Great Britain, succeeding Margaret Thatcher. . . . A railworkers strike ends when the German government agrees to consider the workers’ demands. . . . Britain restores ties with Syria. . . . In Bulgaria, striking workers shut down a major oil refinery on the Black Sea, and many Bulgarian airline workers walk off their jobs, forcing the nation’s largest airport, near Sofia, to suspend operations.

Ryan Crocker, the new U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, reopens the American embassy, closed since Sept. 1989.

The UN approves a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq if it does not withdraw from Kuwait by January 15, 1991. The resolution is considered a major diplomatic victory for the U.S.

The Confederation of Independent Trade Unions, Bulgaria’s largest labor organization, joins the general strike, and the country is at a virtual standstill. In response, P.M. Andrei Lukanov resigns along with his entire cabinet. . . . A Soviet transport plane leaves Hanover, Germany, for Moscow with 37 tons of German food, the first of hundreds of thousands of tons of planned aid.

When three major opposition parties boycott elections for the Egyptian National Assembly, the National Democratic Party of Pres. Hosni Mubarak wins a sweeping victory. . . . According to reports, more than 10,000 people were killed in Liberia’s civil war, most of them civilians. . . . Rebel leader Idriss Deby’s men overrun Abeche, the largest town in eastern Chad. . . . Reports confirm that the Persian Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia, offered the USSR up to $4 billion in loans and emergency aid.

The parliaments of Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia hold their first-ever joint session. . . . Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev issues a decree that authorizes the creation of vigilante committees to curb theft and speculation (black-market activities) in the Soviet food-distribution system, and he asks the KGB to form a special “economic-sabotage unit” to oversee the distribution of food in the USSR. . . . Austria vows to send 100,000 food parcels for the USSR.

The Mozambique legislature adopts a new constitution designed to establish a Western-style democracy.

In Leningrad, Nizhni Novgorod (formerly Gorky), Vorkuta, and Chelyabinsk, comprehensive programs of food rationing in the Soviet Union begin. . . . Construction workers from France and Great Britain meet in one of the three “Eurotunnels” being constructed under the English Channel.

Representatives of the Mozambican government and the Mozambique National Resistance, a rebel group known as Renamo, sign a partial cease-fire—the first ever—in their 14-year-old civil war. . . . Israeli war planes attack a Palestinian guerrilla base in Lebanon. . . . Israeli police shoot and kill a Palestinian woman after she tries to stab a policeman near Jerusalem’s Old City. . . . Chadian president Hissene Habre and thousands of residents flee to nearby Cameroon from Chad’s capital when the army is defeated in a three-week rebel offensive, and advance patrols of rebels enter the city.

Nov. 27

Nov. 28

Europe

Nov. 30

Dec. 1

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific The government of Indonesia bans a New York Times reporter, Stephen Erlanger, from the country, because of his critical Nov. 11 story. . . . In Bangladesh, Pres. Hossein Mohammed Ershad declares a state of emergency in an attempt to quell protests. . . . Reports show more than 430 people were killed in the violence in Punjab in the last month. . . . Tasmania premier Michael Field announces that a royal commission will probe political corruption in the state.

Members of the ruling Progressive Conservative Party in Canada’s House of Commons reverse their position and agree to hold public hearings into the 78-day standoff between law-enforcement officials and Mohawk Indians at Oka, Quebec. . . . The presidents of Brazil and Argentina sign an agreement renouncing both the use and the development of nuclear weapons.

In Bangladesh, thousands of protesters defy curfew and gather in Dhaka, battling police and army units with homemade weapons. Journalists stage a nationwide strike to protest press restrictions implemented as part of the emergency regulations. . . . The Indian government imposes direct rule over the northeastern state of Assam due to violent activity by the separatist United Liberation Front of Assam. . . . Goh Chok Tong becomes Singapore’s prime minister.

In Bangladesh, street battles worsen, and opposition leaders claim that 50–75 people were killed by police in the fighting, while the government acknowledges only six deaths. Thousands of demonstrators are reportedly arrested.

Honduran armed forces chief Gen. Arnulfo Cantarero resigns.

Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, 90, former Indian ambassador to the USSR. and the U.S. and the first woman to serve as president of the UN General Assembly, dies in Dehru Dun, India.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

November 27–December 1, 1990—125

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Supreme Court rules that federal law preempts state law in regulating self-funded employee-benefit plans that are not fully insured.

The National Organization for Women blasts Saudi Arabia’s “gender apartheid” and calls for a U.S. pullout from the Persian Gulf.

The Energy Department dedicates a $1.3 billion plant at Aiken, South Carolina, to process millions of gallons of highly radioactive wastes. . . . U.S. bankruptcy judge Burton R. Lifland clears Eastern Airlines’ emergency request for $135 million from escrow to continue flight operations through the winter season.

A special panel probing the project of the malfunctioning Hubble Space Telescope finds serious supervisory flaws within NASA.

The 1990 National Book Awards are presented in NYC. Charles Johnson wins the fiction prize for The Middle Passage, and Ron Chernow receives the nonfiction award for The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance.

Pres. Bush signs into a law several bills, including ones regarding housing reauthorization; anticrime legislation; Tongass Forest protection laws; and the Food, Agriculture, Conservation and Trade Act of 1990. . . . The National Center for Health Statistics release figures that show the life expectancy gap between blacks and whites widened in 1988.

Nov. 27

Nov. 28

A CDC report finds that AIDS is spreading at a faster rate among U.S. women than among men.

Pres. Bush signs a bill on comprehensive immigration legislation.

The Illinois Supreme Court strikes down a school decentralization plan adopted by the city of Chicago in 1989. . . . Pres. Bush nominates outgoing Florida governor Bob Martinez (R) as the new director of national drug control policy.

Pres. Bush announces that he is ready to send Secretary of State James Baker to Baghdad and invite the Iraqi foreign minister to the White House in a last effort to reach a peaceful end to the Persian Gulf crisis. . . . Pres. Bush unexpectedly pocket-vetoes the 1991 budget authorization for intelligence agencies because it requires disclosure to Congress of covert operations.

Iraq accepts Pres. Bush’s Nov. 30 invitation to discuss a peaceful settlement of the Persian Gulf crisis.

Pres. Bush signs legislation to curb the growth of zebra mussels.

Nov. 29

The Plains of Passage, by Jean M. Auel tops the bestseller list. . . . Lynn Jennings wins the Athletics Congress’s Jesse Owens Award as the outstanding U.S. trackand-field performer of the year.

David Abner Morse, 83, former acting U.S. secretary of labor, 1948, and director general of the International Labor Organization, 1948–70, dies of complications from a heart attack in NYC.

Ty Detmer, the junior quarterback at Brigham Young University, wins the Heisman Trophy as the top collegiate football player of the year. . . . The U.S. wins its first Davis Cup tennis final since 1982. Andre Agassi, Michael Chang, and the doubles team of Jim Pugh and Rick Leach take the first three matches in St. Petersburg, Florida to capture the best-of-five-match series for the U.S.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 30

Dec. 1

126—December 2–6, 1990

World Affairs

Dec. 2

Dec. 3

Dec. 4

Africa & the Middle East

Iraqi president Saddam Hussein claims he will free all of the foreign hostages being held in Iraq and occupied Kuwait, an announcement met with cautious optimism by Western nations. . . . A 39nation conference on the environmental protection of Antarctica ends without an agreement.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Chancellor Helmut Kohl and his Christian Democratic Union win an easy victory in the first general election in recently reunified Germany. . . . Ethnic nationalist parties rout the ruling Communists in Bosnia-Herzegovina runoff elections. . . . Reports estimate that 180,000 single people in Britain live in temporary shelters or on the street. . . . Nearly 1,200 French citizens and other foreign nationals citizens who fled Chad during the fighting land in Paris.

Violence resurges in South Africa, and at least 71 die. . . . The Histadrut, Israel’s national trade union stages a general strike to protest the government tax plan. . . . Three Palestinians board an Israeli bus near Tel Aviv and attack its passengers, fatally stabbing one and wounding three. One assailant is shot dead by police. The other two are wounded during capture. . . . Rebel leader Idriss Deby enters Ndjamena, Chad.

In Guatemala, four drunken soldiers allegedly shoot and wound a resident and try to abduct another. In response, 5,000 people, most of them indigenous Indians, march on the barracks. Soldiers rake the crowd with machine-gun fire, killing 14 and wounding others.

Five troops are beaten to death by a mob in the city of Namangan, in the republic of Uzbekistan. . . . Three policemen, all Azerbaijanis, are slain in a gun battle with Armenian guerrillas on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. . . . Turkey’s top military officer, Gen. Necip Torumtay, resigns, the third senior Turkish official to resign less in than two months.

An Israeli military court sentences 12 Palestinian guerrillas to 30 years in prison for attempting a May 30 sea raid on Israeli beaches. . . . Zairean demonstrators protesting soaring food prices are attacked by police in Kinshasa. Four protesters are killed during the incident. . . . In Chad, rebel leader Idriss Deby frees at least 450 Libyan prisoners of war, some of them held since 1982. . . . The Lebanese Forces complete their withdrawal, although gunmen in civilian clothes are in key locations in east Beirut.

An uprising by several hundred Argentine army troops is quashed by forces loyal to the elected civilian government of Pres. Carlos Saúl Menem. The fighting results in 21 deaths. . . . Pres. Bush begins to tour five South America nations, making the most comprehensive swing through the continent of any U.S. leader since Pres. Eisenhower in 1960.

Faced with increasing public chaos in Bangladesh, Pres. Hossein Mohammed Ershad offers to resign 45 days before elections, set for June 1991, and to immediately end press censorship.

Hungarian premier Jozsef Antall describes the country’s economic situation as “extremely grave” and admits the Hungarian people have “every right” to be discouraged. . . . Baghdad announces that all 3,300 Soviet citizens in Iraq—most of them technicians in oil, industrial and military projects—will be permitted to leave if Moscow will “bear the responsibility for the impact of the breach of worker contracts.”

The ruling Kenyan African National Union closes a national conference and rejects the creation of a multiparty political system in the country. . . . In Chad, Idriss Deby declares himself president and promises a multiparty democracy. . . . In Lebanon, government troops began dismantling barricades that have long split Beirut, leaving the city free of private armies and with a unified central government for the first time since 1975.

Col. Eduardo Herrera Hassan escapes from prison. He and his rebels seize Panama’s national police headquarters. . . . Reports confirm that the Nov. 20 attack staged by leftist rebels of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front in El Salvador left 170 people dead and 510 wounded. The fighting continues as the FMLN shoots down a Salvadoran air force jet.

Bangladeshi president Hossein Mohammed Ershad announces his resignation from office after eight weeks of violent protests and after leaders of the two major opposition parties reject the compromise offer made on Dec. 3. About 100,000 marchers celebrate wildly when his resignation is announced.

U.S. troops surround the headquarters of Panama’s national police and force the surrender of rebels who seized the building on Dec. 4. . . . In Haiti, five people are shot to death and at least 54 wounded when unidentified assailants attack supporters of Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide during a blackout minutes after a rally in Petionville.

Sheikh Hasina Wazed, head of the leftist Awami League, and Begum Khaleda Zia, leader of the more conservative Bangladesh National Party (BNP), select Chief Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed as the new president of Bangladesh. . . . Another round of bilateral negotiations over the future of U.S. military bases in the Philippines begins.

In Guatemala, Defense Minister General Juan Leonel Bolanos Chávez apologizes for the Dec. 2 incident and promises that soldiers will be withdrawn from the base, especially since residents have complained of a series of abuses by the army during the 11 years that the base has been in the town.

Financially troubled magnate Alan Bond is arrested by Australian authorities on one count of corporate misconduct. . . . Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra ibni Almarhum Sultan Abdul Hamid Halim Shah, 87, first prime minister of Malaysia, dies of intestinal bleeding and other ailments in Kuala Lumpur. . . . In Bangladesh, Pres. Ershad dissolves the national parliament, and interim president Shahabuddin Ahmed takes power.

The Soviet foreign ministry indicates its willingness to discuss the issue of monetary compensation for the termination of contracts suggested by Iraq on Dec 4, and Iraq begins processing Soviet exit visas.

Dec. 5

Dec. 6

Europe

In London, two men believed to be operatives of the outlawed Provisional IRA, Liam O’Dhuibhir and Damien McComb, are each sentenced to 30 years in prison after being found guilty of conspiring to cause explosions. . . . The Vatican restores diplomatic relations with Bulgaria.

In South Africa, as many as 30,000 ANC supporters march through Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Bloemfontein as the ANC launches its latest “mass action” campaign designed to pressure the government to move more quickly toward dismantling apartheid. Police keep a low profile, and the demonstrations proceed without incident.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

December 2–6, 1990—127

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

The acquittal of six Miami police officers in the beating death of a Puerto Rican drug dealer sparks a riot in the city’s Hispanic Wynwood section. . . . House Republicans and Democrats reelect their respective incumbents for leadership teams. . . . The Supreme Court rules that federal pension law preempts state laws in adjudging an employee’s claim of “wrongful discharge.” . . . The Supreme Court broadens the Miranda warning when it rules out questioning once the suspect asks to speak with a lawyer, unless the lawyer is present.

In an interview, former surgeon general Everett Koop claims his successor and the Bush administration are not doing enough to educate the public about AIDS. . . . The American Medical Association votes to support reporting to public health authorities the names of people who test positive for the HIV virus. . . . A survey in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that 22% of sampled hospitals do not require a patient’s consent before testing for HIV.

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Defense Secretary Richard Cheney tells Congress that there is “no guarantee” that economic sanctions will force Iraq out of Kuwait, even “given five years.”

Continental Airlines Holdings Inc. files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from creditors.

Months after Congress learned that the A-12 aircraft project is at least one year behind schedule, at least $1 billion over its development budget, and plagued by design problems, the navy announces that three senior officers have been punished for their roles in the scandal.

The Federal Reserve Board announces a reduction in reserve requirements for banks to stimulate the economy as many believe that it is in a recession.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The space shuttle Columbia takes off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and, by doing so, sets a record for the number of people in orbit around the Earth. In addition to the seven astronauts aboard the Columbia, three men are also launched by the Soviet Union aboard a space capsule to rendezvous with space station Mir. The space station has two other cosmonauts aboard, making a total of 12 astronauts orbiting Earth.

Aaron Copland, 90, one of the best-known and most influential American composers of the 20th century, dies of respiratory failure in North Tarrytown, New York.

A Northwest Airlines passenger plane explodes and bursts into flames after colliding with another Northwest passenger jet on a fogshrouded runway at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. One flight attendant and seven passengers are killed and 21 are injured, two of them critically. . . . The pointing system on telescopes on the spacecraft Columbia fail, forcing the astronauts to try to lock manually onto targets with three ultraviolet Astro telescopes.

Dec. 3

Dec. 4

The U.S.-based relief agency CARE promises 50,000 food parcels for Moscow and Leningrad.

The CDC reports that the homicide rate among black males between the ages of 15 and 24 rose 68% between 1984 and 1988, making homicide the leading cause of death among black men in that age group.

Dec. 2

Salman Rushdie appears in public for the first time since his death was ordered in 1989 for blaspheming Islam in his novel The Satanic Verses. . . . Lucy Schildkret Dawidowicz, 75, historian and author whose book The War Against the Jews is considered a pioneering study of Nazi genocide, dies of unreported causes in NYC.

The Congressional Budget Office predicts a record federal budget deficit of $253 billion for fiscal 1991 and suggests it will increase to $262 billion the following year. The deficit reached $220 billion on Sept. 30, the end of fiscal 1990. . . . Reports confirm that the court-appointed monitor of the Teamsters union ordered the removal of Teamster vice president Jack Yager because of his “silence and incomprehensible passivity” about union corruption.

Pope John Paul II endorses a statement against anti-Semitism drawn up by Jewish and Roman Catholic representatives. . . . The National Hockey League awards new franchises to Ottawa and Tampa Bay, Florida, scheduled to begin play in the 1992 through 1993 season.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 5

Dec. 6

128—December 7–12, 1990

Dec. 7

Dec. 8

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs Uruguay Round of multilateral trade talks is suspended after negotiators fail to agree on a plan to reduce farm subsidies.

Bulgaria’s Grand National Assembly elects Dimitar Popov, a political independent, to the post of premier. . . . Recently resigned British prime minister Margaret Thatcher is awarded the Order of Merit by Queen Elizabeth II.

Iraq begins a five-day release of over 2,000 Western hostages trapped in Iraq and Kuwait for more than four months as Pres. Saddam Hussein carries through a pledge to release the captives as a humanitarian gesture and because they were no longer needed as “human shields.”

A car bomb kills six policemen and injures eight other people in the first fatal attack in a campaign to undermine the 1992 Olympic Summer Games in Barcelona. . . . Two days of cold weather and snow storms strike the U.K. and the Continent. In the course of the storms, 10 people die in Britain and 11 people are reported dead or missing due to cold weather on the European continent.

Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, leader of the Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party, declares his group’s opposition to ANC’s mass action tactics. . . . Local elections in Nigeria, the first since 1983, are marred by a turnout of between 10% and 15% of registered voters. . . . A U.S. Air Force plane evacuates 400 Libyan rebels from Chad as part of a series of evacuations.

A Salvadoran judge orders the soldiers indicted in the Nov. 1989 slaying of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter to stand trial on charges of murder and terrorism.

The ruling Serbian Socialist Party retains power. Runoffs are scheduled for Dec. 23. Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, a nationalist, is reelected. . . . The ruling League of Communists of Macedonia is voted out of power in final runoff elections. . . . The League of Communists of Montenegro remains in power. Runoffs are to be held Dec. 23. . . . Lech Walesa, the leader of the Solidarity labor movement, wins the Polish presidential runoff election. . . . In Albania, protests by thousands of students in Tirana begin and last twp days, and demonstrators clash with riot police.

As the Arab intifadah, or uprising, enters its fourth year, a Palestinian is fatally shot in the Gaza Strip and a bomb outside military headquarters in Bethlehem kills an Israeli soldier and wounds two others. . . . Pres. F. W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela issue a joint statement voicing concern about the factional fighting that killed more than 900 people in the black townships around Johannesburg since August. . . . Angola’s ruling party, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola–Workers’ Party, discards its Marxist-Leninist ideology and adopts “democratic socialism” as its new ideology.

A curfew imposed in Trinidad in July after an unsuccessful coup bid by a Muslim group is lifted. . . . The Mexican government privatizes the national telephone company. . . . The Colombian military launches a major offensive against the nation’s largest remaining guerrilla group by bombing the mountain jungle headquarters of the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Anatoly Kovalev accepts the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Mikhail Gorbachev in Oslo, Norway. . . . In Romania, the national truck drivers’ union begin a nationwide strike to force the government to resign. . . . Czechoslovak president Vaclav Havel surprises the Federal Assembly when he asks for broad temporary powers.

The Congolese Workers’ Party, the ruling party of Congo, officially drops its Marxist ideology and plans to officially become a multiparty state Jan. 1, 1991.

Jean Chrétien, the leader of Canada’s Liberal Party, is elected to the federal House of Commons.

The Georgian parliament abolishes South Ossetia as an autonomous region of Georgia. In response, three people are shot to death in clashes between Ossetians and Georgians. A state of emergency is declared in South Ossetia. . . . The Albanian Workers’ Party purges its politburo and approves a proposal for independent political parties. Pres. Ramiz Alia meets with protesting students.

South African police for the first time bring together local Inkatha and ANC leaders in Thokoza in an effort to arrange a truce.

The Colombian government’s chief negotiator, Jesús Antonio Bejarano, states the FARC rejected earlier government overtures toward a peaceful settlement. . . . The Canadian government unveils its longawaited Green Plan, a five-year, C$3 billion effort to clean up the nation’s land, air, and water.

Moscow police rout 43 squatters and raze a tent city erected in June to protest poverty, homelessness, hunger and mental and physical illnesses. . . . The Czechoslovak Federal Assembly approves a package of legislation that redistributes power between the central government and the Czech and Slovak republics to appease the push for autonomy. . . . Thousands of people meet in Tirana to form the Albanian Democratic Party, the first opposition political party since 1946. Separately, riots erupt in an Albanian eastern town, Kavaje, and Pres. Alia appeals for calm.

Mandela and Chief Buthelezi pay separate visits to the South African township of Thokoza, where 130 blacks were killed over a 10-day span. . . . The parliament of Zimbabwe approves a radical landreform bill to resettle an estimated 1 million homeless blacks by seizing land held by farm owners, virtually all of whom are white. . . . P.M. Yitzhak Shamir meets with foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze, in the highest-level talks ever between the Israel and the Soviet Union.

Reports suggest that there is a growing number of killings of street children by police in Guatemala.

Dec. 9

Dec. 10

Dec. 11

Dec. 12

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific In India, despite the peaceful nature of an Ayodhya protest Dec. 6, religious violence attributed to the mosque dispute flares up. Violent clashes between Hindus and Muslims in several Indian cities begin and last for over a week.

John Fairfax Group Ltd., a major Australian newspaper group, is placed into receivership at the urging of its creditor banks.

In Bangladesh, former leader Hossein Mohammed Ershad and his wife are arrested on charges of theft of public funds, nepotism, and gold smuggling. . . . A third round of talks between North and South Korean premiers opens.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

December 7–12, 1990—129

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

A State Supreme Court jury in Philadelphia finds the Philadelphia Inquirer liable for $6 million for defaming a State Supreme Court judge, James T. McDermott. . . . The magazine Soldier of Fortune is found liable for damages of $12.4 million by a District Court jury in Montgomery, Alabama in a suit by the family of a businessman slain by a gunman who advertised in the classified section of the magazine. . . . Democrats in the North Carolina House of Representatives select Daniel T. Blue to be the first black speaker of a southern legislature since the post-Civil War Reconstruction era. Dallas voters reject a plan intended to increase minority representation on the city council. . . . Ed Edmondson, 71, U.S. representative from Oklahoma, 1953–73, dies of a heart ailment in Muskogee, Oklahoma. . . . Deane Chandler Davis, 90, two-term Republican governor of Vermont, 1969–73, dies in Berlin, Vermont after gall bladder surgery.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Pentagon announces that Defense Secretary Dick Cheney ordered the permanent removal of SRAM-A nuclear missiles from bombers on alert for safety reasons. . . . The U.S. announces that $48.1 million in military aid will be rushed to the government of El Salvador.

Four of the astronauts aboard the Columbia beam the first-ever classroom lesson from space to 41 middle-school students assembled at two NASA centers in Huntsville, Alabama, and Greenbelt, Maryland. . . . A scientific review panel from the National Institutes of Health backs the use of genetically engineered growth hormone in cows to boost milk production.

Joan Bennett, 80, glamorous leading Hollywood film actress of the 1930s and 1940s, dies of a heart attack in Scarsdale, New York.

The planned talks between the U.S. and Iraq over the Persian Gulf crisis founder as both sides argue over the date of the proposed meeting.

On the Columbia, a plumbing problem surfaces, which adds to the list of problems faced on the spacecraft’s mission. . . . The Jupiterbound Galileo spacecraft, launched by the U.S. in Oct. 1989, passes within 600 miles of Earth at 3:35 P.M. EDT.

Martin Ritt, 76, film and television director noted for his socially conscious dramas who was blacklisted during the anticommunist McCarthy era in Hollywood in the 1950s, dies of heart disease in Santa Monica, California.

Dec. 7

Dec. 8

Dec. 9

The FDA grants approval of Norplant, the first major new form of contraception in more than 20 years. . . . Pfizer Inc. announces a recall of 20,000 heart valves., one of the largest recalls of a medical device in U.S. history.

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter and Houston philanthropist Dominique de Menil present the fifth annual Carter-Menil Human Rights Prize to two groups, one from Guatemala and the other from Sri Lanka. The two organizations share a $100,000 monetary award.

Armand Hammer, 92, American industrialist who built Occidental Petroleum Co., dies of cerebral arteriosclerosis in Los Angeles, California.

The Columbia lands safely at Edwards Air Force Base. . . . A White House commission of aerospace experts urges NASA to focus more on unmanned rockets.

John Strugnell, a Harvard University divinity professor, is dismissed as chief editor of the Dead Sea Scrolls after making anti-Semitic remarks on Nov. 9.

John Gotti, reputed head of the New York-based Gambino organized crime family, is arrested on racketeering charges. . . . In the case of the rape and murder of a female jogger in Central Park, two more teens are convicted. Kevin Richardson, 16, is convicted on all eight counts, including rape, sodomy, and attempted murder. Kharey Wise, 18, is convicted of sexual abuse, assault, and riot.

Pres. Bush pledges in White House talks with Israeli prime minister Shamir that the U.S. will not resolve the Persian Gulf crisis at Israel’s expense. . . . A report to the navy judge advocate general’s office criticizes security lapses at the Trident submarine base at Bangor, Wash., where, earlier in the year, a naval petty officer, Shyam Drizpaul, killed three people and then committed suicide.

Pres. Bush appoints Robert L. Clarke to a second term as comptroller of the currency, on the advice of Treasury secretary Nicholas F. Brady. . . . FDIC chairman L. William Seidman discloses that the FDIC’s bank insurance fund is likely to post losses of $4 billion in 1990.

Twelve people are killed and more than 50 others injured in a chainreaction crash on Interstate Highway 75 near Calhoun, Tennessee. A total of 83 vehicles are involved in the accident, which occurred in dense fog.

The New York Times reports that wider participation of women in intercollegiate athletics is accompanied by a decrease of female coaches and administrators for women’s sport programs. . . . Donald and Ivana Trump are divorced.

The Education Department announces that it will prohibit colleges that receive federal funds from awarding scholarships designated for minority students. The secretary of education, Lauro F. Cavazos, who reportedly opposes the plan, resigns.

The Defense Department’s undersecretary for acquisition, John A. Betti, resigns amid disclosures of severe problems in the navy’s classified A-12 Stealth attack-plane program. . . . Bush approves up to $1 billion in federal loan guarantees for the Soviet Union to allow the Soviets to purchase U.S. food. In addition, he pledges U.S. emergency shipments to the USSR of food and medical supplies.

An Amtrak train from Washington, D.C., crashes into a local commuter train, that was stopped in a tunnel underneath Boston’s Back Bay Station. A total of 265 people are injured, but no deaths are reported.

Movie and television writers and producers agree to extend their current contract through mid-1995.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 10

Dec. 11

Dec. 12

130—December 13–17, 1990

World Affairs

Dec. 15

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

African National Congress president Oliver Tambo returns to South Africa after three decades in exile. . . . Iraq announces that it is setting up hundreds of civil defense centers to prepare the population for war.

The Mexican National Commission of Human Rights states it issued 33 recommendations for action against police and government officials accused of human rights abuses. . . . Canada’s Supreme Court rules that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms does not protect the right to promote hatred. . . . The Colombian military reports 30 guerrillas and 17 troops were killed in the fighting . . . Canada’s unelected federal Senate, the scene of a protracted procedural battle, clears goods-and-services tax.

In a meeting in Seoul, South Korea refuses to agree to a North-proposed nonaggression pact, so the talks break down, accomplishing little.

The leaders of the EC nations meet in Rome and back a package of grants and aid to the Soviet Union worth 1.15 billion European currency units. The summit also sets $130 million in food and medical aid to Romania and Bulgaria.

The first anniversary of Romania’s revolution is marked by a week of antigovernment strikes and protests. Thousands of workers begin a general strike and demand the resignation of Pres. Ion Iliescu and Premier Roman. . . . In Albania, riots spread to Elbasan. Police make scores of arrests in Albania in street clashes. . . . Two people are killed in separate car bomb explosions in Spain. The Basque separatist group ETA, which claimed responsibility for a Dec. 8 bombing, is suspected.

For two days, the ANC holds its first large-scale legal conference inside South Africa in 31 years. . . . Representatives of the Angolan government and the Union for the Total Independence of Angola reach a tentative agreement on a plan to end their 15-year-old civil war. . . . A general strike begins in Fez, Morocco, but it turns into a violent riot. . . . Three Israelis are stabbed to death by two unidentified Arabs in the Israeli town of Jaffa.

In Nicaragua, Pres. Violeta Barrios de Chamorro signs a decree eliminating compulsory military service.

Pres. Roh Tae Woo becomes the first South Korean leader ever to visit the Soviet Union. . . . The Taj Mahal, in Agra, India, closes to tourists because of ongoing violence.

The leaders of the EC decide to lift a voluntary ban on new investment in South Africa. The policy, adopted in 1986, has already been relaxed by Britain and Italy. The leaders at the summit also reiterate their call for Iraq to pull out of Kuwait and, separately, for the convening of an international conference under the auspices of the UN to resolve the Palestinian question.

Sporadic outbreaks of violence continue in Albania. . . . In Germany, energy officials begin shutting down the last of eastern Germany’s Soviet-designed nuclear reactors.

Rioting continues in Fez, Morocco. Rioters, many of them students, burn buildings, smash cars, and battle with police. . . . Attacks continue in response to the Oct. 8 Temple Mount killing, leaving at least eight Israelis dead. In response, Israeli police virtually close off the occupied Gaza Strip from Israel in efforts to locate suspects. Police also arrest between 600 and 1,000 Palestinians allegedly linked to a fundamentalist Islamic group, Hamas. The Israeli government announces that it will deport four residents of the Gaza Strip said to be members of Hamas.

To commemorate the Romanian revolution, Rev. Laszlo Tokes holds an outdoor religious service in Timisoara and calls for a peaceful “second revolution” to rid the nation of the National Salvation Front. About 10,000 Timisoara demonstrators jeer NSF officials. . . . Two antitank missiles are fired at the EC’s offices in Athens. The November 17 terrorists claim responsibility, and reports suggest the attack is linked to Greece’s new antiterrorist bill.

A leaflet circulated in Israel indicates that recent murders were committed by Hamas, an Islamic fundamentalist movement affiliated with the PLO. . . . Three guerrillas are killed in a clash between the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a PLO faction, and Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon. . . . Israeli troops shoot dead a masked Palestinian as he sprays nationalist slogans on a wall in the Gaza Strip.

Reverend Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a leftist Roman Catholic priest, is elected president by a landslide in Haiti’s first democratic elections, which are held without violent incident. . . . Eleven people die and 20 are wounded when dozens of former contras seize a police post in Jalapa, Nicaragua. The army captures more than half the rebels.

Reports confirm that Estonia has passed a law allowing Estonians to avoid the Soviet military draft by performing alternative civilian service. . . . Talks between Romania’s ruling National Salvation Front (NSF) and the opposition National Liberal Party on the possibility of a coalition government open in Bucharest. . . . Reports state that 81 prisoners have escaped from a prison in Athens, Greece, and 64 prisoners are still at large. . . . In Albania, the government announces that 157 accused rioters will stand trial immediately.

Pres. Kenneth Kaunda signs a constitutional amendment permitting the formation of opposition parties in Zambia for the first time since 1972.

A crowd celebrating Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s victory as Haiti’s president is fired upon by men in national police uniforms. A pregnant woman is killed, and several are wounded. . . . Colombian president Cesar Gaviria offers greater leniency to drug traffickers who turn themselves in. . . . In Canada, the controversial 7% goods-and-services tax becomes law at an assent ceremony boycotted by opponents.

Dec. 16

Dec. 17

Africa & the Middle East

In Albania, riots erupt in the northern city of Shkoder and in the coastal city of Durres Thousands of riot police and army troops, including armored units, are sent into the troubled areas. . . . Romania’s premier Petre Roman announces the government will put on trial all persons suspected of political crimes or human-rights abuses during the 24-year reign of the late Pres. Ceausescu. . . . The Greek parliament approves a new antiterrorism bill.

Dec. 13

Dec. 14

Europe

U.S. secretary of state James Baker warns that Iraq may try to divide the coalition arrayed against it by withdrawing from part of Kuwait on or around the Jan. 15 deadline at a NATO meeting. The other NATO foreign ministers join Baker in a statement that declares, “There can be no partial solution.”

Reports show that eight days of protests in India have left about 300 people dead and 3,000 arrested.

A new Thai cabinet is sworn in after a reshuffle by Premier Chatichai Choonhavan in response to pressure from the military.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

December 13–17, 1990—131

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

A state district judge in Clarkston, Michigan, dismisses murder charges against Jack Kevorkian, an Oregon physician who created a device to assist individuals in committing suicide. . . . Arthur Shawcross is convicted for murdering 10 women in Rochester, New York, in 1989 and 1990 while on parole for a 1972 killing. . . . William Bennett, reversing his position, states he will not accept the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee.

Reports states that most U.S. citizens who wanted to leave Kuwait or Iraq have apparently done so when the last U.S.-chartered flight takes off. . . . Former CIA agent Thomas Clines, suspected of involvement in the Iran-contra arms scandal, is sentenced in District Court in Baltimore to 16 months in prison for filing false income-tax returns.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approves new radiation exposure limits for nuclear plant workers and neighborhoods. The limit for atomic workers is reduced to 5 rems of radiation a year, compared with up to four times that amount allowed under current rules.

A major study in the New England Journal of Medicine finds that the consumption of animal fat in red meat increases the likelihood of developing colon cancer.

Johns Hopkins Hospital announces that patients of a doctor who died of AIDS will be tested for HIV. The announcement is accompanied by a critique that charges that the Centers for Disease Control fail to provide enough data on the transmission of AIDS by health-care workers and calls for new guidelines on AIDSinfected personnel. . . . Prosecutors in Oakland County, Mich., drop their case against Dr. Kevorkian, but seek to extend a temporary restraining order that prohibits him from using his suicide device.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Dec. 13

Nan Wood Graham, 91, who posed for her brother, Grant Wood, when he painted American Gothic, dies in Menlo Park, California. . . . Former television evangelist Jim Bakker is found liable for nearly $130 million in damages by a federal district court jury in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Dec. 14

Dec. 15

The U.S. condemns Israel’s decision to resume deportations, citing prohibitions against such treatment in the Geneva Convention.

Pres. Bush nominates former Tennessee governor Lamar Alexander (R) as secretary of education.

Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” television program, FDIC chairman L. William Seidman estimates that the deposit insurance fund will lose an additional $5 billion in 1991. He claims that FDIC projections indicate that between 170 and 200 banks will fail in 1991.

Dec. 16

Space Travel Service Corp. in Houston announces plans to conduct a national sweepstakes to select an American to ride aboard a Soviet spacecraft and visit the space station Mir. The winner will have to pass a Soviet physical examination and undergo preflight training, which includes Russianlanguage instruction.

Bernard Aronson, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for interAmerican affairs and part of a U.S. observer group that monitored the election, states that the U.S. recognizes Aristide as Haiti’s presidentelect and is ready to renew aid to the impoverished nation.

Plans for the formation of a new women’s professional basketball league are announced. The league, the Liberty Basketball Association, will begin play in February 1991.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 17

132—December 18–22, 1990

Dec. 18

Dec. 19

Dec. 20

Dec. 21

Dec. 22

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The foreign ministers of NATO warn the Soviet Union that ratification of the Nov. 19 CEF treaty may be delayed by an inaccurate accounting of Soviet weapons. . . . Reports state that the UN World Food Program appealed to donor nations for 1 million tons of emergency food for Ethiopia. . . . Japan joins the international effort to feed the Soviet people, offering $100 million in loans and $3.75 million in direct food and medical aid.

The last functioning Soviet-designed nuclear reactor at the Greifswald plant in Germany closes. . . . The British government announces a 96 million pounds sterling plan to aid the homeless. . . . Reports suggest that Estonia is establishing its own banking system and pricing policies. . . . The Latvian government accuses the Kremlin of being behind a series of mysterious bombings in the capital, Riga.

The UN Children’s Fund, in its annual report, calls for an international commitment of $20 billion to meet goals set at the World Summit for Children in September. . . . UN secretary general Javier Perez de Cuellar appoints Sadako Ogata of Japan to the post of UN high commissioner for refugees, succeeding Thorvald Stoltenberg, who resigned to become the foreign minister of Norway.

The government formally recognizes the Albanian Democratic Party. . . . Poland’s Roman Catholic bishops issue a statement denouncing anti-Semitism in the nation and conceding that some Poles aided the Nazi persecution of Jews during World War II. . . . Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev continues a surprising shift to the right. Fifty-three prominent Soviets publish an open letter urging Gorbachev to crack down on separatists and criminals. Gorbachev threatens to impose direct presidential rule on disorderly areas of the USSR.

The UN Security Council adopts a resolution that refers to the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip as “Palestinian territories” and condemns Israel for its treatment of Arab civilians there.

Eduard Shevardnadze resigns as the Soviet foreign minister and warns that the nation is headed toward a dictatorship. . . . A gun battle among soldiers near the Soviet-Czechoslovak border results in injuries to 21 troops. . . . The German Bundestag holds its first meeting in the old Reichstag in Berlin. . . . The Bulgarian Grand National Assembly confirms the country’s first multiparty government in 40 years.

Nearly three weeks of reports claim that hundreds of Liberians died of starvation, and doctors predict that thousands more will succumb unless a huge relief program is launched. . . . Former education minister Omar Karami is named Lebanon’s prime minister by Pres. Elias Hrawi.

Stating that Honduras is facing the “worst economic crisis in its history,” Foreign Minister Mario Carias Zapata states the country will no longer accept refugees from other countries.

Police in Bangladesh place former vice president Moudud Ahmed under house arrest. . . . India and Pakistan agree to a pact banning attacks on each other’s nuclear facilities. . . . In response to the League’s Dec. 18 announcement, the military government of Myanmar formally bans the National League for Democracy, which won an overwhelming victory in May national elections but has not been permitted to take power.

A joint study by the IMF, the World Bank, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development argues that most direct financial aid to the Soviet Union will go to waste unless that country takes a radical turn toward a free-market economy. . . . Separately, an EC report on the Soviet economic situation contends that political turmoil and “reform fatigue” in the USSR will hamper a transition to a market economy.

Tens of thousands of people in Bucharest turn a revolution commemoration into an antigovernment rally. . . . The Croatian parliament adopts a new constitution that calls for a referendum on secession to be held within 30 days of a two-thirds majority vote by parliament. . . . In Albania, the last bastion of Stalinism in Europe, the government orders the removal of all statues and symbols of former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.

In a German television interview, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein declares that Iraq will not withdraw from Kuwait by the Jan. 15 deadline. . . . Israeli officials denounce the UN’s Dec. 20 resolution. . . . Reports state that eight U.S. soldiers were hospitalized after being poisoned by home-brewed alcohol in Saudi Arabia, which bans alcoholic beverages.

The province of Quebec reaches an agreement with the Canadian federal government that gives it greater powers over immigration.

Cambodia and the three rebel factions meet for two days of talks in Paris.

The UN Security Council votes to dissolve the U.S.-administered UN trusteeship over a string of Pacific islands captured from the Japanese during World War II. The vote formally ends the U.S.’s 43-year trustee relationship.

Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev indicates unspecified “necessary measures” will be taken unless Moldavia meets his demands. . . . The head of the KGB, Vladimir Kryuchkov, stuns deputies with a warning against Soviet acceptance of Western aid. . . . Fifteen thousand Albanians are permitted to hold a rally for the Albanian Democratic Party, Albania’s first such legally sponsored event. . . . Lech Walesa is sworn in as Poland’s president in a somber ceremony in Warsaw.

Twenty-one sailors from the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga drown when the Israeli ferry they were taking back to their ship after shore leave in Haifa capsizes.

The Ethiopian government and the rebel Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) agree to reopen the rebel-held port of Massawa to allow the delivery of relief food to the famine-threatened province of Eritrea. . . . In Fez, Morocco, the government promises salary increases and unspecified social improvements after riots.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Haiti, police deny responsibility for the Dec. 17 attack. . . . In Colombia, one of the leaders of the powerful Medellín cocaine cartel, Fabio Ochoa Vásquez, surrenders.

Members of Myanmar’s opposition National League for Democracy announce the creation of a rival government. U Sein Wei is named prime minister.

James R. Lilley, the U.S. ambassador to China, and Richard Schifter, the assistant secretary of state for human rights and humanitarian affairs, close a two-day meeting with Chinese officials to ask them to free 150 jailed dissidents. . . . A Philippine military court sentences 81 soldiers to prison terms of up to 32 years for participating in a 1987 coup attempt. Twenty other defendants are acquitted. . . . Reports state that the Japanese parliament has approved the creation of a $375 million “Japan-U.S. Global Partnership Fund” to promote cultural exchanges and improve understanding with the U.S.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

December 18–22, 1990—133

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A judge in Washington, D.C., rules that Neil Bush had conflicts of interest as a director of an S&L and recommends a “cease-and-desist” order, the mildest possible sanction. . . . The Commerce Dept. reports the merchandise trade deficit rose in Oct. to its highest level since Feb. 1988. . . . The Federal Reserve Board votes to cut its basic interest rate for loans to its member institutions to 6.5% from 7%. The cut is the first in the so-called discount rate since Aug. 1986.

Seven people are killed and another 41 injured (five of them critically) when a tractor-trailer truck collides with a second truck and a Greyhound bus on Interstate Highway 80 near Emory, Utah, during a heavy snowstorm

The International Tennis Federation names Steffi Graf as the women’s world champion for 1990 and, in a surprise, chooses Ivan Lendl as the men’s champion.

Three nuclear physicists, in a report to the House Armed Services Committee, warns that most U.S. nuclear weapons need safety modifications, particularly the Trident II (D5) submarine-launched ballistic missile. . . . The Strategic Air Command grounds all 97 B-1B strategic bombers because of recurring engine failures. . . . The federal government agrees to grant temporary legal status to an estimated 500,000 undocumented Salvadoran and Guatemalan immigrants, pending a review of their requests for political asylum.

The Justice Department brings civil racketeering charges against the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union and its Local 54 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, a union allegedly controlled by the Bruno-Scarfo family.

The National Transportation Safety Board states the Amtrak train in the Dec. 12 accident was traveling at about 110 mph shortly before the crash—10 mph over the speed limit on that section of track. . . . Iowa researchers find a majority of children who had high cholesterol levels in childhood achieve normal levels as adults.

British prime minister John Major makes his first trip to the U.S.

Don R. Dixon, former owner of Vernon Savings and Loan Association of Dallas, is convicted of 23 federal criminal charges by a jury in a Dallas federal court. . . . USX Corp. agrees to pay fines of $3.3 million to settle federal charges of health and safety violations at two Pennsylvania plants. The penalty is the largest in history for the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Amtrak suspends the two engineers of the train that crashed on Dec. 12 without pay pending the results of the Dec. 19 NTSB investigation, and it installs a new signal system that automatically slows any train approaching Back Bay Station.

According to Health and Services Secretary Louis W. Sullivan, a total of $604.1 billion was spent on health care in the U.S. in 1989—an average of $2,400 for each person in the country. . . . In Ohio, Gov. Richard Celeste grants clemency to 25 women convicted of killing men who abused them.

The U.S. suspends its $2.8 million military-aid program to Guatemala, citing Guatemala’s failure to curb human rights abuses. U.S. State Department officials state the primary cause of the suspension is the June slaying of a resident of Guatemala born in the U.S., Michael DeVine. . . . Since the Saudi government restricts the practice of religions other than Islam, the U.S. command starts instructing its troops to celebrate Christmas discreetly.

The House Select Committee on Intelligence closes a nine-monthold investigation into possible links between the CIA and savings-andloan fraud. . . . Former Sunbelt Savings Association Chairman Edwin T. McBirney pleads guilty to fraud charges in a Dallas federal court.

According to a study in Congressional Quarterly, only 46.8% of congressional votes on which Pres. Bush took a position were decided in his favor in 1990.

At a Camp David press conference, British prime minister John Major and Pres. Bush express solidarity in calling for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait and in backing NATO as the mainstay of the Western alliance.

The court-appointed monitor of the Teamsters Union, Frederick B. Lacey, recommends barring Teamsters vice president George Vitale from the union for five years.

A self-proclaimed white supremacist, Byron De La Beckwith, is charged for the third time with killing civil rights leader Medgar Evers in 1963. . . . . The Education Dept. announces a partial reversal of the controversial policy announced on Dec. 12. The revisions allow colleges that receive federal funds to award scholarships to minority students if the money for those scholarships comes from donations or federal programs to aid minority students. A federal grand jury indicts five Chicago political figures on corruption charges. . . . A National Institute on Drug Abuse survey finds casual drug use declined significantly over the past two years. Critics, however, take issue with the survey’s methods, and Sen. Joseph Biden (D, Del.) releases his own survey, which shows there is a total of 2.4 million hard-core cocaine or crack addicts in the U.S. . . . Health officials in Florida declare an end to the state’s worst encephalitis outbreak in nearly 30 years, which killed nine and infected 202.

Dec. 18

Dec. 19

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Dec. 21

Dec. 22

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

134—December 23–27, 1990

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Residents of the northern republic of Slovenia vote overwhelmingly in a referendum to have the republic secede from Yugoslavia should efforts at confederation fail. . . . The ruling Serbian Socialist Party retains power in Yugoslavia’s largest and most influential republic after final runoff elections. . . . The League of Communists of Montenegro, Yugoslavia’s smallest republic, remains in power following final runoff elections.

Dec. 23

The Soviet Congress of Peoples’ Deputies votes to endorse in principle the “draft concept” of Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev’s union treaty. The vote does not constitute an actual ratification of the treaty.

Dec. 24

The Cambodian government and the three rebel factions agree to most aspects of a UN plan for an end to the civil war, but they continue to squabble over several issues.

Israel’s Housing Minister Sharon announces plans to put up 2,500 new houses for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. . . . A Spanish TV station quotes Hussein as threatening that Tel Aviv will be Iraq’s first target in the event of war, regardless of whether Israel joins in an attack on Iraq. . . . Author Salman Rushdie issues a statement in which he embraces Islam and states he will oppose the paperback publication or any further translations of his novel The Satanic Verses.

Albania’s leading Roman Catholic activist, Father Simon Jubani, conducts the first Mass in Albania in 23 years.

Dec. 25

Dec. 26

Dec. 27

Asia & the Pacific

Suriname’s army seizes the nation’s government in a bloodless coup when civilian president Ramsewak Shankar and his cabinet surrender power at the army’s request to avoid bloodshed.

For two days the cyclone Joy batters the Australian state of Queensland, causing an estimated A$40 million worth of damage to coastal communities. . . . The U.S. warns Thailand that continued violations of U.S. copyrights in the country may result in retaliatory tariffs.

The government of the Netherlands, which ruled Suriname until 1975, denounces the Dec. 24 coup. The Dutch government orders a complete suspension of aid to Suriname, which totaled $28 million in 1989.

The Chinese Communist Party Central Committee holds a five-day meeting to discuss a five-year economic plan.

The Russian Federation’s parliament votes to withhold about 80% of its scheduled contribution to the 1991 Soviet central budget. . . . The commander of the Soviet Baltic Fleet warns that relations between the military and the Baltic republics are at a flashpoint. . . . Bonn’s Federal Crime Office reports that Soviet troops commit 20–30 crimes daily and that 15–30 soldiers desert weekly. . . . At a Workers’ Party conference, Albania’s president Ramiz Alia states the party “would deviate from many principles of socialism, correct many attitudes of the past, but does not intend to abandon its Marxist ideology.”

The U.S. orders 200 U.S. government dependents and nonessential personnel to leave Sudan and Jordan—two nations sympathetic toward Iraq in the current crisis— before Jan. 15. . . . Three members of the extremist Jewish Underground, Menachem Livni, Shaul Nir, and Uzi Sharbav, are released from prison after serving less than seven years for the murder of three Arabs and the maiming of two Palestinian mayors. . . . In Algiers, Parliament passes a law that forbids the use of foreign languages in Algeria. . . . Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei states that Iran’s death edict against Rushdie remains intact, despite Rushdie’s Dec. 24 retractions.

The north and northeastern coast of the Australian state of Queensland is declared a disaster area after winds up to 145 miles per hour and torrential rains tore roofs from houses, caused power outages and flooded highways.

Prior to closing the fourth Congress, Soviet deputies agree to place executive structures directly under the president. Gennady I. Yanayev becomes the vice president after a second ballot. . . . In response to the Dec. 26 Russian vote, Russian finance minister Fyodorov resigns, and Pres. Gorbachev warns, “This would mean the breakup not only of the economy, but of the Soviet Union.” . . . The IRA fires on a border crossing 20 minutes after the expiration of a 72-hour Christmas truce, the first in 16 years. . . . Reports confirm the first bank in Albania with foreign capital has opened.

Rebels from the United Somali Congress, one of three major groups seeking to oust Siad Barre, begin four days of fierce fighting with Siad Barre’s security forces, known as the red berets. . . . More than 100,000 people march to protest a law that forbids the use of foreign languages in Algeria. . . . The Israeli Supreme Court bars the deportations begun on Dec. 15 until the court completes deliberations on their legality. . . . Iraq test fires a surface-to-surface missile into a remote area in western Iraq.

The Swiss Federal Court rules that $350 million in Swiss bank accounts belonging to Philippine ex-president Ferdinand Marcos, which the Philippines claims Marcos stole from public funds, will be turned over to the government of the Philippines instead of to relatives of the late president.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

December 23–27, 1990—135

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Foy David Kohler, 82, U.S. State Department official who was the U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union at the time of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, dies of heart ailments in Jupiter, Florida.

Reports confirm that the top AIDS drug regulator for the FDA, Ellen Cooper, has resigned her post.

Dec. 23

The Pentagon restricts news coverage and even censors jokes of the Christmas shows performed for U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia, and Brooke Shields is kept from participating because she is a woman.

Dec. 24

Researchers at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons report that teenage suicide prevention programs may do more harm than good. The study finds little evidence that such programs reduce teen suicide attempts, while there is “some evidence” that they might stir up depressed feelings.

Dec. 25

The Census Bureau reports the 1990 census count as 249,632,692 people, 10.2% more than the 1980 census tally. The final tally, still subject to adjustment for undercount, is 3.8 million over August’s preliminary estimate. . . . Nancy Beth Cruzan, 33, comatose patient who was the focus of a nationwide debate concerning her parents’ efforts to have doctors remove the feeding tube that was sustaining her life, dies 12 days after the tube was removed with permission from a Missouri state court.

Joseph C. Wilson, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, resumes contact with Iraqi officials, but no progress is reported.

The FDA announces that it will begin random testing in early 1991 to detect the presence of antibiotics and sulfa drugs in milk. . . . San Francisco becomes the first city in the U.S. to enact a law regulating the use of video display terminals (VDTs) in the workplace.

Following CIA warnings that Iraq has developed biological weapons, the Pentagon plans to begin vaccinating U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf. . . . Reports indicate that the SEC is conducting an informal investigation of whether General Dynamics and McDonnell Douglas made improper financial disclosures on the A-12 program. . . . The Soviet ambassador to Washington reassures Pres. Bush that there will be no major shifts in Soviet foreign policy in the wake of Shevardnadze’s Dec. 20 resignation.

The Senior Professional Baseball Association calls off its season midway through its schedule. The league, with a total of six teams in Florida, Arizona, and California, folds after the Fort Myers Sun Sox dropped out in a dispute between owners.

Massachusetts governor Michael S. Dukakis (D) signs into law a clean-air bill that sets some of the nation’s strictest standards for automobile emissions.

Dec. 26

Dec. 27

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

136—December 28–31, 1990

World Affairs

Africa & the Middle East

In the USSR, reports indicate that nearly one-third of Muscovite youths called for military service in the fall of 1990 failed to respond to their draft notices. . . . Reports show Albanian protesters arrested in mid-December riots received sentences of up to 20 years in prison. . . . Britain announces it will inoculate its soldiers in fear of biological weapons in the Persian Gulf.

Dec. 28

Dec. 29

Dec. 30

Dec. 31

Europe

Year-end data indicates that stock markets in the world’s financial centers generally declined between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31 in the face of international economic and political uncertainties.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Guatemala, police arrest 11 people and net 1.5 tons of cocaine worth $3.8 billion in its largest-ever drug raid. The U.S. embassy in Guatemala requests the extradition of three suspects. . . . The Canadian cabinet upholds a ruling that orders Canadian cable TV companies to pay more than C$50 million to U.S. movie producers and other foreign copyright holders for use of their material.

Indian prime minister Chandra Shekhar meets with radical Sikh leader Simranjit Singh Mann in an attempt to reach a settlement of the ongoing separatist conflict in Punjab state.

Polish president Lech Walesa nominates Jan Krzysztof Bielecki, a 39year-old economist, to succeed Tadeusz Mazowiecki as the nation’s premier.

In Israel, soldiers shoot and kill two masked men who refuse to submit to a search in the Rafa refugee district. Angry Palestinians pelt the soldiers with stones, killing two people. In the aftermath, tens of thousands of Arabs flood the streets. Some throw fire bombs at the Israeli soldiers. In the end, four are dead and at least 125 wounded. It is the worst violence in a single day there since the Oct. 8 Temple Mount killings.

Salvadoran rebels promise they will end their five-week military campaign and present new peace proposals on Dec. 31.

Japan’s prime minister Toshiki Kaifu announces sweeping changes in his cabinet by replacing 17 of 20 ministers. . . . The Times of London reports that China continues to send arms to the Khmer Rouge despite a September promise to cut off such aid.

In response to demands by Pres. Gorbachev, Moldavia backs down from a plan to form a special defense force in the republic and pledges to take steps to dissolve the renegade autonomous republics formed by ethnic Russians and the Gagauz. However, legislators refuse to pull back from the contention that Moldavia was illegally annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940. . . . An Albanian official discloses that Albanian Jews will be allowed to emigrate. Separately, 3,000 Albanians begin to stream across the Greek border seeking political asylum.

In Somalia, the Dec. 27 uprising results in hundreds of deaths. . . . The Israeli government declares the Gaza Strip a closed military zone and put a curfew into effect in response to the Dec. 29 killings. . . . In a strongly worded New Year’s message broadcast on Iraqi TV, Saddam Hussein brands U.S. Pres. Bush and Saudi King Fahd as “traitors” to their religions.

In Argentina, Pres. Carlos Saúl Menem pardons eight military men and one civilian, including former ruling military junta members responsible for the 1970s “dirty war” against suspected leftists. . . . The New York Times reports that the Nicaraguan Sandinista-controlled army admitted that advanced weapons have recently been smuggled to FMLN rebels in El Salvador, but the operations have ceased.

The Chinese Communist Party Central Committee issues a communiqué that strongly reaffirms the socialist economic system and cautions against an overeagerness to embrace a market economy.

Reports suggest that Pres. Gorbachev has issued decrees to introduce a nationwide 5% sales tax and to establish a stabilization fund for enterprises threatened by economic reform. . . . Hungary’s National Assembly passes Premier Antall’s 1991 budget. . . . Faced with an influx of Albanian refugees, Greece appeals to ethnic Greeks to stay in Albania and wait for “the inevitable” democratization. Greek premier Constantine Mitsotakis announces that he plans to visit Albania in Jan. 1991, and the Greek Orthodox Church urges the Albanian government to allow priests to travel to Albania for the feast of Epiphany, a religious holiday.

Somali president Mohamed Siad Barre is forced to flee his palace in Mogadishu as rebels threaten to take over the city. . . . The Israeli air force attacks a PLO base near Sidon, killing 12 guerrillas. By Lebanese police count, the air strike raises the death toll from such attacks to 40, with 82 people wounded.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

December 28–31, 1990—137

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, Gib Lewis, is indicted by an Austin, Texas, grand jury on two misdemeanor ethics charges.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Publisher’s Weekly lists The Plains of Passage by Jean M. Auel as the top bestseller of the year.

About 400 people attend ceremonies marking the 100th anniversary of the massacre of Indians at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

Time magazine names Pres. Bush as its “Men of the Year.” The magazine claims it takes the unusual step of describing Bush as two men because of his successes in foreign affairs and his failures in domestic policy.

Dec. 28

Dec. 29

Vice President Dan Quayle begins a three-day trip to the Persian Gulf region.

The New York Times reports that federal government funding provided only 17% of state and local budgets compared with 25% during the 1970s.

In basketball, Scott Skiles of the Orlando Magic chalks up 30 assists, breaking the record of 29 set by Kevin Porter of the New Jersey Nets in 1978.

The Pentagon announces that five more U.S. troops died in separate incidents in the Persian Gulf. A total of 52 servicemen have been killed in and around Saudi Arabia since the start of Operation Desert Shield, most of them in accidents, such the ones occurring on Dec. 22 and Oct. 30.

The Dow Jones industrial average closes the year at 2633.66, down 119.54 points from the 1989 yearend level. . . . Analyses suggest that the U.S. dollar fell in value against major foreign currencies between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31. . . . The Rhode Island Share and Indemnity Fund Corp., which insures banks and credit unions, asks the state to name a conservator to take it over, essentially declaring itself insolvent.

Chess world champion titleholder Garry Kasparov of the Soviet Union wins the world championship match against his countryman Anatoly Karpov with a draw in the final meeting of their 24-game contest.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 30

Dec. 31

1991 American air force F-15 fighters flying over a Kuwait oil field which has been set ablaze by retreating Iraqi troops during the Gulf War, 1991.

140—January–October 1991

Jan.

Feb.

March

April

May

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Vilnius, Lithuania, Soviet army troops kill 15 pro-independence protesters. The slayings draw international condemnations as well as many protests in the republics.

Iraq's National Assembly passes a resolution that calls on the nation to fight a “holy war” to defend the occupation of Kuwait.

In Haiti, an attempted takeover by Roger Lafontant prompts violent riots until loyalist forces crush the coup.

In China, leaders of the 1989 Tiananmen Square prodemocracy demonstrations are sentenced. A total of 66 of 71 protesters whose cases are complete are released, but the others face prison terms of between two and 10 years.

Pilots from 10 nations, including the U.S., Canada, Britain, France, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain participate in air strikes against Iraqi targets.

In Albania, prodemocracy rallies begin, and the demonstrations turn into a serious of riots.

Iraq continues to launch Scud missiles at Israel.

At least 100 people die in Peru's first cholera epidemic in over 100 years.

The government of Premier Chatichai Choonhavan is ousted by the Thai military in a bloodless coup led by Gen. Sunthorn Kongsompong. The 1978 constitution is abolished, and martial law is imposed.

The Warsaw Pact formally disbands its military structure in Moscow; only its political arm, the Political Consultative Committee, is still in effect.

In Belgrade, 10,000 Serbian nationalists stage a pro-Milosevic rally, and the Serbian National Council, which represents ethnic Serbs in Croatia, declares an independent republic in the southwestern Krajina region of Croatia.

In Mali, violent protests and a coup attempt are staged against Pres. Moussa Traore.

Miguel Trovoada, an ex-premier and a former political exile, wins the first-ever free presidential elections in Sao Tome and Principe.

Afghan guerrillas seized the town of Khost after heavy fighting against government forces.

The government of Iraq accepts the terms for a permanent ceasefire stipulated in UN Security Council Resolution 687, bringing a formal end to the Persian Gulf war.

Turkey is beset by Kurdish refugees who are fleeing the conflict in Iraq.

Iraqi government forces drive Kurdish rebels out of the cities of Dahok, Erbil, and Zakho.

A powerful earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale shakes Costa Rica and the Caribbean coast of Panama. It is reported to be the worst earthquake to hit Costa Rica since 1910.

Thousands of people drown and millions are left homeless when a powerful cyclone strikes Bangladesh in the worst storm in that area since 1970.

Defense ministers of NATO approve a fundamental military restructuring of the alliance in the broadest reorganization in NATO's 42 years.

Yugoslavia appears to be in a state of civil war as fighting in Croatia escalates and the federal collective presidency breaks down.

Ethiopia's president, Lt. Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam, resigns and flees the country. Rebel soldiers take possession of the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

A prison takeover at the Tamaulipas state prison in Matamoros, Mexico, leaves 18 inmates dead.

Indian Congress (I) Party leader and former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi is assassinated in Sriperumbudur. Violence erupts in Madras and at various locations in New Delhi as the news about Gandhi's assassination spreads.

At the Organization of African Unity's annual summit, representatives from 36 countries sign a treaty designed to create an African common market, similar to the EC, by the end of the century.

Norway's King Harald V formally ascends to the throne. He becomes the third king of modern Norway.

A new constitution for Rwanda is signed into effect by Pres. Juvenal Habyarimana.

Mudslides in the Chilean city of Antofagasta kill 116 people and wash away whole shantytowns.

Mt. Unzen, a Japanese volcano dormant for two centuries, erupts. The Mt. Pinatubo volcano, about 55 miles northwest of Manila, also erupts.

The Warsaw Pact, created in 1955, formally disbands. U.S. president Bush and Soviet president Gorbachev hold the first post–cold war superpower summit.

Soviet president Gorbachev and the heads of 10 of the 15 Soviet republics agree on disputed power-sharing provisions in the proposed union treaty.

In a referendum, Mauritanians vote overwhelmingly in favor of a new constitution that will widen their political freedom.

In a Haitian trial seen as a symbol of the death of Duvalierism, Roger Lafontant and 21 codefendants are convicted for a coup attempt.

Australia's Northern Territory awards the Chamberlains, the subjects of the 1988 film A Cry in the Dark, more than $A415,000 in damages for their wrongful conviction for killing their child.

A group of top Soviet hard-liners attempt a coup d'etat against Soviet president Gorbachev The move draws international condemnation before the rebellion is quashed.

Armenian guerrillas seize Soviet interior ministry troops in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh enclave in the republic of Azerbaijan.

In Togo, a national conference on democracy elects Joseph Kokou Koffigoh as premier of an interim government, thereby ending an autocratic rule in Togo begun in 1967, one of Africa's longest.

The provincial government of Ontario signs a formal agreement with Indian leaders which declares that native groups have an inherent right to self-government. Ontario thus becomes the first government in Canada to recognize a native right to self-government.

For the first time, the Hanoi government allows U.S. investigators to visit a Vietnamese former camp in search of evidence of MIAs.

UN delegates formally vote to admit seven countries: North Korea, South Korea, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and the three newly independent Baltic states–Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

The Yugoslav federal military launches a massive armored offensive into the republic of Croatia.

South African president F. W. de Klerk outlines his government's proposals for a new constitution that will provide suffrage to the country's black majority for the first time in modern history.

Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti's first freely elected president, is overthrown in a coup d'etat led by Brigadier General Raoul Cédras.

Political parties that favor expanded democracy for Hong Kong win 16 of the 18 seats contested in the colony's first direct elections in 150 years of British rule.

In its largest and most ambitious mission ever, the UN will oversee a peace treaty between the four factions warring for control of Cambodia since 1978 as they try to share power.

In Great Britain, a panel of five law lords rule that rape can occur in marriage, formally reversing 225 years of legal precedent.

Violence erupts in major cities in Zaire.

In Brazil, president Fernando Collor de Mello designates 71 areas as legal Indian territories.

An earthquake strikes the Himalayan foothills of northern India, killing at least 360 people and injuring 2,000 others.

World Affairs

Europe

An international force led by the U.S. launches air and missile attacks on Iraq and Iraqi-occupied Kuwait.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

January–October 1991—141

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Utah governor Norman Bangerter (R) signs one of the most repressive abortion laws in the U.S.

When 11 Marines are killed near the Kuwaiti border, they become the first U.S. troops to die in the ground war.

The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. gross national product declined at a 2.1% annual rate in the fourth quarter of 1990. After adjusting for inflation, in all of 1990 the U.S. economy grew 0.9%, the lowest yearly growth since 1982.

Two private medical groups announce that they will establish an advisory board to monitor embryo and fetal tissue research.

British billionaire Richard Branson and his Swedish copilot become the first people to cross the Pacific Ocean in a hot-air balloon.

Maryland governor William D. Schaefer (D) signs into law one of the most liberal abortion bills in the U.S. The measure is designed to protect a woman's ability to obtain a legal abortion, even if the Supreme Court is to overturn its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

Pres. Bush signs into law a bill that will compensate Vietnam veterans who had been exposed to the herbicide Agent Orange.

Lynn Martin is confirmed by the Senate and sworn in as secretary of labor.

A study suggests that individuals infected with HIV who take the antiviral drug AZT before they develop symptoms of AIDS may live no longer than those who begin taking AZT once they develop symptoms.

The handwritten manuscript to the first half of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is found by a 62-year-old librarian in a trunk she inherited from her grandfather.

A videotape shows California Highway patrolmen beating black motorist Rodney King after a car chase.

Data suggests that 170 Cubans fled to southern Florida in homemade rafts in the first three months of 1991. That is more than twice the amount of rafters who arrived in the U.S. in the first three months of 1990.

Exxon Corp. agrees to plead guilty to four misdemeanor environmental charges and to pay a $100 million fine, the largest-ever fine for polluting, over charges arising from the Exxon Valdez spill.

At least 23 people are killed in a series of violent thunderstorms across Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Texas.

Violence breaks out at the premier of film New Jack City in New York; Los Angles; Las Vegas; Boston; and Sayreville, New Jersey.

William Kennedy Smith, 30, a nephew of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.), is formally identified by police as the suspect in an alleged rape at the Kennedy family's vacation estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

In a White House ceremony, Pres. Bush awards a posthumous Medal of Honor to a World War I soldier, army corporal Freddie Stowers, making Stowers the first black American to receive the honor for duty in either World War I or World War II.

The minimum hourly wage rises 45 cents, to $4.25 from $3.80 per hour, and the so-called training wage, a lower minimum wage for teenagers, increases to $3.62 per hour from $3.35.

The crew of the space shuttle Atlantis releases the $617 million, 17-ton Gamma Ray Observatory into an orbit about 280 miles above Earth. It is the heaviest scientific payload ever carried aboard the shuttle.

The National Conference of Christians and Jews elects Maryann Bishop Coffey as its cochair. She is the first woman and the first black to hold the position.

Riots erupt in the largely Hispanic neighborhood of Mount Pleasant in Washington, D.C., after a police officer shoots a Hispanic man. The rioting is described as the worst in the nation's capital since the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.

In a controversial move, Pres. Bush states he will renew most-favorednation trade status for China.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission authorizes the restart of a reactor at the Browns Ferry nuclear power plant near Athens, Alabama. The facility has been closed since 1985, marking the longest shutdown in the history of U.S. commercial atomic power.

A memorial to dead American astronauts is dedicated at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The Smithsonian Institution's board of regents unanimously approves the creation of a National African American Museum.

Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first black American to sit on the Supreme Court, announces his retirement after 24 years of service.

In NYC, 18,000 troops, including some 6,000 veterans of earlier U.S. wars, are given a traditional tickertape parade.

Mayor Mary C. Moran (R) of Bridgeport, Connecticut, files for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection for the city. Bridgeport, Connecticut's largest city, is reported to be the largest U.S. city to have filed for bankruptcy.

NASA reveals that the U.S.'s next series of weather satellites, currently under development, contains serious flaws that may affect the nation's ability to obtain vital readings. NASA states it is considering several emergency plans.

An original copy of the Declaration of Independence sells for $2.42 million at Sotheby's. The price is reported to be the highest ever paid for a piece of printed Americana.

Police in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, arrest serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer and discover human heads, boxes of body parts, a barrel of acid, and photographs of mutilated bodies in his apartment.

Pres. Bush lifts U.S. trade and investment sanctions against South Africa in place since 1986.

Senators vote to increase their salaries to $125,100, a $23,200 raise. The Senate also votes to bar acceptance of speaking fees by its members.

Scientists note that the volume of ice in the Arctic Ocean declined by 2% between 1978 and 1987.

A contestant from the Miss Black America beauty pageant charges that former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson raped her in Indianapolis.

In Brooklyn, a car driven by a Hasidic Jewish driver strikes and kills Gavin Cato, a seven-year-old black boy from Guyana. The incident touches off rioting.

The Defense Department discloses that nearly 24% of U.S. combat deaths in the Persian Gulf war were the result of friendly fire.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the fiscal 1992 federal budget deficit will reach a record $362 billion, $70 billion higher than previous CBO estimates and $13.7 billion higher than the Bush administration's most recent forecast.

Hurricane Bob, the first major hurricane of the 1991 season, tears up the eastern seaboard, causing 16 deaths and more than $1 billion in property damage.

Disgraced television evangelist Jim Bakker wins a reduction in his 45year prison sentence to 18 years for fraud.

Ed Pastor (D) becomes the first Hispanic elected to Congress by Arizona.

For the first time since 1957, the U.S. has no long-range bombers in a state of nuclear-attack readiness.

About 2,000 gallons of radioactive coolant water escape into a larger water system at the Seabrook, New Hampshire, nuclear power plant.

Four men and four women seal themselves in “Biosphere II,” a giant glass-and-steel greenhouse in Oracle, Arizona.

The International Olympic Committee admits the Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania into the Olympic movement.

Anita Hill publicly accuses Supreme Court nominee Judge Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment. The charge sparks an emotional and contentious national debate, and, after one of the most bitter and divisive confirmation battles in the 202year history of the Supreme Court, the Senate confirms Thomas as the court's 106th associate justice in the closest vote for a Supreme Court justice in the 20th century.

A federal judge in Alexandria, Va., sentences Melvyn R. Paisley, a former Navy assistant secretary, to four years in prison and fines him $50,000 for his role in the Pentagon procurement scandal.

A federal judge approves a settlement between Exxon Corp., the Alaskan government, and the Justice Department over criminal charges arising from the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. The settlement calls upon Exxon to pay a total of $1.025 billion in fines and restitution payments through the year 2001.

The first fetus-to-fetus tissue transplant shows initial signs of success.

The number of cassette tapes sold throughout the world has declined in 1990 for the first time since they were introduced in 1965.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

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142—November–December 1991

Nov.

Dec.

World Affairs

Europe

Representatives of Israel, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestinians of the Israeli-occupied territories close a Middle East peace conference sponsored by the Soviet Union and the U.S. in Madrid, Spain. It is the first peace conference to draw all the major parties in the Middle East conflict to one table for comprehensive talks.

Voters in the republic of Tadzhikistan elect Rakhman Nabiyev president in the first popular election for the post.

The Soviet Union, formed in 1922, officially disbands and is replaced by a Commonwealth of Independent States made up of 11 of the 12 former Soviet republics.

Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, who did more than any other figure to end the Cold War, to curb the arms race and to put the Soviet Union on the road to democracy, announces his immediate resignation.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Fighting breaks out in Somalia's already devastated capital between fighters loyal to interim president Ali Mahdi and to Gen. Mohammed Farah Haideed.

Police in Nicaragua seize more than 1,500 pounds of cocaine in the largest such seizure in Nicaraguan history.

Hong Kong authorities reinitiate a controversial program of forced repatriation of Vietnamese refugees advocated by the British government.

The fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) of Algeria takes a majority of seats in the first free parliamentary elections.

Canada reaches an agreement with Inuit leaders that will lead to the creation of a new Canadian territory from the current Northwest Territories to be called Nunavut. The Inuit will be given ownership of a 135,000-square-mile area within Nunavut, making them the largest landowners in North America.

In Myanmar, students stage demonstrations to demand the freedom of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize and has been under house arrest since 1989.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

November–December 1991—143

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

President Bush signs the Civil Rights Act of 1991.

Rear Admiral John Snyder, implicated in the sexual-harassment Tailhook scandal, is relieved of duty.

EPA director William K. Reilly warns that about 74 million U.S. citizens live in urban areas where air quality fails to meet federal standards.

California scientists isolate “stem cells” whose divisions give rise to all the red and white blood cells in the body.

The Biblical Archeology Society of New York announces that it will publish a “facsimile edition” of the previously unpublished sections of the Dead Sea scrolls.

A California District Court of Appeal strikes down a Los Angeles law that makes parents responsible for their children's criminal activities.

Terry A. Anderson, the longest-held Western hostage in Lebanon, is freed after 2,454 days in captivity. He is the last of 17 Americans held captive in Lebanon between Mar. 1984 and Dec. 1991 to be freed.

President Bush signs legislation giving long-term unemployed workers in all states a minimum of 13 weeks of extended benefits.

Reports show that scientists synthesized the polio virus in the laboratory, marking the first time that a virus has been created outside living cells.

The gun used by Jack Ruby to kill accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963 is auctioned for $200,000.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

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144—January 1–5, 1991

Jan. 1

Jan. 2

Jan. 3

Jan. 4

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The members of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon), the Soviet-led trading bloc, begin making trade payments in hard (convertible) currencies, breaking the organization's bonds with the inconvertible Soviet ruble. . . . An exchange of New Year's greetings taped by U.S. president Bush and Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev are broadcast in the USSR and the U.S.A.

Albanian president Ramiz Alia vows that national elections will be “completely free and democratic, pluralist and secret.” . . . The Times of London reports that, in Romania, 1 million abortions were performed in 1990 since contraceptives, illegal during the Ceausescu regime, are still difficult to find in the country. . . . David (Daithi O Conaill) O'Connell, 53, reputed chief of staff of the IRA during the 1970s, dies of unreported causes in Dublin.

Jordan moves most of its 80,000 troops into defensive positions facing the Israeli border.

The goods-and-services tax goes into effect in Canada. . . . The Nicaraguan army announces four Sandinista army officers and 11 Salvadorans were arrested for selling antiaircraft missiles to Salvadoran rebels. . . . In Colombia, FARC kills five policemen when rebels attack an oil pipeline. They claim the violence is in response to a Dec. 1990 government offensive against the rebel group. . . . In Canada, the Manitoba Nurses Union strikes over wages.

NATO announces that more than 40 German, Belgian, and Italian jet fighters will be sent to Turkey to bolster defenses along the TurkishIraqi border. It is the first time that the Federal Republic of Germany deploys forces outside its territory. . . . The EC issues a call for a ceasefire in Somalia.

Elite Soviet interior-ministry troops seize the central printing plant in Riga, Latvia, and the Communist Party headquarters in Vilnius, Lithuania. About 10,000 Latvians protest the seizure with a demonstration in front of the republic's CP headquarters. . . . Britain's most wanted terrorist suspect, Patrick Sheehy, is found dead in the street in Nenagh, County Tipperary, Ireland, with a single gunshot wound to the head and a gun lying next to him.

People who fled Somalia tell of rocket fire, indiscriminate shooting by government troops and streets in Mogadishu littered with bodies. Unconfirmed estimates of civilian and combatant deaths range up to 1,000. Pres. Mohammed Siad Barre calls for a cease-fire. . . Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati states that should a war break out in the Persian Gulf, Iran will remain neutral, reversing remarks made by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Three U.S. Army servicemen die when Salvadoran rebels shoot down their helicopter in El Salvador. Photographic and forensic evidence suggests Pfc. Earnest Dawson and Lt. Col. David Pickett were executed by rebels after the crash. The third, Chief Warrant Officer Daniel Scott, is assumed to have died from the crash. . . . In Colombia, FARC kills at least 12 people when rebels attack a truck carrying narcotics police troops.

UN General Assembly president Guido de Marco has “a frank exchange of views” with Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy in Jerusalem, but cancels a tour of a Gaza Strip refugee camp because of fighting between stone-throwing demonstrators and soldiers. De Marco's visit to Israel is the first by a UN official since the Temple Mount killings in Oct. 1990.

Turkish workers hold the first general strike since 1980. . . . The British government announces its expulsion of seven Iraqi diplomats and 68 other Iraqis. . . . Israel opens a consulate in Moscow, the first Israeli diplomatic facility in the USSR in 23 years. . . . The Soviet military chief of staff, Gen. Moiseyev, meets with Latvian president Anatolijs Gorbunovs in Moscow to discuss an easing of tensions in the Baltics. . . . The heads of Bulgaria's 15 political parties and the nation's top labor federation sign a political accord aimed at a “peaceful transition to a democratic society.”

The leaders of Egypt, Syria, Libya, and the Sudan meet in Libya for talks related to the Persian Gulf crisis. . . . Reports indicate that proposals from the Egyptian government for informal peace talks between Somalia's president and rebels has been rejected. . . . Pan American World Airways announces that it is suspending flights to Israel and Saudi Arabia because of the soaring price of war-risk insurance.

The UN Security Council votes unanimously to condemn Israel's treatment of the Palestinians in the occupied territories. . . . The EC pledges to support the U.S. position on the Persian Gulf crisis.

Jan Krzysztof Bielecki is confirmed as Poland's new premier by the lower house of parliament, the Sejm. . . . The Soviet military chief of staff, Gen. Moiseyev, pledges that no more soldiers will be based in the volatile Baltic region.

Reports find that rebels in Somalia have taken key areas of Mogadishu and that the Somali army, which normally numbers 65,000 shrank to 10,000 after a rash of desertions. . . . An Arab bus driver is shot dead after his bus collides with a car driven by an Israeli woman and kills her. Palestinians claim the man was shot defending himself while Israelis state the driver purposely hit the car.

Reports state that the ruling Albanian Workers' (Communist) Party has issued a political manifesto that pledges “nonstop” democratic reform, economic liberalization and an expansion of public services.

Italy, a former colonial power in Somalia, retrieves more than 200 people from Mogadishu while the U.S. evacuates 61 people, including 23 U.S. citizens. . . . Israeli soldiers kill a 12-year-old boy after they open fire on Palestinian stonethrowers in the occupied West Bank. Separately, 14 Arabs are injured in a clash on the Gaza Strip. . . . Sir Mudah Hassanal Bolkiah, the sultan of Brunei, releases six political prisoners detained since a 1962 abortive revolt.

Jan. 5

The Americas

The FMLN denies executing the U.S. soldiers whose plane crashed in El Salvador on Jan. 2 and state the crew died on impact.

Asia & the Pacific

Reports indicate that Japan's single team in Saudi Arabia has returned home since most of the Japanese oppose any involvement in the gulf effort other than financial support.

The Chinese government announces that seven people accused of conspiring against the Chinese state because of their participation in prodemocracy demonstrations in 1989 were given relatively lenient sentences of between two and four years in jail. The sentences are viewed as an attempt to mollify international human rights groups and foreign governments.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 1–5, 1991—145

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

A law that requires pharmaceutical companies to give Medicaid programs the same discounts for drugs that they give to other big customers goes into effect.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Rhode Island's newly inaugurated governor, Bruce G. Sundlun (D), orders the closing of 45 privately insured credit unions and small banks in the state after their private insurer, Rhode Island Share and Indemnity Fund Corp., became insolvent on Dec. 31, 1990.

The FDA approves a new drug, erythropoietin, to treat anemia in people with AIDS who are taking AZT. . . . A study finds that second-time Caesarean sections are linked to economic factors and not solely to a woman's medical condition. . . . Darlene Johnson, who pleaded guilty to child abuse, is ordered by a State Superior Court judge to receive an implant of the recently approved birth-control device Norplant, as part of her plea bargain arrangement. . . Newly elected California governor Pete Wilson (R) appoints John Seymour (R) to replace him in the U.S. Senate.

Reports confirm that the Pentagon has imposed physical-fitness standards and tests on U.S. journalists who wish to join the combat press pools in the gulf region. . . . Senator-elect Paul Wellstone (D, Minn.) takes flowers to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and makes a tearful plea against a Persian Gulf war.

Bush administration officials recommend Lawrence B. Lindsey to fill a vacancy on the Federal Reserve Board. . . . Michael J. Boskin, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, acknowledges the U.S. probably entered a recession in the fourth quarter of 1990 in the first admission from the White House that an economic contraction is under way. . . . Most of the largest U.S. banks lower their prime lending rates to 9.5% from 10%.

The 102nd Congress convenes with the Democratic Party holding wider majorities in each house than it had in the 101st Congress, which adjourned in Dec. 1990. . . . On a straight party-line vote, the House passes a measure to strip from the White House's Office of Management and Budget the power to rule whether new tax or spending measures violate the 1990 deficitcutting agreement. Under the bill, that responsibility will be taken over by the Congressional Budget Office.

Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D, Maine) tells Pres. Bush that the constitution requires congressional approval before U.S. troops can be ordered into combat. He also refuses to back a resolution giving Bush unconditional authority to take military action against Iraq.. . . Reports state the Czechoslovak embassy in Washington, D.C., will no longer act as a diplomatic buffer between Cuba and the U.S. . . . Reports confirm that Health Secretary Louis Sullivan removed AIDS from a list of diseases that can prevent infected travelers from entering the U.S.

OSHA announces that Arco Chemical Co. agreed to pay a fine of $3.48 million for federal safety violations related to a July 1990 explosion at a Texas petrochemical plant. The fine is the largest ever levied by OSHA. . . . Reports state that the National Governors' Association found that 28 states face potential budget shortfalls. . . . In Rhode Island, 22 of the 45 credit unions that closed Jan. 1 are granted membership in the National Credit Union Administration, the federal government's insurance fund for such institutions.

The Sentencing Project, an advocacy group, finds that the U.S. has more people in jail compared with its total population than any other country in the world. . . . The Daily News files a $1 million lawsuit against rival New York tabloid Newsday. The suit charges that Newsday “willfully induced” two home-delivery companies in Queens to deliver Newsday to subscribers of The Daily News.

The Bush administration announces that it is postponing the sale of approximately $13 billion in advanced weaponry to Saudi Arabia until the Persian Gulf crisis ends.

The Energy Department announces it is transferring to the Health Department its program for studying the effects of radiation on workers in the nuclear weapons industry. . . . The Postal Rate Commission approves a four-cent increase in the price of a first-class stamp, bringing the cost to 29 cents. . . . The Labor Department reports that the unemployment rate ended 1990 at a three-year high of 6.1%.

Jan. 1

For the first time since after the 1978 season, the two final major college football polls choose different teams for the top ranking. The AP ranks Colorado number one, while UPI gives the top spot to Georgia Tech.

A group of aviation historians announce that they have uncovered a clue to the 1937 disappearance of aviator Amelia Earhart. The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery state a 1989 expedition found a box on the Pacific island of Nikumaroro that is believed to have been a navigator's bookcase on Earhart's plane. Richard Gillespie, director of the research group, argues that it is likely Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, died of thirst.

Lucius Benjamin (Luke) Appling, 83, star shortstop with Major League Baseball's Chicago White Sox from 1930 to 1950, dies of an abdominal aneurysm in Cummings, Georgia.

The NEA reverses itself and agrees to award grants to two controversial performance artists, Karen Finley and Holly Hughes, whose work often addresses sexual issues. The two had been denied grants in 1990, even though they were recommended by an NEA review panel.

Reports show that the eight largest city governments all face budget shortfalls for 1991. The largest city government without a budget gap is Houston. The top-20 city government with the largest shortfall by percentage is San Diego, with a $60 million deficit on a $455 million budget, or 13.2%.

Jan. 2

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Jan. 5

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

146—January 6–10, 1991

World Affairs

Jan. 8

Jan. 9

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Germany sends 18 Alpha fighter jets to join the NATO's deployment in Turkey. . . . Marko Nikezic, 69, leading liberal Serbian politician in Yugoslavia in the post–World War II era who served as the nation's foreign minister, 1965-68, and as head of the Serbian Communist Party, dies of intestinal cancer in Belgrade. . . . British prime minister John Major embarks on a tour of the Middle East.

The Israeli air force attacks a PLO base in southern Lebanon, killing one guerrilla and wounding six. . . . South African Airways, Cyprus Airways, and the Polish airline, Lot, suspend flights to and from Israel.

Roger Lafontant, a former head of the Tonton Macoutes, the private militia of the deposed Duvalier family dictatorships, leads armed supporters in the seizure of Haiti's presidential palace. . . . Jorge Serrano Elías, an engineer and educator, is elected president of Guatemala in a runoff vote.

The UN advises nonessential personnel to leave Israel immediately. . . . Reports show that the executive committee of Comecon, the Soviet-led trading bloc, agreed to transform the organization into a purely coordinating body. . . . The IMF announces a $1.8 billion loan to Czechoslovakia, the largest loan by the IMF to any Eastern European nation since the collapse of communism in that area.

Albania plans to release 200 political prisoners. . . Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev invalidates Georgia's Dec. 1990 annexation of South Ossetia. . . . The Soviet defense ministry plans to send the army to seven republics to round up draft dodgers and to enforce military conscription. . . . Reports indicate that Albanian border guards fired on hundreds of Albanians attempting to cross into Yugoslavia without passports, injuring four.

Lebanon's largest Christian militia, the Gagea-led LF, announces it will block the peace process if its demands for joining the new government are not met. . . . In South Africa, test results show the worst scores in the recorded history of black-segregated education. . . . In Israel, the defense ministry announces that it will distribute an additional 1 million gas masks to residents in rural areas.

Responding to news of the Jan. 6 coup in Haiti, riots begin that last two days. Thousands of supporters of president-elect Jean-Bertrand Aristide burn barricades, block access to the airport and destroy the headquarters of Lafontant's party. Many Lafontant supporters are hacked to death with machetes or burned with gasoline-filled tires around their necks. Loyalist army forces then crush the coup.

Belize and Guyana become the 34th and 35th members of the Organization of American States.

One person is killed and 248 are injured when a commuter train crashes in London. . . . In response to the Soviet Union’s Jan. 7 plan, the Latvian parliament passes a resolution condemning the plan as a Soviet “invasion.” Lithuania's Supreme Council passes a resolution asserting the deployment will violate the laws of the “sovereign Lithuanian republic,” the Soviet Union, and international conventions. However, troops begin taking up key positions in Vilnius. . . . The premier of Lithuania, Kazimiera Prunskiene, resigns along with her entire cabinet.

Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak warns Israel to keep out of the Persian Gulf conflict or it will take a different position. . . . Reports show the emigration of Soviet Jews to Israel slowed considerably. . . . Israel deports from the occupied Gaza Strip four Palestinians said to part of a militant Islamic organization. . . . Four Belgians held in captivity in Lebanon for over three years are reportedly freed by the Abu Nidal group.

The prosecutors in the case against Salvadoran soldiers accused of slaying six Jesuit priests and two women in 1989 resign, claiming Salvadoran armed forces prevented their investigation. . . . In Canada, a group of Mohawk Indians armed with baseball bats and metal bars clash with 150 Quebec police officers on the Kahnawake Reserve near Montreal.

After nearly of a month of negotiation, U.S. secretary of state James Baker and Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz meet in Geneva, Switzerland, but fail to reach any agreement that will forestall war between Iraq and a U.S.-led multinational force in the Persian Gulf. . . . A UN agency reports that drug abuse in many areas of the world appears to be on the rise. . . . Jacques Poos, president of the EC's Council of Ministers, renews an invitation to Iraqi foreign minister Aziz to hold talks on the Persian Gulf crisis.

Georgia's parliament votes to disregard the Jan. 7 directive and warns that any effort to enforce the Soviet decree will be “an effective declaration of war.” . . . Pres. François Mitterrand pledges that France will continue to seek a peaceful settlement in the Persian Gulf until midnight Jan. 15. . . . In Yugoslavia, the presidency authorizes the Yugoslav army to disarm all “illegal armed units” in its six republics. . . . Reports indicate that Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin have reached agreement on Russia's contribution to the 1991 Soviet central budget.

A few black students are admitted for the first time to formerly allwhite public schools in South Africa. . . . Jordan closes its border with Iraq since it will not be able to handle another flood of refugees. . . . Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz states that if war breaks out Iraq will strike Israel. . . . Israeli foreign minister David Levy meets with a 25-member U.S. congressional delegation in Jerusalem and urges a U.S. strike on Iraq, even if Iraqi troops withdraw from Kuwait.

Reports suggest that riots set off by the Jan. 6 coup in Haiti have left 70 people dead and destroyed an historic cathedral in Port-au-Prince. President-elect Aristide criticizes mob rampages against the Roman Catholic Church, but he encourages people to seek out Duvalier supporters. . . . Reports suggest the government of president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro defended Nicaragua's military commander in the alleged sale of missiles to Salvadoran rebels. . . . Salvadoran rebels announce they are holding two troops in the alleged Jan. 2 execution of two U.S. soldiers.

Soviet president Gorbachev warns Lithuania to “immediately” adhere to Soviet central authority, but Lithuanian president Vytantas Landsbergis rejects the message. Independence backers show support, but supporters of the central government launch a series of strikes. . . . In Germany, it is reported that an antiterrorist squad raided the homes of several Arabs, and arrested two people. . . . French foreign minister Ronald Dumas urges 30,000 French citizens to leave the Persian Gulf region.

Britain's ambassador to Iraq leaves Baghdad, and most Western embassies close or are in the process of closing. . . . The Israeli defense ministry warns citizens that they should prepare for an Iraqi attack. . . . A South African newspaper reports that the younger son of South African president F. W. de Klerk is engaged to a woman of mixed race, Erica Adams. . . . U.S. president Bush asks Israeli prime minister Shamir to stay out of the Persian Gulf conflict.

Jan. 6

Jan. 7

Europe

Jan. 10

Asia & the Pacific

At the end of talks between Japanese president Toshiki Kaifu and South Korean president Roh Tae Woo in Seoul, Kaifu announces that his nation will no longer require ethnic Koreans who live in Japan to be fingerprinted.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 6–10, 1991—147

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Secretary of State James Baker calls for the resumption of unrestricted military aid to El Salvador. . . . Reports show that the U.S. is preparing to protect frontline troops against biological warfare in the Persian Gulf.

The IRS finds that more than 2 million Americans may have improperly claimed a child-care deduction on their 1988 taxes. Another tax-law change caused 7 million children to “disappear” from tax rolls. . . . Federal regulators take control of Bank of New England Corp., declare three subsidiaries insolvent, and pledge to fully insure the institution's depositors. The cost of the government bailout is estimated at $2.3 billion.

The White House announces the selection of Agriculture Secretary Clayton Yeutter to head the Republican National Committee, succeeding Lee Atwater.

The State Department announces it will hold Pres. Saddam Hussein responsible for any Iraqi-sponsored terrorist attacks. The FBI orders the interview of more than 200 ArabAmerican business and community leaders about possible terrorism. . . . Defense Secretary Dick Cheney cancels the Navy A-12 Stealth attack-plane project. It is the most expensive weapons program ever eliminated by the Pentagon.

Standard and Poor’s (S&P) announces that it made a record number, 768, of corporate credit downgradings in 1990. . . . EaglePicher Industries Inc. files for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. bankruptcy code. The filing puts an end to an effort to consolidate all asbestos-related injury claims against the company into one class-action lawsuit.

A nationwide survey sponsored by the National Science Foundation finds that white Americans continue to hold negative stereotypes of blacks and Hispanics. . . . The Supreme Court rules that convicted prisoners called to testify as witnesses in federal court have to be paid the same fee as other federal witnesses. . . The Supreme Court rules that taxpayers who sincerely believe that federal incometax laws do not apply to them cannot be convicted of tax evasion, because tax laws require “willful” conduct.

Pres. Bush asks Congress to approve a resolution authorizing the use of “all necessary means” to drive Iraq out of Kuwait, the first request made by a president for congressional backing of military action since Aug. 7, 1964. . . . Officials announce two men and a woman serving in Operation Desert Shield died in separate incidents, raising the death toll to 98. Two deaths were accidents, and the third was a suicide.

OTS officials ask to bar Neil Bush from a role in any financial institution that receives government insurance until he shows an understanding of conflict of interest. The penalty is harsher than the ceaseand-desist order recommended in Dec. 1990. . . . Pan American World Airways files Chapter 11. . . . White House figures indicate that the budget deficit for fiscal 1991 will be between $300 and $325 billion, up from a Sept. 1990 projection of $254 billion. . . . The Federal Reserve loosens monetary policy for the sixth time since July 1990.

Steve Clark, 30, guitarist for the heavy-metal rock group Def Leppard, is found dead in London. . . . Hungary's Tamas Darnyi sets a world record by winning the 400 meter individual medley in 4:12.36 in the World Swimming and Diving Championships.

Two NYC teenagers are sentenced in the 1989 rape and beating of a jogger in Central Park. Kevin Richardson, 16, receives a sentence of five to 10 years—the maximum possible since he was a juvenile at the time of the crime. Kharey Wise, 18, who is sentenced as an adult, receives a sentence of five to 15 years. . . . Deborah J. Glick is sworn in as the first openly homosexual state legislator in New York.

President Bush reaffirms the military's powers to divert transportation resources, construction supplies, food, and other materials from civilian use to military use in case of war. . . . The Defense Department approves strict regulations on press coverage of U.S. combat in the Persian Gulf, sparking controversy. . . . The Defense Department announces plans to ask for emergency authority to keep reservists in the military for as long as two years. . . . According to a poll, 86% of respondents believe war with Iraq is inevitable.

A jury in Chicago convicts eight commodities traders from the Chicago Board of Trade of racketeering. . . . Stock prices plunge 39.11 points on the news of the failure of the Baker-Aziz talks.

A District Court judge in L.A. rules that a NEA antiobscenity pledge adopted by Congress in 1989 is unconstitutional. . . . The Roman Catholic archbishop of Milwaukee, Rembert Weakland, states he is willing to ordain married men to the priesthood in an effort to combat a shortage of priests in the U.S.

Congress opens debate over whether to authorize president Bush to use military force against Iraq. . . . Ohio governor Richard Celeste (D) commutes death sentences to life imprisonment for eight prisoners, including all four women on Ohio's death row. . . . The Census Bureau reports that white households average eight times the net worth of Hispanic households and 10 times the net worth of black households.

Several journalists are reported to have sent letters of complaint about the Jan. 9 press regulations to Cheney. . . . Nine union presidents publish an open letter opposing war against Iraq. . . . Pres. Bush sends a letter to 460 college newspapers asking students to support his Persian Gulf policy. . . . The Justice Department orders INS officials to begin photographing and fingerprinting anyone entering the U.S. with an Iraqi or a Kuwaiti passport.

The Dow Jones rebounds 28.46 to close at 2498.76, down 134.10 points, or more than 5%, for the year.

The National Society of Film Critics select Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas as the best film of 1990. Scorsese is named best director. Jeremy Irons is chosen as best actor, and Anjelica Huston is named best actress. . . . Tom Kite wins the Tournament of Champions in Carlsbad, California the opening event of the 1991 PGA tour.

Two private medical groups, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Fertility Society, announce that they will establish an advisory board to monitor embryo and fetal tissue research.

The Supreme Court refuses to hear a challenge to the National Football League's free-agency system, ended an antitrust suit against the league by the NFL Players Association.

According to analyses by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the British Meteorological Office, average surface temperatures around the globe in 1990 were higher than in any year since records were first kept in the 19th century.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

148—January 11–15, 1991

Jan. 11

Europe

Iraqi president Saddam Hussein addresses an international Islamic conference in Baghdad, where he states that he is preparing for a holy war against the U.S.-led alliance. . . . The Mexican government and the presidents of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica agree to negotiate bilateral free-trade agreements with Mexico and to integrate their countries' economies gradually over the next six years.

Reports state that Gostelradio, the Soviet telecommunications agency, has shut down Moscow's independent Interfax news service and suspended a nonconformist TV news program. . . . In Lithuania, Soviet troops seize two buildings and injure seven people. . . . A Lithuanian politician announces the creation of the “National Salvation Committee” which has a purpose to replace the republic's pro-independence elected leadership.

In Lebanon, Walid Jumblat, the leader of the Druse militia, quits the national unity cabinet. . . . Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., states that Saudi Arabia will pay up to 50% of U.S. costs in a war against Iraq.

An estimated 200,000 Germans protest war in the Persian Gulf. Crowds estimated in the tens of thousands march in Paris, London, and Rome as well. . . . In response to the Jan. 8 release of Belgian hostages, Belgium frees a Palestinian guerrilla linked to Abu Nidal's terrorist Fatah Revolutionary Council, Said Nasser, who was sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment after killing a Jewish child in a 1980 grenade attack.

Gunmen open fire on 300 South Africans attending an all-night funeral vigil in Sebokeng. At least 35 people are killed and 40 injured. Police arrest 10 suspects. . . . Syrian president Hafez al-Assad calls on Iraqi president Hussein to withdraw his troops from Kuwait so the Arab world can form a unified front against Israel. . . . Jordanian prime minister Mudar Badran states that Iraq agreed not to use Jordan as a corridor for a ground attack against Israel.

UN secretary general Javier Perez de Cuellar leaves Baghdad without making any progress in meetings with Saddam Hussein. . . . Czechoslovakia vows to consult with Hungary and Poland on a possible immediate withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact in response to the killings in Lithuania. . . . The presidents of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and the Russian Federation issue a joint appeal for UN intervention in the Baltic region.

In Vilnius, Lithuania, Soviet army troops kill 15 pro-independence protesters. The slayings draw international condemnations. . . . In response to the killings, Russian Federation president Boris Yeltsin signs a mutual-security pact with representatives of the three Baltic republics, and 5,000 protestors march in Moscow's Red Square. . . . Anti-Soviet demonstrations are staged in Prague and Warsaw. . . . Portuguese president Mario Soares easily wins reelection.

In Israel, U.S. deputy secretary of state Lawrence Eagleburger meets with Premier Yitthak Shamir and Defense Minister Moshe Arens to encourage them not to respond to an Iraqi attack. Arens states, “If Israel is attacked, it will respond.”. . . At least 40 South Africans are killed and 50 injured when fighting erupts during a soccer game at Orkney. . . . The ruling party of Cape Verde loses its majority in Parliament in the first multiparty Elections since 1975.

Reports show that a total of 3,384 people were killed in political violence in Peru in 1990.

France unveils a last-minute proposal for a peaceful settlement of the Persian Gulf crisis, a plan supported by Spain, Germany, Italy, Egypt, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Sweden, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, and the PLO. It calls for an Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait, guarantees that Iraq will not be attacked, and endorses holding a peace conference on the Middle East in the future. The U.S. and Great Britain state such terms are unacceptable since they refuse to link the Persian Gulf crisis with other Middle East disputes.

Although President Mikhail Gorbachev insists he did not give the order for the Jan. 13 attack, tens of thousands of people stage antiGorbachev protests throughout the USSR. Debate over what instigated the violence ensues. . . . Reports state a group of intellectuals founded the Albanian Human Rights Forum. . . . The Supreme Soviet confirms Valentin Pavlov as the premier Constantine of the USSR. . . . Greek premier Constantine Mitsotakis ends a meeting with Albanian prime minister Adil Carcani and they announce citizens of both countries can freely cross the border.

Iraq's National Assembly passes a resolution to give Pres. Hussein a free hand in dealing with the Persian Gulf crisis and to call for the nation to fight a “holy war” to defend the occupation of Kuwait. . . . Two high-ranking leaders of the PLO are shot dead in Tunis. . . . The Israeli Supreme Court orders the distribution of gas masks to Palestinians in occupied territories in case of a chemical weapons attack by Iraq. . . . Reports confirm that South Africa sold coal to the British electricity industry for the first time since 1986.

In Argentina, eight ministers in Pres. Carlos Saúl Menem’s government resign.

With only a few hours left before the UN deadline for Iraq to pull out of Kuwait, Perez de Cuellar pledges that if Iraq begins to pull out of Kuwait, “Every effort will be made to address in a comprehensive manner, the Arab-Israeli conflict, including the Palestinian question.” U.S. and British diplomats are satisfied with the statement since it does not specifically commit to a conference upon which Pres. Hussein has repeatedly insisted.

In Great Britain, the House of Commons backs the use of force against Iraq. . . . Soviet “black beret” interior-ministry troops seize a police academy in the Baltic republic of Latvia. . . . Despite controversy over the Jan. 13 killings, the Supreme Soviet confirms Boris Pugo's nomination as interior minister. It also confirms Aleksandr Bessmertnykh as the new foreign minister, succeeding Eduard Shevardnadze, who resigned in Dec. 1990.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis demonstrate their support for Saddam Hussein across the country. . . . Jordan's King Hussein pledges to protect Jordan's “land and skies . . . and prevent anyone from crossing in one direction or the other.” . . . The PLO states that a turncoat bodyguard, once linked to the Abu Nidal terrorist organization, is the Jan. 14 assassin of PLO members in Tunis. . . . In Cape Verde, P.M. Pedro Pires concedes defeat and resigns.

Two grenades are thrown at the U.S. embassy in Panama. . . . In response to the Jan. 2 executions of three U.S. servicemen, U.S. President Bush announces he will release all fiscal 1991 military aid to El Salvador but will delay delivery of the funds to encourage peace talks.

Jan. 12

Jan. 13

Jan. 14

Jan. 15

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Sir Robert Gillman Allen Jackson, 79, Australian diplomat who served as an undersecretary general of the UN, 1972–87, dies of a stroke in New York City.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 11–15, 1991—149

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Former Rep. Donald (Buz) Lukens (R, Ohio) is released from jail after serving nine days of a 30-day sentence for having sex with a teenage girl. . . . John Vento and Joseph Serrano, two of the men convicted in the 1989 Bensonhurst, New York, racial killing of a black youth, Yusef K. Hawkins, receive relatively lenient sentences.

Public Citizen, a public-interest group, files suit to block a Department of Defense proposal to use experimental drugs on troops in the Persian Gulf for protection against chemical and biological warfare. . . . The White House offers its first accounting of the Persian Gulf operation, announcing that it cost $10 billion in 1990. The account states the U.S. received $6 billion from allies and a further $2 billion is expected.

NYC black activist Rev. Al Sharpton is stabbed in the chest by a white man during a march in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, New York, to protest the Jan. 11 sentences in the killing of Yusef K. Hawkins. Sharpton is listed in stable condition after the stabbing, which doctors say is not life-threatening. Police arrest Michael Riccardi and charge him with attempted murder, possession of a weapon and violation of Sharpton's civil rights.

Congress narrowly passes a resolution authorizing Pres. Bush to use military power to force Iraq from Kuwait in the first congressional authorization of offensive military action since the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that paved the way for the Vietnam War. During the debate, 268 representatives and 93 senators took the floor. House Speaker Thomas Foley (D, Wash.) describes the resolution as the “practical equivalent” of a declaration of war. Congress has not made a declaration of war since the onset of WW II.

Pope John Paul II calls the gulf war a “tragic adventure” that will mark “the decline of the whole of humanity.”

The Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that violent crimes against men declined by about 20% over the period from 1973 to 1987, while violent crimes against women remained level. According to the bureau's survey, 25% of violent crimes against women were committed by family members or men they dated, compared to 4% of crimes committed by family members or female acquaintances against men.

The U.S. government donates $242,000 to an educational program in Soweto designed to prevent the spread of the deadly disease AIDS in South Africa.

The World Swimming and Diving Championships in Perth, Australia, closes with the U.S. winning a meet-leading 17 gold medals and 34 medals in total. China wins the second-most golds with eight. Hungary wins five golds.

Carl David Anderson, 85, 1936 Nobel Prize–winning physicist with V. G. Hess, for work in cosmic rays and scientist who discovered the subatomic particle known as the positron, or positive electron, dies of unreported causes in San Marino, California.

The Supreme Court declines to review a case on the private possession of machine guns. . . . The controversial director of the United States Information Agency, Bruce Gelb, agrees to step down.

The Supreme Court rules on conditions for ending court supervision of formerly segregated school districts. . . . Surgeon General Antonia Novello calls for major changes in the marketing of Cisco, a drink that resembles wine coolers in flavor and color, and in the shape and labeling of its bottle. However, wine coolers contain about 4% alcohol, whereas Cisco contains 20%, so one bottle of Cisco contains the equivalent of five shots of 80-proof liquor.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Jan. 11

The American Library Association awards the Newbery Medal to Jerry Spinelli for Maniac Magee. The Caldecott Medal is awarded to David Macaulay for Black and White, which he wrote and illustrated.

Although it is not immediately reported, Pres. Bush signs a National Security Directive committing the U.S. military to war with Iraq. It is subject to revocation only if Iraq begins withdrawing from Kuwait. . . . Sen. James Sasser (D, Tenn.) releases a Congressional Budget Office report which finds the combat costs of a war on Iraq range from $28 billion to $86 billion. . . . A New York Times/CBS News poll results show that 47% of respondents think military action should start after the Jan, 15 deadline, while 46% favor waiting to see if economic sanctions will work.

The Commerce Department reports that retail sales climbed 3.6% in 1990, the smallest rise since 1982. . . . The EPA initiates a campaign to convince 1,000 large businesses to increase profits, reduce pollution, and improve public relations by using more efficient light bulbs.

In response to the Jan. 13 slayings in Lithuania, Yelena Bonner, the widow of physicist Andrei Sakharov, asks the Nobel Committee to remove her husband's name from the list of Peace Prize laureates to sever that connection to Soviet president Gorbachev. . . .The Annals of Internal Medicine publishes preliminary results in one of the first tests of an AIDS vaccine on uninfected humans, which indicate the treatment is safe and well tolerated by the subjects' bodies.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

150—January 16–19, 1991

Jan. 16

Jan. 17

Jan. 18

Jan. 19

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

An international force led by the U.S. launches air and missile attacks on Iraq and Iraqi-occupied Kuwait. The attack is launched less than 17 hours after the expiration of a UN Security Council deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, which it invaded on Aug. 2, 1990.

Turkish president Turgut Ozal warns that Turkey will not tolerate invasions of Iraq by Iran or Syria. . . . France’s National Assembly authorizes the use of force against Iraq. . . . Vandalism against U.S. targets occur in Milan, Berlin, Lyons, and Paris. . . . In Latvia, Soviet troops kill a civilian Reports indicate that the Latvian National Salvation Committee, made up of anti-independence Communist Party loyalists, formed. . . . In Lithuania, the Jan. 13 death count is officially placed at 15, and at least 140 are reported injured. Nine of those killed Jan. 13 are buried in a peaceful mass funeral in Vilnius attended by 500,000 people, including representatives from Estonia, Latvia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia, and the Ukraine. . . . A Polish official announces the successful sale to the general public of five state-owned companies in Poland’s first attempt at large-scale privatization. . . . German chancellor Helmut Kohl unveils his new cabinet, having resolved major disputes between his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its junior coalition partner, the Free Democratic Party (FDP).

The first U.S. planes launched against Iraq leave their base at about 4:50 P.M. EST and begin to hit their targets around 6:30 P.M. EST. Thousands of Iraqis are reported to have fled Baghdad before the bombing begins.

Officials report that the allies hit 60–80% of their targets and lost four aircrafts, two British, one U.S., and one Kuwaiti. . . . Anti-U.S., protests are held in Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, and Yemen. . . . A foreign ministry, official for the exiled government of Kuwait thanks U.S. president Bush. . . . Jordan, Iran, and the PLO condemn the war, but Iran vows to remain neutral. . . . Iraq reports 23 civilians dead and 66 wounded.

More than 100,000 protesters march in the sixth straight day of antiwar demonstrations in Germany. . . . The Italian parliament votes to allow the use of force by its forces in the gulf. . . . Turkey authorizes the use of its airbases by the U.S. for attacks on Iraq, despite fear that the action may directly involve Turkey in the war. . . . Olav V, King of Norway, 87, dies after suffering a heart attack. He is succeeded by Crown Prince Harald. . . . The Latvian parliament orders the removal of vehicles blocking bridges around the city.

Iraq fires eight Scud missiles into Israel. Despite heavy damage, only 15 people are reported injured in Israel. Israel declares a state of emergency and does not immediately retaliate. Israeli authorities begin enforcing the harshest, most widespread, and longest curfew ever imposed on Palestinian residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1967. . . . Iraq fires a Scud missile into Saudi Arabia that hits and sets fire to an oil facility at Khafji. . . . . An Iraqi fighter is shot down by a F-15E.

Round-the-clock bombing of Iraqi targets by the U.S.-led international coalition directs its efforts toward mobile Scud missile launchers. The allies report a total of eight planes—four from the U.S.—lost so far. U.S. warplanes begin bombing Iraq from Turkey’s Incirlik air base, in effect opening a second, front in the gulf war.

Albanian Muslims are permitted to worship at a mosque in Tirana for the first time since 1967, when all religions were banned in the country. . . . Italy’s interior ministry states it expelled seven Iraqis, ordered three more to leave the country, and detained two other individuals suspected of being Palestinians with links to terrorist groups.

Iraq continues to fire missiles against Israel. Israeli threats to retaliate are not carried out as a result of initiatives by U.S. officials. An Israeli official states, “We are not going to play into the hands of Saddam Hussein, who wants to drag us into this conflict.”. . . Electricity and water service in Baghdad is reported to have been disrupted. . . . An Iraqi Scud missile fired at Saudi Arabia is successfully intercepted by a U.S. Patriot, a radar-guided antimissile missile.

Iraqi president Saddam Hussein continues to wage war in the face of the massive allied bombing. News reports begin to show that Moslems in North Africa and Asia and other Arabs are showing increasing support for Hussein. Pro-Iraqi sentiment is even prevalent in nations that have contributed troops to the international coalition against Iraq.

Croatia and Slovenia ignore the disarmament deadline set by the Yugoslav presidency. Croatia places its police and territorialdefense units on maximum alert, preparing for a possible battle with the army.

U.S. raiding parties attack nine oildrilling platforms in the Persian Gulf and take 12 Iraqis prisoner. The Iraqis, who were firing at allied planes, are the first captured during the war. . . . The Louisville becomes the first U.S. attack submarine to launch a cruise missile in combat, although the action is not yet reported. . . . After another Iraqi Scud missile attack on Israel, Pres. Bush calls P.M. Yitzhak Shamir and dispatches two Patriot missile batteries complete with U.S. crews to Israel.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Argentine president Carlos Saúl Menem swears in a new cabinet.

Reports state that China has agreed to provide a $19.2 million commercial loan to Romania. The loan is announced during a visit to China’s capital, Beijing, by Romanian president Ion Iliescu, the first European leader to visit China since the violent 1989 crackdown on the prodemocracy movement.

China, which abstained on the 1990 UN Security Council resolution, authorizing the use of force against Iraq, expresses “deep anxiety and concern” over the outbreak of hostilities. . . . After a series of cabinet meetings, Japanese premier Toshiki Kaifu states that his nation will extend the “maximum support possible” for allied military actions but will not join in combat.

A bomb explodes in Manila, the Philippines, near U.S. offices. One Iraqi man is killed, and another is seriously injured. Police believe the two men were planting the bomb when it went off. . . . A poll by Gallup in Pakistan shows “overwhelming” support for Iraqi president Hussein. . . . In Sydney, 15,000 people demand an end to the war and a withdrawal of Australian forces from the region in the largest antiwar demonstration in Australia since the Vietnam War. About 10,000 protesters march in Adelaide, and 5,000 demonstrate outside the U.S. consulate in Perth.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 16–19, 1991—151

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Journal of the American Medical Association finds that patients without health insurance receive substantially inferior care compared to what is given to insured patients.

Pres. Bush’s spokesman Marlin Fitzwater announces that “the liberation of Kuwait has begun” under the codename Operation Desert Storm. Pres. Bush addresses the nation, stating “28 countries with forces in the gulf area have exhausted all reasonable efforts to reach a peaceful resolution, and have no choice but to drive Saddam from Kuwait by force.” Bush reiterates a pledge that the action against Iraq “will not be another Vietnam.”. . . Members of Congress on both sides of the debate declare that they strongly support the military effort. . . . Antiwar demonstrations are held in cities throughout the U.S. including Washington, D.C.; NYC; Atlanta; Boston; and San Francisco, where 400 people are arrested. . . . For security measures, the White House is closed indefinitely to tourists for the first time since World War II. . . . The Senate passes a nonbinding resolution urging a curtailment of U.S. economic cooperation with the Soviet Union unless Soviet troops are removed from the Baltics.

The Labor Department reports that the government’s index of consumer prices rose 6.1% in 1990, the highest rate since 1981. . . . Several major oil companies announce that they will freeze the prices charged for petroleum in an effort to protect consumers from an anticipated spike in market oil prices.

A judge in New Orleans declares a mistrial in a case of a suspect accused of cocaine possession, after the suspect’s lawyer points out the absence of any penalty for the crime. . . . Aileen Carol Wuornos, is charged with murdering seven men in Florida in 1989 and 1990. . . . The CDC confirm that a Florida dentist who died from AIDS is now believed to have infected three of his patients. The AMA and the ADA urge doctors and dentists infected with HIV either to warn patients about their condition or to give up surgery.

In a Washington press conference, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and Gen. Colin Powell, report heavy antiaircraft fire and surfaceto-air missile fire, but little resistance from the Iraqi air force. . . . White House officials reveal that president Bush signed the directive committing the U.S. military to war with Iraq on Jan. 15. . . . Officials report one U.S. plan has been lost and its navy pilot, Lt. Commander Michael Speicher, has been killed. . . . The FAA orders airlines and airports to implement the highestlevel security precautions.

Oil prices fall and stocks soar, confounding predictions that war would send the markets in opposite directions.

The National Institutes of Health finds that an experimental treatment of concentrated antibodies may lessen the development of bacterial infections in children carrying the AIDS virus.

ABC airs videotapes of Baghdad during the U.S.-led air-raids. Three CNN reporters transmit live audio information for 16 hours until ordered to stop. . . . British billionaire Richard Branson and his Swedish copilot become the first people to cross the Pacific Ocean in a hot-air balloon.

A District Court judge in Jacksonville, Florida, rules that posting pictures of nude women in the workplace is a form of sexual harassment. . . . Hamilton Fish, 102, conservative Republican representative from New York, 1921–44, dies of pneumonia and heart failure in Cold Spring, New York

A poll suggests that 83% of those surveyed support the U.S. intervention in the Persian Gulf. . . . Sporadic demonstrations are reported at colleges and universities across the U.S. . . . The Pentagon changes the report on the status of Lt. Commander Speicher to missing in action.

Eastern Airlines stops flying and announces it will liquidate its assets, ending nearly two years of struggle to emerge from bankruptcy protection. . . . Philadelphia wins a temporary reprieve from bankruptcy by securing a $150 million short-term loan. . . . Thomas Spiegel is charged by federal regulators with helping to manipulate the junk-bond market. Also named in the suit are Michael Milken, Charles Keating Jr., and David Paul.

The National Transportation Safety Board reports that all categories of aviation accidents declined in 1990.

Three teenagers are crushed to death during an AC/DC concert in Salt Lake City. . . . Leaders of the Episcopal Church and the Lutheran Evangelical Church in America propose an agreement that may lead to interchangeable clergy and allow church members to receive communion and other sacraments at either church.

Reports suggest that hundreds of suspects waiting trial in Louisiana may go free because the state legislature neglected to set penalties for drug possession in legislation enacted in September 1990. The problem was discovered during a Jan. 17 mistrial. . . . Residents of Corpus Christi, Texas, vote to reject a proposed amendment to the city’s charter which declares that “human life begins at conception and continues until natural death.”

The largest demonstrations in the U.S. to date against the Persian Gulf war take place in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. A crowd estimated by police at 25,000 and by organizers at 100,000 rallies in Washington D.C., while in San Francisco, an estimated 35,000 people march from Mission Dolores Park to a rally at the Civic Center.

Pres. Bush draws the largest television audience in U.S. history with his address to the nation on the commencement of war in the Persian Gulf when he reaches an estimated 78.8% of the 93.1 million households with televisions. . . . The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts Ike and Tina Turner, Wilson Pickett, Jimmy Reed, the Impressions, Howlin’ Wolf (Chester Arthur Burnett), LaVern Baker, and John Lee Hooker.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

152—January 20–24, 1991

Jan. 20

Jan. 21

Jan. 22

Jan. 23

Jan. 24

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The Americas

NATO’s secretary general cautions that an Iraqi military move against Turkey will trigger a like response from NATO. . . . On Iraqi television, Pres. Saddam Hussein states that so far he has committed only a small portion of his forces against the allies. The TV station airs a videotape of seven men identified as downed allied pilots that include an Italian, a Kuwaiti, two Britons, and three Americans.

At least four Latvians are killed when elite Soviet “black beret” interior-ministry troops storm the headquarters of the Latvian interior ministry in Riga. Soviet interior minister Boris Pugo denies that he either controlled the black berets in Latvia or ordered the attack. A few hours before the attack in Latvia, an estimated 200,000 people march to the Kremlin to protest the crackdown in the Baltics.

Ten Scuds are launched at Saudi Arabia. . . . U.S. Marine Corps units begin the first sustained allied artillery shelling of the war, firing on suspected Iraqi positions in Kuwait. . . . In Sao Tome and Principe, the ruling Movement for the Liberation of Sao Tome and Principe-Social Democrat Party loses its majority in Parliament in legislative elections. The multiparty elections are the first in the West African country since it gained independence from Portugal in 1975.

Supporters of Haiti’s presidentelect, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, win a plurality in the National Assembly in runoff elections.

Iraq threatens to hold allied prisoners at bombing targets. . . . Iraqi diplomats in Paris, London, and Washington, D.C., receive formal protests over Iraq’s treatment of prisoners. . . . Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia vow that Israeli retaliation against Iraqi Scud attacks will not make them abandon the alliance in the Persian Gulf war. . . In response to developments in the Baltics, the European Parliament suspends $1 billion in EC emergency food aid to the Soviet Union.

British prime minister John Major suspends a technical aid fund for the USSR. . . . Latvia adopts a plan to form a special defense force made up of Latvian evaders of the Soviet military draft. The Soviet state prosecutor’s office threatens unspecified measures in response. . . . Three bombs explode at a U.S. military warehouse in Istanbul. Dev Sol, a Turkish leftwing group, states the bombs protest “the imperialist force in the gulf.”. . . Bulgarian police seize the hijacker of a Soviet plane.

A downed U.S. Navy pilot is rescued in the Iraqi desert by an air force team. . . . After U.S. deputy secretary of state Lawrence Eagleburger meets with P.M. Yitzhak Shamir and Defense Minister Moshe Arens in Jerusalem, he states the Israeli leaders have pledged to consult the U.S. before launching a retaliatory strike against Iraq.

El Salvador’s FMLN rebel group admit that two of its members executed two U.S. soldiers on Jan. 2. . . . Colombian officials report that Gonzalo Mejía Sanín, the first drug trafficker to surrender under Pres. Cesar Gaviria’s amnesty plan, has been illegally released from custody by a judge, who is now under investigation. . . . In Cuba, José Abrantes Fernández, a former interior minister, dies of a heart attack in prison while serving a 20-year sentence.

The New York Times reports that in the first five days of bombing in Iraq, the allies flew about three times as many missions as U.S. pilots had flown in the 11 days of U.S. bombing of North Vietnam in Dec. 1972. . . . The allies announce a plan to build a compound to accommodate up to 20,000 prisoners of war. Twenty-three POWs are in custody.

A Patriot missile is fired in error as U.S. warplanes return to the NATO air base in Incirlik, Turkey from a raid in Iraq. . . . France expels 16 alleged pro-Iraqi activists on the grounds that they support terrorist groups. . . . Latvian president Gorbunovs holds a two-hour meeting with Soviet president Gorbachev in Moscow. . . . president Gorbachev issues a decree abolishing largedenomination notes of the ruble, as legal tendersetting off a virtual panic.

The air force of Qatar flies its first missions. . . . U.S. and Iraqi troops exchange fire in the war’s first significant ground skirmish. . . . Iraq sets fire to the Wafra oil field in Kuwait. . . . As Iraq fires more Scuds in to Israel, a Patriot fired by an Israeli crew hits the tail of an incoming Scud but fails to disable it. The Scud then kills three, wounds 96, and leaves 200 homeless. . . . Up to 600 rebels invade Rwanda from Uganda and seize part of the city of Ruhengeri.

Fifteen peasants are slain in El Zapote, a village north of San Salvador. . . . Reports confirm that Chile halted all sales of Chileanmanufactured weapons to countries in the Persian Gulf region for the duration of the gulf war. . . . Lloyd Erskine Sandiford is elected to a five-year term in office with just under 50% of the vote in Barbados. . . . Canada’s House of Commons supports the UN actions that led Canada to join the allied coalition against Iraq.

The Financial Times reports the G-7 ministers forgave one-third of Egypt’s foreign debt.

Soviet troops seize a paper warehouse in Vilnius, claiming to protect the property of the Communist Party. . . . German chancellor Helmut Kohl pledges $165 million in humanitarian aid to Israel. . . . Britain deports 14 Iraqi students to Jordan. . . . German economics minister Juergen Moellemann finds more than 100 companies are being investigated for illegal exports to Iraq. . . . Nikolai Vladimirovich Talyzin, 61, head of the USSR’s State Planning Committee, 1985–88 dies of unreported causes.

A huge oil spill fouls the waters of the Persian Gulf. . . . Allied forces capture a small island, Qaruh, off the Kuwaiti coast, the first part of Kuwait recaptured by the allies. . . . A Patriot missile intercepts and destroys an incoming Iraqi Scud missile as Iraq launches its fourth attack on Israel. . . . Despite the continued Iraqi attacks, Israeli officials suggest retaliation is not imminent. . . . France sends 100 paratroopers to Ruhengeri, Rwanda, to evacuate 60 French nationals and 150 other foreigners.

A case of cholera is reported in Chimbote, a port city 225 miles northwest of Lima, Peru.

According to official reports, the allies lost 23 aircraft (including 15 U.S. and six British planes), and 30 personnel are dead or missing. More than 15,000 allied air sorties (8,000 of them combat missions) were flown since the start of the war. Iraq claims to have downed 172 allied planes and reports 231 Iraqis killed in air and missile attacks.

Four Soviet republics substitute their own deadlines for the Soviet deadline to abolish high-value ruble notes. The Soviet central bank declares this illegal. . . . Germany expels 28 Iraqi diplomats. . . . The Greek government reports that 1,800 Albanian refugees have returned to Albania. . . . British officials note that British Tornado aircrafts are stuffering the heaviest proportional losses of the allied air forces because many of their missions are low-level attacks against defended airfields.

French warplanes, previously restricted to targets inside occupied Kuwait, hit targets inside Iraqi territory for the first time. . . . Four CF-18 Canadian Forces fighters fly air cover for U.S. bombers. The action is the first for the Canadians in the gulf war and the first combat mission for Canadian air units since World War II.

Marina Montoya de Pérez, who was kidnapped by drug traffickers in Sept. 1990, is found dead. Because of wounds to her face, her body is not immediately identified. . . . Mexico’s ruling party criticizes the U.S. role in the Persian Gulf, backing off from its earlier stance against Iraq. . . . Reports show a Dec. 1990 earthquake in Costa Rica left 14,000 people homeless. The quake also left one person dead and 229 injured. Damages are estimated at $19.5 million.

Asia & the Pacific

Australian prime minister Bob Hawke unveils a parliamentary resolution supporting the Australian military presence in the allied force and reaffirming Australia’s backing for UN resolutions condemning Iraq. The introduction of the measure on the floor of the House is disrupted by antiwar protesters. About 70 demonstrators are ejected from Parliament House.

Philippine officials expel the Iraqi consul general, Muwafak al-Ani, who investigators believe is linked to the Jan. 19 bombing. . . . Japanese premier Toshiki Kaifu proposes to send noncombat aircraft to the Persian Gulf to help evacuate refugees and to contribute an additional $9 billion to the allied force in the region.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 20–24, 1991—153

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The American Council on Education publishes its annual report on graduation rates and finds that although the Hispanic population in the U.S. grew by 39% between 1980 and 1990, currently accounting for 8.2% of the total U.S. population, Hispanics are “underrepresented at every rung of the education ladder.”

Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf reports the allies are battering Iraqi Republican Guard positions . . . The New York Times reports that Iraq is believed to have 400–800 Scud missiles. . . . An ABC News/ Washington Post poll shows that 75% of those polled approve of the U.S. going to war with Iraq. . . . The New York Times suggests most campus demonstrations include both antiwar protesters and those who favor U.S. intervention.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle The Buffalo Bills win the American Football Conference championship game and advance to the Super Bowl for the first time. The New York Giants surprise the two-time defending National Football Leagure champion San Francisco 49ers to advance to the Super Bowl.

Pres. Bush officially designates the Persian Gulf region a combat zone, retroactive to Jan. 17. . . . Lt. Gen. Thomas Kelly tells the press that U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf number 472,000. . . . Defense Secretary Dick Cheney states that the war may last for weeks or months. . . . Pres. Bush pledges that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein will be held accountable for the mistreatment of allied prisoners. . . . The Wall Street Journal suggests the war is costing the U.S. a minimum of about $600 million per day.

Amoco Corp. reports a 69% surge in net income to $538 million in its fourth-quarter profits.

The Supreme Court dismisses an Ohio case on the issue of “victim impact” statements during the sentencing phase of capital cases. . . . The Supreme Court rules to set aside the death sentence of a convicted murderer in Florida in the first case in which David Souter casts a deciding vote. . . . The Supreme Court lets stand a New Jersey ruling that found an all-male eating club practiced illegal sex discrimination. . . . The Washington Post finds out-of-wedlock births in the U.S. have reached a record level.

Israeli finance minister Yitzhak Modai states that Israel needs at least $13 billion in new aid from the U.S. to pay for the Persian Gulf war and the absorption of an unprecedented wave of Jewish immigrants from the Soviet Union.

Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan tells Congress that the nation’s money supply is growing too slowly. He also says that he does not believe new taxes will be necessary to pay for the war. . . . Mobil Corp. posts a 45.6% fourthquarter gain to $651 million. . . . The U.S. Postal Service’s Board of Governors approve a postal rate hike that, among other things, raises the cost of a first-class stamp to 29 cents.

In the first papal encyclical since 1959 to deal with missionary activity, Pope John Paul II urges Roman Catholics to spread the doctrine of Christianity, even in Islamic countries that forbid such teachings.

A former chief of the FDA’s generic drug division convicted of perjury, Marvin Seife, is sentenced in Baltimore to five months in a workrelease program and five months in home detention. He is also fined $25,000. . . . The Census Bureau releases its report on population counts. NYC remains the largest municipality in the country, but L.A. surpasses Chicago as the second-largest since the reports shows Chicago’s population is less than three million for the first time since 1920.

Pres. Bush rules out a pause in the allied bombing that would make way for possible peace efforts. . . . The House calls on Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev to cease the use of force in the Baltics. . . . A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds that 91% of those polled feel the U.S. and its allies should continue fighting until Iraq withdraws from Kuwait. . . . The House clears a bill that will compensate Vietnam veterans who were exposed to the herbicide Agent Orange.

A fourth-quarter increase of 35%, to $388 million is reported by Texaco Inc. . . . Treasury Secretary Brady asks Congress to appropriate at least another $80 billion toward the bailout of the nation’s S&L industry. . . . The Congressional Budget Office officially notifies the government that the economy is in a recession.

(Herman) Northrop Frye, 78, Canadian literary theorist who taught English at the University of Toronto, Harvard, Oxford, and Princeton, dies of a heart attack in Toronto.

Reports suggest the Justice Department has shifted its position on challenging court-ordered desegregation plans. . . . A survey finds that illegal drug use among high-school students declined in 1990. . . . The CDC reports that of the 161,073 persons in the U.S. who developed AIDS since June 1981, a total of 100,777 died by the end of Dec. 1990. . . . The American Cancer Society states the average U.S. woman runs a one-in-nine risk of developing breast cancer.

The Senate passes a bill that will compensate Vietnam veterans who were exposed to the herbicide Agent Orange. . . . The Senate passes a nonbinding resolution urging Pres. Bush to consider using economic pressure on the USSR to end the crackdown.

Chevron Corp. and Exxon Corp. weigh in with profits of $633 million and $1.55 billion, respectively.

Jack Warner Schaefer, 83, author of dozens of western novels, including Shane (1949), which was made into a 1953 film, dies of heart failure in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Jan. 20

Jan. 21

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 22

Jan. 23

Jan. 24

154—January 25–29, 1991

Jan. 25

Europe

The U.S. contends that Iraq deliberately caused the Jan. 23 huge oil spill. Iraq files a complaint with the UN, saying the U.S. caused the spill by bombing two tankers in the gulf.

The Soviet government bolsters the domestic roles of the army and KGB. . . . In Belgrade, an army film that suggests a conspiracy against the army in Croatia causes an uproar. The army begins a series of arrests for alleged involvement in the conspiracy. Foreign Minister Martin Spegelj is not arrested. . . . The Times of London reports that 160 Iraqis and Palestinians living in Britain were selected for deportation, and more than 60 of them are held in two London prisons. . . . In Athens, the offices of Citibank and Barclays Bank are damaged in bomb attacks.

One person is killed in Saudi Arabia when a Scud demolishes two government office buildings. Thirty people are injured. . . . Seven Scuds fired at Israel are intercepted by Patriot missiles, but at least one person is killed and 42 wounded when shrapnel falls on Tel Aviv. The fatality brings the total reported number of deaths directly attributable to the Iraqi missiles to three.

Czechoslovakia begins privatizing state-owned retail outlets. . . . Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev issues a decree giving the KGB new powers to battle “economic sabotage.”. . . In response to the Jan. 25 allegations in Belgrade, the federal defense secretary, Col. Gen. Kadijevic, agrees to end the military’s threat to use force to disarm Croatia. . . . A bomb explodes at the offices of the liberal French newspaper Le Monde, the first terrorist attack in France related to the war.

U.S. B-52s bomb suspected positions of the Republican Guard, Iraq’s top troops. . . . U.S. general Norman Schwarzkopf charges that Iraq is releasing oil from storage tanks at the Al-Ahmadi complex. . . . Pres. Mohammed Siad Barre flees Mogadishu, the Somalian capital, marking the end of his 21-year rule.

A poll is reported showing that British prime minister John Major’s public satisfaction rating has risen to 61%. The rating is the highest since Winston Churchill during World War II.

The U.S. bombs key sections of the Al-Ahmadi complex to stanch the torrents of oil flowing into the gulf. . . . U.S. Marines report that Iraq laid half a million mines in the desert north of the Saudi border. . . . Israel redefines its state of readiness as an “emergency routine” and reopens schools. . . . A coup attempt against the leader of Ciskei, Oupa Gqozo, fails.

In Haiti, rumors that Roger Lafontant escaped from prison lead crowds to gather in Port-au-Prince and build barricades of flaming tires and debris. Thirteen people are killed and at least 14 are wounded in fighting between protesters and soldiers. Four people die when a mob, hunting for suspected members of the Duvalierist Tontons Macoute militia, burn down a house. Protesters attack one police station and set another one on fire.

A grenade strikes the Athens headquarters of American Express, and a bomb explodes by the offices of the Inter-American Insurance Co. . . . Germany states 11 illegal exporting cases will be brought to trial as the result of Jan. 23 investigations. . . . Georgia removes troops from South Ossetia. . . . Reports suggest 33 Iraqis originally admitted to Britain as students have been detained as prisoners of war. . . . Reports indicate that hundreds of Moslems in Turkey have denounced the U.S. and called for an end to Turkey’s involvement in the war.

The total of Iraqi Scud missile attacks reaches 53. . . . Iraqi president Saddam Hussein states Iran offered sanctuary for the planes in a gesture of Muslim solidarity. . . . At the request of the Saudi government, the U.S. dispatches a six-member team to help deal with damage from the Jan. 23 oil spill. . . . The government of Morocco, which has troops in the Persian Gulf, gives its support to a one-day general strike called by pro-Iraqi parties and trade unions.

The Argentine national currency, the austral, takes its worst singleday downturn since the government announced an economic austerity plan in Aug. 1990. As a result, Economy Minister Antonio Ermán González and Central Bank Governor Javier González Fraga resign. . . . Army officials in Haiti blame the Jan. 27 violence on unidentified subversive groups.

Georgia’s parliament votes to form a national guard. . . . In France, Defense Minister Jean-Pierre Chevenement resigns to protest the Persian Gulf. . . . Democratic Russia, a group of political parties, announces a campaign of civil disobedience to protest the new powers given to Soviet police,. . . . In Athens, a bomb damages the offices of British Petroleum . . . Germany pledges 8.3 billion marks in new aid for U.S. operations against Iraq.

Pro-Iraqi PLO guerrillas fire rockets toward Israel. Israel hits back at Palestinian sites. . . . U.S. B-52s bombings continue. . . . The ANC’s Mandela and Inkatha’s Buthelezi meet for the first time to 30 years in an effort to end the violence between the two antiapartheid groups. . . . Up to 10,000 white farmers block off key intersections in Pretoria with farm vehicles to protest South African agricultural policies. At least 200 are arrested.

The U.S. delivers three A-37 jets and six UH-1M helicopters to the Salvadoran air force as part of resumed military aid to El Salvador. The jets have been inscribed with the names of the three U.S. soldiers killed Jan. 2. . . . In Argentina, Foreign Minister Domingo Cavallo replaces González, who resigned Jan. 28.

Jan. 26

Jan. 27

The U.S. denies charges issued by Iraq Jan. 25 to the UN about the oil spill.

Jan. 28

Jan. 29

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Iraq begins an incursion into Saudi Arabia in the first major ground offensive of the war. . . . . Reports indicate that the British, French, German, and Norwegian governments, as well as the UN Environment Program offered to help Saudi Arabia deal with the Jan. 23 oil spill.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Diana Turbay Quintero, a magazine publisher and the daughter of former Colombian president Julio Cesar Turbay Ayala, is killed during a police raid that was intended to free her from kidnappers, who had abducted her Aug. 1990.

In China, leaders of the 1989 Tiananmen Square prodemocracy demonstrations are sentenced. While a total of 66 of 71 protesters whose cases are complete are released, others face prison terms of between two and 10 years.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 25–29, 1991—155

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Utah governor Norman Bangerter (R) signs into law a bill that prohibits abortion in most cases, one of the most repressive laws in the U.S. . . . Pres. Bush nominates Rep. Edward Madigan (R, Ill.), to become agriculture secretary, replacing Clayton K. Yeutter. . . . .The president of Brown University upholds the expulsion of a student for using racist slurs in violation of a campus antiharassment speech code. . . . Reports state the entire staff of PUSH, the Chicago civil-rights organization founded by Rev. Jesse Jackson in 1971, have been laid off.

Officials state the Defense Department gave commanders in the Persian Gulf permission to use nonlethal riot-control gases. . . . Four INS employees and two Army recruiting sergeants are arrested for allegedly selling “green cards” and other immigration documents to more than 1,000 illegal aliens in NYC The group reportedly charged up to $6,000 per person for the documents, which they sold mainly to West Indians.

Federal regulators seize Columbia Savings and Loan Association, once one of the nation’s most prosperous thrifts. . . . The Bush administration projects that the Bank Insurance Fund of the FDIC will show a deficit in 1992.

The Secret Pilgrim by John le Carre tops the bestseller list. . . . Bernard Law, Roman Catholic archbishop of Boston, becomes the highest-ranking Catholic churchman in the U.S. to support the military action in the Persian Gulf.

In Washington, D.C., a demonstration against the Persian Gulf war draws 75,000–250,000 antiwar activists. . . . New Soviet foreign minister Aleksandr Bessmertnykh arrives in Washington, D.C., for the first time and meets with Secretary of State Jarnes Baker. . . . breaking with policy, U.S. officials confirm the attack submarine Louisville in the Red Sea became first submarine to launch a cruise missile in combat on Jan. 19.

In tennis, Monica Seles, 17, of Yugoslavia becomes the youngest winner of the Australian women’s title. The men’s doubles crown goes to Scott Davis and David Pate.

Defense Secretary Richard Cheney states, “We’ve always assumed we would eventually have to send in ground forces, but we don’t want to do it earlier than we have to.”

The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. gross national product declined at a 2.1% annual rate in the fourth quarter of 1990. After adjusting for inflation, in all of 1990 the U.S. economy grew 0.9%, the lowest yearly growth since 1982.

Football’s New York Giants win Super Bowl XXV, 20-19, over the Buffalo Bills in the closest Super Bowl ever played. . . . In tennis, Boris Becker of Germany wins the men’s singles title at the Australian Open. Fernandez and Fendick win the women’s doubles.

Pres. Bush pledges that when the Persian Gulf war ends, the U.S. will have a “key leadership role in helping to bring peace to the rest of the Middle East” while addressing the National Religious Broadcasters in Washington, D.C. . . . The U.S. condemns China’s Jan. 26 sentencings. “We have seen no evidence that their offenses consisted of more than a nonviolent expression of political views,” declares State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler.

The Commerce Department reports that personal income rose 6% to $4.646 trillion in 1990.

Harold (Red) Grange, 87, legendary football player known as the “Galloping Ghost” and a charter member of the Professional Football Hall of Fame, dies of complications from pneumonia in Lake Wales, Florida.

Pres. Bush, in his State of the Union message, reiterates that the goal of the allied effort in the Persian Gulf is “to drive Iraq out of Kuwait” and not to bring about “the destruction of Iraq, its culture or its people.” In the Democratic response, Senate majority leader Mitchell (D, Maine) argues that the U.S. “cannot oppose repression in one place and overlook it in another.”. . . Around 30,000 people rally in San Diego to support Bush’s policy in the gulf.

The Bush administration agrees that the FDIC fund will probably show a deficit in 1992, backed by a report from the Congressional Budget Office. . . . The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration finds that chemical pollution has abated over vast stretches of coastal waters in the U.S.

Bruce Gelb’s Jan. 14 agreement to step down as director of the USIA is reported, and he is slated to be appointed ambassador to Belgium.

In Wyoming, a House committee refuses to pass a bill that would have outlawed abortion except in cases of rape or incest reported to police within five days, or if the pregnancy poses a threat to the woman’s health.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

156—January 30–February 3, 1991

Jan. 30

Jan. 31

Feb. 1

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The oil spill in the Persian Gulf is called the largest slick ever recorded. The spill is estimated to be 60 miles long and 20 miles wide and to contain as much as 11 million barrels of crude oil. . . . The Group of 24, made up of the world’s leading industrial nations, lift a ban on aid to Romania at a meeting in Brussels, Belgium.

Croatia is ordered to detain Defense Minister Martin Spegelj, implicated in the film aired Jan. 25. Croatia refuses. . . . The November 17 Group, a Guerilla organization, claims responsibility for the Jan. 25–29 bombings in Athens as a reprisal for “the barbarous Western assault” on Iraq. . . . In Turkey, gunmen shoot and kill Lt. Gen. Sayin, the chief security adviser to Premier Yilderim Akbulut. . . . Germany states it will provide 800 million marks in aid for Britain’s military effort.

Iraq announces victory in the town of Khafji. . . . Eleven U.S. Marines are killed near the Kuwaiti border. They are the first U.S. troops to die in the ground war. . . . U.S. B-52s continue to bomb strategic sites; a total of more than 1,200 tons of bombs have fallen since; Jan. 26 . . . . Some Western journalists are allowed to return to Iraq. . . . Western officials reveal a new slick is forming from oil spilling out of the Mina al-Bakr terminal. . . . The conflict between PLO guerrillas and Israel begun on Jan. 29 continues in Lebanon.

Reports note there have been about 70 acts of terrorism against members of the allied coalition since the onset of the Persian Gulf war. . . . Reports show the Council of Europe has accepted Czechoslovakia as a member. . . . Jordan protests the alleged killing of civilians in allied bombings on the highway between Amman and Baghdad to the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. . . . Accounts state Hungary will join the NATO Council as an associate member but will not join NATO’s military structure.

Yugoslavia deports 368 Albanian refugees. . . . The Soviet Communist Party Central Committee endorses Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev’s campaign to restore law and order in the USSR. . . . Franjo Tudjman, the president of the Yugoslav republic of Croatia, storms out of a highlevel meeting to resolve a potentially violent rift between Croatia and the Yugoslav army. . . . In Tirana, Albania 1,000 people demand the resignation of Foreign Minister Reis Malile, after news that Albania and China have agreed to normalize diplomatic relations.

Allied accounts of the battle for Khafji state that 500 Iraqis were taken prisoner and 30 were killed, while Saudi losses are put at 18.

Feb. 2

Feb. 3

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Allied forces retake the town of Khafji. . . . Another Scud missile is fired on Israel. The Israeli military indicates it did no significant damage and states it will no longer disclose whether it fires Patriot antimissile missiles at incoming Scuds. . . . The Wall Street Journal finds reports that many jobs of Palestinians have been taken by Soviet Jewish immigrants. . . . In Sudan, military leader Lt. Gen Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir signs into law a criminal code that applies Islamic law in the north but not in the south.

Canada’s unelected federal Senate unexpectedly votes against a proposed bill to restrict abortions. . . . A sword belonging to Latin American independence leader Simón Bolívar stolen by Colombian April 19 Movement rebels in 1974 is returned to the Bogota Museum.

The Indian government dismisses the democratically elected government of the state of Tamil Nadu, allied with former prime minister Singh. It is the fourth such action since P.M. Shekhar took office, so nearly a fifth of Indian states are without elected governments. . . . Statements show that officials in Thailand have asked six Iraqi diplomats to leave the country, and four Arabs have been taken into custody.

Soviet president Gorbachev issues a decree to form three delegations for discussions with the three Baltic republics. . . . Bulgaria ends subsidies on energy and transportation. . . . After Croatia refuses to detain Martin Spegelj Jan. 30, he goes into hiding. Slaven Latica, an adviser to Croatian president Franjo Tudjman, warns that any attempt by the military to arrest the defense minister will “lead immediately to civil war.”

The Lebanese government reports the arrest of four senior Palestinian guerrillas. . . . Before Parliament, South African president F. W. de Klerk announces plans to end the apartheid system of racial separation while the ANC stages marches in Cape Town, Pretoria, Johannesburg, and other cities to protest the exclusion of blacks from Parliament.

In Canada, nurses in Manitoba begin returning to their jobs after a month-long strike. . . . The Chilean government issues a decree to dissolve a secretive colony that has been accused of human-rights abuses. The 37,000acre camp, known as Colonia Dignidad, or Dignity Colony, is located 250 miles south of Santiago.

A major earthquake strikes Pakistan and Afghanistan. The quake, with an epicenter in the Hindu Kush mountains, about 200 miles northeast of Kabul, registers 6.8 on the Richter scale.

An antiwar protest held in London’s Hyde Park draws between 15,000 and 40,000 people.

Three mobile Scud launchers fire missiles and are attacked immediately, with a secondary explosion at one of the two. Those missiles cause no reported damage. . . . Reports confirm that Iraq imposed a 22-hour curfew in Kuwait City. . . . The U.S. battleship Missouri begins shelling Iraqi bunker positions on the coast of Kuwait.

Expedito Ribeiro de Souza, a farmunion leader in Brazil, is murdered in the town of Rio Maria, Pará state. He is reported to be the fifth union leader killed in Rio Maria in less than a year.

P.M. Nawaz Sharif visits the area rocked by an earthquake in Pakistan and Afghanistan to survey the damage. He announces a recovery program.

In Albania, supporters of the Democratic Party clashe with Communists at a Democratic mass campaign rally in the town of Burrel, 37 miles northeast of Tirana. . . . Polish premier Jan Krzysztof Bielecki urges his country’s Western creditors to forgive 80% of Poland’s $46.6 billion foreign debt.

A report finds that more than 1.28 million of Liberia’s 2.5 million citizens have become refugees in the 13-month-old civil war. . . . Although it is not yet reported, a young Jordanian air force pilot and his truck driver friend are hanged after being convicted of spying for Israel. . . . After angry debate, an accord to allow the extremist Moledet (Homeland) Party to join the ruling coalition is approved by the Israeli cabinet. . . . Syrian military forces see their first action of the war. . . . The allies claim that the Iraqi navy ‘s ability to launch any attack from the sea has been “obliterated.”

Arturo Rivera y Damas, the Roman Catholic archbishop of San Salvador, accuses army soldiers of the Jan. 22 killing of peasants in a village north of San Salvador.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 30–February 3, 1991—157

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

U.S. officials estimate that 161 prisoners of war have been taken and that 42 tanks and 35 other vehicles have been destroyed in the Iraqi offensive. The U.S. does not estimate the number of Iraqi deaths.

The California Department of Water Resources estimates the state will face a “deficit” of 26% of its annual water supply in 1991. . . . In a letter, Energy Secretary James Watkins informs Washington governor Booth Gardner (D) that cleanup work on a waste-processing plant at the Hanford nuclear reservation will be delayed at least one to two years.

John Bardeen, 82, winner of the 1956 Nobel Prize with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for developing the transistor and the 1972 Nobel Prize for research on low-temperature superconductivity, dies of a heart attack in Boston. . . . According to a survey of U.S. space-shuttle crews, many astronauts feel that their mission training is inadequate. However, before the survey was reported, NASA officials estimated that it reflects the views of fewer than 10% of the astronauts in training.

Actor Woody Harrelson is dropped as grand marshal of a Mardi Gras parade scheduled in February because he is politically involved in opposition to the U.S.’s role in the Persian Gulf war and attended an antiwar rally at UCLA.

Jesse Jackson announces that PUSH, a political organization, has received pledges of support from black churches and businesses and will continue to operate.

Pres. Bush signs legislation that permits military personnel to delay paying income taxes until six months after leaving the combat zone. . . . The FBI concludes its “interviews” with hundreds of ArabAmerican leaders across the country. . . . U.S. District Judge Stanley Harris rules that the Defense Department can require troops serving in the Persian Gulf to take unapproved drugs as a protection against chemical and biological warfare.

Pres. Bush proposes an increase of 11% in federal spending on the war against drugs, up nearly $1.2 billion over fiscal 1991, to $11.7 billion. . . . FDIC chairman L. William Seidman denies that the insurance fund will become insolvent in 1992, but he says the FDIC needs to raise between $5 billion and $10 billion in funds.

The CDC finds that the number of people who die annually from health problems caused by smoking is steadily increasing. . . . Arthur Shawcross, convicted of murdering 10 women in New York area in 1988–90, is sentenced in Rochester to at least 250 years in prison. . . . Frank Anthony Rose, 70, president of the University of Alabama, 1958–69, when it underwent a peaceful desegregation, dies of cancer in Washington.

The Pentagon lists as missing the 14-man crew of an AC-130H aircraft believed to have been shot down in Kuwait. . . . The Pentagon lists Spec. 4 Melissa A. RathbunNealy as missing in action. Rathbun-Nealy is the first woman serving as a soldier in the U.S. military to be officially listed as MIA.

The Federal Reserve Board cuts its basic interest rate for loans to member institutions to 6% from 6.5%. Soon after, Citicorp, BankAmerica Corp., and other leading banks reduce their base lending rates on corporate loans to 9% from 9.5%. . . . The National Research Council finds the lung-cancer risk posed to households by the radioactive gas radon has been significantly overstated in previous estimates.

A federal court jury in Des Moines, Iowa, convicts Stephen C. Blumberg, 42, of stealing more than $20 million of rare books from libraries and museums across the U.S. and Canada. He stole 21,000 books as well as musical instruments and stained glass windows.

Thirty-four people are killed and two dozen injured when a USAir jet collides with a smaller commuter plane while landing at Los Angeles Airport.

U.S. vice president Dan Quayle states in an interview that while the U.S. has “no desire” to use nuclear weapons in the gulf war, “it is an option we are not going to rule out.” . . . A Marine dies, and officials believe his death was caused by bombs dropped by a U.S. plane.

The State Department, fearing terrorist attacks, announces a reduction in the staff at the U.S. embassy in Amman, Jordan’s capital. . . . . Major Gen. Robert Johnston, chief of staff of the U.S. Central Command in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, discloses the 11 Marines who died Jan. 30 were killed by a missile from a U.S. aircraft during “very intense, very close combat” with armored Iraqi forces. . . . The White House holds the day as “a national day of prayer” for peace and the well-being of U.S. troops, as requested by Pres. Bush earlier.

James MacDonald, 84, the voice of Mickey Mouse, 1946–76, dies of heart failure in Glendale, California. . . . Irish singer Sinead O’Connor announces that she is boycotting the Grammy Awards because she objects to the “false and destructive materialistic values” of the music industry.

A book by John Shelby Spong, the Episcopal bishop of Newark, New Jersey, suggests that St. Paul was a repressed homosexual. . . . Pete Axthelm, 47, author, sports columnist, and commentator for NBC and ESPN, dies of complications caused by liver failure in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

USX Corp. and the United Steelworkers of America agree on a tentative labor contract.

Federal investigators state it appears that an air-traffic controller gave both planes clearance to be on the same runway at the same time in the Feb 1 accident at Los Angeles Airport.

In football, the AFC edges the NFC, 23-21, in the Pro Bowl. . . . Nancy Kulp, 69, actress best known for her role as the homely bank secretary Jane Hathaway on the “Beverly Hillbillies” (1962–71), dies of cancer in Palm Desert, California.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 30

Jan. 31

Feb. 1

Feb. 2

Feb. 3

158—February 4–8, 1991

Feb. 4

World Affairs

Europe

The EC welcomes F. W. de Klerk’s initiatives to end apartheid, but agrees not to lift sanctions until the South African parliament has “actually tabled” the proposed legislation. . . . Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani offers to serve as a mediator between the U.S. and Iraq to reach a settlement in the Persian Gulf war. . . . According to allied spokesmen, the international coalition has flown an average of one bombing mission per minute against Iraq since the war’s beginning.

Reports state that Russian Federation leader Boris Yeltsin has dropped the idea of Russia having its own defense force. . . . Vitaly Churkin, the chief spokesman of the Soviet foreign ministry, warns against foreign intervention in the Baltics controversy. . . . Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev promotes Boris Pugo to the rank of colonel general.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The ruling military council of Sudan passes a decree to convert the country into a federal system in an effort to end the seven-year-old civil war. . . . Arafat loyalists and FRC fighters fight a brief battle in the Ain Hilwe camp outside Sidon, Lebanon. Separately, a spokesman in Sidon states that guerrillas will halt rocket bombardment and will concentrate instead on ground combat against Israeli forces and their allies in the South Lebanese Army militia. . . . The kidnapping and assault trial of Winnie Mandela opens in Johannesburg, South Africa.

In Argentina, workers occupy the headquarters of the National Savings and Insurance Bank to protest Domingo Cavallo’s plans to privatize the institution. . . . Roman Catholic Bishop Hubert Patrick O’Connor of Prince George, British Columbia, is charged with six sexrelated criminal offenses.

Afghanistan reports 1,000 deaths from the Feb. 1 earthquake, and Pakistan reports about 200.

Reports show that clashes between Georgians and independence-minded Ossetians in January claimed more than 20 lives and wounded as many 150 people. . . . Soviet president Gorbachev declares an impending Lithuanian plebiscite on independence illegal. . . . Very Reverend Pedro de Arrupe y Gondra, 83, superior general of the Jesuits, 1965–83, and the first head of the order to resign rather than die in office, dies of cardiac arrest in Rome.

Israeli warplanes launch one of their few major attacks in several years against Fatah targets, bombing strongholds in the Iqlim al-Toffah district southeast of Sidon and killing as many as 12 people, the majority of them guerrillas. . . . Syrian artillery repulses an Iraqi raid into Saudi Arabia.

FARC and ELN rebels launch an attack to protest their exclusion from the assembly elected to reform Colombia’s constitution. . . . In response to the Feb. 4 Argentine job action, Economy Minister Domingos Cavallo suggests the privatization of the bank’s insurance arm only. Separately, employees of Argentina’s stateowned railway strike over wages. . . . The MRTA attacks the company that provides security for the U.S. embassy in Peru, killing two Peruvians.

Iraq announces that it is breaking off diplomatic relations with the U.S., Britain, France, Italy, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. . . . The Times of London reports that non-U.S. allied losses in the Persian Gulf War include 18 missing and four POWs.

In Albania, prodemocracy rallies begin, and students initiate a strike at Enver Hoxha University in Tirana. . . . Reports show that three Russian Orthodox liberal priests were murdered in the Moscow metropolitan area since September 1990.

Israeli helicopters continue the fight in Lebanon. . . . Jordan’s King Hussein condemns the “savage and large-scale war against brotherly Iraq.”. . . Iraq estimates that 150 people, including 35 children, are killed in an air raid on Nasiriya.

Employees of Argentina’s stateowned railway return to work.

The Australian Industrial Relations Committee, in a landmark decision, rules that labor union positions set aside for women and voted on exclusively by women are permissible.

Reports show the allied forces have flown about 52,000 sorties in their offensive against Iraq and occupied Kuwait since the war started. The U.S. reports 12 deaths in combat, 26 noncombat deaths, 26 missing, and eight POWs since the war started. Eighteen Saudi Arabians are reported killed in action. Reports put allied combat dead, missing, and prisoners of war at a total of 86. . . . The UN secretary general states that “there appear to be thousands” of Iraqi civilian casualties so far in the gulf war.

British prime minister John Major and his senior cabinet members escape an assassination attempt. The IRA claims responsibility. . . . A gunman in Turkey kills a retired U.S. serviceman who worked at the Incirlik air base. A caller claiming to speak for Dev Sol states, “The bases cannot be used for the bloody games of U.S. imperialism.” . . . Reports show the Romanian health ministry has tightened the screening of Romanians and foreigners seeking to adopt Romanian children.

U.S. officials report allied planes have shot down six or seven Iraqi planes have flying to Iran. . . . Israeli commandos storm a PLO base north of the security zone, their first such ground raid in three months. Only hours later, Lebanese army soldiers begin moving further south down the coastal highway. . . . Reports note the allied bombing and the lack of food have put Iraqi troops in Kuwait in a “very bad condition.” . . . Baghdad is bombed for the 22nd consecutive night.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a Roman Catholic priest, is inaugurated as the president of Haiti. . . . A preliminary government report finds that three former Salvadoran army soldiers are responsible for the Jan. 22 slayings of 15 peasants in a village north of San Salvador.

The official SPK news agency reports that Cambodia postponed elections scheduled for 1991 in an effort to encourage efforts to negotiate an end to the nation’s 12year-old civil war. . . . An Australian Federal Court justice in Sydney rules that secondhand smoke causes lung cancer and other respiratory ailments. The decision is reported to be the first ever in which an Australian court ruled on the health effects of passive smoking.

Iraq asks the UN to investigate whether a factory destroyed Jan. 21 produced infant formula, as claimed by Iraq, or biological weapons, as claimed by the U.S.

At fractious meetings in Belgrade, Slovene president Kucan walks out, complaining of the noisy Serbian nationalist demonstration of 5,000 people outside. Croation president Franjo Tudjman boycotts the talks. . . . The Soviet CP newspaper Pravda calls the U.S.’s motivations in the Persian Gulf war “neocolonial.”. . . Romanian railroad workers strike in and around the city of Iasi, near Romania’s border with the Soviet Union.

Three Arabs infiltrate Israel and open fire on a bus carrying Israeli soldiers, wounding four. The attackers, described as Islamic extremists, are slain in a shoot-out. . . . The desalination plant at Safaniya, Saudi Arabia, shuts down in response to oil slicks.

Colombian officials report that at least 63 people died in rebel attacks started Feb. 5. . . . Police report José Serafím Sales has confessed to the Feb. 2 killing of de Souza, but they continue to investigate. . . . Haiti’s Pres. Aristide prohibits Ertha Pascal Trouillot and 150 prominent Haitian citizens from leaving the country because of a judicial commission investigation.

Feb. 5

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Africa & the Middle East

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 4–8, 1991—159

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Police discover six pipe bombs attached to storage tanks at Allied Terminals Inc., a chemical storage and transport facility in Norfolk, Virginia. The bombs are disarmed and do not cause any damage. . . . Reports show the FEC sued the NRA’s political action committee for illegal use of corporate funds. . . . It is reported that at least 12 drug addicts in the NYC were killed and 100 hospitalized by a batch of killer heroin.

A former, agent of the FBI, Richard W. Miller, is sentenced in Los Angeles to 20 years in prison for spying after an Oct. 1990 conviction. . . . Defense Secretary Dick Cheney presents the fiscal 1992 defense budget at a Pentagon press conference. He also unveils a six-year defense spending plan (fiscal 1992 through fiscal 1997) that anticipates a leaner U.S. military in the post–cold war era.

Pres. Bush sends to Congress a $1.45 trillion budget for fiscal 1992. If approved, the budget plan will result in a $280.9 billion deficit, the second-highest deficit ever. Not included in the budget are the full costs of the Persian Gulf war or of the S&L bailout. . . . The Federal Reserve mounts a massive intervention in foreign-exchange markets to support the plunging U.S. dollar.

James E. Burnett Jr., a National Transportation Safety Board member, reveals several other factors that led to the Feb. 1 crash in Los Angeles, including a broken ground radar device and the failure of airport officials to hire an assistant airtraffic controller for busy times despite recommendations by the FAA dating back to 1988. . . . In the worst drought in California history, the State Water Project cuts off all water it supplies to the state’s farms.

E. Spencer Abraham, a political assistant to Vice Pres. Quayle, is named as cochairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. . . . Judge Alice Gilbert bars Jack Kevorkian from using his suicide device. . . . The District of Columbia Council repeals the nation’s strictest assault-gun law after some congressmen threatened that the city would not receive a special $100 million appropriation if the legislation remains intact.

The Treasury unveils sweeping proposals to scale back both government regulation of the banking industry and taxpayer-financed deposit insurance.

Fourteen people, including seven state legislators, are indicted in Arizona as part of a sweeping investigation into political bribery. . . . Peter MacDonald, the former leader of the Navajo Nation, is sentenced in tribal court to serve 450 days in jail. . . . Public Citizen notes the rate of state disciplinary actions taken against physicians fell in 1989 for the first time since the mid-1980s.

The White House announces that U.S. emergency medical aid will be shipped directly to the Baltic republics and to the Ukraine. . . . Secretary of State James Baker outlines long-term U.S. foreign policy goals for the postwar Persian Gulf region before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. . . . Pres. Bush signs into law a bill that will compensate Vietnam veterans who had been exposed to the herbicide Agent Orange.

The Treasury sells $11 billion of new 10-year notes at an average yield of 7.85%—the lowest yield since 1987. . . . The Dow closes at 2830.94, going above 2800 points for the first time since Aug. 3, 1990. . . . Reports show that in response to the Jan. 30 letter from Energy Secretary James Watkins, Washington State and the federal EPA accused the Energy Department of violating a cleanup agreement signed in May 1989.

A former top aide to Atty. Gen. Richard Thornburgh becomes the highest-ranking federal official ever convicted on drug charges. . . . The CDC finds that between 13 and 128 Americans have been infected with the AIDS virus by their doctors and dentists since the disease first appeared.

In response to King Hussein’s Feb. 6 speech, the State Department asserts, “We are reviewing all military and economic assistance to Jordan.” . . . Defense Secretary Cheney and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Colin Powell leave for Saudi Arabia. . . . Reports state the Defense Department has decided against giving troops in the Persian Gulf an experimental chemical warfare drug after new tests indicate that it poses potentially life-threatening hazards.

The Senate unanimously confirms former Rep. Lynn Martin (R, Ill.) as the new secretary of labor. . . . The Federal Reserve Board reports outstanding consumer credit fell $1.45 billion in Dec. 1990 for the first time since Feb. 1989. . . . The Energy Department unveils four possible plans to scale back the nuclear weapons industry. . . . U.S. district judge H. Russel Holland of Anchorage, Alaska, rules that Exxon is liable to pay civil damages only to those who suffered direct economic losses from the Exxon Valdez spill.

Silvio O. Conte, 69, Republican U.S. representative from Massachusetts since 1959, dies in Bethesda, Maryland. . . . In NYC, Steven Curreri and Charles Stressler, two of the last three defendants accused in the 1989 Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, racial killing of a black youth, Yusuf Hawkins, are acquitted by a racially mixed jury. . . . A U.S. district judge is indicted in New Orleans for accepting a bribe in a drug-trafficking case.

The Washington Post finds that the typical U.S. soldier in the Persian Gulf is 27 years old.

Reports show that, in the U.S. Federal Reserve’s intervention in foreign-exchange markets to support the plunging U.S. dollar, a total of about $1.5 billion has been spent buying dollars since Feb. 4.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Feb. 4

James L. Knight, 81, former chairman of Knight-Ridder Inc., dies of respiratory ailments in Santa Monica, California. . . . Dean Jagger, 87, character actor who won an Academy Award in 1950 for Twelve O’Clock High, dies in Santa Monica, California, after suffering from heart disease.

Salvador Edward Luria, 78, physician who shared the 1969 Nobel Prize in medicine, dies of a heart attack in Lexington, Massachusetts. . . . Debris from Salyut 7, a Soviet space station abandoned in 1986, reenters the Earth’s atmosphere. Much of the craft is believed to land in the Atlantic, but pieces are found in Argentina. . . . Two promoters of a contest offering a ride on a Soviet space station are charged with running an illegal lottery.

Danny Thomas (born Muzyad Yakhoob, later Amos Jacobs), 79, comedian and television star best known for his series Make Room for Daddy (later titled The Danny Thomas Show), 1953–64, dies in Los Angeles after suffering a heart attack.

Feb. 5

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

160—February 9–13, 1991

World Affairs

Feb. 9

Feb. 10

Feb. 11

Feb. 12

Feb. 13

Iraqi deputy premier Sadun Hammadi, in a press conference in Amman, Jordan, rejects Iran’s peace initiative, claiming “We have told Iran that what is taking place is unrelated to Kuwait. The question now is American aggression— imperialist aggression—which is intended to destroy Iraq and subjugate the region.”

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific India begins a nationwide census. . . . A Japanese nuclear power plant shuts down automatically after irradiated water leaks out of a broken pipe and a small amount of radiation is released into the atmosphere. The accident is said to be the worst in Japan’s history.

Lithuania holds a nonbinding plebiscite on independence. The results indicate overwhelming popular support for secession from the Soviet Union. Lithuania is the first Soviet republic to hold a such a referendum. . . . A bomb damages a railroad line in western Austria that was to be used to transport U.S. tanks from Germany to Italy on their way to the Persian Gulf.

An Iraqi Scud missile is intercepted by a Patriot missile over Tel Aviv, but debris from the encounter wounds between 15 and 20 people. . . . A coup attempt against Brigadier Gen. Oupa Gqozo, Ciskei’s leader, fails. . . . In South Africa, 30,000 members of the police and military conclude a 10hour anticrime operation and arrest 11,361 people, including 43 for murder, 428 for thievery, 92 for robbery, and 42 for rape. The ANC demands a breakdown by race of those being held.

In El Salvador, arsonists destroy the offices of a newspaper, El Diario Latino. . . . In Haiti, Pres. Jean-Bertrand Aristide names René Préval as premier. . . . Donald Cameron narrowly wins election as leader of the ruling Progressive Conservative Party in Nova Scotia, Canada, making him the province’s new premier.

Official results of the Feb. 9 Lithuanian referendum indicate that 90.4% of the voters support independence. Lithuanian president Vytautas Landsbergis calls the vote a “victory against lying and intimidation.”. . . Separately, the Soviet military begins staging previously announced maneuvers in all three Baltic republics.

In South Africa, 17 members of the Inkatha Freedom Party are killed and at least 29 injured when gunmen ambush two buses in Natal province. Police and Inkatha leaders plead for restraint by thousands who gather at the site. . . . The army provides for 6,000 Palestinians to return to their day jobs in Israel on a “test-case basis.” . . . It is reported that more than 1,000 Falashas, or Ethiopian Jews, arrived in Israel in Jan. 1991, the highest such monthly total since the mid1980s.

In El Salvador, 13 government soldiers are killed when they clash with FMLN forces. . . . Chilean president Patricio Aylwin receives a report about human rights abuses under the military regime of Augusto Pinochet.

Iraq announces that 17-year-olds who are still attending school will be drafted. . . . In a 24-hour period, the allies fly 2,900 sorties. . . . Iraq continues to not report on military casualties, but Iraq’s minister of religious affairs, Abdullah Fadel Abbas, states thousands of civilians have been killed or wounded in the allied bombing.

Latin American countries begin banning food imports from Peru and testing travelers for cholera to fight the spread of the epidemic.

The Australian government suspends the wool price-support program until at least July. The move means that for the first time in 17 years there is no governmentbacked wool price floor.

The principal factions in Liberia’s civil war meet for talks in Lome, the capital of Togo. . . . Allied forces coordinate air attacks on Iraqi positions in southeastern Kuwait with artillery shelling and salvoes from a U.S. battleship in the Persian Gulf. Military spokesmen call it the largest combined operation of the war. . . . Western diplomats claim Saudi Arabia is seeking to borrow billions of dollars from international banks for the first time since the early 1970s.

Peruvian fishermen protest the Feb. 11 warnings against seafood by marching through the streets of Lima eating raw fish and demanding that the restrictions be lifted. . . . A state-owned bank in the Amazon city of Belem is robbed of $24 million in one of the largest heists in Brazilian history.

Closing the final cases of associated with the 1989 prodemocracy demonstrations, China hands out its harshest punishments when two defendants are given prison sentences of 13 years each. One defendant is released, and another receives a six-year sentence.

Scores of Iraqi civilians are killed when two U.S. bombs destroy a building in Baghdad sheltering civilians. . . . Refugees claim that allied bombers hit two buses filled with civilians fleeing the war, killing 60 people. . . . The principal factions in Liberia’s civil war sign a cease-fire and agree to take steps to form an interim government. . . . An Israeli human-rights group finds army gunfire killed 15 Palestinians in Jan. 1991, including five people under age 16. During the curfew, 3,650 Arabs were arrested. The report condemns the curfew as a form of collective punishment.

Employees of Argentina’s stateowned railroad, Ferrocarriles Argentinos, begin a wildcat strike. . . . At least 41 Mexican religious pilgrims are trampled to death or suffocated at an Ash Wednesday service in Chalma, a city 40 miles south of Mexico City. Up to 35 others are injured.

Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev notifies the heads of state of the Warsaw Pact countries that the organization will disband as a military alliance on April 1, 1991. . . . Switzerland announces that it will sponsor Cuba’s diplomats in the U.S. . . . As the U.S. dollar continues to slide, the Federal Reserve intervenes again, with the support of three other G-7 nations—the Great Britain, France, and Canada.

In the most substantial peace initiative so far in the gulf war, Soviet special envoy Yevgeny Primakov meets in Baghdad with Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. . . . The EC approves $700,000 in medical aid for Peru to fight the cholera epidemic. In addition, the EC sends medical personnel and five tons of medicine. . . . Reports confirm that the EC has pledged $144 million in foreign aid to Haiti.

Africa & the Middle East

Moldavian president Mircea Snegur receives an enthusiastic welcome in Bucharest, Romania. . . . . David Mellor, the chief secretary to the Treasury, announces the UAR pledged 250 million ($500 million) toward the cost of Britain’s military contribution to the war. . . . Slovenia and Croatia issue a joint statement hinting that they will leave the federation by July if Yugoslavia is not transformed into a “community of sovereign republics.”

The U.S. tallies that 62 Scuds have been fired from Iraq during the Persian Gulf War. Thirty-two were launched toward Israel and 30 toward Saudi Arabia.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 9–13, 1991—161

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Reports confirm that Canandaigua Wine Co. has agreed to alter the packaging of Cisco, after complaints from the U.S. surgeon general in Jan. 1991. . . . Charles Edward Gresham, Joseph Wayne Openshaw, and Cecil Howard Ross are arrested and charged with conspiring to bomb Allied Terminals Inc. on Feb. 4.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

American Airlines and its pilots agree to a tentative labor contract after an all-night bargaining session in Washington, D.C.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Soviet pole vaulter Sergei Bubka sets a world indoor mark of 19 feet, 113⁄4 inches (6.08 m). . . . Criminal Type is named Horse of the Year for 1990 at the Eclipse Award ceremonies. . . . Reverend James Cleveland, 59, three-time Grammy Award winner credited with teaching a nine-year-old Aretha Franklin to sing gospel music, dies of heart failure in Los Angeles.

In New Jersey, one of Princeton’s popular clubs, the Tiger Inn, admits 27 women in response to the Jan. 22 Supreme Court ruling.

A group of diverse performers assemble in Los Angeles to record a song, “Voices That Care.” Proceeds are to go to the American Red Cross Gulf Crisis Fund and the United Service Organizations. . . The Eastern Conference edges the Western Conference, 116–114, in the NBA’s All-Star Game.

The Education Department finds that Spanish-speaking students learn English at about the same rate regardless of whether they are taught in bilingual programs or in all-English programs. . . . William L. Hart, Detroit’s police chief is indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of stealing $1.3 million from a police undercover operations fund.

The U.S. announces a 55% increase in aid to Haiti for fiscal 1991. . . . Israeli defense minister Moshe Arens visits Washington, D.C., and meets with Pres. Bush, Vice Pres. Dan Quayle, Secretary of State James Baker, and Defense, Secretary Dick Cheney. . . . Reports show that Rep. Dan Burton (R, Ind.) has become the first member of Congress to call for the use of tactical nuclear weapons to bring a quick end to the Persian Gulf War.

Robert Ferdinand Wagner, 80, Democratic mayor of NYC, 1954–65, and U.S. diplomat until 1980, dies of heart failure in New York. . . . A three-judge panel of the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals throws out the 45-year prison sentence given to former TV evangelist Jim Bakker. The panel upholds Bakker’s conviction on fraud and conspiracy charges and orders that Bakker be resentenced by a different judge.

The Pentagon pledges to increase opportunities for journalists to cover front-line military activities in Operation Desert Storm. . . . Officials announce two Americans were wounded in the Persian Gulf war’s first ground skirmish Jan. 22.

Pres. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers issues its second annual economic report, forecasting a speedy emergence from the recession and a prosperous economy in the remainder of the 1990s.

The National Council of Churches, in its first official statement on the gulf war, affirms its opposition to war and calls for an immediate cease-fire.

U.S. officials express regret at the civilian casualties in Baghdad but reiterate that all possible steps are being taken to avoid them. . . . The U.S. ambassador to Kenya, Smith Hempstone, reports that the U.S. decided to release $5 million of $9.6 million in military aid to Kenya. . . . A poll shows only 11% of respondents think that the U.S. “should begin fighting the ground war very soon,” while 79% believe that the U.S. should “continue mainly to bomb from the air for the coming weeks.”

Robert Di Giorgio, 79, former president of Di Giorgio Corp., the first major produce grower to break ranks in 1966 during a bitter struggle by farmworkers organized by Cesar Chavez when he declared workers should have a union, dies of complications from 1988 surgery in San Francisco. . . . The Bush administration announces details of a five-year, $105 billion transportation program that will substantially upgrade the roads while limiting new spending on mass transportation.

Sotheby’s auction house in NYC announces that the handwritten manuscript to the first half of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain has been found by a 62-year-old librarian in a trunk she inherited from her grandfather, James Fraser Gluck, a friend of Twain’s.

Feb. 9

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 12

Feb. 13

162—February 14–18, 1991

Feb. 14

Feb. 15

Feb. 16

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

A new round of CFE talks opens in Vienna. . . . The UN Security Council meets in private for the first time since 1975. . . Outrage against the Feb. 13 U.S. bombing is voiced by Iraq and its allies. Coalition members Egypt and Syria blame Saddam Hussein for the unnecessary shedding of Arab blood. . . . A report shows the allies have flown a total of 70,000 sorties since the beginning of the war. Allied casualties total at least 54.

Reports indicate Slovenia and Croatia have concluded a mutual defense pact that calls for both republics to declare independence if the Yugoslav military intervenes in either republic. . . . The government of Spain backs a halt to allied bombing raids on Baghdad and other Iraqi cities. . . . The city of Dresden, Germany marks the anniversary of the 1945 Germany, fire-bombing of that city during World War II, killing 35,000 people.

Iraqi officials recover the bodies of 288 people, including 91children, and charge the Feb. 13 attack was a deliberate strike on a shelter. Allied officials claim the facility was used for the military and blame Iraq for allowing civilians to take shelter in the building. . . . A Fatah battalion commander stages a mutiny, refusing to turn over positions to the Lebanese army and briefly kidnapping and beating Yasser Arafat’s senior officer in Lebanon.

Iraq offers to withdraw from Kuwait with conditions on other Mideast conflicts. The allies reject the offer due to its conditions. In the name of the eight Arab nations backing the international alliance, Egypt’s foreign minister calls the proposal an “insincere offer which contains conditions that were previously considered unacceptable as well as new conditions.”. . . The presidents and premiers of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland pledge a mutual effort to overcome the political and economic legacies of communist rule.

The Constitutional Compliance Committee of the Supreme Soviet criticizes the creation of police-military joint patrols as a possible violation of the Soviet constitution. . . . It is reported the U.K. government is ready to spend up to £14 million in order to exempt the 40,000 British service personnel in the gulf from having to pay the controversial poll tax.

The Fatah commander who mutinied Feb. 14 is captured and executed after clashes in which 17 guerrillas are killed. . . . U.S. military officials state the allies have been using “fuelair” explosives against Iraq. The weapons create explosions so they can trigger mines on the ground or devastate underground bunkers. . . . A black lawyer who investigated allegations of government-run death squads is killed in Soweto. Separately, South Africa and the ANC state they have worked out differences over what political and military activities the ANC may conduct.

Foreign ministers of nine Commonwealth nations, meeting in London, decide to maintain trade and financial sanctions against South Africa pending firmer steps by the government toward the abolition of apartheid.

Feb. 17

Feb. 18

Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev meets Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz in Moscow and presents a Soviet peace proposal aimed at ending the Persian Gulf War.

A bomb explodes at the Victoria Station railway terminal in London, killing one and injuring 40. The IRA claims responsibility. Heathrow Airport is evacuated after a bomb threat. . . . Great Britain makes Bulgaria eligible to receive aid from its fund that provides economic and technical assistance. . . . In Albania, the strike that started Feb. 6 gains momentum, with most of the university’s 10,000 students boycotting classes. An estimated 700 students and faculty begin a hunger strike.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The 14-member Peruvian cabinet resigns over differing views about the economy in the first major cabinet change since Pres. Alberto Fujimori took office in July 1990.

Iraq claims that a Feb. 14 British bombing raid on the town of Fallujah devastated an apartment block and killed 130 civilians. . . . In the wake of the Feb. 14 mutiny, 20 more mutineers are executed by the PLO after being condemned by “revolutionary courts.”

Reputed drug lord Juan David Ochoa Vásquez surrenders to Colombian authorities. Separately, a car bomb kills 22 and injures 176 in Medellin. . . . Fortunato Gaviria Botero, a cousin of Colombia’s president, is found slain. Police claim he was kidnapped and murdered by drug traffickers. . . . The pro-Cuban Peruvian rebel group, MRTA, destroys two U.S. restaurants in Lima to protest U.S. involvement in Iraq. . . . Enrique Bermúdez, former director of the U.S.-backed Nicaraguan contras, is assassinated in Managua.

Talks to renew U.S. leases for military bases in the Philippines break off with the key issues of duration and payment unresolved.

Antonio Mascarenhas Monteiro wins Cape Verde’s first free presidential elections. . . . Reports show Baghdad may suffer from epidemics due to water shortages caused by bombing. . . . Travelers from Iraq claim that 10 officials of the Iraqi ruling party were killed by a mob protesting Saddam Hussein’s refusal to leave Kuwait. . . . A UN shipment of 54 tons of medicine for children reaches Baghdad.

Reports find that a judge on the Caribbean island of Barbados reintroduced flogging with a cat-o’nine-tails as punishment for serious crimes, including rape and murder. No one on Barbados has been sentenced to flogging in 22 years. Church and human-rights groups protest the reinstatement of flogging, calling the punishment inhumane. . . . Colombian police blamed the Feb. 16 bombing in Medellín on drug traffickers.

P.M. Chandra Shekhar announces that he will no longer allow U.S. transport aircraft to refuel in India on the way to the Iraqi war theater.

Reports show that, in the wake of the Feb. 15 murder of a black lawyer, the ANC calls for “total and verifiable proof” from the South African government that death squads have been disbanded, and for the immediate suspension of the activities of counterinsurgency units. . . . Two U.S. warships strike mines in the Persian Gulf, injuring seven crewmen. The mines are the first struck by ships in the multinational coalition force.

In EI Salvador, rebels launch grenade attacks on a building in southwestern San Salvador that houses the armed forces and defense ministry headquarters. The rebels report that six people died in the attack, while the military puts the death count at one. . . . Peruvian officials object to the ban on their nation’s food products. . . . In Nicaragua, the opposition Sandinista National Liberation Front condemns the slaying of Colonel Enrique Bermúdez and deny any involvement.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam kill 45 Sri Lankan troops in an ambush, part of their continuing battle over ethnic strife and a homeland. . . . South Korean president Roh Woo shuffles the cabinet after a bribery scandal.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 14–18, 1991—163

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Two San Francisco men, Chris Minor and Richard Mulholland, become the first couple to register as “domestic partners” under a San Francisco city ordinance approved in 1990. Although registration does not confer any concrete legal benefits, Minor declares the registration to be “a real milestone, not only in our relationship, but for the gay community.”

The U.S. reports 14 U.S. soldiers killed in action, 12 wounded, 28 missing in action and eight prisoners of war. . . . John Alex McCone, 89, Republican businessman who served as director of the CIA, 1961–65, and chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, 1958–60, dies of cardiac arrest in Pebble Beach, California.

The federal Bureau of Reclamation announces cuts in its water deliveries to California farmers by as much as 75%. Because of earlier restrictions, farmers stand to receive only about a third of the water usually delivered from state and federal water projects.

The New England Journal of Medicine finds that a genetically engineered antibody may cut the death rate from septic shock. . . . A study suggests that individuals infected with HIV who take the antiviral drug AZT before they develop symptoms of AIDS live no longer than those who begin taking AZT once they develop symptoms, contradicting widely accepted conclusions.

The Federal Reserve Board reports that U.S. mines, factories, and utilities operated at 79.9% of capacity in January, its lowest level since January 1987. . . . California governor Pete Wilson (R) announces proposals to combat the state’s worst drought since 1977.

Vanderbilt University researchers find that the use of the pain reliever ibuprofen and certain other antiinflammatory drugs increases the risk of ulcers. . . . The FAA issues regulations to prohibit airplanes from waiting in the middle of runways while awaiting clearance for takeoff at night. The change is made in response to an earlier collision at Los Angeles Airport.

The New York Times reports that measles was almost eradicated in the U.S. by 1983, when fewer than 1,500 cases were reported across the country. After federal budget cuts affecting immunization programs, the number of cases rose to about 30,000 in 1990, with nearly 100 deaths.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll finds that eight of 10 Americans questioned believe that Iraq is most to blame for the Feb. 13 incident in which Iraqi civilians were killed.

The New York Times reports that many pharmaceutical companies are circumventing a new law that requires them to give Medicaid programs the same discounts for drugs that they gave to other big customers. Instead of lowering drug prices for Medicaid programs, the companies are raising prices for their other customers.

Two U.S. soldiers are killed and six are wounded from friendly fire. . . . The U.S. accuses Iraq of “faking” some of the bomb damage of civilian areas that were shown to Western journalists.

Maryland governor William D. Schaefer (D) signs into law one of the most liberal abortion bills in the U.S. The measure is designed to protect a woman’s ability to obtain a legal abortion, even if the Supreme Court is to overturn its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

Gregory D. Levey, 30, burns himself to death on the town common in Amherst, Massachusetts, in protest against the war.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Feb. 14

Feb. 15

Feb. 16

Feb. 17

NASA finds cracks in the shuttle Discovery that range up to two inches in length.

Eugene Fodor, 85, travel writer of Fodor’s Travel Guides, dies of a brain tumor in Torrington, Connecticut.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 18

164—February 19–23, 1991

Feb. 19

Feb. 20

Feb. 21

Feb. 22

Feb. 23

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The Americas

The Feb. 18 Soviet peace initiative presents problems for the U.S. and other allies since it leaves Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in power with at least some of his military still intact. . . . Reports find that Iraqi missiles fired on Israel during the war killed two, wounded 230, and caused 11 other deaths (such as heart attacks). The attacks destroyed or damaged 10,992 apartments. . . . According to an Iranian newspaper, Iraq suffered more than 20,000 dead and 60,000 wounded in the first 26 days of the war.

In a live interview on Soviet television, the president of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin, demands the resignation of Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev. It is Yeltsin’s strongest public criticism to date of the Soviet leader.

Baghdad experiences what is described as its worst night of bombing in a week. . . . Iraqi fires what is believed to the 36th Scud missile on Israel. . . . A Kuwaiti resistance official, Da’ad Abdullah, states in London that 7,000 Kuwaitis have been killed and 17,000 detained since the Iraqi invasion. . . . Reports confirm that British ground forces saw their first action of the war when a Royal Artillery unit shelled Iraqi tanks and guns across the Saudi border.

Reports show that at least 100 people died in Peru’s first cholera epidemic in over 100 years. Some 16,600 people have been treated for the disease. . . . Colombian security agents claim that they have seized a record average of 225 kilograms of cocaine a day thus far in 1991. . . . Haitian president JeanBertrand Aristide unveils P.M. René Preval’s cabinet. . . . The U.S. embassy in Lima warns Americans to leave or stay away from Peru until the end of the war since terrorists have attacked eight U.S. targets in the country since Jan. 24.

Allied officials state that pilots from 10 nations are now participating in air strikes against Iraqi targets. The nations include the U.S., Canada, Britain, France, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE. . . . Italy argues that the Feb. 18 Soviet peace proposal is consistent with UN resolutions, and Germany reportedly lends its support to the peace initiative.

The Slovene parliament approves constitutional amendments that invalidate all federal laws. . . . In Albania, more than 5,000 people demonstrate, and thousands go on an illegal strike. Protesters topple statues of Enver Hoxha, the father of Albanian communism, in three cities. Pres. Ramiz Alia asserts emergency presidential rule and dismisses the government. . . . The Romanian Supreme Court rules the railworkers strike started Feb. 8 is illegal.

Some of the fiercest skirmishes of the war are reported, including allied probes along the Saudi border with Iraq and Kuwait. U.S. officials disclose that U.S. Army helicopters attacked Iraqi bunkers north of the Saudi border and forced the surrender of more than 450 Iraqi troops. . . . The Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council meets to consider the Soviet peace proposal.

Reports show that, in response to the railway strike started Feb. 13 in Argentina, Pres. Carlos Menem ordered the presidential jet and three military planes to fly stranded travelers to Buenos Aires. . . . Nineteen tourists die when their chartered Chilean airplane crashes into the Beagle Channel at the southern tip of Chile. . . . The Colombian government restates that it will not grant pardons for drug traffickers’ crimes.

The Soviet Union announces that Iraq has agreed to a proposal for a “full and unconditional withdrawal” from Kuwait that may end the fiveweek-old war in the Persian Gulf. While not rejecting the plan, the U.S. expresses “serious concerns.”. . . Allied sources raise their estimates to 2,100 Iraqi tanks destroyed and state 22 U.S. aircraft and nine other allied aircraft have been lost. . . . Iraq suggests that captured allied airmen should be treated as war criminals because of purported civilian casualties.

The Croatian parliament passes legislation asserting a veto power over all federal laws that apply to the republic and curtail the rights of the federal government in Croatia. . . . In Albania, demonstrators storm a bookstore devoted to the writings of Hoxha and burn hundreds of volumes in the street. The government closes the Hoxha museum in the capital. Soldiers fire warning shots to disperse a crowd of protesters. . . . Striking Romanian railroad workers agree to end a two-week-old walkout.

Iraq touches off fires at some 150 oil wells. . . . A helicopter crash kills seven U.S. soldiers

President Violeta Chamorro announces that Germany has pledged $65 million in new aid to Nicaragua, making Germany its second-largest lender. . . . A National Democratic Union Party candidate for city council in San Salvador, Heriberto Robles Garcia and his pregnant wife, Vilma Palacios, are murdered.

U.S. president Bush gives Iraq until Feb. 23 (EST) to begin an “immediate and unconditional withdrawal from Kuwait” or face an allied ground assault. Germany and France support the deadline. . . . Soviet spokesman Vitaly Ignatenko discloses that Iraq and the Soviet Union have narrowed the previous eight-point peace plan into a tougher six-point initiative. Iraq’s ruling party only implies agreement to the plan, and U.S. officials find it unacceptable because it allows too much time for an Iraqi withdrawal and permits the UN resolutions to lapse.

The presidents of Yugoslavia’s republics hold crisis talks in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina. . . . Albanian president Alia appoints a new government in an attempt to end a wave of prodemocracy protests. The new 19member cabinet is to remain in office until the national elections. . . . Separately, one policeman and three civilians are slain in gunfire at the central military academy in Tirana, Albania.

Reports suggest Iraqi forces are systematically destroying Kuwaiti oil installations. . . . The PLO receives a blow when King Hussein of Jordan states Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait should be achieved without an implicit linkage to a resolution of the Palestinian question. . . . Iranian news reports that epidemics of diarrhea and medical problems resulting from the lack of fresh water are rampant in Basra, Iraq, home of military facilities and a major target for allied bombers. . . . Refugees reaching Iran claim that 60% of Basra’s population has fled.

In El Salvador, the UDN accuses the government and the military of waging a terror campaign against party members and alleges the ruling Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) murdered Heriberto Robles Garcia and his pregnant wife, Vilma Palacios.

The allied ground offensive begins with a sweeping western flanking movement into Iraq. . . . The UN Security Council meets behind closed doors but recesses without taking any action. . . . A Soviet official states that the failure of the Iraqi-Soviet peace initiative did not hurt U.S.-Soviet relations. . . . Iran’s president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, accuses the U.S. of pursuing goals beyond the UN’s mandate.

In Albania, the opposition Democratic Party calls for protests against “criminals and antidemocratic forces,” while Communists organize counterprotests in defense of Hoxha’s monuments. . . . Conservative forces stage mass demonstrations in Moscow.

Iraq launches the 39th Scud missile at Israel. . . . U.S. officials report that Iraq is staging “a systematic campaign of executions” in Kuwait City. . . . Reports disclose the U.S. closed its embassy in Khartoum, Sudan, in mid-January in fear of possible terrorist attacks. . . . The rebel Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Forces launch an offensive against government troops in an effort to overrun northern provinces.

Asia & the Pacific

In Thailand, Premier Chatichai Choonhavan appoints Deputy P.M. Arthit Kamlang-ek, a former army chief of staff who is widely unpopular, as deputy defense minister.

The government of Premier Chatichai Choonhavan is ousted by the Thai military in a bloodless coup led by Gen. Sunthorn Kongsompong. The 1978 constitution is abolished, and martial law is imposed. . . . . China removes Xu Jiatun, a top Chinese official in Hong Kong from 1983 and the highest-ranking official who left the country after the 1989 crackdown on prodemocracy demonstrators, from his parliamentary seat.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 19–23, 1991—165

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

After being videotaped accepting a bribe, Rep. Bobby Raymond (D, Ariz.), pleads guilty to five felony counts. . . . Gloria Molina becomes the first Hispanic elected to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors. . . . The Supreme Court rules unanimously that a death sentence handed down to a black Georgia man must be reviewed since the prosecutor excluded blacks from the jury. . . . Governor Schaefer (D, Md.) commutes the prison sentences of eight women convicted of killing or assaulting abusive men.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

U.S. District Court judge Kimba M. Wood recommends that Michael R. Milken be paroled no sooner than three years into his 10-year sentence for securities fraud. The U.S. probation office separately determines that Milken’s admitted crimes caused total losses of $685,614.

Scientists from the Public Health Service conclude that there is no discernible evidence that fluoride causes cancer in humans, and they argue that the use of fluoride to prevent tooth decay should continue.

The Archives of Ophthalmology finds that older people who consume plenty of vitamins, either through eating fruits and vegetables or by taking daily supplements, appear to decrease their risk of developing cataracts.

The Supreme Court rules that individuals and businesses may sue state and local governments over laws that restrict interstate trade. . . . A panel of the Michigan Court of Appeals strikes down as unconstitutional a state ban on Medicaid-funded abortions for poor women. . . . The American Heart Association finds the death rate from strokes in the U.S. declined 33% between 1978 and 1988.

The Senate rejects a bill that would have allowed single parents and one member of a military couple with children to receive an exemption from serving in the Persian Gulf war. . . . The Supreme Court rules that illegal immigrants have the right to sue the INS over its administration of the 1986 immigration law.

Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan presents the Fed’s semiannual monetary policy report to the Senate Banking Committee and projects that the US economy will grow by 0.75–1.5% in 1991. . . . The Commerce Department notes that housing starts fell 12.8% in January, the lowest monthly level in nine years. . . . Sparking debate, Pres. Bush unveils a comprehensive national energy plan.

Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia states he will not extend appeals deadlines for death-row inmates who cannot find attorneys. . . . John Sherman Cooper, 89, U.S. senator from Kentucky, 1946–48, 1952–54, and 1956–73, dies of heart failure in Washington, D.C. . . . According to medical experts, mandatory AIDS testing of health workers is neither necessary nor useful. . . . The FEC reports overall spending in 1990 congressional races fell when compared with campaigns in 1988.

Reports disclose that a helicopter battalion commander, Lt. Col. Ralph Hayles, was relieved of his command in connection with a “friendly fire” incident that killed two U.S. infantrymen. . . . Reported U.S. deaths in the Persian Gulf War reach 59. . . . The Senate passes a bill to extend job security and other protections to military personnel serving in the Persian Gulf.

The Daily News security agents count 1,427 strike-related incidents in NYC since the walkout in Oct. 1990.

The Bush administration asks Congress to appropriate $15 billion in “working capital” to finance the Persian Gulf war effort until aid pledged by foreign nations contributing to the war is received.

Lynn Martin is sworn in as secretary of labor.

John Alfred Hannah, 88, first chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1957–69 and supporter of integration, dies of cancer in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Feb. 19

The World Council of Churches calls for an unconditional halt to the gulf war, followed by an immediate Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait. . . . Bob Dylan, the late John Lennon, Marian Anderson, and Kitty Wells receive lifetime achievement Grammy awards.

Dame Margot Fonteyn (born Margaret Hookham), 71, considered the greatest British ballerina of her era and one of the foremost figures in 20th-century dance, dies of cancer in Panama City.

Feb. 20

Feb. 21

Feb. 22

A fire begins that rages for 181⁄2 hours through a high-rise office building in downtown Philadelphia.

Speaking in Washington, D.C., after Pres. Bush announced the launching of the ground war, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney states there will be a total blackout on information about the offensive in order to restrict any news that might be useful to the enemy. . . . The U.S., one of Thailand’s staunchest allies, condemns the coup in that country and announces the suspension of $16.4 million in development aid.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Bishop Leo Maher, 75, former head of the Roman Catholic diocese of San Diego who refused to allow a California state assemblywoman to receive communion because she supports legalized abortion, dies of a malignant brain tumor in San Diego.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 23

166—February 24–28, 1991

Feb. 24

Feb. 25

Feb. 26

Feb. 27

Feb. 28

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

U.S. and allied forces achieve quick breakthroughs into Kuwait, presaging a rapid collapse of Iraqi forces. More than 5,000 Iraqis—tired, hungry, dirty, and shaken from weeks of allied shelling and bombing—surrender. . . . The 15 UN Security Council members meet but break off talks since little can now be accomplished. . . . Poland announces that it has reached a tentative three-year accord with the IMF.

Liberal forces stage a mass demonstration in Moscow. . . . In Albania, the official death toll from days of protests reaches five when an army patrol in Tirana shoots a young man who reportedly refused to produce identity papers on demand. . . . Britain’s queen, Elizabeth II, broadcasts a wartime message to the nation for the first time in her 39-year reign.

Thousands of Yemenis march on embassies of nations in the U.S.led coalition to protest the ground offensive. . . . Jordan’s premier, Mudar Badran, estimates that since August 1990, the gulf crisis has cost his nation $8 billion. . . . In the largest demonstration in Egypt since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, 2,000 Cairo University students protest the war.

Baghdad radio announces that the Iraqi armed forces have “completed their duty” and that orders have been given for their withdrawal from Kuwait. . . . An official of the World Health Organization reports serious public health problems in Iraq because of a shortage of clean drinking water. . . . The foreign ministers and defense ministers of the six Warsaw Pact nations sign an agreement to disband the alliance’s military structure by March 31.

The corruption trial of Todor Zhivkov, Bulgaria’s former Communist Party leader, opens in Sofia. He is the first former communist leader in Eastern Europe to be tried in public since the emergence of democracy in that region. . . . Reports conclude that British public support for the Persian Gulf war runs as high as or even higher than support in the U.S. . . . British officials announce the first confirmed death of a British soldier in gulf combat. The soldier, Corporal David Denbury, 26, was killed Feb. 21.

Kuwaiti resistance leaders claim control over Kuwait City as U.S. and Saudi special forces secure parts of the capital. Saddam Hussein announces over Baghdad radio that his troops are pulling out, but he characterizes the Iraqi effort as a “victory.”. . . The UN Security Council, meeting informally, agrees to the allied position that Iraq has to comply with the 12 relevant Security Council resolutions before a cease-fire can begin.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Baghdad suffers a night of intense bombing raids. . . . An Iraqi Scud missile kills 28 U.S. soldiers and wounds at least 89 others when it hits a makeshift barracks. . . . A Patriot missile intercepts a Scud fired at the small gulf island state of Bahrain. . . . Resistance forces state Iraqi troops began to retreat from Kuwait City. . . . Nadir Sultan, the president of the stateowned Kuwait Petroleum Co., estimates it will take more than two years to repair damages to his country’s oil fields.

A U.S. Army helicopter crashes in Lake Ilopango in El Salvador, killing the five U.S. soldiers on board. American officials state mechanical failure caused the accident. . . . The U.S. and Colombia sign a series of agreements designed to improve trade and to fight drug trafficking.

Thailand’s new five-member military junta vows it will draw up a new constitution within six months and call elections shortly thereafter. An estimated 1,000 students from Ramkhamhaeng University in Bangkok condemn the coup, even though their demonstration violates the government’s ban on political gatherings. The police arrest about 15 activists. . . . Prices at the first free-market wool sales in Australia in 17 years falls 35% from the old, government-supported price.

Czechoslovakia’s lawmakers authorize the privatization of all large state-owned enterprises. . . . In a nationally televised speech to a gathering of intellectuals, Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev accuses Soviet radicals of pushing the USSR toward a civil war.

The number of oil wells, storage tanks, pipes, refineries, and export terminals aflame in Kuwait reaches almost 600. . . . In Egypt, one youth is reported killed in clashes with police at antiwar protests. . . . Several hundred white, right-wing extremists clash with South African police outside a prison in Pretoria. . . . Reports show that Ethiopian rebel fighters are occupying Djen, hampering government troops seeking to push to Bahir Dar, which the rebels reportedly seized in intense fighting.

In the ongoing rebel attack in El Salvador, one civilian dies in the wealthy Escalón district of San Salvador.

Khaleda Zia, leader of the Bangladesh National Party and widow of the general who ruled Bangladesh from 1976 to 1981, wins the elections for the nation’s next prime minister. Despite the relative peacefulness of the elections, about 625 people are arrested across the country. One man is killed in a shoot-out between supporters of Zia and Sheik Hasina. . . . King Bhumibol endorses the coup in Thailand, saying it was necessary because Chatichai “failed to maintain peace and order in the country.”

Thousands of allied troops pour into Kuwaiti City unopposed. . . . Iraq finally agrees to comply with the UN resolutions in a letter from Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz. U.S. president Bush states the allied forces will cease offensive operations at midnight, 100 hours after the ground offensive began. . . . The Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S. estimates the total number of Iraqi dead and wounded during the six weeks of war is 85,000–100,000.

Reports show that Greece sent troops to the Albanian border out of a fear that Albania’s political unrest will increase the flood of refugees into Greece. . . . More than 100,000 workers demonstrate in Leipzig, Erfurt, and other German cities against deteriorating economic conditions in the region. . . . Reports confirm a military prosecutor in Belgrade has charged Martin Spegelj, Croatia’s defense minister, with plotting an armed rebellion against the nation.

Baghdad is rocked by allied bombs less than an hour before the announcement of a cease-fire. . . . Prior to the cease-fire, the main force of the American VII Corps smashes a remnant of the Iraq Republican Guard in what is believed to be the largest armored battle since the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. . . . The South African government agrees to help maintain law and order in Ciskei. The move is designed to begin the process of reincorporating Ciskei into South Africa.

Iraq agrees to send military commanders to arrange the military aspects of a cease-fire. . . . Reports suggest that fire from a U.S. A-10 attack plane killed nine British soldiers. . . . Military analysts in the U.S. estimate Iraq’s military death toll at 25,000–50,000. Reports show that the allies flew 106,000 air sorties in the 43 days of fighting and lost 36 aircraft in combat. . . . The EC pledges $800,000 to help reconstruct Baghdad’s water supply system.

Reports indicate Bulgaria’s Socialist Party has agreed to hand over to the state $52 million in property and assets. . . . The Serbian National Council, a group representing Croatia’s ethnic Serbs, announces its intention to form an independent republic, called Krajina, in the Knin area.

According to reports, thousands of Iraqi soldiers were slaughtered on the streets of Kuwait City when allied troops bombed a convoy in a traffic jam. . . . Kuwaiti doctors tell foreign journalists that they saw evidence to support widespread reports that Iraqi forces committed atrocities against civilians. . . . Israel lifts its state of emergency. . . . The emir of Kuwait appoints the nation’s crown prince and premier, Sheik Saad al-Abdallah Al Sabah, as its military governor.

Leaders of FMLN order their followers not to disrupt the legislative and municipal elections, even though the FMLN has disrupted virtually all Salvadoran elections during its 11year war with the government. . . . Six Haitian former political opposition figures bring a $120 million lawsuit against Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril, a former Haitian president. . . . Guillermo Manuel Ungo, 59, a longtime leader of the democratic left in El Salvador, dies of a heart attack in Mexico City.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 24–28, 1991—167

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf gives an upbeat assessment of the gulf military campaign. . . . A New York Times/CBS News poll is taken that shows 75% of respondents believe the U.S. “did the right thing in starting the ground war against Iraq.” A Washington Post/ABC News poll reveals that 90% of respondents approve of Pres. Bush’s policy in the Persian Gulf. . . . U.S. officials reveal that the date for the ground offensive was set at least a week earlier. The FDA approves the use of a genetically engineered copy of the alpha interferon hormone for treating hepatitis C (or non-A/non-B hepatitis), a viral infection that may lead to chronic and potentially fatal liver disease. . . .Separately, David Kessler is sworn in as chairman of the FDA.

Atty. Gen. Richard Thornburgh announces that an estimated 51,000 people who fled from conflicts in Kuwait, Lebanon and Liberia will be allowed to remain in the U.S. for at least another year.

Reports indicate that the secretary of health and human services has notified prescription drug makers that they must sign rebate agreements with state Medicaid agencies by March 1. . . . The NYC Board of Education approves an AIDS education program that makes condoms available free upon request. . . . The Detroit Board of Education approves an all-male school aimed to combat problems of black, inner-city youths. The K-8 school will be open to male students of all races.

U.S. officials credit air force captain Eric Salomonson and his wingman, Lt. John Marks, with destroying a record 23 tanks in three missions in their A-10 attack plane over a 24hour period in the Persian Gulf.

Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan meets with the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues and announces a 39-point plan to increase research on breast and cervical cancer, heart disease, smoking, and osteoporosis.

The low rate of U.S. casualties in the gulf war is called “miraculous” by Gen. Schwarzkopf. In preliminary figures, the U.S. reports 79 combat deaths during the six-week conflict: 23 in the run-up to the ground assault, 28 during the ground offensive and 28 killed Feb. 25. . . .The House clears legislation to offer various protections to military personnel serving in the Persian Gulf, passed by the Senate Feb. 21.

Wanda Webb Holloway, 37, of Channelview, Texas, accused of hiring a man to kill the mother of a girl competing with her daughter to be a high-school cheerleader, pleads not guilty in Houston.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The fire in Philadelphia started Feb. 23 continues to blaze, destroying the upper half of an office building and leaving three firefighters dead. The fire is the worst in a high-rise building in the U.S. since a 1980 fire at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, in which 84 people were killed.

Feb. 24

FDIC Chairman L. William Seidman reveals his agency plans to borrow $10 billion and raise bank-deposit insurance premiums to repay the loan. The new cash will shore up the FDIC’s Bank Insurance Fund. . . . GAO Investigators release a study recommending that the Energy Department relax its timetable for resuming production of tritium, a perishable, radioactive gas used to enhance the explosive power of nuclear bombs.

Feb. 25

The Senate Ethics Committee ends deliberations in the so-called Keating Five case, finding “substantial credible evidence” of misconduct by Sen. Alan Cranston (D, Calif.). The panel halts the investigation of four other senators with mild reprimands and leaves open its probe of Cranston.

A federal grand jury indicts eight people on fraud, conspiracy, and money-laundering charges involving more than $4 billion in unauthorized loans and credits from the Atlanta branch of Italy’s Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) to the regime of Iraqi president Hussein years before the Persian Gulf war. The 347-count indictment caps an 18-month investigation, . . . Bargaining between the unions and The Daily News break down after more than 13 months of on-and-off negotiations.

The Baseball Hall of Fame Veterans Committee admits, posthumously, owner Bill Veeck and second baseman Tony Lazzeri.

Feb. 26

Noureddine Morceli of Algeria posts an indoor world-best time of 3 minutes, 34.16 seconds for the 1,500-meter run in Seville, Spain.

Feb. 27

Cracked hatch hinges on space shuttles prompt NASA officials to postpone a scheduled mid-March Discovery mission. . . . California is deluged with rainstorms, which brings some relief to the droughtstricken state.

Feb. 28

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

168—March 1–5, 1991

March 1

March 2

March 3

March 4

March 5

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The Americas

According to The New York Times, Iraq owes $35 billion to Western governments and banks, $11 billion to the Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries and as much as $40 billion to other Arab nations.

About 120,000 miners in the Ukraine’s Donetsk region, the USSR’s main coal-mining area, 70,000 miners in the republic of Kazakhstan, and thousands of miners in the Russian Arctic Circle region go on strike.

U.S. and British forces begin destroying Iraqi armored vehicles. . . . A busload of Iraqi soldiers fires at a checkpoint, prompting Americans to blow up the bus and take nine prisoners. . . . The U.S. embassy in Kuwait reopens. . . . An Iraqi tank fires on a portrait of Pres. Saddam Hussein in Basra, which is in chaos. . . . In Kenya, Gitobu Imanyara is arrested for sedition and violating state publishing laws for an article which indirectly accuses Pres. Daniel arap Moi of favoring members of his Kalenjin tribe when awarding jobs.

The UN Security Council approves a resolution 686 that sets out the terms to govern the end of hostilities in the Persian Gulf.

Armed ethnic Serbs in Pakrac, a town 180 miles southeast of Zagreb with a majority population of ethnic Serbs, seize the police station and declare Pakrac’s allegiance to the southwestern Krajina region, where ethnic Serbs predominate. Hundreds of paramilitary police reserves of Yugoslavia’s republic of Croatia battle the separatist ethnic Serbs and recapture Pakrac. The federal government sends in a contingent of the Yugoslav army and orders Croatia to withdraw its forces.

An Iraqi armored column attacks an element of the 24th Infantry, precipitating a battle. The U.S. reports no casualties and claims to have destroyed 60 Iraqi vehicles and captured 80 tanks and armored vehicles. . . . Reports emerge that the rebel Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Forces secured Debre Markos, the capital of Gojam province, and wounded or took captive more than 1,300 government soldiers. . . . Iraq releases CBS-TV correspondent Bob Simon and a threeman news crew.

Allied commanders in the Persian Gulf meet with Iraqi military commanders to arrange the terms of a formal cease-fire. Iraqi military commanders accept cease-fire terms. . . . . The UN announces that it will exempt food and humanitarian aid from the trade embargo against Iraq. . . . The New York Times cites U.S. intelligence officials who claim a “staggering” degree of international teamwork succeeded in preventing major acts of terrorism by Mideast groups during the gulf war.

Croatia complies with the federal government’s Mar. 2 order under protest. . . . In Moscow, 31 Soviet democratic parties declare a unified opposition to the national referendum on preserving the union. . . . The peoples of the Baltic republics of Estonia and Latvia vote for independence from the Soviet Union in nonbinding plebiscites. . . . Miners in the Siberia region began a series of scattered job actions.

An Iraqi occupation force on Failaka Island, off the Kuwaiti coast, surrenders to U.S. and Kuwaiti forces. A total of 1,405 Iraqi soldiers are taken into custody. . . . Angry Kuwaiti soldiers and resistance fighters move into Kuwait City’s main Palestinian neighborhood to conduct house-to-house searches for arms and suspected collaborators. . . . The allies report they have not found any Iraqi stockpiles of nerve gas or other chemical weapons.

Miguel Trovoada, an ex-premier and a former political exile, wins the first-ever free presidential elections in São Tomé and Príncipe. . . . Reports indicate that, because of an ongoing strike by Argentina’s railworkers, the government took control of the drivers’ union and fired up to 600 striking workers. . . . One person dies from cholera in Ecuador, suggesting the epidemic has spread from Peru.

Despite a debated campaign over the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the region, the Supreme Soviet ratifies the six-nation treaty on German reunification. . . . Iraq releases 10 allied prisoners of war to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

In response to the unofficial Mar. 3 vote, Estonian premier Edgar Savisaar asserts the three Baltic plebiscites deflates the Kremlin’s contention that the separatist governments of the republics do not represent the will of the people. Similarly, Latvian president Anatolijs Gorbunovs maintains that the referendums provide “an additional argument for Moscow to correct its policies on the Baltics.”

Kuwait’s crown prince and premier, Sheik Saad al-Abdallah Al Sabah, returns to the newly liberated emirate from exile in Saudi Arabia. The cabinet holds its first meeting inside in the country since the Iraqi invasion. . . . The United Democratic Front, one of South Africa’s largest antiapartheid coalitions, announces at a Johannesburg congress that it will disband by Aug. 20.

Pres. Patricio Aylwin releases the full text of a report that details the torture and murder of more than 2,000 Chileans during Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s 17-year rule. In addition, the report finds DINA agents carried out the 1976 car bombing in Washington, D.C., that killed former Chilean cabinet member Orlando Letelier, and his assistant, Ronni Moffitt, a U.S. citizen. . . . Retired army colonel Faustino Rico Toro, appointed to head Bolivia’s antinarcotics forces, steps down amid U.S. allegations that tie him to the cocaine trade.

Iraq turns 35 prisoners of war over to the International Committee of the Red Cross so that all of the 45 allied hostages are now free. . . . Reports conclude that initial contracts to rebuild Kuwait have been awarded overwhelmingly to companies of the U.S. and coalition allies.

The Washington Post finds that Serbia’s economy is disintegrating, rapidly.

Israel reports that 239 people were injured by Scud missiles. Two Israelis were killed as direct result of the missiles, while, 13 died from various complications during the raids. . . . Reports suggest Shiite rebels and breakaway army troops and Iraqi troops loyal to Saddam Hussein are fighting in the streets of Basra. . . . Doctors note they treated at least 80 Palestinians who were beaten, stabbed or shot execution-style. . . . At least 28 journalists are still reported missing.

A Venezuelan airliner on its way to Santa Bárbara de Zulia, an oil city in western Venezuela, strays off course and crashes, killing all 43 people on board. . . . Brazilian police find around $6 million buried in suitcases on a beach near Recife. Police believe the money is half of $12 million stolen from a Belem bank Feb. 12. . . . Health officials confirm that up to 259 people in Peru have died in the current cholera epidemic.

Asia & the Pacific

The Colombian Popular Liberation Army (ELP) ends its 23-year war against the government when it accepts political status in exchange for demobilization. . . . Seventeen government soldiers and six FMLN rebels die during a rebel attack on El Salvador’s main hydroelectric power plant.

Sri Lanka’s deputy defense minister, Ranjan Wijeratne, is killed in a bomb blast that takes the lives of at least 18 other people. Another 80 people are injured in the explosion.

The junta appoints Anand Panyarachun as provisional premier of Thailand. . . . The worst helicopter accident in Australian history claims the lives of seven people near South Stradbroke Island in Queensland.

The Congress (I) party boycotts the lower house of the Indian parliament in protest over the surveillance of the home of its leader, former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, by two policemen in Haryana state.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 1–5, 1991—169

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The White House releases a civil rights bill in an attempt to overturn part or all of a 1989 Supreme Court ruling that makes it more difficult for minority workers to win job discrimination suits. . . . The Census Bureau finds the likelihood that a child will live in poverty almost doubles upon the separation or divorce of the child’s parents.

Pres. Bush declares, “By God, we’ve kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all.”. . . Pres. Bush’s approval rating in the wake of the gulf victory rises to 91% in a poll taken by USA Today. . . . One of the first women to enter enemy territory during the allied offensive, Major Marie Rossi, is killed in a noncombat accident in Saudi Arabia. . . . Two unidentified members of a U.S. Army medical team are killed when their vehicle strays into a minefield in Iraq.

William C. Liedtke Jr., 66, cofounder of Pennzoil Co., the U.S.’s 14th-largest oil company, and former partner of now-Pres. Bush, dies of cancer in Houston. . . . Eastern Airlines, which is in the process of liquidating its operations, pleads guilty to seven of 60 criminal charges that it falsified maintenance records and agrees to pay $3.5 million in fines. The remaining 53 charges are thrown out.

The risk of bearing children with birth defects does not increase with a mother’s age, according to a study in the British medical journal Lancet. . . . Edwin Herbert Land, 81, inventor of the Polaroid instant camera, dies in Cambridge, Massachusetts after suffering from cancer and heart ailments.

Heartbeat, by Danielle Steel is at the top of the bestseller list.

Reports suggest that the NYC police confirmed 586 strike-related incidents since the start of The Daily News strike. One hundred fifty-three strikers and 39 Daily News workers were arrested.

George Holliday, 31, witnesses and videotapes a police incident where California Highway patrolmen beat the driver of a car after a chase. The driver is identified as Rodney Glenn King, 25. . . . Burroughs Wellcome Co. issues a nationwide recall of the decongestant Sudafed after being notified by the FDA that two people, Kathleen Daneker, 40, and Stanly McWhorter, 44, died in February after taking Sudafed capsules laced with cyanide.

A navy jet crashes in the Chicago suburb of Glenview, Illinois, killing all three crew members on board.

National TV networks start to air the two-minute tape that shows Rodney King being kicked and beaten by police officers. . . . The Supreme Court lets stand a ruling that former Rep. Mario Biaggi (D, N.Y.) received a fair trial. . . . The Supreme Court lets stand a “lemon law” protecting consumers who purchase defective cars. . . . The Supreme Court rules there is no constitutional basis for restricting the size of punitive-damage awards.

After viewing the videotape of Rodney King, Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley declares, “This is something we cannot and will not tolerate.” The ACLU of Southern California reports that more than 35% of the calls received by the local ACLU concern police abuse. . . . Federal investigators find three more Sudafed packages from the Seattle-Tacoma area laced with cyanide in their inspection of 10,000 packages. That brings the total number of poisoned packages to at least six.

All 25 passengers and crew members on board a United Airlines Boeing 737-200 jet are killed when the plane mysteriously crashes while approaching Colorado Springs Airport. . . . Lord William George Penney, 81, creator of the British atomic bomb who helped develop technologies in New Mexico during World War II, dies of unreported causes in East Hendred, England.

The U.S. Commerce Department announces that it is setting up an office to assist and advise U.S. businesses seeking to win reconstruction contracts in Kuwait.

Officials raise the number of U.S. soldiers reported killed in Persian Gulf action to 115, from the 79 reported Feb. 17. The number of wounded in action rises to 330 from the 213 reported earlier.

Clark R. Mollenhoff, 69, 1958 Pulitzer Prize winner in investigative reporting, dies of liver cancer in Lexington, Virginia. . . . Lemuel Tucker, 52, two time Emmy winning radio and television reporter and one of the first black journalists to become a network correspondent, dies of liver failure in Washington, D.C.

Arthur Murray (born Arthur Murray Teichman), 95, founder of Arthur Murray dance studios, dies of pneumonia in Honolulu.

A fire at the Crystal Springs Estate retirement home in Colorado Springs, Colorado, kills nine people and injures eight others.

March 1

March 2

March 3

March 4

The U.S. IRS and the Australian Taxation Office reach a precedentsetting agreement on “transfer pricing,” which involves transactions between different units of multinational companies.

March 5

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

170—March 6–10, 1991

March 6

March 7

March 8

World Affairs

Europe

The allies release 294 Iraqi POWs, leaving more than 60,000 in allied captivity. . . . It is reported that the last 16 U.S. medium-range cruise missiles have been removed from Great Britain as per the INF treaty. . . . The UN Commission on Human Rights votes to condemn Myanmar’s government and to monitor human rights in Cuba, a move Cuba protests. In the decision, Argentina becomes the first Latin American nation on the commission to vote against Cuba.

The British government frees 32 Iraqi men being held as prisoners of war but detains 33 other Arabs pending appeal of deportation orders. . . . Riot police in Tirana, Albania’s capital, kill at least one person during clashes with 5,000 people attempting to take refuge at foreign embassies in the city. . . . Announcements confirm that the 1991 John M. Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, established in 1972 by British financier Sir John M. Templeton, will be awarded to Immanuel Jakobovits, Britain’s chief rabbi.

Iraq begins freeing about 1,200 Kuwaitis, most of whom were taken prisoner during the allied ground offensive. The Red Cross reports that Iraq plans to release 2,000 prisoners.

Iraq releases 40 foreign journalists and two U.S. soldiers who had disappeared in the vicinity of Basra. The journalists were comprised of 11 people from the U.S.; 17 from France; three Italians; two Britons; two Norwegians; two Brazilians; and one person each from Spain, Ireland, and Uruguay.

March 9

March 10

The foreign ministers of Egypt, Syria, and the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, the UAE, and Kuwait) agree to a plan offered by US secretary of state James Baker for collective security in the region. The plan includes joint exercises of the air and ground forces of the U.S. and moderate Arab states and a heightened U.S. permanent naval presence in the Persian Gulf.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

A Kurdish leader in Damascus, Syria, Jalal Talabani, states that “tens of thousands of guerrillas” are fighting 60,000 Iraqi government troops in the north. . . . Iraq names Ali Hassan Majid, the man believed responsible for the 1988 use of chemical weapons against Iraqi Kurds, as interior minister. . . . Refugees and U.S. military officials in the gulf region state that troops loyal to Iraqi president Saddam Hussein apparently are subduing a revolt in Basra. . . . Foreign correspondents are barred from Iraq.

A former Chilean air force commander in chief, Gen. Gustavo Leigh Guzmán, in a televised statement, accepts blame for all air force activities during his tenure. Leigh, a member of the original military junta that seized power in 1973, opposed Augusto Pinochet in the 1980s.

Indian prime minister Chandra Shekhar of the Janata Dal party resigns. Pres. Venkataraman calls for elections and asks Shekhar to stay on as a caretaker. . . . Nguyen Van Hieu, 68, a founding member of the Vietcong and head of the delegation for the 1973 peace talks that led to a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam, dies of unreported causes in Ho Chi Minh City. . . . GoldCorp of Australia will begin selling what it claims is the largest gold coin ever minted and the largest legal-tender coin produced in the 20th century. The Australian Nugget has a face value of A$10,000.

Reports show that 20,000 Albanians are seeking political asylum in Italy. More than 500 Albanian ethnic Slavs cross into Yugoslavia. Albania’s government places the port facilities of Durres under military control. . . . The Slovene parliament passes legislation barring the conscription of Slovene youths into the nation’s military. . . . The Supreme Soviet approves the formation of an eight-member presidential security council.

Unrest or hostilities are reported in more than 15 different Iraqi cities. The Iraqi government acknowledges the uprisings for the first time. . . . Kuwait’s crown prince and premier, Sheik Saad al-Abdallah Al Sabah, states between 5,500 and 6,000 Kuwaitis remain in Iraqi custody, considerably fewer than earlier estimates. . . . A plane carrying 94 exiled supporters of the ANC and their families lands in Johannesburg, South Africa.

In Mexico, a second-stage air pollution alert is issued. It is only the second time the government has ever issued such a warning. . . . In response to the report aired Mar. 4, the Corps of Army Generals issue a statement of support for Pinochet, and the Chilean Supreme Court, criticized in the report, accuses Pres. Patricio Aylwin of threatening the country’s political stability. . . . In Brazil, a labor leader in Tailandia, Jose Alves de Souza, is shot and wounded.

The bodies of 17 British troops killed in the gulf war are flown home to Brize Norton Air Base, west of London.

Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani makes his most forceful calls yet for the ouster of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

Sebastião Ribeiro da Silva, an Amazon-area labor leader, is killed by a gunman in Tailandia. . . . Reports indicate the number of known cholera cases in Peru reached 55,000. A U.S. shipment of 35 tons of medicine to fight the cholera epidemic arrives in Peru. . . . The British Columbia Supreme Court dismisses land claims brought by two native tribes in the province, ending a landmark case that had stretched over three and a half years and cost more than C$20 million.

An illegal demonstration called to protest the Socialist Party’s control of the media and the Serbian economy draws at least 30,000 people in Belgrade. To disperse the crowd, thousands of Serbian riot police use weapons, and two people, a policeman and a youth, die. More than 80 others are injured. Youths overturn buses, set fire to police cars and barricades, pelt the police with bricks, and smash store windows. It is believed to be the worst violence in the city since World War II.

Fighting between supporters of the ANC and Inkatha erupts in Alexandra, South Africa, when the two groups clash at an ANC squatter camp, leaving seven dead.

The ruling Quebec Liberal Party adopts a nationalistic platform, the Allaire report, which calls on the federal government to relinquish broad powers to the province. One high-ranking member, senior cabinet minister Claude Ryan, walks out of the convention in protest.

Thousands of youths begin a twoday peaceful vigil in Belgrade, demanding the release of those arrested, a free press, and the resignation of the interior minister who controls the riot police. . . . Boris Yeltsin supporters stage rallies in Moscow, Leningrad, and dozens of other Russian cities, Estimates of the Moscow crowd range from 100,000 to 500,000. . . . At Brindisi, where at least 15,000 Albanians landed, refugees begin to receive aid, but about 1,700 Albanians return home.

A Palestinian man stabs four women to death in west Jerusalem. Israeli police claim the man told them he wished to send a message to U.S. secretary of state Baker. . . . The first front-line British troops begin pulling out of Kuwait to Saudi Arabia. . . . In South Africa, 18 people are killed in clashes between the ANC and Inkatha.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 6–10, 1991—171

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Democrats remove Sen. Charles S. Robb (D, Va.) from the Senate Budget Committee.

The first groups of U.S. troops begin returning home from the Persian Gulf. . . . Twenty-six U.S. soldiers are still missing in action. . . . The wreckage of an aircraft is found in the gulf, and all 14 crew members are believed dead. . . . Many press organizations call on the U.S. to “make it clear to the Iraqis that the journalists’ disappearance is now part of the cease-fire discussions with Iraq and there should be no withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq until the issue of the journalists is resolved.”

In the New England Journal of Medicine, a doctor, Timothy E. Quill, describes how in 1990 he prescribed drugs to one of his patients suffering from a severe form of leukemia to help her commit suicide. . . . The Senate unanimously confirms Rep. Edward Madigan (R, Ill.) as secretary of agriculture.

President Bush presents former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher with the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. . . . The government tightens regulations on the export of militarily useful materials and technology. The move is designed to curb the spread of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, and the regulations curb the export of dual-use equipment to 24 countries.

The Federal Reserve Board finds that outstanding consumer credit fell $2.44 billion in January, the sharpest drop in consumer credit since Feb. 1987.

Reports show that six children whose families belong to fundamentalist churches that shun medical science and rely on faith healing died of measles in the last month in Philadelphia. . . . Russell G. Oswald, 82, commissioner of the N.Y. State prison system during the 1971 Attica uprising, the deadliest prison revolt in U.S. history, dies of heart disease in Albany, N.Y. . . . The Census Bureau finds an increase in the proportion of minorities and puts the total 1990 resident U.S. population at 248.7 million.

Lt. Gen. Thomas W. Kelly, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retires. . . . The New York Times reports that some Americans are organizing to provide returning, soldiers with scholarships, jobs and other opportunities.

The Federal Re serve loosens monetary policy for the eighth time since July 1990, indicating that the central bank’s concerns about a recession continue to outweigh worries about inflation. . . . The government of Rhode Island takes the unprecedented step of closing down for one day in an attempt to shrink the state’s $222 million budget deficit by furloughing state workers. It is the first of 10 planned shutdowns in the state.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Sir Joseph Flawith Lockwood, 86, chairman of EMI, 1954–74, who signed such popular recording stars as the Beatles and Frank Sinatra, dies of unreported causes. . . . George L. Carey is elected as the archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual leader of the Church of England and 70 million Anglicans worldwide.

James (Cool Papa) Bell, 87, star baseball player with the old Negro Leagues who was widely regarded as the fastest man ever to play the game and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974, dies in St. Louis after suffering a heart attack.

Maurice Harold Friedman, 87, physician and medical researcher who developed the “rabbit test,” the first reliable and widely used test to determine whether a woman is pregnant, dies of cancer in Sarasota, Florida.

March 7

March 8

At the New York opening of the film New Jack City, a fight begins that ends with the death of a 19-yearold man. In Los Angeles, a crowd estimated at 1,200 goes on a rampage after a theater showing the film oversold tickets. Other incidents are reported in Las Vegas; Boston; and Sayreville, New Jersey.

In response to the Mar. 3 Rodney King incident, Los Angeles police chief Gates issues a videotaped message to 8,300 members of his department in which he refuses to resign.

March 6

March 9

All 21 American former prisoners of war arrive at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, less than a week after their release by Iraq. . . . More than 35,000 people from across North Carolina turn out for a flag-waving parade and welcomehome rally for the troops in Fayetteville.

Elie Siegmeister, 82, one of the first U.S. composers to use folk, jazz, and street songs to devise a contemporary American school of classical music, dies of a brain tumor in Manhasset, New York. . . . The UNLV basketball team is the first NCA Division I team to go undefeated during the regular season since 1979.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 10

172—March 11–15, 1991

March 11

March 12

March 13

March 14

March 15

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

British prime minister John Major delivers a speech in Bonn, Germany, that indicates a more positive approach to the EC than that pursued by his predecessor, Margaret Thatcher.

In Bratislava, 20,000 people demonstrate in support of a Slovak sovereignty declaration. . . . Italian deputy premier Claudio Martelli is reported to offer to release economic aid in return for Albanian president Ramiz Alia’s pledge to halt the flow of refugees. . . . Socialists hold a progovernment rally in Belgrade. Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic suggests Croatia, Slovenia, and Albania instigated the Mar. 9 unrest. . . . Turkish president Turgut Ozal announces senior officials met with Iraqi Kurdish leaders, marking a change in policy.

Oil ministers from 12 of the 13 members of OPEC informally agree to cut oil production by 5% for the second quarter of 1991. Iraq is not represented at the meeting in Geneva. . . . U.S. secretary of state Baker arrives in Jerusalem on his first visit to Israel since becoming secretary of state in 1989

El Salvador’s ruling Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) party claims victory in the Mar. 10 municipal and legislative elections, based on preliminary results. The Democratic Convergence (CD), a coalition of three leftist parties, charges ARENA with election fraud. . . . Health officials confirm the first case of cholera in Colombia.

The International Red Cross sends more than 600 metric tons of food and medicine to Baghdad amid a continuing fear of epidemics in the capital.

The Serbian government releases Vuk Draskovic and other detainees, fires six editors in the media senior editors and agrees to have a multiparty commission investigate the Mar. 9 violence. At least 100,000 people gather to hear an address by Draskovic. . . . U.S. Air Force sergeant Ronald Stewart is killed by a bomb near his home in a suburb of Athens. Greek police suspect the November 17 terrorist group is responsible. . . . Miners in Siberia region go on full strike.

South African president F. W. de Klerk introduces legislation to end racial discrimination in land ownership but rules out restoration of territory to blacks. . . . . Reports suggest loyalist troops are holding 5,000 hostages in Kirkuk, Iraq, which is under siege by Kurdish rebels. . . . Press accounts conclude that Yasser Arafat’s stature has been seriously harmed by his support for Iraq. . . . In South Africa, the violence that started on Mar. 9 results in a total death toll of at least 36.

The commander of Bolivia’s national police, Felipe Carvajal, resigns amid U.S. allegations that he is tied to the cocaine trade.

In response to the fighting in Iraq, U.S. president Bush notes that the use of Iraqi helicopters violates the terms of the cease-fire. The UN Security Council resolution outlining cease-fire terms has banned “flights of combat aircraft” by Iraq.

Former East German communist leader Erich Honecker is flown to the Soviet Union for medical treatment. The transfer of Honecker from a Soviet military hospital in Germany comes without permission from the German government and sparks angry protests. . . . Serbian interior minister Radmilo Bogdanovic, who controls the riot police, tenders his resignation.

More than 300 delegates from 20 Iraqi opposition groups adopt an agreement to appoint field commanders to join the insurgents, set general elections after the ouster of Saddam Hussein’s government, and create a new constitution. . . . The first reports of deaths from unrest in Baghdad, emerge. Reports of widespread unrest and chaos in Iraq continue despite periodic gains by loyalists. A spokesman for Kurdish rebel groups fighting in the north of Iraq claims that two northern provinces, Sulaymaniyah and Erbil, are under rebel control.

Amid U.S. allegations that he is tied to the cocaine trade, Bolivian interior minister Guillermo Capobianco Rivera resigns.

The British commander in the Persian Gulf region, Lt. Gen. Sir Peter de la Billiere, disagrees with U.S. president Bush’s assertion that Iraqi helicopter flights are a violation of the cease-fire. “There were constraints put on the flight of any Iraq fixed-wing aircraft, but not on helicopters,” he notes in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

About 5,000 nationalists rally for independence in Bratislava. Czechoslovak president Vaclav Havel calls a referendum on Slovak independence. . . . Six men are freed from prison after serving 16 years of a life sentence for the bombing of two pubs in Birmingham, England. The freeing of the Birmingham Six marks the third major case since 1989 in which people convicted of attacks claimed by the IRA were freed amid charges of misconduct by the police and prosecutors.

Reports show that rebel armies made key advances in several regions against Ethiopian government troops. Prompted by the rebel successes, the U.S. embassy in Addis Ababa continues to strongly encourage U.S. citizens to leave the country. . . . Separately, reports show the emigration of Ethiopian Jews to Israel was halted by the government. . . . U.S. and relief agency officials voice concern that Kuwaiti soldiers are deporting foreigners across the border to Iraq.

The Brazilian government pays $350.8 million in interest to the country’s foreign bank creditors. It is the first significant payment Brazil made since suspending debt payments in 1989.

Australian federal treasurer Paul Keating apologizes following reports of a record job loss of 92,200 full-time jobs in February.

U.S. and Soviet teams begin two days of arms-control discussions in Moscow.

Yugoslavia’s federal collective presidency votes against Borislav Jovic’s proposal to declare a national state of emergency, thereby authorizing a military intervention. In response, Jovic, the federal president, resigns and is succeeded by Croatia’s Stjepan Mesic. . . . Soviet president Gorbachev and his chief political rival, Russian president Boris Yeltsin, make televised appearances regarding the upcoming referendum on Soviet unity.

Military officials reveal that of the 88,500 tons of U.S. munitions dropped on Iraq and occupied Kuwait, only 7%, or 6,520 tons, had been laser-guided “smart” weapons. . . . Two physicians from Doctors Without Frontiers report that “You can say that health services are nonexistent” in Iraq. . . . U.S. tank units in occupied Iraq move to forwardmost positions along the tentative cease-fire line. Gen. Colin Powell states that the move is “nothing more than demonstrating our presence in the region.”

Hector Ramírez Cuellar, president of the education and health committee of the Mexico City Assembly of Representatives, asserts that respiratory disease has become the number-one cause of death in Mexico City, replacing gastrointestinal illnesses. . . . In Chile, Hector Sarmiento Hidalgo, the chief investigator in Concepción province, is killed.

The junta in Thailand announces the formation of an assembly in which about half of the seats are given to military officials.

An Australian industry policy statement is released that includes a government plan to provide the timber industry with guaranteed access to forests, generating strong protests from environmentalists.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 11–15, 1991—173

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Louisiana governor Charles E. (Buddy) Roemer of announces that he is switching allegiance to the Republican Party. The switch cuts the Democrats’ edge in governorships nationwide by one. . . . Pres. Bush sends to Congress an anticrime bill similar to proposals made in 1989 and 1990.

The State Department issues a statement saying that “we believe the threat from Iraqi-sponsored terrorism has lessened” worldwide as a result of the end of the Persian Gulf war.

The Federal Reserve Board orders BNL to increase its reserves deposited at the Fed by $5.2 million for 18 months in order to cover some of the shortfalls caused by the Feb. 28 indictment on the Iraqi loans scandal. . . . The Federal Trade Commission confirms it is investigating Microsoft. . . . U.S. and British negotiators agree on new bilateral aviation rules, which allows Pan American World Airways, on the brink of liquidation, to continue operating.

The final verdict in the 1989 Bensonhurst, New York, racial killing of a black youth, Yusuf K. Hawkins, is handed down when defendant Pasquale Raucci, 21, is acquitted of murder and manslaughter but convicted of eight lesser charges. . . . LeRoy Collins, 82, Democratic governor of Florida, 1955–61, who pushed for civil rights in the state although he had once supported segregation, dies of cancer in Tallahassee, Florida.

Referring to the Persian Gulf, Pentagon spokesman Pete Williams reveals, “The U.S. prisoners of war were certainly mistreated in the process of their interrogation.”

Steven Lopez, 17, the last defendant in the 1989 gang-rape attack on a female jogger in NYC’s Central Park, is sentenced to one to four years in prison as the result of a plea-bargain agreement.

A Commerce Department study, made in consultation with the State Department, lists 28 nations that are pursuing chemical and/or biological weapons capabilities. . . . Gen. Carl E. Vuono, the army chief of staff, awards Purple Hearts to five Army former POWs at Walter Reed Medical Center. . . . The remains of 13 allied soldiers, including five America, arrive at Dover Air Force Base, from Baghdad. The news media is banned from the event due to a previous Defense Department order and a court ruling.

Exxon Corp. signs a plea bargain with the federal and Alaskan governments over charges arising from the Exxon Valdez spill. In exchange for having no further claims brought by the federal or Alaskan governments, Exxon agrees to plead guilty to four misdemeanor environmental charges and to pay a $100 million fine, the largest-ever fine for polluting. . . . A House subcommittee opens a hearing into allegations that Stanford University and other universities overcharged the government for research.

The National Center for Health Statistics reports that teenage black males are more likely to die from gun injuries than from all natural causes combined. . . . The Senate confirms Lamar Alexander as education secretary. . . . Four white LAPD officers, Stacey Koon, Theodore Briseno, Laurence Powell, and Timothy Wind, are indicted by a grand jury in connection with the Mar. 3 beating of Rodney King. The Justice Department launches an investigation into police brutality.

Fourteen of the 21 U.S. ex-POWs give their first public accounts of their captivity in Iraq.

British publisher Robert Maxwell and Daily News owner, Tribune Co. of Chicago, sign a sale agreement after negotiations with strikers and company officials. . . . Rep. Charles G. Rose (D, N.C.), chairman of the House Agriculture subcommittee for department operations, research and foreign agriculture, opens hearings on the BNL loans guaranteed by the CCC.

The New England Journal of Medicine finds a combination of chemotherapy and radiation treatments reduce the number of deaths from colon cancer by one-third and the chance that tumors will recur by nearly onehalf. . . . Pregnant women who work in front of video-display terminals appear not to increase their risk of miscarriage, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine.

NYC begins a program in which the Health Department attempts to track down and warn the sex and drug partners of people whose autopsies show they carried the AIDS virus.

Albanian foreign minister Muhamet Kapllani restores full diplomatic relations between his country and the U.S. for the first time since 1939.

The Federal Reserve Board reports that U.S. mines, factories, and utilities operated at 79.1% of capacity in February, their lowest level since late 1986. The February operating rate was down from 79.9% in January.

The FDA’s Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee recommends against approval of the drug THA for sale to patients with Alzheimer’s disease. . . . Scientists report that they have identified the precise human gene that initiates the development of colon cancer.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Billionaire publisher and philanthropist Walter H. Annenberg announces that he will bequeath his art collection, worth an estimated $1 billion, to the Museum of Modern Art in NYC upon his death. The collection includes works by Monet, Renoir, van Gogh, and Picasso.

March 11

March 12

Jimmy McPartland, 83, jazz cornetist and one of the originators of the variety of Chicago-style jazz, dies of lung cancer in Port Washington, New York.

Howard Ashman, 40, lyricist, playwright, and director who wrote and directed The Little Shop of Horrors and won an Oscar and two Grammy Awards for his work on the film The Little Mermaid, dies of AIDS in New York City.

March 13

March 14

March 15

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

174—March 16–20, 1991

World Affairs

March 18

Iraqi president Saddam Hussein states in a broadcasted address that he will institute democratic reforms once the current unrest has been put down, but the leader lacks credibility.

Commanders of the multinational allied forces meet with Iraqi armed forces, and Maj. Gen. Johnston, the chief of staff of the U.S. command, formally rejects a request by the Iraqi military that Iraq be allowed to move its planes.

The Soviet people vote on preserving the union in the USSR’s first national referendum. . . . The remainder of the Yugoslav federal presidency indicates it will not support military intervention in the crisis. The opposition Serbian Renewal Movement demands the resignation of the Milosevic regime and expresses its support for the federal collective leadership in a statement. . . . . In Finland’s general elections, the Center Party overtakes the Social Democrats for the first time since 1962.

In South Africa, 18 people are killed in violence between ANC and Inkatha supporters. . . . In Tel Aviv, Ami Popper is sentenced to seven consecutive life terms in prison for killing seven Palestinians in May 1990. . . . Iraqi newspapers report there are hundreds of bodies in hospitals and in the streets of Karbala and Hilla, two towns retaken by loyalist forces after nine days of rebel occupation. . . . Iran and Saudi Arabia renew diplomatic relations.

Reports indicate that Sudanese military ruler Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir has agreed to allow the UN to restart has a relief program known as Operation Lifeline Sudan. The program, suspended by the government in 1990, will transport 800,000 tons of emergency food in northern Sudan and 300,000 tons into southern Sudan. . . . The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe opens an international conflict-resolution center in Vienna.

An estimated 100,000 people protest in several eastern German cities against deteriorating economic conditions. . . . Serbia’s parliament votes to remove Riza Sapundziju of Kosovo from the federal collective presidency. Sapundziju refuses to leave. . . . The Albanian government concludes two-day program in which it frees a total of 175 political prisoners. . . . Reports suggest Spain is experiencing a surge of immigration from Northern Africa and other Third World nations.

The South African government grants unconditional amnesty to white extremist leader Piet Rudolph, held in a Pretoria jail after being arrested in Sept. 1990 in connection with terrorist bombings and arms theft, after Rudolph held a hunger strike in Feb. 1991.

The president of Germany’s central bank, the Bundesbank, states that the uniting of the East and West German currencies in 1990 under the West German mark has been a “disaster.”. . . The high command of the Yugoslav armed forces issues an ambiguous statement on military intervention that asserts it will not allow the army to interfere in political talks while it warns that the military “will under no circumstances allow armed interethnic conflicts and civil war in Yugoslavia.”

Fierce fighting continues in northern and southern Iraq, and reports indicate that the Shi'ite Muslim-led uprising in the south is benefiting from aid provided by neighboring Iran. Reports show that Iraqi refugees are converging on the allied-held Iraqi town of Safwan in search of food and water. The U.S. military tentatively agrees to begin distributing aid to the refugees.

Borislav Jovic returns to Yugoslavia’s federal collective presidency when the parliament of the republic of Serbia refuses to approve his Mar. 15 resignation. . . . Serbian president Milosevic agrees to attend an emergency meeting of the collective presidency, despite his Mar. 16 announcement that Serbia no longer recognizes the legitimacy of the federal presidency. . . . The parliament of Czechoslovakia passes a bill that ends the state monopoly on television and radio.

Kurdish leaders in Damascus, Syria, claim that “the whole of (Iraqi) Kurdistan has been liberated after fierce fighting in Kirkuk.”. . . Separately, Iran’s ambassador to the UN, Kamal Kharrazi, says, “I categorically deny” that Iran is aiding the rebels. . . . Kuwait’s premier, Crown Prince Saad alAbdallah Al Sabah, resigns along with his entire cabinet due to popular displeasure with the government’s inability to restore basic services.

March 19

March 20

Africa & the Middle East

Yugoslavia’s federal collective presidency is reduced to five members with the resignations of Montenegro’s Nenad Bucin and Vojvodina’s Dragutin Zelenovic. Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic announces his republic will no longer recognize the legitimacy of the Yugoslav federal government. In Belgrade, 10,000 Serbian nationalists stage a pro-Milosevic rally, and the Serbian National Council, which represents ethnic Serbs in Croatia, declares an independent republic in the southwestern Krajina region of Croatia.

March 16

March 17

Europe

A U.S. fighter jet shoots down an Iraqi warplane in northern Iraq. The action is the first aerial combat since the cessation of hostilities in the Persian Gulf War on Feb. 28. The flight is regarded as an isolated incident.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari announces the closure of Mexico City’s largest governmentowned oil refinery to reduce pollution levels. . . . Panama and the U.S. sign an agreement to jointly patrol Panamanian coastal waters to intercept drug shipments. . . . Relatives of Argentine soldiers killed in the 1982 war over the Falkland Islands visit the islands’ military cemetery for the first time.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 16–20, 1991—175

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Seven members of the band that accompanies singer Reba McEntire are killed when their private plane crashes near the Mexican border. Also killed are McEntire’s road manager and two pilots. . . . Soviet pole vaulter Sergei Bubka becomes the first person ever to pole vault 20 feet, breaking the world record he set Feb. 9.

NYC mayor David Dinkins (D) touches off a controversy when he marches in the city’s St. Patrick’s Day parade with an Irish homosexual organization.

New York Daily News’s nine striking unions begin to ratify contracts with new owner Robert Maxwell.

The Los Angeles police commission releases transcripts of computer messages between the squad cars of officers involved in the Mar. 3 beating of Rodney King. In the transcripts, several of the officers appear to make light of the incident, sparking new outrage.

The Bush administration announces a plan to recapitalize the FDIC’s Bank Insurance Fund, using funds borrowed from Federal Reserve banks.

March 16

March 17

John D. Voelker, 87, former Michigan Supreme Court justice who wrote the bestselling novel Anatomy of a Murder under the name of Robert Traver, dies of a heart attack in Michigan.

A lawsuit aimed at overturning Burroughs Wellcome’s patent on the AIDS-fighting drug AZT is filed in Washington, D.C. . . . Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley (D), a black former police officer, states he is “shocked and outraged” by transcripts released Mar. 18. A lawyer for Rodney King, Steven Lerman, states that King plans to file a lawsuit asking the city of Los Angeles for $56 million. . . . The Supreme Court rules the winning side in a civil-rights case is not entitled to reimbursement for expert-witness fees.

A federal grand jury indicts two executives of Litton Data Systems, Thomas McAusland and Christopher Pafort, for allegedly paying defense consultant Thomas Muldoon to obtain Pentagon inside information on navy and Marine Corps contracts. . . . The Senate approves a supplemental spending bill to cover some of the costs of the Persian Gulf war. The Bush administration calls the provision “unnecessary and inappropriate” since the U.S. still expects that foreign governments will pay their pledges in full.

The Supreme Court rules unanimously that unions have wide-ranging protection against lawsuits by members dissatisfied with the result of a strike or a negotiation. . . . The Senate approves a $78 billion funding package for the Resolution Trust Corp., the agency in charge of bailing out insolvent savings and loan associations.

More than 300 astronomers release a $3 billion list of the projects they most want the government to fund in the next decade.

NFL owners vote not to hold Super Bowl XXVII in Phoenix, to protest Arizona’s failure to implement a paid state holiday for slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. . . . Soviet pole vaulter Sergei Bubka breaks his record again with a vault of 20 feet, 1⁄2 inch in Donetsk, USSR

The Supreme Court rules that employers cannot bar women from jobs where they may be exposed to materials hazardous to developing fetuses. . . . Five NYC police officers are arraigned on charges that include murder in connection with the death of a car-theft suspect, Federico Pereira. . . . . Education Secretary Lamar Alexander advises colleges and universities to continue to provide publicly funded race-specific scholarships and grants until a new study is completed.

Pres. Bush announces that his government will forgive 70% of Poland’s debt to the U.S.

In regard to the Jan. 1990 spill, Exxon pleads guilty to a criminal misdemeanor charge and agrees to pay $5 million. . . . Separately, confidential studies emerge which place the intangible losses from the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill at $3 billion, nearly three times what Exxon agreed to pay. . . . A five-month strike at the New York Daily News ends. . . . The Energy Department finds that workers exposed to low levels of radiation at the Oak Ridge nuclear weapons plant have a higher death rate from cancer than previously believed. . . . Separately, the National Cancer Institute finds that living near a commercial nuclear power plant does not increase the risk of cancer.

After several major news organizations leak a report concluding Thereza Imanishi-Kari falsified and manufactured data in a 1986 controversial study on gene therapy, David Baltimore, a Nobel Prize-winning molecular biologist who worked with ImanishiKari, asks that his name as a coauthor be retracted.

New York real-estate developer Donald Trump and his former wife, Ivana, reach an agreement on a divorce settlement. . . . The fouryear-old son of rock guitarist Eric Clapton is killed when he falls from a 53rd-floor condominium window in New York City.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 18

March 19

March 20

176—March 21–25, 1991

March 21

March 22

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The UN reports that the allied air offensive in the Persian Gulf war “wrought near-apocalyptic results upon the infrastructure of what had been, until January 1991, a rather highly urbanized and mechanized society.” It concludes Iraq has been “relegated to a preindustrial age, but with all the disabilities of post-industrial dependency on an intensive use of energy and technology.”. . . Iraq releases 1,150 Kuwaiti prisoners to the International Red Cross. . . . Allied officials meet with an Iraqi delegation in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to discuss accelerating the return of Iraqi prisoners of war to their homeland. About 2,400 POWs have been returned to Iraq since the cease-fire. . . . Czechoslovak Pres. Havel becomes the first head of a Warsaw Pact country to visit NATO’s headquarters in Brussels.

The British government announces that it will scrap the unpopular poll tax. . . . Official results of the Mar. 17 national referendum on preserving the Soviet Union suggest 76% of those who participated in the initiative voted in favor of unity.

The Wall Street Journal reports that allied forces killed at least 100,000 Iraqi soldiers in the six-week Persian Gulf war. . . . A U.S. fighter jet downs an Iraqi SU-22 warplane near Kirkuk in northern Iraq. . . . The UN Security Council effectively lifts its food embargo against Iraq.

The British Royal Navy reveals that a British fleet auxiliary tanker on Feb. 9 refueled the two Argentine warships sent to the Persian Gulf. The contact between Great Britain and Argentina is the first known military cooperation between the two countries since the end of the Falklands War in 1982.

March 23

March 24

March 25

Intelligence agencies now estimate that about 700 of Iraq’s 4,550 tanks in the southern theater escaped— an increase of more than 100 over previous U.S. estimates. In addition, some 1,430 of Iraq’s 2,880 armored personnel carriers are thought to have escaped, an almost threefold increase over previous estimates.

Figures from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade show that Germany regained its position as the world’s largest exporter in 1990.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Middle East Watch, a U.S.-based human-rights organization, reports that Kuwaiti soldiers and citizens detained, tortured, and killed Palestinian and Iraqi residents of Kuwait suspected of collaborating with the Iraqi occupiers.

In Chile, rebel and Popular Forces of Lautaro claim responsibility for the Mar. 15 killing of Hector Sarmiento Hidalgo. . . . Brazilian economic officials unexpectedly announce an immediate suspension of all new coffee exports. . . . The Supreme Court of Canada rules that a fetus is not a person.

President Corazon Aquino announces that former First Lady Imelda Marcos may return to the Philippines but will be tried for various crimes against the state upon her return.

South African justice minister H. J. Coetsee lifts a ban on outdoor gatherings—not including protest marches—for which permission has not been sought in advance. The ban had been imposed since 1976. . . . A series of unruly strikes and protests against Pres. Moussa Traore begin in Mali.

El Salvador’s Central Election Council officially announces that the ruling Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) party won the legislative election but lost its majority in the National Assembly.

Iraqi president Saddam Hussein makes several cabinet changes for the apparent purpose of consolidating power in the hands of Iraqi officials most loyal to Hussein.

Ernesto Díaz Rodríguez, one of Cuba’s longest-held political prisoners, is freed after serving 22 years of a 40—year sentence. . . . The Chilean Congress changes the country’s constitution to allow Pres. Aylwin to pardon prisoners who were taken into custody during the Pinochet regime.

P.M. Nicephore Soglo defeats Benin’s current president, Brigadier Gen. Mathieu Kerekou, in a final round of the country’s first free elections in nearly 30 years. . . . ANC members clash with South African police in the black township of Daveyton, killing 12 and injuring at least 29 people. . . . Israel orders deportations of Palestinians in response to attacks in which Arabs killed seven Israelis and wounded 11 since early March. A military court in Bucharest sentences 16 former lawmakers during the reign of Nicolae Ceausescu to prison terms ranging from two years to five-and-a-half years. The court acquits five defendants. . . . Soviet president Gorbachev orders a moratorium on all public demonstrations and rallies in Moscow from Mar. 26 to Apr. 15, which coincides with a plenary session of the Russian Congress of People’s Deputies. . . . A crowd estimated at 70,000 march in Leipzig to protest deteriorating economic conditions in eastern Germany.

Opposition leaders estimate that three days of protests against Mali’s Pres. Traore resulted in a total of 150 civilian deaths by government gunfire. Traore asserts the death toll is 34. . . . Western sources suggest loyalist troops are prevailing against Shi’ite Muslim rebels in southern Iraq.

Sir John Robert Kerr, 76, governor general of Australia, 1974–77, dies in Sydney; he had had a brain tumor.

Reports indicate Brazil has canceled $1.5 billion of the $3 billion debt owed to it by Poland.

Preliminary results from a census in India indicate that the country’s population is 844 million, an increase of 161 million since 1981.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 21–25, 1991—177

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Federal and local law-enforcement agents raid three fraternity houses at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Twelve students are charged with selling or distributing drugs, and federal agents seize control of the three fraternity houses under a 1984 federal law. Justice Department officials believe it is the first time the government has seized control of assets at a university for a drug violation. . . . The Senate confirms former Florida governor Bob Martinez (R) as the director of national drug control policy. . . . The Minneapolis Star-Tribune becomes the first major metropolitan newspaper in the U.S. to list the announcement of a lesbian “domestic partnership” on its wedding and engagement page.

Congress passes a package authorizing $655 million in expanded benefits for veterans effective retroactively from August 1, 1990, and lasting until 180 days after Pres. Bush declared the gulf conflict ended. . . . Two P-3 Orion submarine-hunting aircrafts collide over the Pacific Ocean 60 miles southwest of San Diego, California, during a training mission in rough weather.

Pres. Bush meets with the chairmen of General Motors Corp., Chrysler Corp., and Ford Motor Co., the three largest U.S. car makers, to hear their concerns about the current economic climate.

Despite a month of rainstorms, officials caution that rainfall in California for 1991 is still below average. . . . NASA formally unveils revised blueprints for the proposed orbiting space station Freedom.

Clarence Leo Fender, 81, founder of Fender Instruments Inc. in 1944 and developer of the first commercially successful electric guitar; the Stratocaster, dies in Fullerton, California, after suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

U.S. district judge John R. Hargrove of Baltimore fines Bolar Pharmaceutical Co. $10 million for adulterating and mislabeling eight generic prescription drugs. . . . Albert McKinley Rains, 89, Democratic U.S. representative from Alabama, 1945–1964, dies in Gadsden, Alabama. . . . Pamela Smart is convicted on charges that she plotted with her teenage lover to murder her husband. She is immediately sentenced to life in prison without parole.

The U.S. Navy calls off a search for survivors of the Mar. 21 aircraft collision over the Pacific Ocean. All of the 27 crew members are presumed dead. . . . The State Department claims it received about 70,000 applications for visas at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana since Oct. 1990. The figure is double the number of applications received in all of 1990.

Paul Engle, 82, cofounder of the University of Iowa’s international writing program, dies of a heart attack in Chicago. . . . Julie Parisien wins the women’s giant slalom at Waterville Valley. It is the first World Cup win for the U.S. since 1987. . . . The National Labor Relations Board rules that NFL owners broke federal labor laws during the 1987 players’ strike and orders the owners to pay a total of about $22 million.

Pres. Bush signs legislation giving the RTC $30 billion to cover losses of failed S&Ls.

March 22

March 23

The Justice Department’s annual National Crime Survey shows that personal and household crime fell by about 3% in 1990.

The Supreme Court refuses. without comment, a case challenging the FAA’s “age 60 rule” that prohibits pilots 60 or older from flying commercial planes that seat more than 30 passengers.

March 21

March 24

State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler announces that the U.S. officially protests Israel’s deportation of Palestinians.

The RTC announces a streamlined program to sell 215 S&Ls with total assets of about $130 billion by Sept. 30. . . . Reports show that a New Jersey local and the central office of the International Longshoremen’s Association, representing three New York locals, have settled lawsuits with the Justice Department.

Dances with Wolves wins seven awards and is the first western to win the award for Best Picture since 1931. Whoopi Goldberg, winner of the Best Supporting Actress award, becomes the second black woman to win an acting Oscar. Special lifetime achievement awards are presented to Myrna Loy and Sophia Loren.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 25

178—March 26–31, 1991

March 26

March 27

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The presidents of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay sign an agreement to create the Southern Cone Common Market, a fourcountry free-trade zone, by Jan. 1, 1995. . . . Iraq announces it will attend the Mar. 30 meeting of the Arab League in Cairo. . . . The Bush administration formally indicates that the U.S. will not aid rebels in Iraq seeking to overthrow the government of Pres. Saddam Hussein.

After more than 14 months of negotiations, Britain’s secretary of state for Northern Ireland announces a plan for three-track talks. . . . The Supreme Soviet orders striking miners back to work under the threat of dismissals. . . . Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev strips the Moscow city government of jurisdiction over the police in Moscow. The Moscow City Council characterizes the move as an unconstitutional, and it renews permission for the Mar. 28 demonstration despite the federal order.

Soldiers headed by Lt. Col. Amadou Toumani Toure in Mali overthrow the government of Pres. Moussa Traore. At least 59 people are reportedly killed during the coup. . . . Kurdish rebels fighting loyalist troops in northern Iraq seize a military base and airfield near Kirkuk. Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish leader, returns after three years of exile. . . . Israeli police minister Milo orders security officers to “shoot to kill” armed Arabs who attack Israeli civilians.

Reports confirm that the U.S. has withdrawn from Europe the last of its medium-range nuclear missiles deployed on the continent. The arms are pulled out to be destroyed under the U.S.-Soviet 1987 INF treaty. . . . The UN Security Council issues a statement condemning Israel’s decision to deport four Palestinians accused of inciting violence against Jews.

Chile’s former ruler, General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, rejects a Mar. 4 government report that charges gross human-rights violations during his 17-year regime.

More than 100,000 supporters of Russian republic president Boris Yeltsin demonstrate in Moscow in defiance of a ban on protests in the city imposed by Soviet president Gorbachev. . . . The Russian parliament passes resolutions condemning president Mikhail Gorbachev’s protest ban and his decree that places the Moscow city police under the direct control of the national interior ministry. . . . Soviet firefighters spend six hours battling a blaze on the top floors of the 10-story U.S. embassy in Moscow.

The government of Pres. Elias Hrawi orders all armed factions in Lebanon to hand their weapons over to the Lebanese army. The order is intended to help bring an end to Lebanon’s 16-year-old civil war. . . . An Iraqi Shi’ite leader, Hojatolislam Mohammed Bakr alHakim, tells reporters in Iran that loyalist forces have recaptured virtually all of the major cities in southern Iraq from Shi’ite insurgents. . . . Reports suggest that as many as 150,000 people have left Kuwait since the end of the war, in part because of deteriorating air quality.

Reports disclose that officials in Guatemala have captured at least 120 people allegedly involved in illegal logging operations in the jungle 300 miles north of Guatemala City. . . . Argentine railway workers end a 44-day wildcat strike, during which the government fired more than 4,000 strikers and closed four of the country’s six main railroad lines.

The government of Italian premier Giulio Andreotti resigns due to feuding among coalition partners.

The Rwandan government signs a cease-fire in the six-month fight with the Rwandan Popular Front.

Representatives of the Arab nations in the anti-Iraq coalition in the Persian Gulf war implicitly rebuke Iraq and its allies at a meeting of the Arab League in Cairo. . . . The Gulf Cooperation Council, comprised of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, and the UAE announces that its member nations will no longer provide financial aid to Jordan or the PLO, Iraq’s two chief Arab supporters during the Persian Gulf war.

The Albanian government frees 258 political prisoners to fulfill a preelection pledge.

Iraqi troops retake the oil-producing city of Kirkuk after three days of heavy fighting involving tanks, artillery, and helicopter gunships. ANC deputy president Nelson Mandela and Inkatha Freedom Party president Mangosuthu Buthelezi meet in an effort to stem recent flare-ups of violence in black townships between supporters of the two antiapartheid groups.

The Warsaw Pact formally disbands its military structure in Moscow; only its political arm, the Political Consultative Committee, is still in effect. However, the Soviet news agency Tass warns the USSR’s nominal allies in the Warsaw Pact that they will threaten Soviet security interests if they join NATO. German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, in a radio interview, states that it would be unwise for the countries of Eastern Europe to try to become part of NATO.

The ruling Albanian Workers’ (Communist) Party retains power in the country’s first multiparty national elections since World War II. . . . Ethnic Serbs and Croatian special police engage in a shoot-out at Plitvice national park in Croatia. One policeman and one ethnic Serb are killed, and at least a dozen others are wounded. The federal government sends in army units. . . . Georgians overwhelmingly support independence in a republic-wide referendum.

Said Wehbeh, the senior leader of the PLO, announces the PLO will not give up its arms, as ordered by Pres. Hrawi Mar. 28, arguing that its weapons are not meant for use in Lebanon’s civil war but are “required for the struggle” against Israel. . . . The Israeli cabinet approves new limits on the entry of Palestinians into Israel, institutionalizing restrictions in place since the end of the Persian Gulf war. . . . Kurdish insurgents and civilians begin to flee Iraq after troops loyal to Pres. Saddam Hussein take over cities occupied by Kurds in earlier fighting.

March 29

March 31

Asia & the Pacific South Koreans vote in the nation’s first local elections in 30 years and favor candidates of the ruling Democratic Liberal Party.

Gunmen open fire on mourners at a prayer vigil in Alexandra, a township near Johannesburg, South Africa, and then hack and stab survivors. The incident leaves 18 wounded and 15 dead, including nine members of the bereaved family. . . . Reports show that around 7,000 refugees have arrived at the U.S. base at Safwan near the Iraq-Kuwait border.

March 28

March 30

The Americas

The People’s Revolutionary Party of Laos closes its fifth party congress after reelecting Kaysone Phomvihane as its chairman. During the congress, some elder Politburo members resigned, including Prince Souphanouvong, the youngest son of the former king of Laos who sided with communists.

Afghan guerrillas announce they have seized the town of Khost after two weeks of heavy fighting against government forces.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 26–31, 1991—179

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The Supreme Court rules the use of a coerced confession in a criminal trial does not automatically void a conviction. . . .The Supreme Court rules that a federal law barring employment discrimination does not apply to the operations of U.S. companies outside the country. . . . L.A. County supervisors approve the distribution of condoms and bleach kits to curb the spread of AIDS. . . . Voters in Kansas City, Misssouri, elect the city’s first black mayor, Rev. Emanuel Cleaver.

The Defense Department releases an account showing that nearly $23 billion in cash and in-kind contributions have been received from allies.

The Supreme Court rules unanimously that the federal government is not liable for damages incurred after federal banking regulators take over failing savings and loan associations. . . . Midway Airlines files Chapter 11, the third carrier to do so in three months. . . . The International Longshoremen’s Association settles a lawsuit with the Justice Department.

The Supreme Court rules that the white pages of a telephone directory—listing names, addresses, and phone numbers—are not protected under federal copyright law.

Coast Guard and INS officials reveal that 170 Cubans fled to southern Florida in homemade rafts in the first three months of 1991. The number more than doubles the amount of rafters who arrived in the U.S. in the first three months of 1990.

The Bush administration releases an annual report of foreign trade barriers to U.S. exports. The citations do not carry the threats of retaliation in the 1989 and 1990 reports because the so-called Super 301 provision of the 1988 Omnibus Trade Act expired. . . . Reports show the Defense Department found 3,000 more military bases that are that are contaminated with toxic wastes and slated for cleanup, bringing the total to 17,482.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

March 26

Preliminary tests in the U.S. show an experimental drug, ditiocarb sodium, to be effective in fighting diseases that prey on the weakened immune systems of AIDS patients.

Former president Ronald Reagan endorses federal legislation that would impose a seven-day waiting period on the purchase of handguns. . . . The Mississippi state legislature votes to override a veto by Gov. Ray Mabus (D) of a bill that requires a woman to receive information from her doctor about the risks of and alternatives to abortion and then to wait 24 hours before undergoing the procedure.

Lee (Harvey LeRoy) Atwater, 40, manager of Pres. Bush’s 1988 election campaign and chairman of the Republican National Committee, 1988–90, widely regarded as one of the nation’s most successful political strategists and known for the aggressiveness and ruthlessness of his campaigns, dies of a brain tumor in Washington, D.C.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Governor Pete Wilson (R) reveals that California faces a budget deficit of $12.6 billion through June 1992—in dollar terms the largest U.S. state deficit ever. . . . Researchers at UCLA find that chronic exposure to air pollution may seriously damage lung tissue and affect breathing. The UCLA study is considered the first to look at effects of air pollution in the long term.

March 27

A series of violent thunderstorms sweeps through much of the South.

A judge in NYC rules it is illegal for a company to make photocopies of book excerpts and assemble them into anthologies for sale to students.

At least 23 people are killed in a series of violent thunderstorms that started Mar. 28. The storms stretch across Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Texas.

Publisher’s Weekly lists Heartbeat by Danielle Steel as the top bestseller.

March 29

Northern Michigan University wins the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I hockey title, 8-7, over Boston University.

March 30

The FEC finds that donations by PACs to congressional candidates in the 1990 election cycle declined slightly in comparison to 1988, but the proportion of money going to incumbents continues to rise. It is the first reported decrease in PAC donations since they were first tracked in 1977.

The Tennessee Lady Volunteers wins the NCAA women’s basketball tournament with a 70-67 tripleovertime victory over the Virginia Cavaliers.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 28

March 31

180—April 1–5, 1991

April 1

April 2

April 3

April 4

April 5

World Affairs

Europe

Noting the UN’s previous response to Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi Kurdistan Front, a coalition of Kurdish insurgent groups, issues a statement by Kurdish military commander Masoud Barzani urging the U.S., the U.K., and France to take action on behalf of the insurgents in Iraq.

Detlev Rohwedder, the chief of the German government organization supervising the former stateowned enterprises of East Germany, is slain by a gunman in Dusseldorf. . . . The Serbian National Council announces that Krajina henceforth is a part of Serbia. . . . The Romanian government ends subsidies on most foods, thereby allowing prices to soar. . . . The Supreme Soviet votes to authorize Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev to declare a state of emergency in South Ossetia.

The UN Security Council hears a proposal from France to “condemn all forms of oppression” in Iraq and to order the Iraqi government to cease its military campaigns against insurgents. The Security Council also receives a letter from Turkish president Turgut Ozal, claiming that 220,000 Iraqi refugees are being driven toward Turkey by government troops. Turkish officials estimate that 30,000 Iraqi Kurds have crossed into Turkey since Mar. 31.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Members of several opposition groups demand that democratic reforms be initiated in Kuwait. . . . Reports show Benin’s High Council of the Republic granted former president Mathieu Kerekou amnesty for crimes he allegedly committed since taking power in 1972. . . . Iran releases a British businessman, Roger Cooper, held since Dec. 1985 on charges of espionage.

Jaime Guzmán, a Chilean senator and legal adviser to former president Augusto Pinochet and his military junta, is shot and killed by an unidentified gunman in Santiago.

U.S. officials find that the Afghan rebels captured 6,000 government soldiers in the Mar. 31 victory. They also suggest that Afghan government troops had the help of Soviet advisers firing Scud missiles.

Three Irish people charged in connection with May 1990 murders for which the IRA claimed responsibility are acquitted by a Dutch court while one is sentenced to 18 years in prison. . . . Ethnic Serbs erect roadblocks in the Krajina region. . . . In Albania, election results cause protesters to attack the headquarters of the Workers’ Party. Interior-ministry troops open fire, killing three and wounding at least 30. In Tirana, riot police armed with batons charge into a crowd of 1,000 protesters.

The U.S. Defense Department contradicts Kurdish claims that rebels had retaken Kirkuk when it states that government forces have driven Kurdish rebels out of the cities of Dahok, Erbil, and Zakho in northern Iraq.

British Columbia premier William Vander Zalm, under fire for alleged conflict-of-interest violations, resigns and is succeeded by his deputy premier, Rita Johnston, the first woman premier of a Canadian province. . . . The Peruvian cholera death toll reaches 780.

The Times of London reports rebels in Afghanistan are establishing an administrative council in Khost. Afghan president Najibullah publicly concedes the loss of Khost and declares a national day of mourning for the soldiers slain there.

The UN Security Council approves a resolution to establish a permanent cease-fire in the Persian Gulf war and bring a gradual halt to international sanctions against Iraq. Abdul Amir al-Anbari, Iraq’s representative to the UN, argues that disarming Iraq will boost Israel’s power in the Middle East and leave the region more unstable than it was earlier. He also asserts that the UN has no right to intervene in the determination of Iraq’s borders.

An army social club in the Croatian town of Sibenik is fire-bombed. . . . Turkish officials announce that they will not allow any more Kurdish refugees to enter the country. Refugees who have already entered Turkey will be allowed to stay and receive food, shelter, and medical assistance. . . . Striking miners and the Soviet government reach an agreement in Moscow, but it does not yet address the strikers’ political concerns.

Lebanese cabinet ministers warn the PLO that Palestinians will not be permitted to sidestep the disarmament decree. . . . Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati announces that Iran will shelter any Kurdish refugees fleeing Iraq and requests that the UN and the International Red Cross aid that effort.

All five permanent members of the UN Security Council—the U.S., the USSR, Great Britain, China and France—agree to contribute soldiers to a peacekeeping force in Iraq. No previous UN observer force has been staffed by representatives from all five nations.

In Albania, the opposition Democrats’ call for a nationwide general strike to protest the Apr. 2 killings receives only marginal support in Shkoder and in Tirana. . . . Thousands of angry workers in Minsk walk off their jobs and stage a protest against nationwide price increases that took effect a few days earlier. The workers demand higher wages and the resignation of Pres. Gorbachev. . . . In London, Kurdish protestors go on hunger strikes.

Nicephore Soglo is sworn in as the leader of Benin. . . . Salim Mukhtar, a leading figure in Kuwait’s Palestinian community, is shot to death in Kuwait City.

A series of earthquakes strike Peru over the course of two days. . . . Former Haitian interim president Ertha Pascal Trouillot is charged as an accomplice in the attempted Jan. 1991 coup. . . . Representatives of the Salvadoran government and leaders of the FMLN rebels begin a new round of talks in Mexico City aimed at ending an 11-yearold civil war.

The UN Security Council passes a resolution condemning the Iraqi government’s repression of the Kurds and other dissidents in Iraq. Abdul Amir al-Anbari, Iraq’s representative to the UN, denounces the resolution, referring to it as “blatant interference” in Iraq’s internal affairs when noninterference in the internal affairs of nations is a basic tenet of international diplomacy. . . . Iraq’s Supreme Revolutionary Command Council decide to abide by the terms of the UN resolution.

The Russian republic votes to give broad emergency powers to Pres. Boris Yeltsin. . . . Reports confirm that Russian nickel miners in Norilsk and bauxite workers in Sverdlovsk began strikes. . . . Two pro-Kurdish protestors are killed outside the Iraqi consulate in Istanbul when stone-throwing demonstrators are fired upon. . . . More than 30 Kurdish demonstrators ransack the Iraqi embassy in London, and 14 of them occupy the office for more than three hours before surrendering.

The Iraqi government offers amnesty to any Kurds who participated in the rebellion against President Saddam Hussein. . . . The ANC warns South African president F. W. de Klerk that it will pull out of negotiations on a new constitution unless the government meets seven demands aimed at stopping the factional violence afflicting black townships by May 9.

Earthquakes continue to rock Peru, killing 38 people and injuring about 750. The San Martín region north of Lima, the capital, is hit hardest as 98% of all homes are destroyed in the region’s capital city, Moyobamba. . . . A court orders former Haitian president Trouillot released, but confines her to her home in Port-au-Prince. . . . Gov. Rafael Hernández Colón signs into law a bill making Spanish the official language of Puerto Rico.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 1–5, 1991—181

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

North Dakota governor George Sinner (D) vetoes what would have been the strictest antiabortion legislation in the U.S. . . . Iowa legalizes gambling on Mississippi riverboat casinos. . . . A FBI team recommends 11 white agents be disciplined for the harassment of black agent Donald Rochon in the mid-1980s. . . . The Supreme Court rules that criminal defendants may object to race-based peremptory challenges of potential jurors, regardless of the race of the defendant or the juror.

The Treasury Department releases a list of 52 companies and 37 individuals alleged to be fronts or agents for Iraqi president Hussein’s regime. The Department states it will freeze the assets of the listed companies and individuals. . . . A solid-fuel booster being developed for the Air Force Titan 4 rocket explodes during its first test firing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

The Supreme Court rules local governments have wide-ranging immunity from federal antitrust laws. . . . The minimum hourly wage rises 45 cents, to $4.25 from $3.80 per hour, and the so-called training wage, a lower minimum wage for teenagers, increases to $3.62 per hour from $3.35. . . . The New York State Legislature fails to pass a budget, forcing local governments and school districts to resort to expensive borrowing to meet expenses.

A poll of Los Angeles residents regarding the Mar. 3 beating of Rodney King shows that 43% of respondents feel police chief Daryl Gates should resign, while 41% state he should remain. . . . Bernard W. Fensterwald Jr., 69, lawyer who defended James Earl Ray and James W. McCord Jr., dies of a heart attack at in Alexandria, Virginia.

Officials in the Bush administration defend the U.S. policy of nonintervention in Iraq’s internal conflicts.

The National Marine Fisheries Services, a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, proposes that the sockeye salmon on the Snake River in Idaho be granted protection as an endangered species.

A jury in Alabama recommends that David Ronald Chandler, convicted of running a marijuana ring, should become the first person executed under a 1988 federal law that allows capital punishment for drug-related killings. . . . Federal prosecutors withdraw all criminal charges against Rep. Floyd Flake (D, N.Y.) , who was indicted on 17 counts involving financial improprieties at New York’s Allen A.M.E. Church.

A navy internal report that finds pervasive sexual harassment in the service and states that women in the navy are hampered by “inconsistent and ambiguous” job assignments is made public. . . . Reports reveal that the Pentagon is developing in secret a nuclear-powered rocket as part of the Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”).

Six people are killed and 11 injured when police storm an electronics store in Sacramento, California, where up to 30 people had been held hostage for more than eight hours. Three of the four attackers are killed, and one is injured. . . . A poll shows that six percent of teenagers say they tried to commit suicide and 15% say they had “come very close to trying.” . . . A study finds that the unemploymentinsurance system provided benefits for 37% of unemployed workers in 1990, the lowest figure for a recession year since World War II. William Kennedy Smith, 30, a nephew of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.), is formally identified by police as the suspect in an alleged Mar. 29 rape at the Kennedy family’s vacation estate in Palm Beach, Florida. . . . The director of the FBI, William Sessions, meets with more than 200 black agents in an attempt to prevent a class-action racial discrimination lawsuit against the bureau.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle By using a carbon-dating technique, scientists conclude the Dead Sea Scrolls were written between the second century B.C. and the first century A.D. . . . Martha Graham, 96, a central figures in 20th-century dance who won the first 1976 Medal of Freedom, the U.S.’s highest civilian honor, dies of cardiac arrest in New York City.

April 2

Graham Greene, 86, major British author whose works include The Power and the Glory (1940), dies of a blood disorder in Switzerland. . . . John Edgar Wideman wins the PEN/Faulkner Award for his novel Philadelphia Firefirst. He is the first person to win it twice.

The EPA finds that the protective ozone layer is shrinking at a rate twice as great as previously assumed. . . . Secretary of Labor Lynn Martin announces fines against more than 500 coal-mining companies for tampering with coaldust monitoring devices at more than 800 underground coal mines.

Pres. Bush states that he plans to authorize the release of as much as $10 million from refugee-relief funds to benefit the Kurds. He also announces that the US will donate $869,000 to the UN Children’s Fund, and $131,000 and 1,000 tons of food to the International Red Cross to aid the refugees.

April 1

Seven people, including Sen. John Heinz (R, Pa.), are killed when two aircraft collide onto the grounds of a school near Philadelphia. Two of those killed are children at the elementary school. Five other children and adults are injured. . . . Separate studies claim to link liver cancer to a tiny “hot spot” on a single human gene. The teams discover two risk factors already linked to liver cancer seem to mutate the spot. The discovery is considered the first persuasive evidence of how toxins attack DNA and cause cancer.

April 3

April 4

Twenty-three passengers are killed when their commuter plane crashes near Brunswick, Georgia. The passengers include John Goodwin Tower, 65, Republican U.S. senator from Texas, 1961–84; and Captain Manley Lanier (Sonny) Carter Jr., 43, U.S. Navy physician and astronaut who flew on the space shuttle Discovery in Nov. 1989. . . . The space shuttle Atlantis takes off from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

April 5

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

182—April 6–10, 1991

April 6

April 7

April 8

April 9

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The government of Iraq accepts the terms for a permanent ceasefire stipulated in UN Security Council Resolution 687, bringing a formal end to the Persian Gulf war As per the resolution’s schedule, the UN lifts its sanctions on food and medicine in Iraq. . . . The U.S. warns Iraq not to undertake any military action in northeastern Iraq and bans any action by Iraqi air or ground forces against Kurdish refugees. It also forbids Iraqi military air activity north of the 36th parallel.

Turkey eases its Apr. 3 restrictions to allow some Kurds across the border. . . . Louis Joxe, 89, veteran French government official who played a key role in the debate over Algerian independence and the student uprisings of 1968, dies in Paris.

Souths African president F. W. de Klerk rejected the ANC’s demands made Apr. 5, accusing the group of seeking to exploit the factional violence for political advantage.

Turkish and Iranian officials plead for international assistance since they do not have the resources to cope with the enormous influx of refugees from Iraq.

The ruling Albanian Workers’ (Communist) Party gains a two-thirds majority in the People’s Assembly as a result of parliamentary runoff elections. Premier Fatos Nano wins his race as well.

U.S. Air Force cargo planes begin dropping food and other supplies to Kurdish refugees along the IraqTurkey border. . . . Iraq’s staterun radio broadcasts a letter in which Iraqi president Saddam Hussein formally accepts the terms of the permanent cease-fire but nonetheless characterizes them as “unfair and vindictive.”

The EC pledges 150 million European currency units in aid to the Kurds. . . Brazil and its foreign commercial-bank creditors reach an agreement on the country’s payment of $8 billion in overdue debt interest.

France and Germany begin to allow Poles to visit their countries without visas. However, the first day of open travel is marred by protests from neo-Nazi groups in Germany, and two Poles are hurt in one rock-throwing incident at a crossing point. . . . The Georgian government threatens a republicwide general strike unless the Kremlin removes troops from the republic. . . . Thousands of Croats storm a courthouse, forcing an indefinite postponement of a trial of seven people accused by the military of plotting an armed revolt.

About 5,000 U.S. Army troops withdraw from Iraq into Saudi Arabia. . . . U.S. secretary of state Baker, en route to Israel, visits a refugee camp on the Iraq-Turkey border. . . . The Israeli defense ministry announces that it will release about 1,200 of the 14,000 Palestinians jailed in connection with the 40-month-old uprising. . . . In South Africa, Inkatha president Buthelezi lashes out at the ANC’s Apr. 5 ultimatum.

Panamanian president Guillermo Endara fires five of his 12 cabinet ministers, all members of the Christian Democratic Party.

The UN Security Council authorizes the deployment of a peacekeeping force to a demilitarized zone along the Iraq-Kuwait border. . . . The Soviet Union begins withdrawing its military forces from Poland. . . . Israel states for the first time that it is ready in principle to attend a Mideast peace conference. . . . Polish president Lech Walesa and French president François Mitterrand sign a friendship treaty, the first of its kind between a Warsaw Pact country and a Western nation.

The parliament of the republic of Georgia unanimously votes to declare independence from the Soviet Union. . . . In Minsk, workers stage a one-day warning strike, threaten a general strike, and escalate their demands to include the resignations of both the republic and national governments. . . . Reports show that police arrested 41 Germans who tried to block the entry of Poles into the country. . . . France agrees to forgive $500 million of Poland’s debt.

Rebels from Liberia are ousted from the southern town of Potoru in Sierra Leone. . . . The South African government formally proposes a draft bill in Parliament that repeals the Population Classification Act of 1950. The bill will end racial classification of people by skin color at birth. . . . U.S. military personnel stationed in Kuwait report that incidents of Kuwaiti soldiers and police detaining and beating Palestinians continue.

Eduardo Vallarino, Panama’s ambassador to the U.S. and a PDC member, resigns his post to protest the Apr. 8 firings. . . . Reports suggest former Nicaraguan contra rebels who demobilized when Pres. Violeta Chamorro took office have begun to rearm.

An automobile ferry and an oil tanker collide on the coast of Italy. The crash does not ignite any of the 442,000 barrels of light crude oil stored on the tanker, but causes a slick one and a half square miles in size. All the crew members from the tanker escape, but only one survivor from the ferry, a crewman, is found. The other 140 people are believed dead. The accident is reported to be the worst maritime disaster in Italy since World War II. . . . Tens of thousands of workers in Minsk demonstrate and begin a general strike.

Israeli housing minister Ariel Sharon announces that he will continue his efforts to hasten Jewish settlement in occupied territories, marking a further complication for Middle East peace plans.

Former president Ertha Pascal Trouillot states she has been released from house arrest but is not permitted to leave Haiti.

April 10

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 6–10, 1991—183

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Pres. Bush signs into law a bill providing expanded benefits for veterans of the Persian Gulf war. The bill also authorizes the $15 billion appropriation passed by Congress in March to pay for the war.

Amtrak ends its use of Grand Central Terminal in NYC and directs its trains to use Pennsylvania Station.

Pres. Bush assures Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari that he is committed to a proposed free-trade agreement between the U.S. and Mexico.

The crew of the Atlantis releases the $617 million, 17-ton Gamma Ray Observatory into an orbit about 280 miles above Earth. It is the heaviest scientific payload ever carried aboard the shuttle.

The Laurence Olivier Awards are presented in London. Sir Ian McKellen wins for best actor, and Kathryn Hunter wins for best actress. Special achievement awards are presented to Dame Peggy Ashcroft, Cameron Mackintosh, Mark Elder, Twyla Tharp, and Jennifer Tipton.

Atlantis astronauts Jay Apt and Jerry Ross take a six-and-a-halfhour spacewalk. They construct a 47-foot rail along one side of the shuttle’s cargo bay, and then test on it three types of carts. They also practice handling large objects, tightening bolts, and moving handover-hand along a rail. Ross now has the highest spacewalking record of any shuttle astronaut—22 hours and 54 minutes.

Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography by Kitty Kelley arrives in bookstores and generates controversy. Former president Ronald Reagan calls Kelley’s claims “flagrant and absurd falsehoods.”. . . Announcements state the Pritzker Architecture Prize for lifetime achievement in architecture will go to Robert Venturi.

The Bush administration announces that it is revamping the Education Department’s office of postsecondary education to provide better oversight of federal student-loan programs. . . . CUNY students begin to take over buildings at 15 campuses to protest proposed tuition increases and cuts in the university’s budget. . . . The FEC announces former House Speaker James Wright (D, Tex.) has agreed to pay $15,000 to settle charges of improper campaign financing.

A federal district judge rules the National Republican Senatorial Committee exceeded limits and failed to report $2.3 million in contributions to candidates in 12 Senate races in 1986.

The Washington Post reports that in Aug. 1990 the CIA and the Department of Defense the outlined plans to initiate “psychological operations” to incite unrest in Iraq. Since both the CIA and the Pentagon frequently use radio broadcasts as elements of such operations, the report tallies with allegations that the U.S. was involved in a radio station that encouraged Iraqis to rebel against Pres. Hussein.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration releases a summary of 58 scientific studies that show the Exxon Valdez spill took a greater toll on wildlife, shorelines, tidal zones, and herring and salmon industries than previously suspected. Some ecological damage is now predicted to be permanent.

Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan launches a blistering attack on sponsorship of sporting events by tobacco companies. . . . The Law School Admissions Council finds that applications to law schools across the U.S. rose for the fourth year in a row in 1990. . . . A Census Bureau report indicates the income of Hispanics has risen relative to that of other Americans but is still about onethird below that of non-Hispanics.

Officials publicly disclose the warning issued to Iraq by the U.S. on Apr. 6. They argue that the warning does not reverse President Bush’s policy but keeps with UN Security Council Resolution 688, which gives the international community a mandate to take any steps necessary to conduct relief operations for the Kurds. . . . Bush signs the Desert Storm Supplemental Appropriations bill, which provides $42.6 billion to cover war costs, stipulating that the funds come from war aid pledged by U.S. allies in the conflict.

In a lawsuit regarding a 1984 diversion of pension funds when Chevron acquired Gulf Oil Corp., a federal judge rules Chevron has to pay the 19,000 employees a total of about $180 million. . . . Pres. Bush signs the so-called Dire Emergency supplemental spending bill, which doles out additional spending authority for a broad variety of programs.

April 6

John Updike becomes the third author to win a second Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Award recipients also include Neil Simon and Mona Van Duyn as well as others. . . . Forrest G. (Spec) Towns, 77, hurdler who won a gold medal at the 1936 Olympics, dies of a heart attack in Athens, Georgia.

The Atlantis flies within 130 miles of the Soviet space station Mir. The crew tries several times to make radio contact, but it is “not clear” if the cosmonauts heard them. The orbiter maneuvers to within nine miles of the Gamma Ray Observatory in an exercise designed to practice making a rendezvous in orbit. . . . Fire officials in Philadelphia state that a high-rise office fire in February that killed three firefighters was caused by a pile of oilsoaked rags left by a crew of workers.

In hockey, Wayne Gretzky scores his 93rd playoff goal to break the record held by Jari Kurri. . . . A poll finds that more than 90% of Americans identify themselves as belonging to a religious group. . . . Natalie Schafer, 90, best known for the role of Mrs. Thurston Howell on Gilligan’s Island, dies of cancer in Beverly Hills, California.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 7

April 8

April 9

April 10

184—April 11–16, 1991

April 11

April 12

April 13

April 14

April 15

April 16

World Affairs

Europe

The UN Security Council officially declares an end to the Persian Gulf war after reviewing Iraq’s acceptance of Resolution 687. . . . The EC announces that it will contribute 1 million ECUs ($1.23 million) in emergency funds to aid the families of the victims in the Apr. 10 crash off the shore of Italy.

French socialist premier Michel Rocard defeats the 11th no-confidence motion against his government in its three-year tenure. . . Coal miners on Sakhalin Island join the Minsk walkout. . . . Workers in Georgia begin a general strike to force a removal of Soviet troops. . . . Workers in Minsk agree to suspend temporarily a general strike. . . . A supertanker carrying 1 million barrels of oil explodes, three miles off the coast of Genoa At least three members of the crew are killed, and two are missing.

U.S. secretary of state James Baker concludes a six-day tour of the Middle East. During his trip, he succeeded in convincing Arab and Israeli leaders to agree in principle to peace talks.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Togo, 26 bodies, some showing signs of beating, are dredged from a lagoon near the center of Lome after months of protests and strikes, some of which ended in violence. Eyadema announces a package of measures to legalize opposition parties, free political prisoners, and grant amnesty to those implicated in a failed 1986 coup attempt.

The U.S. and Panama sign a treaty giving U.S. officials access to Panamanian banking records when investigating drug trafficking and money laundering.

Reports show Australia’s unemployment rate rose to 9.2% in March, the highest since April 1984. The unemployment rate represents more than 777,100 Australians out of work, the highest number on record.

Reports indicate that clashes in Sierra Leone, which began in March, have claimed at least 150 lives. The fighting is taking place near the border with Liberia in the east and the south. Reports confirm that Sierra Leone has asked the U.S. for military aid in fighting the rebels. . . . The ANC publishes tentative principles for a post-apartheid constitution in South Africa. . . . Reports show that Toyota Motor Corp. of Japan has become the last of Japan’s major auto makers to begin trading with Israel.

The longest and costliest criminal trial in Canadian history ends with the acquittal of Toronto businessman Joseph Burnett on tax-evasion charges.

The U.S. and other nations undertake new efforts to assist Kurdish refugees massed along the IraqTurkey border, as reports indicate rapidly deteriorating conditions in the refugees’ mountain camps.

Reports state Yugoslavia’s collective presidency agreed that the republics should hold referendums on the nation’s future. . . . Italy’s new coalition government meets and declares the first national state of emergency since World War II in response to the Apr. 11 supertanker explosion.

Sierra Leone’s president, Joseph Momoh, reports that Nigeria and Guinea have deployed troops in his country to help repulse an incursion by rebels from neighboring Liberia. . . . Egyptian undercover police arrest Sheik Talal Nasser alSabah, a member of Kuwait’s royal family, on drug charges.

Officials from the UN Office of the High Commission for Refugees admits after a fact-finding tour in western Iran that they severely underestimated the number of refugees that Iran would receive from Iraq.

The parliament of Georgia creates an executive presidency for the republic and elects Zviad Gamsakhurdia to the post. . . . The ship that exploded off the coast of Italy Apr. 11 sinks after three days of spilling its cargo and erupting in sporadic blasts. Estimates of the amount of oil that escaped from the ship vary from 5,000 to 30,000 metric tons. Most of the spill is thought to have burned off, but some oil has formed a slick six to 15 miles long and two miles wide.

Representatives of international relief groups estimate that there are between 500 and 1,000 deaths each day among the refugees along the Turkey-Iraq border. Diarrhea and dehydration are widespread in all the camps, and the cold mountain climate is causing many deaths from exposure.

Officials from 39 countries gather in London for the inauguration of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The EBRD, created in 1990, has $12.2 billion in capital to help Eastern European countries turn toward market economies. . . . The foreign ministers of the EC vote unanimously to lift their 1986 ban on the import of gold coins, steel and iron from South Africa.

The main opposition group in Albania, the Democratic Party, boycotts the opening of the newly elected People’s Assembly. . . . The Turkish government announces that it will begin to transfer Kurdish refugees out of their mountain camps along the Iraq-Turkey border and into well-equipped refugee centers further inside Turkey.

Reports show that at least seven Kurds were killed by supply bundles dropped from U.S. and British airplanes. U.S. cargo helicopters start to be used since they can deliver supplies more safely than planes involved in earlier airlifts.. . . . Iraqi troops release two Western journalists who were captured during the Iraqi counteroffensive against the Kurdish rebellion.

The civilian trial of Argentine army colonel Mohamed Ali Seineldin and hundreds of his followers opens.

U.S. president Bush announces a controversial plan for U.S., British, and French military personnel to build and operate refugee camps for the Kurds in northern Iraq. . . . In a letter to the UN Security Council, Iraq asks for permission to recover $1 billion of its assets and to sell $950 million worth of its oil to buy food and basic goods. . . . The EC representative to the EBRD discloses that pledges of EC aid to Eastern Europe total $23 billion.

Miners strike near the Russian city of Kursk, south of Moscow, and thousands of factory workers in the Ukraine launch a sympathy strike. . . . The Supreme Soviet gives preliminary approval to legislation banning political strikes. . . . The Communist Party bosses of 13 Soviet cities criticize Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev’s leadership of the party. . . . A fledgling Polish stock exchange opens in Warsaw.

Jewish settlers begin to move into two new settlements in the Israelioccupied West Bank. . . . Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir meets with Soviet premier Valentin Pavlov in London. It is the first meeting ever between premiers of the two nations.

Canada’s federal minister of Indian affairs Thomas Siddon announces that the government will permit the Mohawks of the Kanesatake reserve to hold a referendum on what kind of government they want. . . . Courts in the Brazilian cities of Recife and São Paulo rule unanimously that asset seizures, enacted under Pres. Fernando Collor de Mello’s austerity plan in 1990, are unconstitutional.

Qin Benli, 73, editor who was fired by the government for supporting for the prodemocracy movement of 1989 in China, dies of cancer in Shanghai.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 11–16, 1991—185

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The Senate Judiciary Committee votes to reject the nomination of U.S. district judge Kenneth L. Ryskamp, 58, of Miami to the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. The rejection comes amid accusations that Ryskamp is insensitive toward minorities. . . . The New England Journal of Medicine forecasts a steep rise in hospital prices.

The Census Bureau finds the total number of homeless to be 228,621. The count is immediately challenged by advocates of the homeless. . . . Education Secretary Lamar Alexander challenges the standards used by the Middle States Association in granting accreditation to colleges and universities, specifically the requirement that schools promote racial, sexual, and cultural diversity on their campuses.

Defense Secretary Cheney recommends a list of 43 domestic military bases to be closed as part of his planned six-year restructuring of the armed forces.

The personal driver and bodyguard of reputed organized crime boss John Gotti is shot to death in what NYC police describe as “organized crime hit.”

A GAO report that alleges that U.S. troops were inadequately trained and equipped for chemical warfare in the gulf is released. The report, drawn up in January, was withheld from public release during the gulf hostilities.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

In the largest government seizure of an insurance company, California regulators take over the state unit of First Executive Corp., declaring its financial condition to be “hazardous.”. . . GAO investigators testify before Congress that they found widespread abuse in the sale of nursing-home insurance.

The space shuttle Atlantis completes a six-day mission and lands at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

Local 54 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union that represents hotel, restaurant, and casino workers in Atlantic City, New Jersey, settles a four-monthold racketeering suit brought by the Justice Department.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

April 11

James Marcus Schuyler, 67, poet who won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, dies in NYC after suffering a stroke.

April 12

April 13

According to a Coast Guard study cited in The Washington Post, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy at New London, Connecticut, is a “bastion of male chauvinism fueled by an oldboy network reaching far beyond the academy itself.”

Ian Woosnam of Wales wins the 55th Masters golf tournament on the 72nd and final hole.

Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan announces a consolidation of several children’s programs into a single agency, the Administration for Children and Families, which is headed by Jo Anne Barnhart. . . . Texas governor Ann Richards (D) signs into law a measure that requires the state’s wealthier school districts to give money to poorer districts. . . . The Supreme Court lets stand a life sentence imposed for a crime committed by a 13-year-old boy in Washington State.

President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro makes the first official trip to the U.S. by a Nicaraguan president since 1939.

Eugene Steuerle, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank, states in congressional testimony that a family in 1990 earning $21,500, or half the median income, paid 23% of its income in federal, state, and Social Security taxes. In contrast, a family earning half the median income paid only 2% in 1948.

News organizations touch off a controversy by reporting the name of the woman who claims that she was raped by William Kennedy Smith. . . . The Supreme Court tightens the standards for state prisoners filing a second challenge to the constitutionality of their convictions. . . . An ex-DEA agent, Darnell Garcia, is convicted on drug charges. Two other former DEA agents indicted with Garcia, John Anthony Jackson and Wayne Countryman, turned state’s evidence.

President Bush becomes the first U.S. chief executive to meet with the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader. . . . A federal judge in NYC dismisses a lawsuit over the Defense Department’s restrictions on the press during the Persian Gulf war on the grounds that the end of the war makes the case moot.

McDonald’s Corp. launches a 42point plan aimed at reducing by 80% the daily generation of garbage from its 8,500 restaurants in the U.S.

The Sacramento Kings set an NBA record when they lose their 35th consecutive road game, to the Minnesota Timberwolves. . . . . Wanda Panfil of Poland wins the Boston Marathon for her fourth consecutive marathon victory.

Vice president Quayle, acting as head of the National Space Council, approves a plan for developing new vehicles that will offer a cheaper, safer, and more reliable way of launching satellites than the space shuttle. . . . The Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center opens in NYC, headed by Dr. David D. Ho.

Sir David Lean, 83, British director whose 16 films won 28 Oscars, dies in London. . . . Homer William Bigart, 83, reporter who won Pulitzer Prizes in 1946 and 1951, dies of cancer in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. . . . Nine paintings stolen from a Paris museum in 1985 and recovered years later, go back on display.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 14

April 15

April 16

186—April 17–22, 1991

April 17

April 18

April 19

April 20

April 21

April 22

World Affairs

Europe

U.S., French and British soldiers begin to cross from Turkey into northern Iraq to secure a “safe zone” and build camps for some of the 850,000 Iraqi refugees stranded along the Iraq-Turkey border. . . . Hundreds of American and African political, educational, religious, and business leaders gather in Abidjan, the capital of Ivory Coast, to attend what is billed as the first-ever summit of Africans and African Americans.

The Albanian Democratic Party ends its boycott of parliament, and parliament elects Kastriot Islami of the Workers’ Party as its president. . . . Christian Democrat Giulio Andreotti presents his new government to the Italian parliament. . . . In the U.K., loyalist paramilitaries declare a “cease-fire” in an attempt to help the talks led by Secretary Peter Brooke.

The IMF approves of a financial package worth about $2.4 billion for Poland. . . . Iraq gives the UN a complete list of its chemical and ballistic weapons that survived the Persian Gulf war, in compliance with the permanent cease-fire resolution. . . . Iraq and the UN reach an agreement to allow the UN to set up centers for humanitarian aid for refugees in northern and southern Iraq.

Despite the Apr. 17 cease-fire announcement, a Protestant group claims responsibility for the murder of a Catholic taxi driver in Belfast, Northern Ireland. . . . Agamemnon Koutsogiorgas, 69, deputy premier of Greece under socialist premier Andreas Papandreou, dies in Athens after suffering a stroke.

U.S. officials charge Iraq with omitting 27 pounds of weapons-grade uranium believed to have been in Iraq’s two small research reactors in its report to the UN about its nuclear weapons capability.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The journalists released by Iraq on Apr. 15 tell reporters in Amman, Jordan, that a colleague with whom they traveled, Gad Gross, had been shot and killed by Iraqi troops near Kirkuk Mar. 29.

Mikhail Gorbachev makes the first ever visit by a Soviet president to Japan when he meets with Premier Toshiki Kaifu.

Reports suggest regional authorities in the Canary Islands have banned bullfighting. The Spanish islands are the first region of the nation to outlaw the popular spectacle. . . . Economic data is released by Goskomstat, the Soviet government statistics agency, that indicates a disastrous 1991 first quarter.

Amnesty International finds that Kuwaiti soldiers and vigilantes beat, tortured, and killed hundreds of residents of Kuwait suspected of collaboration with Iraqi forces.

Soviet president Gorbachev and Japanese premier Toshiki Kaifu sign 15 minor accords, including provisions for Japanese technical advice on the transition to a Soviet market economy and medical aid in researching the public health situation near the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, site of a 1986 disaster. However, the leaders fail to resolve the key territorial dispute dividing their nations.

Officials from Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, and Spain meet in Sucre, Bolivia, to discuss joint efforts for fighting Latin America’s cholera epidemic.

An Austrian newspaper reports that Nazi-oriented computer games are spreading “explosively” among high school students. . . . The French health ministry states that women who are regular smokers or over age 35 will no longer be able to the receive RU-486 after the first death in conjunction with use of the drug is reported. . . . Sean O’Faolain (born John Francis Whelan), 91, Irish writer who later served as publicity director of the IRA, dies in Dublin.

Kuwait announces a new cabinet to replace the government that resigned in March. . . . U.S. Marines take control of Zakho, a town about nine miles from the Turkish border in order to set up refugee aid stations. . . . Reports indicate that Algeria is receiving help from China to build a nuclear reactor that could eventually be used to produce fuel for nuclear weapons.

In the first visit to South Korea by a Soviet head of state, Pres. Gorbachev meets with South Korean president Roh Tae Woo and signs diplomatic and economic accords. . . . Yumjaagiyn Tsedenbal, 74, Stalinist leader of Mongolia, 1952–84 who was overthrown, exiled, and accused of gross misrule, dies of unreported causes in Moscow.

Poland and the Club of Paris creditor nations sign an agreement to write off 50% of the country’s $33 billion debt to foreign governments over a three-year period.

German chancellor Helmut Kohl’s Christian Democratic Union suffers a surprisingly severe defeat in state elections in Rhineland-Palatinate. The defeat is widely blamed on problems of integrating the devastated economy of eastern Germany with that of western Germany. . . . Turkish soldiers shoot and kill one refugee and wound five others when a crowd of Kurds attacks soldiers distributing food in the onset of food riots.

Construction of the first of the refugee camps begins in the town of Zakho. Armed Iraqis in police uniforms begin patrolling Zakho.. . . Iran renews its call for international aid as it attempts to care for 1 million Iraqi refugees. . . . Germany, which did not sent troops to fight in the Persian Gulf war, begins sending troops to Iran to build camps for Kurdish refugees.

Canadian prime minister Mulroney institutes the most extensive cabinet reorganization since his government took power in 1984. It affects 23 members of Mulroney’s 39-member cabinet.

Rebel spokesmen in Pakistan claim that Afghan government troops launched a Scud missile attack on the rebel-held city of Asadabad in eastern Afghanistan. According to their reports, more than 300 people were killed and another 400–500 wounded.

UN secretary general Javier Perez de Cuellar names Rolf Ekeus, a Swedish arms-control expert, to head a UN commission to oversee the destruction of Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and ballistic missiles.

Romanian riot police clash with several thousand antigovernment demonstrators in University Square, in the center of Bucharest. The protest marks the first anniversary of the start of a series of student-led campaigns that was crushed in June 1990 by coal miners called in by the government. . . . Karl Ferdinand Klasen, 81, president of the Bundesbank, West Germany’s central bank, 1970–77, dies of unreported causes in Hamburg.

In Kuwait, a press conference at which opposition leaders planned to meet with foreign journalists to denounce the new cabinet, is halted by officials of Kuwait’s information ministry. . . . Relief officials continue to report unsanitary conditions and inadequate water supplies in most of the camps and estimate the death rate among Kurds along the Iraq-Turkey border is at 500–1,000 a day.

A powerful earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale shakes Costa Rica and the Caribbean coast of Panama. It is reported to be the worst earthquake to hit Costa Rica since 1910. The quake’s epicenter is 70 miles southeast of the Costa Rican capital, San José. . . . Thirtysix U.S. military instructors arrive in Bolivia to train Bolivian army troops to fight the illegal narcotics trade.

Taiwan’s National Assembly overwhelmingly repeals laws for the “suppression of the communist rebellion” and passes other constitutional changes that will reduce the size of the National Assembly and the parliament.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 17–22, 1991—187

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The Journal of the National Cancer Institute finds that the higher incidence of cancer among black Americans is not due to race but to a higher rate of poverty. . . . The Supreme Court rules that passengers cannot sue airlines for purely emotional or mental injuries suffered in accidents and near collisions. . . . The New York Times generates controversy with an unflattering profile of the woman accusing William Kennedy Smith of rape.

Pres. Bush nominates Gen. Gordon Sullivan to succeed retiring general Carl E. Vuono as the army’s chief of staff.

The House votes to pass a $1.46 trillion budget for the 1992 fiscal year. . . . Railroad unions, representing 235,000 workers, walk out in a dispute over wages and work-rule issues. It is the first national rail strike since 1982. The House approves back-to-work legislation, as does the Senate. . . . According to the National Governors’ Association, the 50 states are in worse budgetary shape than in any year since fiscal 1983.

A judge rules Virginia’s law against cross burning unconstitutional. . . .A Washington, D.C., judge rules that since the city’s foster-care system cannot ensure that the children in its care are free from harm, it violates the childrens’ constitutional right to due process. The ruling is the first of its kind in the U.S. . . . The Census Bureau reports the 1990 census overlooked 4–6 million people. . . . Pres. Bush issues proposals to improve the quality of education. . . . CUNY administrators warn that the semester may be canceled due to ongoing student protests.

The families of 38 of the 47 sailors killed in the 1989 gun-turret explosion on the battleship Iowa file suit against the navy in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia.

Pres. Bush signs legislation ending the rail strike that started Apr. 17. . . . The OTS serves Neil Bush with the mildest sanction possible for his role in a S&L failure. . . . Teachers in Washington State walk out over wages. . . . The Labor Department announces that Apple settled a dispute with 15 black people who charged the company with racially discriminatory hiring practices since 1987. . . . According to the Commerce Department, the merchandise trade deficit shrank to a seasonally adjusted $5.33 billion in Feb., the lowest since 1983.

Fifteen-term Rep. Morris K. Udall (D, Ariz.) announces his resignation from Congress due to ill health. . . . A group of leading U.S. corporations, facing opposition from the White House and small businesses, pull out of talks with civil-rights groups aimed at forging a compromise on a civil-rights bill addressing the issue of job discrimination.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle The Women’s Tennis Association announces its members will join the Grand Slam Cup only if the field and purse equal the men’s event, and if the women’s purses equal the men’s money at the French Open and Wimbledon.

Sir Austin Bradford Hill, 93, leading British epidemiologist and medical statistician who led one of the first research teams that established a link between smoking and cancer, dies near Windermere, England. . . . An unmanned General Dynamics Corp. Atlas-Centaur rocket carrying a television satellite for Japan Broadcasting Corp. is blown up six minutes after it lifts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The school district of Richmond, California, files for bankruptcy and announces that it ran out of money after meeting its Apr. 30 payroll.

April 18

Rev. George L. Carey is enthroned as the 103rd archbishop of Canterbury, head of the Church of England and spiritual leader of the 70-million member Anglican congregation around the world.

A jury in Waco, Texas, awards a record $58 million in damages to Vic Feazell, a former district attorney who claims he was libeled by a series of reports on a local television station. . . . The California State Bar association becomes the first in the U.S. to adopt an ethics rule governing sex between lawyers and their clients.

In what will be the first official U.S. presence in Vietnam since the war, the Bush administration announces the establishment of a temporary office to investigate MIAs. . . . The Washington Post reports that the State Department ordered the resumption of shipments of military equipment to Lebanon on Jan. 24.

Bucky Walters, 82, pitching star for baseball’s Cincinnati Reds who won the National League’s most valuable player award in 1939, dies of unreported causes in Abington, Pennsylvania. . . . Don Siegel, 78, filmmaker who directed films such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and Dirty Harry (1971), dies of cancer in Nipomo, California.

White House chief of staff John Sununu is swept up in controversy amid reports that he used military aircraft for dozens of costly trips that were seemingly personal or for partisan political purposes. . . . Richard Walker Bolling, 74, liberal Democratic U.S. representative from Missouri, 1949–82, and leader in the fight for the 1957 civil-rights bill, which was the first civil-rights legislation passed since Reconstruction, dies of a heart attack in Washington, D.C.

Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf arrives in Tampa, Florida, from the Persian Gulf to a crowd of about 2,000 people at MacDill Air Force Base.

Yakov Tolstikov of the Soviet Union wins the London Marathon in 2:09:17. Rosa Mota of Portugal wins the women’s division in 2:26:14. . . . Jack Nicklaus wins the PGA Seniors Championship in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, by six strokes.

The Office of Technology Assessment finds that health care is inadequate for many U.S. adolescents.

The White House Office of Management and Budget proposes new rules to govern the kinds of expenses that can be billed to the government by colleges and universities engaged in federally funded research. The proposal is made in the midst of a government investigation into alleged overbilling by several schools. . . . Citizens for Tax Justice argue that the proportion of income paid in state and local taxes by the poorest 20% of U.S. families is almost twice that paid by the richest 1%.

April 17

Jack (Kid) Berg (born Judah Bergman), 81, boxing champion in the 1930s who defended the world title a record nine times and is, statistically, the most successful world boxing champion ever to come from Britain, dies of unreported causes in London.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 19

April 20

April 21

April 22

188—April 23–27, 1991

April 23

April 24

April 25

April 26

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

Aid from the U.S., Nicaragua, Venezuela, Great Britain, Canada, and the UN is sent to Costa Rica after that Apr. 22 earthquake. . . . UN secretary general Javier Perez de Cuellar receives a letter from Iraqi foreign minister Hussein that asks the UN to act on its accord with Iraq and take over responsibility for the camps in northern Iraq from allied forces.

Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev and the leaders of nine of the USSR’s 15 constituent republics agree to cooperate on solving the country’s economic and political problems. The Supreme Soviet passes a package of legislation related to the “anticrisis” program. . . . In Minsk, 20,000 workers hold a protest rally and resume a strike. . . . The premier of Czechoslovakia’s Slovak Republic, Vladimir Meciar, and seven members his cabinet are ousted. The executive committee appoints Jan Carnogursky as the new premier.

Jewish settlers at the Talmon site in the West Bank scuffle with members of the Israeli leftist group Peace Now who came to protest the new construction. . . . Allied forces take control of a safe zone in the valley of the Tigris river, stretching 24 miles into Iraq and 35 miles along the IraqTurkey border, with Zakho at its center. The safe zone is occupied by about 2,000 U.S. Marines and several hundred French and British troops.

Reports state the World Bank has approved at least $140 million in emergency loans to Costa Rica after the Apr. 22 earthquake.

Hungary’s parliament passes longawaited legislation on compensating landowners whose property was confiscated under communist rule after June 1949.

Kurdish leaders announce they have reached an agreement with Iraqi president Saddam Hussein that will allow the Kurds a measure of autonomy and enable them to return to their homes in Iraq. U.S. officials and Kurdish leaders express skepticism. . . . Saudi Arabia announces that it will protect and shelter all Iraqis who took refuge in U.S.-occupied territory. . . . Five people are killed in an car accident due to conditions stemming from oil fires. They are the first who die as a result of Kuwait’s oil-well fires.

Soviet foreign minister Aleksandr Bessmertnykh announces that the USSR will act as a cosponsor with the U.S. for a Middle East peace conference. . . . The head of the UN World Health Organization warns that a cholera epidemic that began in Peru may affect up to 120 million people in Latin America if it continues to spread. Officials note 177,000 cases have been reported worldwide to date in 1991. . . . Reports show the World Bank has approved a $120 million loan to modernize Poland’s phone system.

At a stormy CP meeting, Soviet president Gorbachev listens to two hours of complaints then offers to resign, stunning the party. The party rejects the resignation offer . . . . Esko Aho forms a new four-party government as Finland’s premier. . . . Poland’s Catholic bishops call for an end to constitutional church-state separation. . . . About 50,000 Meciar supporters stage a protest rally in Bratislava, Slovakia. . . . Michael Kuehnen, 35, a leader of the neo-Nazi movement in Germany, dies of unreported causes in Kassel, Germany.

Guerrillas attack an Iraqi police station in Zakho, killing two officers and wounding several others. . . . The Bush administration officially demands that Iraq withdraw its armed men from the safe zone. . . . The ANC’s Women’s League holds a four-day national conference in Kimberley, South Africa, its first large-scale convention since the ANC was outlawed in 1960.

A UN spokeswoman announces that Japan has pledged $100 million to the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to benefit the Kurds.

Government ministers from Britain and the Republic of Ireland meet in London. . . . Workers in the Byelorussian capital, Minsk, and throughout the republic end a general strike after failing to win wage increases and political demands. . . . An estimated 50 million workers in Russia stage a “warning strike” to protest price increases and living conditions.

Iraqi paramilitary forces withdraw from Zakho in the allied safe zone. Thousands of Kurdish and other Iraqi refugees begin to leave the mountains for the safe zone. Kurdish guerrillas, however, start to set up their own roadblocks in the allied safe zone since they believe that Iraqi secret police still remain in Zakho. . . . Lebanon’s most powerful Christian, Druse, and Shi’ite Muslim militias start to turn over their weapons to the Lebanese army in compliance with a March disarmament plan.

Richard Hatfield, 60, Progressive Conservative Canadian senator since 1990 and premier of the province of New Brunswick, 1970–87, dies of cancer in Ottawa.

In South Korea, riot police bludgeon a student protester, Kyong Dae, 20, to death.

A U.S. Air Force transport plane lands in Teheran with a cargo of more than 15 tons of blankets for refugees in Iran. It is the first direct shipment of aid from the U.S. to Iran since the beginning of the Kurdish refugee crisis. . . . In Luanda, Angola, the MPLA formally abandons its Marxist-Leninist ideology and declares itself a social democratic force.

In Mexico City, leaders of the Salvadoran rebel leftist group, FMLN, agree to terms during peace talks.

South Korean premier Roh Tae Woo orders the resignation of his interior minister after the Apr. 26 killing of a student protester.

April 27

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The Costa Rican National Emergency Committee confirms 27 deaths in the Apr. 22 earthquake, while the Costa Rican Red Cross estimates that 51 people have died and more than 500 have been injured. Other reports estimate the number of injured at up to 800. Authorities in Panama state 44 people in the province of Bocas del Toro have died.

Reports disclose that the Afghan government denied responsibility for the Apr. 21 missile attack on Asadabad, claiming the Scuds were launched by one rebel faction against another. . . . Premier Toshiki Kaifu announces that Japan will dispatch six vessels to the Persian Gulf to help clear mines in Japan’s first foreign mission since World War II. Kaifu also announces that Japan will contribute an additional $82.5 million for emergency relief for refugees from Iraq.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

Aprl 23–27, 1991—189

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

In NYC, Pasquale Raucci, the final defendant in the 1989 racial killing of a black youth, Yusuf K. Hawkins, is sentenced to three years’ probation, 200 hours of community service, and a $500 fine. . . . The Supreme Court rules that evidence discarded by a fleeing suspect is not protected by the Fourth Amendment. . . . Reports suggest the percentage of the GNP spent on health care was higher in 1990 than ever before. . . . Harriet Fleischl Pilpel, 79, lawyer and advocate of women’s-rights, dies of a heart attack in NYC

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney appoints army Lt. Gen. Howard Graves to the post of superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. . . . Air Force Secretary Donald Rice awards a contract for the production of the AFT to a team headed by Lockheed Corp. . . . Federal authorities in Florida arrest Virgilio Pablo Paz Romero, the final suspect in the 1976 assassination of Orlando Letelier, Chile’s ambassador to the U.S.

In a move that will make it easier for workers in community hospitals to unionize, the Supreme Court unanimously upholds the authority of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to define bargaining units for contract negotiations in an entire industry. . . . MIT announces that it will repay $731,000 that it billed to the federal government in indirect research costs between 1986 and 1990.

Paul Brickhill 74, author who wrote such bestselling war novels as The Great Escape (1951), dies of unreported causes in Sydney, Australia.

In a White House ceremony, Pres. Bush awards a posthumous Medal of Honor to a World War I soldier, army corporal Freddie Stowers, making Stowers the first black American to receive the honor for duty in either World War I or World War II.

Judge H. Russel Holland of Anchorage, Alaska, rejects a plea bargain between the Justice Department and Exxon Corp., in which Exxon had agreed to pay $100 million in fines to settle criminal charges arising from the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. The Alaskan government and environmental groups developed objections in the face of newly released studies finding that environmental damage to the Alaskan coast is more extensive than initially believed.

Christophe Auguin of France is confirmed as the winner of the BOC Challenge single-handed yacht race around the world. . . . The winner of the sixth Grawemeyer Award for original musical composition is John Corigliano for his Symphony No. 1.

A study by the Alan Guttmacher Institute in New York finds that the overall abortion rate in the U.S. declined by 6% between 1980 and 1987. . . . A CUNY campus in Manhattan is reopened after 200 students storm a building and confront the 20–30 protesters staging a sit-in inside.

Pres. Bush requests $150.5 million in supplemental spending to pay for relief efforts on behalf of Kurdish refugees in Iraq. . . . The U.S. announces that it is sending $1 million in aid to Vietnam, the first direct financial assistance to that country since the end of the Vietnam War. . . . Defense Secretary Cheney proposes military management reforms aimed at saving $70 billion over a seven-year period.

The Senate approves its version of the fiscal 1992 budget. . . . The Office of Management and Budget implements an across-the-board spending cut called a sequester, which cuts 0.0013%, or $13 for every $1 million, from most fiscal 1991 domestic spending programs. . . . Stanford University, at the center of the controversy surrounding overcharges to the government, cuts its research funding by the government. . . . Up to 5,000 state employees in Montana walk off the job in a wage dispute.

Controversy develops around Sen. Charles S. Robb (D, Va.) after allegations surface that he had an extramarital affair and that he attended a party where cocaine was used. . . . The U.S. Sentencing Commission unanimously approves new guidelines for sentencing companies convicted of federal white-collar crimes such as fraud or antitrust violations. . . . Protests at CUNY begin to fizzle out.

Reports show the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, has appointed Midshipman Juliane Gallina as its first female brigade commander. . . . The Defense Department proposes upgrades of the navy’s older carrier-based jets through a shift of funds from the canceled Navy A-12 Stealth attack plane.

The fourth space shuttle, the Endeavour, is unveiled in Palmdale, California.

Carmine Coppola, 80, composer who won an Oscar for music in The Godfather, Part II (1974), dies of unreported causes in Northridge, California. . . . Lazaro (Laz) Sosa Barrera, 66, top thoroughbred horse trainer who was elected to thoroughbred racing’s Hall of Fame in 1979, dies of pneumonia in Downey, California.

A severe weather system spawns more than 70 tornadoes in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Iowa, killing a total of 23 people. The tornadoes destroy hundreds of homes and cause tens of millions of dollars in damages. . . . The W. M. Keck Foundation announces that it will contribute money to build a twin of the Keck telescope, the world’s most powerful observatory, atop the extinct Mauna Kea volcano.

Danielle Steel’s Heartbeat tops the bestseller list. . . . A(lfred) B(ertram) Guthrie Jr., 90, author who won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize, dies of lung failure in Coteau, Montana. . . . The National Conference of Christians and Jews elects Maryann Bishop Coffey as its cochair. She is the first woman and the first black to hold the position.

April 23

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April 26

April 27

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

190—April 28–May 2, 1991

World Affairs

April 28

April 29

April 30

The first UN relief workers arrive in Zakho to discuss the transfer of responsibilities in the safe zone. . . . About 1,000 Iraqis who took refuge in territory occupied by U.S. forces in southern Iraq are flown to a camp in Saudi Arabia. The commander of the camp states as many as 1,500 refugees will be airlifted each day thereafter. . . . The last of 1,900 Iraqi refugees of Iranian descent who were granted asylum in Iran are flown to Teheran. . . .

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In South Africa, Winnie Mandela suffers a major defeat when members of the ANC’s Women’s League rejects her bid for the organization’s presidency.

The Iraqi government admits in a report to the International Atomic Energy Agency that its weaponsgrade nuclear material survived allied bombings during the Persian Gulf War. . . . Iraq again petitions the UN to allow it to access its financial assets in order to buy food and basic goods for its civilian population. . . . U.S. president Bush pledges an additional $9 million to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Red Cross.

An earthquake hits the Soviet republic of Georgia, killing more than 100 people, injuring hundreds of others, and leaving tens of thousands homeless. It is the worst Soviet earthquake since 1988. It registers 7.2 on the Richter scale with an epicenter is near the town of Dzhava. . . . Miners in the Ukraine, where a national strike originated, begin to return to work.

U.S. officials convince Kurdish rebel leaders that the safe zone innorthern Iraq is secure. In response, the Kurdish guerrillas let refugees travel to the area. . . . Relief workers report an onset of measles epidemics and note that food and medicine are spoiling en route to the, camps. . . . Several military units strike for higher pay in Lesotho. . . . Syrian president Hafez al-Assad agrees to allow the Iranian-backed Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to maintain armed presences in Lebanon.

The Salvadoran National Assembly approves a series of constitutional reforms that the government and FMLN agreed on Apr. 27 during peace talks in Mexico City.

During the first official visit by a European head of government to New Zealand since 1958, Premier Michel Rocard formally apologizes for France’s 1985 bombing of the Rainbow Warrior, the flagship of the environmental group Greenpeace, in Auckland harbor, New Zealand.

In response to Iraq’s Apr. 29 petition, U.S. and British officials argue Iraq has sufficient assets in its central bank to purchase goods. The UN Security Council committee on sanctions postpones consideration of Iraqi appeals. . . . An inventory of Iraqi nuclear material and facilities indicate Iraq’s nuclear resources are significantly greater than had been believed prior to the gulf war. . . . Estimates made by UN and U.S. relief officials indicate 25,000 Kurdish refugees return to Iraq each day.

British secretary of state for Northern Ireland Brooke holds the first round of talks. . . . After Austria noted the rise of Nazi computer games Apr. 20, reports indicate there are 140 games with titles such as “Aryan Test.” Most games are written for German language users. . . . Ramiz Alia, Albania’s president since 1982, is reelected by the People’s Assembly. The opposition abstains from voting. . . . Reports suggest 17,000 homes and 80% of schools and hospitals in northwestern Georgia were destroyed by the Apr. 29 quake.

Military leader Justin Lekhanya is ousted in a bloodless coup by rebel army officers. Col. Elias Ramaema, a member of Lesotho’s six-man ruling council, is chosen to replace Lekhanya. . . . Lebanese security officials inventory the armaments handed over by the militias. . . . Israel announces Palestinian students will be allowed to return to Hebron University, closed since 1987. . . . Islamic radicals in Iran’s parliament call U.S. aid “insulting” and demand a return of U.S. supplies.

El Salvador’s current assembly leaves office.

Thousands of people drown and millions are left homeless when a powerful cyclone strikes Bangladesh in the worst storm since 1970. P.M. Zia surveys the offshore region by air and estimates the cost of the devastation at $1 billion. . . . Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui formally declares an end to the 43-year period of emergency rule that perpetuated a state of war with mainland China. . . . The Apr. 26 killing of a student protestor in South Korea leads to a new string of demonstrations.

Russian republic president Boris Yeltsin signs an agreement to bring all of the republic’s coal mines under his government. . . . The Soviet government sponsors a brief, subdued parade in Moscow’s Red Square in the annual May Day celebration of worker solidarity.

Angola and the rebel group UNITA initial an agreement to end their civil war and hold the first free elections. . . . A hunger strike begins in South Africa to call attention to the ANC’s assertion that political prisoners should have been released by Apr. 30. . . . The Lebanese army deploys troops to territory formerly held by militias, which brings onequarter of Lebanon under government control. . . . U.S. officials report 2,000 refugees have registered to live at the camp near Zakho.

El Salvador’s new assembly begins its three-year term.

William B. Milam, the U.S. ambassador to Bangladesh, announces that the U.S. will provide medical supplies valued at $2 million as relief after the cyclone.

A gun battle erupts between Croatian paramilitary special police and ethnic Serbs in Borovo Selo, in northeastern Croatia. The fight leaves 12 policemen and three civilians dead. Army units then take over the town. In a separate incident, a Croatian policeman is slain in the ethnic Serb town of Polaca. . . . Reports confirm that Walter Reder, 75, convicted Nazi war criminal who touched off a controversy when he returned to his native Austria in 1985 after spending nearly 40 years in an Italian jail, has died.

South African president F. W. de Klerk announces plans to scrap certain repressive provisions of the Internal Security Act of 1982, which the government used to punish antiapartheid groups and restrict subversive political activity. . . . Allied troops extend the safe zone eastward from Zakho along the Iraq-Turkey border. . . . Reports indicate Ethiopian president Mengistu Haile Mariam has promised to speed the emigration of some 18,000 Ethiopian Jews, or Falashas, to Israel.

May 1

May 2

Europe

UN secretary general Javier Perez de Cuellar presents the UN with a report that sets guidelines for the establishment of a compensation fund for losses suffered as a result of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

In Bangladesh, the confirmed death count from the Apr. 30 cyclone reaches 37,500. P.M. Zia fears that the toll may exceed 100,000 since many victims were crushed under buildings or swept into the Bay of Bengal. Thousands of bodies continue to wash up on shorelines.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 28–May 2, 1991—191

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The FBI reports that violent crime in the U.S. increased by 10% in 1990. . . . Floyd Bixler McKissick, 69, lawyer and civilrights activist who was director of the Congress of Racial Equality, 1966–67, and state district judge in North Carolina in 1990, dies of lung cancer in Soul City, North Carolina

The U.S. space shuttle Discovery is launched to carry out a military mission devoted to collecting astronomical data for the Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”) antimissile system.

The Supreme Court agrees to decide a key constitutional issue in cases involving the sexual abuse of children in White v. Illinois. . . . The Supreme Court rules to bar a Washington State prisoner from filing certain kinds of petitions without paying the court’s $300 filing fee. . . . An attorney for Hispanic agents at the DEA announces that the agents accepted a tentative agreement with the agency, settling a six-year employment discrimination lawsuit.

The Discovery crew opens the shuttle’s bay doors to expose the “Cirris” (Cryogenic Infrared Radiation Instrumentation for Shuttle) telescope to Earth. The data will be used to develop sensors that can distinguish between enemy missiles and natural phenomena.

Teachers in Washington State vote to end an Apr. 18 walkout. . . . Superior Court judge Ellen S. James orders the school district of Richmond, California, to keep its 47 schools open until the end of the school year in June, even though the district declared bankruptcy Apr. 19.

The Maine Yankee nuclear power plant in Wiscasset, Maine, is crippled by a fire and has to be shut down. Since the blaze occurs in a building separate from the reactor, no radiation escaped. . . . Pres. Bush declares two counties in Kansas as disaster areas due to the Apr. 26 tornadoes, making them eligible to receive federal disasterrelief funds.

Budget director Richard Darman and Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan announce a special review to analyze the federal costs of the Medicaid program.

The State Department reports it has restored Iraq to its list of nations that sponsor international terrorism. . . . According to the Office of Management and Budget, U.S. allies in the gulf conflict have so far delivered about $36.1 billion of the $54.5 billion pledged for the war. . . . Pres. Bush prohibits the sale of U.S. parts for a Chinese satellite because of concerns that China is exporting potential weapons of mass destruction to Third World countries.

The Federal Reserve Board votes to cut its basic interest rate for loans to member institutions to 5.5% from 6%. The cut, an attempt to stimulate economic growth, is the second reduction in the socalled discount rate since the beginning of 1991. . . . California state officials agree to give the Richmond school district a $19 million emergency loan to enable it to remain open until June 14.

A strong earthquake, measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale, shakes Alaska. The quake, centered about 110 miles northwest of Anchorage, causes no reported injuries or major damage. . . . The National Transportation Safety Board issues its report on the causes of a 1990 Avianca Airlines jet crash in Cove Neck, New York. The report blames the crew of the jet since it “did not adequately communicate its increasingly critical fuel situation to the controllers who handled the flight.”

The bipartisan National Commission on Children unanimously adopts a report that recommends a $1,000per-child tax credit for all families and a national health-insurance plan that would provide coverage for all children and pregnant women, among other provisions. . . . Frank Neville Ikard, 78, Democratic U.S. representative from Texas, 1951–61, and president of the American Petroleum Institute, 1963–79, dies of cardiac arrest in Washington, D.C.

A Washington, D.C., judge rules that the U.S. is not liable for damages done to Panamanian businesses after the1989 U.S. invasion. He also dismisses a class-action suit by Panamanians asking for damages during the invasion. . . . Discovery astronauts release a $94 million shuttle pallet satellite in a defense mission.. . . . In the wake of press reports, the Algerian ambassador to the U.S. claims China sold Algeria the nuclear reactor prior to its 1984 pledge.

The Teamsters union announces that rank-and-file members have approved a three-year national trucking contract.

The New England Journal of Medicine finds that administrative costs account for up to 24% of U.S. health-care spending. . . . New York’s Court of Appeal, the state’s highest court, rules that a lesbian cannot seek visitation rights to a child of her former lover. . . . At CUNY, many protesters give up a month of demonstrations after several dozen participants in the lockouts are arrested.

An immigrant-rights group in California files a class-action lawsuit claiming that the INS charges prohibitively high fees to refugees from El Salvador.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission authorizes the restart of a reactor at the Browns Ferry nuclear power plant near Athens, Alabama. The facility has been closed for repairs and safety checks since 1985, marking the longest shutdown in the history of U.S. commercial atomic power. . . . Alaska’s House of Representatives votes to reject a settlement from Exxon Corp., saying it neither adequately penalizes Exxon nor offers sufficient money to help restore Prince William Sound.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Ken Curtis (born Curtis Gates), 74, actor best known for playing the role of Festus, the scruffy deputy on the television series Gunsmoke, dies of unreported causes in Fresno, California.

April 28

April 29

April 30

May 1

Pope John Paul II, in a papal encyclical, expresses support for the economic concept of capitalism. At the same time, however, the pontiff warns that the free-market system and business enterprises “need to be oriented toward the common good.”

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 2

192—May 3–8, 1991

May 3

Europe

Officials from private relief organizations, including British-based Oxfam and U.S.-based CARE, seek to coordinate the rescue aid to Bangladesh.

Croatian president Franjo Tudjman characterizes the May 2 battle as a “beginning of an open war” against his republic. . . . Poland marks the 200th anniversary of its 1791 constitution, the first written constitution in Europe. . . . At least three Georgians die in landslides from strong aftershocks of the Apr. 29 quake. . . . The Swiss Federal Banking Commission announces regulations that will phase out most of its secret bank accounts by September 1992.

The only U.S. relief group working in Iran, a medical team, abandons its clinic in the town of Bowkan after being harassed by Iranian officials. . . . The Washington Post reports that tens of thousands of Kurdish refugees in a strip of Iraqi territory along the Iraq-Iran border controlled by Kurdish guerrillas are being neglected by allied relief efforts.

Croatian nationalists lay siege to a military barracks near the town of Gospic. In a separate incident, one man dies when Croats and ethnic Serbs exchange gunfire near a barricade at the village of Sotin. . . . Albanian president Ramiz Alia renounces his Workers’ Party posts, including that of party first secretary, in accordance with a constitutional provision that bars the national president from holding a position in any political party.

Opposition parties are legalized in Guinea-Bissau by the nation’s parliament, ending 17 years of one-party rule by the African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC). . . . Reports state that Sipho Alfred Madlala, a black self-professed member of the South African military intelligence, has disclosed that he was connected the previous ten years with the “intelligence unit of the military police,” a group whose existence the South African Defense Force has denied.

Reports state a Salvadoran military court sentenced three men to prison terms ranging from four years to 25 years for killing 13 people in a 1985 attack on two outdoor cafes in San Salvador.

UN and International Red Cross relief workers predict that Iraq’s water and power sources, oil refineries, and communications systems are likely to be functioning normally by the end of the year. . . . The Arab League’s Boycott of Israel Office issues a revised list of companies barred from operations in Arab countries for trading with Israel.

Yugoslavia’s collective presidency endorses the authority of the military to intervene in Croatia to prevent further bloodshed.

The Iraqi government lifted its censorship of foreign journalists. . . . U.S. forces begin to move south into Iraq toward the regional capital, Dahok.

Cuban human-rights leader Elizardo Sánchez is released from prison. In Aug. 1989 Sanchez began serving a two-year sentence for “spreading false news” for a statement he made to foreign journalists.

In Bangladesh, the newly elected government of P.M. Khaleda Zia, overwhelmed by the Apr. 30 disaster, asks the military to step in to manage domestic relief efforts.

U.S. defense secretary Dick Cheney meets with officials from the nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council to discuss the issue of an expanded U.S. military role in the Persian Gulf region. . . . Reports suggest Iraq has asked the UN secretary general for a five-year delay on the payment of war reparations.

The Yugoslav military goes on combat alert at the behest of the country’s defense secretary, Col. Gen. Veljko Kadijevic. He tells the federal collective presidency, “Yugoslavia has entered a state of civil war.” At a navy base in Split, 30,000 Croats stage a violent protest, incensed by the failure of the military to end an ethnic Serb blockade of the nearby town of Kijevo. A soldier is killed. . . . The Soviet central government transfers control of the coal mines in the Russian republic to the Russian government.

A delegation of Kurdish leaders headed by Massoud Barzani opens negotiations in Baghdad with Iraqi president Hussein on the details of an agreement to end the Kurdish revolt and grant the Kurds autonomy in northern Iraq. . . . A 1,440-member UN peacekeeping force takes control of a demilitarized zone along the Iraq-Kuwait border, in compliance with the cease-fire in the Persian Gulf war. . . . In a reversal, the South African government agrees to restore land to some of the 3.5 million blacks who were forcibly removed from their territory under apartheid.

The U.S. and Uruguay sign a mutual legal-assistance treaty designed to aid both countries in criminal investigations

Harold Salisbury, 76, English-born Australian police commissioner who was at the center of a controversy involving secret dossiers maintained by the police in the state of South Australia, dies.

UN and international relief-agency officials urge foreign governments to contribute more to Bangladesh as the death toll passes 100,000. The U.S. increases to a total of $7.14 million its funding for disaster relief in Bangladesh. Total foreign contributions for the relief effort reach $150 million. Among major aid donors are Saudi Arabia, the EC, Britain, India, Pakistan, Japan, and Canada.

Croatian president Tudjman accuses Serbia and high-ranking Serbs in the military of bringing Yugoslavia to the brink of civil war. The Yugoslav military begins calling up reserves and deploying units in the western part of the country.

U.S. troops begin to withdraw into Kuwait from positions along the Iraq-Kuwait border. Their withdrawal marks the end of the occupation of southern Iraq by U.S. forces, which began at the end of the Persian Gulf war. . . . Iraqi antiaircraft artillery near the towns of Mosul and Dahok in northern Iraq opens fire on a U.S. Navy fighterbomber, the Intruder, according to the plane’s two-member crew.

Reports confirm a Manitoba man was convicted in Canada for a crime that took place in the U.S. The man, Leslie Victor Cooke, is sentenced to 42 months in prison for sexually assaulting a nine-yearold girl during an automobile trip from Montana to Manitoba in July 1990. The rare prosecution was undertaken with the cooperation of law-enforcement officials in the U.S.

The official death toll from the cyclone that struck Bangladesh Apr. 30 reaches 125,730. The bodies of victims of the cyclone are still being counted. . . . A typhoon hits another site in Bangladesh, killing at least nine people. . . . Fighting between Sikh rebels and army troops in Punjab leaves at least 11 people dead. It is the first confrontation between the regular Indian army and Sikh rebels in the state in seven years.

The central strike committee of Russian coal miners votes to end their walkout, which lasted about nine weeks. . . . Great Britain pledges another $3.5 million to Bangladesh and states it is sending a navy supply ship and two helicopters to help with the relief effort.

Iraq denies that its forces fired on the Intruder after claims made May 7. However, U.S. Defense Department officials disclose that Iraqi artillery has fired at U.S. planes on four previous occasions since the commencement of allied operations to assist refugees in northern Iraq. No U.S. aircraft has been damaged in any of the incidents.

May 4

May 5

May 6

May 7

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

May 8

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Talks on renewing leases on U.S. military bases in the Philippines collapse over disagreements about the duration and compensation.

At least 14 people are killed in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, as army troops open fire on a crowd of 3,000 people mourning four victims of earlier separatist violence. Additional clashes in Srinagar and other parts of the Kashmir Valley claim the lives of 33 others.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 3–8, 1991—193

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The White House announces Pres. Bush has selected Texas A&M University in College Station as the site for his presidential library.

Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward publishes The Commanders, a book that addresses the Persian Gulf War.

The Wall Street Journal announces that three companies will be replaced as components of the Dow Jones industrial average. . . . Exxon Corp. and Alaska governor William Hickel formally withdraw from a $1 billion settlement over damages arising from the 1990 Exxon Valdez oil spill. . . . The Labor Department notes the unemployment rate in April decreased to 6.6%, the first drop since June 1990.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Jerzy Nikodem Kosinski, 57, Polish-born writer who was president of the U.S. chapter of PEN, 1973–75, and was a director of the International League for Human Rights, 1973–79, is found dead in NYC of an apparent suicide.

Pres. Bush is hospitalized with an erratic heartbeat after experiencing fatigue and shortness of breath while jogging at Camp David, Maryland Bush’s hospitalization renews questions about Vice Pres. Quayle’s qualifications for office, the strength of his political position, and his place on the 1992 presidential ticket. . . . The voters of Fort Worth, Texas, elect their first female mayor, Kay Granger.

George Thomas Delacorte, 97, founder of Dell Publishing Co, dies of natural causes in NYC. . . . Strike the Gold wins the 117th running of the Kentucky Derby in Louisville, Kentucky.

Riots erupts in the largely Hispanic neighborhood of Mount Pleasant in Washington, D.C., after a police officer shoots a Hispanic man. The rioting is described as the worst in the nation’s capital since the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.

Former Iranian president Abolhassan Bani-Sadr renews his assertion that officials of the 1980 presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan struck a deal with Iranian clerics to forestall the release of U.S. hostages held in Iran in exchange for pledges of arms.

Carnegie Hall in NYC marks its 100th anniversary with performances by Isaac Stern, Placido Domingo, Leontyne Price, Jessye Norman, Marilyn Horne, Mstislav Rostropovich, Yo-Yo Ma, and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

Washington, D.C., mayor Sharon Pratt Dixon (D) declares a state of emergency in the area and establishes a curfew. Dixon, who is black, visits the Mount Pleasant neighborhood and meets with Hispanic community leaders. In response, Dixon appoints a “multicultural task force” to examine problems in the Hispanic community. . . . Democrats gather in Cleveland for the first national convention of the Democratic Leadership Council. . . . Despite sporadic episodes of an erratic heartbeat, doctors release Pres. Bush from the hospital.

The space shuttle Discovery lands at the airstrip at Cape Canaveral. Air Force Col. John Armstrong, the deputy mission director, is “absolutely elated with the overall success” of the mission.

The Smithsonian Institution’s board of regents unanimously approves the creation of a National African American Museum. . . . Pole vaulter Sergei Bubka of the USSR breaks his world outdoor record with a vault of 19 feet, 101⁄2 inches, and Finland’s Seppo Raty throws the javelin 301 feet, 9 inches to break the record set in 1990.

A memorial to dead American astronauts is dedicated at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The monolith, called the Space Mirror, is made of black granite and has the names of 15 fallen space travelers carved into its polished surface.

In the Washington, D.C., riots of May 5, a total of 10 police officers were injured, several blocks of stores were damaged, and 113 people were arrested. . . . Pres. Bush announces the retirement of William Webster as director of central intelligence. . . . The House approves the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. . . . Gov. Robert Casey (D) of Pennsylvania announces the appointment of Harris Wofford (D), 65, to succeed the late Republican Sen. John Heinz. . . . A study reveals that middle-aged and older women are paid substantially less than men their age.

May 4

May 5

May 6

May 7

Friedelind Wagner, 73, music teacher and opera director granddaughter of composer Richard Wagner, whose outspoken criticism of the Nazi culture that idolized her grandfather won her international attention and the enmity of her family during World War II, dies of liver disease in Herdecke, Germany.

The Energy Department discloses that it has opened a criminal investigation focusing on top executives at Westinghouse Savannah River and Bechtel Savannah River. It also states it has transferred P. William Kaspar, head of the Energy Department’s office at Savannah River, pending further inquiry into allegations that he and the above-named companies made illegal money transfers in managing government funds.

May 3

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 8

194—May 9–14, 1991

World Affairs

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

The former publicity director for Sinn Fein, Danny Morrison, is convicted in Belfast for false imprisonment and is sentenced to eight years. . . . Albanian premier Fatos Nano unveils a 25-member cabinet made up entirely of members of the ruling Albanian Workers’ Party. . . . Reports suggest the Yugoslav army controls three bridges over the Danube River. The collective presidency votes unanimously to give the military sweeping powers to end the ethnic fighting in Croatia.

May 9

Croatia’s opposition parties issue a joint statement saying that Croatia is “at war,” and urging the republic’s government to use “all means” to defend Croatian sovereignty. Serbian nationalist groups reject a peace plan. . . . François Mitterrand marks the 10th anniversary of his election as French president.

May 10

May 11

Europe

Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal Al Saud announces that the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE) are ready to participate in an ArabIsraeli peace conference. The gulf states propose that the GCC secretary general represent them as an observer.

May 12

May 13

May 14

Asia & the Pacific An Australian government report finds aborigines are 29 times more likely to be in prison than white Australians. . . . Demonstrations started in South Korea to protest the Apr. 26 killing of a student wind down. The demonstrations were attended by up to 400,000 people.

South African law and order minister Adriaan Vlok announces the outlawing of guns, machetes, swords, tires, and other weapons in nine black townships outside Johannesburg.

In South Africa, police shoot and wound four whites while trying to hold back a crowd of 1,000 members of a paramilitary group attempting to evict blacks from a squatter camp. It is thought to be the first time police open fire on right-wing whites. . . . Convoys of allied buses and trucks begin to transport Kurds to the allied safe zone. . . . The first Kuwaitis to return home under a government repatriation plan arrive at Kuwait International Airport. Ethnic Serbs in the disputed Krajina region of Croatia hold an unauthorized referendum on their future modeled on the votes on the future of Yugoslavia that are to be held in the republics. . . . In Poland, Cardinal Glemp withdraws a demand that a new constitution abolish the separation of church and state.

Lebanese government troops equipped with tanks take positions at the entrances to Palestinian refugee districts. . . . The leaders of Kurdish refugees in mountain camps tell U.S. relief officials that they will not advise their people to return to their homes in or near Dahok unless allied troops take control of the city. . . . Reports indicate Iraq refused a request to allow relatives and physicians to see a Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Abul-Kasem Al-Khoui, who is 95 years old and under house arrest in Najaf, Iraq.

Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev outlaws strikes in vital sectors of the economy. However, the directive also gives the industries increased autonomy in operation and allows them to retain 10% of their foreign and domestic earnings. . . . A leading newspaper group abruptly bars the use of its facilities to Zapad, a British-financed newspaper scheduled to open publishing in Croatia that day.

Iraqi soldiers fire on British Royal Marines, who return fire and wound two of the Iraqis. . . . UN officials take over the administration of a refugee camp in the safe zone, occupied by 20,000 Kurds. . . . A crowd of 3,000 Kurds march on an Iraqi police station in Zakho, and one man is badly beaten. . . . In South Africa, Winnie Mandela is convicted of charges arising from the 1988 abduction and beating of four black youths.

About 20,000 copper miners in southwest Poland strike over wages. . . . Unidentified Croatian journalists insist that the May 13 publishing ban involves the Croatian government, which they claim does not want independent newspapers in the republic. Separately, preliminary results of the illegal May 12 Serbian referendum show 90% of the participants support a unification of Krajina with Serbia and the continuation of the Yugoslav federation. . . . In Bulgaria, 39 right-wing lawmakers start a boycott over the demand to hold new national elections.

Reports state the Ethiopian government and the three principal rebel groups agreed to take part in negotiations for peace and political reform. . . . Winnie Mandela is sentenced to six years in prison. . . . Reports suggest some Kurdish refugee camps in the mountains are almost completely empty. . . . Reports emerge that a pro-Palestinian group based in Jerusalem claim that the Israeli government seized at least 7,500 acres of West Bank farmland traditionally held by Arab families.

Nepal holds its first multiparty election since 1959.

The official death toll from the cyclone in Bangladesh stands at 139,000, but some officials argue that it is closer to 60,000. . . . In the worst Japanese train accident since 1963, a tourist and local commuter train collide, killing 42 and wounding more than 400. . . . Nepalese premier Bhattarai resigns after preliminary election returns show he narrowly lost his parliamentary seat. . . . Jiang Qing, 77, the widow of Chairman Mao Zedong who led China’s repressive Cultural Revolution of 1966–76, commits suicide.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 9–14, 1991—195

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Physicians diagnose Pres. Bush with Graves’ disease. . . . William Kennedy Smith is formally charged for the alleged rape of a woman at the Kennedy family’s vacation home in March. . . . . Pres. Bush orders White House chief of staff John Sununu to clear all use of military aircraft with White House counsel C. Boyden Gray after a controversy that started Apr. 21.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle A group of 6,000 members of the Southern Baptist Convention agree to establish their own governing body, known as the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. . . . Susan O’Malley, 29, is named president of the NBA’s Washington Bullets. O’Malley is the first woman president of an NBA club.

A 73-year-old California man is acquitted in Detroit for helping his wife, who was suffering from terminal breast and liver cancer, commit suicide.

A parade to celebrate the return of U.S. armed forces from Iraq is held in Chicago.

Drexel Burnham Lambert Group Inc. unveils a plan to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. . . . Robert Clarke, the comptroller of the currency, announces that he will place most of his assets in a blind trust. He makes the move after a controversy that implied he has conflict of interests.

The Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington, announces that Joseph Brodsky has been named the new poet laureate of the U.S. . . . The nomination of a conservative literary scholar, Carol Iannone, to the advisory council of the NEH generates controversy among humanities scholars.

William Kennedy Smith surrenders to Palm Beach police and is released after posting a $10,000 bond. He tells reporters that the woman’s allegations are “an outrageous lie” and that they “represent an attack on me, on my family and on the truth.”

The Washington Post reports that dozens of CIA officials are being called to appear before a grand jury as part of a probe into possible acts of perjury committed during investigations of the Iran-contra arms scandal of 1986–87. . . . The U.S. announces that 7,550 Marines and sailors will be sent to Bangladesh to help it recover from a devastating cyclone that struck two weeks earlier.

Reports suggest the Energy Department accelerated its timetable for reopening the Rocky Flats, Colorado, nuclear weapons plant later in 1991, even though it will fail to meet certain federal health, safety and environmental guidelines.

The Pittsburgh Penguins earn their first trip to the NHL’s Stanley Cup finals.

Students at predominantly black Hampton University in Virginia stage a silent protest against Pres. Bush’s civil rights policies during a commencement address by Bush. An estimated two-thirds of the 1,023 graduating seniors sit down and remain silent as Bush takes the stage to give his address and receive an honorary Doctor of Law degree.

May 9

May 10

May 11

May 12

The families of seven victims who died after taking cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules in 1982 settle their lawsuit. . . . The Supreme Court rules suspects arrested without warrants can be held for up to 48 hours while waiting for a judge to determine if the arrest is proper. . . . The Supreme Court rules securities firms can require registered brokers to submit to arbitration to settle agediscrimination claims.

Pres. Bush, in a statement issued by the White House, pledges that the U.S. will not use chemical weapons. He also states that the U.S. will destroy its entire stockpile once a chemical-arms treaty, in negotiation under the auspices of the United Nations Geneva Committee, is in place.

A study by the Urban Institute finds that young white men seeking entrylevel jobs in Chicago and Washington, D.C., are three times more likely to receive favorable treatment as equally qualified black men, which suggests that so-called reverse discrimination is not widespread. . . . Omar Burleson, 85, U.S. representative from Texas, 1947–79, dies of unreported causes in Abilene, Texas. . . . Pres. Bush names Robert M. Gates as the next director of central intelligence, causing controversy since questions on his role in the Iran-contra affair linger.

Pres. Bush’s quest to obtain a free hand in international trade talks over the next two years wins the approval of the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee.

The pairs gold medal goes to Soviets Natalya Mishkutienok and Artur Dmitriev at the world figure skating championships in Munich, Germany.

The New York Times finds some scientists and environmental groups are worried that exhaust from solidfuel rockets is eating away at the Earth’s protective ozone layer.

At the world figure skating championships in Munich, Germany, Kurt Browning of Canada wins the men’s gold medal.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 13

May 14

196—May 15–20, 1991

May 15

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

A team of 34 inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency begins to inspect Iraq’s nuclear installations and chemical-warfare facilities, in accordance with the terms of the cease-fire in the gulf war. . . . The Arab League, at a meeting in Cairo, unanimously elects Egyptian foreign minister Esmat Abdel Meguid as its new secretary general, replacing Chedli Klibi.

In Yugoslavia, Stipe Mesic, expected to succeeded Borislav Jovic in the top post, fails to win a majority in a confirmation vote, leaving the collective presidency with no formal leader and Yugoslavia with no head of state or commander in chief. . . . French premier Michel Rocard resigns, and Pres. François Mitterrand names Socialist Edith Cresson to replace him. She is France’s first female premier. . . . In Albania, a general strike begins.

In South Africa, a hunger strike that started May 1 and has been joined by around 200 continues, and the state transfers all political prisoners, including 18 hunger strikers, off of Robben Island, a penal colony in the Atlantic Ocean. . . . An informal cease-fire begins in Angola. . . . South African president F. W. de Klerk presents former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher with the Order of Good Hope, the highest award that can be bestowed upon a foreigner.

On the first visit to the Soviet Union by a Chinese CP leader since 1957, Jiang Zemin. signs an agreement with the Soviet Union that resolves some areas of contention regarding their border. . . . The Moscow headquarters of Democratic Russia are damaged by a bomb. . . . Britain’s ruling Conservative Party loses its fifth consecutive by-election for a parliamentary seat they were defending.

Farouk Kaddoumi, head of the political department of the PLO, states that PLO guerrillas in Lebanon will continue to disobey the Lebanese government’s disarmament order.

As on May 15, the representatives of the republics of Serbia and Montenegro, and the representatives of the Serbian provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo, refuse to confirm Mesic. Mesic and two allies—Janez Drnovsek of Slovenia and Vasil Tupurkovski of Macedonia—storm out of the meeting. Federal premier Markovic appoints a crisis team to deal with the bloody feud between Croats and ethnic Serbs during the presidency vacuum.

An Iraqi court sentences British engineer Douglas Brand to life in prison for alleged espionage. . . . Shi’ite fundamentalists set off two bombs near Beit Yahoun village in the Lebanese security zone, killing four civilians and wounding four others.

Imprisoned drug trafficker Olivero Chávez Araujo, said to be the principal agent of Colombia’s Medellín drug cartel in Mexico, is shot and wounded in his cell by Botero Yepez, a German man who is believed to belong to a rival drug gang. Chávez’s bodyguards, reportedly armed with knives and automatic weapons, respond to the assassination attempt by seizing control of the prison compound.

Although the May 16 bomb in Moscow destroyed numerous petitions Boris Yeltsin still gathers the 100,000 signatures needed to secure his nomination for the presidency.

Iraq agrees to allow a force of 400–500 lightly armed UN to provide security at refugee-relief centers within its borders. . . . In response to the May 17 killings, two Israeli air force jets launch an attack against a base of a Shi’ite militia group, killing four people and wounding 15 others. . . . The British Foreign Office condemns Iraq’s May 17 sentence and states Iraqi assets in the U.K. of Douglas Brand will remain frozen until Brand is released.

About 100 officers of the Mexican Federal Judicial Police, including an elite antiterrorist unit known as the Zorros (Foxes), take up positions outside the prison seized May 17.

Voters in Croatia overwhelmingly support the idea of the republic becoming a sovereign state in a loose confederation of Yugoslav republics.

A contingent of 10 UN guards armed with sidearms and handcuffs begin patrolling the city of Dahok. Their arrival coincides with the withdrawal of some Iraqi troops. . . . A Kuwaiti tribunal sentences five Iraqis and one Jordanian for collaborating with Iraqi forces in Kuwait. They are among the first to be tried in open court. Observers object to the way the trials are conducted.

During a prison siege in Mexico, reports start to emerge that confirm drug lord Olivero Chávez Araujo continued to manage his lucrative cocaine-smuggling operations from within Tamaulipas since his imprisonment in 1989.

Stipe Mesic unilaterally declares himself Yugoslavia’s head of state after meeting opposition May 15 and 17. Mesic’s declaration is dismissed by Anton Stari, the administrative chief of the presidency’s secretariat. . . . The Supreme Soviet enacts a law to ease restrictions on travel and emigration by Soviet citizens. . . . The Polish copper miners on strike since May 14 return to work when the government vows to abandon a plan to revise their pension system.

The U.S. State Department, U.S. president Bush, and British officials express concern over the Kuwaiti trials that began May 19 and urge Kuwait to ensure that suspected collaborators receive fair trials. . . . Polish president Lech Walesa visits Israel and, in an address to the Israeli Knesset, expresses regret over of the suffering caused by Polish anti-Semitism.

A group of Colombian drug traffickers frees two prominent journalists: Francisco Santos, who was held since Sept. 1990, and Maruja Pachón who was held since Nov. 1990. They are the last of a group of hostages held to protest extraditions. . . . On the 89th anniversary of Cuban independence from Spain in 1902, U.S. president Bush, in a speech broadcast to Cuba, asks Cuban president General Fidel Castro Ruz to hold free elections and to free all political prisoners.

May 16

May 17

The presidents of Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Bolivia agree to create a Latin American free-trade zone by January 1992 and a common market by 1995. . . . The IMF approves stand-by credit for Egypt that will allow the country to borrow up to $372 million from the fund over the next 18 months.

May 18

May 19

May 20

U.S. president Bush states the U.S. will abide by UN resolutions calling for a periodic review of sanctions against Iraq. He also announces U.S. opposition to the lifting of international trade sanctions against Iraq. “At this juncture, my view is we don’t want to lift these sanctions as long as [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein is in power,” he states.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Shintaro Abe, 67, leading figure of Japan’s governing Liberal Democratic Party, dies of heart failure in Tokyo. . . . Eight U.S. ships with relief aid arrive in the port city of Chittagong in Bangladesh.

Tens of thousands of people pour into South Korean cities demanding Pres. Roh’s resignation. The marches commemorate the 1980 Kwangju massacre. The number of people who set themselves on fire in protest rises to eight. . . . Despite preliminary returns, Bhattarai’s Nepali Congress Party is officially declared the winner of the May 12 election. . . . Hoang Van Hoan, 86, founding member of the Vietnamese Indochina CP who was purged from his party in 1976 for pro-Chinese views, dies of a lung infection.

India holds the first round of voting in presidential elections.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 15–20, 1991—197

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The Journal of the American Medical Association calls for sweeping changes in the nation’s health-care system in an editorial that describes reform a “moral imperative” and a “pragmatic necessity.”

Pres. Bush causes controversy and surprise when he states he favors extending China’s most-favored nation trading status for another year.

The White House Office of Management and Budget announces that it will place a limit on the amount of money that a college or university can add to its research grants from the federal government to pay for administrative costs. . . . The savings-and-loan cleanup agency announces a new plan to unload unsaleable real-estate assets through creative financing.

Howard Virgil Lee Douglas, 55, who spent more time on death row than any other prisoner in modern U.S. history, 171⁄2 years, has his sentence reduced to life in prison by a state circuit court judge in Barstow, Florida.

Great Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II becomes the first British monarch ever to address Congress during her third official trip to the U.S. . . . Press reports suggest House Democratic leaders have approved a preliminary staff investigation into allegations of a 1980 Reagan-Iran deal.

The FDA discloses that three people died of AIDS after receiving organ transplants from a man infected with the AIDS virus.

The State Department confirms the U.S. has granted refuge to 350 former Libyan soldiers who the U.S. secretly trained to unseat Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi. . . . A judge in Milwaukee revokes the citizenship of a man who is believed to have been a guard at a Nazi concentration camp because he lied on his visa application in 1950. . . . The INS announces that it will lower the fees it charges Salvadorans applying for temporary safe haven after a lawsuit was filed May 2.

The Commerce Department states the U.S. merchandise trade deficit shrank to a seasonally adjusted $4.05 billion in March, the smallest U.S. trade gap recorded since 1983. . . . Tarkio College in Tarkio, Missouri, founded in 1883, files for bankruptcy. The college has the highest student-loan default rate in the U.S.

Bob Hope is the marshal of a “Welcome Home Desert Storm” parade in Los Angeles. Other parades are sponsored by Universal Studios and Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida.

A GAO audit of the FHA’s financial performance finds that the agency continued to post losses in 1989, although less severely than in 1988.

The NEH issues a report that urges the U.S. to adopt a national examination to test high-school students on their knowledge of specific subjects such as history, geography, or literature. . . . The board of directors of the American Red Cross votes unanimously to overhaul the organization’s system of blood centers.

Helmut Kohl pays his first visit to the U.S. since being elected chancellor of unified Germany in December 1990. . . . Army investigations conclude that a computer failure at a Patriot antimissile battery allowed an Iraqi Scud missile to hit a U.S. military barracks in Saudi Arabia Feb. 25.

White House budget director Richard G. Darman claims that the fiscal 1991 federal budget deficit will not be as high as previously estimated despite a decrease in tax receipts due to the recession.

Wisconsin state officials and members of the Chippewa Indian tribe announce that they have reached agreement on a 17-year battle over treaty rights. . . . The Supreme Court rules that states have the right, in certain cases, to limit an accused rapist’s ability to present evidence about his prior sexual relationship with the alleged victim. . . . The Supreme Court rules to overturn the death sentence of an Idaho man, saying that he and his attorney did not receive adequate warning that the death penalty was a real consideration in the case.

Queen Elizabeth II travels to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, and presents an honorary knighthood to Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the commander of U.S. forces during the Persian Gulf war. Schwarzkopf, the 58th American to be given an honorary knighthood, is named a knight commander of the Order of the Bath.

The Supreme Court rules to uphold a section of Florida property-tax law that taxes out-of-state corporations for “intangible” property in Florida. . . . The Supreme Court rules unanimously that shareholders are not required under federal law to approach management before filing a lawsuit against a corporation. . . . The SEC votes to allow the New York Stock Exchange to extend its trading day to 5:15 P.M., from the current 4:00 P.M. closing on a trial basis.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

May 15

Underwater explorers announce the discovery off the Atlantic coast of Florida of five Navy warplanes of World War II vintage. The planes appear to be the vanished Flight 19 of 1945, which had spurred the myth of the so-called Bermuda Triangle. U.S. district judge Kenneth Ryskamp of Miami grants Scientific Search Project preliminary salvage rights but holds that the navy can contest the rights.

U.S. women take the medals at the world figure-skating championships in Munich, Germany, in the first sweep in the 73-year history of the event. Kristi Yamaguchi is first, Tonya Harding places second, and Nancy Kerrigan wins the bronze medal.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia overturns the FCC’s total ban on “indecent” programming on radio and television as unconstitutional.

As part of the Soviet Union’s program of selling seats on its space shots for profit, a Soviet mission called Juno carries into orbit the first British astronaut, Helen Sharman. Sharman becomes the 16th woman to lift off on a space mission.

May 17

May 18

Joseph Gregory (Greg) Rice, 75, long-distance runner who won the 1940 Sullivan Award as best amateur athlete in the U.S., dies of complications from a stroke in Hackensack, New Jersey.

The crew of the Juno has a rendezvous with the space station Mir.

May 16

The film festival in Cannes awards the Palme d’Or to Barton Fink, an American film written and directed by brothers Joel and Ethan Coen. It is the third straight year an American film takes home the top prize. . . . Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls wins his second MVP award in the NBA.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 19

May 20

198—May 21–25, 1991

World Affairs

May 23

May 24

May 25

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

A former premier of East Germany and three other top officials are arrested. The four, who served on the East German National Defense Council in 1974 when it approved the “shoot to kill” order against people trying to flee to the West, are charged with responsibility in the deaths of East Germans.

Lt. Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam, Ethiopia’s president, resigns and flees the country, as rebel forces overwhelm government troops and advance on Addis Ababa. Lt. Gen. Tesfaye Gebre-Kidan, as acting president, immediately tries to arrange a cease-fire. . . . In Zakho, Iraq, 300 Kurdish men attack the car of Brigadier Gen, Nushwan Danoun. . . . The Israeli government opens a new Jewish settlement in the Golan Heights. . . . The second round of Kuwaiti trials are fairer, and further cases are rescheduled.

Indian Congress (I) Party leader and former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, 46, is killed by a bomb blast on an election campaign stop in Sriperumbudur, 25 miles southwest of Madras. Violence erupts in Madras and at various locations in New Delhi as the news about Gandhi’s assassination spreads. The national government calls a “red alert,” closing schools and government offices. . . . Japan agrees to contribute $500 million to oil-spill cleanup efforts and Kurdish refugee relief.

The IMF approves a $24.1 million structural adjustment loan for Lesotho to be used in maintaining the country’s macroeconomic program through 1994. . . . Soviet president Gorbachev formally asks to attend a June summit of the Group of Seven, the leading industrial nations.

Reports state Great Britain and Albania will renew diplomatic relations. . . . In Poland, 10,000 members of the independent trade union Solidarity march in Warsaw to protest the country’s stringent economic reforms. Separately, Polish garbage collectors end a nationwide, week-long walkout after being promised a monthly wage increase.

Iraqi and allied military commanders reach an agreement that allows allied troops and relief workers to temporarily take control of the city of Dahok. . . . Lebanese president Hrawi and Syrian president Assad sign an accord for cooperation between their countries. . . . To protest treatment of black prisoners, members of the ANC Women’s League block streets in downtown Johannesburg. Police disperse them with stun grenades and tear gas. Other ANC members join in a day-long fast.

South Korean premier Ro Jai Bong resigns in order to relieve pressure on Pres. Roh Tai Woo, who is faced with the nation’s worst civil unrest since 1987. . . . In India, a week of official public mourning begins after the May 21 assassination. The Indian election commission announces that the second two rounds of voting in the nationwide elections will be postponed. The party’s leadership asks Sonia Gandhi to succeed her husband as Congress’s chief.

Iraq and the UN sign a formal agreement allowing lightly armed UN guards to patrol refugee-relief centers within Iraq’s borders.

Two soldiers of the Yugoslav national army are taken briefly into custody by the Slovenes when they approach a training camp of the Slovene army. . . . Reports suggest that files found in a government office in East Berlin indicate that at least half a dozen East German dissident couples had been made to put their children up for adoption in the 1970s.

As a conciliatory gesture to the rebels, Ethiopia frees 180 political prisoners and tears down a 33-foot bronze statue of Lenin. . . . The bodies of BBC journalist Nick Della Casa, 31, and sound engineer Charles Maxwell, 38, are recovered in a remote mountainous area near the Iraq-Turkey border. . . . In South Africa, reports show that the state has freed eight hunger strikers, and several have been hospitalized.

Sonia Gandhi, the widow of slain former prime minister and Congress leader Rajiv Gandhi, declines a request to lead the party through national elections. . . . Manning Clark, 76, Australian historian whose six-volume series History of Australia represents the first major effort to write a comprehensive history of the country, dies of unreported causes in Canberra, Australia.

The International Peace Research Institute reports that global defense outlays totaled $950 billion in 1990, down 5% from 1989.

The Yugoslavian national army frees two abducted officers of the fledging army of the republic of Slovenia.

In Ethiopia, the separatist EPLF secure the provincial capital, Asmara, which they have laid siege to since 1990. . . . A plane carrying 45 tons of supplies to the Kurds crashes while attempting an emergency landing in western Iran. Four of the 10 crewmen are killed. . . . South African president de Klerk convenes a multiparty conference in Pretoria. Several groups boycott the meeting, such as the ANC, the Pan-Africanist Congress, and the all-white Conservative Party. Attendees include Inkatha, the white liberal Democratic Party, and the ultra-right Afrikaner Resistance Movement.

South Korean president Roh Tae Woo names Chung Won Shik, 62, to replace Ro Jai Bong, the outgoing premier. Pres. Roh also announces that charges against opposition leader Kim Dae Jung will be dropped, and that more than 250 other violators will have their sentences commuted or be paroled. . . . The body of Rajiv Gandhi is carried across New Delhi in a three-hour procession to the Jumma River, where his body is cremated in a traditional Hindu funeral. Thousands of people, including diplomats, foreign leaders, and foreign dignitaries, witness the ceremony.

The Financial Times reports that the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (Cocom) has agreed to loosen restrictions on exports to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe of militarily useful high technology. . . . Egypt’s Western government creditors agree to forgive about 50% of Egypt’s estimated $20.2 billion in governmentto-government debt.

The Ulster Freedom Fighters, a Protestant paramilitary group, claims responsibility for the April slaying of Sinn Fein politician Eddie Fullerton in Donegal, in the Republic of Ireland. The killing is believed to be the first time in several years that Ulster Protestant paramilitaries have carried out an operation in the Republic of Ireland.

Israel ends its two-day operation to transport 14,087 Ethiopian Jews to Tel Aviv. . . . Ethiopian rebels capture Asseb, the last port in government hands. . . . In Dahok, Iraq, 2,000 Kurds attack a police station and beat several officers. . . . In Algeria, the FIS calls for a national strike. . . . The last Cuban soldiers leave Angola as per a 1988 treaty. . . . Political groups favoring renewed ties between Suriname and the Netherlands win a majority in Parliament.

May 21

May 22

Europe

A new round of UN-sponsored peace talks between the Salvadoran government and the FMLN rebels opens in Caracas, Venezuela.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 21–25, 1991—199

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The Senate approves an amendment to the campaign-finance bill that will prohibit members from accepting speaking fees for personal use.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Nicholas Dante (born Conrado Morales), 49, dancer in Broadway musicals who won a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony as a coauthor of A Chorus Line, dies of complications from AIDS in New York City.

The White House sends to Congress legislation that will enact a package of education reforms outlined by Pres. Bush in April. . . . Pres. Bush renews a pledge to veto any legislation that contains campaign-spending limits or public funding.

Reports state a former Defense Intelligence Agency official, army colonel Millard A. Peck, has accused the Bush administration of covering up the issue of MIA servicemen in the Vietnam War. . . . The House votes to pass a $291 billion defense authorization for fiscal 1992.

The Supreme Court rules a suspect who gives police permission to search his car for narcotics also gives implicit permission to search closed containers. . . . The Supreme Court rules that a spouse cannot use federal bankruptcy law to circumvent a lien placed on the couple’s home as part of a divorce settlement. . . . The Senate passes legislation to restructure election campaign financing.

President Bush reappoints army general Colin Powell to a two-year term as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. . . . The House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee approves legislation calling for an arms-sale moratorium in the Middle East. . . . The House authorizes Pres. Bush to negotiate international trade agreements with a free hand.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms estimates that there are 200 million guns in circulation in the U.S., up from 104 million in 1970 and 54 million in 1950.

The Senate authorizes Pres. Bush to negotiate international trade agreements with a free hand. . . . Secretary of State Baker announces a restoration of U.S. aid to Yugoslavia.

Congress gives final approval to a fiscal 1992 budget resolution by adopting a conference report on the resolution. . . . The Justice Department signs a consent decree with eight Ivy League colleges and universities in which the schools agree not to share information on student financial aid, tuition, or faculty salaries in response to concerns over federal funding of universities.

May 21

May 22

Johnny Carson, the host of NBC’s popular late-night talk show The Tonight Show, announces that he will leave the program in one year.

NASA announces that it will review its hardware-checking procedure.

The Washington Post reports that the Bush administration has decided to shelve plans to end a policy banning admittance to the U.S. of people carrying the AIDS virus, plans that had started in January.

Harold Eugene (Gene) Clark, 46, one of the five founding members of the Byrds, a folk-rock group whose hits include “Mr. Tambourine Man,” is found dead in Sherman Oaks, California.

The Pittsburgh Penguins win their first NHL Stanley Cup when they complete a four-games-to-two victory in the finals over the Minnesota North Stars.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 23

May 24

May 25

200—May 26–30, 1991

World Affairs

The 12-vessel Ethiopian navy flees to Yemen. Observers note that the EPLF now has control over Eritrea after 30 years of fighting. The rebel EPRDF captures the state’s main air base. The U.S. sponsors peace talks between the three rebel armies—the EPLF, EPRDF, and the Oromo Liberation Front—and the government. . . . In Johannesburg, South Africa, Zulu king Goodwill Zwelithini urges an audience of 50,000 to resist political violence. . . . Army spokesmen estimate that 50,000 people have returned to the Dahok area in Iraq since allied forces arrived in the city.

The Yugoslav government announces an agreement to end an internal trade war between Serbia on one side and Slovenia and Croatia on the other. . . . Reports disclose that Georgian police raided campaign headquarters of a presidential candidate, Valerian Advadze, two weeks prior to the elections. They confiscated documents and arrested staffers and bodyguards. . . . Eric Heffer, 69, British Labour Party member of Parliament since 1964, dies of cancer.

The Lebanese parliament votes to ratify the cooperation accord. . . . Despite negotiations at peace talks in London that allow the EPRDF to enter Addis Ababa, mutinous government troops prevent acting Pres. Tesfaye from surrendering the city. . . . Iran’s president states Iran is ready to dramatically increase its economic cooperation with the West and the Persian Gulf nations. . . . The government extends another month of martial law in Kuwait and warns it will punish anyone who abuses foreigners suspected of collaborating with Iraq.

NATO defense ministers of approve a fundamental military restructuring of the alliance in the broadest reorganization in NATO’s 42 years. The change is spurred by developments related to the end of the cold war, including the reunification of Germany, a perceived decrease in the Soviet threat, and the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. . . . North Korea announces that it will seek a seat at the UN, reversing its traditional stance opposing separate seats for North and South Korea.

The deadlock over the Yugoslav presidency rotation continues when four members of the eightmember collective presidency boycott emergency talks on the dispute.

Rebel soldiers take possession of the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, after the government cedes control of the city. The rebels pledge to set up a new, democratic government comprising all political factions. Sporadic fighting continues, and the International Red Cross estimates that 500 civilians were wounded in the preceding 48 hours. . . . In Kenya, Gitobu Imanyara, editor of the controversial Nairobi Law Journal, is freed from prison after the state, without explanation, drops charges against him of treason and violating publishing laws.

U.S. president Bush, in a commencement address at the U.S. Air Force Academy, unveils a long-awaited series of proposals intended to ban weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East and to control shipments of conventional arms to that region.

The Croatian government asserts its independence and announces a plan to form an army. . . . More than 10,000 people rally in Tirana, Albania, to support of the general strike that began May 15. . . . The Supreme Soviet gives preliminary approval to legislation to ease restrictions on foreign investment in the USSR. . . . Reports indicate that six of the seven Kurdish refugee camps in Turkey have been emptied and are closed.

Isaias Afwerki, representing the EPLF in London, announces that his organization will form a separate government for the province of Eritrea until a referendum can be held on independence. The EPLF’s decision triggers violent demonstrations in Addis Ababa, killing several people. . . . South Africa’s highest court overturns the 1989 death sentences of 14 blacks convicted of murder even though they did not kill anyone. They were convicted since they shared a “common purpose” of murder in the 1985 mob killing of a police officer.

In response to U.S. president Bush’s May 29 announcement, Iran complains the proposal leaves Israel with a permanent military advantage while Israel argues the reverse. . . . U.S. officials report that 19 industrial nations have agreed to a U.S. proposal to restrict the export of 50 common chemicals that can be used to produce chemical weapons. . . . Pres. Mitterrand states France will not join the proposed rapid-reaction force of NATO.

The parliament of Croatia unanimously authorizes the republic’s May 29 secession from Yugoslavia if Croatia fails to reach a confederation agreement with the other republics. In response, Slobodan Milosevic warns that Croatia can become independent only if Croatia’s Krajina region is excluded from the secession. . . . In Azerbaijan, blast on a Baku-bound train kills 12 and injures 20.

Defense Secretary Cheney, after meeting with Israeli officials in Tel Aviv, announces that the U.S. Defense Department will give Israel 10 used fighter planes and spend more than $200 million to help Israel develop an antimissile system.

May 27

May 29

May 30

Africa & the Middle East

Nationalist leader and former dissident Zviad Gamsakhurdia is elected president of the southern republic of Georgia by an overwhelming majority of voters. Gamsakhurdia’s victory makes him the first directly elected leader of a Soviet republic.

May 26

May 28

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific A charter jet belonging to LaudaAir, Austria’s largest charter air service, explodes into a fireball in midair and crashes in the Thai jungle, shortly after taking off from Bangkok. All 213 passengers and 10 crew members are killed. Boeing officials state it is the first time a 767-series jet has been completely lost in an aviation accident. The disaster is reported to be the 12thworst in aviation history.

Argentine defense minister Antonio Ermán González announces that the country is canceling its secret ballistic-missile program and dismantling all missiles that have been built. . . . Quebec’s public security officer, Claude Ryan, announces that 39 Quebec police officers will face disciplinary action for their actions during the Oka standoff over Mohawk land claims in 1990. Quebec police officials believe it is the first time in the history of the provincial force that senior officers face disciplinary action.

In remembrance of the June 1989 crackdown, students at Beijing University unfurl a banner that reads “We Will Never Forget June 4.” The banner is quickly torn down by Chinese authorities. Students also throw hundreds of pamphlets from dormitory windows calling for the release of prodemocracy activists. . . . On Canadian prime minnister Mulroney’s visit to Japan, Premier Toshiki Kaifu apologies for Japan’s treatment of Canadian prisoners of war during World War II. It is the first time that Japan offers a formal apology for its treatment of Western POWs. . . . Afghan guerrilla leaders reject a truce proposed by Afghan president Najibullah.

India’s Congress (I) Party names P. V. Narasimha Rao, 69, a former foreign minister, as its provisional chief.

Drug trafficker Olivero Chávez Araujo surrenders to Mexican authorities at Tamaulipas state prison in Matamoros, ending a May 17 prison takeover during which 18 prisoners died. Mexican officials arrest the director and subdirector of Tamaulipas prison and a member of the federal prosecutor’s office for suspected complicity in Chávez’s operations.

Asia Watch reports that trials of Chinese dissidents have, in the last six months, reached their highest level since just after the 1989 crackdown.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 26–30, 1991—201

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The space Juno returns British astronaut Helen Sharman to Earth with the Mir crew, Musa Manarov and Viktor Afanasyev, who have been in space for more than five months. The other cosmonauts on the Juno, Artsebarsky and Krikalyov, remain aboard Mir.

Tom Eyen, 50, experimental offBroadway playwright who won a 1982 Tony for Dreamgirls, dies of cardiac arrest in Palm Beach, Florida. . . . Rick Mears wins the 75th running of the Indianapolis 500.

Pres. Bush states he will renew most-favored-nation trade status for China. In an apparent effort to mollify domestic critics of the renewal, the White House announces sanctions against China for recent weapons sales in the Third World.

The Supreme Court unanimously settles a boundary dispute between Illinois and Kentucky. It recognizes the boundary as it existed in 1792, the year Kentucky joined the union. The decision gives Illinois an Ohio River shoreline it did not previously possess. . . . The Supreme Court rules a prosecutor’s removal of potential jurors fluent in Spanish from a case involving a Hispanic defendant does not necessarily violate the Constitution. . . . Police in Palm Beach, Florida, find that genetic tests show an apparent match between blood samples taken from William Kennedy Smith and semen samples taken from a woman who alleges that Smith raped her. . . . Ethel L. Payne, 79, considered the U.S.’s leading black female journalist and the first black female commentator on network television, dies of a heart attack in Washington, D.C.

The Supreme Court lets stand a 1990 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that suspends the felony convictions of former National Security Council staff member Oliver North for activities in the Iran-contra scandal.

The University of North Carolina wins the NCAA Division I lacrosse title, 18-13, over Towson State. . . Edward Benton (Ed) Dodd, 88, creator of the “Mark Trail” comic strip, dies of unreported causes in Gainesville, Georgia

The Supreme Court rules hospital peer-review committees can face antitrust lawsuits if their activities potentially limit interstate commerce.

Conductor Zubin Mehta gives his last concert as music director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City.

Nebraska governor Ben Nelson (D) signs into law a bill requiring that at least one parent be notified in cases where a girl under age 18 seeks an abortion. . . . Henry E. Petersen, 70, chief of the criminal division of the Justice Department, 1972–74, who led the initial investigation of the 1972 burglary at Watergate, dies of emphysema in Sunderland, Maryland.

The FDIC reaches an agreement with Neil Bush, President Bush’s son, and 12 other directors of Silverado Banking, Savings and Loan Association. The defendants agree to pay damages of $49.5 million to settle a claim by the FDIC of $200 million.

A group of six U.S. bishops conclude a meeting in Rome with Vatican officials. They state they were advised to make revisions in the second draft of a pastoral letter prepared by the U.S. National Conference of Catholic Bishops on the role of women in the church.

In Cleveland, 34 people are arrested in an FBI sting operation targeting illegal gambling. Those arrested include 23 police officers and seven former officers. . . . The Supreme Court overturns a 1979 case when it rules that police without a court warrant can search bags or containers in a car trunk. . . . The Supreme Court rules that in a criminal case that receives substantial pretrial publicity, the judge is not required to question jurors about what they heard or read about the crime.

The Supreme Court rules that public employee unions cannot charge nonmembers for activities not directly related to collective-bargaining efforts.

Joanne Lagatta, a 13-year-old girl from Clintonville, Wisconsin, wins the 64th National Spelling Bee, sponsored by Scripps-Howard Newspapers, in Washington, D.C.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 26

May 27

May 28

May 29

May 30

202—May 31–June 4, 1991

May 31

June 1

June 2

June 3

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The U.S. asserts Cuba should work with the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to guarantee the safe operation of a nuclear power complex being built at Juragua, on Cuba’s southern coast.

Yugoslavia’s federal premier, Ante Markovic, states that the national government opposes the secession of Croatia and Slovenia and opposes any attempt by Serbia to annex the Krajina region.

The Angolan government and UNITA sign a peace agreement aimed at ending their 16-year-old civil war and preparing the country for democratic rule. . . . Reports indicate 8,000 refugees remain in the impromptu camps along the Iraq-Turkey border. . . . The official allied count estimates 13,000 Kurds died while taking refuge in camps along the Iraq-Turkey border. . . . In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, sporadic demonstrations continue, despite a ban on protests.

After weeks of negotiation, the U.S. and Soviet Union resolve their differences over the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty. The settlement clears the way for a 1991 superpower summit.

Three Ulster Defense Regiment soldiers die when a truck loaded with more than 2,000 pounds of explosives is rolled down a hillside into a small UDR base in Glenanne, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The outlawed IRA claims responsibility for the blast, which wounds 10 other soldiers and four civilians. . . . Pope John Paul II visits his native Poland for the first time since the 1989 fall of Poland’s communist government.

Meles Zenawi, the leader of the EPRDF, returns to Addis Ababa. He states he favors lifting state controls over agriculture and implementing free-market solutions for Ethiopia’s war-ravaged economy. He adds that permanent national elections will be held “in a year or two.” . . . Residents of Luanda, the capital of Angola, rejoice at the signing of the cease-fire. . . . Reports indicate Iran’s central bank has lifted travel restrictions imposed on 37,000 exiles who fled after the Islamic revolution owing money to the bank.

An assessment by U.S. government analysts of damage done to Iraq by allied bombing in the Persian Gulf war confirms reports that Iraq’s economy and infrastructure have been severely crippled and will take years to rebuild.

In south Belfast, a civilian, Celia Gourley, loses both her legs when a bomb attached to her car detonates. . . . An estimated 10,000 Catholics from the Ukraine cross into Poland for the pope’s appearance in the town of Przemysl, nine miles from the Soviet border.

When 2,000 Kurds demonstrate in front of the headquarters of Iraq’s ruling party in Dahok, shots are fired from inside the building, killing four and wounding several others. The Kurds then attack the building, killing two. . . . In Zakho, 500 Kurds ransack a police station. . . . Sheik Jabir al-Ahmad Al Sabah, Kuwait’s emir, announces parliamentary elections will be held in Oct. 1992. . . . Voters in Burkina Faso approve a new constitution.

The Organization of American States, which represents all Latin American and Caribbean countries except Cuba, opens its 21st annual general assembly, and members agree to take action against any regime that takes power in a coup. . . . The Organization of African Unity’s annual summit is attended by heads of state from 36 countries. The nations sign a treaty designed to create an African common market similar to the EC by the end of the century. Libya then withdraws from the summit to protest Nigeria’s political intervention in Liberia and its asylum for Libyan rebels.

Reports state the first 200 soldiers of Slovenia’s new army were sworn in at a training camp. . . . An appeals court in the Netherlands orders a new trial for three suspected IRA operatives acquitted in April. in connection with a 1990 slaying. . . . The IRA apologizes for the Jun. 2 attack on a civilian, saying it was a case of mistaken identity. . . . British security forces kill three men that the IRA claims were on an active service mission, Peter Ryan, Lawrence McNally, and Tony Dorris. . . . Albanian protesters in Tirana clash with police, who disperse them with water cannons.

Israel begins a two-day launch of air strikes against positions held by Palestinian guerrillas near Sidon in southern Lebanon. . . . In Algeria, the government forcibly clears protesters from the squares occupied by the FIS. . . . A South African judge in Pretoria orders 112 black families squatting at Goegevonden, land which they claim they were stripped of in 1978, to leave the site.

Mt. Unzen, a Japanese volcano dormant for two centuries, erupts, taking the lives of at least 38. The volcanic explosion, 30 miles east of Nagasaki, is reported to be among the largest in Japan in the last century. . . . The threat of protests prompts police to close Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, the center of the 1989 movement. . . . After a struggle, Australian treasurer and deputy prime minister Paul Keating resigns his posts after failing to defeat p.m. Hawke for the leadership of Australia’s ruling Labor Party. Hawke shuffles his cabinet to fill the vacancies left by Keating’s resignation.

The communist cabinet of Albania resigns. Premier Nano announces that a nonpartisan interim “government of national salvation” will be appointed until new elections. The opposition Albanian Democratic Party agrees to support the interim government. . . . Reports disclose that Slovenia has officially informed the Yugoslav parliament of its intention to secede from the country. . . . Soviet troops set up checkpoints throughout Vilnius, Lithuania, in an ostensible search for military-draft evaders.

In Algeria, tens of thousands demonstrate, and skirmishes break out with police across the country. At least seven people, including a police captain, are killed, and 700 injured. . . . . Fearing further violence, Iraqi police officers and government officials are reported to have fled Dahok. . . . About 1,000 members of Kuwait’s prodemocracy opposition gather at a mosque in Kuwait City to express their opposition to the late date set for elections.

Students at Beijing University mark the second anniversary of the crackdown on the Chinese prodemocracy movement by hurling bottles from dormitory windows. The breaking of bottles is a symbolic way of showing anger at China’s paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping. (The name “Xiaoping” is pronounced like the Chinese word for “little bottle.”)

June 4

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Reports confirm a group of Cuban intellectuals have issued a declaration calling for democratic reform.

Peace talks between the Salvadoran government and rebels of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) end without reaching a cease-fire agreement.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 31–June 4, 1991—203

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

William Kennedy Smith pleads not guilty in a West Palm Beach, Florida, courtroom to charges that he raped a woman at the Kennedy family’s vacation estate. . . . New York becomes the first state to rescind a measure that allows TV cameras in courtrooms. . . . The New York Times finds the U.S. faces an increasing shortage of doctors specializing in geriatrics. . . . The Health Care Financing Administration issues a proposed list of new Medicare payment rates.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The FHA announces new rules for obtaining mortgage insurance that the housing industry fears will threaten a recovery in that sector. . . . The Big Three U.S. auto companies file a complaint with the Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission, alleging that their Japanese competitors are unfairly dumping minivans in the U.S. market.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Reports show the prestigious Camoes Prize for Portuguese-language literature has been awarded to Mozambican poet Jose Craveirinha, the first writer from Africa to win the prize. . . . Loves Music, Loves to Dance by Mary Higgins Clark is at the top of the bestsellers list.

A patriotic “Heart of America” rally is held in Kansas City. . . . Japanese and U.S. negotiators reach a tentative agreement in Tokyo that will open more Japanese public works projects to U.S. construction firms. The accord is set just three hours before the imposition of threatened U.S. sanctions barring Japanese companies from bidding on U.S. projects was to take effect.

Davis Eli (David) Ruffin, 50, lead singer on the Temptations’ first number-one hit, “My Girl,” in 1965, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, dies of an apparent drug overdose in Philadelphia.

Lost in Yonkers by Neil Simon wins a Tony award. Named best supporting actress in a musical, Daisy Eagan at the age of 111⁄2 becomes the second youngest winner of a Tony ever . . . Seppo Raty of Finland extends his world record in the javelin with a throw of 318 feet, 1 inch.

The Children’s Defense Fund finds that most children living below the poverty line have wage-earning parents. . . . The Supreme Court rules that potential jurors in civil cases cannot be excluded on the basis of race.

For the second consecutive year, Pres. Bush temporarily removes a legal barrier to normalized trade between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

The National Archives make public 471⁄2 hours of previously unreleased Watergate tapes. . . . Massachusetts state senator John Olver (D) wins a special election to fill the U.S. House seat vacated by the death of Rep. Silvio Conte (R). He is the first Democrat to represent the district in 98 years, and his win gives the Democrats a majority in the House. . . . president Bush announces that Atty. Gen. Richard Thornburgh will resign in July to run for the Senate seat vacated by the death of Sen. John Heinz (R, Pa.).

The Defense Intelligence Agency, responding to a request from a U.S. environmental group under the Freedom of Information Act, estimates that 100,000 Iraqi soldiers were killed and 300,000 wounded in the Persian Gulf War. However, the agency states its estimates carry an “error factor of 50% or higher.”. . . Pres. Bush nominates Democrat Robert S. Strauss as ambassador to the Soviet Union.

Eva Le Gallienne, 92, British-born American theater actress, director and producer who was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1986, dies of heart failure in Weston, Connecticut.

Data suggests that tickets to theaters of NYC’s Broadway district fell by nearly 6% in the 1990–91 season. . . . The Southern Baptist Convention reelects Reverend Morris H. Chapman as its president. The 14.9million-member convention is the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S.

White House budget director Richard G. Darman criticizes the growing use of “creative” techniques by states to garner more federal Medicaid funds.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 31

June 1

June 2

June 3

June 4

204—June 5–10, 1991

World Affairs

Europe

June 7

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Algerian president Chadli Benjedid declares a state of emergency in response to nearly two weeks of protests by Islamic fundamentalists. The president postpones parliamentary elections and dismisses the premier and his cabinet. . . . Lebanese reports indicate 22 people were killed and 82 wounded in Israeli raids. . . . South Africa’s Parliament approves legislation that repeals the Land Acts of 1913 and 1936 and the Group Areas Act of 1966, laws central to the apartheid system of racial separation.

June 5

June 6

Africa & the Middle East

The Organization of American States delegates approve a resolution to “ratify the inter-American legal instruments on the protection and defense of human rights.”. . . Reports indicate that the UN World Food Program has suspended its food relief to Iraq in response to allegations that the Iraqi government stole 3,000 tons of flour intended for Kurdish refugees.

The presidents of Yugoslavia’s six republics agree to consider the idea of a proposal to turn the country into a loose confederation of states.

Allied military commanders officially hand over responsibility for humanitarian aid in northern Iraq to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees. The U.S. Agency for International Development reports that the UN requested $415 million from its member nations to pay for its relief efforts through August, but received only $67 million. . . . Reports suggest a group of nations including Kenya and Madagascar have decided to defy the OAU (Organization of African Unity) ban and restore trade and transportation ties with South Africa.

Algeria’s new premier, Sid Ahmed, consults with leaders of five political parties on assembling a new cabinet. . . . ANC deputy president Nelson Mandela appeals for political prisoners on a hunger strike to end their fast. . . . Israeli peace activist Abie Nathan ends a well-publicized 40-day hunger strike staged to protest an Israeli law forbidding Israelis to meet with members of the PLO.

The U.S. Agency for International Development finds that 700,000 Iraqi refugees remain in 94 camps in Iran. . . . Reports indicate that Saudi Arabia permitted the organization of Palestinian terrorist leader Abu Nidal (Sabry al-Banna) to establish offices in Saudi territory.

A new constitution for Rwanda is signed into effect by Pres. Juvenal Habyarimana. The document provides for multiparty politics and democratic policies. . . . Kuwaiti soldiers begin to forcibly expel civilian foreign nationals into Iraq. . . . Mankhi al-Shimmiri, a non-Kuwaiti Arab, becomes the first accused collaborator to receive a death sentence. . . . Hamed al-Othman, Kuwait’s chief prosecutor, states his office is investigating several cases of civil-rights abuses committed by Kuwaiti police.

June 8

June 9

June 10

More than 20,000 anticommunist Serbs demonstrate against the Milosevic government in Belgrade, the federal and Serbian capital. . . . Italian voters overwhelmingly approve a referendum to reform the voting system used in general elections in order to reduce electoral fraud and political patronage.

King Hussein and representatives of Jordan’s principal political factions sign a newly drafted national charter that legalizes political parties in the kingdom, ending a 34year ban. . . . Kenneth Matiba, a Kenyan dissident, is freed from prison by Pres. Daniel T. arap Moi. Matiba, a former cabinet minister, was jailed without charges in 1990 and had recently suffered a stroke.

Vercors (born Jean Marcel Bruller), 89, French author best known for his 1942 novel The Silence of the Sea, published clandestinely during the German occupation of France and one of the central texts of the Resistance movement, dies of unreported causes in Paris.

Iranian state-run radio and television report that Iraqi troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships launched an offensive in the marshes, and claim that fighting broke out between Shi’ites and soldiers in the cities of Amara and An Nasiriya in southern Iraq.

U.S. military personnel stationed at Clark Air Force Base in Manila, the Philippines, begin a large-scale evacuation after Mt. Pinatubo starts spewing hot ash and rocks in a prelude to a volcanic eruption.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 5–10, 1991—205

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

After a hard-fought battle, House Democrats win passage of its civilrights bill. . . . Democrats in the Senate introduce a Bill to overhaul the nation’s health-care system and guarantee basic health insurance for all Americans.

Sylvia Feldman Porter, 77, financial reporter noted for her ability to turn economic jargon into readable prose, dies of complications from emphysema in Pound Ridge, New York.

The U.S. space shuttle Columbia lifts off from Cape Canaveral to conduct a mission on studying the biological effects of space travel. . . . Chang Min-Chueh, 82, codeveloper of the birth control pill who received the Lasker Foundation Award in 1955, dies of heart failure in Worcester, Massachusetts. . . . The Agriculture Department confirms the first attack by Africanized “killer” bees in the U.S. The attack took place in Brownsville, Texas, but did not cause serious injury.

The Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C., Ronald Haines, ordains an openly gay woman, Elizabeth Carl, to the priesthood.

A study by the Health and Human Services Department shows that more than half of the students in grades seven through 12 drink alcohol. . . . Jesse Jackson hosts the National Rainbow Coalition convention. . . . The Supreme Court rules federal judges have broad power to fine people who abuse the court system. . . . The Education Department reveals that the majority of students scored lower than expected in a nationwide math test.

Mayor Mary C. Moran (R) of Bridgeport, Connecticut, files for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection for the city. Bridgeport, Connecticut’s largest city, is reported to be the largest U.S. city to have filed for bankruptcy.

The Census Bureau reports that the number of young adults—especially men—living with their parents increased in the 1980s. . . . U.S. district judge Robert H. Schnacke rejects a request by a San Francisco television station to allow televised coverage of an execution.

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Stan Getz, 64, influential jazz tenor saxophonist who won a total of 11 Grammy Awards, dies of liver cancer in Malibu, California. . . . NBC names comedian Jay Leno as new host of The Tonight Show after Johnny Carson retires.

The Washington Post reports that 64,800 U.S. troops are still deployed in the Persian Gulf region. . . . Parades and celebrations to welcome home U.S. troops begin in Washington D.C.

At tennis’s French Open, Monica Seles of Yugoslavia wins the women’s singles title. In men’s doubles, Australian John Fitzgerald and Swede Anders Jarryd take the top prize. The mixed doubles title goes to Czechs Cyril Suk and Helena Sukova.

Claudio Arrau, 88, considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century, dies in Muerzzuschlag, Austria. . . . Jim Courier earns his first Grand Slam tennis victory with a win in the finals of the French Open. In women’s doubles, Jana Novotna and Gigi Fernandez take the top prize.

In NYC 18,000 troops, including some 6,000 veterans of earlier U.S. wars, are given a traditional ticker-tape parade up Broadway in lower Manhattan. The parade is led by a motorcade that includes Defense Secretary Cheney, Gen. Schwarzkopf, and Gen. Powell. Tens of thousands of people attend the all-day celebrations.

June 6

June 7

About 200,000 spectators watch 8,800 U.S. troops march through Washington behind Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf. Pres. Bush and 250 other dignitaries watch the parade from a viewing stand near the White House.

A copyright trial in New York City involving the estate of the late actor James Dean is the first one where television cameras are allowed in a federal courtroom. . . . A federal judge in Philadelphia rules that Pennsylvania’s special-election procedure to fill the Senate seat of the late John Heinz (R) is unconstitutional.

June 5

The Supreme Court rules unanimously that lawsuits filed by shareholders to recover illegal profits earned through insider trading may continue even if the shareholders no longer own shares in the company. . . . In prepared congressional testimony and in a letter to Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady, the GAO states that the records of the agency in charge of bailing out insolvent savings and loans are often incomplete or unreliable.

Irvine Heinly Page, 90, physician and medical researcher who was one of the first scientists to recognize that high blood pressure is a treatable ailment, dies of a heart attack in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.

Commissioners to the 203rd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) reject an internal report that urges the church to relax its prohibitions on homosexual sex and sex outside marriage.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 8

June 9

June 10

206—June 11–16, 1991

World Affairs

June 11

Kamal Kharrazi, Iran’s UN representative, delivers a letter to the Security Council warning that Iraq is “preparing a general mopping-up operation” against the Shi’ites. Kharrazi’s letter urges the UN to intervene. Iraqi spokesmen at the UN dismiss Iran’s warnings as “mere allegation.”. . . . Separately, the UN Security Council decides not to respond to an Iraqi request that some sanctions against the country be lifted.

June 14

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The Assembly of First Nations, Canada’s largest association of native tribes, elects Ovide Mercredi, a 45-year-old Cree Indian, as its new leader.

The Mt. Pinatubo volcano, about 55 miles northwest of Manila, erupts in a huge mushroom cloud, spewing ash and rock as far as 20 miles away. Seismologists classify the event as a major eruption. Philippine president Aquino visits evacuation centers as more than 20,000 Filipinos had left the area earlier. . . . Mt. Unzen in Japan erupts again, but no injuries are reported. . . . Lt. Gen. Ershad, the former president of Bangladesh, is sentenced to 10 years in jail on charges of illegal weapons possession

The Chilean government closes 188 factories and orders 40% of all cars off the streets of Santiago as part of the fight against severe air pollution.

Reports suggest the Jun 12 eruption of the Philippines Mt. Pinatubo has claimed two lives.

In spite of U.S. travel restrictions, several groups of Native Americans go to Libya to receive the Muammar Ghadafi International Prize on Human Rights in honor of the Indians’ “struggle for freedom.”. . . Reports suggest Kuwaiti soldiers forcibly expelled at least 160 civilian foreign nationals into Iraqi territory. Major Gen. Gunther Greindl, commander of the UN peacekeeping mission, states that his forces will not interfere with the expulsions.

British prime minister Major announces that he has sent Soviet president Gorbachev an invitation to the summit of the Group of Seven nations.

The Italian foreign minister, Gianni De Michelis, visits Albania and pledges $50 million in emergency economic aid. . . . Reports show Turkey has rejected an Iraqi appeal to reopen an Iraqi oil pipeline that runs across Turkish territory. . . . In Romania, teachers began a strike, demanding increased wages and more funding for education.

The Conventional Forces in Europe forum approves a U.S.-Soviet settlement on the CFE treaty. . . . Reports state an Iraqi nuclear scientist who defected to the U.S. in June alleges that Iraq is continuing to attempt to build nuclear weapons and that Iraq has concealed weapons-grade uranium and research equipment from UN inspectors. The UN Security Council orders a series of new inspections.

Four former East German border guards are arrested on charges of fatally shooting a man seeking to flee to West Berlin in Feb. 1989. The guards face counts of conspiracy to commit manslaughter, and they are the first to be charged by united Germany.

An earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale jolts the northern region of the republic of Georgia, killing at least eight people and injuring about 200 others.

June 15

June 16

Africa & the Middle East

Boris Yeltsin is elected as executive president of the Russian republic. . . . The Albanian People’s Assembly confirms a nonpartisan caretaker cabinet led by interim premier, Ylli Bufi. It is Albania’s first noncommunist government in 47 years. . . . Italian ships rescue 600 Albanians attempting to sail to Italy in small fishing boats. One boat reports it was fired on by an Albanian patrol boat, killing two. . . . Two executives are convicted in London for conspiring to export to Iraq devices that can be used to trigger nuclear weapons.

June 12

June 13

Europe

Thousands of scientists and health officials from around the world gather in Florence, Italy, for the seventh annual International Conference on AIDS. Scientists and public-health officials at the conference strongly criticize the U.S. government’s policy of excluding immigrants and visitors infected with HIV.

The last of the U.S. units that saw combat in the Persian Gulf war begin to be relieved of their duties in the region.

Mt. Pinatubo erupts again, and volcanic ash shoots as high as 19 miles and then falls to blanket places as far away as Manila. The capital is shaken by tremors related to the volcano, and the international airport shuts down. . . . Vladimir M. Petrov, 84, Soviet spy who defected to Australia in 1954 and revealed that his job in the Soviet embassy in Canberra involved recruiting Australians to serve as spies, dies of unreported causes in Melbourne, Australia. In Kuwait, six defendants are sentenced to death for working as writers and editors for Al Nida, a newspaper published by Iraq in Kuwait during the occupation.

Terrorists open fire on two passenger trains in the state of Punjab, India, killing a total of 76 people. It is the worst outbreak of violence yet during an election campaign that has seen at least 300 violent deaths.

A planeload of UNITA representatives returns to Luanda, the capital of Angola, for the first time since civil war broke out in 1975. . . . Reports state that, in response to international criticism of its trials, Kuwait has set up a review panel with the power to recommend clemency for the sentenced collaborators.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 11–16, 1991—207

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Pres. Bush and Democratic leaders in Congress begin to blame each other for failing to act on the nation’s domestic problems. . . . Reports show the alumni board of the secret Skull and Bones society at Yale University has reversed an earlier decision and decided to uphold a measure passed by its members to admit female students to the 159-year-old club for the first time.

Pres. Bush approves up to $1.5 billion in federal loan guarantees for the Soviet Union to allow the Soviets to purchase U.S. grain. . . . The House of Representatives votes to continue covert aid to the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) in 1992. . . . The Veterans Affairs Department proposes that servicemen who participated in secret poison-gas experiments during World War II should be eligible for disability benefits.

A three-judge panel of the Illinois Appellate Court unanimously voids a $16.28 million damage award returned against Monsanto Co. in 1987 for a January 1979 spill of dioxin in Sturgeon, Missouri The judges rule that the jury in the original trial did not find any damage resulting from the spill, but rather decided to punish Monsanto for other alleged acts of pollution.

A panel of aerospace experts submit to the White House a series of suggestions for a manned expedition to Mars proposed by Pres. Bush.

A Justice Department official tells the House Judiciary subcommittee on crime and criminal justice that the Bush administration’s import ban on military-style assault rifles is becoming less effective because foreign manufacturers are modifying the design of their weapons to make them eligible for sale in the U.S

Secretary of State Baker, speaking at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, defends Kuwait in response to sharp criticism of postwar developments in the emirate. . . . The Senate Foreign Relations Committee votes to require the INS to remove almost all names from a list of foreigners considered ideologically unacceptable for entrance to the U.S., reiterating a 1990 change to the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act.

The Supreme Court rules federal judges cannot impose sentences stricter than the ones in federal sentencing guidelines without giving advance notice to both parties. . . . The Supreme Court rules a suspect who has a lawyer in one criminal case can, under certain circumstances, be questioned by police about a separate crime even if the attorney is not present. . . . The Census Bureau releases figures which indicate California and Arizona should gain House seats. Wisconsin and Pennsylvania should lose seats.

Eight of the 52 U.S. citizens who were held hostage in Iran from Nov. 1979 to Jan. 1981 ask Congress to formally investigate allegations that officials of the 1980 presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan arranged a deal with Iranian leaders to delay their release in exchange for pledges of arms. In response, the White House publicly releases the text of a letter that Pres. Bush wrote to Sen. Edward Kennedy May 9, in which he denies any knowledge of a deal with Iran.

Financial disclosure forms reveal that the total honoraria accepted by members of Congress in 1990 declined from 1989.

In the wake of the 1989 U.S.Canada free-trade accord, a special joint U.S.-Canadian trade panel rules that Canadian pork producers should be allowed unhindered access to U.S. markets.

The travel practices of White House chief of staff John Sununu provoke controversy again after Newsweek reports that he used a government car and a corporate jet for a personal trip to NYC. . . . A(lbert) B(enjamin) (Happy) Chandler, 92, Democratic governor of Kentucky, 1935–39 and 1955–59, and commissioner of baseball, 1945–51, who oversaw the breaking of baseball’s color barrier in 1947 when Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, dies of a heart attack in Versailles, Kentucky.

Former president Ronald Reagan admits for the first time that he was involved with attempts to free the U.S. hostages in Iran during the 1980 presidential campaign. However, he dismisses rumors of a hostages-for-arms deal as “absolute fiction.”

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

June 11

The Chicago Bulls win the finals of the NBA’s playoff to earn the first championship in the club’s 25-year history.

The Supreme court votes to expand to individuals Chapter 11 protections under federal bankruptcy law, which previously applied only to businesses. . . . The Supreme Court rules that employers are not obligated to take employment disputes to arbitration after a labor contract requiring arbitration expires.

An unidentified man who discovered an original copy of the Declaration of Independence concealed between the canvas and backing of a painting he purchased for $4 at a flea market sells the document for $2.42 million at Sotheby’s. The price is reported to be the highest ever paid for a piece of printed Americana.

The space shuttle Columbia lands at Edwards Air Force Base, California, after carrying out a mission devoted to studying the biological effects of space travel.

Sir W(illiam) Arthur Lewis, 76, who shared the 1979 Nobel economics prize for his studies of economic growth in developing countries, dies in Barbados after suffering a broken hip and pneumonia.

Leroy Burrell sets a new world record in the 100-meter dash with a time of 9.90 seconds. . . . Dame Edith Margaret Emily (Peggy) Ashcroft, 83, who won the 1985 best supporting actress Oscar and a 1991 Olivier Award for lifetime achievement, dies in London.

The International Olympic Committee selects Nagano, Japan, as the site of the 1998 Winter Olympic Games.

June 12

June 13

June 14

June 15

June 16

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

208—June 17–22, 1991

June 17

World Affairs

Europe

The UN Security Council votes to force Iraq to pay the costs of eliminating its nuclear materials and its arsenals of chemical weapons and ballistic missiles. Samir K. K. alNima, Iraq’s acting representative at the UN, tells the Security Council that Iraq refuses to pay for the elimination of its weapons, but is willing to carry out the task with its own equipment under UN supervision. . . . A 130-page draft treaty is presented to foreign ministers of the EC. . . . At the AIDS conference in Italy, researchers forecast both a rapid expansion of AIDS in developing countries and a slowing of the epidemic in industrialized countries in the 1990s.

Direct negotiations among four leading Northern Ireland political parties opens in Belfast. . . . Pres. Gorbachev and the leaders of seven of the 15 Soviet constituent republics sign a new draft union treaty and send it to the federal and republic parliaments.

June 18

June 19

June 20

June 21

June 22

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

South Africa’s Parliament repeals the Population Registration Act of 1950. The law, upon which the other statutes of the apartheid system of racial separation rest, required all citizens to be registered in one of four racial categories: white, black, Indian, or “colored” (mixed-race). . . . Reports indicate that Jordan’s foreign minister, Taher Al Masri, has been named to head the new government as premier.

Asia & the Pacific Fallout from worsening eruptions of Mt. Pinatubo prompts the U.S. to evacuate 20,000 U.S. Navy and Air Force personnel and all dependents at nearby bases in the Philippines. Reports state the fallout from the eruption has caused a total of about 200 deaths and left about 100,000 people homeless. Evacuation centers in Manila, the Philippine capital, are reported to be clogged with as many as 150,000 refugees fleeing the volcano.

Palestinians involved in business and industry in the city of Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank elect 11 candidates to seats in the Hebron Chamber of Commerce. The elections are the first of its kind since 1976. . . . Iraq releases Douglas Brand, a British engineer sentenced to life in prison for alleged espionage. . . . Algerian premier Sid Ahmed Ghozali names a new cabinet, which receives qualified approval from the FIS.

Mudslides in the Chilean city of Antofagasta kill 116 people, washing away whole shantytowns. . . . The Canadian government reaches agreement with opposition members of Parliament on a plan that will suspend all exports of automatic weapons to Middle Eastern countries for at least six months.

Chilean officials announce that 51 people are still missing and 750 people are injured from the June 18 mudslide. At least 20,000 people are left homeless. . . . Suspected Colombian drug baron Pablo Escobar Gaviria surrenders to authorities hours after a national assembly rewriting Colombia’s constitution votes to ban the extradition of Colombian nationals. The reputed leader of the Medellin cocaine cartel, Escobar is formally charged with three murders.

The foreign ministers of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe hold its first high-level gathering since Nov 1990. The number of CSCE member states rises to 35 when the envoys vote to admit Albania, the only European country not in the organization. . . . Pres. Collor and Pres. Bush sign a framework agreement on relaxing trade barriers between the U.S. and the countries of the Southern Cone Common Market, which include Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay,

The last trainloads of Soviet troops and their dependents leave Hungary. . . . Reports from Romania indicate that most of the teachers who began a strike on June 13 have returned to work.

Reports confirm that, since June 8, a Kuwaiti martial-law tribunal has sentenced 21 defendants to death for collaborating with Iraqi forces during the occupation of Kuwait. The Kuwaiti tribunal sentences seven actors, poets, and songwriters to life in prison for composing or performing in pro-Iraqi propaganda. . . . King Hussein of Jordan formally announces the appointment of a new government.

At the close of the CSCE conference, the envoys reach an agreement on CSCE’s intervention during conflicts of its member nations. . . . Reports find that UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, along with the governments of France, Germany, and Jordan, urged Kuwait’s Crown Prince Saad to commute the death sentences.

The German parliament votes to move the nation’s government to Berlin from Bonn. . . . Slovenia and Croatia boycott an emergency meeting of Yugoslav leaders aimed at resolving the crisis over the federal presidency. . . . In response to the June 18 mudslide in Chile, the government of Denmark donates $10 million to help the homeless, according to reports.

The Kuwaiti tribunal sentences eight people to death for collaboration, bringing to 29 the total of death sentences passed down since trials began in May.

The U.S. and its European allies agree to station a military task force in southern Turkey near the border to deter Iraqi forces from attacking the Kurds after allied troops leave the safe zone.

The last trainloads of Soviet troops and their dependents leave Czechoslovakia.

South Africa’s Parliament approves sweeping amendments to the Internal Security Act of 1982, which the state used for years to restrict political opposition.

In Colombia, alleged Medellin cartel leaders surrender to authorities.

UN weapons experts begin new inspections of Iraqi military facilities.

James Baker becomes the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Albania. In Tirana, he is overwhelmed when a crowd estimated at 250,000 people greet him with great enthusiasm. The secretary meets with Pres. Alia and Premier Ylli Bufi and pledges $6 million in U.S. emergency aid to Albania.

The South African government, the ANC, and the Inkatha Freedom Party meet in Johannesburg to search for solutions to the violence plaguing black townships. The talks are the first involving all three sides.

After over a week of impeachment hearings, Ecuador’s Congress votes to dismiss Education Minister Alfredo Vera for allegedly misappropriating government funds.

The Australian federal cabinet bans mining at Coronation Hill in the Northern Territory. The Jawoyn tribe, the traditional owners of Coronation Hill, believe that it is a sacred site.

The Congress (I) Party of recently assassinated former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi wins a plurality of votes in Indian general elections. Pres. Ramaswamy Venkataraman names Congress (I) Party president P. V. Narasimha Rao as prime minister.

P. V. Narasimha Rao is sworn in as prime minister of India. . . . Japan partially lifts its sanctions against South Africa in response to the repeal of the Population Registration Act of 1950.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 17–22, 1991—209

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The Supreme Court rules that to challenge the constitutionality of prison conditions, inmates must prove that the conditions are the result of “deliberate indifference” by prison officials. . . . The Supreme court invalidates the governing structure of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority created in 1986 since it violates the constitutionally mandated separation of powers between the branches of government.

A U.S. District Court judge in Roanoke rules that the Virginia Military Institute, a state-supported military college in Lexington, Virginia, may continue its policy of admitting only male students.

The Supreme Court without comment lets stand a lawsuit against Kidder, Peabody & Co. The $1.7 billion suit, charging Kidder in connection with insider trading may now go to trial.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation of Chicago awards its annual MacArthur Fellowships, honoring 31 individuals in a wide range of fields. . . . Payne Stewart wins the 91st U.S. Open golf tournament at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, Minnesota.

The largest private health insurer in the U.S., Blue Cross and Blue Shield Associations, states it will begin to offer coverage of preventive medical tests. . . . The Louisiana legislature adopts the most restrictive antiabortion law in the U.S., overriding a veto by Gov. Buddy Roemer (R). It is the first time in the 20th century that the Louisiana legislature has overridden a veto. . . . Voters elect Wellington Webb (D) as Denver’s first black mayor.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin is feted by U.S. officials, including Pres. Bush, during a three-day visit to the U.S.

The House passes an amendment that will shift $13 million within the IRS to pay for audits of wealthy taxpayers and businesses. . . . The Federal Reserve’s governor David W. Mullins Jr. and chairman Alan C. Greenspan, in separate congressional testimony, find that recent statistics indicate the recession may have reached its nadir, and they predict a gradual upturn.

The California high-school mathematics teacher profiled in the 1988 movie Stand and Deliver, Jaime Escalante, leaves the school he made famous, Garfield High School in East Los Angeles. He is moving to a racially-mixed school in Sacramento, California.

Dr. Fred J. Hellinger of the Department of Health and Human Services argues that treatment of AIDS patients in the U.S. in 1991 will cost $5.8 billion, or 0.86% of total U.S. health-care spending. He estimates AIDS spending will rise to $10.4 billion in 1994.

The Pentagon announces that an internal investigation found no evidence to support a March allegation made by Col. Peck that the government is covering up data on Vietnam War POWs or MIAs. . . . The House passes a $15.2 billion foreign-aid appropriations bill.

The Agriculture Department agrees to supply Bristol-Myers Squibb with Pacific yew trees from federal forest land for the trees’ taxol, proven effective in fighting cancer. . . . The Senate overwhelmingly approves a five-year, $123 billion transportation bill gives will give states new flexibility in spending federal funds. . . . The House passes a $19.7 billion fiscal 1992 appropriations bill for the Treasury Department that also covers the Postal Service, the White House, and independent agencies.

The Supreme Court rules police looking for drug traffickers may board buses and, with permission, search luggage, without violating the Fourth Amendment. . . . The Supreme Court rules that the federal Voting Rights Act applies to judicial elections. . . . The Supreme Court upholds a state’s right to enforce a mandatory retirement age for judges.

The Bush administration agrees to abandon a plan to hold secret deportation trials for aliens suspected of terrorism. . . . Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, the leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party in South Africa, meets with Pres. Bush in Washington, D.C.

The Supreme Court rules that time limits set by federal law for bringing lawsuits for securities fraud take precedence over lengthier limits set by state law.

The DEA announces its agents seized 1,285 pounds of heroin from a ship docked at Oakland, California. It is the largest seizure of heroin ever made in the U.S. . . . The Supreme Court rules states and cities may ban totally nude dancing in efforts to protect morality and order. . . . The Supreme Court states the Constitution allows a jury to convict a defendant of first-degree murder without necessarily being unanimous on a theory of how the crime was committed.

The Supreme Court rules communities have the right to enact laws that are stricter than federal ones to restrict the use of pesticides.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

June 17

June 18

June 19

June 20

Scientists from Vanderbilt University find that a combination of two AIDS vaccines given to HIV-negative volunteer human test subjects prove effective in bolstering their immune systems. However, it is not clear whether the vaccines strengthen the immune system enough to offer protection from the AIDS virus.

Monica Seles, the top-seeded player, announces that she is withdrawing from the women’s competition at Wimbledon. She is the first seeded singles player ever to withdraw from Wimbledon after the draw was determined.

June 21

June 22

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

210—June 23–26, 1991

June 23

June 24

June 25

June 26

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

UN weapons experts are denied entry to a military base at Abu Gharib, 10 miles west of Baghdad, as they attempt to begin inspections ordered June 22. . . . The finance chiefs of the seven leading industrial democracies end a meeting in London that Japan called for as a prelude to a meeting of G-7 heads of state.

Norway’s King Harald V, 54, is blessed in a church service in Oslo and formally ascends to the throne. He becomes the third king of modern Norway, succeeding his father, King Olav, who died in January.

Anglican archbishop Trevor Huddleston, 78, the president of the British Antiapartheid Movement, returns to South Africa for the first time in 35 years.

EC finance ministers, meeting in Luxembourg, agree to establish a minimum value-added-tax rate of 15% effective January 1, 1993. The agreement is considered a major breakthrough on an issue that has remained unresolved for four years.

Mesut Yilmaz is sworn in as the new premier of Turkey. . . . Reports indicate that there have been numerous clashes between French police and crowds composed largely of immigrant youths in Les Mureaux, Toulouse, St. Etienne, Grenoble, and Narbonne.

Reports suggest that more than 6,000 refugees are refusing to return to Iraq and remain in a camp at the Turkey-Iraq border.

Rufino Tamayo, leading Mexican painter since the 1920s and a national celebrity in Mexico who has two museums named after him, dies of pneumonia in Mexico City.

Four factions warring for control of Cambodia agree to a cease-fire and a prohibition on receiving foreign arms at a meeting in the Thai town of Pattay, outside Bangkok. . . . Vietnam holds its Seventh Communist Party Congress, at which the nation’s senior leader, Communist Party secretary general Nguyen Van Linh, 76, resigns due to ill health.

UN weapons experts are again denied entry to a military base at Abu Gharib, 10 miles west of Baghdad, to inspect Iraqi arms facilities.

The neighboring northwestern republics of Slovenia and Croatia formally declare independence from Yugoslavia but hedge on actual secession. Ethnic Italians in Slovenia mount peaceful protests against the move. The Yugoslav federal Executive Council, made up of Premier Ante Markovic and senior cabinet ministers, goes into emergency session. . . . In Liverpool, England, a garbage collectors’ strike ends after an estimated 12,000 tons of garbage piles up on city streets.

In Algiers, police move into local government buildings controlled by the FIS. In response, hundreds of FIS militants attack with rocks, and the police retaliate with tear gas and ammunition, leaving at least eight rioters dead. Tanks return to the capital city. . . . The Kuwaiti government lifts the state of martial law in effect since the end of the Iraqi occupation. . . . Reports indicate that about 13,000 refugees remain in U.S.-run camps in the “safe zone” in northern Iraq.

A group of more than 100 Cree protesters form a human blockade and prevent a delegation of 15 HydroQuebec officials from leaving the airport at Whapmagoostui, Quebec, to attend public hearings in the area.

UN weapons inspectors gain entry into an Iraqi military base but note that crates seen earlier have been moved from the area. The experts inform the UN Security Council about that problem and about their exclusions on June 23 and June 25. U.S. intelligence officials show the Security Council classified reconnaissance photographs that back reports claiming that Iraq is concealing nuclear equipment from UN inspectors.

After the June 25 declaration from the Yugoslav republics, gun battles involving Croats and ethnic Serbs in the Krajina region leave at least five people dead. In Slovenia, civilians block roads to prevent army units from reaching federal customs posts. In response, the federal government effectively shuts down the airport in Ljubljana, and Yugoslav military jets buzz the city. . . . Britain’s Court of Appeal overturns the convictions of the so-called Maguire Seven, found guilty in 1976 of running a bomb factory for the outlawed IRA. It is the latest in a series of reversed convictions relating to IRA crimes in England. . . . Lloyd’s of London, the world’s oldest insurance market, announces its first economic loss since 1967. . . . Neo-Nazis demonstrate in Stuttgart, Germany, at a court appearance of Josef Schwammberger, an alleged Nazi concentration camp commandant. . . . The French government reports that unemployment in May reached its highest recorded total.

Kuwait’s premier, Crown Prince Saad al-Abdallah Al Sabah, commutes the death sentences of all 29 people who were convicted by a martial-law tribunal of collaborating with Iraqi forces during the occupation of Kuwait after widespread international criticism. . . . South African riot police prevent 300 black high-school students from occupying a vacant white school in the white Johannesburg suburb of Orange Grove.

In Quebec, Canada, after the June 25 demonstrations, Chairman Jacobs leaves Whapmagoostui and is jeered by a group of 200 Crees as he boards his plane.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 23–26, 1991—211

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The AMA gathers for its annual convention and addresses the issue of how to handle the problem of doctors infected with the AIDS virus. . . . More than a week of renewed controversy over John Sununu’s travel leads the White House to impose new rules requiring Sununu to arrange any travel for political purposes through the White House Office of Administration.

The INS announces plans to begin issuing civil fines of from $250 to $5,000 against anyone caught buying, selling, or using phony identification documents.

The Supreme Court tightens the restrictions on the rights of state prison inmates to appeal their cases in federal courts. . . . The Supreme Court states that the First Amendment does not protect the news media from suits over the breach of a promise of confidentiality made to a news source.

After renewed controversy, Sen. Albert Gore Jr. (D, Tenn.) calls for a formal investigation into allegations of a 1980 deal with Iran regarding arms and hostages. . . . U.S. representatives receive from North Korean officials the remains of 11 U.S. servicemen killed in the Korean War on the 41st anniversary of the start of the war.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle A Mazda becomes the first Japanese car to win the Le Mans (France) 24-hour race. The winning drivers are Bertrand Gachot of Belgium, Johnny Herbert of Britain, and Volker Weidler of Germany.

The EPA announces the first shoreline cleanup in the Superfund program has been completed with a project in Tacoma, Washington. The agency also announces an agreement has been signed which compels polluters to pay not only for damages but also for the restoration fish and wildlife habitats. . . . The International Brotherhood of Teamsters opens the first democratic nominating convention in the union’s history.

AMA delegates condemn federal regulations outlawing abortion counseling by doctors in federally funded clinics. . . . An Islamic cleric, Siraj Wahaj, delivers the daily prayer at the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. Wahaj is believed to be the first Muslim to have done so. . . . The bipartisan National Commission on Children issues sweeping recommendations that include a $1,000per-child tax credit for all families and a national health insurance plan. If implemented, the plan is expected to cost the government between $52 and $56 billion a year.

Reports show that a provision in the 1989 S&L bailout law requiring foreclosed properties of a certain value to be offered as low-income housing has fallen far short of its goals. . . . The House passes a $12.7 billion fiscal 1992 spending bill for the Department of the Interior and related agencies.

The policy-making AMA House of Delegates rejects mandatory AIDS testing of health workers, but the delegates pass a resolution calling for routine, voluntary testing. . . . A Florida appeals court overturns the conviction of a Hispanic Miami police officer, William Lozano, for the deaths of two black youths and orders a new trial. The deaths of the two youths ignited two nights of rioting in Miami in 1989.

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) cancels a speech that Labor Secretary Lynn Martin was scheduled to give at the union’s national convention in San Francisco to protest the Bush administration’s opposition to legislation that bans employers from hiring permanent replacements for striking workers. . . . The House approves a $204 billion spending bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education— the largest of its appropriations bills. . . . The House passes a fiscal 1992 appropriations bill for the District of Columbia. . . . The House passes a fiscal 1992 Agriculture Department appropriations bill.

Philip (Rusty) Rastelli, 73, reputed former boss of the Bonanno crime family, dies of liver cancer in NYC. . . . James P. Lyke is installed as the archbishop of Atlanta, which makes him the nation’s highestranking black in the Roman Catholic Church.

NASA reveals that the U.S.’s next series of weather satellites, currently under development, contains serious flaws that may affect the nation’s ability to obtain vital readings. NASA states it is considering several emergency plans. . . . Michael Heidelberger, 103, a pathologist and biochemist who was known as the father of modern immunology and won numerous awards, including the Louis Pasteur Gold Medal in 1960, dies after a stroke in NYC.

June 23

June 24

June 25

The University of Utah announces that it selected the first non-Mormon president in its 141-year history. The new president, Arthur K. Smith, is an Episcopalian who was provost of the University of South Carolina.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 26

212—June 27–July 1, 1991

June 27

June 28

Europe

Jean-Jacques Bechio of the Ivory Coast, current holder of the UN Security Council’s rotating presidency, demands assurances from Iraq that inspectors will be given access to all Iraqi nuclear material in response to the June 26 report.

Fierce battles erupt throughout Slovenia, with the republic’s defense ministry claiming that at least 100 Slovenes were killed or wounded. Yugoslav armored and mechanizedinfantry units, backed by helicopter gunships and jets, move into Slovenia and Croatia. . . . The Polish government announces a privatization program that will make each adult citizen a shareholder in industry, one of the most ambitious privatization schemes ever unveiled by a country. . . . Very Reverend Lord George Fielden MacLeod of Fuinary, 96, Presbyterian Church of Scotland minister who founded the ecumenical Iona Community, on the Scottish island of Iona in 1938 and won the 1989 John M. Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, dies in Edinburgh.

South African police net 4,593 suspects in a nationwide crime sweep dubbed “Operation Blitz.” The alleged offenses range from murder to drunk driving.

The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon), the Sovietled, nine-member trade alliance founded in 1949, officially disbands. . . . The leaders of the 12 EC nations meet in Luxembourg. . . . UN inspectors report that when they spotted a convoy of trucks leaving an Iraqi base, Iraqi soldiers fired warning shots at them. . . . In response to the Yugoslavia crisis, German foreign minister Genscher announces that the CSCE needs to trigger its crisis-intervention mechanism.

Representatives from Slovenia and Croatia meet with Yugoslav federal premier Markovic and three EC foreign ministers. Slovenia agrees to a three-month suspension of its independence declaration in order to halt a federal military intervention. . . . Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher announces she will not seek reelection to Parliament, where she has served since 1959. . . . U.S. military forces complete their withdrawal from Greece after 44 years. . . . French and British workers link the third and final tunnel under the English Channel.

Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq announce that they have rejected an autonomy agreement offered by Iraq, and they state they will attempt to renegotiate with Iraqi government officials.

The republic of Croatia accepts the cease-fire plan signed June 29 by Slovenia and the federal Yugoslavia Premier. . . . A gas explosion and fire in a coal mine near the Ukrainian city of Donetsk kills at least 30 miners. . . . Queen Elizabeth II pays her first visit to Northern Ireland since 1977 under intense security.

More than 5,000 Soviet Jews emigrate to Israel in a two-day massive airlift. They join more than 20,000 Soviet Jews who emigrated in June before the Soviet Union’s new immigration laws would go effect. . . . Relief workers report that at least 1,200 stateless Arabs fled to Iraq from a refugee camp in Abdali. The Arabs are believed to have been conscripted into serving in the Iraqi occupation forces and fear they will be tried as collaborators in Kuwait.

After repeated problems, a UN negotiating team begins talks with senior Iraqi officials in Baghdad about ensuring future Iraqi cooperation in the inspection of its nuclear weapon capabilities.

In accordance with the cease-fire signed June 29 and 30, Yugoslav premier Markovic issues an order for military units to return to their barracks, and Stipe Mesic is voted in as the head of state at a meeting of the federal collective presidency. However, in Croatia, clashes between Croats and ethnic Serbs resume.

As tensions in Algeria escalate, two top FIS officials are arrested and charged with “fomenting, organizing, triggering and leading an armed conspiracy against the security of the state.” . . . The two principal factions in Liberia’s civil war meet in Yamoussoukro, the capital of neighboring Ivory Coast.

The Warsaw Pact, created in 1955, formally disbands at a summit of leaders and foreign ministers in Prague, Czechoslovakia. . . . The leaders of the nations in the 13member Caribbean Community and Common Market (Caricom) holds its annul summit. . . . Representatives of the CSCE countries discuss the Yugoslav crisis. . . . Foreign Ministers Poos, van den Broek, and De Michelis return to Yugoslavia and announce that the EC is prepared to send observers to monitor the cease-fire.

In Slovenia, the official death toll, including federal soldiers, is at least 40. Slovenia demands that the trapped federal military units surrender their weapons and equipment before returning to their barracks, a condition which is not part of the June 28 cease-fire. The Yugoslav federal army begins calling up thousands of reservists. . . . The Supreme Soviet approves a law that will for the first time allow the sale of state-owned enterprises in the USSR.

Lebanese government troops enter the port city of Sidon. When PLO gunmen occupying strategic positions refuse to turn over their posts to the army, sporadic exchanges of gunfire begins. . . . Delegates from 24 of Ethiopia’s political and ethnic groups gather in Addis Ababa to set up a broad-based transitional government to administer the country until free elections are held. . . . In Algeria, the official count tallies at least 40 dead, 300 wounded, and more than 700 arrested.

June 29

June 30

July 1

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Canada, a review commission responsible for assessing the environmental impact of some elements of the planned Great Whale hydroelectric project in Quebec cancels all scheduled public hearings after demonstrations on June 25 and June 26.

In Vietnam, the Seventh Communist Party Congress closes. Do Muoi, 74, is named to replace Linh as party chief, and the resignations of seven additional Politburo members are announced.

Some of the worst forest fires in Quebec’s history force the evacuation of 2,000 Montagnais Indians from the Betsiamites reserve and the 1,860 residents of the town of Ragueneau.

Workers at Chile’s Chuquicamata mine, the largest copper mine in the world, go on strike.

The Bank of Japan reduces its basic interest rate for the first time since 1987.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 27–July 1, 1991—213

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

A GAO report concludes that the 1990 census missed 9.7 million people. . . . The Supreme Court rules a Michigan law requiring a life sentence without parole for the possession of 650 grams of cocaine does not violate the Eighth Amendment’s protections against cruel and unusual punishment. . . . Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first black American to sit on the Supreme Court, announces his retirement after 24 years of service. In Payne v. Tennessee, the final decision in which Marshall votes, the court rules that the use of evidence about a victim and the impact of a victim’s death is permissible during the sentencing phase of a capital murder trial. In his final dissent on that case, Marshall blasts the court’s conservative majority when he writes that “Power, not reason, is the new currency of this court’s decision-making.”

Pres. Bush signs framework trade agreements with Nicaragua and Panama and a debt-reduction agreement with Chile.

America West Airlines files for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. bankruptcy code. . . . The Supreme Court rules that the U.S. Tax Court has the authority to appoint special temporary trial judges to handle much of its work, including taxshelter cases.

The Justice Department blocks the Louisiana state senate’s redistricting plan on the grounds that the plans discriminate against blacks. . . . In Miami, police shoot a black suspect, which prompts bands of black youths to pelt police and press with rocks and bottles. . . . The FDA orders a subsidiary of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. to conduct tests on its polyurethanecoated breast implants, which were pulled off the market since they release a carcinogenic substance.

A federal District Court jury in NYC finds a veteran INS agent, Joseph Occhipinti, guilty of civil-rights violations and of making false statements against recent immigrants.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approves a rule allowing nuclear power plants whose 40year operating licenses are expiring to apply for renewals of up to 20 years. . . . The U.S. second Circuit Court of Appeals partially reverses the convictions of five Princeton/ Newport L.P. officials and a former Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. trader. The case was the only one in which securities-firm officials were convicted under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle A Pennsylvania doctor is convicted by a federal court jury in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on 12 counts of selling anabolic steroids and other controlled substances to professional wrestlers and a weightlifter. The trial of Dr. George Zahorian is reportedly the first under a 1988 federal law that outlaws distributing steroids for nonmedical purposes.

An earthquake rocks southern California, damaging hundreds of buildings, killing two people, and injuring several dozen others. The quake, measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale, has an epicenter 71⁄2 miles northeast of Sierra Madre in the San Gabriel Mountains.

Pope John Paul II elevates 23 Roman Catholic bishops to the rank of cardinal, including the first known Chinese cardinal since 1949. . . . Former Beatle Paul McCartney, 49, attends the premier of his first work of classical music, Liverpool Oratorio.

Judge Robert Collins of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana is convicted of accepting a bribe from a drug dealer. He is the first federal judge to be found guilty of taking a bribe and the fourth in U.S. history to be found guilty of a crime while in office. . . . Former rep. Mario Biaggi (D, N.Y.) is released due to poor health from a federal prison in Fort Worth, Tex., where he served 27 months of an eight-year term for his role in the Wedtech scandal.

June 27

June 28

June 29

The American Hospital Association notes that Medicaid payments in the average state cover only 78% of hospitals’ costs for providing a service. . . . At its annual convention, the American Nurses Association approves a resolution opposing mandatory AIDS testing of nurses and patients. Voluntary AIDS testing and disclosure is endorsed.

The Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission, chaired by former Rep. James Courter (R, N.J.), completes its recommendations, which include the closing of 34 domestic military installations and the realignment of 48 others as well as an administrative reorganization of the Army Corps of Engineers, which would eliminate 2,600 jobs. The report sparks off heated debate.

Pres. Bush nominates conservative judge Clarence Thomas, 43, of the U.S. District of Columbia Court of Appeals, to fill the vacated seat of Thurgood Marshall. . . . Reports show that the sentence of another Wedtech defendant, former Bronx Borough president Stanley Simon, has been reduced to three years from five.

In a letter to Defense Secretary Richard Cheney, 17 top media executives and a total of 20 news organizations denounce the Defense Department’s curbs on the press during the Persian Gulf war.

Several states and localities pass budgets within minutes of midnight, but at least nine states miss the deadline.

June 30

Michael Landon (born Eugene Maurice Orowitz), 54, actor who starred in Bonanza (1959–73), Little House on the Prairie (1974–83) and Highway to Heaven (1984–89), dies of pancreatic and liver cancer in Malibu, California.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 1

214—July 2–7, 1991

World Affairs

July 2

July 3

July 4

July 5

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The June 28 cease-fire in Slovenia falls apart when rebel and Yugoslav military forces resume combat. The army reports seven federal soldiers killed. Yugoslav federal president stipe Mesic and Vasil Turpukovski put together an emergency cease-fire plan that is immediately accepted. . . . A modern digital telephone network in eastern Germany goes into operation, replacing a system dating from the 1920s.

In Lebanon, fighting intensifies, despite repeated calls by PLO leaders for a cease-fire. . . . Bahrain announces it will allow foreignowned companies to conduct their own business operations in the island nation in an attempt to bolster its Persian Gulf war-damaged economy. . . . Housing Minister Sharon dedicates a new settlement at Mevo Dotan in the West Bank and pledges to expand Israel’s settlement efforts.

The Americas

A UN team estimates that between 40,000 and 100,000 Shi’ites are hiding in the marshlands along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

In Slovenia, except for one reported skirmish, the combatants honor the July 2 cease-fire. . . . British secretary of state for Northern Ireland Peter Brooke calls off talks between Northern Ireland political parties on the region’s future governance after unsuccessful meetings. . . . Ettore Caprioli, the Italian translator of Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses, is stabbed in his apartment in Milan, Italy. Caprioli states that his assailant claimed to be Iranian and asked for Rushdie’s address. . . . RU-486 is cleared for use in Britain.

CSCE representatives agree to send a mission to Yugoslavia to facilitate a peaceful political solution to the crisis there.

The Yugoslav collective presidency, with Slovene representative Janez Drnovsek absent, orders Slovenia to relinquish control of all 27 of the customs posts on Slovenia’s external borders by noon of July 7.

Lebanese government troops drive guerrillas away from their posts, and PLO leaders agree to end their resistance. Reports state that three Lebanese soldiers, 65 guerrillas, and several civilians were killed during the fighting. . . . . Iraq’s National Assembly enacts a law that permits the existence of opposition parties but gives Iraqi president Hussein and his cabinet the right to dissolve any party that “undermines the security of the state” or “national unity.”

Colombian president Cesar Gaviria Trujillo lifts a state of siege that has been in effect since the 1984 assassination of Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla by drug traffickers. Four additional members of Escobar’s Medellin cocaine cartel surrender to Colombian authorities.

Regulators in seven different countries take joint action to shut down Bank of Commerce and Credit International, alleging systematic fraud at the institution. BCCI, in operation for 19 years, has offices in 69 nations. . . . Iraqi president Hussein repeats an earlier promise to give UN inspectors “prompt and unimpeded access” to sites from which Iraqi troops had previously barred them. . . . The foreign ministers of the EC suspend economic aid and arms sales to Yugoslavia.

The Supreme Soviet gives final passage to a law easing restrictions on foreign investment. . . . An appeals court in the Netherlands overturns the conviction of an alleged IRA member in the 1990 killing of two Australian tourists in Roermond. . . . The Bundesrat, the upper chamber of Germany’s parliament, votes to remain in Bonn rather than join the planned move of other government bodies to Berlin.

Delegates from 24 of Ethiopia’s political and ethnic groups close their meeting, at which they wrote a charter that endorses basic human rights, national elections, and the right of Ethiopia’s numerous regional and ethnic groups to create their own countries. In addition, they created an 87-seat legislature, called the Council of Representatives. . . . Nelson Mandela is elected unopposed to the top position of ANC president, replacing the ailing Oliver Tambo.

Colombia’s new constitution takes effect. . . . Native leaders reach an agreement with Canadian constitutional affairs minister Joe Clark on a plan to allow Indians to conduct their own public hearings and constituent assemblies on reform of the Canadian constitution.

Asia & the Pacific

In the wake of Colombia’s decision to halt extradition of drug traffickers, a group in the Medellin cartel, known as the Extraditables, announces that they have disbanded their military structure and are “ending all actions against those we considered enemies because of extradition.”

Crisis talks between Yugoslavia’s collective presidency and Slovenia, held in the Slovene capital, Ljubljana, break off without a resolution. . . . Serbian president Milosevic states in a televised speech that any republic that wishes to leave Yugoslavia may do so, but only if the secession does not affect ethnic Serbs. Without mentioning Croatia by name, he warns that the army will defend the rights of ethnic Serbs throughout the country.

July 6

The Yugoslav federal government and the republic of Slovenia agree to a three-month truce and talks on a new federal structure. . . . In Croatia, Croats and ethnic Serbs engage in a battle that lasts more than eight hours. For the first time, the Croatian militia uses artillery against the Serbs’ automatic weapons. At least five are reported killed, and it is not disclosed how many Serbs die. . . . Two IRA suspects escape from Brixton jail in South London.

July 7

In Algeria, an FIS official, Mohammed Said, is arrested during a news conference in which he announces that he is temporarily assuming the party’s leadership. . . . King Hussein of Jordan cancels most of the provisions of martial law in effect since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. . . . Lebanese troops in Sidon disarm guerrillas, but the Israeli government asserts that Israel will not withdraw its troops from the “security zone” in southern Lebanon.

Forbes magazines hits the stands with its annual list of the world’s billionaires, and it puts Taikichiro Mori of Japan, whose holdings are estimated at $15 billion, at the top.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 2–7, 1991—215

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The Justice Department blocks the redistricting plan of both houses of the Mississippi legislature on the grounds that it discriminates against blacks. . . . Debate over the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court continues, with particular attention drawn to his attitudes toward civil and abortion rights.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The Connecticut government shuts down as it could not pass a budget by July 1. . . . The Postal Service Board of Governors rejects the postal increases cleared in February.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Lee Remick, 55, actress who was nominated for an Oscar in 1963, dies of cancer in Los Angeles. . . . At a rock concert in St. Louis, the heavy-metal rock group Guns N’ Roses walks off the stage, sparking a riot involving 3,000 fans. Some 60 people are injured, and 16 are arrested.

IBM and Apple Computer announce that they have signed a letter of intent to form an alliance. The tentative agreement will create joint ventures to develop new software and microprocessors to reduce the current differences between the two companies’ computer systems.

The National Civil Rights Museum is dedicated in Memphis. The museum, housed in the former Lorraine Motel where civil-rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, is scheduled to open to the public in August. . . . The Census Bureau reports that during the 1980s, the number of black Americans living in the metropolitan North and Midwest declined relative to the number living in economically more active areas in the South and West.

July 2

July 3

Scientists note that the volume of ice in the Arctic Ocean declined by 2% between 1978 and 1987. The study’s authors suggest the phenomenon is a possible indication of global warming but caution that their work is not conclusive because it covers a relatively short time span.

The National Organization for Women (NOW) and a number of influential liberal groups announce their opposition to the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. . . . Reports indicate that the grave of Ryan White, an 18-yearold Indiana boy who had gained national attention in his fight against AIDS, has been desecrated for the fourth time.

July 4

The Firm by John Grisham tops the bestseller list. . . . Howard Nemerov, 71, 1978 Pulitzer Prizewinning poet who served as poet laureate of the U.S., 1988–90, dies of cancer in University City, Missouri. . . . Mildred Dunnock, 90, nominated for two Academy Awards in 1951 and 1956, dies in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts.

The House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations issues a report that finds “serious leadership failures” in the EPA and charges the agency’s watchdog office with neglecting to investigate possible waste and fraud in $8.6 billion worth of government contracts.

At the All England Tennis Championships at Wimbledon, Steffi Graf of Germany takes the women’s singles title. In women’s doubles, Larisa Savchenko and Natalya Zvereva of the Soviet Union win, and the men’s doubles title goes to John Fitzgerald of Australia and Anders Jarryd of Sweden.

The National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union, votes overwhelmingly to oppose standardized achievement tests for U.S. students.

The U.S. national team wins the Gold Cup soccer tournament. . . Nigel Mansell of Great Britain wins the French Grand Prix. . . Britain’s John Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Smylie win the mixed doubles while Michael Stich of Germany wins the men’s finals of the All England Tennis Championships at Wimbledon.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 5

July 6

July 7

216—July 8–13, 1991

July 8

July 9

July 10

July 11

July 12

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Iraq admits to the UN that it has been conducting clandestine programs to produce enriched uranium, a key element in nuclear weapons. UN officials state that Iraq’s new report lists equipment, material, and research sites that are not included in earlier Iraqi inventories.

British prime minister Major outlines plans for the creation of a unified British Environmental Protection Agency. . . . In an address to the Austrian parliament, Premier Franz Vranitzky offers a formal apology for Austria’s role in the Holocaust.

In Madagascar, a general strike begins after nearly a month of rallies and job actions. . . . hundreds of members of the prodemocracy opposition in Kuwait rally at the home of former parliamentary speaker Ahmed al-Saadun. . . . The Times of London cites UN officials who claim that 18 Iraqi army generals and senior officers were executed in June for plotting to overthrow Iraqi president Hussein.

Representatives of the U.S., the Soviet Union, China, Great Britain, and France reach a broad agreement to seek the elimination of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. . . . Britain releases its tally of allied combat deaths in the Persian Gulf War. It indicates that there were a total of 223 allied combat deaths, with the U.S. losing the most soldiers (147) and Kuwait the fewest (1).

Reports show that Slovenia released 91 captured federal army officers in compliance with the EC truce. . . . Bulgaria agrees to shut down two RBMK-1000 reactors at its only nuclear power plant in September, on the condition that the West help the country to develop alternative sources of power.

Algeria’s parliament approves a program of austere economic reforms. . . . Despite protests that the group is merely a “propaganda organ” for the ruling Sabah family, Kuwait’s 75-member national council meets for the first time since the invasion of the emirate by Iraq in Aug. 1990. . . . Lebanese troops begin rounding up guerrillas and searching for firearms in Sidon and the Palestinian settlements, and they threaten to arrest anyone caught with a weapon.

Officials estimate that losses from the July 5 closing of BCCI will add up to at least $5 billion.

Twelve people are reported killed and scores injured in clashes between Kurds and Turkish security forces in eastern Turkey. . . . Slovenia’s parliament approves the July 7 truce accord. . . . Boris Yeltsin is inaugurated as the president of the Russian republic.

The UN sets up a food-distribution center in Hammar in southern Iraq to aid Shi’ite Muslims hiding in nearby marshes after their uprising against Iraqi president Hussein. . . . The U.S. Defense Department announces that Pres. Bush has approved a list of about 20 Iraqi military targets that can be attacked by U.S. aircraft if Iraq does not cooperate fully with efforts to dismantle its nuclear weapons program.

Switzerland removes limits on capital exports to South Africa.

A charter jet carrying Nigerian Moslems home from a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia crashes while attempting to make an emergency landing at King Abdel-Aziz International Airport. All 247 passengers and 14 crew members on board are killed in the accident, reported to be the 10th worst in aviation history. . . . In Kuwait, a massive explosion and fire leave at least 50 U.S. and six British troops wounded.

The Peruvian interior ministry states 10 members of the police patrol involved in the July 9 plane shooting are being held pending an investigation. . . . In Canada, reports state that a three-judge panel of the Alberta Court of Appeal has issued a precedent-setting ruling declaring that environmental cleanup must take priority over repayment of creditors in the case of a bankrupt oil company.

Since the rural southeast of China has been hit by over a month of severe flooding, Chinese officials break with precedent and appeal for international aid to help with the situation.

Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, the UN’s chief officer for refugee-relief in Iraq, calls for the international community to ease its sanctions against Iraq so that the country can buy food and medicine. . . . Allied forces begin to withdraw from the “safe zone” in northern Iraq as officials announce conditions that the allies will impose on Iraq to protect the Kurds after their withdrawal. . . . The U.S. confirms that U.S. troops will join with troops from Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Belgium, and the Netherlands to take part in Operation Poised Hammer, the deployment military forces in Turkey to protect the Kurds.

In London, at least 30 Kurdish protesters storm the Turkish embassy and hold it for two hours before surrendering to police in response to the July 10 deaths in Turkey. Protests are also reported in the Netherlands town of Deventer and the Belgian capital, Brussels. . . . In Bulgaria, 309 parliamentary deputies vote in favor of a new constitution. Thirty-nine right-wing lawmakers, all belonging to factions of the UDF, do not vote, since they started a political boycott May 14 over a demand that new national elections be held.

In a referendum, Mauritanians vote overwhelmingly in favor of a new constitution that will widen their political freedom.

Guerrillas kill three technicians at a Japanese-funded farm in Huaral, 40 miles north of Lima, Peru. The rebels bomb buildings and machinery and spray-paint anti-Japanese statements on the walls of the compound.

Hitoshi Igarashi, the Japanese translator of Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses, is found stabbed to death. Rushdie, in hiding since 1989, issues a statement expressing condolences to Igarashi’s family and urging Western governments to pressure Iran to lift Khomeini’s death edict.

Peruvian interior minister General Victor Malca announces that four members of a police counterinsurgency patrol have been fired for their involvement in shooting down a plane on July 9.

Reports indicate that flooding in China threatens to reach cities in the region, the largest of which is Shanghai. Workers feverishly dig ditches to arrest the progress of the waters.

Reports show that Chinese authorities have banned the sale of counterculture T shirts that are condemned by the Peking Daily newspaper as spiritually “unhealthy.”

As many as 17 people die when Peruvian national police, using automatic weapons, shoot down a commercial passenger airplane as it takes off from an airstrip in the Amazon jungle. . . . A commission of the Nicaraguan National Assembly recommends the repeal of two property laws passed by the former Sandinista National Liberation Front government that award ownership of large property holdings to Sandinista loyalists.

The Peruvian army speculates that the police may have mistaken the plane shot down July 9 for a drugsmuggling aircraft.

July 13

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 8–13, 1991—217

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

In response to the June 30 report from the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission, eight members of Congress file a federal lawsuit to block the Philadelphia closures. They are joined in the suit by the city of Philadelphia and the state of Pennsylvania.

An independent commission releases a scathing report concerning brutality and racism in the Los Angeles Police Department in the wake of the beating Rodney King. The commission finds that the LAPD possesses “an organizational culture that emphasizes crime control over crime prevention” and that “LAPD officers are encouraged to command and confront, not to communicate.”

A former CIA official, Alan D. Fiers Jr., pleads guilty to two counts of deceiving Congress and admits he knew about an illegal operation to resupply the Nicaraguan contra rebels months before the Iran-contra scandal broke in November 1986.

A government task force reports that Medicaid costs will rise to $200 billion from $72 billion between 1990 and 1996. . . . Stanley Simon is released from prison after his sentence for racketeering in the Wedtech scandal was reduced.

Pres. Bush lifts U.S. trade and investment sanctions against South Africa in place since 1986. . . . Pres. Bush approves and sent to Congress the recommendations made by the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission June 30.

The Congressional Black Caucus, a 26-member organization of black members of the House of Representatives, votes to oppose Clarence Thomas’s nomination to the Supreme Court. . . . The Senate approves an anticrime bill that will establish a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases and broaden the number of federal crimes covered by the death penalty.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Mary Bacon, 43, one of the first women to gain success as a jockey on the thoroughbred racing circuit, whose career declined after she publicly attended a Ku Klux Klan rally in 1975, dies of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Fort Worth, Texas, after suffering from cancer.

A coalition of 14 professional scientific societies warn that a proposed space station is a “threat to the future of American science” because it will drain funds from numerous smaller research programs. In a letter to senators, the coalition also questions the scientific merit of the station.

The American League wins Major League Baseball’s annual All-Star game over the National League. . . . The International Olympic Committee lifts a 21-year-old boycott on South Africa due to its recent advances in abolishing its system of racial discrimination. The move clears the way for South Africa’s participation in the 1992 Olympic Games.

A NYC Court of Appeals overturns the conviction of John Mulheren Jr. on charges involving securities fraud. . . . Reports show that the Forest Service halted sales of logging rights in the Sierra Nevadas, pending a study on the California spotted owl. . . . Pres. Bush announces that he is appointing Alan Greenspan to a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. The Senate Banking Committee confirms Lawrence Lindsey to fill a seat on the Federal Reserve Board.

The Journal of the American Medical Association finds that low doses of aspirin are effective in preventing pregnant women from developing high blood pressure and in reducing their risk of giving birth to lowweight babies.

Gerome Ragni, 48, actor and coauthor of the book and lyrics to the musical Hair, dies of cancer in New York City.

A settlement is announced on a Justice Department lawsuit against Florida over preserving two portions of the Everglades controlled by the federal government. . . . Aluminum Co. of America (Alcoa) pleads guilty to violating state pollution regulations and agrees to pay a total of $7.5 million in criminal and civil penalties. The $3.75 million criminal fine is called the largest ever imposed in the U.S. for hazardous waste offenses.

A total solar eclipse is visible across parts of Central and South America and Hawaii.

The CDC reports that 24% of men and 27% of women are “significantly overweight.”. . . A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., upholds the 1990 misdemeanor cocaine possession conviction of the capital’s former mayor, Marion Barry, but directs the judge in the case to resentence Barry.

July 8

July 9

July 10

July 11

Bishop Francis John Mugavero, 77, Roman Catholic priest who served bishop of Brooklyn, 1968–90, dies of a heart attack in East Hampton, New York. . . . The premiere of the film Boyz N the Hood sparks violence in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Seattle, Jersey City, Tuscaloosa, and other cities. In riots, one man is shot to death in Riverdale, Illinois.

Reports show the National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, has formally endorsed NASA’s planned Earth Observing System, a network of orbiting satellites that will monitor changes in the global environment.

July 12

July 13

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

218—July 14–19, 1991

July 14

July 15

July 16

July 17

July 18

July 19

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

Iraq orders UN relief workers to abandon a food-distribution center set up July 11 in Hammar in southern Iraq.

A new Bulgarian constitution, the country’s fourth since 1879, takes effect. In protest, 23 of the 39 lawmakers boycotting Parliament since May 14 go on hunger strikes. . . . Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas kill nine civilians in the village of Harmancik in Turkey in response to the July 10 deaths.

At the St. Kizito secondary school in Tigania, Kenya, 71 girls are raped and 19 killed when boys attack a dormitory. . . . In Bophuthatswana, ANC president Nelson Mandela visits 23 imprisoned coup plotters and convinces them to end a hunger strike. . . . Israel lifts sanctions it imposed on South Africa in 1987.

Allied forces complete their withdrawal from Iraq, so the allies have no regular troops on Iraqi soil for the first time since the offensive at the end of the Persian Gulf war. . . . Leaders of the Group of Seven (G-7) major industrial democracies hold their annual summit. . . . The presidents of Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Costa Rica hold the 10th Conference of Central American Presidents. The nations invite Panama, an observer, to become an active member. . . . A UN delegation recommends that Iraq be allowed to sell some of its oil or regain access to its assets to pay for imported food and medicine.

Teams of observers from the EC nations arrive in Yugoslavia to oversee compliance with the July 7 truce. . . . Reports indicate that in Europe, the unemployment rate rose by one-tenth of a percentage point in May to 8.7%, the highest level in two years. . . . Protesters in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, assault Aleksandr Karakachanov, the city’s mayor and a supporter of the constitution signed July 14. . . . . A fire of unknown origin breaks out in a nuclear-waste depot near Kozlodui. The plant is inspected by a team of IAEA experts who report no radiation leaks.

The Angolan government announces a general amnesty for persons jailed for crimes against state security through May 31, the date on which the country’s 16-year-old civil war formally ended. . . . Soldiers loyal to Lt. Col. Toure, the leader of Mali’s transitional government, block an attempt to overthrow him from dissident troops at Mali’s main military base in Kati. It is put down quickly and without bloodshed. The alleged leader of the uprising, Interior Minister Lamine Diabira, and eight other officers are arrested. Afterward, thousands of Bamako residents march in the streets to signal support for Toure.

The G-7 leaders back the possible use of force to prevent Iraq from building nuclear weapons, the ongoing U.S. diplomacy to bring peace to the Middle East, and an international arms registry to limit conventional weapons proliferation in the region. They issue a communiqué that calls for the international community to build on a “new spirit of cooperation” that has emerged with the end of the cold war.

Romanian president Ion Iliescu signs a law that places curbs on adoptions.

Mozambique abolishes its powerful security service. . . . Reports show a 6,000-man force made up of the Angolan army and UNITA, the government’s former adversary in civil war, has mounted an offensive against the separatist Cabinda Enclave Liberation Front (FLEC). . . . The Algerian army announces it is lifting its state of emergency. . . . In South Africa, Winnie Mandela is granted the right to appeal her May conviction.

UN inspectors in Baghdad state that Iraqi officials allowed them to tour facilities at Tarmia, near Baghdad, and Shaqrat, near Mosul in northern Iraq. . . . After the close of the G-7 session, leaders meet with Soviet president Gorbachev, and they offer the Soviet Union a package of technical assistance and moral support, rather than direct economic aid. . . . Soviet president Gorbachev and U.S. president Bush reach final agreement on a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), concluding nine years of negotiations.

Riot police clash with stone-throwing youths in Sofia, Bulgaria, after the youths disrupt a proconstitution rally sponsored by the Socialists. . . . Reports suggest that, for the first time since 1973, France’s inflation rate has fallen below that of Germany.

In Erbil, violence erupts when Iraqi secret police fire tear gas and bullets at Kurdish demonstrators.

Colombia and Cuba agree to reestablish consular relations. . . . Colombia, Venezuela, and Mexico approve a free-trade pact that will eliminate trade barriers, create a free-trade zone, and encourage multinational business ventures within the group.

In Guadalajara, Mexico, 23 leaders hold the First Ibero-American Summit Conference. . . . Iraq formally pledges it has disclosed all of its nuclear equipment, but many officials express doubts. The IAEA formally condemns Iraq for concealing its efforts to develop nuclear weapons, the first nation cited for violating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which Iraq signed in 1972.

The Yugoslav federal collective presidency orders the national military to withdraw from Slovenia for the mediated three-month “cooling-off” period. . . . A leading Belgian politician, Andre Cools, is murdered in the city of Liege.

The head of an Israeli judicial inquiry reports that police carelessness provoked the Oct. 1990 riot at Temple Mount, and that the use of live ammunition by the police during the riot was unjustified. . . . Kurdish guerrillas and Iraqi soldiers exchange gunfire in Sulaymaniyah. . . . Iran announces that France has agreed to pay $1 billion in outstanding debt and interest charges on an Iranian loan, which settles a 12-year dispute.

Argentina and Brazil sign a nuclear accord restricting all atomic research to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. . . . It is confirmed that Chile and Cuba have agreed to a restoration of diplomatic relations.

A major political scandal erupts in South Africa after the government admits it made secret payments to the Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party. The president of Inkatha, Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, denies having known about the secret payments. . . . UN officials estimate that as many as 500 people were killed or wounded in the fighting in Erbil and Sulaymaniyah in Iraq. Debate over who instigated the violence continues.

For the first time in its 30-year history, Nicaragua’s Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) holds a congress of delegates to elect officers and discuss party policy.

In response to Iraq’s July 14 order and fighting with Shi’ites, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council tell Iraq to withdraw its troops from the area and warn that the closing of the Hammar post violates UN Resolution 688, which requires that Iraq give humanitarian agencies full access to any Iraqis in need of assistance.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

A strike by miners at the world’s largest copper mine ends when workers sign a two-year contract in Chile.

Australia’s Northern Territory awards the Chamberlains, the subjects of the 1988 film A Cry in the Dark, more than $A415,000 in damages for their wrongful conviction. . . . A Canadian court sets a precedent when it finds a bookstore owner guilty of selling obscene materials, namely, the album As Nasty as They Wanna Be, by U.S. rap group 2 Live Crew.

Negotiators for the U.S. and the Philippines agree on a new, 10year lease for the Subic Bay Naval Base.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 14–19, 1991—219

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher announces that the 1990 census will not be statistically adjusted to account for persons missed in the original survey. Mosbacher’s announcement is immediately condemned. . . . Members of a militant antiabortion group Operation Rescue begin to block access to three abortion clinics in Wichita, Kansas. . . . The CDC issues recommendations that health officials performing invasive procedures should find out if they have AIDS but rejects mandatory testing.

Controversy is generated when a grainy black-and-white snapshot of a trio of robust-looking Caucasian men in a wooded area is released to the press by the American Defense Institute. The photo allegedly is proof that three U.S. airmen—who have been listed as either missing or dead for more than 20 years— were alive as of May 1990.

The state of New Jersey takes over Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Co. at the request of the company’s directors. Mutual Benefit is the largest insurance company yet to be taken over by a state. . . . White House budget director Richard Darman dramatically raises the Bush administration’s estimate of the fiscal 1992 federal budget deficit to $348.3 billion, a $67.4 billion increase over previous estimates.

The Journal of the American Medical Association reports that 9% of health-care providers have no health insurance for themselves. . . . Francis Lazarro (Frank) Rizzo, 70, controversial Democratic mayor of Philadelphia, 1972–80, dies of a heart attack in Philadelphia while in the middle of another mayoral campaign.

The Senate Intelligence Committee agrees to postpone confirmation hearings for Robert Gates, Pres. Bush’s nominee for director of central intelligence, in the wake of an independent inquiry into the Irancontra scandal that again questions the level of Gates’s involvement in the affair. . . . Reports confirm that Army Times Publishing refused to run an ad that praises the contributions from homosexuals in the Persian Gulf war.

After weeks of tortuous legislative maneuvering, California governor Pete Wilson (R) and the state legislature manage to enact a budget, more than two weeks past the July 1 deadline.

The Senate approves a bill that will allow doctors at federally funded family-planning clinics to counsel women about abortion. . . . A GAO study finds racial and gender disparities in services under the federal Job Training Partnership Act .

Official tallies of casualties incurred by U.S. military personnel in the Persian Gulf region from Aug. 1990 to July 15, 1991, show that there were a total of 268 deaths. Of those, 148 are combat deaths. The number of wounded in combat is 458. . . . Eugene McDaniel, who released a controversial photo July 15, states he obtained the picture from “an American citizen living in Indochina . . . who would like to remain anonymous.” The Pentagon confirms that it received a copy of the photo from an unidentified “intelligence source” in Sept. 1990.

The House passes a bill that will bar employers from hiring permanent replacements for striking workers. . . . Senators vote to increase their salaries to $125,100, a $23,200 raise. The Senate also votes to bar acceptance of speaking fees by its members. . . . Gov. John R. McKernan Jr. (R, Maine) signs into law a $3.2 billion, twoyear budget after weeks of negotiation.

The FEC raises the maximum amount that presidential candidates are permitted to spend within each state. . . . The Senate passes a bill that mandates criminal sanctions for health workers who know they are infected with HIV but perform invasive procedures on patients without informing them. The Senate also passes a bill that requires states to test medical workers who perform invasive procedures for AIDS, or risk losing federal funding. Girls who garnered national attention, Ruthie and Verena Cady, 7, Siamese twins who shared a heart and were not expected to live for more than a year after their birth, die in South Kingston, Rhode Island.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A tanker rail car in Dunsmuir, California, spills up to 19,500 gallons of pesticide into the Sacramento River. The accident compels Dunsmuir residents to begin evacuating, and about 200 are hospitalized for fume inhalation and skin irritation.

In the Hall of Fame Championships, Bryan Shelton becomes the first black American man to win a North American tour singles tennis event since 1978. . . . Golfer Meg Mallon wins the 46th U.S. Women’s Open in the Ladies’ PGA Championship.

Roger Randall Dougan Revelle, 82, director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, 1951–64, and one of the first scientists to warn, in the 1950s, of the greenhouse effect, dies of complications from cardiac arrest in San Diego, California.

Bert Convy, 57, television actor and game-show host of Tattletales (for which he won an Emmy), Win, Lose or Draw and Super Password, dies of a brain tumor in Los Angeles, California.

Robert Motherwell, 76, American painter who was one of the leaders of the abstract expressionist movement, dies in Provincetown, Massachusetts, of a stroke.

The July 14 pesticide spill in the Sacramento River, after drifting 45 miles downstream, killing wildlife, enters Lake Shasta. . . . The Journal of the American Medical Association concludes that African Americans are four to five times more likely than whites to develop glaucoma. The incidence of the disease is unrelated to social or economic status or to access to health care.

Bishop Harold Robert Perry, 74, first black clergyman to deliver the opening prayer in Congress, dies of complications from Alzheimer’s disease in New Orleans. . . . A Senate committee rejects the nomination of Carol Iannone to the advisory council of the NEH.

The Senate passes a 1992 fiscal appropriations bill for the Treasury Department. . . . The Senate approves an $80.9 billion fiscal 1992 appropriations bill funding the Departments of Veterans Affairs, HUD, EPA, NASA, and other independent agencies. . . . The Illinois legislature passes a $25.6 billion budget after long deliberations.

Defense Secretary Cheney denies that the Pentagon is withholding information about unaccounted-for servicemen from Southeast Asia in response to a controversy that started July 15.

July 14

July 15

July 16

July 17

July 18

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia grants the Long Island Lighting Co. a license to begin dismantling its nuclear power plant in Shoreham, New York, without conducting a study on the environmental impact of alternative energy sources that might be used when the plant is gone.

The General Convention of the 2.4million member Episcopal Church agrees to adopt a compromise measure on sexuality. The House of Bishops rejects a proposal to censure bishops who ordain sexually active homosexuals.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 19

220—July 20–24, 1991

World Affairs

July 22

July 23

July 24

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

The U.S. Defense Department begins an airlift to Albania from Saudi Arabia of 125 tons of U.S. military rations left over from the Persian Gulf war in response to the country’s mounting food shortages. . . . In a meeting with Turkish president Turgut Ozal in Ankara, U.S. president Bush gives his backing to a Turkish plan for negotiations involving Turkey, Greece, and both the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities.

July 20

July 21

Europe

Asia & the Pacific Qian Zhengying, China’s former minister of water resources, states that the floods that started in May have killed at least 1,700 people.

U.S. secretary of state Baker continues to negotiate terms for a Middle East conference, and reports indicate that Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon have accepted U.S. proposals.

In Slovenia, some army units begin exiting through border but do not appear to be complying with the July 18 order to withdraw.

South African foreign minister Botha admits that he authorized the payments for Inkatha rallies reported July 19. . . . Reports state Pres. Maaouiya Ould Sid Ahmed Taya has signed the constitution passed July 12 by Mauritanians. . . . Iraq’s Supreme Revolutionary Command Council issues decrees pardoning opponents of the government and extending amnesty to soldiers who deserted during revolts in Iraq after the Persian Gulf war. . . . Iraqi troops pull out of Sulaymaniyah, leaving Kurdish guerrillas and local authorities in control of the city.

The U.S. and 13 English-speaking Caribbean countries sign a tradecooperation agreement seen as a preliminary step toward U.S. president Bush’s plan for hemispheric free-trade. The agreement creates a U.S.-Caribbean Community (Caricom) Trade and Investment Council.

As many as 20 people die in fighting between Croats and ethnic Serbs in the Croatian town of Mirkovci. The news prompts Croatian president Tudjman to walk out of talks on Yugoslavia’s future. . . . A Romanian military court sentences Iulian Vlad, the former head of the Securitate, to nine years in prison for “favoring genocide.”. . . At the Kozlodui nuclear-power plant, Bulgarian scientists find a “hot spot” of radioactive contamination.

In Madagascar, opposition officials, backed by thousands of supporters, march into government ministries in a symbolic seating of their recently chosen alternative government. . . . In South Africa, the ANC calls for a full inquiry into the spending revealed July 19. . . U.S. general Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of U.S. forces during the Persian Gulf war, is awarded Kuwait’s highest honor, the medal of the Distinguished Order of Kuwait.

The IMF discloses that the Soviet Union has applied for full membership in the IMF and the World Bank, which surprises Western leaders. . . . The EC announces a plan to send 50,000 tons of grain to Albania.

Two Croatian policemen are killed in ethnic fighting in Croatia. . . . Polish premier Jan Krzysztof Bielecki visits the Ursus tractor plant and fires several department heads in the national industry ministry, calling Ursus an “example of economic incompetence, not to mention sabotage.”. . . In Bulgaria, the boycott and hunger strike ends when the deputies return to Parliament.

Madagascar’s president Ratsiraka declares a state of emergency, and security forces arrest opposition leaders. A police officer is killed by crowds. . . . Reports suggest that the Mozambique National Resistance (Renamo) killed as many as 1,000 civilians while capturing a town in the northern province of Nampula. Renamo denies the incident occurred. . . . Three U.S. soldiers are killed in an explosion at Doha, Kuwait, while clearing ammunition left over from a massive explosion and fire July 11.

In Peru, rebels ambush the car of a poultry farmer of Japanese descent and fatally shoot him. His wife, driving the car, is wounded.

Investigations of the BCCI, seized by international regulators, continues.

After a marathon of negotiations, Pres. Gorbachev announces that he and the heads of 10 of the 15 Soviet republics have agreed on disputed power-sharing provisions in the proposed union treaty. . . . Scotland’s senior law officer announces that he will not press criminal charges in the 1988 explosion at the Piper Alpha oil rig in the North Sea, which killed 167 men.

Reports show that Nigeria has been struck with an epidemic of cholera since May. . . . Inkatha repays the South African government the money spent on the rallies after allegations made July 19.

During a rebel-caused blackout in Lima, guerrillas bomb an electronics store owned by a JapanesePeruvian family.

Nicaragua’s former president, Daniel Ortega Saavedra, is elected to the newly created post of secretary general of the Sandinistas and is reelected to the Sandanistas’ ruling 10-member National Directorate.

A Greek-owned tanker spills 69,000 barrels of light crude oil into the Indian Ocean after it catches fire about 24 miles off the coast of Western Australia. The spill is the largest in Australian history.

In Australia, the oil slick from the July 21 accident is now more than 36 miles long and six miles wide, threatening islands that home nesting seabirds and Australian sea lions.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 20–24, 1991—221

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The Washington Post reports that an alleged prostitute has been charged with reckless endangerment of a human life in Maryland after it was discovered that she was infected with the AIDS virus.

In Berkeley, California, an innovative trial program that provides vouchers to homeless people begins. . . . A former DEA agent, Darnell Garcia, is given the maximum sentence and fined $1.6 million for selling drugs and laundering money. . . . Police in Milwaukee arrest Jeffrey Dahmer, 31, after being flagged down by a handcuffed man. The police discover four human heads, seven human skulls, boxes of body parts, a barrel of acid, and photographs of mutilated bodies. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a 1988 ruling that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deliberately discriminated against female deputies who sought promotions to the rank of sergeant. . . . In Kansas, an abortion clinic, besieged by antichoice activists, files a lawsuit. U.S. district judge Patrick F. Kelly issues a temporary restraining order barring protesters from blocking entrances to the clinics.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A study finds that women who take folic acid throughout their pregnancy significantly reduce the risk of having babies with a common type of defect involving the neural tube, a defect that may lead to spina bifida or to anencephaly.

A contestant from the Miss Black America beauty pageant charges that former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson raped her in Indianapolis. . . . Earl Robinson, 81, singer and composer of “The House I Live In” and “Black and White,” dies in Seattle after a car accident.

Allan Charles Wilson, 56, biochemist at the University of California at Berkeley who developed a controversial theory that all human beings descend from a single ancestress, the “African Eve,” and winner of the 1986 MacArthur Foundation fellowship, dies of leukemia in Seattle, Washington.

Argentina wins the America Cup, representative of national supremacy in South American soccer. . . . The Baseball Hall of Fame inducts Rod Carew, Gaylord Perry, Ferguson Jenkins, Tony Lazzeri, and Bill Veeck. . . . In golf, Australian Ian Baker-Finch wins the 120th British Open.

A Japanese fish-processing ship collides with a larger Chinese vessel near the entrance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, 22 miles northwest of the tip of Washington State. The Japanese ship sinks to 500 feet, leaving one crew member missing.

The air force discloses that it will have to spend $250 million to repair metal-fatigue cracks in its F-16 fighters. . . . The Senate approves a bill that grants China favored trading status for one more year and links further extensions in the status to progress on reforms.

Police in Milwaukee file an affidavit that states Jeffrey Dahmer confessed to killing at least 11 people. Police note all of the victims appeared to be male, and that most of them were black. Dahmer is white.

Pres. Bush names 25 members to the Commission on Environmental Quality, a panel that will advise him on how to slow damage to the environment without inordinately hindering business. The panel includes representatives from the Environmental Defense Fund, the National Geographic Society, Dow Chemical, Ford, and General Electric.

The National Academy of Sciences formally endorses the government’s program to develop fully implantable artificial hearts and ventricular assist devices (VADs).

The House passes a $14.2 billion transportation appropriations bill for fiscal 1992. . . . A panel of foresters commissioned by Congress report that timber production in the Pacific Northwest will have to be cut by more than 50% in order to preserve both the regional timber industry and the threatened wildlife that live in the region’s forests.

Vice President Dan Quayle, acting in his capacity as chairman of the National Space Council, announces that no more space shuttles will be built, and attention will be directed toward unmanned rockets for carrying payload, with a role prepared for commercial industry.

July 20

July 21

July 22

July 23

July 24

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Includes elections, federal-state relations, civil rights and liberties, crime, the judiciary, education, health care, poverty, urban affairs, and population.

Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

222—July 25–30, 1991

July 25

July 26

July 27

July 28

July 29

July 30

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The deadline for Iraq to disclose the extent of its nuclear program passes, and U.S. threats to launch air strikes against Iraq if it missed the deadline run into opposition from the Soviet Union and key Middle East allies.

At least nine Croatian guardsmen are slain in their barracks in the eastern Croatian town of Erdut when federal tanks shell the town. . . . Lazar Moiseyevich Kaganovich (born Lazar M. Kogan), 97, top adviser to the late Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and the last surviving Soviet official who joined the Communist (then Bolshevik) Party prior to the Russian revolution of 1917, dies in Moscow.

P. W. Botha reveals that South Africa gave more than $35 million to seven political parties that oppose the left-wing South West Africa People’s Organization, an insurgency group, during pre-independence election campaigns in neighboring Namibia in 1989.

The UN begins a mission in El Salvador to verify human-rights accords between the government and the rebels.

Serb guerrillas use Croat civilians as human shields when they seize the town of Struga, about 60 miles south of Zagreb. . . . Reports indicate that Germany’s inflation rate reached a nine-year high in July. . . . Soviet president Gorbachev vows to use his powers to overturn the decree issued by Boris Yeltsin on July 20. The Central Committee issues a statement accusing Yeltsin of violating national laws.

Officers of Iran’s Islamic security police clash with demonstrators in the city of Isfahan and arrest 300 people who protest attempts by local authorities to take into custody women charged with wearing improper dress. . . . Mauritania legalizes political opposition and institutes press freedoms. . . . Israel states plots of land held by the government in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip will be given free of charge to Jewish settlers.

Several rounds of consultations among the Afghan rebel leaders, representatives of Iran and Pakistan (the rebels’ principal backers), and the Soviet Union begin.

Up to 30 people, including a German news photographer and 14 Croatian policemen, die in rebel attacks in central Croatia.

In the debate over how to respond to Iraq’s failure to disclose its nuclear weapon capabilities by the July 25 deadline, Turkish premier Mesut Yilmaz prohibits the U.S. from launching punitive air strikes against Iraq from Turkish bases. The Iraqi government gives UN inspectors in Baghdad its fourth list of its nuclear materials.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Authorities in Australia report that the July 21 spill caused little damage since the oil spilled was light crude and thus evaporated quickly, and since winds and water currents guided the slick away from the islands and fishing beds. . . . The Japanese government begins shutting down its aid projects in Peru because of the onset of violence against Japanese people that began July 12.

Kuwait begins exporting oil for the first time since Iraq’s invasion in Aug. 1990. Oil minister Raqba estimates the Iraqi invasion caused $75 billion of damage to Kuwait’s oil industry and confirms that U.S. and Canadian firefighting teams capped 249 of the 600 Kuwaiti wells that were set on fire.

The IMF announces the approval of a $1.04 billion standby credit for Argentina. . . . To bring peace to Croatia, Yugoslav premier Ante Markovic confers with the EC’s foreign ministers. . . . The international BCCI scandal widens as a U.S. district attorney unveils criminal indictments of the institution, four of its units, and two of the bank’s top officers: Agha Hasan Abedi and Swaleh Naqvi. The New York grand jury charges are the first of a criminal nature against BCCI since 1988 money-laundering charges.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin and Lithuanian president Vytautas Landsbergis sign a 10-year treaty guaranteeing the civil and economic rights of ethnic Russians living in Lithuania and in Kaliningrad.

In Madagascar, Pres. Ratsiraka frees three opposition leaders, leaving three still in jail. . . . In an effort to restore trust in his government after recent revelations about secret payments, South African president de Klerk demotes Minister of Law and Order Vlok and Defense Minister Malan.

U.S. president Bush and Soviet president Gorbachev hold the first post–cold war superpower summit in Moscow. . . . UN weapons inspectors confirm that Iraq attempted to conceal its nuclear program by destroying essential equipment and that they found more than four times as many chemical weapons as Iraq previously admitted possessing. . . . Reports state the UN Economic and Social Council voted to allow Israel to become a member of the UN Economic Commission for Europe (ECE).

Yugoslav air force jets kill two Croatian policemen and wound at least a dozen others. . . . The Romanian Senate gives final passage to legislation to give shares in one-third of state-owned businesses to every adult Romanian. . . . Announcements state that Brigadier Gen. Christian Marie Fernand de la Croix De Castries, 88, whose defeat at the 1954 battle of Dien Bien Phu heralded the end of France’s military and colonial rule in Southeast Asia, is dead. Details are not disclosed.

South African president de Klerk announces that secret aid to Inkatha has stopped and vows to scale back covert operations. . . . Africa Watch reports that Kenya continues to use torture, manipulate the judiciary, harass prodemocracy supporters, and employ violence against squatters and ethnic groups. . . . Amnesty International accuses Israeli security forces of routinely torturing and abusing Palestinian detainees in the occupied territories.

Roger Lafontant, the former head of the Tontons Macoute paramilitary forces and the leader of the Jan. 6 abortive coup in Haiti, is convicted of trying to overthrow the government and sentenced to life imprisonment. Twenty-one codefendants are also convicted. Many Haitians, who view the trial as a symbol of the death of Duvalierism, cheer the verdict, and Pres. Jean-Bertrand Aristide immediately declares a national holiday.

A river fed by torrential rains overflows into a remote village in the west of India, killing as many as 500 people and destroying 2,000 homes. . . . Australia’s federal and state governments agree to begin removing barriers that restricted interstate trade in Australia for more than 90 years.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 25–30, 1991—223

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Police in Milwaukee believe Jeffrey Dahmer killed at least 17 people. . . . The Department of Health and Human Services spells out restrictions on when doctors may refer Medicare and Medicaid patients to diagnostic clinics and other health-care businesses in which doctors have a financial stake. . . . The EEOC issues a set of rules for employers to carry out in accordance with the 1990 Disabilities Act. . . . The House votes to allow the use of aborted fetuses in federally funded research as part of a $4.4 billion National Institutes of Health reauthorization bill. Three Milwaukee police officers are suspended with pay because they allowed Jeffrey Dahmer to reclaim a naked, bleeding boy in May after being convinced the incident was a domestic dispute between homosexual lovers. . . . Prosecutors state that a grand jury declined to indict Dr. Timothy Quill on charges of aiding a suicide in response to his March article in which he describes his efforts to aid an unidentified, terminally ill female patient kill herself.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Treasury Department announces that it has begun production of new, counterfeit-resistant currency.

A team of British astronomers claim to have discovered a planet revolving around a distant star. . . . Two studies in the New England Journal of Medicine find that women are less likely than men to receive highly sophisticated treatments or operations for heart disease, even when they are equally ill. . . . Scientists identify the exact gene whose mutation causes Marfan syndrome, a potentially fatal disorder of the connective tissue.

Isaac Bashevis Singer, 87, who won the 1978 Nobel Prize in literature and the National Book Award in 1970 and 1973, dies in Miami after suffering several strokes. . . . The auction houses of Christie’s and Sotheby’s each announce a decline of at least 50% in art sales during the 1990–91 season, compared with the 1989–90 season. It is the first year both houses post a decline since the mid-1980s.

The INS announces that, effective Aug. 15, no Romanian children will be allowed into the U.S. for adoption unless they are orphans or have been abandoned.

Oil from the ship that sank July 22 off Washington State begins washing ashore. The spill kills hundreds of coastal birds in the nation’s longest wilderness beach outside Alaska.

Reports state that Ernest and Regina Twigg settled their lawsuit against the hospital that switched their baby with the child of Robert and Barbara Mays in 1978. The incident was the subject of a television miniseries, Switched at Birth, broadcast in April.

July 26

Pierre Brunet, 89, figure skater who won 10 consecutive French national championships, two Olympic gold medals in pairs, and four world pairs championships, dies in Boyne City, Michigan, after suffering from Parkinson’s disease. . . . The Pro Football Hall of Fame inducts Earl Campbell, Jan Stenerud, Stan Jones, and John Hannah. The New York Times reports that the four-year-old girl who is the first human to receive genetically altered genes has successfully completed the initial phase of her therapy.

Despite renewed pressure from women’s groups, the Court of Appeal upholds the murder conviction and life sentence of Sara Thornton, a battered wife who killed her husband. . . . In Kansas, a second abortion clinic joins the suit filed July 23. After police arrested hundreds of protesters in violation of a restraining order, U.S. district judge Patrick Kelly orders U.S. marshals in to Wichita to assist police.

The State Department announces that it will stop taking new applications from Cubans wanting to visit the U.S. on six-month tourist visas, citing a 28,000-application backlog. . . . The Defense Department announces plans to sell $365 million worth of sophisticated bombs and missiles to Saudi Arabia, causing controversy.

The IRS reaches an agreement with Drexel Burnham Lambert Group Inc. that will allow the company to settle with creditors and emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as a greatly shrunken entity.

Reports confirm that six Los Angeles police officers and four probationary officers were suspended without pay for standing by while fellow officers beat black motorist Rodney King in March. . . . Federal marshals seize 800 “Misti Gold” inflatable breast implants from a Minneapolis company after the FDA accuses the manufacturer of selling an unapproved product. . . . A newly formed group, the Women for Judge Thomas, announces its support.

The Defense Department announces the impending shutdown of 72 military installations in Europe. . . . In the wake of over two weeks of controversy, the Pentagon states it is increasing the number of staff members to investigate reports of living MIAs. . . . Cuban exile Virgilio Pablo Paz Romero pleads guilty in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to involvement in the 1976 murder of a former Chilean ambassador to the U.S., Orlando Letelier.

Reports find the EPA ordered Westinghouse Electric Corp. to pay an estimated $14.9 million to clean up chemical contamination in the towns of Elmira and Horseheads, New York. The area is slated for cleanup under the EPA’s superfund program of detoxifying industrial sites. . . . The Senate passes a $53.1 billion fiscal 1992 agriculture appropriations bill.

Nigel Mansell of Great Britain wins the German Grand Prix in Hockenheim. . . . Miguel Indurain, a Spaniard riding for the Banesto team, wins the 78th Tour de France bicycle race.

In golf, Jack Nicklaus wins the U.S. Senior Open at Oakland Hills Country Club in Birmingham, Michigan.

The amount of oil leaking from a ship that sank July 22 is estimated to be 100,000 gallons.

July 25

William Ball, 60, founder of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco and winner of a 1979 Tony, is found dead of undetermined causes in Los Angeles.

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Includes elections, federal-state relations, civil rights and liberties, crime, the judiciary, education, health care, poverty, urban affairs, and population.

Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 27

July 28

July 29

July 30

224—July 31–August 5, 1991

July 31

Aug. 1

Aug. 2

Europe

Presidents Bush and Gorbachev sign the strategic-arms agreement in the Kremlin. The two leaders also issue a joint statement calling for an October peace conference on the Middle East and sign an agreement expanding bilateral cooperation on space projects. . . . Officials from Japan and the EC announce that they have reached agreement on restricting the number of Japanese automobiles imported to EC countries through 1999.

Unknown assailants murder six Lithuanian border guards and critically wound two others in a raid on a customs post. Soviet security officials deny the involvement of their personnel in the slayings. . . . An explosion on a train en route to the Azerbaijan capital, Baku, kills 15 passengers and wounds at least 16 others. . . . Under rebel pressure, Croatian forces retreat from Kostajnica. Croatia offers ethnic Serbs measured autonomy and a guarantee of civil rights in return for a truce.

Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir announces that Israel will take part in U.S.-and-Soviet-sponsored peace talks with its Arab neighbors, provided its conditions on the composition of the Palestinian delegation to the conference are met.

As many as 80 Croatian policemen are killed in fighting between Croats and Serbs and between Croats and federal forces, in and around Dalj, a town on the Danube River. It is the largest one-day death toll in the ethnic war. Croatian president Tudjman fires his defense minister and concedes that Croatia’s forces are outgunned. . . . Switzerland celebrates the 700th anniversary of the birth of the Swiss Confederation. . . . U.S. president Bush visits the Ukraine, where he is given a warm welcome.

Palestinian leaders state that they will not allow Israel to interfere in the selection of Palestinian representatives to a peace conference, taking a position that directly contradict Israel’s terms.

The Croatian parliament compels Pres. Tudjman to accept opposition figures in his government. . . . The Kurdish Workers Party claims responsibility for the kidnapping of 10 German tourists camping near the Turkish town of Bitlis.

Reports shows that at least 13,000 people have contracted cholera in Nigeria since July 24. That figure brings the total since the outbreak began in May to 22,901 infected and 2,161 dead.

Reports indicate that a rocket attack by Afghan rebels set off an explosion at an arms depot in Kabul, killing hundreds of people. . . . U.S. investigators visit a Vietnamese former camp in search of evidence of MIAs. It is believed to be the first time that the Hanoi government has allowed U.S. officials inside such a facility.

The Yugoslav federal collective presidency persuades Serbia, Croatia, and the federal military to accept in principle a truce in Croatia that would be monitored by lightly armed Yugoslav national police. But within a few hours of the plan’s announcement, Serbs and Croats resume clashes in eastern Croatia.

Zimbabwe suffers its worst road accident when an overcrowded bus carrying schoolchildren flips near the village of Troutbeck, 180 miles southeast of Harare. At least 87 people are killed—80 students and seven adults. . . . Aly Sabry, 71, Egyptian prime minister, 1964–65, and vice president, 1965–67, who was accused of plotting a 1971 coup against Sadat, dies in Cairo with a blood clot in his lung.

In the Indian Ocean, a cruise ship going from London to Durban, the 7,554-ton Oceanos, loses power when its engine room floods. The liner, chartered by TFC Tours of Johannesburg, carries some 375 passengers and 200 crew members. . . . Sri Lankan troops break a 25-day siege of a crucial military base by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Reports suggest that the battle to retake the base, called Elephant Pass, killed hundreds of fighters on both sides.

Aug. 3

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Unions at Chile’s El Teniente copper mine, the world’s largest underground copper-mining operation, go on strike.

Afghan rebel leaders claim that they cut the supply route from Kabul to Jalalabad, effectively placing Jalalabad under siege.

Kurdish Workers Party guerrillas kill nine soldiers at a border post at Semdinli, Turkey. . . . Serbia abruptly boycotts high-level mediation talks sponsored by the EC. . . . Soviet president Gorbachev issues a decree on imports aimed at increasing the availability of food and consumer goods.

Aug. 4

Aug. 5

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Iraq begins to return $700 million worth of gold bullion that it looted from Kuwait’s central bank in compliance with UN Security Council Resolution 686. . . . UN officials announce that Iraq admitted that it carried out biological-weapons research from 1986 to August 1990.

Turkish commandos backed by fighter planes and helicopters launch a week of raids against what Turkey claims are bases of the separatist Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) near the Iraq-Turkey border. . . . The Polish government shuts down the state-owed Ursus tractor plant near Warsaw and places its 12,000 workers on indefinite furlough.

All of the estimated 575 passengers and crew members on board the cruise ship Oceanos are evacuated during a 12-hour rescue operation before the ship capsizes and sinks completely in the Indian Ocean.

Reports show that, excluding the epidemic in Nigeria, cholera has infected 60,000 people in 11 African countries and killed more than 4,500. . . . Several Israeli families take up residence in a new settlement at Eshkolot in the West Bank.

Edward English, a member of the Roman Catholic Christian Brothers lay order who served as a supervisor at the Mount Cashel orphanage between 1973 and 1975, is sentenced to 12 years in prison following his conviction on 13 charges of sexually and physically abusing boys at the orphanage. The sentence is the stiffest handed down to date in the Mount Cashel scandal.

Philippine police capture the leader of the armed wing of the nation’s communist party, the New People’s Army, Romulo Kintanar. . . . Soichiro Honda, 84, founder of Japan’s Honda Motor Co., dies of liver failure in Tokyo.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 31–August 5, 1991—225

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The NAACP and the AFL-CIO announce they oppose the nomination of Judge Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. . . . Yale researchers find that a program allowing drug addicts to exchange used hypodermic needles for new ones reduced HIV infections by 33%. . . . Joseph McGrail is given a two-year suspended sentenced for killing his abusive wife as she lay in an alcoholic stupor. The verdict sparks outrage among women’s groups, especially after the July 29 ruling on Sara Thorton.

Congress approves legislation that will create a new set of rules for U.S. covert action. . . . State Department officials announce that Peru has improved its performance on human rights enough to allow the U.S. government to release $94 million in aid.

After an eight-month joint investigation by the EPA and the Justice Department, the Bush administration files lawsuits seeking fines and cleanups from 36 companies, including Amoco Corp. and Corning Inc. . . . The Senate passes a $22.1 billion fiscal 1992 appropriations bill for the Departments of Commerce, Justice and State and for the judiciary. . . . The House passes a $21.8 billion fiscal 1992 energy and water appropriations bill and a 1992 legislative branch appropriations bill.

Seven people are killed when a bus carrying some 60 Girl Scouts skids off a winding road and rolls down a mountainside in Palm Springs, CA. The dead include three Girl Scouts, three chaperones, and the bus driver. . . . Seven people are killed and scores injured when part of an Amtrak passenger train traveling from Miami to NYC derails in South Carolina and sideswipes a freight train parked on an adjacent track.

The Pentagon reveals that inspectors found hairline cracks in the hull of the first Seawolf-class attack submarine, built by the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics Corp. under a $726 million contract.

After months of internal dispute, the Bush administration announces a new definition of wetlands that will open to development millions of acres currently protected by federal regulations. . . . Reports show that the Purchasing Managers’ Index in July posted its sixth straight gain to 51.8%, a sign that the manufacturing economy is expanding. . . . U.S. bankruptcy judge Alan H. Shiff denies a petition by the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut, for bankruptcy protection.

The New England Journal of Medicine publishes preliminary trials that indicate the drug sumatriptan cancels pain from migraine and cluster headaches. . . . The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology’s subcommittee on investigations and oversight begins a planned year-long investigation of NASA’s management practices.

The Senate votes in favor of a resolution supporting the use of “all necessary means,” including military force, to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. . . . The Senate approves a $291 billion defense authorization for fiscal 1992.

The Senate approves the $21.8 billion fiscal 1992 energy and water bill passed by the House July 31. . . . The Senate clears the fiscal 1992 legislative branch appropriations bill passed by the House July 31. . . . Congress gives final clearance to a $4.6 billion fiscal 1992 appropriations bill for the District of Columbia. . . . Reports state that private contractors at the Energy Department’s Hanford nuclear weapons plant acquired and used electronic surveillance devices in violation of federal regulations.

The space shuttle Atlantis takes off from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. It deploys a communications satellite from the shuttle’s cargo bay and is slated to study the human body’s ability to adapt to space travel.

Houston police begin an undercover operation targeting violence against homosexuals in response to the July beating and stabbing death of a 27-year-old banker, Paul Broussard. . . . The Senate Ethics Committee announces that it found no evidence that Sen. D’Amato (R, N.Y.) violated any Senate rule or federal law, but rules that he has “conducted his office in an improper and inappropriate manner.”. . . Congress clears a bill to extend unemployment benefits to people who have been out of work for more than half a year.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

July 31

Aug. 1

The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan tops the bestseller’s list. . . . Reports confirm that Stephen C. Blumberg, convicted in January of stealing up to $20 million worth of rare books and artifacts, has been sentenced to serve nearly six years in prison and to pay a $200,000 fine.

Reports confirm that the only member of the National Commission on AIDS actually afflicted with the disease, Belinda Mason, wrote a letter to Pres. Bush urging him to oppose mandatory testing of health workers and to reverse a ban on immigration by those infected with the AIDS virus.

Sen. Jesse Helms (R, N.C.), creates an uproar on the Senate Ethics Committee when he makes public the secret report of the committee’s special counsel on influencepeddling allegations against Sen. Alan Cranston (D, Calif.), the subject of a 14-month inquiry. . . . (Roy) Dean Burch, 63, Republican party official who served as chairman of the Republican National Committee, 1964–65, and of the FCC, 1969–74, dies in Potomac, Maryland, of bladder cancer.

Aug. 2

Aug. 3

Defense Secretary Cheney explains that the military’s ban on homosexuals does not apply to civilian Pentagon employees.

Pennsylvania governor Robert P. Casey (D) signs a $13.9 billion budget, 34 days after the start of the state’s fiscal year July 1. The new budget includes the state’s largest tax increase ever and ends a stalemate that left more than 100,000 state employees without paychecks for a month. . . . The GAO finds that the Trans-Alaskan pipeline, the artery for 25% of the U.S.’s domestic oil supply, is poorly regulated.

Aug. 4

Congressional Democratic leaders order a formal investigation of allegations that officials of the presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan arranged a deal to delay the release of U.S. hostages held in Iran in order to prevent a victory by Pres. Jimmy Carter in the 1980 election.

Paul Brown, 82, football coach of the Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1967, dies of pneumonia in Cincinnati.

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Includes elections, federal-state relations, civil rights and liberties, crime, the judiciary, education, health care, poverty, urban affairs, and population.

Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 5

226—August 6–8, 1991

Aug. 6

Aug. 7

Aug. 8

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The EC’s foreign ministers, meeting in The Hague, in the Netherlands, urge the U.S., Soviet Union, and the UN to play more active roles in resolving the Yugoslav crisis.

Serb guerrillas in Croatia accept a truce that merely calls for all armed forces in Croatia (including the federal military) to remain in place and cease hostilities.

Kuwaiti and UN officials report that Iraqi troops infiltrated Kuwait in order to salvage military equipment abandoned after the Persian Gulf war.

The Aug. 6 cease-fire collapses when ethnic Serbs lob mortar shells into a village 30 miles south of Zagreb. . . . After hearing a false rumor that the Albanian port city of Durres is no longer under military control, thousands of people seize ships for the journey to Italy. At least two people drown. . . . Although the Iraqi Kurds and Turkish Kurds are not formally allied, an Iraqi Kurd spokesman accuses Turkish aircraft of indiscriminately bombing refugee and civilian settlements.

In Morocco, Polisario guerrillas claim that Moroccan planes attacked their positions at Tifariti, 10 miles from the Mauritanian border. Morocco does not confirm the raids but states that the military was conducting “sweeps and cleanup operations” in the region. . . . Delegates representing 225 political groups from across Zaire gather in Kinshasa for a conference on the nation’s political future.

After UN negotiations, Islamic Jihad, a radical Shi’ite Muslim faction in Lebanon, releases John McCarthy, a British journalist kidnapped in April 1986. In response, the previously unknown Organization for the Defense of Prisoners’ Rights abduct Jerome Leyraud, a French administrator in Beirut for the relief organization Doctors of the World. The group threatens to kill Leyraud if any other hostages are released. Iranian and Lebanese Shiite leaders condemn the kidnapping. . . . The CSCE discusses the Yugoslav crisis at an emergency session in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Yugoslavia agrees that other EC members may be sent in to observe the conflict.

Shahpur Bakhtiar, who served briefly as Iran’s premier in 1979, is found stabbed to death along with his chief aide in a suburb of Paris. An exile since 1979, Bakhtiar was an outspoken opponent of Iran’s radical Islamic regime. Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, the former president of Iran and himself an exile in Paris, suggests that Bakhtiar’s murder was ordered by the government of Iranian president Rafsatani when he alleges that both his and Bakhtiar’s names appeared on a list of “opponents whom the regime had decided to eliminate.”. . . Reports state that floods and tornadoes killed at least 27 people in Sochi and other Black Sea coastal towns of Russia. . . . An estimated 18,000 Albanian refugees flee to Italy. Albania places all its Adriatic ports under military rule, and Italy declares a state of emergency on its southeastern coastline. Malta accepts two Albanian ships carrying a total of 600 people. . . . Militant workers occupy a state-owned truck factory in the town of Starachowice, south of the Polish capital Warsaw, that was closed by the government.

Israel announces that it is ready to exchange about 400 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners for seven Israeli soldiers believed to have been captured in Lebanon between 1982 and 1986. . . . Turkish military spokesmen report that 132 air missions against the Kurds were flown by Turkish fighters, and that attacks were made against 24 rebel bases. About 2,000 Turkish sources claim that one soldier has been killed and two wounded.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The provincial government of Ontario signs a formal agreement with Indian leaders which declares that native groups have an inherent right to self-government. Ontario thus becomes the first government in Canada to recognize a native right to self-government. . . . Daniel Roland Michener, 91, governor general of Canada, 1967–74, dies in Toronto.

The ruling party of the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu votes to remove Prime Minister Walter Lini as its president. Lini refuses to stand down.

Outside Canada’s ruling Progressive Conservative Party meeting, one demonstration turns violent and police are called in. At another protest, a group of antipoverty activists set up a tent city called “Mulroneyville,” complete with a cemetery marking job losses in Canada. . . . Salvador Jorge Blanco, president of the Dominican Republic, 1982–86, is convicted of corruption and sentenced to 20 years in prison after a two-year trial. Former armed forces chief Manuel Cuervo Gomez is also convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Both men are ordered to return up to $12 million that they are said to have stolen.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 6–8, 1991—227

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The National Commission on AIDS argues that the Bush administration is not confronting the problem of transmission of the AIDS virus via intravenous drug use. . . . Reports reveal that a 42-year-old South Dakota woman, Arlette Schweitzer, will give birth to her twin grandchildren as a surrogate for her daughter. . . . The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit overrules a decision that Pennsylvania’s special-election format is unconstitutional, clearing the way for Atty. Gen. Thornburgh to run for Senate to fill the seat vacated by the death of Sen. John Heinz (R).

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

FDIC Chairman L. William Seidman announces that he is resigning, effective Oct. 16. . . . The Federal Reserve loosens monetary policy for the first time since April.

Harry Reasoner, 68, veteran U.S. television newscaster whose resume included coanchoring ABC Evening News and reporting on 60 Minutes, dies of cardiopulmonary arrest in Norwalk, Connecticut.

Labor Secretary Lynn Martin discloses a department study showing the “glass ceiling” that blocks women and minorities from advancing in their careers exists at much lower levels than initially believed. . . . The AMA states that Americans should attempt to live with asbestos safely, contrary to popular belief. The association suggests its risk can be contained through procedures that avoid expensive removal. . . . A U.S. District Court judge in New Orleans strikes down Louisiana’s recently adopted antiabortion law, one of the strictest laws in the U.S., as unconstitutional. The Population Reference Bureau finds that the income gap between rich and poor black households in the U.S. has widened since the 1960s. . . . Ten members of Chicago’s El Rukn street gang, one of the most notorious gangs in the U.S., are convicted on a variety of charges that include murder, attempted murder, and drug trafficking in Chicago. Three other El Rukns are acquitted. The trial is the first of three involving a total of 65 reputed El Rukn members indicted in 1989. . . . Eight reputed members of the Patriarca crime family of New England are convicted in U.S. District Court in Hartford, Connecticut, on federal racketeering charges.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The U.S. quartet of Mike Marsh, Leroy Burrell, Dennis Mitchell, and Carl Lewis post a new record of 37.67 seconds in the 400-meter relay.

The city government of Washington, D.C., announces a plan to build a memorial to the black servicemen who fought for the Union side in the Civil War.

Owners of the coal-fired Navajo power plant in Page, Arizona—five utility companies and the Interior Department—announce a plan to slash the facility’s sulfur dioxide emissions, which obscure scenic views at the nearby Grand Canyon National Park. The plan is the fruit of months of secret talks with environmental groups.

Colonel James Benson Irwin, 61, U.S. astronaut who walked on the moon in 1971 on the Apollo 15 mission and later founded an evangelical Christian group, dies of a heart attack in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. He is the first of the 12 men who had walked on the moon to die.

Sam Goody (born Samuel Gutowitz), 87, founder of the record-store chain that bears his name, dies of heart failure in New York City.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 6

Aug. 7

Aug. 8

228—August 9–14, 1991

Aug. 9

Aug. 10

Aug. 11

Aug. 12

Aug. 13

World Affairs

Europe

Syrian and Lebanese forces in Beirut launch an extensive search for Jerome Leyraud, the Frenchman abducted Aug. 8, and threaten to assault suspected guerrilla hideouts if he is not released.

Reports show Serbia tightened its grip on the provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina. . . . French investigators state that former prime minister Shahpour Bakhtiar, 75, and his secretary, Katibeh Fallouch, were slain on the evening of Aug. 6 by three Iranian visitors who stabbed them with knives from Bakhtiar’s own kitchen. In response to allegations about the murder made Aug. 8, the Iranian embassy in Paris denies any government involvement in the slayings. . . . In Bari, three days of clashes erupt between Italian riot police and angry Albanian refugees. . . . The Kurdish Workers Party releases the 10 German tourists kidnapped Aug. 2.

China announces it has decided in principle to sign the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Right-wing whites battle police outside a hall where South African president F. W. de Klerk is addressing supporters in the town of Ventersdorp, a stronghold of conservative Afrikaners, 80 miles west of Johannesburg. The clash leaves three people dead and 58 injured. It is reportedly the first time that police kill white extremists.

The National Assembly elects Vo Van Kiet, the third-ranking member of the country’s Politburo, to be the new Vietnamese premier.

In Madagascar, troops fire on a crowd of some 400,000 opposition supporters marching on the presidential palace outside the capital, killing several people.

After years of negotiations, a Lebanese Shi’ite group releases Edward A. Tracy, a U.S. native hostage since Oct. 1986. . . . John McCarthy, released Aug. 8, presents UN secretary general Perez de Cuellar with a letter from Islamic Jihad which implies the group will free all its hostages “within 24 hours” if the UN engineers a global release of Palestinian and Lebanese “freedom-fighters.”. . . . Perez de Cuellar opens talks with representatives from Israel and Iran to discuss on a general exchange of hostages. . . . Jerome Leyraud, kidnapped Aug. 8, is released in Beirut.

Relief workers back Kurdish allegations that Turkey is attacking civilian sites when they report that at least 12 Kurdish civilians were killed in Turkish attacks on Khera Zouk, a village in the region. UN representatives advise aid workers to leave the areas that are under attack by Turkish forces.

The UN begins flying reconnaissance missions over Iraq using a U2 high-altitude “spy plane” to search for weapons-research and production sites that spy satellite surveillance cannot pinpoint.

Representatives of the republics of Serbia, Montenegro, and BosniaHerzegovina approve a plan that calls for a new, overwhelmingly Serb, Yugoslav federation. . . . Italy repatriates about 12,000 of the Albanian refugees and begins a $70 million emergency airlift of food to Albania. . . . Turkish Defense Ministry spokesmen report that its military operations begun Aug. 5 against the Kurds have concluded.

Reports disclose that the EC has offered Albania $2.4 million in emergency food aid and medical supplies.

Armenian guerrillas seize 12 interior-ministry troops, seeking to exchange the captured troops for 16 Armenians arrested over the previous three months. . . . Italian president Francesco Cossiga visits Albania to discuss the refugee crisis. He is believed to be the first Western head of state to set foot on Albanian soil since World War II.

Opposition groups boycott a meeting of delegates representing 225 political groups from across Zaire, citing government interference.

A federal judge in Argentina orders Pres. Carlos Saul Menem to testify in a growing money-laundering scandal.

The leaders of Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Tadzhikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan sign an economic-cooperation agreement in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan. . . . The Armenian interior ministry, rejecting a hostage exchange from rebels, begins searching for the hostages in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Taslim Olawale Elias, 76, Nigerian lawyer who served as the country’s first attorney general following its independence from Britain in 1960 and as president of the International Court of Justice at The Hague, 1982–85, dies of unreported causes in Lagos.

For the first time since Belize gained independence in 1981, Guatemala announces that it recognizes “the right of the people of Belize to self-determination” and desires “to live in peace and harmony with its neighbors.”. . . . Grenadian prime minister Nicholas Braithwaite announces that he is commuting the death sentences of 23 people, 14 of whom were convicted for the 1983 attempted coup thwarted by a U.S. invasion.

Aug. 14

Asia & the Pacific

In Madagascar, reports estimate 51 people were slain in the capital by government soldiers since Aug. 10. Other deaths are reported in the northern city of Mahaj. In response to the shootings, the opposition announces that it is intensifying its campaign into “open war” against the president.

In Canada, the separatist Parti Quebecois wins the first by-election in its 20-year history.

Reports confirm that Afghan rebels fired rockets into Kabul and struck a passenger bus, killing as many as 30 people. . . . Walter Lini, who refused to step down as prime minister of the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu Aug. 7, orders Radio Vanuatu not to broadcast statements from dissidents within his party.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 9–14, 1991—229

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

After weeks of internal conflict, the NAACP states that branch members may support the nomination of Clarence Thomas as individuals but not as representatives of the NAACP. . . . In Wichita, Kansas, blockades of abortion clinics and subsequent arrests resume. . . . Atty. Gen. Thornburgh submits his resignation to Pres. Bush in order to run for the Pennsylvania Senate seat.

The commander in the Persian Gulf war, army general Schwarzkopf, receives the Distinguished Service Medal from Defense Secretary Cheney. . . . The Defense Department contends that 20 Americans died in the gulf war from friendly fire. . . . Major Gen. Ralph W. Zwicker, 88, army general who played a central role in the Senate’s censure of anticommunist crusader Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R, Wis.) in 1954, dies of a heart attack in Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Five months after claiming to have pinpointed the gene whose mutation initiated the development of colon cancer, scientists now believe that the culprit is actually a gene directly next door on the same chromosome.

Final Exit, a book on how to commit suicide while suffering from terminal illness, takes the top spot on the New York Times best-seller list in the hard-cover advice, how-to, and miscellaneous book category.

Nine people, including six monks and a nun, are killed in the Buddhist temple of Wat Promkunaram outside Phoenix, Arizona.

Aug. 10

Pres. Bush thanks Iran for its role in bringing about the releases of John McCarthy and Edward Tracy, but urges the Iranian government to press for the release of all the hostages remaining in Lebanon.

A homeless man, Martin Henn, who was jailed for more than a year without being formally charged is finally arraigned in Baltimore. . . . Reports suggest the Boy Scouts of America have agreed to develop a program serving homosexuals, girls, and atheists in the face of ongoing lawsuits. The new program, “Learning for Life,” will be separate from the basic Scout program, but will be administered by local Scout councils and based in public schools. Reports confirm that the FDA has approved a nonfrozen version of the fat substitute Simplesse. . . . James Roosevelt, 83, Democratic U.S. representative from California, 1955–66, who was the eldest son and last surviving child of former Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the U.S. ambassador to UNESCO, dies of complications from a stroke and Parkinson’s disease in Newport Beach, California.

Aug. 9

The space shuttle Atlantis lands safely at Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The flight is the eighth to end on the Kennedy airstrip instead of the customary dry lakebed at Edwards Air Force Base, California. It is the first scheduled landing in Florida since 1986.

John Delphus (J. D.) McDuffie, 52, is killed in a crash at the Budweiser at the Glen NASCAR event after his car loses a tire, veers off the course at high speed, flips over, and lands on its roof. . . . John Daly, a rookie on the PGA tour, wins the PGA Championship at Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Indiana.

A U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge in NYC approves a bid by which Delta Air Lines Inc. acquires many of the assets of Pan American World Airways. The deal allows Pan Am to continue operations as a smaller carrier. . . . BankAmerica Corp. and Security Pacific Corp., announce that they will merge to create the nation’s second-largest bank. The deal, if approved by regulators, will be the largest bank merger ever.

Contradicting earlier statements, the Defense Department discloses that nearly 24% of U.S. combat deaths in the Persian Gulf war were the result of friendly fire.

Governor Richard Arkwright Snelling, 64, Republican governor of Vermont, 1977–85, who ran again in 1990 and took office in January, dies of cardiac arrest in Shelburne, Vermont.

Aug. 11

Aug. 12

Pres. Bush names William Taylor, the chief regulator at the Federal Reserve Board, as L. William Seidman’s successor to head the FDIC. . . . Clark Clifford and Robert Altman resign as chairman and president of First American Bankshares Inc., Washington, D.C.’s largest bank. The resignations come in the face of the bank’s ties to BCCI, which has been seized by international regulators.

Jack Ryan, 65, inventor who helped design the Sparrow and Hawk missiles when he worked for Raytheon Co. and who designed the best-selling Barbie doll when he worked for Mattel Inc., dies in Los Angeles after suffering a stroke.

Pres. Bush signs the fiscal 1992 legislative branch appropriations bill.

Douglas Kiker, 61, correspondent for NBC News since 1966 who won a Peabody Award for broadcast journalism in 1970, dies of a heart attack in Chatham, Massachusetts.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 13

Aug. 14

230—August 15–20, 1991

Aug. 15

Europe

The UN Security Council votes to allow Iraq to sell up to $1.6 billion worth of oil over a six-month period to raise money for food and medicine. The resolution contains a number of restrictions, which Abdul Amir al-Anbari, Iraq’s ambassador to the UN, stridently opposes. The UN Security Council approves guidelines stipulating a maximum of 30% of Iraq’s future oil revenue will be diverted into a fund to pay compensation for war damages. . . . UN secretary Perez de Cuellar concludes talks about hostage exchanges with Israel and Iran.

Armenian guerrillas seize 29 more interior-ministry troops. The Soviet interior ministry demands the release of 41 police troops held hostage by Armenian militants in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh enclave in the republic of Azerbaijan.

A meeting of delegates from 225 political groups in Zaire is suspended in the face of the Aug. 13 boycott. . . . The South African government, the ANC, and the Inkatha Freedom Party agree on a draft peace accord intended to end the violence raging in black townships. . . . Reports suggest that South Africa is providing military advisors to Zaire. It is said to be the first time that South Africa has been asked to send military aid to a black-ruled nation.

A barge carrying almost 200 oil workers capsizes and sinks in the South China Sea off the coast of Hong Kong. Rescuers save the lives of 174 workers, but at least 12 people drown. The accident occurs some 60 miles off the coast of the British colony during a typhoon.

Aleksandr Yakovlev, a reformist and former close aide to Soviet president Gorbachev, resigns from the Communist Party with a warning that party hard-liners are readying for a coup. . . . Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope to visit Hungary.

The South African government announces a general amnesty for political exiles who fled the country after antiapartheid organizations were banned in 1960. The agreement comes after 16 months of negotiations.

An Indian Airlines jetliner plows into a hill and catches fire about 30 miles from the Imphal airport. All 69 people aboard are believed dead.

The ANC releases 32 alleged collaborators with the South African government that it captured in its ranks since 1975.

A 33-year-old masked gunman stabs a girl to death and shoots and kills six other people before killing himself in a shopping mall in Strathfield, outside Sydney. The killing spree is the worst in Australia since 1987.

Aug. 16

Aug. 17

Aug. 18

Aug. 19

Aug. 20

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Soviet president Gorbachev, accompanied by his wife Raisa, other family members, and several aides, are detained in his country residence in the Crimean peninsula on the Black Sea. The detainment marks the onset of a coup attempt, and it involves KGB units under military direction.

Italy repatriates the last of an estimated 18,000 Albanian refugees. Only 154 of the original 18,000 Albanian refugees remain. . . . In Germany, fighting breaks out between 200 leftists and rightists during demonstrations on the fourth anniversary of the death of Nazi deputy leader Rudolf Hess.

In South Africa, of the 32 people released by the ANC on Aug. 17, 20 of them claim to have been tortured in confinement.

A group of top Soviet hard-liners, backed by the security forces, detain Pres. Gorbachev in an attempted coup d’etat. The move draws condemnation by most Western countries. British prime minister Major takes the lead by suspending an $80 million technical assistance program with the USSR, while Canada freezes $131 million in Soviet food credits. Iraq and Libya support the coup.

In the Soviet Union, coup leaders, claiming that Gorbachev prohibits large gatherings, set curfews and ban opposition political activity and the independent press. Military units take up key positions. Russian president Yeltsin galvanizes opposition to the would-be new leaders and urges all Russians to begin a general strike. In Latvia, troops shoot and kill a driver.

Albania and Israel agree to establish full diplomatic ties after a round of talks in Jerusalem.

The foreign ministers of the EC, at an emergency meeting at The Hague, strongly condemn the Soviet coup and call for Pres. Gorbachev’s reinstatement. The EC suspends all but humanitarian aid to the Soviet Union, freezing $625 million in credits for food purchases and $520 million in technical assistance. . . . Russian republic president Yeltsin telephones U.S. president Bush and British prime minister Major and receives assurances that their governments will not recognize the committee as the legitimate Soviet leadership.

In Moscow, Russian president Yeltsin addresses 150,000 people and repeats his charge that Gennady Yanayev and his allies seized power illegally. Other republic leaders express support for Yeltsin’s stand and Gorbachev’s return. In Leningrad, 200,000 people defy the state of emergency and hold an anticoup rally, as does a crowd of 400,000 in Kishinev. Valentin Pavlov resigns as premier and as a member of the Emergency Committee, citing illness. The republic of Estonia declares immediate independence.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In India, police surround the hideout of a Sri Lankan Tamil known as Sivarasan, the main suspect in the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. He and six others engage in a shoot-out with police. . . . The Australian state of New South Wales bans the sale of military assault weapons.

After a three-month manhunt, the chief suspect in the assassination of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, Sivarasan, is found dead, along with six fellow Tamils. They all committed suicide.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 15–20, 1991—231

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Reports show that the operation started by Houston police Aug. 2 has led to the arrests of at least a dozen assailants who attacked several undercover officers whom the perpetrators believed were homosexuals. The operation is believed to be the first of its kind in the U.S. . . . A District Court judge in Detroit rules that the city’s board of education must admit girls to three public schools intended for black, inner-city males scheduled to open in the fall.

Pres. Bush sign a bill that creates a new set of rules governing U.S. covert activity. The rules are designed to prevent a repetition of a scandal like the Iran-contra affair. . . . The army announces that about 71,000 troops will be withdrawn from Germany by 1995. Those troops make up one-half of the army’s combat forces in Europe. . . . Marietta Peabody Tree, 74, the first woman to serve as a U.S. ambassador to the UN, dies of cancer in New York City.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the fiscal 1992 federal budget deficit will reach a record $362 billion, $70 billion higher than previous CBO estimates and $13.7 billion higher than the Bush administration’s most recent forecast.

A surgical operation on the neck, a carotid endarterectomy (CE), is found to reduce the incidence of strokes in high-risk patients by almost one-fifth, which makes the technique more successful than the traditional therapy of anticoagulant drugs. . . . Scientists report that they succeeded in duplicating the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease in rats.

Singer-songwriter Paul Simon gives a free concert in NYC’s Central Park. The concert draws a crowd of 750,000 people.

Charles R. Garry (born Garabed Robutlay Garabedian), 82, U.S. lawyer who became well known for representing radical groups, including the Black Panthers, in the 1960s, dies in Berkeley, California, after suffering a stroke.

The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. merchandise trade deficit shrank to a seasonally adjusted $4.02 billion in June, its lowest level since 1983.

The nation’s governors gather in Seattle, Washington, for the annual summer meeting of the National Governors’ Association. . . . Pres. Bush signs a bill to provide expanded benefits to the long-term unemployed, but he refuses to declare a fiscal emergency, an action required to release up to $5.8 billion to pay for the additional benefits.

Pres. Bush signs a $21.8 billion fiscal 1992 energy and water appropriations bill and a $4.6 billion federal spending bill for the District of Columbia that would have allowed local revenues to be used to fund abortions for poor women.

Pres. Bush refuses to meet with the leaders of a militant antiabortion group that has been demonstrating for more than a month at abortion clinics in Wichita, Kansas.

After much investigation and scandal, the Treasury Department briefly takes the disciplinary step of barring Salomon Brothers Inc., a division of Salomon Inc., from placing bids in auctions of U.S. government securities. However, the firm’s punishment, for illegal activities on the bond market, is lightened somewhat a few hours later following three high-level resignations and a plea by Salomon’s new chairman.

In Brooklyn, a car driven by a Hasidic Jewish driver strikes and kills Gavin Cato, a seven-year-old black boy from Guyana. The incident touches off four days of rioting during which a visiting Hasidic rabbinical student from Australia, Yankel Rosenbaum, 29, is stabbed to death by a black youth.

The Washington Post reports that the military has ousted 13,307 men and women for homosexuality since June 1982.

Walter Leroy Moody Jr., convicted of the mail-bomb killings of a federal judge in Alabama and a lawyer in Georgia, is sentenced to the maximum possible sentence of seven life terms plus 400 years in prison with no possibility of parole and is ordered to pay more than $11,000 in restitution. . . . Harley Orrin Staggers Sr., 84, Democratic U.S. representative from West Virginia, 1949–80, known for his efforts on behalf of the nation’s railroads, dies of heart and respiratory failure in Cumberland, Maryland.

Pres. Bush swears in Robert Strauss, the newly confirmed U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, and sends him to Moscow to “get the lay of the land” in the wake of the attempted coup.

Aug. 15

Aug. 16

Aug. 17

Hurricane Bob, the first major hurricane of the 1991 season, tears up the Eastern Seaboard, causing 16 deaths and more than $1 billion in property damage.

Vaughn Shoemaker, 89, cartoonist who created the character John Q. Public and won the Pulitzer in 1938 and 1947, dies of cancer in Carol Stream, Illinois. . . . The Pan American Games closes, and Cuba has won 140 gold medals, marking the first time since 1951 that U.S. athletes have not taken home the most golds. The U.S. wins the most medals overall in the competition with a total of 325.

Aug. 18

Aug. 19

Aug. 20

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

232—August 21–25, 1991

Aug. 21

Aug. 22

World Affairs

Europe

An attempted coup by a group of top Soviet hard-liners backed by the security forces falls apart in the face of international condemnation and defiance of hundreds of thousands of prodemocratic Soviets led by Russian republic president Boris Yeltsin. . . . Foreign ministers from NATO pledge to boost NATO’s contributions to reform efforts in Eastern Europe.

In Moscow, armored vehicles clash with hundreds of civilians armed with Molotov cocktails. Three people are killed and several are injured. Lithuanians and Soviet troops exchange gunfire, resulting in one death. Latvia declares immediate independence. As the coup collapses, Pres. Gorbachev emerges in full control. . . . Ali Vakili Rad, one of three men believed to have stabbed former Iranian prime minister Shahpour Bakhtiar Aug. 6, is arrested by Swiss police near Geneva.

The EC unblocks more than $1.1 billion in aid to the Soviet Union that it froze at the outset of the coup.

Upon his return to Moscow, Soviet president Gorbachev lauds Yeltsin and the Soviet people for fighting the takeover. One of the conspirators, Interior Minister Boris K. Pugo, shoots himself to death, and most of his fellow plotters are taken in custody. Thousands of Russians rally in Red Square to celebrate the failure of the coup and demand the dissolution of the Communist Party. . . . Croatian president Tudjman orders the federal forces to leave the republic and Serb rebels to honor the cease-fire and lay down arms by Aug. 31. Soviet president Gorbachev shuffles his cabinet. . . . The republic of Armenia declares transitional independence. . . . A Yugoslav federal commission reports there have been at least 200 documented violations and more than 70 deaths during the Aug. 6 cease-fire. . . . Hungary lodges a diplomatic protest over incursions into its airspace by Yugoslav air force MiG jets attacking villages in Croatia.

Aug. 23

Israeli defense minister Moshe Arens authorizes the reopening of Najah University, a Palestinian university at Hebron in the Israelioccupied West Bank. . . . Fortune magazine declares that Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei, with assets that total $31 billion, is at the top of its list of 10 of the world’s billionaires.

Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Argentina officially recognize Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Official results from Mexico’s midterm elections show that the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) won an overwhelming victory. . . . Unions at Chile’s El Teniente copper mine settle a three-week strike.

The Bush administration announces that the U.S. is forgiving Bolivia’s $341 million official debt from U.S. assistance programs.

The allegations made Aug 18 by people released by the ANC prompts the organization to open its “various communities” abroad for Red Cross inspection.

A series of aerial bombs and artillery fire kills dozens of people in the northeastern town of Vukovar, where Croatian forces are besieged by Serb rebels. Fighting is also reported in several communities in the Slavonia region. . . . Soviet president Gorbachev resigns as head of the Communist Party and disbands the party’s Central Committee. . . . As many as 100,000 people honor three men who were killed Apr. 21 in Moscow during the coup attempt. . . . Ukraine announces its transitional independence.

Aug. 24

Aug. 25

Africa & the Middle East

U.S. and Jamaican officials sign an agreement canceling $217 million of Jamaica’s debt to the U.S

Members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers begin a series of strikes in major cities across Canada, including Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa.

Yugoslav armored units, planes, and gunboats shell and bomb Croat positions in the central and northeastern Slavonian regions of Croatia in support of the ethnic Serb guerrillas. . . . The parliament of Byelorussia passes a surprise declaration of independence. Byelorussian president Nikolai Dementei, a Communist, resigns under pressure. . . . The Ukrainian CP votes to sever relations with the national Communist Party. Ukrainian lawmakers vote to seize the property of the Communist Party.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 21–25, 1991—233

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

A group of 121 Cuban inmates, many facing deportation to Cuba, seize control of their cellblock at the Talladega Federal Correctional Institution in Alabama and take 11 hostages, including three INS workers. . . . In Wichita, Kansas, three leaders of the Operation Rescue protests are jailed and fined $10,000 each, plus $500 a day for the next 10 days or until they agree to comply with the temporary restraining order.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Paul Miller, 84, who built Gannett Co. into the largest newspaper group in the U.S, dies of unreported causes in West Palm Beach, Florida. . . . The IAAF, the governing body of world track and field, announces world championships will be held every two years instead of every four.

According to a National Cancer Institute study, lung cancer has overtaken heart disease as the leading mortality risk for cigarette smokers in the U.S.

After weeks of negotiations and vetoed legislation, Connecticut governor Lowell Weicker signs the budget that institutes an income tax. Adoption of the bill ends a tortuous stalemate that left the state without a budget 53 days past the July 1 beginning of its fiscal year.

The FBI announces that it has disciplined two field agents and six supervisors for their involvement in the harassment of a black agent, Donald Rochon. . . . Harlan Hobart Grooms, 90, U.S. federal judge who, in 1955 and 1963, ordered the University of Alabama to admit black students, dies in Birmingham, Alabama.

The Justice Department hands down indictments against six former officials of BCCI, the scandalplagued international bank, charging that they are involved in drug-money laundering.

In the midst of weeks of antiabortion blockades, prochoice supporters hold a rally in downtown Wichita. Police estimate attendance at 5,000. . . . The Washington Post reports the Department of Health and Human Services projects that by the year 2000, U.S. health costs will climb to 16.4% of the gross national product, from 12.3% in 1990.

Colleen Dewhurst, 67, theater, film, and television actress who won a Tony and three Emmys and served as president of the U.S. Actors’ Equity Association, 1985–91, dies of cancer in South Salem, New York.

Florence B. Seibert, 93, U.S. physician who developed the first reliable and widely used test for tuberculosis, adopted by the World Health Organization in 1952, dies in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Disgraced television evangelist Jim Bakker wins a reduction in his 45-year prison sentence for fraud to 18 years.

According to a highly publicized study in Lancet, a British journal, moderate drinking reduces the chance of heart disease.

Opponents of abortion cap a summer-long blockade of two Wichita, Kansas, abortion clinics by staging a rally that draws an estimated crowd of 25,000.

Aug. 21

Aug. 22

Aug. 23

Aug. 24

At the Emmy Awards, L.A. Law wins as Best Drama Series, while Cheers takes the top prize as best comedy series. . . . Runner Carl Lewis breaks the two-month-old world record in the 100 meters with a clocking of 9.86 seconds at the world championships in the fastest 100-meter race in history.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 25

234—August 26–31, 1991

Aug. 26

Aug. 27

Aug. 28

Aug. 29

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

Iceland, which was the first Western nation to recognize Lithuania in February, now officially recognizes Estonia and Latvia. Canada announces its diplomatic recognition of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

Uzbekistan president Islam Karimov, a Communist, directs the republic’s parliament to draft a declaration of independence. Uzbekistan proclaims its control of all national military, KGB, and police facilities on its soil. . . . Russian president Yeltsin triggers a dispute between Russia and two republics, the Ukraine and Kazakhstan, over the issue of borders. . . . Ali Vakili Rad, one of three men believed to have stabbed exiled Iranian prime minister Shahpour Bakhtiar Aug. 6, is formally charged with murder in Paris.

The EC recognizes Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia and calls for the EC nations to establish diplomatic relations with the Baltic states. It also proposes a study on the issue of increased aid to the Soviet Union. . . . A Danish diplomat, Otto Borch, visits the Latvian capital, Riga, and becomes the first foreign envoy to be accredited in the Baltics in over 50 years. . . . Australia recognizes Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

Croatian president Tudjman holds an unprecedented meeting with Yugoslavia’s two top military leaders that results in a new a ceasefire. . . . The parliament of Moldavia passes a declaration of independence and is immediately recognized by its neighbor, Romania. . . . As a total of eight of the 15 republics have declared independence, Soviet president Gorbachev threatens to resign if the republics do not halt their stampede for independence.

In Togo, a national conference on democracy elects Joseph Kokou Koffigoh, a lawyer and a humanrights leader, as premier of an interim government.

Reports confirm the World Bank has created a $30 million technical assistance fund to help develop key industries and implement “market-oriented policies” in the Soviet Union.

A cease-fire negotiated Aug. 27 falls through almost immediately, as fighting breaks out again throughout Croatia. . . . The Russian prosecutor’s office formally charges 13 former officials with high treason for their real or purported involvements in the failed coup.

Pres. Hrawi signs a decree of general amnesty for all Lebanese who committed war crimes during the country’s 15-year civil war. . . . . Kuwaiti officials state that Kuwaiti forces destroyed several Iraqi boats and captured about 50 Iraqis who were attempting to recover Iraqi arms from the uninhabited island of Bubiyan. . . . Pres. Gnassingbe Eyadema accepts Premier Koffigoh’s Aug. 27 appointment, thereby ending an autocratic rule in Togo begun in 1967, one of Africa’s longest.

After several rounds of consultations among Afghan rebels and representatives of Iran and Pakistan (the rebels’ principal backers) and the Soviet Union, Afghan rebel leaders state they back UN proposals for a cease-fire and are ready to begin talks to end Afghanistan’s 12-year-old civil war.

The Supreme Soviet votes to suspend all activities of the Communist Party. The move, coupled with a series of curbs imposed earlier, effectively ends the reign of the Communists, in control since 1917. . . . Serbian guerrillas launch attacks on Croatian forces in Dalmatia. Reports indicate Serbian guerrillas seized the Benicanci oil field in Croatia. EC observers find the Yugoslav army is on the offensive against Croatian forces, contrary to its contention that is operating in self-defense.

Gen. Michel Aoun, the renegade Christian military leader who led a two-year mutiny against the Syrianbacked government of Lebanon, leaves for exile in France after being spirited out of Lebanon by French authorities.

Reports show thousands of women whose sons are conscripts in the Yugoslav federal army demanded their sons’ release from service. . . . Ethnic Russians and Ukrainians in the city of Tiraspol, in the breakaway republic of Moldavia, threaten to cut off power and gasoline to the rest of the republic after their leader is arrested on suspicion of backing the Apr. 19 coup. . . . The parliament of Azerbaijan passes an independence declaration.

Aug. 30

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Four factions warring for control of Cambodia tentatively agree to reduce the size of their armies and pledge to place the remainder of their armies in temporary quarters under UN supervision and to surrender their arms. . . . The U.S. and the Philippines sign a 10-year treaty extending U.S. use of the Subic Bay Naval Station in exchange for $363 million in aid in the first year of the agreement and $203 million in the following nine years.

In Mexico, the victorious gubernatorial candidate for the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in the state of Guanajuato, Ramón Aguirre, causes surprise when he states he will not take up the governorship. He claims to step down to preserve stability in Guanajuato in the wake of allegations that the elections were fraudulent.

In Mexico, the Guanajuato state legislature nominates Carlos Medina, a member of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) to serve as interim governor after the Aug. 29 announcement. They suggest new elections will be held. As many as 100 PRI militants occupy the Guanajuato legislature for three days to protest the new election.

Yugoslav fighter planes force two civilian jets to land at the airport in Zagreb and claim to find 19 tons of ammunition and weapons aboard. . . . Kirghizia and Uzbekistan pass independence declarations. . . . In Oxford and in Cardiff, Great Britain, youths clash with police for four days during a crackdown on a current fad in which youths race in stolen cars. . . . After months of economic problems, Poland’s parliament fires Grzegorz Wojtowicz as chairman of the central bank.

Aug. 31

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 26–31, 1991—235

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The first of a series of studies finds that inadequacies in the nation’s hospital emergency rooms causes long waits for treatment and prompts some patients to leave before receiving care.

Of recent events in the Soviet Union, Pres. Bush proclaims, “It clearly is the death knell for the communist movement around the world.”. . . Under pressure from many European leaders calling for increased aid to the Soviet Union, Pres. Bush announces that he will approve early release of $315 million in loan guarantees for Soviet purchases of grain from U.S. farmers.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Aug. 26

The College Board releases the 1991 results of the SATs. The verbal scores have reached an all-time low, while the slight decline in math scores is the first since 1980. . . . An American Bar Association panel announces it has given Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas a rating of “qualified” to sit on the high court in a split decision. No justice has been confirmed at least since 1969 who did not receive a unanimous ABA rating of “qualified” or better.

Reports show that scientists in Europe and the U.S. have genetically modified sheep, goats, and cows to produce milk containing valuable medicines.

A codefendant in the drug-trafficking case against Manuel Noriega, Ricardo Bilonick, reaches pleabargain arrangements in which he pleads guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy in exchange for a maximum 10-year prison sentence.

The National Association of Counties reports that 40% of the 443 U.S. counties with populations of more than 100,000 have budget deficits. . . . Reports indicate that more than 300 environmental groups are forming a nationwide Green Party.

Aug. 27

Five people are killed and more than 200 injured when a subway train derails and crashes into a steel support column just north of the Union Square station in Manhattan. Service on parts of the Lexington Ave. line is shut down for five days. The accident is the worst subway disaster in New York City since a 1928 derailment in which 16 people had been killed.

Aug. 28

Pole vaulter Sergei Bubka and 110meter hurdler Greg Foster become the first competitors to win titles at three world championships.

As many as 200 FBI agents and prison guards storm the Talladega Federal Correctional Institution in Alabama, where 121 Cuban inmates took 11 hostages Aug. 21. FBI agents regain control of the prison and free the hostages. . . . All of Operation Rescue’s leaders leave Wichita, in response to an order by District Judge Kelly, who released imprisoned members on the condition that they depart or face further charges. After the FBI raid Aug. 30 in Alabama, 31 Cubans are deported to Havana.

The Commerce Department announces that the government’s index of leading economic indicators rose 1.2% in July, the largest monthly increase in three years.

Publisher’s Weekly lists The Sum of All Fears, by Tom Clancy, as the top bestseller. . . . Long jumper Mike Powell leaps 8.95 meters to break the world record set by Bob Beamon in the 1968 Olympic Games.

Major Gen. Leigh Wade, 93, U.S. pilot who took part in the first roundthe-world flight in 1924, dies in Ft. Belvoir, Virginia.

Aug. 29

Aug. 30

Aug. 31

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

236—September 1–5, 1991

World Affairs

Sept. 1

Sept. 2

The U.S. announces that it recognizes Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Sporadic clashes at the Zagreb airport between the army and Croatian police are reported. . . . Reports suggest that Moldavia’s Turkicspeaking Gagauz minority has declared independence from the republic. . . . Hundreds of Russian and Ukrainian women stop train traffic in Tiraspol to protest against Moldavian independence. . . . The new chief rabbi of Britain, Jonathan Sacks, is installed as the spiritual head of the nation’s estimated 330,000 Jews.

The Lebanese and Syrian cabinets agree on a security pact.

The Yugoslav federal presidency approves an EC peace plan. By that afternoon, however, Serbian bombardments of Vukovar and Osijek resume, and a new Serbian offensive is reported near Petrinja in south-central Croatia. . . . Reports show that France has become the second EC country to make sexual harassment in the work place a criminal offense, joining Spain. . . . After a blackout, riots erupt in the Handsworth district of Birmingham, U.K., and 23 people are arrested. . . . Georgian security forces injure 20 people while breaking up an antiGamsakhurdia demonstration.

ANC president Mandela meets with three right-wing white hunger-striking prisoners arrested in 1990 on bombing charges. This visit is an effort to convince them to end their fast so they can stand trial. One of the three, Henry Martin, has gone 56 days without food, thereby conducting what is reported to be the longest hunger strike in South African history.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Alfonso García Robles, 80, veteran Mexican diplomat who shared the 1982 Nobel Peace Prize (with Alva Myrdal of Sweden) for his efforts to promote a ban on nuclear weapons in Latin America and coauthor of the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, dies of kidney failure in Mexico City.

British prime minister Major pays the first visit to China by a Western leader since the 1989 crackdown on the prodemocracy movement.

The Australian state of New South Wales bans semiautomatic weapons. . . . Reports suggest that shipments of food and fuel to Afghanistan from the Soviet Union, its principal economic supporter, have virtually ceased in the wake of the failed Soviet coup. . . . Reports show that New Zealand banned the import of semiautomatic weapons and pump-action shotguns.

Sept. 3

Serbian forces effectively block the main highway linking Slavonia with Zagreb, the Croatian capital. The renewed violence since Aug. 28 has claimed at least 100 lives, and Serbian guerrillas are in control of more than 20% of Croatia. Two Moslems are killed in clashes with ethnic Serbs near the town of Bratunac in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Sept. 4

Sept. 5

Argentina, Brazil, and Chile sign a declaration renouncing chemical weapons.

Kuwait and the U.S. initial a 10-year security pact that will allow U.S. armed forces to stockpile equipment and conduct military exercises in Kuwait. . . . South African president de Klerk outlines his government’s proposals for a new constitution that will provide suffrage to the country’s black majority for the first time in modern history.

The Congress of People’s Deputies, the overall Soviet parliament, approves an immediate and sweeping transfer of power to the republics from the central regime. The vote is a victory for Pres. Gorbachev, who proposed the plan.. . . . Serbian and federal army forces step up their attacks on Croatian forces in the cities of Osijek and Vukovar. Reports indicate that Croatia and the neutral republics of BosniaHerzegovina and Macedonia have joined Slovenia in refusing to send new conscripts to the federal army.

Two former Peruvian central bank officials are charged with accepting bribes from the BCCI, an international financial institution, in the middle of a scandal.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 1–5, 1991—237

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

An estimated 1,000 activists march outside Pres. Bush’s vacation home in Kennebunkport, Maine, to protest his policies on AIDS.

The world championships close with athletes from the Soviet Union winning the most medals, 28, including nine golds. The U.S. comes in second with 26, and wins the most golds. The team from united Germany, competing in its first outdoor world championship, ranks third with 17 medals.

Six leaders of the El Rukn street gang are convicted in Chicago on a variety of charges, including murder conspiracy and narcotics conspiracy.

Laura Riding Jackson (born Laura Reichenthal), 90, American poet and literary critic, dies of cardiac arrest in Sebastian, Florida.

In Texas, Wanda Webb Holloway is convicted of attempting to hire a man to kill the mother of one of her daughter’s rivals for the junior high school cheerleading squad. . . . The motorman who was operating the train that derailed Aug. 28, Robert Ray, 38, is indicted on five counts of second-degree murder. Ray’s blood alcohol was .21%, twice the legal limit 13 hours after the accident, and he previously admitted that he was falling asleep at the controls.

The Canadian government notifies the U.S. government that it plans to lift a 15% tax on softwood lumber exports to the U.S., in place since 1986. The announcement draws protests from U.S. lumber industry and trade officials.

Eight alumni members of the secret Skull and Bones society at Yale, including conservative writer William Buckley, obtain a temporary restraining order barring the society from inducting new members in order to keep women from joining. . . . Wanda Webb Holloway is sentenced to serve 15 years in prison and pay a $10,000 fine for attempting to hire a man to kill the mother of one of her daughter’s rivals for the junior high school cheerleading squad.

A U.S. grand jury indicts two military contractors on charges of selling to Iran U.S.-made navigational equipment for use in fighter jets. . . . Secretary of State Baker, in the first public statement of U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union since the failed coup, states the U.S. will support only political changes that come “through orderly democratic processes.”

Former Panamanian military strongman Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega goes on trial in U.S. District Court in Miami on charges that he helped Colombian drug traffickers transport drugs and launder money. By the time the trial opens, seven of his 15 codefendants have reached plea bargains.

The National Association of Purchasing Management reports that the Purchasing Managers’ Index in August climbed to 54.8%, from 51.8% in July, a sign that the manufacturing economy is expanding.

In a fire at a chicken-processing plant in Hamlet, North Carolina, 25 people are killed and 55 others injured.

Frank Capra, 94, movie director of several films, such as It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), and the first director to receive three Academy Awards, dies in La Quinta, California. . . . The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America assembly votes to adopt a moderate policy statement on abortion.

Major League Baseball unequivocally recognizes Roger Maris’s 61 home runs in 1961 as the all-time, single-season record. . . . Charlie Barnet, 77, jazz saxophonist, dies in San Diego, California. . . . Dottie West, 58, the first country female vocalist to receive a Grammy, dies in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Department of Energy announces plans to spend up to $38 billion over five years to clean up contaminants and radioactive waste at nuclear-weapons production plants in 13 states.

The New England Journal of Medicine reports that a test has been developed to tell whether contractions during pregnancy are the beginning of preterm labor or merely false alarms.

Sept. 1

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Sept. 5

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

238—September 6–11, 1991

Sept. 6

Sept. 7

Sept. 8

Sept. 9

Sept. 10

Sept. 11

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The State Council, in one of its first acts, declares Soviet support for the membership of the Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia) in the UN and in the CSCE. Japan recognizes the Baltics after the State Council decision.

In its first official action, the State Council, the new Soviet provisional executive body, issues separate proclamations of independence for each of the Baltic states— Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania— which were annexed by the USSR in 1940. . . . The Russian city of Leningrad adopts its former name, St. Petersburg, after approval by the Russian legislature.

The presidents of Croatia and Serbia, the Yugoslav federal president and the foreign ministers of the 12 EC nations attend the opening round of talks in The Hague, the Netherlands. . . . China extends recognition to Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

Lithuania promises to open all archives in the republic related to the mass murder of Jews in Lithuania during World War II. . . . Hundreds of Serbs demonstrate outside the German embassy in Belgrade to protest against Germany’s support for Croatia.

Iraq provokes renewed censure from the U.S. and its allies when it announces it will not allow UN arms experts to fly their helicopters in Iraqi airspace.

Citizens of Macedonia, in a referendum, vote by a significant majority to declare independence from Yugoslavia. . . . Fierce fighting is reported in the towns of Kostajnica, Okucani, and Pakrac in central Croatia. . . . Azerbaijan holds its first direct presidential election, and Ayaz Mutalibov easily wins since the opposition declined to participate in the election, calling it a “sham.”

In South Africa, three or four gunmen ambush a crowd of 300 Inkatha supporters in the Johannesburg township of Thokoza. Police do not know who is responsible for the attack, which leaves 18 people dead. The incident sparks Inkatha rampages in nearby townships, and by nightfall the death toll rises to at least 42.

The Baltic states begin discussions on trade and aid with the EC. . . . Estonia becomes the first Baltic state to apply for membership in the International Monetary Fund.

About 350 youths go on a rampage in North Shields in northeast England. Eight people are arrested. . . . Reports indicate that one man was seriously injured when a bomb exploded in a cafe in Belgrade. . . . The parliament of the republic of Tadzhikistan declares independence. . . . Seven Greek newspaper editors are sentenced to jail terms for publishing proclamations issued by a terrorist group. Publication of such decrees are banned under a 1990 antiterrorism law.

The South African government declares the Johannesburg townships of Thokoza, Katlehong, Vosloorus, and Tembisa “unrest areas,” and heightens security. However, more killings are reported, and, in the township of Soweto, 17 commuters are injured when they jump off a moving train in panic over a rumor that an Inkatha gang is aboard. Separately, three members of the Order of the Boer Nation, a white supremacist movement, end an eight-week hunger strike.

Foreign ministers from the CSCE open a human-rights meeting in Moscow. . . . UN secretary general Javier Perez de Cuellar meets with Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Serbian police use tear-gas water cannons to disperse 15,000 ethnic Albanian demonstrators in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. . . . Jan Josef Lipski, 65, anticommunist dissident and human-rights advocate who was elected to Poland’s Senate in 1989, dies of heart disease in Cracow, Poland.

After a month of UN-mediated negotiations, Israel releases 51 Lebanese and Palestinian guerrillas from prison and returns the remains of nine others, in return for information to confirm the deaths of two Israeli soldiers missing since 1986. . . . Soviet president Gorbachev announces that his country will begin negotiations with Cuba over a withdrawal of Soviet military forces. . . . Reports show that Latvia and Estonia applied for membership in the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Croatia shuts down a pipeline that carries crude-oil imports through Croatia to Serbia from unloading points on the Adriatic Sea.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

A special assembly of regional and community leaders in Suriname elect Ronald Venetiaan, a candidate from the New Front for Democracy coalition, as president after May national elections failed to yield a single party who won the two-thirds parliamentary majority necessary to appoint a president. . . . Statistics Canada reports that Canada’s unemployment rate rose to 10.6% in August, the highest since April 1985.

Canadian government workers begin their first-ever nationwide strike.

Luo Hai Sing, a Hong Kong businessman, is released from prison after he was sentenced in March to five years in jail for allegedly helping two dissidents flee China after the 1989 crackdown on the prodemocracy movement. . . . In the Philippines, the Senate foreign relations committee—which includes every senator—votes against an accord to extend the U.S. lease on the Subic Bay Naval Station.

After a summer of securities scandals, Japan’s finance ministry approves draft revisions to securities laws. . . . About 2,500 people demonstrate in Melbourne against unemployment. . . . In response to the Sept. 9 vote, Philippine president Corazon Aquino launches a protreaty march in Manila that attracts between 100,000 and 200,000 people.

In separate attacks on a bus and nearby railway platform, 10 people die in Thokoza, South Africa.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 6–11, 1991—239

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The Boston Globe reports that the Massachusetts-based Lotus Development Corp. became the first major corporation in the U.S. to offer the same health and other benefits to homosexual partners of its employees as it does to spouses. . . . U.S. district judge Robert F. Collins, convicted in June of accepting a bribe from a drug dealer, is sentenced in New Orleans to serve six years and 10 months in prison.

Unisys Corp. pleads guilty to criminal misconduct related to the Pentagon procurement scandal. In a plea-bargain arrangement with the Justice Department, the company agrees to pay a record $190 million in fines, penalties, and forfeitures. . . . Clair E. George, a former director of operations at the CIA, is indicted on 10 felony counts of lying about the Iran-contra arms scandal to congressional inquiries and a grand jury.

Belinda Mason, 33, the only member of Pres. Bush’s National Commission on AIDS infected with the disease, dies of AIDS-related pneumonia in Nashville, Tennessee. . . . Two of the three Milwaukee police officers who returned a naked, bleeding teenage boy to Jeffrey Dahmer, are dismissed. The third is put on probation. . . . According to a study by the Feminist Majority Foundation and the American Medical Women’s Association, the pay and status of women in the medical profession is disproportionately low.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Sept. 6

Edwin Mattison McMillan, 83, nuclear physicist and cowinner of the 1951 Nobel Prize for chemistry for the discovery of the elements neptunium and plutonium, dies of complications from a stroke and diabetes at his home in El Cerrito, Calif. . . . John H. Lawrence, 87, pioneer in the field of nuclear medicine and one of the first scientists to warn of the danger of radiation and to use it in diagnosing and treating cancer and other diseases, dies in Berkeley, Calif., of complications from a stroke.

Monica Seles of Yugoslavia wins the U.S. Open title.

A fire destroys the roof of the Manhattan terminal of NYC’s Staten Island ferry, injuring 14 people.

Brad Davis, 41, actor in Chariots of Fire (1981), dies of AIDS in Los Angeles. . . . Alex North, 81 composer who won the 1986 Academy Award for lifetime achievement, dies of cancer in Los Angeles. . . . Stefan Edberg wins his first U.S. Open title. Natalya Zvereva and Pam Shriver win the women’s doubles title.

The EPA announces two timber companies—Louisiana-Pacific Corp. and Simpson Paper Co.— have agreed to pay $5.8 million in fines for dumping untreated waste from paper mills into the Pacific Ocean near Eureka, California. The companies have also agreed to spend $50 million to reduce toxic emissions from their mills.

Former world heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson is indicted on charges related to the alleged rape of a woman in Indianapolis. . . . The African-American Catholic Congregation, a splinter group of the Roman Catholic Church, ordains a woman, Rev. Rose Vernell, as a priest.

Reports show that regulations restricting the practices of HIVinfected doctors will encourage them to hide their condition or avoid testing. . . . The Department of Health and Human Services issues controversial new regulations that curtail methods used by states to increase their federal Medicaid matching funds. . . . The Senate Judiciary Committee opens hearings on the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. Rep. William Gray (D, Pa.) formally resigns his congressional seat.

Sept. 7

Sept. 8

Sept. 9

Sept. 10

Pres. Bush meets with envoys of the three Baltic states at the White House. He announces a modest program of U.S. assistance to the region, including the unfreezing of $60 million in Baltic assets seized for safeguarding by the U.S. in 1940, U.S. support for Baltic UN membership, and the sending of Peace Corps contingents to the region.

The Treasury announces new rules for its auctions of government securities in an effort to bar further abuses in bond trading like those acknowledged by Salomon Brothers Inc. in a recent scandal. . . . The EPA for the first time sets specific federal regulations for municipal garbage landfills. . . . The FAA orders the replacement of control valves and alterations of the connected electrical systems in the engines in almost half of 757 aircraft in operation.

Sept. 11

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

240—September 12–16, 1991

Sept. 12

Sept. 13

Sept. 14

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

As part of the hostage exchanges started Sept. 11, the body of a missing Israeli soldier, Sergeant Samir Assad, is returned to Israel. Assad, taken prisoner by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine in 1983, reportedly had been killed in an Israeli air raid in June 1984. In return for the recovery of Assad’s body, Israel agrees to repatriate Ali Abdalla Muhammed Hallal, a West Bank Palestinian activist who was deported by Israel in January 1986.

Reports state the Yugoslav federal army forces in Croatia fighting are ignoring orders from federal president Mesic to withdraw to their barracks. Serb rebels in Croatia, backed by the federal military, seize a key highway bridge near the port city of Zadar. . . . Two Croatian members of the federal cabinet, Finance Minister Branko Zekan and Development Minister Bozo Marendic, resign in response to urging by the Croatian government.

A Swedish soldier in the United Nations Lebanese peacekeeping force (UNIFIL) is killed and five other UNIFIL soldiers are wounded during a shoot-out between Palestinian guerrillas and the Israelibacked South Lebanon Army militia in Naqoura, Lebanon. The shoot-out is the first major incident involving UNIFIL troops since December 1988. . . . After more than a year of negotiations, the U.S. and the Soviet Union agree to discontinue their military aid to government and rebel forces in Afghanistan.

The central Croatian town of Kostajnica, near the border with Bosnia-Herzegovina, falls to Serb insurgents after five days of fierce fighting. The Croatian government admits that federal and pro-Serbian forces hold one-third of Croatia. . . . U.S. secretary of state Baker pays an unprecedented visit to the Moscow headquarters of the KGB and meets with the new KGB chief, Vadim V. Bakatin.

Reports confirm that UN weapons inspectors estimate that Iraq would have been capable of building two or three atomic weapons a year by the mid-1990s, if its nuclear production facilities had not been destroyed during the Persian Gulf war.

Croatia cuts off electricity, water, and food to the federal army bases in Croatia. Croatia also captures Major Gen. Milan Aksentijevic, the deputy commander of federal forces in the Zagreb area. . . . Reports state that a man in France was sentenced by a court in Douai to eight years in prison for torturing and raping his wife. It is one of the first cases of its kind since France’s courts in 1990 overturned laws that held that rape cannot occur in marriage.

The South African government, the ANC, and the Inkatha Freedom Party sign a comprehensive plan aimed at ending factional violence in the impoverished black townships that, since Sept. 8, has left at least 125 people dead. . . . Six U.S. Navy servicemen are killed when their helicopter crashes and sinks in the Persian Gulf 40 miles north of Bahrain.

An estimated 50,000 Ukrainians demonstrate for complete independence in Kiev, the republic’s capital. . . . British author Salman Rushdie, who was sentenced to death by Iranian religious leaders for allegedly blaspheming Islam in his 1989 novel The Satanic Verses, emerges from hiding to accept an award in London for his latest novel, Haroun and the Sea of Stories. . . . In retaliation for the Sept. 14 actions by Croatia, federal air force and navy units strafe and shell the port city of Ploce.

Reports indicate that the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) defrauded Nigeria of up to $200 million between 1985 and 1987.

In Suriname, Ronald Venetiaan takes office as president.

Political parties that favor expanded democracy for Hong Kong win 16 of the 18 seats contested in the colony’s first direct elections in 150 years of British rule.

Serb insurgents seize five oilpumping stations near Zagreb, forcing the Croatian government to concede it can no longer guarantee oil supplies in the republic federal. Air force jets destroy a television transmitter on the outskirts of Zagreb. . . . Swedish premier Ingvar Carlsson resigns after his Social Democratic Labor Party suffers its worst electoral defeat in 60 years. . . . At least 10,000 protesters rally against Georgian president Gamsakhurdia in Tbilisi. Two opposition leaders are arrested on Gamsakhurdia’s orders.

In the midst of tensions over loan guarantees to provide for its influx of Soviet Jewish emigres to Israel, protesters pelt U.S. secretary of state Baker’s motorcade with tomatoes as it enters Jerusalem for talks. . . . The Lebanese parliament ratifies a security pact with Syria, in spite of widespread objections from many Lebanese leaders.

Reports show that Mexican health officials have confirmed nine deaths and 696 cases of cholera.

The Philippine Senate rejects a treaty to extend the U.S. lease on the Subic Bay Naval Station. . . . In Afghanistan, rebel leaders reject an offer from Pres. Najibullah to initiate a cease-fire and negotiations.

Sept. 15

Sept. 16

Lucas Mangope, the president of the nominally independent tribal homeland of Bophuthatswana, releases 19 prisoners involved in an abortive coup against him in 1988.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Canada, Toronto Transit Commission workers go on strike.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 12–16, 1991—241

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Senate votes to nullify Bush administration regulations that bar doctors in clinics from receiving federal funds for informing patients about, or providing referrals for, abortions. . . . Public Citizen reports that House members received almost 4,000 free trips, not including political or charitable trips, in 1989–90.

U.S. officials admit that scores of Iraqi soldiers entrenched along the Iraq-Saudi Arabian border were buried alive by U.S. forces Feb. 24. The operation provokes a public outcry, although U.S. military officials state the action does not violate the Geneva Convention. . . . A U.S. District Court judge sentences Virgilio Paz Romero to 12 years in prison for his part in the 1976 assassination of Orlando Letelier.

Massachusetts governor William F. Weld (R) places the city of Chelsea in receivership.

The space shuttle Discovery takes off from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, to deploy a satellite to study the Earth’s ozone layer. . . . The New England Journal of Medicine finds that women who take the female hormone estrogen after menopause can cut their risk of heart disease by about 40%. . . . A study shows that hospital treatment for employees with alcohol problems is more curative than outpatient programs.

Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart is found guilty of defaming a fellow television evangelist, Marvin Gorman, and is ordered to pay a total of $10 million to Gorman and his ministries.

The government returns the last of three University of Virginia fraternity houses seized by federal officials in a drug raid in March. . . . Five suspects are arrested in connection with the killings of nine Buddhists at a temple near Phoenix, Arizona, in August.

The Federal Reserve Board votes to cut its basic interest rate for loans to member institutions to 5% from 5.5%, which brings the socalled discount rate down to its lowest level since 1973.

Robert Augustine Irving, 78, musical director of the New York City Ballet, 1958–89, dies of a heart attack in Winchester, England.

A man wielding a hammer damages the toe of the statue of David by Michelangelo in Italy. The damage to the 487-year-old statue is said to be repairable as it was disfigured in a similar attack in 1972.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence opens hearings on the confirmation of Robert Gates as director of central intelligence.

All charges against Oliver North, previously convicted in the Iran-contra scandal, are dropped. . . . Pres. Bush meets with Angolan president dos Santos at the White House. It is the first meeting ever between leaders of the two countries. . . . U.S. officials state that the Sept. 14 helicopter crash in the Middle East raises the total number of noncombat deaths among U.S. military personnel since the end of the Persian Gulf war to 71.

Harvard University scientists suggest that dyslexia may not be a language disorder but a defect in the brain that involves vision. . . . The Discovery releases the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), marking the beginning of NASA’s “Mission to Planet Earth,” a program for studying changes in the global environment. Discovery also changes course to avoid flying too close to part of a discarded rocket. It is the first time any spacecraft has been forced to maneuver out of the way of orbiting debris.

Forrest (Smoky) Burgess, 64, baseball player who, until 1979, held the career record for most pinch hits, dies of unreported causes in Asheville, North Carolina. . . . Golfer Nancy Scranton wins the du Maurier Classic, to earn the LPGA’s major tournament title and her first tour victory.

Pres. Bush announces the creation of Presidential Faculty Fellows, a group of special grants for promising young scientists. . . . Reports suggest that a scientist at the University of Southern California has found a cause of chronic fatigue syndrome in a retrovirus inhabiting the spinal fluid. The agent is a spumavirus, also known as a foamy virus.

Mark Wellman, 31, a paraplegic park ranger, reaches the top of 2,200-foot Half Dome mountain in Yosemite National Park, after 12 days of rock climbing.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 12

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Sept. 14

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Sept. 16

242—September 17–22, 1991

Sept. 17

Sept. 18

Sept. 19

World Affairs

Europe

The 46th UN General Assembly opens, and the delegates formally vote to admit seven countries: North Korea, South Korea, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and the three newly independent Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Saudi Arabia’s UN representative, Samir Shihabi, wins a surprise first-ballot election to the one-year post of General Assembly president. No Saudi has ever before served in a major UN post.

The latest peace accord is signed by Pres. Tudjman of Croatia, Pres. Milosevic of Serbia, and the Yugoslav defense minister, Col. Gen. Kadijevic. It is scheduled to go into effect Sept. 18. . . . Ethnic Serbian snipers fire shots near the presidential palace in Zagreb. The Yugoslav navy begins a blockade of seven Croatian port cities on the Adriatic southern coast.

U.S. president Bush authorizes U.S. Air Force warplanes to escort UN weapons inspectors in Iraqi territory.

Macedonia’s parliament votes for independence from Yugoslavia. . . . The Sept. 17 peace treaty is largely ignored as Yugoslav navy gunboats shell a Croatian coastal city, Croatian forces capture an army base and fighting rages in the suburbs of Zagreb. . . . In Greece, two explosions damage government offices. Two groups claim responsibility for the blasts as protests continue against the antiterrorism law and plans to sell off state-owned industries.

The UN Security Council gives final approval to a resolution permitting Iraq to sell $1.6 billion worth of oil to raise money for food and medicine. . . . Argentine president Carlos Saúl Menem announces Argentina’s plans to withdraw from the Nonaligned Movement, a group founded in 1961 that links countries that do not adhere to either the Eastern or Western cold war political and military blocs.

Sept. 20

Sept. 21

Sept. 22

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

After more meetings, the U.S. and Israel remain deadlocked over $10 billion worth of housing-loan guarantees sought by Israel.

Public Service Alliance of Canada workers end their strike.

Kuwaiti defense minister Ali alSalim al-Sabah and U.S. defense secretary Cheney sign a 10-year security pact that allows the U.S. armed forces to stockpile equipment and conduct military exercises in Kuwait.

The Yugoslav federal military launches a massive armored offensive into the republic of Croatia, destroying the EC-mediated Sept. 17 truce. Croatia puts forth an offer to halt the fighting. . . . Seven newspaper editors jailed for publishing terrorist decrees are released from prison after press unions agree to pay fines that the journalists themselves refuse to pay.

The Finance Committee of the Israeli parliament approves $6.5 million in supplementary funding for settlement activities in the occupied territories, as Israel continues to defy U.S. opposition to its settlement policies.

Acting President Kadreddin Aslonov, outlaws the Communist Party in Tadzhikistan and orders a confiscation of all party property.

Reports suggest that nine members of Iran’s only legal domestic opposition party were convicted and sentenced to prison as “enemies of the Islamic revolution” for signing a letter critical of the Iranian government.

The Yugoslav federal defense minister accepts the Sept. 20 Croatian offer to halt the fighting. Federal gunboats ease their blockade, but fighting continues in the Slavonia region and in northeastern Croatia. . . . In Georgia, opposition forces seize the government broadcasting center with the aid of hundreds of members of the Georgian National Guard who deserted the Gamsakhurdia regime. . . . In a referendum, Armenians vote for independence.

Iran, which opposes any U.S. military role in the Persian Gulf region, lodges a formal protest against the Sept. 19 pact with the Kuwaiti embassy in Iran.

Reports indicate some of the Soviet food and fuel shipments to Afghanistan that lapsed in August have resumed. . . . Separately, reports indicate that clashes between Afghan rebel and government forces have escalated near Kabul. . . . . The government of Premier Kaifu formally proposes to Japan’s Diet a bill that will allow up to 2,000 military personnel to be dispatched abroad to participate in UN peace-keeping missions.

In Canada, striking workers from the Toronto Transit Commission return to their jobs, ending an eight-day walkout that crippled public transit in the city.

Reports suggest that Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney’s popularity rating has fallen to 9%, the lowest figure ever posted by a prime minister.

The Anglican Diocese of the state of Western Australia becomes the first Australian diocese to approve the ordination of women as priests.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 17–22, 1991—243

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Air Force Secretary Donald B. Rice announces a sweeping reorganization that will, among other things, eliminate the Strategic Air Command.

The Senate approves a $14.4 billion fiscal 1992 transportation appropriations bill. . . . The U.S. Federal Reserve Board announces that it is levying a civil fine of $37 million on Ghaith Pharaon, a Saudi businessman whom it accuses of acting as a U.S. front man for the BCCI, the bank in the midst of international scandal.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Sept. 17

The CDC issues draft guidelines proposing that hospitals routinely test their patients for AIDS. The guidelines are not be mandatory, and they call for testing only with the informed consent of a patient.

A GAO audit reveals that members of the House bounced thousands of checks written against accounts in the House Bank. . . . The U.S. places a ban on imports of fish caught with drift nets that inadvertently kill thousands of whales, dolphins, birds, and other marine life.

The U.S. space shuttle Discovery lands safely at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

Census Bureau data shows college-educated white men earn almost one-third more than black men with similar educational backgrounds. . . . The CDC reports 27.3% of high-school students surveyed “seriously thought” about committing suicide within the past year. The agency also finds the percentage of elderly Americans who killed themselves rose sharply between 1980 and 1986. . . . Julio Gonzalez, convicted of setting a fatal 1989 fire in the Bronx, is sentenced to the maximum term of 25 years to life.

The Senate passes a $12.7 billion fiscal 1992 appropriations bill for the Department of the Interior and related agencies.

The New England Journal of Medicine argues that a simple treadmill examination can help predict whether a heart-disease patient will develop serious ailments. . . . Results from the June flight of the spacecraft Columbia show that the human body starts adapting to weightlessness almost immediately upon entering orbit.

The Census Bureau reports that the proportions of blacks between the ages of 35 and 44 years who completed four years of high school and college increased substantially between 1980 and 1990. . . . The Democratic National Committee meets in Los Angeles, California.

The International Olympic Committee, meeting in Berlin, admits the Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania into the Olympic movement.

Sept. 19

The Mobil International Amateur Athletic Federation Grand Prix finals conclude the international track season. Soviet pole vaulter Sergei Bubka wins the men’s overall title, and high jumper Heike Henkel of Germany takes the women’s overall title.

In Sandy, Utah, a gunman shoots and kills a nurse and holds eight people hostage for 18 hours in a hospital. The man, Richard Worthington, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the father of eight children, planned to kill an obstetrician, Glade Curtis, who performed a tubal ligation on Worthington’s wife, Karen, in 1989.

A study finds that many chronic fatigue syndrome victims suffer from abnormalities of the immune system.

Five inmates are killed and eight injured in an uprising by 68 inmates of the maximum-security unit of the Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge, Montana. The four-hour siege ends when law enforcement officials drop tear-gas canisters in the building.

Sept. 18

The U.S. 1992 Olympic basketball team contains NBA players for the first time.

In a controversial move, the Huntington Library, an independent research library, begins to allow public access to its set of photographs of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Israeli government issues a protest.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 20

Sept. 21

Sept. 22

244—September 23–26, 1991

Sept. 23

Sept. 24

Sept. 25

Sept. 26

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The UN General Assembly’s period of general debate opens with speeches by world leaders and foreign ministers. U.S. president Bush, addressing the opening, sparks controversy when he calls upon the assembly to repeal its 1975 resolution that equates Zionism with racism. . . . A 44-member UN team is detained for 12 hours after finding incriminating documents in a Baghdad building. Iraqi troops set the team free only after the inspectors relinquish thousands of documents they took for examination.

Tadzhikistan’s primarily communist legislature declares a state of emergency and fires the acting president, prompting 10,000 people to protest. . . . Moving from its declaration of transitional independence, Armenia’s parliament votes for immediate independence. . . . Russian president Yeltsin mediates a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. However, renewed ethnic fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh claims six Armenian lives. . . . To boost revenues, Greece offers to sell 35 small islands to private buyers.

In Kinshasa, Zaire, 3,000 paratroopers gather to protest low wages. The demonstration soon turns violent, and hundreds of civilians join the soldiers in ransacking businesses and homes.

After continued negotiations led by the UN and Iran, a Shi’ite Muslim faction in Lebanon frees Jack Mann, a British retired airline pilot kidnapped in May 1989. . . . Iraqi troops detain the team of UN weapons inspectors as they did Sept. 23. The team, prepared for such action, uses a satellite phone to contact the UN, U.S. officials, and the press. They claim they found conclusive evidence of Iraqi plans to manufacture nuclear weapons and are being detained since they will not relinquish that evidence. In response, Iraqi officials allege the team seized personnel records to target Iraqi scientists for assassination by Israeli agents, and Deputy Premier Aziz accuses UN team leader David Kay of being a spy for the CIA.

Zviad Gamsakhurdia, the president of Soviet Georgia, declares a state of emergency in the southern republic. . . . In Romania, miners, once allies of the ruling National Salvation Front, begin a strike in the western Jiu Valley over wages.

As the looting in Zaire continues, Belgium—the country’s former colonial ruler—and France dispatch troops to protect foreign residents and evacuate those who wish to leave. The death toll reaches at least 30.

The government and representatives of El Salvador’s five main rebel groups sign a broad agreement on the country’s political and economic future, the result of UNmediated peace talks convened Sept. 17 by Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar. . . . In a letter delivered to the UN Security Council, Iraq offers to set the arms inspectors free if they will cooperate with Iraqi officials to prepare an inventory of the documents they intend to remove.

Four people are killed in a shoot-out between loyalist and rebel national guardsmen in Georgia’s capital, Tblisi. . . . More than 7,000 miners armed with ax handles, Molotov cocktails, and rocks travel to Bucharest and go on a rampage, which is joined by other antigovernment protestors. Riot police and soldiers, wielding stun grenades, tear gas and truncheons, fight two days of pitched battles. . . . Soviet president Gorbachev issues a decree creating a nine-member committee of presidential advisers called the Political Consultative Council. . . . Reports state that, in Hoyerswerda near the Polish border, persistent attacks and protests at apartment complexes housing foreign workers (largely Vietnamese and Mozambicans) have led to the evacuation of 230 foreigners to an army base. . . . Klaus Barbie, 77, German intelligence chief for the Nazi Gestapo known as the “Butcher of Lyon,” who escaped to South America with the aid of the U.S. Army’s counterintelligence unit that used him as a paid informer in postwar Europe, before being tracked down in Bolivia and convicted in France in 1987 of crimes against humanity, dies of cancer in a prison hospital in Lyon.

The UN Security Council agrees to the Iraqi conditions proposed Sept. 25, but warns Iraq that its agreement does not set a precedent for Iraqi interference in future weapons inspections. The council condemns Iraq for the detentions of the weapons team and reiterates its insistence on full Iraqi cooperation with future arms inspections.

Romanian premier Petre Roman and his entire cabinet resign amid rioting by thousands of angry coal miners in Bucharest. The resignation of the government, however, does not end the rioting, as the miners demand that Pres. Iliescu also step down.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Pao Yue-Kong (Sir Y. K. Pao), 72, Hong Kong shipping magnate reported to be among the world’s richest men, dies of respiratory failure in Hong Kong.

At a meeting of the Palestine National Council, the legislative body of the PLO, West Bank Palestinian leaders Hanan Ashrawi and Faisal al-Husseini address the delegates, openly defying an Israeli law that prohibits Palestinians from the occupied territories from making contact with the PLO. Israeli defense ministry officials states that the leaders will be arrested and prosecuted if they return to Israel.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 23–26, 1991—245

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The GAO reports that NASA’s system of testing spacecraft before launches is badly organized.

A Senate committee finds that prices for prescription drugs in the 1980s increased almost three times faster than inflation. . . . Reports emerge of a survey of scientists doing research for the tobacco industry, in which 91% of the respondents admitted smoking causes most lung cancer deaths, and 98% agreed smoking is addictive. . . . Ed Pastor (D) becomes the first Hispanic elected to Congress by Arizona. . . . Congress clears two versions of a bill to extend jobless benefits to people who were out of work for more than half a year. . . . The White House states that Pres. Bush rejected a new version of Senate civil-rights legislation.

Sept. 23

The FAA announces new rules that require the nation’s airlines to cut down on the noise put out by their fleets. The regulations are less stringent than an initial proposal issued in February.

Theodor Seuss Geisel, 87, children’s book author and illustrator known as Dr. Seuss, whose 48 whimsical books became classics and who won a special 1984 Pulitzer Prize and three Academy Awards, dies in his sleep in La Jolla, California.

Warner Books publishes Scarlett: The Sequel to Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, written by Alexandra Ripley. Despite mostly negative reviews, the book immediately shoots to the top of The New York Times bestseller list.

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, women are 17.5 times more likely to contract the AIDS virus through heterosexual sex than men. . . . The National Commission on AIDS releases a report that states progress has been made against AIDS “in virtually every arena” but criticizes Pres. Bush and other officials for a lack of leadership on the issue.

Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, speaking to reporters, denies that Iran conspired with officials of Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential election campaign to delay the release of U.S. hostages and harm the reelection bid of then-Pres. Jimmy Carter. Amid continued investigation of the claims, Velayati’s denial is the first substantive statement ever made by an Iranian official regarding the affair. . . . Dandeny Muñoz Mosquera, allegedly a top assassin for Colombia’s Medellin cocaine cartel, is arrested in Queens, New York.

The Census Bureau reports that states’ total revenue in fiscal 1990 was $625 billion, a 7% increase from fiscal 1989. The bureau also finds that fiscal 1990 expenditures totaled $572 billion, leaving a revenue surplus of $53.6 billion, the smallest since 1985. . . . The Federal Reserve Board announces that it is levying a civil fine of $20 million on Kemal Shoaib, an Arab businessman whom it accuses of acting as a U.S. front man for the BCCI.

The Census Bureau reports that the proportion of Americans not covered by health insurance increased in 1990 to 14.0%, from 13.6% in the previous year. . . . An accused multiple murderer and a convicted killer, Charles Chitat Ng and Joseph Kindlerin, are extradited to the U.S. The two had fled to Canada because of a 1976 agreement that allows Canada to refuse to extradite fugitives who could be subject to the death penalty.

The Senate passes $270 billion defense appropriations bill for fiscal 1992. . . . Reports indicate that Pres. Bush, hailing Jordan’s role in U.S.-led efforts to initiate Middle East peace talks, has unfrozen $21 million in military assistance to Jordan.

The Census Bureau data reveals that in inflation-adjusted terms, the median household income for all Americans fell to $29,943 in 1990, a 1.7% drop from the year before. The decrease is the first since 1982. The agency also finds that the number of Americans living below the poverty line increased sharply in 1990. . . . The House and Senate both clear a stopgap spending measure to fund the government’s operations past the October 1 start of the 1992 fiscal new year.

Reports suggest that a 4,000-yearold male corpse has been discovered in an Alpine glacier near the AustrianItalian border. Archaeologists state the man lived in the Bronze Age and appears to have been naturally mummified by wind, cold, and sun and then encased in ice. . . . Four men and four women seal themselves in “Biosphere II,” a giant glass-andsteel greenhouse in Oracle, Arizona. They plan to live there without leaving for two years, in an attempt to mimic Earth’s environment in a self-sustaining ecosystem.

Sept. 24

Sept. 25

Sept. 26

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

246—September 27–October 2, 1991

Sept. 27

Sept. 28

Europe

U.S. president Bush, in a nationally televised address, announces a planned unilateral reduction of about 2,400 U.S. nuclear weapons. He asks the Soviet Union to respond in kind. The move surprises Soviet officials, who had expected to be consulted before a public request.

In the republic of Georgia, loyalist forces seize a rebel guard base. . . . Romanian president Iliescu meets with Miron Cosma, the miners’ leader.

Iraqi troops end their detention of a team of 44 UN weapons experts in Baghdad, ending a stand-off that started Sept. 24. . . . Soviet president Gorbachev hails U.S. president Bush’s Sept. 27 initiative as a “major step” but states the development requires further study by the Kremlin.

Larry Murchan, a Roman Catholic, is shot dead in an attack claimed by the Loyalist Defense and Retaliation Group. According to reports, Murchan is the 2,000th civilian killed during the last 21 years of sectarian strife in Northern Ireland. . . . In Romania, rioting miners leave Bucharest. Reports show that at least three people were killed, and more than 100 others injured during the riots begun on Sept. 25.

The Palestine National Council, the legislative body of the PLO, votes to endorse Palestinian participation in a U.S.- and Soviet-sponsored Middle East peace conference.

A jury in El Salvador finds two army officers, Col. Guillermo Alfredo Benavides Moreno and Lt. Yusshy René Mendoza Vallecillos, guilty of murder and terrorism in the 1989 slayings of six Jesuit priests and two other people in San Salvador. The officers’ conviction marks the first time in modern memory that Salvadoran military officers are convicted of killing a civilian. A crowd of 200 protesters outside the courtroom is reinforced by signs of military support.

Reports confirm that, between Sept. 27 and 29, youths in 20 German towns attacked residences of foreigners. In response, 1,000 people in Hoyerswerda protest racism. . . . In Georgia, an explosion injures six people. . . . An estimated 175,000 people march in Paris, calling for aid to farmers. The government announces an additional 1.3 billion francs in aid. . . . An Irish student, Kevin McGovern, is killed in Cookstown, County Tyrone, by officers who are investigating reports of a car bomb.

In Zaire, after nearly a week of pillaging in major cities, a government radio broadcast states that at least 117 people were killed in Kinshasa. Pres. Mobutu Sese Seko agrees to form a “government of national crisis” with opposition parties and shuffles his cabinet. . . . Jonas Savimbi, the head of the Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), returns to Luanda, the capital, for the first time since civil war broke out in 1975.

In Haiti, a coup begins at an army training camp at Freres and spreads to Port-au-Prince. The ruling junta is led by Brigadier General Raoul Cédras. Sylvio Claude, an evangelical preacher and two-time presidential candidate, is reported killed in fighting.

Sept. 29

British skinheads are arrested after police break up a melee involving right-wing youths in Cottbus, Brandenburg. . . . The Royal Ulster Constabulary apologizes for the Sept. 29 death of Kevin McGovern. The Northern Ireland police force states that its officers mistook McGovern for a terrorist.

Sept. 30

Oct. 1

Oct. 2

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

In response to the coup in Haiti, the U.S., France, and China, Haiti’s significant foreign-aid donors, cut off funds to the impoverished Caribbean country. . . . The U.S. State Department discloses that U.S. arms experts will be sent to Moscow to help clarify some aspects of Pres. Bush’s Sept. 27 initiative to Soviet officials.

Britain announces it will prosecute the four detectives who investigated the 1974 bombings at two Birmingham pubs on charges of perjury and conspiracy to pervert justice. The six men convicted in the bombings were freed in March. . . . All private cars are banned from driving in the center of Athens for an 11-hour period because of record pollution levels. . . . Ingegerd Troedsson is elected the first female speaker of the Riksdag in Swedish history.

The EC freezes $148 million in aid to Haiti. . . . The Organization of American States, meeting in an emergency session, agrees to a resolution calling for the suspension of all economic, commercial, diplomatic, and military assistance to the coup leaders in Haiti. Hundreds of Haitian emigres gather outside the OAS building beating drums and chanting for Jean-Bertrand Aristide to be returned to power.

Gunmen ambush a Soviet military train near Tblisi, injuring at least four people. . . . The Croatian port city of Dubrovnik is attacked by federal forces. . . . All private cars are banned again from driving in the center of Athens, Greece, for an 11hour period because of record pollution levels.

An Africa Watch report condemns three decades of abuse of civilians by the military in Ethiopia, asserting that civil wars have claimed the lives of 150,000 noncombatants since 1961 and “largely manmade” famine has killed another 600,000. The report also blames the UN for its inaction. . . . . In Togo, 60 renegade soldiers loyal to ousted president Etienne Gnassingbe Eyadema occupy state broadcasting stations in Lome and announce the dissolution of the interim government. At the news, angry residents attack soldiers in the streets.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Canada, PSAC employees return to the picket lines. . . . A top Mexican federal police commander, Mario Alberto González Treviño, is charged with planning the 1990 murder of attorney Norma Corona Sapien, a human-rights leader.

In Papua New Guinea, the Leadership Tribunal, a court-like body appointed to investigate charges against elected officials, finds Deputy P.M. Ted Diro guilty on 81 corruption charges stemming from his dealings with the Papua New Guinea forest industry. The tribunal recommends that Diro be dismissed from his cabinet post and parliamentary seat, but Papua New Guinea’s governor general, Sir Vincent Serei Eri rejects the tribunal’s findings.

Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti’s first freely elected president, is overthrown in a coup d’état started Sept. 29 and led by Haiti’s powerful military. Reports confirm that Roger Lafontant, who led an earlier coup attempt, has been assassinated.

Afghan president Najibullah calls for provincial and local elections that will be open to all political parties, including Afghan rebel factions. . . . The government of Papua New Guinea asks Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II to remove from office Papua New Guinea’s governor general, Sir Vincent Serei Eri after his refusal to oust Deputy P.M. Ted Diro.

Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide leaves the country for Venezuela as the coup leaders establish a three-man junta to head the country led by Brigadier General Raoul Cédras. Reports from Haiti state that troops loyal to the military are patrolling the streets and spraying crowds with gunfire. At least 100 people have been killed in street fighting since the coup began.

Australia’s best trade figures since 1988 are announced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. . . . Papua New Guinea’s governor general, Sir Vincent Serei Eri, and Deputy Prime Minister Ted Diro resign. Dennis Young, the speaker of parliament, is appointed acting governor general.

The Canadian government approves a “back-to work” bill imposing stiff fines on striking civil servants. . . . The Associated Press reports that Brigadier General Cédras, who led the coup in Haiti, has vowed that the military will give decision-making power to the elected National Assembly.

After protests over an earlier 10-year contract, Pres. Corazon Aquino announces an agreement under which U.S. forces will withdraw from the Subic Bay Naval Station over three years with no further payments to the Philippine government . . . . Vietnam reverses its position when it tentatively approves a plan to forcibly repatriate tens of thousands of Vietnamese refugees currently living in camps throughout Asia.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 27–October 2, 1991—247

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

After divisive hearings, the Senate Judiciary Committee votes, 7-7, on the nomination of Judge Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. A short time later, the committee votes, 13-1, in favor of sending Thomas’s nomination to the full Senate without a recommendation. . . . U.S. district judge Thomas Penfield Jackson reimposes the six-month sentence on former Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Barry Jr. for his conviction on a misdemeanor cocaine possession charge. A U.S. District Court judge in Washington, D.C., throws out a government rule that in some cases could have blocked federally funded research from being made public in a case filed by Stanford University. . . . J(ames) P(lemon) Coleman, 77, Democratic governor of Mississippi, 1956–60, who retired in 1981 as the chief justice in the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, dies of complications from a stroke suffered in 1990.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The FDA approves a drug to treat a viral infection that frequently causes blindness in AIDS patients. . . . The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation’s 1991 Medical Research awards go to Yuet Wai Kan, Edward B. Lewis, and Christiane NuessleinVolhard. Public service awards are given to former House Speaker Thomas (Tip) O’Neill (D, Mass.) and to Robin Chandler Duke, head of the Population Crisis Committee.

The Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy is at the top of Publisher’s Weekly’s bestseller list. . . . Lady Oona O’Neill Chaplin, 65, widow of film comedian Charlie Chaplin and daughter of American playwright Eugene O’Neill, dies of pancreatic cancer in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland.

In concert with Pres. Bush’s plan announced Sept. 27, the Pentagon orders an immediate stand-down of the 40 B-52 and B-1B strategic bombers on round-the-clock ground alert at a dozen Strategic Air Command bases in the U.S. It is the first time since 1957 that the U.S. has no long-range bombers in a state of nuclear-attack readiness.

Miles Dewey Davis 3rd, 65, innovative and influential jazz trumpeter and composer who was instrumental in establishing cool jazz, hard bop, modal jazz, jazz-rock, and jazz-funk styles in the 1950s and 1960s, dies of pneumonia and a stroke in Santa Monica, California.

California governor Pete Wilson (R) vetoes a bill that would have prohibited job discrimination based on sexual orientation, prompting protests by gay-rights activists. . . . The Justice Department finds that 40% of prisoners awaiting execution as of Dec. 31, 1990, are black, while African Americans make up 12.1% of the general population. . . . Haitian immigrants in Miami riot in response to the coup attempt in Haiti. At least 75 arrests are reported as protesters loot stores and set fire to cars.

Golfer Pat Bradley qualifies for the LPGA Hall of Fame when she wins her 30th tour victory at the MBS Classic in Buena Park, California. . . . Under captain Dave Stockton, the U.S. wins golf’s Ryder Cup.

Gay-rights activists stage violent demonstrations in San Francisco and Los Angeles in response to Gov. Wilson’s Sept. 29 veto. . . . In separate studies, the Education Department and the National Education Goals Panel report that U.S. students are failing to make substantive progress toward educational goals in Pres. Bush’s “America 2000” education plan.

The Senate confirms Gen. Colin Powell to a second term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. . . . Reports state that Pres. Bush and Congress have reached a compromise agreement to allow the release of an antinarcotics aid package for Peru.

The Treasury Department announces the federal budget deficit for fiscal 1991 is $268.7 billion, the highest federal deficit ever. . . . Pres. Bush signs the stopgap bill passed by Congress Sept. 26. . . . A new plea bargain over the Exxon Valdez oil spill orders Exxon to pay a $25 million fine and $100 million in restitution. . . . About 2,000 gallons of radioactive coolant water escapes into a larger water system at the Seabrook, New Hampshire, nuclear power plant.

Congress passes a compromise version of a civil-rights bill. . . . Haitian immigrants in New York begin protesting when news of the coup in Haiti spreads.

Reports state a GATT panel ruled the ban on imports of tuna from Mexico, which uses tuna nets, violates international trade rules. . . . The confirmation hearings of Robert Gates shift from questions about his involvement in the Iran-contra affair to allegations that Gates, as a top CIA official under Pres. Reagan, “politicized” intelligence reports to play up the threat posed by the Soviet Union and to support the strong anticommunist policies of the Reagan administration.

Operators of the Yankee Rowe nuclear power plant, the oldest operating commercial nuclear power plant in the country, shut it down in response to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission recommendation that it close for safety reasons. . . . A fiscal 1992 District of Columbia appropriations bill cleared by Congress is signed by Pres. Bush since it no longer contains provisions that would have permitted locally raised funds to pay for abortions for poor women.

Women’s rights activist Peg Yorkin donates $10 million to the Feminist Majority Foundation. Her donation is believed to be the largest gift ever made to a feminist organization. . . . The Senate passes a bill related to family leave. . . . Lloyd Kirkham Garrison, 92, prominent lawyer who defended poet Langston Hughes, playwright Arthur Miller, and physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, dies of heart failure in NYC.

Audio recordings that implicate Oliver L. North and Robert C. McFarlane in the Iran-contra hearings are broadcast on the ABC News program Nightline.

The Senate approves a long-standing proposal from Pres. Bush to make the EPA a cabinet-level department. . . . The EPA announces that it will establish a bureau to monitor the expenditures of private contractors hired by the agency under the Superfund program to clean up industrial-waste sites.

Two Southern Pacific railroad workers are killed when a freight train is hit by a rock slide and plunges down a 500-foot mountain slope outside Boulder, Colorado. The accident touches off a fire that burns much of the train’s cargo of lumber.

The pop music group New Kids on the Block tops Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s highest-paid entertainers.

Sept. 27

Sept. 28

Sept. 29

Sept. 30

Oct. 1

A Soviet Soyuz rocket carries the first Austrian into space. The rocket is launched from the Baikonur Cosmopad in Kazakhstan.

Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I of Constantinople (born Dimitrios Papadopoulos), 77, spiritual leader of 250 million Eastern Orthodox Christians around the world, dies of cardiac arrest in Istanbul.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 2

248—October 3–7, 1991

Oct. 3

Oct. 4

Oct. 5

Oct. 6

Oct. 7

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

Israeli defense ministry officials announce that Israel has agreed to impose limits on its exports of missiles and missile technology. Israel will join 16 other nations in compliance with the Missile Technology Control Regime, an arms-limitation convention adopted in 1987.

German television reports at least 20 incidents of violence against foreigners on the anniversary of its reunification. . . . Moderate Party leader Carl Bildt takes office as Sweden’s premier. . . . The four pro-Serbia members of the federal collective presidency, led by federal vice president Branko Kostic, announce that they have assumed the powers of the federal parliament, including statutory control of Yugoslavia’s finances. The Yugoslav military renews its naval blockade of the Croatian coast.

Representatives of 24 nations sign an agreement that sets a 50-year moratorium on all mining activities and oil exploration on the continent of Antarctica. . . . The OAS sends a high-ranking delegation to Port-auPrince to press for the reinstallation of Pres. Jean-Bertrand Aristide and to tell the military junta that the OAS does not recognize it and may consider sending a multinational force to Haiti.

The four pro-Serbia Yugoslav candidates hold a presidency meeting in Belgrade, while the four anti-Serbia members hold a presidential meeting on the Croatian island of Brioni. . . . After heated debate, the Czechoslovak parliament passes a bill to allow civil-service personnel and the employees of state-owned companies to be screened for former communist activity.

Soviet president Gorbachev offers a package of unilateral weapons cuts and arms proposals that surpasses the broad arms-control initiative presented by U.S. president Bush on Sept. 27. . . . Soviet president Gorbachev and IMF managing director Michel Camdessus sign an accord giving the Soviet Union associate membership in the IMF.

Prince Aleksandar Karadjordjevic, the son of exiled king Petar II of Yugoslavia, visits Belgrade and is hailed by huge crowds. . . . Martin Ennals, 64, British secretary general of the international human-rights group Amnesty International, 1968–80, who in 1977 accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on the organization’s behalf, dies of cancer in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Three days of fighting break out between Iraqi soldiers and Kurdish guerrillas in and around the Kurdcontrolled city of Sulaymaniya in northern Iraq. . . . Israeli police battle with demonstrators in the Mea Sharim and Beit Israel neighborhoods of Jerusalem, as ultraOrthodox Jews protest the construction of a new thoroughfare.

Many Western nations, including Britain, France, and Germany laud Soviet president Gorbachev’s plans for arms reductions. NATO also praises the Oct. 5 announcement.

In the republic of Georgia, clashes between pro-and anti-Gamsakhurdia factions leave two dead and 74 injured. Georgia’s parliament begins an emergency debate. . . . Portuguese premier Anibal Cavaco Silva wins reelection. . . . The Kurdish Workers Party attacks the border town of Cukurca, Turkey, leaving 11 Turkish soldiers dead.

Abie Nathan, an Israeli Jewish peace activist who advocates direct negotiations between Israel and the PLO, is sentenced by a court in Ramla, Israel, to 18 months in prison for meeting with PLO chairman Yasser Arafat in Tunis in July.

UN weapons experts report that allied bombing during the Persian Gulf war left a vital Iraqi nuclear installation virtually undamaged and entirely missed a second key site.

Croatia and neighboring Slovenia formally declare immediate secession from Yugoslavia. Yugoslav air force jets attack the Croatian presidential palace and adjoining parliament building in Zagreb with rockets. The International Red Cross estimates that more than 30,000 Yugoslavs have fled to refugee camps in Hungary.

Iraqi troops attack Sulaymaniya, shelling the city while engaging in hand-to-hand fighting with Kurdish forces on its outskirts. Reports suggest Kurdish guerrillas in Sulaymaniya killed about 60 unarmed Iraqi prisoners. Relief workers estimate that as many as 50,000 Kurdish civilians have fled. . . . Kuwait estimates it will cost $7.16 billion to rebuild its petroleum industry and restore its oil output to pre-Persian Gulf war levels. Reports suggest only 70% of the 600–700 wells set on fire in February have been capped.

Violence erupts in South Africa between Xhosas from the tribal homeland of Transkei and Basotho miners from the country of Lesotho.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

After the Oct. 2 “back-to-work” bill passes, 110,000 members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada return to their jobs.

The Supreme Court of India upholds a settlement in which U.S.-based Union Carbide Corp. agreed to pay $470 million as compensation to victims of a 1984 chemical gas leak in Bhopal that killed 3,500 people. . . . Japanese Finance Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto states he will resign to apologize for several scandals that came to light during his time in office.

An Ontario Court jury rules that the Church of Scientology should pay a total of C$1.6 million to Casey Hill, an Ontario government attorney who claims he was libeled by a criminal complaint initiated against him by the church. The award is the highest libel award in Canadian history.

Japanese premier Toshiki Kaifu unexpectedly announces that he will decline to seek reelection after senior LDP members withdraw their support.

Ramnath Goenka, 87, owner of the Indian Express newspaper group, which publishes the largest Englishlanguage newspaper in India, and one of the country’s few business leaders who regularly confronted the government, dies of unreported causes in Bombay.

In an unprecedented news conference in Havana, leading dissidents call for an end to single-party rule in Cuba. . . . Data show that, since the first day of the coup, the overall death toll in Haiti has climbed as high as 200. Rebel troops killed at least 40 civilians during the first two days of the coup, reportedly in retaliation for the murder of at least two soldiers by crowds loyal to Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 3–7, 1991—249

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Willie Herenton is elected the first black mayor of Memphis, Tennessee, in a nonpartisan election. . . . The Department of Health and Human Services finds that a total of 249 out of 600 federally funded community health clinics that receive federal funds to provide basic health care to the poor are not doing so.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Louis Sullivan announces a seven-year, $135 million antismoking program, which he states is the largest such program ever undertaken by the U.S. government.. . . . The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence ends three volatile weeks of hearings on the confirmation of Robert M. Gates to be the next director of central intelligence.

The U.S. government announces that it is opening an investigation into Canadian timber pricing policies, in retaliation for Canada’s decision to end a 15% export tax on lumber.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Congress approves the final versions of a $19.9 billion appropriations bill for government operations, the final version of a $22 billion appropriations bill for the Departments of Commerce and Justice and for the judiciary and an $81 billion fiscal 1992 appropriations bill for independent agencies. . . . The NRC shuts down the Sequoyah Fuels nuclear plant after an investigation finds a uranium leak. . . . The land in New Mexico slated to become the first permanent nuclear waste repository is transferred to the Department of Energy. New Mexico atty. gen. Tom Udall states he will sue to block the land transfer.

The New England Journal of Medicine states a baby consumes less breast milk if its mother drinks alcohol.

Data show that the number of cassette tapes sold throughout the world declined in 1990 for the first time since they were introduced in 1965. . . . William Alfred Shea, 84, for whom Shea Stadium is named, dies of complications from a stroke in NYC. . . . The Swedish Academy of Letters awards the Nobel Prize in literature to South African novelist Nadine Gordimer.

Reports indicate that Coors Brewing Co. has agreed to pay $700,000 to settle EPA charges that its brewery in Golden, Colorado, contaminated groundwater and soils with cleaning solvents. . . . Salomon Brothers Inc. agree to pay a penalty imposed by the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. (Freddie Mac) for falsifying bids in the sale of government-sponsored bonds.

Reports state that scientists located a second gene whose mutation plays a role in causing Alzheimer’s disease. . . . A medical study finds that breast feeding is on the decline in the U.S. In 1989, 52% of mothers nursed their babies, down from about 60% in 1984.

The Harold Washington Library Center, the world’s largest public, circulating library, is dedicated in Chicago. The library is named for late Chicago mayor Harold Washington, the city’s first black mayor, who died in 1987.

Homer Jensen, 77, expert on aerial surveying who invented the magnetometer and directed the first major survey of the North Sea, dies of cancer in Wyncote, Pennsylvania.

Anita Hill, a tenured law professor at the University of Oklahoma, publicly accuses Supreme Court nominee Judge Clarence Thomas of sexually harassment. The charge sparks an emotional and contentious national debate over the issue of sexual harassment, especially since New York Newsday and NPR report that the Senate Judiciary Committee staff first heard of Hill’s charges the week of Sept. 10.

Terry A. Anderson, a U.S. journalist held hostage in Lebanon since March 1985, appears in a videotaped interview broadcast by CNN. Anderson states in the interview that his captors told him the West could soon “expect some very good news.” . . . U.S. support for Haitian president Aristide begins eroding as allegations of humanrights abuses and disregard for the constitution under his rule emerge.

In the wake of allegations that the Senate committee failed to investigate Anita Hill’s charges, a statement by Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio confirms that his aides contacted Hill either Sept. 3 or 4 seeking information on Thomas and checking out rumors of sexual harassment at EEOC. Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Joseph Biden (D, Del.) defends the panel’s actions, claiming it was “guided by Professor Hill’s repeated requests for confidentiality.” . . . The Supreme Court opens its 1991–92 term with only eight justices.

ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc. settles a lawsuit filed by the SEC alleging that the company had misled investors by not telling them about problems with clinical trials of its anti-AIDS drug ribavirin.

Oct. 3

Oct. 4

Oct. 5

NASA measures the ozone level above Antarctica at 110 Dobson units, down from a normal level of about 500 Dobson units. The reading is the lowest ever on record.

Ridden by Cash Asmussen, Suave Dancer wins the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Europe’s richest horse race. . . . Actress Elizabeth Taylor, 59, marries for the eighth time at Neverland Valley, the California estate of singer Michael Jackson.

The Karolinska Institute for Medicine awards the Physiology or Medicine Nobel Prize to two German physiologists, Erwin Neher and Bert Sakmann, for their work in uncovering basic cell functions.

Leo Ernest Durocher, 85, colorful and combative Major League Baseball manager and player who retired in 1973 with a 2,008–1,709 managerial record, dies of natural causes in Palm Springs, California.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 6

Oct. 7

250—October 8–13, 1991

Oct. 8

Oct. 9

Oct. 10

Oct. 11

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Iraq files a formal protest with the UN after four Israeli fighter planes allegedly flew surveillance missions over western Iraq. . . . The World Health Organization announces that 80% of the world’s infants have received vaccinations for deadly childhood diseases, a dramatic rise from the 10% estimated in 1981. . . . The 34 members of the OAS and France begin a trade embargo of Haiti.

In Yugoslavia, a new truce which contains a pledge by Croatia to free the besieged federal garrisons in return for at least a partial withdrawal of federal troops from the republic, takes effect. . . . The Polish foreign ministry announces that the USSR has agreed to remove the estimated 45,000 Soviet troops in Poland by the end of 1992. . . . The Slovene parliament authorizes the republic to print its own currency.

Iraq soldiers and Kurdish rebels agree to a cease-fire and an exchange of prisoners. Kurdish leaders state the fighting that started Oct. 5 has left 180 dead and more than 1,000 wounded. They also condemn and deny responsibility for the Oct. 7 slayings of prisoners. . . . In Togo, soldiers try to kidnap Premier Koffigoh, sparking clashes between troops and civilians in Lome. Four prodemocracy protesters are killed.

Haiti’s parliament declares the presidency vacant and elects a supreme court justice, Joseph Nerette, as interim president, as mandated in the constitution.

In response to the Oct. 8 complaint by Iraq, Israel does not officially admit that its flights over Iraq occurred, but defends Israel’s right to gather its own intelligence.

In Yugoslavia, the Oct. 8 cease-fire, the fourth negotiated in three weeks, holds, although there are reports of clashes south of Zagreb, and the federal army fires missiles into Vukovar. The ancient walled Croatian port city of Dubrovnik, under attack since Oct. 2, goes off alert. . . . Transport Secretary Michael Rifkind reports that a highspeed rail link between London and the tunnel under the British Channel will not be operational until the early years of the 21st century.

Reports state that Zaire’s president Mobutu has decided to grant an 18-fold pay raise to soldiers and civil servants.

Fausto Zapata, governor of Mexico’s central state of San Luis Potosí, announces that he is resigning his post only two weeks after being sworn in. His predecessor, a member of the same PRI party, resigned in August amid charges of election fraud. . . . In Canada, a series of protests by farmers culminates in a rally by 7,000 people at the Manitoba legislature.

The U.S. cuts all aid to Haiti, including $90 million funneled through the Agency for International Development. Mexico and Venezuela, the countries that supply virtually all of Haiti’s oil, announce suspension of all shipments. . . . Reports indicate that a group of eight international banks agreed to lend Algeria $1.5 billion to ease its debt repayments. . . . Kuwait announces it will borrow $5 billion on international markets to finance its postPersian Gulf war reconstruction.

The Azerbaijan parliament authorizes the formation of an independent army of up to 35,000 men, with the 10,000 Azerbaijanis serving in the Soviet military in Azerbaijan as its core. . . . German political leaders agree to establish large refugee camps to protect foreigners seeking asylum in response to a continued wave of violence by neo-Nazi skinhead youths that has killed at least four people.

Reports state that Togo’s interim government has appealed for foreign military assistance to ensure transition to “real and total” democracy in the wake of the coup attempts.

The UN Security Council passes a resolution barring Iraq from pursuing any atomic programs, including civilian nuclear-energy projects, after revelations about the extent of Iraq’s clandestine efforts to develop nuclear weapons. . . . The UN General Assembly unanimously adopts a resolution calling for the restoration of Haitian president Aristide.

At the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Soviet Ukraine, 300 firefighters work for more than three hours to subdue a blaze. There are no reported injuries, and Soviet authorities claim that no radiation was released. . . . Turkish forces attack villages in northern Iraq that Turkey claims are bases for guerrillas of the separatist Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). It is the first Turkish attack to take place within the “safe zone” formerly controlled by allied troops.

A Palestinian drives a van through a crowd of soldiers on a street in Tel Aviv, Israel, killing two and injuring 11.

The Financial Times reports that Cuban authorities have arrested nine dissidents as part of a crackdown on opposition groups.

About 3,000 Turkish ground troops cross the border with Iraq to scour the valley for rebel bases.

Reports indicate that portions of Ethiopia are being struck by destructive locusts, birds, and worms, which ruin large tracts of farmland and threaten to worsen already severe food shortages.

In Haiti, the Senate ratifies JeanJacques Honorat, a human-rights activist, as premier.

The Union of Democratic Forces, the main opposition coalition, wins Bulgaria’s second national elections since the fall of communism. . . . Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani condemns the recent Turkish raids as a “savage massacre.”

Reports state that the government of Saudi Arabia has lifted sanctions levied against about 50 women who violated the kingdom’s ban on female drivers during a “protest drive” in November 1990.

Daniel Oduber Quiros, 70, controversial president of Costa Rica, 1974–78, dies in San José, Costa Rica after suffering a heart attack.

Oct. 12

Oct. 13

The Group of Seven leading industrial nations agree to help the Soviet Union formulate a plan for economic reform. However, the vow includes no guarantee of direct economic aid to the USSR.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The Australian cabinet approves the introduction of pay television in Australia, lifting a 1986 moratorium.

Afghan president Najibullah announces that government forces have broken a two-week siege by guerrilla forces on Gardez, the capital of the eastern province of Paktia.

Reports state that clashes in Afghanistan continue to erupt around Gardez.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 8–13, 1991—251

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Under pressure from women’s groups and Clarence Thomas himself, the Senate postpones until Oct. 15 the vote on Thomas’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. Thomas “totally and unequivocally” denies Hill’s charges . . . Ann Wickett Humphry, 49, cofounder of the Hemlock Society, which advocates the right of terminally ill individuals to commit suicide, is found dead in Monroe, Oregon, of undisclosed causes.

Elliott Abrams, an assistant secretary of state in the Reagan administration, pleads guilty to two misdemeanor counts of withholding information from Congress in connection with the illegal diversion of funds from arms sales to Iran to the Nicaraguan contra rebels in the mid-1980s.

A federal judge approves a settlement between Exxon Corp., the Alaskan government, and the Justice Department over criminal charges arising from the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. The settlement calls upon Exxon to pay a total of $1.025 billion in fines and restitution payments through the year 2001. . . . The House approves the final version of a $52.5 billion fiscal 1992 agriculture appropriations bill.

The Institute of Medicine finds that decades of efforts to combat malaria appear to have failed. The study reveals that 300 million people are infected with malaria and up to two million are dying from it annually. . . . Doctors at the National Institutes of Health try for the first time to immunize a patient against his cancer.

Reports suggest that attendance at major league baseball games rose to a record 56,880,512 during the season, an increase of 3.3% from 1990.

The Judiciary Committee announces that hearings on Anita Hill’s charges against Clarence Thomas will begin Oct. 11. . . . Congress clears a bill that calls for a study on methods used to count the population. The bill mandates completion of the study in time for the next census in the year 2000. . . . The FDA gives conditional approval for the sale of a drug, under the brand name Videx, for the treatment of AIDS patients who fail to respond to the drug AZT.

Reports show that states’ tax revenue in fiscal 1990 totaled $300.5 billion, a 5.7% increase from $284.4 billion in fiscal 1989. . . . The House clears the final version of a $14.3 billion fiscal 1992 transportation appropriations bill. Included in the measure is an amendment requiring random drug and alcohol testing of an estimated 6.3 million workers in transportation industries.

Doctors at the University of Nevada in Reno report that the first fetus-tofetus tissue transplant is showing initial signs of success. . . . The Journal of the American Medical Association reports that scientists converted the muscle tissue of rats into specifically shaped bones. . . . The Journal of the American Medical Association finds that researchers developed a surgical technique that cures atrial fibrillation, a disorder that causes irregular heartbeats.

Doris Lilly, 60, gossip columnist and author of books including How to Marry a Millionaire (1951), who is to have been the inspiration for the character “Holly Golightly” in Truman Capote’s book Breakfast at Tiffany’s, dies of cancer in New York City.

The White House announces that Pres. Bush has authorized the admission of 142,000 refugees to the U.S. in fiscal year 1992.

Reports indicate that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has proposed a $25,000 fine against Duquesne Light Co. for an “apparent” violation at its Beaver Valley Power Station Unit 1 nuclear power plant in Shippingport, Pennsylvania.

Scientists find that concentrations of lead in the Greenland ice cap has declined by about 7.5% since 1970. Researchers suggest the decline is due to ongoing efforts by the U.S. and some European nations to phase out the use of lead as a lubricant in automobile fuels.

The Census Bureau finds that in 1989 one-half of the 5 million women owed legally ordered childsupport did not receive full payments from their children’s fathers. . . . The CDC states that almost one in five U.S. high-school students sometimes carry a gun, knife, or other weapon to school. . . . The ADA announces it cannot determine which procedures are high-risk, so it cannot bar AIDS-infected employees from performing those duties.

Oct. 8

Oct. 9

Oct. 10

In a case that draws vast public attention, Anita Hill calmly testifies under oath that Clarence Thomas made sexually harassing statements and acted inappropriately from 1981 to 1983. . . . A Korean grocer, Soon Ja Du, is convicted of voluntary manslaughter for shooting a black teenage girl, Latasha Harlins, in an incident that touched off racial tensions in L.A. . . . Pres. Bush vetoes a $6.4 billion measure to extend jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed.

Redd Foxx (born John Elroy Sanford), 68, black comedian best known for Sanford and Son, 1972–77, dies after suffering a heart attack on the set of his latest television series in Los Angeles. . . . Anita Hill’s testimony draws at least as many TV viewers as baseball’s American Championship Series.

In his sworn testimony, Clarence Thomas voices outrage and calls charges against him “lies,” “sleaze,” “dirt,” and “gossip.” Senators on the committee assail Anita Hill by questioning her mental stability and suggesting she indulges in fantasies. . . . Arlette Schweitzer of South Dakota becomes the first woman in the U.S. known to give birth to her own grandchildren.

Regis Toomey, 93, character actor who appeared in more than 200 films, dies in Los Angeles. . . . Aline Laveen MacMahon, 92, actress who was nominated for an Academy Award for Dragon Seed (1944), dies of pneumonia in New York City.

The Senate Judiciary Committee hears testimony from four panels of witnesses in the investigation of Anita Hill’s allegations against Clarence Thomas. Hill voluntarily takes and passes a polygraph, or lie-detector test, to deflate any allegations that she lied during her testimony. A poll by The New York Times and CBS News shows that 45% of respondents favor Thomas’s confirmation, while 20% oppose it. When asked whom they believe more about the charges of sexual harassment, 58% back Thomas and 24% back Hill.

The Minnesota Twins win the American League baseball pennant.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 11

Oct. 12

Oct. 13

252—October 14–19, 1991

Oct. 14

Oct. 15

Oct. 16

Oct. 17

Oct. 18

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awards the Peace Prize to Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi “for her nonviolent struggle for democracy and human rights.” Placed under house arrest in 1989, she and two other opposition leaders created the National League for Democracy (NLD), a coalition opposed to the military government.

Sergei Alekseyev, the chairman of the Constitutional Revision Committee of the Soviet parliament announces that all restrictions on internal travel will end on January 1, 1992. . . . The Times of London reports that representatives of the American Ku Klux Klan are said to be organizing members in Germany.

In Nigeria, violence erupts when permission is granted to hold a Christian revival meeting in the predominantly Islamic northern city of Kano. . . . Kambarage Kaunda, the son of Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda, is sentenced to death by hanging for murdering a woman after a High Court trial in Sept. 1989. . . . Zaire’s state radio announces that a cabinet has been formed after much tension.

The UN Security Council committee on Iraqi sanctions adopts procedures for monitoring Iraqi oil sales that were approved in September. . . . The IMF and the World Bank hold an annual joint meeting in Bangkok.

The parliament of the republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina adopts a declaration of sovereignty after 73 ethnic Serb deputies walk out in protest and after Momcilo Krajisnik, the ethnic Serb president of the parliament, adjourns the session. Separately, presidents Milosevic and Tudjman hold separate meetings in Moscow with Soviet president Gorbachev and Russian republic president Yeltsin, and the two sign a truce pact. . . . France’s National Assembly clears legislation designed to crack down on illegal immigration. . . . In Bulgaria, the UDF nominates the coalition’s leader, Filip Dimitrov, to become the next premier.

Reports suggest that smoke from oil wells set on fire by Iraqi troops during the Persian Gulf war continues to cause health and environmental problems across Kuwait and is disrupting weather patterns up to 1,500 miles away. Slicks of crude oil caused by huge spills off the Kuwaiti coast during the Persian Gulf war in January have covered about 400 miles of beaches and swamps along Saudi Arabia’s gulf coast with a layer of oil as much as one foot thick. The spills are called the biggest ever recorded.

The UN General Assembly elects Cape Verde, Hungary, Japan, Morocco, and Venezuela to nonpermanent seats on the UN Security Council, effective Jan. 1, 1992. . . . The British Commonwealth opens its biennial national leaders’ conference in Zimbabwe. In attendance are the heads of 50 countries with ties to the former British Empire, representing roughly one-third of the world’s population.

The Oct. 15 truce pact signed by presidents Milosevic and Tudjman falls apart when the four-member pro-Serbian faction of the Yugoslav federal collective presidency reject the agreement, arguing that only the presidency group, not republic leaders, is empowered to authorize a cease-fire. . . . Germany agrees to pay nearly $300 million over three years in compensation to Poles forced into slave labor by the German Nazis in World War II.

The riots begun on Oct. 14 in Nigeria die down. The Nigerian government reports that eight people were killed, but one local newspaper places the toll as high as 300. . . . Sheik Ahmed Yassin, 56, a quadriplegic who founded Hamas, is sentenced to life in prison by an Israeli military court in Gaza. Yassin was convicted of ordering the killings of numerous Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel.

The defense ministers of NATO approve a 50% reduction in the tactical-nuclear bombs stockpiled in Europe for use on U.S. and British aircraft. . . . British prime minister Major announces that his government will cancel debts owed to it by the poorest developing countries. Canadian prime minister Mulroney immediately announces his intention to follow Britain’s lead.

In France, 16 people are killed and 62 others injured when an overnight passenger train traveling from Nice to Paris collides head-on with a freight train at Melun. . . . According to The Financial Times, 700 criminal offenses have been reported against foreigners in Germany during the period between August and mid-October.

The Washington Post states that the South African government abandoned its nuclear weapons program.

In the culmination of seven months of diplomatic efforts, the U.S. and the Soviet Union formally invite Israeli and Arab leaders to a peace conference in Madrid, Spain. . . . The U.S., Soviet Union, Great Britain, France, and China agree to share information on their sales of conventional weapons to the Middle East and agree to guidelines on the sale of conventional arms anywhere in the world.

Soviet president Gorbachev and the presidents of eight of the 12 Soviet constituent republics sign an economic union treaty, drafted by liberal economist Grigory Yavlinsky, aimed at creating a Soviet economic community. The republics of the Ukraine, Georgia, Moldavia, and Azerbaijan do not agree. . . . In France, protesters angry about farming policies rampage through a banquet hall at Moissac.

Israel and the Soviet Union agree to renew full diplomatic relations for the first time since the 1967 ArabIsraeli war. . . . Kenya loses financial support from Denmark. Traditionally one of Kenya’s biggest donors, Denmark argues that most of $40 million spent in the program has “disappeared because of corruption.”

Ethnic Albanians in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo, which was annexed by Serbia in 1990 and has a majority population of ethnic Albanians, proclaim that Kosovo is an independent republic. The socalled Kosovo Republic Assembly, meeting in secret, elects Dr. Bujar Bukosi as the republic’s premier.

Oct. 19

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The Cuban Communist Party endorses an economic plan to help Cuba recover from the worst economic crisis since the 1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro. . . . Haiti’s Chamber of Deputies, under the supervision of armed soldiers, ratifies Jean-Jacques Honorat as premier.

The Mexican government announces a series of human-rights initiatives designed to reduce the incentive for police torture. . . . In Haiti, a post-coup 12-member cabinet is unveiled.

In India, a bomb is detonated at the site of a Hindu theatrical festival in Rudarpur, in the state of Uttar Pradesh. A second explosion 15 minutes later takes place at the emergency ward of the hospital where victims of the initial blast were taken. The attacks kill more than 40 people and injure 100 others.

The Peruvian Senate votes to strip former president Alan García Pérez of his immunity from prosecution, clearing the way for Garcia’s trial on embezzlement charges.

An earthquake strikes the Himalayan foothills of northern India, killing at least 360 people and injuring 2,000 others. Indian seismologists measure the quake at 6.1 on the Richter scale, while the U.S. Geological Survey puts the magnitude at 7.1. The epicenter of the quake is located in the Almora district, and it triggers landslides in 400 villages in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 14–19, 1991—253

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

A third panel, comprised of women who worked with Clarence Thomas at the EEOC, testify in the hearings about charges of sexual harassment against Thomas by Anita Hill. The committee closes and clears Thomas, to mixed public reaction.

The State Department opens a lottery for permanent-resident visas as mandated by the Immigration Act of 1990.

TRW Inc. announces that it will for the first time provide individuals with free copies of its reports on their credit history after complaints that credit reports are frequently inaccurate.

After one of the most bitter and divisive confirmation battles in the 202year history of the Supreme Court, the Senate confirms Judge Clarence Thomas as the court’s 106th associate justice in the closest vote for a Supreme Court Justice in the 20th century. . . . A monument honoring law-enforcement officers who died in the line of duty is dedicated in Washington, D.C. . . . In its annual report on college costs, the College Board reports that the average cost of a year of college rose between 7% and 14% for the 1991–92 school year. The highest increase is in fouryear public colleges.

A gunman, George Jo Hennard, 35, opens fire in a crowded cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, killing 22 people instantly and wounding at least 20 others before turning the gun on himself. One of those wounded dies later in the hospital. The attack is the worst mass shooting ever in the U.S. in terms of fatalities. . . . The Senate begins a reappraisal of the Supreme Court confirmation process after public criticism swells in the wake of Clarence Thomas’s confirmation.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Oct. 14

The Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics to Ronald H. Coase, a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago Law School.

The Senate gives final congressional clearance to an $8.56 billion military construction appropriation for fiscal 1992.

The California Medical Association and the California Nurses Association refuse to draw up a list of procedures that members infected with AIDS should not perform. . . . The House strikes down a provision that would have banned the sale or ownership of 13 types of semiautomatic weapons while reconciling an anticrime measure. . . . A Superior Court judge in Atlanta rules that a girl whose doctors do not expect her to recover from her near-comatose state cannot be removed from life support without her parents’ permission. After three weeks of hearings that concentrated on Gates’s involvement in foreign affairs, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence votes to recommend the confirmation of Robert M. Gates to be director of central intelligence. . . . Former Rep. Robert Garcia (D, N.Y.) is convicted in a retrial, together with his wife, Jane Lee Garcia, in connection with a bribery and extortion scandal involving Wedtech Corp.

Science, Technology, & Nature

A federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia, sentences Melvyn R. Paisley, a former Navy assistant secretary, to four years in prison and fines him $50,000 for his role in the Pentagon procurement scandal.

Oct. 15

The Senate clears the final version of a $14.3 billion fiscal 1992 transportation appropriations bill. . . . The Senate approves the final version of a $52.5 billion fiscal 1992 agriculture appropriations bill.

Reports state that researchers have identified two types of white blood cells that play a role in causing multiple sclerosis. . . . The Journal of the American Medical Association argues that moderate exercise by itself is not reliable treatment for high blood pressure. . . . The Royal Swedish Academy awards the Chemistry Nobel Prize to Richard R. Ernst in Zurich, Switzerland. The Physics Nobel Prize goes to PierreGilles de Gennes in Paris.

Health and Human Services Secretary Sullivan announces that the nation’s 40 million Social Security recipients will receive a 3.7% costof-living adjustment for 1992. . . . Reports indicate that the California Board of Forestry has adopted emergency measures to restrict logging in the state’s ancient redwood forests as a compromise between the timber industry and environmentalists.

Two studies in the New England Journal of Medicine assert that a common infection from a bacteria linked to ulcers appears to cause up to 60% of all stomach cancer. . . . A water main break near Grand Central Terminal in NYC shuts down subway service on one line and causes extensive damage to the station, which was recently been renovated at a cost of $22 million.

Tennessee Ernie Ford (born Ernest Jennings Ford), 72, country-andwestern singer who won a 1964 Grammy, dies of a liver ailment in Reston, Virginia. . . . The Atlanta Braves win baseball’s National League Championship Series, its first pennant since 1966.

A Senate panel opens hearings on the BCCI scandal that broke when the bank was seized by international regulators.

Reports suggest that U.S. biologists genetically altered tomatoes so that they no longer produce ethylene, an invisible, odorless gas that causes them to ripen.

The Arkansas Gazette daily newspaper, which claimed to be the oldest paper west of the Mississippi River, ceases publication. Founded in 1819, the paper won two Pulitzer Prizes in the its coverage of the Little Rock school desegregation crisis.

Oct. 16

Oct. 17

Oct. 18

Oct. 19

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

254—October 20–25, 1991

Oct. 20

Oct. 21

Oct. 22

Oct. 23

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The Commonwealth closes its conference. Delegates from over 50 countries issue a declaration of principles on democracy and human rights. . . . The New York Times reports that graft in the Kenyan government is prompting Western governments and businesses to withdraw. . . . The World Health Organization suspends nearly all its activities in Haiti and evacuates employees and their families in response to the Sept. 30 coup.

Swiss general elections return to power the four-party coalition that has governed the country since 1959. . . . The center-right True Path Party places first in elections in Turkey, replacing the Motherland Party, which has ruled Turkey since 1983.

A bomb explodes near Jibsheet and kills three Israeli soldiers. . . . A dispute over the composition of a new cabinet leads Zairean president Mobutu Sese Seko to fire his recently selected premier, Etienne Tshisekedi wa Mulumba.

The UN announces that Jesse Turner, a U.S. university professor taken hostage in Beirut in Jan. 1987, has been released by his captors, the Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine, after five days of UN-mediated negotiations. Israel frees 12 men and two women from the Al Khiyam prison in the Israeli security zone in southern Lebanon. Ali Fawaz, a leader of the Shi’ite group Hezbollah is also released from prison.

In France, farmers continue to protest and form a blockade of foreign trucks in Brittany and seize British and German meat imports in Toulouse. . . . The interim Supreme Soviet opens in Moscow. Five of the 12 republics boycott the initial session.

Almost a week of violence erupts in major cities in Zaire, motivated partly by anger over Premier Tshisekedi’s Oct. 20 ouster and partly by dissatisfaction with Zaire’s worsening economy. In Lubumbashi, disgruntled soldiers ransack homes and offices. . . . Reports state that riot police clashed with a mob in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, killing as many as nine protesters. . . . Israeli warplanes launch bombing raids against Hezbollah bases near the towns of Baalbek and Jibsheet in retaliation for the Oct. 20 bomb attack.

The UN’s Environment Program panel finds significant depletion of the ozone layer in temperate latitudes during spring and summer months and calls for a speedier phaseout of chlorofluorocarbons. . . . The European Community and the European Free Trade Association reach an agreement in principle to establish a Western European free-trade area spanning 19 nations and 380 million people after 14 months of difficult negotiations.

A French court issues a warrant for the arrest of an Iranian government official implicated in the August murder of former Iranian premier Shahpur Bakhtiar. The Iranian government continues to deny any role in the slaying. . . . In France, nurses in deadlocked pay talks with the government march in Paris to protest harsh treatment by police at a previous demonstration. . . . The parliament of the Ukraine votes to create independent armed forces.

Saudi Arabia announces that it has begun an effort to clean up about 400 miles of shoreline fouled by oil spills during the Persian Gulf war.

Along with representatives from 18 UN nations, the four factions warring for control of Cambodia since 1978 sign a comprehensive peace treaty. In its largest and most ambitious mission ever, the UN will oversee the groups as they try to share power. . . . The U.S. announces that all the invited parties have agreed to attend the Middle East peace conference. . . . Cuban president Fidel Castro is an observer a meeting of the presidents of Mexico, Venezuela, and Colombia.

In Great Britain, a panel of five Law Lords rule that rape can occur in marriage, formally reversing 225 years of legal precedent. . . . The Yugoslav army demands that the city of Dubrovnik surrender.

In Zaire, Pres. Mobutu names Bernardin Mungul-Diaka, the head of a small opposition party, to replace Tshisekedi as premier. ProMobutu citizens battle opposition supporters, and whole neighborhoods are torched. Several people are reported killed. Some accounts note that two opposition groups are taking arms against each other for the first time.

Kurdish Worker Party guerrillas launch an attack on the towns of Silopi, Cukurca, and Mus in southeastern Turkey that leave 24 Turkish soldiers and one civilian dead.

In Zaire, civilians burn down one of Pres. Mobutu’s villas in Kinshasa, and they also attack Bernardin Mungul-Diaka’s home. Protesters then gather outside the embassies of France, Belgium, and the U.S. . . . Sheikh Muhammad AbuShakra, 81, Lebanese spiritual leader of the 1.1-million-member Druze religion, dies of unreported causes in Badaran, Lebanon.

About 4,000 Turkish soldiers backed by fighter jets and helicopters make a foray into northern Iraq, in an attack on what Turkey claims are strongholds of the separatist Kurdish Workers Party (PKK).

About 90 antiapartheid movements, claiming to represent more than 15 million South Africans, establish a “patriotic united front” to press for black majority rule. . . . As unrest in Zaire continues, Belgium and France nearly complete their evacuation of European nationals, and Western governments appeal for their remaining citizens to leave Zaire at once.

Oct. 24

Oct. 25

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Reports conclude that, in Afghanistan skirmishes and exchanges of artillery fire have been stepped up near the towns of Jalalabad and Mehtar Lam. . . . Reports indicate that Afghan guerrillas released a U.S. veterinarian, Dr. William Lewis, who was kidnapped with an unidentified colleague July 7. . . . Vietnam and Great Britain reach agreement on the forced repatriation of 222 refugees.

Fearing civil strife as a result of the embargo in Haiti, U.S. ambassador Adams advises the 10,000 Americans living in Haiti to leave.

Japan lifts of most of its sanctions against South Africa.

Princess Kiko, 25, the wife of Japan’s Prince Akishino, 25, gives birth to a baby girl, the first grandchild for Emperor Akihito.

On a visit to Brazil, German chancellor Helmut Kohl pledges $200 million to help preserve the rain forest and improve health care for the poor.

Premier Yon Hyong Muk of North Korea and Premier Chung Won Shik of South Korea agree to try to draft a comprehensive agreement governing nonaggression, reconciliation, trade, and other issues in the fourth round of talks since Sept. 1990.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 20–25, 1991—255

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The lottery for permanent residence visas that opened on Oct. 14 ends. The department reports it has received at least 12 million applications for 40,000 available visas.

The Federal Reserve Board releases statistics on mortgage lending which shows that blacks are twice as likely to be turned down for a mortgage as whites in the same income group. . . . A federal appeals court panel in Philadelphia upholds most of Pennsylvania’s 1989 abortion law.

Michael Andretti clinches the CART season title for Indianapolis-type cars in Monterey, California. . . . Ayrton Senna of Brazil wins the Formula One season driving title.

Local officials estimate the total damage from the Oct. 20 fire in Oakland and Berkeley, California, at $5 billion. Pres. Bush declares it a federal disaster area. . . . Reports suggest that a common bacterial infection of the vagina, Gardnerella vaginitis or bacterial vaginosis, increases the chances of bearing a child with low birth weight by as much as 50%, roughly the same risk associated with smoking.

William Taylor is confirmed by the Senate to succeed FDIC chairman L. William Seidman.

Clarence Thomas is sworn in as a Justice of the Supreme Court. . . . Jack Kevorkian is investigated by Oakland County, Michigan, authorities after he helps two more women kill themselves. Kevorkian had counseled both women, who suffered from debilitating illness, for two years.

Two audits by the GAO and one by the State Department’s inspector general show that U.S. antinarcotics efforts in Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia have made little progress since Pres. Bush unveiled his fiveyear “Andean initiative” in 1989.

Congress continues to debate tax legislation measures. . . . The FDIC revises upward its estimate of the deficit that its Bank Insurance Fund is likely to face at the end of 1992.

The Senate approves legislation that explicitly enables the EPA and state regulators to mandate the cleanup of hazardous wastes on federal property and to fine federal agencies for violations. . . . The House approves the final version of a $12.3 billion fiscal 1992 appropriations bill for the Interior Department and related agencies. . . . Congress passes another stopgap bill as budget negotiations continue.

Pres. Bush signs the $8.56 billion military construction appropriation for fiscal 1992 passed by the Senate Oct. 16.

At least 24 people are killed and 148 injured as a wildfire sweeps through affluent residential sections of northern Oakland and Berkeley, California, destroying more than 1,800 houses and 900 apartment units. California governor Pete Wilson (R) tours the region by helicopter and declares it a state disaster area.

The National Eye Institute finds that foscarnet, a drug approved by the FDA in September for an eye infection common in AIDS patients, also prolongs their lives.

A Senate Foreign Relations panel begins to hear testimony on the role of the CIA in the BCCI scandal. The testimony includes allegations that the CIA used the bank to make payments to Afghan rebels and in connection with the Iran-contra arms scandal.

Three teenagers are arrested in connection with the slayings of nine people at a Buddhist temple near Phoenix, Arizona in August.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia, Michael Carey, files criminal charges against 33 coal-mining companies and a consulting company for allegedly conspiring to submit false coal-mine dust samples to the Labor Department’s Mine Safety and Health Administration. . . . A federal court in New Orleans strikes down major provisions of an EPA ban on asbestos products, arguing that, although the EPA has demonstrated asbestos poses a health hazard, it has not presented sufficient evidence of risk to justify a total ban.

The House approves a wide-ranging anticrime measure to be reconciled with a similar measure passed by the Senate in July. House members delete a provision that would have allowed death-row inmates to appeal their sentences in federal court on the grounds that courts in their state impose the death penalty disproportionately against members of their race.

Pres. Bush attacks the Senate for how it handled Clarence Thomas’s confirmation hearings. He states that he issued an executive order to restrict access to FBI reports on presidential appointees in order to avoid leaks. The Senate votes to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate leaks. . . . Pres. Bush signs a bill that funds a study to improve the accuracy of the census. . . . Alumni members of the elite Skull and Bones society vote to admit women.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Oct. 20

Oct. 21

Prodigy, a computer network with 1.1 million members, draws criticism for carrying anti-Semitic messages on its bulletin-board discussions. . . . The Booker Prize is won by Ben Okri for his novel The Famished Road.

Oct. 22

Oct. 23

Two UCLA scientists admit that they cannot duplicate their results for an influential 1989 study in which they claim the AIDS virus may remain dormant in humans for up to three years before being detected with standard blood tests. . . . Contrary to previous reports, exercise alone cannot prevent osteoporosis in postmenopausal women, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The Treasury Department announces that it is changing the rules for its auctions of government securities to loosen the grip of the 39 primary dealers who have been favored. Among the dealers is Salomon Inc.’s Salomon Brothers Inc. unit, which recently admitted to improperly manipulating past auctions.

Eugene Wesley (Gene) Roddenberry, 70, creator of Star Trek, a television show that spawned films and spin-offs and amassed a large following of “Trekkies,” dies of cardiopulmonary arrest in Santa Monica, California.

Scarlett: The Sequel to Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, by Alexandra Ripley is at the top of Publisher’s Weekly’s bestseller list.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 24

Oct. 25

256—October 26–31, 1991

World Affairs

Europe

Six guerrillas, five policemen, and a soldier are killed in violent incidents on the eve of elections in Colombia.

The parliament of the republic of Turkmenistan votes for a declaration of independence. . . . Reports show that the unemployment rate in France rose to 9.6% in September, and the number of people out of work climbed to a record 2.77 million. . . . Poland holds its first fully free parliamentary elections. Incomplete returns indicate that no single party will emerge with anything approaching a ruling majority. . . . Sir Andrzej Panufnik, 77, Polish-born composer who defected to England in 1954 and was knighted in 1991, dies of unreported causes in London.

In an interview, Zaire’s president Mobutu vows to stay in office despite domestic and international opposition to his rule.

In Colombia, elections are held under heavy guard, with 80,000 soldiers and police posted around the country. Colombia’s ruling Liberal Party wins an absolute majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives and captures 18 of 27 provincial governorships in legislative and local elections. Several parties, including the party of the former rebel group April 19 Movement (M-19), also win seats in the legislature for the first time.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin nominates himself to fill the vacant post of Russian premier. . . . In Ankara, Turkey, separate carbomb blasts kill a U.S. soldier and severely wound an Egyptian diplomat. A group called Turkish Islamic Holy War claims responsibility for the bombings and states they protest the Madrid summit on the Middle East.

Two Israeli Jewish settlers are killed and five others wounded when gunmen open fire on a bus near the village of Kfar Tappuah in the occupied West Bank. Palestinian spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi repeatedly condemns the outbreaks and denies any PLO role in the attacks. . . . Reports state that Raila Odinga, a prominent Kenyan dissident, fled to Uganda but was refused political asylum.

With 98% of the votes tallied in Poland, it appears that 29 parties have won seats in parliament, but no party received as much as 13% of the vote. Polish president Walesa offers to appoint himself to the job for a two-year period. . . . After two days of talks in Moscow, 12 Soviet republics agree to share responsibility for repaying the foreign debt of the USSR. . . . Kurdish sources state that 12 people were killed in the latest round of Turkish raids. . . . Mario Scelba, 90, Italy’s interior minister, 1947–53, and its premier, 1954–55, dies of thrombosis in Rome.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Party of God claim responsibility for the Oct. 28 attack in the West Bank. . . . One Palestinian is killed and 35 wounded in clashes with Israeli troops during a general strike called by the Hamas to protest the Madrid talks. Guerrillas from Hezbollah attack Israeli troops in southern Lebanon, killing three soldiers and wounding six. . . . More than 50,000 Zaireans demonstrate joyfully in Kinshasa in the mistaken belief that Pres. Mobutu has agreed to reappoint Premier Tshisekedi who was dismissed Oct. 20.

In Brazil, Pres. Collor designates 71 areas as legal Indian territories. The territories cover 27,500 acres in 13 states. Separately, two prison guards in Rio de Janeiro are arrested and charged with igniting a prison fire that killed 24 people.

Representatives of Israel, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestinians of the Israeli-occupied territories attend the opening session of a Middle East peace conference sponsored by the Soviet Union and the U.S. in Madrid, Spain. It marks the first time that all the major parties in the Middle East conflict gather together at one table for comprehensive talks. . . . A French judge issues warrants for the arrest of four Libyan intelligence agents in connection with the 1989 UTA bomb attack.

About 3,500 workers in Spain’s sherry vineyards end a 59-day strike. . . . Desmond Ellis, the first paramilitary suspect extradited from Ireland to stand trial in Britain, is acquitted of taking part in a 1981 IRA bomb plot.

Israel retaliates for the Oct. 29 attack by shelling Hezbollah strongholds. . . . A series of reports begin that state Iraqi armed forces are harassing Kurdish guerrillas and civilians in northeastern Iraq, cutting off supplies to the region and driving thousands of Kurds from their homes. . . . At a rally in Beirut, Hezbollah leader Sheik Abbas al-Musawi calls for Shi’ite Muslims to launch a holy war against Israel to derail the peace talks.

A Canadian Forces C-130 Hercules transport plane crashes about 12 miles from a radar base at Alert, the northernmost settlement in the world, only 400 miles from the North Pole. . . . Cuba and Colombia resume diplomatic relations after a 10-year freeze.

Amid hostile statements in the Madrid conference, the Palestinian delegation suggests that Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories will accept an interim period of limited self-rule prior to the establishment of a Palestinian state. It is the first time a Palestinian leader has ever explicitly backed such a compromise. . . . Ministers from nearly 30 European countries agree to crack down on the smuggling of illegal immigrants at a meeting in Berlin.

Under international pressure, the Yugoslav navy allows a flotilla of private boats carrying relief supplies to enter Dubrovnik. Federal president Stipe Mesic is allowed to visit the city as well.

The Sacred Union, a coalition of opposition parties, steps up its confrontation with Zairean president Mobutu Sese Seko by appointing a “parallel” government. French troops depart Zaire. . . . Kenneth Kaunda, president of Zambia since 1964, is trounced in the first pluralistic presidential balloting since becoming a one-party state in 1972. Frederick Chiluba wins the election. . . . Clashes between Shiite Muslim militants and Israeli forces continue in southern Lebanon.

Oct. 27

Reports confirm that France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal have joined the Arab Maghreb Union (Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Mauritania) in calling for the EC to lift its sanctions against Libya imposed in 1986.

Oct. 29

Oct. 30

Oct. 31

The Americas

In Tel Aviv, 3,000 people attend a rally in support of territorial compromise that would exchange land for peace between Israel and its neighbors.

Oct. 26

Oct. 28

Africa & the Middle East

Asia & the Pacific

A youth is killed by Indonesian soldiers.

Vietnam formally approves a plan to forcibly repatriate tens of thousands of refugees living in camps in Hong Kong.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 26–31, 1991—257

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle An accident at an exhibit of giant umbrellas in California and Japan created by the artist Christo kills a California woman, Lori Mae Matthew, 33, who is crushed to death by one of the 485-pound umbrellas. Several other people are injured in the accident.

Reports suggest that substantial funds allegedly deposited in the BCCI by drug cartels were withdrawn in the weeks preceding the U.S. government’s 1988 arrest of BCCI executives on money-laundering charges.

The Minnesota Twins win the 88th World Series over the Atlanta Braves in the 10th inning of the seventh and deciding game. . . . The Israeli Antiquities Authority, which controls the Dead Sea Scrolls, agrees to open access to the scrolls to scholars but continues to impose strict publication restrictions.

Alberto Gonzalez, 27, of Oregon is ordered not to have sex for five years and sentenced to six months of house arrest after he pleads no contest to charges that he spread the AIDS virus to his girlfriend by having unsafe sex with her when he knew he was infected.

Pres. Bush signs many of the appropriations measures passed by Congress, including an $81 billion fiscal 1992 bill for HUD, NASA, the EPA, and independent agencies; a $19.9 billion bill funding the Treasury Department, the Postal Service, and government operations; a $14.3 billion fiscal 1992 transportation bill; a $22 billion bill funding the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State and the federal judiciary; a $52.5 billion fiscal 1992 agriculture bill; and a stopgap bill.

Reports show that the National Institutes of Health applied for patents on hundreds of human genes, the naturally occurring molecules that control transmission of hereditary characteristics, setting off a wave of complaints. James D. Watson, codiscoverer of DNA, states that the action “offends our sense of justice.”

The North American Bungee Association reports the first known death from bungee jumping in the U.S. when it discloses that Hal Mark Irish fell to his death after he became detached from his cord during a demonstration in Perris, California.

The mayor of Miami Beach, Florida, Alex Daoud, is indicted on federal charges of racketeering, extortion, corruption, money laundering, and filing false tax returns.

The governors of nine states agree to adopt California’s strict limits on automobile pollution emissions.. . . . The National Governors’ Association reports that 32 states resorted to some form of spending reductions to meet budgetary pressures in fiscal 1991. . . . After long negotiations, Congress passes a reconciliation of a $205 billion fiscal 1992 appropriations bill for the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and Education.

The U.S. probe Galileo has a rendezvous with the asteroid Gaspra in the solar system’s asteroid belt between the orbits of planets Mars and Jupiter. . . . After compiling thousands of photo images of Venus, NASA releases the first global maps of the planet’s surface. . . . Rep. Howard Wolpe (D, Mich.) condemns Bush’s Sept. 16 Presidential Faculty Fellows Award since “30 or 40 fewer academicians will get awards.” Wolpe suggests providing smaller awards to more scientists and therefore attracting more people to the field.

The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) rejects Rev. Michael Kinnamon, dean of the Lexington Theological Seminary, as head of the denomination because he refuses to condemn all homosexual activity and because he argues that congregations should be free to choose sexually active homosexuals as ministers.

The Senate passes legislation that will make it easier for workers to file suit in job-discrimination cases.

U.S. intelligence assessments find that China is providing Iran with the equipment and technology to develop nuclear weapons. Some senators accuse the Bush administration of withholding information on Iran-China trade ties from Congress during the debate over extending China’s most-favored nation (MFN) trade status.

The EPA reports that new 1992model automobiles sold in the U.S. average 27.5 miles per gallon, down from 27.8 in 1991 models. . . . The Agriculture Department reports that a record 23.57 million Americans received food stamps in August, an increase of 3 million over August 1990.

A violent storm batters parts of the northeastern seaboard.

Reports proclaim that Xie Jun of China has won the women’s world chess championship.

Doctors in the U.S. note an increase in the incidence of Barret’s syndrome, a disorder of the esophagus lining that mainly affects white, affluent, middle-aged men. . . . Pres. Bush and Democrats in Congress begin to assail each other for the poor state of the economy and other problems. . . . The Palm Beach, Florida, rape trial of William Kennedy Smith opens.

Reports conclude that exposure to low-level radiation did not harm naval shipyard workers who overhauled nuclear submarines. . . . In response to the Oct. 30 intelligence reports, Iranian and Chinese officials admit that Iran received nuclear technology from China but strongly deny the existence of an Iranian atomic-weapons program.

Labor Secretary Lynn Martin announces a record $10 million fine levied against Angus Chemical Co. to settle a government investigation of a May 1 fire that killed eight workers at the plant and injured 120 others.

A storm kills at least four people and causes hundreds of millions of dollars in damages as well as extensive beach erosion. The governors of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Maine state they plan to request federal disaster relief. . . . NASA announces that Forrest McCartney, head of the Kennedy Space Center, will be replaced by Robert Crippen. . . . Researchers find that taking onetenth of an aspirin tablet daily may prevent heart attacks and strokes.

Joseph Papp (born Yosl Papirofsky), 70, theater producer and founder of the New York Shakespeare Festival who refused to answer questions from the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1958 and rejected a grant from the NEA to protest an antiobscenity clause in 1990, dies of prostate cancer in New York City.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 26

Oct. 27

Oct. 28

Oct. 29

Oct. 30

Oct. 31

258—November 1–6, 1991

World Affairs

Europe The Russian Congress of People’s Deputies, the overall parliament of Soviet Russia, grants Pres. Boris Yeltsin sweeping powers to launch and direct radical economic reforms in Russia.

Nov. 1

Asia & the Pacific

Thirteen members of the Canadian military are rescued after spending more than 40 hours stranded in the Arctic after their plane crashed on Oct. 30. Five additional crew members, including the pilot, Captain John Couch, survived the crash but froze to death before the rescue.

The blockade and shelling of the Yugoslavian town of Dubrovnik resumes. . . . Officials of the Czechoslovak federal, Czech, and Slovak governments meet for the 11th time in 1991 to consider greater autonomy for the Slovak Republic but fail to reach an accord. . . . Reports indicate that Soviet scientists found a sharp rise in thyroid cancer among children living in areas of Byelorussia contaminated by the 1986 Chernobyl accident.

At a protest of a new value-added tax in South Africa, 15 people are killed in a clash between pro- and antistrike workers at a mine outside Welkom, 160 miles south of Johannesburg. In addition, police arrest 108 people in various cities for holding marches without permission.

Police in Nicaragua seize more than 1,500 pounds of cocaine at a house in Managua, the capital, the largest seizure in Nicaraguan history.

The Middle East peace conference in Madrid, Spain, closes without the emergence of major concessions or peace proposals from either Israel or the Arab nations. However, Arabs and Israelis publicly commit themselves to continuing their dialogue, a development that is hailed by diplomats and observers as a crucial step toward a comprehensive Middle East peace settlement.

Exiled former Afghan king Zahir Shah, a leading supporter of ongoing Afghan peace efforts, is stabbed and slightly wounded at his villa in Rome.

In the largest strike in the history of South Africa, between 3 and 4 million black South Africans stay home from work for two days to protest a new value-added tax. . . . Belgian troops leave Zaire. . . . Israel inaugurates a settlement for Soviet Jewish immigrants at Qela in the Golan Heights.

In Barbados, a two-day general strike begins.

Former first lady Imelda Marcos returns to the Philippines, ending more than five years of exile in the U.S.

The Soviet Union formally agrees to allow foreign overflights of its territory to monitor Soviet compliance with arms-control accords, clearing the way for a long-delayed, international “open-skies” treaty.

Croatian artillery shells kill four people in the Serbian town of Sid. Serbia rejects an EC peace proposal that was tentatively accepted by Yugoslavia’s five other republics but agrees to the 12th official EC-mediated cease-fire. . . . The body of British media mogul Robert Maxwell, who launched a paper to be distributed throughout Europe and bought the New York Daily News, is found dead in the Atlantic Ocean. . . . Riot police break a blockade by Renault S.A. workers at the Cleon plant.

Officials estimate that strikers in South Africa forfeited over $70 million in wages and cost $800 million in lost production during the job action that started Nov. 4. . . . Israeli military authorities ban pro-peace demonstrations by Palestinians in the West Bank as they often provoke clashes between rival Arab groups.

A U.S. soldier stationed in Panama, Mikael Child, is shot dead when Panamanian police open fire on a car carrying four U.S. servicemen traveling the wrong way on a oneway street.

Kiichi Miyazawa is appointed premier of Japan, succeeding Toshiki Kaifu. He immediately forms a new cabinet that includes several persons who were involved in financial and sex scandals. . . . China and Vietnam normalize relations. . . . A storm hits the Philippines islands where recent illegal logging of trees that anchored topsoil results in rampant mudslides. . . . Former first lady of the Philippines Imelda Marcos is arrested on tax fraud charges.

The 12th official EC-mediated ceasefire for Yugoslavia and its republics signed Nov, 5 falls apart. . . . . The republics of Moldavia and the Ukraine sign the economic-union pact that 12 other Soviet republics signed Oct 29. . . . Amid public speculation on the possibility of foul play, Spanish authorities find that British media mogul Robert Maxwell, who died Nov. 5, had suffered heart failure and then fell overboard into the sea.

A total of six Israeli soldiers are reported killed in the fighting since Oct. 31. . . . The last of more than 700 Kuwaiti oil wells set on fire by Iraqi forces during the Persian Gulf war is capped. . . . Amnesty International accuses the government of Djibouti of torturing up to 300 prisoners within the past year.

A Panamanian police officer, Juan Arauz, is arrested for the Nov. 5 shooting. . . . About 150 protesters from far-right groups demonstrate outside the U.S. embassy in Portau-Prince denouncing an embargo on Haiti.

Nov. 3

Nov. 5

In Zaire, Pres. Mobutu swears in a new cabinet led by Premier Bernardin Mungul-Diaka, the fifth premier in 1991. At the same time, the Sacred Union, which declared itself a “parallel government” on Oct. 31, holds its first cabinet meeting and calls on military leaders to break with Mobutu and back their administration. . . . Lebanese troops move to the area near the town of Nabatiye, yet Israel and the Israelibacked South Lebanon Army militia continue to shell villages and suspected guerrilla bases.

The Americas

Frederick Chiluba, 48, leader of the Zambian Congress of Trade Unions, is inaugurated as president in Lusaka, Zambia’s capital.

Nov. 2

Nov. 4

Africa & the Middle East

Nov. 6

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 1–6, 1991—259

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

A graduate student, distraught over his failure to win an academic award, shoots and kills five people and critically injures another at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. The student, Gang Lu, then shoots himself to death. . . . Judge Clarence Thomas is formally seated as the 106th associate justice of the Supreme Court.

Martin Gaffney, 42, chief warrant officer with the Marines who won a five-year legal battle against the government to receive compensation for medical malpractice that led to the death of his wife and son from AIDS after a blood transfusion at a U.S. Navy hospital, dies of AIDS-related cancer in Boston.

The Senate approves the final version of a $12.3 billion fiscal 1992 appropriations bill for the Interior Department and related agencies.

Researchers at MIT find that jetliners that are full or close to full capacity are more likely to be involved in accidents with numerous fatalities than aircraft that are not fully loaded.

A series of studies conducted by environmental groups and federal agencies conclude that between 30% and 70% of the estimated 100 million acres of land currently classified as wetlands will be disqualified from protection under the new criteria announced by Vice President Quayle in August.

Reports confirm that California scientists have isolated “stem cells” whose divisions give rise to all the red and white blood cells in the body. The existence of stem cells in the bone marrow has been hypothesized for more than 35 years before being isolated.

Members of the United Auto Workers union go on strike at two Caterpillar Inc. factories in Illinois in an effort to gain concessions from the company in contract negotiations.

Nov. 1

Australia wins the finals of the Rugby World Cup. . . . Irwin Allen, 75, Hollywood producer who won an Academy Award for best documentary in 1952 and was nominated for another Oscar in 1974 for The Towering Inferno, dies of a heart attack in Santa Monica, California.

Golfer Craig Stadler wins the Tour Championship. . . . Liz McColgan of Scotland wins the women’s race and Salvador García of Mexico wins the men’s race in the NYC Marathon. . . . The film and television rights to Scarlett: The Sequel to Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, by Alexandra Ripley, are auctioned for around $9 million, the highest ever paid for the rights to film a book.

Surgeon Gen. Antonia Novello accuses beer, wine, and liquor companies of “unabashedly” targeting their advertisements at teenagers. . . . The Supreme Court’s new session opens.

Health and Human Services Secretary Sullivan announces an agreement with representatives of the health insurance industry to develop a nationwide insurance billing system. . . . The Senate votes to confirm Robert Gates as director of central intelligence, despite the strongest recorded opposition any U.S. intelligence director has ever received. . . . In an upset, appointed senator Harris Wofford (D, Pa.) defeats former Atty. Gen. Richard Thornburgh (R) in the nation’s only 1991 Senate race.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Pres. Bush and former presidents Reagan, Carter, Ford, and Nixon attend the dedication of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.

The U.S. Navy announces that Rear Admiral John Snyder, implicated in the sexual-harassment Tailhook scandal, has been relieved of duty. . . . Defense Secretary Cheney testifies on the issue of MIAs in Southeast Asia and asserts that forged documents are hampering investigations. . . . Defense Secretary Cheney admits the armed services were slow to inform the relatives of men slain by friendly fire in the Persian Gulf War of the circumstances of the deaths.

The FDA and the Agriculture Department unveil a sweeping new set of regulations concerning food labeling that are described as the largest product relabeling proposal in history. . . . Pres Bush denounces David Duke, a former neo-Nazi and Grand Wizard in the Ku Klux Klan, who is the Republican candidate in a runoff election for governor in Louisiana. . . . The House clears compromise legislation to reauthorize the Civil Rights Commission for three years.

Jeffrey S. Worthy, former vice president of Columbia Savings and Loan Association, is convicted of engaging in a scheme to sell the thrift $166 million in fraudulent “leveraged lease packages” from 1983 to 1987.

John Frohnmayer, chairman of the NEA, announces the recipients of 735 grants. Among the recipients are Holly Hughes and Tim Miller, who were denied grants in 1990 because of the sexually explicit nature of their work.

The EPA sets a 90-day deadline for states to implement programs to control the discharge of toxic chemicals into lakes and rivers. . . . The Senate Banking Committee rejects the nomination of Robert Clarke for a second term as comptroller of the currency. . . . The Federal Reserve Board votes to cut its basic interest rate to 4.5% from 5%, the lowest since Jan. 1973.

Gene Tierney, 70, film actress nominated for Leave Her to Heaven (1945), dies of emphysema in Houston, Texas.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 2

Nov. 3

Nov. 4

Nov. 5

Nov. 6

260—November 7–12, 1991

Nov. 7

Nov. 8

Nov. 9

World Affairs

Europe

NATO leaders set a new, post–cold war course for the alliance at a summit in Rome, Italy.

The communist-led General Confederation of Labor (CGT) calls for striking auto workers at Renault S.A. in France to return to work, ending a 22-day strike. . . . More than 10,000 people mount an illegal pro-communist parade in Moscow to mark the 74th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. . . . Gaston Monnerville, 94, leader of the French Senate, 1948–68, dies of undisclosed causes.

NATO leaders sign joint declarations on the crises in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in which they denounce what they view as aggression by the Yugoslav republic of Serbia and call on the Soviet republics to respect international arms-control treaties. . . . The foreign ministers of the EC impose an economic embargo on Yugoslavia.

Turkey recognizes Azerbaijan as independent nation. . . . U.S. president Bush meets with EC officials at The Hague, the Netherlands, and states that the U.S. will “apply sanctions on Yugoslavia comparable to those of the European Community.”

Nov. 10

Nov. 11

At a meeting in Brussels of the 24 leading industrial nations under the auspices of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, data show that Western governments and financial institutions pledged a total of $45 billion in economic assistance to Eastern Europe since 1989. . . . The World Health Organization reports that 75% of the people in the world infected with the AIDS virus acquired it through heterosexual contact.

Nov. 12

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The Israeli army and the pro-Israel South Lebanon Army militia continue to launch helicopter air strikes and artillery barrages against suspected Palestinian guerrilla positions in southern Lebanon.

Mexican army troops shoot and kill seven judicial police agents in a drug raid. The killings spark speculation about army involvement in drug trafficking since the drug smugglers escape. Army officials state the troops mistakenly opened fire since the agents disembarked a Colombian aircraft loaded with cocaine. . . . The Canadian House of Commons overwhelmingly approves new gun-control legislation.

Relief agencies disclose that floods resulting from the Nov. 5 tropical storm Thelma have killed at least 3,400 people in the south-central Philippines. The death toll is the highest from flooding in the Philippines since 1984.

Polish president Lech Walesa asks Bronislaw Geremek to serve as Poland’s premier-designate since elections failed to yield a majority for any single party. . . . The Bulgarian parliament confirms Filip Dimitrov, 36, as the country’s youngest-ever premier.

A bomb destroys the main building of the American University of Beirut on the 125th anniversary of the university’s founding. One person is killed and eight others wounded in the blast. The bombers also shoot and kill a Syrian sentry.

Business and labor leaders in Barbados ask P.M. Lloyd Erskine Sandiford to step down in the wake of the Nov, 4 general strike. Sandiford, who is also the finance minister, refuses to step down.

In Hong Kong, thousands of refugees at the Whitehead Detention Center—where 25,000 refugees live in prison-like conditions—stage a peaceful protest of planned forced repatriation.

More than 100,000 Germans in some 30 towns and cities protest the recent attacks on foreigners in Germany by right-wing youths. The demonstrations are staged over the weekend anniversary of both Kristallnacht, a 1938 night of antiSemitic violence in Nazi Germany, and the 1989 breaching of the Berlin Wall. . . . The pro-Serbia faction of the Yugoslav federal collective presidency calls for UN peacekeepers in Yugoslavia.

PLO spokesmen state that Syria will allow the mainstream Fatah faction of the PLO to reopen its offices in Damascus, shut down in May 1983.

The Roman Catholic Church in El Salvador releases a report accusing members of the U.S.-trained Atlacatl Battalion of the Salvadoran army of killing hundreds of peasants in and around the village of El Mozote in December 1981.

Hong Kong authorities deport 59 Vietnamese refugees, reinitiating a controversial program of forced repatriation advocated by the British government. The 59 refugees are the first to be returned to Vietnam against their will under an agreement between Britain and Vietnam to bring the eventual repatriation of a large portion of the 63,000 boat people currently encamped in Hong Kong.

French president Mitterrand states that he is planning to propose wide-ranging reforms to the French constitution. . . . Maj. Gen. Sir Rohan Delacombe, 85, military officer who commanded British occupation forces in Berlin from 1959 to 1962 and served from 1963 to 1974 as the last British governor of the Australian state of Victoria, dies of unreported causes.

Israeli security officials report a sharp drop in violence in the Israelioccupied West Bank and Gaza Strip for the week following the Madrid peace conference. Israeli authorities allow thousands of Palestinians to take to the streets in the West Bank city of Jericho and welcome the return of the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid talks. . . . South African president de Klerk begins the first visit to Israel by a South African head of state since 1976.

An OAS delegation, led by former Colombian foreign minister Augusto Ramírez Ocampo, arrives in Haiti.

As violence continues in Yugoslavia, the EC orders peace monitors in Dubrovnik to leave the city.

A South African mining conglomeration shuts down a gold mine in the town of Welkom after a week of ethnic fighting among black workers left at least 67 dead. . . . Israel and South Africa sign a broad agreement for economic and scientific cooperation. . . . Reports suggest the BCCI stole $2 billion from the personal account of Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahayan, the ruler of Abu Dhabi. . . . About 35,000 workers at Impala Platinum in Bophuthatswana begin a strike.

The Canadian government formally revokes the citizenship of a Dutch émigré, Jacob Luitjens, who is believed to have collaborated with Nazi officials during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. . . . In Nicaragua, a first case of cholera is diagnosed.

Charles Twining, the first U.S. diplomatic representative to Cambodia in 16 years, and David Burns, the first diplomat from the U.K. since 1975, arrive in Cambodia.

Reports confirm that five neo-Nazis in Germany were sentenced in Zittau to up to 15 months in prison for an attack against foreigners.

After five days of Israeli helicopter air strikes and artillery barrages against suspected Palestinian guerrilla positions in southern Lebanon, the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, Ryan Crocker, and Lebanese Foreign Minister Fares Boueiz meet to discuss the possibility of arranging a cease-fire.

Reports indicate that a joint session of Chile’s congress approved measures aimed at holding the first municipal elections since 1971.

Indonesian troops open fire on 1,000 marchers on their way to a funeral for a youth killed by Indonesian soldiers Oct. 28 in the province of East Timor. The attack, confirmed by Western journalists, kills about 50 people.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 7–12, 1991—261

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The CDC reports that the percentage of Americans who smoke declined to 28% in 1988, from 29% the year before. . . . The House passes the legislation that makes it easier for workers to sue in job-discrimination cases that the Senate approved Oct. 30. . . . Ralph M. Harvey, 90, Republican U.S. representative from Indiana, 1948–59 and 1961–66, dies in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

The Wall Street Journal finds that the only U.S. serviceman punished in a gulf war friendly-fire incident was army Lt. Col. Ralph Hayles, who has been stripped of his command and dismissed.

In response to the UAW Nov. 3 strike, Caterpillar closes its remaining operations in East Peoria and a factory in Aurora, Illinois.

Reports show that Japanese scientists cloned a rat gene that directs the production of a key brain protein. . . . The New England Journal of Medicine suggests that children successfully treated for leukemia are at high risk for developing a second tumor, especially in the brain. . . . Scientists at California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory state that radar images hint there is ice on the north pole of planet Mercury.

Los Angeles Laker guard Earvin (Magic) Johnson, among the greatest and most popular players in the history of the NBA, announces that he has tested positive for the HIV virus that causes AIDS.

Susan Phillips, former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, is confirmed to the Federal Reserve’s board of governors.

NASA suspends business with a division of Rockwell International Corp., which was indicted for false billing.

John Kirkpatrick, 86, U.S. pianist and curator of the Charles Ives Archive at Yale, dies of unreported causes in Ithaca, New York. . . . Charlotte Moorman, 57, cellist and avant-garde performer, dies of cancer in New York City. . . . Pres. Bush meets Pope John Paul II at the Vatican.

European scientists for the first time produce a significant amount of energy from controlled nuclear fusion at the Joint European Torus (JET) laboratory.

Yves Montand (born Ivo Livi), 70, popular French film actor who made more than 50 films, including the 1986 films Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring, dies after suffering a heart attack while on location for a new film in Senlis, France.

The New York Times reports that crops in California’s Imperial Valley are being wiped out by an infestation of the sweet potato whitefly.

In tennis, Martina Navratilova ties Chris Evert’s career record when she wins her 157th tournament, the California Virginia Slims in Oakland.

Five female employees of Stroh Brewery Co. file a sexual-harassment suit charging that the company’s “sexist and degrading” television advertising campaign contributes to sexist and abusive treatment they receive in the work place. It is believed to be the first to attempt to link the images of women used in a company’s advertising with its treatment of its female employees. . . . A 22-city survey finds that about one-third of the homeless people in those cities are severely mentally ill. The FDA approves a product that administers a small but steady dose of nicotine through an adhesive skin patch, intended for people who are trying to quit smoking.

The USS Will Rogers, the last submarine at the base at Holy Loch, Scotland, leaves port to return to the U.S.

Federal law-enforcement officials announce that Salvatore Gravano, 46, whom they describe as the top associate of John Gotti, the Gambino family crime boss, has defected to the government and been placed in the Witness Protection Program.

The CDC reports that as many as 20% of homeless people are infected with the HIV virus. . . . The Senate Judiciary Committee opens hearings on the confirmation of William P. Barr as attorney general. . . . Robert M. Gates takes the oath of office and becomes the country’s 15th director of central intelligence.

Reports find that U.S. scientists have taken the first photographs of the human brain as it performs simple tasks. The experiment yields unexpected results about the workings of memory in recalling words. . . . Scientists report that short men are at greater risk for heart attacks than tall men.

The Defense Department announces that 71 U.S. military installations in Europe will close or be reduced by 1995. All but 13 of the facilities are in Germany.

California and the Environmental Defense Fund file suit against 10 makers of china dishware, including Wedgwood, Royal Doulton, and Lenox, charging that their glazes contain high levels of lead that can leach into food and beverages. . . . Pres. Bush suggests that banks voluntarily lower the interest rates they charge on credit cards. . . . The House passes a third stopgap bill. . . . Up to 300 senior doctors at Woodhull Medical and Health Center in NYC go on strike, in the first walkout by staff doctors anywhere in the U.S.

Nov. 7

Nov. 8

Nov. 9

Nov. 10

Nov. 11

Researchers argue that Digitalis, one of the oldest heart-attack medicines, increases the risk of sudden death from heart-rhythm disorders. The risk can be mitigated, however, by taking beta-blockers. . . . Burroughs Wellcome Co. announces that it has developed an experimental drug, called 566, to fight a type of pneumonia that is the leading cause of death among AIDS patients. The company states the FDA has authorized wider use of the drug.

Nov. 12

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

262—November 13–18, 1991

Nov. 13

Nov. 14

Nov. 15

World Affairs

Europe

EC foreign ministers complete their meeting without reaching agreement on increased political integration among the EC’s 12 members or on economic and monetary union (EMU). . . . Great Britain, France, and Belgium urge the UN Security Council to send a peacekeeping force to Yugoslavia, and reports confirm Japan suspended aid to Yugoslavia. . . . The OECD revises downward its forecast for U.S. economic growth in 1992.

Five Protestants are shot in Belfast, Northern Ireland, by the outlawed IRA. Two more Protestants die in another IRA shooting, and another loses his legs in a car-bomb explosion. . . . Bronislaw Geremek, Poland’s premier-designate, announces that he has given up his effort form a coalition government. . . . Two battered Croatian communities—Dubrovnik and Vukovar—are on the brink of falling to the Serbian forces.

Both the U.S. Justice Department and Scottish authorities indict two Libyan intelligence officers, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah and Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, who are believed to have engineered the Dec. 1988 bombing of Pan American World Airways Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in which 270 people died. The indictments follow joint inquiries by U.S., French, and British investigators.

The Yugoslav navy allows about 2,000 people to be evacuated by ferry boat from Dubrovnik, as intermittent shelling continues. All sides in the Yugoslav conflict agree to allow the presence of peace-keeping forces. . . . Seven Soviet republics reach a preliminary agreement on a loosely confederated “Union of Sovereign States.”. . . In retaliation for the Nov. 13 attacks, the illegal Ulster Volunteer Force shoots and kills two Roman Catholics and a Protestant in County Armagh.

The UN Environment Program reports that worldwide production and use of halons and chlorofluorocarbons, chemicals believed to cause erosion of the ozone layer, have declined 40% over the previous five years. . . . Libya offers to defend itself against the Pan Am allegations before “just and neutral judicial authorities or the U.N. International Court of Justice.” The U.S. State Department calls the indictments a matter for U.S. courts.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Reports confirm that Belize, Honduras, and Venezuela have agreed to offer temporary shelter for Haitian refugees picked up at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard while fleeing Haiti in small boats. . . . The Haitian National Assembly, as part of an accord with the OAS, agrees to discussions with the ousted government of Pres. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, but refuses to commit to Aristide’s return to power.

Indonesia apologizes for the Nov. 12 killings, and army commander general Try Sutrisno promises an investigation of the incident.

Reports indicate that Iraq and Kurdish guerrilla leaders have agreed to call for an end to the blockade.

The Nicaraguan government begins a cholera prevention program. . . . Leaders of the FMLN announce an indefinite cease-fire, suspending offensive military action in the 12year-old civil war in El Salvador.

Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodia’s former head of state, stages a triumphant return to Phnom Penh after nearly 13 years in exile.

Russian president Yeltsin begins to assert control over Russia’s natural resources and monetary policies. . . . The Supreme Court in the Republic of Ireland blocks the extradition of two men convicted in Britain on terrorist-related charges. . . . The IRA attempts a bomb attack on the British mainland, but the bombers are killed when their device apparently explodes prematurely. In the wake of violence in Northern Ireland, Britain calls up 1,400 reserve for full-time active duty.

In Kenya, police stage a round-up of at least six activists connected with the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD).

Pres. Fernando Collor de Mello finalizes plans for a 36,000-squaremile reserve for Brazil’s stone-age Yanomami tribe in a mineral-rich Amazon jungle area on Brazil’s border with Venezuela.

U.S. secretary of state Baker goes to China, and his visit marks the first high-level official contact between China and the U.S. since the 1989 crackdown in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

A few hours after the latest truce takes effect in Yugoslavia, the army and Serbian guerrillas launch an offensive against the long-besieged city of Vukovar. . . . In France, the right-wing National Front unveils a 50-point plan to curb immigration and “protect the French.” The proposal is by far the most detailed on the issue offered by the anti-immigration party of Jean-Marie Le Pen, and it draws controversy.

Riot police launch tear gas and use batons to break up a prodemocracy rally in Nairobi, Kenya. About 25 journalists ignore the warning to avoid the site and are arrested. Several FORD leaders are arrested. The Kenyan government argues the action led to only minor injuries, but local newspapers report that one man died in a stampede and seven have received gunshot wounds.

In a lengthy news conference, Prince Sihanouk asserts that Khmer Rouge leaders should be tried for the killings of an estimated 1 million Cambodians during their rule.

In response to the Nov. 14 indictments of Libyans, the 21-nation Arab League calls for Western nations to exercise restraint in dealing with Libya and states it does not believe Libya is responsible for the Lockerbie explosion. . . . The U.S. and its coalition of international allies caused needless civilian deaths during the Persian Gulf war, according to a report by the U.S.based human-rights organization Middle East Watch.

The city of Vukovar, almost completely leveled by the 86-day siege and bombardment and with a large Serb population, is under Yugoslav army control.

Fighting breaks out in Somalia’s already devastated capital between fighters loyal to interim president Mahdi and to Gen. Mohammed Farah Haideed.

Son Sen, a former defense minister who is reported to have overseen the torture and killing at a prison where 20,000 people died under the regime that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, returns to Phnom Penh.

Following negotiations between Islamic Jihad and officials from the UN, Iran, and Syria, the Lebanese Shi’ite Muslim faction Islamic Jihad frees Church of England envoy Terry Waite and U.S. university professor Thomas M. Sutherland. Waite, held since January 1987, is the last British hostage held in Lebanon. Sutherland was seized in June 1985. UN secretary general Javier Perez de Cuellar tells reporters that the Arab parties in the hostage talks have offered to release all the remaining Western hostages by the end of the year.

Gustav Husak, 78, president of Czechoslovakia, 1975–89, and general secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, 1969–87, dies of heart failure and cancer in Bratislava.

Nov. 16

Nov. 17

Nov. 18

Africa & the Middle East

Reports suggest that the number of murders in Puerto Rico to date in 1991 rose 40% over the total for 1990.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 13–18, 1991—263

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The House passes a bill guaranteeing workers unpaid leave of up to 90 days a year for family emergencies, similar to the one passed by the Senate Oct. 2.

Hanson Weightman Baldwin, 88, top U.S. military writer for more than 50 years who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1943 for his reporting from the Pacific theater during World War II, dies of heart failure in Roxbury, Connecticut.

Midway Airlines ceases operations, the second major carrier to shut down in 1991. . . . Delegates at the AFL-CIO convention reelect Lane Kirkland as president. . . . The Senate votes to impose a mandatory limit on credit-card interest rates, prompted by Pres. Bush’s Nov. 12 remarks. . . . Pres. Bush signs a $12.3 billion fiscal 1992 appropriations bill for the Interior Department and related agencies. . . . The Senate passes a third stopgap bill.

A Canadian researcher finds that men’s standardized medical test results vary according to their cycle of the “male” testosterone hormone. . . . Data suggests that the extremely low blood pressure of preschool children is apparently caused by their large consumption of calcium in milk.

Reports confirm that Fox Broadcasting Co. will allow television ads for condoms.

A former postal clerk, Thomas McIlvane, shoots and kills three workers and injures six others at a Michigan post office before turning the gun on himself. . . . The House passes a compromise bill to provide benefits for the long-term unemployed. . . . An FDA panel votes to allow silicone-filled breast implants to remain on the market, pending further study. . . . The Census Bureau confirms there are still significant differences in men’s and women’s pay. . . . The CDC proposes defining AIDS on a system based on cell counts.

Argentine president Menem addresses Congress and signs an investment-protection treaty with the U.S. under the 1981 Bilateral Investment Program. . . . Pres. Bush issues an executive order allowing Palestinian refugees from Kuwait to live and work in the U.S. for up to four years.

The Dow Jones plunges, and many analysts identify the credit-card measure passed Nov. 13 as a prime cause. . . . Woodhull Medical and Health doctors return to work. . . . The National Marine Fisheries Service designates the Snake River sockeye salmon an endangered species.

NASA releases photographs that provide the first close-up images of the Gaspra asteroid, which show that it is 12 miles long and eight miles wide. . . . Heart-attack victims who cannot be revived by paramedics have little chance of surviving, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine. . . . A study finds that increasing calcium consumption may prevent the development of high blood pressure during pregnancy.

The National Conference of Catholic Bishops issues statements that call on governments and businesses to provide more support for traditional and nontraditional families and that urge Americans to conserve resources and reduce consumption.

One of the workers injured in the Nov. 14 attack in Michigan dies, as does the gunman. The incident, the latest of several such shootings, causes Postmaster General Frank to call for a review of the personnel records of all 750,000 Postal Service employees. . . . The Senate approves William Barr as attorney general. . . . Pres. Bush signs a compromise bill providing up to 20 weeks of benefits for the long-term unemployed, ending a four-month partisan battle.

Elliott Abrams is sentenced in the Iran-contra scandal to two years’ probation, a $50 fine, and 100 hours of community service. . . . A federal appeals court panel reverses the Iran-contra convictions of former national security adviser John Poindexter, convicted in April 1990 on five felony counts. He was the highest-ranking official in the administration of Pres. Reagan to be convicted in the Irancontra affair and the only one to receive a prison sentence.

Reports show that a number of U.S. oil companies are complying with a law requiring double hulls on their new oil tankers and barges. . . . The Justice Department unveils a criminal indictment of the BCCI and three businessmen associated with it. . . . Pres. Bush signs a stopgap bill to fund the operations of the government until it finishes work on appropriations bills.

Robert (Rob) McCall, 33, seventime Canadian ice-dance champion who won a bronze medal in the 1988 Olympics, dies of AIDSrelated brain cancer in Toronto. . . . Former Los Angeles Laker star guard Earvin (Magic) Johnson accepts Pres. Bush’s request to join the National Commission on AIDS.

Former governor Edwin Edwards (D) defeats State Rep. David Duke (R) in “the most publicized governor’s race of modern times,” due to the candidacy of Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. . . . Carl Winter, 85, official with the American Communist Party who, in 1949, was one of the first people to be convicted under the Smith Act that made it illegal to belong to any group that conspires to overthrow the U.S. government, dies in NYC after suffering a heart attack.

Nov. 14

Nov. 15

Nov. 16

The Justice Department files suit against the newly created village of Airmont, New York, charging that its zoning proposals discriminate against Orthodox Jews. The suit is said to be one of the first filed by the department on behalf of a religious group. . . . The Minnesota Court of Appeals overturns an April lower court decision and awards guardianship of a brain-damaged, quadriplegic lesbian to her longtime lover. The Supreme Court rejects, without comment, an appeal by an Oklahoma death-row inmate, Olan Robison, to present evidence that a relative of one of his victims does not want him to be executed.

Nov. 13

In auto racing, Dale Earnhardt wins his fifth NASCAR Winston Cup season title. . . . Offensive lineman Mike Utley of the NFL’s Detroit Lions suffers a paralyzing neck injury in a game against the Los Angeles Rams.

The House adopts a $291 billion defense authorization bill for fiscal 1992. . . . The U.S. begins to return to Haiti refugees intercepted while trying to sail to the U.S., in accordance with a 1981 agreement with Haiti that was temporarily suspended after the Sept. 30 coup. The announcement stirs controversy. . . . The Supreme Court votes to uphold the indictments of the chief of Chile’s former secret police and his deputy for the 1976 assassination of Orlando Letelier, Chile’s ambassador to the U.S.

Studies show that Lovastatin, a drug known to lower cholesterol levels, also shrinks fatty deposits in coronary arteries. It is the first time a medicine has been found to have such a capability.

Nov. 17

Nov. 18

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

264—November 19–24, 1991

World Affairs

Nov. 23

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani outlines plans for sweeping economic reforms that will shift Iran toward a free-market economy. . . . Kenyan president Daniel T. arap Moi dismisses Nicholas Biwott from his cabinet after a month of court testimony linked Biwott to the unsolved 1990 assassination of Foreign Minister Robert Ouko.

Canadian finance minister Donald Mazankowski announces that the country posted its first trade deficit in 15 years. . . . France’s ambassador to Haiti, Jean Rafael Dufour, who was called “undesirable” and ordered to leave the country, departs.

A helicopter crashes in the disputed area of Nagorno-Karabakh, killing all on board, including Azerbaijan’s interior minister, peace negotiators from Russia, and Kazakhstan, two Soviet generals and several reporters. The cause of the accident is debated. . . . In Turkey, the new coalition government formally takes office.

Congo begins expelling thousands of Zaireans as illegal aliens.

Reports state that the governments of Suriname and the Netherlands have agreed to resume a cooperation agreement under which Suriname is to receive $706 million in Dutch aid.

Cambodia’s Vietnamese-backed regime names Prince Sihanouk president of Cambodia.

The UN Security Council nominates Egyptian deputy prime minister Boutros Boutros Ghali to become the sixth secretary general of the U.N. He will be the first African and the first Arab to hold the post. . . . The Group of Seven leading industrial countries reach an agreement with the Soviet government and eight Soviet republics to defer repayments on foreign debts accumulated by the Soviet Union.

In Romania, Parliament approves the new constitution, which defines Romania as a multiparty presidential republic.

Reports show that the German ambassador to Kenya has left the country.

The New York Times reports that some 30 people were killed in clashes between the army and the rebels since the Nov. 14 truce in El Salvador. Rebel leaders at peace talks announce plans to delay the ongoing talks in protest, prompting the government to suspend the use of aerial bombardments and heavy artillery against guerrillas. . . . Nineteen Haitians seeking asylum occupy the Canadian embassy in Portau-Prince.

Son Sen, leader of the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front, the fourth party in the Cambodian conflict, returns to the capital. . . . Defense Secretary Cheney announces that the U.S. will halt planned withdrawals of troops from South Korea because of the threat that North Korea may be developing atomic weapons.

U.S. State Department officials announced that they invited Israel and the Arab negotiating parties in the Middle East peace process to begin bilateral talks in Washington, D.C. The suggested time and place of the conference sparks debate. . . . Reports suggest that representatives of labor unions from 12 countries in the Western Hemisphere have signed a declaration opposing Pres. Bush’s Enterprise for the Americas Initiative and a pending North American free-trade agreement.

In Yugoslavia, reports indicate that Croatian forces are beginning to lift their sieges of some federal bases. However, federal forces begin to shell Osijek and Vinkovci, two predominantly Croat cities near Vukovar. Dobroslav Paraga, the leader of the Croatian ultranationalist Party of the Right, is arrested by Croatian police.

Reports confirm that Jordan’s King Hussein named Sharif Zeid bin Shaker to head a new government as premier.

Ousted Haitian president JeanBertrand Aristide talks with a group of Haitian legislators in Cartagena, Colombia, in the first meeting between the two sides since the Sept. 30 coup.

Reports find that the U.K. agreed to unfreeze £70 million ($125 million) worth of Iraqi assets to be used to purchase food and medical supplies, which makes the U.K. the first Western nation to unblock Iraqi assets since Iraq’s August 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

In the 14th mediated truce since June, Croatian, Serbian, and Yugoslav army leaders at a meeting in Geneva sign a cease-fire accord in which they agree in principle to allow a multinational peace-keeping force into Yugoslavia to help end the country’s five-month-old civil war.

Iraqi forces resume closing incoming roads to areas around the Kurdheld region. . . . Sheik Talal Nasser al-Sabah, a nephew of Kuwait’s emir, Sheik Jabir al-Ahmad Al Sabah, is sentenced to life in prison and fined $150,000 by an Egyptian court for smuggling and selling heroin. The sentence exacerbates tensions between Egypt and Kuwait.

Nov. 20

Nov. 22

Africa & the Middle East

The last Croatian defenders flee Vukovar. Reports indicate that French and Italian hospital ships are being allowed into Dubrovnik to evacuate wounded civilians. Serbians and Croatians accuse one another of committing atrocities against civilians in the last days of the battle, but neither side’s allegations can be independently verified. . . . Eduard Shevardnadze, who resigned as Soviet foreign minister in December 1990, is reappointed to the post.

Nov. 19

Nov. 21

Europe

One prisoner is killed and eight others injured when a bomb explodes in the Crumlin Road Prison, a highsecurity jail in Belfast housing terrorists suspects. . . . In Belgium, the Flemish Liberal Party (PVV) is the only established political party to increase its parliamentary representation. . . . Voters in the republic of Tadzhikistan elect Rakhman Nabiyev president in the first popular election for the post.

Nov. 24

Talks between ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and a group of Haitian legislators in Cartagena, Colombia, collapse.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 19–24, 1991—265

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

A respected Virginia infertility specialist, Cecil Jacobson, is charged on 53 federal felony counts that allege he used his own sperm for at least seven artificial inseminations. . . . Harlon B. Carter, 78, CEO and executive vice president of the NRA, 1977–85, dies of lung cancer in Green Valley, Arizona. . . . The CDC finds that tuberculosis (TB) is on the rise in NYC, and strains of the bacteria resistant to conventional drugs are spreading.

U.S. district judge Donald L. Graham of Miami issues a temporary restraining order to suspend the Nov. 18 plan to return refugees to Haiti. Separately, up to 135 Haitians may have drowned off Cuba when their sailboat is wrecked in high seas.

Pres. Bush vetoes a $205 billion fiscal 1992 appropriations bill for the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and Education because it allows federally funded clinics to advise to their patients on abortion.

The Michigan Board of Medicine indefinitely suspends the license of Jack Kevorkian, a retired pathologist who recently helped two ill women commit suicide. . . . The Senate confirms William Barr as attorney general.

The House passes a $270 billion defense appropriation for fiscal 1992. . . . Pres. Bush’s administration announces a $1.5 billion package of food aid for the Soviet Union.

EPA director William K. Reilly warns that about 74 million U.S. citizens still live in urban areas where air quality fails to meet federal standards. . . . After months of investigation and debate, Sen. Alan Cranston (D, Calif.) is reprimanded by the Ethics Committee for interceding with regulators on behalf of former S&L operator Charles H. Keating Jr. in exchange for campaign contributions. Cranston apologizes for his actions but denies that he violated Senate norms of conduct.

Pres. Bush signs the Civil Rights Act of 1991. The legislation, a compromise between Bush and congressional leaders, contains clauses and language that spark controversy. . . . Washington State officials announce that the state’s voters on Nov. 5 narrowly approved a ballot initiative guaranteeing a woman’s right to an abortion even in the event that that right is rescinded by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Reports indicate that two attorneys, Israeli Avigdor Feldman and Palestinian Raji Sourani, who defended victims of human-rights abuses in Israel, have been given the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award.

The House approves a bank-reform bill that eliminates all major reforms desired by the administration.

Two Arizona Superior Court judges dismiss charges against four men arrested as suspects in the killing of nine people at a Buddhist temple near Phoenix. . . . Speculation that White House chief of staff John H. Sununu will be replaced is renewed when he blames Pres. Bush for his Nov. 12 comments about credit-card rates that led to economic unrest.

The Senate votes to clear a $291 billion defense authorization bill for fiscal 1992 passed by the House Nov. 18. As part the authorization, Congress approves a limited antiballistic missile system, the first since 1972.

Congress approves an appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services without the abortion provision that led to the Nov. 19 veto. . . . The California Air Resources Board approves strict gasoline standards, affecting nine other states that decided earlier to adhere to California’s automobile-emission standards. . . . Bush administration officials retreat from a proposed definition of wetlands after much research reveals the guidelines make nearly half of the currently preserved areas ineligible for protection.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle The Biblical Archeology Society of New York announces that it will publish a “facsimile edition” of the previously unpublished sections of the Dead Sea scrolls. . . . Shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles is named MVP in baseball’s American League.

The Journal of the American Medical Association finds that injections of a synthetic hormone, melanotropin, may bring about a tan complexion without exposure to the sun’s dangerous ultraviolet rays. . . . The Journal of the American Medical Association reports that the antiviral AIDS drug AZT is no more effective for white men than it is for black and Hispanic men or for women of all three races, contradicting earlier studies.

The National Book Foundation presents its fiction award to Norman Rush for Mating. Philip Levine wins the poetry award for What Work Is, and novelist Eudora Welty is awarded the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. . . . Terry Pendleton of the Atlanta Braves is voted MVP in baseball’s National League.

A French rower, Gerard d’Aboville, 46, becomes the first person to complete a solo voyage across the northern Pacific Ocean, a 5,500 mile trip from Japan to the northern U.S that took 133 days to complete.

Researchers at the Los Angeles and Irvine campuses of the University of California publish a paper suggesting that massive amounts of hydrocarbons “injected” into the atmosphere above Antarctica may help prevent ozone deterioration.

The Senate approves a $270 billion defense appropriation for fiscal 1992.

Massachusetts becomes the first state to implement a plan allowing people to play the state’s lottery by telephone.

Klaus Kinski (born Nikolaus Gunthar Nakazynski), 65, the father of actress Nastassja Kinski and the Polish-born German actor who appeared in such films as Dr. Zhivago (1965), is found dead in Marin County, California.

The space shuttle Atlantis lifts off from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida on a military mission to deploy a missiledetection satellite and to allow astronauts to practice sighting strategic installations on the ground.

Reports indicate that a gas cloud has been detected near the edge of the observable universe. The phenomenon is estimated to be 12 billion light-years away, 10 times more distant than any other known gas cloud.

The University of North Carolina women’s soccer team wins its sixth consecutive NCAA title. . . . In tennis, Monica Seles of Yugoslavia wins the season-ending Virginia Slims Championship. . . . Freddie Mercury (born Frederick Bulsara), 45, flamboyant lead singer and lyricist of the British glamour-rock group Queen, dies of AIDS-related pneumonia in London.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 19

Nov. 20

Nov. 21

Nov. 22

Nov. 23

Nov. 24

266—November 25–30, 1991

Nov. 25

Nov. 26

Nov. 27

Nov. 28

Nov. 29

Nov. 30

World Affairs

Europe

Twelve Western donor nations, the so-called Club of Paris, warn Kenya to introduce democratic, economic, and human-rights reforms or face major aid cuts in six months. . . . The U.S. Senate ratifies a Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, which mandates deep cuts in nonnuclear weapons, affecting the nations in NATO and the former Warsaw Pact.

Yugoslav television reports that as many as 5,000 people, including civilians, died during the siege on Vukovar. Amnesty International accuses both Serbians and Croatians of committing atrocities against civilians during the war. The Yugoslav federal government indicates it agrees to UN intervention. . . . In a setback to Soviet president Gorbachev, representatives of seven republics balk at signing a new treaty on political union.

Poland becomes the 26th member of the Council of Europe and the third Eastern European country to join the French-based organization. . . . Japan agrees to comply with a UN moratorium on the practice of drift-net fishing, and the U.S. Senate prohibits drift-net fishing in the South Pacific Ocean. . . . The U.S. Senate ratifies a treaty that expands the international Montreal Protocol, which seeks reductions in the use of chemicals believed to cause global warming.

The Azerbaijan parliament revokes the autonomous status of NagornoKarabakh and votes to sever the remaining economic links between the republic and Armenia.

The UN Security Council passes a resolution pledging to send a peacekeeping force of up to 10,000 members to Croatia, conditional upon Serbian and Croatian forces adhering to a UN-mediated ceasefire accord. . . . The U.S. and Great Britain, and France in a separate statement, demand that Libya extradite the six suspects in the 1988 bombing of Pan American World Airways Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Africa & the Middle East

Asia & the Pacific

Haiti receives its first shipments of fuel since the Oct. 8 embargo. The shipment is an effort to put pressure on Jean-Bertrand Aristide to negotiate with the current government.

In Togo, Premier Joseph Kokou Koffigoh’s transitional government bans the Togolese People’s Assembly party, Gnassingbé Eyadéma’s former ruling party. . . . Kenya’s president Moi orders the arrest of two chief suspects in the 1990 murder of Foreign Minister Robert Ouko. The suspects are Nicholas Biwott, a former energy and industry minister, and Hezekia Oyugi, a former chief of internal security.

Canadian external affairs minister Barbara McDougall states the Canadian government has prohibited the Haitian military from using force to remove 19 Haitians occupying the Canadian embassy in Port-au-Prince since Nov. 21.

Clark Air Force base is returned to the Philippine government.

Angered by the Nov. 26 ban, Eyadéma loyalists briefly occupy Togo’s national radio station and demand that the ban be lifted. Unrest breaks out in other areas in the capital.

A Cuban court sentences poet María Elena Cruz Varela and three other dissidents to prison terms of up to two years. . . . Reports state that a Puerto Rico Senate committee investigating the 1978 slayings of two independence activists by the police has uncovered the existence of a group of U.S. government officials and Puerto Rican police officers who allegedly killed and terrorized advocates of Puerto Rican independence.

Khieu Samphan, one of the most prominent public officials of Cambodia’s communist Khmer Rouge faction, is beaten and nearly lynched by an angry mob that attacks his house, just hours after his return to Cambodia. Security forces manage to control the crowd, and Khieu Samphan flees to Thailand.

One student is killed when high school and university students fight with authorities. As this is part of a string of riots and protests, Venezuelan president Carlos Andrés Pérez, in a radio broadcast, attempts to squelch growing speculation about a possible military takeover in the face of dissatisfaction with the 1989 austerity plan that has led to the deaths of some 30 people in economic riots.

In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge vows it will not allow the Nov. 27 violence to sway its commitment to the peace accords.

In an interview on Italian television, Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gadhafi refuses to hand over the six suspects requested Nov. 27, noting that his country has no extradition treaty with the U.S., France, or Britain.

Croatian president Tudjman agrees to cooperate with the UN peacekeeping measure passed Nov. 27.

In Togo, rebel tanks surround Premier Koffigoh’s oceanside palace and effectively keep Koffigoh a prisoner in the building. Rebels seal the country’s borders, close down the Lome international airport, retake the radio station, and demand that an “effective man” be named to form a new government. . . . Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, begins taking a census for the first time since 1973.

The World Health Organization forecasts a tenfold increase in the number of documented AIDS cases to between 12 million and 18 million by the year 2000. . . . The UN General Assembly unanimously rebukes Myanmar’s government for its persistent refusal to surrender power to the parliament that was democratically elected in 1990.

Croatian forces allow the Yugoslav army to evacuate two of its besieged barracks near Zagreb. . . . Britain’s Court of Appeal holds Home Office Secretary Kenneth Baker in contempt of court for his actions in regard to a Zairian man seeking asylum. The home secretary is the first government minister ever to be found in contempt of court. . . . Jan Papanek, 95, prominent Czechoslovak diplomat and former representative to the UN, dies in Scarsdale, New York.

In response to the Nov. 28 unrest in Togo, dictator Eyadéma asks the soldiers to return to barracks. France, from which Togo gained independence in 1960, sends 300 troops with the stated purpose to protect 3,000 French nationals in Togo and to ensure the country’s transition to democracy. . . . Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani resumes talks with the Iraqi government on a treaty guaranteeing Kurdish autonomy.

UN special negotiator Giandomenico Picco meets with representatives from Syria, Iran, Israel, and the hostage-holding factions.

The Americas

Apparently obeying Eyadéma’s wish, the rebels withdraw from the premier’s palace, the radio station and other key installations in Togo.

China releases Wang Youcai, a former student leader of the prodemocracy movement, from prison and drops charges against Han Dongfang, a union leader who involved laborers in the 1989 protests.

Reports show that 3,500 poor and homeless children marched through Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to protest violence against children. According to Roman Catholic Church and human rights groups, more than 5,000 children have been murdered in Brazil since 1988.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 25–30, 1991—267

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The House clears a telecommunications bill that bans the use of machines that automatically call people’s homes to deliver recorded messages and that restricts the use of autodialers to call businesses. The bill also bans unsolicited facsimile transmissions and directs the FCC to investigate ways to restrict unsolicited calls from telemarketers.

Federal officials announce that a total of 50 people were indicted for alleged involvement in an operation that may have laundered up to $500 million in drug profits from the cocaine cartels of Medellin and Cali in Colombia. . . . The Senate votes to spend up to $500 million in Defense Department funds to help the Soviets dismantle their nuclear and chemical arsenals.

The EPA reports that a record $14.1 million in fines were levied by the federal government against violators of environmental laws in fiscal 1991, not including settlements regarding the Exxon Valdez 1989 spill. . . . The Children’s Defense Fund finds that the U.S. lost 1 million entry-level jobs in the current recession and that workers under age 25 were hardest hit by the economic downturn.

The NYC public school system implements a plan to provide free condoms in public schools. . . . William Barr becomes the 77th U.S. attorney general.

The U.S. agrees to pay Iran $278 million in compensation for U.S.Iranian arms agreements cancelled after the 1979 Islamic revolution. . . . Former CIA operative Duane R. (Dewey) Clarridge is indicted in connection with the Iran-contra diversion of funds from arms sales to Iran to the Nicaraguan contra rebels. . . . Pres. Bush signs a $270 billion defense appropriation for fiscal 1992 cleared by the Senate Nov. 23. . . . The House of Representatives backs a bill to fund arms dismantling passed by the Senate Nov. 25.

Congress clears a conference report that creates a new benefits-extension system, giving jobless workers 13 or 20 weeks of additional benefits. . . . Pres. Bush signs the fiscal 1992 appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services passed by Congress Nov. 22. . . . A three-judge panel in New Orleans rules that employers who provide their own insurance may slash benefits to employees who contract illnesses, such as AIDS, that are costly to treat.

In response to the end of the cold war, the directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists move back the minute hand of their “Doomsday Clock” in which midnight symbolizes a nuclear holocaust. The directors move the time back to 11:43 P.M. from 11:50 P.M., the farthest from midnight it has been since the clock’s creation.

The 102nd Congress closes. . . . The Senate passes the telecommunications bill approved by the House Nov. 25. . . . A crime bill dies in the Senate in the face of a Republican filibuster. . . . Congress clears legislation enacting a compromise reached between the Bush administration and the nation’s governors on Medicaid funding rules.

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., awards back pay to 67 female civilian employees of the navy in a sex-bias case that dates back to 1973. . . . A Senate Armed Services Committee staff report indicating that senior Air Force officers and officials were secretly interceding in the promotions process for more than 30 years is made public.

Before closing, Congress passes several appropriations measures, including a $6.9 billion fiscal 1992 “dire emergency” supplemental bill; a $25 billion funding package for the RTC; a six-year, $151 billion transportation bill; and a bill authorizing $25 billion to cover insured deposits held in failed banks. In a separate measure, Congress also approves $70 billion in borrowing power for the FDIC. . . . Congress approves a bill extending a package of tax breaks for six months.

Willem Van Buren, 62, the world’s longest-surviving heart-transplant recipient to date after his operation in 1970, dies of pneumonia in Stanford, California.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Reports show that the Israeli Antiquities Authority has agreed to drop long-standing restrictions on access to the Dead Sea Scrolls by scholars in the wake of the recent attempts to open the scrolls to the public, such as the one enacted Nov. 19.

Nov. 26

Nov. 27

Scientists speculate that the AIDS virus may have entered the human population through little-known experiments in which human subjects were injected with fresh monkey blood. The experiments began in 1922 and continued into the 1950s. . . . A study finds that a common herpes medicine, acyclovir, is the first effective treatment for chicken pox.

Reports indicate that the U.S. government has received nearly 19 million applications for its lottery for 40,000 U.S. residence visas, known as green cards.

An Equal Employment Opportunity Commission study of decisions in discrimination cases brought against federal agencies in 1989 shows that in 58% of the cases, agencies reject the EEOC’s findings of discrimination and take little, if any, disciplinary action against the employees found to have discriminated.

A severe dust storm blows up on Interstate Highway 5 near Coalinga, California, causing a chain-reaction collision that leaves 17 people dead and more than 150 injured. A total of 93 cars and 11 tractor-trailer trucks are involved in the crashes, which occur over four miles.

Nov. 25

Nov. 28

Ralph Rexford Bellamy, 87, an actor and founder of the Screen Actors’ Guild who was awarded an honorary Academy Award in 1987, dies of a lung ailment in Los Angeles. . . . Scarlett: The Sequel to Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, by Alexandra Ripley, tops the bestseller list.

The U.S. wins the inaugural World Cup soccer competition for women.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 29

Nov. 30

268—December 1–5, 1991

World Affairs

British authorities warn the public to be “extremely vigilant” after a series of fire-bombs in London shops. . . . Voters in the republic of Kazakhstan make Nursultan Nazarbayev the republic’s first directly elected president. Nazarbayev, previously chairman of the Kazakhstan parliament, is the lone candidate on the ballot. . . . Voters in the Soviet republic of the Ukraine overwhelmingly vote for independence from the USSR in a republicwide referendum.

Dec. 1

Dec. 2

Dec. 3

Dec. 4

Europe

The EC, which imposed trade sanctions against Yugoslavia in November, lifts sanctions against all of the republics except for Serbia and Montenegro, Serbia’s ally. . . . Poland and Canada become the first countries to recognize Ukrainian independence. . . . U.S. hostage Joseph James Cicippio, comptroller at the American University of Beirut kidnapped September 12, 1986, is released.

A U.S. hostage, Alan Steen, journalism professor at Beirut University College abducted January 24, 1987, is released by the Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine.

The Yugoslav navy lifts its blockade of Croatian ports other than Dubrovnik. . . . Soviet president Gorbachev makes a televised plea for preservation of the union and warns that a breakup may even lead to wars among the republics. . . . Lutz Stavenhagen, German chancellor Kohl’s top intelligence advisor, resigns amid criticism of the government’s role in sending covert shipments of Soviet-made arms to Israel.

Reports suggest that the two Libyans charged with the 1988 bombing of Pan American World Airways Flight 103 have been arrested. . . . A round of Middle East peace talks opens in Washington, D.C. Israel, objecting to the choice of venue, boycotts the opening session. . . . Terry A. Anderson, the longest-held Western hostage in Lebanon, is freed after 2,454 days in captivity. He is the last of 17 Americans held captive in Lebanon between Mar. 1984 and Dec. 1991. The only remaining Western hostages in Lebanon are two German relief workers.

Albanian premier Bufi announces that Albania has only enough food reserves to last one week, sparking food riots. The Democratic Party announces that it will withdraw its seven ministers from Albania’s cabinet, effectively dissolving the caretaker coalition government formed in June. . . . British prime minister John Major and his Irish counterpart, Charles Haughey, agree to meet every six months in an attempt to pressure Northern Ireland’s political leaders to restart talks on the province’s future government.

In Poland, Lech Walesa reluctantly names Jan Olszewski as premier. . . . Yugoslavia’s federal president, Stipe Mesic, resigns from his post. Reports state that Serbian nationalists are organizing civilian governments regions of Baranja and Krajina in eastern Croatia. . . . The Ukraine parliament endorses the Dec. 1 independence referendum.

Dec. 5

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

The Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army releases 25 Arab prisoners from the Al Khiyam prison in the Israeli security zone in southern Lebanon. . . . In Togo, the rebels resume their siege of the palace and begin patrolling the streets.

According to early returns, Paraguay’s ruling National Republican Party wins 58% of the vote in elections for an assembly to rewrite Paraguay’s constitution.

Reports indicate that at least 30,000 Zaireans have been ejected since Nov. 20. . . . Syrian president Hafez al-Assad is reelected in a national referendum to his fourth seven-year term as head of state. . . . In Togo, Premier Joseph Kokou Koffigoh offers to include Eyadema supporters in the interim government, but the rebels insist that Koffigoh dissolve his government and return Eyadema to power. . . . Kenyan president Moi proposes scrapping a 1982 constitutional clause outlawing opposition parties.

Reports show that police in Uruguay have indicted eight people allegedly involved in buying and selling human kidneys.

Togolese troops blast into the palace with tanks and rockets and seize Premier Koffigoh. The attack causes 17 confirmed deaths. . . . A conference of Kenya’s ruling party approves Pres. Moi’s proposal to allow multiparty politics. . . . Data show that only 8,090 Soviet Jews immigrated to Israel in November, the lowest monthly total since the Persian Gulf war.

The South African Communist Party opens its first legal conference within South Africa in 41 years, in Johannesburg. . . . The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees reports that about 200,000 Kurds have fled to the mountains since late October, after Iraqi troops shelled some towns and villages and threatened others in the area surrounding the cities of Erbil and Sulaymaniya.

Asia & the Pacific

The four factions in Cambodia reach a compromise under which the Khmer Rouge will return to Phnom Penh “as soon as possible,” under additional protection.

In Canada, a new gun-control law is approved by the Senate and given royal assent.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 1–5, 1991—269

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A new federal law takes effect, requiring that health-care institutions that accept Medicare or Medicaid funds inform their patients of their right to plan for their death.

After completing its military mission, the spacecraft Atlantis lands at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

George Joseph Stigler, 80, economist who won the 1982 Nobel Prize, dies of heart failure in Chicago.

Scientists at the National Institutes of Health report finding unusually low levels of hormones in the brains and endocrine glands of subjects with chronic fatigue syndrome.

Patrick O’Callaghan, 86, Irish athlete who won the first Olympic gold medal for Ireland in 1928 in the hammer throw and, by winning another in 1932, became the only Irish athlete to date to have two Olympic golds, dies of unreported causes. . . . France wins its first Davis Cup tennis title in 59 years.

The Occupational Health and Safety Administration issues rules designed to protect health-care and other workers from infection with the HIV or hepatitis viruses. . . . The Supreme Court lets stand, without comment, a ruling by the U.S. District of Columbia Court of Appeals that said Korean Air Lines is not liable for punitive damages related to the 1983 Soviet downing of KAL flight 007. . . . Opening arguments in the Palm Beach, Florida, rape trial of William Kennedy Smith begin.

The army discloses that Spec. Albert Sombolay was sentenced to 34 years in prison for selling classified information to Jordanian intelligence on the allied buildup during the Persian Gulf war. . . . Federal officials announce that they confiscated nearly 12 tons of cocaine at a warehouse in Miami in what is called the second-largest seizure of illegal drugs in U.S. history. A total of 11 people in the U.S. and Venezuela were arrested in the case.

The Census Bureau reports that 23.3% of the 3.9 million women who had a child in the year ending June 30, 1990, did so out of wedlock. . . . Tyrone Robinson, convicted of killing Huey P. Newton, the cofounder of the Black Panther Party, is sentenced to 32 years in prison. . . . White House chief of staff John H. Sununu offers his resignation, and Pres. Bush accepts it.

Secretary of Defense Cheney announces the lifting of a 30-yearold ban on the sale of U.S. armaments to Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland. . . . Debate over how to handle Haitian refugees continues, and reports indicate that the Coast Guard has picked up more than 6,300 Haitians fleeing to the U.S

Lawyers for the supermarket tabloid newspaper The Sun admit in court that the paper makes up most of its stories. . . . Baseball’s Bobby Bonilla signs a five-year contract that gives him a total average annual salary of $5.8 million, so he becomes the highest-paid player in team sports.

Reports state that U.S. Sugar Corp. has agreed to pay a $3.7 million fine for illegally disposing of toxic wastes. The fine is the largest hazardous-waste dumping penalty in U.S. history. . . . The Supreme Court rules that federal courts cannot block the Federal Reserve Board from forcing bank holding companies to pump capital into their failing subsidiaries.

The FDA clears the way for wider use of the controversial drug THA for Alzheimer’s disease patients. . . . Bertram Thomas Combs, 80, Democratic governor of Kentucky, 1959–63, who signed a 1963 executive order prohibiting racial discrimination in jobs or businesses licensed by the state, is found dead after his car was swept away by floodwaters in Kentucky. . . . Education Secretary Lamar Alexander proposes new federal regulations concerning scholarships for minorities at colleges and universities that receive federal funding. The proposals garner mixed responses.

The Supreme Court rules that union members may sue their unions in federal court for breach of contract for violating collective bargaining agreements or the unions’ own constitution or bylaws. . . . Pres. Bush signs legislation giving longterm unemployed workers in all states a minimum of 13 weeks of extended benefits. . . . Pan American World Airways ceases operations after it runs out of cash. . . . Charles H. Keating Jr., the former chairman of the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, is convicted in Los Angeles on 17 counts of securities fraud.

Pres. Bush names Transportation Secretary Samuel Skinner as the new White House chief of staff. . . . A study finds a handgun-control law that took effect in Washington, D.C., in 1976 resulted in a decrease of gun-related homicides and suicides. . . . Richard Speck, 49, notorious killer who stabbed and strangled eight student nurses to death in 1966, dies of an apparent heart attack in Joliet, Illinois.

Pres. Bush announces that he is accelerating $9.7 billion in government spending in an effort to stimulate the recession-bound economy. . . . The New York Daily News files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. after the Nov. death of British publisher Robert Maxwell.

Dec. 1

Dec. 2

Dec. 3

Dec. 4

A study argues that a high-fiber diet may cut the risk of breast cancer by as much as 50%. . . . . The New England Journal of Medicine asserts that regular doses of aspirin may reduce the risk of death from colon cancer, the second-deadliest form of the disease after lung cancer.

Dec. 5

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

270—December 6–11, 1991

World Affairs

Dec. 10

Dec. 11

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Mexican authorities detain two army generals and three other officers after an investigation by the National Human Rights Commission blamed the army for the Nov. 7 killings of seven judicial police agents.

In Albania, Pres. Alia authorizes the army to use force against food rioters, and police take control of bread distribution throughout the country. Socialist Premier Bufi formally resigns.

Dec. 7

Dec. 9

Africa & the Middle East

Yugoslav forces step up their shelling of the besieged Croatian cities of Dubrovnik and Osijek, prompting the U.S. to impose trade sanctions against all six Yugoslav republics. . . . Sir (John) Richard Nicholas Stone, 78, British economist who won the 1984 Nobel Prize, dies of unreported causes in Cambridge, England.

Dec. 6

Dec. 8

Europe

The environmental organization Worldwatch Institute Total reports that worldwide emissions of carbon dioxide gas dropped slightly in 1990, to 5.803 billion tons from 5.813 billion tons in 1989.

In a stunning turn, the leaders of Russia, the Ukraine, and Byelorussia sign an agreement to form a “Commonwealth of Independent States” to replace the old USSR. . . . Judith (Baroness Hart of South Lanark) Hart, 67, prominent leftwing Labour member of the British parliament who was made a dame in 1979 and was given a life peerage in 1988, dies in London after suffering from cancer.

Reports indicate that poor children in Argentina have been kidnapped to remove and sell their vital organs.

The leaders of the 12 European Community nations hold a summit in Maastricht, the Netherlands.

A military court in Bucharest sentences eight former officials of the regime of Romanian president Ceausescu to prison terms of 15 to 25 years. . . . The IRA admits responsibility for a rash of fire-bombing in London. . . . Thousands of demonstrators gather in Tirana, Albania, to protest continued communist influence in the government and to call for Alia’s resignation. . . . Pres. Gorbachev denounces the Dec. 8 agreement that effectively destroys his hope of achieving a political union on his own terms.

Steel workers in Chile end a 39-day strike at Huachipato, Chile’s only iron and steel mill. . . . The province of Ontario and the federal government of Canada sign an agreement to provide 608.6 square kilometers of land and C$60.5 million to six impoverished Indian bands in northwest Ontario. Officials state it is the first time in Canadian history that a province has agreed to provide government-owned land as part of an Indian claim settlement without requiring compensation from the federal government.

Arab and Israeli negotiators hold direct bilateral peace talks in Washington, D.C. . . . UN secretary general Javier Perez de Cuellar formally blames Iraq for starting the 1980–88 Iran-Iraq war.

Albanian president Alia names Vilson Ahmeti to replace Ylli Bufi as premier and instructs him to form a new cabinet. Food riots continue, and at least 35 people are killed in FusheArrez when a mob raiding a food warehouse inadvertently sets fire to the building. . . . Returns show that 77% of voters in Romania support the new constitution. . . . The parliaments of Byelorussia and the Ukraine ratify the Dec. 8 commonwealth agreement.

EC leaders agree to expand the EC’s powers over matters previously under the jurisdiction of national governments and to set the introduction of a single currency for the EC by 1999. Britain chooses not to join the plan to expand EC powers. . . . The Organization of the Islamic Conference agrees to drop its long-standing call for a jihad (holy war) to reclaim territories occupied by Israel.

The Czechoslovak parliament passes a law providing prison terms of up to five years for anyone convicted of promoting either communism or fascism, prompting Jiri Svoboda, the chairman of the regional Communist Party, to begin a hunger strike. . . . Serbian premier Dragutin Zelenovic resigns, effectively dissolving the republican cabinet of Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic.

Kenyan police, citing lack of evidence, release two suspects, Nicholas Biwott and Hezekia Oyugi, in the 1990 murder of Foreign Minister Robert Ouko. Jonah Anguka, a former commissioner for the southcentral district of Nakura, is formally charged with Ouko’s murder.

The New Democratic Party government of British Columbia announces that it recognizes an inherent right of aboriginal groups to self-government, reversing more than a century of government policy.

Legislators in the upper house of Japan’s Diet block passage of a bill that would have allowed up to 2,000 military personnel to be dispatched abroad to participate in United Nations peacekeeping missions. . . . In Myanmar, students stage demonstrations to demand the freedom of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was recently named the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and has been under house arrest since 1989.

In response to a 1990 U.S. ban on tuna imports from Mexico, Pres. Salinas introduces a bill to set jail terms for fishermen who kill high numbers of dolphins or sea turtles while fishing for tuna. . . . The last three independent radio stations operating in Haiti since the Sept, 30 coup suspend their news broadcasts.

The ruling military junta of Myanmar closes all of the country’s universities in response to the Dec. 10 protests. Burmese troops with bayonets erect barbed wire barricades to contain student protests at Yangon University and arrest some students.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 6–11, 1991—271

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

Reports indicate that the governments of New York State and New York City are devising special steps to curb the spread of TB.

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Federal officials announce that they have arrested more than 97 people as part of a crackdown against one of the largest Cali cartel cocainesmuggling ring in NYC. The arrests, which began in the summer, seized 35 suspects. . . . Pres. Bush signs the $291 billion defense authorization for fiscal 1992 passed on Nov. 22. . . . Victor D. Cohen, a former air force deputy assistant secretary, is sentenced in Alexandria, Virginia, for his role in the Pentagon procurement scandal to 33 months in prison and a $10,000 fine.

The District of Columbia Court of Appeals strikes down EPA regulations that state any waste that is mixed with or derived from hazardous materials is itself hazardous. . . . The Federal Reserve Board loosens monetary policy by reducing the federal funds rate. The new reduction, the 14th since the recession began in July 1990, brings the rate down a quarter of a percentage point to 4.5% from 4.75%. . . . The Labor Department estimates the number of payroll jobs in the U.S. decreased by 241,000 in November, the sharpest drop in payrolls since February and March.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Sprinter and long-jumper Carl Lewis is named the winner of the 1991 Jesse Owens Award as the top U.S. track-and-field athlete of the year.

Fifty years after a surprise Japanese air raid on the Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii, Pres. Bush urges U.S. veterans of the attack to forget their rancor toward Japan. . . . The New York Times reports that the administration of Pres. Reagan authorized Israel to sell U.S.-made military equipment worth up to $2 billion per year to Iran in the early 1980s. Kimberly Bergalis, 23, who was the first person known to have been infected with AIDS by a health-care worker, dies of AIDS in Fort Pierce, Florida.

The Congressional Management Foundation, a nonpartisan and nonprofit group, finds that female Senate aides are paid 78% as much as their male counterparts.

Science, Technology, & Nature

In skiing, A. J. Kitt wins the opening downhill race of the World Cup season, in Val d’Isere, France, the first American to win a world-class men’s downhill race since Bill Johnson in the 1984 Olympics.

Reports suggest that the military is undertaking major changes in training and adding new equipment to prevent future incidents of socalled friendly fire, which killed a total of 35 U.S. soldiers and wounded 72 others in the Persian Gulf war.

Buck Clayton, 80, jazz trumpeter who was one of the stars of Count Basie’s orchestra, dies of unreported causes in New York City.

In Washington, D.C., district judge Oliver Gasch asserts that the military’s ban on homosexuals is justifiable to prevent the spread of AIDS in his dismissal of a bias suit by a gay man, Joseph C. Steffan. Gasch is the first judge to use AIDS as a rationale in support of the policy, even though Steffan has not been diagnosed with the AIDS virus and active-duty personnel who test positive for AIDS are allowed to remain in the armed forces.

The Times Herald, founded in 1879 and Dallas’s oldest newspaper, ceases publication after being sold to the Dallas Morning News. . . . Berenice Abbott, 93, U.S. photographer noted for her black-andwhite photographs, dies of congestive heart failure in Monson, Maine.

A study finds the average family’s annual expenditures on health care in 1991 amounts to $4,296, or 11.7% of its income. . . . Four gang members are convicted of seconddegree murder and robbery under a New York law that states anyone who takes part in a robbery in which a victim is killed can be found criminally liable for murder. . . . The Supreme Court declares unconstitutional a New York law that limits criminals to profit from selling stories of their crimes for books or movies.

Dec. 6

Dec. 7

Dec. 8

Dec. 9

Dec. 10

William Kennedy Smith, 31, is found not guilty of charges that he raped a woman at his family’s Palm Beach, Florida, vacation estate in March. . . . Studies show that American children are as likely to recognize a Camel cigarette advertising character, Old Joe Cool, as they are Mickey Mouse, prompting calls for the Federal Trade Commission to ban the Joe Cool ads.

The Supreme Court rules that in bankruptcy cases, lenders who receive loan payments within 30 days before a business declares bankruptcy may keep those payments if they were made “in the ordinary course of business.”. . . . . . . The Democratic National Committee files a suit to overturn Treasury Department rules governing the distribution of public campaign money.

British author Salman Rushdie makes his first trip outside Britain since Iranian religious leaders issued a death edict against him in 1989. Rushdie appears, with no prior announcement, at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in New York City.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 11

272—December 12–17, 1991

Dec. 12

Dec. 13

Europe

The former Soviet republic of the Ukraine announces that it recognizes the independence of Slovenia and Croatia.

Ukraine president Kravchuk issues a decree declaring himself commander in chief of all Soviet armed forces on Ukrainian territory. . . . The Russian parliament ratifies the commonwealth pact. . . . A Romanian military appeals court overturns the March convictions of 16 Ceausescu-era former officials. . . . The Bulgarian National Assembly approves the confiscation of property acquired by the CP and allied organizations since 1944. . . . A truck bomb is detonated by the IRA outside a police station in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, injuring 66 people.

A group of militant Jewish settlers seize six homes in Silwan, an Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem, evicting the Arab owners and tenants.

The European Court of Justice, in an opinion, asserts that the recent agreement between the 12-nation European Community and the seven-member European Free Trade Association to set up a European Economic Area (EEA) violates the EC’s founding treaty.

Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Tadzhikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan formally agree to join the Slavic republics in the Dec. 8 commonwealth agreement. . . . London experiences its worst pollution on record due to an unusual weather pattern that traps traffic fumes.

In response to the fighting that broke out in Somalia’s capital Nov. 17 and resulted in high casualties and the prevention of relief supplies from entering the city, the U.S. doubles its relief aid to Somalia to $19 million. . . . The Dec. 12 action by Jewish settlers is assailed by numerous Israeli opposition politicians, including Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek.

Another string of bombs explode in a North London shopping mall. . . . A police study finds that about 95% of prostitutes working in Paris’s Bois de Boulogne are infected with the AIDS virus.

Nigerians vote for governors and assembly members for the country’s 30 states as part of the military government’s scheme to return the nation to civilian rule by the end of 1992. . . . The Egyptian-owned ferry Salem Express, affected by heavy winds and high waves, rams a coral reef and sinks in the Red Sea near the port of Safaga, Egypt.

Dec. 14

Dec. 15

Dec. 16

Dec. 17

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Despite weeks of protests by proSandinista mobs, Nicaragua’s National Assembly votes to uphold Pres. Violeta Barrios de Chamorro’s September veto of a law passed by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in its final weeks of rule in 1990.

Premiers Yon Hyong Muk of North Korea and Chung Won Shik of South Korea sign a comprehensive agreement governing nonaggression, reconciliation, trade, and other issues between the two countries in the broadest pact between the neighbors since the 1953 signing of an armistice ending the Korean War.

The UN Security Council votes to send a small observer team to Croatia to prepare for possible deployment of a larger force.

U.S. secretary of state Baker visits the USSR and discusses weapons pacts with the leaders of the commonwealth created Dec. 8. . . . A bomb explodes in a bookstore in the National Gallery in London. Police note that more than 75 bombs were planted by the IRA in December.

The UN General Assembly votes by an overwhelming margin to repeal its November 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism. . . . UN secretary general Perez de Cuellar, who made an end to the Salvadoran conflict a goal of his tenure, begins personally mediating a new round of peace talks. . . . Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary sign 10-year association agreements with the EC in Brussels.

Rail traffic into London is disrupted after the outlawed Provisional IRA explodes an early-morning bomb at Clapham Junction railway station. . . . Stella Rimington is appointed the first woman to head MI5, Britain’s counterintelligence service, succeeding Sir Patrick Walker, scheduled to retire in February 1992.

Syria announces that Pres. Hafez el-Assad has pardoned 2,800 political prisoners. . . . Data from the Dec. 14 ferry crash in the Red Sea suggest that 462 of the ferry’s 569 passengers and 71 crew are dead.

Trinidad and Tobago’s People’s National Movement Party wins a landslide victory in national elections, and Patrick Manning is elected as prime minister. . . . Canada announces it reached agreement with Inuit leaders on a land-claim settlement that will lead to the creation of a new Canadian territory from the current Northwest Territories, to be called Nunavut. The Inuit will be given ownership of a 135,000-square-mile area within Nunavut, making them the largest landowners in North America.

The EC announces that it will recognize the independence of the Yugoslav republics of Croatia and Slovenia in January 1992 on the condition that they show respect for human rights, the rights of ethnic minorities, democratic governments, and existing territorial boundaries. Chancellor Kohl states Germany will recognize Slovenia and Croatia in January regardless of whether the republics meet the EC’s standards.

Soviet president Gorbachev holds a two-hour private discussion with Russian republic president Boris Yeltsin in the Kremlin. After the talks, Yeltsin announces that Gorbachev has accepted that the demise of the USSR is imminent.

Iran announces that it has tapped into an enormous gas field beneath the Persian Gulf.

Joseph Roberts Smallwood, 90, premier of the Canadian province of Newfoundland, 1949–72, dies near St. John’s, Newfoundland.

The United Liberation Front of Assam, an insurgent pro-independence group in India’s northeastern Assam state, announces a unilateral cease-fire.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 12–17, 1991—273

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools approve a resolution stating that schools will not be obligated to promote racial and sexual diversity among their students, faculty, and trustees as a requirement for accreditation. The resolution is designed to end a conflict with Education Secretary Lamar Alexander.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Pres. Bush signs some of the appropriation measures passed by Congress, including a bill to provide “mop-up” funds for the Persian Gulf war, $500 million in aid to the former Soviet Union and emergency aid to American farmers and communities struck by natural disasters, and a bill for $25 billion in funding for the Resolution Trust Corp.. Pres. Bush also codifies a compromise bill funding practices for the Medicaid health-care program for the poor.

Reports confirm that scientists have developed two genetic tests to detect the presence of the fragile-X gene, the most common inherited form of mental retardation. . . . Studies show that researchers have mimicked the brain deterioration of Alzheimer’s disease in mice.

Kenneth Frederick (Ken) Keltner, 75, third baseman for Major League Baseball’s Cleveland Indians who was named to the American League All-Star team seven times, is found dead of an apparent heart attack in New Berlin, Wisconsin.

Energy Secretary James Watkins orders the restart of the K reactor at the Savannah River nuclear-weapons plant, causing protests from environmentalists. . . . Ronald Carey is officially declared the next president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, replacing outgoing president William J. McCarthy.

Reports show that scientists have synthesized the polio virus in the laboratory, marking the first time that a virus has been created outside living cells.

Terry Norris retains his World Boxing Council super welterweight title. . . . The UN General Assembly unanimously calls on all countries to restore sports, cultural, and academic links with South Africa.

Pres. Bush tells Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari that he wants a free-trade agreement between the two countries as soon as possible at a meeting at Camp David.

Junior wide receiver and kickreturner Desmond Howard of Michigan is named the winner of the 1991 Heisman Trophy as the nation’s top college football player. . . . A total of 137 Roman Catholic bishops end a meeting in Rome by issuing a statement that laments the materialism of Western Europe and warns about its dangers in Eastern Europe.

The six major Democratic presidential candidates—former California governor Edmund (Jerry) Brown Jr., Nebraska senator Bob Kerrey, Arkansas governor Bill Clinton, Iowa senator Tom Harkin, former Massachusetts senator Paul Tsongas, and Virginia governor L. Douglas Wilder—appear in a prime-time television debate.

In the trial of Panamanian strongman Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, documents are unearthed that back Noriega’s claims that he cooperated with U.S. operations aimed at reducing the flow of Colombian drug-cartel profits into Panama. The information concerns a covert DEA operation that identified pilots and planes flying drug money into Panama between 1983 and 1987, the same period in which the U.S. government charges that Noriega was accepting payoffs from Colombian drug dealers.

In golf, Mike Hill wins the season-ending Champions PGA event in Dorado Beach, Puerto Rico.

Controversy over Louisiana state rep. David Duke’s (R) bid to be a candidate in the 1992 presidential Republican primary continues when the Georgia Republican Party vetoes his inclusion on the state’s ballot. . . . Pres. Bush announces he appointed Don Newquist, a Democrat, as chairman of the International Trade Commission. . . . The U.S. Conference of Mayors states emergency food requests jumped 26% in major cities in 1991, and emergency shelter requests went up 13%.

The Supreme Court rules the government may withhold the names of Haitian nationals who were denied political asylum and forcibly returned to Haiti. . . . The Supreme Court upholds a 1983 INS regulation that prohibits aliens arrested and awaiting deportation proceedings from holding jobs if they do not have authorization to work. . . . The Supreme Court rules National Guard members and military reservists who enter full-time military training programs are entitled to unlimited leave from their civilian jobs.

Arizona governor Fife Symington (R) is named in a $140 million civil lawsuit filed by the RTC concerning his role in the failure of a Phoenix, Arizona, thrift, Southwest Savings and Loan Association. Eleven other directors of the institution are also named. . . . Maxwell Communication Corp. files for protection from its creditors under U.S. bankruptcy law.

A survey finds that Pres. Bush’s approval rating has fallen to 47%, the lowest of his presidency. . . . John Anton Blatnik, 80, liberal Democratic U.S. representative from Michigan, 1947–74, dies of heart failure in Forest Heights, Maryland. . . . The government announces that it has expanded a list of diseases which, when combined with a positive test result for HIV, will automatically qualify a nonretired person for Social Security benefits.

The information released Dec. 15 in the trial of Manuel Noriega prompts an extended recess. . . . Judge Rafeedie sets $10 million bail for Humberto Alvarez Machain, who was abducted from Mexico to the U.S. to stand trial in connection with the 1985 slaying of a DEA agent. . . . The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals rules that the U.S. may return to Haiti thousands of Haitian refugees picked up at sea while fleeing their homeland.

The Bush administration states the economy is still in a recession, a change from a strategy of trying to minimize the economy’s troubles. . . . Steven D. Wymer, an investment adviser entrusted with $1.2 billion in assets belonging to various pension funds, municipalities, and banks, is arrested on fraud charges.

Dec. 12

Dec. 13

Dec. 14

Dec. 15

Dec. 16

Fifty-five people are hospitalized after an Amtrak passenger train derails in Palatka, Florida. Part of the eight-car train crashes through two houses, demolishing one. . . . In a study of homosexual men and their brothers published in the December Archives of General Psychiatry, scientists uncover evidence that genetic factors play a part in sexual orientation.

The heirs of the late rock singer Janis Joplin lose a suit to block a fictional play based on her life. . . . A federal judge issues an injunction against sales of I Need a Haircut, an album by Biz Markie in the first case about “sampling”—in which rap artists excerpt other musicians’ work into their songs.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 17

274—December 18–23, 1991

Dec. 18

Dec. 19

Dec. 20

Europe

As arguments over procedural issues dominate the summit between Arab and Israeli negotiators in Washington, D.C., talks adjourn without any substantive agreements. . . . Serbia assails the Dec. 17 EC decision and warns that it will recognize Serb-inhabited regions of Croatia and BosniaHerzegovina as new, separate republics, which amounts to de facto annexation of those regions by Serbia.

Reports indicate that Soviet president Gorbachev called for a final session of the Soviet parliament to approve a transition of the USSR into the commonwealth. . . . Poland’s parliament gives Premier Jan Olszewski a vote of confidence to continue his efforts to form a cabinet.

In a slum district of Djibouti, the capital of the East African nation of Djibouti, troops begin checking citizens’ identity papers and placing a number of Afars in trucks. Gunfire breaks out, and Western diplomats claim that at least 40 people have been killed and 50 wounded. The government puts the death toll at eight, including three soldiers. . . . Nigeria’s military regime unexpectedly lifts a ban that prohibits anyone who held a senior government position within the past five years from running for office.

South Korean president Roh Tae Woo announces that all U.S. nuclear weapons have been withdrawn from his nation.

Iceland, which is not an EC member, recognizes the breakaway Yugoslav republics of Croatia and Slovenia. Hours later, Germany becomes the first EC nation to recognize the independence of the republics. In addition, Germany states it will give economic assistance to Croatia. The republic of Macedonia petitions the EC for recognition. Two ethnic Serb enclaves in Croatia declare an independent “Serbian Republic of Krajina” and ask for EC recognition.

A gunman fires a on bullet-proof limousine carrying Turkey’s ambassador to Hungary. . . . Germany’s central bank raises its key “discount” interest rate to the highest rate since the introduction of the West German mark. . . . U.S. secretary of state Baker ends his visit after receiving assurances from key republic leaders that the Soviet nuclear arsenal will remain under some form of central control once the commonwealth becomes a reality.

Belgium begins airlifting food and medical supplies to Mogadishu, Somalia.

Former treasurer Paul Keating becomes Australia’s 25th prime minister when he ousts P.M. Bob Hawke as leader of the ruling Australian Labor Party by winning a vote of the party’s parliamentary branch.

The republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina petitions the EC for recognition.

Yugoslav federal Premier Ante Markovic, a Croat and the last remaining non-Serb to hold a major post in the federal administration, resigns.

Delegations from 19 political groups attend the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (Codesa) in Johannesburg for talks aimed at ending white-minority rule in South Africa. Codesa is boycotted by white and black extremist groups, including the Conservative Party, the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) and the Azanian People’s Organization. . . . About 3,000 Israeli and Palestinian protesters demonstrate in front of the houses seized by Jewish settlers on Dec. 12.

Dec. 23

The Americas

All of the Soviet republics except Georgia, which is embroiled in a civil war, sign agreements to create the Commonwealth of Independent States at a meeting in Alma-Ata, the capital of the republic of Kazakhstan. The former Soviet Baltic republics (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) are not party to the agreements.

Dec. 21

Dec. 22

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Asia & the Pacific

Violent street protests and a week of demonstrations prevent the return of Khieu Samphan, titular head of the Khmer Rouge, to Cambodia. Reports indicate that at least three people were killed and more than 25 injured in the clashes. . . . The governing Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) wins a major victory in the first full election in Taiwan in more than four decades.

Arab and Israeli negotiators agree to resume talks in Washington in early January 1992. . . . The European Community signs an accord to provide $520 million in technical assistance to the USSR. . . . The body of U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. William R. Higgins, kidnapped while heading a detachment of UN peacekeeping troops in February 1988, is found by Lebanese police on a Beirut street. Earlier, his captors claimed to have hanged him in July 1989.

Reports show that five people were killed in sectarian violence in Northern Ireland over the weekend. . . . Twenty-seven people are killed and two critically injured when a vintage Douglas DC-3 airliner chartered by a film crew crashes into a fogshrouded hillside in Germany. . . . In the republic of Georgia, opposition forces attempt to overthrow Pres. Zviad Gamsakhurdia, who is living in a bunker in the parliament building surrounded by his loyalists. Rebel forces begin shelling the building.

In Algeria, the FIS draws more than 100,000 supporters in Algiers, the capital. The crowd chants the party’s slogan, “We recognize no constitution but the laws of God and Islam.”

EC ministers reject a draft agreement aimed at resolving the deadlock in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Uruguay Round of multilateral trade talks. . . . The EC recognizes Russia as the de facto successor to the USSR. . . . The U.S., Great Britain, and France all express support for a Russian seat on the UN Security Council. . . . Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic formally appeals to the UN Security Council for a deployment of peacekeepers in his republic.

Pres. Gorbachev meets with Pres. Yeltsin to discuss a transfer of power. . . . Firebombs explode on several trains in London. . . . Reports state Greece is sending troops to its border to prevent an expected flood of Albanian illegal immigrants and is also stepping up food shipments to Albania. . . . The Serbian parliament approves a new government, with Radoman Bozovic as premier. . . . Six people are wounded when a car bomb explodes in Budapest, Hungary. . . . Poland’s lower house of parliament confirms a new cabinet after weeks of debate.

Reports suggest that Imad Mughniyeh, a Lebanese Shiite whom Western intelligence officials believe to be the chief of Islamic Jihad, has fled with his family to Iran.

The government of Cambodia imposes a nighttime curfew in the capital, Phnom Penh, to prevent further unrest after a series of violent street protests.

P.M. Mulroney appoints Julius Isaac, 63, chief justice of the Federal Court of Canada, making Isaac the highest-ranking black judge in Canada.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 18–23, 1991—275

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The care given to sick newborns varies with their insurance status, according to a study by researchers at the School of Medicine at UCSF. . . . A study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Center for the Study of the States finds that states slashed programs that help the poor more sharply in 1991 than in any other year since the recession of the early 1980s.

Pres. Bush signs the six-year, $151 billion transportation bill passed by Congress Nov. 27. . . . General Motors Corp. announce that it will reduce its payrolls by 74,000 employees, or 18%, and close 21 of its 125 North American factories during the next four years. The United Auto Workers union issues sharp criticism of the restructuring plan.

A series of heavy rainstorms causes rivers to flood throughout eastern Texas. . . . Contradicting a 1987 report, a new study finds that the antibiotic amoxicillin is only slightly effective in curing middle-ear infections. . . . Taxol, a drug made from the bark of the Pacific yew tree, is found to slow the progression of breast cancer, according to a study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

The New Orleans City Council votes to outlaw discrimination by the private clubs which are segregated by race and sex and which sponsor the city’s annual Mardi Gras parade. . . . The National Institute on Drug Abuse finds that overall drug use in the U.S. declined in 1990, while the use of cocaine and heroin rose. . . . Zein Isa, a Palestinian immigrant convicted of killing his teenage daughter since she was too Americanized, is sentenced to death with his wife Maria.

An underground oil pipeline near Greenville, South Carolina, ruptures, spilling 420,000 gallons of fuel into Little Durbin Creek and the Enoree River. . . . Federal and state investigators announce that the BCCI has agreed to forfeit all its U.S. assets, valued at about $550 million, to settle criminal charges, the largest criminal forfeiture in U.S. history. The settlement covers the bank itself and not its officials . . . Pres. Bush signs a bill that authorizes $70 billion for the FDIC.

Reports show that scientists from the California Institute of Technology and Oxford University in England have devised a silicon microchip that behaves much like a human brain cell or neuron.

A California superior court approves a settlement ordering James B. Stringfellow Jr., former owner of a toxic waste dump near Glen Avon, California, and four corporations that used the dump to pay out $34 million in damages to Glen Avon residents. . . . The Federal Reserve Board cuts its basic interest rate for loans to member institutions to 3.5% from 4.5%. It is the lowest level since 1964 and the first fullpercentage-point reduction in the discount rate since 1981.

Rains continue to fall in Texas, and Austin is hit by 4.21 inches (11 cm). . . . A study shows that a researcher has treated diabetes in mice by implanting pancreas cells beneath their skin.

A California District Court of Appeal strikes down a Los Angeles law that makes parents responsible for their children’s criminal activities. The court rules that the law is unconstitutionally vague. . . . Pres. Bush signs into a law a bill that bans the use of automatic telephone calling machines.

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Judge Clyde Atkins issues another injunction to block the government from returning Haitians fleeing Haiti. The injunction holds that the Haitians have a right to speak to lawyers before being returned.

In a trial that attracted much attention and demonstrations from both sides, El Sayyid A. Nosair, an Egyptian immigrant charged with killing radical Jewish leader Rabbi Meir Kahane in NYC in 1990, is acquitted of the most serious charges and is convicted on four lesser charges.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Dec. 18

Dec. 19

Robert Bardo, 21, an obsessed fan convicted of killing actress Rebecca Schaeffer in Los Angeles in 1989, is sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. . . . Stephen Norman Birnbaum, 54, travel writer and commentator who was the creator and editor of the Birnbaum Travel Guide series, dies of leukemia in New York City.

Television magnate Ted Turner marries actress Jane Fonda in a private ceremony at near Tallahassee, Florida.

John E. Santora, chief judge of the state’s Fourth Judicial Circuit, gives an interview to a Jacksonville newspaper in which he makes statements widely viewed as racist, sexist and anti-Semitic.

Reports confirm that the towns of Clinton and Whitmire, South Carolina, which draw their drinking water from the streams polluted by an oil leak Dec. 19, switched briefly to alternative water sources.

James Chipman Fletcher, 72, head of NASA, 1971–77 and 1986–89, dies of lung cancer in Washington, D.C.

Time magazine reports that that there were at least 12 cross burnings and one Ku Klux Klan rally since the city of Dubuque’s council endorsed a plan that calls for the recruitment of 100 minority families by 1995 and the establishment of antibias education programs. The plan was endorsed in May because of a wave of cross burnings in the town in 1989.

The environmental group Defenders of Wildlife file suit against the federal government for failing to protect the Louisiana black bear under the Endangered Species Act. . . . The oil pipeline that started leaking Dec. 19 is reported to be repaired.

Reports show that Austin, Texas posted more than 13.59 inches of rain for December, more than twice the previous record set in 1944. . . . A fire at Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station rages for more than four hours, causing an estimated $2 million in damages.

Dec. 20

Dec. 21

Dec. 22

An icon of St. Irene that gained worldwide attention in late 1990 when worshipers claimed that they saw it “weeping” on the eve of the Persian Gulf war is stolen from the Greek Orthodox church of St. Irene of Chrysovalantou in Queens.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 23

276—December 24–29, 1991

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Soviet Union, formed in 1922, officially disbands and is replaced by a Commonwealth of Independent States made up of 11 of the 12 former Soviet republics. . . . U.S. president Bush announces that the U.S. will recognize the independence of all 12 of the former Soviet republics but will establish diplomatic relations with only six: Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia, and Kirghizia.

Soviet president Gorbachev, who did more than any other figure to end the cold war, to curb the arms race and to put the Soviet Union on the road to democracy, announces his immediate resignation. . . . In Turkey, demonstrators fire-bomb an Istanbul department store, killing 11 and injuring 17. . . . Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas reportedly kill 10 soldiers at an outpost near the Turkey-Iraq border.

Iran protests Switzerland’s arrest of Zeyal Sarhadi, an Iranian, on charges of aiding the men believed to have murdered former Iranian premier Shahpur Bakhtiar in Paris in August. Iran argues that Sarhadi is an employee of the Iranian embassy in Bern and therefore holds diplomatic immunity. Swiss authorities maintain that Sarhadi never registered in Switzerland as a diplomat.

In the wake of the Dec. 25 formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States, Britain indicates it will establish relations with Russia, Germany states it will recognize Russia immediately and Ukraine in the near future, Israel discloses it will establish relations with all the states, Iran reveals it will recognize Georgia and all of the states except Moldavia, and Australia states it will recognize all the ex-Soviet republics except Georgia.

Reports indicate that Ulster’s sectarian strife killed 94 people in 1991 in the U.K., the highest total since 1982. . . . Data show that unemployment in France rose to a record 2.82 million in November. . . . Federal and Serbian forces launch an assault on the industrial city of Karlovac, 30 miles southwest of Zagreb, the Croatian capital. Shelling also continues at the besieged city of Osijek in eastern Croatia.

The fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) of Algeria takes a majority of seats in the first free parliamentary elections. Runoff elections are planned for remaining seats. The ballot is called one of the freest ever in an Arab country. . . . In Kenya, Health Minister Mwai Kibaki, a cabinet minister for more than 20 years, resigns over Pres. Moi’s decision to close down a judicial inquiry into Ouko’s death and over the slow pace of reforms in KANU.

Gunmen kill at least 49 Hindus traveling on a train in Punjab province in India. The attackers do not identify themselves, but they target any passengers who appear to be Hindu. At least 20 people are wounded. . . . A commission of inquiry presents to Indonesian president Suharto a report that concludes that 50 people were killed and “more than 91” injured when troops fired on unarmed marchers. Amnesty International questions the validity of those figures.

In response to the Dec. 25 formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States from former Soviet republics, China recognizes all 12 former Soviet republics, and Japan announces that it will establish diplomatic relations with Russia. . . . The remains of William F. Buckley, former U.S. CIA Beirut bureau chief, are found in Beirut by Lebanese police. Buckley’s captors claimed in Oct. 1985 to have executed him, but U.S. hostages claim that Buckley died of serious illness after torture. With the return of his body, all 17 of the Americans held captive in Lebanon between Mar. 1984 and Dec. 1991 are accounted for.

Rebels seize the headquarters of Georgia’s secret police and free eight arrested opposition leaders. . . . A firebomb on the Dublin-Belfast railway line ends the Provisional IRA’s Christmas truce. . . . About 40 people are injured when a Scandinavian Airlines passenger jet crash-lands in a snow-covered field shortly after taking off from Arlanda International Airport outside Stockholm.

Reports suggest 2,300 prisoners, 400 of them Kurds, were released by the Iraqi government as talks on Kurdish autonomy continue.

The U.S. Navy announces that it will vacate the Subic Bay Naval Station by the end of 1992, following a notice of eviction from the Philippine government. The move is the result of the collapse of talks on a gradual three-year pull out. . . . Australia’s new prime minister Paul Keating shuffles the cabinet and installs the country’s third treasurer since he left the post in June.

World Affairs

Dec. 24

Dec. 25

Dec. 26

Dec. 27

Asia & the Pacific

Reports confirm that the IMF has decided to withhold a loan of $63 million to Kenya because of dissatisfaction with the pace of economic reforms. . . . UN mediator Giandomenico Picco abandons hopes of securing the release of the two German hostages in the Middle East by Christmas and leaves Beirut.

In Georgia, opposing forces agree to a truce. . . . As peacekeeping troops of the former Soviet Union withdraw, clashes erupt between Armenians and Azerbaijanis in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Dec. 28

Dec. 29

The Americas

Talks begun Dec. 16 by UN secretary general Perez de Cuellar to reach a peace agreement in El Salvador are given a boost when Salvadoran president Alfredo Cristiani arrives at the UN and takes over as head of his government’s delegation.

Despite the Dec. 28 truce, fighting continues in Georgia. . . . Reports indicate that the conflict between Armenians and Azerbaijanis in Nagorno-Karabakh resulted in the deaths of at least 25 people in the last two days. . . . France signs a final agreement with Iran to pay $1 billion in outstanding debt and interest charges on a 1974 Iranian loan.

Reports indicate that 20,000 people were killed or wounded in Mogadishu during six weeks of fighting with modern weapons left over from Soviet and U.S. military aid to Somalia. . . . Switzerland closes its embassy in Iran after Iranian authorities began restricting the movements of Swiss diplomats. The action is the result of a conflict begun on Dec. 25 over the arrest of Zeyal Sarhadi in Switzerland.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 24–29, 1991—277

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Walter Hudson, 46, believed to be the world’s heaviest man, dies of apparent heart failure in Hempstead, New York, weighing a reported 1,125 pounds.

Marty James, 38, AIDS activist from California who became nationally controversial after he publicly admitted to assisting the suicides of AIDS patients, kills himself by taking sleeping pills in Los Angeles, California, after suffering from AIDS.

Gen. Richard G. Stilwell, 74, head of the United Nations Command in South Korea, 1973–76, who served as a chief of staff during the Vietnam War and as a deputy undersecretary of defense, 1981–85, dies of cardiac arrest in Falls Church, Virginia.

A leak of 150 gallons of radioactive cooling water is discovered during final tests before the full restart of the 37-year-old K reactor at the Savannah River. . . . A major sewage discharge pipe feeding into Boston Harbor is shut off in an attempt to clean the harbor, which is thought to be one of the dirtiest in the U.S. . . . Retailers nationwide report that the Christmas shopping season yielded the third consecutive year of disappointing sales.

Roman Catholic nun Mother Teresa, winner of the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize, is hospitalized for pneumonia, in La Jolla, California.

A GAO report accuses the Bush administration of failing to adequately monitor millions of dollars worth of U.S. weapons and military equipment sent to foreign countries, according to a New York Times story.

Pres. Bush states he will nominate Barbara H. Franklin, 51, to replace Robert A. Mosbacher as secretary of commerce. . . . The FEC approves the first distribution of federal matching funds for the 1992 presidential campaign. Almost $6.4 million in matching funds is approved.

Dec. 25

A study suggests that X-rays increase the risk of breast cancer in women who carry a gene that makes them susceptible to the disease. . . . Reports confirm that at least 15 people were killed as a series of heavy rainstorms started Dec. 18 in Texas. The flooding caused millions of dollars in damages to buildings, livestock, and farmland. Pres. Bush declares part of the state eligible for federal disaster-relief aid.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission adopts a policy that prevents the Civil Rights Act of 1991 from applying to thousands of civil-rights complaints filed before the law was enacted on Nov. 21.

The gun used by Jack Ruby to kill accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963 is auctioned in for $200,000, plus a 10% commission to the auction house.

Publisher’s Weekly lists Scarlett: The Sequel to Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, by Alexandra Ripley, as the top hardback bestseller.

Nine people are crushed to death and 29 injured at a charity basketball game featuring rap performers in Harlem. . . . An icon stolen Dec. 23 is returned anonymously to the its church, but the frame, valued at more than $800,000, is still missing. Human Rights Watch criticizes the Bush administration in its comprehensive annual report for not making human rights an important enough factor in foreign policy decisions. The administration, the report claims, advances the human-rights cause “only when it is cost-free.”

Dec. 24

A British study finds that the herpes drug acyclovir when taken with the antiviral drug AZT reduces AIDS deaths.

Dec. 26

Dec. 27

Dec. 28

Dec. 29

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

278—December 30–31, 1991

Dec. 30

Dec. 31

World Affairs

Europe

International pressure for El Salvador’s factions to reach an agreement mounts as the U.S., Spain, Mexico, Venezuela, and Colombia offer to work with the UN to see that any peace agreements will be carried out.

The attack by federal and Serbian forces launched Dec. 26 on Karlovac, Croatia, leaves 11 dead and hundreds wounded. . . . Reports indicate that the last peacekeeping troops of the former Soviet Union left the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region in Azerbaijan. . . . The 11 leaders of the CIS formally agree to place the long-range nuclear arsenal of the former USSR under the effective control of Russian president Yeltsin. In case of war, the pact requires consultation with the republics before the use of strategic weapons.

Israel formally joins the Missile Technology Control Regime, an armslimitation convention first adopted by the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations in 1987. . . . Figures reveal that stock markets in the world’s financial centers generally were mixed between January 1 and December 31. Asian markets (with the exception of Japan) performed strongly, while there was little vertical movement in European exchanges.

Reports suggest that at least 50 people have been killed since Dec. 22 in Tbilisi, the capital of the southern republic of Georgia, as well-armed opposition forces attempt to overthrow Pres Zviad K. Gamsakhurdia. . . . French investigators formally request the extradition from Switzerland of Zeyal Sarhadi, an Iranian, on charges of aiding the men believed to have murdered former Iranian premier Shahpur Bakhtiar in Paris in August.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

At least 15 people are killed and 114 wounded when a car bomb explodes in West Beirut. The bombing is the worst in Lebanon since that country’s civil war began to wane in late 1990. . . . The parliament of Jordan votes to endorse an economic austerity program advanced by Premier Sharif Zeid bin Shaker.

Asia & the Pacific Khieu Samphan, whose return was prevented Dec. 21, arrives under heavy military security in Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh.

Militant Haitians who in November occupied the Canadian embassy in Haiti in an effort to receive political asylum in Canada surrender peacefully to Haitian authorities.

Representatives of North Korea and South Korea agree not to “test, produce, receive, possess, deploy or use nuclear weapons.”

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 30–31, 1991—279

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A U.S. District Court judge orders the Alabama state university, which is divided into predominantly white and predominantly black colleges and universities, to remove all traces of racial discrimination and to change some of its hiring, admissions, and financing practices. . . . Arkansas governor Bill Clinton (D) agrees to restore funding for a state Medicaid program that helps disabled people live at home. Clinton makes the decision after a group of disabled protesters occupy his office for 15 hours.

The bodies of U.S. hostages William R. Higgins and William F. Buckley, returned to the U.S. Dec. 24 and Dec. 27, respectively, are honored at a memorial service at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland. . . . Three U.S. human-rights groups accuse the Bush administration of ignoring rights abuses in Haiti to justify its position that Haitians are fleeing for economic reasons.

The Dow Jones surges 62.39 points to close at a record 3163.91. . . . The North Carolina labor department imposes a fine of $808,150 against the owners of a chicken-processing plant where 25 people died in a fire in September. The fine, against Imperial Food Products, is for safety violations.

Time magazine hits the stands and names Ted Turner, owner and creator of CNN, as its “Man of the Year.” The magazine describes Turner as a “visionary” whose CNN coverage brought the world together to witness such events as the Persian Gulf war, the coup in the Soviet Union, and the Clarence Thomas–Anita Hill Senate hearings.

The FDA approves the use of a drug, histrelin acetate, a synthetic hormone, for treating precocious puberty, a condition that causes sexual development to begin in children as young as eight or nine years old.

Data indicate that, since the Sept. 30 coup that ousted Pres. Aristide, 8,200 Haitians have been picked up by the U.S.

Officials in Los Angeles report that there were fewer days with unacceptable levels of ozone (smog) in the area in 1991 than in any year since records began in 1976. . . . The Dow Jones Industrial Average rises 4.92 points to a fourth straight record close of 3168.83, or 535.17 points higher than where it began the year, for a 1991 gain of 20.3%. It also marks the Dow’s best December since the index began in 1914. . . . The dollar closes the year at 124.80 Japanese yen and 1.52 German marks, compared with 135.40 yen and 1.49 marks at the year’s beginning.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day is the year’s top-grossing films with an estimated box-office receipts of $204.3 million.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 30

Dec. 31

1992 A Somali gunman speaks to a child during the famine of 1992.

282—January–September 1992

Jan.

Feb.

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April

May

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

World Affairs

Europe

Leaders of the 15 governments on the UN Security Council gather for the first-ever council summit.

Pres. Zhelyu Zhelev wins a new five-year term in office in Bulgaria's first direct presidential election.

The UN Security Council unanimously approves a resolution that could send nearly 14,400 peacekeepers to Croatia during the Yugoslav civil war.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

More than 100,000 people gather in Nairobi to attend Kenya's first legal antigovernment rally in 22 years.

Despite international condemnation, Eduardo Diaz Betancourt, leader of three Cuban exiles arrested on terrorism charges in December 1991, is executed by firing squad.

South Korea lifts economic sanctions imposed on South Africa in 1978, and Japan extends diplomatic recognition to South Africa at the ambassadorial level for the first time since World War II.

Great Britain's Queen Elizabeth II marks the 40th anniversary of her accession to the throne.

For the first time in more than a decade, an Israeli civilian is killed by a rocket from Lebanon when a five-year-old Israeli girl dies in a rocket strike.

In Venezuela, heavy fighting breaks out in an attempted coup by the Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement.

Pakistan reveals that it is now capable of building an atomic bomb but will adhere to nuclear nonproliferation agreements.

In its first meeting ever, the North Atlantic Cooperation Council— which includes the states of NATO, the former Warsaw Pact, and 14 ex-Soviet republics—agrees to support CSCE intervention to end the fighting in the Transcaucasus conflict.

Former Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze is chosen as Georgia's head of state.

Southern Africa experiences perhaps its worst drought in the 20th century, and the dry spell creeps northward on the eastern side of the continent.

A powerful car bomb explodes in front of the Israeli embassy in downtown Buenos Aires, Argentina, destroying the embassy building, killing at least 28 people, and leaving 220 others wounded.

Despite the arrival of a UN peacekeeping force, the leftist Khmer Rouge begins a series of attacks in Kompong Thom province, and the Phnom Penh government announces a new offensive against Khmer Rouge guerrillas.

Despite protests, limited international sanctions in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 748 take effect against Libya for its alleged harboring of terrorists thought responsible for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 and the 1989 bombing of UTA Flight 772.

Sali Berisha becomes Albania's first non-Marxist president since World War II.

Mutinous soldiers overthrow Joseph Momoh, Sierra Leone's president, who flees to neighboring Guinea.

Peruvian president Alberto K. Fujimori dissolves the National Congress, suspends parts of the constitution and institutes press censorship. He also orders the arrest of several political rivals.

Officials of Afghanistan's collapsed communist government relinquish power to a commission of mujaheddin rebels headed by moderate Islamic leader Sibghatullah Mojadidi. The transfer formally ends 14 years of rule by Soviet-backed regimes in Afghanistan.

The UN votes to impose sweeping international sanctions on Yugoslavia as a means of ending the bloodshed in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The European Community imposes a trade embargo on Yugoslavia in an effort to halt the fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

While visiting with Czechoslovakian president Havel, British prime minister Major signs a declaration formally annulling the 1938 Munich Pact that gave Germany control of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia.

Moslem militants attack Manshiet Nasser, a Christian village 130 miles (200 km) south of Cairo, killing at least 14 people in Egypt's worst outbreak of religious violence since 1981.

Ecuador's president, Rodrigo Borja, grants 148 Indian communities legal title to more than three million acres (1.2 million hectares) of land in the Amazon River basin.

China conducts its largest-ever nuclear test in an underground blast in the remote Lop Nur area with an explosion that has an estimated strength of one megaton, 70 times the force of the atomic bomb that the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

Talks at the Earth Summit are attended by 117 heads of state and government, reportedly the most ever assembled at an international conference.

Irish voters overwhelmingly approve the EC's Treaty on European Union, also known as the Maastricht Treaty. Voters in Denmark narrowly reject it, however. Since the treaty requires unanimous acceptance to be ratified, the loss is a serious blow.

In the worst single act of bloodshed in the region in years, a band of marauders armed with rifles, axes, and knives sweep through the South African township of Boipatong, killing more than 40 blacks.

Marc L. Bazin is sworn in as Haiti's new premier, replacing acting premier Jean-Jacques Honorat.

Fighting between Saudi-backed Sunni Moslems and the pro-Iranian Shi’ite guerrilla group Hezb-i-Wahadat sweeps through Kabul.

A CSCE summit is the largest gathering of leaders ever held in Europe, and the leaders declare the CSCE as the primary authority in Europe with regard to security threats. Additionally, 29 states, all members of NATO or states of the former Soviet Union, sign the revised version of the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty.

Czech premier Vaclav Klaus and Slovak premier Vladimir Meciar agree on a basic plan for a peaceful division of Czechoslovakia into two independent states.

The Kenyan government allows nearly 500 Somalis to go ashore and enter refugee camps.

In Colombia, drug lord Pablo Escobar escapes from prison, prompting a nationwide manhunt.

South Korea and North Korea agree in principle to reestablish land, sea, and air links for the first time since they were severed during the Korean War.

After 24 years of negotiations, members of the UN Conference on Disarmament (Geneva Committee) reach agreement on a final draft text of an international treaty to outlaw the production of chemical weapons and destroy existing stocks.

Croatian president Franjo Tudjman is reelected in Croatia’s first direct presidential election.

UN teams arrive in Somalia to assess an ongoing crisis and provide relief.

A Canadian judge in Winnipeg rules unconstitutional the section of a Manitoba law that calls for the daily recitation of Christian prayers in public schools. Thus, Manitoba is the last province to ban compulsory prayer in public schools in Canada.

South Korea and China establish diplomatic relations. In response, Taiwan breaks diplomatic relations with South Korea.

Law-enforcement officials from the U.S., Colombia, and Italy announce that they have arrested more than 165 people in six nations on charges related to a money-laundering scheme involving the Italian Mafia and the leading Colombian cocaine cartel. It is called the first instance of international cooperation on a case of this nature.

Reports suggest that as many as 3,000 men, women, and children have been slain in Serb-run detention camps near the Bosnian town of Brcko and that up to 4,000 Muslim civilians were forced at gunpoint to leave the Travnik area, in northwestern Bosnia, in a wave of ethnic cleansing by the Serbs.

Angolans vote for a president in the country’s first-ever free elections.

Mexico and the Vatican establish full diplomatic relations, ending over 130 years of church-state discord. Mexico is the only major Latin American country that lacked ties with the Vatican.

Floods in Pakistan kill more than 2,000 people, damaged some 2 million acres of crops, and devastated 1,800 villages. An additional 500 people were killed in northern sections of India.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

January–September 1992—283

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Wyoming imposes capital punishment on a prison inmate for the first time since 1965.

Atty. Gen. William Barr announces that the Bush administration will grant a one-year extension of "safe haven" in the U.S. to residents of Lebanon and Liberia who fled to the U.S. to escape civil war in their countries.

The Labor Department reports the government's index of consumer prices rose 3.1% in 1991, the lowest rate since 1986.

Biologists free two young California condors bred in captivity. They are the first released into the wild since the last known free condor was captured in April 1987.

American singer Paul Simon performs in Johannesburg, making him the first major international star to play in South Africa since the UN lifted a cultural boycott in 1991.

A state district judge in Dallas, Tex., overturns a Dallas police department policy barring homosexuals from serving as police officers as a violation of the right to privacy guaranteed by the Texas constitution.

Two nuclear-powered submarines, one belonging to the U.S. Navy and one from the former Soviet Union, collide in international waters in the Barents Sea.

Shirley Peterson is sworn into office and becomes the first woman to head the Internal Revenue Service.

The National Science Foundation finds U.S. spending on research fell in 1990 for the first time since the 1970s, even as foreign competitors increased their research and development finds.

In separate incidents, boxing champion Mike Tyson and former world heavyweight boxing champion Trevor Berbick are convicted of rape.

The case of John Kingery, an elderly man with Alzheimer's who was abandoned at a dog-racing track, highlights the issue of rising medical costs and adult children who cannot or will not care for their parents.

About 60 gulf-war veterans of the 123rd Army Reserve Command suffer from an undiagnosed ailment they believe they contracted while in the Middle East.

The House decides, 426-0, to release the names of all 355 members who have or had overdrafts in their House Bank accounts.

Pioneer 10 marks its 20th year in space. Launched in 1972, the unmanned nuclear-powered U.S. craft is still transmitting data at a distance of 5 billion miles from Earth, the farthest any man-made object has ever traveled.

The Toronto Star publishes 13 articles written by novelist Ernest Hemingway when he was a reporter that were discovered in the newspaper's archives.

A Simi Valley jury acquits four white LAPD officers on all but one charge stemming from the March 1991 beating of black motorist Rodney King. The verdict prompts the worst riots in Los Angeles since the Watts riots in 1965.

A jury in Miami, Florida, convicts former Panamanian military strongman Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega. It is the first time that a foreign head of state is convicted by a U.S. jury.

The Commerce Department reports that the average rise in per capita income, 2.1%, lagged behind the inflation rate of 4.1% for the first time since 1982.

In a major finding, astronomer George Smoot announces the discovery of faint temperature variations in the most distant matter yet detected. These irregularities, he claims, offer long-sought evidence to support the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe.

Video star Madonna signs a contract with Time Warner that makes her the highest-paid female entertainer ever.

Dr. Cecil Jacobson, a Virginia fertility doctor who used his own sperm to inseminate several patients and convinced several women that they were pregnant when they were not, is sentenced to five years in prison.

Separate reports by the navy inspector general and the Naval Investigative Service showing that a total of 14 female naval officers and 12 female civilians were sexually abused at the September 1991 Tailhook Association aviators' convention in Las Vegas are made public.

General Motors Corp. issues 55 million shares of common stock, raising $2.15 billion. The offering, the first of common stock by GM since 1955, sets an all-time U.S. record.

The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour makes its maiden voyage when it lifts off from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Anne-Imelda Radice, acting head of the NEA, goes against the recommendation of review panels and its advisory council when she rejects two applications for grants to support exhibits that involve sexual material. The decision prompts some recipients to decline NEA grants.

In Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, the Supreme Court upholds, 5-4. most of the provisions of a Pennsylvania law that imposes strict limits on a woman's ability to obtain an abortion. However, the majority also reaffirms that a woman's basic right to choose an abortion is "a rule of law and a component of liberty we cannot renounce."

In U.S. v. Alvarez Machain, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that the U.S. is entitled to kidnap criminal suspects from foreign countries for prosecution in the U.S., regardless of protests from the foreign nations or the terms of existing extradition treaties.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes at a new all-time record high, moving above 3,400 for the first time.

For the first time ever, a medical team implants the liver of a baboon into a terminally ill man.

Mona Van Duyn is named the nation's first female poet laureate.

In the first ruling of its kind, Judge Thomas Kirk gives independent status to initiate any legal action to a minor who wants to sever all ties from his mother so that his foster parents will be able to adopt him.

Pres. Bush, in an executive order, directs federal departments and agencies—including the Pentagon, National Security Council, and the White House—to declassify and make public up to 1.3 million documents on MIAs.

The Alaska State Court of Appeals overturns the misdemeanor conviction of Joseph Hazelwood, the skipper of the tanker Exxon Valdez when it grounded in March 1989, causing the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

A record six nationalities are represented in space at one time.

Cartoonist Bobby London claims King Features fired him for writing an abortion-rights story line in his Popeye comic strip.

Fugitive Randy Weaver, a white supremacist linked to the Aryan nation, surrenders to authorities after a standoff, in which four people were killed.

Pres. Bush orders an emergency airlift of food to Somalia, and U.S. military planes begin what is described as the U.S.’s biggestever relief effort in Africa.

California’s Legislature fails to pass a compromise $57.6 billion budget, even though the state has been forced to cover its obligations with IOUs for the first time since 1936.

Mount Spurr in Alaska showers a quarter-inch (.60 cm) of ash on Anchorage, 80 miles (130 km) to the east.

Pres. Bush signs into law a bill that authorizes increased government funding for public television.

Jocelyn Burdick (D) becomes North Dakota’s first female senator when she is appointed as an interim replacement for her husband, Sen. Quentin Burdick (D). Her swearing in boosts the number of women in the Senate to three, which is the most that have ever served simultaneously.

Three admirals—Rear Admiral Duvall (Mac) Williams Jr., Rear Admiral George Davis VI, and Rear Admiral John Gordon—are punished in the wake of a report on the Tailhook scandal, in which 26 women—half of them military officers—claim they were sexually abused by male aviators at the 1991 convention in Las Vegas.

The Census Bureau reports that in inflation-adjusted terms, median household income fell to $30,126 in 1991 from $31,203 in 1990. The number of Americans living below the poverty level in 1991 reached its highest level since 1964.

The U.S. launches the Mars Observer, an unmanned spacecraft designed to orbit Mars and collect information about it. The nearly $1 billion mission is the U.S.’s first trip to Mars since two Viking probes touched down on the planet in the mid-1970s.

An estimated 44 million people watch the TV show Murphy Brown, which was attacked by Vice Pres. Dan Quayle in May. The show’s fall premier is a bigger draw than either the Democratic or Republican national conventions.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan.

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May

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

284—October–December 1992

Oct.

Nov.

Dec.

World Affairs

Europe

Amid widespread reports and allegations of atrocities in Bosnia, the UN Security Council unanimously votes to create a war-crimes commission for Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Fighting between secessionist Abkhaz guerrillas and Georgian forces intensifies.

The UN Security Council approves an arms embargo against Liberia. The 16-nation ECOWAS imposes a trade embargo on the 95% of Liberia’s territory controlled by the rebel National Patriotic Front, led by Charles Taylor.

The leaders of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico sign the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), thereby sending the pact to their respective legislatures for approval.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Pres. Joaquim Chissano of the Mozambique government and Afonso Dhlakama, the leader of the rebel Mozambique National Resistance, widely known as Renamo, sign a peace accord to end Mozambique’s 16-year-old civil war.

Over 100 inmates die when Brazilian paramilitary police attempt to quell a prison riot at Casa de Detencao in Sao Paulo, the largest jail in South America. It is the worst prison violence in Brazil’s history.

Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, the world’s richest individual, celebrates 25 years as absolute monarch of Brunei by parading through the streets of Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital, in a 70-footlong chariot of gilded teak.

Antiforeigner violence continues to plague Germany.

Voters elect military leader Jerry Rawlings to head a new civilian government in Ghana’s first presidential elections since 1979.

Guatemala’s congress recognizes the political independence of Belize, a former British colony. The decision ends a 130-year-old territorial dispute between the two nations.

Chinese premier Li Peng becomes the first Chinese leader to visit Vietnam in 21 years.

Slobodan Milosevic defeats Milan Panic in the Serbian presidential election, and the ruling Socialists and their allies, the Radicals, capture an overwhelming majority of the seats.

The first casualties are sustained during the UN and U.S. armed peacekeeping and relief efforts Somalia.

The 12-year Salvadoran civil war officially ends. A National Day of Reconciliation marks the close of a brutal conflict that took 75,000 lives.

A nationwide firestorm of sectarian violence erupts at the Ayodhya mosque, built in 1528 and long a subject of dispute. The death toll in India related to the Ayodhya mosque exceeds 700, the worst bloodshed since the nation gained independence in 1947.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

October–December 1992—285

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The AIDS quilt, made up of more than 20,000 panels, is on display in its entirety for the first time since 1989 in Washington, D.C. The quilt has 1,920 panels, each of which represents a person who has died from AIDS.

Despite international protests, Pres. Bush signs the Cuban Democracy Act, legislation that bars foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies from trading with Cuba.

The National Governors’ Association reports that at the end of the 1992 fiscal year (June 30), the average state had a budget surplus 0.3% the size of its total budget, the lowest level in at least 15 years.

Scientists release the first two maps of human chromosomes, as part of the Human Genome Project.

At an auction the original manuscript for Alex Haley’s book The Autobiography of Malcolm X is purchased for $100,000. Alex Haley’s Roots fetches $50,000.

Arkansas governor Bill Clinton (D) is elected the 42nd president of the U.S., ending 12 consecutive years of Republican control of the White House.

Petty Officer First Class Keith Meinhold, who openly admit that he is a homosexual and was therefore discharged from the Navy, is reinstated in the service, pending a final outcome on his case.

An Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) study reveals that living standards in the U.S. remain the highest in the world, although standards in Germany, France, and Japan are approaching those of the U.S. level.

The New England Journal of Medicine reports that doctors for the first time repaired brain damage by implanting cerebral tissue from aborted fetuses.

The Roman Catholic Church issues a new universal catechism for the first time in more than four centuries.

The Census Bureau projects that the U.S. population will grow by another 50% over the next 58 years, reaching 383 million in 2050.

Former CIA Director of Operations Claire George is convicted in a retrial on two felony counts of lying about his knowledge of the Irancontra affair.

The National Marine Fisheries Service declares that the California gray whale, once threatened with extinction, has “fully recovered” and will be removed from the endangered species list. The gray whale, on the list since 1970, is the second U.S.-protected species to make such a recovery.

Scientists find evidence of a powerful earthquake 1,000 years ago that reshaped Puget Sound’s coastline and created a tidal wave that obliterated forests.

The Emancipation Proclamation, signed by President Abraham Lincoln January 1, 1863, goes on display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. It has not been shown in public since 1979.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct.

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286—January 1–6, 1992

World Affairs

Jan. 1

Jan. 2

Jan. 3

Jan. 4

Jan. 5

Jan. 6

Europe

In the final hours of UN secretary general Javier Perez de Cuellar’s 10-year term, the government of El Salvador and FMLN representatives sign a peace agreement mediated by the UN to end fighting in the country’s 12-year-old civil war. . . . Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt begins his five-year term as secretary general of the UN, replacing Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru.

Africa & the Middle East In South Africa, three policeman are killed in two incidents in black townships. Separately, a public high school for whites scheduled to begin admitting black students is bombed. . . . A Jewish settler is ambushed and killed in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip. Doron Shorshan is the fourth Israeli settler slain since October 1991. . . . Official results in the first round of elections for Algeria’s parliament show that the FIS is 28 seats short of a simple majority.

In violation of a trade embargo imposed by the OAS, a Bahamianregistered oil tanker unloads a month’s supply of diesel fuel in Haiti.

After months of fighting, commanders of the principal Georgian rebel forces form a military governing council and declare a national state of emergency. Tengiz Sigua, Georgia’s premier under Gamsakhurdia before resigning in August 1991, is named to head an interim civilian government. . . . A law allowing Germans to see Stasi files compiled on them goes into effect. . . . The Russian Federation eliminates state subsidies of most goods and services. Three other ex-Soviet states— Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova— also begin lifting price controls.

Rebels loyal to Pres. Hissene Habre capture two towns in Chad. . . . Two police officers are shot dead in Soweto. The Azanian People’s Liberation Army claims responsibility. Bombs severely damage post offices in the towns of Verwoerdburg and Krugersdorp. . . . The Israeli defense ministry orders the deportation of 12 Palestinian activists alleged to be “involved in terrorist activities.” The expulsion order is one of the largest since 1987. . . . . Hundreds of thousands of Algerians opposed to the Islamic fundamentalist movement march in Algiers.

The U.S. State Department charges Iraq with deliberately obstructing humanitarian aid efforts in the wake of the Persian Gulf war by refusing to export oil under the UN’s 1991 monitoring program. . . . To protest the Jan. 2 Israeli deportations, Palestinian delegates to the Middle East peace conference in Washington, D.C., postpone their departure for a scheduled round of talks.

Daily pro-Gamsakhurdia rallies begin in Georgia. Gunmen affiliated with the military council fire on loyalist demonstrators in Tbilisi. In response, protesters seize and beat to death at least one gunman. . . . The opposing sides in the Yugoslav civil war begin the 15th mediated cease-fire. . . . Reports indicate Turkey has agreed to allow allied troops to stay in Turkish territory to provide protection and aid to Iraqi Kurds displaced after their unsuccessful uprising in March 1991.

The Algerian government states that there have been 341 complaints about election fraud, covering 145 of Parliament’s seats. . . . In reaction to the Jan. 2 seizure of two towns in Chad, France dispatches paratroops to its former colony and puts fighter jets on alert.

The Syrian, Lebanese, and Jordanian delegations to the Middle East peace conference in Washington, D.C., postpone their departure for a scheduled new round of talks, following the Palestinian response to the Jan. 2 deportations from Israel.

Ukraine president Leonid Kravchuk declares that all former Soviet military personnel in Ukraine must swear allegiance to Ukraine, causing controversy. . . . Milan Babic, president of the self-styled “Serbian Republic of Krajina,” formed in December 1991 by ethnic Serbs in Croatia, announces that Krajina will neither accept peacekeepers on its soil nor will it disarm its guerrillas unless Croatian forces disarm.

UN undersecretary general for African affairs James Jonah ends a peace mission to Somalia which failed to reach a cease-fire. . . . The 21-nation Arab League, to which Somalia belongs, agrees to appoint a ministerial committee to reconcile the country’s factions. . . . In response to the Jan. 3 U.S. charges, the Iraqi foreign ministry states its refusal to accept the 1991 monitoring program approved by the UN Security Council “will never change.”

The presidents of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania demand an immediate withdrawal of the ex-Soviet forces. . . . Two massive IRA bombs explode in the commercial center of Belfast. . . . In an arson attack against a hostel for refugees in Waldkirch in southwestern Germany, 20 people are injured, one critically. . . . In Georgia, rebel forces besieging Zviad Gamsakhurdia in the Tbilisi parliament building step up their shelling of the stronghold.

An employee of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is killed in an attack on UN offices in Bosaso, Somalia. . . . Reports indicate that four British tourists, Mercedes Mackendrick, James Pilbeam, Andrew Chandler, and Paul Couchman, were slain in Angola. . . . Hussein Selim Suleiman, chief of intelligence for the PLO’s mainstream Fatah faction, is killed by an unknown gunman in Lebanon. . . . Switzerland reopens its embassy in Iran.

The UN Security Council votes unanimously in favor of a resolution that condemns Israel’s Jan. 2 decision to deport 12 Palestinians from the occupied territories. The resolution is the most strongly worded rebuke of Israeli policy ever issued by the council. . . . The IMF announces that it will lend El Salvador $60 million to help rebuild its economy after 12 years of civil war.

Zviad Gamsakhurdia, president of the former Soviet republic of Georgia, flees Tbilisi, which has been under siege by opposition militia for over two weeks. . . . Five armed robbers make off with an estimated 2.5 million Irish punts from a banking center in the Republic of Ireland. The robbery is described as the biggest in Irish history. . . . The Russian people mark Christmas as a state holiday for the first time in more 70 years as it is Christmas Eve on the Russian Orthodox Church’s Julian calendar.

The South African Department of Education and Training reports that only 39.2% of black high-school seniors passed the 1991 round of final examinations, called matriculation examinations. That percentage is up slightly from an all-time low of 36.4% in 1990 and compares with a pass rate of 97% for white students.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The government of Argentina introduces a new currency, the peso, that is equivalent to 10,000 australs, the existing currency.

The Mexican news agency Notimex reports that Cuban human-rights advocate Bienvenida Cucalo Santana and three men have been arrested. . . . Data show that Toronto has overtaken Montreal in 1991 as the city with the highest number of murders in Canada.

U.S. president Bush announces the lifting of a 16-year-old U.S. trade embargo against Cambodia, whose warring factions recently signed an agreement aimed at ending that nation’s civil war. . . . Afghan guerrillas release a U.S. aid worker, Joel DeHart, who had been kidnapped along with another American in July 1991.

The Haitian parliament extends the 90-day term of interim president Joseph Nerette. . . . A Quebec Superior Court judge grants the petition of a 25-year-old woman seeking to compel doctors to disconnect the respirator that has kept her alive for the past two and a half years.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 1–6, 1992—287

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The Washington Post reports that some ER doctors are using a computer program called APACHE III (for Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation). The program calculates a patient’s chance of surviving by assessing a patient’s vital signs in relation to a database of other case histories. In some cases, the results factor into decisions on whether to discontinue potentially life-saving treatment.

Pres. Bush embarks on a 10-day tour of Australia and Asia. . . . Rear Admiral Grace Brewster Murray Hopper, 85, U.S. Navy officer and computer-programming pioneer who in 1991 became the first woman awarded the National Medal of Technology individually, dies of a heart attack in Arlington, Virginia.

A CDC survey suggests that 54% of the 11,631 high school students questioned have had sexual intercourse. . . . Data indicate presidential aspirant governor Clinton (Ark.) raised the most money in 1991 among the Democratic candidates. . . . C. Nicholas Conchas, 47, is the first person charged under a California law that holds adults liable for injuries inflicted by a child who used a gun negligently stored. His grandson, Jesus Valencia, 4, accidentally killed himself with Conchas’s revolver

James E. Hair, 76, one of a group of 13 blacks who broke the U.S. Navy’s color barrier in 1944 to become commissioned officers; during World War II, dies of apparent heart disease in New York City.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Reports indicate that researchers genetically altered the lung cells of rats to make them gain a crucial feature that the cells of human cystic fibrosis patients lack.

Mike Frankovich, 82, film producer who received the 1984 Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, dies of pneumonia in Los Angeles, California.

A federal grand jury returns an indictment charging money manager Steven D. Wymer with “orchestrating a massive fraud scheme” that cost several cities and municipalities more than $100 million in losses. . . . The National Treasury Employees Union files a lawsuit challenging the EEOC’s December 1991 policy that the 1991 Civil Rights Act does not apply to job-discrimination lawsuits filed before the law was enacted in November.

The New England Journal of Medicine finds that angioplasty—a surgical procedure in which a tiny balloon opens a clogged heart artery—is more effective than standard medications at curing angina. . . . Research reports indicate that using heavy anesthesia on infants during surgery gives them a greater chance of surviving than the common practice of allowing them only light anesthesia.

For the second year in a row, the final major college football polls are divided on the nation’s top team. The Miami Hurricanes leads the AP’s poll, and the Washington Huskies tops UPI’s ranking.

The EPA reports that it found 25 homes contaminated with radioactive radium in Philadelphia. Decaying radium gives off radon gas, linked to lung cancer. . . . The Energy Department delays reopening of a reactor at the Savannah River nuclear plant after the December radioactive tritium gas leak. . . . The National Safe Workplace Institute ranks California first and Arkansas last in worker-safety ratings, based on hazard-prevention, enforcement, and workers’ compensation programs.

Studies show that chemotherapy and hormone treatments typically given to women after surgery for breast cancer are more effective in prolonging life than previously believed.

The Elizabeth Daily Journal, founded in New Jersey in 1779, closes down. . . . Dame Judith Anderson (born Frances Margaret Anderson), 93, actress nominated for a 1941 Academy Award, dies in Santa Barbara, California. . . . A radical black South African group protests the arrival of Whoopi Goldberg to film a movie in South Africa.

The first four teenage gang members convicted in the robbery and murder of a Utah tourist at a NYC subway station, Pascal Carpenter, Johnny Hincapie, Emiliano Fernandez, and Ricardo Nova, are each given the maximum sentence of 25 years to life. . . . Reports state that a group of 14 death-row inmates in California have filed a lawsuit to have their sperm preserved for possible artificial insemination.

NASA gives its annual award for subcontractor excellence, the George M. Low Trophy, to Thiokol Corp. Space Operations in Brigham City, Utah, the company that manufactured the solid-fuel rockets that launch the space shuttle.

Jan. 2

Jan. 3

Jan. 4

The National Society of Film Critics selects the British comedy Life Is Sweet, directed by Mike Leigh, as the best film of 1991. Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg is named best director, River Phoenix is voted best actor, and Alison Steadman is chosen as best actress.

Rep. Jamie L. Whitten (D, Miss.) becomes the longest-serving member of the House in U.S. history. . . . Data show that contributions to women’s political groups has risen significantly since Clarence Thomas was inducted in the Supreme Court. . . . Texas governor Ann Richards (D) grants a temporary reprieve to a death-row inmate, Johnny Frank Garrett, in response to a plea for clemency from Pope John Paul II . . . . The FDA calls for a moratorium on the sale and implantation of silicone-gel breast implants.

Jan. 1

Reports state that the GAO has found that the environmental damage caused by cattle and sheep grazing on federally owned desert land in the Southwest outweighs the economic benefits of using the land. . . . Reports allege that in November 1991, a month before the tritium leak in South Carolina, the Energy Department issued a study criticizing the Savannah River nuclear plant’s inattention to previous leaks. . . . The Bank of New England files for bankruptcy protection, in the third-largest bank failure in U.S. history.

Jan. 5

Jan. 6

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

288—January 7–11, 1992

Jan. 7

Jan. 8

Jan. 9

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

A Yugoslav air force jet shoots down an unarmed EC helicopter over the republic of Croatia, killing five EC observers. The Yugoslav federal defense ministry accepts responsibility and suspends the head of the air force, pending a probe. . . . In response to the UN’s Jan. 6 resolution, Arab delegates to the ongoing Middle East peace talks end their boycott of the meetings.

Shoppers in nearly a dozen cities in the Russian Federation protest the lifting of price controls enacted by Pres. Yeltsin. . . . In Georgia, gunmen affiliated with the military council fire on loyalist demonstrators in Tbilisi. The action, coupled with the Jan 3 shooting, results in a death toll of two civilians, while as many as 30 others are wounded.

In response to the Jan. 7 shooting, the EC suspends its observer mission in Yugoslavia. The UN Security Council votes to send a multinational team to Yugoslavia. . . . The EC Commission votes not to withdraw British beef from a package of food aid to the Soviet Union for fear of creating a new scare about mad-cow disease. Russian officials accept the $263 million package. . . . Reports show Mohammed Rashid, a Palestinian linked to the May 15 terrorist group, was sentenced to 18 years in prison in Greece for bombing a Pan American World Airways jet over Hawaii in 1982.

In the Armenian town of Idzhevan, Zviad Gamsakhurdia tells reporters that he is still the president of Georgia and does not intend to resign. . . . Yugoslavia’s federal defense minister, Col. Gen. Veljko Kadijevic, resigns, citing ill health. The military chief of staff, Gen. Blagoje Adzic, a Serb hard-liner, assumes the post of acting defense minister.

The Palestinians delay their departure for the U.S. to protest the arrest by Israel of an adjunct to the negotiating team, Mohammed Khourani, who was accused of organizing terrorist actions. . . . Separate studies find that 70,000 Iraqi civilians have died since the end of the gulf war due to damage incurred by allied bombing. . . . The EC reconvenes peace talks attended by the presidents of the six Yugoslav republics.

A Roman Catholic businessman is killed near Moira, County Down, Northern Ireland. The outlawed Ulster Freedom Fighters, a Protestant group, claim responsibility. . . . Ethnic Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina proclaim an autonomous republic. Separately, Serbian president Milosevic breaks with Milan Babic, leader of the self-styled “Serbian Republic of Krajina,” over Babic’s opposition to UN peacekeepers in Croatia. Babic tells reporters he commands 30,000 guerrillas in Croatia prepared to fight Croats without Serbia’s support.

The International Red Cross reports that Kuwait has deported to Iraq more than 300 Iraqi, Jordanian and other Arab residents of Kuwait since the end of 1991.

The outlawed Provisional IRA sets off a small bomb on Whitehall Place in London’s government district. No one is hurt in the blast, which explodes less than 300 yards (270 m) from P.M. Major’s residence at 10 Downing Street.

The Israeli air force attacks the village of Al Naameh, nine miles (15 km) south of Beirut, killing 12 people and wounding 14 others. Israeli authorities state the village is a base of the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.

The Falkland Islands celebrates Margaret Thatcher Day. The new holiday marks the 1983 visit of then-Prime Minister Thatcher to the South Atlantic islands after British forces retook the islands from Argentina in the 1982 Falklands war.

Russia and Ukraine reach tentative settlement that calls for an unspecified portion of the Black Sea fleet to be given to Ukraine. . . . A circuit court in Hanover, Germany, ends the trial of Heinrich Niemeyer, 70, accused of shooting Jewish prisoners at Auschwitz. The action ends 13 years of proceedings and is taken after doctors find Niemeyer incompetent to stand trial. . . . Ulster police officials display a cache of arms discovered in a West Belfast house.

Algerian president Chadli Benjedid resigns, two weeks after a first round of parliamentary elections yielded an unexpected victory for the fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), whose stated goal is to turn Algeria into an Islamic state. Tanks and armored vehicles take up positions in Algiers, the capital. Riot police are deployed in the fundamentalist strongholds of Bab e-Oued and Kouba.

Eduardo Diaz Betancourt, leader of three Cuban exiles arrested on terrorism charges in Cuba in December 1991, is found guilty of terrorism and sabotage by a Cuban court. Two others are also found guilty. All three are sentenced to death.

Jan. 10

Jan. 11

The Iraqi health ministry reports nearly 86,000 postwar civilian deaths in Iraq. Health Minister Umeed Madhat Mubarak blames UN economic sanctions against Iraq for the death toll.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Data show that inflation in Argentina was 84% in 1991, the lowest since 1986. . . . P.M. Mulroney announces the appointment of his chief of staff, Norman Spector, as Canadian ambassador to Israel, making him Canada’s first Jewish ambassador to Israel.

Three Canadian members of Parliament are expelled from China hours before their planned commemoration of the 1989 Beijing prodemocracy demonstrations and visit to a prison where dissidents were held. . . . Former first lady Imelda Marcos declares her candidacy for president of the Philippines.

Deposed Haitian president JeanBertrand Aristide accepts the nomination of Rene Theodore, leader of the Unified Haitian Communist Party, as premier.

Reports indicate that South Korea has lifted economic sanctions it imposed on South Africa in 1978.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 7–11, 1992—289

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

An analysis that examined the results of several major national surveys dating back to 1958 shows that racist and anti-Semitic attitudes are on the decline in America. . . . U.S. Postmaster Gen. Anthony Frank announces that he is resigning, effective Feb. 28, to become chairman of Acrogen Inc., a biotechnology firm in San Francisco that he helped found in 1987.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Gerard F. Scannell, 57, head of the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, announces his resignation, effective January 17, and his plans to serve as vice president in charge of safety at his former employer, Johnson & Johnson.

Two hand grenades are thrown at the offices of the South African companies handling the tour of American singer Paul Simon. . . . Reports show that pitchers Tom Seaver and Rollie Fingers have been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

The video of “By the Time I Get to Arizona,” by the rap-music group Public Enemy, sparks controversy since it depicts a group of black terrorists assassinating Arizona government officials in revenge for the state’s failure to adopt a holiday honoring slain civil-rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

A federal study concludes that a significant number of babies who died were given incorrect racial identifications, leading to errors in reported infant mortality rates for different racial groups. . . . The Children’s Defense Fund reports that the number of children covered by employer-provided health insurance declined by 13.6% between 1977 and 1987. . . . In a surprise announcement, Virginia governor L. Douglas Wilder withdraws from the race for the 1992 Democratic presidential nomination.

During Pres. Bush’s trip to Japan, he collapses at a state dinner in Tokyo. Bush faints for about three minutes due to a stomach virus. The incident receives widespread television coverage. . . . The Defense Department revises the total number of U.S. combat deaths in the Persian Gulf War to 146 from 148.

The Endangered Species Committee opens hearings on the status of the spotted owl in Portland, Oregon.

The FBI announces it is reassigning 300 agents who formerly worked in counterespionage to investigate violent and gang-related crime. . . . Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher and Rep. Thomas Sawyer (D, Ohio) reach an agreement on the release of revised local census data that Mosbacher previously refused to turn over.

In addition to trade agreements, Japan and the U.S. issue a joint declaration pledging cooperation in collectively defending Asia in the post–cold war era as Pres. Bush ends his trip of Asia and Australia.

The California Air Resources Board adopts regulations to mandate the elimination of hydrocarbons in numerous household products. . . Reports confirm that two paper companies, Potlatch Corp. and Simpson Paper Co., have agreed to pay a total of $12 million in fines related to chemical dumping. . . . The Fish and Wildlife Service advises the government to restrict logging on 6.9 million acres of forest land in the Pacific Northwest identified as a prime habitat for the endangered spotted owl.

Pres. Bush makes 10 appointments to the board of the Legal Services Corp. while Congress is in recess and thereby avoids the issue of confirmation. . . . A study shows that women who interrupt their careers for family reasons are unlikely to ever earn salaries as high as women who never leave the workforce. . . . The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals issues a ruling that makes it easier to introduce DNA “fingerprint” evidence in criminal trials.

James Loeb, 83, U.S. ambassador to Peru, 1961–62, and to Guinea, 1963–65, dies of pneumonia in Lebanon, New Hampshire, after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. . . . Pres. Bush’s trip to Japan is met with criticism, and in a survey of 696 adults, 56% of the respondents answer “no” to the question: “Will the trip produce more jobs for the U.S.?”

The Washington Post reports that consumer advocate Ralph Nader is waging a write-in campaign in New Hampshire, site of the nation’s first presidential primary.

About 63% of Americans surveyed believe that Bush ordered the gulf war stopped too soon by declaring a cease-fire before Saddam Hussein was ousted or killed, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

Reports suggest that astronomers discovered two, possibly three, planets circling a star 1,300 lightyears away from Earth in the Milky Way galaxy. If verified, the finding represents the first planets detected outside the solar system. . . . The New England Journal of Medicine reports that some male impotence cases result from the penis’s failure to produce enough of the chemical nitric oxide.

Postmaster Gen. Anthony Frank announces that the Post Office will issue stamps honoring Elvis Presley in 1993. . . . Bill Naughton, 81, British playwright who created the play Alfie (1964), dies of unreported causes on the Isle of Man.

A study finds that people with safe cholesterol levels but high levels of blood fats are nearly four times more likely to have a heart attack than people with normal levels of blood fats.

Jan. 7

Jan. 8

Jan. 9

Jan. 10

In South Africa, a predominantly white crowd of 40,000 turn out at Johannesburg’s Ellis Park Stadium to hear a concert by American singer Paul Simon. Simon’s tour makes him the first major international star to play in the country since the UN lifted a cultural boycott in 1991.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 11

290—January 12–16, 1992

Jan. 12

Jan. 13

Jan. 14

Jan. 15

Jan. 16

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

At the close of a meeting in Havana, Cuba, the fifth in a series of conferences held since 1989, a retired Soviet general discloses that the Soviet Union had placed a number of short-range nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962. . . . An annual report released by the UN International Narcotics Control Board finds that drug trafficking is on the increase around the world, and drug consumption is becoming a problem in more countries.

The ethnic Albanian minority in Macedonia votes in a referendum to form their own independent state. . . . An estimated 10,000 Muscovites, some waving the red flag of the former USSR, demonstrate against rising prices and demand the resignation of the Russian government. . . . Police uncover another IRA bomb factory in Belfast. . . . Bulgaria holds the first direct presidential election in its history, but no candidate receives the minimum 50% of the vote required for a victory. A runoff election is scheduled.

The Kuwaiti government ends its policy of prepublication censorship of the emirate’s newspapers, in effect since July 1986. . . . In Algeria, after Pres. Chadli Benjedid’s resignation, a new army-dominated ruling council cancels a runoff ballot, which had been expected to give the FIS a parliamentary majority. The State Security Panel voids the results of December’s election and announces that no new voting will take place “until necessary conditions are achieved for the normal functioning” of state institutions.

A helicopter is downed near Madre Mia in Peru’s Upper Huallaga Valley. Three U.S. civilians and one Peruvian antinarcotics officer are killed in the crash.

Arab and Israeli negotiators meet in Washington, D.C., for a second round of direct bilateral peace talks. Israel and the joint Palestinian-Jordanian delegation resolve a long-standing dispute when the joint delegation agrees to let two Jordanian negotiators sit on an 11-member subgroup. . . . Trade negotiators for the 108 nations participating in the GATT talks begin a new phase of negotiations in Geneva.

Iraq’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Safa Salih Falaki, resigns his post and seeks asylum for himself and his family in the European nation. . . . The Vatican recognizes Croatia and Slovenia.

Two prominent opposition figures are arrested for “spreading a malicious rumor” that Pres. Moi is planning a coup to halt Kenya’s upcoming multiparty elections. . . . Complaining that they were denied almost certain victory in a second round of parliamentary elections, FIS leaders call on Algerians to defy “the illegitimate junta” that took control after Pres. Benjedid’s departure.

A Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board agrees to grant refugee status to an Argentine native who states he has been persecuted in his home country because he is a homosexual. It is reportedly the first time such a decision has been reached in North America.

Egon Klepsch of Germany is elected the new president of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France.

A multinational contingent of UN observers arrive in Zagreb, the Croatian capital, and in Belgrade, the federal and Serbian capital. . . . Former Soviet president Gorbachev makes his first public appearance in Moscow since his resignation on December 25, 1991.

In Congo, Premier Andre Milongo dismisses several military commanders to break a monopoly of members of Pres. Denis SassouNguesso’s tribe. . . . South African judge Richard Goldstone agrees to investigate allegations that the government trained “hit squads” for the Inkatha Freedom Party. . . . Seven Israeli settlers are wounded when Palestinian gunmen fire on their cars near Ein Siniya in the West Bank. . . . In Algeria, a third body is named to head the government, the Council of State, with Mohammed Boudiaf as president.

The U.S. government formally asks Cuba to reconsider the death sentences handed down Jan. 11.

The EC, along with Australia, Canada, Hungary, Norway, and Poland, formally recognizes the independence of Croatia and Slovenia. . . . The Wall Street Journal reports at least 1,300 people have been killed or wounded in Kuwait since the end of the Persian Gulf war by Iraqi land mines and unexploded allied bombs.

Pres. Boris Yeltsin visits St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad), where taxi drivers and ambulance workers are striking to protest high prices.

In response to the Jan. 14 attack, settlers erect makeshift settlements at five different sites in the West Bank. . . . In Congo, soldiers loyal to Denis Sassou-Nguesso surround defense headquarters and demand the old army chiefs be reinstated. A second group of officers linked to Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko, the army commander, issues similar requests.

The Canadian government agrees to issue a formal apology to the members of 17 Inuit families who were relocated in the 1950s from Quebec to the High Arctic region, where they were left without sufficient food and shelter.

U.S. Air Force captain James McGregor, the pilot of a U-2 spy plane, crashes in the Sea of Japan. The cause of the crash is not ascertained.

The European Parliament approves the distribution of 1.58 billion European currency units ($2 billion) in aid to countries in North Africa and the Middle East. The grants and loans will cover a period through 1996. . . . The Yugoslav federal presidency—a four-member proSerbia faction—accuses the EC of violating the UN Charter and other international accords in response to the Jan. 15 recognition of Croatia and Slovenia.

Pres. Zviad Gamsakhurdia unexpectedly returns to Georgia. An estimated 8,000 armed men rally to the former leader’s side. Pro-Gamsakhurdia demonstrations begin. . . . Seven of the 11 commonwealth states back a joint commonwealth military force with a common oath of allegiance at a meeting of commonwealth leaders in Moscow. . . . In Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, a protest by university students over high prices and empty bread shops turns violent when police open fire on the demonstrators as they march on the presidential palace.

The government of El Salvador and representatives of the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) rebels sign a formal peace treaty, ending the country’s 12-year-old civil war. The treaty, signed in Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City, comes after 21 months of peace talks.

Thirty-five of a group of 56 Chinese men and women who landed in Australia on a refugee craft are discovered on a cattle station, miles from their landing site. . . . A South Korean navy ship recovers the body of U.S. Air Force captain James McGregor, the pilot of a U-2 spy plane that crashed Jan. 15.

Japan extends diplomatic recognition to South Africa at the ambassadorial level for the first time since World War II, although consular relations were reestablished in 1952.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 12–16, 1992—291

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

A CIA spokesman confirms that the CIA’s Openness Task Force recommended that the agency improve its public image by declassifying large numbers of secret documents dating back to World War I. . . . T(homas) Eric Embry, 70, lawyer who represented The New York Times in a libel suit that led to the landmark Supreme Court case New York Times Co. v. Sullivan and who served as a justice on the Alabama Supreme Court, dies of cancer in Birmingham, Alabama.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle In golf, Steve Elkington wins the Tournament of Champions, the opening event of the 1992 PGA tour. . . . Walt Morey, 84, children’s book author who wrote the popular book Gentle Ben (1965), dies in Wilsonville, Oregon, after suffering a heart attack. . . . The Washington Redskins and the Buffalo Bills advance to football’s Super Bowl.

A 12-year-old Hispanic boy is attacked by a group of whites who beat him and smear him with white paint. . . . Accused serial killer Jeffrey L. Dahmer pleads guilty but insane in Milwaukee County Circuit Court to charges that he murdered 15 young men and boys, most of them at his apartment in Milwaukee.

Jan. 12

Jan. 13

CIA deputy director Richard Kerr announces his resignation, effective March 2. . . . The Supreme Court increases the federal government’s potential liability for damages for harm or injury that results from the negligence of federal employees. The decision is the first written by Justice Clarence Thomas. . . . The Supreme Court rules that a section of an Illinois election law that makes it difficult for new parties to get on the ballot is unconstitutional.

Biologists at the Los Padres National Forest, 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Los Angeles, free two young California condors bred in captivity. The condors, a male and a female, are the first to be released into the wild since the last known free condor was captured in April 1987.

The Supreme Court issues a ruling that makes it easier for state and local governments to challenge federal court consent decrees that govern the operations of prisons, hospitals and other public institutions. . . . Pres. Bush makes his first reelection-campaign visit to New Hampshire.

The Supreme Court rules, 5-3, that the U.S. may legally deport former Provisional Irish Republican Army member Joseph Doherty to the U.K.

A state court jury in Virginia orders a local gun store to pay $100,000 to the family of a Virginia Beach schoolteacher, Karen H. Farley, who was shot to death by a student in 1988. Gun-control advocates believe it is the first time that a U.S. jury holds a gun store liable for injuries inflicted by a gun purchased at the shop. . . . The FCC votes unanimously to approve a proposal for a substantial spectrum of radio frequencies to be reallocated for use by a new generation of telecommunications devices.

Pres. Bush releases a triumphant statement commemorating the first anniversary of the beginning of the Persian Gulf war. However, a survey shows that fewer than 60% of Americans believe that the gulf war was worth fighting, down from 84% during the war, according to polls reported in The Times of London. . . . W. John Kenney, 87, U.S. Navy official who administered the Marshall Plan of U.S. aid designed to help Europe recover from World War II, 1950–52, dies of pneumonia in Washington, D.C.

The biggest-ever study of chronic fatigue syndrome finds that sufferers often experience an inflammation of the brain. . . . Admitting an error in his calculations, British astronomer Andrew Lyne retracts his highly publicized 1991 claim of a planet orbiting distant pulsar PSR1829-10.

The Labor Department reports the government’s index of consumer prices rose 3.1% in 1991, the lowest rate since 1986.

Jan. 14

The Yardbirds, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Johnny Cash, Sam and Dave, Booker T. and the MGs, the Isley Brothers, and Bobby “Blue” Bland are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Reports show that scientists have linked a mutated gene to a rare and dangerous form of high blood pressure that strikes early in life, glucocorticoid-remediable aldosteronism. . . . A study shows the experimental AIDS drug DDC (dideoxycytidine) is inferior to the popular antiviral medicine AZT. . . . The New England Journal of Medicine suggests that dyslexia is not a permanent disability, as physicians and educators commonly believe, but a condition that may appear or disappear as a child grows older.

Jan. 15

Jan. 16

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

292—January 17–22, 1992

Jan. 17

Europe

Iraqi president Saddam Hussein admits for the first time that Iraq lost the Persian Gulf war. But while he acknowledges Iraq’s military defeat at the hands of the allied coalition, Hussein insists that his nation won a moral victory against the forces of “Satan and treachery.”. . . Italian president Francesco Cossiga visits Croatia and Slovenia and makes Italy the second country, after Germany, to establish formal diplomatic relations with the former Yugoslav republics.

Reports show that at least six people were killed and scores injured in price rioting that started Jan. 16 in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan. . . . The outlawed Provisional IRA detonates a bomb that kills seven civilians riding home from work at a British army base in Northern Ireland. Six others are injured, one critically. . . . Former Greek premier Andreas Papandreou is acquitted of corruption charges in Athens. Two former ministers are convicted.

In Algeria, the FIS claims that at least 500 of its members, including some leaders, were arrested in the preceding week. . . . A national conference on planning democracy for Zaire reopens in Kinshasa, the capital.

In response to the Jan. 17 killings, Britain deploys an additional 600 troops in Northern Ireland. . . . About 5,000 officers of the former Soviet military gather in the Kremlin’s Palace of Congresses to demand that the forces remain under a unified command within the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Sudan discloses that Iran has agreed to supply it with 100,000 tons of oil per month for one year free of charge. . . . More than 100,000 people gather in Nairobi to attend Kenya’s first legal antigovernment rally in 22 years.

The Washington Post reports that Iran paid radical Shi’ite Muslim groups in Lebanon between $1 million and $2 million for the release of each of the nine Western hostages freed by the groups in the latter half of 1991.

A villa in Wannsee where Nazi leaders plotted the systematic elimination of European Jews is dedicated as a museum and memorial. The villa is the first memorial in Germany honoring Jewish victims of the Holocaust. . . . Incumbent Bulgarian president Zhelyu Zhelev wins a new five-year term in office by defeating challenger Velko Valkanov in a presidential runoff. It is the country’s first direct presidential election.

In Congo, the army occupies the airport and seizes state radio and television stations. . . . Seven leaders of the American Jewish Congress become the first representatives of a pro-Israeli Jewish group to visit Saudi Arabia. . . . Police headquarters in Algiers are bombed, and a military guard post is attacked, leaving one soldier dead. . . . The Tehiya and Moledet parties withdraw from Israeli P.M. Shamir’s coalition government. . . . Zaire’s P.M. Nguza suspends the conference that opened Jan. 17.

William Draper, administrator of the UN Development Program (UNDP), warns that AIDS will kill 20 million people worldwide by the year 2000.

Three federal soldiers are killed in an ambush near the Croatian coastal city of Zadar, but the fragile UNmediated cease-fire in Yugoslavia holds. . . . An Airbus A-320 jet on a French domestic flight from Lyon to Strasbourg crashes into a fog- and snow-covered ridge in the Vosges Mountains, killing 87 of the 96 passengers and crew members on board.

In Congo, the army demands that Premier Andre Milongo step down. Troops fire on a crowd of Milongo’s supporters marching in Bacongo, a suburb of Brazzaville. At least three civilians are killed. . . . In Algiers, Algeria, the police station is bombed again. . . . The 19 delegations that participated in the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (Codesa) in December 1991 reconvene.

Eduardo Diaz Betancourt, leader of three Cuban exiles arrested on terrorism charges in Cuba in December 1991, is executed by firing squad. Cuba’s decision to execute Diaz Betancourt draws strong international criticism.

Reports indicate that Australian search teams using helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft found all but two of the Chinese refugees who landed in a desert region where daytime temperatures reach 113°F (45°C). . . . A senior member of the Japanese Diet is reported to have blamed the economic difficulties of the U.S. on what he termed illiteracy and laziness among American workers. The remarks provoke considerable ire in the U.S. and embarrassment in Tokyo.

The 15-member UN Security Council unanimously adopts a resolution urging Libya to cooperate with U.S., French, and British investigations into the 1988 bombing of Pan American World Airways Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and the 1989 bombing of French UTA Flight 772 over Niger. The three countries in late 1991 indicted six Libyan intelligence agents in connection with the attacks.

A man critically injured by the Jan. 17 bomb attack by the outlawed Provisional IRA dies, bringing the death toll to eight. . . . A former East German border guard is convicted of shooting to death a man seeking to flee to West Germany in 1989, nine months before the Berlin Wall was opened. The guard is sentenced to jail, and another defendant receives a suspended sentence.

Reports indicate that the UAE, among the few remaining centers for the ivory trade, has imposed a ban on ivory trading.

Reports show that Cuba has signed five-year trade and economic cooperation agreements with the former Soviet republics of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to replace the subsidized imports it had received from the former Soviet Union. Separately, the Cuban government indicates that it is stepping up its campaign against illegal dissident groups.

A senior member of the Japanese Diet, Yoshio Sakurauchi, apologizes for remarks reported Jan. 20, claiming that he did not intend to “disparage or slight American workers.”

The 12-nation EC cuts off all but emergency aid to Zaire in protest against P.M. Nguza’s Jan. 19 decision to suspend a democracyplanning conference.

British prime minister John Major announces that his country will reimburse Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania for more than £90 million worth of gold that was deposited by the Baltics in London and sold by the U.K. in 1967.

Rebel Zairean soldiers seize the 20-story state radio building in Kinshasa. They broadcast appeals for the resignation of Pres. Mobutu and P.M. Jean Nguza Karl-i-Bond and for the resumption of the democracy conference. . . . Algerian police arrest Abdelkader Hachani, the acting head of the fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front (FIS). The government also bans all nonreligious activities at Algeria’s estimated 10,000 mosques, many of which serve as centers for FIS activity.

In Canada, two prominent members of the militant Mohawk Warrior Society, Ronald (Lasagna) Cross and Gordon (Noriega) Lazore, are convicted on a total of 29 charges in connection with a 77day land-claim dispute in the town of Oka, Quebec, in 1990. A third defendant, Roger Lazore, is acquitted on all 10 charges he faced.

Jan. 18

Jan. 19

Jan. 20

Jan. 21

Jan. 22

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific During his first visit to South Korea as premier of Japan, Kiichi Miyazawa apologizes for the Japanese army’s forced use of Korean women as prostitutes during Japan’s occupation of Korea, which ended in 1945.

The headquarters of Rene Theodore, Haiti’s Communist Party leader, are attacked. No one is injured.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 17–22, 1992—293

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The Florida Supreme Court orders John Santora to step down as chief judge of the state’s Fourth Judicial Circuit after he made racist, sexist, and anti-Semitic remarks in a Dec 22 interview. . . . The presidential campaign of Arkansas governor Bill Clinton (D) comes under fire as the media reports allegations that he had an extramarital affair. . . . Pres. Bush signs a proclamation officially declaring January 20 as a holiday commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. The Washington Post reports that the army is refusing to make public the names of the 21 soldiers killed by friendly fire in the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The Post prints what it states are the names of all 35 friendly fire fatalities.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A natural-gas explosion in Chicago touches off a series of fires and kills at least three people. The blast and fires damage or destroy 18 buildings on the city’s North Side.

Charlie Ventura (born Charles Venturo), 75, leading jazz tenor saxophonist during the big-band era of the 1940s voted as the top tenor saxophonist in the U.S. in 1945 and 1946 by Down Beat magazine, dies of cancer in Pleasantville, New York.

A spokesman for Peoples Gas, Light and Coke Co. states that a faulty regulator, which controls the amount of gas pumped into individual buildings, is suspected as the cause of the Jan. 17 blast in Chicago.

The Golden Globes for film are awarded, and Bugsy wins for Best Drama while Beauty and the Beast is named Best Musical or Comedy. Oliver Stone wins the Best Director award, Jodie Foster is named the Best Actress, and Nick Nolte takes the Best Actor award.

The American Council on Education releases a report showing that the proportion of minority students who attended college increased during the 1980s, although it remains below that of whites. . . . Five Democratic presidential candidates debate in Manchester, New Hampshire. Several lesser-known candidates, including Larry Agran, Lenora Fulani and Tom Laughlin, protest their exclusion from the debate.

The national holiday honoring slain civil-rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is marked by speeches and rallies all across the U.S. In Denver, however, the holiday sparks a riot between civilrights supporters and Ku Klux Klan members. In Phoenix, 5,000 people march in support of a state holiday honoring King. Arizona is the only U.S. state that does not have a holiday honoring King. . . . According to a Harvard University study, more litigation in the U.S. arose from AIDS than from any other disease.

Pietro Di Donato, 80, Italian-American bricklayer whose first novel, Christ in Concrete (1938), became a best-seller and won praise as a metaphor for the immigrant experience in the U.S., dies of bone cancer in Stony Brook, New York.

In response to the execution of Eduardo Díaz Betancourt in Cuba, Cuban exiles in Miami, Florida, stage a street protest near a monument to the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion.

The Justice Department rejects Georgia redistricting plans that were passed by the state’s legislature in September 1991as racially discriminatory. . . . The New York Times reports that the school district of La Crosse, Wis., will become the first in the U.S. to assign pupils to schools based on their family income. . . . The L.A. board of education votes to allow the distribution of condoms in public schools to reduce the transmission of AIDS. Wyoming imposes capital punishment on a prison inmate for the first time since 1965. . . . Pres. Bush nominates deputy White House chief of staff Andrew Card as transportation secretary. . . . Antiabortion demonstrators hold their annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., to mark the 19th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion. As in past years, Pres. Bush addresses the marchers via telephone.

NASA aircraft based in Bangor, Maine, measure high-altitude levels of chlorine monoxide (one of the most harmful of the CFCs) at 1.5 parts per billion, the highest level ever recorded in either hemisphere, contradicting previous beliefs that high atmospheric concentrations of ozone-harming chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and bromines exist only near the South Pole.

A 1991 survey by the National Association of Manufacturers and Towers Perrin, a human-resources consultant, shows that the average manufacturer rejects five out of every six applicants for a job because of poor basic skills.

Gen. Carl E. Mundy Jr., the commandant of the Marine Corps, orders Marine commanders to be open with the families of friendlyfire casualties, even if such candor may “embarrass the Marine Corps or reflect negatively” on the commanders. . . . The Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that a Guatemalan man who fled his country after refusing the join a guerrilla army has no valid claim to political asylum in the U.S.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts a $352 billion deficit for the current fiscal year. . . . The Los Angeles County Transportation Commission votes unanimously to reverse a monthold decision to award a rail-car contract to Japanese-owned Sumitomo Corp.

Jan. 17

Jan. 18

Jan. 19

Jan. 20

The Whitbread Book of the Year Prize, Great Britain’s most lucrative literary award, is awarded to John Richardson’s biography Life of Picasso. The book is the first volume in Richardson’s planned fourvolume biography.

The Journal of the American Medical Association reports that a diet low in folic acid makes a woman more susceptible to the human papilloma virus, which causes genital warts and may trigger the onset of cervical cancer. . . . The U.S. space shuttle Discovery lifts off from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, to carry out a scientific mission, in which the effects of weightlessness are measured on crystals and on a wide variety of biological subjects.

Jan. 21

Jan. 22

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

294—January 23–28, 1992

Jan. 23

World Affairs

Europe

The UN Security Council approves a resolution calling for Secretary Gen. Boutros-Ghali to mediate an end to Somalia’s civil war and for a ban on arms shipments to Somalia. . . . A conference of 47 nations and five financial institutions, including the World Bank and the IMF, called to coordinate international assistance to the Commonwealth of Independent States, closes with various kinds of aid promised by the U.S., Oman, Argentina, Thailand, and South Korea.

The human-rights organization Helsinki Watch releases a report accusing Serb guerrillas of murdering at least 200 Croat civilians and captured Croat soldiers in 14 separate incidents. The report claims that at least 5,000 Croats are missing. . . . Government soldiers battle Gamsakhurdia loyalists in Poti, Georgia, resulting in 15 reported deaths. . . . In Estonia, Edgar Savisaar and his entire cabinet resign in a feud with Parliament over shortages of food and fuel.

In a historic international environmental lawsuit, damages are awarded to the French government and a coalition of private French concerns when an U.S. court upholds a ruling assessing Amoco Corp. $204 million stemming from the wreck of the supertanker Amoco Cadiz off the coast of France in 1978.

Jan. 24

Jan. 25

Jan. 26

Jan. 27

Jan. 28

Economic ministers of the Group of Seven (G-7) nations meet in Garden City, New York.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati announces that his country has reached economic and political agreements with the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Turkmenistan. . . . In Zaire, troops loyal to Pres. Mobutu retake the radio station, killing two people. Most of the mutineers are captured, and military authorities state that 29 soldiers took part in the rebellion.

El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly passes an amnesty law protecting civil-war participants from prosecution for human-rights violations committed during the war. . . . Peru’s Sendero Luminoso rebel group claims responsibility for shooting down an U.S. helicopter on loan to Peruvian antidrug forces Jan. 12.

A tour of India by the leader of the Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), or Indian People’s Party, and a caravan of followers is attacked by Sikh separatist gunmen in Punjab province. The gunmen kill five members of the tour. . . . Fifty-five of 56 Chinese refugees who fled their country by boat and landed in northern Australia have been found by authorities in the harsh desert outback near the King Edward River cattle station.

During Parliament’s opening session in South Africa, at least 20,000 demonstrators march through Cape Town in what the ANC calls a “people’s parliament.”. . . In Algeria about 500 FIS supporters defy the government’s ban on assembly by gathering outside a mosque in the Algiers neighborhood of Bab elOued. Security police and army troops sweep into the neighborhood to disperse the crowd. A similar confrontation also takes place at a mosque in the Algiers suburb of Kouba.

Salvadoran judge Ricardo Zamora sentences Colonel Guillermo Alfredo Benavides Moreno and Lieutenant Yusshy Rene Mendoza Vallecillos, two Salvadoran army officers, to the maximum sentence of 30 years in jail for the 1989 slayings of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter at Jose Simeon Canas University of Central America in San Salvador. . . . Reports show that Cuba has signed a barter pact with Lithuania.

In Srinagar, the capital of Jammu and Kashmir, the police headquarters are leveled by an explosion. . . . During a visit to China, Israeli foreign minister Levy and Chinese foreign minister Qian Qichen sign an agreement establishing formal ties between their nations.

The parliament of the Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina votes to hold a republic-wide referendum on independence.

In Haiti, uniformed and plainclothes police officers suspected of opposing Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s return attack René Théodore’s headquarters, killing a bodyguard, Yves St.Pierre, and beating several others.

The New York Times finds that unpaid membership dues are causing a financial crisis at the United Nations. The five biggest debtors to the regular budget are the U.S., Russia, South Africa (which is not allowed to participate in the General Assembly), Brazil, and Ukraine.

A tour of India by the leader of the Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), or Indian People’s Party, and a caravan of followers ends in the province of Jammu and Kashmir. While tens of thousands of militant Hindus had planned to attend the ceremony, recent attacks reduce the number to about 70 followers.

Marrack Goulding, the United Nations undersecretary for peacekeeping operations, holds a series of meetings with Croatian, Serbian, and Yugoslav federal and military leaders in an attempt to enlist blanket support for the UN deployment.

A Polish official confirms that Russia has agreed to supply Poland with 7.6 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 1992.

Benny Alexander, the leader of the radical Pan-Africanist Congress, is arrested after a mass meeting in Ennerdale. . . . A no-confidence motion against the coalition government of Israeli prime minister Shamir is defeated.

The World Health Organization adopts a revised strategy for combating AIDS. . . . The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) closes a summit by signing an accord to create a regional common economic market within 15 years. . . . Delegates from Israel, 10 Arab nations, the EC, and other countries meet Moscow to initiate talks on Middle East issues. It is the first time so many Arab states participate directly in negotiations with Israel.

Germany’s supreme constitutional court overturns a century-old law barring women from manual work on night shifts. . . . Data suggest 22 journalists have been killed in the Yugoslav civil war since June 1991. . . . Georgia’s government troops capture the towns of Poti and Zugdidi, the last strongholds of support for deposed president Zviad Gamsakhurdia. At least six people are killed in fighting in Poti. . . . Armenian guerrillas shoot down an Azerbaijani civilian helicopter, killing about 40 people.

South African police arrest 11 members of the white neo-Nazi Afrikaner Resistance Movement (AWB). All are released after paying bail no higher than $36. . . . FIS foreign affairs spokesman Rabah Kebir is arrested in Algeria.

The Haitian army arrests a police corporal and accuses him of the Jan. 25 murder and beatings at the headquarters of Theodore, Haiti’s Communist Party leader. The U.S. recalls Ambassador Adams to protest the Jan. 25 attack.

A group of about 60 aboriginal men, women, and children take over the old Parliament House in Canberra, claiming it as an embassy for Australia’s “indigenous sovereign” people. . . . Pakistan announces that it will back the UN initiative to end the fighting in Afghanistan. The move by Pakistan effectively cuts off the rebels’ only remaining source of military support.

The occupation of the old Parliament House in Canberra ends peacefully when police enter the building and arrest four protesters. The aborigines present Robert Tickner, federal minister for aboriginal affairs, with a declaration of aboriginal sovereignty.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 23–28, 1992—295

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The campaign of Democratic candidate Bill Clinton continues to be thwarted by rumors of his infidelity when allegations that he had a 12year affair with Gennifer Flowers, a former nightclub singer, surface. . . . At the close of a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the chairman states he wanted it to endorse one of the presidential candidates but that none of them sufficiently impressed the group. Many mayors are reportedly most impressed with long-shot candidate Larry Agran.

Health experts meeting at the CDC warn that drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis (TB) are spreading rapidly in the U.S.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Imperial Food Products Inc., the owner of a chicken-processing plant where 25 people died in a fire in September 1991, tells the North Carolina Labor Department that it cannot afford to pay, or challenge, the $808,150 fine it was assessed after the fire. . . . The League of Conservation Voters, a political alliance of environmental groups, releases a report rating the environmental stands of the 1992 presidential candidates. The report hails the record of candidate Edmund (Jerry) Brown Jr. Atty. Gen. William Barr announces that the Bush administration will grant a one-year extension of “safe haven” in the U.S. to residents of Lebanon and Liberia who fled to the U.S. to escape civil war in their countries. However, Barr also states that the administration will not grant such an extension to a number of Kuwaitis who fled to the U.S. after their country was invaded by Iraq in 1990.

Pres. Bush announces Shirley Peterson will be appointed commissioner of internal revenue. . . . The FDIC injects $1.2 billion into Crossland Savings FSB as a first step to nurse the insolvent institution back to health. . . . U.S. judge Joyce Green accepts a settlement of criminal charges against the BCCI that obliges the institution to forfeit all of its U.S. assets of $550 million. . . . Reports indicate an increasing number of companies are offering incentives for their employees to purchase American cars.

Spike Lee announces that he is the first Hollywood director granted permission to film in the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, where he will film parts of his movie Malcolm X. . . . Freddie Bartholomew (born Frederick Llewellyn), 67, child star of the 1930s, dies of emphysema in Sarasota, Florida.

Reports suggest that scientists have vaccinated monkeys against SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus), an infectious agent related to the human AIDS virus HIV.

Reports indicate that the Forest Service has temporarily barred logging on many tracts of federally owned timberland in New Mexico and Arizona to protect the habitat of the Mexican spotted owl until the FWS can determine whether to designate the Mexican owl as a threatened or endangered species.

The director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., J. Carter Brown, announces that he will end his 22-year tenure by retiring at the end of the year.

Reports state that Global Telecom will establish a pay-per-call service in which U.S. callers can hear a daily recorded message from Pope John II. . . . L.A. Raiders owner Al Davis and players John Riggins, John Mackey and Lem Barney are chosen for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The first phase of the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, a step which concerns accommodations for the disabled in public buildings and businesses, takes effect. . . . In response to allegations of presidential candidate Bill Clinton’s extramarital affairs, Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, appear on the CBS television show 60 Minutes. “I don’t think being any more specific about what’s happened in the privacy of our life together is relevant to anybody besides us,” states Hillary Clinton.

Jose Ferrer (born José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón), actor who received the Academy Award for best actor in 1951 and two Tony Awards in 1952, dies of unreported causes; various sources list his age as either 80 or 83. . . . The Washington Redskins win Super Bowl XXVI, 37-24, over the Buffalo Bills in Minneapolis.

Aileen Carol Wuornos, a prostitute who confessed to killing seven male motorists, is convicted of first-degree murder for the 1989 killing of Richard Mallory. . . . The Supreme Court rules that county commissions in two Alabama counties do not need federal court approval under the 1965 Voting Rights Act to reorganize or diminish the authorities of individual commissioners. It is the first time the high court adopts a narrow interpretation of the 1965 law. In his State of the Union speech, Pres. Bush outlines his approach to combating the current economic recession and his plans for reforming the health-care system. House Speaker Foley delivers the official Democratic response to Bush’s speech, and Democratic presidential challengers attack the address as well. . . . The Senate approves, 92-6, the Neighborhood Schools Improvements Act, a bill that will provide $850 million a year to states for the improvement of public schools.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that labor-union organizers who are not employed by the company targeted for organization do not have the right to go onto that company’s property to encourage workers to join their union. . . . R. H. Macy & Co., one of the nation’s largest retailers, files for bankruptcy protection from creditors in U.S. bankruptcy court in New York City.

In his State of the Union speech, Pres. Bush hails a U.S. victory in the cold war and the end of communism and announces limited military cutbacks. He also suggests the decrease of nuclear weapons arsenals.

The American Library Association announces the Newbery Medal was awarded to Phyllis Reynolds Naylor for Shiloh and the Caldecott Medal went to David Wiesner for Tuesday. . . . Scarlett: The Sequel to Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind by Alexandra Ripley, tops the bestseller list.

The Conference Board reports that its consumer confidence index for January fell to 50.4 from a revised 52.5 reading in December 1991. It is the lowest level for consumer confidence since a 50.1 reading in May 1980.

Jan. 23

Jan. 24

Jan. 25

Jan. 26

Jan. 27

Jan. 28

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

296—January 29–February 3, 1992

Jan. 29

Jan. 30

Jan. 31

Europe

The IMF approves a $2.1 billion loan to Brazil, the most heavily indebted country in the Third World. . . . Marrack Goulding, the UN undersecretary for peacekeeping operations, tells reporters that he cannot recommend a deployment of UN peacekeepers in Croatia. . . . Delegates from Israel, 10 Arab nations, the EC, and several other countries agree to convene five smaller “seminars” in April or May to discuss Middle East regional issues.

Russian Federation president Yeltsin, in a televised address, proposes that his country and the U.S. cut its strategic warheads to between 2,000 and 2,500 over a five-year period. He calls for an eventual end to all nuclear arms. . . . German warships on training exercises in the Mediterranean Sea intercept a freighter near the island of Sicily, after the German government learns that the ship is carrying an unlicensed shipment of Sovietmade tanks bound for Syria.

Algerian police fire on a crowd in Bachara, an Algiers suburb, when residents try to prevent them from arresting two Muslim clergy. At least two people are killed.

North Korea signs an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna to open its nuclear facilities for inspection. The pact, the Nuclear Safeguard Agreement, is subject to ratification by North Korean president Kim Il Sung.

The parliament of Estonia approves a new government headed by Premier Tiit Vahi. . . . Irish prime minister Charles Haughey announces his resignation in the wake of allegations linking him to a decade-old scandal involving government wiretapping. . . . In France, two top-ranking civil servants in the foreign ministry resign in the wake of a controversy over the admission into France of George Habash, a radical Palestinian leader, for medical treatment.

In South Africa, whites from the Randburg suburb of Bloubosrand, outside Johannesburg, begin manning barricades to block the entrance of some 750 black squatters authorized by the government to move there.

Leaders of the 15 governments on the UN Security Council gather for the first-ever council summit. They pledge to strengthen the UN and to heighten its role in maintaining peace in the post–cold war era. . . . A U.S. Customs Service ban on imports of yellowfin tuna goes into effect, and it is estimated to apply to over 20 countries from North and South America, Europe, Asia, and the South Pacific.

Turkey begins suffering from heavy snowstorms.

Feb. 3

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports that the annual inflation rate in 1991 was 1.5%, the country’s lowest since 1964. . . . India announces that it will establish full diplomatic relations with Israel.

The Peruvian Supreme Court ends a corruption case against former president Alan García Pérez when it rejects a final appeal to reopen the case.

The Commonwealth of Independent States agrees to begin a withdrawal of the estimated 100,000 ex-Soviet troops still stationed in the Baltic region. . . . The founder of the First Commercial Bank of Lublin, David Bogatin, is arrested in Warsaw. Bogatin is reported to have fled to Poland in 1987 after pleading guilty to federal and New York State tax-evasion charges. The U.S. seeks extradition. . . . Several villages in the Kurdish region of southeastern Turkey are buried by avalanches.

About 500 members of the white neo-Nazi Afrikaner Resistance Movement (AWB) stage a military parade in Ventersdorp. Wearing khaki-colored uniforms with swastika-like armbands, they chant, “This land is for the Boers. Shoot the kaffirs. Shoot.”

At the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, attended by 2,000 government and business leaders from around the globe, South African president F. W. de Klerk and African National Congress president Nelson Mandela make an unprecedented joint plea for foreign investment in their country.

Milan Babic, the president of the self-proclaimed “Serbian Republic of Krajina” rejects a federal agreement to support the UN peace plan.

Reports indicate that Tunisia and the UAE have recalled their ambassadors to Sudan and have accused Sudan of backing Islamic radicals within their borders. . . . The Inkatha Freedom Party and the African National Congress hold their first joint peace rally, in the township of Mpumalanga, outside Durban, South Africa.

Fifty-three members of the Nonaligned Movement hold a meeting in Cyprus to discuss the organization’s relevance in the post–cold war era. Roughly 20 foreign ministers and 150 delegates attend the conference, the first since the disintegration of the Soviet Union. . . . International Atomic Energy Agency director general Hans Blix states that Libya is willing to open all of its nuclear facilities to inspection.

Brian Nelson, a British army secret agent who infiltrated a Protestant paramilitary group is sentenced to 10 years in jail for terrorist offenses committed by the group, the Ulster Defense Association. . . . A U.S. embassy opens in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital. . . . Representatives of the German steel industry and union officials reach a contract agreement that avoids what would gave been Germany’s first major strike since unification.

Feb. 1

Feb. 2

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

In El Salvador, the formal cease-fire takes effect.

Pres. Carlos Saul Menem orders the release of previously secret government and police files on Nazi war criminals who fled to Argentina at the end of World War II. . . . The first 381 refugees repatriated to Haiti arrive in Port-auPrince, Haiti’s capital. . . . Lucien Bouchard, the leader of Parliament’s Bloc Quebecois, states that the group will disband if Quebecois vote in an upcoming referendum to reject the concept of sovereignty and to remain part of Canada.

A fire sparked by violence in a camp for Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong kills 21 people and injured at least 128. . . . Premier Kiichi Miyazawa joins the chorus of Japanese voices criticizing the work ethic of U.S. workers when he discloses that he feels “that the ethic of working by the sweat of one’s brow has seemed to be lacking” among Americans in recent years.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 29–February 3, 1992—297

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Laurenzo’s Farmers Market in North Miami Beach, Florida, becomes the first U.S. store to sell irradiated food. . . . Reynaldo Andrade Gonzales hijacks a Greyhound bus in Phoenix and leads police on a 320-mile chase. . . . El Sayyid A. Nosair, an Egyptian immigrant acquitted of murdering radical Jewish leader Rabbi Meir Kahane but convicted on lesser charges, is sentenced to the maximum possible 71⁄2 to 22 years in prison.

Pres. Bush offers initiatives aimed at dramatically reducing nuclear arsenals in budget documents.

Pres. Bush sends to Congress a $1.52 trillion proposed budget for fiscal year 1993 that spells out the details of Bush’s economic recovery plan, outlined in his Jan. 28 State of the Union address. The budget foresees a deficit of almost $400 billion for the current fiscal year.

Reynaldo Andrade Gonzales, 33, who hijacked a bus on Jan 29, is shot to death by police when he stops the bus at his home in Colton, California. Eight passengers are uninjured. . . . The Texas Supreme Court strikes down, for the third time since 1989, the state’s method of funding public schools.

The Pentagon adds 83 installations to the list of U.S. bases in Europe to be fully or partially shut down. . . In another effort to discourage boat trips, the U.S. announces that the U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince will accept Haitians’ applications for asylum in the U.S.

Clayton Yeutter is appointed by Pres. Bush to a new cabinet-level position, counselor to the president in charge of domestic policy. . . . The Senate confirms Shirley Peterson as commissioner of internal revenue. . . . The five major Democratic nominees debate on a program televised by PBS. . . . Aileen Carol Wuornos, a prostitute convicted Jan. 27 of first-degree murder, is sentenced to die in Florida’s electric chair.

Alan D. Fiers Jr., a former CIA official who pled guilty in July 1991 to withholding information about the Iran-contra affair from Congress, is sentenced to a year’s probation and 100 hours of community service. . . . The Supreme Court rules, 6-3, without comment, to lift a December 1991 injunction that barred repatriations. . . . Pres. Bush talks with Chinese premier Li in the highest-level meeting between the nations since 1989.

District Judge Penn prohibits the Energy Department from opening the U.S.’s first permanent repository for nuclear waste beneath the desert near Carlsbad, New Mexico. . . . TWA files for bankruptcy protection from creditors. . . . The Commerce Department reports that total sales of new homes in 1991 fell to 504,000 units, a 5.6% drop from 1990. It is the third consecutive year of declining newhome sales and the worst year for the new-home market since 1982.

The Republican National Committee votes to install Richard Bond to replace Clayton Yeutter as its chairman. . . . Judge Irving Robert Kaufman, 81, U.S. federal judge who sentenced Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to death in 1951, the only death sentence carried out in the U.S. for espionage by civilians, and who headed the Commission on Organized Crime under Pres. Reagan, dies of pancreatic cancer in New York City.

In response to the Supreme Court’s Jan. 31 ruling, the U.S. begins forcibly returning to Haiti thousands of Haitians picked up at sea while trying to flee their homeland, Reports indicate that since a coup that ousted Pres. Aristide on September 30, 1991, more than 14,000 Haitians have been picked up at sea by the U.S. . . . Pres. Bush and Russian president Yeltsin hold talks at Camp David, Maryland. The atmosphere is casual, and Bush presents Yeltsin with a birthday cake to honor his 61st birthday.

Ronald R. Carey, head of a powerful Long Island, New York, local chapter, is sworn in as the new president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

Reports state that the NASA–European Space Agency Ulysses probe met Jupiter en route to the Sun. . . . Alcoholics who give up drinking can live as long as moderate drinkers and teetotalers, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. . . . A study finds that children fed breast milk score higher on IQ tests than children who receive formula only.

Renowned African-American dancer Katherine Dunham, 82, begins fasting to protest the U.S. policy of repatriating Haitian refugees. . . . Black Tie Affair is named the winner of the Eclipse Awards’ 1991 Horse of the Year honors.

A pipe carrying partially treated sewage from the San Diego metropolitan area to be dumped in the Pacific Ocean ruptures, contaminating coastal waters and leading local authorities to close four miles (six kilometers) of beaches.

Edwin C. (Jack) Whitehead, 72, developer of scientific and clinical equipment who created the Whitehead Institute, one of the world’s foremost biomedical research centers, dies of a heart attack in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Bert Parks, 77, radio and television game-show host, who served as master of ceremonies for the Miss America beauty pageant for 25 years, dies of lung disease in La Jolla, California.

Shirley Peterson is sworn into office and becomes the first woman to head the Internal Revenue Service. . . . Judge Penn’s Jan. 31 ruling that prohibits a permanent repository for nuclear waste in New Mexico is made public. . . . The Commerce Department reports total spending for all residential and commercial construction in 1991 fell 9.3%, to $404.9 billion from $446.4 billion in 1990. It is the first year construction spending has declined since the recession year of 1982, and the drop is the steepest in a calendar year since World War II. . . . Pres. Bush comes under criticism from some Democratic governors over his economic plan at a White House meeting.

NASA reveals that record levels of chemicals believed to damage the Earth’s protective ozone layer have been measured above northern New England and eastern Canada as it releases the findings of its Jan. 20 study.

The International Olympic Committee rules that HIV-positive athletes are eligible to compete in Olympic competition.

A state district judge in Dallas overturns a Dallas police department policy barring homosexuals from serving as police officers as a violation of the right to privacy guaranteed by the Texas constitution. . . . Former Broward County, Florida, sheriff’s deputy Jeffrey Willets and his wife Kathy are sentenced following their conviction for running a prostitution ring out of their home in Tamarac, Florida. Jeffrey Willets is sentenced to one year in jail, 15 months’ house arrest and five years’ probation. Kathy Willets is sentenced to three years’ probation and is ordered to perform 400 hours of community service.

District Judge Shirley Wohl Kram enjoins the Department of Veterans Affairs from continuing a cutoff of income benefits to 13,500 veterans considered mentally incompetent and who have no dependents and $25,000 or more in assets.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Willie Dixon, 76, Chicago-style blues singer and bass player who penned such hits as “Hoochie Koochie Man,” dies of heart failure in Burbank, California. . . . Reports state the former music director of the group New Kids on the Block claimed the group’s members do only 20% of the singing on their albums.

The U.S. space shuttle Discovery lands safely at Edwards Air Force Base, California after carrying out a scientific mission, in which the effects of weightlessness were measured on crystals and on a wide variety of biological subjects.

Jan. 29

Jan. 30

Mel Hein, 82, star center and linebacker for the New York Giants in the 1930s and 1940s who was inducted in 1963 as a charter member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, dies of stomach cancer in San Clemente, California. . . . The Senate votes, 73-18, in favor of reregulating the cable television industry.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 31

Feb. 1

Feb. 2

Feb. 3

298—February 4–9, 1992

World Affairs

Feb. 6

Feb. 7

Feb. 8

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

An off-duty officer of the Royal Ulster Constabulary opens fire on the Belfast office of Sinn Fein, killing three people and wounding two others. The attack coincides with a visit to Belfast by Irish president Robinson and a rally to protest terrorism. . . . In the wake of controversy over admitting a leader of a radical Palestinian organization into France for medical treatment, Pres. Mitterrand refuses to order a government shake-up . . . Snowfall that started Jan. 31 in Turkey reportedly has killed at least 170 people.

Reports confirm that Sudan has devalued its currency for the third time since Gen. Omar Hassan Ahmed el-Bashir seized power in 1989.

The UN Security Council announces that it will continue to impose economic sanctions against Iraq and charges Iraq with failing to cooperate with ongoing UN efforts to monitor and dismantle its weapons of mass destruction.

Two gunmen fire indiscriminately in a legal betting shop in south Belfast. Five men, most of them elderly Roman Catholics, are killed, and at least 12 others are injured. This attack brings the death toll in the first 36 days of 1992 to 26, all of them civilians.

Reports confirm that Eitan Livni (born Yerucham Bzozowitch), 72, one of the leading members of the Irgun, the militant Jewish group that fought for the creation of an independent Israel in British-mandated Palestine in the 1940s and who was elected to the Israeli Knesset in the 1970s, has died in Israel.

Reports indicate the World Bank has approved a $300 million loan to Peru. . . . Data shows Panama has repaid the World Bank $220.3 million in overdue interest, principal and penalties, making the country eligible for new loans. . . . Reports confirm the World Bank and other international aid organizations have assembled a $672 million package to help Ethiopia rebuild its economy and infrastructure after decades of civil war.

Great Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, 65, marks the 40th anniversary of her accession to the throne with a celebration in London’s Hyde Park. . . . During a tour of the Baltics to formally reopen U.S. embassies in the three countries, U.S. vice president Quayle offers $18 million in economic aid. . . . Denmark announces that it will ban the use and production of ozone-harming chemicals by the end of 1995.

A representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees states that refugees fleeing civil war in neighboring Somalia are arriving in Kenya by the thousands and puts the total number of Somali refugees in Kenya at 90,000, up from 15,000 in November 1991.

UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali announces a restructuring of the top offices in the Secretariat to reduce bureaucracy and give Boutros-Ghali more time to spend on peacemaking.

Russian president Yeltsin and French president Mitterrand sign the first independent friendship agreement reached between the independent Russian Federation and a Western country since the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991.

Riots break out in Algeria.

Foreign Minister Shaharyar Khan of Pakistan reveals that his nation is now capable of building an atomic bomb, but he states that Pakistan has so far refrained from constructing such a weapon in the interest of adhering to nuclear nonproliferation agreements.

Riots in Algiers, the capital, and other towns in Algeria die down. At least 40 people have been killed in the fighting that started Feb. 7.

Three of the seven guerrilla factions embroiled in Afghanistan’s 13year-old civil war announce that they will accept a United Nationsproposed initiative to form an interim government and bring an end to hostilities.

Feb. 4

Feb. 5

Europe

Reports start to surface of a World Bank internal memorandum suggesting that “dirty industries” that pose high environmental risks be transferred to underdeveloped nations. The memo provokes angry protests.

In Venezuela, heavy fighting breaks out in an attempted coup by the Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement. Loyalist troops defeat the rebels. Reports state that 133 officers and 953 enlisted men were arrested for taking part in the coup attempt. The AP reports 17 soldiers dead and 51 wounded. In Caracas, morgue officials state an additional 42 civilians died. . . . Gulf Canada plans to pull out of a project to develop the Hibernia oil fields off the Newfoundland coast.

Official data show that six people in Argentina died of cholera, the first reported in Argentina since the 1991 cholera epidemic started in Peru, killing 4,000 people.

Reports conclude that a crackdown on Muslims by the military junta ruling Myanmar has resulted in an influx of about 50,000 Muslim refugees into neighboring Bangladesh. Many women report having been raped by Burmese soldiers.

Police close down the main headquarters of the FIS in Algiers, and the military ruling council in Algeria imposes a yearlong state of emergency. . . . A chartered plane carrying French tourists to a resort in Senegal crash-lands near the Senegalese village of Kafountine, killing 30 people.

Feb. 9

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 4–9, 1992—299

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A civil-liability trial concerning official responsibility for the 1971 prison uprising in Attica, New York, in which 42 people died and more than 90 were injured, ends with a mixed verdict. The jury rules the constitutional rights of Attica inmates were violated after state police retook the prison, but exonerates three key officials: Vincent Mancusi, John Monahan, and the late Russell G. Oswald. The only individual held liable is Karl Pfeil, who had been a deputy warden at Attica.

Reports state that the Bush administration has decided to replace the U.S. ambassador to the UN, Thomas R. Pickering. Pickering is reassigned as ambassador to India and is replaced by Edward Perkins. . . . The Bush administration announces plans to modify its trade embargo against Haiti in an effort to increase pressure on the de facto government and restore some jobs for impoverished Haitians.

Congress passes a $2.7 billion measure authorizing an additional 13 weeks of unemployment benefits for workers who exhausted both their standard 26 weeks of state unemployment benefits and the 13–20 weeks of extended federal benefits approved in December 1991.

A group of 64 researchers upbraid the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society for paying too little attention to environmental sources of the disease.

Pres. Bush is described as “amazed” when he sees bar-code scanners while visiting the National Grocers Association in Orlando. His response to the technology that has been in supermarkets for a decade is the subject of editorial cartoons and satirical commentary portraying Bush as out of touch with everyday life.

Dr. Jack Kevorkian, a retired pathologist, is arrested on two murder charges for the Oct. 1991 deaths of two women who used his “suicide machine.”. . . A study conducted by the Educational Testing Service shows that U.S. schoolchildren score lower than children in most other countries in an international survey of mathematics and science achievement.

The House votes, 217-192, to create a special taskforce to investigate allegations that officials in Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign arranged to delay the release of U.S. hostages held in Iran in order to prevent the reelection of then-president Jimmy Carter.

The Council of Economic Advisers releases its annual Economic Report of the President. The document predicts a recovery beginning weakly in the first quarter of 1992 but accelerating as the year goes on.

A fire breaks out at the Indianapolis Athletic Club, killing two firefighters and a hotel guest.

The CDC finds that the U.S. recorded its lowest-ever infant mortality rate in 1989. . . . A San Francisco cab driver, Holden Charles Hollom, is ordered to pay $24,595 to a mugger he caught and pinned with his car in May 1989. The judgment against Hollom prompts a public outcry. . . . U.S. district judge Sarokin rules some 1,500 previously secret documents from the Council for Tobacco Research may be used in a lawsuit on behalf of Peter Rossi, a smoker who died of lung cancer in 1982.

A Kentucky Air National Guard plane crashes into a motel in Evansville, Indiana while on a training flight. At least 16 people are killed, including the plane’s five crew members.

California governor Pete Wilson (R) declares a state of emergency in San Diego due to the Feb. 2 pipeline rupture. The announcement qualifies the city for state disaster-relief funds. . . . The Senate votes, 96-0, to approve a measure calling for a faster phaseout of the worldwide production of CFCs and bromines in response to NASA’s Feb. 3 report.

Reports suggest that scientists have discovered a genetic flaw that grows bigger through successive generations, contradicting the basic tenets of genetics that holds that genes are handed down unchanged. . . . A study shows that Retin-A cream, touted for its power to smooth facial wrinkles, can also lighten liver spots. . . . The New England Journal of Medicine states that a synthetic form of vitamin D reduces the risk of bone fractures in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis.

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco rules that virtually all the major provisions of California’s campaign-finance reform law, approved by state voters in 1988, are unconstitutional because they favor incumbents.

Reports suggest that Pres. Bush submitted a finding in late 1991 notifying Congress that his administration was undertaking covert actions to overthrow Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

Pres. Bush signs a $2.7 billion measure authorizing an additional 13 weeks of unemployment benefits passed by Congress Feb. 4. . . . A U.S. appeals court in Washington, D.C., strikes down a 1986 decision by the comptroller of the currency that allows national banks to sell insurance in small towns. . . . Reports indicate a civil court in Mississippi has ordered GeorgiaPacific Corp. to pay $3.2 million in damages to two residents near their plant because of the corporation’s dioxin emissions

Scientists reveal that chimpanzees apparently treat illnesses by consuming leaves that contain natural drugs.

Former White House press secretary James Brady and his wife Sarah are heckled by gun-control opponents at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.

Former president Ronald Reagan, speaking via videotape to a dinner meeting sponsored by a conservative group in New Hampshire, endorses Pres. Bush’s reelection effort.

Feb. 5

Feb. 6

Karen De Layne Jacobs Greenberger, convicted in 1991 of hiring three men to kidnap and murder Hollywood film producer Roy Radin over a dispute regarding profits from the film The Cotton Club, is sentenced in Los Angeles to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The 16th Olympic Winter Games in Albertville, France, opens with athletes from 63 countries, the most ever represented at a winter Olympiad.

In response to reports started Feb. 7 about covert operations in Iraq, White House chief of staff Samuel Skinner states that rumors of stepped-up U.S. efforts to oust Pres. Hussein refer solely to “economic pressure.”

A series of torrential rainstorms begin in Southern California.

Feb. 4

Basketball’s Earvin (Magic) Johnson comes out of retirement to lead the Western Conference team to a 153-113 victory over the Eastern Conference at the NBA’s All-Star Game.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 7

Feb. 8

Feb. 9

300—February 10–14, 1992

Feb. 10

World Affairs

Europe

Officials confirm that, during a meeting of the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (Cocom), Hungary was freed from Western restrictions on the transfer of militarily useful high technology. Hungary is the first post-communist nation in Eastern Europe to be completely free of the curbs. . . . An airlift of aid from 14 countries and destined for the Commonwealth of Independent States begins.

Erich Mielke, the man who led East Germany’s state security agency from the mid-1950s through 1989, goes on trial for two killings committed in 1931.

Feb. 13

Feb. 14

In Algeria, militant Muslims kill eight policemen. Six of the officers are ambushed in their car. . . . In South Africa, in response to barricades erected by whites Jan. 30, the Transvaal government backs down from a plan to allow black squatters to resettle in Bloubosrand when it declares that the impoverished squatters cannot move there unless they can afford conventional houses.

Data show that Britain’s current recession is the longest since World War II. . . . Police discover a bomb in a telephone booth near the entrance to Downing Street after an anonymous tip. The discovery comes hours before British prime minister Major meets with Northern Ireland political leaders at his Downing Street residence. . . . U.S. secretary of state Baker visits former Soviet republics. . . . Former finance minister Albert Reynolds is formally confirmed as Irish prime minister Reynolds dismisses eight of the 14 members of cabinet and changes the portfolios of three others.

Feb. 11

Feb. 12

Africa & the Middle East

A UN-affiliated International Atomic Energy Agency team reports Iran’s nuclear program is intended solely for peaceful purposes. . . . The World Health Organization discloses that more than 1 million more people have become infected with HIV since April 1991, and it states that 90% of the new cases originated in heterosexual sex. . . . Libya agrees to cooperate with a French probe into the 1988 bombing of UTA Flight 772 over Niger.

The crews of six SU-24 bombers fly their planes from their base in western Ukraine to Smolensk in Russia in a de facto defection from the Ukraine, which claimed control over all former Soviet military equipment and troops on its territory. . . . The U.K. announces it will ban the use and production of ozone-harming chemicals by the end of 1995.

Former U.S. attorney general Richard Thornburgh accepts an offer to become UN undersecretary general for administration and management.

Italy’s highest court orders a new trial for 13 right-wing activists in the 1980 bombing of the Bologna train station that killed 85 people.

International talks on global warming are held at UN headquarters in New York City.

Leaders of the republics of the Commonwealth of Independent States fail to reach an agreement on a unified military since three republics, Ukraine, Moldova, and Azerbaijan, have refused to back the maintenance of a common defense force. . . . The Washington Post reports that as many as 80 African, Asian, and Arab students were assaulted by skinheads, or neo-Nazi youths, in Budapest, the Hungarian capital, over the past year.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Reports confirm that Cuba has signed a barter agreement with Latvia.

Two Peruvian police guards are killed and two others wounded when a car bomb explodes outside the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Lima, Peru’s capital.

The Jukuns, a loosely organized farming community, attacks the town of Bantaji, marking their first raid of the Hausa-Fulani, the largest of Nigeria’s 250 ethnic groups.

Two U.S. journalists, NPR reporter Alan Tomlinson and Chicago Tribune reporter Nat Sheppard, and their interpreters are detained in Haiti overnight by rural forces known as section chiefs.

Representatives of the two warring factions in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, pledge to fire only in selfdefense. . . . Arab raiders infiltrate an Israeli army camp at Ein Ibrahim, near the occupied West Bank, stabbing three soldiers to death before escaping. . . . Under the threat of military retaliation, the FIS calls off a planned march in Algiers. Gunfire and an explosion are reported in the Casbah, and reports suggest that five people have died in the blast.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 10–14, 1992—301

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

A dissertation by Kay Krohne, a graduate student who served in the navy for 21 years before retiring in 1989 with the rank of commander, finds that sexual harassment is pervasive in the U.S. Navy. The study receives a lot of publicity.

The last of six defendants charged in the rape of a female student at an off-campus house at St. John’s University, Michael Calandrillo, 22, pleads guilty to sexual misconduct and unlawful imprisonment in return for a lighter punishment. . . . Johnny Garrett, who was granted temporary reprieve from execution after Gov. Ann Richards (D, Tex.) received a plea for clemency from Pope John Paul II, is put to death. . . . Gary Spath, a white police officer, is acquitted of manslaughter in the 1990 shooting death of a black youth, Phillip Pannell, that had touched off rioting in Teaneck, N.J.

Although it is not immediately reported, two nuclear-powered submarines, one belonging to the U.S. Navy and one from the former Soviet Union, collide in international waters in the Barents Sea, north of the Russian city of Murmansk. There are no injuries or serious damages.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Alex Haley, 70, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Roots (1976), which was made into one of the most popular TV miniseries in history, dies of a heart attack in Seattle. . . . Boxing champion Mike Tyson is convicted of raping Desiree Washington, 18, in Indianapolis in 1991.

House Democrats begin to battle the Bush administration and House Republicans over drafting new tax legislation. . . . Pres. Bush issues an executive order directing U.S. producers of chemicals that damage the ozone layer to end all production of those chemicals by the end of 1995, five years earlier than planned. Bush’s order is authorized under a provision of the Clean Air Act of 1990.

The National Institutes of Health’s Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee clears the way for the first commercial trial of gene therapy. Previous gene therapy experiments were conducted by the government.

President Bush formally announces his candidacy for reelection in a speech in Washington, D.C. . . . A report by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation states that girls face widespread bias in classrooms across the U.S. . . . The subject of how Arkansas governor Bill Clinton (D) avoided serving in the military during the Vietnam War continues to plague his campaign.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average surges 25.26 points to a new record high of 3276.83. . . . The Treasury sells $11.03 billion of new 10-year notes at an average yield of 7.29%—the lowest yield on a 10-year bond since 1987.

Due to continued torrential rains that began Feb. 9, California govenor Pete Wilson (R) declares a state of emergency in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, making them eligible for disaster relief from the state. . . . Richard H. Truly, the administrator of NASA announces his resignation, effective April 1.

Timothy Phelps of New York’s Newsday refuses to identify the sources of his information about allegations of sexual harassment made by Anita Hill during the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. . . . Reports indicate Patrick Lee Frank, 41, was indicted on federal felony charges for setting a total of 20 fires at churches in Florida and Tennessee. . . . Judge Sheward overturns clemency grants that former Ohio governor Celeste (D) extended to seven death-row inmates four days before he left office in January 1991.

The SEC votes in favor of steps to increase shareholders’ power to influence executive compensation. . . . Ford Motor Co. posts a deficit of $2.26 billion in 1991, its greatest yearly loss ever. . . . The EPA announces that it will allow continued use of a family of chemical pesticides that it had previously proposed to ban. The reversal follows a new study that shows the chemicals pose less of a carcinogenic risk than earlier research indicated.

The New England Journal of Medicine finds that early treatment with the antiviral drug AZT does not help patients with the AIDS virus live longer, although it does delay the onset of AIDS symptoms.

Reports confirm that a two-year investigation by agents of the Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska broke up a ring of hunters and buyers illegally trading in walrus tusks and polar-bear pelts. . . . Lawyers for former Drexel Burnham Lambert Group Inc. bond chief Michael Milken reach a tentative agreement with government regulators and private individuals for Milken to pay $900 million to settle lawsuits against him.

Feb. 10

Feb. 11

Feb. 12

Feb. 13

The National Book Critics Circle presents awards to writers including Jane Smiley and Susan Faludi. . . . Toni Nieminen of Finland, 16, is the youngest gold medalist in Winter Games history, and U.S. skater Bonnie Blair wins her third gold, the most ever for a U.S. female athlete at the Winter Games.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 14

302—February 15–19, 1992

Feb. 15

Feb. 16

World Affairs

Europe

OPEC oil ministers agree to cut total OPEC oil production by slightly more than 1 million barrels a day by reintroducing country production quotas.

Gerhard Riege, a member of the German parliament, hangs himself after it was reported that he was a Stasi informer in the 1950s.

Five predominantly Muslim former Soviet republics, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, become members of the Economic Cooperation Organization during a two-day summit of the group in Teheran. The republics join charter members Iran, Turkey, and Pakistan in what Iran publicly hails as the nucleus of an Islamic common market in the region.

A group of Serbia-backed politicians who formed a second Krajinan parliament in the town of Glina name Milan Martic president of Krajina in place of Milan Babic. . . . British security forces shoot and kill four suspected Provisional IRA operatives and capture two other wounded men in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. . . . George Mann MacBeth, 60, editor of the BBC program Poet’s Voice, 1958–76, dies of motor neuron disease in Tuam, County Galway, Ireland.

Sheik Abbas al-Musawi, the leader of the Lebanese Shi’ite organization Hezbollah is slain when Israeli helicopters attack his motorcade in southern Lebanon. Six others are also killed. Despite the attack, Lebanon and Syria announce they will still attend Mideast peace talks. . . . Separately, Israel and its allied Lebanese militias launch air strikes in retaliation for the Feb. 14 attack. . . . Zairean troops fire on demonstration of prodemocracy Christians, killing at least 13 people.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Janio da Silva Quadros, 75, president of Brazil in 1961 whose abrupt resignation after seven months in office plunged Brazil into political chaos, dies of lung and kidney failure in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

U.S. secretary of state Baker meets in Moscow with leaders of the Russian Federation to discuss the disarmament of the superpowers’ nuclear arsenals. . . . Ukrainian president Leonid Kravchuk called the pilots’ Feb. 12 action a “hijacking” and demands that Russia return the planes and crews. . . . Polish finance minister Karol Lutkowski resigns, after less than two months in the position, to protest the country’s anti-inflation policy.

Feb. 17

Feb. 18

Africa & the Middle East

Judge Ahmed Zawi, the head of a Libyan investigation into the 1989 bombing of Pan American World Airways Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, rejects U.S. and British demands for the extradition of two suspects, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah and Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi.

Feb. 19

Government figures show that Germany posted a deficit on its current account in 1991 for the first time since 1981. . . . British officials estimate that there are between 375 and 450 active IRA operatives in Northern Ireland and another 250 in the Irish Republic. The number of Protestant paramilitaries is estimated at 70–85.

The Hezbollah leadership council elects Sheik Hussan Nasrallah to succeed Sheik Abbas al-Musawi as its secretary general. . . . A special congress of Tanzania’s governing Revolutionary Party approves a proposal to end one-party rule.

The Hungarian parliament passes a law voiding all convictions for political crimes, including conspiracy, rebellion, and illegal emigration, prosecuted by the Communists between 1963 and 1989.

Yitzhak Rabin edges long-time rival Shimon Peres in a primary election for the leadership of Israel’s centerleft Labor Party. . . . South Africa’s ruling National Party suffers a severe defeat by the pro-apartheid Conservative Party in an all-white by-election for the parliamentary seat of Potchefstroom. The results are viewed as a measurement of white discontent with president de Klerk’s political reforms. . . . Hezbollah guerrillas and Israeli fighters continue to exchange fire in the Israeli-controlled “security zone” in southern Lebanon.

Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain arrives in Sydney, Australia, to begin a visit to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the founding of Sydney and to meet P.M. Paul Keating, who took office in December 1991.

A Cuban firing squad executes Luis Miguel Almeida Perez and Rene Salmeron Mendoza, who were convicted of killing three policemen during an early January attempt to steal a boat and escape from Cuba.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 15–19, 1992—303

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

During an acrimonious NAACP annual board meeting, Benjamin Hooks announces that he is resigning as executive director, a post he has held since 1977. . . . Reports state the five leading Democratic candidates have pledged not to use $100,000 in “soft-money” contributions, provided that the Republican nominee makes the same pledge. . . . Serial killer Jeffrey L. Dahmer, who pled guilty to charges that he murdered 15 young men, is found sane by a jury in Milwaukee and therefore responsible for his crimes.

The Portland Oregonian newspaper announces that it will no longer use Indian-related names to refer to sports teams. . . . William Howard Schuman, 81, founding president of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, 1962–69, and president of the Juilliard School of Music, 1945–62, dies in New York City.

The five major Democratic candidates debate at St. Anselm’s College in Bedford, New Hampshire. The debate is aired on CNN.

Martina Navratilova wins a record 158th professional tennis title and breaks the record for both men and women with the victory. . . . Angela Carter, 51, British writer whose short story was turned into the 1984 film The Company of Wolves, dies of cancer in London.

Jeffrey Dahmer is sentenced to serve 15 consecutive life terms in prison. . . . Houston mayor Robert Lanier, elected in December 1991, removes Police Chief Elizabeth Watson, the only female police chief in a major U.S. city. . . . Georgia governor Zell Miller (D) names Leah Sears-Collins as Georgia’s first female state Supreme Court justice. Sears-Collins is also Georgia’s second black justice and the youngest member of the state Supreme Court since the Civil War.

Reports show that the torrential rains that lashed much of Southern California as of Feb. 9 caused the worst flooding in the state in decades. At least eight people are reported killed and five missing. . . . A U.S. National Academy of Sciences paper argues that the neem, a species of tropical tree, contains so many medicinal compounds that it “may eventually benefit every person on the planet.”

In the nation’s first 1992 presidential primary, New Hampshire voters deal a blow to Pres. Bush when he receives a narrow 16-point margin of victory over Republican challenger Patrick Buchanan. On the Democratic side, former Massachusetts senator Paul Tsongas is the winner, but Arkansas governor Bill Clinton keeps his own candidacy alive by finishing a strong second.

The chief of naval operations, Admiral Frank Kelso, issues a directive that makes even first-time violators of sexual harassment regulations subject to dismissal in the wake of a highly publicized dissertation released Feb. 10. . . . Gen. James Hilliard Polk, 80, commander of U.S. army forces in Europe during the cold war, dies of cancer in El Paso, Texas. . . . U.S. officials publicly reveal the Feb. 11 collision in international waters in the Barents Sea.

A panel of the U.S. District of Colombia Court of Appeals rules, 2-1, that an FCC policy giving preference to women in awarding broadcast licenses is unconstitutional. . . . The Supreme Court accepts a plea from a Texas deathrow inmate whose lawyers developed evidence they claim prove his innocence.

U.S. officials deport Joseph Doherty, a member of the Provisional IRA, to Northern Ireland, ending his nine-year battle for political asylum in the U.S.

Raisa Smetanina, 39, of the Unified Team earns a record 10th Winter Games medal when she joins in the winning 20-kilometer cross-country relay team. She is also the oldest winter gold medalist.

Alberto Tomba of Italy successfully defends his 1988 Olympic gold medal in the men’s giant slalom and becomes the fist Alpine skier to win gold medals in successive Olympics.

The Senate votes, 94-4, in favor of a complex energy bill intended to encourage conservation and the use of alternative-fuel vehicles. . . . In the semiannual monetary policy report, Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan is cautiously optimistic that the economy would emerge from its current state of stagnation in the second quarter of 1992 but warns that the current outlook for recovery is uncertain.

The Journal of the National Cancer Institute finds that a combination of the acne medicine Accutane and alpha-interferon injections show promise in fighting cancer where other treatments fail. . . . Members of the House Science, Space and Technology subcommittee on space condemn what they call the forced resignation of NASA’s administrator Richard H. Truly.

Pioneering sex therapists William Masters, 76, and Virginia Johnson, 67, announce that they are filing for divorce after 21 years of marriage.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 15

Feb. 16

Feb. 17

Feb. 18

Feb. 19

304—February 20–25, 1992

World Affairs

Feb. 20

Feb. 21

Europe

Judge Ahmed Zawi, the head of a Libyan inquiry into the Pan Am 103 bombing, announces his resignation, complaining that the U.S. and Britain have ignored his requests for detailed evidence against the two suspects. . . . . UN special investigator Max van der Stoel states his office compiled a list of 17,000 people believed to have been slain by Iraqi soldiers, and he calls for the permanent installation of UN human-rights monitors in Iraq. The UN Security Council unanimously approves a resolution that could send nearly 14,400 peacekeepers to Croatia to enforce the truce in the Yugoslav civil war and to protect the ethnic Serb minority in Croatia.

The Israeli army conducts a 24hour raid into Lebanon, seizing and partially demolishing two villages in an effort to halt rocket attacks on northern Israel by guerrillas from the Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah. . . . President de Klerk stuns South Africa by announcing a whites-only referendum on the popularity of his political reforms aimed at transferring power to the black majority.

The original Krajina parliament, meeting in the enclave’s capital of Knin, confirms Milan Babic’s claim to the presidency and dismisses Milan Martic, who was appointed by a second parliament Feb. 16.

Asia & the Pacific

Roberto D’Aubuisson Arrieta, 48, Salvadoran political leader who founded the ruling Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) party and who was accused of leading the right-wing death squads that killed thousands of people during El Salvador’s civil war in the 1980s, dies of a heart attack in San Salvador.

Former Australian prime minister Bob Hawke announces his resignation as the federal member of Parliament for Wills, a northern industrial suburb of Melbourne. . . . When Queen Elizabeth II opens a session of Parliament in Australia, two Labor Party members of the state parliament boycott her visit and hold their own ceremony in an office above the parliamentary chamber.

Israeli forces pull out of Lebanon. Seven guerrillas, two Israeli soldiers, and two Lebanese civilians are killed, and eight UN troops are wounded by crossfire. A five-yearold Israeli girl is killed by a rocket strike, marking the first time in more than a decade that an Israeli civilian is killed by a rocket from Lebanon. The rocket assaults taper off after two Lebanese Shi’ite leaders call for an end to the attacks. . . . Reports suggest that the Sudanese military government has forced more than 400,000 squatters into the desert.

Avraham Harman, 77, Israeli ambassador to the U.S., 1959–68, dies of pneumonia in Jerusalem.

Feb. 23

Feb. 25

The Americas

Maltese prime minister Eddie Fenech Adami wins reelection when his Nationalist Party takes 51.8% of the vote in general elections. . . . Markos Vafiades, 86, a founding member of the Greek Communist Party who led the communist army in the Greek civil war of 1946–49 and was elected to Parliament in 1989, dies after a stroke in Athens.

Feb. 22

Feb. 24

Africa & the Middle East

Exiled Haitian president JeanBertrand Aristide signs an agreement with leaders of Haiti’s parliament that sets out general terms for his return to Haiti as president. The agreement requires parliamentary ratification in Haiti.

Arab and Israeli negotiators begin their third round of direct bilateral peace talks at a summit in Washington, D.C.

Australian aborigines protesting outside Parliament House tell reporters that Britain’s queen has no role in Australian politics.

Nearly 70 queens and wives of heads of state attend a conference in Geneva, Switzerland, on the plight of rural women in the Third World.

Former Japanese premier Zenko Suzuki denies that he took a bribe while in office when he testifies before the Diet.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 20–25, 1992—305

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Samuel Pittman Singletary pleads guilty to one federal felony count of tax evasion in Washington, D.C. His plea represents the first conviction in an ongoing investigation into charges of influence-peddling and mismanagement at HUD under Pres. Reagan. . . . A special threejudge federal court in Massachusetts rules that the 1990 census count is flawed.

The Defense Department and Congress begin to struggle to redefine the role of the military and to determine U.S. vital interests in the wake of the 1991 disintegration of the Soviet Union.

Eugene Robert Black, 93, investment banker who served as president of the World Bank, 1949–62, dies in Southampton, New York. . . . The Commerce Department reports that the merchandise trade deficit shrank in 1991 to $66.20 billion, the smallest gap since 1983. However, the trade gap rose sharply at the end of 1991, to a seasonally adjusted $5.93 billion in December from $4.17 billion in November.

The National Science Foundation finds U.S. spending on research fell in 1990 for the first time since the 1970s, even as foreign competitors increased their research and development finds. . . . Reports suggest that scientists have discovered a new way in which radiation caused genetic damage. . . . A study shows that people who overuse a common type of inhaled asthma medicine increase their risk of dying from a severe asthma attack.

Dick York, 63, actor who played Darrin Stephens in the TV series “Bewitched,” 1964–69, dies in Grand Rapids, Michigan. . . . Republican Patrick Buchanan describes the NEA as “the upholstered playpen of the arts and crafts auxiliary of the Eastern liberal establishment.”

California health authorities confirm that 65 people who were passengers on an Aerolineas Argentinas flight Feb. 14 from Buenos Aires to Los Angeles with a stopover in Peru contracted cholera or its symptoms. U.S. health officials state they do not expect the number of passengers affected by the disease to increase, because its five-day incubation period has passed. . . . The Senate votes, 931, to approve a bill extending federal student-aid programs for higher education through fiscal 1997.

The Bush administration announces the lifting of sanctions that block the shipment of certain hightechnology items to China.

The chairman of the NEA, John E. Frohnmayer, is forced to resign. . . . Former world heavyweight boxing champion Trevor Berbick is convicted of rape by a jury in Miami.

A Swiss speed skier, Nicolas Bochatay, is killed when he runs into a snow-grooming machine hidden by a mound. . . . Speed skier Michael Prufer of France sets a world record by reaching a speed of 142.165 mph.

In Maine caucuses, former California governor Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. wins a surprise secondplace finish behind former senator Paul Tsongas (D, Mass.). . . . The five leading presidential candidates and Larry Agran, a former mayor of Irvine, California, debate in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The debate is televised nationally on C-Span.

The New York Times reports that the Rio de Janeiro office of Brazil’s federal police is setting up a hotline with the Miami office of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The hotline is intended to help officials in both countries break up arms-trafficking rings that smuggle high-powered weapons into Brazil from the U.S.

Nina Totenberg of NPR refuses to reveal her source of information concerning allegations of sexual harassment made by Anita Hill in 1991 during Clarence Thomas’s confirmation hearings. . . . The Supreme Court accepts an appeal from Walter Nixon Jr., an impeached and convicted former U.S. District Court judge who argues that a shortcut used by the Senate in his impeachment proceedings violated his constitutional rights.

The Supreme Court, in an 8-1 ruling, denies an appeal by Haitian refugees to end the U.S. government’s policy of forced repatriation of refugees whose claims for political asylum has been denied. . . . Secretary of State Baker tells a congressional panel that the Bush administration will grant $10 billion in loan guarantees to Israel over the next five years only if Israel halts all its settlement activity in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

A federal district judge in Miami approves a settlement between Florida state and federal regulators to preserve Florida’s Everglades National Park and Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. . . . General Motors Corp., the world’s largest industrial company, announces a loss of $4.45 billion for 1991. The loss, the greatest ever by a U.S. company, compares with a deficit of $1.99 billion in 1990.

Rising Sun by Michael Crichton tops the bestseller list.

The Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that the use of excessive force by prison guards against an inmate may be considered a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment even if it does not result in serious injury to the inmate. . . . Nebraska senator Bob Kerrey easily wins the Democratic South Dakota primary. Pres. Bush, whose GOP challenger, Patrick Buchanan, is not on the ballot in the state, wins a shallow victory as almost onethird of the Republican electorate vote “uncommitted.”

The Senate votes to renew China’s status as a most-favored trading partner of the U.S., but only on the condition that China implement reforms in the areas of human rights, arms proliferation, and trade. . . . The U.S. and Mexico release an “Integrated Border Plan” outlining measures to address pollution problems along their shared borders.

The House approves legislation aimed at preventing fraud by companies offering services via “900” telephone numbers. . . . The RTC admits it lost track of billions of dollars in loans, real estate, and other assets seized from insolvent thrifts during a three-month period in 1990. . . . The Conference Board reports that its consumer confidence index for February fell to 46.3 from a revised 50.2 reading in January. It is the lowest level for consumer confidence since a 43.2 reading in December 1974.

Reports confirm former Boston Herald sportswriter Lisa Olson reached an out-of-court settlement on her sexual harassment suit against New England Patriots officials and three players. . . . At the 34th annual Grammy Awards, singer Natalie Cole wins six Grammys for her work on Unforgettable, including record of the year.

The 16th Olympic Winter Games in Albertville, France, conclude. A record 2,174 athletes competed in the games. Germany, whose athletes earned a games-high 26 medals, competed as a single team for the first time since 1964. U.S. athletes won a total of 11 medals at the games, nine of which, including all five U.S. golds, were won by women athletes.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

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Feb. 21

Feb. 22

Feb. 23

Feb. 24

Feb. 25

306—February 26–March 1, 1992

Feb. 26

Feb. 27

Feb. 28

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

A group of eight international banks approves a $1.5 billion loan for Algeria. . . . The 35-nation board of the IAEA approves measures that increase the body’s powers in limiting the spread of nuclear weapons. . . . Iraq refuses to allow a UN arms team to begin dismantling its Scud missile production plants and other Scud-related equipment and facilities.

Armenian forces overrun the town of Khojaly and kill an undetermined number of unarmed Azerbaijani civilians. Some of the dead are burned, beheaded, scalped, or mutilated. . . . The Irish Supreme Court clears a 14-year-old girl, who said she became pregnant after being raped, to leave the country to obtain an abortion. The court’s decision overturns a previous ban on the girl’s travel that had generated two weeks of controversy in Ireland and abroad.

French judge and senior terrorisminvestigator Jean-Louis Bruguiere issues international warrants for the arrest of four Palestinians in connection with a 1988 terrorist attack that killed three people and wounded more than 80 on the City of Poros, a Greek cruise ship,. . . . At international talks on global warming, the U.S. reverses a policy when it states it will pledge $75 million to assist developing nations in curbing emissions of greenhouse gases.

German chancellor Helmut Kohl and Czechoslovak president Vaclav Havel in Prague sign a new friendship treaty between their nations.

The UN Security Council condemns Iraq for refusing to allow UN arms experts to destroy its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles as mandated by the 1991 cease-fire agreement that ended the Persian Gulf war. . . . International talks on global warming close with delegates from industrialized and developing nations unable to agree on steps to control emissions of the pollutants.

A bomb explodes at the London Bridge railroad station, injuring about 30 people, four seriously. . . . Police close Albania’s largest port, at the city of Durres, and order ships out of the harbor to prevent a recurrence of the 1991 exodus to Italy of 18,000 Albanians. . . . The last unit of ex-Soviet troops in Nagorno-Karabakh is ordered to pull out by the high command of the Commonwealth of Independent States, after three soldiers were killed in artillery attacks by Armenians.

Troops in Niamey, the capital of Niger, mutiny over lack of pay. Soldiers seize the state radio station and broadcast demands for back pay and democratic change.

The Provisional Irish Republican Army claims responsibility for the Feb. 28 bomb in London. . . . Ethnic Serb opposition to a referendum on independence spurs violent clashes and some bombings in several Bosnian cities. . . . A bomb explodes in London’s court district without causing injury.

The Washington Post reports an ethnic war between the Tivs and the Jukuns killed an estimated 5,000 people since October 1991 in the Nigerian state of Taraba. . . . Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, the leader of the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy, Kenya’s leading opposition party, is stoned by Moi supporters at a rally. . . . Middle East Watch and Physicians for Human Rights state that as many as 4,000 Kurdish villages have been forcibly evacuated and destroyed by Iraqi armed forces.

In Albania, a week of looting by mobs of food warehouses ends, leaving at least four dead and more than a dozen injured. . . . Assailants linked to the Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah throw hand grenades at the Neve Shalom synagogue in Istanbul, Turkey, wounding one. . . . A bomb explodes at the White Hart Lane train station in London. The IRA claims responsibility for that attack and for the Feb. 29 bombing. . . . Bosnia-Herzegovina’s citizens support independence in a referendum. . . . Montenegro citizens vote in a referendum to keep Montenegro in a Yugoslav federation with Serbia.

The moderate Islamic party Hamas claims that Algerian security forces have arrested dozens of its members. . . . King Fahd of Saudi Arabia issues a series of decrees aimed at decentralizing political power and protecting certain individual rights. The decrees are believed to be the first attempt to codify Saudi law in a written constitution. . . .In Niger, soldiers again take control of the radio station before they are repelled by other soldiers. About 10,000 protesters gather in Niamey and demand the mutineers to not interfere with the interim government’s plan to establish a democracy.

Feb. 29

March 1

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In response to an agreement reached between Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the Haitian parliament, the U.S. announces that it is returning Ambassador Alvin P. Adams Jr. to Haiti immediately.

An appeals court in the Brazilian state of Acre rules that there was not sufficient evidence to convict Darly Alves da Silva, the man found guilty of planning the 1988 murder of Brazilian environmentalist and rural labor leader Francisco (Chico) Mendes Filho.

A new law allowing Japanese law-enforcement agencies to more vigorously prosecute the yakuza, the nation’s organized crime groups, takes effect.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 26–March 1, 1992—307

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

A Justice Department lawsuit against the North Carolina Republican Party over an intimidating mass mailing in the 1990 reelection campaign of Sen. Jesse Helms (R, N.C.) is settled when GOP officials agree not to repeat such action. . . . The Supreme Court rules unanimously that Title IX of a 1972 education law entitles students at schools receiving federal funds who are victims of sexual harassment to sue for monetary damages. S(amuel) I(chiye) Hayakawa, 85, college president who won fame for breaking up a 1968 student demonstration and went on to serve one controversial term in the U.S. Senate in 1976, dies of a stroke in Greenbrae, California.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Directors of Yankee Atomic Electric Co. vote to permanently shut down the Yankee Rowe nuclear power plant, the oldest one in the nation. . . . The Dow closes at a record 3283.32. . . . The Supreme Court rules the federal government has the right to require a polluter in an upstream state to conform to the pollution standards of a state downstream. . . . The high court rules the Constitution does not guarantee government employees a right to a safe workplace. The House of Representatives passes, 217-165, a bill to halt the forced repatriation of Haitian refugees and allow them to stay at the Guantanamo Bay base for six months. . . . The House Budget Committee adopts a fiscal 1993 spending level for defense that is only 2.7% less than the figure proposed by Pres. Bush in his Jan. 29 budget.

William Aramony, the president of the United Way of America charitable organization since 1970, is forced to resign in the midst of a furor about questionable expenses and management practices. . . . The annual Mardi Gras carnival is held in New Orleans almost two weeks after the black-majority city council weakened a December 1991 ordinance that bars racial, sexual, or other discrimination on the part of the private clubs (known as krewes) that sponsors the parade. In Denver, Colorado, the five major Democratic presidential candidates hold a bitter debate.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Feb. 26

The Senate confirms Barbara Franklin to replace Robert A. Mosbacher as secretary of commerce. It also approves the nomination of Alan Greenspan to serve a second four-year term as head of the Federal Reserve Board. . . . In a partisan vote of 221-209, the House passes a Democratic bill that will lower income taxes for the middle class and raise them on the wealthy.

Golfer Eldrick (Tiger) Woods, 16, becomes the youngest player ever to compete in a PGA tournament at the Los Angeles Open. . . . The Recording Industry Association of America announces that it is ending the use of “long box” compactdisk packaging after environmentalist complaints.

A federal grand jury indicts David Paul, the former chairman of CenTrust Savings Bank of Miami, on charges of fraud and conspiracy.

The Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., opens a temporary exhibition devoted to the television and film series Star Trek.

A memo directs immigration officials to keep Haitian refugees infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base while they apply for asylum.

Feb. 27

Feb. 28

Feb. 29

Debates between Democratic presidential candidates are held in Atlanta, Georgia, and College Park, Maryland.

The Toronto Star publishes 13 articles written by novelist Ernest Hemingway when he was a reporter that were discovered in the newspaper’s archives. . . . John Treacy of Ireland wins the Los Angeles Marathon in 2:12:29. Madina Biktagirova of Belarus is the top woman, running 2:26:23, which breaks the course record by more than three minutes.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 1

308—March 2–7, 1992

March 2

March 3

March 4

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The UN admits Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan to its membership. Since Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus are UN charter members, Georgia is the only republic of the former Soviet Union without a UN seat. The UN also admits San Marino, a landlocked republic located in northern Italy, raising its total membership to 175.

Fighting breaks out between Moldovan security forces and Slavic separatists in the Dniester region of eastern Moldova. . . . Armed ethnic Serbs disrupt traffic in and around Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, by erecting makeshift road blocks on streets throughout the city. Five people are killed in shootings in the city.

Libya initiates legal proceedings against the U.S. and Britain in the World Court. It accuses the two countries of refusing to vouchsafe evidence against the two Pan Am bombing suspects so that they can be tried in Libya. . . . The UN Commission on Human Rights votes, 23-8, to condemn Cuba for human rights violations.

More than 270 miners are killed when an explosion of natural methane gas causes the collapse of a portion of the Incirharmani coal mine, located in the northern Turkish town of Kozlu, on the Black Sea. . . . Hungary’s Constitutional Court, the country’s highest Court, overturns a law passed by Parliament in November 1991 that would have permitted the criminal prosecution of major former officials of the communist era.

Heavily armed police sweep through a park in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, to disperse an encampment of women hungers strikers calling for the release of political prisoners. The police knock four women unconscious. . . . The leaders of the two warring factions in Mogadishu, Somalia, interim president Ali Mahdi Mohammed and General Mohammed Farah Aidid, pledge to observe a UN-brokered cease-fire.

Arab and Israeli negotiators conclude their third round of direct bilateral peace talks in Washington, D.C., without having reached a compromise on a plan for interim Palestinian self-rule in the Israelioccupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Joseph A. Buttinger, 85, leader of Austria’s anti-Nazi socialist underground in the 1930s who, in 1940, helped found what became the International Rescue Committee, devoted to aiding refugees of political, religious, and racial persecution, dies in New York City after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

An Algerian court bans the FIS, a Muslim fundamentalist group. The decision by three judges is open to appeal. . . . Israeli police report they have arrested four Israeli Arabs in connection with the murder of three soldiers at an army bivouac in February. The police believe the suspects are connected with the Lebanese Shi’ite faction Islamic Jihad.

Reports confirm that a total of 122 bodies have been recovered from the Mar. 3 accident in a mine in the northern Turkish town of Kozlu. An estimated 150 bodies remain in the mine, but workers are unable to reach them because of fires that hinder recovery efforts. . . . The Irish Supreme Court releases the full text of its controversial Feb. 26 decision that cleared a 14-year-old girl to travel to Britain for an abortion.

Despite the Mar. 3 accord, Mogadishu’s port is shelled as a UN vessel carrying emergency food is about to dock.

A month after loyal troops thwarted an attempted coup d’etat by midranking military officers, Venezuelan president Carlos Andrés Pérez announces a series of political and economic reforms designed to restore public confidence in his government and ease unpopular economic belt-tightening programs.

Fighting begins in the Armenianheld town of Askeran, in NagornoKarabakh. . . . Ayaz N. Mutalibov is forced to resign as the president of Azerbaijan. Yakub Mamedov, the speaker of the Azerbaijan parliament, assumes the role of acting president, pending new elections. . . . Cyrus Vance, the UN mediator for Yugoslavia, meets with Muslim, ethnic Croat, and ethnic Serb leaders in Sarajevo. The leaders agree to seek a peaceful settlement of their differences.

Data show that southern Africa is experiencing perhaps its worst drought in the 20th century, and the dry spell appears to be creeping northward to encompass the entire eastern side of the continent. . . . Pres. Robert Mugabe declares Zimbabwe’s drought a national disaster and appeals to foreign donors for food, money, and medicine.

Haiti’s interim president, Joseph Nerette, tells the National Assembly that the agreements signed by exiled Haitian president JeanBertrand Aristide in late February are the result of unacceptable foreign intervention in Haiti’s internal affairs and that they violate Haiti’s constitution.

March 5

March 6

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

A new government of Belgium, with Flemish Christian Democrat JeanLuc Dehaene as premier, is sworn in 15 weeks after inconclusive general elections in November 1991. . . . Ehud Sadan, the chief security officer at the Israeli embassy in Turkey, is slain in a car-bomb blast in Ankara, the Turkish capital. Three Turkish bystanders are wounded in the blast. Two groups—Turkish Islamic Holy War and the Islamic Revenge Organization—claim responsibility for the attack in separate telephone calls.

March 7

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 2–7, 1992—309

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Supreme Court, without comment, rejects an appeal by California death-row inmate Robert Alton Harris, who was convicted of killing two teenage boys in 1978.

Pres. Bush vetoes a Senate measure that places conditions in the areas of human rights, arms proliferation, and trade on a renewal of most-favored-nation (MFN) trading status for China.

The Atlanta Journal cites Pres. Bush as saying that his 1990 budget deal, which contained a tax increase, was a mistake. His words are reiterated by the media and politicians. . . . The National Association of Purchasing Management states the Purchasing Managers’ Index in February rose to 52.4% from 47.4% in January. . . . Data shows a record 944,000 U.S. individuals and businesses filed for bankruptcy in 1991, a 21% increase from 1990.

Pioneer 10 marks its 20th year in space. Launched in 1972, the unmanned nuclear-powered U.S. craft is still transmitting data at a distance of 5 billion miles from Earth, the farthest any man-made object has ever traveled.

Long jumper Mike Powell wins the Sullivan Award as 1991’s top amateur athlete in the U.S. . . . Sandy Dennis, 54, actress who won two Tonys and an Oscar in the 1960s, dies from cancer in Westport, Connecticut.

Seven states hold Democratic presidential primaries, and three states hold Republican primaries. Former Massachusetts senator Paul Tsongas and Arkansas governor Bill Clinton (D) win states crucial to their campaigns, while former California governor Edmund (Jerry) Brown (D) pulls off a surprise victory in Colorado. Pres. Bush wins all three Republican primaries, but voters hand Patrick Buchanan around onethird of the vote in each state.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average hits a new all-time record high, closing at 3290.25.

The National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina, reports that the winter of 1991–92 was the warmest winter on record in the U.S. since it had an average temperature in the 48 contiguous states of 36.87ºF (2.7ºC).

Renowned African-American dancer Katherine Dunham, 82, continues her fast started Feb. 1 to protest the U.S. policy of repatriating Haitian refugees, despite pleas from exiled Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and others around the world.

The Competitiveness Policy Council, created by Congress under the Trade Act of 1988, releases its first report, which urges the government to reform its policies on taxes, trade, education, technology, and health care. . . . Cecil Jacobson is convicted by a federal jury on 52 felony counts of fraud and perjury. The charges stem from accusations that Jacobson failed to tell some patients he artificially inseminated them with his own sperm and that he falsely told other patients they were pregnant through his treatments when they were not.

Pres. Bush’s $1.52 trillion budget, submitted in January, is rejected on a vote of 370-42 in the House.

The Journal of the American Medical Association reports that, for people with naturally high blood pressure, losing weight is the best way to lower it.

Pare Lorentz, 86, filmmaker known for his socially conscious documentaries during the era of Pres. Roosevelt, dies of cancer in Armonk, New York. . . . Nestor Almendros, 61, cinematographer who made more than 40 films, including Days of Heaven (1978), Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) and Sophie’s Choice (1982), dies of lymphoma in New York City.

The board of the United Way of America charitable organization, names Kenneth W. Dam, a vice president at IBM, as its interim president. . . . Former governor Edmund (Jerry) Brown (Calif.), Governor Bill Clinton (Ark.), Senator Tom Harkin (Iowa), and former senator Paul Tsongas (Mass.) meet in a debate televised by ABC News. . . . A poor showing in the Mar. 3 Junior Tuesday primaries leads Sen. Bob Kerrey (Neb.) to drop out of the race.

The New York Times cites CBO figures that show the top 1% of U.S. families accounted for 60% of the gain in after-tax income for the population as a whole between 1977 and 1989. . . . The House votes, 215-201, to pass a $1.5 trillion Democratic budget plan for the 1993 fiscal year. . . . The American Stock Exchange receives SEC approval to establish a new market, the Emerging Company Marketplace (ECM), with lower-than-usual financial standards.

The federal Bureau of Reclamation partially rescinds cuts in its water deliveries to California farmers announced in February, citing recent heavy rains. . . . The New England Journal of Medicine finds that sigmoidoscopy, a procedure for viewing the inside of the colon, can cut the death rate from colon cancer by up to 70%.

A widely publicized computer virus called Michelangelo is triggered. It spurs widespread concern among computer users throughout the world, but it causes little damage.

The Virginia state legislature approves legislation that requires unmarried women under age 18 to notify at least one parent before they can obtain an abortion. . . . Texas state District Court judge Michael T. McSpadden agrees to accept a guilty plea from Allen Butler, an accused child molester, and he approves a request that Butler face castration rather than a prison sentence. The agreement causes a furor.

A federal jury in Alexandria, Virginia, convicts James E Gaines, a former navy deputy assistant secretary, of bribe-taking, theft, and conversion of government property in the Pentagon procurement scandal. The jury acquits him of a conspiracy charge. Gaines is the second highest-ranking former navy official convicted in Operation Ill Wind.

In a preliminary ruling, the U.S. Commerce Department finds that Canada’s provinces unfairly subsidize the price of lumber cut in publicly owned forests. In response, the department states it will impose a duty of 14.48% on Canadian softwood lumber exports to the U.S.

Arkansas governor Bill Clinton captures 63% of the vote in a Damocratic primary in South Carolina, while Massachusetts senator Paul Tsongas wins a Democratic caucus in Arizona, taking 34% of the delegates. In Wyoming, Clinton wins a caucus with 28% of the vote, while on the Republican side, Pres. Bush wins 67% of the vote, to 26% for Buchanan.

A draft of a classified Defense Department internal policy paper that calls for the U.S. to use military force if necessary to maintain its position as the only remaining superpower is made public.

The New York Times reports that presidential candidate Governor Bill Clinton (D, Ark.) and his wife, Hillary, were involved in complex dealings that may have involved possible conflicts of interest with the owner of a failed savings and loan institution.

March 2

March 3

March 4

March 5

March 6

March 7

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Includes elections, federal-state relations, civil rights and liberties, crime, the judiciary, education, health care, poverty, urban affairs, and population.

Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

310—March 8–13, 1992

World Affairs

March 10

In the first open sign of dissent with Pres. H. Kamuzu Banda’s rule, Malawi’s seven Roman Catholic bishops and monsignors issue a pastoral letter praising the country’s substantial development since independence but citing several “areas of concern.”

A North Korean freighter believed by the U.S. to be carrying Scud ballistic missiles bound for Syria reaches the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, having eluded attempts by U.S. naval forces in the Persian Gulf to intercept it. . . . Great Britain, Turkey, and the 46-nation Islamic Conference begin separate peace missions in the Transcaucasus conflict. . . . In Brussels, Lord Carrington of Great Britain reconvenes the EC peace talks on Yugoslavia.

Three policemen die in a bomb explosion in the interior ministry building in Georgia after gun battles between rebels and guardsmen. . . . Armenian guerrillas seize 10 CIS army officers during a raid on a commonwealth antiaircraft base near the town of Artik. . . . Thousands of Serbs march peacefully through the streets of Belgrade, calling for the ouster of Serbian president Milosevic and the ruling Socialist (formerly Communist) Party.

In South Africa, students at the University of Orange Free State lob a tear-gas canister at Pres. de Klerk. . . . Menachem Wolfovitch Begin, 78, prime minister of Israel, 1977–83, who shared the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize, signed a historic peace treaty with Egypt, and launched an invasion of Lebanon that divided Israelis, dies of heart failure in Jerusalem. . . . Lebanese police officials state more than 144,000 people were killed and nearly 200,000 wounded in the Lebanese civil war during 1975 to 1990. . . . Reports confirm 100,000 women and children marched for peace in Mogadishu, Somalia.

At the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, delegates reject a proposal to relax an international ban on the ivory trade. . . . In its first meeting ever, the North Atlantic Cooperation Council—which includes the states of NATO, the former Warsaw Pact, and 14 ex-Soviet republics—agrees to support CSCE intervention to end the fighting in the Transcaucasus conflict.

The ruling Military Council of the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia picks former Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze to chair a newly created State Council. Shevardnadze succeeds ousted president Zviad Gamsakhurdia as Georgia’s head of state. . . . Azerbaijani rocket attacks on Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, kill at least five people.

Thousands of Serbs march peacefully through the streets of Belgrade, the Yugoslav federal and Serbian capital, calling for the ouster of Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic and the ruling Socialist (formerly Communist) Party. . . . Armenian guerrillas release the 10 CIS army officers they had been holding hostage since Mar, 9.

March 11

March 12

Africa & the Middle East

Since fighting began Mar. 6, dozens of people are reported killed in the Armenian-held town of Askeran, in Nagorno-Karabakh. . . . The last unit of ex-Soviet troops in NagornoKarabakh is reported to have completed its withdrawal from the enclave. The governments of both Armenia and Azerbaijan demanded the removal. . . . About 350 peacekeepers, including a unit of airborne troops from the Commonwealth of Independent States, arrive in Croatia.

March 8

March 9

Europe

Syrian president Hafez al-Assad accuses the U.S. of playing a “piracy role” in its unsuccessful effort Mar. 9 to intercept a North Korean freighter. . . . The UN Security Council charges Iraq with failing to comply “fully and unconditionally” with the terms of the ceasefire that ended the Persian Gulf war. The council rejects arguments from Iraqi envoy Tariq Aziz that Iraq cooperated with the resolutions, but it agrees to hold talks with Aziz’s delegation. Aziz tells the Security Council that Iraq will rejoin talks on UN-designed measures to allow Iraq to sell oil to raise funds for food and medicine.

Asia & the Pacific Japanese premier Kiichi Miyazawa suffers a blow when a candidate he vigorously supported loses a closely watched by-election to fill a seat in the upper house of Japan’s Diet.

Reports suggest that the Iraqi army is stepping up shelling and massing troops along the frontiers of the northeastern part of Iraq controlled by Kurdish rebels.

Reports state that the 1992 John M. Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, one of the world’s most lucrative international awards, will be presented to South Korean evangelist Kyung-Chik Han, the founder of the Young Nak (Everlasting Joy) Presbyterian Church, based in Seoul.

Armenian forces capture three villages and two collective farms in Azerbaijan. Civilians are evacuated from the Azerbaijani town of Agdam, on the Nagorno-Karabakh border. The town, held by Azerbaijani militia, is under steady shelling from Armenians inside the enclave. . . . Salvatore Lima, a former mayor of Palermo and member of the Italian Parliament, is shot and killed near Palermo, Sicily. In another suspected organized-crime killing, Luciano Carugo, an industrialist, is found dead near Milan.

Rebels in Zugdidi, Georgia, capture 17 guardsmen and government officials. . . . An earthquake, measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale, strikes the Turkish city of Erzincan, destroying numerous buildings and touching off avalanches and landslides that cut off roads, railways, and power lines.

March 13

The Americas

In South Africa, Musa Myeni, head of Inkatha’s Transvaal branch, signs a nonaggression pact with Eugene Terre’Blanche, leader of the neo-Nazi AWB, and Ferdi Hartzenberg of the far-right Conservative Party. Separately, students at the University of Pretoria strike Pres. de Klerk on the head with a placard, and two NP offices in the Transvaal are bombed. Reports estimate that more than 220 blacks were slain in township violence since the call for the referendum.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 8–13, 1992—311

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Californian Edmund (Jerry) Brown (D) wins a Democratic caucus in Nevada.

Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays & Handler, a New York City-based law firm, agrees to pay $41 million to settle civil charges related to its representation of the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. . . . In a news conference, Gov. Bill Clinton (Ark.) denies that there had been any improprieties in the Mar. 7 allegations of conflict of interest in a failed savings and loan institution.

Reports suggest that Oxford University researchers have pinpointed a gene responsible for asthma.

George Sylvester (Red) Callender, 76, noted jazz bass and tuba player who performed with such jazz greats as Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker and who taught Charles Mingus to play the bass, dies of thyroid cancer in Saugus, California.

Iowa senator Tom Harkin drops out of the presidential primary. . . . The Supreme Court rules to set aside the death sentence of a Mississippi man because of an unconstitutionally vague instruction given to the jury at his sentencing hearing. . . . The Supreme Court overturns the death sentence of a convicted murderer on the grounds that the introduction in the sentencing phase of his trial of evidence of his affiliation with a white supremacist group violated his First Amendment right to freedom of association.

An agreement requiring former Drexel Burnham Lambert Group Inc. bond chief Michael R. Milken to pay a total of $900 million to settle lawsuits against him is approved by the FDIC and the RTC.

James David Brooks, 85, one of the last of the original generation of abstract expressionist artists, dies in Brookhaven, New York, after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. . . . The chairman of the board of the Christian Science Church, Harvey Wood, resigns in the midst of ongoing controversy over a decision to expand into television and radio.

Arkansas governor Bill Clinton sweeps six southern Democratic primaries, and former Massachusetts senator Paul Tsongas wins two New England primaries, including his home state of Massachusetts. Pres. Bush continues to lock out his challenger, Patrick Buchanan, in the Republican contest. However, Buchanan siphons off around one-fourth of the vote in eight GOP primaries.

Pres. Bush formally asks Congress to rescind $2 billion it appropriated for defense for fiscal 1992. . . . A classified Defense Department internal policy paper, made public Mar. 7, inspires debate. . . . Dandeny Muñoz Mosquera, described by U.S. as a hit-man for Colombia’s Medellin cocaine cartel, is sentenced in NYC to the maximum six years in prison for lying to federal agents about his identity.

Six people are killed in a series of severe storms that rage through southern and midwestern states. In Chicago, a snowstorm contributes to a power failure in the radar system at O’Hare International Airport, causing flight delays across the U.S.

Manuel de Dios Unanue, a former editor in chief of El Diario–La Prensa, NYC’s leading Spanishlanguage newspaper, is shot to death in Queens. . . . A Texas appeals court rules that the state’s 1879 antisodomy law is unconstitutional.

The House votes, 357-61, to override Pres. Bush’s Mar. 2 veto of a bill regarding China’s trading status.

Ice floes block the course of Vermont’s Winooski River, causing severe flooding in Montpelier, the state capital. The downtown area is flooded, with water reaching a depth of 6 feet in places. Gov. Howard Dean (D) declares a state of emergency and calls in the National Guard. . . . Pres. Bush nominates Daniel S. Goldin as the new administrator of NASA.

Acting on a new study, the FDA recommends that patients implanted with Bjork Shiley Concavo-Convex heart valves consider undergoing surgery to have them replaced because of the risk that the devices will fail. . . . The FCC votes to allow individual broadcasting companies to own more radio stations nationwide. . . . Melvin J. Reynolds, a congressional candidate in Illinois, is injured when at least two shots are fired into his campaign car from an adjacent vehicle.

Leaders of 12 major unions announce that they will not formally endorse any of the presidential candidates. . . . In a controversy over bounced checks written by members of the House, House leaders reverse themselves and vote, 391-36, to disclose the detailed information that was gathered on the 24 worst offenders. House Sergeant at Arms Jack Russ, the official responsible for the administration of the House Bank, resigns in the face of criticism over sloppy management.

An administrative judge for the NYC’s human rights commission rejects a request from Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization to march in the annual St. Patrick’s day parade sponsored by the private Roman Catholic organization, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, arguing that forcing the Hibernians to allow the gay group to participate will violate the Hibernians’ First Amendment right to freedom of expression.

Pres. Bush announces that automobile makers will not be required to install equipment on new vehicles to trap gasoline vapors released during refueling, effectively blocking a regulation pending under the Clean Air Act of 1990. . . . The Senate passes legislation that will fund tax cuts for middle-class families with increased taxes on the rich. . . . The House decides, 426-0, to release the names of all 355 members who have or had overdrafts in their House Bank accounts.

March 9

March 10

Martin Buser, a native of Switzerland, wins the 1,159-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska, with a record time of 10 days, 19 hours and 17 minutes.

A federal court jury in Santa Ana, California, convicts an obsessed fan, Harry Veltman, of sending obscene and threatening letters to Olympic ice-skating champion Katarina Witt.

A task force investigating the cause of a series of deadly chain-reaction car collisions that killed 17 people in November 1991 blames drivers’ high speed for the crashes.

March 8

Reports confirm that actor and longtime bachelor Warren Beatty has married actress Annette Bening. . . . Tammy Faye Bakker is granted an uncontested divorce from her husband, imprisoned former television evangelist Rev. Jim Bakker, in Tallahassee, Florida.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 11

March 12

March 13

312—March 14–19, 1992

March 14

World Affairs

Europe

The CSCE agrees to dispatch a peace mission, led by Czechoslovak foreign minister Jiri Dienstbier, who holds the CSCE’s rotating presidency, to the Transcaucasus region.

Azerbaijani rockets attack the capital’s parliament building in Nagorno-Karabakh. . . . Eleven workers of Shell Oil Co.’s Cormorant Alpha drilling operation die in a helicopter crash in the North Sea. Six men survive the crash.

March 19

Asia & the Pacific

Jamaican prime minister Michael N. Manley resigns, effective Mar. 28, citing poor health.

The UN peacekeeping force led by Yasushi Akashi of Japan to administer the transition to democracy in Cambodia arrives in the nation’s capital, Phnom Penh. The 22,000person operation is the largest, most complicated, and most expensive UN peacekeeping mission ever to be undertaken. Akashi’s arrival comes as the leftist Khmer Rouge, the largest of Cambodia’s three rebel factions that signed a 1991 peace accord with the government, begins a series of attacks in Kompong Thom province.

In the face of allegations that Israel violated U.S. export law by reselling U.S. defense technology to other countries without permission, Benjamin Netanyahu, a senior aide to Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir, characterizes the charges as a “deliberate campaign of slander . . . intended to undermine Israel’s position in the American public and in the American Congress.”

Armenian forces shell the southern Azerbaijan city of Fizuli, killing 10 people and raising widespread doubts as to whether the Iranianbrokered cease-fire will ever take effect.

In the town of Zomba, Malawi, 500 students stage a rare demonstration to show support for the Mar. 8 letter written by seven Roman Catholic bishops. The rally prompts the government to shut down their university.

Reports state that the UN Security Council gave Iraq a deadline of March 26 to submit a plan for the destruction of equipment and facilities related to the production of its weapons of mass destruction.

Data indicate that at least 30 people died in the fighting that began Mar. 2 in the Dniester region of Moldova. The government and the separatists agree to a cease-fire, shortly after fresh clashes kill six people. . . . In Zugdidi, Georgia, government representatives and supporters of ousted president Gamsakhurdia reach a truce agreement. . . . Reports conclude an escalating war between Armenia and Azerbaijan has cost hundreds of lives.

South African whites overwhelmingly endorse Pres. F. W. de Klerk’s reform policies in a referendum on whether to negotiate an end to white minority rule through talks with the black majority. . . . A Palestinian stabs two Israelis to death and wounds 19 others in Tel Aviv. The assailant is shot to death. . . . Students in Blantyre hold a march in solidarity with the Mar. 16 rally held in Zomba. Police arrest 12 on charges of unlawful assembly.

A powerful car bomb explodes in front of the Israeli embassy in downtown Buenos Aires, Argentina, destroying the embassy building, killing at least 28 people, and leaving 220 others wounded. . . . Two former guerrilla fighters accused of murdering U.S. Lt. Col. David Pickett and Pfc. Earnest Dawson after shooting down their helicopter in a combat area in January 1991 surrender to a Salvadoran judge.

Finland formally applies to join the European Community.

Bosnia’s leaders in Belgrade, the Yugoslav and Serbian capital, agree to partition the republic along ethnic lines, with local communities having broad autonomy.

The Israeli Knesset votes to approve legislation that will allow the nation’s prime minister to be elected by direct popular vote.

Islamic Jihad, a Lebanese Shi’ite group, claims responsibility for the Mar. 17 bombing in Buenos Aires, Argentina, stating the attack was carried out by an Argentine “martyr struggler.” The group’s statement asserts that the bombing was in retaliation for the slaying by Israeli commandos of Sheik Abbas alMusawi in February.

Rolf Ekeus, the director of the UN commission supervising the destruction of Iraqi arms, receives a letter in which Iraq announces it will cooperate with the UN Security Council Mar. 17 demands. The letter also discloses Iraq concealed 89 Scuds and other ballistic missiles after the gulf war and claims that Iraq has destroyed the missiles. . . . Denmark drops its trade embargo against South Africa, becoming the last EC country to do so.

Crimean Tatars urge the Ukrainian government to restore the preWorld War II autonomous Tatar state in the Crimea and to help resettle Crimean Tatars currently living outside the region. . . . In England, Buckingham Palace announces that “lawyers for the Duchess of York” (the former Sarah Ferguson) are seeking a “formal separation” from her husband, Andrew, the Duke of York, after over five years of marriage.

Zimbabwe’s parliament unanimously passes a land-reform bill empowering the government to expropriate acreage from commercial farms and redistribute it to black peasants. Most of the targeted land is owned by whites. . . . The Nigerian government releases the results of its November 1991 census, which puts the population at 88.5 million, confirming that Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country.

Pres. Menem joins a rally of 70,000 Argentines as they march in Buenos Aires to protest the Mar. 17 bombing by the Israeli embassy.

March 16

March 18

The Americas

Jordi Pujol, a conservative nationalist, wins reelection as head of Catalonia’s autonomous regional government. . . . An earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale and centered near the town of Tunceli, about 40 miles (65 km) south of Erzincan, rocks Turkey. Estimates of the death toll, when it is coupled with the Mar. 13 quake, range from 600 to 4,000. . . . Armenian and Azerbaijani officials sign a draft truce agreement in the Iranian capital, Teheran.

March 15

March 17

Africa & the Middle East

Wang Renzhong, 75, Chinese Communist Party official who headed the investigation of CP general secretary Zhao Ziyang, and a close associate of Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, dies of a heart attack.

A coalition formed of Gen. Abdul Rashid Doestam’s government militia and Ahmed Shah Massoud’s group captures Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan’s second-largest city. Pres. Najibullah agrees to comply with a UN-mediated peace plan and cede power to an interim government made up of rebel leaders.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 14–19, 1992—313

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Steven Brian Pennell, sentenced to death for torturing and killing four women, is executed by means of a lethal injection in Smyrna, Delaware. He is the first person to be put to death in Delaware since 1946 and the 166th person to be put to death in the U.S. since the Supreme Court allowed states to resume use of the death penalty in 1976.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

After the House vote Mar. 12, the AP obtains the names of 21 of the 24 worst offenders who bounced checks from the House Bank. All of the 21 offenders are Democrats, and former Rep. Tommy Robinson (D, Ark.), with 996 checks in 16 months tops the list followed by Rep. Bob Mrazek (D, N.Y.), with 972 checks in 23 months.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Jean Poiret, 65, one of France’s most prolific actors who wrote and starred in the original stage version of La Cage aux Folles, dies of a heart attack in Paris.

Studies show that a chemical in broccoli, sulforaphane, seems to provide a powerful defense against cancer. Scientists speculate that the compound is the main reason why people with diets rich in broccoli, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, and kale have markedly reduced cancer rates.

Michael Riccardi, 28, convicted of stabbing NYC black activist Rev. Al Sharpton in 1991, is sentenced to five to 15 years in prison. . . . Michael T. McSpadden, the judge who on Mar. 6 approved a plan in which an accused child molester would have been castrated rather than sentenced to prison, removes himself from the case after learning that no doctor is willing to perform the operation because of the case’s publicity.

March 15

The New York State Assembly votes to conduct its own environmental review of the Great Whale hydroelectric project, to be built in the James Bay region of northern Quebec. . . . Chrysler Corp. announces that Robert Eaton is the successor to Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca. . . . The office of the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia announces that it has begun a preliminary inquiry into whether any laws had been broken in the House Banking scandal.

The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, a nonprofit organization investigating the 1937 disappearance of aviator Amelia Earhart, announces that it has found a piece of metal they believe came from a repair to the belly of Earhart’s Lockheed Electra plane as well as portions of a woman’s size-nine shoe of the period on the Pacific Island of Nikumaroro (formerly Gardner Island).

California Superior Court judge Harvey Schneider rules that Paramount Pictures should pay humor columnist Art Buchwald $150,000 for his idea that formed the basis of the hit Eddie Murphy film Coming to America.

Three members of the Bush cabinet, Defense Secretary Richard Cheney, Labor Secretary Lynn Martin, and Agriculture Secretary Edward Madigan admit that they bounced checks while in Congress.

A Soyuz capsule lifts off from Earth for Mir, carrying two cosmonauts and Klaus-Dietrich Flade, a German test pilot whose government reportedly paid $24 million for his ride.

Jack Arnold, 75, director of Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), dies of unreported causes in Woodland Hills, California. . . . Gracie Lantz, 88, who created the idea for the cartoon character Woody Woodpecker and provided the bird’s voice for 200 cartoons, dies of cancer in Burbank, California.

A study shows that older white Medicare patients are 3.5 times as likely to receive a heart bypass operation as their black counterparts. . . . Robert Bonner, head of the DEA, rules against the use of marijuana for medical purposes. . . . NYC hotel owner Leona Helmsley is resentenced to four years in prison for federal tax fraud and fined $6.3 million. . . . Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot, criticizing the presidential candidates of both parties, states he will run for president.

Twenty-two stocks trade on the new Emerging Company Marketplace (ECM), the new market established by the American Stock Exchange Mar. 5.

The National Transportation Safety Board, in a reversal of a previous finding, absolves United Airlines of responsibility for a February 1989 accident in which a cargo door on the jet opened in midair, causing nine passengers to fall to their deaths.

African-American dance pioneer Katherine Dunham, 82, ends a 47day fast to protest the treatment of Haitian refugees by the U.S. government after meeting with exiled Haitian president Aristide. . . . Owners of NFL teams vote to end the use of instant video replay to review calls made by football officials on the playing field.

Former Massachusetts senator Paul Tsongas drops his presidential bid, a withdrawal that makes it almost certain that Bill Clinton will win the nomination. . . . Dow Corning announces it will permanently withdraw from the breast-implant business. . . . Michael Aloysius Feighan, 87, Democratic U.S. representative from Ohio, 1943–71, and the chief architect of the 1965 immigration reform bill, dies of a brain tumor in Washington, D.C.

Robert V. Rota, the House postmaster, resigns after a newspaper reports wrongdoing at the House Post Office connected to a scandal at the House Bank. . . . Congressional investigators charge CH2M Hill Inc., a company employed by the EPA to oversee more than 200 Superfund toxic-waste cleanup sites, with systematically billing the government for “unallowable and questionable costs.”

Studies show that scientists have identified a protein in sperm that plays a key role in conception. . . . The New England Journal of Medicine reports that radiation treatment given to women for cancer in one breast has virtually no chance of later causing cancer in the other breast.

In the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Arkansas governor Bill Clinton wins solid victories in the Illinois and Michigan primaries. On the Republican side, columnist and TV talk-show host Patrick Buchanan receives poor showings.

Pres. Bush refuses to endorse a congressional compromise measure that would authorize $10 billion in loan guarantees over the next five years to help Israel absorb its influx of Soviet Jewish émigrés, underscoring his position that Israel will be unable to obtain the aid without a shift in its settlement policies in the occupied territories.

March 14

March 16

March 17

March 18

March 19

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

314—March 20–24, 1992

March 20

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the population of the world was 5.423 billion in 1991, more than twice as high as the total in 1950. The reports projects that the world’s population will grow a further 52% by 2020. The most populous nation is China, where 1.2 billion people live; and the most densely populated nation is Bangladesh, with more than 2,255 persons per square mile.

Fighting in Turkey between government forces and Kurdish separatists escalates in the town of Cizre during celebrations for the Kurdish new year. . . . Ten of the 11 presidents of the Commonwealth of Independent States hold a meeting in the Ukraine capital of Kiev, but they fail to resolve any crucial military, economic, or political issues.

After a series of well-organized attacks in which bands of Kalenjin warriors armed with spears, machetes, and arrows swept into largely defenseless Luo and Kikuyu settlements, the government accuses the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD), Kenya’s largest opposition party, of instigating the violence, and Pres. Moi bans all political gatherings.

Fighting between Muslims and ethnic Serbs erupt in Gorazde, a town near Sarajevo. . . . In Turkey, clashes between government forces and separatists break out in Nusaybin on the Syrian border and Yuksekova on the Iranian and Iraqi borders. . . . The Albanian Democratic Party, the largest opposition group, beats the Socialist Party in national elections. . . . France’s ruling Socialist Party is routed in elections for regional assemblies, receiving less than 19% of the vote nationwide.

March 22

March 24

Asia & the Pacific

Giorgi Karkarashvili, the commander of national-guard forces in Mingrelia who was captured Mar. 13 by rebels in Zugdidi, is reported to have been set free, along with some of the other hostages. . . . The Washington Post reports that violent crime is now commonplace in Albania. . . . Turkish troops and police officers in Cizre battle separatists during a march to a cemetery where Kurdish guerrillas were buried. The town falls under the control of rebel forces.

March 21

March 23

The Americas

The European Community announces that it will extend diplomatic recognition to Georgia after the receipt of a letter from Eduard Shevardnadze accepting the conditions for recognition that include the scheduling of free elections, respect for human rights, respect for Georgia’s existing borders, and a commitment to nuclear nonproliferation. Portugal, an EC member, separately recognizes Georgia as well.

Fighting breaks out between militiamen from Croatia and federal troops in Neum, a town on Bosnia’s Adriatic coast. Six soldiers and two Croats are killed. . . . Turkish troops regain the upper hand in Cizre. . . . Pro-Kurdish rallies are held in London, Paris, Brussels, and Athens. . . . Friedrich August von Hayek, 92, Austrian-born British economist who shared the 1974 Nobel Prize in economics, dies of a heart ailment in Freiberg, Germany.

A team of UN chemical-weapons experts reports, they have dismantled 463 Iraqi nerve-gas warheads and rockets.

A reactor at Russia’s Sosnovy Bor nuclear plant, located 60 miles (100 km) west of St. Petersburg, suffers a core accident and vents radioactive gases into the atmosphere before automatically shutting down. The IAEA classifies the mishap as a “three” on its seven-point scale. . . . Nine people die in fighting in Croatia, prompting Gen. Nambiar to call for a cease-fire. . . . Gunmen in Istanbul kill two people in an ambush of a bus carrying employees of Turkey’s secret-police organization. The radical Dev Sol group claims responsibility.

In Thailand, parliamentary elections are held for the first time since the 1991 bloodless coup that toppled the previous elected government. The Samakkhi Tham party wins the largest block of seats in the lower house of the parliament, while all 270 members of the upper house of parliament are hand-picked by the military.

The ruling Democratic Liberal Party wins 149 of the 299 National Assembly seats—more than any other party but one seat short of a majority—in a general election for South Korea’s National Assembly.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 20–24, 1992—315

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The Supreme Court agrees to review a Feb. 20 decision by a special three-judge federal court that the 1990 census count was flawed. . . . The Health and Human Services Department formally publishes guidelines concerning advice given by federally funded family-planning clinics about abortion. The rules allow doctors, but not other clinical professionals, to discuss the option of abortion with patients. . . . A Washington Post/ABC News poll finds that three-fourths of respondents disapprove of the job Congress is doing.

The District of Columbia Court of Appeals upholds the guilty plea and life sentence for convicted spy Jonathan Jay Pollard, a former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst who pled guilty in 1986 to giving U.S. military secrets to Israel. . . . Admiral George Whelan Anderson Jr., 85, chief of U.S. Naval operations, 1961–63, as ambassador to Portugal, 1963–66, and a member and chairman of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, 1973–77, dies of congestive heart failure in McLean, Virginia.

Congress passes a $77.5 billion middle-class tax-cut bill, meeting a deadline set by Pres. Bush in his Jan. 28 State of the Union address. However, Bush vetoes the bill, charges that the Democrats have a “natural impulse to raise taxes,” and blasts the Democratic congressional leadership over current scandals in the House Bank and the House Post Office. Democrats lash back immediately, and House Speaker Thomas Foley (D, Wash.) calls Bush’s remarks “the most partisan speech I have heard from a president.”

In a case that generates controversy, Theresa Ann Campo Pearson is born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, without a complete brain or skull due to a rare medical condition known as anencephaly. Her parents, Laura Campo and Justin Pearson, who knew about the infant’s condition before her birth and decided to have the baby so her organs could help other babies who need transplants, ask Florida courts to declare her brain-dead.

Pres. Bush and German chancellor Helmut Kohl meet at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Jim Courier loses his top spot in the men’s international tennis rankings with a loss in the semifinals of the Lipton International Players Championships. . . . Georges Delerue, 67, French composer who won an Academy Award in 1980 for best original soundtrack for the film A Little Romance, dies of unreported causes in Los Angeles, California.

John Ireland, 78, actor who appeared in more than 200 movies, dies of leukemia in Santa Barbara, California. . . . Distance runner Lynn Jennings wins the women’s cross-country world championship for the third straight year. John Ngugi of Kenya wins his fifth world men’s title since 1986.

A USAir jet bound for Cleveland, Ohio, crashes on takeoff from New York’s La Guardia Airport, killing 27 of the 51 passengers and crew members on board.

Edmund (Jerry) Brown defeats Bill Clinton in the Democratic primary in Connecticut. . . . A federal survey concludes Native American teens are more likely than other U.S. teens to attempt suicide. . . . Police officer Anthony Paparella is acquitted of fatally choking a suspect, Federico Pereira, to death, prompting protests from Hispanic activists. . . . An elderly man with Alzheimer’s abandoned at a dogracing track is identified as John Kingery, 82. The case generates publicity as an example of adult children who abandon parents they cannot or will not care for.

The Supreme Court rules unanimously that the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, a nonprofit agency created by the securities industry to protect customers, does not have the right to sue stock manipulators under the federal RICO act. . . . Pres. Bush, in a report to Congress, again rejects specific emissions caps and states afterward at a press conference that he will not sign any environmental pact that would “throw a lot of Americans out of work.”

The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis lifts off from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, to initiate a comprehensive space-based study of the Earth’s atmosphere.

March 21

March 22

The Supreme Court lets stand an award of $400,000 to Bette Midler in a lawsuit against an advertising agency that hired another singer to impersonate her voice in an ad for Ford Moter Co.

The Supreme Court refuses to review the government’s 1990 takeover of Franklin Savings Association of Kansas. . . . The Federal Reserve Board approves the proposed merger of BankAmerica Corp. and Security Pacific Corp., clearing the last main obstacle to the deal’s completion. The transaction, the biggest bank merger in U.S. history, will create the nation’s second-largest bank.

March 20

A settlement is approved by a Cook County, Illinois, judge that calls for Arista Records Inc. and its parent company, Bertelsmann AG of Germany, to offer refunds to people who bought recordings or concert tickets for the group Milli Vanilli, a duo that did not actually sing any of their songs.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 23

March 24

316—March 25–30, 1992

March 25

March 26

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

At a CSCE meeting, 25 nations sign a treaty to allow reconnaissance flights over their territory by foreign planes. . . . An initiative to resolve the extradition of two suspects in the Pan Am 103 bombing collapses when Libya reverses an earlier decision and does not hand them over to Arab foreign ministers. . . . The IAEA orders Iraq to destroy the core of a nuclear research complex about 20 miles (32 km) southwest of Baghdad that escaped damage during the gulf war.

Turkish war planes attack Kurdish guerrilla bases in northern Iraq. Two policemen are killed in separate attacks in Ankara and Adana. Reports show that the fighting in Turkey between government forces and Kurdish separatists that began Mar. 20 left at least 75 people dead, and the strife is described as the worst in years. . . . Clashes escalate in and around Bosanski Brod, a Bosnian town on the northern Croatian border.

Hearings on Libyan charges that U.S. and British efforts to pressure Libya to release the Pan Am 103 bombing suspects violates international law opens at the World Court in The Hague, the Netherlands. . . . Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere, France’s senior terrorism investigator, calls for the extradition from Libya of Samir Mohammed Ahmed Khaidir, a suspect in the 1988 attack on the City of Poros ferry off the Greek coast that killed nine people.

The German government announces that it will stop all arms deliveries to Turkey after news reports showed Turkish troops using German-built armored personnel carriers during clashes with Kurds.

Statistics Canada announces that Canada experienced an increase in violent crime throughout the 1980s, but crime rates in Canada are still substantially lower than in other industrialized countries. . . . Barbara Frum, 54, host of a nightly Canadian news program, 1982–92, who interviewed dozens of world leaders, dies of complications from leukemia in Toronto, Canada.

The Bosnian government urges the UN to deploy peacekeeping forces in the republic. . . . An Armenian passenger jet evacuating wounding civilians from Nagorno-Karabakh is hit by a heat-seeking missile launched from Azerbaijan. The plane manages to make an emergency landing in Yerevan, the Armenian capital. . . . German chancellor Helmut Kohl hosts Austrian president Kurt Waldheim at a private luncheon in Munich, drawing controversy since an Austrian commission found in 1988 that Waldheim knew of war crimes being committed in World War II by his unit but did not himself commit them.

Figures released by the Brazilian government show that the rate of deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon Basin rain forest slowed in 1991 for the third consecutive year.

In response to escalating ethnic violence, Moldovan president Snegur declares a state of emergency. . . . Reports indicate that Macedonia and Greece have opened informal talks over Greece’s opposition to Macedonian independence.

In Jamaica, the People’s National Party elects Percival J. (P. J.) Patterson as its new leader as P.M. Michael Manley’s resignation takes effect.

March 27

March 28

March 29

March 30

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Narong Wongwan, a wealthy businessman who was denied entrance to the U.S. because of suspected links to drug trafficking, is named premier of Thailand since his Samakkhi Tham (Justice Unity) party won parliamentary seats Mar. 22.

French police arrest three men believed to be leading figures in Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), a separatist group that killed more than 700 people during its 30-year campaign of violence. . . . Reports indicate that clashes that started Mar. 25 have left more than 30 people dead in Bosanski Brod, a Bosnian town. . . . Eighth Earl (Edward John Spencer) Spencer, 68, a remote descendent of King Henry VII and the father of Diana, Princess of Wales, dies of a heart attack in London.

Israeli foreign minister David Levy announces his intention to resign from the cabinet.

Polish president Lech Walesa meets with German president Richard von Weizsaecker in Bonn. Walesa’s trip is the first by a Polish president to Germany since 1918. . . . Manolis Andronikos, 72, Greek archaeologist who received the Olympia Prize from the Onassis Foundation in 1982 and the Grand Cross of the Order of Phoenix, Greece’s highest distinction, dies in Salonika, Greece.

Israeli peace activist Abie Nathan is released from jail after serving less than six months of an 18-month prison sentence for meeting with PLO chairman Yasser Arafat.

In India, Chief Judicial Magistrate Gulab Sharma, issues an arrest warrant for Warren Anderson, Union Carbide’s former chairman and chief executive, in connection with a 1984 chemical gas leak that resulted in 4,000 deaths. . . . The News of Adelaide, Australia’s last afternoon newspaper and the start of media baron Rupert Murdoch’s international media empire, publishes its final issue after 69 years of operation.

In Cambodia, the Phnom Penh government announces a new offensive against Khmer Rouge guerrillas.

The Miami Herald reports that 45% of the children born in Mexico City’s national hospital have enough lead in their blood to cause permanent physical and mental problems, including a lower-thanaverage IQ. In the last week of March, the city reached its worst level ever, leading to the declaration of a state of emergency. . . . Brazil’s 12-member cabinet resigns in the wake of charges of government corruption and influence peddling. Pres. Mello asks six of the 12 to remain in their posts.

Over 500 refugees cross the Thai border into their native Cambodia as the UN-sponsored program to repatriate the exiles takes effect.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 25–30, 1992—317

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Supreme Court rules successive prosecutions of an individual for committing a crime and for conspiracy to commit the same crime are not violations of double jeopardy laws. . . . A Senate committee rejects Peter Fleming’s request to compel testimony from two reporters who first disclosed Anita Hill’s 1991 allegations. . . . The Supreme Court rules the 1980 Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act does not allow individuals to bring civil-rights lawsuits against states.

The Supreme Court rules unanimously that Congress has the right to temporarily bar lawsuits challenging logging in the Pacific Northwest.

Sergei Krikalyov, a Russian cosmonaut aboard the space station Mir since May 1991, returns to earth. Krikalyov is dubbed the “Time Traveler” by the press since, during his 10 months in orbit, the Soviet Union disintegrated. Krikalyov’s republic, Russia, is now an independent country, and his hometown, Leningrad, has been renamed St. Petersburg.

Nancy Walker (born Anna Myrtle Swoyer), 69, actress who was nominated for several Emmy awards and was best known as Ida Morgenstern, the mother of the title character on the TV show Rhoda, dies of cancer in Los Angeles, California.

Former presidential candidate Sen. Tom Harkin (D, Iowa) endorses the candidacy of Gov. Bill Clinton. . . . Sen. David Boren (D, Okla.) and Rep. Louis Stokes (D, Ohio) introduce companion bills to make public secret documents on the 1963 assassination of Pres. Kennedy. . . . Florida Circuit Court judge Estella Moriarty rules that state law prohibits a declaration of brain death for Theresa Ann Campo Pearson, born Mar. 21, because the baby was born with a functioning brain stem.

Rockwell International Corp. pleads guilty to 10 criminal counts of violating environmental law and agrees to pay $18.5 million in fines stemming from violations at the Rocky Flats nuclear-weapons plant in Colorado.

According to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, the drug tamoxifen appears to lower blood cholesterol and prevent bone loss in postmenopausal women taking it for breast cancer. The findings are surprising because doctors feared that tamoxifen actually increases the risk of heart disease and bone fractures.

At the world figure-skating championships, Olympic gold pairs medalists Natalya Mishkutienok and Artur Dmitriev from the Commonwealth of Independent States take the top prize. . . . Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson is sentenced to six years in prison for rape.

Citing increased local production, improved conservation, and declining demand from business, New York governor Mario Cuomo announces that the state is pulling out of a 20-year $13 billion contract to purchase electric power from the Hydro-Quebec power company.

Reports suggest that scientists stimulated the brain cells of mice to multiply in the laboratory, overturning an axiom which held that mammalian brains, whose growth stops after birth, can never produce replacement cells. . . . James Edwin Webb, 85, administrator under whom NASA put the first U.S. astronaut in space and planned the first manned moon landing, dies of heart failure in Washington, D.C.

Viktor Petrenko of the CIS wins the men’s competition at the world figure skating championships in Oakland, California. . . . Leueen MacGrath, 77, actress who cowrote the musical Silk Stockings (1955) with her third husband, George S. Kaufman, dies of complications following a stroke in London.

Amid growing public dismay over revelations that several flawed devices, including heart valves and silicone gel breast implants, were placed on the market after only cursory governmental review, the FDA proposes new rules that require the manufacturers of medical devices to closely monitor their use.

The U.S. Treasury Department freezes the U.S. assets of 46 businesses and financial institutions newly identified as being controlled by Libya. The department also prohibits U.S. companies from carrying out transactions with the Libyan-owned concerns, under sanction laws imposed by the U.S. in 1986.

U.S. capitol police seize the unloaded pistol used by Jack Ruby to kill John F. Kennedy’s alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, when Robert Luongo, 37, a representative of a consortium that paid $220,000 for the weapon at an auction in 1991, carries it to Capitol Hill and offers to show it to House Speaker Thomas Foley.

Reports state that about 60 gulfwar veterans of the 123rd Army Reserve Command, based in Indianapolis, Indiana, are suffering from an undiagnosed ailment they believe they contracted while in the Middle East. Symptoms of the illness include chronic fatigue, hair loss, muscle aches, tooth and gum aches, and thickened saliva.

At the world figure-skating championships in Oakland, California, ice dancers Marina Klimova and Sergei Ponomarenko of the CIS win the gold medal.

Presidential candidate Bill Clinton admits that he smoked marijuana in the late 1960s. His declaration “I didnt inhale it, and never tried it again” receives much publicity. . . . Police state a judge must decide if the gun used by Jack Ruby to kill Lee Harvey Oswald that was seized Mar. 28 will be destroyed in accordance with policy for all guns seized in D.C. . . . The FDA fires its director in charge of evaluating medical devices, Robert Sheridan.

At the world figure-skating championships, Kristi Yamaguchi becomes the first U.S. woman to win back-toback world titles since Peggy Fleming. . . . Paul Henreid, 84, actor who played Victor Lazlo in Casablanca (1942), dies in Santa Monica, California. . . . In tennis, the U.S. advances to the semifinals of the 1992 Davis Cup.

H. Ross Perot, a Texas billionaire mulling an independent presidential bid, named retires Vice Admiral James Stockdale as his provisional running mate. . . . Theresa Ann Campo Pearson, a baby born Mar. 21 and the focus of a national debate on the legal definition of death and the ethics of organ transplants, dies. Aside from her brain, all of Campo Pearson’s vital organs were healthy at birth, but they deteriorated too much to be viable for transplant at the time of her death.

The Census Bureau reports that the federal government spent almost $750 billion in grants, benefits, and subsidies to states, localities, and individuals in fiscal 1991. . . . Ernst & Young, the nation’s second-largest accounting firm, and Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, the third-largest U.S. law firm, agree to pay a total of $87 million to settle civil charges related to their representation of Lincoln S&L. In the settlements, neither institution admits to wrongdoing.

William B. Lenoir, the director of NASA’s shuttle and space-station activities, announces his resignation, effective May 4 . . . . A message recorded by the crew of the Atlantis while in space is broadcast at the 64th Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles. The message congratulates science-fiction film producer George Lucas when he is given the Thalberg award for lifetime filmmaking achievement.

The Pelican Brief by John Grisham tops the bestseller list. . . . At the 64th annual Oscar awards, The Silence of the Lambs sweeps the top categories, including best film of the year. Special lifetime achievement awards are presented to Satyajit Ray, an Indian director, and George Lucas, of Star Wars fame.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

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March 26

March 27

March 28

March 29

March 30

318—March 31–April 5, 1992

March 31

April 1

April 2

April 3

April 4

April 5

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The UN Security Council votes to impose limited sanctions against Libya if it fails to extradite suspects in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Airways Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and the 1989 bombing of UTA Flight 772 over Niger. . . . The IMF endorses Russia’s economic reforms, paving the way for Russia to become a full member of the IMF and to receive up to $4 billion in loans from the institution over one year.

Russian president Yeltsin and 18 leaders of Russia’s 20 main political subdivisions sign a federal treaty that gives regional governments broad autonomy. The Chechen-Ingush and Tatar autonomous republics decline to sign the accord. . . . At least five people are killed in ChechenIngushetia in clashes. The Russian enclave’s parliament declares a state of emergency.

Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi blasts the Mar. 31 UN action, Resolution 748, which sets a deadline of April 15 for Libya to surrender the suspects and threatens reprisals against its supporters. . . . U.S. president Bush and German chancellor Kohl separately announce a $24 billion aid package for the Russian Federation by the Group of Seven leading industrial nations.

A Serb newspaper finds inflation in Serbia is approaching an annual rate of 100,000%. . . . Lord Robert Michael Oldfield Havers, 69, who prosecuted several prominent Provisional Irish Republican Army bombing cases, including the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four, and the Maguire Seven, (all of those convictions were later overturned) and who also prosecuted the serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, known as the Yorkshire Ripper, for the murder of 13 women, dies of unreported causes in London.

A crowd of Palestinians throw rocks and firebombs at an Israeli patrol in pursuit of a carload of suspected guerrillas. The troops return fire, and four Arabs are killed and as many as 80 others wounded in the ensuing melee. . . . The Israeli human-rights group B’Tselem estimates that 20,000 Palestinians have been beaten or tortured by the army and secret police since the beginning of the Arab intifada in 1987. . . . Factional violence takes 10 lives in the Johannesburg township of Alexandra, South Africa.

Libyan demonstrators in Tripoli attack embassies of UN Security Council members that voted for the sanctions resolution Mar 31. Venezuela, which holds the council presidency, is hit hardest as 300 students scale the embassy walls, rip up gardens, smash furniture, and lob gasoline bombs, setting parts of the building ablaze. At the UN, Libyan ambassador Ali Houderi presents his apologies to Venezuelan ambassador Diego Arria, although critics question his sincerity.

Socialist Edith Cresson, France’s first woman premier, resigns after less than 11 months in office, during which her approval rating in publicopinion polls had hit record lows and her Socialist Party had won less than 19% of the vote nationwide, its worst showing in 23 years. Pres. Mitterrand names Finance Minister Pierre Beregovoy as her successor.

Crowds protesting the Apr. 1 killings clash with soldiers and police throughout the Gaza Strip. One woman is killed when an Israeli jeep strikes her, and hospitals in the area report 29 others wounded. Battles between police and protesters in the occupied West Bank leave one Arab dead. . . . In Kenya, FORD calls a general strike to compel the government to free political prisoners, but 40% of the work force shows up at their jobs in Nairobi.

The UN Security Council issues a statement condemning Israel for allowing “the continued deterioration of the situation in the [Israelioccupied] Gaza Strip.”. . . The 27 signatories of the Nuclear Suppliers Group sign an agreement in Warsaw, Poland, pledging tighter controls on the international transfer of so-called dual-use nuclear technology.

Ethnic Serb guerrillas seized Bijeljina, a predominantly Muslim town in eastern Bosnia, and 27 people are reported slain. . . . Premier Anibal Cavaco Silva announces that Portugal will put its currency, the escudo, into the European Community’s exchange rate mechanism (ERM). . . . Albania’s president Alia, the country’s head of state since 1982, resigns as president rather than face dismissal by a parliament elected in March.

Three Palestinians are found dead near a mosque in the town of Gaza. The Islamic Hamas group takes responsibility. . . . A gang fire-bombs and shoots up an Inkatha squatter camp in the Johannesburg township of Katlehong, killing at least 20 people. . . . Spornet, South Africa’s rail corporation, announces that it has mobilized 15,500 train cars to handle the huge inflow of food for southern Africa and assigned 7,000 cars to haul supplies to Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi.

A five-week session of the UN Conference on Environment and Development closes. The session was dominated by issues of funding for ecologically sustainable development and the effect of environmental regulation on the Third World. The delegates agree in principle to adopt policies that will “equitably meet developmental and environmental needs” of Third World nations.

Sali Berisha becomes Albania’s first non-Marxist president since World War II. Berisha nominates Aleksandr Meksi to succeed Socialist Vilson Ahmeti as Albania’s premier. . . . A contingent of 1,200 U.N. peacekeeping troops arrives in Croatia. . . . Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic, a Muslim, orders a full mobilization of the republic’s militia and police reserves.

Iranian guerrillas raid two Kurdish villages in Iran.

Iranian dissidents storm Iranian embassies and other diplomatic missions in the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, France, Canada, Britain, Germany, and Denmark to protest the Iranian raid of Apr. 4. In addition, five Iranians armed with knives seize the office of Iran’s mission to the UN in NYC, vandalize the office, and briefly hold three people hostage. Two buildings of the Iranian embassy in Stockholm, Sweden, are set on fire, and demonstrators firebomb the London offices of Iran Air.

Yugoslav air force jets attack the predominantly Croat town of Kupres, in west-central BosniaHerzegovina. . . . Snipers believed to be ethnic Serbs open fire on a peace march in Sarajevo, killing at least one demonstrator. . . . Italy’s four-party governing coalition loses its majority support in general elections. Voters’ preferences are so widely split that 16 parties win seats in Parliament under Italy’s rigid proportional representation electoral system.

Iranian warplanes bomb and strafe an Iranian rebel base at Ashraf, Iraq. The attack kills one person and wounds five others. Officials state the attack is in retaliation for the Apr. 4 raid. The air raid violates the cease-fire that ended an eight-year war between the two countries in 1988. . . . Jonas Savimbi, the UNITA leader in Angola, denies any role in the killings of two former UNITA officials, Wilson dos Santos and Tito Chingunji. He blames the deaths on Miguel N’Zau Puna and Tony da Costa Fernandes, who accuse Savimbi of ordering the killings.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Indian foreign minister Madhavsinh Solanki resigns because of renewed allegations related to the six-year-old Bofors scandal involving Swiss banks. . . . The Australian government announces an initial allocation of A$150 million (US$114 million) to follow up on recommendations by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.

The UN team that arrived in Cambodia Mar. 15 helps to negotiate a cease-fire between combatants.

Peruvian president Alberto K. Fujimori, in what he calls an attack on rebels and drug traffickers, announces decrees dissolving the National Congress, suspending parts of the constitution, and instituting press censorship. He also orders the arrest of several political rivals. The crackdown comes as Peru’s Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) Maoist rebel group has stepped up its attacks on foreigners. U.S. president Bush and several Latin American presidents condemn Fujimori’s actions.

Thailand’s five pro-military parties select Gen. Suchinda Kraprayoon, who was involved in the military’s 1991 coup, to the premiership. He replaces Narong Wongwan, a businessman reported to have withdrawn his name from consideration.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 31–April 5, 1992—319

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Presidential candidates Clinton and Brown hold two debates in New York. Brown wins the Vermont caucus. . . . The Supreme Court unanimously upholds the constitutionality of the method Congress has used since 1941 to reallocate congressional seats among the states. . . . The Supreme Court rules school districts operating under court-supervised desegregation orders may be gradually released from court supervision.

The world’s last active battleship, the USS Missouri, is formally decommissioned by the navy in a ceremony at the Long Beach Naval Station. . . . A foreign-aid spending bill is cleared by the House to replace an October 1991 stopgap measure. The new funds remain at current levels, in most cases, through the end of the fiscal year on September 30, 1992.

In the wake of the House Banking scandal, Democratic leaders unveil a package of reform legislation to replace the current patronage system by which the House is run with a professional administrator. House Speaker Foley appoints Michael J. Shinay as acting House postmaster.

The British government issues a report finding no evidence of a link between electromagnetic fields generated by power lines and appliances, and cancer. . . . The Senate confirms Daniel S. Goldin as the new administrator of NASA.

The Supreme Court unanimously upholds a local California ordinance that applies rent-control standards to owners of mobile-home parks. . . . A National Institutes of Health panel concludes that, while vast numbers of Americans go on diets, few manage to keep weight off permanently. . . . Former president Jimmy Carter endorses the presidential candidacy of Arkansas governor Bill Clinton.

The foreign-aid spending bill cleared by the House on March 31 passes in the Senate and is signed by Pres. Bush.

A federal law requiring all commercial truck and bus drivers to be relicensed under national standards takes effect. . . . After five months of a UAW strike, Caterpillar threatens to permanently replace strikers who do not return to their jobs by Apr. 6. . . . A GAO audit of the House Post Office finds that controls over the handling of cash at the post office are inadequate. The House Ethics Committee releases its list of what it states are the worst abusers of check-cashing privileges at the House Bank.

Daniel S. Goldin is sworn in as the new administrator of NASA.

After receiving numerous calls, NPR discloses Rich Little imitated former President Nixon in an announcement that declared a bid for the 1992 presidency as an April Fool’s Day gag. . . . The NHL Players Association strikes, four days before the scheduled end of the hockey season. It is the first strike in the 75-year history of the league.

The Senate votes, 72-23, to lift a ban on using tissue from aborted fetuses in federally funded research. . . . A jury in Brooklyn convicts John Gotti, the reputed leader of the Gambino crime family, on all charges that include racketeering, murder, murder conspiracy, extortion, illegal gambling, obstruction of justice, and tax fraud. . . . A government audit shows 11 personal trips taken by Secretary of State Baker over a 26-month period cost taxpayers $371,599.

The State Department announces that its investigators found “no evidence” that Israel transferred Patriot antimissile systems or related technology to China. But the apparent resolution of the issue is accompanied by renewed charges from the State Department inspector general that Israel is engaged in a “systematic and growing pattern” of unauthorized sales of U.S. arms to Third World nations.

Representatives from the environmental regulatory agencies of eight states (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Vermont) agree to impose restrictions that will cut emissions of nitrogen oxides at electricitygenerating stations by more than 50% over several years. The action is part of a growing trend in which states take the initiative in environmental regulation in the absence of direction from the federal government.

The New England Journal of Medicine finds that the risk of transmitting genital herpes is lower than commonly believed. . . . The U.S. spacecraft Atlantis lands at the Kennedy Space Center after carrying out a comprehensive spacebased study of the earth’s atmosphere.

Milton R. Rackmil, 89, entertainment executive who founded Decca Records, revived Universal Pictures Co., and remained head of both companies until 1972, dies of a stroke in New York City.

House and Senate leaders curb several congressional perks in the wake of recent scandals. A poll sponsored by the Times-Mirror Center for the People and the Press finds that 10% of respondents see Democrats as “more responsible” for the overdraft scandal, while 3% blame Republicans. However, 76% blame “both parties equally.”

Studies suggest that scientists had devised a method of testing a patient’s feces for potentially cancerous colon cells.

Scott Pellerin, a left wing from the University of Maine, wins the Hobey Baker Memorial Award as the nation’s top collegiate hockey player.

A report commissioned by United Way of America is released, and it states the organization’s former president, William Aramony, used the group’s money to finance a “lavish lifestyle” and had approved questionable payments and transfers to two close aides. . . . After the Apr. 2 allegations, a State Department spokesperson announces that Secretary of State Baker has decided to take commercial flights for personal trips.

The March for Women’s Lives, sponsored by the National Organization for Women and dozens of other groups, is one of the largest political gatherings ever held in Washington, D.C. Estimates place the number of marchers from 500,000 to 1 million. The rally shows support of abortion rights and impresses upon lawmakers the importance of women’s votes in the 1992 presidential campaign. . . . Bill Clinton and George Bush win their respective parties’ primaries in Puerto Rico.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

March 31

According to the Congressional Quarterly, data shows that former Rep. Tommy F. Robinson (R, Ark.) bounced 996 checks as the worst offender in the House Banking scandal. Former representative Jim Bates (D, Calif.) is the last, with 89 bounced checks. The lawmaker with the largest overdraft is former Rep. Douglas H. Bosco (D, Calif.), who at one point had an overdraft of $75,723.

Samuel Reshevsky (born Samuel Rzeszewski), 80, Polish-born chess grandmaster who was the dominant figure in chess in the U.S. for four decades, dies of a heart attack in Suffern, New York.

Samuel Moore (Sam) Walton, 74, founder of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. retail empire who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by in March 1992, dies in Little Rock, Arkansas, after suffering from bone cancer and leukemia.

Molly Picon, 93, one of the great stars of the Yiddish-language theater, dies in her sleep in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 1

April 2

April 3

April 4

April 5

320—April 6–10, 1992

April 6

April 7

April 8

April 9

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

EC envoys lift the last of the EC sanctions on South Africa, an oil embargo imposed in 1985. . . . The EC agrees to lift its economic sanctions on the Yugoslav republic of Serbia, so long as Serbia cooperates with the organization’s peace efforts.

Bosnia’s premier, Jure Pelivan, an ethnic Croat, steps down for unexplained reasons. . . . After continued street fighting, sniper attacks, and the shelling by mortars in Sarajevo, the republic’s government establishes a dusk-to-dawn curfew in the capital. . . . Ukrainian president Kravchuk signs a decree confiscating the entire Crimean fleet for a newly formed Ukrainian navy.

Chakufwa Chihana, secretary general of the Southern African Trade Union Coordination Council, is arrested at Lilongwe airport in Malawi as he attempts to read a speech about the prospects of democracy in Malawi.

Peruvian premier Alfonso de los Heros resigns, reportedly in protest of the Apr. 5 action, and Housing Minister Oscar Solar de la Puente Raygada is sworn in.

The EC and the U.S. separately recognize as independent the Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina. In addition, the U.S. recognizes Croatia and Slovenia, the former Yugoslav republics it declined to recognize in January. . . . A seven-member emergency committee of the Arab League meets in Cairo to seek a solution to the dispute over the Pan Am suspects. . . . Argentina and its foreign-bank creditors announce an agreement to forgive roughly $8 billion of Argentina’s $23 billion bank debt.

The government of Irish prime minister Reynolds announces that it will hold a nationwide referendum on abortion in the wake of a controversial Irish Supreme Court ruling in March allowing a 14-year-old girl to travel to Britain for an abortion. . . . Ethnic Serbs declare an independent republic within Bosnia. Two ethnic Serbs in Bosnia’s collective leadership, Biljana Plavsic and Nikolai Koljevic, resign. . . . Yugoslav air force jets launch air strikes on the towns of Siroki Brijeg and Citluk.

A chanting mob in Tripoli blocks the motorcade of UN Undersecretary general for political affairs Vladimir Petrovsky, who is in Libya to explain the requirements of Security Council Resolution 748. Demonstrators gather outside his hotel and are repulsed by riot police.

In Peru, Pres. Fujimori continues his crackdown on adversaries, ordering the roundup of more politicians and labor leaders. He also signs several decrees giving a legal footing to his self-declared government of national reconstruction. Media censorship, however, is eased when Fujimori orders military and police forces to withdraw from television, radio, and newspaper offices. Reports indicate that, in response to Peru’s crackdown, Argentina has withdrawn its ambassador.

In a letter to UN Secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Libya renews its willingness to surrender the two Pan Am 103 suspects, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah and Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, to a neutral third country, again ruling out handing them over to Britain or the U.S.

Russia establishes diplomatic relations with Turkmenistan. . . . A German prosecutor announces that genetic tests have proved conclusively that bones recovered from a grave in Brazil in 1985 belong to Josef Mengele, believed to have sent 400,000 people to their deaths at Auschwitz . . . . French premier Pierre Beregovoy announces France is suspending its nuclear weapons testing program for the rest of 1992.

A sandstorm forces the private plane of Yasser Arafat, the chairman of the PLO, to crash-land in the desert in southeastern Libya. While Arafat is rescued, the plane’s three crewmen are killed, and five of the 10 passengers seriously injured.

A bomb explodes outside police headquarters on the outskirts of Lima, Peru, killing at least one officer. The explosion comes just minutes after Pres. Fujimori gave a speech outlining his plans to defeat terrorism before leaving office.

The leaders of Sudan, Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia, and the separatist Ethiopian province of Eritrea discuss emergency relief for the impoverished Horn of Africa region. In a joint declaration, the leaders agree to respect “the basic right” of their citizens to humanitarian assistance and to assure the safe passage of relief organizations to needy people. . . . Field Marshal Sir Richard Vincent of Britain is appointed NATO’s chief of defense staff, succeeding Norwegian general Vigleik Eide in 1993.

The Conservative Party of British prime minister John Major wins a surprise majority in the House of Commons in the fourth straight victory for the Conservatives, a feat unmatched in Britain since the early 19th century. . . . Ethnic Serb guerrillas and elements of the Serb-dominated Yugoslav military opposed to Bosnia’s secession continue to fight Muslim Slavs and ethnic Croats, effectively extending the Yugoslav civil war to Bosnia. . . . Russia establishes diplomatic relations with Tajikistan.

Police shut down the Lagos offices of National Concord, one of Nigeria’s biggest publishing houses, calling it a threat to national security, after the company published a series of articles that criticize the government’s economic policies and its handling of the transition to civilian rule. . . . Pres. F. W. de Klerk becomes the first white South African leader to visit Nigeria.

At a clandestine meeting, members of Peru’s suspended Congress vote to impeach Pres. Alberto Fujimori and to replace him with Second Vice Pres. Carlos García García. García is sworn in as president, but the move is wholly symbolic, since Fujimori has dissolved Congress.

Three people die in a huge bomb blast in the City of London financial district. . . . Prior to closing, the Russian congress votes to ratify a federal treaty that was signed in Moscow on Mar. 31 by Pres. Yeltsin and 18 leaders of Russia’s 20 main political subdivisions

Supporters of the moderate economic and foreign policies of Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani gain several new seats in the Majlis (parliament) in the opening round of Iran’s legislative elections. . . . Israel and Kazakhstan agree to establish diplomatic relations.

Carlos García García, who was secretly sworn in as Peruvian president Apr. 9, takes refuge in the Argentine embassy in Lima.

April 10

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Despite estimates that 10,000 refugees would return to Cambodia weekly, data shows that only a total of 2,574 have come back. The repatriation program is suspended for two weeks for reassessment.

Japan’s Nikkei stock exchange closes at 16,598.15 points, its lowest level in over five and a half years.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 6–10, 1992—321

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Reports confirm the Bush administration has ordered the removal of all information about teenage sex and birth control from a guide for federal employees. . . . Donald Eugene Harding becomes the first person executed in Arizona since 1963. . . . The Supreme Court overturns the federal pornography conviction of a Nebraska man on the grounds of entrapment. . . . Presidential candidates Bill Clinton and Edmund (Jerry) Brown debate on Donahue and Today. Judge Richey in Washington, D.C., rules that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 applies to the major political parties since they accept federal money for their nominating conventions. . . . Arkansas governor Bill Clinton wins primaries in New York, Wisconsin, and Kansas, while Pres. Bush trounces Patrick Buchanan. . . . As part of an investigation of the generic-drug industry and the FDA, Superpharm Corp. is fined $1 million after pleading guilty to shipping more than $2 million worth of unapproved drugs 1987.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

After Caterpillar’s Apr. 1 ultimatum, only 800 UAW members—out of a total of 12,600—cross the picket line to return to work.

Herman F. Marks, 96, a pioneer in the field of polymer chemistry for more than 75 years and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, dies after a brief illness in Texas.

Isaac Asimov, 72, one of the world’s most popular and respected writers of science fiction whose 468th book was recently published, dies of heart and kidney failure in New York City.

Maj. Gen. Jay Garner concedes that the Patriot antimissile system was less successful in the Persian Gulf war than previously asserted when he reports that Patriot had had a 70% success rate in Saudi Arabia and a 40% success rate in Israel.

Pulitzer Prize winners are announced, and they include Jane Smiley for her novel A Thousand Acres and James Tate for Selected Poems. A Special Award is conferred on Art Spiegelman for the comic books MAUS I: My Father Bleeds History and MAUS II: And Here My Troubles Began.

Congress eliminates congressional charters, an official recognition by Congress of organizations . . . . As part of a three-year of the genericdrug industry and the FDA, Chelsea Laboratories is fined $500,000 after admitting it falsified test results on meclofenamate, an anti-inflammatory arthritis medicine. Chelsea agrees to pull 54 of its products from the market and to withdraw applications for 14 new ones. . . .

Daniel Bovet, 85, a biochemist who discovered the first antihistamine and won the 1957 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine, dies of cancer in Rome, Italy.

A CDC survey finds 19% of highschool students and 29% of highschool seniors have had four or more sex partners, increasing their risk for HIV infection. . . . The GAO reports the use of military aircraft by members of Congress and the executive branch cost taxpayers at least $150 million in 1991. . . . Brian Rosenfeld, 34, a nurse who allegedly killed 23 patients, pleads guilty to killing three elderly patients with drug overdoses and is sentenced to three consecutive life prison terms. . . . Gale McGee, 77, U.S. senator (D, Wyo.), 1959–77, dies of pneumonia in Bethesda.

After a seven-month trial, a jury in U.S. District Court in Miami, Florida, convicts former Panamanian military strongman Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega on eight counts of racketeering, drug trafficking, and money laundering. He is acquitted on two charges of importing and distributing cocaine. The verdict marks the first time that a foreign head of state has been convicted by a U.S. jury.

The House approves an increase in the amount of wages a Social Security recipient may earn without incurring a reduction in benefits. . . . Amid the House Bank scandal, the House approves, 269-81, a resolution handing control of nonlegislative House matters to a professional manager jointly appointed by leaders of both parties. . . . The House clears a campaign-finance reform bill that will sharply limit spending by congressional candidates and introduce public financing of campaigns.

District Judge J. Thomas Greene dismisses most of the legal challenges to Utah’s restrictive abortion law and states he will rule on one remaining question after the Supreme Court issues its ruling on a similar law in Pennsylvania.

The State Department revokes the visas of 20 Haitians who supported the 1991 coup against Pres. Aristede. . . . The final version of the Defense Department’s report on the Persian Gulf war hails the armed services, especially the Air Force, but it skirts many controversies when it does not estimate the number of Iraqi military deaths, makes only a passing reference to Iraqi civilian deaths, and does not address the Iraqi postwar civilian deaths stemming from war damage to the country’ infrastructure.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council votes to limit the 1992 salmon harvest in U.S. waters to its lowest level ever. . . . Charles Keating Jr., the convicted former owner of the Lincoln S&L, is sentenced to the maximum of 10 years in a state penitentiary and fined the maximum financial penalty of $250,000. . . . The Senate approves, 54-35, its version of the fiscal 1993 budget resolution.

Christian Laettner is named the winner of the John R. Wooden Award as the top player in college basketball. . . . Tennis player Arthur Ashe, the first black man to win one of the sport’s grand-slam events, announces that he has the AIDS virus.

April 6

April 7

April 8

April 9

Nobel laureate James Watson quits as head of the National Institutes of Health’s Human Genome Project, a post he has held since 1988. His decision comes after NIH director Bernadine Healy ordered a review of Watson’s private investments, concerned about possible conflict of interest. . . . Peter Mitchell, 71, biochemist who discovered how cells create energy and use it to send nerve signals and move muscles and who won the 1978 Nobel prize for chemistry, dies in Bodmin, England.

The National Hockey League and its players’ union agree to a contract that ends a strike. . . . Sam Kinison, 38, controversial comedian, dies in an automobile accident near Needles, California.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 10

322—April 11–16, 1992

April 11

April 12

April 13

April 14

April 15

April 16

World Affairs

Europe

The European Court gives its blessing to the new European Economic Area pact after EC and EFTA negotiators amended it to allow disputes to be settled by a joint political committee rather than a judicial body.

Russian president Yeltsin issues a decree nationalizing and taking personal command of the commonwealth military forces stationed in Moldova. . . . Armenia claims more than 100 civilians were killed in an Azerbaijani attack on the village of Maraga, in Nagorno-Karabakh. . . . A bomb explodes in north London, but no one is injured. . . . The IRA claims responsibility for the Apr. 10 blast in London, described as the most powerful in Britain since World War II.

An Arab League committee, which includes the foreign ministers of Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, and Mauritania, meet in Rabat, Morocco, to seek a lastminute solution to the dispute over the extradition of Pan Am suspects.

The Euro Disney theme park opens to the public in Marne-la-Vallee, France, about 20 miles (35 km) outside of Paris.

The OAS passes a resolution criticizing Peruvian president Fujimori’s actions started Apr. 5. The OAS also warns that Fujimori must restore democracy in Peru by May 23 or else face economic sanctions.

An earthquake measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale hits northern Europe, injuring some 40 people. The epicenter is located near the town of Roermond, the Netherlands, near the German and Belgian borders. Seismologists state it is the strongest quake to hit the region in over 200 years, but only one death is reported in Germany, where officials reveal a woman died of a heart attack. . . . A Paris appeals court drops charges against Paul Touvier for crimes against humanity for his role as a militia chief in Lyons under German occupation during World War II. . . . Britain’s Buckingham Palace announces that Princess Anne has petitioned for divorce from her husband, Captain Mark Phillips.

In response to Libya’s argument that the U.S. and Britain violated the Montreal Convention by their efforts in the UN to force the extradition of the Pan Am 103 suspects, the World Court decides the UN Charter overrides the Montreal Convention. . . . The World Food Program and UNICEF state they have suspended aid to southern Sudan due to increased fighting, despite Sudan’s Apr. 9 pledge. . . . A Tunisian, Fouad Ali Saleh, is sentenced to life in prison for leading a 1985–86 bombing campaign in Paris that killed 13 people.

Africa & the Middle East In South Africa, the ruling National Party holds its first rally in a nonwhite area. Addressing a crowd in the Cape Town township of Mitchell’s Plain, Pres. de Klerk is cheered by thousands of “colored” (mixed-race) residents, but heckling and gravel throwing by supporters of the ANC and the New Unity Movement force him to cut short his speech.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Peruvian senate president Felipe Osterling and Chamber of Deputies president Roberto Ramírez del Villar are released from house arrest.

A powerful alliance of rebels from northern Afghanistan under the command of Ahmed Shah Massoud and defecting military units begin a sweep southward toward the capital after UN-mediated peace measures bog down.

An estimated 50,000 public-sector workers march in Montreal and Quebec City to protest a government demand that salaries be held down.

The Irani government announces that it pardoned and released more than 100 political prisoners, including eight leaders of the Freedom Movement, Iran’s only legal domestic opposition group. . . . ANC president Nelson Mandela confirms that he and his wife Winnie are separating after more than 33 years of marriage.

In Peru, a car bomb explodes in the Lima suburb of Callao, killing four people and wounding 20. It is the 10th terrorist bombing since Pres. Fujimori seized power Apr. 5. . . . Nicaragua’s Cerro Negro volcano erupts, covering the nearby city of León, located 50 miles (80 km) west of Managua, with 2 million tons of volcanic ash. About 20,000 people lose houses and livestock in the eruption.

The Australian government offers a four-year package of A$100 million in economic and social assistance to Vietnam. Australia suspended direct aid to Vietnam in 1979 after it invaded Cambodia.

Venezuela becomes the first country to sever diplomatic relations with Peru over the suspension of democracy.

In Afghanistan, the coalition between Abdul-Rashid Doestam and Ahmed Shah Massoud takes the city of Charikar and the nearby Bagram air base about 30 miles (50 km) north of Kabul, effectively isolating the capital. . . . North Korea celebrates the 80th birthday of Pres. Kim Il Sung, the longest-reigning head of state in the world.

Libya observes a “day of mourning” on the anniversary of the 1986 U.S. bombing raids on Tripoli and Benghazi in 1986 that killed 37 people.

Limited international sanctions take effect against Libya in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 748 passed in March. . . . The IAEA reports that most of the essential equipment at Al Atheer in Iraq has been destroyed by the Iraqi army under IAEA supervision.

The Russian Congress of People’s Deputies approves a declaration of conditional support for the radical economic reforms of Pres. Yeltsin.

Reports confirm that U.S. general John Galvin will step down as NATO’s supreme commander in Europe. . . . A UN commission with responsibility for demarcating the border between Iraq and Kuwait awards Kuwait part of Iraq’s only operating seaport and a large share of a disputed oil field that straddled both countries, settling Iraq’s longrunning border dispute with Kuwait that was one of the factors leading to its 1990 invasion.

An Italian court in Milan finds financier Carlo De Benedetti and all 32 codefendants guilty of charges connected to the 1982 collapse of Banco Ambrosiano. . . . The leader of the 1990 riot at Strangeways prison in Manchester, Paul Taylor, is sentenced to 10 years in jail for his part in the 25-day siege.

Winnie Mandela resigns as head of the ANC’s social welfare department, amid allegations that she was involved in the murder a youth. . . . Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Rabbie Namaliu announces that rebels from the Bougainville Revolutionary Army, an outlawed separatist group, executed a Bougainvillean peace negotiator, Anthony Anugu, and seven others on Bougainville island.

In Afghanistan, Pres. Najibullah abruptly resigns and goes into hiding at a UN compound in Kabul. . . . In what is reported to be the first successful court verdict against sexual harassment in Japan, an unidentified woman is awarded $12,500 as compensation for verbal harassment by her former bosses, identified as the Kyu Kikaku publishing company and its employee Hidenori Hirotsu.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 11–16, 1992—323

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The House Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families concludes that federal efforts to combat AIDS among teenagers are “underfunded, uncoordinated and largely unsuccessful” and calls the administration’s response to the problem a “national disgrace.” Eight of the committee’s Republicans object to the majority’s findings and file a dissenting report that argues AIDS among teenagers is primarily “a behavioral problem,” not a health problem.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Eve Merriam (born Eve Moskowitz), 75, award-winning poet, playwright, and author who won an Obie Award for her 1976 off-Broadway musical, The Club, dies of cancer in New York City.

Fred Couples wins the 56th Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Georgia, for the first major championship of his 12-year career.

Vitarine Pharmaceuticals are fined $2 million after revealing that it put $11 million worth of the hypertension medication triamterene hydrochlorothiazide on the market after research director Steven Colton forged and falsified tests. Colton has been sentenced to 27 months in prison. . . . (Herbert) Ray Roberts, 79, U.S. representative (D, Tex.), 1962–80, dies in Denton, Tex. . . . Antinuclear activist Rick Springer rushes onto a stage where former president Reagan is giving an address, grabs a 30-pound crystal statue presented to Reagan, and smashes it at the former president’s feet. Springer then tries to speak into the microphone but is captured by Secret Service agents.

Polish premier Jan Olszewski meets with U.S. President Bush at the White House.

Insurgent GOP candidate Patrick Buchanan states that he expects to be allowed to deliver a prime-time speech at the Republican National Convention and threatens to stage a rival convention and to generate “a big uproar” should he be denied a chance to speak.

U.S. district judge Harold H. Greene of Washington, D.C. orders the Pentagon to stop using a questionnaire asking detailed questions regarding past arrests, financial status, psychological problems, drug use, and organizational affiliations.

Dr. Abu Hayat, a NYC doctor who performed an illegal late-term abortion in 1991, is indicted on charges of assaulting an infant and its mother, Rosa Rodriguez. . . . Reports indicate several groups left the United Way, the largest of which is Wisconsin’s United Way of Greater Milwaukee, in response to the Apr. 3 report on misuse of funds. . . . The FDA ends a moratorium on the insertion of silicone-gel breast implants in effect since January.

In the strike at Caterpillar that started in November 1991, the company begins testing applicants to permanently fill positions that still vacant after the Apr. 6 deadline passed. . . . Top officials of the AFL-CIO vote unanimously to endorse Arkansas governor Bill Clinton (D) for president.

Around 250 million gallons (950 million liters) of water from the Chicago River floods through a rupture in a series of tunnels below the city and into the basements and subbasements of buildings in the city’s central “Loop” business district. The flood causes many businesses closures, including The Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the world’s largest futures markets. Some 200,000 people are evacuated from the area.

Ford Motors and California air-pollution officials introduce two modified versions of the Ford Escort and Mercury Tracer designed to meet the emissions standards set to go into effect in 1997. . . . The Dow sets a record of 3306.13, breaking the 3,300 point barrier. . . . The UAW union agrees to end its five-month walkout against Caterpillar Inc. and return to work without a contract, and Caterpillar agrees to stop hiring replacement workers.

In response to the Apr. 13 flooding, Chicago mayor Richard Daley (D) announces that he has fired acting Transportation Commissioner John LaPlante for failing to act on warnings that the tunnel system needed repairs.

The Washington Times reports the default rate of loans at the White House Credit Union is 3%, nearly twice that of an average credit union. . . . Pres. Bush and Barbara Bush make public their 1991 tax returns, which show that they paid $211,034 in federal taxes on a gross income of $1,324,456. The Bushes paid only $4,190 in state taxes since their official residence is not their home in Maine but a hotel in Texas, which has no state income tax.

After the Apr. 13 flooding in Chicago, Pres. Bush signs a disaster declaration, making the city, businesses, and individuals affected by the flooding eligible for federal disaster relief.

April 11

April 12

April 13

April 14

Tadao Ando, a Japanese architect, wins the Carlsberg Architectural Prize. Ando, 50, is the first recipient of the prize, which carries a $235,000 award, the largest in the field.

In a report evaluating the state economies by the Corporation for Enterprise Development, the highest marks go to states in the industrial Midwest, while states in the South are rated the worst. . . . The House Ethics Committee releases the names of 252 current and 51 former members of Congress who wrote overdraft checks at the House bank during the 39 months ending Oct. 3, 1991. The report includes 187 Democrats, 115 Republicans and one independent.

April 15

April 16

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

324—April 17–22, 1992

April 17

World Affairs

Europe

The CSCE, at a meeting in Helsinki, Finland, warns Serbia that the fighting in Bosnia represents a “clear, gross and uncorrected violation” of the terms of Yugoslavia’s membership in the organization. . . . Based on indicators such as educational attainment, life expectancy, and national income, the annual UN Human Development Report lists Canada as the best country to live in, replacing Japan.

At the site for the 1992 Universal Exposition world’s fair in Seville, Spain, a fire destroys the South Pacific Island Pavilion.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific After Pres. Najibullah’s resignation, “coalition governments” of rebel and military leaders take power in Gardez, Kandahar, and several other Afghan cities as army leaders seek to avoid battle and distance themselves from the disintegrating national government. The Wall Street Journal reports Najibullah, a member of the elite Pushtun tribe, undermined his military support by attempting to remove members of non-Pushtun ethnic minorities from the army’s commanding elite.

April 18

At the Saudi embassy in Sana, Yemen, a gunman sneaks into the building and captures the Saudi ambassador to Yemen, Ali Kassidi, and an aide. He demands a $1 million ransom. . . . South African president de Klerk, ANC president Mandela and Inkatha Freedom Party pres. Buthelezi address an Easter Sunday gathering of South Africa’s largest black religious group and makes new appeals for peace among rival black factions.

April 19

April 20

April 21

April 22

Spanish king Juan Carlos officially opens the 1992 Universal Exposition world’s fair in Seville. The event is described as the largest world’s fair ever held, and 110 nations participate in the fair. . . . In the presence of UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali, four factions in the Cambodian war sign two UN charters that form part of the International Bill of Rights. One covenant guarantees political and civil rights, and the second guarantees economic, social, and cultural rights.

Romania’s Supreme Court overturns the 1991 acquittals of 21 people who served on the Communist Party Politburo in the regime of toppled president Nicolae Ceausescu. . . . The Russian Congress of People’s Deputies vote to ratify the 1991 accord that created the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Israeli police arrest Binyamin Zeev Kahane, the son of the slain radical Jewish leader Rabbi Meir Kahane, on charges relating to the Mar 13 attack on a mosque in Kiraa. . . . Israeli officials announce that they will allow the last major university shut down after the infatada, Bir Zeit University in the occupied West Bank, to reopen. . . . Saudi ambassador Ali Kassidi is freed after being held hostage for 18 hours. Police identify the gunman as Ahmed Mathar Gameel Al-Qatari.

The U.S. State Department announces that Arab and Israeli delegations have agreed to hold their next round of peace talks in Rome.

A mortar and artillery offensive by well-armed Serbian paramilitary Sarajevo begins. . . . The foreign ministers of Romania and Germany sign a treaty of friendship and cooperation. . . . Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich Romanov, 74, who, in 1991, made his first and last visit to Russia, dies during an interview with the press in Miami, Florida. He was claimed to be the successor to the Russian imperial throne as a cousin of the last czar, Nicholas II.

In an unprecedented move that gives the antiapartheid movement its first voice in South Africa’s Parliament, which excludes black’s, five white South African lawmakers belonging to the liberal Democratic Party switch allegiance to the African National Congress. The five members are David Dalling, Pierre Cronje, Jan van Eck, Jannie Momberg, and Robert Haswell.

U.S. president Bush meets in Washington, D.C., with European Commission President Jacques Delors and EC leaders in an unsuccessful effort to break an ongoing stalemate in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Uruguay Round of multilateral trade talks. . . . The IMF issues a revised forecast for the world economy projecting growth of only 1.4% in 1992.

Georgi Gotovchits, the Ukrainian official in charge of the Chernobyl clean-up, claims that the 1986 nuclear-power accident caused between 6,000 and 8,000 deaths.

Abdul Rahim Hatif is named interim president of Afghanistan.

An Organization of American States delegation arrives in Lima on a factfinding trip. Peruvian first vice president Máximo San Román is sworn in as president by the dissolved congress in a symbolic act of defiance against Alberto Fujimori.

Interim Afghan president Abdul Rahim Hatif announces that he is willing to cede control of the wartorn nation to a coalition of Muslim rebels as competing guerrilla forces advance to within five miles (eight km) of Kabul, the capital.

At least 190 people are killed and more than 1,400 are injured in Guadalajara, Mexico, when a series of violent explosions in the sewer system destroy a 20-block area of the city’s eastern La Reforma district. . . . In Colombia, 13,000 employees of Telecom strike to protest a bill sent to congress by Pres. Cesar Gaviria Trujillo to privatize the company.

In Afghanistan, Hizb-i-Islami sentries at a checkpoint near Kabul shoot and kill an Icelandic medical worker serving in the region for the International Red Cross, Jan Carlson.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 17–22, 1992—325

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Police in San Diego, California, confirm that they have broken up a nationwide computer-fraud network of 1,000 loosely affiliated computer hackers. The hackers broke into electronic files and made millions of dollars worth of creditcard purchases. Authorities arrested two people in Ohio and seized computers and related equipment in NYC, Philadelphia, and Seattle. . . . Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot states he has resigned from two unidentified private clubs that exclude minority members.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Arthur C. Stern, 83, director of air pollution research for the Public Health Service, 1955–68, who drafted NYC’s first air-pollution regulations in 1949, dies of a heart attack in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. . . . Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan asserts the economy grew at a 2% annual rate in the first quarter of 1992.

Virginia governor L. Douglas Wilder (D) vetoes an abortion bill that would have required parental notification for unmarried women under 18 years old who want to obtain an abortion.

April 17

Transportation officials discover that the Apr. 13 flood in Chicago has filled the drainage system for the Kennedy Expressway. Four lanes of the 10-lane highway are closed due to flooding. Reports confirm that the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation is raising money to aid the estimated 50,000 Cambodians who became amputees as a result of land mines or grenades.

April 18

In golf, Lee Trevino wins the PGA Seniors Championship in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, by one stroke over Mike Hill.

A TV station in Indianapolis, Indiana, is swamped with phone calls after broadcasting a political campaign advertisement that shows graphic pictures of aborted fetuses. The ads promote Michael Bailey, a candidate for the Republican nomination for a congressional seat. . . . The national antiabortion group Operation Rescue opens a two-week-long protest against abortion clinics in Buffalo, New York. Hundreds of supporters on each side of the abortion debate mass in and around Buffalo.

U.S. officials confirm that Saudi Arabia in 1986 sent U.S.-made Mark 84 bombs to Iraq as part of a larger shipment of military equipment and that the Reagan administration notified Congress of the shipments as required by U.S. law in August 1986.

According to the Federal Reserve’s triennial Survey of Consumer Finances, the distribution of wealth in the U.S. tilted toward the rich in the 1980s since the richest 1% of American households accounted for 37% of all U.S. assets in 1989, an increase from 31% in 1983.

A parole board unanimously votes to deny parole to Charles Manson, the cult leader who masterminded the 1969 killings of Sharon Tate and eight others. . . . The FBI announces an agreement to modify or review bureau procedures in order to head off a potential class-action racial discrimination lawsuit by 300 black agents. . . . Robert Alton Harris, convicted of the 1978 murders of two teenage boys in San Diego, is executed in the gas chamber. Harris, 39, is the first person executed in California in 25 years.

The Supreme Court rules unanimously that states cannot tax the pension income of military retirees while at the same time exempting former state employees’ pensions from taxes.

The National Association of State Budget Officers’ fiscal survey of the states finds 35 states were forced to make cuts totaling $5.7 billion from their budgets for fiscal 1992. . . . Malcolm Wilkey, a special prosecutor investigating the House Bank, subpoenas all financial records of every House member’s account between 1988 and 1991. . . . The Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that U.S. government agencies cannot be required to pay fines for violations of federal environmental protection laws.

A jury in Farmville, North Carolina, convicts Robert F. Kelly Jr. on 99 counts of sexually abusing 12 children during 1988 and 1989, ending the longest and costliest criminal trial in North Carolina history. . . . In Amherst, New York, 194 antiabortion extremists are arrested when they try to close a clinic. . . . Louisiana representative David Duke (R), who finished second in a Louisiana gubernatorial race despite his past as a Ku Klux Klan leader, ends his bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

In response to an Apr. 15 court ruling, Assistant Defense Secretary Duane P. Andrews halts security background checks of civilian jobseekers who filled out an intrusive Pentagon questionnaire. . . . Reports suggest that the Peruvian ambassador to the U.S., Roberto Maclean, has resigned.

The Commerce Department reports that the average rise in per capita income, 2.1%, lags behind the inflation rate of 4.1% for the first time since 1982. In the ranking of the 50 states by 1991 per capita income, Connecticut is at the top, while Mississippi is at the bottom.

Ibrahim Hussein of Kenya wins the Boston Marathon with a time of 2:08:14. . . . Benny Hill, 67, English comedian whose shows were broadcast in more than 80 countries, is found dead in London. . . . Madonna signs a contract with Time Warner that makes her the highest-paid female entertainer ever.

April 19

April 20

April 21

Reggie Johnson takes the vacant World Boxing Association middleweight title when he scores a 12-round majority decision over Steve Collins of Ireland in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 22

326—April 23–28, 1992

World Affairs

April 23

April 24

The UN Security Council votes to send 50 military observers to monitor the cease-fire in Mogadishu, Somalia. . . . UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali rejects a joint request from three foreign ministers to extend to Bosnia the organization’s peacekeeping mandate in Croatia.

April 27

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Data suggest that scores of people have been killed in shelling and gun battles in Sarajevo since Apr. 21. In Bosnia, a cease-fire is brokered by the EC. . . . An advance party of 33 British soldiers arrives in Belgrade as part of the deployment of UN peacekeepers for Croatia. . . . A court in London grants Britain’s Princess Anne a divorce from Captain Mark Phillips, her husband of 18 years.

Guadalajara mayor Enrique Dau Flores states he will step down over his role in allowing the Apr. 22 blast in the sewer system to occur.

The chairman of the ruling military junta of Myanmar, Gen. Saw Maung, is replaced by General Than Shwe because of ill health. . . . Rebels from rival factions surge into Kabul. The Red Cross halts a program for evacuating wounded civilians and rebels to Kabul due to security concerns after the Apr. 22 shooting. . . . U.S.based McDonald’s opens its first outlet in China near Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, and it serves 40,000 people on its debut, setting an international record.

As many as 70,000 members of the Solidarity trade union march in Warsaw, Poland’s capital. The union vows to call a general strike unless the government helps ailing state-owned industries and lawmakers end partisan bickering in parliament. . . . Italian premier Giulio Andreotti steps down from his post to clear the way for the formation of a new government in the wake of Apr. 5 elections.

Peru’s counterterrorism police declare that they raided and shut down El Diario, the clandestine newspaper of the rebel organization Sendero Luminoso. The raids resulted in 23 arrests. . . . A U.S. military transport aircraft is fired on by a Peruvian air force plane. Two crew members are wounded and one is missing and presumed dead when he falls out of the plane after a door was blown open by machine-gun fire.

Nine people are killed and 50 are injured in a series of motorcycle accidents among fans at the 24hour Le Mans motorcycle race in France. The accidents are blamed on high-speed driving by the motorcyclist fans and pervasive consumption of alcohol. . . . Italian president Francesco Cossiga announces his resignation. . . . British Conservative Party chairman Christopher Patten is named governor of the British territory of Hong Kong, replacing Lord David Wilson.

April 25

April 26

Europe

A broad-based alliance of guerrilla groups and mutinous army units under the command of Ahmed Shah Massoud take control of most of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. Sporadic fighting continues. Afghan guerrilla leaders in Peshawar, Pakistan, announce an agreement to form a 50-member interim commission to govern Afghanistan and prepare for democratic elections, but spokesmen for the Hezb-i-Islami led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar announce their opposition and call for the establishment of a strict Islamic government.

The finance ministers of the Group of Seven leading industrial nations, meeting in Washington, formally approve most components of the $24 billion aid package for Russia offered Apr. 1. They also urge in a communiqué that Japan stimulate its economy.

Polish president Lech Walesa calls for the parliament to grant him strong executive powers similar to those of the French president under the French political system. . . . Socialist Party candidate Rudolf Streicher tops the first round of voting in Austria’s presidential election. . . . Romania’s exiled monarch, King Michael, is excitedly greeted by more than 100,000 Romanians in Bucharest.

A state-chartered transport plane crashes in rough weather near Saveh, Iran, about 80 miles (130 km) southwest of Teheran, killing all 39 people on board.

Most of the former Soviet republics are offered membership in the IMF and the World Bank. . . . Arab and Israeli negotiators meet in Washington, D.C., for direct peace talks. . . . The Yugoslav republics of Montenegro and Serbia proclaim a new “Federal Republic of Yugoslavia” and a revised charter tacitly acknowledges the independence of Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, and Macedonia, the first three of which have received broad international recognition. China, however, is the only major nation to recognize the new Yugoslavia.

Betty Boothroyd becomes the first woman to be elected speaker of the House of Commons in Britain. . . . Germany’s main union for publicsector workers launches its first national strike since 1974. . . . UN officials report that fighting in Bosnia created 380,000 refugees in one month’s time, and they suggest that no conflict in Europe since World War II has created so many refugees in so short a period. . . . An outbreak of fighting in Ilidza, a suburb of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, stands out as the most serious breach of the Apr. 23 cease-fire.

Reports indicate that Syria has agreed to lift restrictions on travel by its 4,500 Jewish citizens.

In Peru, police cause an uproar when they arrest secretary general Félix Cóndor of the shantytown Raucana, as well as another man, on charges of terrorism. . . . Colombian police arrest Iván Urdinola, 33, believed to be one of South America’s leading drug traffickers linked to the Cali cartel. Separately, state petroleum workers go on strike for 24 hours in support of the telephone workers. The phone workers agree to return to their jobs. . . . P.M. John Compton wins a third consecutive term in office in the East Caribbean nation of St. Lucia.

Myanmar’s junta announces that it will end a crackdown on Muslim refugees.

Voters in Ghana approve a referendum on a new constitution to lead the West African country to a multiparty democracy. . . . Prince Hassan al-Rida al-Senussi, 63 or 64, heir to the throne of Libya who was jailed and persecuted after Muammar Gadhafi came to power and moved to Britain in 1988, dies of a heart attack in London, England.

At a demonstration to protest the Apr. 27 arrest of Félix Cóndor, Peruvian army troops fire on protestors in the Raucana shantytown of Lima. One person is killed, and 12 are wounded.

Officials of Afghanistan’s collapsed Communist government relinquish power to a commission of mujaheddin rebels headed by moderate Islamic leader Sibghatullah Mojadidi. The transfer formally ends 14 years of rule by Soviet-backed regimes in Afghanistan. . . . In Myanmar, the ruling SLORC announces that it will suspend military operations against the ethnic Karen rebels.

April 28

The ruling military junta of Myanmar, known as the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), reports that it has freed 19 political prisoners, including Ma Theingi, a personal assistant to Aung San Suu Kyi, the detained Nobel peace laureate and dissident. . . . A joint operation of U.S.-Thai military maneuvers in northern Thailand that involves an estimated 9,500 U.S. servicemen begins.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 23–28, 1992—327

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Kansas governor Joan Finney (D) signs into law a bill requiring women to wait at least eight hours after receiving medical counseling before having an abortion. . . . Three gang members, Yull Gary Morales, Anthony Anderson, and Ricardo Lopez, are convicted of felony murder and robbery of Brian Watkins, a tourist from Utah. . . . After the Apr. 22 finding, Judge Marsh McLelland sentences Robert Kelly to 12 consecutive life prison terms, one for each of his victims.

According to a report by the House Armed Services Committee, the Defense Department vastly overcounted the number of Iraqi troops in Kuwait and southern Iraq at the start of the allied ground offensive of the 1991 Persian Gulf war. . . . A study sent to Pres. Bush by U.S. representative John Dingell (D, Mich.) finds that Energy Department officials ignored a 1989 report warning that Iraq was undertaking a massive effort to acquire materials to build a nuclear bomb.

A report indicates that, of the money paid out by insurance companies to cover toxic-waste cleanup claims under federal Superfund legislation, only about one-tenth is spent on actual cleanup operations. The report states that about four-fifths of the money goes to cover legal costs. . . . The United Steelworkers endorses the candidacy of Arkansas governor Bill Clinton (D) as president.

In a major finding, astronomer George Smoot of the University of California at Berkeley announces the discovery of faint temperature variations in the most distant matter yet detected. These irregularities, he claims, offer long-sought evidence to support the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe.

Satyajit Ray, 70, India’s bestknown film director who was awarded an Oscar for lifetime achievement and received the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian award, dies in Calcutta.

Bristol-Myers Squibb pleads guilty to charges of illegally polluting waters. . . . Reports indicate only 84 of the EPA’s 1,245 most-polluted sites have been cleaned up. . . . The EPA rules banks will no longer be held liable for environmental cleanup on properties taken over through foreclosures. . . . GM announces plans to offer common shares for the first time since 1955. . . . The UAW and the United Mine Workers of America endorse Bill Clinton for president.

In response to astronomer George Smoot’s Apr. 23 finding, Stephen Hawking of Cambridge University calls it “the discovery of the century, if not of all time.”

April 24

Pilot Tom Morganfeld escapes with only minor injuries when the only flying prototype of the F-22 Advanced Tactical Fighter crashes and burns at Edwards Air Force Base. . . . The State Department discontinues a policy of issuing special documents for travel in Israel and South Africa set because the presence of those country’s stamps on a passport often causes travelers to face difficulty when arriving in other nations. The change comes after charges the two-passport policy stigmatizes Israel and South Africa.

April 25

Richard E. Gerstein, 68, prosecutor in Dade County, Florida, who discovered the first links between the 1972 Watergate burglary and Pres. Richard Nixon’s White House, dies of a heart attack in Miami.

Bill Clinton (D, Ark.) wins the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania, and Pres. Bush easily wins the GOP primary. A Washington Post/ABC News poll finds that 36% of respondents support the president, 31% Clinton, and 30%, Perot. . . . Agriculture Secretary Edward R. Madigan releases an Agriculture Department pamphlet presenting the Food Guide Pyramid, which depicts food groups in terms of recommended daily amounts.

April 23

April 26

The Senate clears, 75-22, a bill authorizing the Treasury to mint four new commemorative coins and a silver medal for veterans of the Persian Gulf War.

The State and Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators vote unanimously to recommend the northeastern emissions plan for adoption at the state level nationwide.

Gerard K. O’Neill, 65, physicist won the 1977 Phi Beta Kappa Science Book Award and was appoint to the National Commission on Space in 1985, dies of complications from leukemia in Redwood, California.

The Church of Scientology files a $416 million libel suit against Time magazine, calling its cover story about the church an “attempt to destroy the Scientology religion.”. . . The Pelican Brief by John Grisham is at the top of Publishers Weekly’s bestseller list.

State Farm Insurance Co. agrees to pay a total of $157 million to 814 past and current female employees to settle sex-discrimination charges. The sum is the largest ever paid in damages in a case brought under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. . . . The Commerce Department states the U.S. gross domestic product advanced at a 2% annual rate in the first quarter of 1992, the fastest growth rate since the inauguration of Pres. Bush in 1989.

The National Transportation Safety Board states the failure of a severely worn part in the propeller unit of the plane carrying former Sen. John Tower (R, Tex.) caused the 1991 plane crash that killed Tower and 22 others.

Francis Bacon, 82, Irish-born artist who was hailed as one of the most influential painters of the postWorld War II period, dies of a heart attack in Madrid, Spain. . . . The trustees of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., name Earl (Rusty) Powell as the gallery’s new director.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 27

April 28

328—April 29–May 3, 1992

April 29

April 30

May 1

May 2

May 3

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The Americas

A Pakistani delegation led by P.M. Nawaz Sharif visits Kabul in Afghanistan to offer Pakistan’s formal recognition to the new government. Iran formally recognizes the coalition government, and Turkey and Saudi Arabia offer support to the new regime. Britain and France, too, welcome the transfer of power to the rebels.

The CIS nuclear states agree to act as coequals in START, thus requiring the U.S. to negotiate separate protocols with each republic. . . . The strike in Germany started Apr. 27 escalates, and 215,000 publicsector workers are said to be taking part in the job action. . . . Talks aimed at forming a new system of government for Northern Ireland to replace direct rule from Britain restart. . . . The Ukraine parliament offers the Crimea political autonomy in an attempt to dampen an independence effort on the peninsula.

Mutinous soldiers overthrow Joseph Momoh, Sierra Leone’s president, who flees to neighboring Guinea. They seize Momoh’s palace and two radio stations. . . . Former Somali president Mohamed Siad Barre, after three unsuccessful attempts to retake Mogadishu, flees to Kenya from Somalia, along with more than 1,200 people. . . . Police arrest Koos Botha, a white right-wing member of South Africa’s Parliament, in connection with the June 1991 bombing of a high school.

U.S. lieutenant general John M. Shalikashvili is named as NATO’s supreme commander, a post which traditionally goes to an American.

British prime minister Major moves up Britain’s target date for reduction of carbon-dioxide emissions to the EC’s target year of 2000. . . . Two Czechoslovak newspapers publish a confidential list of more than 300 journalists who allegedly were informants for the secret police during the communist era, adding tension to an ongoing controversy in Czechoslovakia over the files of the secret police, the StB.

The Red Cross restarts importing emergency food into Mogadishu, Somalia. . . . In Sierra Leone, soldiers announce the formation of a National Provisional Defense Council to govern the country. . . . In South Africa, one policeman is sentenced to death and four others to 15 years in prison for the murder of 11 blacks in Dec. 1988 in Trust Feed, a poor settlement in rural Natal. It is the first case where a court links police forces to political violence.

Guillermo Cosio Vidaurri, governor of the Mexican state of Jalisco, steps down in the wake of the Apr. 22 sewer-line explosions in Guadalajara. Nine officials are indicted on criminal charges stemming from the disaster.

Riots in the U.S. city of Los Angeles draw international condemnation. French pres. Mitterrand blames the violence on U.S. pres. Bush’s conservative economic policies. South Korean pres. Roh Tae Woo asks the U.S. to give greater protection to Korean Americans, whose businesses in Los Angeles are the target of much of the looting. The Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun argues that the violence “showed how the rights of black people are weak in the presence of the white majority.”

Serbian volunteer militias and ethnic Serb guerrillas begin a new offensive in Bosnia and subject Sarajevo to round-the-clock shelling. . . . About 25,000 people— Russian right-wing nationalists in an alliance with Communists— march in Moscow on the “Day of Spring and Labor” (formerly May Day) to denounce targets ranging from Pres. Yeltsin to U.S. and Israeli “imperialism.”

Figures indicate that tribal clashes in Kenya’s rural western provinces have claimed as many as 2,000 lives and left about 50,000 people homeless. . . . In South Africa, Winnie Mandela is reelected as chairwoman of the ANC Women’s League executive committee for the Witwatersrand region (greater Johannesburg).

Jalisco legislators name Carlos Rivera Aceves as interim governor after Guillermo Cosio Vidaurri’s Apr. 30 resignation.

Foreign ministers from 19 European nations sign the European Economic Area (EEA) treaty in Oporto, Portugal. The treaty creates a free-trade area between the 12-nation EC and the seven-nation EFTA. . . . The violence in Los Angeles continues to embarrass the U.S. when The Citizen, a South African newspaper that represents white interests, declares, “Our advice to the United States is: Sort out your own racial problems and leave us to sort out ours. As L.A. has shown, you are not a great example to us.”

The Yugoslav army seizes Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic, a Muslim Slav. An EC peace monitor from Belgium, unidentified by name, is killed amid fighting in the city of Mostar in one of several incidents involving EC monitors, and UN peacekeeping officers caught in crossfire.

China joins other countries when it states that the riots in Los Angeles reflect human-rights violations and “serious racial discrimination” in the U.S.

The Yugoslav army releases Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic unharmed as UN vehicles escort a convoy of army troops out of the city. Muslim militiamen ambush the rear of the convoy when it reaches the outskirts of Sarajevo, killing an undisclosed number of soldiers and stealing weapons and ammunition.

Asia & the Pacific In Afghanistan, forces from the coalition led by Ahmed Shah Massoud overrun the last Hezb-i-Islami stronghold within city limits.

The Colombian army reveals that nine guerrillas and five soldiers were killed in a counterinsurgency operation against the stronghold of the Colombian Armed Revolutionary Forces (FARC) in the jungle area of Meta, south of the capital, Bogota. Rebel leaders dispute the military’s account, maintaining that the operation left 20 soldiers and four guerrillas dead.

Ahmed Shah Massoud, the leader of the alliance of rebels and mutinous army units that captured Kabul, Afghanistan, enters the city. . . . In India, Chief Judicial Magistrate Gulab Sharma, who issued a warrant Mar. 27, rules that the court will seize all Indian assets of Union Carbide Corp. because company officials failed to appear before him.

The body of Karim Shadan, the former chief justice of Afghanistan, is found mutilated and riddled with bullets in Kabul.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 29–May 3, 1992—329

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A Simi Valley jury acquits four white LAPD officers, Stacey Koon, Theodore Briseno, Timothy Wind, and Laurence Powell, on all but one charge stemming from the March 1991 beating of black motorist Rodney King. After the verdict is announced, looting and violence break out, and more than 100 arson fires engulf the area. A dozen people are reported killed. L.A. mayor Bradley (D) declares a local state of emergency, and Gov. Wilson (R) orders the National Guard to report for duty. The riots are the worst since the 1965 Watts riots in L.A.

The U.S. announces a partial lifting of its 17-year-old embargo on trade with Vietnam in recognition of Vietnamese cooperation on the issue of U.S. servicemen listed as missing in action during the Vietnam War.

The House votes to furnish the financial records that were subpoenaed Apr. 21. . . . Energy Secretary James Watkins announces that the U.S. will no longer produce enriched uranium for use in nuclear weapons. . . . Reports state that the measures proposed Apr. 2 on emission standards have been approved by the governors of eight states.

Mae Clarke (born Mary Klotz), 84, actress known for a scene in which Jimmy Cagney shoved a grapefruit in her face in the gangster film Public Enemy (1931), dies of cancer in Woodland Hills, California.

Riots in response to the Apr. 29 acquittal continue. Mayor Tom Bradley (D) institutes a curfew, and 700 public schools close. Protests are staged across the U.S., and, in Miami, San Francisco, and Atlanta, they turn violent, and hundreds are arrested. In Las Vegas, two people are killed. . . . The House votes to reauthorize Title X of the Public Health Service Act. The bill includes a clause that will overturn a ban on discussing abortion in federally funded clinics.

Terrorist acts during the Persian Gulf war that were linked to Iraq and its allies contributed to a 22% increase in incidents of international terrorism in 1991, the State Department reports.

Pres. Bush signs an executive order intended to assist state and local governments in selling publicly owned properties such as roads, bridges, airports, and sewage treatment plants. . . . The Senate clears a campaign-finance reform bill that will sharply limit spending by House and Senate candidates and introduce public financing of campaigns.

NBC runs the last episode of The Cosby Show, the most popular television comedy in history that is credited with reviving the sitcom format. . . . Because of riots, the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team postpones a game with the Philadelphia Phillies.

As violence continues in L.A., 30,000 uniformed personnel, including the National Guard, Army soldiers, and Marines come in to restore order. In Seattle, a protest turns violent. In the wake of the Apr. 30 killings, Nevada governor Bob Miller (D) orders 400 National Guard troops into the city. . . . Convicted serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is sentenced to a 16th life sentence to run consecutively with his 15 consecutive life terms in Wisconsin after pleading guilty to the murder of Steven Hicks, 18, in 1978.

Separate reports by the navy inspector general and the Naval Investigative Service are made public, showing that a total of 14 female naval officers and 12 female civilians were sexually abused at the September 1991 Tailhook Association aviators’ convention in Las Vegas.

Due to the unrest in Los Angeles, a Dodgers three-game series is postponed, and NBA playoff games move to Las Vegas and Anaheim, California. Violent protests in San Francisco lead the Giants baseball team to postpone a game. . . . The America team of Bill Koch earns the right to defend the U.S.’s hold on the America’s Cup yachting trophy.

As looting in Los Angeles continues, Mayor Bradley criticizes Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, who did not ask for help from federal troops early on in the riots. . . . More than 100 abortion opponents are arrested after they rushed the back of a clinic in Amherst,Massachusetts. . . . Wilb ur Daigh Mills, 82, U.S. Democratic representative, 1938–76, who served 20 years as chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, dies of unreported causes in Kensett, Arizona.

A baseball purportedly hit for Babe Ruth’s 60th home run in 1927 is sold for $200,000 in a sale at Goober’s auction house in San Francisco. However, the Baseball Hall of Fame claims that it has in its possession the record-setting ball. . . . Lil E. Tee wins the 118th running of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs in Louisville.

The riots in Los Angeles seem to settle down as 1,100 Marines and 600 army soldiers join 6,500 National Guard troops patrolling the city. Mayor Bradley announces the appointment of Peter Ueberroth to head a commission to oversee restoration efforts in the riotshattered areas. . . . George Lloyd Murphy, 89, film actor and chairman of the California Republican Party, 1953–64, who served one term as a U.S. senator (R, Calif.) 1964–70, dies of leukemia in Palm Beach, Florida.

A special Tony Award is presented to The Fantasticks, the world’s longest-running musical, which has begun its 33rd consecutive season off-Broadway.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 29

April 30

May 1

May 2

May 3

330—May 4–8, 1992

World Affairs

May 4

May 5

May 6

At the UN, Iraq asks for an emergency Security Council meeting to condemn human-rights violations in the riots in the U.S. city of Los Angeles. . . . In accordance with a previous agreement, North Korea submits a list of its atomic facilities to the IAEA.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Muslim militants attack Manshiet Nasser, a Christian village 130 miles (200 km) south of Cairo, killing at least 14 people in Egypt’s worst outbreak of religious violence since 1981. . . . In Lagos, Nigeria, a riot over fare hikes leaves 10 people dead. . . . More than 500,000 black commuters boycott trains to force the South African government to stop random killings on the railways. . . . The U.S. flies out at least 100 American nationals in Sierra Leone. . . . An Algerian military court condemns 13 suspected FIS members to hang for slaying three army soldiers in November.

In Toronto, a demonstration of 500 people in front of the U.S. consulate to protest the treatment of blacks by the criminal justice system turns violent. Vandalism and looting breaks out, and 32 people are arrested. . . . Cuban officials report that the U.S. economic embargo has cost Cuba more than $20 billion and has blocked efforts to renegotiate the country’s $7 billion foreign debt.

A prominent opposition politician, Chamlong Srimuang, vows to fast until General Suchinda Kraprayoon, the new premier of Thailand, agrees to resign. . . . In Afghanistan, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s forces fire scores of rockets and artillery shells at Kabul. Reports indicate that the interim government has banned the sale of alcohol, which is interpreted as a move toward the imposition of Islamic law.

Georgia becomes the International Monetary Fund’s 158th member, with an IMF quota of $102 million. The IMF offers membership to Azerbaijan, the last of the 15 republics of the former Soviet Union to be offered admittance.

The Yugoslav collective presidency announces it is relinquishing control over the Yugoslav armed forces that remain in Bosnia. The army and the Bosnian government sign a truce pact. . . . A temporary stand for spectators collapses at Furiani soccer stadium in Bastia, Corsica, wounding and killing an undetermined number of people. . . . The Crimean parliament declares the “creation of a sovereign state, the republic of Crimea,” subject to voter approval.

Lebanon’s major labor unions declare a general strike to protest soaring consumer prices, and schools, banks, and offices close. Rioting erupts in the cities of Sidon and Tyre, where protesters burn down the home of Finance Minister Ali al-Khalil. . . . Iran’s Supreme Council for Investment removes its limits on foreign ownership of businesses in Iran.

In Toronto, some 150 youths battle riot police, break windows, and turn over garbage cans and mailboxes.

Interim president Sibghatullah Mojadidi names a 36-member temporary cabinet to assume administrative power in Afghanistan. His announcement comes as fighting continues. Ahmed Shah Massoud is named defense minister in the new cabinet. . . . Reports conclude that some guerrillas in Afghanistan are enforcing laws requiring women to wear traditional Islamic apparel.

The Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal at The Hague, the Netherlands, rules that the U.S. owes compensation to Iran for nonmilitary assets impounded by U.S. authorities after Iranian militants seized the U.S. embassy in Teheran in 1979.

About 400,000 German workers continue to strike after shutting down Frankfurt’s airport for 24 hours. . . . In Tajikistan, armed rebels seize most of the capital, forcing Pres. Nabiyev to take refuge in the parliament building. . . . British prime minister Major confirms for the first time that MI6, a Secret Intelligence Service set up in 1909, exists. . . . Polish finance minister Andrzej Olechowski becomes the second person to leave that post in 1992.

In Beirut, demonstrators ransack banks and block major roads Crowds attempt to storm the Beirut villas of Omar Karami and Pres. Elias Hrawi before being dispersed by police. Lebanese premier Karami and the 30-member cabinet resign. . . . In Malawi, workers protest to demand higher pay. When thousands of prodemocracy protestors join the workers, looting breaks out, and government troops fire on crowds.

At the Canto Grande prison in Peru, of which rebels have almost complete control, police attempt to transfer 120 female Shining Path inmates to another prison. Groups of heavily armed male and female prisoners fight back with guns, explosives, and acid.

The interim council dissolves the Afghan People’s Democratic (Communist) Party, different factions of which have ruled Afghanistan since 1978. It also creates a special court to try former communist officials who “violated Islamic or national law.” The shelling of Kabul that started May 4 ceases as deputies of Hekmatyar enter into negations about his role in the new government.

Leaders of Bosnia’s ethnic Serb and ethnic Croat communities announce an agreement to stop fighting each other and to partition the republic along ethnic lines A map of the proposed partition infuriates the Muslim Slav leadership. . . . In Tajikistan, government moderates negotiate a power-sharing agreement with the opposition, but Pres. Nabiyev rejects, spurring new protests. . . . A strike by Germany’s public-sector workers ends when unions and government employers agree to a pact with an average pay increase of about 5.4%.

In Malawi, clashes spread to Lilongwe, the capital. Protesters demanding H. Kamuzu Banda’s resignation ransack the headquarters of the ruling Malawi Congress Party, the country’s only legal political group. Hundreds of people are arrested.

Armenian forces overrun the town of Shusha, the last Azerbaijani stronghold in the NagornoKarabakh region. . . . Britain’s new home secretary, Kenneth Clarke, announces that operations in mainland Britain against the outlawed Provisional IRA will be headed by MI5, Britain’s domestic counterintelligence agency. . . . Yugoslavia’s acting defense minister and chief of staff, Gen. Blagoje Adzic, and 37 other generals and admirals are dismissed without explanation.

In Malawi, data indicates that at least 38 people have died in clashes with security forces that started May 4. . . . Allegations surface in the South African press that link the white-minority government’s security forces with the 1985 murders of four antiapartheid leaders. . . . Supporters of the moderate economic and foreign policies of Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani state they have won a majority in Iran’s Majlis (parliament) following runoff legislative elections.

May 7

May 8

Europe

Kyrgyzstan, with an IMF quota of $59 million, is made the International Monetary Fund’s 159th member.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 4–8, 1992—331

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

In Los Angeles, a dusk-to-dawn curfew, established Apr. 30, is lifted. The Los Angeles Police Commission begins gathering facts about the police response. . . . In Keeney v. Tamayo-Reyes, the Supreme Court overturns a 1963 precedent when it finds, 5-4, that federal courts are not obligated to grant a federal court hearing on a state prison inmate’s challenge to his conviction, even if vital facts were not presented by the inmate’s lawyer in the state appeal process.

Arkansas governor Bill Clinton easily wins primaries in North Carolina, Indiana, and Washington, D.C. On the GOP side, Pres. Bush also comfortably wins those contests. . . . North Carolina primary voters ensure that their state will be represented in Congress by a black for the first time since 1902 as candidates elected and slated for runoffs are African Americans. . . . Marvin T. Runyon Jr., is named postmaster general.

Rep. Joseph McDade (R, Pa.) is indicted on federal charges of bribery, racketeering, and conspiracy for allegedly accepting more than $100,000 worth of bribes and illegal gifts from military contractors.

Rep. William L. Clay (D, Mo.), chairman of the House Post Office and Civil Service Committee, confirms that a chapter on contraceptives and adolescent sexuality, deleted in April from a child-care book sent to federal employees, will be distributed to the employees separately.

The Freedom Forum awards former Lebanon hostage Terry Anderson the first Free Spirit Award. The prize of $245,500 equals $100 for each of his 2,455 days in captivity. . . . Ukrainian president Leonid Kravchuk, speaking in Washington, D.C., vows that his republic will cut its nuclear arsenal as required by the U.S.-Soviet 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

According to reports, 10,000 stores in Los Angeles were at least partially burned in riots. The Wall Street Journal estimates that the repair of structural damage alone from the L.A. riots will cost $550 million. A federal aid package is announced that includes $100 million to riot victims, $200 million to rebuild damaged areas, and $400 million in loans from the Small Business Administration. The L.A. Community Redevelopment Agency approves $20 million in emergency relief for small businesses and homeowners.

Thomas Otten Paine, 70, administrator of NASA during the first manned missions to the moon who was appointed chairman of the National Commission on Space in 1985, dies of cancer in Brentwood, California.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

May 4

May 5

Federal budget director Richard G. Darman testifies that a constitutional amendment mandating a balanced federal budget is the only realistic way of balancing the budget.

A federal jury in Detroit convicts former Detroit police chief William L. Hart of embezzling $2.6 million in police funds over a seven-year period. . . . Pres. Bush tours Los Angeles in the wake of riots started Apr. 29.

Newspaper delivery drivers in NYC reject labor pacts, and Impertore’s Imperial Delivery Service hires replacement drivers. . . . A 1789 constitutional amendment that bars Congress from enacting midterm pay raises is approved by New Jersey and Michigan. The endorsement means that threefourths of all the states, the proportion needed to approve an amendment, have agreed to it. The amendment, which includes no deadline for ratification, faded into obscurity until Wyoming ratified it in 1978.

Dr. Cecil B. Jacobson, a Virginia fertility doctor convicted of fraud and perjury charges stemming from his use of his own sperm to inseminate several patients and from convincing several women that they were pregnant when they were not, is sentenced to five years in prison, ordered to pay $116,805 in fines and restitution, and set to serve three years’ probation after his release from prison.

After Impertore’s Imperial Delivery Service hired replacement drivers May 7, ensuing violence leads to the arrest of 20 people in the New York area. . . . The Labor Department figures that the U.S. unemployment rate declined to 7.2% in April, from 7.3% in March. It is the first time in nine months that the unemployment rate has fallen.

Marlene Dietrich (born Marie Magdelene Dietrich), 90, German film actress and a symbol of glamour for decades whose most famous film is The Blue Angel (1930), dies of unreported causes in Paris, France.

The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour makes its maiden voyage when it lifts off from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta reverses a 1990 ruling that found the album As Nasty as They Wanna Be by the rap group 2 Live Crew obscene. It is the first time a U.S. Court of Appeals has considered the application of obscenity law to a musical composition.

In a letter to the NEA, Stephen Sondheim, a Tony Award–winning Broadway composer and lyricist, turns down the 1992 National Medal of Arts Award, for which he was recommended by President Bush. Sondheim, 62, writes that the NEA is becoming “a symbol of censorship and repression.”

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 6

May 7

May 8

332—May 9–13, 1992

May 9

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Representatives of 143 countries, meeting at UN headquarters in NYC, approve a draft treaty calling on the world’s industrialized nations to reduce their emissions of “greenhouse gases” believed to cause global warming.

The death toll from the May 5 collapse of a temporary stand at Furiani soccer stadium in Bastia, Corsica, reaches 12. More than 500 people were hospitalized.

In South Africa, the boycott of trains in the Johannesburg-Pretoria area is called off when the state agrees to spend $18 million on improved security.

In Tajikistan, police fire on protestor, killing at least eight. Data suggest that more than 100 people have been reported dead since March. . . . According to reports, archaeologists have found the remains of Russia’s last royal family. The Russian government plans to authenticate the find using DNA testing. . . . Sir Norman Fowler is appointed chairman of the British Conservative Party.

In Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos, the Campaign for Democracy publicizes a petition calling for the government to step down. . . . Reports state Mozambique is levying tolls on emergency supplies from humanitarian groups. . . . The Kuwaiti government approves a plan to buy about $20 billion worth of bad loans so the banks can undertake loans for projects to reconstruct of Kuwait in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf war.

May 10

May 11

May 12

May 13

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Peru, police end a standoff of Canto Grande prison that started May 6. During the siege, at least 28 rebels died and more than 50 others were injured. Two policemen are also reported killed. In an apparent response, three Lima police stations are bombed, killing at least five police officers and wounding a dozen civilians. . . . Near the town of Plymouth, 75 miles (120 km) from the Nova Scotia capital, Halifax, 26 coal miners are killed when a blast rips through a Westray mine.

A total of about 150,000 protesters demand the resignation of General Suchinda Kraprayoon, the new premier of Thailand who led the 1991 military coup. Thailand’s nine major political parties agree in principal to constitutional amendments that will curtail military power and require the premier to be an elected member of parliament.

The European Community countries recall their respective ambassadors from Yugoslavia.

Tajikistan president Nabiyev agrees to the creation of a coalition government that will put opposition figures in eight cabinet posts. . . . Eamonn Casey, Roman Catholic bishop of Galway, Ireland, admits he fathered a child by a U.S. woman and used church funds to help pay for his son’s care. . . . Judith Ward, sentenced in 1974 for a bombing linked to the outlawed Provisional IRA, is freed when her confession to a bombing of a British army bus that killed 12 people is found to be unreliable. . . . The mayor of Milan, Italy, Piero Borghini, resigns amid a growing kickback scandal

The Philippines holds elections on which more than 17,000 offices are at stake as voting for the presidency, the national legislature, and thousands of local posts take place on the same ballot. At least 13 people are reported killed in electionday violence. . . . Thai protesters suspend their activities but promise to resume them if the government reneges on a commitment to amend the constitution.

CSCE representatives, meeting in Helsinki, Finland, vote to bar Yugoslavia’s representative from taking part in CSCE discussions on the Yugoslav civil war. The EC withdraws all of its monitors from Sarajevo, citing danger to their lives, and the U.S. recalls Warren Zimmermann, its ambassador to Yugoslavia. . . . The UN Security Council votes to send a fact-finding team to the Caucasus region.

In Tajikistan, the accord approved by Pres. Nabiyev displeases hardline elements of the opposition, who stage a protest in the capital demanding Nabiyev’s ouster. . . . Reports show that around 30 business and political figures were arrested in connection with the financial scandal that compelled Milan’s mayor to resign May 11.

The Australian government announces plans to drastically reduce the number of immigrants to be allowed to settle in the country each year.

The UN Security Council unanimously adopts Resolution 752, which demands an end to Yugoslav interference in Bosnia, and insists that Yugoslav troops demobilizing in Bosnia place their weapons place under international control. . . . The World Bank and Western donor nations, meeting in Paris, freeze most aid to Malawi to protest its repressive government.

The French National Assembly passes several constitutional changes designed to pave the way for ratification of the EC’s political and monetary unity treaty agreed to in 1991 in Maastricht, the Netherlands. . . . Torrential rains cause mudslides in Uzbekistan. . . . A fiveday truce initiated by the Yugoslav republic of Serbia takes effect in neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina. Reports indicate that hundreds of people, noncombatants as well as combatants, have been killed in fighting since the beginning of the month.

In Lagos, Nigeria, police clash with anti-government protesters and fire on demonstrators at Lagos State University, wounding at least five students. Demonstrations over fuel shortages and soaring inflation turn into riots during which gangs of youths temporarily occupy large sections of the city, looting shops and laying out burning barricades. . . . Lebanese president Elias Hrawi names Sunni Muslim member of parliament Rashid alSolh to replace Omar Karami as premier.

Ecuador’s president, Rodrigo Borja, grants 148 Indian communities legal title to more than three million acres (1.2 million hectares) of land in the Amazon River basin.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 9–13, 1992—333

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

As he previously promised, Pres. Bush vetoes a campaign-finance reform bill that Congress cleared in April.

May 9

The last of the federal troops sent to Los Angeles to restore order during the riots are withdrawn, leaving 10,000 National Guard troops to help police keep control of the city.

Sylvia Syms, 74, pop-jazz singer and actress who recorded 15 albums, including a 1982 album Syms by Sinatra, produced by Frank Sinatra, dies of a heart attack after collapsing on stage at the Algonquin Hotel in New York.

H. Ross Perot files a petition to have his name placed on the Texas presidential ballot as an independent. . . . The Washington Post publishes a survey that shows that between 64% and 86% of whites and from 92% to 100% of blacks assert the verdict in the case of Rodney King was incorrect. . . . U.S. district judge Shirley Wohl Kram strikes down a CDC rule requiring federally funded education pamphlets on AIDS to avoid material deemed “offensive” to “a majority of adults.” . . . Vermont governor Howard Dean (D) signs a health-care bill into law.

The State Department imposes two-year trade bans on a Russian company and an Indian government agency, Glavkosmos, and the Indian Space Research Organization, respectively, for proceeding with a venture that the department insists may help India develop ballistic missiles.

The Census Bureau reports that the percentage of workers with low-paying jobs increased by almost half during the 1980s.

As expected, Pres. Bush and Arkansas governor Bill Clinton each easily win their respective party’s presidential primaries in West Virginia and Nebraska. . . . In Los Angeles, police working with a FBI task force arrest four black men for their alleged roles in an attack on white truck driver Reginald Denny. Since the assault, which occurred during the Apr. 29 riots, was videotaped and broadcast, the attack becomes symbolic of recent rampant violence.

Reports conclude that the Bush administration in the years prior to the Persian Gulf war pressed for the continuation of U.S. programs to aid Iraq in spite of mounting evidence that Iraq was diverting funds from those programs to buy arms.

The FDIC announce it will seek to increase the annual premiums paid by banks to its insurance fund by an average of 22%, or $1.19 billion, after it states it expects to post a bigger yearly loss in 1992. . . . Officials state the TVA has arranged to buy $3 million a year worth of “pollution rights” from Wisconsin Power & Light in the first deal implemented under an emissionstrading system authorized by the Clean Air Act of 1990.

Arthur B. Voorhees Jr., 70, medical pioneer who developed and first successfully implanted artificial arteries in a human patient, dies of cancer in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Anne-Imelda Radice, acting head of the NEA, goes against the recommendation of review panels and its advisory council when she rejects two applications for grants to support exhibits that involve sexual material. . . . Robert Reed, 59, actor from The Brady Bunch (1969–74), dies in Pasadena, California.

Federal investigators tell a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee that developers participating in a loan program intended to encourage the construction of lowincome rental housing in rural areas have defrauded the government out of millions of dollars. They also state that the Agriculture Department is conducting 64 criminal investigations related to the FmHA program in 31 states.

Astronauts aboard the U.S. space shuttle Endeavour carry out the chief goal of the mission: to rescue the Intelsat-6 satellite. Three astronauts snag the Intelsat with their gloved hands in a space walk that lasts eight hours and 29 minutes. The space walk breaks U.S. records both for duration and the number of astronauts, outside the craft and is believed to also break marks set by the Soviet space program.

In response to Anne-Imelda Radice’s May 12 action, Beacon Press rejects a possible $39,000 NEA grant, saying that accepting the funds may threaten its right to free expression. In another protest, Murry N. DePillars, dean of the School of the Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University, resigns as an NEA review panelist.

Reports reveal former New Jersey governor Thomas Kean (R), who advocates being tough on crime, secretly pardoned 120 convicts, including 15 convicted of murder, during his eight years in office. . . . The CIA makes public a file it compiled on Lee Harvey Oswald prior to John F. Kennedy’s assassination. . . . A homosexual Federal Emergency Management Agency employee, Jerald Johnson, 32, discloses that agency officials pressured him to provide a list of other homosexual colleagues.

The International Amateur Athletic Federation refuses to lift a ban on runner Butch Reynolds that expires two days after the 1992 Olympics. . . . Lusia Harris-Stewart and Nera White become the first women inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. They enter the hall with Sergei Belov, Connie Hawkins, Bob Lanier, Jack Ramsay, Al McGuire, Lou Carnesecca, and Phil Woolpert.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 10

May 11

May 12

May 13

334—May 14–18, 1992

World Affairs

May 14

May 15

Russia, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan sign a mutual-security treaty.

May 18

Africa & the Middle East

In Baku, the Azerbaijan parliament, without a quorum, votes to remove acting president Yakub Mamedov and replace him with former president Ayaz N. Mutalibov.

Violence in Nigeria spreads to the northern suburbs, Nigeria’s commercial hub. Reports indicate that at least seven people have died in the unrest that started May 13.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Olympia & York Developments Ltd. initiate bankruptcy proceedings in Canada and the U.S. The move comes after weeks of unsuccessful negotiations and business maneuvering. Analysts state that O&Y is the largest company ever to file for bankruptcy in Canada.

Outraged by the May 14 action in Baku, thousands of armed civilians and rebel Azerbaijani solders take over the presidential palace and the state television station, and shoot their way into the parliament building. President Mutalibov goes into hiding. . . . Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan is rocked by a mild earthquake. Reports indicate that torrential rains that started May 13 and caused mudslides in Uzbekistan have killed at least 200 people.

The 200-member staff of the UN peacekeeping force for Croatia begins dismantling its headquarters in Sarajevo before leaving the city.

Reports indicate that Zimbabwe is levying tolls on emergency supplies flown in by humanitarian organizations.

Nie Rongzhen (Nieh Jung-chen), 92, last surviving marshal of the 10 who led China’s communist revolution and who was a member of the Communist Party for 69 years, dies in Beijing of unreported causes.

At the OAS’s annual summit in Nassau, the Bahamas, the leaders approve new measures aimed at restoring Haiti’s elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to power.

Voters in Switzerland approve joining the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in a referendum, making a sharp break from Switzerland’s centuries-old tradition of isolationism.

In northern Nigeria, fighting breaks out in the town of Zango between two ethnic groups, the Christian Kataf and the Muslim Hausa. Several churches are burned, and thousands of Christians are forced to seek refuge at a military academy and police stations.

More than 100,000 protesters gather in Bangkok, Thailand, to press for Premier Suchinda Kraprayoon’s resignation. As the demonstrators move toward the premier’s office, Thai security forces try to stop them with barricades and water cannons. Angry protesters turn on police, throwing rocks and gasoline bombs. As the violence escalates, government troops in armored vehicles attack the crowds.

Officials of the United Nations-affiliated International Atomic Energy Agency have identified nine foreign companies whose products were used by Iraq in a clandestine effort to produce nuclear weapons in the years prior to the Persian Gulf war, bringing the total to 22.

Bosnia’s national factions agree to a 21-day truce to allow federal troops to leave. . . . A coroner’s jury in England rules that nine British soldiers were killed “unlawfully” when their vehicles were hit by missiles from U.S. planes during the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The ruling represents a verdict of manslaughter in the deaths . . . Josef Schwammberger, 80, a former Nazi who oversaw Jewish labor camps in World War II, is sentenced to life in prison. He is expected to be the last major war criminal tried in Germany . . . Armenian forces attack Nakhichevan, an autonomous Azerbaijani enclave inside Armenia that borders both Turkey and Iran, escalating their war.

In Nigeria, religious clashes spread to Kaduna, the state capital, and Zaria, a university town. . . . Sudan’s financially strapped military government issues a new currency called the dinar, to replace the Sudanese pound. Each dinar is valued at 10 Sudanese pounds.

May 16

May 17

Europe

One of Toronto’s four private abortion clinics is destroyed in an explosion The incident is believed to be the first bombing of a Canadian abortion clinic. . . . Salvador Nava Martínez, 78, veteran leader of the opposition against Mexico’s long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) who he was elected mayor of San Luis Potosí twice, dies of a heart attack after suffering from cancer in San Luis Potosí.

Thailand’s military government declares a state of emergency as antigovernment protesters and security forces battle in Bangkok, the capital. Opposition leader Chamlong Srimuang is arrested, along with thousands of other demonstrators.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 14–18, 1992—335

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The FBI seizes a 50-foot Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, discovered in 1990, from a South Dakota fossil dealer, claiming the skeleton was illegally taken from a Native American reservation. . . . Yull Gary Morales, Ricardo Lopez, and Anthony Anderson, the three men convicted of slaying Brian Watkins, are sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. . . . Data indicates Californians have bought 20,578 guns since May 1. Police estimate 2,000 weapons were stolen in the looting.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Endangered Species Committee votes to allow logging on about 1,700 acres (700 hectares) of federally owned forest land in Oregon identified as a prime habitat for the endangered northern spotted owl. The decision comes amid a longrunning dispute between environmentalists and the beleaguered timber industry over the use of oldgrowth forests in the Pacific Northwest.

Astronauts aboard the U.S. space shuttle Endeavour ignite the Intelsat’s booster, driving the satellite into a higher altitude before being jettisoned.

Lyle Alzado, 43, defensive lineman on the Oakland Raiders’ 1984 Super Bowl-winning team, dies of complications from brain cancer in Portland, Oregon. . . . The 14th annual Pritzker Architecture Prize for lifetime achievement is presented to Alvaro Siza, a relatively unknown Portuguese architect.

Faye Yager, who headed an underground network for abused mothers and their children who felt they were not protected by the courts, is acquitted of all charges against her. . . . The LAFD discloses 623 structures were set on fire during the riots. . . . Superior Court Judge Weisberg rules that Laurence Powell, acquitted on all but one count against him in the attack on Rodney King, will be tried again on a count of using excessive force under color of police authority.

The U.S. Commerce Department issues a formal ruling that Canada unfairly subsidized its lumber industry and calls for a penalty tariff of 6.5% on Canadian softwood lumber.

G(eorge) Keith Funston, 81, president of the New York Stock Exchange, 1951–67, dies of a heart attack in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Kathryn C. Thornton, 39, a physicist, becomes the second American woman to walk in space. . . . Robert Morris Page, 88, leader in the development of radar technology who was research director of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, 1957–66, dies of heart failure in Edina, Minnesota.

In response to Anne-Imelda Radice’s May 12 action, an NEA review panel in the visual arts category suspends its deliberations until “established procedures of the endowment are restored.” . . . Former boxing champion Trevor Berbick is sentenced to four years in prison for raping a woman who was his family’s baby-sitter.

Figures show that the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office recorded 58 deaths due to the riots in Los Angeles that started Apr. 29. Of those deaths, 50 are considered homicide victims.

Sir Robert Grainger Ker Thompson, 76, expert on combating rural guerrilla warfare techniques who wrote Defeating Communist Insurgency (1966) and No Exit from Vietnam (1968), which was highly critical of U.S. policy during the conflict, dies of unreported causes.

Reports suggest that Albert V. Casey, the head of the RTC, lowered his estimate of the total cost of the savings and loan bailout to no more than $130 billion, 19% less than the Bush administration’s top estimate of $160 billion in June 1991.

The U.S. spacecraft Endeavour lands at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

The America3 racing team led by oilman Bill Koch wins the best-ofseven-race America’s Cup yachting finals against Il Moro di Venezia of Italy.

The Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that a state does not have the right to force a mentally ill criminal defendant to accept antipsychotic medications during trial unless the state has an “overriding justification.”. . . . The Supreme Court rules with a split decision, 5 to 4, that a Louisiana law that in some circumstances allowed indefinite detention of criminal defendants in mental hospitals is unconstitutional.

A strike by Local 211 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters begins against Pittsburgh Press Co.

Golfer Betsy King wins the LPGA Championship in Bethesda, Maryland. . . . Pope John Paul II confers beatification on Msgr. Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer and Giuseppina Bakhita. . . . Lawrence Welk, 89, whose show was one of the longestrunning programs in TV history, dies of complications from pneumonia in Santa Monica, California. . . . Greg LeMond wins the Tour Du Pont, an 11-stage bicycle race through D.C. and four states.

The archivist of the U.S., Don W. Wilson, certifies the 27th Amendment to the constitution, a ban on midterm congressional pay raises first proposed by James Madison in 1789, which had reached the number of states it needed for ratification on May 7. . . . The Supreme Court refuses an effort by Rep. Henry B. Gonzalez (D, Tex.) to block an extensive review of House Bank records by special counsel Malcolm Wilkey, appointed to investigate the House banking scandal.

At the film festival in Cannes, France, the top prize, the Palme d’Or (Golden Palm), goes to The Best Intentions, a Swedish film. A special award honoring the festival’s 45th anniversary is given to the British movie Howards End, directed by James Ivory.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 14

May 15

May 16

May 17

May 18

336—May 19–23, 1992

May 19

World Affairs

Europe

Reports state that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that at least 1.2 million people in Bosnia-Herzegovina have been displaced. The figure is the highest refugee count anywhere in Europe since World War II, and it represents one-quarter of Bosnia’s population. . . . Latvia, with an IMF quota of, $85 million, becomes the IMF’s 160th member. . . . The Islamic Conference asks its members to withdraw their ambassadors from Yugoslavia. . . . U.S. military aircraft based in southern Turkey begin shipping out of Iraq thousands of records related to an alleged campaign by the Iraqi government of mass executions and deportations of members of Iraq’s Kurdish minority in the late 1980s.

Britain’s director of public prosecutions, Barbara Mills, reiterates that it does not have the power to prosecute foreign nationals for alleged murder or manslaughter committed abroad in response to the May 18 ruling. . . . The Azerbaijan parliament votes to turn over to an opposition-dominated National Council all legislative and executive power for an interim period. . . . Armenia captures the Azerbaijan town of Lachin. Turkey and Iran issue statements decrying Armenia’s May 18 “aggression,” and Turkish officials refuse to rule out the possibility of military action against Armenia. . . . More than 5,000 non-Serb civilian refugees are captured in Ilidza, a suburb of Sarajevo.

May 22

May 23

The Americas

In Nigeria, the federal government dispatches troops into the sites of unrest. Unconfirmed reports put the death toll as high as 300 from religious riots. . . . Kurds in northeastern Iraq hold their first free elections to elect an autonomous legislature and a single leader. . . . Guerrillas from the Shi’ite Muslim organization Hezbollah overrun a post held by the Israeli-allied South Lebanese Army near the village of Almaan. . . . In Lebanon, four members of a recently named cabinet boycott its first meeting.

Asia & the Pacific Peaceful solidarity demonstrations spread to other cities in Thailand, including Pattalung and Phuket. Thai troops and heavily armed police fan out through Bangkok. The casualty toll is uncertain since the government confirms only five deaths, but doctors in Bangkok hospitals put the figure as high as 100. The number of wounded range beyond 400. . . . With only about 32% of all ballots counted, results of May 11 elections in the Philippines show former defense secretary Fidel V. Ramos leads a field of seven candidates with 24% of the vote. . . . In Afghanistan, Private Sergei Fateev, 24, held in captivity since 1987, is turned over to Russian diplomats in Kabul as a preliminary gesture of goodwill.

The New York Times reports that approximately 2,225 people have been killed and 7,660 wounded in the Bosnian war since March. About 2,555 people in Bosnia are missing. . . . The regional parliament of the Crimea formally rescinds its May 5 declaration of independence from Ukraine.

Thai king Bhumibol summons Suchinda and opposition leader Chamlong Srimuang to his palace and urges compromise in the wake of recent riots.

The Marshall Islands, with a quota of $2.1 million, formally becomes the IMF’s 161st member. . . . Agriculture ministers from the 12 European Community nations reach what is called the most radical reform of its system of agricultural subsidies in 30 years.

Under international pressure, the Bosnian Serb army releases more than 5,000 non-Serb civilian captured May 19. . . . Britain’s House of Commons approves legislation to implement the 1991 Treaty on European Union agreed by EC at Maastricht, the Netherlands. . . .The Russian Supreme Soviet votes to nullify the 1954 transfer of the Crimea region to Ukraine from Russia. . . .Yugoslav federal troops halt a UN-supervised pullout from Croatia, claiming that they came under unprovoked attacks from Croatian forces.

China conducts its largest-ever nuclear test in an underground blast in the remote Lop Nur area with an explosion that has an estimated strength of one megaton, 70 times the force of the atomic bomb that the U.S. had dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

The UN General Assembly formally admits to the UN the Yugoslav exrepublics of Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, raising the organization’s membership to 178. . . .Representatives of 98 countries meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, approve a draft treaty intended to preserve the world’s plant, animal, and microbial species. . . . France and Germany announce an agreement to create a joint 35,000-member military force outside the auspices of NATO.

Serb gunmen seize 12 UN relief trucks attempting to reach Sarajevo. . . .Polish president Lech Walesa and Russian president Boris Yeltsin sign a bilateral treaty of friendship and cooperation in Moscow. It is Walesa’s first official visit to the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Results from the May 19 elections for Kurds in northeastern Iraq show that the two main Kurdish political parties ended up in a virtual draw between them. They agree to share power. Kurdish officials state that a runoff vote for the leadership position will take place within two months.

The U.S. and four nuclear-armed members of the Commonwealth of Independent States—Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan—sign protocols to START that vow compliance with the treaty.

Giovanni Falcone, a leading antiMafia prosecutor in Sicily whose work led to the jailing of more than 1,000 members of organized crime, is killed by a bomb blast. . . . Data indicates that Italy, the geographically closest EC country to Yugoslavia, has granted asylum to 1,233 Bosnians.

Reports conclude that Sudan’s military government is ending a threemonth powerful offensive against the rebel Sudanese People’s Liberation Army, which has been waging civil war in the south since 1983. The onslaught seized more than 10 rebel strongholds, including Bor, Kongor, Yirol, and Kapoeta. Unconfirmed figures suggest more than 25,000 rebels have surrendered since the offensive began.

May 20

May 21

Africa & the Middle East

Miriam Defensor Santiago, who faces a poor showing in unofficial Philippine election returns and maintains that the results are being manipulated by fraud, stages a fast during which she will consume only liquids “indefinitely, to the death if necessary.” . . . The Thai government reports that the clashes between demonstrators and government troops caused 43 deaths and more than 600 injuries. The U.S. embassy in Bangkok puts the death toll at 100, at the least.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 19–23, 1992—337

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Pres. Bush and Arkansas governor Bill Clinton (D) easily win primaries in Oregon and Washington State.

Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev reaches an agreement with U.S. president Bush on a bilateral protocol to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty during a visit to Washington, D.C. . . . The U.S. Defense Department suspends joint U.S.-Thai military maneuvers in northern Thailand that began April 26. . . . The U.S. Commerce Department finds that two Japanese auto makers are unfairly dumping minivans in the U.S. market.

The Senate passes, 61-38, a bill that will compel states to offer voter registration by mail or when they apply for a driver’s license. . . . The ACLU’s abortionrights division announces it is forming a new organization, the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy. . . . In a case that sparked national debate over the death penalty, Roger Keith Coleman, 33, convicted of rape and murder, is executed in Jarratt, Va. . . . HUD seizes control of daily operations of the Philadelphia Housing Authority. The Senate, 90-9, passes a bill to rescind $8.3 billion appropriated for fiscal 1992. Most of the rescissions come from defense programs. . . . Reports indicate that the Coast Guard has picked up 10,404 Haitians since the beginning of May, the highest monthly total since the overthrow of elected president Aristide.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle The rock band Aerosmith donates $10,000 to the List Visual Arts Center to replace the NEA grant vetoed May 12. . . . Vice President Dan Quayle causes a furor when he criticizes the example of Murphy Brown, the title character in a TV show who chose to have a child outside of marriage. The creator and executive producer of the program, Diane English, states, “If the vice president thinks it’s disgraceful for an unmarried woman to bear a child, and if he believes that a woman cannot raise a child without a father, then he’d better make sure abortion remains safe and legal.”

General Motors Corp. issues 55 million shares of common stock, raising $2.15 billion. The offering, the first of common stock by GM since 1955, sets an all-time U.S. record. . . . At the end of a 10month investigation, the SEC fines Salomon Inc. $290 million to settle charges of illegal activities in U.S. government securities. . . . Congress passes resolutions recognizing the validity of the amendment regarding midterm raises certified May 18.

At the NEA, in response to AnneImelda Radice’s May 12 action, a panel in the solo theater performance art category announces that it will not begin reviewing applications, in a decision similar to the one made by another NEA review panel May 15.

The House, 209-207, approves a fiscal 1993 budget resolution. The Senate backs the bill by a vote of 52-41.

A bus carrying members of the California Angels baseball club from New York City to Baltimore crashes into trees, injuring 12 people.

The host of NBC’s The Tonight Show for almost 30 years, Johnny Carson, retires, ending an era in late-night TV. . . . Dan Enright, 74, TV game-show pioneer whose career was nearly destroyed in 1959 when he confessed he rigged Tic Tac Dough games, dies of cancer in Santa Monica, California.

John Gates, 78, former editor of the Communist Daily Worker newspaper who served as commissar of the Abraham Lincoln Brigades during the Spanish Civil War before he was sentenced to five years in prison for trying to overthrow the U.S. government, dies of a heart attack and stroke in Miami Beach, Florida.

May 19

May 20

May 21

May 22

May 23

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

338—May 24–29, 1992

May 24

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The foreign ministers of 62 nations and representatives of 12 international organizations meet in Lisbon, Portugal, to discuss aid to the Commonwealth of Independent States. However, much of the conference is taken up in discussions of the Yugoslav civil war.

Yugoslav forces begin withdrawing from Sarajevo, obeying a directive. . . . Thomas Klestil is elected president of Austria by the largest margin in a contested presidential race since Austria regained its independence in 1955. . . . The ethnic Albanian majority of Kosovo Province, in the Yugoslav republic of Serbia, holds unsanctioned elections and chooses Ibrahim Rugova as president.

An Israeli girl, 15, is stabbed to death by a Palestinian from the Gaza Strip in a suburb of Tel Aviv. The assailant is shot by an Israeli soldier and captured. A mob attacks Arab workers in the suburb, injuring 11 people. Separately, one Israeli soldier and three members of Hamas are killed when gun fighting breaks out in Gaza. . . . Winnie Mandela is stripped of the chairwomanship of the ANC’s Women’s League executive.

Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, 73, is elected Italy’s president by members of Parliament and regional representatives after almost two weeks of efforts to choose a successor to President Francesco Cossiga. . . . Viktor V. Grishin, 77, head of the Communist Party in Moscow, 1967–85, who was believed to have been Mikhail Gorbachev’s main rival for the post of Communist Party general secretary in 1985, dies after a heart attack in Moscow.

Reports suggest that South African police are investigating Winnie Mandela’s alleged role in the disappearance of a youth, Lolo Sono, in 1989. They are also looking into charges that she ordered the murder of two members of her nowdefunct bodyguard team.

May 25

May 26

May 27

May 28

May 29

With a quota of $43 million, Estonia becomes the IMF’s 162nd member. . . . Leading NATO defense ministers confer in Brussels over the European Corps, announced by France and Germany May 22.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Thai premier Suchinda Kraprayoon resigns to demonstrate his “political responsibility” for the previous week’s violence.

Cuba is rocked by its worst earthquake in 60 years, measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale. More than 50 injuries are reported.

Data show that 14,000 civilians have fled their villages in southern Lebanon to escape violence.

Afghanistan’s newly installed government reaches a peace accord with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a fundamentalist Muslim guerrilla leader. While peace negotiations are underway, at least 18 people are killed in clashes between Doestam’s militia and Hekmatyar’s forces south of Kabul. . . . In the Philippines Miriam Santiago, who started a hunger strike May 22, calls off the fast. . . . A crowd of 2,000 Thais surround the parliament building in Bangkok to protest the amnesty for Gen. Suchinda and others responsible for the crackdown on demonstrators. India faces an economic crisis when several major banks report they are short by almost 25 billion rupees ($891 million) after extending questionable credit to brokers.

The European Community imposes a trade embargo on Yugoslavia in an effort to halt the fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The EC trade embargo, announced after a meeting in Brussels, is directed at the two republics that make up the new Yugoslav federation, Serbia and Montenegro.

At least 16 civilians are slain and more than 100 others injured in a mortar barrage on Sarajevo.

A Palestinian stabs and kills a rabbi, Shimon Biran, at Kfar Darom, a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip. After the killing, Jewish settlers burn Arab crops, beat up several Arabs, and besiege an Arab school near the settlement. Police arrest more than 100 rioters.

An earthquake of lesser intensity than the May 25 quake hits Cuba. . . . Georges Izmery, one of Haiti’s best-known importers, is shot and killed in Port-au-Prince. The murder is believed to be a warning to Izmery’s brother Antoine, the chief financial backer of Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s December 1990 presidential campaign. . . . Statistics Canada reports that robbery in Canada has increased 39% since 1974.

Armenia, with a quota of $62 million, becomes the 163rd member of the International Monetary Fund.

A letter in which the Serbian Orthodox Church breaks with Serbian regime is made public. . . . Oscar Luigi Scalfaro is sworn in as Italy’s ninth president since World War II.

Judge Richard Goldstone, the head of a commission investigating violence in black townships, issues a report faulting the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party for the strife, which has left 1,400 South Africans dead since the beginning of 1992.

Another earthquake, less severe than the May 25 quake, strikes Cuba.

Representatives of the world’s five leading arms-supplying nations, the U.S., Russia, China, Great Britain, and France, confer in Washington, D.C., and agree to work together to halt the global spread of technology and equipment that may be used to produce nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons. . . . Switzerland formally joins the IMF with a quota of $2.36 million, bringing the total membership to 164.

While visiting with Czechoslovakian president Havel, British prime minister Major signs a declaration formally annulling the 1938 Munich Pact that gave Germany control of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. . . . The Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, and the historic Croatian port city of Dubrovnik come under fierce shelling by Serbs.

About 12,000 Sudanese boys, most of them 10–16 years old, cross into neighboring Kenya to flee the Sudanese civil war. The trek is the most recent leg of a four-year, 1,000-mile odyssey that has led them across three countries.

Australian entrepreneur Alan Bond is sentenced to two and a half years in jail on fraud charges in connection with the 1987 joint government-private rescue of the Rothwells Ltd. merchant bank. . . . Fiji holds its first general election since two military coups in 1987.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 24–29, 1992—339

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Pres. Bush signs an executive order directing the U.S. Coast Guard to halt all boats carrying Haitian refugees to the U.S. and to forcibly return them to Haiti. The order also prevents refugees from landing at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to file for political asylum in the U.S.

Al Unser Jr. wins the 76th running of the Indianapolis 500 by a .043second margin of victory, the smallest in auto racing history.

Thomas Clines, a retired CIA officer who arranged shipments of arms to the Nicaraguan rebels, begins a 16month term at a federal minimumsecurity prison in Schuykill County, Pennsylvania. Clines is the first Irancontra convict to go to prison. . . . Philip Charles Habib, 72, U.S. peace negotiator and career diplomat who represented U.S. interests at several crucial periods in history and paved the way for the Camp David Accords, landmark Middle East peace agreements, dies of a heart attack while vacationing in PulignyMontrachet, France.

Reports confirm that Artist Trust of Washington State and three Seattle artists rejected $17,000 worth of NEA grants, to protest Anne-Imelda Radice’s May 12 action. . . . The archbishop of Canterbury, Most Reverend George L. Carey, head of the Anglican Church, meets with Pope John Paul II.

Arkansas governor Bill Clinton (D) and Pres. Bush win contests in Kentucky, Arkansas, and Idaho. . . . Reports show that a total of 10 incumbent House members have been defeated in primaries . . . The FDA declares genetically engineered food does not require special approval. . . . The Supreme Court rules, 5-3, that states may enforce a ban on electioneering within 100 feet of a polling place on election day. . . . The Los Angeles County coroner’s office revises the death toll from the AprilMay riots to 60 from 58.

The Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that workers who win back-pay awards in job-discrimination cases have to pay federal income taxes on the amount awarded. . . . The Supreme Court rules, 8-1, to uphold a 25year-old precedent barring states from requiring mail-order companies to collect taxes on sales in states where the companies have no “physical presence” such as a sales force or a retail outlet.

Danny Biasone, 83, basketball innovator who invented the 24-second shot clock that requires teams to shoot the ball within that amount of time after gaining possession, dies of a blood infection in Syracuse, New York.

Yahweh ben Yahweh, the leader of a black religious sect, is convicted of conspiracy, but the jury deadlocks on racketeering charges. The counts stem from the murder of 14 people, the attempted killing of two others, and a fire-bombing in Delray Beach, Florida. Six of his disciples are convicted of conspiracy, while seven are cleared. . . . Anthony Accardo, 86, an alleged gunman at the 1929 “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre,” dies of heart failure in Chicago.

May 24

May 25

May 26

May 27

Los Angeles district attorney Ira Reiner charges Damian Williams, Keith Watson, and Antoine Miller, men who allegedly beat truck driver Reginald Denny during the rioting in Los Angeles, for alleged attacks on 12 other people. The D.A. states victims in seven different vehicles were allegedly attacked just before the beating of Denny.

In a case involving the INS, U.S. district judge Joyce Hens Green rules that resident aliens have the same First Amendment rights as U.S. citizens.

The Census Bureau releases its “long form” survey data, which lists total population in 1990 at 248,709,873. Women made up 51.3% of the total population, while men comprised 48.8%. The median total household income was $30,056 during the 1990s. The number of people living below the poverty line increased by 4.3 million to more than 31 million between 1979 and 1989. Of households headed by females, 57.4% were below the poverty line. The proportion of owner-occupied homes fell for the first time since the 1930s, to 64.2% from 64.4%.

Portions of National Security Directive 26, a document signed by Pres. Bush in October 1989 setting the administration’s policy of seeking to win favor with Iraq, are made public at a hearing of the House Banking Committee concerning the BNL (Banca Nazionale del Lavoro) affair.

Newspaper delivery drivers in the NYC area ratify contracts with New York Times Co. and two other newspaper-delivery companies, resolving a conflict that started May 7. . . . The FEC approves the distribution of $5.52 million in public matching funds to presidential candidates. The largest amount, $1.67 million, goes to Jerry Brown while Pat Buchanan receives the lowest amount, $263,303.

The House approves, 260-148, a conference committee bill to overturn the ban on fetal-tissue research.

May 28

Hillary Rodham Clinton, a lawyer and the wife of presidential candidate Bill Clinton, delivers the commencement speech at her alma mater, Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 29

340—May 30–June 4, 1992

May 30

World Affairs

Europe

The UN votes to impose sweeping international sanctions on Yugoslavia as a means of ending the bloodshed in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Resolution 757 demands an end to the fighting in BosniaHerzegovina and a halt to all interference in Bosnia. It also calls on Croatia to withdraw its forces from Bosnia, insists the Serb policy of expelling non-Serbs ends, and demands all “irregular forces” in Bosnia be disarmed.

Karl Carstens, 77, president of West Germany, 1979–84, who was one of the architects of the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which helped form the foundations of the European Community, dies of unreported causes in Meckenheim, Germany.

June 2

June 3

June 4

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

An Israeli security guard and a Palestinian guerrilla are killed in an attempted raid by armed Palestinians on Eilat, an Israeli beach resort. Israeli army officials state the gunmen belonged to the Islamic Jihad (Holy War) organization.

Yugoslavia holds parliamentary elections, and 50,000 protesters call for the ouster of Serbian president Milosevic. The factions in Bosnia agree to a cease-fire of the shelling started May 29, but Dubrovnik is still under attack. Reports state the bodies of 29 Muslim civilians were found in Nova Kasaba, east of Sarajevo. . . . At a controversial ceremony in London, the queen mother dedicates a statue of the commander of British World War II air bomber forces, which killed tens of thousands of German civilians in air raids. Ten protesters are arrested.

May 31

June 1

Africa & the Middle East

The EC announces that it will suspend fishing near Canada’s 200mile (320 km) jurisdictional zone in order to preserve dwindling stocks of fish. . . . The International Monetary Fund formally votes to admit the Russian Federation as its 165th member country, with an IMF quota of 2.87 billion.

Britain expels the Yugoslav ambassador, Svetozar Rikanovic. . . . The Yugoslav ambassador to Canada, Goram Kapetanovic, resigns his post in protest of the bloodshed in Bosnia.

Alan Garcia, Peru’s former president, in hiding since current president Alberto Fujimori suspended constitutional government Apr. 5, is granted political asylum in Colombia.

Representatives of the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (Cocom) agree to the creation of an affiliate forum that will include Russia and the other former Soviet republics.

Voters in Denmark narrowly reject the European Community’s Treaty on European Union drawn up at Maastricht, the Netherlands. Since the treaty requires unanimous acceptance to be ratified, the loss is a series blow. . . . Serb gunmen hijack a UN-escorted food convoy in the Sarajevo suburb of Dobrinja.

In Haiti, at the funeral of Georges Izmery, who was killed May 27 and was the brother of a leading supporter of deposed president JeanBertrand Aristide, police in Port-auPrince break up a procession, and at least a dozen people are beaten with nightsticks and rifle butts. Separately, reports indicate that the military-backed government of Haiti nominated Marc Bazin as the country’s new premier.

Results from Fiji’s first general election since two 1987 military coups prompt Fiji’s president, Sir Penaia Ganilau, to name coup leader Sitiveni Rabuka as prime minister. Rabuka was a former army officer who led both coups in 1987.

Officials disclose that two weeks of heavy flooding in Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil has killed 28 people and forced the evacuation of 220,000 others.

Australia’s High Court in Sydney upholds land claims by aborigines on the Murray Islands that predate European settlement in 1788. . . . Fighting between Saudi-backed Sunni Muslims and the pro-Iranian Shi’ite guerrilla group Hezb-i-Wahadat begins to sweep through Kabul when the Afghanistan government calls in ethnic Uzbek militiamen under Gen. Abdul Rashid Doestam to restore order.

The UN Conference on Environment and Development, more widely known as the Earth Summit, opens in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Delegates from 178 countries attend.

EC foreign ministers hold an emergency meeting on the June 2 Danish vote. They decide to leave open the chance for Denmark to decide to ratify the Maastricht Treaty at a later date. . . . A UN study that casts doubt on whether the Yugoslav or Serbian governments have any control over the Serb forces fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina is made public. The findings weaken the strongest argument for the imposition of sanctions.

In Poland, the Olszewski government distributes a list of 60 alleged former communist collaborators currently serving in parliament, the president’s office and the government. The move raises a storm of controversy. Pres. Walesa assails the distribution as “political blackmail” and calls for the government’s dismissal.

One of India’s most prominent securities brokers, Harshad Mehta, is arrested by the nation’s Central Bureau of Investigation in connection with a stock scandal uncovered in May that is believed to involve hundreds of million of dollars. . . . Reports from Afghanistan indicate that pro- and antigovernment militias and guerrillas continue to clash sporadically in Kabul.

The Kurdish autonomous parliament in Iraq convenes for the first time in Erbil, Iraq.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 30–June 4, 1992—341

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

May 30

Dancing at Lughnasa wins three Tony awards, including best play. A revival of Guys and Dolls wins four awards, and Crazy for You is named best musical. A special Tony goes to The Fantasticks, the world’s longest-running musical. . . . The FIFA bans Yugoslavia from soccer events under its jurisdiction.

The Supreme Court upholds new boundaries for four congressional districts in Arkansas. . . . The Supreme Court rules, 8-1, states that do not have the right to bar garbage and hazardous wastes being brought in from other states for disposal. . . . Tennessee’s Supreme Court overturns a 1989 ruling when it finds that a divorced man may prevent his ex-wife from using embryos that were fertilized with his sperm since the embryos cannot be deemed “persons” under state’s law. Bill Clinton and Pres. Bush win their parties’ respective primaries in California, Montana, New Jersey, Alabama, New Mexico, and Ohio. . . . Alabama sends four black candidates into runoffs, so the state will be represented by an African American for the first time since Reconstruction. . . . The Human Rights Campaign Fund, the nation’s largest homosexual political organization, endorses Bill Clinton. . . . Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer win separate California Democratic primaries, the first time women win two Senate nominations in one state.

Christopher P. Drogoul, the former manager of the Atlanta BNL, pleads guilty in federal court to conspiring to transfer more than $4 billion in unauthorized loans to Iraq between 1985 and 1989. . . . Pres. Bush announces that he will extend MFN status for China for another year. . . . Navy Secretary H. Lawrence Garrett directs the navy and the Marine Corps to begin disciplinary proceedings against at least 70 unidentified officers who were at the Tailhook convention in September 1991, at which women were sexually harassed and abused.

The Supreme Court rules that states cannot regulate fare advertising by airlines. . . . Philip M. Stern, 66, author known for his criticism of congressional campaign financing, dies of brain cancer in Washington, D.C. . . . Pres. Bush announces the U.S. will increase its aid to other nations’ forestry programs by $150 million, to $270 million for fiscal 1992–93. . . . The Dow closes at a new all-time record high, moving above 3,400 for the first time.

Jon Robin Baitz, a playwright awarded a $15,000 NEA grant, declares he will donate $7,500 each to two galleries that were denied NEA grants by Anne-Imelda Radice on May 12. . . . Jewels, by Danielle Steel, tops the bestseller list. . . . In hockey, the Pittsburgh Penguins win their second consecutive Stanley Cup.

The Commerce Department reports the government’s index of leading economic indicators rose 0.4% in April in its fourth straight rise.

Philip Dunne, 84, screenwriter and director who protested the practices of the House Un-American Activities Committee and was a founding member of the Screen Writers Guild, dies of cancer in Malibu, California.

Jerry R. Curry, the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, resigns. . . . Texas billionaire Ross Perot announces that he is hiring a Democratic political consultant, Hamilton Jordan, and a Republican consultant, Edward Rollins, to lead his budding presidential campaign.

Pres. Bush holds a prime-time news conference in the East Room of the White House. It is the second such news conference of his presidency. Bush makes no new policy announcements, and his appearance is widely viewed as a bid to invigorate his reelection campaign.

Rev. John Fife is elected leader of the 2.9 million-member Presbyterian Church (USA). . . . Figures show that 1991–92 Broadway ticket sales reached a record $292 million. . . . Bill Clinton plays the sax on Fox’s late-night talk show Arsenio Hall. . . . William Gaines, 70, who founded Mad magazine, dies in New York City.

Pres. Bush signs a bill cleared by Congress May 21 to rescind $8.3 billion appropriated for fiscal 1992, most of which comes from defense programs. . . . Reports indicate that three army officers received written reprimands stemming from the death of a soldier in a “friendly fire” incident during the 1991 Persian Gulf war . . . A Senate committee announces Ross Perot will be questioned on the possibility that U.S. POWs from the Vietnam conflict are still captive.

The SEC files a civil lawsuit in U.S. court in New York City alleging insider trading by seven prominent New York City society figures, including Edward R. Downe Jr. Separately, Downe pleads guilty to two related criminal charges of tax fraud and securities violations brought by the U.S. Attorney’s office in New York City.

The Senate, 85-12, approves a conference bill to overturn the ban on fetal tissue research.

Carl E. Stotz, 82, founder of Little League baseball, dies of a heart attack in Williamsport. . . . The U.S. Postal Service announces that a design showing the young Elvis Presley won a nationwide mail ballot and will be used on the stamp honoring the legendary rock-and-roll singer, who died in 1977.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 31

June 1

June 2

June 3

June 4

342—June 5–11, 1992

June 5

Europe

A revised version of the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe that includes the provisions of an arms accord among the republics of the Commonwealth of Independent States is signed by 29 nations in Oslo, Norway.

In Poland, P.M. Jan Olszewski and his cabinet are ousted in a no-confidence vote by the Sejm following the June 4 distribution. Poland’s Sejm votes to confirm Waldemar Pawlak as premier. . . . In the U.K., Margaret Thatcher is named a baroness and life peer along with 21 other new life peers, who may serve in the House of Lords. . . . In a short-lived ceasefire, encircled elements of the Yugoslav federal army leave Bosnia for Serbia and Montenegro,

According to Statistics Canada, Canada’s unemployment rose in May to its highest level in seven and a half years.

Federal finance minister Vaclav Klaus and Slovak nationalist Vladimir Meciar emerge as Czechoslovakia’s two most important political figures as a result of national and regional elections.

A Panamanian Boeing 737 jet disappears during a thunderstorm over the Darien Pass.

June 6

June 7

June 8

Japan’s Ministry of Trade and Industry releases a report citing what it calls unfair trading practices by the U.S. and the European Community. The move represents a change from a usually conciliatory Japanese strategy in international trade negotiations.

June 9

June 10

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Czechoslovakia’s federal president Vaclav Havel names federal finance minister Vaclav Klaus as premierdesignate in light of the June 6 election returns. . . . Portions of the book, Diana: Her True Story, written by British journalist Andrew Morton, are published in The Sunday Times, causing controversy.

The moderate Fatah faction of the PLO and the fundamentalist Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) announce they have agreed to put aside their long-standing feud in Israeli-occupied territories.

Atef Bseiso, the director of security affairs for the PLO, is shot and killed outside a hotel where he was staying in Paris. . . . President of the Bundestag Rita Suessmuth discloses that the German Bundestag, the lower parliamentary house, will not move to the new capital, Berlin, from its current home in Bonn until 1998.

Faraq Foda, one of Egypt’s most prominent opponents of Islamic extremism, is shot by two gunmen in Cairo. Foda’s 15-year-old son and an associate are wounded.

Fighting erupts when Georgian irregulars shell the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, and battle with Ossetian forces.

Faraq Foda, shot June 8, dies . . . The Israeli Supreme Court finds there is some evidence that John Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian-born U.S. citizen sentenced to death in 1988, may not be “Ivan the Terrible,” a notorious guard at the Treblinka death camp. The justices disagree over whether his conviction should be entirely overturned or whether he should be found guilty on separate war-crime charges.

The International Court of Arbitration settles a 25-year-old dispute between Canada and France over fishing rights around Newfoundland when it awards France a 24mile limit around the islands plus a 10.5-mile-wide corridor running 200 miles south to international waters, an area smaller than what France desired. Both governments, however, approve of the finding.

Asia & the Pacific

Reports suggest that during the fighting in Afghanistan that started Jun. 3, 100 people were killed in street fighting, and the Shi’ites and Sunnis have accused one another of torturing civilian hostages.

Gunmen fire upon an entrance to Albrook Air Force Base on the edge of Panama City. No injuries are reported. . . . Reports reveal that the Panamanian Boeing 737 jet that vanished June 6 crashed near the Colombian border. All of the 47 people aboard are believed dead.

Indonesia’s ruling Golkar party wins a solid majority in parliamentary elections.

A U.S. soldier is killed and another is wounded when gunmen open fire on their military vehicle near Chilibre, north of Panama City. . . . The government of Bolivia announces that 66 state-owned companies will be privatized.

At least four people die in Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, when Russian troops fire on civilians allegedly attempting to steal the troops’ weapons to give to North Ossetian separatists.

June 11

The Americas

Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej reappoints Anand Panyarachun as interim premier of Thailand. The Thai parliament approves revisions to the constitution requiring that any premier be a popularly elected politician. The laws do not apply to Anand Panyarachun. . . . The leftist Khmer Rouge, the largest of three rebel factions that signed a peace accord with the Cambodian government in 1991, is reported to be balking at the second phase of the accord, which calls for placing the armies of the rebel factions in camps under the supervision of UN peacekeeping forces.

In U.S. president Bush’s first visit to Panama since the U.S. invasion in December 1989, he meets with Pres. Guillermo Endara before proceeding to a rally of about 15,000 supporters. Before Bush addresses the crowd, however, a group of 150 anti-American protesters begin to throw rocks and bottles at riot police who had cordoned off the area. Police fire tear gas at nearby protesters, forcing those attending the rally to flee.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 5–11, 1992—343

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The FDA recalls the antibiotic Omniflox, approved in January, when it receives 50 reports of harmful side effects, including three deaths. . . . Max Lerner, 89, Russian-born U.S. journalist and educator who earned a nationwide reputation in the 1950s and early 1960s and was a syndicated columnist for the New York Post, dies of a stroke in New York City.

The House votes, 198-168, to pass a $270 billion defense authorization bill for fiscal 1993 that calls for nearly $11 billion less than what was requested by Pres. Bush in January.

Labor Department figures show that the U.S. unemployment rate jumped to 7.5% in May, up from 7.2% in April, making May’s jobless rate the highest since August 1984.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

June 5

The FEC finds that donations to House and Senate candidates by political action committees (PACs) in the 15 months through March totaled a record $73.4 million, with most of the money going to incumbents.

Martin Goodman, 84, founder of Marvel Comics, dies of natural causes in West Palm Beach. . . . At tennis’s French Open, Yugoslav Monica Seles takes the singles title. The Swiss team of Jakob Hlasek and Marc Rosset wins men’s doubles while the mixed doubles title goes to Sanchez-Vicario and Todd Woodbridge of Australia. The Sacramento Surge wins the World Bowl, the championship game of football’s World League. . . . Jim Courier repeats as singles tennis champion at the French Open. Gigi Fernandez and Natalya Zvereva of Belarus win the women’s doubles.

The Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that equipment manufacturers that also sell parts and services for their products may be sued under antitrust laws for attempting to monopolize the markets. . . . William G. McGowan, 64 entrepreneur who spearheaded the drive to break up the AT&T monopoly and cofounder and chairman of MCI Communications Corp., dies of a heart attack in Washington, D.C. Thomas T. Demery, an assistant HUD secretary during the administration of Pres. Reagan, is indicted on conspiracy and conflict-of-interest charges related to his dealings with a Michigan businessman during his tenure at HUD. . . . Pres. Bush easily wins the last Republican primary in North Dakota. Democratic presidential primaries concluded June 2.

Data show that direct foreign investment in the U.S. fell 66% in 1991, to $22.6 billion, the lowest level since 1984.

The American Heart Association urges that secondhand cigarette smoke be treated as an environmental toxin and banned from the home, offices and all public places. . . . The Health and Human Services Department reports it found 102 hospitals with death rates for elderly patients that are significantly higher than what is statistically expected. . . . William S. Mailliard, 75, U.S. representative from California, 1953–74, and ambassador to the Organization of American States, where he served until 1977, dies in Reston, Virginia, after suffering a heart attack.

The army reports that Major Rhonda L. Cornum was sexually assaulted while a prisoner of war in Iraq.

Reports state the House subcommittee that oversees the FDA accuses the agency of “not adequately investigated the danger of dioxin” in tampons. . . . Presidential candidate H. Ross Perot makes a two-hour appearance on the NBC television program Today.

June 6

June 7

June 8

Reports state that South Africa started a space program to enter the competitive field of satellite launching. A launching site on the Cape Peninsula is slated to be complete by 1995.

William Pinkney, 56, completes a 22-month solo voyage around the world. Pinkney is the first black man to sail around the world solo via the southernmost capes. . . . Tony Award winner Ben Vereen is struck by a car in Malibu, California, and is in critical condition.

June 9

June 10

The House defeats a proposed constitutional amendment that would require the federal government to work under a balanced budget, falling nine votes short of the twothirds majority needed. . . . According to a New York Times/CBS News poll, only 19% of respondents believe that Pres. Bush has made progress in protecting the environment, while 70% think that he “mainly just talked about it.”

June 11

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

344—June 12–15, 1992

World Affairs

June 12

June 13

June 14

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Closing rounds of talks at the Earth Summit are attended by 117 heads of state and government, reportedly the most ever assembled at an international conference.

At the Earth Summit, members of the EC and other industrialized nations agree to act “as soon as possible” to increase their total aid to the Third World by about 55%, to 0.7% of their gross national product. The U.S. refuses to agree to the aid target. The 12 nations of the EC reaffirm their pledge to stabilize their emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000.

Azerbaijani forces launch a surprise counteroffensive in NagornoKarabakh that leaves hundreds of Armenian troops dead. . . . A car bomb goes off in Tbilisi as Georgia’s deputy head of state, Dzhaba Ioseliani, passes in a motorcade. The explosion kills four people. Two Russian soldiers are killed in a skirmish with Georgian national guardsmen near Gori. The Russian legislature declares a state of emergency in North Ossetia and dispatches riot troops.

Earth Summit concludes after negotiating several landmark pacts intended to reconcile global economic development with environmental protection. However, many environmentalists argue that, in order to reach consensus, negotiators removed or excluded specific targets from final agreements on pollution controls, resource protection and financial aid. Critics assail the refusal of the U.S. to commit to specific emission controls, and they accuse the U.S. of weakening key measures.

In Bosnia, warring factions negotiate a cease-fire.

An Australian airliner carrying more than 300 passengers is forced to change course over the Pacific Ocean after a U.S. warship accidentally broadcasts a warning to the plane during a military exercise. A navy spokesman explains that the warship mistakenly used the wrong broadcast frequency.

Nigerian lawyers strike to protest the government’s refusal to heed the orders of the high court and produce four political prisoners arrested during the Lagos riots in May. In response, authorities present the four, plus a student leader, before a magistrate’s court in Gwagwadala, a village in central Nigeria. According to press accounts, some of the defendants appear physically abused.

June 15

Upon hearing the U.S. Supreme Court finding in the case of U.S. v. Alvarez Machain, which concerned the 1990 abduction of a Mexican doctor, Humberto Alvarez Machain, the Mexican foreign secretariat assails the ruling as “invalid and unacceptable,” and it orders the suspension of activities by DEA agents on Mexican soil. Canada, Argentina, and other Latin American countries express objections to the ruling as well. . . . About 12,500 pulp and paper workers begin a strike in the Canadian province of British Columbia, shutting down 19 mills. British Columbia’s forestproducts industry discloses that it suffered record combined losses of C$869 million (US$756 million) in 1991.

The Japanese Diet gives final approval to a bill that will allow up to 2,000 military personnel to be dispatched abroad to participate in United Nations peacekeeping missions.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 12–15, 1992—345

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Presidential candidate Bill Clinton appears on NBC in a half-hour of prime time dubbed a “national town meeting.”

The U.S. Senate Select Committee on POW-MIA Affairs receives a letter from Russian president Yeltsin that discloses the USSR interned and released 716 U.S. servicemen during World War II and interrogated 56 Americans captured during the Korean War. It also reveals that the USSR held 12 U.S. airmen from spy planes shot down by the Soviets “in the 1950s.”

In Federal Trade Commission v. Ticor Title Insurance Co., the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that companies in industries regulated by state agencies are not automatically shielded from antitrust liability. . . . The Supreme Court votes, 7-2, to dismiss a lawsuit that sought to block a federal environmental regulation. In doing so, the court makes it more difficult for citizens to sue the government to challenge policies on environmental grounds.

In Morgan v. Illinois, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that the defense in capital cases have the right to dismiss prospective jurors if the candidates state they will automatically vote to impose the death penalty if the defendant is found guilty. . . . Pres. Bush appears on the CNN program International Hour.

In a controversial decision, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that the U.S. is entitled to kidnap criminal suspects from foreign countries for prosecution in the U.S., regardless of protests from the foreign nations or the terms of existing extradition treaties. The case is U.S. v. Alvarez Machain. . . . Russian president Yeltsin indicates that MIA U.S. serviceman were held captive in the Soviet Union, raising the possibility that Vietnam MIAs may be alive in the former Soviet Union. The remarks, together with the June 12 letter, attract worldwide notice and shake the Bush administration, which has been assuring the American public that it is doing everything possible to locate any living POW/MIAs.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

June 12

The RTC files a civil suit against officers and associates of Western Savings and Loan Association of Phoenix. The $1.5 billion racketeering and fraud action is the largest yet filed in a savings-and-loan case.

Sergei Bubka of the Ukraine breaks his own pole-vault record, clearing 20 feet, 1⁄2 inch (6.11 m) in Dijon, France. The record is the 30th he has set, surpassing the mark of 29 world records by distance runner Paavo Nurmi of Finland, the “Flying Finn” of the 1920s.

Robert William Haack, 75, president of the New York Stock Exchange, 1967–72, who worked with Congress to develop the Securities Investor Protection Corp, dies of kidney failure in Potomac, Maryland.

The Chicago Bulls successfully defend their NBA title. When celebrations in Chicago turn violent, 95 police officers and five other people are wounded as hundreds of people loot stores. More than 1,000 people are arrested. . . . Reports confirm that Mona Van Duyn has been named the U.S.’s sixth and first female poet laureate.

The Supreme Court unanimously rules that debtors in bankruptcy cases are not required to surrender their interests in pension and benefit plans to their creditors. . . . The Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that states cannot tax revenues earned by out-of-state companies from the sale of stock in separate firms. . . . A Japanese company reportedly tied to Japanese organized crime files a lawsuit in federal court in New York City against Prescott Bush, Pres. Bush’s brother. The suit alleges that Prescott Bush reneged on a commitment to cover as much as $2.5 million of any losses that the company, West Tsusho Co., might suffer in a $5 million investment.

At a spelling bee in Trenton, New Jersey, Vice Pres. Dan Quayle tells a young contestant that “potato” is spelled “potatoe,” prompting embarrassment and a slew of jokes. . . . The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation of Chicago awards its annual MacArthur Fellowships, honoring individuals in a wide range of fields. Thirty-three grants are awarded, and, for the first time, female recipients outnumber male recipients, 17 to 16. . . . Brett Whiteley, 53, the only painter to win Australia’s three most prestigious art awards, dies near Wollongong, Australia. . . . Eddie Lopat (born Edmund Walter Lopatynski), 73, pitching star for baseball’s New York Yankees who helped the team win five straight World Series titles from 1949 to 1953, dies of pancreatic cancer in Darien, Connecticut. . . . Jim Nance, 49, football running back for New England Patriots who set AFL rushing record of 1,458 yards in 1966, dies in Quincy, Massachusetts.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 13

June 14

June 15

346—June 16–21, 1992

World Affairs

June 16

June 17

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Former defense secretary Fidel V. Ramos is declared the winner of Philippine presidential elections that were held over a month earlier. Ramos led a field of seven candidates with 5.34 million votes, or 24% of the total. . . . Reports state that renewed fighting between the Khmer Rouge and troops of the coalition government have broken out in the central province of Kompong Thom.

The European Commission, the executive body of the European Community, announces that the EC will release a financial assistance package to Lebanon worth 166 million European currency units ($216 million). . . . U.S. president Bush and Russian president Boris N. Yeltsin hold the first official Russian-American summit. The leaders reach a surprise pact that goes significantly beyond the 1991 START when they agree that the U.S. will maintain 3,500 warheads and Russia will have 3,000 by the year 2003.

The ANC starts a new campaign on Soweto Day, the anniversary of the student uprising that began in South Africa’s largest black township in 1976, when police fired upon black schoolchildren protesting mandatory study in Afrikaans language.

In response to Mexico’s June 15 suspension of DEA activities in its country, the U.S. State Department issues a statement asserting the U.S.’s “utmost respect for Mexican sovereignty,” and American and Mexican officials begin talks on renegotiating the extradition treaty. . . . Marc L. Bazin is confirmed as Haiti’s new premier by the legislature.

German relief workers Heinrich Struebig and Thomas Kemptner, the last Westerners known to be held hostage in Lebanon, are freed by Lebanese Shi’ite guerrillas after more than three years in captivity. The release is widely attributed to the desire of Syria and Iran to improve their ties with the U.S. and Europe.

In the worst single act of bloodshed in years, a band of marauders armed with rifles, axes and knives sweep through the South African township of Boipatong, killing more than 40 blacks. The dead are mostly women, children, and elderly people, many of whom are mutilated. Dozens are wounded in the raid. Survivors report the attack was carried out by about 200 Zulu men.

Mexican officials revoke their ban on DEA activity and state that U.S. officials have reassured them that there will be no further kidnappings on Mexican territory.

June 18

June 19

June 20

June 21

Irish voters overwhelmingly approve the EC’s Treaty on European Union, also known as the Maastricht Treaty.

The Bank of Canada drops its interest rate on short-term loans to financial institutions to 5.91% from 6.08%, bringing the rate to its lowest point since 1973.

Georgian State Council chairman Eduard A. Shevardnadze maintains that planes bearing Russian markings have attacked Georgian troop positions in South Ossetia. . . . Northern Ireland Protestant unionists and government representatives from the Republic of Ireland meet for first time since 1973.

Marc L. Bazin is sworn in as Haiti’s new premier, replacing acting premier Jean-Jacques Honorat.

Czechoslovak federal premier-designate Vaclav Klaus and Slovak nationalist leader Vladimir Meciar agree to form a national caretaker government and to prepare to transform the Czech lands and Slovakia into two separate countries. The move stuns Czechoslovaks and foreign officials alike. . . . The Russian ruble ceases to be legal tender in Estonia when the Baltic state introduces its own currency, the kroon. Estonia is the first former Soviet republic to replace the ruble with a new, convertible currency.

In what is reportedly the first time that a South African president ventures to the scene of black bloodshed, Pres. F. W. de Klerk attempts to visit the township of Boipatong, site of the June 17 massacre. However, his motorcade is chased away by angry demonstrators. A confrontation ensues, and police fire into the crowd, slaying at least three people.

Reports state that the Croatian army has recaptured the Serb-held town of Drnis, in southwestern Croatia, and it shelled the ethnic Serb stronghold of Knin in the same region. The Bosnian government claims that 40,000 people, most of them civilians massacred by the Serbs, have been killed in the republic since Bosnia’s independence referendum Feb. 29.

In response to violence on June 17 and June 20, ANC president Mandela announced that his organization is suspending bilateral negotiations with the South African government.

Li Xiannian (Li Hsien-nien), 82, prominent hard-line Chinese leader who was the finance minister, 1954–78, and held the largely ceremonial office of president, 1983–88, dies of an unspecified illness in Beijing.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 16–21, 1992—347

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The House passes, 268-153, a bill that requires states to permit citizens to register to vote when applying for driver’s licenses, other licenses, and government benefits.

A federal grand jury indicts former defense secretary Caspar Weinberger on five felony counts of lying and obstructing a congressional inquiry in connection with the Iran-contra arms scandal. . . . Retired army general John W. Vessey, who was the U.S. special envoy to Vietnam on POW/MIA issues, maintains Yeltsin’s claim that captured American servicemen were handed over to the Soviets is “absolutely new information” and states that the Vietnamese foreign ministry denies these claims. . . . In the midst of a sexual harassment scandal, the Tailhook Association cancels its scheduled 1992 convention.

Pres. Bush vetoes a bill that would allow three Sioux Indian tribes in South Dakota to sue for a bigger portion of federal funding for their land.

In the midst of an investigation of sexual harassment in the Tailhook scandal, the Naval Investigative Service releases a “supplemental report” that includes a statement by a Marine officer that Navy Secretary H. Lawrence Garrett, who called for the inquiry, visited a hospitality suite during the convention where some of the offensive activities are reported to have taken place.

The Dow plummets 41.73 points.

In Georgia v. McCollum, the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that defendants in criminal cases cannot exclude prospective jurors solely on the basis of race. . . . Prompted by the Los Angeles riots in late April and early May, Congress approves a $1.075 billion package of emergency aid to cities.

In controversy over the reports issued June 16, the Defense Department’s inspector general takes over the Tailhook scandal investigation at Navy Secretary Garrett’s request.

The Supreme Court strikes down, 7-2, a provision of Iowa’s corporate tax law that taxes dividends collected by companies from their foreign subsidiaries while exempting dividends received from their U.S. divisions. The finding affects similar provisions in nine other states. . . . The high court rules, 5-4, that states cannot impose job-safety rules for the handling of hazardous wastes that are more stringent than federal standards unless the additional rules are first approved by the federal Labor Department.

Peter Allen, 48, songwriter who won three Grammies and the 1982 Oscar for writing the theme music to the film Arthur and who married and divorced Liza Minnelli, dies in San Diego, California, of AIDSrelated illness.

The Supreme Court overturns a Georgia county ordinance that requires the payment in advance of a fee for permission to hold a public rally or demonstration. . . . Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels anticrime patrol, is shot in the abdomen and legs in an ambush in a taxi cab in NYC. . . . A New Jersey couple, Arthur and Irene Seale, are arrested in Hackettstown, New Jersey, on charges of kidnapping Exxon Corp. executive Sidney Reso in April.

An experimental SDI (“Star Wars”) ground-launched component, known as LEAP (Light Exoatmospheric Projectile) and believed to be the most advanced “kill vehicle” yet developed, fails to intercept a mock nuclear warhead in space.

The Supreme Court overturns a key provision of the 1985 Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act when it asserts that the law, by forcing states to devise waste-disposal regulations, violates states’ sovereignty as protected by the 10th Amendment. The court’s decision lets stand other provisions of the law.

Vice President Quayle criticizes Time Warner for selling a rap music album, Body Count by Ice-T, which includes the song “Cop Killer.” . . . Rupert Murdoch fires FOX president Stephen Chao, who used a male stripper in an anticensorship presentation attended by Lynne Cheney, chairwoman of the NEH.

Presidential candidate Bill Clinton appears in a 90-minute program on the cable television station MTV, surprising some people since most of the channel’s audience, aged 25 or younger, do not vote in large numbers.

June 16

June 17

Butch Reynolds, world-record holder in the 400 meters suspended from the sport, wins his battle in U.S. courts to compete in the U.S. Olympic track and field trials.

Golfer Tom Kite, the all-time leading money winner on the PGA tour, wins his first major championship with a victory at the 92nd U.S. Open, at Pebble Beach, California.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 18

June 19

June 20

June 21

348—June 22–26, 1992

June 22

World Affairs

Europe

Reports confirm that the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade has suspended Yugoslavia as a member. . . . Representatives of 32 nations meet in Tokyo for a conference on the Cambodian peace process and pledge $880 million in reconstruction aid for Cambodia.

Fighting erupts in Bendery, Moldova, and it continues even after Presidents Snegur and Yeltsin and President Iliescu of Romania arrange a cease-fire. . . . Serb gunners intensify attacks on the Croatian cities of Dubrovnik and Sibenik. In fierce bombardments, 14 people are killed in Sarajevo. . . . Two former members of the RAF terrorist group, Sigrid Sternebeck Friedrich and Ralf Baptist Friedrich, are convicted in Stuttgart, Germany, in connection with the attempted 1979 assassination of Alexander Haig when he was the supreme commander of NATO.

June 23

June 24

June 25

June 26

Africa & the Middle East

At a meeting at the Russian Black Sea resort town of Dagomys, Russian president Boris Yeltsin and Ukrainian president Leonid Kravchuk reach an accord on sharing the Black Sea fleet.

The ANC breaks off constitutional talks at the 19-party Convention for a Democratic South Africa (Codesa) until the government takes steps to curb township violence, which has claimed over 1,500 lives since the beginning of 1992. . . . Israel’s opposition Labor Party wins in national parliamentary elections. While no party wins a majority in the Knesset, it is the worst showing for the Likud bloc of P.M. Shamir since 1969.

Georgian security forces crush an attempted coup by armed rebels loyal to ousted president Zviad K. Gamsakhurdia. A government spokesman places the casualties at three dead and 26 wounded. . . . Georgian leader Shevardnadze, Russian president Yeltsin, and leaders of the two Ossetian regions agree to a cease-fire. It is the first of its kind involving states of the former Soviet Union. . . . Vladimir Meciar becomes the premier of the Slovak Republic.

Officials at the Kuwaiti embassy in London present a donation of $1.85 million to keep the 164-yearold London Zoo open.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an organization of 24 leading industrial nations, revises its forecast of economic growth for 1992 from 2.2% to 1.8%.

Leaders of the 12 European Community nations hold their regular semiannual summit. . . . UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali gives the Bosnian Serb forces 48 hours to halt the fighting around Sarajevo and to place their heavy weapons under UN control.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Nick Greiner, the premier of the Australian state of New South Wales, resigns in the midst of a scandal about his corrupt action when making a job appointment.

The Supreme Court of Canada unanimously rules that the controversial 7% federal goods-andservices tax (GST), which took effect at the start of 1991, is legal and requires no alteration.

Serbs resume shelling Sarajevo. . . . The Turkish parliament votes to allow U.S. and allied military forces to remain in Turkey for another six months as part of a “rapid reaction force” to protect Kurds in northern Iraq from Iraqi military attacks. . . . Germany’s Bundestag, the lower parliamentary house, approves legislation that allows women to obtain abortions through the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

In South Africa, the national police commissioner, General Johan van der Merwe, lays blame for the June 17 massacre in Boipatony on 200 to 300 Zulus from the KwaMadala workers’ hostel.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 22–26, 1992—349

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The Supreme Court overturns a St. Paul, Minnesota, ordinance that makes it a criminal offense to engage in speech or behavior that is inflammatory because of its racist, sexist, or otherwise bigoted content. The ruling, in R.A.V. v. St. Paul, is the high court’s first on crimes motivated by bias against specific groups or “hate crimes.”. . . The high court, 7-2, upholds a California law that places the burden of proof on defendants in criminal cases who claim they are mentally unfit to stand trial. . . . In the wake of riots in L.A., Pres. Bush signs the urban aid bill passed by Congress June 18.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Four major airlines, American, United Airlines, USAir Group, and Delta Air Lines, agree to settle charges of price fixing by paying a total of $44 million in cash in addition to $368.5 million in special coupons.

A New York City federal appeals court rules in favor of a more restrictive interpretation of what constitutes copyright infringement for computer software makers. The verdict is a blow to larger software companies.

M(ary) F(rances) K(ennedy) Fisher, 83, noted food writer who authored 15 books, including Serve It Forth (1937), dies in Glen Ellen, California, after suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

John Gotti, convicted of murder and racketeering, is sentenced to life in prison without parole. Outside the courthouse, 900 of his supporters protest his conviction. Seven protesters are arrested and eight police officers are injured. . . . Pres. Bush vetoes a measure that would lift a ban on using aborted fetuses in federally funded research. . . . The Wisconsin Supreme Court declares the state’s hate-crimes law to be unconstitutional.

The House passes an $8.5 billion appropriations bill for military construction in fiscal 1993.

Middle East Broadcasting Centre Ltd., a little-known Arab-owned media company, agrees to pay $3.95 million in cash to acquire UPI Inc. . . . Financial documents from the presidential campaigns of Pres. Bush, Arkansas governor Bill Clinton (D) and undeclared independent candidate Ross Perot reveal that the Clinton campaign is in poor financial shape compared with those of his rivals.

Eric Andolsek, 25, offensive lineman for football’s Detroit Lions, dies when a truck strikes him in the front yard of his home in Thibodaux, Louisiana.

The House fails by 14 votes to gain the two-thirds majority necessary to override Pres. Bush’s June 23 veto. . . . In a complicated series of rulings, the Supreme Court clears the way for some types of law suits to be brought against cigarette companies by consumers seeking damages for health problems. . . . In Lee v. Weisman, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that nonsectarian prayers delivered at a public highschool graduation violate First Amendment principles separating church and state.

The U.S. International Trade Commission finds that U.S. auto companies are not being significantly harmed by sales of two Japanesemade minivan models, contradicting an earlier ruling by the Commerce Department. . . . The Senate Select Committee on POW-MIA Affairs opens hearings on the issue of whether any American POWs of the Vietnam War remain captives.

A $1.8 billion fiscal 1993 spending bill for the legislative branch is passed by the House, 279-143. The bill’s spending is almost 2% lower than in the fiscal 1992 bill. . . . The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers strike against CSX Transportation Inc., a freight rail company. The action effectively halts all freight rail traffic, and Bush administration officials estimate that a nationwide rail strike will cost $1 billion a day.

Commissioner Fay Vincent permanently bans New York Yankees pitcher Steve Howe from baseball. The commissioner suspended Howe indefinitely June 8 after the reliever pled guilty in a federal court of a charge of attempting to possess cocaine.

The Democratic National Committee issues the final draft of its 1992 presidential platform.

The House approves, 297-124, a $13.8 billion fiscal 1993 foreign operations appropriations bill. The bill provides $1.3 billion less than requested by the Bush administration and is the smallest foreign aid bill passed since 1977. . . . The U.S. Coast Guard returns the last of more than 27,000 Haitians intercepted at sea and denied asylum in the U.S. The U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, still holds 1,570 refugees whose asylum requests are under review.

Congress passes legislation ending a strike started June 24 by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

Los Angeles police chief Daryl F. Gates leaves office. He is replaced by Willie L. Williams, the first black to head the department and the first chief from outside the force in over 40 years. . . . In U.S. v. Fordice, the Supreme Court rules, 8-1, that the state of Mississippi has not satisfied its constitutional obligation to eliminate segregation within its public university system. . . . An Amnesty International study finds that law-enforcement officers in Los Angeles routinely use excessive force, especially against blacks and Hispanics.

Navy Secretary H. Lawrence Garrett resigns amid a controversy over how the navy handled of accusations of sexual abuse at the 1991 Tailhook aviators’ convention. Garrett, 53, who held the post since 1989, is the only person ever to have risen from the navy’s enlisted ranks to head the service.

The Supreme Court unanimously rules that companies may sue to prevent competitors from imitating the appearance of their products and services if they can prove that that appearance is “inherently distinctive.” . . . Pres. Bush signs legislation passed June 25 to end a strike by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

The U.S. space shuttle Columbia lifts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to test the properties of various materials in the absence of gravity.

Sir James Frazer Stirling, 66, British architect who received the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize and was knighted just 12 days earlier, dies in London after suffering a heart attack.

Butch Reynolds, world record holder in the 400-meter race who June 20 won the right to compete in the U.S. Olympic track and field trials, finishes fifth in the 400-meter finals in New Orleans and fails to make the Olympic team.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 22

June 23

June 24

June 25

June 26

350—June 27–July 2, 1992

June 27

June 28

June 29

June 30

World Affairs

Europe

EC foreign ministers agree Macedonia should receive EC recognition, but only if it changes its name. The provision is demanded by Greece since its northernmost province is named Macedonia. . . . EC foreign ministers authorize the use of force— if necessary—by member states under UN auspices to get relief to Sarajevo. U.S. president Bush consults with British prime minister Major, Russian president Yeltsin, Canadian prime minister Mulroney, and other leaders on possible multinational military intervention in Sarajevo.

In Palermo, Italy, 40,000 protesters march to condemn the Mafia and call for stronger measures against organized crime. The protest is described as the largest demonstration against the Mafia in memory.

Macedonian president Kiro Gligorov assails the EC’s June 27 decision accusing the group of bowing to the wishes of a “privileged” member. Foreign Minister Denko Maleski resigns.

In Belgrade, 100,000 people march to demand the ouster of Serbian pres. Milosevic and an end to the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. . . . French president Mitterrand visits Sarajevo on the 78th anniversary of the assassination of Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand. . . . Estonia holds a referendum its first post-Soviet constitution. . . . The June 24 ceasefire fails as Georgian guerrillas shell South Ossetia. . . . Giuliano Amato is sworn in as Italy’s new premier.

Norway and Iceland announce they will allow their fishing industries to resume commercial whale hunting, defying a 1985 worldwide whaling moratorium. The announcements coincide with the opening of the annual conference of the International Whaling Commission. . . . The UN Security Council votes unanimously in Resolution 761 to send “additional elements” of peacekeepers to Sarajevo to secure uninterrupted delivery of humanitarian aid.

A tiny contingent of UN peacekeepers take charge of the airport outside of Sarajevo that has been held by Bosnian Serb forces for nearly three months, preventing badly needed food and medicine from reaching the city. . . . General Pierre Billotte, 86, French general and World War II military hero who headed the French military delegation at the UN, 1946–50, and helped create NATO, dies near Paris.

The World Bank reports net income of $1.65 billion for the year ending June 30. The amount represents a 37% increase over the previous year. . . . The UN Security Council unanimously adopts a resolution reiterating its demand that Croatia remove all of its forces from Bosnia.

In France, truckers set up roadblocks to protest new driver licensing regulations. . . . Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher is sworn in to the House of Lords as Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven.

July 1

July 2

NATO discloses that the U.S. completed a removal of its groundbased tactical (battlefield) nuclear weapons from Europe.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Afghan president Sibghatullah Mojadidi, a moderate Islamic scholar, relinquishes power to guerrilla leader Burhanuddin Rabbani. . . . Mongolia holds elections for a new unicameral parliament. . . . Qian Sanqiang, 79, French-educated Chinese scientist who oversaw the research to develop China’s nuclear bomb and was awarded the Henry de Parville Award for Physics by the French Academy in 1946, dies in Beijing. Mohammed Boudiaf, the president of Algeria’s ruling military council, is assassinated in machine-gun fire while giving a speech in the city of Annaba. The attack wounds 41 people. . . . A predominantly black crowd of more than 25,000 people gather at a funeral for three dozen victims of the June 17 massacre in Boipatong that claimed 46 lives. . . . The political prisoners arrested during the Lagos riots in May, whose incarceration prompted a June 15 strike in Nigeria, are released on bail.

The Moldovan parliament confirms Andrei Sangheli as the country’s premier, succeeding Valeriu Muravsky, who resigned June 9.

Algeria’s slain head of state, Mohammed Boudiaf, is buried. . . . Police in Cape Town, South Africa, fire tear gas and buckshot at a crowd of 4,000 people demanding Pres. de Klerk’s resignation.

The results of Estonia’s June 28 referendum on the country’s first post-Soviet constitution show that it was approved by 91% of those who voted. . . . Luxembourg’s parliament votes to ratify the Maastricht Treaty.

After intense deliberation, Algeria’s High State Council names Ali Kafi as its new president. . . . Reports suggest that a brigade of Iraqi Republican Guards commanded by Gen. Sabri Mahmoud that planned an assault on Saddam Hussein’s headquarters in Baghdad were defeated June 29 by security forces loyal to Hussein. . . . Israeli president Chaim Herzog formally calls upon Yitzhak Rabin to form a government after Labor won a plurality in the Knesset

A judge in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, orders the release of Yasin Abu Bakir and 113 Muslim followers who attempted to overthrow the government in the summer of 1990 and were charged with murder and treason. The judge finds that the amnesty agreement negotiated while the rebels held hostages is valid.

Fidel V. Ramos is inaugurated as president of the Philippines, succeeding Corazon Aquino.

Canadian fisheries minister John Crosbie imposes a two-year ban on catching northern cod in the fishing grounds off the coast of Newfoundland.

In Mongolia, election returns show that the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP), which renounced communism in 1990, has won 70 out of 76 seats.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 27–July 2, 1992—351

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The Democratic National Committee adopts the final draft of its 1992 presidential platform. . . . The body of kidnapped Exxon executive Sidney Reso, with a bullet wound in one arm, is found in the Bass River State Forest in Burlington County, New Jersey, after Irene Seale, one of the suspects, leads authorities to the site.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Reports indicate discount store chains, including Wal-Mart and K mart, will not sell basketball star Magic Johnson’s book What You Can Do About AIDS because it contains instructions on how to use a condom. . . . Pres. Bush’s daughter, Dorothy Bush LeBlond, marries her second husband, Bobby Koch.

For the first time ever, a medical team implants the liver of a baboon into a terminally ill man. . . . Two earthquakes rock California, killing at least one person and injuring more than 350. The first quake strikes Yucca Valley and measures 7.4 on the Richter scale, qualifying it as California’s strongest earthquake in 40 years. The second quake, measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale, occurs about 20 miles (30 km) west of the initial tremor. The Supreme Court, 5-4, upholds most of the provisions of a Pennsylvania law that imposes strict limits on a woman’s ability to obtain an abortion. However, the majority also reaffirms that a woman’s basic right to choose an abortion is “a rule of law and a component of liberty we cannot renounce.” The case, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, and verdict draw much debate and controversy.

June 27

June 28

The Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that property owners may demand compensation from the government when land-use regulations deprive their land of its economic value.

June 29

The “gentleman bandit,” Lon Perry, is sentenced to 35 years in prison after pleading guilty in Houston, Texas, to robbing more than 100 business travelers in Texas and Louisiana. . . . As part of a plea bargain, Irene Seale pleads guilty in Trenton, New Jersey, to charges of extortion and the kidnapping of Exxon executive Sidney Reso in April. . . . Spurred by the Supreme Court’s June 29 ruling on abortion rights, the House Judiciary Committee approves a bill that will ban most restrictions on abortion by states.

Pres. Bush tells reporters that a joint U.S.-Russian commission has not yet found any evidence that U.S. POWs or MIAs remain alive in Russia . . . A woman reservist, Spec. 4 Jacqueline Ortiz, tells the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee she was sexually attacked by a fellow soldier. After listening to the testimony of Ortiz and three other female veterans, the committee’s chairman, Sen. Alan Cranston (D, Calif.), estimates 60,000 of the 1.2 million women veterans have been raped or sexually assaulted while in the military.

The House approves, 312-99, a fiscal 1993 spending bill for the Agriculture Department and related agencies. The $58.9 billion provided by the bill is $1.4 billion less than Pres. Bush had sought in his fiscal 1993 budget request. . . . The FEC distributes more than $3.2 million in federal matching funds to the presidential candidates.

As a deliberate protest, Leona Benten, a pregnant woman, tries to enter the U.S. with French-made RU-486 abortion pills. . . . A gunman, George Lott, opens fire in a Fort Worth, Texas, courtroom, killing two attorneys and wounding three other people. . . . Data shows turnout in the 1992 presidential primaries was at a record low. . . . The Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee passes its version of a bill to ban most restrictions on abortion by states in response to the Supreme Court’s June 29 decision.

Acting navy secretary Howard vows to end the “hard-drinking, skirtchasing, anything-goes philosophy” that led to the Tailhook scandal. . . . Admiral Kelso relieves of their commands two senior officers who allowed the performance of a skit that contained references to oral sex and Rep. Pat Schroeder (D, Colo.). . . . Retired Admiral William Crowe contradicts previous claims when he asserts the U.S. cruiser Vincennes was in Iranian territorial waters when it shot down an Iranian commercial plane in 1988.

In connection with the BCCI scandal, Sheik Khalid bin Mahfouz is indicted on New York State charges of fraud. . . . At the beginning of its new fiscal year, California is bankrupt with a deficit estimated at $10.7 billion. . . . The House approves, 273-166, a $22.7 billion fiscal 1993 appropriations bill for the Treasury Department, the U.S. Postal Service, and other government agencies.

Franco Cristaldi, 64, Italian film producer of Amarcord (1973) and Cinema Paradiso (1988), dies of a heart attack following open-heart surgery. . . . The Vatican annuls the marriage of Princess Caroline of Monaco and Phillipe Junot.

Pres. Bush vetoes a bill that would have required states to permit citizens to register to vote when applying for driver’s licenses, other licenses and government benefits. . . . John BuettnerJanusch, 67, charged with turning a New York University lab into an illicit drug factory and with sending poisoned candies to the judge in the case, dies in a prison hospital in Springfield, Missouri.

The Senate approves, 76-20, a package of aid for Russia and 11 other former Soviet republics. . . . The House votes, 328-94, to pass a $253 billion defense appropriations bill for fiscal 1993.

The Federal Reserve cuts its socalled discount interest rate to 3%, its lowest level in 29 years. . . . The Labor Department finds a 7.8% civilian jobless rate for June. . . . Congress passes $5.5 billion measure that revises federal unemployment laws to automatically extend benefits to the long-term jobless in times of recession. The legislation also extends emergency benefits to the currently long-term unemployed through March 1993.

A Brief History of Time by physicist Steven Hawking breaks the record for the longest-running British best-seller since it has been a bestseller for 184 weeks.

At least 50,000 people in northwestern Wisconsin and northeastern Minnesota are forced to evacuate their homes and businesses for several hours after a freight train derails in Duluth, Minnesota, releasing a cloud of benzene vapor from a car carrying the flammable, toxic liquid. At least 25 people are hospitalized.

June 30

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 1

July 2

352—July 3–9, 1992

World Affairs

Europe Ethnic Croat nationalists led by Mate Boban, the head of Bosnia’s Croatian Democratic Union, proclaim an independent state in Bosnia in two areas bordering on Croatia. . . . The full-scale delivery of food and medicine to thousands of citizens in Sarajevo begins. . . . Czechoslovak president Vaclav Havel fails to win reelection in the country’s Federal Assembly when he does not obtain a majority of votes in each of the body’s three houses.

July 3

July 6

July 7

July 8

Israel’s Jewish Agency announces that it evacuated 1,000 Jews from Moldova’s Dniester region over the previous two weeks. . . . Iraq’s official news agency denies the July 2 allegations of a coup attempt, although other reports still insist the event happened.

The Americas

A 16-member team of UN arms experts attempt to search the offices of the Iraqi agriculture ministry for records relating to Iraq’s effort to build ballistic missiles. Guards bar the team from entering, arguing that inspection of the high-level ministerial building violates Iraqi sovereignty. . . . The IMF and Russia agree to a $24 billion aid package.

Reports state that the drought in Zimbabwe has grown so severe that wildlife authorities are killing elephants and impala to feed both people and other game.

In response to Iraq’s July 5 ban, the UN Security Council demands that the inspectors be admitted to the building and warns Iraq that its actions are a “material and unacceptable” breech of the cease-fire agreement. . . . The G-7 leaders meet in Munich, Germany.

Reports suggest that, in the Dniester region, a total of 22 people have been killed in continued fighting. . . . French police begin to clear roadblocks set up June 30 by truckers protesting against new driver-licensing regulations. The truckers negotiate with the government. . . . Disgruntled farmers march on Poland’s capital, Warsaw, and use trucks to block the country’s main east-west highway.

G-7 leaders threaten the use of force to support relief efforts in Bosnia, where Serbian irregular troops have besieged the capital, Sarajevo.

Reports indicate that hundreds of people have died since May 19 in the Dniester region of Moldova over the issue of Slav separatism. The Moldovan parliament votes to allow foreign peacekeeping troops in the Dniester region, and it reaches a new cease-fire accord with the Slav rebels. . . . In Macedonia, the government resigns over its failure to convince other countries to unconditionally recognize Macedonian independence.

The CSCE suspends Yugoslavia’s membership for three months, accusing Yugoslavia of aggression in Bosnia and Croatia.

Thomas Klestil is sworn in as president of Austria, succeeding Kurt Waldheim. . . . Polish president Lech Walesa nominates Hanna Suchocka to succeed Waldemar Pawlak as the country’s premier.

Algeria’s premier Sid Ahmed Ghozali steps down, and his position is filled by Belaid Abdesalam.

Alexander Kavsadze, a deputy premier, is kidnapped near the village of Kanti, in western Georgia. . . . The French government announces that it will send a squadron of Gazelle attack helicopters to Sarajevo to bolster the UN peacekeeping force.

Two Austrian UN guards are wounded when a hand grenade explodes in the garden of their residence in Erbil.

July 9

Asia & the Pacific

A Montreal jury acquits the final group of defendants to be tried for the 1990 armed standoff between Mohawk Indians and police and army units in Oka, Quebec.

The left-of-center Social Democratic Party wins a majority of seats in both houses of Nigeria’s new National Assembly in general elections.

July 4

July 5

Africa & the Middle East

Hezb-i-Islami’s artillery begins to shell Kabul, shutting off electric power and water.

Sixto Duran Ballen wins a runoff election for Ecuador’s presidency.

Danielle Mitterrand, the wife of French president Mitterrand, narrowly escapes an assassination attempt when a car-bomb explodes near her motorcade outside the city of Sulaymaniya, Iraq. The blast kills four bystanders and wounds 19 other people. . . . In South Africa, the independent Goldstone Commission on township violence clears Pres. de Klerk and his senior staff of any involvement in the Boipatong massacre and other recent murders.

Reports from Afghanistan indicate that the shelling that started in Kabul July 4 has left at least 100 people dead. . . . China and Great Britain end an unsuccessful round of talks on Hong Kong’s planned new airport.

Canadian constitutional affairs minister Joe Clark, nine provincial premiers, and four native leaders reach a tentative agreement on sweeping constitutional reform.

Chris Patten, former British Conservative Party chairman, is sworn in as Hong Kong’s 28th governor, succeeding Lord David Wilson. . . . In Thailand, Premier Anand dissolves the Internal Peace-Keeping Force, a military unit that fired on unarmed prodemocracy demonstrators in May. Henceforth, the maintenance of domestic order will be handled by the interior ministry rather than the military.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 3–9, 1992—353

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The army formally charges an Army Reserve sergeant, David Martinez, with forcible sodomy, indecent assault, and falsifying official statements based upon testimony heard by the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee June 30.

Pres. Bush signs a $5.5 billion measure that revises federal unemployment laws to automatically extend benefits to the long-term jobless in times of recession. The legislation, passed by Congress July 2, also extends emergency benefits to the currently long-term unemployed through March 1993.

NASA launches the first of a planned series of inexpensive scientific satellites dubbed the Small Explorer Project. The Solar, Anomalous and Magnetospheric Particle Explorer (SAMPEX) probe blasts off from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California atop a Scout rocket.

Marc Tanenbaum, 66, rabbi who was the only Jew to attend the 1965 Second Vatican Council, a body that produced a landmark document rejecting anti-Semitism, dies of heart failure in NYC. . . . Sen. Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.), 60, marries attorney Victoria Reggie, 38, in McLean, Virginia.

Francis Perrin, 90, nuclear physicist who was the father of the French atomic bomb and who won the 1926 Nobel Prize for Physics for his study of Brownian motion, dies of unreported causes.

At the All England Tennis Championship at Wimbledon, Steffi Graf of Germany defends her title by defeating the world’s top-rated woman player, Monica Seles of Yugoslavia.

Danny Ray Horning, a convicted bank robber who kidnapped four tourists in the Grand Canyon National Park after he escaped from prison, is captured near Sedona, Arizona, after a nearly two-month-long manhunt.

Georgia Brown (born Lillian Klot), 58, who originated the role of Nancy in the musical Oliver!, dies of septicemia in London. . . . Andre Agassi wins his first grand-slam tennis title at the All England Tennis Championship at Wimbledon. The women’s doubles championship goes to Gigi Fernandez and Natalya Zvereva of Russia.

In the predominantly Dominican Washington Heights section of NYC, protesters demand an investigation into the death of Jose Garcia, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who was shot by police officer Michael O’Keefe. Riots break out involving as many as 1,000 demonstrators. . . . Henry Rowan announces that he is giving $100 million to Glassboro State College in New Jersey, the largest individual gift ever to a public college or university.

The Pelican Brief by John Grisham is the top of Publishers Weekly’s bestsellers list. . . . John McEnroe and Michael Stich of Germany win the men’s doubles title at the All England Tennis Championship at Wimbledon.

Sporadic violence continues in the predominantly Dominican Washington Heights section of NYC. Data show that 125 people were arrested and 53 police officers were injured. . . . A jury in White Plains, New York, acquits Olivia Riner, a Swiss au pair, of charges against her in the arson death of a baby in her care, three-month-old Kristie Fischer.

Defense Secretary Richard Cheney appoints Sean O’Keefe acting secretary of the navy, succeeding J. Daniel Howard, who had taken temporary charge of the service.

Prem S. Sarin, a former deputy director of the National Cancer Institute, is convicted in a Baltimore federal court of embezzling $25,000 earmarked for AIDS research and of falsifying financial disclosure statements. . . . Congress clears legislation aimed at broadening the access of middle-class college students to federal grants and loans for education. . . . Former Massachusetts senator Paul E. Tsongas (D) endorses Arkansas governor Bill Clinton, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee. Arkansas governor Bill Clinton names Tennessee senator Al Gore as his Democratic vice-presidential running mate. . . . In the first ruling of its kind, Circuit Judge Thomas Kirk, citing the Florida state constitution, gives independent status to initiate any legal action to a minor, Gregory K., 11, who wants to sever all ties from his mother so that his foster parents will be able to adopt him.

July 4

July 5

July 6

July 7

The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals overturns national workplace air-quality standards set in 1989 by the OSHA. . . . The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals strikes down a 1988 EPA regulation that allows the use of pesticides that pose “negligible” cancer risks when concentrated in processed foods. . . . The Federal Reserve Board levies a $170 million civil fine against Sheik Khalid, who was brought up on New York State charges of fraud in connection with the BCCI scandal. The navy announces that it disciplined and removed from the Tailhook investigation Laney S. Spigener, a Naval Investigative Service agent. He is suspended without pay for three days.

July 3

The House approves, 306-74, a fiscal 1993 appropriations bill for the Department of Transportation and related agencies.

July 8

The U.S. space shuttle Columbia lands at Cape Canaveral, Florida, after testing materials in the absence of gravity. The 14-day journey sets a new endurance record for the shuttle program.

The committee that organized the 1992 Winter Olympics reports that the games posted a $56.8 million loss on a budget of $836 million . . . (Arnold) Eric Sevareid, 79, radio and TV reporter who won the George Foster Peabody Award as well as three Emmys, dies in Washington, D.C., of stomach cancer.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 9

354—July 10–15, 1992

July 10

World Affairs

Europe

CSCE leaders conclude a summit believed to be the largest gathering of leaders ever held in Europe. The leaders declare the CSCE as the primary authority in Europe with regard to security threats. Additionally, 29 states, all members of NATO or states of the former Soviet Union, sign the revised version of the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty. . . . NATO and the WEU separately agree to send warships to the Adriatic Sea to tighten the trade embargo imposed on Yugoslavia by the UN in May.

Newspapers in Britain begin publishing excerpts from the recently discovered diaries of Josef Goebbels, the minister of propaganda under Nazi German leader Adolf Hitler.

July 12

The UN Security Council unanimously authorizes sending 500 more peacekeepers to Sarajevo to help keep the airport open.

July 14

July 15

One of Malawi’s most prominent political prisoners, Aleke Banda, is freed after spending 12 years in jail without trial.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Colombia, Pres. Gaviria declares a state of emergency designed to keep drug lord Pablo Escobar and 16 alleged members of the Medellin cartel in prison.

Reports indicate that the unemployment rate in Australia reached a record high of 11.1% in June.

A paramilitary organization calling itself the Forest Brothers intercepts a Russian army truck convoy near Tallinn, Estonia, and seizes some officers at gunpoint. The Russians are released unharmed after a few hours. . . . Reports state that Germany’s Bundesrat passed legislation that will allow women to obtain abortions through the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

July 11

July 13

Africa & the Middle East

Deng Yingchao (Teng Ying-chao), 88, high-ranking Chinese Communist Party official, who, with Premier Chou Enlai, adopted Li Peng, current premier of China, dies of an unspecified illness in Beijing.

UN aid workers with relief supplies escorted by military peace-keepers enter the Sarajevo suburb of Dobrinja, which has been cut off by Serb forces for 71 days.

In Israel, Yitzhak Rabin unveils his 17-member cabinet at a conference of the Labor Party’s central committee. His coalition is the first Labor-dominated government to take power in Israel since Likud first won elections in 1977.

On the 100th day of the Serb siege of Sarajevo, Serb forces in BosniaHerzegovina launch fresh military offensives. Serb commandos blow up electric-transmission lines, blacking out most of Sarajevo and knocking out the city’s electricpowered water pumps, and step up attacks on the besieged town of Gorazde, the last remaining stronghold of Muslim Bosnian forces in the eastern part of the country.

The Israeli Knesset votes, 67-53, to confirm Yitzhak Rabin as Israel’s prime minister and approve his coalition government.

About 1,000 Russian paratroopers and 200 Georgian soldiers are deployed along Georgia’s border with South Ossetia to halt fighting between Georgian guerrillas and Ossetian national guardsmen. . . . Prosecutors in Sofia, Bulgaria, arrest former premier Georgi Stanchev Filipov for embezzlement and misuse of state property. . . . The Yugoslav parliament confirms Milan Panic, a Serbian-born naturalized citizen of the U.S., as Yugoslavia’s premier. . . . The Lithuanian Supreme Council ousts Gediminas Vagnorius as premier in a vote of no-confidence.

In Nablus, a town in the occupied West Bank, a group of armed Palestinian activists enters An Najah University during student council elections. Israeli troops search for the activists, but when students resist, the soldiers cordon off the campus, effectively placing about 2,000 students under siege. . . . South African president de Klerk, in Johannesburg, announces plans to disband two army battalions notorious for their alleged brutality in black townships.

To ease China’s fears about Hong Kong’s finances, the colony’s government discloses that Hong Kong’s foreign reserves are US$29 billion at the end of 1991, the 12th largest in the world. It is the first time that the figures have been made fully public. . . . In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge escalates its military attacks, seizing six villages and shelling Kompong Thom. UN helicopters flying in the region increasingly find themselves under attack from small-arms fire.

A military court sentences two high-ranking FIS leaders, Abassi Madani and Ali Belhadj, to 12 years in prison. Madani had been convicted of plotting to overthrow the government, and Belhadj of kidnapping and torture. The punishments are considered unexpectedly lenient, as both could have been given the death penalty under Algerian law.

Hammer DeRoburt, 69, former president of Nauru, an island republic in the South Pacific, dies of unreported causes in Melbourne, Australia.

Reports indicate that eight countries (U.S., Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, and Turkey) have committed a total of 11 frigates and destroyers and some reconnaissance aircraft to the patrols in response to the NATO and WEU July 10 decision.

Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) suffers only its second gubernatorial defeat in 63 years, losing in Chihuahua state to Francisco Barrio Terrazas, from the conservative National Action Party (PAN).

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 10–15, 1992—355

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds that 45% of voters believe that the next justice appointed to the Supreme Court should not vote to overturn the court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision supporting a woman’s right to abortion. Twenty-one percent believe a new justice should vote to overturn Roe, and 28% think it should not be an important consideration.

A judge in Miami sentences former Panamanian leader Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega to 40 years in prison on drug and racketeering charges. . . . A federal jury determines that now-defunct Pan Am is liable for damages stemming from the bombing of Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.

The Alaska state Court of Appeals overturns the misdemeanor conviction of Joseph Hazelwood, the skipper of the tanker Exxon Valdez when it grounded in March 1989, causing the largest oil spill in U.S. history. . . . . A federal jury orders Charles Keating Jr., of the failed Lincoln S&L, and three codefendants to pay a total of $4.5 billion in a fraud case.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle The Major Soccer League announces that it is discontinuing operations since the 14-year-old indoor league has been reduced to five teams. . . . Florida commissioner Bob Crawford imposes a 90day ban on bungee-jumping after a nationwide series of accidents.

Herbert Cornelius Kenny, 78, bassbaritone in the original Ink Spots quartet, one of the first black singing groups to gain a widespread audience, dies in Columbia, Maryland, of cancer.

Golfer Larry Laoretti wins the U.S. Senior Open at the Saucon Valley Country Club in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

The Democratic party convention opens in New York City.

Pres. Bush, in a written statement, formally announces a halt to the U.S. production of plutonium and enriched uranium for use in nuclear weapons.

Pres. Bush’s reelection campaign files a complaint with the FEC, challenging the Presidential Victory Committee, an independent group headed by Floyd Brown, who produced the controversial “Willie Horton” television ad in the 1988 presidential campaign. The Bush complaint to the FEC charges that Brown is tricking contributors by calling his group presidential. . . . Antiabortion protesters try to present Bill Clinton with what they state is an aborted fetus.

The EPA proposes rules that would require the 84 U.S. metropolitan regions with the worst air pollution to toughen their procedures for testing the pollution emissions of automobiles.

Alex Wojciechowicz, 76, lineman elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1955 and to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1968, dies in South River, New Jersey. . . . Hillary Clinton discusses her recipe for chocolate chip cookies that is competing against one from Barbara Bush.

The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia throws out an EPA regulation that allows used batteries from cars and trucks to be burned in incinerators. . . . Ernst & Young, another of the Big Six accounting firms, agrees in Phoenix, Arizona, to pay $1.6 million to settle state charges of negligence related to its audits of Lincoln Savings and Loan.

A former Roman Catholic priest, James R. Porter, is sued by seven men alleging that he sexually abused them 20 years earlier in Bemidji, Minnesota. A lawyer in Albuquerque, New Mexico, files a suit alleging Porter abused two boys in Jemez Springs, New Mexico. . . . The American League wins Major League Baseball’s annual AllStar game, 13-6, over the National League.

International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Ronald R. Carey announces that his union is endorsing the presidential candidacy of Arkansas governor Bill Clinton.

Reports confirm a commission established by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago in October 1991 issued a report on dealing with sexual abuse within that archdiocese. . . . Doctors in Rome remove a benign tumor from Pope John Paul II’s colon.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 10

July 11

July 12

July 13

July 14

July 15

356—July 16–21, 1992

July 16

July 17

Europe

The United Nations Security Council votes unanimously to send an emissary to South Africa to investigate violence in black townships.

The convictions of four City of London financial executives in connection with a troubled stock flotation for Blue Arrow PLC in 1987 are overturned by the Court of Appeal.

A UN guard, Ravuma Dakia, is shot and killed while sleeping in his quarters in the town of Dahok in Kurd-controlled northern Iraq. He is the first guard to be killed in Iraq since the UN began its relief mission there in April 1991. . . . The Mozambique government and Renamo rebel leader Afonso Dhlakama agree to allow relief workers to enter rebel-held territory.

UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali names former U.S. secretary of state Cyrus R. Vance as the UN’s special envoy to South Africa. . . . Reports reveal that Iraq withdrew its representatives from a UN commission seeking to demarcate its border with Kuwait and refused to accept the commission’s rulings.

The parliament of the Slovak Republic adopts a “declaration of sovereignty,” a significant step toward the breakup of the Czechoslovak federation. The move prompts Pres. Vaclav Havel to announce his resignation. . . . The lower house of the Belgian parliament approves the Maastricht treaty. . . . Polish coal miners begin to stage walkouts at some 15 sites in the Silesia and Lublin coal fields.

Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani announces he has accepted the resignation of Muhammad Khatami, the minister for Islamic culture, who was attacked by religious hard-liners for liberalizing Iran’s strict Islamic social codes. . . . A standoff started July 14 ends when six Palestinian militants surrender to Israeli authorities at An Najah University.

Reports confirm that 10,000 workers staged a strike at the Mielec military-aircraft plant in southeast Poland. . . . John Smith is elected leader of Britain’s Labour Party, succeeding Neil Kinnock. . . . Victor Louis (born Vitaly Yevgenyevich Lui), 64, Russian journalist and conveyer of information between the Kremlin and the West, dies of a heart attack in London.

UN relief flights to Sudan are suspended because the SPLA begins shelling the airport.

July 18

July 19

July 20

July 21

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

The Eighth International Conference on AIDS opens in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The event features over 4,875 reports on the deadly disease and is attended by more than 9,000 researchers and public health officials from around the world.

Paolo Borsellino, the chief prosecutor in the Sicilian capital, Palermo, is killed when a car bomb explodes. The bomb also kills five of his body guards, including Emanuela Loi, the first woman police officer killed on active duty in Italy. Eighteen other people are injured. . . . Heinz Galinski, 79, who survived three Nazi German concentration camps during World War II, campaigned against neoNazism, and became chairman of the Central Council of German Jewry in 1988, dies in Berlin.

Michael Merson, the director of the World Health Organization’s AIDS program, projects the number of AIDS patients to reach 40 million by the year 2000.

Latvia makes the nonconvertible Latvian ruble the only legal tender in the country. . . . Shelling of Sarajevo resumes, and two French peacekeepers at Sarajevo airport are wounded by mortar fire, which halts UN relief flights for the day . . . . In Poland, a total of 40,000 copper miners in the Lublin area go on strike. . . . A Georgian TU-154 cargo plane crashes in a suburb of Tbilisi, killing at least 40 people. . . . Vaclav Havel officially resigns as the president of Czechoslovakia.

Two UN guards are slightly hurt by a car-bomb blast in Sulaymaniya, Iraq.

In the face of the group’s continuing noncompliance, the UN Security Council votes to bar international aid to the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

The Lithuanian Supreme Council chooses Aleksandras Abisala to succeed Gediminas Vagnorius as premier. . . . A frigate of the Black Sea fleet hoists the Ukrainian flag, breaks away from a training exercise off the western Crimean coast, and “defects” to the southern Ukrainian port city of Odessa. The Ukrainian government claims that the frigate’s crew acted of its own volition. . . . Russia and Moldova agree to a joint effort to keep opposing forces apart in the Dniester area.

Cyrus R. Vance, the UN’s special envoy to South Africa, lands in Johannesburg and becomes the first high-ranking UN representative to set foot in South Africa since 1961.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Hezb-i-Wahadat forces outside Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, exchange artillery fire with government troops inside the city limits, killing 60 people.

After meeting with new Haitian premier Marc Bazin in Port-au-Prince, executives from 18 U.S. companies agree to resume operating assembly plants in Haiti that were shut down after the U.S. joined a trade embargo in 1991 to protest the overthrow of Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. . . . Two government officials and 400 soldiers go to a custom-built luxury prison in Envigado, Colombia, to temporarily transfer inmates from the Medellín cartel to a military prison.

Reports state that pro- and antigovernment militias and guerrillas continue to clash sporadically in Kabul since June. About 2,000 Afghans have been killed in fighting in the capital since the collapse of the Communist regime. . . . Bao Tong, a former aide to deposed Communist Party general secretary Zhao Ziyang, is sentenced by a Chinese court in Beijing to seven years on charges connected to the 1989 student-led prodemocracy movement.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 16–21, 1992—357

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas accepts the Democratic nomination for president, and his running mate, Al Gore, is formally nominated. Opinion polls taken after the conclusion of the Democratic convention show that Clinton has the largest postconvention popularity boost for a candidate since World War II. . . . In a surprise move, independent candidate H. Ross Perot announces he will not run for the presidency, although he qualified for at least 24 state ballots. . . . Operation Rescue leader Randall Terry and three other antiabortion extremists surrender on charges stemming from their July 14 action.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The heads of the U.S. and Russian space agencies announce plans for joint manned flights, which will include sending a Russian aboard a U.S. space shuttle in 1993, having an American live in the Russian space station Mir for five months and linking the shuttle and the Mir in 1994.

Buck Buchanan, 51, defensive lineman inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1990, dies of lung cancer in Kansas City, Missouri. . . . The FCC votes to grant telephone companies the right to transmit television programming over telephone lines.

In response to Leona Benten’s attempt to enter the U.S. July 1 with RU-486 pills, the Supreme Court denies, 7-2, Benten’s request to recover the pills seized by U.S. Customs agents.

Bobby London claims King Features fired him for writing an abortion-rights story line in his Popeye comic strip. . . . Reports disclose that a statement from the Vatican urges Roman Catholic bishops to oppose some laws seeking to ban discrimination against homosexuals.

Rudolph C. Ising, 80, Academy Award–winning cartoonist who produced Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid (1929), the first talkie cartoon and was the cocreator of the Looney Toons animated series, dies of cancer in Newport Beach, California. . . . Pop singers Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown marry in Mendham, New Jersey.

Allen Newell, 65, computer scientist who was the first president of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence and headed the Cognitive Science Society and who won the National Medal of Science in June, dies of cancer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

A volunteer in Ross Perot’s unannounced presidential campaign, Michele Alexander, files a classaction suit in federal court in Miami, accusing the billionaire of breaking a promise to run. She states that she and other volunteers spent their own money on the campaign.

A prototype of the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft crashes in the Potomac River as it prepares to land at the Marine Corps Air Station at Quantico, Virginia. The mishap kills two pilots and five Marine passengers. . . . The U.S. District Court in Baltimore, Maryland, convicts eight Nigerian men of conspiring to smuggle millions of dollars worth of heroin into the U.S.

National Medical Enterprises Inc. files suit in federal court against three insurers—Massachusetts Mutual, United of Omaha Life and Travelers—alleging that they fail to pay claims.

A state district judge in Pontiac, Michigan, David. F. Breck, dismisses two murder charges against Dr. Jack Kevorkian, a retired pathologist known as the “suicide doctor” because suicide assistance is not a crime in Michigan.

The House, votes, 339-62, to impose high tariffs on Chinese imports in an effort to force China to improve its human rights record. . . . Lt. Com. Donald Oswald, the skipper of the navy salvage ship Safeguard, is relieved of his command, pending the outcome of an investigation of allegations of sexual harassment on the vessel.

British Airways PLC and USAir Group Inc. agree to form the world’s largest airline alliance.

July 16

July 17

July 18

July 19

John Bratby, 64, English painter and author who was one of the founders of the Kitchen-Sink School and served as editor in chief of Art Quarterly magazine, dies of a heart attack in Hastings, England.

July 20

July 21

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

358—July 22–27, 1992

July 22

July 23

Europe

A continued battle for UN officials to gain admittance to an Iraqi building peaks when a demonstrator attempts to stab a UN inspector. The team then withdraws.

Local authorities in Odessa announce that the frigate that “defected” July 21 is under their protection and that no charges will be brought against the crew. The announcement leads Admiral Kasatonov to accuse Ukraine of piracy. . . . Pierre Uri, 80, French economist who was one of the chief architects of the European Community and to whom Pres. Mitterand presented the Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit in 1991, dies in Paris of cancer. . . . Workers at the FSM auto plant in Tychy, Poland begin a strike for higher wages.

Reports suggest that the Iraqi government is driving Shi’ite Muslims out of their homes in southern Iraq and attacking some Shi’ite villages with military aircraft.

A clash erupts at the UN when Secretary General Boutros BoutrosGhali accuses the Security Council of spending resources on “the rich man’s war” in Yugoslavia while ignoring crises in impoverished Somalia and other poor African countries.

Czech premier Vaclav Klaus and Slovak premier Vladimir Meciar agree on a basic plan for a peaceful division of Czechoslovakia into two independent states by the end of September. . . . In Abkhazia, an autonomous region of northwestern Georgia located on the Black Sea, the parliament (in which ethnic Abkhaz by law hold a majority of the seats) declares sovereignty, a step toward independence from Georgia.

Israeli housing minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and Finance Minister Avraham Shochat cancel plans for the construction of 6,500 housing units in Jewish settlements in the occupied territories. . . . Suleiman Franjieh, 82, former president of Lebanon, 1970–76, and one of the country’s last surviving feudal clan leaders, dies in Beirut of acute pneumonia.

Reports confirm that workers have gone on strike at the Zofiowka coal mine in southern Poland, one of the nation’s largest pits. . . . An estimated 8,000 demonstrators in Palermo, Italy, mourn Paolo Borsellino, the chief prosecutor killed July 19. Eight of 20 anti-Mafia magistrates in Palermo confirm their resignations in protest over the lack of protection given them. Italy’s Senate approves an antiMafia package proposed June 8.

July 24

The ruling Georgian State Council states that Abkhazia’s July 23 declaration of sovereignty is null and void. . . . Reports reveal that Estonia and Latvia have adopted citizenship laws that effectively curb the rights of ethnic Russians and other non-Balts to vote or own land. . . . In response to Paolo Borsellino’s July 19 assassination, Italy authorizes the deployment of 7,000 army troops in Sicily to aid in the fight against the Mafia.

July 25

July 26

July 27

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

The three-week impasse over UN inspections in Iraq breaks when Iraqi ambassador to the UN Abdul Amir al-Anbari agrees to allow a new team appointed by Rolf Ekeus, the head of the UN’s disarmament effort in Iraq, to resume the interrupted inspections in Baghdad.

The 15-member UN Security Council unanimously passes a resolution authorizing 500 armed peace-keepers to safeguard humanitarian workers in Mogadishu, Somalia.

The Americas In Colombia, when the team that arrived at the Envigad prison July 21 attempts to remove the convicts, drug lord Pablo Escobar and his colleagues seize guns and take the officials and the prison warden hostage. Soldiers storm the compound and rescue the three men, but Escobar escapes. At least six people die in the altercation.

Maj. Gen. Hernando Monsalve retires under orders from Colombian president Cesar Gaviria in the wake of Pablo Escobar’s July 22 escape. . . . Atty. Gen. Ignacio Morales Lechuga states the Mexican government will no longer accept aid from the U.S. to fund its antidrug efforts due to what he calls excessive U.S. interference. . . . Canada announces the award of a C$4.4 billion (US$3.7 billion) multinational contract, the third-largest military contract in Canadian history.

Zulu king Goodwill Zwelethini, 44, marries his fifth wife at a ceremony in Nongoma. His newest bride, Nompumelelo Mchiza, 19, is a Xhosa speaker from the nominally independent black homeland of Transkei. Because the Xhosas and Zulus are age-old rivals, the marriage causes controversy and speculation.

Reports indicate more than 40 prominent Baghdad merchants accused of profiteering were publicly humiliated and executed by the Iraqi government. . . . South Africa’s leading independent pathologist, Jonathan Gluckman, claims nearly 200 people were killed during interrogations in prison, despite his appeals to Pres. de Klerk and other officials. His estimate far exceeds that of the country’s official figures, which put the number at 73 since the mid-1970s. Troops of the Baltic state of Estonia exchange shots with Russian soldiers in the Estonian capital, Tallinn. A Russian officer and a civilian are wounded. Each side accuses the other of firing the first shot. . . . Despite the July 25 deployment, Giovanni Lizzio, Sicily, the head of extortion investigations in Catania, Sicily, is shot dead by gunmen on motorcycles. Lizzio, 47, is reportedly the first senior police officer killed in Catania.

Asia & the Pacific

The Kenyan government ends a standoff and allows nearly 500 Somalis to go ashore and enter refugee camps. . . . Unidentified gunmen fire at a barracks for UN guards in the town of Sulaymaniya in Kurd-controlled northern Iraq. No one is injured.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its allies regain control of the upper house of Japan’s parliament, the Diet.

In the wake of Pablo Escobar’s July 22 escape, national prison director Lieutenant Colonel Hernando Navas resigns in Colombia.

The Bank of Japan lowers its discount interest rate to 3.25% from 3.75%, the fifth reduction since July 1991.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 22–27, 1992—359

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Contrary to previous reports, a study finds that contraceptive sponges containing the spermicide nonoxynol 9 do not protect against getting infected with the AIDS virus. . . . Fred Hellinger of the U.S. Public Health Service, states the cost of treating AIDS patients in the U.S. is now $102,000, up from $85,333 in 1991 and $57,000 in 1988. . . . Citizen Action reports PACs sponsored by the medical and insurance industries donated $10 million to congressional candidates through March 1992, up 22% from the same period in the 1990 election season.

GE pleads guilty in U.S. District Court to felony fraud charges related to its sales of military aircraft engines to Israel in the 1980s. The company agrees to pay $69 million in criminal and civil fines, and the settlement prohibits GE from taking legal action against Chester Walsh, the “whistleblower.” . . . Pres. Bush, in an executive order, directs federal departments and agencies— including the Pentagon, National Security Council and the White House—to declassify and make public up to 1.3 million documents on American MIAs.

A Brooklyn jury awards $9.2 million to the family of Robert Pagnucco, a lawyer killed in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988. . . . Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan asserts “the economic expansion will soon gain momentum, which lower inflation should help to maintain.”. . . . A six-member congressional task force on the House Post Office agrees that the institution was poorly managed. The House votes, 414-0, to turn over all of the task force’s records to federal prosecutors.

Reports find that Rockwell International Corp. has agreed to pay NASA $1.4 million as part of a settlement with the government over charges that the company overbilled the space agency for production and repair work on the space shuttle.

David Wojnarowicz, 37, artist and writer known for his work dealing with AIDS to whom the NEA withdrew, and later restored, funding, dies of AIDS in NYC. . . . Wayne McLaren, 51, actor who modeled as the “Marlboro Man” in cigarette advertisements and later became an antismoking crusader, dies of lung cancer in Newport Beach, California.

Rep. Clarence Miller (R, Ohio) files a suit to overturn results of a primary, in which he was defeated by Rep. Bob McEwen by 286 votes in a recount. . . . Pres. Bush signs legislation to broaden the access of middle-class college students to federal grants and loans for education. . . . Data from the 1990 census indicate the disparity between the median income of white households and black households narrowed very slightly in the 1980s.

The Coast Guard returns its last boatload of refugees from the U.S. base in Cuba. The only Haitians allowed to remain at the camp are about 300 refugees who tested positive for HIV. . . . The Defense Department begins releasing declassified documents on Vietnam War MIAs in accordance with Pres. Bush’s July 22 executive order.

The Natural Resources Defense Council reports more than 2,000 U.S. ocean beaches were closed during 1991 because raw sewage or other pollutants posed potential health hazards. . . . The House passes, 329-94, a $12.7 billion fiscal 1993 bill funding the Interior Department and related agencies. . . . The White House OMB lowers its estimate of the fiscal 1992 budget deficit to $333.5 billion, down from its projection of $400 billion.

A poll is made public by Time magazine and CNN that found that 49% of respondents want Vice Pres. Quayle replaced as Pres. Bush’s running mate. However, Quayle assures his aides that he will remain on the presidential ticket. . . . Reports confirm that an Agriculture Department probe found that federal inspectors sometimes mislabel beef in grocery stores.

Canada and the U.S. impose tariffs on each other’s beer in the culmination of a lengthy dispute over imported goods between the countries. . . . At an address to 600 members of the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, Pres. Bush and members of the audience engage in a heated exchange on the subject of MIAs.

The U.S. Claims Court in Washington, D.C., rules that the federal government broke an agreement with the nation’s fourth-largest savings and loan, Glendale Federal Bank, and is required to provide restitution.

The New York Times cites National Institutes of Health memorandums showing that the White House greatly exaggerated the amount of useful fetal tissue that can be obtained from miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies in their claim that fetal material will satisfy research demands without requiring the use of aborted fetuses.

The presidential campaign turns for the first time to the subject of foreign policy, an area presumed to be Pres. Bush’s strongest suit.

The House, 340-73, passes a bill to reregulate the cable-television industry.

NASA discloses that the results of a June 1991 space-shuttle flight show that the medical effects of weightlessness are more dramatic and long-lasting than expected, particularly in the area of muscle mass. . . . A U.S. Delta rocket blasts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying the Japanese Geotail satellite designed to study the magnetosphere, the teardropshaped radiation belt that surrounds Earth. . . . Reports confirm paleontologists have found evidence that at least some dinosaurs were warm-blooded.

The 25th Summer Olympic Games open in Barcelona, Spain. It is the first Summer Olympics not affected by political boycotts since 1972 . . . Alfred Drake (born Alfred Capurro), 78, actor who won a Drama Critics Award in 1954 and a special Tony in 1990, dies in NYC after suffering from cancer and a heart ailment.

In accordance with the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, a new provision that bans businesses that employ 15 or more people from discriminating in hiring, advancement, pay, or training because of a “physical or mental impairment” goes into effect. The change will affect 14 million working-age Americans having physical or mental impairments.

The Senate passes by voice vote a bill ordering the release of government documents on the assassination of Pres. John Kennedy. . . . Anthony Salerno (Fat Tony), 80, powerful boss of the New Yorkbased Genovese crime family who was sentenced in the 1980s to a total 170 years in prison, dies at a federal medical center for prisoners in Springfield, Missouri, of complications from a stroke.

Reports suggest that former world champion chess player Bobby Fischer will emerge from self-imposed seclusion that started in 1972 to play his old rival, Boris Spassky, in an exhibition match in September.

Mary Wells, 49, singer best known for the song “My Guy” (1964), dies in Los Angeles of throat cancer. . . . Miguel Indurain of Spain completes his second straight triumph in the Tour de France cycling race.

The Pentagon announces that it has started ordering the deployment of batteries of Patriot antimissile systems in Kuwait and Bahrain.

Fu Mingxia, 13, of China becomes the second-youngest winner of an Olympic gold medal when she captures the women’s platform diving competition. . . . Gerald’s Game by Stephen King tops the bestseller list. . . . Patty Sheehan wins the U.S. Women’s Open golf tournament.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 22

July 23

July 24

July 25

July 26

July 27

360—July 28–August 2, 1992

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

July 28

July 29

July 30

The new UN weapons team inspects the agriculture ministry offices in Baghdad, but it does not find any documents or materials related to weapons production. . . . Figures suggest that the European Community is the holder of the world’s largest amount of wheat reserves. . . . Representatives of 50 nations gather in Geneva for a UN conference on the Balkan refugee crisis.

Erich Honecker, the leader of communist East Germany from 1971 to 1989, is flown to Berlin to stand trial on charges of manslaughter and misappropriating state funds. Honecker, 79, who fled Germany in March 1991, had been living in the Chilean embassy in Moscow since December 1991.

The World Bank reports net income of $1.65 billion for the year ending June 30.

Slavic Muslims mount an offensive aimed at breaking the siege of Sarajevo by ethnic Serb forces. Serbs counterattack with massive artillery barrages that hit Sarajevo’s airport and a UN relief center in the city.

July 31

Aug. 1

Aug. 2

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

After Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar’s July 22 escape from prison, Deputy Justice Minister Eduardo Mendoza is dismissed.

South Korea and North Korea agree in principle to reestablish land, sea, and air links for the first time since they were severed during the Korean War.

U.S. Air Force and Navy planes equipped with surveillance equipment join the search for Colombian drug baron Escobar by flying spy missions. The U.S. action provokes an uproar. . . . Amnesty International denounces a controversial bill introduced in Canada, C-86, which would enhance the federal government’s power to summarily detain, expel, or deny entry to refugee claimants.

Tokyo’s Nikkei stock average closes at 15,095.99, the lowest figure since April 1986.

The Greek parliament approves the EC’s Treaty on European Union. . . . Lord G(eoffrey) Leonard Cheshire, 74, England’s most-decorated World War II pilot and founder of an international network of homes for the sick who was appointed the Order of Merit in 1981 and made a life peer of the House of Lords in 1991, dies in London of motoneuron disease.

A Chinese airliner explodes in flames while taking off from an airport in Nanjing. Initial reports state that 100 passengers and crew were killed and 26 were injured in the crash. . . . All of the 113 passengers and crew aboard a Thai Airways jetliner are believed dead when their plane crashes in the Himalayan mountains northwest of Katmandu, Nepal, during a heavy rainstorm.

A Ukrainian peacekeeper dies of wounds received in an artillery attack on Sarajevo’s airport. A busload of 50 orphans departs for the Croatian city of Split to board an airlift to Germany for asylum. However, a two-year-old girl and a oneyear-old boy are killed when Serb gunmen open fire on the bus.

Thailand’s interim premier, Anand Panyarachun, dismisses four top military commanders after a defense ministry investigation of the May military crackdown on prodemocracy demonstrators. . . . Revised data suggest that 106 people died in the July 31 plane crash in China.

Croatian president Franjo Tudjman is reelected in Croatia’s first direct presidential election. His ruling party wins a majority in parliament. . . . Serb militiamen halt the bus full of orphans who, Aug. 1, were attempting to get to the town of Split for an airlift to Germany. They remove nine youngsters of Serbian heritage, and allow the bus to proceed. . . . Refugees claim Serbs have established “concentration camps” in which non-Serbs are starved, beaten, or executed.

Hezb-i-Islami forces begin an intensified bombardment of Kabul that appears to be indiscriminate as rockets strike public buildings as well as military installations.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 28–August 2, 1992—361

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The House passes, 197-124, a $7.5 billion fiscal 1993 supplemental appropriations bill that will help cover costs associated with the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

The House passes, 345-54, a $244.1 billion bill to fund the Departments of Education, Labor, and Health and Human Services for fiscal 1993. . . . The Senate approves an amendment sponsored by Sen. Bob Graham (D, Fla.) that will freeze administrative spending—including salaries—in the Commerce, Justice, and State departments at 1992 levels. . . . The Senate’s passes, 88-9, a fiscal 1993 spending bill for the Agriculture Department and related agencies. . . . The Dow registers its largest one-day gain since January 14, 51.87 points, to close at 3334.07.

The National Academy of Sciences states it has asked Russian mathematician Igor. R. Shafarevich to resign as a foreign associate because of his alleged anti-Semitism. It is the first time a member has been asked to leave the prestigious 129-year-old organization.

British cyclist Chris Boardman takes nearly three seconds off the Olympic record in the 4,000-meter pursuit, posting a time of 4:24.496 in a preliminary heat. . . . Time Warner Inc. agrees to remove rapper Ice-T’s controversial “Cop Killer” song from future pressings of his Body Count album at Ice-T’s request.

Reports state that J. David Grow, suffering from meningioma, an inoperable cancer of the brain, has won approval to take the Frenchmade abortion pill RU-486, which is banned in the U.S., after he testified before Congress that it is his only available treatment. . . . A Field Poll of California voters finds Clinton leading Bush by a margin of 62% to 28%, reportedly the largest margin ever in a presidential race in the history of the poll.

The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals rules that U.S. law requires that the Haitian refugees be allowed to apply for asylum, effectively overturning the repatriation order. . . . According to The Los Angeles Times, the Defense Department inspector general’s office obtained rolls of film showing a teenaged girl being sexually abused at the 1991 Tailhook Association convention.

The SEC implements rules that allow small enterprises to determine if their stock offerings will be attractive to investors before making a formal offer. . . . The House passes, 314-92, an $86.8 billion fiscal 1993 appropriations bill for HUD, Veterans Affairs, and independent agencies. . . . The federal government and New York State separately indict Clark Clifford and Robert Altman in the BCCI scandal.

Pres. Bush begins to increase his criticism of his Democratic opponent, Gov. Bill Clinton (Arkansas), although without ever mentioning Clinton by name. The Clinton forces make a practice of responding promptly to each attack.

The appellate court in New York suspends the July 29 ruling about Haitian refugees made by the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals. . . . Four members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff testify on discrimination against women in the military before the House Armed Services Committee.

Eight U.S. insurance companies file suit in a federal court in Washington, D.C., against National Medical Enterprises Inc., one of the country’s largest psychiatric-hospital operating companies. In a statement, National Medical accuses the eight insurance companies of filing their suit as a response to its July 20 accusations. . . . The House passes, 242-153, a $22.3 billion appropriations bill for fiscal 1993 for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State and the federal judiciary.

Biologists reveal they have discovered a type of water-borne “phantom” algae that leaks a toxin that kills thousands of fish before returning to a dormant state. . . . A study finds that drinking cow milk may trigger juvenile diabetes in infants who are genetically prone to the disease. . . . A study shows that ritodrone, a medicine used to prevent premature births, is not only ineffective but is also potentially dangerous.

Israel wins its first Olympic medal in the nation’s history when Yael Arad takes silver in the women’s 135-pound judo competition. U.S. swimmer Janet Evans wins the women’s 800-meter freestyle, matching the U.S. women’s record of four career golds held by diver Patricia McCormick. . . . Joseph Shuster, 78, cocreator of Superman, dies of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles, California.

G(eorge) Harrold Carswell, 72, federal appeals court judge whose nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court was rejected in 1970, dies of cancer in Tallahassee, Florida.

Russia publishes a list of 39 American civilians it states were sent to Soviet labor camps during or after World War II. . . . The Supreme Court announces that it will stay the lower court’s July 29 decision about Haitian refugees, pending a final ruling on whether the 1980 immigration law applies in international waters.

The RTC files a $400 million suit against Arthur Andersen & Co. It is the largest suit filed against an accounting firm by the RTC and the largest of any kind ever filed against an accounting firm.

Speedy evacuation allows 292 passengers and crew to escape from TWA Flight 843, which catches fire after an aborted takeoff. About 65 people, including rescue workers, receive minor injuries. . . . The space shuttle Atlantis blasts off, carrying Claude Nicollier of Switzerland and Franco Malerba of Italy, both of whom are the first in space from their respective countries. Thus, a record six nationalities are represented in space at one time.

In Olympic swimming competition, backstroker Jeff Rouse sets a world record of 53.86 seconds in the 100-meter backstroke during the first leg of the 400-meter medley relay. . . . Reports confirm that Time Warner Inc. has launched an Australian version of Sports Illustrated and of People, titled Who Weekly.

Reports state that a pair of researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles have discovered a structural difference in the anterior commissure when comparing the brains of homosexual men and those of heterosexual men and women.

The Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, inducts Los Angeles Raiders owner Al Davis, running back John Riggins, tight end John Mackey, and cornerback Lem Barney. . . . Eldrick (Tiger) Woods, 16, wins the U.S. Junior Amateur title for the second year to become the first male double winner of the event.

The crew on the U.S. space shuttle Atlantis deploys a $213 million European Retrievable Carrier, or Eureca. However, the Eureca is improperly oriented.

The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, inducts pitchers Tom Seaver, Rollie Fingers, and Hal Newhouser, along with the late umpire Bill McGowan.

The Supreme Court rules that the U.S. Coast Guard may continue to intercept Haitian refugees at sea and forcibly return them to Haiti. However, the high court states it will hear further arguments before deciding whether the repatriation policy, set by an executive order from Pres. Bush in May, violates U.S. refugee law.

July 28

July 29

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 30

July 31

Aug. 1

Aug. 2

362—August 3–8, 1992

World Affairs

Aug. 3

Aug. 4

Aug. 5

After 24 years of negotiations, members of the UN Conference on Disarmament (Geneva Committee) reach agreement on a final draft text of an international treaty to outlaw the production of chemical weapons and destroy existing stocks.

Aug. 8

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Russian president Yeltsin and Ukrainian president Kravchuk agree their countries will divide the former Soviet Black Sea fleet after a threeyear period of joint control. . . . German officials lead a ceremony marking the beginning of the destruction of 11,000 weapons under the 1990 CFE agreement. . . . A Bulgarian spokesman confirms that up to 140,000 ethnic Turks have left Bulgaria for Turkey in search jobs. . . . In an airlift of orphans started Aug. 1 that caught worldwide attention, 39 orphaned Bosnian children fly to refuge in Germany.

A Czechoslovak UN guard is shot and wounded by an unknown assailant in Baghdad, Iraq. . . . Unidentified gunmen wound two white journalists in the township of Evaton, South Africa. . . . An estimated 4 million blacks stay home from work to pressure the South African government into accepting black majority rule. . . . About 2,000 U.S. Marines and other troops land in Kuwait to begin two weeks of joint U.S.-Kuwaiti military exercises.

Reports indicate that Russia has deployed peacekeepers in the Dniester region. . . . Germany’s highest court issues an injunction blocking recently passed legislation that eases restrictions on abortion. . . . The UN Security Council demands that relief agencies be allowed to inspect all detention centers in the former territories of Yugoslavia in light of refugee accounts Aug. 2. . . . The UN suspends relief flights to Sarajevo due to heavy fighting.

Gunmen try unsuccessfully to assassinate local ANC leader Harry Gwala, sparking fierce fighting in South Africa’s Natal province.

Colombian drug-enforcement authorities announce that U.S. reconnaissance planes have been withdrawn from the thus-far unsuccessful nationwide manhunt for drug baron Pablo Escobar. . . . In Canada, Quebec premier Robert Bourassa joins a discussion of the July 7 preliminary constitutional agreement. It is the first time since the 1990 failure of the Meech Lake accord that Quebec participates in constitutional talks.

ANC president Mandela leads 50,000 marchers to the steps of F. W. de Klerk’s office in Pretoria, South Africa’s capital. Large rallies are also held in Cape Town and Durban. Police report 630 demonstrators have been arrested, mostly for occupying government buildings. Data indicate that township violence has claimed the lives of at least 40 black South Africans since Aug. 2. . . . Amnesty International describes Somalia as a human-rights catastrophe, and it calls on the rest of the world to lend assistance.

Canada’s six major commercial banks reduce the prime lending rate one-quarter of a percentage point to 6.5%, the lowest prime level since early 1973.

In response to the UN’s Aug. 4 demand, a British news team visits camps in the former Yugoslavia with restrictions on what parts of the camps they may visit, what they may film and to whom they may talk. At Trnopolje, they film hundreds of detainees who appear severely malnourished. . . . Data show that unemployment in Sweden reached 6.5% in July, the country’s highest in 50 years. . . . Anti-Mafia legislation is approved by Italy’s parliament.

A UN technical team led by Mohammed Sahnoun arrives in Mogadishu to assess the crisis in Somalia. . . . The Israeli government announces that it will temporarily suspend the allocation to settlers of state-owned land in the occupied territories. About 5,000 right-wing Israelis, including former Housing Minister Ariel Sharon, rally in Jerusalem to protest the government’s new settlement policies.

A federal appellate court in Canada finds the Canadian Human Rights Act discriminatory because of it does not protect homosexuals against bias.

In response to mounting international condemnation and suspicion that detainees are being tortured and executed, Yugoslav premier Milan Panic vows to close all Serb-run detention camps in Bosnia-Herzegovina. . . . Francisco (Paco) Fernandez Ordoñez, 62, Spanish foreign minister, 1985–92, who sponsored a controversial 1981 law legalizing divorce in Spain for the first time since the 1930s, dies in Madrid of colon and liver cancer.

Mozambique president Joaquim Chissano and Renamo head Afonso Dhlakama agree to a truce in their 16-year-old conflict, which claimed an estimated 600,000 lives and forced four million citizens to flee to neighboring countries. . . . Fighting breaks out in Malange City in Angola when government supporters try to prevent UNITA workers from setting up an office. Unofficial estimates place the death toll at nine. The violence raises fears over whether the May 1991 peace accord that ended Angola’s 16-year civil war will hold.

The International Red Cross reports that the Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, has invited the organization to inspect a dozen camps in Bosnia. . . . Planes carrying UN relief supplies that were suspended Aug. 4 resume landings at Sarajevo’s airport.

Ayatollah Abul-Kasem Al-Khoui, Iraq’s foremost Shi’ite cleric who was under house arrest since early 1991, dies near Najaf in south central Iraq.

The IMF releases $1 billion in stand-by credit for Russia, the first IMF aid given to the country since it joined the organization in June.

Aug. 6

Aug. 7

Europe

Asia & the Pacific Wang Hongwen (Wang Hung-wen), member of the “Gang of Four,” a group that promoted revolution and class struggle under Mao Zedong during the 1966–76 Cultural Revolution, and former deputy chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, dies in China of a liver ailment.

Reports confirm that Taiwan and Vietnam agreed to reestablish direct air links that were broken 18 years earlier at the end of the Vietnam War. . . . Sir Robert Muldoon, 70, prime minister of New Zealand, 1975–84, dies in Auckland of unspecified causes.

China and the U.S. sign an agreement prohibiting Chinese exports to the U.S. of goods made under conditions of forced prison labor. A U.S. Customs Service officer will be stationed in Beijing to inspect and investigate enterprises suspected of using prison labor. Separately, up to 1 million people converge on the city of Shenzhen, beginning to apply to join a lottery to purchase new shares on the stock market, which are to be floated on the stock exchange.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 3–8, 1992—363

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Bush administration rejects Oregon’s controversial plan to ration health care, claiming the proposal is “tainted by discrimination” against disabled people.

The Senate approves by voice vote a $22 billion fiscal 1993 appropriation bill for energy, water, and nuclear-defense programs. . . . The Senate passes a $23.6 billion appropriations bill for fiscal 1993 for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State and the federal judiciary by voice vote. . . . The Senate votes, 68-26, in favor of legislation to impose an immediate moratorium and eventual ban on U.S. nuclear testing.

Reports suggest that author Tom Clancy will receive the largest book advance ever. Estimates place the figure at $13 million to $14 million for his work in progress, Without Remorse.

The results of a Gallup poll show that only 29% of respondents approve of Pres. Bush’s performance in office, a serious decline since no previous president with a rating of under 30% in the Gallup poll has been reelected.

A U.S. district judge in NYC names William Webster, a former federal judge and head of the CIA and FBI, to be the independent member of a three-person panel to investigate and guard against corruption within the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

The House clears the three-year reauthorization bill, which will fund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, by voice vote.

Lourdes G. Baird, the U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles, announces that a federal grand jury has indicted four white police officers on federal charges of violating the civil rights of Rodney G. King, a black motorist whom they beat in March 1991. The case received much attention, particularly since an April acquittal on the incident sparked riots in Los Angeles and other cities.

The Senate passes an $8.2 billion appropriations bill for military construction in fiscal 1993.

The Senate passes, 74-22, a $13.5 billion fiscal 1993 appropriations bill for the Department of Transportation and related agencies. . . . The FCC reverses a March decision when it approves compromise rules to increase the number of radio stations one individual or company may own. . . . Citing the financier’s willingness to cooperate with federal prosecutors and his conduct in prison, U.S. District Court judge Kimba Wood cuts Michael Milken’s original 10-year sentence to 33 months and 26 days.

The crew of the spacecraft Atlantis experiences difficulty with the tethered craft.

Jeffrey Porcaro, 38, rock drummer for the Grammy Award–winning group Toto, dies in Los Angeles. It is believed he died of cardiac arrest caused by an allergic reaction to pesticides he was spraying in his garden.

Congress clears a resolution creating the 28-member Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress that will recommend improvements for the body. . . . Judge Eileen O’Neill of the Texas State District Court grants a court order sought by a prochoice advocacy group, which specifies that antiabortion protesters must stay at least 100 feet from Texas abortion clinics during the Republican convention.

The House of Representatives votes, 255-164, to approve a package of aid for Russia and 11 other former Soviet republics.

The Senate passes by voice vote a $12.6 billion fiscal 1993 appropriations bill for the Interior Department and related agencies.

The crew of the spacecraft Atlantis boots the European Retrievable Carrier to a new orbit.

Actor Harold Russell, 78, sells his Oscar statuette for best supporting actor in the 1946 film The Best Years of Our Lives for $60,500 to an anonymous bidder. He states he needs the money to pay for a cataract operation for his wife, Betty. It is the first time an Oscar winner has ever sold the award.

The House approves a resolution, 362-0, stating that Congress will not agree to a trade pact that jeopardizes U.S. laws on health, safety, labor, or the environment.

New Postmaster General Marvin Runyon outlines his plans for a broad overhaul of the Postal Service, prompted by losses to competing package-delivery services and a $2 billion projected Postal Service deficit for 1993.

The Queen Elizabeth 2, Britain’s best-known cruise ship, runs aground off the southern coast of Massachusetts.

Derartu Tulu of Ethiopia becomes the second African woman to ever earn an Olympic gold medal when she wins the 10,000 meters.

The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis lands at Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, ending a troubled mission in which a European scientific probe initially missed its proper orbit and a tethered satellite failed to unreel to its full length. . . . More than 2,500 passengers and crew aboard the Queen Elizabeth 2 that ran aground Aug. 7 are evacuated to Newport, Rhode Island. No one was injured.

Hockey player John Kordic, 27, who played for the Quebec Nordiques, dies of lung and heart failure in Quebec City, Canada. Since authorities found bottles of anabolic steroids in Kordic’s room, NHL officials state they will consider banning the use of steroids.

Alison L. Gertz, 26, who believed that she contracted the AIDS virus from a single sexual experience at age 16 and publicized her story in a March 1992 television movie, Something to Live For: The Alison Gertz Story, to show that anyone is at risk from the deadly disease, dies in Westhampton Beach, New York, of AIDS.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 3

Aug. 4

Aug. 5

Aug. 6

Aug. 7

Aug. 8

364—August 9–14, 1992

World Affairs

Aug. 11

Aug. 12

Aug. 13

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Armenian president Ter-Petrossian invokes a collective-security pact in a plea to the Commonwealth of Independent States to assist Armenia against what he calls the Azerbaijani “aggression.” . . . Lord Patrick Arthur Devlin, 86, who, at the age of 42, became the youngest judge to be appointed in Britain in the 20th century and campaigned for the release of the Guildford Four, found to have been wrongly convicted for two 1974 IRA bombings, dies in Pewsey, England.

Jewish settlers at Kiryat Arba in the West Bank attempt to erect a house for which a construction contract was canceled. They clash with police before agreeing to disperse. . . . The Israeli government announces that it will seek to overturn a 1986 law that prohibits residents of Israel from having any contact with members of the PLO.

Officials announce that the entire allotment of 5 million applications on the stock exchange in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen have been sold, prompting the crowd gathered there to grow unruly.

U.S. spokesmen announce that, after weeks of discussion, all of the negotiating parties in the ArabIsraeli peace talks have agreed to hold a new round of meetings in Washington, D.C., beginning Aug. 24.

Northern Ireland secretary Sir Patrick Mayhew reveals the British government has designated Northern Ireland’s largest Protestant paramilitary group, the Ulster Defense Association, an illegal organization. In response, the UDA vows to continue “to defend the community.” . . . The Azerbaijan government ridicules Pres. TerPetrossian’s Aug. 9 accusation of aggression and states it has no fear of any CIS member taking Armenia’s side in the conflict.

Shimon Agranat, 86, Americanborn Israeli and president of Israel’s Supreme Court, 1965–77, who in the early 1950s set a farreaching legal precedent when he ruled that even though Israel had no constitution, a communist newspaper has freedom of speech under the principles of democracy outlined in the country’s until-then symbolic declaration of independence, dies in Jerusalem after an unspecified illness.

Riot police charge into a crowd of 50,000 people outside the exchange in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen. The police use tear gas to disperse the crowd, but violence is reported to continue.

The executive of the 12-member European Community calls for UN military intervention in Somalia.

Georgia’s interior minister, Roman Gventsadze, and 11 other Georgian officials are kidnapped at gunpoint. One of the hostages is set free. . . . A jury in London’s Central Criminal Court convicts Simon Berkowitz of handling stolen property in connection with a document relating to an extramarital affair of Liberal Democratic leader Paddy Ashdown. The theft of the document, from the offices of Ashdown’s attorney, prompted the politician to disclose the affair in a scandal February.

Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and U.S. president Bush announce they have reached an agreement under which the U.S. will grant $10 billion in loan guarantees to Israel.

In the wake of riots Aug. 9–10, officials suspend trading at the stock exchange in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen. Exchange authorities decide to offer a second application distribution. China’s State Council meets to discuss the riots.

Trade representatives from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico conclude 14 months of negotiations with the announcement in Washington, D.C., of a draft comprehensive North American Free Trade Agreement. The proposal will eliminate tariffs and other restrictions on trade and investment among the three countries over 15 years to create a huge free-trade bloc.

Georgia’s interior minister, Roman Gventsadze, and two of the other hostages kidnapped Aug. 11 are released.

General Mohammed Farah Aidid, the leader of one faction fighting in Mogadishu, Somalia, signs an agreement allowing the peacekeepers to enter. Since Ali Mahdi Mohammed, the other leader, had long welcomed the presence of foreign soldiers, the way is clear for peacekeeping forces.

Two staffers at the Russian embassy in Kabul are killed and a third wounded by shelling, prompting other diplomats to flee Afghanistan’s capital.

The UN Security Council votes to authorize the use of military force to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid to Bosnia-Herzegovina. It also passes unanimously a resolution that condemns the Serbian policy of “ethnic cleansing” through forced evacuations as a violation of international law and states that war crimes will not go unpunished.

A sniper kills David Kaplan, a veteran television producer for ABC News of the U.S., on the road between Sarajevo and the city’s airport. He is believed to be the 30th journalist slain in the Yugoslav civil war.

Aug. 9

Aug. 10

Europe

About 3,000 Georgian soldiers, under the authority of State Council member and Defense Minister Tengiz Kitovani, move into Abkhazia, ostensibly to secure key rail lines, roads, and bridges, as well as Sukhumi’s airport, so that the kidnappers cannot leave Abkhazia with their hostages abducted Aug. 11. At least three vacationing Russians are killed in the cross fire between Georgian and Abkhazian forces.

Aug. 14

A Canadian judge in Winnipeg rules unconstitutional the section of a Manitoba law that calls for the daily recitation of Christian prayers in public schools. Manitoba is the last province to ban compulsory prayer in public schools in Canada.

In Lebanon, the Phalangist Party, the powerful Christian faction headed by George Saadeh, announces that its candidates will withdraw from the elections.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 9–14, 1992—365

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

California’s legislature fails to pass a compromise $57.6 billion budget, even though the state has been forced to cover its obligations with IOUs for the first time since 1936.

Computer-software maker Intel Corp. announces that it has developed a faster version of its industry-wide, bestselling 486 microprocessor, which will operate internally at 66 megahertz, effectively doubling the current 33- megahertz limit.

The XXV Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain, concludes. Athletes from 12 former republics of the Soviet Union, the “Unified Team,” won the most medals of any nation, 112. Athletes from the U.S. won 108 medals, followed by Germany with 82.

Attorney General William Barr rejects a request from House Democrats to appoint an independent counsel to determine whether the Bush administration broke the law while pursuing policies to aid Iraq prior to the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

Data show that $2.18 billion in IOUs have been issued in California.

William Watson, 92, physicist who helped develop the atomic bomb as the division director of the metallurgical laboratory at the University of Chicago, dies in Hamden, Connecticut, of unknown causes.

Richard Blackburn Black, 90, naval officer who was a civilian member of Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd’s second Antarctic expedition from 1933 to 1935, had a coast on the continent named after him, and received the Navy’s Special Silver Medal for his service in Antarctica, dies of cancer in Bethesda, Maryland.

Congress clears the final version of a bill that provides $60.5 billion for agricultural programs, $200 million more than Bush had sought in his budget request. . . . The Senate passes legislation that has been approved by a House-Senate conference committee, requiring employers to grant workers unpaid family and medical leave.

Reports state that Florida has lifted a ban on bungee jumping and instead has instituted a host of regulations on the activity. . . . Data show that the Barcelona Olympic Games drew an average Nielsen Co. rating of 17.5 for its nighttime telecasts.

The House, 230-160, approves preliminary legislation that will ease restrictions placed on travel agents by giant computer-reservation systems. The bill’s passage is a blow to the two largest U.S. airlines, United Airlines and American Airlines. . . . The House votes, 279124, to approve a Democraticsponsored bill that will provide grants of $800 million in fiscal 1993 for improvements in public schools.

Convicted murderer Ron Wikberg, who was the copublisher of The Angolite, an award-winning prison journal, is released after 23 years in a state penitentiary in Angola, Louisiana. . . . John Cage, 79, avant-garde composer who was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1978, dies of a stroke in New York City.

The American Bar Association pays tribute to six women, including Anita Hill, the law professor who testified that Clarence Thomas sexually harassed her. . . . Thomas J(ames) McIntyre, 77, senator from New Hampshire, 1963–79, who was the first Democrat elected to the Senate in New Hampshire in 30 years and the first Democratic senator in his state to ever be reelected, dies in West Palm Beach, Florida, of Alzheimer’s disease, pneumonia, and heart failure.

The ABA approves a resolution opposing laws that restrict a woman’s rights to an abortion so it may press for prochoice legislation in states and the U.S. Congress. The delegates also vote to let the National Lesbian and Gay Law Association become part of the ABA. . . . When Pres. Bush is asked what he would do if one of his granddaughters, when she was older, said she wanted an abortion, he replies, “Of course, I’d stand by my child. I’d love her and help her, lift her up, wipe the tears away, and we’d get back in the game.” Sen. Mark Hatfield (R, Oreg.) is rebuked by the Senate Ethics Committee for failing to report thousands of dollars worth of gifts he received. . . . A survey shows that 55% of Republican delegates oppose a constitutional ban on abortion as proposed by the party’s platform, while only 28% support it. . . . Republican National Chairman Richard Bond makes Hillary Clinton a direct target in the presidential campaign. The Republican Party platform committee ratifies a strongly conservative statement of principles for adoption at the party’s national convention. . . . Pres. Bush names Secretary of State James Baker to replace Samuel Skinner as White House chief of staff and oversee Bush’s presidential reelection campaign.

Pres. Bush authorizes the U.S. military to transport the peacekeeping troops approved by the U.N. July 27 to Mogadishu, Somalia. . . . In an address to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, Bill Clinton gives what is billed as his first major foreign-policy speech of the presidential campaign.

Figures show the Treasury Department has auctioned $36 billion worth of government securities at its quarterly refinancing operation, which started Aug. 11. . . . The RTC’s general counsel, Gerald Jacobs, resigns amid allegations that his department discouraged aggressive pursuit of prominent people connected with the S&L crisis. . . . The EPA issues regulations to protect agricultural workers from exposure to toxic pesticides. It is the first revision of national pesticide-safety standards in 18 years.

John Joseph Sirica, 88, U.S. District Court judge who became nationally famous as “the Watergate judge” during the scandal that rocked Pres. Nixon’s term, dies in Washington, D.C., of cardiac arrest.

President Bush orders an emergency airlift of food to Somalia.

President Bush signs the $60.5 billion fiscal 1993 spending bill passed by Congress on Aug. 11.

Reports suggest that scientists have located the exact gene in tuberculosis bacteria whose mutation allows some strains of the disease to become resistant to isoniazid, one of the standard treatments for the lung infection.

Aug. 9

Aug. 10

Clifford Allison, the youngest son of former NASCAR champion Bobby Allison, is killed in a crash during practice at the Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan.

Reports suggest Israeli archaeologists in Jerusalem have discovered the remains of a man they believe is the high priest who presided at the trial of Jesus Christ. They cite the age of the remains and the casket inscription as evidence, which they admit is not conclusive.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 11

Aug. 12

Aug. 13

Aug. 14

366—August 15–20, 1992

World Affairs

Asia & the Pacific

At least 44 people are killed in fresh attacks by Azerbaijani ground and air forces on Armenian targets in Nagorno-Karabakh. . . . In response to the deaths of vacationers Aug. 14, the Russian government sends an airborne regiment to Abkhazia to evacuate Russian citizens.

In Somalia, fighting over a shipment of relief supplies claims at least 30 lives.

The UN evacuates most of its nonAfghan relief workers from Kabul. Pakistani officials announce that they are taking steps to cut off the transfer of food and other supplies across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in an attempt to weaken Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

A total of 3,500 Russian civilians are evacuated from Abkhazia. More than 50 people are slain in the battle for Sukhumi.

Three UN guards are wounded in separate shooting and bombing attacks in northern Iraq. . . . Andre de Villiers, who worked for the Hammer Unit, a state counterinsurgency operation during the 1980s, is slain outside his farmhouse in the eastern Cape Province. . . . The U.S. Air Force begins helping to dismantle the armies of the Angolan government and its former guerrilla rival, the Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).

Reports suggest that, in response to the escalation of Hezb-i-Islami attacks on Kabul, Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani has dismissed Premier Abdul Sabur Farid, the faction’s senior representative in the coalition government.

Britain and France agree to back a U.S. plan that calls for allied military aircraft to shoot down Iraqi fighter planes and helicopters in predominantly Shi’ite southern Iraq to protect Shi’ite Muslims from attacks by the Iraqi government.

Georgian troops capture the Abkhazian parliament building and install a military council to run the region. The fifth of the hostages kidnapped Aug. 11 is freed.

Iran agrees to pay more than $260 million in settlements to two U.S. oil companies, Sun Co. and Atlantic Richfield Co., whose Iranian assets were seized following the 1979 Islamic revolution. . . . Peter Davies, the head of Interaction, a coalition of 135 relief agencies in Somalia, estimates that at least 350,000 Somali children, or one-quarter of all those under five years of age, have died due to famine and strife.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Singapore has decided to partly privatize the country’s state-owned mass transit, telecommunications and ports systems as well as the natural gas and electric utilities.

In response to the crisis in Somalia, France donates 200 tons of food and Germany contributes $14 million. Reports suggest that Italy, Canada, Britain, and Israel have either mounted airlifts or promised additional aid to Somalia.

German homosexual couples seek to register for marriage at some 50 town halls around the nation as an act of protest. . . . Georgian deputy premier Alexander Kavsadze, kidnapped by Gamsakhurdia loyalists July 9, regains his freedom.

Fortune magazine hits the stands and puts Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei at the top of its list of billionaires. He is estimated to have $37 billion.

The Iraqi government blasts the Aug. 19 proposal of a no-fly zone as an “imperialist conspiracy” and states it will use “all means available” to resist it.

Sergeant Viktor Solokhin, a Ukrainian peace officer, is shot outside of his Sarajevo barracks.

UN flights to Sudan that were suspended July 18 resume, but, due to danger, they only stop long enough to unload. Some of the aircraft encounter gunfire. . . . An Iraqi court sentences a British man, Paul Ride, to seven years in prison for illegally crossing the border from Kuwait to Iraq in July. The British Foreign Office protests Ride’s imprisonment.

Aug. 17

Aug. 20

The Americas

The first UN relief flight to Somalia’s interior lands in Baidoa. . . . A controversy erupts at a Johannesburg rugby match when thousands of flag-waving white South Africans sing the anthem of the Afrikaner government during a moment of silence for victims of township violence.

Aug. 16

Aug. 19

Africa & the Middle East

The ethnic Armenian government of Nagorno-Karabakh resigns under pressure.

Aug. 15

Aug. 18

Europe

P.M. Lynden O. Pindling, of the Bahamas, the Western Hemisphere’s longest-serving democratically elected leader, ends his term when his Progressive Liberal Party suffers an upset defeat in parliamentary elections. Hubert A. Ingraham leads the winning centerright Free National Movement party. . . . Canada’s national, provincial, and native leaders reach unanimous agreement on a provisional plan for equal Senate representation for the country’s 10 provinces.

The Japanese stock market closes at 15,267.76, a gain of 958.35 points in two days.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 15–20, 1992—367

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Linda J. Laubenstein, 45, physician who in 1981 discovered some of the first AIDS cases, co-organized the first full-scale medical conference on the deadly disease in 1983, and inspired the character of Dr. Emma Brookner in The Normal Heart (1985), Larry Kramer’s play about AIDS, dies in Chatham, Massachusetts. She had suffered from severe asthma and was rendered a paraplegic by a childhood case of polio. A group of conservative foreignpolicy specialists, including former arms-control advisor Paul H. Nitze and James Woolsey, a former undersecretary of the navy, endorse presidential candidate BIll Clinton.

The Republican National Convention opens in Houston, and it features a speech by former president Ronald Reagan. Delegates approve the Republican Party platform, although a CBS News poll shows that only 7% of delegates support the platform’s strict abortion language. . . . Homosexual-rights activists demonstrating outside the Republican convention clash with police. When police barricades are thrown into a bonfire, about 100 policemen move in to clear the demonstrators, arresting six.

The GAO discloses that the Defense Department has decided to phase out its contribution to Sematech Inc., the government-industry consortium formed in 1987 to boost U.S. computer chip-making competitiveness.

A fire ignites in Calaveras County, California, about 50 miles (80 km) southeast of Sacramento, when the heat of a car’s exhaust lights parched grass.

Phar-Mor Inc., one of the nation’s fastest-growing discount drugstore chains, files for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. The filing comes less than two weeks after the company accused two of its top executives of embezzlement and internal fraud.

Randall A. Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue, a militant antiabortion group, leads protesters to a Houston clinic operated by Planned Parenthood, despite a restraining order issued Aug. 6.

Pres. Bush accepts the Republican presidential nomination on the final night of the Republican National Convention. Vice President Dan Quayle has accepted the vice presidential nomination. . . . Presidential candidate Bill Clinton receives the endorsement of the 135,000member National Association of Police Officers.

Nick Price of Zimbabwe wins the PGA at the Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis, Missouri, for his first victory in a major golf tournament. Sherri Steinhauer wins the du Maurier Classic, the fourth and final major event on the LPGA tour.

Filmmaker Woody Allen releases a statement acknowledging his romance with Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of his estranged wife, Mia Farrow, and her second husband, pianist-conductor Andre Previn.

Mount Spurr in Alaska showers a quarter-inch (.60 cm) of ash on Anchorage, 80 miles (130 km) to the east. The volcano became active in June for the first time in 39 years.

Protesters from the homosexual group Queer Nation disrupt a speech by fundamentalist Christian minister Rev. Jerry Falwell to some members of the Virginia delegation at the Republican convention. . . . Joseph Slovenec violates an Aug. 6 restraining order when he protests at an abortion clinic in Texas during the Republican National Convention. . . . Reports indicate that the National Institutes of Health has suspended a conference on the relationship between criminal behavior and heredity because the research might make racial implications.

Aug. 15

John Sturges, 81, director of The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Great Escape (1963), dies in San Luis Obispo, California, of emphysema. . . . Larry Bird, 35, announces his retirement from professional basketball.

Glenn Pomeroy, the North Dakota securities commissioner, argues that the practice of buying the lifeinsurance policies of AIDS patients at reduced value, giving some cash to the patients while they are still alive and collecting the remainder of the policy after they die is illegal. He asserts the business is “ghoulish” and illegal because the people who sell insurance policies are in effect selling securities without a license.

Peter Sergeyevich Deriabin, 71, high-ranking Soviet defector who later worked for the U.S. CIA and authored three books on Soviet intelligence, dies in northern Virginia after suffering a stroke.

William Taylor, 53, chairman of the FDIC since October 1991 who served as a top official on the Federal Reserve Board, 1976–87, dies in Fairfax, Virginia, of complications from intestinal surgery.

Aug. 16

Aug. 17

Aug. 18

Aug. 19

A wildfire ignites, 200 miles to the north of Round Mountain in northern California.

Solo rock performer Sting weds Trudie Styler, his partner of 10 years, in London.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 20

368—August 21–26, 1992

World Affairs

Aug. 21

Asia & the Pacific

U.S. relief planes land in northern Kenya, where a combination of drought and Somali refugees have strained supplies. . . . Maronite Catholics and other Christians start a general strike to protest the coming elections in Lebanon.

Hubert A. Ingraham is sworn in as prime minister of the Bahamas.

An Australian court clears Nick Greiner, former Liberal Party premier of the state of New South Wales, of corruption charges nearly two months after he had been forced to resign due to the scandal.

Several British newspapers print excerpts of an alleged phone conversation between Diana, princess of Wales, and an unknown man in which the two arrange an apparently illicit date.

Lebanon holds the opening round of its first parliamentary elections in 20 years. But hundreds of thousands of Lebanese Christians boycott the voting, charging that the elections are being manipulated by Syria. Scattered incidents of violence occur in several villages in eastern Lebanon.

Hurricane Andrew strikes the Bahamas with winds of up to 120 miles (190 km) per hour. Four people are reported killed.

According to UN officials in Kabul, an estimated 1,800 people have been killed in the latest round of shelling, and another 120,000 of the city’s 1.5 million residents are believed to have fled. The Afghan government urges the UN to turn over former communist president Najibullah to stand trial for war crimes. The UN announces a $10 million aid program to provide food and medical supplies for displaced Afghan civilians.

Arab and Israeli negotiators meet in Washington, D.C., to resume a sixth round of direct bilateral peace talks.

Because of xenophobic riots in the northeastern German port city of Rostock, 200 refugees, most of them from Vietnam and Romania, are moved from a hostel to a military base nearby. The hostel is firebombed later.

Hezbollah (Party of God), an Iranian-backed Shi’ite Muslim organization, claims victories in several parliamentary districts in eastern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley. Hussein al-Husseini, the pro-Syrian speaker of parliament, accuses Hezbollah of rigging elections in his district near the town of Baalbek and resigns when Interior Minister Sami Khatib refuses to throw out the voting results.

A Brazilian congressional commission finds that Pres. Fernando Collor de Mello has used his position as chief executive to receive “improper economic benefits,” and therefore grounds exist to initiate impeachment proceedings against him. The Social Democratic Party, the Democratic Workers Party, and the centrist party which includes several ministers in Collor’s government, withdraw their support of Collor.

South Korea and China establish diplomatic relations in a formal ceremony in Beijing. In response, Taiwan breaks diplomatic relations with South Korea. . . . Francis James, 74, Australian journalist who was imprisoned for three years in China on espionage charges, 1969–73, dies in Sydney, Australia.

Reports confirm that Jordan, Yemen, Sudan, and Algeria oppose the plan to attack Iraqi aircraft in southern Iraq to protect Shi’ite Muslims.

About 1,500 ethnic Abkhaz militiamen and their allies from the exSoviet northern Caucasus area fight a fierce battle with Georgian troops near the town of Gagry, in western Georgia.

The U.S., Britain, and France order the Iraqi government to halt all aircraft flights over southern Iraq. Abdul Amir al-Anbari, Iraq’s ambassador to the UN, states that Iraq probably will not contest the no-fly order and “would like to avoid any confrontation.” But he condemns the allied plan as a violation of international law. . . . The UN Security Council votes to accept a UN commission’s demarcation of the Iraq-Kuwait border, and passes a resolution declaring the “inviolability” of that demarcation.

In the face of more forceful police action, the riots in Germany are reported to decline. Accounts indicate that as many as 1,000 rightwing extremists joined the violence. About 150 people, half of them police officers, were injured, and more than 200 arrests were made. . . . Georgian forces claim they killed 50 rebels in the battle started Aug. 25. The rebels claim to have slain dozens of Georgians. . . . Czech premier Vaclav Klaus and Slovak premier Vladimir Meciar agree that the Czechoslovak federation will dissolve as of January 1, 1993.

Iraq offers to allow a delegation of UN officials to visit Shi’ite regions in the south to “ascertain the falsehood” of reports of Iraqi attacks there. Reports indicate that Egypt and Syria oppose any moves that would lead to the break-up of Iraq.

Gangs of right-wing youths urging the expulsion of foreigners from Germany riot for five nights in the northeastern German port city of Rostock. They begin when demonstrators at a hostel for foreign refugees turn violent. Authorities state the rioting is being incited by organized neo-Nazi groups from throughout Germany.

Aug. 23

Aug. 25

Aug. 26

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Aug. 22

Aug. 24

Europe

Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians join pro-impeachment demonstrations in 25 cities. The largest demonstrations occur in Sao Paulo, where 200,000 people turn out, and in Brasilia, the capital, where the ranks swell to 100,000.

Lebanese foreign minister Fares Boueiz and Phalangist leader George Saadeh resign from the cabinet in protest of election returns. . . . A powerful bomb blows up at a crowded airport terminal in Algiers, killing at least nine people and injuring more than 100. A few minutes later, a second bomb explodes downtown at the Air France office, but there are no injuries. A third bomb is defused near the Swissair office.

Nguyen Thi Dinh, 72, Vietnamese communist leader and one of the country’s few high-ranking women officials who, in 1987, was named one of the six vice presidents of Vietnam’s state council, dies in Ho Chi Minh City.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 21–26, 1992—369

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

In Ruby Ridge, Idaho, federal marshals move in on the cabin of Randy Weaver, a white supremacist linked to the Aryan nation, who became a fugitive in Feb. 1991 and had holed up in the cabin with his family for a year and a half. Shots are exchanged, killing Deputy U.S. Marshal William F. Degan and Weaver’s teenage son, Samuel. More than 100 federal, state, and local law officers and National Guardsmen surround the cabin. . . . The FCC rules that political advertisements featuring dead fetuses are not “indecent,” and therefore cannot be restricted from being broadcast between 6:00 A.M. and 10:00 P.M.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Firefighters bring under control a blaze in Calaveras County, California that started Aug. 16. The fire scorched more than 18,000 acres (7,300 hectares) and caused an estimated $5.7 million in property damage.

In the standoff that started Aug. 21, when fugitive Randy Weaver refuses to surrender to authorities, his wife Vicki is shot and killed in an exchange of gunfire.

Aug. 21

David Warady completes a 3,000mile (4,800 km), 64-day, Californiato-New York race in 521 hours, 35 minutes, 57 seconds (21 days, 18 hours). The Runner’s World Trans America Footrace is the country’s first coast-to-coast race since 1929.

A poll finds that Democratic presidential nominee Gov. Bill Clinton (Arkansas) leads Pres. Bush by a 51% to 36% margin.

Aug. 23

The EPA issues rules requiring offshore oil and gas platforms to obey the same air-pollution restrictions as those imposed on oil and gas facilities on shore under the Clean Air Act. . . . The dollar reaches a record post-World War II low against Germany’s currency, closing at 1.402 marks. The Dow falls to 3228.17, the lowest level since Apr. 9.

The AP reports the contents of a fund-raising letter written in July by Christian broadcaster and 1988 Republican presidential candidate Pat Robertson, in which he argues that a proposed amendment to the Iowa constitution guaranteeing equality for women will advance “a feminist agenda . . . that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.” The letter attracts nationwide media attention. The College Board releases the 1992 SAT results and finds that the average scores have improved for the first time since 1985. . . . Antiabortion activists Randall A. Terry and Joseph Slovenec are sentenced to jail terms of up to six months since they violated a judge’s restraining order during protests Aug. 18 and Aug. 19 at an abortion clinic in Texas. . . . United Way of America names Elaine L. Chao, the director of the Peace Corps, as its new president.

Aug. 22

The trial of former CIA director of operations Clair E. George ends in a mistrial when the jurors claim they are unable to agree on any of the nine counts against him. George was indicted on charges of lying to Congress about the CIA’s knowledge of the Iran-contra affair.

Hurricane Andrew ravages Florida, hitting 10–15 miles (16–24 km) south of downtown Miami with sustained winds of 135 mph and gusts of up to 165 mph. The hurricane sets off an 8 foot (2.4 m) tidal surge. More than 1 million people in South Florida evacuate their homes, and 3,300 National Guard soldiers arrive to prevent looting and to enforce a curfew. Pres. Bush declares much of South Florida a federal disaster area. Thirteen people are reported dead.

Gerald’s Game by Stephen King sits at the top of Publishers Weekly’s bestseller list.

Hurricane Andrew crosses the Gulf of Mexico and strikes the southwestern Louisiana coast with 140 mph winds. One person is killed. About 1.2 million Gulf Coast residents evacuated the projected danger zone, a move credited with keeping the death toll low. Because of the Louisiana region’s lower population density, the state’s damage costs are expected to be much lower than those in Florida.

More than 25,000 couples representing 120 countries are married in a mass wedding ceremony in Seoul, South Korea. The event is sponsored by the Unification Church. . . . Frederick O’Neal, 86, awardingwinning actor who was the first black president of the Actors’ Equity Association, 1964–73, dies of an unspecified illness in New York City.

The eye of Hurricane Andrew reaches land about 90 miles southwest of New Orleans. The storm’s sustained winds drop below hurricane levels, and Andrew is downgraded to a tropical rainstorm before it reaches the Mississippi border.

Pres. Bush signs into law a bill that authorizes increased government funding for public television passed by the House Aug.4 and the Senate June 3. . . . The chief curator of the St. Louis Art Museum, Michael Shapiro, is named director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 24

Aug. 25

Aug. 26

370—August 27–September 1, 1992

World Affairs

Aug. 27

Aug. 28

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific An appeals court in Sydney overturns a lower court’s previous conviction of Australian businessman Alan Bond on fraud charges involving the 1987 bailout of Rothwells Ltd., a Perth investment bank.

The UN Security Council votes to send 3,000 peacekeeping troops to guard relief shipments in Somalia. . . . Finance ministers of the 12 EC nations state that they will not realign the exchange rate mechanism (ERM) of the European Monetary System.

Felix Guattari, 62, influential French psychoanalyst and philosopher who coauthored a series of books with philosopher Gilles Deleuze, including L’Anti-Oedipe (1972) and What Is Philosophy? (1991), dies at the La Borde clinic in France of a heart attack.

U.S. military planes begin delivering emergency food to Somalia in what is described as the U.S.’s biggest-ever relief effort in Africa. . . . Two UN truce monitors in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, are wounded in gunfire.

The Afghan government and Hezbi-Islami impose a temporary ceasefire, intended to allow diplomats to escape Kabul by air. But rockets strike the Kabul airport, stranding Russian ambassador Yevgeni Ostrovenko and more than 60 other Russian diplomats in the city.

The AP reports that Iraqi security forces have started to round up and detain Shi’ites living in northern Iraq.

Reports indicate that hundreds of foreign diplomats and their families have fled Kabul since Aug. 16, amid escalated artillery and rocket attacks on the city by Muslim rebels.

The Bosnian Serb Army lifts a siege of the city of Gorazde, the last Muslim stronghold in eastern Bosnia. Gorazde, about 40 miles (60 km) southeast of Sarajevo, has been under constant shelling from Serb artillery since April.

Aug. 30

Sept. 1

Africa & the Middle East

The “no-fly” order, which prohibits Iraqi military and civilian flights south of the 32nd parallel, goes into effect. . . . The adversaries in the Yugoslav civil war agree to comply with a framework accord negotiated in London at a multilateral conference jointly sponsored by the EC and the UN The accord does not secure a cease-fire in Bosnia.

Aug. 29

Aug. 31

Europe

In a special election, the United Democratic Party, the largest of the prodemocracy parties in Hong Kong, loses its seat on the British colony’s 60-member Legislative Council.

At the Middle East peace conference, Syria presents Israel with a position paper in which it offers to sign a “peace settlement” that will set a timetable for an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan. The paper reportedly marks the first time Syria has ever made a formal peace offer to Israel. . . . A team of UN weapons experts begin new inspections of facilities believed to be connected with Iraq’s clandestine efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction.

In Tajikistan, armed anti-Nabiyev protesters, many of them from the Kurgan-Tyube region, storm the presidential palace in Dushanbe. The protesters take more than 30 government officials hostage and demand Pres. Nabiyev’s resignation. Nabiyev goes into hiding, but senior Tajik diplomats state that the president refuses to resign.

A Kuwaiti policeman is killed and a UN peacekeeping officer from Sweden is wounded when gunfire breaks out between Kuwaiti officers and Iraqis in the demilitarized zone along the Iraq-Kuwait border.

French fighter planes join the allied aircraft enforcing the “No-Fly” rule that took effect Aug. 27.

Russia announces that it will send two warships to the Persian Gulf to help enforce economic sanctions against Iraq

Reports reveal that nine clan leaders in the Hiraan region around Belet Uen have met to discuss how to bring peace to Somalia. It is the first time in more than a century that the nine ugas (kings) have gathered together at once.

An earthquake in the Pacific Ocean, measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale with an epicenter 75 miles (120 km) southwest of Managua, Nicaragua, causes tidal waves, or tsunamis, to reach a height of 50 feet (15 m), and strike a 150-mile stretch of the coast of Nicaragua. . . . The presidents of the Brazilian Bar Association and the Brazilian Press Association submit a formal impeachment motion against Pres. Collor to the Chamber of Deputies

Shen Tong, the founder of the Democracy for China Fund, a Boston, Massachusetts–based organization dedicated to nonviolent democratic reform, is arrested by Chinese authorities in Beijing hours before a press conference in which he planned to announce the establishment of a Beijing branch of the fund. Two French television journalists filming a documentary on Shen’s return to China are expelled.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 27–September 1, 1992—371

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The CDC states it will create a nationwide system to track the levels of lead in children’s blood. . . . Rep. Nicholas Mavroules, (D, Mass.) is indicted by a federal grand jury on 17 counts of racketeering, extortion, illegally accepting a gratuity, filing false tax returns, and making false statements.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

UAW Local 1714 goes on strike in protest of GM’s plan to close the shop before the end of 1992. . . . Daniel Keith Ludwig, 95, shipowner who pioneered cheaper ship-production methods and had an estimated fortune $1.2 billion in 1991, dies of heart failure in New York City. . . . Pres. Bush and Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton attack each other’s economic plans.

Officials state the wildfire started that Aug. 20 and raged through 64,000 acres was caused by arson. The fire destroyed an estimated $86 million worth of timber and more than 300 homes. . . . Officials in Dade County, Florida, put the figure for damage from Hurricane Andrew at $15 billion to $20 billion. A total of 14 deaths directly related to the storm were reported. Pres. Bush declares parts of Louisiana a major disaster area.

United Technologies Corp. pleads guilty in a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, to charges of fraud and conspiracy in defense contracting. It is the largest military contractor yet snared in Operation Ill Wind, the investigation of the Pentagon procurement scandal. The company agrees to pay $6 million in penalties. . . . Reports confirm that the White House has named Peter DeVos as its special envoy to Somalia.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Aug. 27

Seven thousand troops begin arriving in Florida to deliver food, water, and medical supplies to disaster victims.

Aug. 28

Mary Norton (born Mary Pearson), 88, British author of children’s books whose 1952 book The Borrowers won England’s Library Association Carnegie Medal and her 1957 book Bedknobs and Broomsticks was made into the 1971 Walt Disney film, dies in Hartland, England, of a stroke. In the Ruby Ridge, Idaho, standoff between federal authorities and white supremacist fugitive Randy Weaver that started Aug. 21, Kevin Harris, who lives with the family, surrenders.

Northern Exposure wins the Emmy for best drama while Murphy Brown picks up the one for best comedy. The ceremony is marked by jibes aimed at Vice Pres. Quayle, who had criticized the fictional character Murphy Brown and blasted the “cultural elite” of Hollywood for ignoring family values.

Randy Weaver, a fugitive linked with the white-supremacist group Aryan Nations, surrenders to authorities after an 11-day standoff in which four people were killed. . . . Charles L(ongstreet) Weltner, 64, chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court and former member of the House who withdrew one month before the 1966 election for his third term since he could not support the Democratic ticket that backed segregation, dies in Atlanta of esophageal cancer.

Aug. 29

Aug. 30

Aug. 31

American Insurance Services Group Inc. estimates that victims of Hurricane Andrew in Florida will collect an estimated $7.3 billion in insurance claims, which qualifies the storm as the most costly insured catastrophe in U.S. history.

Morris Carnovsky, 94, stage and screen actor who was elected to the Theater Hall of Fame in 1979, dies in Easton, Connecticut, of natural causes. . . . Former world champion chess player Bobby Fischer emerges from seclusion to attend a press conference in Sveti Stevan, Yugoslavia.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 1

372—September 2–7, 1992

World Affairs

Sept. 4

Africa & the Middle East

Parliamentary leaders and cabinet officials pass a no-confidence resolution against Tajikistan president Nabiyev. . . . Piotr Jaroszewicz, 82, former premier of Poland who was forced to retire in February 1980, is found dead with his wife at their home in Warsaw. Officials state that Jaroszewicz had been tortured and then strangled, and his wife was shot with a hunting rifle. . . . The Yugoslav federal parliament abandons a push to remove Premier Milan Panic through a vote of no confidence. . . . Ukrainian airtraffic controllers go on strike.

Sept. 2

Sept. 3

Europe

The EC decides to spend $27 million on 550 Belgian paratroopers as part of the 3,000-strong UN force to Somalia. . . . The UN Conference on Disarmament (Geneva Committee) approves by consensus a draft international treaty to ban chemical weapons. The treaty will be sent to the General Assembly. . . . Ukraine formally joins the International Monetary Fund.

Government officials announce they have expelled Tajikistan president Nabiyev from office. . . . An Italian plane flying UN relief to Sarajevo crashes without warning about 20 miles (30 km) west of Sarajevo, killing all four crew members. The UN suspends all aid flights to Sarajevo. Several Serbs claim Muslim militias attacked busloads of Serb civilians, killing as many as 50. . . . Russian president Yeltsin brokers a cease-fire in the conflict between Georgia and Abkhazia.

Reports indicate that Iraq has sentenced Michael Wainwright, a British citizen arrested in northern Iraq while on an around-the-world bicycle trip, to 10 years in prison for entering the country illegally. The imprisonment of Wainwright spurs strong protests from the British Foreign Office

The director of a UN weaponsinspection team in Iraq reveals that the Persian Gulf war and ensuing disarmament efforts by the UN have left Iraq without the means to build nuclear weapons.

Uzbekistan, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan state they will send troops to Tajikistan to prevent the smuggling of arms and drugs from Afghanistan. . . . Former Bulgarian Communist leader Todor Zhivkov is convicted of embezzling state funds and sentences to seven years in prison. . . . In response to the Sept. 3 crash of its UN relief plane, Italy states it will not fly any more aid missions to Sarajevo until “what happened and who was responsible” is determined.

Morocco announces that voters have overwhelmingly approved a constitution devised by King Hassan II. . . . The U.S. unveils plans to expand its airlift of food to Somalia by making flights to Baydhabo and Baidoa, towns said to be among the hardest hit by famine.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

A U.S. State Department delegation begins several days of consultations with top Nicaraguan government officials in Managua. The delegation comes in the wake of a negative U.S. Senate staff report.

China’s foreign ministry expels Ross Terrill, an American with ties to leaders of the country’s prodemocracy movement, including Shen Tong, for “actions which are incompatible with his status as a tourist.”

Officials in Nicaragua state that the Sept. 1 earthquake and tidal waves resulted in a death toll of 116, with more than 150 Nicaraguans missing and over 16,000 made homeless. The U.S. State Department grants $5 million in emergency aid to Nicaragua.

Nicaraguan president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro dismisses 12 high-level police officers. The dismissals are widely seen as a move to free $104 million in aid frozen by the U.S. Congress since reports suggest continuing Sandinista influence in Chamorro’s government. . . . Cuban president Fidel Castro announces that work on a Soviet-designed nuclear-power plant has been halted indefinitely.

Sept. 5

Italian police arrest Giuseppe Madonia, considered one of the most powerful leaders in Sicilian organized crime, who fled charges of being linked to the mafia in 1984.

Sept. 6

Tajikistan president Rakhman Nabiyev resigns after he is seized by opposition militiamen and demonstrators while attempting to flee Dushanbe, the republic’s capital.

Sept. 7

Soldiers in the nominally independent homeland of Ciskei fire on ANC marchers demanding the ouster of the territory’s military ruler. Up to 28 people are slain and 200 injured. Debate over what caused the violence ensues. . . . Reports confirm Jordan arrested several prominent Muslim fundamentalists, including two members of Parliament, suspected of attempting to smuggle firearms and explosives into the Israeli-occupied territories.

South Korean intelligence agency officials disclose that they broke up a major spy ring that was attempting to “communize the Korean Peninsula.” Authorities arrested four dissidents and more than 40 other suspects.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 2–7, 1992—373

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Pres. Bush announces a plan to sell 150 advanced F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan, despite a virtual ban on U.S. arms sales to Taiwan since 1982. His announcement sparks controversy.

A U.S. District Court judge in Philadelphia rules that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology violated antitrust laws by colluding with Ivy League schools to fix the amount of financial aid offered to accepted students.

Barbara McClintock, 90, highly influential geneticist who won the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine in 1983, making her the first woman to win an unshared Nobel Prize in that category, and who also received the National Medal of Science in 1970 and the first MacArthur Laureate Award in 1981, dies in Long Island, New York, of natural causes.

Joseph L(ouis) Rauh Jr., 81, who helped found and was chairman, 1955–57, of Americans for Democratic Action, a group that supported liberal causes, and who sat on the executive board of the NAACP dies in Washington, D.C., of a heart attack.

Amid a storm of controversy, the University of Maryland cancels a conference on genetic explanations for crime since the National Institutes of Health withdrew $78,000 of funding for the event.

A federal appeals court reverses a June 1991 decision that found TWA liable for damages in connection with a 1986 bomb explosion. . . . Presidential candidate Bill Clinton accepts the endorsement of the AFL-CIO. . . . The Census Bureau reports that in inflationadjusted terms, median household income fell to $30,126 in 1991 from $31,203 in 1990. The number of Americans living below the poverty level in 1991 reached its highest level since 1964. The Pentagon awards to a unit of Lockheed Corp. a $688 million contract to develop a groundbased antimissile system for the Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”). . . . The Citadel, an allmale military college in Charleston, South Carolina, ends a program that allowed male military veterans to take courses at the school. The decision comes after three female navy veterans filed a sex-bias suit against the Citadel in June when the college denied them entry into the program.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Sept. 2

Warner Brothers Records announces it has signed a contract with pop musician Prince that makes him the highest paid performer in pop music. The deal is reportedly worth $100 million.

The Sierra Club endorses Bill Clinton. . . . Pres. Bush signs a bill gradually expanding the number of government loans to small businesses to $8 billion by 1994. . . . The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upholds an order to ban logging in areas in the Pacific Northwest to protect the endangered northern spotted owl. . . . Cornell-Dubilier Electronics and Federal Pacific Electric agree to pay $21 million for contaminating the harbor of New Bedford, Massachusetts with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

Sept. 3

Sept. 4

The United Auto Workers union reaches an agreement with General Motors, returning 2,300 striking workers to their jobs at the plant in Lordstown, Ohio. The accord ends a nine-day strike that prompted GM to suspend production in nine U.S. assembly plants and to temporarily lay off 42,900 employees.

Dorothy Disney MacKaye (Dorothy Cameron Disney), 88, who pioneered the modern marriage advice column, dies in Guilford, Connecticut, of a heart attack. . . . William (Billy) Herman, 83, second baseman inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame in 1975, dies in Palm Beach, Florida, of cancer. . . . Fritz Leiber, 81, author of over 40 books whose awards include a lifeachievement award, presented at the Second World Fantasy Convention, dies of undisclosed causes.

The gay magazine QW reveals that John Schlafly, the son of conservative Republican activist Phyllis Schlafly, is a homosexual.

A man who received a liver from a baboon June 28 in the first surgery of its kind, dies after he suffers a massive stroke and falls into a coma.

Noureddine Morceli of Algeria breaks the seven-year-old world record in the 1,500-meter run a time of 3 minutes, 28.86 seconds in Rieti, Italy.

Disabled demonstrators, calling themselves “Jerry’s Orphans” and claiming that Jerry Lewis treats disabled people as objects of pity, protest in 16 cities during Lewis’s annual Telethon for Muscular Dystrophy. Evan J. Kemp Jr., chairman of the EOE and a muscular dystrophy sufferer, also criticizes Lewis. However, the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) backs Lewis, whose broadcast raises a record $45.8 million.

A plane carrying sky-diving club members crashes minutes after taking off in Hinckley, Illinois, killing all 12 people aboard.

Major League Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent steps down, less than a week after all 28 team owners, by a vote of 18-9, passed a resolution requesting his resignation.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 5

Sept. 6

Sept. 7

374—September 8–13, 1992

Sept. 8

World Affairs

Europe

Japan announces plans to dispatch more than 1,800 troops to Cambodia over the next year to join UN peacekeeping operations. The troops will be the first Japanese soldiers deployed overseas since World War II.

Two French UN peacekeeping soldiers are shot to death and five are wounded outside of Sarajevo. The incident brings the death toll of UN personnel to eight, while at least 40 have been injured. . . . English skipper Jack Lammiman and his crew of six aboard a ship tracing Christopher Columbus’s voyage to America are rescued by a Norwegian fisherman. The boat, last seen Aug. 7, had drifted 1,500 miles (2,400 km) after its electric generator failed, rendering its communications devices powerless.

Sept. 9

Sept. 10

Sept. 11

Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani announces that China has agreed to provide Iran with a nuclear power plant. The 300-megawatt facility will be Iran’s first atomic power station. . . . Data indicates that there were no reported cases of polio in the Western Hemisphere since 1991. It is the first time that the virus has gone undetected in the region for an entire year.

Yugoslav foreign minister Vladislav Jovanovic resigns and issues a statement that reads, “I find it impossible to continue to remain in a government that is increasingly and openly pursuing a policy opposed to the interests of Serbia and the Serbian nation.”

The World Court resolves a century-long border dispute that triggered a bloody five-day conflict in 1969 known as the Soccer War between Honduras and El Salvador, when it awards almost twothirds of 170 square miles (440 sq km) of disputed territory to Honduras.

At the Clairvaux high-security prison near Troyes, France, a guard and a prisoner are killed in a shootout, and seven armed inmates escape.

After the Sept. 11 incident in Troyes, French prison officers go on strike to demand greater security and higher staffing levels in the country’s overcrowded jails. . . . The Washington Post reports that there has been an explosive growth of new privately owned radio stations in Moscow geared toward American Top-40 musical hits, popular culture, and capitalist-style advertising.

Sept. 12

Sept. 13

At a meeting of EC foreign ministers, Klaus Kinkel argues Germany is taking on a disproportionate share of Europe’s refugee burden since it has taken in more than 220,000 asylum seekers from Bosnia, more than any nation except Croatia. None of the EC foreign ministers offer to relax their immigration policies, however.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

In Angola, UNITA and MPLA informally agree to form a coalition government.

Torrential rains start floods in the Jammu and Kashmir region, in northern Pakistan and northwest India.

Syrian president Hafez al-Assad for the first time publicly asserts that Syria is willing to negotiate a peace treaty with Israel. . . . In South Africa, ANC activists stage a protest in the self-governing homeland of Qwaqwa to demand the resignation of the territory’s ruler, T. K. Mopedi.

Nicaraguan president Chamorro signs a bill guaranteeing that the more than 5,000 claimants to property confiscated under the Sandinistas will, if their claims prove valid, either have their property returned or be financially compensated for their loss. Chamorro also announces the creation of a National Review Commission to examine disputed property claims filed before December 31, 1990.

Iran declares its sovereignty over three Persian Gulf islands that it has governed jointly with the United Arab Emirates since 1971. . . . In South Africa, Winnie Mandela resigns her last leadership posts in the antiapartheid movement—her seat on the ANC’s National Executive Committee and her seat in its Women’s League.

In Brazil, Pres. Collor’s chief of staff and top political adviser, Jorge Bornhausen, resigns.

Israeli delegates departing for the peace talks are confronted at BenGurion International Airport in Tel Aviv by 3,000 right-wing demonstrators protesting the government’s land-for-peace plans.

Peruvian police capture Abimael Guzmán Reynoso, the elusive leader of Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), a Maoist guerrilla group that had waged a violent, 12-year insurrection against the government. They also capture at least three other members of Sendero Luminoso’s governing body.

According to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development figures, unemployment in Britain is growing faster than in any other European country.

Asia & the Pacific

In response to Guzmán Reynoso’s arrest Sept. 12, Lima, a city wracked by Sendero Luminoso car bombings over the past year, celebrates as many residents drape their houses with Peruvian flags, and the Peruvian national anthem is sung in the streets.

In northern Pakistan, floodwaters carried by the Jhelum River engulf the city of Jhelum, at the foot of the Mangla Dam.

Thailand holds parliamentary elections, but even before the polls have closed, over 2,500 instances of vote fraud are reported to PollWatch, an independent monitoring agency.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 8–13, 1992—375

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

In Maryland two men carjack Pamela Basu’s automobile, but her arm becomes entangled in a seat belt so she is dragged for two miles and dies of internal injuries. One of the suspects throws Basu’s 22month-old daughter, strapped into a car seat, from the vehicle. Rodney Eugene Solomon, 26, and Bernard Eric Miller, 16, are arrested on murder charges. . . . Sen. Quentin Northrop Burdick, 84, Democratic senator from North Dakota for 32 years, dies in Fargo, North Dakota, of heart failure.

Four women, Suzanne Hallett, Judy Mas, Lisa C. Reagan, and Marie Colleen Weston, file suit against the Tailhook association and the Las Vegas (Nevada) Hilton hotel, alleging that they were sexually abused at the 1990 and/or 1991 Tailhook conventions. . . . Presidential candidate Bill Clinton continues to be questioned about his draft record during the election race.

Two-year note yields tumble to their lowest level ever, 3.78%, and five-year and 10-year notes are down to 5.19% and 6.29%, their lowest respective yields since 1971 and 1972.

A Finnish study finds a link between heart attacks and high concentrations of iron in the blood.

The Senate votes, 62-36, to confirm Edward Carnes as a judge on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals after heated debate about Carnes’s sensitivity to racial issues. . . . A poll finds voters are about evenly divided on the question of whether or not it is preferable for Congress and the presidency to be under the control of different parties. The poll stands out since earlier surveys consistently found voters prefer split government.

A senior aide to Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni and four other people are indicted in Orlando, Florida, on charges of illegally trying to export arms to Uganda. Two are also charged with trying to ship spare helicopter parts to Libya. The indictments are the result of a complicated 10-month sting operation by the U.S. Customs Service.

John McNamara pleads guilty to defrauding General Motors in a $6 billion loan scheme. . . . The Senate passes, 92-3, an $87.7 billion fiscal 1993 appropriations bill for the Departments of Housing and Urban Development, and Veterans Affairs and independent agencies. . . . The FDIC reports the country’s 11,685 commercial banks earned a record $7.9 billion in the second quarter.

A medical review board finds that the unidentified man who died Sept. 6 after receiving a baboon liver in an experimental transplant operation had been infected with the AIDS virus.

Major League Baseball’s executive council chooses Bud Selig as chairman. He will have much of the commissioner’s authority—but not the title—while the owners search for Vincent’s replacement.

The CDC discloses that more cases of cholera were recorded in the U.S. in 1992 than in any year since records were first kept in 1961. . . . Reports state that NYC police officer Michael O’Keefe was cleared of wrongdoing in a shooting July 3, setting off riots that started July 6. . . . Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, reveals that Anglican archbishop Desmond M. Tutu of South Africa has resigned from the school’s board of overseers because of the “volatile” situation in his country.

A poll finds that a majority of women in the army believe that women should be allowed to volunteer for combat. . . . Reports state that a navy submarine-warfare instructor, Captain Laurence Gebhardt, was forced to resign from the service in 1991 for purportedly asking a female civilian clerk at the Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island, to pose nude for “training photographs.”

Pres. Bush delivers a major economic address to a group of Detroit business executives. He also issues a statement of his policies in “Agenda for American Renewal.” . . . The Senate approves, 82-12, a $22.7 billion fiscal 1993 spending bill for the Treasury Department, the U.S. Postal Service, and other government agencies. . . . The House passes, 241-161, legislation that requires large employers to grant unpaid family and medical leave to their workers.

Scientists report that ozone released as a pollutant into the Earth’s lower atmosphere appears to play a role in shielding the Northern Hemisphere from UV radiation.

Harold Louis (Doc) Humes, 66, cofounder of the Paris Review literary journal and author of the novels The Underground City (1958) and Men Die (1960), dies of cancer in New York City. . . . A U.S. District Court jury in Minneapolis rules that the NFL’s “Plan B” free agency system violates antitrust laws by unfairly restricting the movement of football players from team to team.

Hurricane Iniki strikes Hawaii, killing three people and causing an estimated $1 billion in damage. Called the worst hurricane in Hawaii in the 20th century, it hits the island of Kauai hardest, where winds reach sustained speeds of 130 mph (210 km). . . . Dr. George Washington Crile Jr. (Barney), 84, who caused controversy when he championed the simple mastectomy and the lumpectomy to treat breast cancer, dies in Cleveland of lung cancer.

Jim Grabb and Richey Reneberg take the men’s doubles title at tennis’s U.S. Open.

The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour takes off on a mission to test the behavior of living organisms in the absence of gravity and to search for ways of combating space sickness. . . . Pres. Bush declares most of Hawaii a federal disaster area. Some 1,300 Army National Guards are dispatched to Kauai. . . . Niels Skakkebaek of the University of Copenhagen finds that the average sperm count in healthy men from all parts of the world has dropped by nearly 50% over the previous 50 years.

Anthony Perkins, 60, actor best known as Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s trail-blazing horror film Psycho (1960), dies in Hollywood, California, of AIDS. . . . At the U.S. Open, Monica Seles of Yugoslavia defends her tournament title with a victory over Arantxa Sanchez Vicario of Spain.

Pres. Bush announces that his administration has approved the sale of 72 sophisticated F-15 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia. U.S. officials state the sale will generate $9 billion in revenue and save 40,000 jobs in the U.S.

Reports suggest that the government is ordering that all children on Medicaid be screened for lead poisoning. . . . Presidential candidate Bill Clinton launches a national voter registration drive with Rev. Jesse Jackson in Washington, D.C.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Sept. 8

Lou Jacobs (born Jacob Ludwig), 89, whose clown face is on a U.S. Postal stamp, dies in Sarasota, Florida, of heart failure. . . . At the U.S. Open, Natalya Zvereva and Gigi Fernandez win the women’s doubles, and. Stefan Edberg wins his second title.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 9

Sept. 10

Sept. 11

Sept. 12

Sept. 13

376—September 14–19, 1992

Sept. 14

Sept. 15

Sept. 16

Sept. 17

Europe

In the first cuts by the Bundesbank in nearly five years, Germany’s benchmark discount rate is lowered to 8.25% from 8.75%, and the Lombard rate is lowered to 9.5% from 9.75%. The cuts prompt the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, and Sweden to follow the Bundesbank’s lead, and stock markets around the world experience fluctuations in response. . . . Officials state that Russia has agreed to open its biological-research facilities to U.S. and British inspections to ensure that Russia is not violating a 1972 treaty banning germ-warfare weapons.

Henri Emmanuelli, president of France’s National Assembly, is charged with influence peddling. . . . Five youths identified as right-wing “skinheads” receive prison sentences ranging from two years to four years after their convictions in the death of an African immigrant, Amadeu Antonio Kiowa, an Angolan who had lived in eastern Germany since 1987 and who was severely beaten and died in November 1990 in the town of Eberswalde.

A new international organization favoring an end to worldwide restrictions on whaling, the North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission (Nammco), meets for the first time in Oslo, Norway. The group’s founding members are Norway, Iceland, and the semiautonomous Danish territories of Greenland and the Faeroe Islands. Japan sends an observer to Nammco’s inaugural session.

Workers at the FSM auto plant in Tychy, Poland, end a seven-week strike.

The IMF issues a revised forecast for the world economy projecting growth of only 1.1% for 1992, down from 1.4%. . . . The British government suspends Britain’s currency, the pound, from its participation in the European Monetary System (EMS).

UN officials announce that a preliminary investigation shows that an Italian relief plane that crashed Sept. 3 in Bosnia was brought down by at least one shoulderfired, heat-seeking missile. . . . French president Mitterrand’s doctors announce that he has cancer of the prostate gland. . . . British prime minister Major recalls Parliament from recess to discuss the EMS crisis and the British economy.

OPEC members agree to hold production steady at 24.2 million barrels per day during the fourth quarter of 1992. Ecuador abruptly announces its withdrawal from OPEC, citing the organization’s annual $2 million membership fee and strict production limits. . . . At an emergency meeting of he EC monetary committee, the organization that oversees the EMS, Italy withdraws its currency from the EMS.

The Italian Senate ratifies the Maastrict Treaty.

A senior UN official announces both sides in the Sudanese civil war have agreed to let relief flights land in famine-threatened regions. . . . Four U.S. Navy warships providing “seaborne command and control communications” for the deployment of 500 UN peacekeeping troops in Mogadishu, arrive off the Somali coast. The vessels carry crews of 1,700 sailors plus an expeditionary force of 2,100 Marines.

In London, thieves abscond with some 250 pieces of jewelry valued at $7 million in what is described as one of the largest jewel heists ever.

The Israeli army announces that it has arrested Ahmad Suleiman Katmash, the commander of underground forces in the occupied territories for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. . . . The U.S. temporarily suspends relief flights to the Somali town of Belet Uen after a U.S. military airplane delivering emergency supplies is hit by a bullet.

Sept. 18

Sept. 19

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

The UN Security Council recommends the ouster of Yugoslavia from the UN for its alleged role in the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina on a vote of 12-0, with China, India, and Zimbabwe abstaining. . . . G-7 finance ministers meet in Washington, D.C., to discuss the currency crisis that shook Europe in the past week and debate the 13-year-old European Monetary System.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The first armed UN peacekeeping troops arrive in Somalia to ensure that relief agencies can distribute food to the starving populace.

In Peru, in response to the Sept. 12 arrests of some of its members, Sendero Luminoso detonates a land mine that injures eight commuters on a highway north of Lima. In another incident in Lima, a policeman is shot and killed by rebels The army reports that Sendero Luminoso rebels ambushed an army patrol 300 miles (500 km) east of Lima, killing an officer and three soldiers. . . . Paul (Joseph James) Martin Sr., 89, Canadian Liberal Party politician and public servant for more than 50 years, dies in Windsor, Ontario, of a heart attack.

Reports confirm that the Sept. 13 election in Thailand was tarnished by the fraud and violence that has characterized earlier Thai elections. Seven people were killed on the eve of the balloting, five members of the Palang Dharma party were gunned down in eastern Thailand, and two youths were shot to death in Bangkok as they distributed posters alleging political corruption. . . . Two state-owned Australian airlines, Qantas Airways Ltd. and Australian Airlines, merge.

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the two most powerful Kurdish factions in Iraq, agree to merge guerrilla units under their command into a single 30,000member force under the command of the semiautonomous Kurdish government.

Reports indicate that two Sendero Luminoso bombs killed two people and wounded two others in the Andean city of Cuzco, Peru, 300 miles southeast of Lima. Antiterrorist police claim they have captured Luis Dávila Torres, Sendero Luminoso’s political commander for northern Lima.

Russian and Cuban officials announce they have reached an agreement on the staged withdrawal from Cuba of a mechanized-infantry brigade stationed there by the former Soviet Union. The brigade’s 1,500 troops and their dependents are to be out of Cuba by mid-1993.

As flooding in Pakistan continues, reports suggest that army troops are engaged in engineering schemes which include blasting a hole in the river bank in order to salvage Jhelum by spreading the waters, consequently swamping hundreds of villages.

An explosion kills nine Canadian miners at the Giant mine near Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories. . . . In Colombia, gunmen shoot dead Miriam Rocío Vélez, a judge secretly investigating a murder charge against Pablo Escobar.

Figures show that floods in Pakistan that started Sept. 8 have killed more than 2,000 people, damaged some 2 million acres of crops and devastated 1,800 villages throughout Pakistan. An additional 500 people were killed in northern sections of India. Pakistani officials say that villages in Punjab have been flooded. . . . Mohammed Hidayatullah, 86, Indian chief justice who was vice president of India and who, for short periods in 1969 and 1982, served as the country’s acting president, dies in Bombay of a heart attack.

In England, Dr. Nigel Cox is convicted by a jury in Winchester Crown Court of attempted murder for administering a fatal injection to an elderly patient who asked him to help her die.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 14–19, 1992—377

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Emmett Roe, the owner of a chicken-processing plant where 25 people died in a 1991 fire in Hamlet, North Carolina, is sentenced to almost 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter. . . . The Public Health Service recommends that all women of childbearing age consume more folic acids to reduce the risk of serious birth defects. . . . Rep. Theodore (Ted) Weiss, 64, New York Democrat who championed liberal causes in the House since he was first elected in 1976, dies in New York City of cancer the day before he was to run in primary elections.

The Senate approves by voice vote a bill that will condition renewal of China’s most-favored-nation (MFN) trading status on China’s accountability for and release of prodemocracy demonstrators, progress in improving human rights, the lowering of trade barriers and adherence to curbs on nuclear and missile exports.

The Dow responds positively to the German rate-cut announcement, soaring 2.13%, or 70.52 points, in heavy trading. The Dow’s gain is its largest in 1992 and the 13th-largest single-day increase ever.

Marion Barry Jr., who in April finished serving a six-month sentence for cocaine possession, wins a Democratic primary for a seat on the D.C. City Council. Theodore (Ted) Weiss, who died Sept. 14, wins the Democratic nomination to the House in his district. . . . Rep. Walter Jones, 79, Democrat from North Carolina, 1966–92, dies in Norfolk, Virginia, of pneumonia. . . . The FBI announces carjacking will be handled by a unit specializing in violent crimes, prompted by the Sept. 8 carjacking.

Defense Department spokesman Bob Hall concedes that a U.S. fighter may have been shot down by an Iraqi MiG-25 during the gulf war. Previously, the Pentagon claimed that U.S. planes downed 28 Iraqi fighters in air-to-air combat without a single U.S. loss.

The FDIC board votes, 5-0, to increase insurance premiums it levies on banks and thrifts. The new premium-rate structure boosts overall bank premiums by 10% to an average of 25.4 cents per $100 of domestic deposits.

Jocelyn Burdick (D) becomes North Dakota’s first female senator when she is appointed as an interim replacement for her husband, Sen. Quentin Burdick (D), who died Sept. 8. Her swearing in boosts the number of women in the Senate to three, which is the most that have ever served simultaneously. . . . Millicent Fenwick, 82, former New Jersey Republican congresswoman known as a champion of women’s rights and ethics in government, dies in Bernardsville, N.J., of heart failure.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Sept. 14

Sept. 15

Reports suggest that astronomers David Jewitt and Jane Luu, using the University of Hawaii’s telescope on Mauna Kea peak, detected a small planetlike body beyond Pluto, designated 1992 QB-1. . . . Mount Spurr in Alaska, an 11,000-foot (3,300-m) volcano, erupts. It is the third eruption of the volcano since it became active in June for the first time in 39 years.

A federal district judge in Washington, D.C., Stanley Sporkin, overturns the impeachment by the Senate of former U.S. District Judge Alcee L. Hastings of Florida, arguing that the impeachment proceedings were unconstitutional.

The political action committee of the Veterans of Foreign Wars announces that it will not make an endorsement in the 1992 presidential race.

Joanna O’Rourke, a former manager of the House Post Office, pleads guilty to charges of embezzling government property and misusing public funds, and prosecutors drop a conspiracy charge. . . . Reports show the Senate selected Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D, N.Y.) as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, replacing Sen. Quentin Burdick (D, N.Dak.), who died Sept. 8.

Heavy ash from Mount Spurr, Alaska, falls in Willow, 75 miles north of the volcano.

The name of Texas billionaire Ross Perot is placed on the Arizona presidential ballot, so he is listed as a candidate in all 50 states. Perot hints that he may reenter the presidential race. . . . John Schlafly, the son of conservative Republican activist Phyllis Schlafly who was “outed,” or identified as a homosexual, in the Sept. 6 issue of QW, claims he endorses his mother’s positions, which oppose same-sex marriages and civil-rights protection to homosexuals. He argues these positions are not antigay.

The Senate passes, by voice vote, legislation known as the Cuban Democracy Act, which bars foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies from trading with Cuba. The measure is designed to bring about the downfall of Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz.

The Senate passes, 82-13, a $240.9 billion bill to fund the Departments of Education, Labor, and Health and Human Services for fiscal 1993. . . . Carl J. Megel, 92, lobbyist of the American Federation of Teachers who was AFT president from 1952 to 1964, dies in Rockville, Maryland.

Congress approves a record $11.1 billion disaster-relief aid package for victims of Hurricane Andrew in Florida and Louisiana and for Hurricane Iniki in Hawaii as part of a 1992 supplemental appropriations bill. The funding also assists victims of Typhoon Omar, which struck the American territory of Guam with winds of 120 to 150 miles per hour (190 to 240 kph) Aug. 28, injuring 59 people and laying waste to houses all over the Pacific island.

The Senate passes by voice vote a $274.5 billion defense authorization for fiscal 1993.

Reports indicate that economist Arthur Laffer, whose theoretical work formed the basis of much of “Reaganomics,” the supply-side economic policies pursued by Pres. Reagan, is supporting Democratic candidate Bill Clinton.

Sept. 16

The House passes, 280-128, a compromise bill to reregulate the cable-television industry. . . . In football, the owners of the 28 NFL franchises announce that the activities of the NFL-affiliated World League will be suspended for the 1993 season.

Sept. 17

Sept. 18

Sir Geraint Llewellyn Evans, 70, Welsh operatic baritone best known for his portrayal of the title role in Verdi’s opera Falstaff who was knighted in 1969, dies in Aberystwyth, Wales, of a heart attack.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 19

378—September 20–24, 1992

Sept. 20

Sept. 21

Sept. 22

Sept. 23

Sept. 24

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The World Bank’s annual report is released, and it shows that World Bank lending for environmental projects fell to $1.2 billion in 1992 from $1.6 billion in 1991. The report pledges the bank to assess the environmental impact of its existing and new development projects in poor countries.

French voters narrowly approve the European Community’s Treaty on European Union. . . . Estonia holds its first post-Soviet parliamentary and presidential elections. Only those persons, or their descendants, who were citizens of Estonia before 1940 are allowed to vote.

The United Nations General Assembly opens its 47th session with 178 member states at its headquarters in New York City.

In England, Justice Harry Ognall sentences Dr. Nigel Cox, convicted Sept. 19 for administering a fatal injection to an elderly patient who asked him to help her die, to a year in jail, but he suspends the sentence for 12 months.

Hundreds of demonstrators protest the Israeli government’s land-forpeace plans outside the chambers of the Knesset in Jerusalem. . . . UNITA fighters take policemen hostage and occupy an airport in the city of Cuito, Angola, alleging that the MPLA would try to assassinate guerrilla leader Jonas Savimbi at a rally.

The UN General Assembly expels Yugoslavia from the UN for its alleged role in the war in BosniaHerzegovina. . . . Danish premier Schluter announces that his country will hold a second referendum on the Maastricht Treaty in mid1993, after the narrow defeat for the pact in a June Danish referendum helped awaken opposition to the pact throughout Europe. . . . The two so-called Bretton Woods institutions, the IMF and the World Bank, hold their joint annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

The Swedish navy fires depth charges at a suspected underwater intruder in Swedish waters 60 miles (100 km) south of Stockholm.

In Angola, government soldiers fire on two UNITA supporters in Huambo minutes before José Eduardo dos Santos arrives for a rally while campaigning in the nation’s first-ever free elections.

At the meeting of the UN, Croatian president Franjo Tudjman argues that full civil rights have been extended to the Serb minority residing in his country under UN protection. Therefore, he claims, UN peacekeeping forces should be withdrawn in 1993, when their mandate expires. . . . France and Germany issue a rare joint statement stressing their commitment to supporting the value of the French franc within the European Monetary System.

The Russian defense ministry denies Swedish accusations that the intruder fired upon on Sept. 22 was a Russian submarine.

Delegates from more than 30 Iraqi groups opposed to the regime of Pres. Saddam Hussein meet in Salahuddin in nominally Kurdishcontrolled northeastern Iraq.

A police spokesman confirms that a bomb was responsible for a Sept. 18 explosion that killed nine Canadian miners in a strike-torn gold mine in the Northwest Territories . . . In an apparent assassination attempt, a man and a woman seriously wound Antonio Ríos, a union leader and prominent member of the ruling Democratic Action Party in Venezuela. Police arrest two suspects, Norma Josefina Azuaje and Cesar Eduardo Peña. . . . A Honduran gunman, Orlando Ordoñez Betancourt, abducts the Mexican ambassador to Costa Rica, the Costa Rican public security minister, a Roman Catholic bishop and the chief of the Honduran investigative police during peace talks in the Costa Rican capital, San José.

Chuan Leekpai, a prodemocracy activist, is named premier of Thailand. Chuan heads a fragile fiveparty coalition that emerged following Sept. 13 parliamentary elections. . . . Vietnam’s National Assembly elects conservative General Le Duc Anh as state president.

The sixth round of bilateral peace talks between Arab and Israeli negotiators concludes but fails to result in a hoped-for agreement between Israel and Syria over control of the disputed Golan Heights region.

Markus Wolf, who headed East Germany’s foreign spy operations for 33 years before retiring in 1986, is charged in Germany with treason, espionage and bribery. . . . German and Romanian officials formally sign an agreement that will send thousands of Romanians whose asylum requests were rejected by Germany back to Romania. . . . David Mellor, dogged by reports of an extramarital affair and personal gifts from a member of a prominent Palestinian family, announces his resignation from British prime minister Major’s cabinet. . . . Thousands of people march in Budapest and other cities against a rise of neo-Nazism in Hungary.

Chakufa Chihana, a Malawian trade unionist, is named the 1992 recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. Earlier, Chihana was indicted on three counts of sedition for giving an interview to the foreign press in July after he completed three months in prison without charges.

Endara resumes diplomatic relations with Mexico. . . . In Costa Rica, Orlando Ordoñez Betancourt, the man who kidnapped four people on Sept. 23, releases three of them in order to avail himself of a safe-passage agreement to Mexico. . . . The U.S. returns 48 ancient sacred textiles that the Coroma Indians of Bolivia allege were stolen and illegally imported by U.S. art dealers. The return of the textiles ends four years of threatened lawsuits and negotiations, and it follows guidelines established in the UNESCO convention on cultural properties, which the U.S. signed in 1983.

Vietnam’s National Assembly reelects reformist Vo Van Kiet as premier.

Pro-China candidates win all 16 seats in elections for the Legislative Assembly in Macao, the Portuguese colony on the southern coast of China that will revert to Chinese sovereignty in 1999.

Mexico and the Vatican establish full diplomatic relations, ending over 130 years of church-state discord. Mexico was the only major Latin American country to lack ties with the Vatican.

The Communist Party of the Philippines is legalized when Pres. Ramos signs a law repealing a 1957 antisubversion act. The government also releases 48 political prisoners.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 20–24, 1992—379

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

William L(ee) Springer, 83, Chicago Republican congressman in the House, 1951–73, dies in Champaign, Illinois, after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

Questions about Vice Pres. Dan Quayle’s military service record reemerge for the first time since 1988.

The campaign for presidential candidate Bill Clinton unveils its first negative television advertisement, in which Pres. Bush is accused of being out of touch with the nation’s economic problems.

The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour lands safely at the Cape Canaveral airstrip after conducting tests on the behavior of living organisms in the absence of gravity and after searching for ways of combating space sickness.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Sept. 20

The TV show Murphy Brown takes aim at Vice Pres. Quayle, who attacked the program in May. An estimated 44 million people watch, making it a bigger draw than either the Democratic or Republican national conventions.

In testimony before the Senate Select Committee on POW-MIA Affairs, Henry Kissinger staunchly denies allegations that captured U.S. servicemen were knowingly left behind in Southeast Asia in 1973. . . . The House passes by voice vote a bill that conditions renewal of China’s most-favorednation (MFN) trading status on China’s accountability for and release of prodemocracy demonstrators, progress in improving human rights, the lowering of trade barriers and adherence to curbs on nuclear and missile exports.

The Treasury Department begins a year-long trial of a new auction technique that would affect monthly sales of the single-price method— the so-called Dutch auction—to try to lower the cost of the government’s borrowing and to break the stranglehold on Treasury securities auctions. . . . The IRS publishes new rules so that about three-fourths of businesses will have to deposit withheld funds with the IRS only once a month. . . . Pres. Bush vetoes legislation that would require large employers to grant unpaid family and medical leave to their workers.

The Commission on Presidential Debates cancels a debate because the Bush campaign will not agree to the proposed format. . . . Democratic leaders in Manhattan select Jerrold Nadler to replace Rep. Ted Weiss (D, N.Y.), who had died Sept. 14 but nevertheless won the Democratic primary. . . . Amy Fisher, 18, pleads guilty to shooting Mary Jo Buttafuoco, the wife of her alleged lover, Joseph Buttafuoco, 36, in a case that draws national publicity.

The Senate votes, 86-10, to pass a $251 billion defense appropriations bill for fiscal 1993. . . . James Alward Van Fleet, 100, army fourstar general who was considered one of the U.S.’s most respected military leaders and whose numerous decorations include the Distinguished Service Cross with three oak leaf clusters, dies in Polk City, Florida.

The campaign of Pres. Bush unveils its first negative television ad, in which Bill Clinton is portrayed as a governor who repeatedly raises taxes and plans to do so if elected. . . . Congress passes legislation that makes facilities owned by the federal government subject to the same hazardouswaste laws as private industries. The bill enables the EPA and state regulators to impose fines on federal agencies for waste-disposal violations.

A study finds that the average body temperature of a healthy adult is not 98.6ºF, but 98.2ºF. . . . Pres. Bush signs a bill to provide $11.1 billion passed by Congress Sept. 18 . . . NASA figures show that the ozone hole extends above 8.9 million square miles (23 million sq km) of surface territory, an area roughly equal to North America. It is about 15% larger than the biggest ozone hole measured in 1991. . . . Paul Garber, 93, first curator of the NASA Museum, dies in Arlington, Virginia.

Reports confirm that the NRA National Rifle Association decided not to endorse a presidential candidate in 1992. . . . Paul Tully, 48, political director of the Democratic National Committee who had worked in every presidential election since 1968, is found dead in Little Rock, Arkansas, of a heart attack.

The House passes by voice vote an $8.39 billion appropriation for military construction for fiscal 1993. . . . Navy acting secretary Sean O’Keefe announces the punishments of three admirals—Rear Admiral Duvall (Mac) Williams Jr., Rear Admiral George Davis VI and Rear Admiral John Gordon—in the wake of a report on the Tailhook scandal. In the document, 26 women—half of them military officers—claim they were sexually abused by male aviators at the 1991 convention of the Tailhook Association. O’Keefe discloses that Williams and Gordon have been asked to retire, and Davis will be relieved of his post and assigned to other duties. . . . The House, 276-135, passes the Cuban Democracy Act which bars foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies from trading with Cuba. . . . A federal court jury in Honolulu, Hawaii, finds the estate of the late Philippine Pres. Ferdinand Marcos liable for government atrocities against political opponents during his rule. The class-action civil lawsuit, brought on behalf on some 10,000 Filipino dissidents, is the first in the U.S. to claim human-rights violations in a foreign country.

Congress clears a $22 billion appropriations bill for energy, water, and nuclear-defense programs. . . . Congress passes a conference report for a $688 million fiscal 1993 spending bill for the District of Columbia. . . . The Senate votes, 68-31, to override Pres. Bush’s Sept. 22 veto. It is the first time that the upper chamber overrides the president out of eight attempts during Bush’s term.

Reports show that scientists have found that beta-amyloid, a protein, appears throughout the bodies of both healthy and sick people, so they now theorize that unusually high concentrations of the protein, or an abnormal reaction to it, trigger Alzheimer’s disease. . . . Scientists at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggest that, in addition to the build-up of CFCs, sulfur dioxides released by the 1991 volcanic eruptions of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines and Mt. Hudson in Chile have caused ozone depletion noted Sept. 23. . . . Reports indicate that scientists in England have detected genetic defects in testtube embryos that are just days old.

The Senate passes, 74-25, a bill to reregulate the cable-television industry . . . Two U.S. balloonists, Richard Abruzzo and Troy Bradley, complete the longest balloon flight in history. . . . A federal appeals court lifts an injunction against distribution of the 1991 Emmy Awardwinning British documentary, Damned in the U.S.A. sought by Rev. Donald E. Wildmon

Manon Rheaume becomes the first woman to play in an NHL game, when she tends goal for the Tampa Bay Lightning. No woman has played in the three other major sports leagues—the NFL, NBA and MLB. . . . Glendon Swarthout, 74, author of Bless the Beasts and Children (1970), dies in Scotsdale, Arizona.

Sept. 21

Sept. 22

Sept. 23

Sept. 24

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

380—September 25–30, 1992

World Affairs

Sept. 25

Sept. 26

Sept. 27

Sept. 28

Law-enforcement officials from the U.S., Colombia, and Italy announce that they have arrested more than 165 people in six nations on charges related to a money-laundering scheme involving the Italian Mafia and the leading Colombian cocaine cartel. It is called the first instance of international cooperation on a case of this nature. U.S. DEA administrator Robert C. Bonner states that 112 of the arrests were made in the U.S., 29 were in Italy, and the remainder were in Canada, England, Spain, and Costa Rica.

Sept. 29

Sept. 30

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

French prison officers end the strike that started Sept. 12. . . . The military chief of the Commonwealth of Independent States reveals Russia’s strategic missiles are still aimed at the U.S. . . . Reports suggest that as many as 3,000 men, women, and children have been slain in Serb-run detention camps near the Bosnian town of Brcko. . . . A fire ignites at a memorial to Jews who died in the Sachsenhausen death camp during World War II. The camp is about 18 miles (30 km) north of Berlin.

As a gesture of reconciliation, the South African government begins freeing prisoners.

Peace negotiators Cyrus R. Vance of the UN and Lord Owen of the EC state they have information that up to 4,000 Muslim civilians were forced at gunpoint to leave the Travnik area, in northwestern Bosnia, in a wave of ethnic cleansing by the Serbs . . . . In Italy, Vincenzo Scarantino, 27, an alleged member of the Kalsa Mafia clan, is arrested in connection with the murder in July of leading anti-Mafia magistrate Paolo Borsellino.

South African president F. W. de Klerk and African National Congress president Nelson Mandela meet for the first time since May.

The Washington Post reports that Serb senior police official Stojan Zupljanin has confirmed the murders in August of at least 200 Muslim male detainees released from a Serb-run camp at Trnopolje in northwestern Bosnia. . . . Swiss voters give their approval for the construction of two huge rail tunnels under the Swiss Alps.

About 3,000 prisoners arrested for their links to the Palestinian intifada launch a fast to protest the conditions of their imprisonment . . . The Armed Forces of Angola (FAA), a joint 50,000-member army of UNITA and government troops called for in the May 1991 peace treaty, forms. . . . A Nigerian military-transport plane crashes shortly after taking off from Lagos, killing all 163 people on board. It is Nigeria’s worst air disaster since 1973.

German prosecutors state that the fire started Sept. 25 at the Jewish Barracks at Sachsenhausen was almost certainly an arson attack.

Iran and the United Arab Emirates break off talks on three disputed islands in the Persian Gulf.

In one of the biggest clashes of ongoing battles with PKK rebels inside Turkey, more than 200 people are killed when rebels attack an army post near the Iraqi border.

Angolans vote for a president in the country’s first-ever free elections. Preliminary tallies put the current president, Eduardo dos Santos, ahead of his nearest rival, former guerrilla leader Jonas Savimbi.

Brazil’s lower house of congress votes decisively to impeach Pres. Fernando Collor de Mello on corruption charges.

Reports state that the National Bank of Pakistan has agreed to pay $200,000 and to upgrade its record-keeping practices as settlement terms for its violation of U.S. currency-control laws designed to stem money laundering.

Ukraine’s premier, Vitold P. Fokin, resigns under pressure. . . . Romanian president Ion Iliescu leads five other candidates in presidential elections but will face a runoff. . . . Yugoslav president Dobrica Cosic agrees to a withdrawal of Yugoslav federal troops from the Prevlaka Peninsula, the last area of Croatia still occupied by Yugoslavia.

The UN suspends relief efforts in southern Sudan after Miyut Maung, a Burmese staffer for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and Helge Hummelvoll, a Norwegian reporter, are killed in rebel-occupied territory.

Guerrillas ambush and kill 13 soldiers in the highland area of Huanuco in central Peru.

In the Philippines, U.S. personnel withdraw from the U.S. naval base at Subic Bay, located 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Manila, the capital.

Reports confirm that Carlos Aldana Escalante was removed from his posts in the Cuban Communist Party.

The military government of Myanmar revokes most of the remaining martial-law decrees imposed in 1989 to suppress a prodemocracy movement. Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning leader of Myanmar’s democratic opposition, remains under house arrest, although her National League for Democracy won 80% of the legislative seats in 1990.

A Pakistani airliner crashes about 10 miles (16 km) south of Katmandu Airport in Nepal, killing all 167 passengers and crew. . . . The value of Japan’s currency rises to a post-World War II record high of 119.65 against the dollar at the close of trading in Tokyo. . . . Hu Qiaomu, 81, hard-line Chinese Marxist theorist who gained influence through 57 years with the Communist Party, dies in Beijing of unspecified causes.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 25–30, 1992—381

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Pres. Bush vetoes a bill reauthorizing for five years the federal familyplanning program, Title X of the Public Health Service Act of 1970. . . . A juvenile court judge in Orlando, Florida, rules in favor of Gregory Kingsley, 12, who wants to terminate the parental rights of his natural mother, Rachel Kingsley, so he can be adopted by his foster parents, George Russ and Lizabeth Russ. It is the first time that parental rights are rescinded as a result of legal action on the part of a minor.

The U.S. and Russia formally lift all restrictions on travel by journalists and business people visiting one country from the other, finally ending a cold war policy. . . . The Senate clears an $8.39 billion appropriation for military construction for fiscal 1993.

In their second job action in a month, members of the United Auto Workers union stage a local strike against GM. . . . Congress approves an $86.9 billion fiscal 1993 appropriations bill for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Veterans Affairs, NASA, the EPA, and other independent agencies.

Reports confirm that scientists have extracted fragments of DNA from an extinct termite embedded in amber for up to 30 million years. . . . The U.S. launches the Mars Observer, an unmanned spacecraft designed to orbit Mars and collect information about it. The nearly $1 billion mission is the U.S.’s first trip to Mars since two Viking probes touched down on the planet in the mid-1970s.

Magic Johnson resigns from the National Commission on AIDS, to which he was appointed by Pres. Bush in 1991. In a letter, Johnson writes that he and other panel members have “been increasingly frustrated by the lack of support, and even opposition, of your administration to our recommendations.”

Retired physician Jack Kevorkian, known as the “suicide doctor,” assists a fifth person to commit suicide in Michigan, which has no law against helping people to kill themselves.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Edward J. Derwinski resigns to become an adviser on ethnic issues to the campaign to reelect Pres. Bush.

Sept. 25

Sept. 26

Sept. 27

The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights announces that the University of California at Berkeley’s law school violated federal civil rights laws by giving preferential treatment to minority applicants. The school vows to change its admissions process starting with the 1993 class.

Pres. Bush vetoes a bill that would have conditioned renewal of China’s most-favored-nation (MFN) trading status on China’s accountability for and release of pro-democracy demonstrators, progress in improving human rights, the lowering of trade barriers, and adherence to curbs on nuclear and missile exports.

The Fish and Wildlife Service declares the marbled murrelet, a small seabird, as a threatened species. The total population of murrelets, which nest in coastal forests in the Pacific Northwest, has dwindled to about 9,000 in recent years.

Benjamin Spock, the well-known pediatrician, reverses his position on the nutritional value of cow’s milk and warns that it may harm some infants.

A GAO report that maintains there is no evidence to show Patriot missiles successfully intercepted Iraqi Scud missiles in more than 9% of their engagements during the Persian Gulf war is made public. . . . The navy discloses the July crash of a prototype of the Osprey troop transport was caused by an engine fire set off by an unexplained leak of fuel and transmission fluid.

Members of the United Auto Workers union end the strike started Sept. 25 when they ratify an agreement with GM. . . . The Senate approves, 70-29, a wide-ranging tax bill that includes incentives for businesses to operate in poor areas.

Reports indicate that U.S. schoolchildren finished second among nine-year-olds and ninth among 14-year-olds in a 31-nation study comparing basic reading skills. . . . In Austin, Texas, a grand jury does not indict Joel Rene Valdez on charges of raping a woman who asked him to wear a condom after he threatened her at knifepoint. The refusal sparks protests. . . . The House by voice vote approves the Senate version of a bill providing for the release of thousands of pages of government documents on the 1963 assassination of Pres. Kennedy.

The House votes, 345-74, to override the president’s Sept. 28 veto of a bill that conditions renewal of China’s most-favored-nation (MFN) trading status.

The Senate clears a bill banning the importation of 11 endangered species of exotic birds in demand on the U.S. pet market. . . . Congress clears a $12.15 billion appropriations bill for the Interior Department and related agencies. . . . Congress passes a stopgap spending bill . . . The House sustains Pres. Bush’s Sept. 22 veto that the Senate overrode Sept. 24. . . . Pres. Bush vetoes the fiscal 1993 spending bill for the District of Columbia because it fails to include language prohibiting the use of funds to provide abortions for poor women. Congress alters the bill to include the prohibition, which is then passed.

William Douglas-Home, 80, prolific English playwright known for his light comedies who was jailed for a year after refusing orders to take part in the bombardment of Le Havre, France, dies in Hampshire, England, of a heart attack.

W(illiam) Henry Sebrell Jr., 91, pioneer nutrition and vitamin researcher who was director of the National Institutes of Health, 1950–55, and who won the Goldberger Medal of the American Medical Association, dies in Pompano Beach, Florida, of cancer.

Earvin (Magic) Johnson, who retired in 1991 after being diagnosed with the virus that caused AIDS, announces that he will return to play for the Los Angeles Lakers for the 1992–93 season.

Sept. 28

Sept. 29

Sept. 30

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

382—October 1–5, 1992

World Affairs

Oct. 1

Oct. 2

The UN Security Council passes a resolution that will allow UN members to seize Iraqi oil assets currently frozen abroad. The impounded assets, with an estimated value of $500 million to $1 billion, will pay for UN disarmament and relief efforts in Iraq and for compensation for victims of Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Africa & the Middle East

Iraqi finance minister Ahmed Hussein Khudayer charges that the UN’s Oct. 2 seizure resolution is illegal, but he states Iraq will seek to resume negotiations with the UN on an oil-export plan.

Oct. 5

The Americas

The Bosnian government states that 14,364 people have died in fighting since April. The camp at Trnopolje releases 1,561 detainees, in compliance with peace accords. It is the first such release in Bosnia. . . . Slovakia adopts a constitution that characterizes the republic as a sovereign state. The Czechoslovak Federal Assembly rejects a proposed constitutional amendment on the dissolution of the federation negotiated by Czech premier Klaus and Slovak premier Meciar.

Reports emerges that in Sudan, Francis Ngure, a Kenyan driver for UNICEF, and Wilma Gomez, a Philippine aid worker, have been found dead. . . . Zaire’s premier, Etienne Tshisekedi wa Mulumba, fires central bank Governor Nyemba Shabani after discovering that $5 million is missing from the national reserves.

Guerrillas kill an Italian lay missionary near Huaraz, 200 miles (320 km) north of Lima.

During an annual joint naval exercise, two missiles from a U.S. aircraft carrier accidentally strike a Turkish destroyer in the Aegean Sea, killing five Turks and wounding 15 others. . . . Secessionist Abkhaz guerrillas and their allies stage a surprise offensive against Georgian forces. . . . In Italy, public-sector workers strike, and 20 people are injured in Rome at a rally of 200,000 unionists. . . . Reports indicate Serb militias are raping and deliberately impregnating captured Muslim women and teenaged girls.

In Egypt, militants fire automatic weapons at a cruise ship carrying about 150 German tourists along the Nile river. Three of the ship’s Egyptian crew members are wounded in the attack. . . . In Angola, former guerrilla leader Jonas Savimbi charges that a recent election was rigged, and he hints that he may plunge the country back into civil war.

An estimated 200 inmates die when Brazilian paramilitary police attempt to quell a prison riot at Casa de Detencao in Sao Paulo, the largest jail in South America. It is the worst prison violence in Brazil’s history. . . . In Peru, Superior Court judge Carlos Huaman, who convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment two Sendero Luminoso militants, is killed in Huaraz. . . . In Brazil, Vice Pres. Itamar Franco becomes acting president after a Sept. 29 vote against Pres. Collor, who is preparing for a Senate trial.

Georgian warplanes attack rebel positions in Gagra in the first use of air power by Georgia in the Abkhazia conflict. . . . UN relief flights to Sarajevo resume . . . . An unofficial celebration of the 50th anniversary of Germany’s development of the V-2 rocket during World War II is attended by a few hundred people after the government canceled a ceremony amid controversy. . . . Victoria Lidiard, 102, one of the last surviving British suffragettes, dies in Brighton, England.

Oct. 3

Oct. 4

Europe

Asia & the Pacific

After the prison riot on Oct. 2 in Brazil, official sources state that only eight prisoners died. However, 25 minutes before the municipal balloting ends, prison officials put the number of dead at 111.

An Israeli El Al cargo plane crashes into an apartment complex in a suburb of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, setting off a fire that ravages the crowded complex. All four people aboard the plane die instantly, and scores are killed on the ground.

Pres. Joaquim Chissano of the Mozambique government and Afonso Dhlakama, the leader of the rebel Mozambique National Resistance, widely known as Renamo, sign a peace accord to end Mozambique’s 16-year-old civil war. . . . The new Kurdish parliament votes to expel the PKK’s militants from Iraq. . . . In response to the Oct. 1 bank firing in Zaire, Pres. Mobutu Sese Seko orders troops to surround the finance ministry in Kinshasa, the capital.

A Georgian military helicopter is shot down over Abkhazia, killing two crewmen. Georgia contends that Russian forces are the culprits, further escalating tension between Russian and Georgia. . . . Estonia’s Supreme Council chooses nationalist Lennart Meri as its chairman, the equivalent of state president. . . . Reports confirm that Turkish security forces have been continuing to battle with PKK rebels inside Turkey since Apr. 26.

Political opponents of Kuwait’s ruling Sabah family win a majority of seats in the emirate’s National Assembly, as Kuwait holds its first parliamentary elections since 1985.

Cheddi Jagan defeats incumbent Pres. Desmond Hoyte to win the presidency in Guyana’s general election. Some 2,000 Hoyte supporters allege voting irregularities and demand their right to vote. After the crowd throws stones, a police riot unit opens fire, killing two people. Sporadic looting prompts Pres. Hoyte to call for the army to restore order. . . . The Canadian government charges four mine managers and the company that operated the Westray coal mine for violations in a May 9 explosion that killed 26 miners in Nova Scotia. . . . Nicaragua restores diplomatic relations with Israel.

Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, the world’s richest individual, celebrates 25 years as absolute monarch of Brunei by parading through the streets of Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital, in a 70-footlong chariot of gilded teak.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 1–5, 1992—383

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Texas billionaire Ross Perot reverses his July 16 decision and declares that he is reentering the presidential race. . . . The Senate votes, 73-26, to override Pres. Bush’s Sept. 25 veto of a bill reauthorizing for five years the federal family-planning program, Title X of the Public Health Service Act of 1970. . . . Alcee Hastings, whose impeachment conviction was overturned in September, wins a Florida Democratic primary for a House seat.

The Senate votes, 93-6, to ratify the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). . . . The Senate approves by voice vote a bill known as the Freedom Support Act, which authorizes $460 million in aid to Russia and most of the other exSoviet states. . . . The Senate upholds Pres. Bush’s Sept. 28 veto of a bill that would have conditioned renewal of China’s most-favored-nation (MFN) trading status that the House overrode on Sept. 30.

Congress approves several appropriations for fiscal 1993, including a $22.56 billion bill for the Treasury and the Postal Service, a $13.2 billion bill for the Department of Transportation, and a $23 billion bill for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State and the federal judiciary. . . . A Senate report charges that banking officials and regulators worldwide failed to take action against the BCCI, despite their knowledge of the bank’s illegal transactions and bribery.

Scientists release the first two maps of human chromosomes, as part of the Human Genome Project. . . . A study shows that pregnant women who use cocaine risk confusing the biological clock of their fetus. . . . Data indicates that prolonged exposure to nitrous oxide, an anesthetic also known as laughing gas, decreases a woman’s ability to get pregnant by 59% in a given month.

At an auction of the property of author Alex Haley, who died of a heart attack in February, the original manuscript for Haley’s book Autobiography of Malcolm X (1964) is purchased for $100,000 by a lawyer representing singer Anita Baker.

A Senate report that is made public accuses the director of the federal prison system, J. Michael Quinlan, of ordering a prisoner into solitary confinement four days before the 1988 presidential election in order to prevent him from telling reporters his uncorroborated claim that he sold Vice Pres. Dan Quayle marijuana. . . . The House upholds Pres. Bush’s Sept. 25 veto of a bill reauthorizing for five years the federal family-planning program, Title X of the Public Health Service Act of 1970, which the Senate overrode Oct. 1.

The House passes a bill that will allow Latin American and Caribbean countries to take part in “debt-for-nature” swaps with the U.S. Commodity Credit Corp. (CCC).

Pres. Bush signs a $22 billion appropriations bill for energy, water, and nuclear-defense programs. . . . Congress approves a conference report on the fiscal 1993 intelligence authorization bill. . . . The House approves by voice vote a measure designed to improve oversight and supervision of futures trading.

Scientists claim they have found a link between a gene and the most common form of high blood pressure, known as “essential” hypertension.

The House passes the so-called deadbeat parents bill, which makes it a federal crime for noncustodial parents living in another state to avoid paying child support. . . . The campaigns of Pres. Bush and Democratic presidential nominee Gov. Bill Clinton (Ark.) announce that they have reached an agreement on presidential debates.

Congress clears the bill that overturns a ban on abortions in overseas military medical facilities. . . . The House votes, 232-164, to clear the Freedom Support Act, passed by the Senate Oct. 1. . . . The House approves a $274 billion defense authorization for fiscal 1993.

The House passes, 335-75, a conference bill that will expand and reauthorize, through fiscal 2000, federal Indian health-care programs. . . . Congress clears a $245.7 billion appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services.

Ernest Volwiler, 99, medicinal chemist who pioneered work in anesthetics in the 1930s and who won the 1958 Priestley Medal, the American Chemical Society’s highest honor, dies in Lake Forest, Illinois.

Pres. Bush vetoes the cable-television reregulation bill. . . . Alex Haley’s Roots fetches $50,000 from George Jewett at auction. . . . Irish rock ringer Sinead O’Connor, the musical guest on Saturday Night Live, creates controversy when she tears up a photograph of Pope John Paul II.

The House passes a bill that will halt U.S. imports of fish and fishing equipment from countries that allow their commercial fishing vessels to use “drift nets.”

The House approves a measure designed to attract more people into the farming industry by easing loan restrictions from the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA). . . . The House passes, 253-143, a $2.3 billion appropriations bill for the legislative branch. . . . The House passes a bill that will regulate more tightly payments from farm-credit banks that are earmarked for retiring the debt incurred from the 1987 federal bailout.

Zoltan L. Bay, 92, Hungarian-born physicist who pioneered radar astronomy and whose efforts led to new measurements of the speed of light and a new international standard for a combined measurement of time and length, dies in Chevy Chase, Maryland, of emphysema.

Denis Hulme, 56, New Zealander who won the 1967 Formula One World Championship of auto racing, dies in Bathurst, Australia, of a heart attack during an automobile endurance race.

The House, 332-44, reauthorizes for five years the Export-Import Bank, a federal agency that encourages buyers in foreign countries to purchase U.S.-made goods. . . . Congress clears a foreign-aid appropriation for fiscal 1993. . . . The Senate passes a $274 billion defense authorization for fiscal 1993. . . . Congress passes a $253.8 billion defense appropriation for fiscal 1993. . . . A federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, rules that the Virginia Military Institute, a 153-year-old statesupported college, does not have to admit women. The three-judge panel argues that coeducation will ruin the unique character of the school and rules that, under the Constitution’s equal-protection clause, the state must set up an equivalent program for women.

The House passes a measure reauthorizing the Overseas Private Investment Corp. (OPIC). . . . The House passes the bill banning the importation of 11 endangered species. . . . The Senate passes a bill that will amend the 1980 “Superfund” law to allow the government to sell uncontaminated portions of closed military bases that contain hazardous waste sites. . . . The House passes, 363-60, a compromise energy bill that is the first major revision of energy legislation since the oil crisis in the 1970s. . . . The Senate, 68-30, passes a $2.3 billion appropriations bill for the legislative branch. . . . The House passes, 377-37, a bill to reauthorize federal housing programs over the fiscal years 1993 and 1994. . . . Pres. Bush signs a $12.15 billion appropriations bill for the Interior Department and related agencies. . . . Pres. Bush signs a $688 million appropriations bill for the operations of the District of Columbia. . . . USAir machinists strike after two years of negotiations for a new contract.

The Senate passes a bill that will exact civil penalties from makers of infant formula who drive up costs for the Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC). . . . House members approve legislation on carjacking. . . . The Supreme Court opens its 1992–93 term with a docket of 87 cases.

Oct. 1

Oct. 2

Congress votes to override Pres. Bush’s Oct. 3 veto of the controversial cable-television reregulation bill. The override marks the first time, after 35 unsuccessful attempts, that Congress has overturned a Bush veto since the president took office. . . . Eddie Kendricks, 52, tenor for the Temptations whose first number-one hit was “My Girl” (1965), dies in Birmingham, Alabama, of lung cancer. . . . Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillan tops the bestseller list.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 3

Oct. 4

Oct. 5

384—October 6–10, 1992

Oct. 6

Oct. 7

Oct. 8

Oct. 9

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

Amid widespread reports and allegations of atrocities in Bosnia, the UN Security Council unanimously votes to create a war-crimes commission for Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Georgian soldiers abandon their last strongholds north of the Abkhazian capital. The rebels halt about three miles (five kilometers) north of Sukhumi, where Georgian forces establish a defensive line. . . . Serb forces capture the Bosnian town of Bosanski Brod.

With roughly 86% of the ballots counted in Angola, unofficial election results give 51.2% of the vote to dos Santos and 39% to Savimbi, so runoffs appear likely. Tensions heighten when UNITA withdraws its soldiers from the FAA, formed Sept. 27. . . . In Nigeria, the military government suspends political activity amid charges that the September primaries were fraudulent. . . . In response to the Oct. 4 decision by the Kurdish parliament to expel PKK militants, Iraqi Kurdish fighters launch their drive.

For the third time in just over a year, a state governor from Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) steps down in Michoacan in the face of continued allegations of electoral fraud. State legislators of the PRI name Ausencio Chavez as interim governor. . . . Revised reports place the death toll from the prison riots in Brazil Oct. 2 at about 200.

Trade representatives from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico initial the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement at a ceremony in San Antonio, Texas, thereby granting preliminary approval to the trade pact.

Romania and Moldova agree to establish a joint committee to coordinate relations between their respective national parliaments.

Demonstrations in support of the prisoners arrested for their links to the Palestinian intifada lead to clashes with Israeli police and soldiers.

A Peruvian military court convicts Abimael Guzman Reynoso of high treason and hands down the maximum sentence of life imprisonment for leading Sendero Luminoso guerrillas in their 12-year-old war. Ten other alleged Sendero Luminoso leaders are sentenced to life prison terms by three military courts. Sendero Luminoso militants mark the sentences by setting off several bombs in Lima that kill two police officers and three airmen.

The Thai House of Representatives unanimously votes to revoke the amnesty to attackers in the May crackdown in which scores of people were killed or wounded. . . . South Korean president Roh Tae Woo appoints a new premier, Hyung Soong Jong.

The UN Security Council decides to send a fact-finding team to Georgia and calls for all sides to honor the September 3 truce.

Estonia’s new president, Lennart Meri, picks Mart Laar of the Pro Patria Party to succeed Tiit Vahi as premier. . . . Willy Brandt (born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm), 78, former West German chancellor, 1969–74, who won the 1971 Nobel Peace Prize for seeking better East-West relations, dies in Unkel, Germany, after suffering from intestinal cancer. . . . Forty-nine badly burned bodies have been recovered from a plane crash into an apartment complex in the Netherlands on Oct. 4.

Clinton Hall, a U.S. munitions expert, is seized at gunpoint by Iraqi troops.

The United Nations Security Council votes to ban all flights by military aircraft over Bosnia-Herzegovina, which, in effect, creates a Bosnian “no-fly zone.”. . . The Canadian government issues a statement characterizing the U.S. law called the Cuban Democracy Act, which bars foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies from trading with Cuba, as a violation of principles of national sovereignty and orders U.S.-owned companies to ignore it.

Ministers from Germany’s 16 states meet in Bonn but fail to reach agreement on a plan to curb antiforeigner violence. . . . Analyses suggest that Polish economic data for the first six months of 1992 shows signs of an economic recovery.

Cheddi Jagan is sworn in as president of Guyana. . . . Reports indicate that Amnesty International has complained that the Guzman trial in Peru did not meet minimum dueprocess standards. . . . Reports confirm that Guatemalan refugees and the government reached an agreement that allows the refugees to return to Guatemala after a 10year exile in Mexico.

China averts a possible trade war with the U.S. by agreeing to lower trade barriers that restricted U.S. exports to China, a pact which concludes year-long trade negotiations.

Serb planes attack Gradacac, killing at least 19 people and wounding more than 30 others. A UN peacekeeper from Ukraine die and three others are badly wounded when their armored personnel carrier strikes a land mine near Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital.

Oct. 10

Iraq releases Clinton Hall, a U.S. munitions expert seized Oct. 8 in the demilitarized zone along the Kuwait-Iraq border.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

About 50 guerrillas kill 44 people in the village of Huayao in La Mar Province, about 240 miles (400 km) southeast of Lima. Suspected guerrillas fire three rocket-propelled grenades at the U.S. ambassador’s residence near central Lima. The rockets fall short of their apparent target, and the attackers engage security forces in a gun battle before fleeing.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 6–10, 1992—385

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The House passes a bill that will exact civil penalties if costs are driven up for WIC, which the Senate cleared Oct. 5. . . . The House passes a compromise bill that will regulate and prevent fraud in the fast-growing “900”-number payper-call telephone industry. . . . The House passes a bill that will prohibit the manufacture or importation of radio scanners that enable the user to eavesdrop on users of cellular phones. . . . The House approves a bill that will provide federal malpractice insurance to doctors and other health-care workers employed at federally funded community health centers. . . . Presidential candidate H. Ross Perot appears in a 30-minute advertisement in which he explains his opinions on the U.S. economy. . . . The House passes a bill that will allow the FDA to charge pharmaceutical companies for the new drugs it reviews for safety.

The House approves by voice vote a measure that will exempt drug sales to the Department of Veterans Affairs from a rule requiring drug makers to charge their lowest prices to Medicaid. . . . Pres. Bush signs the $253.8 billion defense appropriation for fiscal 1993.

The House passes a bill amending the 1980 “Superfund” that the Senate passed Oct. 5. . . . The House passes a bill to authorize the commencement of testing at the New Mexico Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), an Energy Department storage site for defense-related nuclear waste. . . . Pres. Bush signs a number of appropriations recently passed by Congress, including an $86.9 billion fiscal 1993 bill for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Veterans Affairs, NASA, and the EPA; a $22.56 billion fiscal 1993 bill for the Treasury Department, the Postal Service, and day-to-day government operations; a $13.2 billion bill for the Department of Transportation and related agencies; a $2.3 billion bill for the legislative branch; a $245.7 billion bill for the Departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services; and a $23 billion bill for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State and the federal judiciary.

China sends into orbit a Swedish satellite called Freja. The probe is carried aloft by a Chinese Long March 2-C rocket launched from Jiuquan in the Gobi Desert and contains instruments from Sweden, Canada, Germany, and France.

Denholm Elliott, 70, British character actor who won several awards for his roles in Trading Places (1983) and A Private Function (1984), dies in Ibiza, Spain, of AIDS-related tuberculosis.

The Senate gives final congressional approval to a bill that will ban most states from instituting legalized gambling. . . . The Senate passes the bill about radio scanners that the House cleared Oct. 6. . . . The Senate passes the bill regarding the”900”-number payper-call telephone industry passed by the House Oct. 6. . . . The Senate passes the deadbeat parents bill that was passed by the House Oct. 3. . . . The Senate approves a bill regarding FDA charges that was passed by the House Oct. 6.

The Senate passes by voice vote a bill that will allow Latin American and Caribbean countries to take part in “debt-for-nature” swaps with the U.S. Commodity Credit Corp. (CCC).

The Senate ratifies by voice vote a treaty that seeks to limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse gases” believed to cause global warming. The pact was signed by Pres. Bush at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. . . . The Senate approves by voice vote a bill that will expand and reauthorize, through fiscal 2000, federal Indian health-care programs. . . . The Senate passes the bill regarding farm-credit banks passed by the House Oct. 4.

A study shows that the partially hydrogenated oils in margarine and vegetable shortening may cause heart disease.

Allan Bloom, 62, professor who gained notoriety for his 1987 book The Closing of the American Mind, dies in Chicago of peptic ulcer bleeding complicated by liver failure. . . . The Senate passes a bill that will compensate individuals and companies in the music industry that suffer from home taping on digital audio equipment.

The Senate passes a bill that will provide federal malpractice insurance to doctors and other healthcare workers at federally funded community health centers. . . . Legislation that makes carjacking a federal offense is cleared by the Senate.

CIA officials tell a congressional panel that they deliberately withheld key information from government prosecutors investigating a $5 billion BNL bank fraud case involving illegal loans to Iraq, touching off a politically charged dispute. . . . The Senate passes a measure that exempts drug sales to the Department of Veterans Affairs from a Medicaid rule. . . . The Senate reauthorizes the Export-Import Bank for five years.

The Senate passes several measures cleared by the House in October, including a bill to reauthorize the OPIC, a bill regarding FmHA, a bill regarding the supervision of futures trading, a bill to authorize the WIPP, a bill to reauthorize federal housing programs, and energy legislation. . . . Congress passes a $2.4 billion omnibus water bill that will encourage the diversion of federal water resources in California away from agriculture. . . . Congress approves a tax and urban-aid bill.

A Scottish study finds that the French-made abortion pill RU-486 (mifepristone) may also be used as a “morning-after” contraceptive by women who have had unprotected intercourse.

The Swedish Academy of Letters awards the Literature Prize to West Indian poet and playwright Derek Walcott. He is the first Caribbean writer to receive the honor.

Presidential candidate Ross Perot gives a paid 30-minute speech on TV. . . . Vittorio Amuso, the reputed head of the Lucchese crime family, is sentenced to life in prison without parole after his June conviction on 54 charges. . . . The AIDS quilt, made up of more than 20,000 panels, is on display in its entirety for the first time since 1989 in Washington, D.C. The quilt has 1,920 panels, each of which represents a person who died from AIDS, in 1987. . . . A jury in Concord, N.H., convicts a former drama teacher at Phillips Exeter Academy, Larry Lane Bateman, of possession and distribution of child pornography. The Census Bureau is sued by the cities of San Francisco and Baltimore, 15 homeless advocacy groups, seven homeless people, and four other individuals. The plaintiffs claim that the bureau deliberately undercounted the homeless when it conducted an overnight count as part of the 1990 Census.

Scientists state that a column of mineral deposits drilled out of land in Nevada indicate that the ice ages did not occur at regular intervals, challenging long-accepted explanations.

Oct. 6

Oct. 7

Oct. 8

Oct. 9

In the wake of Oct. 8 statements by some of its officials, the CIA forcefully denies that any information about the BNL case was deliberately withheld to mislead U.S. prosecutors.

Oct. 10

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

386—October 11–16, 1992

World Affairs

Oct. 13

Oct. 14

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific The military government of Myanmar announces that it is returning the sawmills nationalized some 20 years earlier to private ownership.

Reports show an Israeli settler was stabbed to death, three Palestinians were killed, and hundreds more were wounded in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since Oct. 7 due to protests over the treatment of prisoners. The prisoners, who started a fast Sept. 27, suspend their action after Israeli police minister Moshe Shahal agrees to investigate their charges. . . . Paul Biya holds onto office in Cameroon’s first multiparty presidential elections.

Suspected Sendero Luminoso guerrillas kill eight people in highland areas of Peru. . . . In Canada, the province of Quebec publicly releases the long-awaited text of the Charlottetown accord, which includes a provision recognizing Quebec as a “distinct society.”

Trade representatives from the U.S. and the European Community end talks regarding the Uruguay Round of international trade negotiations under the auspices of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The talks fail to break an enduring deadlock over agricultural subsidies.

In Georgia, secessionist Abkhaz guerrillas and their allies hold the entire region north of Sukhumi, the capital.

A strong earthquake wreaks havoc in and around the Egyptian capital, Cairo. The quake measures 5.9 on the Richter scale and has an epicenter 20 miles (30 km) southwest of Cairo. King Fahd of Saudi Arabia orders $50 million in aid to be sent immediately to Egypt for disaster assistance. . . . Sheik Jabir alAhmad Al Sabah, Kuwait’s emir, reappoints Prince Saad as premier.

Ulysses Guimaraes, 76, veteran Brazilian congressman often called the “grandfather” of Brazil’s democracy, drowns when a helicopter carrying him falls into the South Atlantic 100 miles (160 km) south of Rio de Janeiro. His wife Ida de Almeida Guimaraes, former cabinet minister Severo Gomes, and Gomes’s spouse Henriqueta Gomes, are also killed in the crash.

The UN Security Council unanimously passes a resolution setting a deadline of November 15 for the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia to comply with the second stage of the peace process, under which they are to disarm.

Ukraine’s parliament confirms Leonid Kuchma as premier. Outside of parliament, hundreds of police clash with student protesters. . . . Italy’s three leading trade union federations hold general strike to protest welfare cuts. An estimated 6–10 million workers join the action.

Officials place the known death toll from the Oct. 12 earthquake in Egypt at 450 and the number of injuries at 4,000. Reports suggest that Kuwait has sent $20 million in aid and relief supplies, and Israel has offered help.

Russian president Yeltsin releases formerly top-secret data relating to the September 1983 shooting down of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 by a Soviet warplane. All 269 people aboard the plane were killed, and the incident reignites U.S.Soviet cold war tensions. The data tends to contradict Moscow’s previous claim that the South Korean jet entered Soviet airspace as part of a Western intelligence plot.

A judge in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, convicts Andrei Chikatilo of the sex murders of 21 boys, 14 girls, and 17 women. Some press accounts describe Chikatilo as the worst serial killer in history. . . . The Russian government releases a batch of secret documents showing that former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin personally ordered the massacre of more than 20,000 Polish prisoners in March 1940. The prisoners included more than 4,000 Polish military officers whose remains were found in the Katyn Forest of Byelorussia (now Belarus).

In Israel, a hunger striker, Hussein Obeidat, dies in prison of a heart attack, reigniting protests.

Peru’s Supreme Council of Military Justice upholds a military appeals court’s decision to ratify the treason conviction and life sentence of Abimael Guzmán Reynoso, the imprisoned founder and leader of the guerrilla movement Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path).

The Polish Sejm approves legislation to end the government’s monopoly on radio and TV broadcasting. . . . Lithuania shuts down its only nuclear-power plant because of a leak of radioactive steam. The government insists that the leak will not harm residents or the environment. . . . In Russia, Andrei Chikatilo, described as the worst serial killer in history, is sentenced to death. . . . Robert Gates, director of the U.S. CIA, makes an unprecedented visit to Russia.

An initial group of 25 UN truce observers arrive in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique.

Luis Carlos Aguilar Gallego surrenders; he is the seventh of nine leaders of the Medellín drug cartel who escaped from prison with Pablo Escobar Gaviria, to do so. . . . Officials announce that Honduras and El Salvador have agreed to build a railroad across the Central American isthmus that will compete with the Panama Canal.

Oct. 15

Oct. 16

Africa & the Middle East

State Council chairman Eduard Shevardnadze is chosen speaker of parliament, the equivalent of president, in Georgia’s first postSoviet parliamentary elections.

Oct. 11

Oct. 12

Europe

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awards the Peace Prize to Rigoberta Menchu, a Guatemalan Quiche Indian who spent more than a decade decrying the abuses against indigenous people and victims of government oppression. The committee’s announcement states that the award to an indigenous Central American is intended in part to coincide with the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s first trip to the New World.

Nigerian president Ibrahim Babangida voids the results of presidential primaries held in September and dissolves the leadership of the country’s two political parties.

In Japan, Shin Kanemaru resigns his seat in the lower house of the Diet after weeks of public outcry protesting the lenient treatment he received once he confessed to accepting illegal contributions to his party, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

India’s Supreme Court clears the way for compensation payments for the 1984 Union Carbide leak when it approves the transfer of $470 million, the settlement paid by U.S.-based Union Carbide Corp., to an Indian welfare commissioner for disbursement to victims of the disaster, in which 4,000 people were killed and 20,000 injured.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 11–16, 1992—387

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

President Bush, Democratic presidential nominee Governor Bill Clinton (Ark.) and independent presidential candidate Ross Perot meet for the first of a series of three planned presidential debates. None of the candidates commit any gaffes or strike any major blows in the rigidly structured 90-minute debate.

USAir machinists end the strike that began Oct. 5.

Susan Fowler, 26, who is dying of autoimmune hepatitis, becomes the first human to receive a pig’s liver during an operation in Los Angeles.

More than 100 people demonstrate in front of the Travis County Courthouse in Austin, Texas, to protest the grand jury’s Sept. 30 decision not to indict accused rapist Joel Rene Valdez, who was asked to wear a condom while attacking a woman at knifepoint.

A study finds that workers in U.S. service industries are considerably more productive than their counterparts in Europe and Japan.

Susan Fowler, 26, who received a pig’s liver Oct. 11, dies of acute liver failure. . . . The Karolinska Institute for Medicine awards the Physiology or Medicine Prize to two U.S. biochemists, Edmond Fischer and Edwin Krebs. . . . Daniel Horn, 76, antismoking advocate and assistant director of statistical research at the American Cancer Society, dies in Flemington, New Jersey, of a heart attack. . . . NASA begins a systematic search for signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life in an investigation, the High Resolution Microwave Survey.

The three major vice-presidential candidates—Republican vice president Dan Quayle, Democratic senator Al Gore (Tenn.), and independent candidate retired Admiral James B. Stockdale—debate one another. . . . A seven-year-old boy is shot dead by a sniper’s bullet while walking to school with his mother from the Cabrini-Green public housing project in Chicago, Illinois. The case draws national attention.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science to Gary S. Becker, a conservative University of Chicago professor and Business Week magazine columnist.

Donald Coleman is convicted of tossing a molotov cocktail that burned down a 7-Eleven convenience store in South-Central Los Angeles April 30 during riots sparked by the Rodney King case. He is the first suspect convicted of actions taken during the riots.

Two Americans who were hostages in Lebanon sue Iran for $600 million in damages. The plaintiffs, Joseph Cicippio and David Jacobsen, charge that Iran kidnapped U.S. citizens in order to gain the release of Iranian assets frozen by the U.S. after the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, thus engaging in “commercial terrorism for profit.”

A State Supreme Court finds Robert E. Ray guilty of second-degree manslaughter in an August 1991 subway crash in Manhattan, in which five passengers were killed. . . . Donald Coleman, convicted in Los Angeles Oct. 14, is sentenced to 19 years and eight months in prison. . . . Data shows Pres. Bush has vetoed 36 pieces of legislation. . . . The National Academy of Sciences finds that infectious diseases are reemerging as a major killer.

A satellite photo taken in January 1988 which shows the giant letters “USA” gouged in a rice paddy along with what appears to be a giant letter “K,” a distress code used by downed U.S. airmen during the Vietnam War, is the center of discussion at two days of hearings of the Senate Select Committee on POW-MIA Affairs.

Chicago police arrest Anthony Garrett and charge him with the murder of a seven-year-old boy, Dantrell Davis, on Oct. 13. Police state that Garrett confessed to mistakenly shooting the boy while firing a rifle from a 10th-floor window at members of a rival street gang. . . . Presidential candidate H. Ross Perot appears in a 30-minute advertisement.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Oct. 11

Pope John Paul II, speaking in the Dominican Republic on the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the New World, lauds the spread of Catholicism to the Americas but admits that abuses occurred.

The Booker Prize is won by English author Barry Unsworth and by Sri Lankan-born Canadian author Michael Ondaatje. . . . Hughes Rudd, 71, former TV correspondent who won a Peabody Award in 1977, dies in Toulouse, France, after suffering an aneurysm of the aorta in August.

The Royal Swedish Academy awards the Chemistry Prize to Rudolph A. Marcus of the California Institute of Technology, and it bestows the Physics Prize to Georges Charpak, a Polish-born French citizen who works at CERN. . . . A scientific survey of 1,030 pairs of female twins concludes that genetic factors are more influential than social factors in determining whether a woman becomes an alcoholic.

The SEC unanimously approves a set of reforms designed to force fuller disclosure of executive pay and increase stockholders’ influence in the operation of U.S. corporations. . . . Officials state that Social Security payments will increase in 1993 by 3% to adjust for inflation, The cost-of-living adjustment, the smallest in six years, brings the monthly Social Security payment for the average retired worker to $653.

The International Astronomical Union warns that there is a one in 10,000 chance that the comet Swift-Tuttle will collide with Earth on August 14, 2126. . . . A study finds a variation on a particular gene seems to increase a man’s chances of having heart attacks by nearly one-third. . . . A study finds that people who drink as little as 2.5 cups of coffee a day are susceptible to symptoms of caffeine withdrawal.

Attorney General William Barr names retired federal Judge Frederick Lacey as a special prosecutor to probe allegations that the Bush administration mishandled a $5 billion bank fraud case involving loans to Iraq by the Atlanta branch of Italy’s Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL).

Oct. 12

Oct. 13

Oct. 14

In baseball, the Atlanta Braves win the National League Championship Series. The Toronto Blue Jays win the American League Championship Series.

Shirley Booth (born Thelma Booth Ford), 94, highly acclaimed actress whose awards include a Tony, an Oscar, and Emmys, dies in Chatham, Massachusetts, after a brief illness. . . . At a tribute concert to Bob Dylan at Madison Square Garden, Irish rock singer Sinead O’Connor is booed off stage for her Oct. 3 actions on Saturday Night Live.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 15

Oct. 16

388—October 17–22, 1992

World Affairs

Europe

Hundreds of police are deployed in Cairo when demonstrators criticizing the government’s slow response to the Oct. 12 earthquake start to riot. The quake killed 550 people and destroyed 5,000 homes, many of which are in low-income areas. . . . Final results from Angola’s elections show that Pres. Jose Eduardo dos Santos is the victor. However, he failed to win a majority of votes and so faces a runoff against UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi.

Oct. 17

Oct. 20

Oct. 21

Oct. 22

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Peru, antiterrorist police arrest Sendero Luminoso guerrillas, including Oscar Alberto Ramírez Durand, who is thought to be the highest-ranking leader to have previously evaded captivity; Marta Huatay, who is charged with directing Sendero Luminoso activities in Lima; and Juan Carlos Portilla Flores, the son of Assistant Attorney General Victor Portilla.

After Robert Gates, director of the U.S. CIA, departs from Moscow, the U.S. embassy in the city announces that the talks discussed “the possibility of contact and joint activity between the Russian and American intelligence services” in such fields as the fight against nuclear proliferation, terrorism, drug smuggling and organized crime. . . . Serbian police take over the Yugoslav interior ministry building, apparently on the orders of Serbian president Milosevic.

Reports indicate that violence has surged in Israel after the Oct. 14 death of a hunger striker, Hussein Obeidat. Since then, two Jews have been killed in separate attacks in Israel, and at least 12 more Palestinians died when Israeli troops fired on protesters. . . . A delegation led by Abdul Wahab Darawshe, an Israeli Arab MP, meets with PLO chairman Yasser Arafat and other PLO members in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia. The meeting calls attention to an Israeli law that forbids contact with the PLO.

EC finance ministers reach a formal agreement to harmonize national rates of value-added taxes (VATs) and excise taxes. . . . The EC releases $432 million in food-aid credit to Russia, part of an aid package promised in 1991.

A grenade attack on a Moscow police station injures eight people. . . . Russian president Yeltsin signs a decree extending his country’s ban on nuclear weapons testing through July 1993. . . . Yugoslav president Cosic and Croatian president Tudjman meet in Geneva and sign an accord stating their countries’ opposition to “ethnic cleansing” and support for the humane treatment of refugees. . . . The federal government protests the Oct. 18 Serbian seizure of the Yugoslav interior ministry as illegal.

African National Congress president Nelson Mandela acknowledges that prisoners in the ANC’s military camps were tortured during the 1980s and early 1990s. Mandela promises to set up an independent panel to recommend punishments for those persons responsible, some of whom hold senior positions in the ANC security department. . . . Reports estimate that 1.5 million Kurds will risk death from cold or starvation if relief efforts are not stepped up.

The British government issues an official statement characterizing the U.S. law called the Cuban Democracy Act, which bars foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies from trading with Cuba, as a violation of principles of national sovereignty and orders U.S.-owned companies to ignore it.

Authorities restart reactor No. 3 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which shares a building with the reactor that exploded in 1986. . . . A member of the newly formed Royal Irish Regiment, Robert Irvine, is killed by IRA gunmen. He is the first killed in the three-month-old regiment, formed as a successor to the Ulster Defense Regiment. . . . Poland announces that it will equip its border guards with radiation detectors to curb the smuggling of nuclear materials from the ex-Soviet states.

Rebels led by Charles Taylor, whose army controls most of Liberia, along with members of a rival rebel movement, the Independent National Patriotic Front, who joined Taylor’s side, capture Prince Yormie Johnson’s base at Caldwell Camp near the capital. Johnson escapes and surrenders to ECOMOG authorities. . . . Orton Chirwa, a leading dissident and Malawi’s first attorney general after independence, dies in prison.

Arab and Israeli negotiators gather in Washington, D.C., to begin their seventh round of bilateral peace talks, but the discussions are hampered by uncertainty over the outcome of pending U.S. presidential elections.

Parliamentary guards engage in a shoot-out with Moscow police.

Rebels led by Charles Taylor mount an assault on Monrovia, Liberia’s capital. The ECOMOG responds with heavy-artillery barrages against Taylor’s positions. . . . A British vacationer, Sharon Hill, is killed and two others are wounded when Egyptian Muslim extremists open fire on their tour bus near Asyut, about 240 miles (380 km) south of Cairo. She is the first Westerner to be killed in a campaign targeting Egypt’s tourists.

Reports state that the only known survivor of an alleged massacre in El Salvador in 1981, Rufina Amaya, has testified that government troops went on a rampage in the area of El Mozote, separating the men, women, and children, and killing 794 of them in turn.

According to The Wall Street Journal, an estimated 54,000 Cambodians have disarmed, or about 25% of the 200,000 men under arms in Cambodia. The UN hoped to disarm 70% by October 5.

Reports confirm the IMF approved $82 million in standby credit for Lithuania. . . . Iraq and the UN sign an agreement to permit UN relief workers and lightly armed guards to continue to aid and protect Kurdish refugees in northern Iraq displaced after the Persian Gulf war.

In Britain, Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont officially presents a report detailing the role of banking officials and regulators prior to the closure of the corrupt BCCI. Separately a public-opinion poll shows that P.M. Major has the lowest approval rating, 16%, for a British prime minister in the history of such polling.

In the midst of fighting from the Kurds, Turkey begins its multipronged incursion into Iraq. . . . In Zaire, soldiers end the siege started Oct. 4 when they permit the new central bank governor to enter the building. . . . The U.S. embassy in Monrovia evacuates 90 Americans, including all its nonessential diplomatic employees. . . . Lebanese president Elias Hrawi names Sunni Muslim businessman Rafik al-Hariri to serve as Lebanon’s premier.

Escaped Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar forfeits a chance for government leniency by not surrendering within three months of his jailbreak.

Reports indicate that the Indian government has begun offering compensation to victims of the poison-gas disaster in Bhopal in 1984, in which 4,000 people were killed and 20,000 injured.

Oct. 18

Oct. 19

Africa & the Middle East

The Communist government of North Korea approves legislation aimed at promoting foreign investment in the country. . . . An inquiry into the so-called WA Inc. scandal, which was alleged to have cost Australian taxpayers more than A$1 billion (US$720 million), criticizes three of Western Australian’s former premiers for their alleged roles in corrupt business dealings.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 17–22, 1992—389

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Presidential candidate H. Ross Perot continues his campaign of airing 30-minute prime-time commercials on the major television networks.

Oct. 17

Frederic Andrew Gibbs, 89, neurologist and top researcher on epilepsy who, in 1944, founded the U.S.’s first clinic for epilepsy and who shared a 1951 Lasker Award with William G. Lennox, dies in Northbrook, Illinois, following a stroke.

In a case that reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1990 and was sent back to Louisiana courts for reconsideration, the state’s Supreme Court rules, 5-2, that a schizophrenic prisoner, Michael Owen Perry, cannot be forced to take antipsychotic drugs that may make him sane enough to be put to death. . . . Presidential candidates hold a televised debate.

Bobby Rahal wins the CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams) PPG Indy Car World Series season title.

U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher announces that about 3,500 refugees who fled Iraq during and after the gulf war have been settled in the U.S. and that a similar number will be admitted over the next year.

The EPA finds that smog levels in the most polluted U.S. cities dropped about 8% over the 10year period ending in 1991. However, 69 million U.S. citizens still live in areas where the air fails to meet U.S. smog standards. . . Pres. Bush signs a Superfund amendment. . . . Rep. Henry Gonzalez (D, Tex.) reveals that senior Justice Department officials attempted in 1990 to prevent him from launching his independent inquiry into the BNL affair.

An earthquake registering 4.7 on the Richter scale is recorded by the U.S. Geological Survey.

It is disclosed that Vietnam has handed over to a U.S. representative about 4,800 photographs of American servicemen who were killed in action or who were held as POWs by the Vietnamese.

The EPA finds that drinking water in “high-risk” buildings in 130 U.S. metropolitan areas—about 20% of all U.S. cities—contains levels of lead that exceed federal safety limits.

In response to the Oct. 19 seismologic report, the first earthquake alert ever is issued as part of a U.S. Geological Survey earthquake-prediction experiment. The experiment, the Parkfield project established in 1985, is considered the world’s most comprehensive project of its kind. The California Office of Emergency Services warns Parkfield, California, residents within a 30-mile (50-km) radius that there is a 37% chance of quake by October 23. Parkfield is located on the San Andreas fault about 170 miles southeast of San Francisco.

Three U.S. medical foundations and two educational associations file a lawsuit against the federal government for its ban on the use of fetal tissue in medical research. . . . Jim (James C.) Garrison, 70, New Orleans, Louisiana district attorney who prosecuted Clay Shaw as a conspirator in the 1963 assassination of Pres. Kennedy, dies in New Orleans after suffering from heart disease.

On arrival in the U.S., 15 of 24 Malaysian tourists are held in Boston, Massachusetts, as witnesses in an immigrant-smuggling case against their tour guide, Chee Kheong Choong.

Pres. Bush signs the Export-Import Bank reauthorization bill.

A panel of scientists rejects a controversial hypothesis that AIDS originated from contaminated polio vaccines, a theory that has drawn much attention since it was advanced in the March 19 issue of Rolling Stone magazine. . . . The American Insurance Services Group Inc. raises its estimate of insured damage from Hurricane Andrew in late August to $10.7 billion, from $7.8 billion.

Pop singer Madonna’s controversial book Sex, which contains explicit photographs of the singer enacting sexual fantasies, is released. More than 1 million copies are shipped, establishing a publishing record for a first printing.

Presidential candidate H. Ross Perot airs a 30-minute spot in which he sketches out his life story.

In a TV interview, Pres. Bush vows that the U.S. will not extend diplomatic recognition to Vietnam until the question of U.S. MIA soldiers in Vietnam is settled and Vietnam takes steps toward democracy.

A federal judge reduces the damages owed by Charles Keating Jr. and two codefendants in the Lincoln Savings and Loan fraud case to $1.9 billion.

The U.S. space shuttle Columbia takes off Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, to deploy an Italian satellite and to test a Canadian sensor for the winged craft’s robot arm.

Cleavon Little, 53, actor who won a 1970 Tony and 1989 Emmy, dies in Sherman Oaks, California, of colon cancer. . . . Walter Lanier (Red) Barber, 84, baseball broadcaster for 33 seasons and one of the first broadcasters inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, dies in Tallahassee, Florida, of complications from surgery for an intestinal blockage.

Oct. 18

Oct. 19

Oct. 20

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 21

Oct. 22

390—October 23–27, 1992

Oct. 23

Oct. 24

World Affairs

Europe

The six-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) ends a two-day meeting with plans to implement Asia’s first integrated market, known as the ASEAN FreeTrade Area, or AFTA. . . . Hungary files a complaint with the World Court, claiming that, by diverting the flow of the Danube, Czechoslovakia has unilaterally altered the Czechoslovak-Hungarian border.

Senior military officers of the three Bosnian factions hold their first face-to-face discussions in Sarajevo. . . A Paris court convicts three French health officials on charges that they knowingly allowed blood products tainted with the AIDS virus to be used for transfusions. An estimated 1,200 French hemophiliacs have been infected with HIV since the early 1980s, and more than 250 have died from AIDS.

In spite of Hungary’s Oct. 23 filing with the World Court, Czechoslovakia begins using boulders and concrete blocks to divert water from the Danube’s main course into an artificial channel entirely within Czechoslovak territory.

In Tajikistan, loyalists to Pres. Nabiyev launch a countercoup. Acting president Akbar Shah Iskandarov appeals to Russia for military support. . . . Bosnian Croat militiamen seize the Muslim town of Prozor, killing as many as 300 people. Hundreds of Muslim residents are forced out of Prozor, about 70 miles (110 km) miles west of Sarajevo. . . . Reports indicate Serb militias gave 1,000 ethnic Croats safe passage to Croat-held territory after the people voluntarily agreed to relinquish their villages in Serbheld Bosnia.

Oct. 27

The Americas

Pope John Paul II meets with Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres at the Vatican. As the Vatican and Israel have not established formal diplomatic relations, the meeting is widely viewed as a landmark event.

Asia & the Pacific Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko tour China in the first official visit ever by a Japanese head of state to China. The visit marks the 20th anniversary of the normalization of relations between the two countries.

The Chinese government deports Shen Tong, 24, a student activist detained in September after his return to China from voluntary exile. Shen had fled to the U.S. following the crackdown on China’s prodemocracy movement in 1989.

Data shows that 14 bombs have exploded in London since the beginning of October. At least one person has died in the attacks. . . . In the first round of elections, the Democratic Labor Party, made up of reformed ex-communists, wins Lithuania’s first post-Soviet parliamentary elections. Voters also approve a Lithuanian constitution that allows for the direct election of the country’s president.

Exchanges of artillery fire between Israeli military forces and Shi’ite Muslim guerrillas escalate. . . . A Muslim fundamentalist stabs three Russian tourists in Port Said, Egypt. One is critically wounded.

The embassies of the U.S., Britain, and Australia issue travel advisories warning their nationals to avoid areas in Egypt known to be militant strongholds after a series of violence against tourists in the country.

An elaborate pageant for Queen Elizabeth II in celebration of the 40th anniversary of her accession to the British throne is held in the Earls Court Arena in London. . . . Nearly 1,000 steel workers arrive in Madrid after a 250-mile (400-km) march from northern Spain. The workers protest plans to cut 9,700 jobs over six years at Spain’s two major steel plants. . . . Shop owners and other self-employed workers protest in Rome over plans to institute a minimum tax scheme designed to crack down on widespread tax evasion among those groups.

The Iraqi Kurdish fighters report that they have captured one of the PKK’s main bases near where the borders of Iraq, Turkey, and Iran intersect.

Canadian voters resoundingly defeat the Charlottetown accord, a constitutional reform package to reconcile the conflicting interests of the country’s provinces, territories, and aboriginal peoples.

The UN General Assembly elects five countries to the 15-member Security Council to begin their twoyear terms January 1, 1993. The countries to join are Spain, New Zealand, Brazil, Djibouti, and Pakistan, and they will replace Austria, Belgium, Ecuador, Zimbabwe, and India. . . . Czechoslovakia and Hungary agree to steps that may lead to binding arbitration in the dispute over the Gabcikovo hydroelectric project and the Danube river.

Parliamentary guards station themselves at the Moscow offices of Izvestia, a newspaper parliament hoped to turn into their official organ. . . . Russian president Yeltsin issues a decree banning the National Salvation Front because it is unconstitutional and presents a “terrible danger” to Russia.

Gunboats shell Nahr al Bared, a Palestinian camp in Lebanon. Hezbollah guerrillas launch rocket attacks against Israel, which masses tanks and troops on the Israel-Lebanon border. . . . Reggie Hadebe, a senior ANC official, is shot to death after a meeting with the Inkatha Freedom Party in Natal, South Africa. The slaying comes amid the worst wave of violence in Natal since 1984, with more than 50 people murdered in the previous week alone.

Canada’s Department of National Defense announces that homosexuals will no longer be denied career advancement in the armed forces.

Oct. 25

Oct. 26

Africa & the Middle East

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 23–27, 1992—391

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Lawrence Adler is sentenced to six months in jail for lying under oath about cheating on the SAT in the first such criminal prosecution.. . . . John Sterling Gardner, 34, becomes the 27th person executed in 1991, bringing the count of those executed to its highest level since 1962. . . . Tapes of presidential candidate Bill Clinton talking with Gennifer Flowers, who claims to have had an affair with him, are released. . . . Presidential candidate Ross Perot airs a 30-minute ad.

Pres. Bush signs the Cuban Democracy Act at a ceremony in Miami. . . . Pres. Bush signs the defense authorization bill. . . . Pres. Bush states Vietnam has agreed to turn over to the U.S. all of the documents, photographs and personal effects in its possession related to U.S. personnel in the Vietnam War. . . . The retrial of Clair George, former CIA chief of covert operations, on his involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal begins.

Pres. Bush signs the endangeredbird importation ban. . . . Edward Fulton Denison, 76, economist who served for 18 years on and off as an official in the U.S. Commerce Department, dies in Washington, D.C., after suffering from heart ailments.

Despite predictions made Oct. 20, the only quakes to occur near Parkfield, California, during the warning period are small tremors measuring up to 1.2 on the Richter scale. . . . The crew of the Columbia deploys a $4 million Italian satellite. Less than an hour later, a $125 million Italian solid-fuel booster carries the satellite to an orbit 3,632 miles (5,845 km) above the Earth’s surface.

Pres. Bush signs legislation passed by the 102nd Congress, including bills about federal malpractice insurance, cancer registries, and WIC fraud. . . . A study finds that the U.S. government’s delay in requiring warning labels on aspirin led to the needless deaths of 1,470 children from Reye’s syndrome. In 1982, the government proposed legislation to force aspirin makers to print warnings about Reye’s syndrome, but the guideline was not made law until 1986.

Pres. Bush signs a bill authorizing $460 million in aid to Russia and other former Soviet republics.

President Bush signs an energy bill intended to decrease U.S. dependence on foreign oil. It includes measures to increase competition in the power industry, loosen requirements for nuclear power licenses, and increase the use of alternative-fuel automobiles.

Oct. 23

The Toronto Blue Jays win Major League Baseball’s 89th World Series. Their triumph over the Atlanta Braves in six games marks the first series victory for a team from outside the U.S.

President Bush signs legislation that makes carjacking a federal offense. He also signs a bill regarding penalties for dead-beat parents, people who do not pay child support.

Richard Pousette-Dart, 76, painter of the first generation of Abstract Expressionists, dies in New York City of complications from colon cancer. . . . Roger Miller, 56, musician who won 11 Grammys in 1965 and 1966, dies of cancer in Los Angeles.

In a letter published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, more than 230 higher-education officials, including 80 college presidents, endorse presidential candidate Bill Clinton. . . . Presidential candidate H. Ross Perot pays $940,000 to air a one-hour commercial in which he offers advice on running a successful business. . . . Metrolink, a commuter-rail network serving Los Angeles and its suburbs, carries passengers for the first time. . . . Pres. Bush signs legislation authorizing the release of documents related to the John F. Kennedy assassination. President Bush signs a bill regarding federal mammography standards. . . . A Travis County grand jury in Austin, Texas, reverses a Sept. 30 decision and indicts Joel Rene Valdez on charges of raping a woman who asked him to wear a condom after he threatened her at knifepoint. The incident sparked protests on Oct. 12. . . . Figures suggest that H. Ross Perot has spent $37 million since reentering the race Oct. 1, making his campaign the most massive political advertising effort ever.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A federal bankruptcy judge in New York City grants permission to realestate magnate Mortimer Zuckerman to purchase The New York Daily News. . . . Robert C. Stempel resigns as GM’s chief executive officer and chairman. . . The EPA issues final rules that by the year 2010 will reduce the maximum emissions of sulfur dioxide allowed to utility companies by 50%. . . . Attorney General William Barr appoints J. William Roberts as a new senior federal prosecutor to head the ongoing BNL case in Atlanta.

Scott Newhall, 78, executive editor of the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper, 1952–71, dies in Valencia, CA of pancreatitis. . . . Dottie Green, 71, catcher for the Rockford Peaches, a top team in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League depicted in the movie A League of Their Own (1992), dies, in Natick, Massachusetts, of cancer.

Pres. Bush signs a bill that forgives debt from countries if they implement policies to protect the environment.

The FCC states that it has levied $105,000 in fines against a radio station that airs Howard Stern’s syndicated morning radio program. The FCC reveals that Stern repeatedly violated a government ban on indecent material. It is the largest fine ever imposed by the FCC under its indecency rule.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 24

Oct. 25

Oct. 26

Oct. 27

392—October 28–November 2, 1992

World Affairs

Oct. 30

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Amnesty International reports that the military government of Myanmar holds over 1,500 political prisoners and has forced tens of thousands of people to serve in the military. The rights group identifies 20 “torture centers” in Myanmar, and states arbitrary executions are widespread.

Russian president Yeltsin signs a decree ordering the dissolution of the parliamentary security force. . . . Reports indicate that UN sanctions have crippled Yugoslavia’s economy and caused the layoffs of hundreds of thousands of workers. . . . Bulgarian Premier Filip Dimitrov and his entire cabinet resign after failing to win a vote of confidence in Parliament. . . . The last Russian combat troops in Poland leave for home. It the first time since World War II that Poland has no foreign combat forces on its soil.

The likelihood of an Israeli infantry raid into Lebanon diminishes after Hezbollah rocket attacks taper off. . . . A committee of members of the Israeli Knesset decides not to prosecute four legislators who met with PLO chairman Yasser Arafat and other PLO members on Oct. 18.

An elite Colombian police unit shoots to death Brance (Tyson) Muñoz Mosquera, the military commander of the Medellín drug cartel and the right-hand hit man of Pablo Escobar.

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, finds Ireland guilty of a breach of human rights for preventing Irish women from having access to information about abortion clinics in Britain.

The Italian Chamber of Deputies ratifies the Maastricht Treaty. . . . Officials confirm the original version of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between the USSR and Nazi Germany was uncovered. . . . Russian president Yeltsin suspends the pullout of Russian troops from the Baltic states because of “profound concern over the numerous infringements of rights” of the ethnic Russians in the Baltics.

Negotiators from Israel and Jordan confirm they have agreed on an agenda for discussion of the terms of a peace treaty between their countries. The agreement marks the first time that Jordan has included the words “peace treaty” in a definition of the objectives of its negotiations with Israel. . . . Mohammed Sahnoun, the UN’s relief coordinator in Somalia, resigns.

Manuel Antonio de Varona, 83, former prime minister of Cuba, 1948–50, and opponent of President Fidel Castro Ruz’s government, dies of cancer in Miami, Florida.

Turkey hosts a summit of presidents from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan to strengthen its ties with the former Soviet states.

IRA operatives force a taxi driver to take a small bomb near the residence of British prime minister John Major. The bomb detonates, but no one is injured. . . . In the first publicized case, a 14-year-old girl from Surrey, England, obtains “divorce” from her parents under the terms of the Children Act 1989, which allows children to initiate court proceedings.

Heavy fighting breaks out in Luanda, Angola’s capital, between the government and UNITA when UNITA troops try to capture Luanda’s international airport. . . . In South Africa, the 60-member President’s Council approves Pres. F. W. de Klerk’s controversial plan to grant amnesty for political crimes committed under apartheid. The move permits de Klerk to sign the measure into law even though Parliament defeated it.

Oct. 28

Oct. 29

Europe

The Roman Catholic archbishop of Monrovia confirms that five U.S. nuns were shot to death in Liberia. . . . In Angola, fighting continues as the MPLA retaliates by unleashing riot police and armed civilians (dubbed “ninjas”) in the streets. The government supporters destroy UNITA’s office at the Hotel Turismo.

Oct. 31

Nov. 1

Nov. 2

Russia dispatches 3,000 army special forces and elite police troops to North Ossetia and ChechenIngushetia after weeks of clashes in the area. . . . Presidents Izetbegovic of Bosnia and Tudjman of Croatia reaffirm cooperation in overcoming the Serbs.

In Angola, the conflict that started Oct. 30 has claimed at least 1,000 lives before the two sides establish a truce. There are reports of summary executions of UNITA personnel and kidnappings. Two unarmed UN observers were gunned down, reportedly by UNITA militants.

Russian president Yeltsin issues a decree declaring one-month states of emergency in North Ossetia and neighboring ChechenIngushetia. . . . The British Foreign Office announces that it is ending travel restrictions on Russian diplomats, journalists, and businesspeople living in Britain. The action reciprocates one made by Russia in October 1992.

Calm returns to Luanda, Angola, as the MPLA appears to have regained its hold on the city, although pockets of resistance remain. The MPLA releases 15 U.S. envoys held during the last bout of fighting. . . . Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin’s coalition government survives two no-confidence votes in the Israeli Knesset. . . . Reports state that Iran and Kazakhstan have reached agreements on oil production, transport, and finance.

Reports suggest that in prior months, Khmer Rouge guerrillas have nearly doubled the size of the territory they control, expanding into new areas in Cambodia rich in fertile land, timber, and other resources.

A criminal court judge rules that eight bodyguards of General Humberto Ortega Saavedra, the Nicaraguan army commander, will stand trial for murder and that Ortega himself will be tried for a possible cover-up in the death of 16-year-old Jean Paul Genie on October 28, 1990.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 28–November 2, 1992—393

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

President Bush signs several bills passed by Congress during its 102nd session, including legislation regarding cellular phones, eavesdropping, “900” telephone number regulation, and a sportsbased gambling ban.

Pres. Bush signs a bill that expands veterans’ home loans.

The National Governors’ Association reports that at the end of the 1992 fiscal year (June 30), the average state had a budget surplus 0.3% the size of its total budget, the lowest level in at least 15 years. . . . Pres. Bush signs several pieces of legislation, including bills about futures industry supervision, farm credits, and OPIC reauthorization. . . . Figures reveal that the federal budget deficit for fiscal 1992, which ended Sept. 30, was $290.2 billion, the highest federal deficit ever.

The FDA warns that the antihistamine Hismanal (astemizole) may cause irregular heartbeats when used in combination with the antibiotic erythromycin or the antifungal drugs ketoconazole or itraconazole.

Pres. Bush signs a bill that provides compensation after digital recording. . . . Pres. Bush is joined at rallies by actors Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The FDA approves the injectable female contraceptive Depo Provera. . . . A State Supreme Court jury in NYC acquits Lemrick Nelson, 17, of murder and manslaughter in the killing of Yankel Rosenbaum, a Hasidic Jewish scholar who was stabbed to death during riots in Brooklyn. A demonstration by more than 1,000 Hasidic protesters is marked by skirmishes between blacks and Jews.

Pres. Bush signs a bill regarding benefits for the survivors of veterans.

A group of 20 lawmakers and about 100 congressional candidates file a lawsuit seeking to overturn a law providing for annual cost-of-living adjustments for members of Congress, citing the 27th Amendment, which was ratified in May. . . . The Justice Department reports that it issued a record 161 criminal indictments for environmental crimes in the fiscal year that ended September 30.

The National Institutes of Health begins a nationwide initiative against hypertension, or high blood pressure. . . . Gov. William Donald Schaefer (D, Md.) endorses Republican presidential nominee George Bush, upsetting Democrats. . . . Data show that voter registration has increased by only 1% since 1988.

Legislation overturning a ban on abortions in overseas military medical facilities dies by a “pocket veto.” . . . Federal prosecutor Lawrence Walsh releases an excerpt from notes taken in 1986 by then-defense secretary Caspar Weinberger indicating that thenvice president Bush was aware of and supported the Reagan administration’s arms-for-hostages strategy. Bush contends he was not aware it was an actual arms-forhostages swap until Dec. 1986.

Pres. Bush signs a bill authorizing a study on the disposal of nuclear waste in New Mexico. . . . Pres. Bush signs a $2.4 billion water bill that encourages the diversion of federal water resources in California away from agriculture and toward urban uses and environmental conservation. . . . Federal banking regulators seize control of First City Bancorp. of Texas Inc.

Sen. Dave Durenberger (R, Minn.), who was served with a civil complaint alleging that he raped Joyce Rauscher 1963 while representing her in a divorce case, asserts, “With every fiber in my being I deny what this woman has charged me with.” . . . A survey of daily newspapers finds 152 endorsing Clinton, 125 endorsing Bush, and five endorsing Perot. It is the first time since 1964 that a greater number of papers have endorsed the Democratic candidate.

Dow Corning reveals that it sold silicone breast implants made in the 1980s even though their quality-control records were “faked.” . . . John Kingery, an Alzheimer’s patient who was abandoned by his daughter, Sue Gifford, at a dog-racing track in March, dies in a Kentucky nursing home in which other family members had placed him.

Oct. 29

Reports suggest that University of Chicago biologists, on a field trip to New Guinea, discovered a poisonous bird, a hooded pitohui, which has skin and feathers laced with a potent neurotoxin. While some reptiles and fish contain poisons, the phenomenon has never before been seen in a bird.

Reports state the first official statement on spousal abuse by Roman Catholic bishops proclaims the Bible does not ask women to submit to abusive husbands or to stay in abusive relationships. . . . Many religious leaders condemn a pamphlet by a conservative coalition that warns “Christians beware, to vote for Bill Clinton is to sin against God.”

Pope John Paul II concedes, in a speech before a Vatican science panel, that the Roman Catholic Church was wrong to condemn the scientist Galileo Galilei 359 years earlier for claiming that the Earth revolves around the Sun. In 1979, the pope set up a commission to study the case.

James J. Rowley, 84, head of the U.S. Secret Service, 1961–73, dies of heart failure in Leisure World, Maryland.

Pres. Bush signs legislation that bans the import of fish from countries that use drift-net fishing.

Oct. 28

Oct. 30

Oct. 31

Mandatory use of a special “clean gas” for automobiles begins in 39 urban areas with unhealthy levels of carbon-monoxide pollution in accordance with the Clean Air Act of 1990.

The U.S. space shuttle Columbia lands at Kennedy airstrip. . . . Karl W. Deutsch, 80, internationally known Czechoslovakian-born political scientist who served as the president of the American Political Science Association, 1969–70, dies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, of cancer.

Golfer Paul Azinger wins the PGA’s season-ending Championship. . . . Willie Mtolo, a black South African, wins the men’s marathon in NYC in 2:09:29. The victory is the most prominent triumph for a South African athlete in international competition since sports sanctions against the nation were lifted in 1991.

In its quarterly earnings review, The Wall Street Journal reports that the net income of 621 major corporations rose 30% in the third quarter, 18% more than the figures from the paper’s second-quarter survey. . . . An Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) study reveals that living standards in the U.S. remain the highest in the world, although standards in Germany, France, and Japan are approaching the U.S. level.

An FDA advisory panel concludes that the drug Mentane (velnacrine) should not be approved for treating Alzheimer’s disease.

The Tale of the Body Thief by Anne Rice tops the bestseller list. . . . Hal (Harold Eugene) Roach, 100, founder of Hal Roach Studios who won an honorary Academy Award in 1984, dies of pneumonia in Los Angeles, California.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 1

Nov. 2

394—November 3–8, 1992

World Affairs

Nov. 5

Nov. 6

Nov. 7

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Former Premier Georgi Atanasov, one of Bulgaria’s last communist premiers, is convicted of misusing $8,400 from a state orphans’ fund and sentenced to 10 years in prison. . . . Yugoslav premier Milan Panic narrowly survives an attempt by Serbian nationalists in Parliament to oust him from office when the upper house of Parliament defeats a no-confidence motion. . . . In their first high-level accord since the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuban and Russian officials sign pacts to renew trade between the two nations through 1993.

Nov. 3

Nov. 4

Europe

The Cambodian government asks the UN to abandon its peace process so that government forces can rearm in order to combat the Khmer Rouge. . . . Elections in Guam are postponed because of disruptions caused by Typhoon Elsie.

Results from the U.S. presidential elections draw mixed responses from various leaders around the world, including politicians from the EC, Japan, South Africa, and Iraq.

The Russian Supreme Soviet votes to ratify the 1991 U.S.-Soviet Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). . . . British prime minister Major narrowly wins a vote calling for Britain to “play a leading role in the development of the European Community,” after much debate. . . . The upper parliamentary house in Belgium ratifies the Maastricht Treaty. . . . Romanian president Ion Iliescu appoints Nicolae Vacaroiu as premier.

Voters elect military leader Jerry Rawlings to head a new civilian government in Ghana’s first presidential elections since 1979. . . . The U.S., Portugal, South Africa, Britain, and France evacuate nationals from Angola. . . . Reports suggest Iran has arrested Milton Meier on charges of corruption and espionage. Meier is the first American to be arrested by Iran on spying charges since 1986.

A military tribunal sentences six soldiers to up to eight years in prison for helping drug lord Pablo Escobar escape from prison in Colombia.

At a meeting of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, senior Russian nuclear officials tell Western experts that Russia’s notorious Chernobyl-type reactors will continue to operate indefinitely. . . . EC agriculture commissioner Ray MacSharry resigns his post as chief EC negotiator, charging European Commission president Jacques Delors with interfering with his negotiating authority.

Reports indicate that Ukraine is delaying its long-promised ratification of the first START. . . . Ireland’s coalition government collapses when P.M. Albert Reynolds loses a vote of confidence in the Dail. . . . British prime minister Major announces that ratification of the Maastricht Treaty will not be finalized in Britain until May 1993 at the earliest.

Five members of an Israeli military special-operations unit are killed and six others wounded during a training exercise at Tzelim camp. The incident, which comes after several other military accidents, provokes public anger. . . . The U.S. State Department withdraws its envoy from Burkina Faso, charging that the country is supplying arms to Charles Taylor’s forces in Liberia. In addition, the Bush administration asks Burkina Faso to cancel its plans for sending a new envoy to the U.S.

Canada’s Inuit people vote to accept a federal land-claim package that will grant them virtual control over a vast new territory in the eastern Arctic. . . . In Peru, Sendero Luminoso gunmen kill the government’s third-highest-ranking antiterrorism officer, Colonel Manuel Tumba.

Iran files a lawsuit against the U.S. at the World Court in The Hague, the Netherlands, to seek reparations for attacks on three Iranian oil platforms in the Persian Gulf by U.S. naval forces during the IranIraq war in 1987 and 1988.

Reports confirm that Germany has agreed to pay new reparations to European Jewish survivors of the Nazis in World War II. Payments may total as much as $630 million by the end of the century.

Despite worldwide opposition, a Japanese effort to ship highly toxic plutonium through international waters for use in a nuclear-energy program begins when the freighter Akatsuki Maru, slated to carry 1.7tons (1,500-kg) of plutonium, sets sail. Greenpeace has chartered two ships to track the Japanese freighter from its departure point at Cherbourg, France. French commandos seize one of the Greenpeace vessels in Cherbourg’s harbor and detain about 30 Greenpeace volunteers.

Moscow police estimate that 20,000 people have gathered outside Red Square to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution and protest Pres. Yeltsin’s reformist government. . . . Alexander Dubcek, 70, leader who spearheaded the movement to bring cultural and economic reforms to Czechoslovakia and who was mentioned as a possible candidate for the presidency of an independent Slovakia, dies in Prague from injuries suffered in a Sept. 1 automobile accident. An estimated 350,000 people, including Pres. Richard von Weizsaecker and Chancellor Helmut Kohl, join a demonstration in Berlin to protest a recent increase in right-wing violence against foreigners in Germany. However, a group of 50 anarchists pelt Pres. Richard von Weizsaecker with eggs when he tries to address the gathering.

Nov. 8

Asia & the Pacific

In Panama, Attorney General Rogelio Cruz Ríos and at least 11 other people are injured when a bomb explodes in the garage of the attorney general’s offices.

Israeli forces go back on alert after a new round of Hezbollah rocket attacks begin.

The Japanese government announces that it is resuming broad economic relations with Vietnam and is immediately extending it a 375 million loan, thereby ending Japan’s 14-year embargo of Vietnam.

Pres. Cesar Gaviria Trujillo declares a 90-day state of emergency to combat an avalanche of insurgent and drug-related terror in Colombia.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 3–8, 1992—395

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Arkansas governor Bill Clinton (D) is elected the 42nd president of the U.S., ending 12 consecutive years of Republican control of the White House. Democrats retain control of both houses of Congress and win a majority of governorships. Illinois Democrat Carol Moseley Braun becomes the first black woman ever and only the second African American since the Reconstruction era to win a Senate seat. . . . The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals invalidates the Bush administration’s ban on discussing abortion at federally funded family-planning clinics.

A presidential commission recommends that women be allowed to serve on some combat vessels but continue to be barred from piloting combat aircraft and participating in ground combat. . . . Nine of the 24 Malaysian tourists held since Oct. 21 in Boston, Massachusetts, as witnesses in an immigrant-smuggling case regarding their tour guide, Chee Kheong Choong, are freed.

Election returns on state measures, several of which have received national attention, are reported. Term limits for members of Congress pass in 14 states. Constitutional amendments to enshrine crime “victims’ bills of rights” pass in five states. Iowa rejects a measure backing equal rights for women. Measures that restrict civil-rights guarantees for homosexuals pass in Colorado but are defeated in Oregon. In Maryland, voters pass a prochoice measure, and an antiabortion proposal in Arizona is defeated

Pres. Bush signs a bill regarding veterans’ health care that was passed by Congress in its 102nd session.

Data show that Oregon voters rejected curbs on the state’s nuclear power industry, and a plan to require recyclable packing was defeated in Massachusetts. . . . Pres. Bush vetoes a tax and urban-aid bill passed by Congress Oct. 8. . . . The federal EEOC files its first lawsuit under the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990. The suit alleges AIC Security Investigations dismissed Charles Wessel when it learned he had brain cancer.

Arthur Morris Miller, who was convicted in a cross-burning case that led the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn St. Paul, Minnesota’s hate-crimes ordinance in June, pleads guilty to a federal misdemeanor charge of conspiring with others to interfere with a black family’s right of access to housing by burning crosses near the family’s home in 1990.

The last 15 of 24 Malaysian tourists held since Oct. 21 in Boston, Massachusetts, as witnesses in an immigrant-smuggling case are allowed to go home when the U.S. drops the case against their tour guide, Chee Kheong Choong. The decision to drop the charges against Choong follows widespread criticism of the government’s actions.

The EPA issues regulations that require more stringent tests for automobile pollution emissions in 181 U.S. metropolitan areas. . . . Three insurance companies disclose in a Greensboro, North Carolina, court that they will pay a $16.1 million settlement of claims stemming from a September 1991 chicken-processing plant fire that killed 25 people.

George Pape, a juror who voted to acquit organized crime boss John Gotti in March 1987, is convicted of agreeing to take a $60,000 bribe to vote for acquittal. . . . Acting Justice Fitzgerald sentences Robert Ray, convicted of manslaughter Oct. 15 in the subway crash that killed five people in August 1991, to 5–15 years in prison. . . . Presidentelect Bill Clinton names Vernon Jordan and Warren Christopher to head his transition team.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Hanya Holm (born Johanna Eckert), 99, influential German-born choreographer of modern dance and Broadway musicals, dies of pneumonia in New York City.

Nov. 3

Nov. 4

The New England Journal of Medicine publishes a study which argues that overweight teenagers face a greater danger of health problems later in their lives than slender teenagers. . . . Jan H. Oort, 92, Dutch astronomer credited with major discoveries on the movement of the Milky Way galaxy and the origin of comets, dies in Leiden, the Netherlands, of complications from a broken hip.

Bobby Fischer, former U.S. world chess champion, beats Boris Spassky in their nine-week contest, the first in public for Fischer since 1972. . . . A federal appeals court in Chicago rejects a 1991 decision by the FCC that maintains limits on TV networks’ involvement in the lucrative rerun business.

More than 150 local environmental and sanitation agencies in southern California agree to pay $45.7 million to settle federal and state charges related to a series of chemical spills that have taken place since the 1950s. The agencies are charged with allowing industries to spill toxins, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and the pesticide DDT, into local waterways.

Nov. 5

Nov. 6

New York State’s top jurist, Judge Sol Wachtler, is arrested by the FBI on charges that he blackmailed Joy Silverman, a woman who broke off an affair with him in 1991.

Jack Kelly, 65, costar of the TV series Maverick, (1957–62), dies in Huntington Beach, California, after suffering a stroke. . . . An outline for a speech given by slain civilrights leader Martin Luther King Jr. is auctioned for $35,000, despite a lawsuit filed by the King estate claiming the notes were stolen.

Timothy Ryan announces that he will resign as director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, the division of the Treasury Department overseeing the cleanup of the savings and loan industry.

Golfer Betsy King wins the LPGA’s season-ending event, the Mazda Japan Classic in Hanno.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 7

Nov. 8

396—November 9–14, 1992

Nov. 9

World Affairs

Europe

Reports indicate that the first of several Russian-made attack submarines purchased by Iran have arrived in Iranian waters, despite opposition from the U.S. and from Arab nations in the Persian Gulf region that fear Iran will use the vessels to disrupt oil shipping.

Radovan Karadzic, the leader of the ethnic Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina, maintains that the only viable means of bringing peace to the country is to formally partition Bosnia along ethnic lines. Karadzic also announces a confederation of his “Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina” with the “Serbian Republic of Krajina” in Croatia. The Croatian army, operating in the area of the Bosnian border town of Orasje, succeeds in cutting the supply corridor between Serbia and the northern Bosnian town of Bosanski Brod. . . . Russian president Boris Yeltsin makes his first official visit to Great Britain. Under popular pressure to fight the explosion in crime, Pres. Yeltsin signs a decree granting ordinary Russians a limited right to bear arms for the first time after 75 years of communist rule. . . . Sir John (Newenham) Summerson, 87, who was knighted in 1958 and awarded the Gold Medal in Architecture from the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1976, dies in London of pneumonia complicated by Parkinson’s disease and emphysema.

Nov. 10

In a high-profile trial, Laith Shubailat and Yaqoub Qarrash are convicted of plotting to overthrow Jordan’s King Hussein and are sentenced to serve 20 years in prison at hard labor.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Reports cite Colombian government authorities who state that since the Oct. 28 police killing of Brance Muñoz, the Medellín drug cartel is paying hired assassins the equivalent of $2,100 for each policeman they shoot dead in Medellín. In the first 10 days after Muñoz’s death, at least 20 Medellín policemen have been killed. . . . In Chile, Supreme Court judge Adolfo Banados files homicide charges against retired general Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda and Colonel Pedro Espinoza, who, Banados claims, directed the murder of Orlando Letelier in Washington, D.C., in 1976.

In Thailand, a special constitutional panel upholds an amnesty for generals involved in the May massacre of scores of prodemocracy demonstrators, invalidating the Thai House of Representatives’ Oct. 7 unanimous vote.

Reports confirm that two huge oilfields were discovered in Colombia’s Casanare state, centered roughly 150 miles (240 km) northeast of Bogotá. The oil fields contain an estimated 2 billion barrels of oil, making them the largest find in the Americas since the discovery of the Prudhoe Bay oil field in Alaska in 1969.

Hundreds of thousands of workers in the Australian state of Victoria obey labor union calls for a 24-hour statewide strike to protest the recently elected state government’s labor-relations policies.

Russia pulls troops out of its southern Caucasus region, after quieting fighting between two ethnic groups, the Ossetians and the Ingush. . . . Amnesty International charges that Turkey has failed to fulfill pledges to improve its human rights record. Along with continuing torture, political killings involving security forces occur “virtually daily,” according to the group.

Nov. 11

The trial of former East German communist leader Erich Honecker opens in Berlin. . . . Giulio Carlo Argan, 83, senator in the Italian Parliament, 1983–92, dies of a heart attack. . . . German defense minister Volker Ruehe states that persons discovered to be radical rightists will be expelled from the German military.

Nov. 12

Nov. 13

Africa & the Middle East

Hong Kong’s Legislative Council approves a measure supporting Gov. Chris Patten’s plan for democratic reform of the British colony’s legislature. The council’s approval is denounced by China.

King Hussein of Jordan issues a general amnesty that frees 140 political and criminal prisoners, including Laith Shubailat and Yaqoub Qarrash, who were convicted Nov. 10. . . . A South African white security guard, Sean Nicholas, is convicted of culpable homicide in the 1991 slaying of Headman Tshabalala, the lead singer of the music group Ladysmith Black Mambazo, featured on U.S. singer Paul Simon’s 1987 Graceland album.

The World Meteorological Organization, an agency of the United Nations, reports that ozone levels over Northern Europe, Russia, and Canada throughout the winter and spring of 1991–92 were 12–20% below the seasonal norm, the lowest levels ever measured in northern latitudes.

Brazil’s attorney general, Aristides Junqueira, formally indicts Pres. Collor and eight others on criminal charges of racketeering, forging documents, influence peddling, and numerous other corruptionrelated activities.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index soars to a record 6,447.

The Peruvian government claims it has foiled an attempt by a group of army officers to kill Pres. Alberto Fujimori. Fujimori discloses government troops arrested 20 suspected conspirators without firing a shot. . . . The Nova Scotia Supreme Court quashes a provincial inquiry into the Westray coal-mine explosion that killed 26 miners in May. . . . David Irving, 56, a British author who disputed generally accepted accounts of the Holocaust, is ordered deported from Canada. Police halt a truck in north London that contains a ton of explosives. Authorities believe the bomb was intended for the scheduled Lord Mayor’s Show. . . . Reports state the Czechoslovak Federal Assembly has approved legislation to divide a total of $25 billion in federal assets between the republics. . . . In response to recent violence against foreigners, 100,000 protesters march in Bonn to urge that Germany maintain liberal asylum policies.

Nov. 14

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 9–14, 1992—397

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle William Hillcourt, 92, main author of the Official Boy Scout Handbook, dies in Stockholm, Sweden. . . . Charles Fraser-Smith, 88, British inventor on whom author Ian Fleming’s character “Q” in the James Bond franchise was modeled, dies in Bratton Fleming, England, of undisclosed causes.

Democrats reelect Majority Leader George Mitchell (D, Maine), and GOP senators reelect Minority Leader Robert Dole (R, Kans.). . . . After a series of reports about improper file searches, Elizabeth Tamposi, the assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, is fired. . . . The Census Bureau reports there were 31.2 million Americans aged 65 years or over in 1989 and that, in 1990, 47% of the elderly population would be in poverty without Social Security. The poverty rate among those aged 65 or older is 12%.

The Senate Select Committee on POW-MIA Affairs opens hearings on the 8,000 American servicemen unaccounted for in the Korean War.

Bill Clinton delivers his first public address as president-elect at a Veterans Day speech in the Arkansas State House. . . . Sen. Daniel Inouye (D, Hawaii) denies accusations by nine anonymous women that he sexually harassed them.

To commemorate Veterans Day, Pres. Bush makes a surprise midnight appearance at the Vietnam Memorial near the White House.

Harry B. Cunningham, 85, discount mass-merchandising tycoon who developed and oversaw the growth of the Kmart discount department store chain, dies in North Palm Beach, Florida.

The Oregon Court of Appeals rules that a ballot measure opposing homosexual rights passed in 1988 is unconstitutional. . . . A jury in Dallas, Texas, awards the family of a convicted murderer $2.15 million after deciding that the convict, William Freeman, killed under the influence of the sleeping pill Halcion. It is the first civil trial in the U.S. involving Halcion.

Petty Officer First Class Keith Meinhold, who openly admits that he is a homosexual and was discharged from the navy for that reason, is reinstated in the service, pending a final outcome on his case after two orders by U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. of Los Angeles on Nov. 6 and Nov. 10.

The New York Mercantile Exchange agrees to remain based in New York City for at least 15 more years.

Singer Axl Rose of the heavy-metal group Guns N’ Roses is found guilty of property damage and assault for his role in a riot at Riverport Amphitheater in July 1991. He is ordered to serve two years’ probation and pay $50,000, to publicservice organizations. . . . Shannon Merryman, a deaf and mute student, wins the right to compete in the annual Voice of Democracy contest.

The Journal of the American Medical Association finds that nearly half of all the coronary angiograms performed in the U.S. are unnecessary.

The governing body of the Church of England narrowly votes to allow women to become priests. The action is described as one of the most important since the church broke with the Roman Catholic Church in 1534.

The National Council of Churches, the U.S.’s largest church organization, quashes a bid to establish ties with the United Fellowship of Metropolitan Churches, a denomination composed mostly of homosexual congregants.

The former leader of the Navajo Indian tribe, Peter MacDonald Sr., is convicted by a federal jury in Prescott, Arizona, on charges of conspiracy and burglary. Prosecutors charge MacDonald with leading a conspiracy that resulted in a July 1989 riot in which two of his followers were killed. . . . After an eightmonth investigation, 14 former employees of a women’s prison in Hardwick, Georgia, are indicted on charges of sexual abuse of inmates. The allegations were made by more than 100 female inmates.

A statement signed by 1,500 Roman Catholics protesting a Vatican document that urged the bishops to oppose some laws seeking to ban discrimination against homosexuals is printed as a paid ad in an issue of the National Catholic Reporter.

South Africa loses to England, 3316, in the first rugby match between the two countries in 23 years.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 9

Nov. 10

Nov. 11

Nov. 12

Nov. 13

Nov. 14

398—November 15–20, 1992

World Affairs

Nov. 17

Nov. 20

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Panamanian voters overwhelmingly turn down a package of 58 constitutional reforms, including a proposal that would have prohibited Panama from having a standing army. . . . Dr. Peter Jepson-Young, 35, physician who educated millions of Canadian TV viewers about AIDS when he frankly discussed his own battle against AIDS in an effort to change people’s views about the disease and about homosexuality, dies in Vancouver, Canada, of AIDS-related complications.

The UN Security Council authorizes a naval blockade against Yugoslavia as a means of tightening the sanctions imposed on the country by the council in May.

The federal prosecutor’s office in Germany charges four alleged IRA members in a 1989 bomb attack on a British army barracks in Osnabrueck. . . . Security guards find a huge bomb at the Canary Wharf office complex in East London. The IRA admits to planting that bomb as well as the one found Nov. 14.

The white-minority government is rocked by revelations that the South African Defense Force plotted a “dirty tricks” campaign against the ANC between May and December 1991, a period after President F. W. de Klerk promised that the military was no longer engaged in political missions against antiapartheid groups and while the government was holding negotiations with the ANC on a new constitution.

Romania becomes the fourth Eastern European country to link with the European Community as an associate member, alongside Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland.

Polish president Lech Walesa approves the so-called small constitution, a document that serves as an interim constitution until Parliament drafts a new one. . . . More than 75 organized-crime suspects are arrested in Italy in the widest crackdown on the Mafia since 1984. . . . Reports indicate 150,000 state health workers went on strike in 71 Romanian cities and towns. . . . The Czech and Slovak regional parliaments pass a joint resolution authorizing a 1993 separation of Czechoslovakia

A hand grenade is thrown into a crowded market in the Arab quarter of Jerusalem, killing an Arab merchant and injuring 12 others.

India’s Supreme Court upholds a controversial federal order that reserves 27% of federal and state government jobs for members of intermediate castes and for deprived Christian and Muslim groups. . . . The commander of the Sri Lankan navy and three of his aides die when a motorcyclist sets off a bomb next to Clancy Fernando’s car in Colombo, the capital. The Canadian government agrees to compensate the victims of mindcontrol experiments carried out mainly in the 1950s. The experiments were underwritten in part by the U.S. CIA.

Reports indicate that the world’s first commercial-scale plant for recycling household electric batteries has begun operations near Thun, Switzerland. . . . The Czechoslovak Federal Assembly defeats a constitutional amendment permitting the dissolution of the federation without a nationwide referendum.

Nov. 18

Nov. 19

Africa & the Middle East

More than 1,500 German police officers block a march of neo-Nazis in Halbe, 25 miles (40 km) south of Berlin, thwarting the plans of rightwing groups to gather in a predominantly military cemetery on Germany’s day of national mourning for the dead of World War I and World War II. . . . The former communists of the Democratic Labor Party win a solid parliamentary majority in the second round of Lithuania’s national elections.

Nov. 15

Nov. 16

Europe

Pakistan bans opposition leader Benazir Bhutto from entering Islamabad, the federal capital, for 30 days, in an attempt to prevent her “long march” aimed at ousting conservative prime minister Nawaz Sharif. Army, police, and paramilitary forces impose a preemptive crackdown on tens of thousands of pro-Bhutto demonstrators assembling for the 11-mile (18-km) march. Bhutto and leaders of her Pakistan People’s Party are among the thousands arrested. Bhutto is deported to Karachi, 750 miles (1,200 km) southwest of Islamabad.

The UN Security Council approves an arms embargo against Liberia and instructs Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to send a special envoy to the West African country to report on its ongoing civil war. Separately, reports confirm that the 16-nation ECOWAS has voted to impose a trade embargo on the 95% of Liberia’s territory controlled by the rebel National Patriotic Front, led by Charles Taylor.

Imamali Rakhmanov is elected interim president of Parliament in the former Soviet Central Asian republic of Tajikistan as unrest in the region continues.

Amidst growing public outrage at the scandal disclosed on Nov. 16, South African president de Klerk shuffles the top ranks of the military intelligence services and promises an internal investigation into the alleged dirty tricks against the ANC.

In Peru, Sendero Luminoso declares an “armed strike” as a pivotal part of its attempt to disrupt upcoming elections. . . . A jury in Perth, Western Australia, clears businessman Alan Bond at his retrial on charges of fraud stemming from his actions during the 1987 bailout of Rothwells Ltd., a since-failed Perth investment bank.

The Western European Union defense group formally admits Greece as its 10th member. Thus, of the EC’s 12 nations, only Denmark and Ireland, which have agreed to observer status, are not full members of the WEU. . . . Trade officials from the U.S. and the EC reach agreement on a plan to reduce EC agricultural subsidies to oilseed producers. The accord eliminates a major obstacle hindering global trade talks.

A fire blazes at Windsor Castle in England and destroys the 14thcentury St. George’s Hall. The blaze causes damage estimated at 60 million pounds sterling ($100 million) at the uninsured castle. . . . A collection of watercolor paintings by the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler fail to draw any bidders at a controversial auction in Trieste, Italy. The 20 watercolors were painted by Hitler between 1910 and 1914.

Col. Desi Bouterse, the Suriname army commander who led coups in 1980 and 1990 that unseated democratically elected governments, resigns amid press reports that accused him of corruption.

Colombian president Cesar Gaviria Trujillo and Vatican representative Paolo Romeo sign a revised concordat that substantially eliminates the Vatican’s legal right to impose its moral policies on Colombia’s 32 million people.

During a visit to South Korea by Russia’s president Yeltsin, the government of South Korea agrees to resume a $3 billion aid program to Russia suspended in December 1991. . . . Indonesian troops capture Jose Alexandre Gusmao, 45, the leader of the leftist Revolutionary Front for the Independence of East Timor (Fretilin).

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 15–20, 1992—399

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle In auto racing, Alan Kulwicki wins the NASCAR Winston Cup season title.

C. Clyde Atkins, a federal district court judge, hands down an unprecedented ruling when he orders the city of Miami to set up two “safe zones” where homeless people can engage in “basic activities of daily life,” such as sleeping and eating. . . . Two Detroit, Michigan, police officers, Larry Nevers and Walter Budzyn, are charged with murder in the beating death of Malice Green, a black motorist.

A U.S. federal court convicts Aero Systems Inc. of Miami, Florida, and three of its subsidiaries of conspiring with a Japanese company to sell military aircraft components to Iran in violation of U.S. export law. A former Aero vice president, Colin Devellerez, is also convicted.

GM releases 70,000 pages of documents to consumer groups seeking compensation in regard to faulty tanks in pickup trucks. . . . The Supreme Court rules taxpayers may sue the IRS to challenge its attempts to obtain confidential records, even if the IRS has already acquired the documents. . . . The OTS issues a new set of guidelines that outline the responsibilities and fiduciary duties for S&L directors.

Census data show that the Cherokee are the most numerous American Indian tribe. Of the 1,959,234 American Indians, 308,102 identify themselves as Cherokee. . . . A federal appeals court rules that former president Nixon is entitled to compensation for presidential papers and tapes seized by the government during the Watergate scandal in the 1970s.

Six men are indicted in the U.S. on federal charges of conspiring to supply arms to the IRA, including a Stinger missile.

Albert V. Casey, the head of the RTC, estimates that his organization needs $25 billion to complete its efforts to dispose of assets from the nation’s insolvent savings and loan institutions.

Audre Lorde, 58, black feminist writer who was the poet laureate of New York State in 1991and who won an American Book Award in 1989, dies in Christiansted, St. Croix, the Virgin Islands, of liver cancer. . . . Issue no. 75 of the Superman comic book, in which fictional superhero Superman dies in a battle with Doomsday, a deranged supervillain, hits the stands.

Members of a federal grand jury that heard charges regarding the Rocky Flats, Colorado, nuclear weapons plant take the unprecedented step of asking Presidentelect Bill Clinton to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Justice Department’s handling of the case. . . . A federal jury awards Nancy Denny $1.2 million in damages from Ford Motor for injuries when her Ford Bronco II rolled over in 1986. About 100 similar lawsuits are pending.

The National Book Foundation presents awards to Cormac McCarthy and Mary Oliver. Publisher James Laughlin receives a special award. . . . Roman Catholic bishops vote to reject a proposed pastoral letter that reaffirms traditional roles for women in the church. It is the first time that the conference fails to reach a two-thirds majority consensus.

The SEC announces that as of January 1, 1993, closed-end mutual funds will be required to disclose the names of the funds’ actual managers to shareholders and prospective investors.

In an instance that attracts media attention, President-elect Clinton stops at McDonald’s for a cup of coffee while jogging. . . . The auction houses of Christie’s and Sotheby’s report their sales from major NYC fall auctions at $104.6 and $73.4, respectively.

President-elect Bill Clinton meets with Pres. Bush. . . . State Department inspector general Sherman Funk asserts that files of Pres. Bush’s presidential rivals were improperly searched by the State Department in an attempt to uncover politically damaging information. Funk places primary responsibility for the scandal on Steven Berry, acting assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs, and Elizabeth M. Tamposi, who was dismissed Nov. 10.

Pennsylvania becomes the first state to publish a list ranking coronary surgeons by the number of patients who died after bypass surgery. . . . Dorothy Walker Bush, 91, mother of Pres. George Bush, dies after suffering a stroke Nov. 18.

Reports indicate that former Grumman Corp. chairman John O’Brien has pled guilty to bribery and influence peddling in defense contracting. O’Brien is believed to be the highest-ranking corporate figure convicted in the Pentagon procurement scandal.

An FDA advisory panel recommends that the experimental drug taxol, derived from the bark of the rare Pacific Northwest yew tree, should be approved as a treatment for ovarian cancer in women who fail to respond to conventional chemotherapy.

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America names Pamela Maraldo its new president. . . . Elaine Richardson, an aide to former Sen. Edward Brooke (R, Mass.), pleads guilty to a misdemeanor charge of aiding and abetting Brooke when he allegedly lied to a grand jury and to FBI agents probing his connection to the HUD scandal during the Reagan administration.

The Roman Catholic Church issues a new universal catechism for the first time in more than four centuries. The new catechism reiterates traditional church views but is updated to address modern-day issues.

John Foreman, 67, influential producer of films such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), dies in Beverly Hills, California, of a heart attack. . . . The chairwoman of the NEA, Anne Radice, states she will not grant NEA funds to three homosexual film festivals, which have already taken place and were approved by the panel that distributes NEA grant money.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 15

Nov. 16

Nov. 17

Nov. 18

Nov. 19

Nov. 20

400—November 21–26, 1992

World Affairs

The first U.S. Peace Corps volunteers ever sent to Russia arrive in Moscow,

Nov. 21

Nov. 22

Warships of the member states of NATO and the Western European Union begin the UN-authorized naval blockade of Yugoslavia. . . . The EC’s finance committee agrees to devalue the currencies of Spain and Portugal within the exchange rate mechanism (ERM) of the European Monetary System. The ERM realignment is the third in 10 weeks.

Nov. 23

Nov. 24

Nov. 25

Nov. 26

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Reports indicate that Turkish army troops dealt a decisive military blow to the separatist Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) in Iraq. The offensive, started in October, reportedly routed 5,000 PKK rebels from their bases, with more than half killed, wounded, or captured.

Asia & the Pacific The General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia votes in favor of a bill allowing the ordination of women priests. . . . Phomvihane Kaysone, 71, president of Laos and premier, 1975–91, who headed the communist Pathet Lao forces during the Vietnam War, dies in Vientiane, Laos.

In the fighting that began Oct. 24 in Tajikistan, reports suggest that hundreds of refugees near the Afghan border were massacred. . . . In Lithuania, election returns show that the ruling Democratic Labor Party has won 73 of the 141 seats in the Seimas (parliament).

A coalition backing Pres. Alberto K. Fujimori garners a majority in a new national congress whose mandate includes rewriting the Peruvian constitution. The voting is marked by sporadic bomb explosions, but no serious injuries are reported.

In the 13th straight weekend of antiforeigner violence in Germany, two Turkish girls and a Turkish woman who had lived in Germany for 20 years die in a fire-bombing in the town of Mellon, about 30 miles (50 km) from Hamburg. A call notifying fire officials of the blaze ends with the Nazi salute, “Heil Hitler.” Data suggest that 16 people have been killed and more than 400 injured in rightwing attacks in 1992. . . . Reports confirm that Romania has established its first commodity exchange since the 1930s.

Arges Sequeira, a crusader for the return of ranches, homes, and lots confiscated by the former Sandinista government, is shot to death by assailants near El Sauce in northwestern Nicaragua.

Reports show that Australia has ended its ban on homosexuals in the military.

Representatives of the former April 19 Movement (M-19) rebel group resign from Colombian president Cesar Gaviria Trujillo’s government to protest the president’s forceful crackdown on Marxist insurgents. . . . Most Canadian chartered banks raise their prime rates to 9.75%, from 9%. The threequarter-point jump is the third such hike in less than two weeks.

A Chinese airliner crashes into a mountain 15 miles (25 km) from its destination in the southern city of Guilin. All 141 passengers and crew are killed, qualifying it as China’s worst reported air disaster. It is the fifth plane crash in China in four months.

The UN General Assembly approves a resolution calling for an end to the 29-year-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba. The resolution is prompted by the Cuban Democracy Act, legislation recently passed in the U.S. that bars foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies from trading with Cuba. . . . The UN Security Council votes to sustain the economic sanctions against Iraq in force since 1990.

Nicu Ceausescu, the younger son of deposed Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu, is released from prison after nearly three years’ incarceration.

A UN ship trying to deliver 10,000 tons of food to Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, has to turn back after coming under shell fire.

Representatives of 93 nations agree to speed efforts to phase out the production and use of chemicals that damage the ozone layer. . . . The UN Security Council approves a plan to send military observers to Macedonia to keep the Yugoslav civil war from spreading to the former Yugoslav republic. . . . Representatives of nine Balkan countries issue a joint statement calling for the UN to send peacekeepers to Serbia’s Kosovo province.

The Spanish parliament completes ratification of the Maastricht treaty. . . . France’s National Assembly votes for a measure urging opposition to the Nov. 20 agreement between the U.S. and the EC. More than 50 French police are injured in clashes with farmers in Paris. . . . The Czechoslovak Federal Assembly adopts a constitutional amendment permitting the dissolution of the federation without a nationwide referendum, removing the last major legal barrier to independence for the Czech and Slovak republics on Jan. 1, 1993.

In Somalia, a Pakistani peacekeeper is shot when bandits hijack his car.

Reports disclose that the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States has decided to establish an embassy in Brussels, Belgium, to handle trade and other matters with EC nations. . . . Acting U.S. secretary of state Lawrence Eagleburger presents the offer of up to 30,000 American ground troops for an intervention in Somalia by the UN. . . . GATT officials resume the six-year-old Uruguay Round of talks in Geneva, Switzerland.

Italy’s tobacco workers agree to suspend their three-week strike, which has caused havoc for the nation’s estimated 13 million smokers. . . . Reports reveal that Britain’s monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, has decided to begin paying taxes on her personal income.

Angola’s new national assembly convenes for the first time, but legislators who belong to UNITA, comprising a third of the body, do not attend. Fernando Van Dunem, the premier of the previous MPLA government, is elected president of the parliament. Marcolino Moco, a former secretary general of the MPLA, is named the new premier of Angola.

A special session of the Laotian parliament elects Nouhak Phoumsavan as the new leader of Laos, following the death of Pres. Kaysone Phomvihane on Nov. 21.

The Punitive Leftist Front, a littleknown group, claims responsibility for the Nov. 23 murder of Arges Sequeira in Nicaragua. . . . In Peru, the government makes public a law that authorizes life imprisonment for teachers who use their positions to paint a favorable picture of leftist guerrillas. The Peruvian National Teachers Unions dub the measure “fascist” and state they will work for the law’s repeal.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 21–26, 1992—401

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A helicopter carrying members of a movie crew crashes into a volcanic crater in Hawaii, about 150 feet below the rim. . . . A spate of tornadoes begins sweeping through the South and Midwest.

Reports confirm that 10 women allege Sen. Bob Packwood (R, Oreg.) sexually harassed them. Most of the women were employed by or worked with Packwood. Many leaders of women’s groups express outrage since Packwood was ostensibly a strong legislative supporter of their rights. . . . A study finds growing numbers of Americans living along the southern border are traveling to Mexico for cheaper medical care than they can find in the U.S. Retired physician Jack Kevorkian assists the suicide of Catherine Andreyev, 46, a cancer patient in Michigan. . . . Reports find that H. Ross Perot finished second in Maine in the Nov. 3 presidential election. . . . In what is called the largest case of its kind, federal prosecutors state that 50 people, including 38 pharmacists, pled guilty to participating in a scheme to fill phony Medicaid prescriptions and resell the drugs. The prosecutors also announce that 11 other people have been indicted for trying to defraud Medicaid by means of nonexistent medical clinics.

Sterling Holloway, 87, actor who provided the voice for many animated films, dies in Los Angeles of cardiac arrest. . . . In tennis, Boris Becker of Germany wins the ATP Tour World Championship. Monica Seles of Yugoslavia wins the season-ending Virginia Slims Championships.

A Senate subcommittee investigating allegations that Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign interfered with negotiations seeking the release of U.S. hostages in Iran reports that it found no evidence of a deal between Iran and the Reagan campaign to delay release of the hostages. However, it concludes that the conduct of Reagan’s campaign director, William Casey, verged on the improper.

An advisory committee to the FDA recommends that food, particularly flour, be fortified with folic acid to prevent neural tube defect, a devastating birth disorder that takes place when the spinal column fails to close early in pregnancy.

The Interior Department announces tentative approval of an agreement that cedes more than 500,000 acres (202,500 hectares) of federal, state, and private land in Arizona to the Hopi tribe. The agreement will settle a bitter land dispute between the Hopi and Navajo Indians that dates back to the 1880s. . . . In a case that sparked riots in May, a mistrial is declared in the Washington, D.C., trial of Daniel Gomez, a Salvadoran immigrant who was shot after he allegedly lunged with a knife at a police officer.

Nov. 21

Ernst & Young Inc. agree to pay $400 million to settle government claims concerning its audits of failed thrifts. The settlement is the largest finalized by the government in its efforts to punish professional institutions that allegedly neglected their duties while monitoring failing savings and loans.

Data show that at least 45 tornadoes have torn through 11 states in the South and Midwest since Nov. 21, killing 25 people and injuring hundreds more. In Brandon, Mississippi, 10 people were killed. . . . Michael Benson, a movie cameraman, is rescued from a volcanic crater in Hawaii after a plane crash Nov. 21. He is the last person rescued, and no one died in the crash.

Roy Claxton Acuff, 89, country singer and fiddler known as the “King of Country Music” who, in 1962, became the first living member elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame, dies of congestive heart failure in Nashville, Tennessee.

General Atomics announces it is indefinitely closing its Sequoyah Fuels Corp. uranium processing factory in Gore, Oklahoma, which was ordered shut by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in November 1991 because of safety and environmental violations. . . . The board of the FDIC formally endorses a plan to increase insurance premiums on banks and thrifts. Reports state that Superior Court judge Jeremy Fogel has issued an injunction barring state action against a San Jose high school for showing Whittle Communications’ controversial Channel One news program. The channel, available to 8.1 million students in 45 states, has come under fire because its daily broadcasts contain two minutes of commercial advertising.

The 1990 campaign of California governor Pete Wilson (R) is fined $100,000 by the state Fair Political Practices Commission, which claims campaign officials improperly reported more than $7 million in expenses and $106,000 in contributions.

Nov. 23

Nov. 24

The Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association asks Honda Motor Co., its only member not based in the U.S., to resign its membership because it wants “to focus on the common issues and interests that are unique to the domestic manufacturers.”

Data show there have been a record 107 arson fires set in the greater Seattle, Washington, since Aug. 6. No injuries have occurred, but the fires have caused some $10 million in property damage.

Nov. 22

The New England Journal of Medicine reports that doctors for the first time have repaired brain damage by implanting cerebral tissue from aborted fetuses.

Princess Stephanie of Monaco, 27, gives birth to a boy, named Louis, in Monte Carlo.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 25

Nov. 26

402—November 27–December 2, 1992

Nov. 27

World Affairs

Europe

OPEC members agree to cut their oil production slightly for the first quarter of 1993, in an effort to reverse a 10% decline in oil prices since mid-October.

The German government announces that it is officially banning the Nationalist Front, a small neoNazi group that Interior Minister Rudolf Seiters calls “an active fighting group whose goal is to destroy the democratic order.”

Nov. 28

Nov. 29

Nov. 30

Dec. 1

Reports indicate that Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan have joined the Economic Cooperation Organization of Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey. . . . The UN Security Council imposes a trade embargo on the areas of Cambodia controlled by the Khmer Rouge, since the guerrilla group refuses to cooperate with the terms of a 1991 peace accord.

Russia’s Constitutional Court votes to uphold a 1991 ban by Pres. Boris Yeltsin on the Soviet Communist Party.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference urges international military intervention in Bosnia and calls for an end to the UN arms embargo on Bosnia. . . . The World Health Organization finds that Mexico City has the worst air pollution of any of the world’s major cities, while Tokyo, London, and New York City have the least polluted air.

A bomb explodes in a shopping district of Belfast, Northern Ireland, injuring 27 people. . . . A rally in Strasbourg, France, draws 40,000 European farmers who protest the Nov. 20 pact between the U.S. and the EC. . . . Russian president Boris Yeltsin appeals for new powers at the opening of the winter session of the 1,041-member Congress of People’s Deputies, but the motion receives fewer than 400 votes.

Africa & the Middle East

Asia & the Pacific

Dissident elements of Venezuela’s military fail to overthrow the government of Pres. Carlos Andrés Pérez. The coup attempt is the second revolt in 10 months by the Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement 200. A riot begins at the Retén de Catia prison, and looting breaks out in Caracas. . . Reports confirm that Guatemala’s congress has voted to recognize the political independence of Belize, a former British colony whose territory it has previously claimed. The decision ends a 130-year-old territorial dispute between the two nations.

Hong Kong’s legislature passes a measure suggested by Gov. Patten to increase the body’s democratic representation, a measure that is vehemently opposed by China.

Four whites are slain at a golf clubhouse in King William’s Town, South Africa, when black gunmen burst into the dining room, toss hand grenades and spray guests with automatic-rifle fire. Besides the four dead, 19 people, mostly whites, are seriously wounded. It is the first politically motivated assault on white civilians in recent memory.

In Venezuela, looting continues, as does the prison riot. Loyalist forces shoot down a helicopter after it racks the area of the presidential palace with rifle fire.

In Israel’s strongest response to date to antiforeigner and antiSemitic violence in Germany, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin calls on Germany to use “the full severity of the law” to “crush the head of the snake while it is small.”

In Venezuela, the defense ministry announces that the death toll from ongoing unrest has reached 169, including at least 60 killed in the prison riot. The riot at the Retén de Catia prison is crushed when national guard troops, backed by military helicopters, storm the facility. In the Las Flores de la Catia section of Caracas, national guardsmen use tear gas to disperse a crowd. . . . Pres. Alberto Fujimori of Peru grants political asylum to 93 members of the Venezuelan military and security services implicated in the Nov. 27 coup attempt. The Khmer Rouge announces that it has formed its own political party, the National Unity of Cambodia Party. . . . Chinese premier Li Peng becomes the first Chinese leader to visit Vietnam in 21 years. . . . In response to Hong Kong governor Patten’s proposals for reform, China warns that it may void all commercial agreements made by the Hong Kong government when the British colony’s sovereignty reverts to China in 1997.

The Azanian Peoples Liberation Army claims responsibility for the Nov. 28 killings in King William’s Town, South Africa.

Reports disclose that Algirdas Brazauskas, the leader of Lithuania’s ruling Democratic Labor Party, has appointed Bronislovas Lubys as the country’s premier. . . . In Spain, Socialist premier Felipe González marks his 10th anniversary in office.

Dec. 2

The Americas

U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills becomes the first cabinetlevel official from the U.S. to visit Taiwan since Pres. Jimmy Carter cut formal ties in 1979.

Tony (Antonio Cuesta Valle) Cuesta, 66, leader of Comandos L, who, after defecting to the U.S. in 1960, formed Comandos L, which organized violent raids on Cuba, dies in Miami of a heart attack.

Khmer Rouge forces capture six UN soldiers. Separately, a UN official is struck by gunfire and six UN workers are wounded in two incidents when their vehicles run over mines. . . . Charges are brought against a government official, Venkataraman Krishnamurthy, in connection with India’s largestever financial scandal, which resulted in an estimated 35 billion rupee ($1.25 billion) loss and brought down three cabinet-level officials.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 27–December 2, 1992—403

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Commerce Department reports that personal income increased by 1% in October to an annual rate of $5.13 trillion. The increase, which follows a revised 0.5% rise in September, is the largest gain since December 1991.

Nov. 27

Two police officers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Joseph Gabrish and John Balcerzak, are dismissed for “gross negligence” since they allowed serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer to reclaim a naked, bleeding Laotian boy outside his apartment in May 1991. They were convinced by Dahmer that the disturbance was a domestic argument.

Nov. 28

The Calgary Stampeders win the Canadian Football League championship in the Grey Cup game. . . . In the ATP doubles championship final, Australian tennis players Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde take the title.

In separate sentencings, a federal and a state judge in New Jersey sentence Arthur Seale to life in prison for the kidnapping and killing of Exxon Corp. executive Sidney J. Reso in April. . . . Former Sen. Paul Tsongas (D, Mass.) confirms that he has again developed cancer. . . . The Supreme Court refuses to hear an appeal of a lower court’s decision that overturns an antiabortion law in the U.S. territory of Guam.

The U.S. Navy announces that the skipper of the aircraft carrier Saratoga and seven other officers and crew members will face nonjudicial disciplinary action for an unintended missile attack that killed five men on a Turkish destroyer in the Aegean Sea in October. . . . The U.S. Commerce Department imposes tariffs on steel imports from 12 countries.

Chancellor Joseph Fernandez of NYC’s Board of Education suspends the board of District 24, the only group to refuse to use a curriculum guide, part of which urges teaching elementary school students respect for homosexuals. . . . Amy Fisher, 18, is sentenced to 5–15 years in prison for the May shooting of Mary Jo Buttafuoco, the wife of Joseph Buttafuoco, with whom Fisher claims to have had an affair. . . . The Supreme Court overturns, 8-1, the death sentence of Willie Lee Richmond.

Alva L. Harvey, 92, military aviator who survived 10 days in the Alaskan wilderness after his plane crashed during the first aroundthe-world flight attempt in 1924 and who received the Congressional Distinguished Service Medal, dies in Arlington, Virginia, of heart failure.

The National Marine Fisheries Service issues rules requiring shrimp fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean to use nets equipped with “turtle excluders” designed to protect sea turtles. An estimated 44,000 of the endangered turtles are killed each year by the nets. . . . Post Office officials disclose the agency lost $536 million in the fiscal year ending Sept 18. . . . The National Association of Purchasing Management reports the purchasing managers’ index surged to 55% in November from 50.6% in October.

The National Institutes of Health announces that it is ready to begin testing AIDS vaccines in humans at high risk of contracting the deadly disease.

In a reversal, the Health Insurance Association of America, which represents 270 commercial insurers, calls for a law that will require health insurance for all Americans. . . . After months of dispute, the Bush administration announces new labeling guidelines designed to give consumers more nutritional information about food. The new labeling is mandated by the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990.

The U.S. space shuttle Discovery lifts off from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a military mission to deploy a secret satellite. The mission is the 10th and last scheduled military flight.

The SEC sues two former Salomon Brothers Inc. employees, charging them with civil-law fraud and securities-laws violations. The suit is the result of a 16-month investigation into the firm’s admitted manipulation of U.S. Treasury bond auctions.

U.S. District Court judge William A. Ingram rules in San Jose, California, that Advanced Micro Devices Inc. may not copy software developed by Intel Corp, a ruling that prohibits AMD from selling its version of Intel’s new 486 microprocessor chip.

Mixed Blessings by Danielle Steele is at the top of Publishers Weekly’s bestseller list.

The NEH chairwoman, Lynne Cheney, states she will resign on Jan. 20, 1993, the day the administration of Democratic presidentelect Bill Clinton is to take office.

Nov. 29

Nov. 30

Dec. 1

Dec. 2

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Includes elections, federal-state relations, civil rights and liberties, crime, the judiciary, education, health care, poverty, urban affairs, and population.

Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

404—December 3–7, 1992

Dec. 3

Dec. 4

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

At a World Bank–chaired meeting, 15 Western donor countries agree to provide Zimbabwe with $1.4 billion in funds to help it pursue economic reforms in 1993 amid the country’s worst drought in memory.

The Greek oil tanker Aegean Sea splits in two, catches fire and sinks, creating an oil slick along Spain’s Atlantic Ocean coastline. All 29 crew members escape. . . . Serbia’s electoral commission rules the presidential candidacy of Panic invalid. . . . Two separate bomb explosions injure more than 60 people in the city of Manchester, England. . . . A brawl erupts between groups of liberal and hard-line deputies in Russia’s Congress during a debate on whether voting on a package of constitutional amendments should be conducted by secret ballot.

Nureddin al-Attassi, 63, president of Syria, 1966–70, who was overthrown by Hafez-al Assad, the nation’s current president, and who was imprisoned for 22 years after the coup, dies in Paris of cancer of the esophagus.

Representatives of 41 countries conclude a meeting to discuss the 1989 Basel Convention Pact, designed to prevent industrialized nations from dumping hazardous wastes in developing nations. France is the only major industrialized country to have ratified the document. . . . France announces that it will send aircraft and 2,000 soldiers to Somalia. Reports indicate that Italy, Pakistan, Canada, Morocco, Belgium, the U.S., and Egypt have also pledged assistance.

In the Russian Congress, deputies vote in favor of a nonbinding resolution expressing dissatisfaction with the government’s economic program. . . . In a speech at Oxford University in England, former U.S. president Ronald Reagan cites violence in Somalia and the former republics of Yugoslavia to warn that “evil still stalks the planet” in the post–cold war world and calls for the creation of a standing UN military force to serve as an “army of conscience.”

For the first time, UN peacekeepers guarding the Mogadishu airport kill a Somali who is in a heavily armed jeep speeding across the runway. . . . Reports confirm that King Fahd of Saudi Arabia has ousted seven clerics from the kingdom’s supreme religious council after they refused to denounce a petition from leading fundamentalists demanding religious reforms.

The oil slick from the Dec. 3 boat crash spreads along 60 miles (100 km) of Spain’s Atlantic Ocean coastline. . . . Reports indicate that automatic safety systems at the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear plant 100 miles (160 km) north of Odessa have been switched off three times over the past year, similar to what preceded the Chernobyl disaster. . . . Hundreds of Ukrainian Jews join for the first sabbath service held at Kiev’s main synagogue since it was seized by the communists in 1925.

The Algerian government launches a fresh crackdown on Islamic fundamentalists, deploying 30,000 army and police troops throughout the country.

Dec. 5

An estimated 250,000–300,000 Germans march in Munich to protest right-wing violence. . . . Slovenia holds its first presidential and parliamentary elections since breaking from Yugoslavia in 1991. . . . Voters in Switzerland reject joining a 19-nation European free trade zone set to go into effect at the start of 1993. Switzerland’s rejection is expected to delay the implementation of the European Economic Area (EEA).

Dec. 6

Storms and rough seas continue to thwart cleanup and salvage efforts from the Dec. 3 shipwreck and resulting oil spill off the coast of Spain.

Dec. 7

Jorge Aliceros Valentim, a spokesman for the Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), reveals his movement has agreed to join the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in a government of national unity. . . . Muayad Janabi, an Iraqi nuclear scientist, is shot to death in Amman, Jordan. . . . Machine-gun attacks against Israeli patrols in Gaza kill at least one Israeli soldier.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Cuba, Colonel Alvaro Prendes Quintana, a nationally respected hero of Cuba’s victory against the U.S.-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, breaks with Pres. Fidel Castro Ruz and joins a Cuban dissident group, the Socialist Democratic Current.

The Tokyo police department announces that it arrested five men affiliated with the country’s largest yakuza (organized crime syndicates) who took part in the stabbing of film director Juzo Itami in May after his anti-mob movie The Gangster’s Moll was released.

Fighting breaks out in Kabul as it becomes widely known that Pres. Burhauddin Rabbani will seek a second term in Afghanistan. . . . Khmer Rouge forces release the six UN soldiers captured Dec. 2.

Reports suggest that 41 of the 93 soldiers who found asylum in Peru after a failed coup attempt in Venezuela Nov. 27 have returned home.

Venezuelan voters rebuff the governing party of Pres. Pérez in regional elections 10 days after a failed coup attempt. Unofficial results show Perez’s Democratic Action (AD) party will control only seven of 22 governorships. . . . A U.S. forensic expert states there is evidence to back up charges of a wide-scale massacre by the army near the hamlet of El Mozote, El Salvador. The only known survivor of the alleged massacre, Rufina Amaya, testified on Oct. 21.

In India, thousands of frenzied Hindu militants raze the Ayodhya mosque with sledgehammers, igniting a nationwide firestorm of sectarian conflict. The site of the mosque, built in 1528, has long been the subject of dispute as Hindus consider the site to be the birthplace of the Hindu deity Ram. Muslims, who no longer use the mosque for prayer, retained the building for fear that relinquishing it would set a precedent for their dispossession from other mosques in India.

Reports suggest that at least 232 people were killed during the November coup attempt in Venezuela.

In India, six prominent Hindu politicians and religious leaders are arrested. Violent riots continue to spread through India and Pakistan. The government of Pakistan closes the nation’s offices and schools to protest “the desecration of the mosque.”. . . In Japan, the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission breaks up a stockspeculation ring. The commission’s action is the first taken since it was formed in 1991 in response to several stock-related scandals.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 3–7, 1992—405

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

In Massachusetts, 68 people who accused a former Roman Catholic priest, James Porter, of sexually abusing them as children in the 1960s, announce that they have reached an out-of-court settlement with the diocese where the priest worked. . . . Sue Gifford, the Hillsboro, Oregon, woman who abandoned her Alzheimer’s-diseaseafflicted father at a dog-racing track, is convicted of kidnapping and the theft of his pension checks. She is also convicted of unlawfully seeking public assistance by using Medicaid to pay her father’s nursing home bills and of committing perjury.

After debate, the U.S. releases $54 million in aid to Nicaragua that had been frozen since May. An additional $50 million continues to be withheld.

General Motors names nine plants employing more than 18,000 people that will close by the end of 1995. . . . The EPA sets waterquality standards regulating the levels of nearly 100 pollutants and takes steps to impose the standards on 12 states and two territories that failed to draw up rules of their own. The federal action is mandated by the Clean Water Act of 1987. . . . The SEC fines three former Salomon executives and restricts their involvement in the securities industry. This marks the first time that the SEC fines executives for supervisory neglect.

A study finds that female workers at semiconductor factories exposed to glycol ethers are 40% more likely than other women to suffer miscarriages. . . . The American Insurance Services Group estimates insured property damage caused by the Nov. 21-23 tornadoes at $425 million. . . . A study shows that, in nematodes (a variety of worm), the act of producing sperm substantially shortens the lifespan of males. On average, males that do not ejaculate live 50% longer than those that do.

Butch Reynolds, the world record holder in the 400-meter run, is awarded $27.3 million in a suit arguing that a positive drug test that prompted his suspension from international competition was flawed. However, the International Amateur Athletic Federation, charged in the suit, claims that U.S. courts have no jurisdiction over the organization.

The Census Bureau projects that the U.S. population will grow by another 50% over the next 58 years, reaching 383 million in 2050. Nearly half of those millions will be members of groups currently considered as racial or ethnic minorities. The projected total is 81 million higher than the 1989 estimate. . . . Sen. Kent Conrad (D, N.Dak.) wins a special election, bringing the balance in the Senate to 57 Democrats and 43 Republicans.

The Senate Select Committee on POW-MIA Affairs formally ends a 15-month inquiry into the fate of American servicemen missing in Southeast Asia without coming to any conclusions. . . . In a televised speech, Pres. Bush formally issues orders for the Somalia intervention.

A federal judge awards $13.4 million to Chester L. Walsh, a former employee of General Electric, for alerting the authorities to wrongdoing by GE in its sales of military aircraft engines to Israel. The sum is the largest awarded to a “whistleblower” under a controversial U.S. fraud-prevention law.

Scientists of the U.S. Geological Survey suggest that Puget Sound is the site of a major fault line that may pose a danger for Seattle, Washington. Another team of researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle finds evidence of a powerful earthquake 1,000 years ago that reshaped Puget Sound’s coastline and created a tidal wave that obliterated forests.

President-elect Bill Clinton resigns as governor of Arkansas and is succeeded by Lieutenant Governor Jim Guy Tucker.

Reports show Smith Hempstone, the U.S. ambassador to Kenya, sent a cable to the State Department warning about the risks of intervening in Somalia and pointing out that the country is of no strategic value to the U.S. The message causes controversy and dispute, especially since it uses the term “Somalia tarbaby.”

Dec. 4

Dec. 5

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners approves a new set of capital standards that, if approved by all 50 states, will establish uniform national guidelines for the health and life-insurance companies.

The chairman of the FCC, Alfred Sikes, announces that he will resign his position on Jan. 19, 1993, the day before the inauguration of President-elect Bill Clinton. . . . Richard J. Hughes, 83, New Jersey governor, 1962–70 and state Supreme Court chief justice, 1973–79, dies in Boca Raton, Florida, of congestive heart failure. . . . The Supreme Court lets stand a lower court’s ruling rejecting a challenge to a Mississippi law that imposes some restrictions on women seeking to have abortions.

The Miami Hurricanes top the final regular season AP and USA Today/ CNN college football polls. . . . In golf, the U.S. recaptures the Davis Cup by defeating Switzerland.

The Supreme Court refuses to reinstate the felony convictions of former national security adviser John Poindexter for his role in the Irancontra scandal. . . . The Supreme Court upholds without comment a lower court ruling that allows a lawsuit against the army by a former officer in the Army Reserve to be dismissed because she is a lesbian.

Dec. 3

Carl Icahn, owner of TWA, announces that he and federal pension-fund regulators have reached agreement on a financing plan that clears the way for the carrier to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.

An explosion at a coal mine about one mile (1.6 km) underground in Norton, Virginia, traps nine miners.

Comedian Dana Carvey performs his well-known imitation of Pres. Bush for the amused president and his staff at the White House. . . . The Supreme Court refuses without comment to review a lower court’s ruling that the lyrics on the album As Nasty as They Wanna Be by the rap group 2 Live Crew do not violate judicial standards of obscenity.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 6

Dec. 7

406—December 8–13, 1992

World Affairs

Dec. 8

Dec. 9

Dec. 10

Europe

Dec. 13

The leaders of the 12 European Community nations close a summit in Edinburgh, Scotland, and agree to a series of compromises that rejuvenate the community’s moves toward closer union.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Results of Slovenia’s election show that Pres. Milan Kucan, running as an independent, has been reelected. The Liberal Democratic Party, headed by Premier Janez Drnovsek, has won a plurality of seats in parliament. . . . Special-forces troops storm a plane at Moscow’s airport and arrest 36 Russian senior weapons specialists. According to the Kremlin, North Korea offered the specialists high salaries to help it produce nuclear weapons.

Police and armed forces in Egypt launch a crackdown on Islamic militants suspected of involvement in a wave of attacks on tourists.

A mudslide buries the gold-mining camp of Llipi, Bolivia, 90 miles (145 km) north of La Paz, the capital, leaving hundreds of people dead or missing. . . . The Atlacatl Battalion, an elite Salvadoran army battalion created by U.S. aid, is disbanded in the town of Colón, meeting a condition for the final phase of FMLN demobilization.

In India, government commandos clear 1,000 militants who remain at the site of the destroyed mosque. In the violence, 20 people are reported killed in Pakistan, and the dead number at least six in Bangladesh. . . . Japan’s three main opposition parties demand the resignation of former premier Noboru Takeshita from the Diet. Takeshita recently denied allegations that he consorted with members of the yakuza, Japanese organized-crime syndicates.

Russian president Yeltsin suffers a setback when the Congress of People’s Deputies vote against confirming Yegor Gaidar as premier. . . . British prime minister Major announces that Prince Charles and Princess Diana have “decided to separate.” The move presents the monarchy with its most serious challenge since Edward VIII abdicated in 1936 in order to marry Wallis Simpson. . . . Thomas Dienel, a leader of the right-wing German National Party, is sentenced in Rudolstadt to two years and eight months in jail for inciting racist violence.

About 1,800 U.S. Marines arrive in the Somali capital of Mogadishu as the vanguard of “Operation Restore Hope,” an American-led mission under the auspices of the UN. The UN World Food Program lands its first supply jet in six months. . . . Riots break out in five cities in Yemen, including Sanaa, the capital, as protesters demanding pay increases and a freeze on food prices clash with police.

Data show that police and rescue workers have recovered 210 bodies from the 1,200-person camp buried by the Dec. 8 mudslide in Bolivia. . . . Two members of the Medellín cocaine cartel, Mario Alberto Castaño Molina and Robin Eulogio Muñoz Mosquera, are found shot dead in Medellín, Colombia.

Figures indicate that the death toll in India since the Dec. 6 destruction of the Ayodhya mosque exceeds 700. It is the worst bloodshed since the nation gained independence in 1947. Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao reiterates his intention to rebuild the mosque and to ban organizations that incited religious hatred. . . . Amnesty International reports cases of shackling, beatings, sleep deprivation, and administering electric shocks, often to force confessions, in Chinese prisons.

Portugal ratifies the Maastricht treaty. . . . More than 1 million Greeks rally in Athens to oppose international recognition for Macedonia under that name, which is also the name of a northern Greek province. . . . The government bans the right-wing German Alternative party for inciting racial hatred. . . . The former communist forces launch another attack in Tajikistan. . . . In Ireland, negotiators are still unable to form a new government after the Nov. 25 elections.

U.S. Marines and French Foreign Legionnaires shoot and kill two Somalis when they open fire on a van moving toward a roadblock in Mogadishu. Seven Somalis are wounded either by gunfire or the subsequent crash.

Nine Ecuadoran army officers, including Carlomagno Andrade, the country’s top army general, are killed in a plane crash in the capital, Quito. . . . Prominent human-rights activist Elizardo Sanchez is severely beaten by government supporters and is detained by Cuban authorities.

The Indian government imposes a two-year ban on five powerful Hindu and Muslim fundamentalist organizations after the violence that started Dec. 6.

The two main warlords in Mogadishu sign a peace accord brokered by the U.S.’s special envoy to Somalia, Robert Oakley, which takes effect immediately.

Reports state that dismissal procedures have been completed for 600 of more than 700 airmen ordered discharged for allegedly having participated in the failed November coup attempt in Venezuela.

Japanese premier Kiichi Miyazawa restructures his cabinet, replacing all but two ministers, after a political scandal involving several of his party’s leaders. . . . Reports indicate that Pres. Kim Il Sung of North Korea has appointed a new premier, Kang Song San, replacing Yon Hyong Muk.

Russian president Yeltsin dismisses Gennadi Burbulis as his chief presidential adviser without explanation. . . . Princess Anne of Britain weds Timothy Laurence, a naval commander, in a ceremony in Crathie, Scotland, near the royal estate of Balmoral.

A pair of U.S. helicopters flying over Mogadishu destroys three armed Somali vehicles. . . . Machine-gun attacks erupt against Israeli patrols in Gaza. When combined with the Dec. 7, the death toll from those attacks is four. . . . Ali Amini, 87, former Iranian premier, 1958–62, who became coordinator of the Front for the Liberation of Iran, dies in Paris of unspecified causes.

Americas Watch finds that Cuba’s crackdown on dissidents in 1992 resulted in some of the most serious human-rights violations in the country in a decade.

A strong earthquake devastates the island of Flores, 1,000 miles (1,600 km) east of Jakarta, Indonesia. Indonesian officials state the quake measures 6.8 on the Richter scale, but the U.S. reports a 7.5 reading. The epicenter is in the sea, 20 miles (30 km) from Maumere. . . . Sir Robert Rex, 83, prime minister of the island of Niue since it became self-governing in 1974 and the South Pacific’s longest-serving premier, dies.

Voters in Liechtenstein approve membership in the free-trade European Economic Area. . . . Data show 80 people were killed in sectarian violence related to Northern Ireland in 1992. . . . Reports state the tanker that split on Dec. 3 spilled 21.5 million gallons (80 million liters) of crude oil off La Coruña, Spain, about twice the amount of oil spilled when the Exxon Valdez ran aground in 1989. However, the accident appears likely to cause less ecological damage than the Valdez spill since the oil spilled was of a light grade that evaporates quickly.

Egyptian officials state that the crackdown begun on Dec. 8 has netted 600 militants and wounded or killed 34 policemen and soldiers. . . . Sergeant Major Nissim Toledano of the Israeli border police is kidnapped by Hamas near Tel Aviv. Hamas warns Toledano will be killed unless Israeli authorities release Sheik Ahmed Yassin, Hamas’s founder. . . . A force of 230 U.S. Marines opens a derelict Soviet air base in Bale Dogle, 70 miles (110 km) west of Mogadishu, Somalia.

K(enneth) C(olin) Irving, 93, Canadian billionaire who ruled a vast industrial empire and whose fortune Forbes magazine in 1990 estimated at $5 billion, dies of undisclosed causes. . . . Uruguay’s voters overwhelmingly turn down a privatization program.

As the violence that began on Dec. 6 calms, curfews are lifted in Calcutta, Bombay, and most of the 133 other Indian cities where residents were ordered to remain at home.

Dec. 11

Dec. 12

Africa & the Middle East

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 8–13, 1992—407

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The AMA pronounces it is unethical for doctors to refer patients to medical centers in which the physicians have a financial stake. The AMA rejects the idea of placing a cap on national health-care spending. . . . Louis Turriaga is the first member of the LAPD who assisted in the arrest and beating of Rodney King to be found guilty of misconduct by a disciplinary board. . . . Lawrence Eagleburger is sworn in as secretary of state.

U.S. District Court judge William M. Hoeveler rules that former Panamanian leader General Manuel Antonio Noriega is a prisoner of war under the Geneva Conventions and should therefore not be incarcerated in a maximum-security federal prison unless his rights as a POW can be guaranteed.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opens an investigation into the safety of pickup trucks built by General Motors after months of mounting criticism of GM.

New York City’s Board of Education reinstates the school board suspended Dec. 1. . . . The Census Bureau suggests that, based on present patterns, baby-boom women (women ages 30 to 44) will see 40% of their first marriages end in divorce. That percentage is higher than those projected for any other group, including women of older and younger age groups. The bureau estimates that 10% of all women and 25% of black women will never marry.

The U.S. space shuttle Discovery lands at Edwards Air Force Base, California, after carrying out a military mission. . . . Former CIA director of operations Claire George is convicted in a retrial on two felony counts of lying about his knowledge of the Iran-contra affair.

The Federal Reserve Board reports that the nation is experiencing “a slight to moderate pickup in some or all sectors of the economy.”. . . Attorney General William Barr announces that he will not appoint an independent counsel to investigate possible wrongdoing by the Bush administration in its handling of a $5 billion bank fraud case involving loans to Iraq.

Rescue workers recover the bodies of eight miners trapped in a coal mine after a Dec. 7 explosion in Norton, Virginia. One miner survived the blast and managed to crawl to safety.

President-elect Bill Clinton appoints Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D, Tex.) as secretary of the Treasury and names Roger Altman as his deputy. Rep. Leon Panetta (D, Calif.) is nominated as to head the Office of Management and Budget. He appoints Robert E. Rubin to head the National Economic Council, a new organization intended to coordinate the economic policy in much the same way that the National Security Council sought to coordinate foreign policy.

Allstate Insurance revises its estimated losses from Hurricane Andrew to $2.5 billion, 68% higher than the $1.7 billion the company reported Oct 6.

President-elect Clinton names Laura D’Andrea Tyson to head the Council of Economic Advisers, so Tyson will become the first woman to hold the position. He nominates Robert Reich as secretary of labor and Carol Browner as administrator of the EPA . . . . GM announces that it has cut plans to mass produce an electric car at a plant in Lansing, Michigan. GM was reportedly unwilling to spend the billions needed to develop the car by itself.

Violent storms hit the Northeast. . . . State Farm Fire & Casualty announces that its estimated losses from Hurricane Andrew will total $3.4 billion, 62% higher than the $2.1 billion in losses the company reported in October.

In a response to allegations of sexual harassment, Sen. Bob Packwood (R, Oreg.) admits, “My actions were just plain wrong.” He adds, “I am not going to resign under any circumstances.”. . . . Reports show that the FDA has approved the drug Recombinate, the first genetically engineered medicine for treating hemophilia A, the most common form of the blood disease. . . . An FDA advisory panel recommends conditional approval of the first female condom. President-elect Bill Clinton appoints Donna Shalala to head the Department of Health and Human Services. . . . In his first trial, James R. Porter, a former Roman Catholic priest accused of molesting dozens of children in three states, is convicted in Minneapolis, Minnesota, of molesting Sara Davidson, a babysitter, in 1987, when she was 15.

U.S. district judge Thomas F. Hogan in Washington, D.C. throws out a one-count indictment against Casper Weinberger filed four days before Pres. Bush’s defeat in the presidential election. Hogan rules that the charge violates a five-year statute of limitations.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Helen Candaele St. Aubin, 63, outfielder in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, dies in Los Angeles of breast cancer. . . . William Shawn, 85, editor of The New Yorker for 35 years dies in New York City. . . . Russian author Mark Kharitonov wins the first Russian Booker Novel Prize.

Vincent Gardenia, 71, award-winning actor in a multitude of plays, movies, and television shows, is found dead after he apparently had a heart attack. . . . Carl Barger, 62, president of the Florida Marlins baseball franchise, dies in Louisville, Kentucky, of internal bleeding after suffering a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm.

Dec. 8

Dec. 9

Dec. 10

Pres. Bush awards the Medal of Freedom to talk-show host Johnny Carson, stock-car driver Richard Petty, violinist Isaac Stern, journalist David Brinkley, author Elie Wiesel, diplomat Harry Shlaudeman, architect I. M. Pei, singer Ella Fitzgerald, actress Audrey Hepburn, and army general John Vessey.

President-elect Clinton names a long-time friend, Thomas F. (Mack) McLarty, to be his White House chief of staff.

President-elect Clinton picks Democratic National Committee Chairman Ron Brown as commerce secretary.

University of Miami quarterback Gino Torretta is named winner of the Heisman Trophy as the nation’s top college football player.

Ricky Ray, 15, eldest of three hemophiliac brothers who gained national attention when they were barred from their school in Arcadia, Florida, in 1986 because they were infected with the AIDS virus, dies in Orlando, Florida. . . . Ellis Gibbs Arnall, 85, Democratic governor of Georgia, 1942–46, dies in Atlanta, Georgia, of pneumonia.

Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney (Sonny), 93, cofounder of Pan American Airways, former government official, financier, and philanthropist, dies of natural causes in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Manon Rheaume, 20, becomes the first woman to play in a regularseason professional hockey game when she plays five minutes and 49 seconds of an International Hockey League game between her Atlanta Knights and the Salt Lake City Golden Eagles. . . . Golfer Ray Floyd wins the PGA season-ending Senior Tour Championship in Dorado Beach, Puerto Rico.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 11

Dec. 12

Dec. 13

408—December 14–19, 1992

World Affairs

Dec. 16

Dec. 17

Dec. 18

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Russia, the Congress of People’s Deputies confirms Deputy Premier Viktor Chernomyrdin as premier. . . . In Poland, tens of thousands of coal miners walk out to demand higher wages and to protest a plan by the government to close unprofitable mines, jeopardizing the employment of at least 180,000 miners. . . . Four of the accused plotters of the 1991 Soviet coup are freed from jail, but all of them remain under indictment for treason.

Israel seals off the occupied territories to conduct a manhunt for Sergeant Major Nissim Toledano, who was kidnapped Dec. 13. During the search, Israeli soldiers and police arrest 1,600 Palestinians suspected of affiliation with Hamas.

The FMLN demobilizes its last contingent of combatants and hands in a cache of weapons to UN officials in El Salvador, who certify that the FMLN is completely disarmed. . . . Two gunmen shoot dead Vladimir Vilar Montenegro, the top explosives expert of the National Liberation Army, Colombia’s secondlargest guerrilla group.

In Cambodia, reports suggest that Khmer Rouge guerrillas have fired artillery shells in an apparent effort to intimidate UN peacekeepers.

The environment ministers of the EC agree to end the production and use of the ozone-harming chemicals known as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) by January 1995, one year earlier than the date set in November. . . . The IMF revokes Yugoslavia’s membership and apportions the country’s foreign debt among what the financial institution designates as Yugoslavia’s five successor republics. The IMF takes the action on the grounds that Yugoslavia has ceased to exist as a legal entity.

France gives the owners of 1,800 artifacts recovered from the wreck of the Titanic ocean liner three months in which to claim their property. Any items not rightfully claimed by the few disaster survivors will revert to Titanic Ventures, the international group that financed a 1987 French expedition to recover artifacts from the wreck. . . . The Netherlands ratifies the Maastricht Treaty.

The body of Sergeant Major Nissim Toledano, kidnapped Dec. 13, is found with multiple stab wounds near an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.

The 12-year Salvadoran civil war officially ends with a ceremony in San Salvador, the capital. A National Day of Reconciliation marks the close of a brutal conflict that took 75,000 lives.

The known death toll from the Dec. 12 earthquake in the island of Flores, Indonesia, is placed at nearly 2,500. . . . Data indicate that the Indian government has arrested over 2,600 people in its nationwide crackdown. The Rao government dismisses the three BJP-ruled state governments in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Himachal Pradesh and places them under direct federal control.

The 15-member UN Security Council unanimously votes to send 7,500 peacekeeping soldiers, police and civilian administrators to Mozambique. . . . The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development issues a report predicting economic growth of 1.9% in the world’s richest nations in 1993, down considerably from the 3% rate forecast in the OECD’s previous report in June.

In Rome, 20,000 doctors protest measures to increase competition for medical services, make higherearning patients pay for care, and cut physicians from the rolls of the state-sponsored health service.

In response to the Dec. 15 discovery of Nissim Toledano’s body, the Israeli cabinet votes unanimously, with one abstention, to approve the expulsion of about 400 of the arrested Hamas sympathizers. . . . A convoy of nearly 700 U.S. and French troops arrives in the town of Baidoa, one of the hardest hit by famine, in Somalia.

Federal and provincial representatives sign an agreement that signals federal approval for a bridgeconstruction project that will link Prince Edward Island and the Canadian mainland.

An estimated 10,000 Japanese farmers rally in Tokyo to protest a recent indication by the government that Japan’s ban on rice imports might be eased.

The leaders of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico sign the North American Free Trade Agreement, thereby sending the pact to their respective legislatures for approval.

The Hungarian parliament passes legislation that codifies the conditions under which women could obtain legal abortions and which require women to consult a special committee before seeking abortions.

After a series of attacks by Arabs on Israeli security forces, Israel deports 400 Palestinians to Lebanese territory in an unprecedented mass expulsion of suspected militants. In response to the Israeli deportations, the Palestinian delegation to the current round of Arab-Israeli peace talks in Washington, D.C., boycotts the final day of the talks, and the PLO maintains that the Palestinians will continue to boycott peace talks until the deportees are allowed to return to Israel.

In Panama, one of Pres. Guillermo Endara’s sharpest critics, Vice Pres. Ricardo Arias Calderon, resigns. . . . Canada approves a law that will make its immigration procedures more restrictive in the biggest change in its immigration law in 16 years.

The UN Security Council votes unanimously, 15-0, to condemn Israel’s expulsion of 415 Palestinians allegedly affiliated with the fundamentalist Muslim organization Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement).

Germany completes its parliamentary ratification of the Maastricht Treaty. . . . Italy’s parliament gives preliminary approval to Premier Giuliano Amato’s plans to privatize much of Italy’s massive public sector.

Dec. 14

Dec. 15

Europe

The head of the General Federation of Peruvian Workers, Pedro Huillca, 49, is shot to death by eight people armed with submachine guns.

Six Arabs are killed in the Gaza village of Khan Yunis, the worst oneday death toll in nearly two years in the intifadah. . . . A 14-year-old white girl is killed by three blacks armed with grenades and rifles in Ficksburg, South Africa. Separately, Pres. de Klerk concedes for the first time that members of the South African Defense Force ran a renegade “third force” to foment violence in black townships and derail the transition to black majority rule. He announces that he dismissed or suspended 23 officers.

Dec. 19

Former dissident Kim Young Sam, the candidate of the ruling Democratic Liberal Party, is elected president in the first all-civilian South Korean presidential elections in more than 30 years.

The governing Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) retains control of the Yuan, Hong Kong’s legislature. . . . Russian president Yeltsin concludes the first visit to China by a Russian leader since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 14–19, 1992—409

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Reports confirm Lyle and Erik Menendez, accused of slaying their parents in August 1989, have been indicted by a grand jury. . . . At the site where a white truck driver was beaten at the outset of riots in L.A. on Apr. 29, 100 people demonstrate in support of three black men accused of the beating. When some protestors throw bottles, police officers move in, making 55 arrests. . . . Electors of the Electoral College cast ballots for president and vice president.

Reports state that Russia, for the first time ever, defaulted on $27.3 million of U.S.-guaranteed agriculture loans. . . . The U.S. announces that corporations can open offices in Vietnam. . . . U.S. District Court judge Rafeedie dismisses charges against Humberto Alvarez Machain, a Mexican doctor kidnapped to stand trial in Los Angeles in the torture and murder of a U.S. DEA agent, Enrique Camarena Salazar.

Reports disclose that the three major U.S. automobile manufacturers, Ford, GM, and Chrysler, have agreed to join forces to develop an economically viable electrically powered vehicle. . . . The Supreme Court rules, 8-1, that states cannot enact laws forcing employers to offer disabled workers the same health insurance they provide to workers without disabilities.

Total insured losses resulting from Hurricane Andrew’s destruction could reach between $15 billion and $16.5 billion, according to a report by A. M. Best, an insurance rating agency.

The Interior Department reaches an agreement with several environmental organizations that will require the government to simplify and speed up its system of identifying and protecting endangered plant and animal species. . . . International Business Machines (IBM) unveils plans to eliminate 25,000 jobs in 1993, a move that the company concedes may force it to lay off employees for the first time in over 50 years.

Data show that 12,000 homes were damaged or destroyed by winds, precipitation, or floods in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey during the violent storms that hit the northeast December 11.

Retired physician Jack Kevorkian assists two suicides, bringing his total of aided suicides to eight. Michigan governor John Engler (R) signs a law that makes assisting a suicide a felony, to take effect in 90 days and expire in two years. . . . Former psychiatrist Magaret Bean-Bayog settles a $1 million wrongful-death lawsuit in a highly publicized case in which she was accused of seducing Paul Lozano, using unorthodox therapy that made him dependent upon her and, ultimately, leading to his suicide.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Dec. 14

A federal grand jury indicts chess champion Bobby Fischer for breaching sanctions against Yugoslavia by playing Boris Spassky in the country. Fischer is the first person ever criminally charged under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. . . . Sports Illustrated names former tennis player Arthur Ashe as its sportsman of the year.

Four police officers charged in the fatal beating of a black motorist, Malice Green, in November in Detroit, Michigan, are dismissed. . . . Data show that President-elect Clinton received 44,908,232 votes, which is 43.01% of those cast and 23.76% of all eligible voters in the November elections. Bush won 39,102,282 votes, and Perot won 19,725,433 votes. A total of 104,402,691 votes were cast, a turnout of 55.23% of the voting-age population, which is up from 1988.

Pres. Bush formally nominates Sean O’Keefe for the post of navy secretary.

U.S. district judge Stanley Sporkin rules that annual cost-of-living adjustments provided to members of Congress do not violate the newly ratified 27th Amendment to the Constitution, which bars Congress from giving itself midterm pay raises.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors protests Colorado’s measure opposing homosexual rights by canceling plans to hold its 1993 annual meeting in that state. . . . A U.S. appeals court in San Francisco rules that the section of the Protection of Children Against Sexual Exploitation Act of 1977 dealing with distribution violates the constitutional right of freedom of speech, because distributors of pornography do not necessarily know if people depicted in the material are minors.

President-elect Clinton nominates Jesse Brown as head of the Veterans Affairs Department.

The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, which coordinates policies of five banking regulatory agencies, notes that banks and thrifts spend up to $17.5 billion each year to comply with various federal and state regulations.

Bell Atlantic files suit in a federal district court in Alexandria, Virginia, seeking to overturn a provision of the Cable Act of 1984, which specifies that telephone companies are prohibited from owning cable-television systems where they provide telephone service.

National Health Laboratories Inc., one of the U.S.’s largest providers of diagnostic examinations, pleads guilty to defrauding Medicaid, Medicare, and the Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Uniformed Services. The company agrees to pay the government $111 million to settle the case.

Mark Goodson, 77, TV game-show producer, dies of cancer in New York City. . . . The FCC levies a record $600,000 fine against Infinity Broadcasting Corp., the company that employs controversial disc jockey Howard Stern, for allegedly indecent comments.

Reports confirm Joseph E. di Genova was named independent prosecutor to investigate an election-season search by the State Department. . . . Two white Nashville, Tennesse, police officers, David Geary and Jeffrey Blewett, accused of beating Reginald Miller, a black undercover officer, are dismissed. . . . Clara M. Hale, 87, founder of Hale House for abandoned and orphaned children, dies of complications from a stroke in New York City.

Dec. 15

Dec. 16

The Census Bureau finds that the percentage of U.S. residents who are foreign-born rose to 7.9% in 1990, up from 6.2% a decade earlier. . . . Rosel H. Hyde, 92, former chairman of the FCC, 1953–69, dies in Chevy Chase, Maryland, of complications from a stroke.

Dec. 17

Dec. 18

Dec. 19

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

410—December 20–25, 1992

World Affairs

Dec. 22

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Slobodan Milosevic defeats Milan Panic in the Serbian presidential election, and the ruling Socialists and their allies, the Radicals, capture an overwhelming majority of the seats. . . . Yugoslavia’s other republic, Montenegro, also holds parliamentary elections, in which the ruling Democratic Socialists, who support continued federation with Serbia, retain power. . . . More than 500,000 people march in at least 12 German cities to protest right-wing violence.

U.S. Marines go ashore from warships and gain control of Kismayu, a city on Somalia’s southern coast. In Baidoa, U.S. soldiers guard a UN convoy carrying 300 metric tons of food. It is the first major supply shipment to reach the Somalian town since mid-November.

Canada’s chartered banks cut their prime rate to 7.25%, marking the sixth time in seven business days they have lowered the cost of loans.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee of the BJP begins a hunger strike in India. In response, prime minister Rao decides to permit BJP meetings in stadiums and halls, and to allow its members to associate with Hindu fundamentalists.

Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia’s Czech and Slovak republics agree to gradually create a freetrade zone, beginning in 1993.

A Dutch jet crashes while landing at an airport in Faro, southern Portugal, killing 54 people aboard. The survivors number 268. . . . In Athens, Eleftherios Papadimitriou, a New Democracy parliamentary deputy, is shot and wounded. The November 17 terrorist group claims responsibility. . . . Election monitors from the CSCE report that there were widespread “irregularities” in the voting in Serbia Dec. 20.

Lebanese premier Rafik al-Hariri announces that Lebanon will not be “a dumping ground for Israeli problems,” and his government bars relief groups from taking food to the Palestinians through Lebanese territory. Lebanese troops order the Palestinians deported Dec. 17 to strike their tent camp and return to Israel. Israeli troops discourage the Arabs with warning rounds of mortar fire, wounding at least two.

A Colombian judge imposes a 171⁄2-year prison sentence on Ivan Urdinola, 32, who heads a faction of the Cali drug cartel.

Indian prime minister P. V. Narasimha Rao convincingly wins a no-confidence challenge in Parliament posed by the rightist proHindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over his handling of the Dec. 6 Ayodhya mosque crisis.

European Community Commission president Jacques Delors publicly announced the portfolios for 16 members of the commission for 1993–94.

Forces loyal to ousted Tajikistan president Rakhman Nabiyev continue to fight with Islamic and other anticommunist forces led by acting president Akbar Shah Iskandarov for control of Dushanbe, the capital.

A Libyan Arab Airlines jetliner crashes about 35 miles (55 km) southeast of Tripoli, killing all 157 passengers and crew aboard.

South Korea and Vietnam establish diplomatic relations. . . . In response to a series of incidents in Cambodia in which the Khmer Rouge detained and released several dozen UN peacekeepers, the UN Security Council demands that they stop.

Polish premier Hanna Suchocka vows not give in to demands of an estimated 300, 000 coal miners in what is called the largest industrial job action in Poland since World War II. . . . A UN disaster-relief official announces that an international effort to strengthen the Mojkovac dam in Montenegro before it dumps 3.5 million tons of toxic waste into the Tara River was successful. . . . Russian president Yeltsin approves a new cabinet made up mostly of supporters of liberal economic reform. . . . Slobodan Milosevic wins the election in Serbia.

In Somalia, Lawrence Freedman, a civilian employee of the U.S. Army, is killed when his truck drives over a mine near Bardera. Three security guards for the U.S. State Department are seriously injured by the blast. They are the first U.S. casualties in Operation Restore Hope.

The Philippines’ most wanted rebel leader, Gregorio Honasan, emerges from four years in hiding to sign a cease-fire agreement with the Philippine government of Pres. Fidel Ramos that calls for an “immediate and complete cessation of hostilities” and the opening of formal peace talks. . . . Reports state that Khmer Rouge guerrillas fired artillery shells to intimidate UN peacekeepers.

The first casualties among the British peacekeepers in Bosnia occur in mortar attacks. The headquarters of Major General Philippe Morillon, the commander of UN peacekeeping troops in Sarajevo, comes under an artillery attack of undetermined origin.

White gunmen near Ficksburg open fire on two minibuses carrying black passengers in an apparent response to the Dec. 19 slaying of a white girl. The driver is killed and three people are wounded. . . . At least 600 U.S. Marines secure the southwestern town of Bardera in Somalia.

The commander of UN peacekeeping troops in Sarajevo, Major General Philippe Morillon, accuses Bosnian government forces of attempting to kill him by shelling his headquarters.

U.S. and French soldiers take over Hoddur, Somalia. . . . After intense debate, the Israeli cabinet narrowly votes to prevent aid from reaching Palestinian deportees through the security zone. . . . Helen Joseph, 87, British-born white dissident who struggled against apartheid in her adopted land of South Africa and a symbol of white opposition to apartheid, dies in Johannesburg of complications of a stroke.

Dec. 20

Dec. 21

Europe

Dec. 23

Dec. 24

Dec. 25

In India, police arrest over 3,000 Hindu nationalists in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state. The Hindus were threatening to march to Ayodhya, where Hindu militants have erected a makeshift temple on the site of the mosque destroyed on Dec. 6.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 20–25, 1992—411

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Steven J. Ross (born Steven Jay Rechnitz), 65, the chairman and cochief executive of Time Warner Inc., dies in Los Angeles of complications from prostate cancer. . . . Nick Faldo of England, the world’s top-ranked golfer, completes his outstanding year when he wins the World Championship tournament at Montego Bay, Jamaica.

Amid much controversy, the Ku Klux Klan erects an eight-foot-tall wooden cross in a downtown square in Cincinnati, Ohio. The cross is repeatedly attacked and toppled several times by angry protesters. . . . Victor Orena, the reputed acting boss of the Colombo crime family, is convicted of nine counts of racketeering and murder. . . . President-elect Clinton names Richard Riley (D) to be education secretary. President-elect Bill Clinton fills positions of his administration when he names retired Admiral William Crowe Jr. as head of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, Madeleine Albright as ambassador to the UN, Warren Christopher as secretary of state, Rep. Les Aspin (D, Wis.) as defense secretary, Anthony Lake as national security adviser, and James Woolsey as director of central intelligence. Charles Schwartz, a federal district judge, orders an overhaul of the Louisiana state university system, which is still largely segregated. . . . Michigan District Court chief judge Alex Allen Jr. dismisses an involuntary manslaughter charge against Sergeant Freddie Douglas, one of four Detroit policemen allegedly involved in the fatal beating of a black motorist, Malice Green, in November. He still faces a misdemeanor charge of neglect of duty.

The Justice Department files an antitrust suit in Washington, D.C., against six U.S. airlines, charging them with using their jointly owned reservation system to illegally fix prices. . . . President-elect Clinton names Hazel O’Leary as energy secretary.

Albert King, 69, influential blues guitarist and singer, dies in Memphis, Tennessee, after suffering a heart attack. . . . Stella Adler, 91, who taught many actors, including Marlon Brando, Warren Beatty, and Robert DeNiro, dies of heart failure in Los Angeles.

The Energy Department announces that all its activities for producing, processing and storing radioactive tritium will be carried out at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and that the nonnuclear part of its weapons-production network will be consolidated at a facility outside Kansas City, Missouri.

A federal judge reduces the prison sentence of former TV evangelist Jim Bakker to eight years from 18 years. . . . The auction houses of Sotheby’s and Christie’s announce their 1992 worldwide auction sales totals at $1.125 billion and $1.054 billion, respectively.

The EEOC files suit against the brokerage firm Kidder, Peabody & Co., charging it with age discrimination related to its firing of 17 employees since 1990. The case is reported to be the largest age-discrimination case brought against a major Wall Street brokerage firm.

Dec. 20

Dec. 21

Dec. 22

Dec. 23

The FDA recalls Goody’s Headache Powders, a nonprescription headache medicine, after a Tennessee man dies from taking a dose tainted with the poison sodium cyanide. . . . Presidentelect Bill Clinton formally selects Dr. Joycelyn Elders as surgeon general, Bruce Babbitt as interior secretary, and Zoe E. Baird as the first woman to head the Justice Department as attorney general.

Pres. Bush pardons six former Reagan administration officials involved in the Iran-contra affair. Those pardoned include Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and CIA officer Duane Clarridge, both of whose cases have not gone to trial. The others pardoned are Robert McFarlane, Elliott Abrams, Clair George, and Alan Fiers Jr. Bush does not pardon three arms dealers, arguing that they gained financially from their actions. . . President-elect Clinton names Mickey Kantor as the U.S. trade representative.

President-elect Clinton appoints Representative Mike Espy to head the Department of Agriculture. He also announces that his Transportation Department will be headed by Federico Pena.

Pierre Culliford, 64, Belgian cartoonist who created Smurfs characters, drawing under the name Peyo, dies in Brussels of a heart attack.

Richard H. Ichord, 66, former Democratic congressman from Missouri, 1961–81, and last chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee, 1969–75, dies of heart failure in Nevada, Missouri.

To head off charges regarding the Dec. 24 pardons, the White House states that the president will make all his Iran-contra files public

The California Fair Political Practices Commission fines the 1990 gubernatorial campaign of Dianne Feinstein (D) $190,000 for violations of state campaign financing rules.

Monica Dickens, 77, British author of more than 50 books and a greatgranddaughter of author Charles Dickens, dies in Reading, England, after suffering from cancer.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 24

Dec. 25

412—December 26–31, 1992

World Affairs

Europe

Dec. 27

Dec. 29

Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay agree to form a common economic market, effective January 1, 1995.

Data show that there are 12,500 U.S. soldiers in Somalia, and another 2,300 are stationed on ships offshore. In addition, 6,044 troops from 17 other countries have arrived. . . . The U.S. and Russia announce agreement on the text of the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II), which, if implemented, will reduce each country’s nuclear arsenal by about two-thirds and eliminate landbased multiple-warhead missiles.

Dec. 30

Dec. 31

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

More than 5,000 defense-plant workers and Socialist Party members in Kiev, Ukraine, stage protests against steep price increases. . . . The Russian military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda reveals that a Soviet nuclear submarine suffered an accident on its maiden voyage in the Atlantic in 1961.

Dec. 26

Dec. 28

Africa & the Middle East

Data shows that world stock-market performances were fair to weak for the year ending December 31. The most severe downturn in 1992 occurred in Japan, where the Tokyo exchange continued a twoyear decline.

A U.S. fighter plane shoots down an Iraqi military aircraft that enters the “no-fly zone” patrolled by the U.S. and its allies over southern Iraq. . . . Two companies of troops arrive in Gailalassi, Somalia, from Italy, the country’s former colonial ruler.

Khmer Rouge guerrillas summarily execute 12 ethnic Vietnamese during a raid on a fishing village in Kompong Chhnang, a province in central Cambodia. Two Cambodians are also killed in the incident. . . . In India, the Rao government decides to buy the site of the Ayodhya mosque and to build both a mosque and a Hindu temple there.

U.S. troops arrive at Belet Uen, so the international force controls eight key cities in Somalia’s “famine zone.” Reports suggest that more than 100 prominent residents of Kismayu were massacred during the three nights preceding the arrival of foreign troops. The killings are said to have been ordered by Col. Omar Jess. . . . The Israeli army announces that 10 of the Palestinians expelled Dec. 17 were wrongly deported and may return to Israel.

Khieu Samphan, the nominal leader of the Khmer Rouge guerrilla faction, warns that UN personnel will be taken captive if they attempt to monitor UN sanctions in Khmer Rougecontrolled areas of Cambodia.

The London stock market reaches a new high when the Financial Times–Stock Exchange 100 stock index hits 2847.8 points. . . . Yugoslav premier Milan Panic is ousted from office by the country’s nationalist-dominated federal parliament.

Kenya holds its first multiparty elections since gaining independence from Britain in 1963.

Fernando Collor de Mello resigns as president of Brazil minutes after the upper house of Parliament, the Senate, convenes an impeachment trial to weigh corruption charges against him. . . . Reports conclude that conditions in Cuba have sunk to their lowest level since communist rule began in 1959.

The Bulgarian parliament confirms a new premier, Lyuben Berov, and his cabinet.

Reports state that the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra reinstates its long-standing ban on performances of the music of German composer Richard Wagner, a staunch anti-Semite.

In Brazil, the Senate votes, 76-3, well beyond the required two-thirds majority, to convict Pres. Fernando Collor de Mello. . . . Colombian security officials capture Jairo Posada Valencia, the suspected leader of the Medellín drug cartel’s terrorist branch.

Crowds of Bosnian Muslims jeer UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali during a brief visit to Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital.

In Kenya, incomplete results from the Dec. 29 election indicate a victory for incumbent Pres. Daniel arap T. Moi, who has ruled the country for 14 years.

The Salvadoran army resists a purge of its officers, thereby forcing Pres. Alfredo Cristiani to violate a key end-of-year deadline as stipulated under a UN peace plan. . . . Prominent human-rights activist Elizardo Sánchez, who was attacked and detained Dec. 10, is released by Cuban authorities.

In Afghanistan, religious and tribal leaders meeting in Kabul, the capital, reelect guerrilla leader Burhanuddin Rabbani to an 18month term as interim president. The vote is followed immediately by violence as Islamic rebel factions opposed to Rabbani fire rockets into the city.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 26–31, 1992—413

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Four youths are arrested for going on what police describe as a “joy killing” spree in Dayton, Ohio, that started Dec. 24 and left five people dead and four wounded.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

John George Kemeny, 66, computer pioneer who cowrote the popular computer language, BASIC (Beginner’s All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) and served as president of Dartmouth College, 1970–81, dies of a heart attack in Lebanon, New Hampshire.

Dec. 26

Kay Boyle, 90, author of some four dozen books who won two O. Henry Memorial Awards, dies in Mill Valley, California, after suffering from cancer and a heart ailment. . . . Stephen J. Albert, 51, who wrote compositions based on works by author James Joyce, including Symphony Riverrun, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1985, dies in Truro, Massachusetts, in an automobile accident. Alabama governor Guy Hunt (R) is indicted in Montgomery, the state capital, on 13 state felony charges in connection with alleged misuse of $200,000 in inaugural and transition funds. . . . An issue of Time hits the stands and names Presidentelect Bill Clinton “Man of the Year.” . . . Tennessee governor Ned Ray McWherter (D) announces that his deputy, Harlan Mathews, 65, will replace Vice Presidentelect Al Gore in the Senate.

A U.S. martial arts instructor, Joseph Garfield Brown, was charged December 28 in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, with giving classified Central Intelligence Agency documents to the Philippine government

David and Sharon Schoo, a St. Charles, Illinois, couple who left their two young daughters home alone while they were on a nineday vacation in Acapulco, Mexico, are arrested and charged with felony child abandonment. . . . The Census Bureau announces that the U.S. population will be 256.6 million on January 1, 1993.

The pilot of a Cuban airliner veers off from a domestic commuter flight and flies his plane to Miami, Florida, where he and 47 other of the plane’s 53 passengers and crew request political asylum.

Salvatore Anthony (Sal) Maglie, 75, baseball pitcher from 1945 to 1958, dies of pneumonia in Niagara Falls, New York. . . . Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King tops the bestseller list. . . . The National Football League season ends when the San Francisco 48ers beat the Detroit Lions, 24-6.

Ten former officers of the Gibraltar Savings Association and First Texas Savings Association reach a $7.9 million settlement with the OTC and the FDIC. . . . The Conference Board reports that its index of consumer confidence surged by 12.7 points to 78.3 in December, its highest level since a reading of 81 in March 1991.

The National Marine Fisheries Service declares that the California gray whale, once threatened with extinction, has “fully recovered” and will be removed from the endangered species list. The gray whale, on the list since 1970, is the second U.S.-protected species to make such a recovery. . . . The FEC discloses that spending for election campaigns for the House totaled $313.7 million from Jan. 1 through Nov. 23. PACs contributed $117 million of the total. Pres. Bush leaves Washington, D.C., to visit Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and Russia. It is his 25th and last scheduled foreign trip as president.

Dec. 27

Dec. 28

Dec. 29

The Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Research Integrity concludes that Robert Gallo, the codiscoverer of the AIDS virus, is guilty of scientific misconduct for having “falsely reported” a key point in a 1984 paper.

The Dow Jones industrial average closes the year at 3301.11, up 132.28 points from the 1991 yearend level. The dollar closes at 124.80 Japanese yen and 1.62 German marks, compared with 124.85 yen and 1.52 marks at the year’s beginning. The U.S. dollar also stands at $1.52 per British pound, compared with a rate of $1.87 at the end of 1991.

Rev. Timothy S. Healy, 69, Jesuit priest and president of the New York Public Library since 1989, dies of a heart attack. . . . A female giant panda presented to the U.S. by China in 1972 who was, at 23, the oldest of her kind living in captivity outside of China, dies at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.

Figures show that Batman Returns was the year’s biggest film, earning $165.7 million. . . . The Emancipation Proclamation, signed by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, goes on display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. It has not been shown in public since 1979.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 30

Dec. 31

1993 Bill Clinton takes the oath of office in January 1993.

416—January–September 1993

Jan.

Feb.

March

April

May

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

World Affairs

Europe

U.S. president George Bush and Russian president Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II), heralded as the broadest disarmament pact in history.

The nation of Czechoslovakia splits into two separate states, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, completing a peaceful divorce engineered in 1992. Vaclav Havel is voted president of the Czech Republic by Czech parliamentarians.

China declares that, for the first time since 1949, it will allow international companies to bid for oildrilling rights in the country.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Iraq announces that it will not allow UN arms experts to use their own UN-provided planes to conduct inspection tours of Iraq’s military installations and production sites. It is one move that prompts the first allied offensive against Iraq since the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

More than 2,400 Guatemalan refugees cross the border from Mexico to return to their country in a step toward ending over 30 years of civil strife.

In Taiwan, Premier Hau Pei-tsun resigns, along with his entire cabinet, following bitter battles between conservative and reformist factions.

The parliament of Belarus ratifies the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), so Ukraine is the only nuclear-armed state of the former Soviet Union not to have ratified the pact.

A cease-fire in the Rwandan civil war collapses when rebels launch an offensive aimed at blocking “ethnic cleansing” by the Hutus.

Haiti’s military junta agrees to the deployment of hundreds of international human-rights monitors

Kim Young Sam takes office, making him South Korea’s first civilian president since 1961.

The UN Security Council unanimously approves a resolution to send at least 28,000 peacekeeping soldiers as well as 2,800 civilians, the biggest peacekeeping force in UN history, to Somalia.

In Warrington, England, two explosions kill two boys—three-year-old Jonathan Ball and Tim Parry, 12— and wound more than 50 other people. Jonathan Ball is said to be the youngest person killed in Britain by an IRA attack. The killings prompt an estimated 15,000 people to attend the largest-ever protest in Dublin criticizing the IRA.

In Angola, the rebel group UNITA wins control the city of Huambo, so their power extends to more than half of Angola’s territory.

Five right-wing Nicaraguan commandos seize some two dozen embassy personnel and diplomats, including Nicaragua’s ambassador Alfonso Robelo Callejas, in San José, the Costa Rican capital.

A barrage of bombs in India leaves more than 300 people dead and 1,100 injured in the biggest wave of criminal violence in Indian history.

The U.S., Italy, Sudan, and Egypt become the first countries to formally recognize Eritrea as a separate country.

A ceremony in Warsaw, Poland, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Jewish ghetto uprising is attended by Polish president Lech Walesa, U.S. vice president Al Gore, and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who becomes the first Israeli head of state to visit Poland.

The Republic of Yemen holds the first multiparty election on the Arabian peninsula. It is also the first Arabian election in which women can vote.

The Peruvian army deploys tanks in the streets of Lima, prompting the U.S. government and the OAS to remind Pres. Alberto Fujimori that grants of aid to Peru will be conditioned on its efforts to restore democracy and on Peru’s respect for human rights.

Pres. Fidel Ramos removes 62 topranking officers of the Philippine National Police (PNP) in the biggest law-enforcement shake-up in the nation’s history.

The UN Security Council declares the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, and the five remaining Muslim strongholds in the country—Bihac, Gorazde, Tuzla, Srebrenica, and Zepa—to be “safe areas.” However, fighting intensifies in these zones.

A series of work stoppages are described as the first widespread job action in eastern Germany in 60 years.

Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) and Fatah, the mainstream wing of the PLO, claim responsibility for killing two Israeli and two Arab merchants in the Gaza Strip. It is the first time the rival groups have conducted a joint military action.

Juan Carlos Wasmosy of the ruling Colorado Party wins a three-way race for the presidency in Paraguay’s first multiparty, direct elections for a civilian head of state.

Pres. Ranasinghe Premadasa of Sri Lanka is assassinated in Colombo, the capital. Prime Minister Dingiri Banda Wijetunga takes the oath of office as interim president.

The World Conference on Human Rights approves a final declaration that calls on the UN to consider the establishment of a High Commissioner for Human Rights. The conference is the first large-scale international human-rights meeting since 1968.

Yugoslav president Dobrica Cosic is ejected from office, and 4,000 demonstrators storm the parliament building in Belgrade. The Yugoslav parliament elects Zoran Lilic, 39, as president of the Yugoslav Federation, which comprises the republics of Serbia and Montenegro.

Fighting in Somalia escalates, particularly after a series of wellorchestrated attacks kills 23 United Nations peacekeepers in the worst single-day death toll for UN soldiers since 1961.

Guatemalan president Jorge Serrano Elías is forced from office by the military. Guatemala’s human-rights ombudsman, Ramiro de León Carpio, takes the presidential oath of office.

Crown Prince Naruhito of Japan, marries Masako Owada. She is the first woman with a career to join the royal family.

The UN orders an immediate inquiry into charges by Africa Rights that UN forces in Somalia violated the rights of civilians.

Georgian leader Eduard Shevardnadze imposes a 60-day period of martial law in the northwestern region of Abkhazia.

The government of Egypt hangs seven Islamic militants convicted in April of participating in six separate attacks on tourists. It is the largest execution at one time in Egypt’s modern history.

Fighting in the Nicaraguan city of Estelí is the worst such violence since the country’s 10-year civil war ended in 1990.

Fighting along the Afghanistan border continues, and the Russian command reinforces border garrisons after raids on a Tajik village. The attacks kill 380 people and displace 6,000 villagers in Afghanistan.

UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali announces the appointment of Mohamed Aly Niazi to a new post created to investigate persistent allegations of fraud, mismanagement and financial abuse within the UN.

Czech president Vaclav Havel and Russian president Boris Yeltsin sign a friendship treaty that ends 25 years of tension.

Amy Elizabeth Biehl, 26, a white Fulbright scholar studying women’s rights, is killed in Guguletu township near Cape Town. Biehl is reportedly the first American killed in South Africa’s political violence.

The Haitian parliament’s accepts ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s choice for premier, Robert Malval.

Tamil refugees voluntarily leave Madras, India, for the Sri Lankan port of Trincomalee in a UN operation that is the first of its kind in India since 1973.

Israel’s PM Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, the chair of the PLO, shake hands in Washington, D.C., sealing a breakthrough accord that commits Israelis and Palestinians to share a land that they both claim as their own. The agreement for interim Palestinian self-rule comes after several months of Norwegian-mediated secret negotiations.

Rebels launch an offensive on the Abkhazian capital, Sukhumi.

The South African Parliament votes to allow blacks to participate for the first time in the national government, approving creation of a multiracial council that will oversee the country’s preparations for its first universal election.

Pres. Fidel Castro Ruz inches Cuba a step closer toward a mixed economy when he approves a decree allowing restricted forms of private enterprise.

Norodom Sihanouk assumes the throne as Cambodia’s king, regaining the position he abdicated in 1955. He announces that Prince Norodom Ranariddh, his son, will hold the title of first premier and Hun Sen, the outgoing premier, will serve as second premier.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January–September 1993—417

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

William Jefferson. Clinton is formally inaugurated as president of the United States. He names his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, as head of a new commission to reform the U.S.’s health-care system. It is the most influential position ever awarded to a first lady.

Pres. Clinton announces a compromise under which the military may remove openly homosexual members from active service during the six-month waiting period but will not ask recruits or service personnel about sexual orientation.

Pres. Clinton formally creates a new executive-branch advisory body, the National Economic Council, to coordinate national economic policy in the same way that the National Security Council coordinates foreign policy.

Pres. Clinton lifts restrictions on federally funded medical research teams so they can now use fetal tissue from elective abortions to further their quest to cure illnesses.

Audrey Hepburn, 63, cultural icon, actress and goodwill ambassador for UNICEF, dies in Tolochenaz, Switzerland, of colon cancer.

Jan.

Data shows that a total of 23 women have accused Sen. Bob Packwood (R, Oreg.) of making unwanted sexual advances toward them.

A bomb explodes in a garage below the World Trade Center in New York City, killing five people. It is the deadliest bombing in the U.S. since 1975. More than 1,000 people are treated for injuries.

Pres. Clinton signs the Family and Medical Leave Act, legislation that requires large companies to provide workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for family and medical emergencies. The is the first legislation to pass under the Clinton administration.

NASA for the first time releases photographs of the demolished cabin of the space shuttle Challenger, which blew up shortly after launch in 1986, killing its crew of seven.

An estimated 90 million people watch the first interview given by pop superstar Michael Jackson in 14 years.

Feb.

Janet Reno is sworn in as attorney general, becoming the first woman ever to serve in that position.

Ramon Montoya, 38, a Mexican citizen convicted of fatally shooting a Dallas, Texas, police officer, is executed. His death causes a furor in Mexico. Montoya is the first Mexican executed in Texas in 51 years.

A study finds that 44 of 78 species put on the first endangered list in 1967 have recovered, made progress, or stabilized their numbers However, the populations of 17 other species remain in decline while eight others are believe to have become extinct.

A snowstorm described as one of the 20th century’s most powerful hits the East Coast, from Florida to Maine.

About half a dozen newspapers refuse to run a series of Lynn Johnston’s “For Better or For Worse” comic strips in which a teenage boy reveals that he is homosexual.

In Waco, Texas, federal agents pump tear gas into a compound of the Branch Davidians led by David Koresh, after a 51 day standoff. The compound is set on fire, in what authorities call a mass suicide attempt. The FBI calculates that 86 cult members perished in the flames.

The U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland recommends the expulsion of six of 28 midshipmen accused of cheating on an examination. The cheating incident is reportedly the worst in the Naval Academy since 1974.

Cesar Estrada Chavez, 66, labor leader known for using nonviolent protest tactics who organized the National Farm Workers Association in 1962, which later became the United Farm Workers of America, is found dead in San Luis, Arizona.

Scientists discover fossilized microorganisms believed to be 3.485 billion years old, or 1.3 billion years older than any previous similar finds. The find challenges concepts about the rate at which life developed on earth.

Monica Seles, 19, the world’s topranked female tennis player, is stabbed in the back by an attacker who claims to be a fan of Steffi Graf, the world’s second-ranked woman.

Two people are killed and four are wounded in separate rampages in post offices in California and Michigan. The slayings bring to 29 the number of postal workers and supervisors killed by employees in 10 incidents since 1983.

Pres. Clinton recognizes the government of Angola, more than 17 years after the country gained independence from Portugal.

The Dow rises by 1.62%, or 55.64 points, to close at a record 3,500.03.

The space-shuttle program passes what NASA calls the year mark, since the combined duration of all 55 shuttle missions now surpasses a year.

Pres. Clinton officially names Miles Lerman as chair of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, which oversees the Holocaust Museum.

May

In Wisconsin v. Mitchell, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that states can impose stiffer sentences on defendants who commit crimes motivated by racial, religious, or other biases.

In a smuggling operation, a ship carrying nearly 300 illegal Chinese immigrants runs aground off the coast of Queens, New York.

New York Times Co. agrees to buy Affiliated Publications Inc., the parent company of the Boston Globe newspaper, for $1.1 billion. The purchase price is the largest ever paid for a single U.S. newspaper.

Pres. Clinton accepts a plan for the space station Freedom submitted by NASA.

The heads of the four major TV networks announce that their stations will introduce parental advisory warnings for violent shows.

June

The Colorado Supreme Court upholds, 6-1, a lower court’s injunction against state enforcement of Amendment 2, a measure that prohibits localities from passing laws to protect homosexuals from discrimination.

Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, a radical Muslim cleric whose followers are implicated in two recent NYC bombing plots, surrenders to federal authorities.

After five years of legal battles over pollution, the Clinton administration, the Florida government, and several sugar-cane producers announce an agreement regarding a $465 million plan to restore the Everglades, the world’s largest freshwater marsh.

Floods in Midwestern states result in the damage or destruction of least 40,000 homes and businesses, and at least 50,000 people have been left permanently or temporarily homeless.

A poll shows that 84% of U.S. Catholics reject the church’s ban on artificial birth control, 58% think that not all abortions should be banned, 76% believe priests should be allowed to marry, and 63% favor the ordination of female priests.

Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg is sworn in as the 107th Supreme Court justice.

The INS grants political asylum to Marcelo Tenorio, 30, on the grounds that he would face persecution in Brazil because of his homosexual orientation. The ruling reportedly marks the first time that a homosexual person has received asylum in the U.S. on a claim that homosexuals are a persecuted in the claimant’s country of origin.

Pres. Clinton issues an executive order requiring that new revenues and savings created by the budget bill be placed in a “deficit-reduction trust fund,” where they cannot be made available for new government spending.

Pres. Clinton names Dr. Harold Varmus, the winner of the 1989 Nobel Prize for medicine, to serve as director of the National Institutes of Health.

Pope John Paul II visits Denver, Colorado, to mark the World Youth Day festival. At another event, the pontiff publicly addresses child sexual abuse by priests for the second time ever.

Pres. Clinton signs the National and Community Service Trust Act, which will provide some young people with money to pay for college in return for community service.

The Senate passes, 92-7, a $261 billion defense authorization bill, which raises controversy since it codifies the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding homosexuals in the military.

Postmaster General Marvin Runyon reveals that the Postal Service lost about $100 million in 1993 as a result of postage meter fraud.

U.S. vice president Gore and Russian premier Victor Chernomyrdin sign an agreement that calls for the two countries to jointly design and build an international space station before the end of the decade. The unprecedented agreement brings to a close decades of cold war competition in space.

The NEA withdraws most of its $5,000 grant for a project meant to honor the contributions of illegal immigrant laborers to the U.S. economy. The project involves handing out $10 bills to illegal immigrants near the CaliforniaMexico border.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

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Aug.

Sept.

418—October–December 1993

Oct.

Nov.

Dec.

World Affairs

Europe

The UN General Assembly lifts most of its nonmandatory economic sanctions against South Africa, ending 30 years of embargoes and voluntary restrictions in trade, investment, and sports.

In Russia, riots break out in what the Western press calls the worst violence in Moscow since 1917.

The Maastricht Treaty, which creates a new 12-nation “European Union,” goes into effect.

The UN General Assembly passes a resolution demanding that the ruling council in Myanmar free Aung San Suu Kyi and reinstate democracy and civil rights.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Burundi, paratroopers storm the national palace and capture Pres. Melchior Ndadaye. Ndadaye, elected president in the nation’s first democratic poll, is killed. An estimated 30,000 Hutu civilians flee to neighboring Rwanda.

Peruvian voters narrowly approve a new constitution that will strengthen the presidency and align the country more firmly behind a free-market ideology.

Violence erupts at a mosque in Srinagar, Kashmir’s capital city.

An arms cache that contains more than 300 assault rifles and two tons of explosives destined for the outlawed Ulster Volunteer Force is intercepted. The shipment is said to be the largest arms haul ever discovered in Britain.

Voters elect Jordan’s first woman parliamentarian, Toujan al-Faisal, a committed feminist whose candidacy was vociferously opposed by Muslim fundamentalists.

For the first time, two high-ranking military officers receive prison sentences for rights abuses perpetrated during the reign of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. The case involves the assassination of Orlando Letelier in Washington, D.C., in 1976.

In a landmark decision, the South Australian Equal Opportunity Tribunal awards A$60,100 (US$40,000) in damages to David Paul Jobling, who was fired from a temporary teaching position because he is homosexual and HIV-positive.

The Turkish interior ministry states that 4,180 people were killed in 1993 in battles between Turkish forces and separatist Kurds. The toll is the highest since the revolt began in 1984.

The South African Parliament adopts the nation’s first constitution that provides “fundamental rights” to blacks.

Colombian police and soldiers shoot dead fugitive drug trafficker Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria in Medellín.

Officials from China and Taiwan meet in Taipei to discuss improving trade and cultural links. It is the first time in 44 years that an official Chinese delegation has been in Taiwan.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October–December 1993—419

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Pres. Clinton signs the Hatch Act Reform Amendments of 1993, legislation that allows employees of the federal government to take part in a wide range of partisan political activities while off duty.

Pres. Clinton announces that he is sending reinforcements to Somalia and sets a deadline of March 31, 1994, for the eventual withdrawal of all but a few hundred U.S. combat troops from that country.

The Census Bureau reports that the number of Americans living below the poverty level in 1992 has risen for the third straight year, reaching its highest total since 1962.

Researchers announce that they have discovered a new receptor molecule on the surface of blood cells that helps HIV to penetrate and infect cells. The discovery is viewed as a breakthrough that may help lead to the development of a vaccine against AIDS.

Toni Morrison wins the Nobel Prize in Literature. She is the eighth woman and the first black American to receive the honor.

Pres. Clinton signs the Brady bill, which imposes a five-day waiting period for the purchase of a handgun. .

A bronze sculpture honoring the 11,500 women who served in the Vietnam War is dedicated in Washington, D.C.

The Dow closes at 3710.77, marking the first time it closes over the 3,700 level.

The House approves a bill that will provide grants to help local governments, schools, medical centers, and other nonprofit organizations to connect themselves to the information superhighway, a planned nationwide network for transmitting data. The bill will set aside $250 million for establishing such links in fiscal 1995 and 1996.

A Court of Appeals overturns an FCC ban on the broadcast of socalled indecent material between 6:00 A.M. and midnight, arguing that the ban violates First Amendment rights.

Massachusetts governor William Weld (R) signs into law a bill intended to protect lesbian and gay students in public schools from discrimination. The bill is believed to be the first piece of statewide legislation in the country to address the civil rights of young homosexuals.

Pres. Clinton signs NAFTA into law.

The Commerce Department expects health-care spending in the U.S. to rise to $1.06 trillion in 1994, or 15% of the country’s total output of goods and services.

The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour completes a landmark mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. Pres. Clinton and Vice Pres. Gore congratulate the Endeavour crew by telephone on fulfilling “one of the most spectacular space missions in all of our history.”

Israel and the Vatican formally establish diplomatic relations after 45 years of often rancorous dispute.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct.

Nov.

Dec.

420—January 1–6, 1993

Jan. 1

World Affairs

Europe

The European Community’s open internal economic market opens, and 1,300 beacons are lit across Western Europe to mark the new trade arena. . . . Denmark assumes the rotating presidency of the EC . . . . As a result of the breakup of Czechoslovakia, the country ceases to exist as a member of the IMF.

The nation of Czechoslovakia splits into two separate states, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, completing a peaceful divorce engineered in 1992. . . . Some 250,000 people join a vigil in the northwestern city of Essen in response to neo-Nazi attacks on foreigners.

A new round of peace talks aimed at ending the civil war in the former Yugoslav republic of BosniaHerzegovina opens. Attending the peace conference are the leaders of the rival ethnic groups, Bosnia’s Muslim president Alija Izetbegovic, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, and Bosnian Croat leader Mate Boban, as well as Croatian Pres. Franjo Tudjman and Pres. Dobrica Cosic of the rump Yugoslav republic (consisting of Serbia and Montenegro).

Jan. 2

Jan. 3

U.S. president George Bush and Russian president Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II), heralded as the broadest disarmament pact in history. The treaty calls for both sides to slash their long-range nuclear arsenals within a decade and will entirely eliminate landbased, multiple-warhead missiles. . . . British prime minister Major states that Britain will not rejoin the EC’s exchange rate mechanism (ERM) in 1993.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific UN Security Council–imposed trade sanctions against the Khmer Rouge go into effect in Cambodia.

Sean Devereux, an officer of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), is shot to death in Somalia.

Government authorities arrest Humberto Javier Callejas Ruiz, the second in command of the Popular Liberation Army (EPL), the thirdlargest Marxist guerrilla group in Colombia.

Data shows Israeli forces killed 23 Palestinians in December 1992, the highest monthly total in two years. Troops in the Gaza Strip shoot and kill one Palestinian and wound nine others in a rock-throwing melee. Haim Nachmani, an officer of the Shin Bet, is stabbed and beaten to death. . . . UNICEF closes its operations in Kismayu, Somalia, after the Jan. 2 slaying. Separately, a mob prevents UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali from visiting the UN compound in Mogadishu. Representatives of Somalia’s 14 most powerful factions gather in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, for talks on rebuilding their country. . . . Daniel T. arap Moi is sworn in for a fourth term as president of Kenya.

Jan. 4

The operators a nursing home located near UN headquarters in Sarajevo announce that 10 elderly residents have frozen to death over the past 36 hours; 190 of the home’s 302 residents have died since April 1992. The case draws attention since operators asked the UN to evacuate the homes or at least provide heaters. . . . An oil tanker runs aground in a heavy storm at the southern tip of the Shetland Islands in the North Sea. The 34 crew members are evacuated.

Jan. 5

Jan. 6

Africa & the Middle East

The U.S., Britain, France, and Russia give Iraq a 48-hour deadline to remove its antiaircraft surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) in the southern no-fly zone or face military retaliation. . . . The World Bank awards a $450 million and a $300-million loan to Argentina.

Data shows that, in 1992, more than 440,000 people arrived in Germany seeking asylum. That record total is up 71% from 1991.

Reports suggest that documents detailing evidence of governmentsponsored cannibalism in China during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s have emerged. The documents exhort CP members to torture and eat “counterrevolutionaries.” The documents indicate that cannibalism took place in Guangxi province, where thousands participated in mutilating and eating the bodies of at least 137 people.

The Israeli army announces that it has arrested 22 members of Hamas’s military wing.

British foreign secretary Douglas Hurd becomes the first British cabinet minister to visit Argentina since the two countries went to war over the Falkland Islands in 1982. . . . Nova Scotia approves a plan to flood a section of the Westray coal mine, where 26 miners died in an explosion on May 9, 1992. Relatives of the dead miners charge that the ruling signals that the government is no longer seeking to determine the cause of the explosion.

In Kashmir, troops of the border security force close all access routes to Sopore and start houseto-house searches for armed Muslim separatists. The troops were apparently retaliating for a landmine explosion that recently took the lives of two soldiers outside Sopore, a town 25 miles (40 km) northwest of Srinagar, the capital. A wave of violence begins when Hindu mobs target Muslims and their property.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 1–6, 1993—421

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

A new federal definition of AIDS goes into effect, which is expected to add 100,000 people to the roll of AIDS patients in the U.S. by 1995. . . . . Jean Mayer, 72, Tufts University chancellor who organized the 1969 White House Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health that led to the introduction of food stamps and the expansion of the federal school lunch program for needy children, dies in Sarasota, Florida, of a heart attack.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

An order by Pres. Bush that raises the salaries of thousands of top government administrators by 3.2% goes into effect. The raise draws attention because, during the 1992 presidential election campaign, Bush advocated a 5% pay cut for all $75,000-and-over federal workers.

Jan. 1

Reports state that a U.S. federal judge has ruled that the FDA is not responsible for $210 million in losses sustained by Chilean fruit growers and exporters and U.S. importers when the FDA banned their products during a cyanide scare in March 1989.

Jan. 2

A survey suggests that the chief economic worry of the poor is being unable to pay medical bills.

NASA releases photographs of Toutatis, an asteroid that passed within 2.2 million miles of Earth in December 1992. . . . Reports show that the prediction made in the fall of 1992 that the there is a one in 10,000 chance that the Swift-Tuttle comet will collide with Earth in the year 2126 is widely considered inaccurate.

Pres. Bush threatens to fire Postmaster General Marvin Runyon and five others on the 11-member board who support a suit that challenges the independent Postal Rate Commission’s 1991 decision over stamp costs. The suit was filed without the U.S. Justice Department’s approval.

Gold prices in both New York and London slump to seven-year lows.

Astronomers announce the discovery of a distant concentration of “dark matter,” an enigmatic substance believed to make up as much as 95% of the total mass of the universe. The finding is called the “first reliable observation” to show dark matter residing in relatively small galactic formations rather than in huge clusters of galaxies. . . . Figures indicate that Intel Corp. was the world’s largest semiconductor supplier in 1992.

Westley Allan Dodd, 31, convicted of the 1989 murders of three boys, is executed by hanging in Walla Walla, Washington. It is the nation’s first execution by hanging since 1965. . . . The 103rd Congress opens with one party in power of both bodies and the White House for the first time since 1980. . . . The House gives full voting rights to U.S. territories and Washington, D.C. . . . Paul Coverdell (R, Ga.) is sworn in despite two legal disputes over his election.

A federal jury finds Lance Wilson, Leonard Briscoe Sr., and Maurice Steier guilty of giving gratuities to a federal official in connection with government contracts. The verdict ends the first trial arising from an influence peddling and mismanagement scandal at HUD during Pres. Reagan’s administration. . . . The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, E. Gerald Corrigan, 51, announces his resignation, effective Aug 20.

Congress formally counts the votes of the Electoral College, making the 1992 presidential election victory of Gov. Bill Clinton (Ark.) official, with 370 votes for the Democratic ticket. . . . In response to allegations that FEMA denied access to information to a homosexual employee and asked him to name other gay workers, a special advisory board recommends that the federal government’s securityclearance system be overhauled.

The VA announces that former U.S. service people intentionally exposed to poison gases during secret World War II tests may claim compensation for an expanded list of illnesses. The announcement coincides with the release of a report that reveals more than 4,000 soldiers and sailors—twice as many as previously estimated— have been used as subjects in “man-breaking” poison gas experiments.

Ford announces its Taurus model was the nation’s best-selling passenger car in 1992, ending the three-year grip on the top spot held by Honda’s Accord. . . . A federal jury in Los Angeles finds Charles Keating, Jr. guilty on 73 counts of fraud and racketeering charges. His son, Charles Keating III, is convicted on 64 similar counts. . . . The OMB projects a budget deficit of $327.3 billion for the 1993 fiscal year, which will end Sept. 30.

The National Society of Film critics select Unforgiven as the best film of 1992. Stephen Rea is named best actor, and Emma Thompson wins for best actress. . . . CBS and ABC air movies about Amy Fisher, imprisoned for shooting the wife of her alleged lover. It is the first time two made-for-TV movies on the same subject compete in the same time slot.

Jan. 4

Slugger Reggie Jackson is elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

Argentine and American paleontologists state they have discovered a dinosaur species have anatomically unsophisticated that they believe it to be a close relative to the common ancestor of all dinosaurs. The creature, named Eoraptor, lived 225 million years ago, so it is not the oldest dinosaur ever found.

Jan. 3

Dizzy (John Birks Gillespie) Gillespie, 75, innovative jazz trumpeter and pioneer of be-bop, dies of pancreatic cancer in Englewood, New Jersey. . . . National Football League owners and players agree on a new seven-year labor contract. . . . Rudolf Nureyev, 54, one of the greatest dancers of the 20th century, dies of cardiac complications resulting from AIDS, in Paris.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 5

Jan. 6

422—January 7–12, 1993

World Affairs

Jan. 7

Jan. 8

Iraq announces that it will not allow UN arms experts to use their own UN-provided planes to conduct inspection tours of Iraq’s military installations and production sites.

Jan. 9

Jan. 12

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Four hundred U.S. marines raid a camp belonging to one of Somalia’s most powerful warlords, Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid. The clash is the biggest to date in “Operation Restore Hope,” a multinational effort to deliver food to famine victims in war-torn southern Somalia.

Senior Police Superintendent S. Sahay admits that Indian security forces “went amok” in the Kashmir town of Sopore Jan. 6, killing at least 52 civilians and setting scores of buildings on fire. Witnesses allege that 15 soldiers fired indiscriminately into a crowded open-air market and that troops set fire to commercial establishments, a fire which spread to five neighboring residential areas.

A team of EC investigators concludes that Bosnian Serbs have raped as many as 20,000 Muslim women and girls as part of a systematic effort to drive them from their homes in humiliation. A Serbian militiaman assassinates Deputy Premier Hajika Turajlic, a senior official of the Muslim-led Bosnian government, while he is under the protection of UN peacekeeping troops. . . . The Scottish government place a ban on all fishing within 50 miles (80 km) of the site of an oil spill caused when a tanker ran aground Jan. 5.

U.S. Marines close down a weapons market in Mogadishu, Somalia.

Japan announces a one-year extension on voluntary limits on automobile exports to the U.S.

In response to the Jan. 8 killing of Hajika Turajic, crowds of angry Bosnians demonstrate against the UN in Sarajevo.

The Angolan government states that, because of its attack with soldiers, armed civilians, and bombs, it now controls Huambo, the home of UNITA headquarters and UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi. . . . Israel allows the International Red Cross to remove two of the Palestinians deported in December to a town in an Israeli-controlled region of southern Lebanon.

All 163 passengers and crew aboard an Indian Airlines domestic flight survive after the jet crashes during a landing attempt in New Delhi, India’s capital. . . . General Asif Nawaz, 56, Pakistan’s army chief of staff since August 1991 who sought to help foster democracy in Pakistan, dies in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, of a heart attack.

Iraq moves antiaircraft missiles into the “safe zone” established for Kurdish refugees in northern Iraq, an area patrolled by U.S. and allied aircraft.

Relief expert Thomas Brennan charges that UN policies are “clearly failing to prevent genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and may actually be facilitating its implementation,” and he calls for U.S. military intervention.

Asia & the Pacific

Georgia states it accidentally shot down a Russian aircraft over the Black Sea. . . . In Tajikistan, a state of emergency and a curfew go into effect in force in Dushanbe. . . . In Sarajevo, UN High Commissioner for Refugees envoy Jose-Maria Mendiluce states that the current relief operation is inadequate to prevent mass deaths from cold and starvation.

Six Hindu leaders are released from detention, imposed since Dec. 7, 1992, on charges of inciting religious hatred.

French UN troops begin evacuating the nursing home near UN headquarters in Sarajevo after the Jan. 5 disclosure about patients freezing to death despite nursing home officials’ pleas for help from UN commanders.

Jan. 10

Jan. 11

Europe

Huge waves driven by hurricaneforce winds shatter the hull of the U.S.-owned oil tanker Braer that crashed Jan. 5. An estimated 26 million gallons (100 million liters or 620,000 barrels) of crude oil have spilled. . . . The Irish parliament, the Dail, approves the new government of P.M. Albert Reynolds. . . . Charles Tillon, 95, communist leader of the French Resistance who went on to serve as a cabinet minister, dies in Marseilles, France.

In Somalia, U.S. Marines raid Mogadishu’s largest bazaar, confiscating truckloads of arms.

Exiled president Jean-Bertrand Aristide publicly offers a general amnesty to military officers involved in the coup that ousted him as leader of Haiti.

Violence in Bombay, India, prompts its prominent citizens to strongly urge the Rao government to declare a state of emergency in the city so that the army can restore order.

The U.S. loses its first soldier in Somalia when Marine lance corporal Domingo Arroyo of Elizabeth, New Jersey, is killed in a shoot-out with Somali gunmen in Mogadishu.

Reports state that almost 400 Haitian refugees died when the Vierge Miracle, a Haitian freighter, sank in rough seas in the southern Bahamas in December 1992.

Sectarian violence in Bombay continues, as 25 more Hindu and Muslim deaths raise the fatality toll to 200 for the bloody spree. Lal Krishna Advani, the leader of the opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), demands that an immediate general election be held in India.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 7–12, 1993—423

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

District Court judge Louis Oberdorfer issues a temporary injunction barring Pres. Bush from removing any of the Post Office board members who want to continue with a lawsuit and were threatened with dismissal by the president Jan. 4. . . . The EPA concludes that other people’s tobacco smoke has a “serious and substantial public health impact” on nonsmokers.

The GAO warns that fraud and mismanagement are rampant in the Medicare system. . . . The Commerce Department finds that health-care spending in 1992 rose to more than 14% of the U.S.’s total economic output, up from 13.2% in 1991. . . . Reports confirm that an audit has found top officials in the Department of the Interior violated federal travel regulations and used agency funds for political purposes.

NASA researchers propose that an asteroid caused a mysterious explosion over Tunguska, in the Russian region of Siberia, that flattened hundreds of square miles of forest in 1908. For decades, scientists have debated the cause of the blast, which had an estimated explosive force equal to 1,000 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs and produced shock waves recorded around the world.

Pres. Bush, defying an injunction issued Jan. 7, fills a vacancy on the Postal Board of Governors by using a recess appointment to name Thomas Ludlow Ashley to a seat.

The EPA announces that it will allow California to require more stringent standards for automobile emissions than the federal government mandates.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Jan. 7

Reports confirm that a Norwegian lawyer, Erling Kagge, is the first person to walk alone to the South Pole on a 51-day, 814-mile (1,310km) journey. . . . The U.S. Postal Service releases a stamp honoring the late rock-and-roll singer Elvis Presley.

Seven people are found shot dead in two coolers in the back of Brown’s Chicken and Pasta restaurant in Palatine, Illinois. . . . F(rederick) Clifton White, 74, Republican Party strategist best known for masterminding the movement that won Sen. Barry Goldwater (Ariz.) the Republican nomination for president in 1964, dies in Greenwich, Connecticut, of cancer.

Jan. 8

Jan. 9

Thomas B. Curtis, 81, Republican congressman from Missouri, 1951–69, who was appointed founding chairman of the FEC, dies of heart failure in Allegan, Michigan.

Edmund F. Martin, 90, former chairman of Bethlehem Steel, 1964–70, dies of arteriosclerosis in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

After a two-year manhunt, Eddie Antar, accused of defrauding shareholders of the Crazy Eddie chain $80 million, pleads not guilty in a U.S. District Court in Newark, New Jersey. . . . The National Commission on AIDS notes that racial discrimination and a lack of health care for poor members of minority groups foster the spread of the disease. . . . Texas billionaire Ross Perot announces he is turning his campaign organization into a citizens’ watchdog group.

The U.S. Transportation Department gives formal approval to the effective merger of the operations of two airlines, the Northwest Airlines unit of Wings Holdings Inc. of the U.S. and the Dutch flagship carrier, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. The decision grants antitrust immunity to the merged carrier in the U.S.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rules unanimously that the CIA was justified in firing an employee because he concealed his homosexuality. The anonymous employee joined the CIA in 1973 but did not disclose that he was homosexual until 1982. The panel argues he failed to prove that he was dismissed due to a blanket CIA policy against homosexuals, “as opposed to his clandestine and deliberately concealed activity.”

The Treasury Department reports 1992 sales of U.S. savings bonds reached a record $17.66 billion. The previous record—$12.38 billion—was set in 1944. . . . The Supreme Court rules financially strained associations cannot obtain waivers of fees and other benefits under a federal “pauper” law intended to help poor people seeking legal assistance. . . . The Supreme Court rules, 8-1, that selfemployed persons may not claim any of their housing costs as business tax deductions if they do most of their work elsewhere.

An unidentified 62-year-old man becomes the second person to receive a baboon liver transplant.

Jan. 10

Jan. 11

In the first such operation in nearly two years, doctors at the University of Arizona in Tucson give a woman, Sharoyn Loughran, an artificial heart while she waits for a human heart transplant. . . . Officials state that oxygen is being pumped into the Biosphere 2 ecosystem because its eight human occupants are having difficulty working in the thinning air.

Jan. 12

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

424—January 13–18, 1993

Jan. 13

Jan. 14

Jan. 15

World Affairs

Europe

More than 100 U.S., British, and French warplanes attack Iraqi missile batteries in the first allied offensive against Iraq since the 1991 Persian Gulf war. Iraq states it will drop its restrictions on UN aircraft. . . . More than 120 nations sign a landmark treaty that will outlaw the manufacture, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons. It is the first verifiable disarmament treaty to eliminate an entire category of weapons.

Former East German leader Erich Honecker is freed from a Berlin jail after courts rule that he is too ill to stand trial. . . . British Lance Corporal Wayne Edwards, a UN peacekeeper, is killed in cross fire between nominally allied Croat and Muslim forces in the town of Gornji Vakuf. . . . Rene Pleven, 91, a leader of the Free French movement during World War II who served twice as the French premier in the 1950s, dies in Paris of heart failure.

Data shows that there were no allied casualties in the Jan 13 raid on Iraq, whose official news agency reports that 19 people, including two civilians, killed in the attack. Seven civilians and eight people were wounded.

A Polish ferry capsizes in the Baltic Sea about 20 miles (30 km) east of the German island of Rugen. Reports suggest that more than 50 people have been killed or are presumed dead, and nine people were rescued. Many of the victims died in the icy waters. . . . Danish premier Poul Schluter resigns in the midst of an asylum scandal known as “Tamilgate.”. . . The Russian government formally launches a drive to privatize thousands of stateowned enterprises in order to make the country’s free-market reforms “irreversible.”

Iraq issues a statement asserting its “nonresponsibility for the safety of the planes” and warning that there is a possibility that “confusion or error” could lead Iraqi antiaircraft gunners to shoot at them. The statement outrages U.S. and UN officials, who view it as a veiled threat to the arms teams.

Reports suggest more than 1,500 journalists and staffers have been fired from Serbian state TV and radio. An independent TV union and the opposition Serbian Renewal Movement argue the layoffs are a political purge by the Milosevic regime. . . . Italian police state they have arrested Salvatore (Toto) Riina, said to be the “boss of bosses” of Italian organized crime and Italy’s most wanted man, who has eluded authorities since 1969.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The Israeli army announces that 16 deportees were expelled by mistake in December. The declaration revises a previous admission by the army that 10 of the Arabs were wrongly deported.

Reports disclose that the Laotian government has handed 14-year jail sentences to Deputy Science Minister Thongsouk Saysangky, former Deputy Agriculture Minister Rasmy Khampouy, and former justice ministry official Pheng Sakchittaphong because they allegedly called for a multiparty democracy in Laos.

Representatives of Somalia’s most powerful factions sign a nationwide cease-fire. . . . U.S. troops arrive in Kuwait to shore up the defenses along its border with Iraq.

Muslim forces allegedly fire artillery that hits the Serbian town of Bajina Basta, just across the Drina River from Bosnia. The Yugoslav federal government accuses Bosnia’s Moslems of carrying out the attack to derail the Geneva talks.

Jan. 16

Jan. 17

Africa & the Middle East

Prompted by Iraq’s refusal to guarantee the safety of the UN arms teams assigned to inspect Iraqi weapons-production sites, U.S. and allied warplanes continue to clash with Iraqi planes and attack air-defense emplacements in the two no-fly zones the allies patrol.

The biggest British seaborne battle group since the 1982 Falklands war sets sail for Bosnia. The move draws controversy in England.

As part of the allied action in Iraq, U.S. missiles attack an industrial complex near Baghdad. U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea fire more than 40 Tomahawk cruise missiles at an industrial complex at Zaafaraniy, about eight miles (13 km) southeast of downtown Baghdad. . . . The Israeli Supreme Court begins a new hearing to consider the legality of the December 1992 mass deportation of Palestinian activists by the Israeli government. The U.S. military launches an air strike against air-defense installations in southern Iraq. About 65 planes launch strikes at radar and communications centers at Najaf, Samawa, and Tallil air force base in southern Iraq. Iraq reports that 21 people died in the action.

Jan. 18

Indian prime minister P. V. Narasimha Rao shuffles his cabinet in an effort to solidify his authority in the face of widespread criticism. The sectarian warfare between Hindus and Moslems, which to date has taken more than 1,700 lives, was set off on December 6, 1992, when Hindu militants destroyed a 16th-century mosque in the northern city of Ayodhya.

The military government pressed ahead with elections for 10 of the Haitian Senate’s 27 seats despite international objections and a boycott by all Haitian parties except the ruling military-backed party. Two small bombs reportedly are detonated in the capital, but no injuries are made public. . . . Fugitive drug kingpin Pablo Escobar Gaviria declares that he will form an armed group to renew his struggle against the Colombian government.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 13–18, 1993—425

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The Supreme Court unanimously upholds the Senate’s 1989 trial of former U.S. District Judge Walter L. Nixon Jr. . . . In Bray v. Alexandria Women’s Health Clinic, the Supreme Court, 6-3, rules that federal courts may not invoke a 122year-old civil-rights law to prohibit antiabortion protesters from blocking access to abortion clinics. . . . A wave of bacterial infections breaks out in the Pacific Northwest.

The Senate Select Committee on POW-MIA Affairs concludes a 15month inquiry in which it found “no compelling evidence” that any U.S. POWs are still held in Indochina. . . . After a 10- month inquiry, a bipartisan House task force reports “no credible evidence” to back up allegations that officials of Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign interfered with the release of U.S. hostages in Iran.

President-elect Clinton announces a group of appointees to high White House staff jobs, including George Stephanopoulos, Dee Dee Myers, Bruce Lindsey, and Mark Gearan. . . . . The CDC, predicts the total number of Americans who die of AIDS will reach between 330,000 and 385,000 in 1995. . . . Reports state Zoe Baird, nominated as attorney general, employed an illegal alien couple from Peru beginning in the summer of 1990, which violates the 1986 immigration law that makes it illegal to employ illegal aliens. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds the Jan. 7 injunction regarding the board of the Postal Service that Pres. Bush violated Jan. 8. . . . The Justice Department accuses William Sessions, the director of the FBI, of misusing FBI aircraft, cars, personnel, and funds. . . . Jeff Bayless, a district court judge in Denver, Colorado, blocks a measure opposing homosexual rights, pending a decision on whether the law is constitutional.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral to deploy an information satellite and study the Milky Way galaxy.

Musical groups The Doors, Cream, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Sly and the Family Stone, Etta James, Ruth Brown, Van Morrison, and Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The Commerce Department reports that retail sales for December 1992 were up 8% from the year-earlier level.

The White House releases excerpts from then-vice president Bush’s tape-recorded diary related to the Iran-contra affair of the late 1980s.

An official confirms that Bill and Hillary Clinton will declare Arkansas their legal home while in Washington, D.C. The move draws attention since President-elect Clinton will pay fewer taxes as an Arkansas resident, and since Pres. Bush came under fire for declaring Texas his residence to avoid paying taxes.

Late-night television talk-show host David Letterman officially announces that he will leave NBC to begin hosting another talk show on CBS.

Astronauts aboard the Endeavour spacecraft stage a television linkup with four elementary schools across the country. In order to illustrate principles of physics, the astronauts demonstrate how toys such as marbles, a foam basketball, and a Slinky coiled-wire toy work in weightlessness.

Controversy over Zoe Baird, nominated for U.S. attorney general, continues.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette resumes publication after a delivery drivers’ strike in May 1992 left Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, without a daily newspaper for about eight months.

Emilio Nunez, while interviewed by a television crew from Telemundo, a Spanish-language network, near the gravesite of his daughter who killed herself, kills Maritza Nunez, his wife, whom he blames for the death. . . . For the first time, all 50 states observe a holiday specifically in honor of slain civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

Seven passengers are killed and 69 are injured when two commuter trains, heading in opposite directions, sideswipe each other on a bridge near Gary, Indiana.

Sammy Cahn (born Samuel Cohen), 79, legendary lyricist of hundreds of popular songs and the president of the National Academy of Popular Music since 1973, dies in Los Angeles of congestive heart failure. . . . Henry (Hank) Iba, 88, Olympic basketball coach during the controversial 1972 game in which the U.S. did not win the gold because of time irregularities, dies in Stillwater, Oklahoma of heart failure.

Jan. 13

Jan. 14

Jan. 15

Gordon W. Fawcett, 81, publisher who helped pioneer the paperback book market, dies in North Palm Beach, Florida, of heart failure.

Jan. 16

The Dallas Cowboys and the Buffalo Bills advanced to the NFL’s Super Bowl XXVII.

Jan. 17

Eleanor Hibbert, popular British novelist who wrote 200 novels under the pen names Jean Plaidy, Victoria Holt, and Philippa Carr, dies on a cruise between Athens, Greece, and Port Said, Egypt of undisclosed causes; she was thought to be in her 80s.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 18

426—January 19–24, 1993

Jan. 19

Jan. 20

Jan. 21

Jan. 22

Jan. 23

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The Iraqi government announces that it will no longer attack or harass U.S. and allied planes patrolling over Kurdish and Shi’ite Muslim enclaves in Iraqi territory.

In its human-rights report, the U.S. State Department asserts the Serbian campaign of “ethnic cleansing” against Croats and Bosnian Moslems and Croats has resulted in systematic rape, murder, torture, and starvation on a scale that “dwarfs anything seen in Europe since the Nazis.” The report estimates that, in 1992 in Bosnia, more than 25,000 people were killed and 1.5 million driven from their homes.

The Israeli Knesset votes to overturn a 1986 law that prohibits residents of Israel from having any contact with members of the PLO. . . . The Kenyan government asks the UN to send home half a million Somali, Ethiopian and Sudanese refugees. The request comes after bandit attacks along the border with Somalia that left at least 18 people dead, including eight police officers. . . . In Angola, UNITA claims to have retaken the city of Huambo.

In Haiti, Electoral Council president Balthazar St. Fort-Line voids the electoral contest in the West Department, Haiti’s largest electoral district, since vote tallies and ballot boxes were dumped in the streets after a fight reportedly broke out in ballot-counting headquarters.

Croatia and Slovenia join the International Monetary Fund. . . . Dr. Hiroshi Nakajima of Japan wins a vote for a second term as head of the United Nations World Health Organization, despite efforts by the U.S. and several European countries to unseat him.

The self-styled Serbian parliament of Bosnia-Herzegovina votes to approve a peace plan proposed by international mediators in Geneva aimed at ending the ongoing civil war in the former Yugoslav republic, which over the past year has developed into Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II. However, fighting between nominally allied Croat and Muslim forces in the town of Gornji Vakuf worsens, threatening the peace process.

UNITA seizes control of Soyo on Angola’s north coast, reportedly with the assistance of white English-speaking mercenaries. The city is a key producer of petroleum, the country’s chief source of foreign earnings.

More than 2,400 Guatemalan refugees cross the border from Mexico to return to their country in a step toward ending over 30 years of civil strife. The return stems from an accord signed in October 1992, culminating two years of talks.

A UN arms team flies to Baghdad to begin inspections on Iraqi installations. However, two U.S. fighters attack an antiaircraft radar site. Iraqi officials deny that the station provoked the attack, but they remain committed to the ceasefire. . . . French and German military leaders sign a pact that allows their planned joint military corps to be put under the direction of NATO in times of crisis.

Despite the UN embargo on Yugoslavia, a convoy of barges on the Danube River carrying diesel fuel from Ukraine and bound for Serbia refuses a Bulgarian call to halt, and the convoy’s captain threatens to blow up his cargo or dump it in the river.

The UN Security Council unanimously condemns the Croatian offensive.

The Croatian army launches a ground offensive against a Serbian-held enclave near the coast of the Adriatic Sea, shattering a yearold truce. The Croat attack is concentrated on the town of Maslenica, site of a key bridge and road link between northern Croatia and the southern port of Zadar.

In Angola, mobs of Luanda residents, angered by reports that Zaire is backing UNITA, go on a rampage against persons suspected of being from Zaire, killing at least 62 people and raping at least seven. Many of the victims are Angolans who had fled to Zaire during the civil war.

A U.S. Navy jet drops a bomb on an antiaircraft missile emplacement at an undisclosed site in southern Iraq, but the incident does not end the cease-fire.

An estimated 200,000–250,000 people demonstrate in Vienna against a rising tide of aggression toward foreigners. The rally is described as the largest in the Austrian capital since the Viennese welcomed Nazi German leader Adolf Hitler after Germany annexed Austria in 1938.

The Angolan government claims that it shot down a South African plane transporting supplies to UNITA, but South Africa denies the story.

Ugur Mumcu, a leftist journalist who opposed Islamic fundamentalism and Kurdish separatism, is blown up by a car bomb in Ankara, Turkey’s capital. . . . Imamali Rakhmanov, the chairman of the Tajik parliament and effective leader of the country, announces that 2,000 Commonwealth of Independent States troops will be sent to reinforce a Russian contingent policing Tajikistan’s border with Afghanistan.

Jan. 24

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Colombia, a car bomb damages banks and other buildings within a five-block radius in a financial district of Bogota. At least 15 people are injured in the bombing, which is the first in the capital in several years.

Efforts to persuade the Khmer Rouge to join the peace process collapse when Ali Alatas, the Indonesian foreign minister, cannot mediate an agreement with Khieu Samphan, the nominal Khmer Rouge leader.

An explosion in Bogota damages three apartment buildings and injures six people.

Japan’s finance ministry reports that Japan’s 1992 merchandise trade surplus reached a record $107.06 billion, a 38% increase over the 1991 surplus.

Guatemalan refugees arrive in Guatemala City, the capital, and are greeted by 10,000 supporters. A mass is held in their honor at the national cathedral. . . . In San Juan, 100,000 protesters rally against a bill to make both Spanish and English official languages in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.

Responding to a government offer to promptly consider their demands, Indian airline pilots call off a 45-day strike over wages and benefits.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 19–24, 1993—427

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

John Esposito, 43, is indicted on 11 charges, including multiple counts of kidnapping and sexual abuse of a 10-year-old Long Island, New York, girl, Katie Beers. . . . In Zoe Baird’s first day of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, she apologizes and takes full responsibility for employment violations.

Planes carrying 556 U.S. Marines leave Mogadishu, Somalia, for their base at Camp Pendleton, California. The departure is a symbolic fulfillment of the Bush administration’s original goal of withdrawing all U.S. soldiers by the time Clinton takes office.

IBM announces a loss of $4.97 billion for 1992, the largest singleyear loss in U.S. corporate history. . . . Reginald F. Lewis, 50, chairman of TLC Beatrice International Holdings Corp, the largest black-owned business in the U.S, who gave Harvard Law School $3 million, the school’s largest individual donation ever, dies in New York City of a cerebral hemorrhage related to brain cancer.

The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour touches down at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

William Jefferson Clinton takes the oath of office to become the 42nd president of the United States, succeeding George Bush and giving the Democratic Party control of the White House after 12 years of Republican rule. His inaugural address calls for “change to preserve America’s ideals” and a restored dedication to service. . . . The Senate confirms Warren Christopher as secretary of state. . . . Emilio Nunez, who killed his former wife in a televised shooting near his daughter’s grave Jan. 18, is arrested near Fort Stockton, Tex.

The Senate confirms Les Aspin as defense secretary.

The Senate confirms Lloyd Bentsen as treasury secretary.

The Senate unanimously approves the nominations of Henry Cisneros as secretary of housing and urban development, Richard Riley as education secretary, and Bruce Babbitt as interior secretary. One other nominee, Donna E. Shalala as head of health and human services, is also approved, although Sen. Jesse Helms and Sen. Robert Smith oppose her.

The Senate unanimously confirms Jesse Brown as secretary of veterans’ affairs.

The Senate unanimously approves Carol Browner as head of the EPA, Leon Panetta as director of the OMB, Robert Reich as secretary of labor, Mike Espy as secretary of agriculture, Hazel O’Leary as energy secretary, and Federico Pena as transportation secretary. The Senate confirms Ronald Brown as secretary of commerce, but Sen. Lauch Faircloth opposes him.

David Reynard appears on the CNN talk show Larry King Live and alleges that his wife died of brain cancer caused by a cellular phone. His claims prompt similar arguments from several other people and cause public furor.

Charles Leonard (Charlie) Gehringer, 89, second baseman who was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1949, dies in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. . . . At the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, the pairs title goes to Calla Urbanski and Rocky Marval.

Pres. Clinton accepts Zoe Baird’s request to withdraw her nomination for attorney general amid criticism of Baird’s employment of two illegal aliens. . . . On the 20th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Pres. Clinton issues executive orders to eliminate the gag rule, which bans anyone at federally funded clinics, except doctors, from discussing abortion with patients. . . . Jean Harris, convicted in the highly publicized 1980 murder of her lover, Herman Tarnower, is released from prison on parole. . . . A two-yearold Washington State boy, Michael Nole, dies after eating contaminated meat.

Pres. Clinton issues executive orders that a ban, instituted by the Reagan administration in 1988, on abortions in overseas U.S. military hospitals, overturning the so-called Mexico City policy, which bars U.S. aid to overseas family-planning programs that include abortion counseling.

Leon Panetta, director of the OMB, blocks more than 100 regulatory actions taken by the Bush administration in its final days. . . . Vice Pres. Gore announces the Clinton administration has abolished the Council on Competitiveness, a panel that attempted to weaken many environmental regulations, including the 1990 Clean Air Act. . . . The Commerce Department states that housing starts rose 5.5% in December 1992 to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.3 million. The rise ended a year in which total housing starts increased for the first time in six years.

Pres. Clinton lifts restrictions on federally funded medical research teams so they can now use fetal tissue from elective abortions to further their quest to cure illnesses.

Brett Weston, 81, photographer known for his black-and-white images of abstract patterns in natural settings, dies in Kona, Hawaii, of complications from a stroke. . . . Kobo Abe, 68, Japanese post– World War II author whose surreal novels were often compared to the work of the Franz Kafka, dies in Tokyo of heart failure.

Jan. 19

Audrey Hepburn (born Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston), 63, cultural icon and actress known for beauty and elegance who won an Oscar for Roman Holiday (1953) before serving as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF, dies in Tolochenaz, Switzerland, of colon cancer. . . . Joseph Anthony, 80, actor and director of stage and screen, dies in Hyannis, Massachusetts.

Hundreds of abortion opponents block entry to four Washington, D.C., clinics. At least 308 people are arrested.

Thomas Dorsey, 93, known as the father of gospel music, dies in Chicago, Illinois. . . . At the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Nancy Kerrigan wins the women’s title and Scott Davis the men’s title. . . . An unsigned editorial in the Vatican newspaper claims that Pres. Clinton “embarked on the paths of death and violence” for his abortion policies.

Thurgood Marshall, 84, champion of civil rights who served as the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, 1967–91, and whose most prominent legal victory involved the 1954 ruling on Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas in 1954, a landmark decision that struck down public-school segregation in 21 states, dies of heart failure in Bethesda, Maryland.

At the Golden Globe Awards, the film Scent of a Woman is named Best Drama, while the Best Musical or Comedy prize goes to The Player. Clint Eastwood wins as Best Director for Unforgiven.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

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428—January 25–30, 1993

Jan. 25

World Affairs

Europe

The UN Security Council passes a resolution that demands that all attacks on UN-patrolled areas in Yogoslavia cease and that the Serbs return all heavy weapons removed from UN depots.

Forensic investigators conclude that a mass grave outside the Croatian city of Vukovar contains the remains of 200 Croat men. Separately, two French soldiers of the UN are killed and three others wounded by artillery fire near Zadar. Reports find that the Italian navy intercepted a ship carrying Iranian arms bound for Bosnia’s Moslems via Croatia. . . . In Denmark, Social Democrat Poul Nyrup Rasmussen presents his new four-party government to Queen Margrethe II.

Jan. 26

Jan. 27

Jan. 28

Reports state the World Health Organization has found that diphtheria has reached epidemic proportions in Russia.

Jan. 29

Jan. 30

Africa & the Middle East U.S. and Belgian forces rout a column of Somali guerrillas advancing on the city of Kismayu. The attack marks the first use of force by foreign troops to enforce Somalia’s cease-fire. Unofficial estimates claim that as many as 42 Somalis are wounded. . . . Hedi Nouira, 81, premier of Tunisia, 1970–80, dies of undisclosed causes. . . . Reports suggest that the bodies of at least 20 detainees in South Africa were buried on a farm in Phokeng in the late 1980s.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Data shows that Canada’s annual inflation rate was 1.5% in 1992, the lowest rate in 30 years.

Vaclav Havel is voted president of the Czech Republic by Czech parliamentarians. . . . Jan Gies, 87, who risked his life smuggling food to Anne Frank and other Jews in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, the Netherlands, during World War II, dies in Amsterdam of kidney failure. . . . Baron Axel von dem Bussche, 73, last surviving member of a group of German army officers who attempted to assassinate Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, dies in Bonn, Germany, of natural causes.

About 10,000 farmers rally in Saskatoon, Canada, to demand immediate aid. . . . Jeanne Sauve (born Jeanne Benoit), 70, Canada’s first woman speaker of the House of Commons and later the first woman governor general, dies in Montreal of unspecified causes.

Serb militia units, backed by tanks and helicopter gunships, launch a major counteroffensive. The UN discloses that 21 of its police advisers have been detained by Serb militiamen in Benkovac since Jan. 25. Croatian forces begin shelling the Peruca Dam located at the southern end of the Krajina enclave. . . . More than 200,000 people flock to the funeral of Ugur Mumcu, slain Jan. 24, in Ankara, Turkey, and protest fundamentalism.

Marc Bazin, the army-appointed premier of Haiti, denounces a UN plan to station hundreds of humanrights observers in Haiti and sets the stage for a possible showdown with the international community over efforts to resolve Haiti’s 16month-long political crisis.

Eight people are killed and 12 others are wounded when more than a dozen armed men attack a village festival in the Khmer Rougecontrolled province of Siem Reap. Separately, reports confirm that the UN police made their first significant arrest, charging Than Theaun, a Khmer Rouge guerrilla, in the massacre of at least 12 Vietnamese and two Cambodians in December 1992.

The convoy of barges on the Danube River that refused a Bulgarian halt order on Jan. 21 eludes Romanian forces and makes it to Serbia. . . . Three people are injured in bomb blast at Harrods in London. . . . Lord (Oliver) Poole, 81, former chairman of Britain’s Conservative Party, 1955–57, dies.

Fighting breaks out in Kinshasa, the Zairean capital, when mutinous army soldiers go on a looting spree and battle troops loyal to Pres. Mobutu Sese Seko. Separately, the French ambassador to Zaire, Philippe Bernard is killed in a machine-gun attack on the French embassy. . . . The Angolan government and UNITA hold peace talks. . . . Israel’s Supreme Court unanimously rules that the December expulsions of Palestinians are legal.

Peru holds elections, and, to disrupt them, Sendero Luminoso guerrillas detonate a car bomb and kill three mayoral candidates in separate attacks. . . . In Brazil, dock workers launch a nationwide strike to protest privatizing the nation’s ports. . . . The Dominican Republic recalls its four diplomats from Haiti and installs military forces along its border with Haiti. . . . Gov. Pedro Rossello signs into law a bill that makes both Spanish and English official languages in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.

Reports state that Sathasivam (Kittu) Krishnakumar and 10 other senior cadres of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which is fighting for a separate state in Sri Lanka, died in the Indian Ocean during an attempt to elude the Indian navy. . . . Reports suggest that a Cambodian judge has refused to hear the case against Than Theaun, arrested Jan. 27.

Britain’s new ambassador to France, Sir Christopher Mallaby, makes a 31-mile (50-km) trip from Folkestone, England, to Sangatte, France, via the Channel Tunnel under the English Channel.

General Mohammed Farah Aidid, Somalia’s most powerful warlord, announces plans to free 387 prisoners of war, thereby fulfilling a clause of a cease-fire signed in Ethiopia January 15. . . . In Zaire, Mobutu loyalists gain control of the capital, and relative quiet ensues. France sends marines to Kinshasa to protect and help evacuate the estimated 1,000 French nationals in the country.

Independent parties register sweeping victories in municipal elections across Peru. . . . Figures show that, between late December 1992 and late January 1993, excontras and the Nicaraguan army engaged in more than two dozen skirmishes in northern Nicaragua that took some 65 lives, with most of the dead being contra fighters. Almost 200 other former contras have been killed since July 1990.

The Cambodian government starts a large-scale military offensive against Khmer Rouge guerrillas in north-central and western Cambodia. . . . Reports confirm that a strike by flight attendants of Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airlines is ending.

Croat emergency teams work feverishly to relieve pressure on the damaged Peruca Dam, under fire since Jan. 27. The dam’s collapse would have threatened 20,000 people in the villages of the Cetina River valley. . . . Queen Alexandra of Yugoslavia, 71, widow of Petar II, the last king of Yugoslavia, dies near London of cancer. . . . Ireland devalues its currency, the punt, within the EC’s exchange rate mechanism.

Troops arrive in Zaire from Belgium, Zaire’s former colonial ruler, to safeguard their 1,500 compatriots. . . . Two Israeli soldiers are killed and a third wounded when their patrol is ambushed in the Gaza Strip by fighters from the military wing of Hamas. It is the first such incident since a wave of attacks on Israeli forces prompted the mass expulsion of alleged Hamas activists in December 1992

A 220-pound car bomb is detonated outside the chamber of commerce in Bogota, killing 20, including five children. Another 60 are wounded in the blast

In Taiwan, Premier Hau Pei-tsun resigns, along with his entire cabinet, following bitter battles between conservative and reformist factions. . . . Taikichiro Mori, 88, Japanese real-estate developer who was ranked by Forbes magazine as the richest businessman in the world in 1991 and 1992, dies of heart failure in Tokyo.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 25–30, 1993—429

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

In Herrera v. Collins, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that prisoners condemned to death by state courts who later produce evidence of their innocence are not entitled to new hearings in federal courts. . . . A man fatally shoots two CIA employees and wounds three others in Langley, Virginia. . . . Pres. Clinton names his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, as head of a new commission to reform the U.S.’s health-care system. It is the most influential position ever awarded to a first lady.

The Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress finds that $3 billion in federal money spent on military procurement could have been diverted to state and local governments to create a net gain of more than 12,000 new jobs.

Pres. Clinton formally creates a new executive-branch advisory body, the National Economic Council, to coordinate national economic policy in the same way that the National Security Council coordinates foreign policy. . . . Thirty-year U.S. Treasury bonds rise in price to yield 7.19%, the lowest yield since August 1986. . . . The Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) and the Commodity Exchange (Comex) agree to merge their operations.

Pres. Clinton announces that Thomas R. Pickering will serve as the next ambassador to Russia. . . . Supreme Court justice Scalia grants a stay of execution to Ramon Montoya, a Mexican citizen convicted of killing a Texas police officer, when Montoya argues he was deprived of the right to an attorney while being interrogated by police. The Mexican government, which does not institute the death penalty, has pressed for the reversal of Montoya’s sentence.

The Conference Board reports that its index of consumer confidence fell by 1.1 points to 77.0 in January, the first decline after two consecutive sharp monthly increases. . . . Robert Reischauer, director of the Congressional Budget Office, warns that the cost of federal health-care programs will more than double within six years unless the Clinton administration and Congress agree on sharp reductions in funding.

About 10,000 people attend a public memorial ceremony for Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall, who died Jan. 24, at the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C.

White House officials announce that Pres. Clinton will delay issuing an executive order permanently ending the ban on homosexuals in the military. . . . Madeleine K. Albright is confirmed as ambassador to the United Nations. . . . The U.S. Commerce Department imposes tariffs on steel imports from 19 countries, bringing sharp criticism from several of the affected nations.

The FDIC states it has sold all 20 branches of the failed First City Bancorp. of Texas Inc., seized in October 1992.

The director of the National Science Foundation, Walter E. Massey, 54, announces that he is leaving the agency to become senior vice president for academic affairs at the University of California at Berkeley.

Edward P. Morgan, 82, radio and TV journalist who won the Peabody Award in 1957, dies in McLean, Virginia, of complications of lung cancer. . . . Chad Rowan, U.S.born sumo wrestler, is the first foreigner promoted to the rank of yokozuna, the sport’s highest level.

Celina Shribbs, a two-year-old Washington State girl, dies after consuming tainted meat. She is the second child to die from an outbreak in Washington linked to meat from Jack in the Box fast-food restaurants.

U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. rules that the military ban on homosexuals is unconstitutional, and he orders the armed forces to cease discharging gays and refusing to enlist them “in the absence of sexual conduct which interferes with the military mission.”

Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, endorses the Clinton administration’s deficitreduction proposals. . . . The Commerce Department reveals that the U.S. gross domestic product grew at an inflation-adjusted rate of 3.8% in the fourth quarter of 1992, the highest since the 1988 fourth quarter. . . . Chrysler Corp. announces that it earned $273 million, or $2.21 a share, in 1992, its most profitable year since 1988.

Nuclear physicist John H. Gibbons is confirmed by the Senate as the head of the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

James R. Porter, a former Roman Catholic priest convicted of molesting a girl when she was 15, is sentenced to six months in jail.

A county jury in Belleville, Illinois, finds that neither R. J. Reynolds nor the tobacco industry as a whole is responsible for the lung cancer of Charles Kueper, 51, whose suit against the tobacco company is the first of its kind since a June 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for this type of litigation. . . . The Republican National Committee elects Haley Barbour to serve as its chairman.

Pres. Clinton announces a compromise under which the military may remove openly homosexual members from active service during the six-month waiting period but will not ask recruits or service personnel about sexual orientation. . . . Overturning a lower-court ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals finds the Defense Department may ask civilian employees about arrests, financial status, mental health, and drug use before granting them security clearance.

A federal grand jury in Cleveland, Ohio, indicts former top executives of the Phar-Mor Inc. discount-drug chain for allegedly defrauding the company out of $499 million from 1989 to 1992.

Three U.S. Marines, after apparently mistakenly entering a gay bar in Wilmington, North Carolina, drag a homosexual outside and beat him while shouting “Clinton must pay!” The victim is treated at a hospital and released, and the three marines are charged with assault.

The first segment of Los Angeles’s new subway system, a 4.4-mile (seven-kilometer) stretch of underground rail service that links five downtown stations, opens.

The John Newbery Medal is awarded to Cynthia Rylant for Missing May, and the Randolph Caldecott Medal goes to Emily Arnold McCully for Mirette on the High Wire. . . . The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller tops bestseller lists.

Jan. 25

Jan. 26

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Jan. 29

Reports confirm that Andre the Giant (Andre Rene Roussimoff), 46, French-born professional wrestler who appeared in the film The Princess Bride (1987) was found dead in Paris of an apparent heart attack.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 30

430—January 31–February 5, 1993

World Affairs

Jan. 31

Feb. 1

Feb. 2

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Croatian president Franjo Tudjman tours territory recently recaptured from the Serbs and vows to “liberate every inch of Croatia” from the Serb “imposers as soon as possible” with or without the help of the UN His rhetoric is cheered by crowds of Croats in the Adriatic port city of Split.

Israeli authorities announce they have detained two Arab Americans who, have they charge, distributed $200,000 to Hamas activists in the occupied territories. The two are identified as Mohammed Joma Hilmu Jarad of Chicago and Mohammed Abdel Hamid Salah of Bridgeview, Illinois.

Colombian soldiers carrying submachine guns are positioned throughout Bogota, and checkpoints are established on the city’s major arteries. In Medellin, three bombs explode, and a group calling itself “Persecuted by Pablo Escobar” claims responsibility. . . . Nine anti-Aristide Haitian senators are sworn in during a ceremony in Port-au-Prince that pro-Aristide forces describe as unconstitutional.

Data shows that an “Austria First” petition championed for two months by the right-wing Freedom Party was signed by 415,000 Austrians, less than half the number the party had hoped for.

The Israeli government announces that it will accept the return of 100 of the more than 400 Palestinians deported to Lebanon and will allow the remainder to return home within a year. . . . In Zaire, the dispute over bank notes between Premier Etienne Tshisekedi wa Mulumba and Pres. Mobuto that instigated the Jan. 29 violence escalates when officials announce that anyone who refuses to accept the new notes will be guilty of treason.

Jamaica suspends the Suppression of Crimes Act of 1975, which has been condemned by humanrights organizations because of the broad powers it grants to the police. . . . The Canadian House of Commons approves a constitutional amendment entrenching language equality for the English and French communities in the maritime province of New Brunswick.

Vaclav Havel is inaugurated as president of the Czech Republic.

In Zaire, a Tshisekedi spokesman states that the death toll from recent violence numbers at least 1,000. However, Western diplomats estimate that it stands at 300.

In Zaire, soldiers have killed some merchants for refusing to accept the currency in an ongoing conflict begun Jan. 28.

Feb. 3

Turkish interior minister Ismet Sezgin reveals that police have arrested 19 members of a Muslim fundamentalist terrorist group called Islamic Action that has links to Iran and is blamed for a series of political killings in Turkey, including the Jan. 24 slaying of Ugur Mumcu in Ankara. . . . The parliament of Belarus ratifies the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), so Ukraine is the only nucleararmed state of the former Soviet Union not to have ratified the pact.

Feb. 4

The Americas

The government states that 51 Khmer Rouge fighters and five Cambodian soldiers have died in the battles that started Jan. 29. . . . In eastern Afghanistan, four UN employees are killed by an unidentified guerrilla group. . . . China reveals that it is freeing Wang Xizhe, 44, reportedly in solitary confinement since April 1981 for his role in the democracy movements of the late 1970s. The Chinese government also states that it released Gao Shan, a former government official imprisoned following the 1989 crackdown. The Mayon volcano in Legazpi, Philippines, located 200 miles (320 km) south of Manila, erupts without warning, emitting a plume of ash nearly three miles (five kilometers) high. The volcano has been dormant since 1984. . . . The Cambodian government asserts it has reclaimed territory taken by the Khmer Rouge since a United Nations-brokered peace plan in October 1991.

Data shows that a record combined 76,139 Canadian businesses and individuals declared bankruptcy in 1992.

The UN withdraws its non-Afghan staff from eastern Afghanistan following the Feb. 1 killing of four UN employees by an unidentified guerrilla group.

A 13-year-old Somali boy is shot to death by a U.S. marine after the youngster ran out into a busy Mogadishu street toward a marine truck. According to U.S. officials, the marine fired in the belief that the boy was about to lob a grenade into the vehicle. . . . Zairean premier Etienne Tshisekedi wa Mulumba calls for foreign military assistance in toppling Pres. Mobutu Sese Seko after a week of unrest started Jan. 28.

In Zaire, Pres. Sese Seko Mobutu dismisses Premier Etienne Tshisekedi wa Mulumba and rejects foreign pleas that he surrender power. It is unclear whether Mobutu has the legal authority to oust the premier, and Tshisekedi refuses to give up his position. . . . A stone-throwing mob of Somalis attack U.S. Marines in Mogadishu after a rumor spreads that the Americans killed several Somalis in a gunfight. Two marines are injured.

Feb. 5

Asia & the Pacific

The death toll from the Feb. 2 eruption of the Mayon volcano in Legazpi, Philippines, is estimated at 67.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 31–February 5, 1993—431

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The National Governors’ Association issues a statement that calls on the federal government to set nationwide standards for health insurance and to limit the amount of taxes that employers and employees can deduct on insurance payments.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the leader of the ultraOrthodox Lubavitcher sect of Hasidic Jews, appears at a ceremony on the 43rd anniversary of his becoming leader. It is broadcast worldwide. . . . Football’s Dallas Cowboys rout the Buffalo Bills, 5217, in Super Bowl XXVII.

Pres. Clinton orders the federal government to make it easier for states to use Medicaid funds in innovative ways. . . . New York State’s former top judge, Sol Wachtler, is indicted by a federal grand jury in Newark, New Jersey, on five counts of blackmail and harassment of a woman with whom he had had an affair, Republican fund-raiser Joy Silverman.

Pres. Clinton revokes an executive order by former president Bush that prohibited federal agencies and contractors hired by the government from requiring that workers on federally funded construction projects be union members. He also revokes an order that required unionized contractors on federal projects to post notices informing nonunion workers of their rights. . . . Figures show that the purchasing managers’ index rose to 58% in January, its highest level since July 1988.

In horse racing, A. P. Indy wins the Eclipse Award as the top threeyear-old colt.

Defense Secretary Les Aspin orders the Defense Department to immediately cut $10.8 billion from the fiscal 1994 budget proposed by the Bush administration.

The United Mine Workers strikes two units of St. Louis, Missouribased Peabody, the largest U.S. coal producer. . . . The Commerce Department reports the composite index of leading economic indicators rose 1.9% in December 1992, the largest monthly gain since April 1983. . . . The National Governors’ Association urges the Clinton administration to eliminate the federal budget deficit within eight years.

A federal study concludes that drinking moderate amounts of coffee (three or fewer cups a day) and other caffeinated drinks has no harmful effects on the unborn child. . . . A panel of scientists tells a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on telecommunications and finance that there is no evidence that portable cellular telephones cause brain cancer.

Alexander (Sasha) Schneider, 84, concert violinist, conductor, and music teacher who inspired thousands of musicians, dies in New York City of heart failure. . . . According to A. C. Nielsen Co. ratings, more people watched Super Bowl XXVII than any other program in U.S. history.

The U.S. Navy announces that it will charge a sailor, Terry M. Halvey, with murder in the killing of Allen R. Schindler, a homosexual shipmate who admitted his sexual orientation and was in the process of being discharged when he was battered to death in 1992 in a public toilet near the U.S. naval base at Sasebo, Japan. . . . R. James Woolsey Jr. is confirmed by the Senate as the director of central intelligence and head of the CIA.

Amtrak and the nation’s freight railroads reach an agreement that will permit Amtrak to operate fast European-made trains on U.S. freight tracks, thereby opening the way for high-speed rail travel outside the Northeast. . . . Pres. Clinton nominates Roberta Achtenberg, who is a lesbian, as assistant secretary for fair housing and equal opportunity at HUD.

NASA for the first time releases photographs of the demolished cabin of the space shuttle Challenger, which blew up shortly after launch in 1986, killing its crew of seven. The pictures are handed over to an artist, Ben Sarao, who first petitioned for copies in 1990.

Major League Baseball’s executive council suspends Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott for one year and fines her $25,000 after concluding that she made racist and anti-Semitic remarks.

Reports state that allegations of sexual harassment against Sen. Bob Packwood (R, Oreg.) has prompted accusations that he was reelected in 1992 by fraud since he publicly lied to Oregon voters by denying that charges of sexual harassment on his part were under investigation. . . . After a rash of bacterial infections connected to tainted hamburgers from Jack in the Box, the company files a lawsuit against its beef supplier, Vons Cos.

The Senate passes a resolution authorizing U.S. military participation in the Somali mission, almost two months after then-President Bush sent in the troops in December 1992. . . . George L. Monahan Jr., 59, head of the Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”) program, 1989–90, dies in San Jose, California, of a heart attack.

A Georgia state-court jury orders GM to pay a total of $105.2 million in damages to Thomas and Elaine Moseley, the parents of a teenager killed in a 1989 car accident. . . . The Dow breaks the 1992 record high when it closes at 3,416.74. The NASDAQ index closes at a record 708.85. . . . The Labor Department reports the productivity of U.S. workers in nonfarm industries jumped by 2.7% in 1992, the largest calendar-year rise since 1972. . . . The Senate passes, 71-27, the Family and Medical Leave Act.

Russian scientists unfurl a giant mirror in orbit and flash a beam of sunlight across Europe during the night. The reflected ray speeds across the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, Europe, and Russia for eight minutes. It is 2.5 miles (four km) wide and has the intensity of several full moons. Because it moves at about five miles per second across the ground, observers see it as an instantaneous flash.

Reports suggest that Little, Brown & Co. and Warner Books, agreed to pay about a record $2 million for a first novel to Allan Folsom for The Day After Tomorrow. . . . Lynette Woodard, captain of the 1984 U.S. Olympic gold basketball team, wins the Flo Hyman Award.

U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood withdraws her name from consideration as attorney general after the Clinton administration learns that she employed an illegal alien as a babysitter. Unlike Zoe Baird, Wood did not break any laws in hiring her domestic help, but she removes herself in the wake of the public outrage after Baird’s hearings.

Figures suggest that 270 Haitians with HIV are being detained at a U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Although they have been cleared for political asylum, the AIDS ban is holding them up.

The Dow Jones industrial average closes at a record high of 3,442.14, capping a week in which the average surged by 4%, or 132.11 points. . . . Pres. Clinton signs legislation that requires large companies to provide workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for family and medical emergencies. The Family and Medical Leave Act is the first legislation to pass under the Clinton administration, and it represents a symbolic end to gridlock in the Congress, since Pres. Bush twice vetoed similar legislation.

The Federal Trade Commission February 5 votes not to pursue a court order to force Microsoft Corp. to cease manufacturing software that was incompatible with its rivals’ disk-operating systems; however, the FTC indicates that it will continue its investigation of Microsoft despite the vote. . . . The second recipient of a baboon liver, an unidentified 62-year-old male patient, dies without having regained consciousness since the transplant was performed at the University of Pittsburgh 26 days earlier.

William P. Du Bois, 76, author who won the Newbery Award in 1948, dies in Nice, France. . . . A. P. Indy is named North American Horse of the Year. . . . Joseph Leo Mankiewicz, 83, film director and screenwriter who won four Oscars for A Letter to Three Wives (1949) and All About Eve (1950), dies in Mount Kisco, New York, of heart failure.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 31

Feb. 1

Feb. 2

Feb. 3

Feb. 4

Feb. 5

432—February 6–11, 1993

World Affairs

Europe

Saad al-Din al-Alami, 82, senior Muslim cleric, or mufti, of Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank since the early 1950s, dies of heart failure.

Feb. 6

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Reports disclose that Sendero Luminoso has continued its offensive in the days following the election in Peru, killing 60 people in attacks along Peru’s Andean mountains. . . . The Salvadoran army dissolves the Arce Battalion, completing the demobilization of the five counterinsurgency battalions that fought the FMLN in the civil war. . . . Two people are killed in a mountainous region of Guerrero state in southwestern Mexico.

In Liechtenstein, Premier Hans Brunhart resigns after elections.

Feb. 7

Feb. 8

Feb. 9

Africa & the Middle East

Hans Blix, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency demands “special inspection” rights to two North Korean sites suspected of unreported plutonium-manufacturing capabilities.

The Czech Republic and Slovakia begin using separate currencies, both called the koruna (crown). . . . In Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad), the Russian government officially begins its campaign to privatize thousands of state-owned enterprises. . . . Italian authorities arrest Rosetta Cutolo, the alleged head of an organized-crime group known as the Camorra, who has been on the run for 13 years.

A cease-fire in the Rwandan civil war collapses when rebels launch an offensive aimed at blocking “ethnic cleansing” by the Hutus. The guerrillas attack government positions in the towns of Ruhengeri and Byumba in the north. . . . In Tehran, all 132 passengers and crew aboard an Iran Air passenger jet are killed minutes after takeoff when the plane collides with a military aircraft.

The Netherlands’ lower parliamentary house approves a set of medical guidelines to be used in cases of euthanasia, or mercy killing. Under the rules, euthanasia remains illegal, but doctors who follow guidelines will be immune from criminal punishment.

The widow of an Iranian dissident, Ali Akbar Ghorbani, who was allegedly been kidnapped, tortured, and slain by Islamic Action in January, holds a news conference in which she accuses Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani of responsibility for her husband’s murder. . . . In response to the clashes that started Feb. 8, France states it will increase its number of troops in Rwanda to about 300 and evacuates 69 foreigners.

In Mexico, at least 24 members of the Pena Rojas clan are shot to death in a massacre by 50 gunmen. The dead are among 40 family members returning from a funeral for two relatives slain Feb 6. . . . Haiti’s military junta agrees to the deployment of hundreds of international human-rights monitors following four days of negotiations with UN and U.S. officials. . . . The Canadian federal government states it will help approximately 500 Innu people of the island community of Davis Inlet, off northern Labrador, to relocate at their request.

Albert Zafy, an opposition leader, wins the presidency of Madagascar, defeating incumbent president Didier Ratsiraka, who has held office since 1975.

Feb. 10

British prime minister John Major announces an agreement with Queen Elizabeth II under which the monarch will pay income taxes, beginning with the fiscal year starting in April.

Feb. 11

In Taiwan, a leadership committee approves Pres. Lee Teng-hui’s nomination of Lien Chan as premier. Lien is the first person born in Taiwan to be selected as premier since the Kuomintang fled to Taiwan from mainland China in 1949. . . . In Cambodia, gunmen attack the provincial capital of Siem Reap, killing two civilians. The local UNTAC headquarters are also targeted in the incident.

Medical students at the University of Haiti in Port-au-Prince and students at a high school 30 miles (50 km) west of the capital demonstrate for the return to power of Pres. Aristide. Police arrest and briefly detain at least 10 students and one journalist.

French president Mitterrand becomes the first French leader since 1966 to visit Cambodia, a former French colony.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 6–11, 1993—433

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Arthur Ashe, 49, black tennis champion, who won the 1968 U.S. Open, becoming the first black to take a grand slam title, and a humanrights activist who, in 1988, began inner-city tennis programs for youths in cities across the nation, dies in New York City of pneumonia, a complication of AIDS.

The Washington Post reports that 13 more women have accused Sen. Bob Packwood (R, Oreg.) of making unwanted sexual advances toward them, bringing to 23 the total number of women who have made such allegations since November 1992.

David and Sharon Schoo, who left their two young daughters home alone for nine days in December 1992, are charged with a total of 64 criminal counts, including neglect of children, endangering the life of a child, aggravated battery, abandonment, and cruelty to children. . . . Mir Aimal Kansi is charged with the Jan. 25 fatal shooting of two employees of the CIA. . . . Pres. Clinton announces a broad White House staff reduction and orders his cabinet to eliminate thousands of government jobs and make substantive cuts in administrative spending and perquisites over the next four years.

The American Football Conference wins the Pro Bowl, the National Football League’s annual all-star game, 23-20, in Honolulu.

Reports confirm that about 200 of the Haitian refugees in Guantanamo Bay are holding to a hunger strike after more than a week. . . . Lawrence E. Walsh, the independent prosecutor in the Irancontra arms scandal, makes public 49 pages of excerpts from the diaries of former defense secretary Caspar W. Weinberger. Walsh assails Pres. George Bush for pardoning Weinberger before he could be tried.

Pres. Clinton announces that he will replace the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) with the Office of Environmental Policy, which will have a more prominent policy-making role. . . Eliot Janeway, 80, economist, writer and commentator whose books include The Economics of Chaos (1989), dies in New York City after suffering from diabetes and heart problems.

A German-born former NASA scientist accused of Nazi war crimes, Arthur L. H. Rudolph, 86, is denied an opportunity to regain the American citizenship he surrendered in 1984. . . . Elwood R(ichard) (Pete) Quesada, 88, World War II fighter pilot and the first administrator of the FAA, 1958–61, dies in Juniper, Florida, of heart failure.

Chrysler completes a commonstock sale that raises just over $2 billion, the second-largest public stock offering ever by a U.S. industrial company. . . . Judge Donald Shelton of Michigan’s 22nd Circuit Court blocks GM from closing an assembly plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan, ruling that the company is bound to keep the plant open because of tax abatements worth $13.5 million that the carmaker received in 1984 and 1988 from the township of Ypsilanti.

NBC makes a public apology for rigging crash tests of GM’s pickup trucks for a segment on the news show Dateline NBC. . . . Vitaly Shcherbo of Belarus, who won six gymnastics gold medals at the 1992 Summer Olympics, is presented with the Jesse Owens International Trophy Award for athletic excellence and promotion of international goodwill.

AT&T files suit against three of its competitors, MCI, Sprint, and WilTel, charging them with failing to list their rates publicly and thus engaging in unfair competition. . . . Ford Motor Co. announces that it lost $7.4 billion, the largest loss in Ford’s history.

An estimated 90 million people watch the first interview given by pop superstar Michael Jackson in 14 years on the Oprah Winfrey Show, in which he argues his light skin—which has grown fairer since the mid-1980s—is the result of a skin disorder.

NYC’s Board of Education votes to oust Schools Chancellor Joseph Fernandez when his contract expires in June. Fernandez, who backed the distribution of condoms in schools and a curriculum guide, part of which urges teaching students respect for homosexuals, is charged with focusing too much on social issues. . . . Pres. Clinton answers questions from audience members and telephone callers during a “town meeting” broadcast nationally by C-SPAN and CNN. Pres. Clinton nominates Janet Reno to head the Justice Department as attorney general. . . . Data shows that, of the more than 300 people who fell ill because of E. coli bacteria related to tainted hamburger meat from the Jack in the Box restaurant chain, 125 had to be hospitalized.

A gun-wielding Ethiopian student hijacks a German airliner and forces it from Austria to New York City. The student, identified as Nebiu Zewolde Demeke, 20, surrenders without a struggle after landing in New York. None of the 104 passengers and crew aboard the plane are injured.

Richard C. Breeden, the chairman of the SEC, announces that he will leave the agency by April 15. . . . General Motors Corp., the world’s largest industrial company, announces a loss of $23.5 billion for 1992, the largest single-year loss in U.S. corporate history.

Feb. 6

Feb. 7

Feb. 8

The FDA approves Medtronic Inc.’s machine, called a PCD, for controlling rapid heart beat, or tachycardia. . . . Robert William Holley, 71, the first scientist to determine the structure of a strand of RNA who shared the 1968 Nobel Prize for medicine and physiology dies of lung cancer in Los Gatos, California.

Football defensive lineman Dennis Byrd of the New York Jets, who was partially paralyzed in a November 1992 game, walks with the use of crutches during a press conference. . . . Scott Meredith, 69, who introduced the idea of auctioning book publication rights to the highest bidder, dies in Manhasset, New York, of cancer.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 9

Feb. 10

Feb. 11

434—February 12–17, 1993

Feb. 12

World Affairs

Europe

Reports reveal that Russia is to build nuclear-power reactors in Iran and China.

The Muslim-led Bosnian government announces it will not accept UN food and medical aid until the UN succeeds in getting relief to Muslims in eastern Bosnia. . . . Amid fears that the Bosnian strife may spread, Greece and Bulgaria agree on steps to keep unrest from affecting Macedonia. . . . In Russia, outraged investors block roads in St. Petersburg to protest being defrauded of their vouchers in the privatization campaign. More than 350,000 people turned their vouchers over to several companies, which then disappeared.

Feb. 14

Feb. 15

Feb. 17

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The South African government and the African National Congress reach an agreement on a transitional “government of national unity” in which both parties will be partners for five years.

In a case that is viewed as a litmus test of the Guatemalan legal system’s prosecution of security personnel for human-rights violations, a judge in Guatemala City sentences former Sergeant Noel Beteta to 25 years in prison for the stabbing murder of anthropologist Myrna Mack Chang.

The Nepali rupee becomes a fully convertible currency.

Glafcos Clerides is elected president by Greek Cypriots in a runoff against George Vassiliou. . . . To prevent Bosnian strife from spreading, Greece and Romania sign an economic and political cooperation pact that includes a pledge not to use force in regional conflicts. . . . Bulgaria and Albania sign their first postcommunist friendship pact. . . . In response to the actions regarding UN aid Feb 12 and Feb. 13, Bosnia’s Serbs block a UN relief convoy, bound for the Cerska enclave.

On the fourth anniversary of the death edict on British writer Salman Rushdie, the Iranian news agency reports a speech by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the nation’s spiritual leader, in which he reiterates the fatwa.

Haiti’s military junta allows 40 human-rights observers to enter Haiti under the first stage of a United Nations-brokered plan.

Algirdas Brazauskas is declared the winner of Lithuania’s presidential election. . . . Michal Kovac is elected president of Slovakia.

Somali warlords fail to meet a deadline for submitting lists of their weapons supplies and troops strengths, as mandated by a December 1992 cease-fire.

In response to the Muslim-led Bosnian government decision on Feb. 12, which, in effect, puts its own people on a hunger strike to embarrass the UN into action, the UN suspends all relief flights into Sarajevo.

Feb. 13

Feb. 16

Africa & the Middle East

OPEC ministers agree in Vienna, Austria, to scale back their petroleum production quotas in an effort to raise the price of oil.

In a campaign to keep the Bosnian strife from spreading, Turkish president Turgut Ozal tours the Balkans. . . . EC observers state that Croatian military police beat and forcefully evicted men and women, mostly Serbs and Macedonians, who refused to vacate apartments formerly owned by the Yugoslav federal army in Zagreb and other cities. The tenants were ordered to leave to make room for Croatian soldiers and their families.

China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) states that it will take bids in March from foreign oil companies for exploration rights to a 28,000-square-mile (72,000 sq. km) piece of land in the Tarim Basin in remote northwestern China. It is the first time that foreign companies will be allowed drilling rights in China since the end of the civil war in 1949. . . . The Cuban government presents terms for international bidding on rights to explore and develop potential oil-producing sites in Cuba.

Reports reveal that Turkey and Romania have signed a cooperation accord.

United Nations secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali pays his first visit to Japan since becoming head of the UN in 1992.

An overcrowded ferry sinks 50 miles (80 km) west of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. Reports estimate that the ferry held between 800 and 1,500 passengers, most of them poor peasants headed to the market in the capital.

China releases from jail Wang Dan, 23, one of the student leaders of the 1989 prodemocracy movement. The state-controlled Xinhua News Agency also declares that all students imprisoned for their roles in the “antigovernmental disturbances in 1989” have been freed, a claim disputed in the West. Two other dissidents, Guo Haifeng, 27, formerly a graduate student at Beijing university, and Zhu Hongsheng, 76, a Roman Catholic priest, are also released.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 12–17, 1993—435

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Pres. Clinton names James Lee Witt to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

The U.S. for the first time makes its technology broadly available to a Latin American nation when the U.S. agrees to allow Argentina to purchase some of the U.S.’s most sophisticated computer equipment, nuclear technology, and nautical-guidance systems. In return, Argentina agrees to sweeping controls over its exports of strategic technology.

A federal jury in Denver, Colorado, acquits Michael R. Wise, the former chairman and chief executive officer of Silverado Banking, Savings and Loan Association, on three counts of bank fraud.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Veteran driver Joe Booher dies after a collision in the Florida 200 Dash at the Daytona International Speedway.

The National Security Archive, a group suing for access to presidential records, disclose that U.S. archivist Don Wilson signed, at 11:30 P.M. on Jan. 19, the last night of Bush’s presidency, an agreement giving Bush authority over all “presidential information.” Wilson states he is resigning as director of the National Archives to become the executive director of the George Bush Center for Presidential Studies at Texas A&M University.

Feb. 13

Reports state that seven of the 200 Haitian refugees on hunger strikes at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, lost consciousness and were administered emergency treatment.

Dale Jarrett wins the premier event of the NASCAR Winston Cup circuit. . . . Hungarian Judit Polgar, 16, wins her exhibition match over former world champion Boris Spassky of France with a draw in the ninth game of their 10-game chess competition.

Jack Kevorkian helps Hugh Gale, 70, suffering from emphysema and congestive heart disease, to end his life by setting up an airmask linked to a canister of lethal carbon monoxide. He is the 13th person whose suicide Kevorkian has aided. Richard S. Salant, 78, pioneer of modern broadcast journalism who served as president of CBS News, 1961–64, and 1966–79, dies of a heart attack in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Feb. 12

Feb. 14

Feb. 15

Haitian refugees on the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, enter the 16th day of their hunger strike in protest of the refusal to admit them into the U.S. because they carry the AIDS virus. Civil rights activist Reverend Jesse Jackson visits the strikers at the base.

Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover, by British journalist Anthony Summers, is published and alleges that the late FBI director was blackmailed by organized crime because he was a homosexual and a transvestite.

The White House discloses that Pres. Clinton’s goal of guaranteeing health care to all Americans will cost an additional $30–$90 billion a year to fulfill by 1997. . . . The Dow Jones falls 82.94 points, the largest one-day decline since November 15, 1991, to close at 3309.49. The Nasdaq composite index of overthe-counter stocks drops 25.15 points to 665.39, its largest oneday drop since 1987.

Pres. Clinton presents his economic program in a nationally televised address to a joint session of Congress. It calls for increases in corporate and top personal income-tax rates, expanded taxes on Social Security benefits, and an energy tax on all nonrenewable fuels. It is viewed as the most dramatic program of fiscal reform proposed since 1981. Rep. Robert Michel (R, Ill.) delivers the Republican rebuttal. . . . The AFL-CIO executive council urges Congress and the Clinton administration to renegotiate NAFTA to guarantee protections for workers and the environment.

In a tentative finding, studies suggest that a vasectomy may increase a man’s chances of developing prostate cancer.

Reports state that the 1993 John M. Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion will be presented to Charles Colson, a born-again Christian who served seven months in prison for conspiracy in the Watergate coverup. He is the founder of the Prison Fellowship, an organization that brings Christian ministries into prisons in the U.S. and more than 50 other countries.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 16

Feb. 17

436—February 18–23, 1993

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Feb. 18

Feb. 19

The United Nations Security Council votes unanimously to extend for five weeks the peacekeeping mandate of the 16,000-member UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in Croatia.

Feb. 20

Feb. 21

Feb. 22

Feb. 23

Sukhumi, the regional capital in Abkhazia, is bombed by a single aircraft. . . . Sir Dick Goldsmith White, 86, director general of two British intelligence agencies, dies in Sussex, England, after suffering from intestinal cancer. . . . An armed Azerbaijani man who hijacked a plane to take his wife and child to the U.S. surrenders in Stockholm, Sweden. . . . A team of French and Spanish policemen arrest a key figure in the Basque separatist group ETA.

South African president F. W. de Klerk names three nonwhites, Jacobus A. Rabie, Abe Williams, and Bhadra Ranchod, to his cabinet in an apparent bid to expand the popularity of his ruling National Party.

Imamali Rakhmanov, the chairman of the Tajik parliament and effective leader of the country, states that troops backing the government of former communists have seized rebel centers at Garm and Ramit and other strongholds northeast of the republic’s capital, Dushanbe. . . . Serb forces permit the UN convoy they detained Feb. 14 to reach the town of Zepa. . . . Italian premier Giuliano Amato shuffles his cabinet amid growing political-corruption scandals.

Abdou Diouf, the president of Senegal since 1981, wins a third term in office in elections.

Two 10-year-old British boys are arraigned in Liverpool and charged with the abduction and murder of a two-year-old boy, James Bulger. A crowd of protesters hurl projectiles at police vehicles transporting the suspects in Bootle. . . . In response to the Feb. 21 release of the convoy, the Bosnian government allows relief flights to Sarajevo to resume. . . . Jean Adrien François Lecanuet, 72, French centrist politician, dies in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France.

In Somalia, 150 Somali warriors loyal to Gen. Mohammed Siad Hersi Morgan enter Kismayu. At least two dozen Somalis are killed in street fighting. The clash postpones the planned withdrawal of U.S. soldiers from the city. Separately, Valerie Plaice, a worker for a relief agency, is killed when gunmen attack her aid convoy in the town of Wanlaweyn. . . . Warren Christopher becomes the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Beirut since 1983.

Reports confirm that Russia has claimed responsibility for the Feb. 20 bombing of Sukhumi by a single aircraft.

In Somalia, the foreign coalition instructs Gen. Morgan to remove his remaining troops from Kismayu by Feb. 26. Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid, in a radio broadcast, accuses coalition forces of siding with Morgan and allowing his attack on Kismayu to continue. . . . Israeli troops shoot and kill an Arab man in the Gaza Strip, bringing to 50 the number of Palestinians killed since the December 1992 deportations.

The confirmed death toll from the Feb. 17 ferry accident off the coast of Haiti reaches 275. About 300 survivors, some of whom clung to floating animal carcasses or buoyant bags, are accounted for.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 18–23, 1993—437

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Rick Springer, an antinuclear activist who in April 1992 disrupted an address by former president Reagan, is sentenced to 120 days in prison for interfering with the Secret Service. . . . Former representative Albert Bustamante (D, Tex.) and his wife, Rebecca Bustamante, are indicted on racketeering and bribery charges involving his alleged receipt of more than $340,000 in bribes and illegal gratuities during his four terms in the House starting in 1985.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher embarks on a tour of the Middle East and Europe to issue invitations to resume the stalled Arab-Israeli peace talks. . . . The Senate votes, 76-23, to retain an existing ban on immigration by people who have AIDS or are infected with HIV. . . . A Haitian man hijacks a plane in Haiti and forces it to fly to Miami, Florida. The man immediately surrenders to police in Miami, and none of the passengers or crew are injured.

The AFL-CIO executive lifts sanctions against the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. . . . Yields on U.S. 30-year Treasury bonds close at 7.02%, their lowest level since they were introduced in 1977.

A study finds that a combination of three drugs has stopped the AIDS virus from replicating in a test tube. Two of the drugs were approved antiviral medications: AZT (azidothymidine, or zidovudine) and DDI (dideoxyinosine). For the third, researchers used either of two experimental compounds, pyridinone and nevirapine.

For the first time, the USA Track & Field, the national governing body for the sport, announces that it will award cash prizes to any U.S. medalist at the upcoming events.

Gerhard Gesell, 82, federal judge who presided over high-profile cases in the Watergate scandals, the release of the Pentagon Papers ,and the Iran-contra affair, dies in Washington, D.C., of liver cancer.

Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan predicts that the U.S. economy will grow between 3% and 3.25% in 1993 and expresses approval of Pres. Clinton’s deficit-reduction plan. . . . The RTC’s inspector general, John Adair, criticizes a contract between the RTC and Price Waterhouse & Co., which led to millions of dollars of photocopying fees during the RTC’s ongoing clean-up operation at the HomeFed Savings Association in San Diego, California.

Feb. 19

Riley Detwiler, 17 months old, dies from bacterial infections linked to tainted hamburger meat from the Jack in the Box restaurant chain. . . . Robert Rafsky, spokesman for the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (Act Up), dies in New York City of AIDS. . . . Pres. Clinton fields questions about his economic proposals and other issues from a group of about 40 young children during a two-hour televised program produced by ABC News.

Ferruccio Lamborghini, 76, Italian industrialist whose eponymous sleek and stylish cars are famed around the world, dies in Perugia, Italy, after suffering a heart attack earlier in the month.

Martina Navratilova, 36, snaps Monica Seles’s 34-match winning streak in the Paris Women’s Open, becoming the oldest tennis player to defeat a number-one-ranked opponent. . . . Harvey Kurtzman, 68, cartoonist who created the highly influential humor magazine Mad, dies in Mount Vernon, New York, of complications of liver cancer.

The U.S. State Department announces the appointment of Thomas W. Simons Jr. as coordinator of U.S. aid to the former Soviet republics.

The Supreme Court upholds unanimously, in U.S. v. Dunnigan, federal sentencing guidelines allowing courts to increase the length of a convicted person’s sentence if the defendant commits perjury during his or her trial. . . . Pres. Clinton announces his nominees for 21 subcabinet positions in his administration.

Feb. 18

The dollar closes at 116.40 yen a record low. . . . Nicholas Rizzo, the chief fund-raiser for the unsuccessful 1992 presidential campaign of former Sen. Paul Tsongas (D, Mass.), is arrested on charges of defrauding Tsongas’s campaign of more than $1 million. Law-enforcement officials state Rizzo’s alleged violations represent the largest case of campaign-finance fraud in U.S. history.

James Carville and Mary Matalin, who developed a romance while working for opposing candidates in the 1992 presidential election, are reportedly paid $900,000 for their proposed joint memoirs. . . . The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller tops the bestseller list.

V(estor) J(oseph) Skutt, 90, chairman of the Mutual of Omaha Inc. insurance company, 1949–86, dies in Omaha, Nebraska, of natural causes. . . . Charles Callison, 79, leading conservationist and executive vice president of the National Audubon Society, 1966–77, dies in Columbia, Missouri, of complications following open-heart surgery.

Five cross-country skiers missing in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado for four nights turn up alive and in good condition. . . . Officials state that Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist Russell Baker, 67, will host PBS’s Masterpiece Theater series, succeeding Alistair Cooke.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 20

Feb. 21

Feb. 22

Feb. 23

438—February 24–March 1, 1993

World Affairs

Europe

Feb. 24

Feb. 25

Feb. 26

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Zairean tanks and soldiers loyal to Pres. Mobutu surround the legislature in Kinshasa, demanding that they accept the banknotes issued as legal tender in January. . . . In response to Gen. Aidid’s Feb 23 claims, thousands of protestors pelt rocks at U.S. and UN troops, attack the Egyptian and French embassies, and block traffic in the worst violence in Mogadishu since the arrival of U.S. troops. . . . Reports suggest that fighting in Rwanda has forced up to 1 million civilians to flee.

The U.S. agrees to participate in a financial-support plan for Peru after Peruvian ministers assure the U.S. that Peru will improve its humanrights record. . . . Cuban voters turn out in large numbers in the first direct, secret ballot for the assemblies since 1959. . . . Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney resigns his leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party and, with it, the office of prime minister, to take effect on the election of a successor.

Asia & the Pacific

The IAEA votes to give North Korea until March 25 to agree to allow inspection of two buildings in Yongbyon, the center of North Korea’s nuclear-development program.

Greenpeace discloses that Soviet nuclear-powered submarines collided with foreign subs at least eight times over the decades. In separate accidents, Soviet subs are said to have suffered at least four partial nuclear reactor meltdowns while at sea. According to the report, in two of the instances, a total of 19 crewmen died of radiation poisoning, and a sub explosion at a shipyard in 1985 allegedly killed 10 people.

In Somalia, protestors fire on UN offices, the U.S. diplomatic mission, compounds of relief agencies, and hotels where foreigners stay. The rioting ends suddenly when Gen. Aidid broadcasts an appeal for calm over loudspeakers Initial reports suggest that fighting has left at least four Americans and two Nigerians wounded. The number of Somali casualties is unclear.

Canada’s Supreme Court rules that homosexual couples do not constitute families under the Human Rights Act in a case that has been in litigation for seven years.

Some 80,000 police and paramilitary troops fire tear gas and beat back crowds with bamboo batons and rifle butts to prevent Hindu nationalists from holding a rally in New Delhi, the Indian capital, to demand the resignation of Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao and his government. Security officials arrest an estimated 110 BJP members of parliament. . . . Kim Young Sam, a former dissident, takes office as South Korea’s president. Kim, who won a three-way election in December 1992, is South Korea’s first civilian president since 1961.

North Korea rejects the IAEA’s Feb. 25 demand.

A bomb causes a fiery blast at a natural-gas storage facility in Warrington, Cheshire, England.

A crowded Cairo cafe frequented by tourists is bombed, killing four people—a Turk, a Swede, and two Egyptians—while 16 others are injured. . . . Zairean tanks and soldiers loyal to Pres. Mobutu end the siege started Feb. 24 when the lawmakers agree to cooperate with Mobutu. . . . In the face of the ultimatum issued in Somalia on Feb 23, 71 Morgan soldiers surrender to international forces.

The Cuban government confirms that an unopposed slate of Communist Party loyalists has been elected.

German chancellor Helmut Kohl visits Japan for the first time since 1986.

In London, 18 people are injured by the explosion of a bomb in a trash can in the Camden High Street shopping district.

The Islamic Group claims responsibility for the Feb. 26 bombing of a Cairo café.

Thousands of people gather in Managua, Nicaragua, for a rally supporting the National Opposition Union (UNO). It is the group’s first major rally since declaring itself in formal opposition to the Chamorro government earlier in the month.

Feb. 27

U.S. Air Force planes begin parachuting relief supplies to Muslim towns under siege by Serbian forces in eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina. . . . The IRA claims responsibility for the Feb. 26 blast, in Warrington, England, and it is the first claimed by the group against an industrial target on the mainland.

Feb. 28

A Palestinian teenager from Gaza stabs two Israelis to death and wounds nine others on a Tel Aviv street. . . . Amnesty International finds that the Algerian government’s use of torture and other humanrights violations has risen dramatically since a state of emergency was declared in 1992. . . . Algerian authorities announce they have arrested an Islamic leader, Ikhlef Cherati, who is allegedly behind terrorist attacks that led to the deaths of 250 soldiers and police.

March 1

Indonesia introduces a currency note valued at 50,000 rupiahs ($24.30). . . . Twenty-three Sri Lankan soldiers are charged with massacring 35 Tamil civilians in August 1992 in the eastern Batticaloa district. The soldiers allegedly shot or hacked the civilians to death in retaliation for an explosion that took 10 soldiers’ lives.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 24–March 1, 1993—439

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The Supreme Court, 6-3, limits the authority of federal law-enforcement agents to confiscate assets and property obtained with money gained through illegal drug transactions.

British prime minister John Major, the European leader invited to the Clinton White House, visits Washington, D.C.

Michigan’s Governor John Engler (R) signs a bill that immediately bans all assisted suicides in a measure that will remain in effect for up to 21 months while the state legislature considers further action. . . . The New Jersey Assembly votes to override Gov. Florio’s veto of a measure that would weaken the state’s ban on semiautomatic assault-type weapons. . . . After six weeks of lobbying and debate, the Virginia General Assembly passes a measure to ration handgun purchases to one gun a person per month.

The White House officially announces that Pres. Clinton has ordered airdrops of relief supplies to Muslim towns under siege by Serbian forces in eastern BosniaHerzegovina.

Bernadine Healy, the director of the National Institutes of Health, announces her resignation, effective June 30. . . . Reports state that the Clinton administration has asked David A. Kessler to retain his post as the commissioner of the FDA.

A massive bomb explodes in a garage below the World Trade Center in New York City, killing five people. It is the deadliest bombing in the U.S. since 1975. More than 1,000 people are treated for injuries in the trade center blast, and evacuations are organized. New York City’s Empire State Building is evacuated after a bomb warning, but no explosives are discovered.

Beaumont Newhall, 84, pioneering historian of photography, dies in Santa Fe, New Mexico, of complications from a stroke.

In response to the Feb. 26 bomb in New York City, security is tightened in airports. Mayor David N. Dinkins (D) announces a $100,000 reward for information leading to the capture and conviction of those responsible for the attack. Port Authority officials state they will match the reward offer.

Lillian Diana Gish, 99, actress for more than 85 years who appeared in more than 100 movies and who won an honorary Academy Award in 1970, dies in New York City of heart failure.

In response to the Feb. 26 bombing of the World Trade Center, Pres. Clinton states he has pledged “the full measure of federal law-enforcement resources” for the investigation of the blast. Port Authority officials reveal that a security report in 1985 recommended that the public parking garage where the bomb went off be closed for security reasons. However, the suggestion was rejected for the welfare of the businesses located in the complex.

Franco Brusati, 66, award-winning Italian film director, dies in Rome of leukemia. . . . Tom Kite becomes the first PGA Golfer player to earn over $8 million. . . . The National Book Critics Circle awards go to Cormac McCarthy, Hayden Carruth, Norman Maclean, Garry Wills, and Carol Brightman.

In Waco, Texas, federal authorities launch an abortive raid on the compound of a cult of the Branch Davidians, led by David Koresh, who claims to be the messiah. Cult members, seemingly prepared for the onslaught, open fire immediately as some 100 officers begin their assault, killing four federal agents and wounding more than a dozen others.

Pres. Clinton criticizes the NRA for its opposition to gun-control efforts in Virginia and New Jersey. . . . Luis Kutner, 84, human-rights lawyer who campaigned for a worldwide habeus corpus code and who is credited with inventing the concept of the “living will,” dies in Chicago of heart failure.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A European weather satellite on loan to the U.S. begins taking routine readings from its new orbit over the Pacific coast. . . . A study finds that men who go bald on the crown of their heads have a higher risk of heart attack among men between 21 and 55 years of age. . . . California governor Pete Wilson (R) officially declares that a six-year drought in California is over in the wake of two months of greater-than-normal precipitation.

Bobby Moore, 51, British soccer player, dies in London after suffering from cancer of the liver and colon. . . . At the Grammy Awards, rock performer Eric Clapton is the big winner, picking up six awards, including the ones for best record, song, and album of the year.

The SEC announces it has reached settlements with the U.S. branches of three Japanese securities firms charged with violating various U.S. securities laws. . . . The Senate votes, 94-2, in favor of a nonbinding funding resolution that cuts Senate committee spending for 1993 by 7.6% from 1992 levels, to $55.7 million from $60.4 million. The resolution also calls for a pay freeze for senators and Senate staff.

Feb. 24

Feb. 25

The five major commodity exchanges located in the World Trade Center complex open for trading after the Feb 26 bomb with abbreviated hours. . . . The UMW strike that began Feb. 2 against St. Louis, Missouri-based Peabody, expands to include about half a dozen mines.

Feb. 26

Feb. 27

Feb. 28

March 1

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

440—March 2–7, 1993

March 2

Europe

The 10 CIS members plus Azerbaijan and Georgia form a pact modeled on OPEC to revive the Russian Federation’s declining petroleum industry.

Reports indicate that Serbian paramilitary forces have seized most or all of Cerska and its surrounding villages. . . . Russian general Mikhail Koleznikov, states that radiation levels from some Ukrainian sites exceeds “permissible levels by thousands of times.” Ukraine rejects the Russian accusations.

After the March 1 stabbing of two Israelis, the Israeli army seals the Gaza Strip. An Israeli man is stabbed and shot by a Palestinian crowd when he makes a wrong turn into a Palestinian neighborhood in Gaza. . . . In South Africa, violence in Natal continues as six schoolchildren are killed in an ambush.

Radoje Kontic is confirmed as premier of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. U.S. have military and UN officials state that Serbs have intensified their ethnic cleansing campaign against the estimated 200,000 Moslems remaining in eastern Bosnia. . . . A minor explosion occurs outside the U.S. embassy in Belgrade. It is said to be the first attack on a Western embassy in the federal capital since the Yugoslav breakup began in 1991. . . . . British authorities disclose they have arrested five suspected IRA operatives in England in the last two days.

In Somalia, a member of the U.S. Army’s special forces is killed when his vehicle hits a land mine, which brings the number of U.S. servicemen killed in Somalia to six. One U.S. civilian has also died. A Somali man is killed by Canadian soldiers when he is seen trying to break into a U.S. military compound near a Canadian base of operations at Belet Uen.

March 3

UN officials start a campaign in which they arrange safe-passage corridors out of the Muslim enclaves of Cerska, Zepa, Srebrenica, and Konjevic.

March 4

March 5

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

The World Meteorological Organization reports that levels of ozone have fallen 20% below normal over Canada and Northern Europe.

March 6

March 7

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Reports indicate that the censorship commission of Panama’s interior ministry has banned the documentary The Panama Deception, a film on the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama.

Antonio Barros de Castro resigns as president of Brazil’s National Development Bank (BNDES), becoming the third senior member of Pres. Itamar Franco’s economic team to depart in less than a week.

UN officials disclose that the Serbs have stepped up their ethniccleansing terror campaign against isolated Muslim and Croat communities in northwest Bosnia. . . . A jet carrying 97 people crashes during a snowstorm in Skopje, the capital of the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia. According to initial reports, 20 people have survived the crash. . . . Lord (Nicholas) Ridley, 64, who served as a minister in all three terms of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative governments, dies in Liddesdale, England, of cancer.

In the South African province of Natal, 10 people are gunned down, as the violence continues.

U.S. Air Force transports parachute 27 tons of relief supplies into Srebrenica and Konjevic in what is described as the operation’s most accurate drop yet.

Muslim extremists attack a Coptic Christian church in Aswan, Egypt, killing a soldier. . . . Israeli helicopters attack a PFLP-GC base in the Ain Hilwe Palestinian refugee camp south of Beirut, wounding four people.

South Korean president Kim Young Sam grants amnesty to more than 41,000 South Koreans, both criminals and dissidents. The amnesty, to celebrate the country’s first civilian-led government in more than 30 years, is the largest ever in South Korea.

The Russian navy fires several senior officers following month-old revelations that four recruits died and hundreds of others nearly succumbed to starvation, disease, and maltreatment at a remote Far Eastern island training base for the Pacific Fleet. . . . Swiss voters approve a referendum to allow gambling casinos in their country. They reject a limit on animal testing that includes vivisection.

The Angolan government concedes that the rebel Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) has won control of the country’s second-most-populous city, Huambo, after a fierce 56-day battle. The rebels are now reported to control more than half of Angola’s territory. . . . Israeli authorities arrest Anwar Hamdan, 33, from the Chicago area. He is the fourth Arab American whom they suspect has links to Hamas.

Leaders of eight rival Afghan military factions announce a peace agreement in Islamabad, Pakistan. The treaty is intended to end months of fighting to control the capital, Kabul, and other regions of Afghanistan. Some 5,000 people have died in interfactional fighting since the overthrow of a formerly Sovietbacked communist government in April 1992.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 2–7, 1993—441

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Supreme Court rules unanimously in Voinovich v. Quilter that states have broad authority to design voting districts dominated by ethnic minorities. . . . The House approves, 411-3, a measure that will empower the FTC to coordinate investigations with state prosecutors and will set guidelines for multistate prosecution of telemarketers who escape penalties by moving across state lines.

Due to the Feb. 26 bomb at the World Trade Center, New York Port Authority officials reveal that the twin towers may remain closed for a month.

The House passes a bill, 408-6, providing protection for investors in limited partnerships that are restructured. . . . The United Mine Workers union agrees to a temporary extension of an expired contract to end a strike that started Feb 2. . . . Michael Milken is released from a federal prison after serving two years of a 10-year sentence for securities fraud. He is required to perform 1,800 hours of community service to fulfill his 1990 sentence.

The House passes, 410-5, a bill allocating 200 megahertz of government-held radio spectrum for private-sector use in wireless computer and communications technologies. . . . The FDA approves Leustatin (cladribine), an intravenous drug for treating hairy-cell leukemia, an uncommon form of bone-marrow cancer. . . . The FDA approves the first home test for cholesterol.

Author Salman Rushdie, in hiding since 1989 because of a death edict, divorces his wife, Marianne Wiggins. . . . The FCC states several TV shows do not qualify as “educational and informational” programming and therefore cannot be aired to satisfy requirements of a 1990 law.

Reports indicate the U.S. military is investigating whether two marines used excessive force in shooting Somalis. One of the soldiers, Sergeant Harry Conde, 33, fired buckshot into the stomach of a Somali boy, seriously wounding him, after the child tried to steal Conde’s sunglasses. The other marine, Sergeant Walter Andrew Johnson, 25, a gunner, shot to death a 13-year-old Somali boy in the belief that the youngster was running at his truck with a grenade. . . . In response to reports about ethnic-cleansing campaigns by Serbs, Pres. Clinton decides to continue the aid airdrops.

In Reves v. Ernst & Young, the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that accountants, lawyers, and other outside professionals who advise businesses found to be corrupt may not be held liable under federal racketeering laws for financial losses or damages suffered by shareholders or customers of those businesses. . . .The Senate, 66-33, passes a $5.7 billion emergency measure authorizing up to six months of additional unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless.

Albert Bruce Sabin, 86, pioneering medical researcher who developed the oral vaccine for poliomyelitis, which became the vaccine of choice in most of the world and who won the U.S. National Medal of Science in 1971, dies in Washington, D.C., of congestive heart failure.

Carlos García Montoya, 89, Spanish guitarist and composer who helped popularize flamenco, dies in Wainscott, New York, of heart failure.

Mohammed A. Salameh, 26, is arrested in connection with the Feb. 26 bombing of New York’s World Trade Center. Ibrahim A. Elgabrowny is arrested for scuffling with authorities as they search his apartment as part of the bombing investigation. FBI officials believe there are other conspirators in the bombing,

The House passes, 247-156, a measure authorizing up to six months of additional unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless. Pres. Clinton signs the bill, the first piece of his economic package, into law. . . . The yield on a 10-year Treasury bond closes at 5.83%, its lowest rate since 1971. . . . The FEC finds that candidates in 1992 House and Senate races spent a total of $678 million on campaigns, 52% more than in 1990 elections.

Studies confirm that scientists have identified the gene whose mutation have leads to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), an incurable neural disorder also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Arthur Hodes, 88, blues and jazz pianist who began his own record label, Jazz Record, dies in Harvey, Illinois; he had undergone vascular surgery three days earlier. . . . Reports state that former figureskating champion Dorothy Hamill has agreed to buy the bankrupt Ice Capades skating company.

Federal agents conduct raids in 15 states in an investigation of people who use computers to traffic in child pornography.

The White House announces that Pres. Clinton has chosen Bruce Vladek to head the Health Care Finance Administration, which runs Medicaid and Medicare. . . . Charles Kueper, 51, the man who, on Jan. 29, lost a liability suit against R. J. Reynolds and the Tobacco Institute, the first of its kind since a June 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, dies in Cahokia, Illinois, of lung cancer.

Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson is banned for life from track and field after testing positive for drug use.

Reports regarding the standoff started Feb. 28 in Waco, Texas, by that David Koresh and the Branch Davidians state that Koresh has freed 21 children and two elderly women from the compound. Released members tell authorities that 7–15 cult members lie dead in the compound.

March 2

March 3

March 4

March 5

March 6

Vivian King, the mother of Shilie Turner, 17, one of the nation’s most promising female track stars who was found dead in February, is arrested on murder charges.

March 7

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

442—March 8–13, 1993

March 8

Europe

The UN Security Council unanimously endorses elections in Cambodia, despite the Khmer Rouge’s refusal to participate.

The British House of Commons votes to amend legislation to ratify the EC’s Treaty on European Union, the so-called Maastricht Treaty. . . . Data indicates that, since 1973, IRA attacks on the English mainland have killed 115 people and injured 1,626. . . . Turkish officials reveal that a joint operation between Turkish and Syrian intelligence forces resulted in the killings of five alleged members of the Dev Sol terrorist group and the arrest of 29 others.

Israeli settlers returning from the funeral of a murdered settler shoot and kill a Palestinian man in the Gaza Strip. Two Palestinian farm laborers stab to death their Jewish employer, a settler on the Gaza Strip.

Five right-wing Nicaraguan commandos, who seek a purge of leftists and call themselves the Nicaraguan Patriotic Brigade, seize some two dozen embassy personnel and diplomats, including Nicaragua’s Ambassador Alfonso Robelo Callejas, in San Jose, the Costa Rican capital. . . . The British Columbia Court of Appeals rules that a terminally ill woman has no legal right to a doctor-assisted suicide.

C(yril) Northcote Parkinson, 83, British writer who formulated Parkinson’s Law, which states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion, dies in Canterbury, England, of unspecified causes.

In response to the March 6 Muslim extremist attack, Egyptian authorities launch a raid on a mosque in the southern city of Aswan. Separately, the Egyptian authorities place on trial 49 alleged Islamic militants accused of trying to overthrow the government and of attacking foreign tourists. . . . Jonathan T. Howe takes over as the UN’s special envoy to Somalia.

The Nicaraguan commandos who seized embassy personnel Mar. 8 demand the removal from office of army chief Gen. Humberto Ortega Saavedra, Sandinista state-security head Lenin Cerna, and presidential aide Antonio Lacayo. They also demand a $6 million ransom, $5 million of which will go to social programs. . . . The Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board adopts guidelines that consider whether a petitioner is from a home country in which “state authorities inflict, condone or tolerate violence, including sexual or domestic violence.”

March 9

March 10

March 11

March 12

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Palestinian leaders reject a U.S.Russian invitation to resume ArabIsraeli peace talks in Washington, D.C., because of an impasse created in December 1992 when Israel deported more than 400 Palestinians from the occupied territories. . . . The UN Commission on Human Rights condemns several governments for human rights abuses, among them Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Zaire, Myanmar, and Cuba The commission directs its most serious resolution at the Iraqi government of Pres. Saddam Hussein.

Egyptian authorities launch raids on eight sites in Cairo, the capital.

The UN Commission on Human Rights adopts a resolution expressing “deep concern” about the human-rights situation in Indonesian-occupied East Timor. The resolution asks Indonesia to grant UN officials access to the territory so that allegations of torture, executions, detention, and religious discrimination can be investigated.

North Korea announces that it will withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which it signed in 1985. It is the first time a nation has formally sought a break with the pact, originated in 1968, to limit the spread of nuclear-weapons technology and nuclear-arms sales.

The Americas

The Congress of People’s Deputies, the Russian parliament, formally repudiates the December 1992 political truce agreed between the executive and legislative branches of the Russian government. By doing so, the deputies limit Pres. Yeltsin’s powers. . . . Lord (Henry Reginall) Underhill, 78, high-ranking member of England’s Labour Party who became a life peer in 1979, dies in Epping, England, of unspecified causes.

In Cambodia, at least 33 Vietnamese fishermen, women, and children are shot to death or drowned when a band of 30–40 raiders attack five houseboats in the floating village of Phum Chong Keas in northern Siem Reap province. It is the worst atrocity since the 1991 peace agreement.

The Nicaraguan Patriotic Brigade, which seized embassy personnel, on Mar. 8, release a hostage, Teresa Torres, the pregnant niece of President Chamorro.

In Indonesia, Pres. Suharto is sworn in for an uncontested sixth consecutive five-year term. General Try Sutrisno, Suharto’s choice as vice president, is elected to the post.

Japan agrees to provide Brazil with loans valued at $840 million for antipollution projects.

In Bombay, India, 11 bombs rip through the city. The first explodes at the Bombay Stock Exchange, killing 50 people. Other explosions damage Air-India’s headquarters, banks, government offices, three hotels, an airline office, a shopping complex, and movie theaters. Federal paramilitary troops are deployed in Bombay. . . . Wang Zhen, 85, hard-line Chinese vice president since 1988, dies in Guangzhou, China.

Official returns confirm that Abdou Diouf, the president of Senegal since 1981, has won a third term in office in elections. The release of the final election result has been delayed for three weeks because of opposition claims that Diouf’s ruling Socialist Party rigged the vote.

March 13

Asia & the Pacific

Australian prime minister Paul Keating’s Labor Party is returned to power in general elections. . . . Federal prosecutors in Tokyo formally indict former political power broker Shin Kanemaru for evading taxes in 1987 totaling 118 million yen ($1 million at current exchange rates).

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 8–13, 1993—443

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The standoff in Waco, Texas, that began Feb. 28 escalates when, as a result of increasing concern that Koresh has explosives, Defense Secretary Les Aspin approves deployment of M-1 Abrams tanks, the army’s heaviest military vehicles, to support the 400 officers surrounding the site.

A jury convicts Khaled Mohammed el-Jassem, 45, for attempting to blow up two Israeli banks and an Israeli airline terminal in New York City in March 1973.

The Supreme Court rules unanimously that public agencies may require contractors to employ only union labor for public construction projects. . . . Charles W. Knapp, former head of the nation’s largest S&L, is indicted on eight counts. . . . The yield of 30-year U.S. Treasury bonds falls to 6.72%, the lowest closing yield since the Treasury began auctioning 30-year notes in 1977. . . . The Dow rises 64.84, to close at a record 3469.42.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Don Barksdale, 69, one of the first black players in the NBA, dies in Oakland, California, of cancer. . . . Billy Eckstine (born William Clarence Eckstein), 78, baritone singer and bandleader, dies in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. . . . Speed skater Bonnie Blair wins the Sullivan Award as the top U.S. amateur athlete of 1992.

Georgia governor Zell Miller (D) states that he is abandoning his campaign to remove the Confederate battle emblem from Georgia’s flag. The flag was adopted in 1956 as a means of protesting courtordered desegregation.

Amid an upsurge of violence against abortion facilities, including arson and bombing, Dr. David Gunn is fatally shot in the back during a demonstration outside an abortion clinic where he worked in Pensacola, Florida.

Florida governor Lawton Chiles (D) signs into law what is apparently the first state measure to make breast-feeding in public legal. . . . The archbishop of Sante Fe, New Mexico, Robert F. Sanchez, acknowledges that he had sexual relations with three women. . . . Bob Crosby, 79, swing-era band leader and brother of the late singer Bing Crosby, dies of cancer in Torrey Pines, California.

A Kuwaiti-born chemical engineer, Nidal A. Ayyad, 25, is arrested and charged with aiding and abetting the Feb. 26 bombing at New York’s World Trade Center, which killed at least five people and injured more than 1,000. The cleanup of the estimated 2,500 tons of debris from the explosion in the trade center’s twin towers begins.

The Senate unanimously confirms Janet Reno to head the Justice Department as attorney general. . . . Michael F. Griffin, 37, who claims responsibility for the Mar. 11 slaying of a doctor, is charged with one count of murder. He is described as a fundamentalist Christian who recently joined the Rescue America antiabortion group.

Janet Reno is sworn in, becoming the first woman ever to serve as attorney general. . . . Public-interest groups seeking public access to White House computer records dating from the presidencies of George Bush and Ronald Reagan disclose that information is missing, adding to a widening controversy. . . . Former president Carter launches a campaign to immunize thousands of preschool children in Atlanta, Georgia, within six weeks.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Dow closes at a record high of 3478.34. . . . A study finds that 44 of 78 species put on the first endangered list in 1967, including the American alligator, bald eagle, and California condor, have recovered, made progress, or at least stabilized their numbers. However, the populations of 17 other species remain in decline, while eight others are believe to have become extinct.

NASA head Daniel Goldin discloses ideas for redesigning the planned space station Freedom to make it simpler, smaller, cheaper, and easier to build. The changes mark a historic alteration of NASA’s role since it no longer supports projects that take a decade to complete.

Fulton County, Georgia, commissioners approve the construction of a $207 million Olympic stadium for the 1996 Atlanta Summer Games.

The Office of Thrift Supervision announces that profits at savings and loans nationwide in fourthquarter 1992 reached $1.13 billion, a 48% increase from the yearearlier figure.

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences claims that Syria has the world’s worst record of abuses against scientists. The group said 287 scientists had been imprisoned, usually without charge or trial, and 20 other scientists were believed to have disappeared following their detention by the Syrian security authorities. Many of the scientists were imprisoned after calling for human-rights reforms.

Claire Huchet Bishop, 94, author of popular children’s books who is credited with helping win the deletion of anti-Semitic passages from the Catholic catechism, dies in Paris of a hemorrhage of the aorta. . . . As mandated under the 1992 Cable Act, the FCC sets new rules governing cable companies’ service standards

Pres. Clinton boards the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia in his first visit to active-duty personnel as commander in chief of the armed forces. . . . Defense Secretary Les Aspin recommends that 31 major military bases in the U.S. close and 134 other domestic installations scale back or consolidate.

Michael Kanin, 83, award-winning director and screenwriter, dies in Los Angeles of congestive heart failure. . . . Reports suggest an unidentified American who purchased Ruby Throats with Apple Blossoms by painter Martin Johnson Heade at a flea market has sold it for $96,000 at a sale held by Christie’s auction house.

At the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo, Bay, Cuba, 30 Haitians are jailed after an outburst of violence in which several members of the U.S. military are injured by rocks and sticks and 12 houses in the refugee camp are set on fire.

A snowstorm, described as one of the 20th century’s most powerful, hits the East Coast, from Florida to Maine. The blizzard cuts off power to about 3 million homes, forces thousands to evacuate flooded coastal areas, and shuts down many airports and roads. The blizzard brings with it hurricane-force winds of up to 109 miles per hour (175 kph) and causes dozens of tornadoes in the southern states.

March 8

March 9

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March 11

March 12

March 13

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

444—March 14–19, 1993

World Affairs

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The so-called Truth Commission, the United Nations-sponsored body that investigated widespread human-rights violations during El Salvador’s civil war, issues its findings and calls for the dismissal from public office of those implicated in serious abuses. According to the commission, about 85% of the alleged rights abuses were attributed to the U.S.-backed Salvadoran army and security forces or the death squads organized within their intelligence units. . . . Ricardo M. Arias Espinosa, 80, president of Panama, 1955–56, dies in Panama of cancer.

In India, the Bombay Stock Exchange reopens for a one-hour trading session on older premises undamaged by the March 12 bombing of the building.

Voters in Andorra, a tiny country between France and Spain in the Pyrenees Mountains, vote to end a feudal system of government, in place for 715 years, and adopt a parliamentary system. . . . Serb forces overrun Konjevic Polje, part of the Muslim enclave of Cerska, between Srebrenica and Tuzla.

March 14

In Abkhazia, aircraft bearing Russian air force markings bomb Sukhumi. . . . Norway lifts most of its trade and investment sanctions against South Africa

March 15

March 16

March 17

March 18

Europe

The IMF restores Peru’s eligibility to receive IMF loans and immediately approves a $1.4 billion threeyear loan package.

In Abkhazia, aircraft bearing Russian air force markings bomb Sukhumi again. . . . According to The Financial Times, evidence in a huge scandal in Italy indicates that “virtually all” transactions for public-sector contracts since the mid1980s were subject to bribes and commissions.

Peace talks in Somalia are disrupted when 300 warriors led by Gen. Mohammed Siad Hersi Morgan enter Kismayu and evict 50 armed followers of Col. Omar Jess. At the conference, Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid, Somalia’s most powerful warlord and an ally of Jess, accuses the U.S. of allowing it to happen. Separately, a Somali man identified as Shidane Abukar Arone is beaten to death while in the custody of Canadian troops at Belet Uen. . . . A bomb damages several tour buses in Cairo. . . . Djilali Liabes, a former Algerian education minister, is shot to death in Algiers. . . . An Iranian opposition figure, Mohammed Hussein Nagdi, 42, is killed in Rome.

The Georgian foreign ministry states that 107 people, including many ethnic Russians, died in the Mar. 15 and Mar. 16 raids on Sukhumi, which also destroyed more than 100 houses. . . . In Turkey, the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) announces a unilateral cease-fire in the group’s nine-year-old guerrilla war for an independent state.

In Somalia, a Red Cross guard is shot and killed in a fight over a relief shipment. . . . At least 10 people die when Egyptian police, supported by armored vehicles, raid two suspected militant sites in Asyut.

A powerful explosion destroys two apartment buildings, killing at least 80 people in Calcutta, India’s largest city. . . . Muhammad Khan Junejo, 60, prime minister of Pakistan, 1985–88, dies in Baltimore, Maryland, after suffering from leukemia.

The Georgian parliament, in an appeal to the UN, argues that Russia is waging an “undeclared war” in Abkhazia. Georgian president Shevardnadze orders the general mobilization of Georgian forces following further reports of outside air support for the separatists. . . . Reports confirm that Aleksei Adzhubei, 68, Soviet journalist who was the son-in-law of the former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, has died.

Canada’s Federal Court orders that preparations for the construction of a bridge between Prince Edward Island and the mainland must stop until detailed environmental studies can be made.

March 19

A bomb explodes at the Sealdah train station in Calcutta, killing at least two people and injuring another 15. The barrage of bombs in India since Mar. 12 has left more than 300 people dead and 1,100 injured in the biggest wave of criminal violence in Indian history. . . . Australia’s first Nazi war-crimes trial, which charges Ivan Timofeyevich Polyukhovich, 76, with murdering a Jewish woman and complicity in the murders of up to 850 others in the Nazi-occupied Ukrainian village of Serniki in 1942, opens.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 14–19, 1993—445

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

March 14

The New Jersey Senate votes, 26-0, to sustain Gov. Jim Florio’s (D) veto of a measure that would have weakened the state’s ban on semiautomatic assault-type weapons.

Florida, hit hard by snow and some 20 tornadoes, is declared a federal disaster area.

A Newark, New Jersey, jury finds three young men, Christopher Archer, Kevin Scherzer, and Kyle Scherzer, guilty of sexually assaulting a mildly retarded woman who has an IQ of 64 and the mental capacity of an eight-year-old. A fourth defendant, Bryant Grober, is found guilty of a third-degree count of conspiracy. The case has held national attention since 1989, when 13 youths allegedly lured the then17-year-old woman into a Glen Ridge basement. The four men on trial are charged with sexually violating her with a baseball bat and a broomstick.

More than 200 gay and lesbian protesters are arrested in sit-ins protesting their exclusion from New York City’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade, sponsored by the Ancient Order of Hibernians, which rejects homosexuality.

A federal appeals court in Cincinnati grants permission for a hazardous waste incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio, to begin limited commercial operation while awaiting the results of an EPA study.

March 15

Data show that, since the March 13 snowstorm started, at least 213 storm-related fatalities, including a few deaths in Cuba and Canada, have been reported.

The Commerce Department reports that the net inflow of direct foreign investment in the U.S. in 1992 was negative, the first negative annual figure in decades. . . . Trade negotiators from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico meet in Washington, D.C., to discuss supplemental amendments to the proposed NAFTA.

March 16

Helen Hayes (born Helen Hayes Brown), 92, known as the First Lady of the American Theater, dies in Nyack, New York, of heart failure. . . . Jeff King wins the 1,161mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, beating the record time set in 1992.

Syvasky Poyner, 36, convicted of killing five women in 1984 during an 11-day crime spree, is executed in the electric chair in Jarratt, Virginia. . . . In a case that sparks debate and outrage, nine California teenagers are arrested and accused of raping or molesting girls as young as 10 in a long-running competition to amass points for sexual conquests. The boys, mostly high-school athletes, are members of a group called the Spur Posse.

The House votes, 243-183, to pass a resolution providing for about $496 billion in net deficit reduction over five years through spending cuts and tax increases.

The Clinton administration approves Oregon’s controversial plan to ration health care, which intends to open medical coverage to some 120,000 individuals ineligible for Medicaid. . . . Supreme Court associate justice Byron White announces he will retire, effective at the court’s 1993 summer recess. White, 75, nominated by Pres. John F. Kennedy in 1962, is the longest-serving current justice and is the only one appointed by a Democratic president.

The House approves, 235-190, a $16.2 billion short-term economic stimulus package. . . . Kenneth Boulding, 83, internationally known economist, philosopher, and poet who was the president of the American Economic Association in 1968 and was nominated at different times for Nobel Prizes in both peace and economics, dies in Boulder, Colorado, of cancer. . . . The EPA finds that nearly 20% of all U.S. schools and more than 70,000 classrooms have unacceptably high levels of radon gas.

An FDA advisory committee recommends that the drug Cognex (tacrine) be approved as the first legally available treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.

March 17

March 18

Robert F. Sanchez, the archbishop of Sante Fe, New Mexico, who on Mar. 9 admitted to having sexual relations with three women, announces that he has submitted his resignation to Pope John Paul II.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 19

446—March 20–24, 1993

World Affairs

Europe Russian pres. Yeltsin claims special emergency powers, causing an uproar in the Congress of People’s Deputies. . . . In Warrington, England, two explosions kill a three-year-old boy, Jonathan Ball, and wound more than 50 other people. . . . A U.S. nuclear submarine and a Russian nuclear submarine collide underwater in the Barents Sea. Neither vessel is seriously damaged, and no injuries are reported.

March 20

Africa & the Middle East The Rwandan government and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front sign two proposals aimed at merging their armies. It is seen as a step toward ending the Rwandan civil war, in which the RPF is fighting to stop what it perceives as the persecution of the Tutsi minority by the majority Hutu tribe.

An alliance of France’s traditional conservative parties dominates the first round of elections for the National Assembly, essentially assuring that current Socialist premier Pierre Beregovoy will be replaced. . . . The IRA, which is fighting to end British rule in Northern Ireland, admits that it planted the bombs that exploded in Warrington, England, on Mar. 20. . . . In Turkey, on the Kurdish new year, Newroz, one death is reported, compared with the 100 deaths last year.

March 21

March 22

March 23

March 24

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Reports suggest that Argentina has agreed to provide Jewish groups full access to archives on the suspected activities of Nazi war criminals who fled to Argentina after World War II. . . . Rightist legislators in El Salvador’s National Assembly narrowly push through a sweeping amnesty for those who committed atrocities during the country’s 12year civil war.

Grenades are fired at Philippine vice president Joseph Estrada as he walks amid a group of some 100 people on the outskirts of Santo Tomas, 35 miles (60 km) south of Manila, the capital. One policeman is injured, but Estrada is unscathed. . . . Reports state that an Australian man, Gregory Brown, who set a fire that killed six young foreign tourists in 1989, has been sentenced to a minimum of eight and a maximum of 16 years.

The five right-wing Nicaraguan commandos who have held embassy personnel hostage since Mar. 8 release the remaining 11 hostages from the Nicaraguan embassy in Costa Rica, accepting a $250,000 ransom and safe passage out of the country. The $250,000 ransom was paid to the kidnappers by the family of Nicaragua’s Ambassador Alfonso Robelo Callejas. . . . Pope John Paul II confers sainthood on a Chilean nun, making her Chile’s first saint. The Carmelite nun, Teresa de Jesus de Los Andes, died in 1920 at the age of 19.

In regard to the March 20 collision between two nuclear submarines, the Russian navy and a spokesman for U.S. president Clinton express regrets.

About 80,000 people march in the city of Algiers, Algeria, to protest the terrorism sweeping the country. . . . Kenyan president Daniel T. arap Moi announces that his government is reversing some of the economic austerity measures implemented on the advice of the IMF and the World Bank.

The Constitutional Court rules that Pres. Yeltsin’s Mar. 20 actions claiming special emergency powers violated nine provisions of the constitution and a number of provisions of the treaty of the Russian Federation. The court does not call for Yeltsin’s impeachment.

A West Bank Jewish settler shoots and kills a bound Palestinian captive who stabbed a settler in another incident.

In Dublin, thousands of people sign condolence books for Jonathan Ball, killed Mar. 20, who, at the age of three, is said to be the youngest person killed in Britain by an IRA attack. . . . A UN operation to airlift wounded Moslems from Srebrenica is suspended after Serb gunners shell the landing zone. Two civilians are killed and two UN troops wounded. French helicopters take off with 21 previously injured Moslems and the two wounded soldiers.

Pres. de Klerk reveals South Africa built six primitive atomic bombs during a secret 15-year program, and that the weapons were destroyed in 1990. . . . The Israeli Parliament elects Ezer Weizman to the largely ceremonial position of president. He replaces Chaim Herzog. . . . A tanker truck filled with liquid ammonia explodes at a peanut-processing factory in Dakar, the capital of Senegal. At least 60 people are killed and 250 injured.

Police discover a large cache of arms in Bombay, India, including 600 detonators, 195 grenades, rifles, and ammunition. . . . Australian prime minister Keating scores his highest-ever approval ratings in a nationwide public opinion survey.

Brazil’s supreme court reinstates a 19-year prison sentence against Darly Alves da Silva for ordering the 1988 murder of Francisco (Chico) Mendes Filho, a prominent environmentalist and labor leader. Alves is currently at large, following his escape from prison in February.

At least five Vietnamese civilians are killed when suspected Khmer Rouge guerrillas open fire on their fishing boat in Cambodia’s central Kompong Chhnang province.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 20–24, 1993—447

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Polykarp Kusch, 82, physicist who shared the 1955 Nobel Prize with William E. Lamb for their work establishing the basis for quantum electrodynamics, dies in Dallas, Texas after suffering from a series of strokes.

March 20

Golfer Patty Sheehan wins her 30th career LPGA tournament to qualify for induction into the Hall of Fame. . . . Eric Guerin, 68, former jockey and Kentucky Derby winner voted into the Racing Hall of Fame in 1972, dies in Plantation, Florida, after a long illness.

Kristopher Belman, 18, the only adult arrested Mar. 18 for raping or molesting girls in order to win points for sexual “conquests,” is released along with some of the other teenagers. . . . FDA commissioner David Kessler states that due to a rise in illnesses caused by bacterial contamination of food, the FDA will impose tough safety requirements on seafood companies.

District Judge Marvin Shoob approves the settlement of an antitrust lawsuit filed against the nation’s major airlines in 1990. The settlement, first announced in June 1992, is worth a total of $458 million in cash and discount coupons that can be used to purchase tickets on any of the seven carriers involved.

One of the three main rocket engines on the space shuttle Columbia misfires three seconds before launch. The takeoff is aborted, and none of the seven astronauts aboard are harmed.

Cleveland Indians pitcher Steve Olin is killed in a fishing-boat accident near Clermont, Florida. Tim Crews, another Indians’ hurler, is injured. It is the first death among active baseball players since 1979.

Attorney General Janet Reno announces that she has ordered the immediate resignation of all federal attorneys held over from the administration of Pres. Bush, prompting attacks from Republicans. . . . Virginia governor Douglas L. Wilder (D) signs a bill that rations handgun purchases to one gun a person per month. . . . A study finds that the rate at which Americans ages 15–19 are killed by guns has jumped to the highest ever recorded in the U.S. . . . Reports suggest that 14 of the cultists released from the siege in Waco, Texas, that began started Feb. 28 are being held as material witnesses in the case.

President Clinton holds his first official press conference since assuming office. He says for the first time that he will consider proposals to segregate military personnel by sexual orientation. . . . The Supreme Court rules, 8-1, that a U.S. worker cannot sue the Saudi Arabian government in a U.S. court for alleged torture and other abuses received at the hands of Saudi authorities. . . . The Supreme Court upholds an INS policy of confining children suspected of entering country illegally to detention centers, unless they have a parent, close relative, or legal guardian living in the U.S.

Tim Crews, Cleveland Indians’ pitcher injured in the Mar. 22 fishingboat accident, dies. . . . In basketball, the Knicks and the Suns brawl and end up with fines totaling about $160,000, the second highest in NBA history. . . . Robert Crichton, 68, author who wrote The Great Impostor (1959) and The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1966), dies in New Rochelle, New York, of heart failure.

The Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that Cincinnati violated First Amendment rights by banning vending machines that distribute free commercial magazines. . . . Public schools in Kalkaska, Michigan, close 10 weeks early due to a projected $1.5 million deficit. . . . FDA head David Kessler states that his agency is ending its 16-year-old restrictions on including women in drug trials.

Mahmud Abouhalima, 33, an Egyptian-born cabdriver and a major suspect in the February bombing at New York’s World Trade Center, is returned to the U.S. after having been captured and detained in Cairo, Egypt. Hours later, Bilal Alkaisi, 27, turns himself in to the FBI. The arrests bring the total number of suspects arrested in connection with the bombing to five.

A Los Angeles jury orders actress Kim Basinger to pay at least $8.92 million in damages for failing to appear in a film. . . . John Richard Hersey, 78, novelist and journalist who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1945, dies in Key West, Florida, of cancer.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 21

March 22

March 23

March 24

448—March 25–29, 1993

World Affairs

Loyalist paramilitaries from the outlawed Ulster Freedom Fighters shoot and kill four Roman Catholic workmen in the Northern Ireland town of Castlerock. The killings bring the number of Catholics slain by Protestant paramilitaries in Ulster in 1993 to 23. . . . Tim Parry, 12, dies as a result of the Mar. 20 bombing in Warrington, England. . . . Bosnian Muslim president Alija Izetbegovic and Bosnian Croat leader Mate Boban endorse a map to define Bosnia’s internal boundaries, but Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic refuses to do so.

March 25

March 26

The UN Security Council unanimously approves a resolution to send at least 28,000 peacekeeping soldiers as well as 2,800 civilians, the biggest peacekeeping force in U.N. history, to Somalia. The mission, called UNOSOM II (United Nations Operation in Somalia), will take over operations from the U.S.-led coalition May 1. The force will secure the flow of relief supplies.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

In Bombay, India, police recover nearly 1.4 tons of explosives, or about five times the amount used in the Mar. 12 bombings.

Somali warlords, clan leaders, and prominent citizens sign a pact to create a transitional government. . . . A bomb explosion in Cairo, Egypt, kills one policeman and injures seven other people. . . . The Israeli and Lebanese armies trade tank and artillery fire for the first time since 1991. . . . Lesotho ends 23 years of military rule when a civilian, Ntsu Mokhehle, is elected prime minister. . . . Kamal Hassan Ali, 71, former Egyptian prime minister, 1984–85, dies of unspecified causes. . . . The Algerian High State Council breaks off relations with Iran and recalls its ambassador from Sudan.

In Jamaica, Dennis Brooks, one of the nation’s 60 election supervisors, is killed in election-related violence.

Russian president Yeltsin narrowly survives an impeachment vote by the Congress of People’s Deputies. About 50,000 Yeltsin supporters rally outside the Kremlin, and 10,000 communists demonstrate in Red Square in support of hard-line congressional deputies. . . . In Dublin, an estimated 15,000 people attend what is described as the largest ever in Dublin criticizing the IRA. . . . Hours before a cease-fire takes effect, 20 UN trucks carrying food and medicine reach the besieged Muslim town of Srebrenica, the headquarters of Gen. Philippe Morillon, commander of UN forces in Bosnia.

March 28

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade figures show that the overall value of world trade grew in 1992 by 5.5%, to $3.7 trillion. That compares with growth of 1.5% in 1991. The volume of world trade also increased in 1992 by 4.5%. That marks the end of a three-year decline in annual volume growth. Trade in commercial services jumped by 8% to $960 billion. . . . During a regular review of its Iraqi policy, the UN Security Council votes to maintain its sanctions against Iraq for at least 60 days.

Asia & the Pacific

In Togo, gunmen raided the military compound where Pres. Gnassingbe Eyadema lives. The head of state is unharmed, but military chief of staff General Mawulikplimi Ameji and his aide, Colonel Koffi Tepe, are killed. . . . Hudson Ntsanwisi, 72, leader of Gazankulu, a tiny black South African homeland from the time it was declared a self-governing territory in 1973, dies in Johannesburg, South Africa, after suffering from leukemia.

The IRA states that one of the slain men in the attack in Castlerock, Northern Ireland, on Mar. 25 was an IRA member.

French aircraft begin participating in U.S.-led air drops of relief supplies to communities in eastern Bosnia. . . . Seven-time Italian premier Giulio Andreotti discloses that he is under investigation in Sicily for possible associations with organized crime. . . . A renewed Armenian offensive begins in Azerbaijan.

March 27

March 29

Europe

In China, Jiang Zemin is elected to a five-year term as China’s president. He succeeds Yang Shangkun.

In China, the National People’s Congress reelects Premier Li Peng. . . . An over-crowded passenger train plunges off the rails on the outskirts of Pusan, South Korea. At least 75 people die and about 120 are injured in what is called the worst train crash in South Korean history. . . . More than 2,000 ethnic Vietnamese flee by boat down the Tonle Sap River toward Vietnam after a series of brutal attacks in Cambodia left about 80 Vietnamese dead. . . . Asia Watch reports China still has at least eight dissidents from the 1978–79 Democracy Wall movement in prison.

UN trucks take 2,346 refugees, most of them women and children, from Srebrenica to go to the town of Tuzla, which is controlled by the Bosnian government. . . . French president Mitterrand names Edouard Balladur premier of France following a general election landslide victory for the nation’s traditional conservative parties. . . . In Russia, the Congress passes an omnibus resolution that formally terminates Pres. Yeltsin’s powers to rule by decree and his claims of primacy over the legislature. . . . In London, several thousand miners and their supporters demonstrate against the British government’s plan to close mines.

Catherine Callbeck, 53, becomes the first woman elected as a Canadian provincial premier when the Liberal Party she heads wins a landslide election victory in Prince Edward Island.

Former political power broker Shin Kanemaru is released from jail after paying 300 million yen ($2.5 million) in bail, a record amount for a politician in Japan. . . . Congress delegates approve a new constitution for China, the fifth since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 25–29, 1993—449

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Ramon Montoya, 38, a Mexican citizen convicted of fatally shooting a Dallas, Texas, police officer, is executed, causing a furor in Mexico. Montoya is the first Mexican executed in Texas in 51 years. . . . Reports state that Lt. Gen. Robert Johnston has dropped all charges against Sergeant Walter Andrew Johnson, who shot to death a Somali boy running toward his truck. . . . Five U.S. Navy aviators are lost in the Ionian Sea while attempting to land on an aircraft carrier.

The Senate passes, 54-45, a measure providing for $502 billion in deficit reduction over five years. . . . Data shows that the U.S. used only $25 million from the $1 billion settlement from Exxon Corp. to preserve wildlife habitats in Alaska. . . . Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt announces that his department has conferred threatened status on the rare California gnatcatcher under the Endangered Species Act.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

March 25

The Justice Department files a lawsuit against Denny’s charging the fast-food restaurant chain with a “pattern and practice” of racial discrimination against black customers. . . . Gary Williams, accused of trying to rob Reginald Denny during the Los Angeles riots in April 1992, is sentenced to three years in prison under a plea agreement.

U.S. District Judge Sterling Johnson orders medical treatment “to prevent any loss of life” for HIV-positive Haitians detained at Camp Bulkeley, at the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Roy Riegels, 84, UC football player famed for running 69 yards in the wrong direction, dies in Woodland, California of complications from Parkinson’s disease. . . . Louis Falco, 50, choreographer best known for his choreography of the film Fame (1980), dies of AIDS in New York City.

Edward Savitz, accused of molesting four teenage boys, dies of AIDS at a hospice in Philadelphia, Pennsylvenia. His case received much publicity since police in 1992 accused him of being involved with hundreds of boys over two decades. . . . L. Arthur Larson, 82, a top aide to Pres. Eisenhower, dies in Durham, North Carolina, of heart failure.

The Clinton administration makes public its plans to spend $263.4 billion on defense in the 1994 fiscal year, which began October 1.

Reports state that about half a dozen newspapers refused to run Lynn Johnston’s “For Better or For Worse” comic strip in which a teenage boy reveals that he is homosexual. . . . John Walson, 78, pioneer of cable TV, dies in Allentown, Pennsylvenia, of liver cancer.

March 26

March 27

March 28

Pres. Clinton’s Task Force on National Health Care Reform holds its first public session. . . . The FBI allows David Koresh’s lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, to meet with him and other cultists involved in a standoff in Waco, Texas, that started Feb. 28.

Reports state that the controversial C-17 military jet transport aircraft, built by McDonnell Douglas Corp., has failed its early operational tests. . . . The Senate Armed Services Committee begins a highly publicized and controversial series of public hearings on the issue of homosexuals in the military. . . . The second of the World Trade Center’s twin towers reopens for business after the February bombing. Both towers are now open.

The Client by John Grisham tops the bestseller list. . . . Actresses Audrey Hepburn (posthumously) and Elizabeth Taylor each receive a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Oscars. A lifetime achievement award is presented to Federico Fellini. Unforgiven, nominated for nine awards, picks up four Oscars, including best film and best director. The Panama Deception, which was banned in Panama Mar. 4, is named best feature documentary.

The EPA holds its first auction of credits that allow the emission of one ton of sulfur dioxide. The credits are designed to convince power plants to reduce their level of sulfur dioxide emissions by applying market principles. . . . A federal bankruptcy court judge allows Rupert Murdoch to repurchase the bankrupt New York Post newspaper. . . . Gordon M. Metcalf, 85, chairman and chief executive of Sears, Roebuck, 1967–73, dies in Palm Desert, California. . . . A pipeline ruptures and releases more than 350,000 gallons (1.3 million liters) of diesel fuel, most of which flows into a tributary of the Potomac River.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 29

450—March 30–April 4, 1993

March 30

March 31

April 1

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The UN Security Council approves unanimously a three-month extension of the mandate of the international force in the former Yugoslavia.

A Bosnian military court in Sarajevo condemns to death for war crimes Borislav Herak, 22, and Sretko Damjanovic, 32, two Serbs who served with the Serb nationalist army in Bosnia. Herak confessed to 16 rapes and 35 killings. He was found guilty of genocide against Moslems and of killing Muslim civilians and captured soldiers. Damjanovic was found guilty of genocide and of killing Muslim civilians.

The UN Security Council votes, 14-0, with China abstaining, to authorize the use of force against aircraft violating a “no-fly zone” over Bosnia. The enforcement resolution is to take effect April 7.

The International Atomic Energy Agency votes to refer to the UN Security Council North Korea’s refusal to allow inspection of suspected nuclear-weapons production sites.

Asia & the Pacific

Two Israeli policemen are killed in a Hamas attack. Data shows that, during March, 15 Israeli Jews and more than 25 Palestinians have been killed. The month was one of the most violent periods since the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising, or intifadah, in December 1987. Israeli prime minister Rabin announces that Israel will indefinitely seal the West Bank and Gaza Strip. . . . An explosion at one of the great pyramids at Giza injures two workers.

An all-white jury in the town of Ponto Pora in western Brazil acquits Libero Monteiro de Lima of ordering the 1983 slaying of Indian-rights activist Marcal de Souza.

Leonard Leabeater, Robert Steele, and Raymond Bassett, three men who confessed to a series of interstate murders starting Mar. 28, begin a standoff with 60 heavily armed police and negotiators at a deserted farmhouse at Hanging Rock near Cangai, New South Wales. Basset surrenders.

The UN trucks that left Srebrenica Mar. 29 arrives in Tuzla. In the crush aboard the trucks, at least nine people, including seven children, died. The UN states it is suspending evacuations from Srebrenica until UN personnel can organize safe departures. . . . Reports indicate that Angel Duce has been sentenced to more than 100 years in jail for the 1989 murder of Josu Muguruza, a radical Basque member of Parliament.

The Islamic Group claims responsibility for a March 30 explosion at one of the great pyramids at Giza.

Percival J. Patterson is elected to his first full term as prime minister of Jamaica, leading his party to a landslide victory over former prime minister Edward Seaga. . . . José María Lemus, 81, president of El Salvador, 1956–60, dies in San José, Costa Rica.

In South Korea, Pusan city prosecutors arrest eight people, including managers from two construction companies overseeing the project, in connection with the Mar. 28 crash of a passenger train. . . . A siege in New South Wales, Australia, comes to an end when police find Leonard Leabeater, the leader of a trio of gunmen, fatally wounded. Robert Steele surrendered earlier that day.

Don Juan de Borbon y Battenberg, 79, father of Spanish king Juan Carlos, who gave up his claim to the throne to his son and refused Franco’s offer of the throne in 1947, dies in Pamplona, Spain, of respiratory and cardiac collapse. . . . Lord (Solly) Zuckerman, 88, top British scientist and counselor to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who was knighted in 1956 and elevated to life peerage in 1971, dies in London of a heart attack.

Gunmen assassinate Col. Ihsan Mohammed Salem, better known as Yunis Awad, the top Beirut official for Al Fatah, the main group within the PLO. . . . Israeli gunboats and helicopters bomb two radical Palestinian guerrilla bases in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli. Three people are wounded. . . . Ntsu Mokhehle is sworn in as prime minister of Lesotho.

A Salvadoran judge orders the release of Colonel Guillermo Alfredo Benavides Moreno and Lieutenant Yusshy René Mendoza Vallecillos, army officers serving 30-year sentences for the murder of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter in 1989. The two officers served 15 months of their sentences. They are the first prisoners freed as a result of the Mar. 21 amnesty.

Pakistan announces that it has arrested nine Pakistan-based Libyans on charges that they belong to a guerrilla group.

In Great Britain, rail and coal workers stage a one-day strike. . . . As fighting continues with Armenian forces, Azerbaijan president Abulfaz Elchibey declares a state of emergency throughout the country.

April 2

In Indonesia, the Jakarta Stock Exchange suspends four brokerage houses that allegedly handled counterfeit share certificates of five listed companies. The incident involved 1 million fake shares and incurred an approximate total of $5 million in losses. . . . Three Bulgarian UN soldiers are killed, allegedly by the Khmer Rouge, in the southwestern province of Kompong Speu, Cambodia. . . . Indian police seize about 1.8 tons of plastic explosives hidden in a creek 35 miles (50 km) north of Bombay.

Some 39,000 Azeris pass through refugee centers in Azerbaijan after Armenian troops seize the town and province of Kelbadzhar. . . . Bosnian Serbs reject a UN-sponsored peace plan that would have left Serbs in control of 43% of Bosnia, compared with the 70% they currently hold.

April 3

April 4

The Americas

Reports reveal that the UN Compensation Commission in Geneva has announced that it has received more than 700,000 claims against Iraq for damage, losses and suffering relating to Iraq’s 1990–91 invasion and occupation of Kuwait. . . . At the close of the first summit between U.S. president Clinton and Russian president Yeltsin, the U.S. pledges $1.6 billion in immediate aid to Russia.

Haitian military authorities permit a group of more than 300 pro-Aristide demonstrators to march in Portau-Prince. The public protest marks the first time that Jean-Bertrand Aristide supporters have been allowed to demonstrate in Haiti since the coup in September 1991. . . . Reports indicate that the Department of National Defense is investigating the role played by Canadian soldiers in the deaths of two men in Somalia.

The Indonesian military captures Antonio Gomes da Costa, the acting leader of the leftist Revolutionary Front for the Independence of East Timor (Fretilin), a rebel group challenging Indonesian control of East Timor. Da Costa is also known by the guerrilla name of Mauhunu.

Armenian forces, using tanks and artillery, launch an offensive to seize the city of Fizuli in Azerbaijan.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 30–April 4, 1993—451

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The Supreme Court decides, 7-2, in Arave v. Creech that an Idaho death-penalty law which allows for capital punishment in cases where the perpetrator has shown “utter disregard for human life” is not unconstitutionally vague. . . . In a publicized case, Jan and Roberta DeBoer are ordered to return their two-year-old adopted daughter to her biological parents, Cara and Daniel Schmidt

Gerald W. Weaver Jr., a former aide to former Rep. Joe Kolter (D, Pa.), pleads guilty to obstruction of justice and cocaine charges in the House Post Office scandal. . . . New York State’s former top jurist, Sol Wachtler, pleads guilty in U.S. District Court in New Jersey to a charge of threatening to kidnap the daughter of his former lover, Joy Silverman

Ramzi Ahmed Yousef is indicted in connection with the February bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City. . . . A federal grand jury in St. Louis indicts Saij Nijmeh, Luie Nijmeh, Tawfiq Musa, and Zein Isa (in prison in Missouri), who allegedly planned a series of terrorist acts for the Abu Nidal organization, considered one of the world’s most dangerous terrorist groups.

Health and Human Services Secretary Donna E. Shalala unveils a plan to make vaccines available free of charge to every American child under the age of two.

A bill to prevent violence at abortion clinics dies in the Florida state Senate. The measure receives attention because of the murder of Dr. David Gunn on Mar. 10 by an antiabortionist. . . . Joseph Meling, accused of lacing capsules of Sudafed with cyanide to kill his wife, is found guilty of murdering two people. While his wife survived, the tampering caused the deaths of two Washington residents and a nationwide recall of Sudafed. . . . Sen. David Durenberger (R, Minn.) is indicted on two felony counts of submitting false expense claims to the Senate.

The Clinton administration, citing Nicaragua’s progress on human rights, releases to the government of Pres. Violeta Chamorro $50 million in economic aid frozen since June 1992. . . . A German tourist, Barbara Meller Jensen, is killed near Miami International Airport by two men who rob, beat, and run over her.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Lan Bentsen, the son of Treasury Secretary Lloyd M. Bentsen, agrees to pay $28 million to the RTC to settle his past debts to University Savings Association, a failed Texas savings and loan.

Property and casualty insurance companies are expected to pay at least $1.625 billion in damage claims from the powerful winter storm that struck the East Coast March 13–14.

Richard Diebenkorn, 70, American painter of the post–World War II era, dies in Berkeley, California, of respiratory failure. . . . An Israeli district court judge awards an Israeli professor $44,000 for copyright infringement from the Biblical Archaeology Society, which published a book that includes his deciphering of one of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The House approves, 230-184, the final version of a budget resolution that sets general limits for taxation and spending, beginning in fiscal 1994.

Actor Brandon Lee, 27, dies after he is shot on a movie set in with a gun supposed to fire blanks. . . . Mitchell Parish (born Michael Parish), 92, lyricist who wrote “Star Dust” in 1929, dies in New York City of complications of a stroke.

The Senate, 55-45, passes the final version of a budget resolution that the House cleared Mar. 31. . . . The Office of Personnel Management finds that the administration of Pres. Bush issued an unusually high number of last-minute bonuses to high-level appointees during its final months. . . . . The House passes, 237-177, a bill that increases the debt ceiling to $4.37 trillion from $4.145 trillion. The limit has not been raised since the 1990 budget accord.

The FCC lifts limits on TV networks’ involvement in syndication, reversing a 1991 decision. . . . The FCC rules cable-TV companies must adhere to regulated rates for basic cable service. . . . The manufacturers of compact disks cease production of the “longbox,” used since 1980.

Steven M. Blush, the director of the Office of Nuclear Safety, announces his resignation, effective June 1. . . . Pres. Clinton convenes a conference in Portland, Oregon, to discuss the suspension of timber cutting on federal lands to protect the endangered northern spotted owl. Thousands of timber workers gather to demonstrate on behalf of expanded logging rights.

Reports state that the Justice Department admitted 36 of Haitian refugees has the U.S. in compliance with the Mar. 26 ruling that ordered medical treatment “to prevent any loss of life” for HIVpositive Haitians.

March 30

March 31

April 1

April 2

The Clinton administration orders NASA to work with Russia in designing a smaller and cheaper space station. Experts believe the move heralds an end to space rivalry between the former cold war adversaries.

A Christian journal founded in 1941, Christianity and Crisis, publishes its last edition. . . . Alexandre Mnouchkine, 85, French film producer, dies near Paris of heart failure. . . . Pinky Lee, 85, who hosted children’s TV shows in the 1950s and 1960s, dies in Mission Viejo, California, of a heart attack

Alfred M. Butts, 93, inventor of the board game Scrabble, dies in Rhinebeck, New York. . . . In basketball, Texas Tech senior forward Sheryl Swoopes is named the women’s player of the year. Calbert Cheaney, a senior forward for Indiana, wins the John Wooden Award.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 3

April 4

452—April 5–9, 1993

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

April 5

April 8

April 9

Asia & the Pacific

Reports disclose that the world’s largest open-pit silver mine, the Real de Los Angeles, is to close because of declining global silver prices. The mine, in Zacatecas state, Mexico employs more than 500 people.

Pakistani paramilitary forces prevent protesters from marching across Pakistan’s disputed border into Indian-ruled Kashmir. The security forces arrest the leader of the march. More than 500 protesters attend but are stopped in the town of Sehri, Pakistan, about two miles from the border. . . . Philippine president Fidel Ramos signs a bill granting himself emergency powers to deal with an electricity shortage that has disrupted the nation.

The human-rights group Americas Watch charges that a legal apparatus for repression had been created by Peruvian president Fujimori in the wake of his suspension of the constitution in 1992.

In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge reaffirms that it will not respect the results of an upcoming election, which it is boycotting. . . . During trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the Nikkei stock average tops 20,000 for the first time in over a year.

Reports find that in the last year, an estimated 150,000 Bosnians have been killed or reported missing. . . . A tank of radioactive waste at a chemical plant in the Siberian city of Tomsk-7 explodes, causing minor contamination in the vicinity of the plant. No increase in radiation is detected in any northern or western European country. . . . U.S.-based Chevron and Kazakhstan sign documents to exploit vast oil fields on the northeastern shore of the Caspian Sea. . . . In France a Zairean immigrant, Nakome M’Bowole, 17, is slain inside a Paris police station in the immigrant district of Goutte d’Or.

April 6

April 7

The Americas

Hungary and Slovakia agree to refer their dispute over a Danube River hydroelectric power project to the World Court, formally called the International Court of Justice, in The Hague, the Netherlands.

In response to recent shootings of several unarmed young people by police, including Nakome M’Bowole, slain April 6, sporadic unrest breaks out in Paris and the northern city of Tourcoing, France.

Macedonia becomes the 181st member of the UN under the provisional name of The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. It is recognized by Great Britain. . . . The International Court of Justice states that Serbia and Montenegro, the republics remaining in the Yugoslav federation, should take measures to prevent genocide in Bosnia. . . . The UN Security Council votes to renew sanctions against Libya enacted in 1991 to pressure the country into surrendering suspects in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 and the 1989 bombing of UTA Flight 772.

A UN convoy carrying Gen. Philippe Morillon, the commander of UN forces in Bosnia, is surrounded by 300 Serbian civilian demonstrators. Morillon has to be airlifted from the scene in a flight that violates the UN no-fly zone over Bosnia. Separately, soldiers at a Serb checkpoint outside Sarajevo discover ammunition hidden on UN trucks among sacks of flour intended for Muslim civilians. . . . In Paris, France, a policeman, Pascal Compain, is charged with “voluntary homicide” in the killing of Nakome M’Bowole, slain April 6.

Reports indicate that more than a thousand Egyptian schoolgirls have been fainting. Egyptian health officials cannot find a medical reason for the mass fainting spells or why only girls have been affected. A similar spell of mass fainting occurred in the Israeli-occupied territories in 1983.

An UN electoral observer, Atsuhito Nakata, 25, and his Cambodian interpreter are gunned down while driving to a provincial capital to urge more protection for electoral volunteers. The killings prompt resignations from other volunteers.

U.S. planes and Iraqi antiaircraft batteries exchange fire over the UN-imposed “no-fly zone” in northern Iraq, the first such incident in two months.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 5–9, 1993—453

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Robert E. Lee, 81, former FCC member, 1953–81, dies in Arlington, Virginia, of liver cancer.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The Florida Marlins and the Colorado Rockies begin their first seasons in Major League Baseball. . . . The University of North Carolina Tar Heels win the NCAA basketball championship, 77-71, over the Michigan Wolverines.

The Senate by voice vote passes legislation raises the ceiling for federal borrowing to $4.37 trillion from $4.145 trillion. The House passed an identical bill on April 1.

St. Louis, Missouri, elects its first black mayor, Freeman Bosley Jr., a Democrat. . . . A New York Times/CBS News poll finds the majority of Americans are willing to accept major changes in the health-care system—including new taxes, government price controls, and longer waits for emergency treatment—if the measures can restrain health costs and ensure coverage for everyone. . . . Milan M. Vuitch, 78, doctor and advocate of abortion rights who defied prohibitions on abortion before the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, dies in Washington, D.C., after suffering a stroke.

The Defense Department states it is recalling its team searching for U.S. servicemen presumed MIA in Cambodia during the Vietnam War era since searchers have come under fire from the Khmer Rouge. . . . A U.S. court-martial finds Marine Sergeant Harry Conde guilty of aggravated assault for shooting a 13-year-old Somali boy. He is punished by a fine of one month’s pay and a drop in rank of one grade. . . . In response to the April 2 killing of Barbara Meller Jensen, the sixth foreign tourist slain in Florida since December 1992, Germany issues a travel advisory to Miami-bound tourists.

The U.S. space shuttle Discovery’s flight is aborted 11 seconds before liftoff because of a malfunction in a computer that monitors a propellant valve.

Hugh Rodham, 82, the father of First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. Rodham dies three weeks after suffering a stroke.

Bilal Alkaisi, a suspect who surrendered to the FBI March 24, is indicted by a federal grand jury in New York City for his role in the Feb. 26 bombing of the World Trade Center. A report by the Port Authority estimates that the cost of business disruption and reconstruction incurred by the blast is $591 million.

Mayor John C. Norquist (D) of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, warns residents the public water supply has been contaminated by an intestinal parasite, cryptosporidium. . . . In a controversial decision, the Financial Accounting Standards Board votes to seek changes in the way corporations compensate employees by proposing that companies deduct from their earnings the value of stock options granted.

A standoff in Waco, Texas, between law-enforcement officials and armed members of a religious cult led by David Koresh enters its 40th day. Data indicate Koresh and more than 90 followers, including 17 children, are still in the compound. . . . Marian Anderson, 96, whose triumphant performance at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday 1939 before an integrated audience of 75,000 is a landmark in civil-rights history, dies in Portland, Oregon, of congestive heart failure. . . . A study finds U.S. students’ mathtest scores improved overall in 1992, compared with 1990.

Police in Florida charge Leroy Rogers and Anthony Williams with the robbery and murder of a German tourist, Barbara Meller Jensen, in Miami.

Pres. Clinton sends to Congress a $1.52 trillion proposed budget for the fiscal year 1994, which will begin October 1.

Rep. Harold E. Ford (D, Tenn.) is acquitted on 18 counts of bank fraud and conspiracy. The acquittal of Ford, the only black elected to Congress from Tennessee, ends a decade-long battle marked by bitter racial tensions. . . . Steven Schneider, cult leader David Koresh’s second in command, states six cult members were killed in the Feb. 28 raid that also left four law-enforcement agents dead near Waco, Texas. . . . The board of the NAACP elects Benjamin Chavis Jr. to head the organization, succeeding Benjamin Hooks.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

April 5

April 6

Officials confirm that Pres. Clinton has nominated Sheldon Hackney, president of the University of Pennsylvania, to be the chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The Discovery blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. . . . Dr. John M. Morris, 78, gynecologist who developed the “morning after” birth-control pill and was known for his work on the Morris syndrome, dies in Woodbridge, Connecticut, of prostate cancer.

Joseph D. Soloveitchik, 90, influential rabbi and philosopher, dies in Brookline, Massachusetts, of heart failure.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration asks General Motors, the nation’s largest automobile company, to recall about 4.7 million pickup trucks made between 1973 and 1987. The trucks’ design has been blamed for several deadly fires following sideimpact collisions. GM claims the safety record of the trucks equals that of comparable vehicles.

April 7

April 8

April 9

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

454—April 10–15, 1993

World Affairs

Asia & the Pacific

Azerbaijan states that Armenian forces have captured 18 villages and mountain positions in the area of the town of Fizuli.

In South Africa, three whites die after they are dragged from their car and set on fire. In Soweto, police allegedly shoot and kill a man during a memorial service for Chris Hani, assassinated Apr. 10. . . . The Israeli cabinet agrees to continue indefinitely the March 30 closure order that blocks residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip from entering Israel. The order prevents 65,000 Christians in the occupied territories from traveling to Jerusalem for Easter services.

A riot erupts at a maximum security facility in Pavoncito, 12 miles (18 km) south of Guatemala City, the Guatemalan capital. At least five people die.

Indian prime minister P. V. Narasimha Rao receives assurances from Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan that Pakistani governmental agencies will join the search for the main suspects in a recent wave of bombings in Bombay, India, that left more than 300 people dead and 1,100 injured. Sharif’s promise of help tempers speculation that members of the Memon family of Bombay, the prime suspects in the March 12 bombings, have been granted safe haven in Pakistan.

Albania formally recognizes the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia as a sovereign state. As Albania is only the second country to do so, Macedonia calls on the rest of the international community to recognize its statehood. . . . NATO aircraft start enforcing the United Nations-approved “no-fly zone” over Bosnia’s airspace.

After numerous violations, a twoweek-old ceasefire collapses as Serb gunners renew attacks on Sarajevo and Srebrenica, which is in eastern Bosnia.

Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani states that the fighting in Azerbaijan has moved so close to the Iranian border that it may become a security issue for Iran.

Some 1,200 prison inmates at a maximum security facility in Pavoncito, 12 miles (18 km) south of Guatemala City, release about 60 hostages taken Apr. 11 during a riot. Representatives of the prisoners and the government sign an agreement for better conditions at the prison. . . . Five soldiers die in fierce fighting near the Playa Grande military base in northern Guatemala. . . . Isaac F. Rojas, 86, Argentine admiral who helped topple Argentine dictator Juan Peron in 1955, dies in Buenos Aires of a heart ailment.

Police in Bombay, India, arrest four more suspects, bringing to 71 the total held in connection with the March bombings.

The Financial Times publishes details of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s overheads and lending figures, which reveal that the EBRD has spent twice as much on itself as it has on loans and investments in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

The French government confirms that Gen. Philippe Morillon, the commander of UN forces in Bosnia, will be recalled.

Hezbollah guerrillas detonate a bomb that kills three Israeli soldiers near the village of Qattara outside Israel’s self-declared “security zone” in southern Lebanon. Israeli aircraft and artillery retaliate by attacking six Shi’ite Muslim villages near the security zone. Lebanese security officials report that eight civilians and an individual connected wih the UN were wounded in the Israeli attack.

The British Columbia government approves additional logging in an ancient temperate rainforest on the west coast of Vancouver Island, drawing controversy.

The Khmer Rouge closes its offices in Phnom Penh and withdraws from the Cambodian capital, lending further instability to a nation groping toward elections scheduled for late May. . . . Japan officially unveils a massive one-time public-spending package designed to stimulate the country’s stagnant economy. In response, the Nikkei stock average rises by 858.15 points, or 4.3%, to close at 20,740.29. This marks the first time the average has closed over 20,000 since March 1992.

Former U.S. president Bush makes his first visit to Kuwait, and Kuwaiti emir Sheik Jabir ‘al-Ahmed Al Sabah presents him with the nation’s highest civilian medal, the Mubarak the Great award, saying that it is “in gratitude for your enormous efforts in liberating Kuwait and your services toward world peace and understanding.”. . . The ANC marks Chris Hani’s Apr. 10 assassination. Four unarmed protesters by police outside a Soweto precinct house are shot and killed.

April 14

April 15

The Americas

Chris Hani, the secretary general of the South African Communist Party and a prominent African National Congress leader, is assassinated. After ANC president Nelson Mandela, Hani, 50, is considered the most popular black figure in South Africa, and his death provokes a surge of violence among his followers in the black townships, resulting in at least a dozen deaths. Police apprehend Janusz Walus in the slaying.

April 11

April 13

Africa & the Middle East

Rakhman N. Nabiyev, 62, communist president of Tajikistan who was forced from office in 1992, dies in Khudzhand, Tajikistan, of a heart attack.

April 10

April 12

Europe

An international consortium contracts for rights to develop Vietnam’s Dai Hung (Big Bear) oil field, the largest undeveloped oil field in Asia. . . . The Commission of the EC releases its annual report on U.S. trade barriers, which they argue corrects “the impression . . . that the U.S. has an open market.” . . . The G-7 nations unveil a $28.4 billion aid package for Russia at the end of a meeting in Tokyo.

The UN office in Baku, the Azerbaijan capital, estimates that about 62,000 people were displaced by the Apr. 3 attack on Kelbadzhar. . . . Reports suggest that Armenia may rehabilitate a disused nuclear power plant to supply electricity to homes and industry. . . . The political corruption scandal in Italy continues as Premier Andreotti denies that he had meetings with leading Mafia officials.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 10–15, 1993—455

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Figures show that, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, between 183,000 and 281,000 people have become sick from the parasite in the water supply since Mar. 1. Authorities confirmed that the water was contaminated on Apr. 7.

At the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville, about 70 miles (110 km) south of Columbus, eight guards are overpowered and taken hostage. Ten guards and several dozen inmates are injured in the fight. About 450 of the prisoners barricade themselves with the captured guards in their cellblock, which is subsequently surrounded by other prison officers, police, and members of the National Guard.

April 10

The crew of the U.S. space shuttle Discovery deploys a small $6 million Spartan satellite to study the sun’s corona, or outer layer of gas.

April 11

At the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville, the inmates release the bodies of six men who had been beaten to death. . . . As the siege that started Feb. 28 in Waco, Texas, continues, authorities begin laying barbed-wire coils around the Branch Davidian compound.

Federal officials disclose that Barry Feinstein, one of New York City’s most influential labor leaders, has agreed to a permanent banishment from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters as part of a settlement to resolve noncriminal charges that Feinstein, 58, improperly used as much as $500,000 in union funds for personal expenses. . . . Marvin Mitchelson, divorce lawyer for celebrities who pioneered the concept of “palimony,” is sentenced to 30 months in prison and fined $2.1 million for tax evasion.

An FDA advisory panel recommends that an electric wire, or lead, be approved as a way of controlling tachycardia, or rapid heartbeat. . . . Tele-Communications Inc., the nation’s largest cable-television company, unveils a $2 billion development plan that calls for the installation of high-capacity fiberoptic lines in all of its cable technology systems. The program is the largest ever announced in the U.S.

Sherry Davis works her first game as the public-address announcer at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park and becomes the first full-time female public-address announcer in major league history.

Bennie Thompson (D), a county supervisor, wins a special runoff election succeed Mike Espy (D) as the representative of Mississippi’s second House District. Espy had resigned his seat after becoming President Clinton’s secretary of agriculture. Thompson becomes only the second black, after Espy, to be elected to Congress from Mississippi since 1884.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board votes to force financial institutions and insurers to report, in their financial statements, the current market value of certain investment bonds they hold. The requirement will take effect in 1994. . . . The Resolution Trust Corp. announces that it will revamp its sales strategy to provide more opportunities for smaller investors to acquire its assets.

The Discovery crew retrieves the satellite they deployed Apr. 11.

Wallace Earle Stegner, 84, author who won the 1972 Pulitzer Prize, dies in Santa Fe, New Mexico, of injuries suffered in a car accident Mar. 28. . . . Pulitzer Prize winners are announced, and they include David McCullough, Christopher Rouse, Louise Gluck, Tony Kushner, Garry Wills, and Robert Olen Butler.

Reports suggest that Attorney General Janet Reno has instructed the Justice Department to investigate the high number of alleged suicides in Mississippi prisons. Data shows that 47 people have been found hanged in Mississippi while in police custody since 1987.

Mayor John C. Norquist (D) of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, lifts his April 7 advisory about the contaminated public water supply. Figures indicate that thousands of people fell sick from the organism and up to six died.

NASA technicians discover that one of the solid-fuel booster rockets on the spacecraft Discovery that parachuted and were recovered in the Atlantic Ocean successfully flew into space, despite a pair of eight-inch (20-cm) pliers lodged in an opening near the base.

Reports state that Pope John Paul II has ordered 14 Carmelite nuns to their convent on the grounds of the Auschwitz concentration camp. The move heads off planned protests. . . . Don Calhoun, 23, an office equipment salesman, wins $1 million when he sinks a threequarter basketball court shot at Chicago Stadium.

At the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, in a state of siege since Apr. 11, the body of a slain prison guard, Robert Vallandingham, is found. Inmates give live interviews and release a hostage. . . . A survey of male sexuality causes controversy when it suggests the average U.S. male has intercourse once a week, and the number of exclusively homosexual men makes up only 1% of the population. Both figures are commonly thought to be higher.

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt announces an agreement with the Georgia-Pacific company on a plan that will protect the endangered red cockaded woodpecker. The species-protection agreement reportedly is the first of its kind between the government and a private landowner. . . . The FEC orders Jesse Jackson to repay $122,031 in federal matching funds granted to his unsuccessful 1988 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Robert Westall, 63, author who won the Carnegie Medal, dies in Cheshire, England, of respiratory failure caused by pneumonia. . . . Leslie Charteris (born Leslie Charles Bowyer Yin), 85, mystery writer who created the character of Simon Templar, dies in Windsor, England.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 12

April 13

April 14

April 15

456—April 16–20, 1993

April 16

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Japanese premier Kiichi Miyazawa meets with U.S. president Clinton in Washington, D.C. The contentious issue of the widening U.S.-Japan trade imbalance dominates the first-ever meeting between the two men, who lead the world’s two largest economies.

Russia’s Supreme Court suspends indefinitely the Moscow trial of the 12 alleged ringleaders of the failed August 1991 coup against thenSoviet president Gorbachev because one of the defendants fell ill. . . . In central Bosnia, a nominal alliance between Moslems and Croats against their common Serb enemy breaks down as fighting erupts. . . . Members of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) hold their second one-day strike against British Rail in two weeks.

A car bomb explodes near a roadside restaurant in the West Bank. One Palestinian dies and several Palestinians and Israelis are wounded by the explosion. Hamas claims responsibility. The Palestinians deported in December 1992 organize a “death march” from their encampment toward the Israeli border. They call on the Palestinian delegation in Damascus to reject resuming the Arab-Israeli peace talks. Israeli troops fire shells at the deportees, who abandon the march after one man is injured.

A helicopter crashes in central Afghanistan, some 100 miles (160 km) north of Kabul, killing 15 people including two U.S. journalists, Sharon Herbaugh, and Natasha Singh. . . . Reports find that 700 UN electoral volunteers in Cambodia have demanded that UNTAC provide them with adequate security or they will abandon their efforts in the country. . . . The Asian Development Bank predicts average economic growth rates in 1993 and 1994 of 7% in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding Japan.

In Chechen-Ingushetia, Parliament begins impeachment proceedings against Gen. Dzhokhar Dudayev in response to his April 17 act. . . . The Serbs and Srebrenica’s Muslim defenders sign a cease-fire pact under which the town and environs becomes a UN “safe area” for the civilians there, many of whom are refugees.

At least 100 separatist rebels perish at Youtou, in southern Senegal, in a battle between the Senegalese army and the MFDC, which has been fighting for autonomy of the Casamance region since 1982. Two government soldiers are killed. . . .Gunmen in two cars kill 19 blacks and wound 23 in the black township of Sebokeng, South Africa, southwest of Johannesburg. . . . An Israeli lawyer who represented the EC is stabbed to death in the EC office in Gaza. A militant group linked to the PFLP claims responsibility.

Pres. Ghulam Ishaq Khan of Pakistan ousts Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and dissolves the National Assembly, capping a months-long power struggle between the two men. Balakh Sher Mazari, 70, a member of Parliament and a prominent landowner from the province of Punjab, is named caretaker prime minister. It is the third time in five years that a government has been dissolved in Pakistan.

After reports of impropriety that started April 13, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development agrees to tighten its budget process.

A ceremony in Warsaw, Poland, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Jewish ghetto uprising which lasted for three weeks as Nazis burned down the ghetto house by house, is attended by Polish president Lech Walesa, U.S. vice president Al Gore, and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who becomes the first Israeli head of state to visit Poland. Several thousand others mark the anniversary, including a number of survivors of the Nazi death camps.

In South Africa, slain black leader Chris Hani is buried after a funeral attended by more than 80,000 mourners. The Financial Times notes that there have been 28 politically motivated killings since Hani’s death—a figure well below the weekly average.

The IMF announces that it has developed a new program, the “Systemic Transformation Facility,” that will provide Russia and the other former Soviet republics with a total of between $4 billion and $6 billion in loans over the next 18 months.

The German government announces that it will send about 1,600 troops to join the United Nations peacekeeping force in Somalia.

Egyptian minister of information Mohammed Safwat el-Sharif escapes an assassination attempt in which two gunmen injure his bodyguard and driver with machine-gun fire.

April 18

April 20

Asia & the Pacific

After several days of street protests, Gen. Dzhokhar Dudayev, president of the autonomous enclave of Chechen-Ingushetia in Russia, dissolves government and Parliament and imposes direct presidential rule. . . . Turgut Ozal, 66, president of Turkey who was elected as premier in 1983 and 1987 before he engineered his election to the largely ceremonial post of president, the powers of which he expanded, dies of heart failure in Ankara.

April 17

April 19

The Americas

Curragh Inc. and two of its senior managers are charged with manslaughter and criminal negligence causing death in connection with an explosion at the Westray mine in Nova Scotia, Canada, that killed 26 miners in May 1992.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 16–20, 1993—457

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Circuit Court judge Alan Bonebrake sentences Sue Gifford to five years of probation for abandoning her now-deceased father, afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease, at an Idaho dog-racing track. . . . Pres. Clinton meets with leaders of gay and lesbian rights advocacy groups. It is the first official meeting between a sitting president and leaders of the homosexual community.

A federal judge in New York City sentences Khaled Mohammed elJassem, 45, to a maximum of 30 years in prison for attempting to blow up two Israeli banks and an Israeli airline terminal in New York in March 1973. Khaled Mohammed el-Jassem has been described as a “high-ranking administrative official” in the Palestine Liberation Organization.

U.S. District Judge William A. Ingram overturns a 1992 jury verdict that barred Advanced Micro Devices Inc. from selling clones of the 486 model microchip pioneered by the semiconductor industry leader, Intel Corp.

The Clinton administration unveils a new computer chip that allows users to send data in indecipherable code yet permit law-enforcement agencies to eavesdrop. Called the Clipper Chip, it is a major improvement over the Data Encryption Standard, which is based on technology from the 1960s.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

April 16

The U.S. space shuttle Discovery touches down on the Kennedy airstrip after carrying out a mission devoted to analyzing Earth’s atmosphere.

In the federal trial of Los Angeles police officers involved in the videotaped attack on Rodney King, Officer Laurence Powell, who delivered the majority of baton blows inflicted on King, and Sergeant Stacey C. Koon, the ranking officer at the scene who did not issue any blows, are convicted of civil-rights violations. Officer Theodore Briseno and former officer Timothy E. Wind are acquitted of depriving King of his civil rights.

April 17

Dame Elisabeth Frink, 62, sculptor who was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1982, dies in Dorset, England, of cancer. . . . Tom Wargo, 50, becomes the first club professional since 1979 to win the PGA’s Senior Championship in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.

At the compound of the Branch Davidians led by David Koresh, federal agents in armored vehicles begin pumping tear gas into the structure after a 51-day standoff. Hours after the tear gas attacks, the compound is set on fire and burns to the ground in what the FBI describes as a mass suicide. Nine cultists escape. . . . South Dakota governor George S. Mickelson, 52, (R), who was first elected in 1986, dies in a plane crash. Seven others also die in the crash.

An issue of Fortune shows that the aggregate profits of the nation’s 500 largest industrial corporations totaled $10.5 million in 1992. . . . Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue agree to pay $51 million to the RTC to settle charges it indirectly aided ongoing fraud at the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan Association.

Reports confirm that Roussel-Uclaf S.A. of France, the maker of the abortion pill RU-486, has agreed to license the controversial drug to an American nonprofit research organization as a step toward eventual marketing in the U.S.

The Giant Panda Conservation Action Plan, a program to bolster the population of the endangered giant panda, is unveiled. . . . The Chicago Board of Trade withdraws its offer to take over the operations of Comex. . . . The Supreme Court rules unanimously that older employees cannot sue their employer on grounds of age discrimination solely because they were fired before their pension would have vested. However, the court finds grounds for a suit if an employer has acted “recklessly” in terminating older workers.

Fifteen major European and American pharmaceutical companies announce that they agreed to collaborate on human trials for drugs to combat AIDS.

Reverend Joseph A. Sellinger, 72, president of Loyola College in Baltimore, Maryland since 1964, dies of pancreatic cancer.

Reports state that E. Annie Proulx has won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for her first novel, Postcards. Proulx is the first woman to win the award in its 13-year history. . . . Cantinflas (born Mario Moreno), 81, comic actor who was often compared to film comedian Charlie Chaplin and was revered in Mexico for his philanthropy, dies in Mexico.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 18

April 19

April 20

458—April 21–27, 1993

April 21

April 22

Europe

The World Bank states it will resume aid to Kenya. . . . U.S. president Bill Clinton announces that he will sign an international biodiversity pact drawn up at the 1992 United Nations-sponsored Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The funeral procession for Pres. Turgut Ozal passes through Ankara, Turkey.

Israeli military forces and the Israelibacked south Lebanese militia exchange fire with Iranian-backed Hezbollah (Party of God) guerrillas in southern Lebanon. Israeli police commander Rafi Peled announces that he suspended several Israeli border patrol guards who filmed beating a Palestinian youth. Israeli troops shoot and kill two Palestinian teenagers and wound some 60 other people in the Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian sources.

Bolivia’s Supreme Court sentences Gen. Luis Garcia Meza, Bolivia’s military dictator in 1980–81, to 30 years in prison for murder, corruption, and abuse of constitutional power during his 14-month rule. Garcia Meza, who disappeared in 1989, is sentenced in absentia. . . . Brazilians vote decisively in a binding plebiscite to maintain the nation as a presidential republic.

Reports confirm that the Arab Monetary Fund, in conjunction with other Arab financial institutions, has estimated that the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the Persian Gulf War cost the region $676 billion in 1990–91.

Italian premier Giuliano Amato resigns in the middle of a sweeping corruption scandal and the wake of a referendum mandating government reform.

An Egyptian military court sentences seven Islamic militants to death for a series of attacks on foreign tourists. The court also sets prison sentences for 25 other militants and acquits 17 defendants. Both the convicted and acquitted defendants are members of the Islamic Group, a radical religious organization dedicated to the overthrow of the Egyptian government. . . . Andries Treurnicht, 72, pro-apartheid founder of South Africa’s Conservative Party, dies in Cape Town from complications following heart-bypass surgery.

The Peruvian army deploys tanks in the streets of Lima in a defiant gesture of support for Gen. Nicolas de Bari Hermoza, who was called to testify in regard to purported army involvement in the alleged killings of nine students and a professor in July 1992. The act prompts the U.S. government and the OAS to remind Pres. Alberto Fujimori that grants of aid to Peru will be conditioned on its efforts to restore democracy and on Peru’s respect for human rights.

Guido Carli, 79, former Italian treasury minister, 1989–92 and central bank governor, 1960–75, dies in Spoleto, Italy, of a heart attack.

Voters in Eritrea, a province on the Red Sea coast of Ethiopia, overwhelmingly approve a referendum on declaring independence from Ethiopia. The results legitimize a de facto sovereignty in effect since Eritrean guerrillas vanquished the Ethiopian army in 1991 after nearly 30 years of civil war.

In Sri Lanka, Lalith Athulathmudali, the leader of the opposition Democratic United National Front, is assassinated on the outskirts of Colombo moments after he begins addressing a campaign rally.

The outlawed Provisional Irish Republican Army detonates a massive truck bomb in Bishopsgate, in the City of London financial district. One man is killed, 45 other people are injured, and dozens of buildings are damaged.

Oliver Reginald Tambo, 75, former president of South Africa’s antiapartheid African National Congress, 1967–89, who was elected as national chairman of the ANC in 1991, dies in Johannesburg after suffering a stroke.

President Fidel Ramos removes 62 top-ranking officers of the Philippine National Police (PNP) in the biggest law-enforcement shake-up in the nation’s history. The move is part of the government’s response to the corruption and rights abuses that has marked the PNP in recent years.

April 23

April 24

In a nationwide referendum, Russian president Boris Yeltsin gets a vote of confidence. . . . Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope to visit Albania. He is accompanied by Mother Teresa, the 1979 Nobel Peace laureate.

April 25

April 26

April 27

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Mexico, the rightist opposition National Action Party (PAN) spearheads a march in Merida, the Yucatan state capital, which brings out an estimated 40,000 demonstrators. The activists are protesting the delay of gubernatorial elections.

The International Monetary Fund projects that the world economy will grow by 2.2% in 1993, down from the 3.6% growth figure predicted in October 1992. The world economy is projected to grow by 3.4% in 1994.

Despite the devastation and the displacement of as many as 20,000 workers from the Apr. 25 bomb, London’s leading financial markets open for business. . . . Italian president Oscar Luigi Scalfaro selects Carlo Azeglio Ciampi as the nation’s new premier, succeeding Giuliano Amato.

Reports disclose that Charles Nqakula has been named to replace the slain Chris Hani as secretary general of the South African Communist Party.

Five gunmen seize the Supreme Court building in San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, and they abduct 19 of the court’s justices and five of its administrative staff. Calling themselves the “Commandos of Death,” the hostage takers are led by two brothers, Guillermo and Gilberto Fallas Elizondo.

An Indian Airlines Boeing 737 jetliner carrying 118 passengers and crew crashes shortly after takeoff from Aurangabad, western India. More than 70 people are killed.

The U.S., Italy, Sudan, and Egypt become the first countries to formally recognize Eritrea as a separate country. . . . Tajikistan becomes the 177th member of the International Monetary Fund. It is admitted with an initial quota of 40 million Special Drawing Rights (US$57.7 million).

Tougher UN sanctions go into effect against the rump Yugoslav Federation (Serbia and its ally Montenegro). The sanctions are implemented after Serbs in BosniaHerzegovina, ignoring a UN deadline, refuses a second time to endorse a peace plan. Serb militiamen attack the Muslim enclave around the town of Bihac in northwestern Bosnia, capturing three villages in the area.

The Republic of Yemen holds its first parliamentary election since its 1990 unification. The balloting is the first multiparty election on the Arabian peninsula. It is also the first Arabian election in which women can vote. . . . Kuwaiti defense minister Ali al-Salim Al Sabah discloses that Kuwaiti authorities have arrested a group of Iraqis who intended to assassinate George Bush during his visit to the emirate.

The gunmen who are holding most of Costa Rica’s Supreme Court justices hostage release one judge, who is suffering from heart trouble, and lower their ransom demand to $8 million.

An Afghan military transport plane carrying more than 70 people crashes near the town of Tashkurghan in northern Afghanistan. At least 71 people are killed in the crash. . . . Michael Lavarch becomes the first Australian minister not to pledge allegiance to the queen of England when he is sworn in as attorney general. Lavarch pledges instead to serve “the Commonwealth of Australia.”

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 21–27, 1993—459

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

A siege that started Apr. 11 at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville ends when inmates reach an agreement with prison officials. The five remaining hostages are released. At least nine inmates and a guard were killed during the incident. . . . The FBI calculates that 86 cult members, including David Koresh, perished in the flames at the compound in Waco, Texas, Aug. 19. Data shows that 17 children died, and 36 bodies are found.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Christie’s International PLC of London announces that it has purchased Spink & Son Ltd., founded in 1666 and one of the world’s largest art dealers. . . . Bassist for the Rolling Stones Bill Wyman, 56, marries fashion designer and model Suzanne Accosta, 33.

The Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., created to honor the more than 6 million Jews and millions of others systematically exterminated by Nazi Germany, is dedicated in a ceremony attended by an estimated 9,000 people. . . . A circuit-court jury convicts Alabama governor Guy Hunt (R) of diverting money for his personal use from a nonprofit fund set up to bankroll his 1987 gubernatorial inauguration. He is the fourth governor in U.S. history and the first since 1977 to be convicted of a felony while in office.

The U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, recommends the expulsion of six of 28 midshipmen accused of cheating on an examination. The cheating incident is reportedly the worst in the Naval Academy since 1974.

The dollar closes in New York at 109.95 yen, putting the yen at a record high. . . . Merrill Lynch & Co., the country’s largest brokerage firm, announces that it will spend between $10 million and $15 million, plus interest, to settle SEC charges that it had mispriced some of its investment trusts between 1972 and 1987. . . . In the HUD scandal, lawyer Maurice Steier is sentenced to two years’ probation and ordered to carry out 300 hours of community service.

A Maryland jury finds Bernard Eric Miller, 17, guilty of murder and robbery in the 1992 carjacking death of a woman, Pam Basu, whose infant daughter Miller allegedly threw from the car. . . . Judge R. Benjamin Cohen sentences Christopher Archer, 21, and twins Kevin and Kyle Scherzer, 22, to up to 15 years in youth detention for sexually assaulting a mildly retarded woman in 1989.

A Defense Department report, prepared by acting Pentagon Inspector General Derek J. Vander Schaaf, into the September 1991 convention of the “Tailhook” aviators’ group in Las Vegas finds that 90 people were sexually assaulted at the convention and indicates that at least 117 officers may face disciplinary action over the affair.

A Rhode Island Superior Court jury convicts Joseph Mollicone Jr. on 26 counts related to his alleged embezzlement, which precipitated the worst banking crisis in the state’s history in 1991. . . . Cesar Estrada Chavez, 66, labor leader who organized the National Farm Workers Association in 1962, which later became the United Farm Workers of America, and who was known for using nonviolent protest tactics, is found dead in San Luis, Arizona.

April 21

April 22

April 23

Sergeant Jose M. Zuniga, the Sixth Army’s Soldier of the Year in 1992. publicly reveals his homosexuality at a reception in Washington, D.C.

April 24

Hundreds of thousands of homosexuals, bisexuals, and their supporters march in Washington, D.C., demanding equal rights and freedom from discrimination. Estimates of the crowd vary from 300,000 to 1 million.

Seventeen insurance companies file a lawsuit in a federal court, seeking damages for losses incurred from a $155 million investment in Phar-Mor Inc., the fraudridden discount-drug chain currently in bankruptcy protection.

In the inflammatory case of the Spur Posse, a group of California teenaged boys who set up a point system based on sexual “conquests,” one person pleads no contest to a charge of lewd conduct with a minor and is sentenced to at least nine months in a juvenile detention center.

In Edenfield v. Fane, the Supreme Court rules, 8-1, that states cannot bar certified public accountants from soliciting prospective business clients.

The Vermont legislature approves a sweeping ban on smoking.

Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association denounce the findings of an Exxon Corp. study of into the longterm environmental damage created when the Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of heavy crude oil along Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989. They particularly disagree with Exxon’s overall finding that Prince William Sound is “almost fully recovered” from the spill.

April 25

The space shuttle Columbia blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, to carry out a mission devoted to performing scientific experiments for the German Space Agency.

Reports confirm that the 15th annual Pritzker Architecture Prize for lifetime achievement was awarded to Fumihiko Maki, a Japanese architect. . . . Reports state that a little-known comedy writer, Conan O’Brien, 30, will replace David Letterman as host of NBC’s Late Night talk show.

April 26

April 27

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

460—April 28–May 3, 1993

World Affairs

UN investigators disclose that they have gathered information on more than 1,000 alleged war crimes in Bosnia and Croatia. The alleged crimes include the killing of 250 sick and wounded Croats taken from hospitals in a Serb-occupied enclave in Croatia in 1991.

April 28

Some 50 environmental ministers from Europe, North America, and Japan approve the Environmental Action Program, a scheme designed by the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to combat environmental damage in Central and Eastern Europe.

May 3

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Mexican police shoot to death Emilio Quintero Payan, 42, the socalled Guadalajara cocaine cartel’s leader. . . . In Guatemala, the army reports that rebels launched rocket attacks on two military bases. . . . The five gunmen who began a siege Apr. 26 in Costa Rica are arrested after freeing their captives.

Representatives from China and Taiwan sign agreements specifying areas of cooperation and calling for the assumption of regular dialogue between government officials. It is the highest level of contact between the two countries since the end of China’s civil war in 1949.

A mass funeral is held in Sebokeng, southwest of Johannesburg, South Africa, for victims of the Apr. 18 massacre, in which 19 people died.

A Lebanese military court rules that the organizers of a 1983 suicide bombing attack on the U.S. embassy in Beirut committed a political crime. The five-member court also describes the 1986 assassination of French colonel Christian Gouttiere as a political act. According to the terms of a 1991 general amnesty associated with the 1975–90 Lebanese civil war, political crimes cannot be punished. . . . The Israeli government allows 15 Palestinians to cross by bridge from Jordan.

Witnesses reports that 700 civilians in northwestern Guatemala have fled to Mexico to escape the army’s gunfire and aerial bombardment of their jungle communities. The reports suggest that, since April 2, about 3,000 soldiers, aided by helicopters and planes, have harassed communities in the Ixcan jungle.

In Russia’s worst political violence since August 1991, a march attended by several ex-Soviet leaders accused of conspiring in the 1991 coup is halted by police at Gagarin Square. The demonstrators attack the police, and 570 people, including 355 policemen, are injured. . . . Sporadic fighting continues across Bosnia. . . . Pierre Beregovoy, 67, former French finance minister, 1984–86, 1988–92, and French premier, 1992–93, shoots and kills himself in Nevers, France, amid accusations of economic mismanagement.

Results from the Republic of Yemen April 27 elections prompt the three main parties to suggest they govern by coalition in order to avoid conflict over the transfer of power. The electoral outcome virtually assures the continued administration of Pres. Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has led North Yemen since 1978.

The Peruvian army recaptures Lucero Cumpa, a leader of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, who escaped from the maximum-security Canto Grande prison in Lima, the capital, during a mass prison break in July 1990.

Kuwait announces a plan to dig a security trench along its 120-mile (200-km), poorly demarcated, international boundary with Iraq set out by the UN in 1992.

At least 10 people are killed and 20 are wounded by mortar or artillery attacks on Sarajevo. Fighting in the eastern Bosnian Muslim enclave of Gorazde takes the lives of at least six people. . . . In Moscow, 300 communists and nationalists gather peacefully outside the Russian White House.

Jordan’s King Hussein celebrates his 40th anniversary in power. . . . Oliver Tambo, a former president of the ANC, is buried, and his funeral is attended by numerous black liberation leaders and by U.S. civilrights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson, U.S. health and human services secretary Donna Shalala, and American poet Maya Angelou.

Ethiopia formally recognizes Eritrea as a sovereign nation. . . . Reports suggest Iraq has repeated its territorial claim to Kuwait as the 19th province of Iraq. . . . The World Health Organization votes to ban the rump Yugoslav Federation from the agency’s work. The vote does not affect WHO’s humanitarian work in the former Yugoslav republics. . . . Officials disclose a plan to send between 50,000 and 70,000 NATO troops to Bosnia.

A series of work stoppages in eastern Germany by the powerful IG Metall union begins. . . . Clashes occur between Muslim and Croat forces in central Bosnia.

The Israeli government allows 14 Palestinians deported between 1967 and 1987 to return to the Israeli-occupied territories from Jordan. . . . In Saudi Arabia, six conservative Islamic figures form the Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights, a group which may challenge the absolute power of the Saudi royal family.

May 1

May 2

Africa & the Middle East

Queen Elizabeth II announces that for the first time her residence at Buckingham Palace in London will be opened to tourists. The planned opening is set for August 7.

April 29

April 30

Europe

Pres. Ranasinghe Premadasa of Sri Lanka is assassinated by a suicide bomber in Colombo, the capital, during a state-sponsored May Day parade. In the attack, 24 other people are killed. Prime Minister Dingiri Banda Wijetunga, 71, takes the oath of office as interim president and imposes a nationwide curfew.

In Cambodia, more than 200 Khmer Rouge guerrillas carry out a raid on the provincial capital of Siem Reap. The attackers hold the airport until they are driven off by soldiers of the Cambodian government.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 28–May 3, 1993—461

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Five Branch Davidians are indicted by a grand jury on charges of conspiracy to murder federal officials. . . . Attorney General Janet Reno and ATF director Stephen Higgins testify about the siege in Waco, Texas, that ended with a fire Apr. 19. . . . Pres. Clinton names Lee Brown to serve as the director of his Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Defense Secretary Les Aspin removes the Defense Department’s restrictions on women’s participation in aerial combat.

The first Take Your Daughter to Work Day, a program to enhance the self-esteem of girls by offering them a firsthand appreciation of the range of career opportunities open to women, is held. An estimated 200,000 to 1 million girls participate. . . . Pres. Clinton names Arthur Levitt Jr., 62, to replace Richard Breeden as chairman of the SEC. . . . Scientists for Exxon attack the Apr. 27 findings of the NOAA.

Intel Corp. files suit in a U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, against semiconductor rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc., charging AMD with infringing “numerous” Intel copyrights

Valentina S. Grizodubova, 83, the Soviet Union’s version of American aviator Amelia Earhart, dies in Russia from complications of a stomach ulcer. . . . James (Jim) Valvano, 47, former North Carolina State basketball coach, dies in Durham, North Carolina, of cancer.

Gov. Jim Folsom Jr. (D) of Alabama bans flying the Confederate battle flag from the dome of the state’s Capitol building. . . . Pres. Clinton asks Lani Guinier to head the civilrights division of the Justice Department. . . . Authorities revise the death toll from the Apr. 19 fire in Waco, Texas to about 72.

Staff Sergeant Jeff E. Gregory is arrested for alleged involvement in an espionage ring in Germany. . . . Discharge proceedings against Sergeant Jose M. Zuniga, the Sixth Army’s Soldier of the Year in 1992, who publicly revealed his sexual orientation on April 24, begin.

In what is reportedly the first courtroom test of the theory that electromagnetic fields around high-voltage wires can cause cancer, a jury in San Diego, California, rules against Ted and Michele Zuidema, who claim the power lines over their house gave their daughter, Mallory, 5, a rare form of kidney cancer. . . . About 120 current and former gang members from some two dozen U.S. cities gather at what is called the National Urban Peace & Justice Summit. Those in attendance call for an end to gang violence and police brutality and urge job-creation programs for “at-risk youth.”

Defense Secretary Les Aspin fires Major General Michael J. Butchko Jr., a senior air force general, for mismanaging the C-17 jet transport development program. Butchko states he will retire from the Air force a year early, on June 1.

Floyd Burdette (Ben) Schwartzwalder, 83, coach of the Syracuse University Orangemen football team, 1949–73, dies in St. Petersburg, Florida, of a heart attack.

Reports show that scientists have discovered fossilized microorganisms believed to be 3.485 billion years old, or 1.3 billion years older than any previous similar finds. The find challenges concepts about the rate at which life developed on earth.

Warren P. Knowles, 84, Republican governor of Wisconsin, 1965–71, who attracted national attention in 1969 when he called National Guard troops to subdue student protests at the University of Wisconsin’s Madison campus, dies in Black River Falls, Wisconsin, of a heart attack.

Sea Hero wins the 119th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky.

Reports from government financial experts estimate that Pres. Clinton’s health-care reform plans will require between $100 billion and $150 billion per year in new public and private spending.

In U.S. v. Padilla, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that a conspirator in a drug-related felony cannot challenge the legality of evidence seized in an unconstitutional manner from a criminal partner. . . . A team of therapists who worked with 19 of the 21 children who left the cult of Branch Davidians during the siege in Waco, Texas between February and April notes that cult leader David Koresh had “wives” as young as 11.

Monica Seles, 19, the world’s topranked female tennis player, is stabbed in the back while courtside between games. Security officials subdue the attacker, who claims to be a fan of Steffi Graf, the world’s second-ranked woman. . . . David Waymer, 34, defensive back in the National Football League since 1980, dies in Mooresville, North Carolina, after suffering seizures and collapsing.

Julio Gallo, 83, vintner who helped build the massive E. & J. Gallo Winery, which sold an estimated 150 million gallons of wine a year and claimed about 26% of the U.S. wine market, dies near Tracy, California, in an automobile accident.

Levi Strauss & Co., an internationally known U.S. clothing manufacturer, announces that it will terminate most of its agreements with Chinese contractors because of what the company terms China’s “pervasive violation of human rights.” . . . Chris Patten becomes the first sitting Hong Kong governor to meet with a U.S. President.

April 28

April 29

April 30

May 1

May 2

The FCC releases its regulations governing cable-television rates. . . . The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller is at the top of the bestseller list.

The United Farm Workers of America announces that Arturo Rodriguez will succeed Cesar Chavez as president of the union. . . . Data shows that the purchasing managers’ index fell to 49.7% in April. A measure below 50% for the index indicates a contracting manufacturing sector. . . . In its quarterly earnings review, The Wall Street Journal finds that the net income of 578 major corporations totaled $21.99 billion in the first quarter.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 3

462—May 4–9, 1993

May 4

World Affairs

Europe

In Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, the UN takes control of the multinational relief effort from the U.S., who began the mission in December 1992. U.S. Marine Lt. Gen. Robert Johnson officially passes authority to Lt. Gen. Cevik Bir of Turkey. Bir will command a new force expected to involve 28,000 troops.

Serb forces in eastern Bosnia begin shelling the Muslim enclave of Zepa.

May 5

May 6

Reports confirm the World Bank has approved $750 million of new loans to Poland after it passed privatization legislation. . . . The UN Security Council declares the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, and the five remaining Muslim strongholds in the country—Bihac, Gorazde, Tuzla, Srebrenica, and Zepa—to be "safe areas."

May 7

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific In Cambodia, Chinese and Polish units of the UN peacekeeping contingent are the targets of a rocket and mortar attack. No UN injuries are immediately reported in the assault, which occurs about 85 miles (135 km) north of Phnom Penh in Kompong Thom province. In a separate incident, a Japanese peacekeeper, Haruyuki Takata, 33, dies when a six-vehicle UN convoy is ambushed in Bantey Meanchey province in the northwest.

In Poland, 300,000 public-school teachers strike for higher wages and more government spending on education.

The government of Iraq closes its border with Jordan, its only legal point of transfer, in order to put through a recall of Iraqi 25-dinar banknotes.

The self-proclaimed Bosnian Serb parliament rejects for a third time the UN-backed peace plan for Bosnia-Herzegovina, despite appeals by Serb president Milosevic, Yugoslav Federation president Cosic, and Greek premier Mitsotakis. Reports state that at least 130 people have been killed in Zepa since May 3. . . . Reports find that Kyrgyzstan has adopted its first post-Soviet constitution. . . . Reports state retired U.S. Army colonel Aleksander Einseln has agreed to become the commander in chief of Estonia’s armed forces.

An estimated 3,000–5,000 white farmers assemble in the Transvaal town of Potchefstroom to voice their opposition to the transition to black-majority rule in South Africa.

Peruvian general Rodolfo Robles Espinoza, the army’s third-ranking officer, seeks asylum at the U.S. embassy in Lima. He immediately declares that a university professor and students missing since 1992 were killed by an army intelligence unit.

Ranasinghe Premadasa, Sri Lanka’s assassinated president, is cremated in Colombo, the capital.

Serbs in the northern town of Banja Luka blow up two 16th-century mosques. The destruction of the Ferhad Pasha and Arnaudija mosques, dating from 1583 and 1587, respectively, is condemned by Yugoslav president Dobrica Cosic as a barbaric act. . . . Italy’s new premier, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, wins a vote of confidence in Italy’s parliament.

Saudi Arabian authorities publicly behead three people, bringing the total number of executions in 1993 to at least 40. . . . A group of retired South African generals launch a new right-wing umbrella movement called the Afrikaner Volksfront (People’s Front). The generals hope to coalesce the right wing, currently divided into at least 20 groups, into a unified opposition to black majority rule.

The Argentine air force flies Gen. Robles, who May 6 admitted that the army was responsible for killings of civilians in Peru, Robles’s wife, and five other family members from Lima to Buenos Aires, where they are granted asylum.

Sri Lanka’s parliament confirms Dingiri Banda Wijetunga as president in a special election. Wijetunga has been serving as president since the May 1 assassination.

Reports confirm that Nigeria’s military government has set up the death penalty as punishment for speaking or publishing words that may cause a disruption in “the general fabric” of the country.

Negotiators for the government of Guatemala and leftist rebels break off talks aimed at ending the country’s 32-year-old civil war.

As violence in Cambodia continues, UN officials note that two royalist factions and the army of the Phnom Penh government, the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front, asked UNTAC to return the weapons they surrendered so that they can better defend themselves against expected Khmer Rouge attacks.

The ruling Socialist Party of Senegalese president Abdou Diouf retains its parliamentary majority in elections.

Juan Carlos Wasmosy of the ruling Colorado Party wins a three-way race for the presidency in Paraguay’s first multiparty, direct elections for a civilian head of state. Wasmosy’s victory enables the Colorado Party to retain the hold it has had on the presidency since 1947. The election sparks some controversy because Paraguayan soldiers had prevented Paraguayan citizens who reside in Argentina and Brazil from returning home to vote.

Reports indicate that police have identified the alleged suicide assassin of Pres. Premadasa as Kulkaweerasingham Veerakumar, a Tamil from Jaffna province, a stronghold of the Tamil Tiger rebels in northern Sri Lanka.

May 8

Croat irregulars launch an offensive to wrest a portion of the southwestern city of Mostar from the defending Muslim-led Bosnian army.

May 9

Africa & the Middle East

More than 100 gunmen ambush a train in Cambodia’s western province of Battambang, killing at least 13 passengers and injuring about 70 others. In separate incident, a UN encampment in central Kompong Speu province comes under rocket attack, and a Filipino policeman dies of heart failure during the assault.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 4–9, 1993—463

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Rob Portman (R, Ohio) easily defeats his Democratic opponent to succeed retired representative Bill Gradison (R). . . . Wisconsin representative Peter Barca (D) narrowly beats out Mark Neumann (R) to fill the House seat vacated by Defense Secretary Les Aspin. . . . Darryl Stewart, 38, convicted of killing a neighbor during a 1980 burglary and attempted rape in Houston, becomes the 200th person to be put to death in the U.S. since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976. He is the 57th person to be executed in Texas since 1976.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Dun & Bradstreet reports that business failures in the first quarter of 1993 totaled 23,180, a 10.2% decline from the year-earlier quarter. The report also notes that the number of business failures in 1992 reached a record high of 96,836, a 9.9% increase over the 1991 total of 88,140.

The House passes, 259-164, legislation that will require states to liberalize their voter-registration procedures in an effort to boost voter turnout. . . . The Senate backs by voice vote an amendment to the lobby-disclosure bill that will require lobbyists to give itemized disclosures of virtually all their gifts to lawmakers, including meals, entertainment, and travel.

The U.S. State Department announces that Kenneth Beaty, a U.S. oil worker, was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment by an Iraqi court for illegally entering the country near the poorly demarcated border between Iraq and Kuwait.

Two people are killed and four are wounded in separate rampages in post offices in California and Michigan. The slayings bring to 29 the number of postal workers and supervisors killed by employees in 10 incidents since 1983. In the California incident, the gunman is Mark R. Hilbun, and in the Michigan event, the killer is Larry Jasion. . . . The Senate, 95-2, passes a bill that requires lobbyists to give detailed public reports on their efforts to influence legislation, regulation, and other government activities.

Mohammad Ahmad Ajaj is charged in connection with the Feb. 26 bombing of the World Trade Center. . . . In separate cases, international panels rule that antidumping tariffs on U.S. imports imposed by the Canadian government should be lifted and that the U.S. Commerce Department must reconsider its 1992 decision to impose tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber. . . . Judge Robert Gawthrop upholds the 1992 indictment of Rep. Joseph McDade (R, Pa.) on felony charges related to his alleged receipt of bribes from defense contractors.

Alabama circuit court Judge Randall Thomas sentences former Alabama governor Guy Hunt (R) to pay $211,000 in fines and restitution and perform 1,000 hours of community service for diverting money from his inaugural fund for his personal use.

Pamela Harriman, a prominent socialite and Democratic Party fund-raiser, is confirmed by the Senate as ambassador to France.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency unveils plans to identify and eradicate illegal discrimination in granting mortgages by banks the agency regulates. . . . The RTC announces that it will accept bids for 23 of the 85 thrifts it currently administers. The sales will be the first by the agency since April 1992. . . . The Federal Reserve Board reports that it has found “generally modest improvement in economic conditions across the nation.”

May 4

The space-shuttle program passes what NASA calls the year mark, since the combined duration of all 55 shuttle missions now surpasses a year.

Irving Howe, 72, who wrote World of Our Fathers, a bestselling history of immigration by Eastern European Jews to the U.S., which won a National Book Award in 1977, dies in New York City of cardiovascular disease.

The space shuttle Columbia lands at Edwards Air Force Base, California, after carrying out a mission devoted to performing scientific experiments for the German Space Agency.

Ann Todd, 84, British actress best known for her role in The Seventh Veil (1945), dies in London after suffering a stroke. . . . Documents suggest that film producer Walt Disney worked as a secret informer for the FBI from 1940 until his death in 1966.

Bus workers belonging to the Amalgamated Transit Union narrowly ratify a pact the union reached with Greyhound Lines Inc. in April, ending a three-year-old strike. . . . The Labor Department reports that the national unemployment rate remained steady in April, at 7%. It is the third consecutive month that the rate did not change.

May 5

May 6

May 7

Alwin Nikolais, 82, pioneering modern dance choreographer and composer whose numerous awards include a 1987 National Medal of Arts, dies in New York City of cancer.

The Justice Department reports that the U.S. prison population rose to a record 883,593 at the end of 1992, up from 824,133 in 1991. The federal prison population grew by 12.1%, to 80,259 inmates. State prison populations grew by 6.8%, to 803,334. Convicted drug criminals represented nearly 33% of the people sent to jail in 1990, up from 11.5% in 1977.

Dame Freya Stark, 100, travel writer who wrote more than two dozen books, dies in Asolo, Italy. . . . Penelope Gilliatt (born Penelope Conner), 61, writer and film critic for The New Yorker magazine, 1986–71, dies in London.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 8

May 9

464—May 10–15, 1993

World Affairs

The Hungarian parliament ratifies a treaty confirming the existing border between Hungary and Ukraine. . . . Russian president Boris Yeltsin dismisses two top government officers— Georgi Khizha, a deputy premier responsible for industrial policy, and Yuri Skokov, the head of the state security council—who opposed his program of political and economic reforms.

A Lebanese appeals court overturns the April ruling of a military tribunal that judged that the 1983 suicide bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut should be included in a 1991 general amnesty.

The EC warns Croatia and the Bosnian Croats to stop attacking Moslems in Bosnia or risk international reprisals “similar to the measures being imposed on the Serbs.” Separately, the European Commission approves the conclusions of a report that expressed the EC’s support for NAFTA.

Debate over the Russian constitution continues, and parliamentary speaker Ruslan I. Khasbulatov tells deputies that Boris Yeltsin will be guilty of a crime if he proceeds with his constitutional plans. Parliament launches a competing constitutional process with a charter that constrains presidential power.

Reports indicate that the former ruling parties of North Yemen and South Yemen have agreed to merge following unified Yemen’s first parliamentary elections. The General People’s Congress of the North and the Yemen Socialist Party of the South will govern Yemen as a single party controlling at least 164 of the 301 seats in Parliament.

The Arab and Israeli delegations to the Middle East peace talks complete a ninth round of negotiations in Washington, D.C., with few tangible results from the discussions.

Reports disclose that a Serb paramilitary force, the Tigers, has begun to drive Albanian families from their homes in Kosovo’s Gjakova region. . . . Eric Schmitt, 42, enters a school in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, takes 21 children hostage, and demands 100 million francs ($18.5 million) in ransom. . . . The currencies of Spain and Portugal are devalued within the exchange-rate mechanism of the European Monetary System.

The government of Saudi Arabia outlaws the Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights, a group formed May 3 by six conservative Islamic figures. . . . Wolfgang Lotz, 73, former Israeli soldier who spied in Egypt in the 1960s, dies in Munich, Germany, of a heart ailment.

A five-day conference of the 34 nations of the International Whaling Commission ends after discussing a plan to form a whale sanctuary. . . . The UN begins to withdraw its 236 security guards from Kurdish areas in northern Iraq, arguing that Western governments have not provided funds to continue the operation, started in April 1991. . . . Nine of the 10 former Soviet republics making up the Commonwealth of Independent States agree to establish an economic union between them. Turkmenistan does not sign the accord.

In the fashionable Parioloi section of Rome, 23 people are injured when a car bomb explodes. . . . A series of work stoppages in eastern Germany started May 3 by the powerful IG Metall spreads to 80 companies and involves 40,000 workers. The strikes are described as the first widespread job action in eastern Germany in 60 years. Union and employer negotiators reach a preliminary agreement.

May 11

May 13

May 14

Africa & the Middle East

Combat over the eastern Muslim enclave of Zepa ends when UN troops enter the town, which now only shelters 50 of the estimated 10,000 people there when the Serb assault began May 4. . . . The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia begins circulating its own currency, the denar. . . . The new Kyrgyz currency, the som, goes into circulation.

May 10

May 12

Europe

At a French nursery school in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, police shoot and kill Eric Schmitt, 42, who took 21 children hostage on May 13. Their teacher, Laurence Dreyfus, who refused to leave the children, and Evelyne Lambert, a doctor with the Paris fire department who was allowed to enter the school, receive France’s highest honor, the Legion d’Honneur, by Premier Edouard Balladur.

May 15

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Royal Canadian Mounted Police in northern Manitoba arrest James Philip Bridson, 18, whom they charge with two murders resembling those portrayed in the U.S. TV miniseries Murder in the Heartland, which depicted the true story of Charles Starkweather.

More than 200 workers die and hundreds more are injured in a fire that sweeps through a toy-factory complex in Bangkok, Thailand. It is the deadliest known factory fire in history. . . . Reports suggest that forces associated with the royalist Funcinpec (United National Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful and Cooperative Cambodia) attacked Khmer Rouge forces in northwest Cambodia.

Argentina’s Senate votes unanimously to repeal the so-called disobedience law, a 19th-century statute that governing authorities employed to stifle press and public criticism of government officials.

Thailand’s interior ministry places the May 10 fire’s death toll at 213, and mostly young women were killed. . . . Forces of the radical Hezb-i-Islami faction, allied with the Iranian-backed Shi’ite group Hezb-i-Wahdat, fire rockets into Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, and government planes bomb guerrilla positions.

Reports confirm that an Afghani tribal group led by Mohammed Nabi Noorzai has released from captivity three antinarcotics officials from Great Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands, who were kidnapped in April. . . . The UN begins evacuating family members of its essential personnel in Cambodia.

In Saudi Arabia, the government arrests the former spokesman for the Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights, which was outlawed May 13. . . . In Senegal, Babacar Seye, the vice president of the constitutional council, which oversaw the May 9 ballot, is shot to death in his car in Dakar, the capital.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 10–15, 1993—465

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The FDA approves the first female condom, named Reality, and it requires the company to print a statement on the package warning that the female condom is not as effective as a male condom in preventing pregnancy or protecting against sexually transmitted diseases.

The United Mine Workers union begins a job action in Illinois and Indiana which involves 2,000 employees of Ziegler Coal Holding Co., Amax Inc., and Arch Mineral Corp., a subsidiary of Ashland Oil Inc. and the Hunt family of Texas. The strike targets the Bituminous Coal Operators Association (BCOA), a grouping of the 12 largest coal producers in the U.S.

A federal jury in New York City decides that the City University of New York violated Leonard Jeffries Jr.’s right to free speech when it removed him as chairman of City College’s black studies department in 1992. . . . The Senate, 62-36, passes legislation that requires states to liberalize their voter-registration procedures in an effort to boost voter turnout.

The EPA finds unsafe levels of lead in 819 municipal water systems. Among larger cities, the highest lead levels occur in Charleston, South Carolina, with a reading of 165 parts per billion. The highest level discovered in the survey is 484 parts per billion at the Camp Lejeune Marine Corps base in Hadnot Point, North Carolina.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

May 10

May 11

U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor announces that he has organized a coalition of state and local officials to support NAFTA. The coalition includes the governors of several states.

Data shows that the New York spring auctions held by Christie’s and Sotheby’s raised $75.3 million and $102.3 million, respectively. . . . Two slivers of wood said to come from the cross on which Jesus Christ was crucified are sold for 100,000 francs ($18,000) at an auction in Paris. The unidentified woman who bought the relic states she will give it to a religious sanctuary in France.

A Travis County jury in Austin, Texas, convicts Joel Rene Valdez of aggravated sexual assault for raping a woman who asked he use a condom after he demanded sex at knifepoint. . . . Five Amish children are killed and three are seriously injured when they are struck by an out-of-control automobile about three miles (five km) outside their hometown of Fredericksburg, Ohio.

Prosecutors state they have arrested a soldier and two former soldiers for using military aircraft to smuggle more than 200 pounds (90 kg) of cocaine into the U.S. from Panama. . . . Defense Secretary Les Aspin announces that the Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”) antimissile research program is being abandoned. Research into ground-based defenses against missiles will continue under the name Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.

The Senate approves, 61-35, a financing bill that will provide $34.3 billion to the RTC and the FDIC to complete the ongoing bailout of the nation’s savings and loans institutions.

Eric Bache, 18, is arraigned on five felony counts of vehicular homicide for the May 13 accident that killed five children near Fredericksburg, Ohio. . . . Demarcus Maurice Smith and Laura Jeanne Taylor, both 17, are indicted in a December 1992 robbery and shooting spree in Dayton, Ohio, that had left six people dead. . . . A Texas judge accepts a jury’s recommendation that Joel Rene Valdez, convicted May 13, be sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Rep. Collin Peterson (D, Minn.), a leading NAFTA opponent, announces that he the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, to determine whether U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor violated federal laws by forming a group of NAFTA advocates on May 12.

The Federal Reserve announces that total U.S. industrial capacity over the past five years averaged growth of 1.7% a year, down sharply from the Fed’s earlier estimates of 2.4% annual growth. . . . William Randolph Hearst Jr., 85, who was the editor in chief of the Hearst newspaper empire founded by his father and who, as a reporter, shared a 1956 Pulitzer Prize, dies in New York City after suffering cardiac arrest.

May 12

May 13

An acoustic guitar formerly owned by the late rock musician Elvis Presley sells for £99,000 ($152,000) at an auction in London. Michael Malone, a Seattle businessman, purchased the guitar at a record price for any single piece of Presley memorabilia or for an acoustic guitar.

Prairie Bayou wins the 118th running of the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 14

May 15

466—May 16–21, 1993

World Affairs

May 16

May 17

Africa & the Middle East

Bosnian Serbs overwhelmingly confirm the May 6 rejection by the self-proclaimed Bosnian Serb parliament of the peace plan drafted by negotiators Cyrus R. Vance and Lord David Owen in a plebiscite. Following the vote, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic declares that the Vance-Owen plan is dead. . . . Turkey’s parliament elects Premier Suleyman Demirel as president. Demirel, the leader of the True Path Party (DYP), will succeed Turgut Ozal, who died in April.

Palestinian gunmen kill two Israeli and two Arab merchants trading vegetables outside a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip. Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) and Fatah, the mainstream wing of the PLO, claim responsibility for the killing. It is the first time the rival groups have conducted a joint military action.

Sir Mark Pizey (born Charles Thomas Mark Pizey), 93, retired British Royal Naval admiral who was knighted in 1953, dies in Somerset, England, of unspecified causes. . . . Heinrich Albertz, 78, who resigned as mayor of West Berlin after police fatally shot a student during a protest and who agreed to serve as a hostage in a 1975 prisoner swap with the Baader-Meinhof terrorist group, dies in Bremen, Germany, of unspecified causes.

Reports indicate that South African police have arrested John Beck, the alleged organizer of a plot to assassinate Joe Slovo, the white chairman of the South African Communist Party. . . .The Kuwaiti government charges 10 Iraqis with planning an assassination attempt on former U.S. president George Bush during his visit in April. Six other people, four of them Kuwaiti residents, are indicted on lesser crimes relating to the plot, and a 17th suspect is still at large.

The Americas

U.S. president Bill Clinton recognizes the government of Angola, more than 17 years after the country gained independence from Portugal. Clinton’s move puts a formal end to the U.S. policy of favoring the rebel Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) over the Angolan government, ruled by the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA).

The UN reports that a senior official of Funcinpec was assassinated in Battambang province and two officials of the Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party were killed in Kandal province. Funcinpec and the LDP are the major opposition parties contesting the election. . . . A supreme court jury in the state of South Australia acquits Ivan Timofeyevich Polyukhovich, 76, in the country’s first Nazi war-crimes trial.

Data suggests that more than a quarter of a million Serbs fled from elsewhere in Croatia to the safe areas and to Serbia. . . . Reports confirm that Russia has held its first government bond auction. . . . Three former police detectives involved in the investigation of a deadly 1974 pub bombing in Guildford, England—Thomas Style, John Donaldson and Vernon Atwell—are acquitted of fabricating evidence in the case.

May 20

A truck bomb in central Belfast, Northern Ireland, injures 20 people and badly damages the headquarters of the Ulster Unionist Party.

May 21

Data shows that inflation in the year through April was just 1.3%, the lowest level in Great Britain in 29 years.

Asia & the Pacific

The International Committee of the Red Cross estimates at least 700 people have been killed that in fighting between rival Afghan factions that started May 12.

Danish citizens vote to ratify the Maastricht Treaty, reversing a 1992 defeat that threw the EC into turmoil. At least 10 leftist protesters are injured when police fire on them after a demonstration turns violent. About 25 police officers are also injured in the violence, described as the most severe ever in Denmark during peacetime. . . . Norway announces that it will allow the killing of 296 minke whales in 1993, of which 136 will be used for scientific research.

May 18

May 19

Europe

Four Canadian soldiers are charged with murder, torture, and negligent performance of duties in connection with the March 16 killing of Shidane Abukar Arone while in military custody at a Canadian base of operations at Belet Uen in Somalia.

The major military factions fighting in Afghanistan reach a cease-fire agreement.

Seven people are killed when a car bomb explodes in a crowded square in Cairo, Egypt. . . . Eritrea’s recently formed National Assembly elects Issaias Afwerki president.

Pres. Carlos Andres Perez is suspended from office when the Venezuelan Senate unanimously authorizes the Supreme Court to try him on charges of misappropriating government funds. Residents of Caracas, the capital, signal their approval of the Senate decision with a cacophony of whistles, car horns, firecrackers, and the banging of pots.

An Indonesian court sentences Jose Alexandre Gusmão to life imprisonment for violence carried out while he was leader of the separatist Revolutionary Front for the Independence of East Timor (Fretilin). Human-rights organizations allege that the trial was unfair and biased.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 16–21, 1993—467

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

In what is described as one of the largest recent gatherings of the Amish community, hundreds of Amish people from as far away as Oklahoma and Colorado attend the funeral of the five children killed in Ohio on May 13.

The National Archives makes public tapes of the conversations of Pres. Nixon, dating before and after the June 17, 1972, Watergate break-in. . . . A Texas state district judge rules Christopher William Brosky, 17, convicted in the 1991 shooting of Donald Thomas, 32, can be tried again, this time on conspiracy charges. The case received national attention after Judge Everett Young sentenced Brosky to 180 days in jail and 10 years’ probation, despite the jury’s call for a 10-year sentence.

Lord Kenyon (born Lloyd TyrellKenyon), 75, chairman of the National Portrait Gallery in London, 1966–88, dies in Shropshire, England. . . . Marv Johnson, 54, soul music pioneer whose hits include “You Got What It Takes” and “I Love the Way You Love,” dies in Columbia, South Carolina, of undisclosed causes after collapsing backstage at a concert on May 14.

After a two-year investigation of the foreign-debt trading market, a New York State grand jury indicts Daniel Young and George Liberatore, former vice presidents of Manufacturers Hanover Trust Corp., charging them with breaking state banking laws and profiting illegally from the 1991 sale of Colombian government debt originally held by the bank.

A superior court jury in Los Angeles awards more than $1 million to Sabino Gutierrez, who claims he was sexually harassed by his female former boss, Maria Martinez. . . . Commissioners in Dade County, Florida, vote unanimously to repeal the county’s controversial “English-only” ordinance, which requires all government business to be conducted in English. Hispanics, who constitute more than half the county’s population, argue that the 1980 ordinance divides the community. Clinton administration officials dismiss the seven staff members of the White House travel office, citing financial mismanagement and possible corruption. The White House names Catherine Cornelius, 25, a distant cousin of the president, to assume temporary control. . . . Bremerton (Washington) High School students vote down a proposed amendment, which gained national attention, that would have barred openly homosexual students from serving in the school government.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Vice Admiral J. Paul Reason, who has reviewed 120 cases of alleged misconduct in connection with the scandal over the 1991 Tailhook Association naval aviators’ convention, begins to discipline unnamed officers.

The Mississippi State Supreme Court rules that former U.S. District Judge Walter Nixon Jr. may practice law in the state. Nixon, convicted of perjury in 1986, was removed from the bench and was disbarred in 1989. . . . Pres. Clinton signs legislation that will liberalize states’ voter-registration procedures. . . . The Senate Rules Committee votes unanimously to dismiss petitions to remove from office Sen. Bob Packwood (R, Oreg.) on grounds that he had acted fraudulently to win reelection in 1992.

The strike started by the United Mine Workers on May 10 expands to an Arch Mineral Corp. mine that employs 275 workers in Illinois.

The Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, Illinois, rules, 2-1, that the Boy Scouts of America can bar atheists. The suit was filed in 1990 by the parents of Mark Welsh, 10, who refused to take the oath which uses the phrase “duty to God.”

The UMW expands its May 10 action to two West Virginia units of Ashland Coal Co. and several mines of Arch Mineral Corp. in the same state. . . . The EPA announces an 18-month moratorium on the licensing of new hazardous-waste incinerators while it tightens its regulation of 171 already existing boilers and industrial furnaces.

Federal judge Royce Lamberth rejects a claim by Infinity Broadcasting that the FCC’s procedures for fining radio and TV shows for indecency amounts to unconstitutional censorship. . . . The Librarian of Congress, James Billington, announces that Rita Dove, 40, is poet laureate of the U.S. Dove is the first black laureate.

The Commerce Department announces that the seasonally adjusted U.S. merchandise trade deficit in March stood at $10.2 billion, the highest level in nearly four years. The March deficit is 29% higher than the revised February figure of $7.91 billion. . . . The U.S. unit of Nikko Securities Co. agrees to pay the SEC $1 million to settle allegations that it concealed foreignexchange losses of $18 million. . . . The Dow rises by 1.62%, or 55.64 points, to close at a record 3500.03.

Reports reveal White House Chief of Staff Thomas McLarty and Webster Hubbell, Pres. Clinton’s nominee for associate attorney general, have resigned from a country club accused of discriminating against blacks. . . . Winston Burdett, 79, former correspondent for CBS News, dies in Rome.

The SEC reaches a settlement with Frederick H. Joseph and Edwin Kantor, two former executives of Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. The two are barred from supervisory positions in securities firms for three years. . . . John Rollwagen, the former chairman and chief executive of the supercomputer manufacturer Cray Research Inc., withdraws as the nominee to the post of deputy secretary of commerce amid a widening controversy over insider trading at Cray.

The final episode of the longrunning show Cheers airs and draws an estimated 93 million viewers, the second-largest audience ever for an episodic program.

Controversy over the May 19 dismissals of travel staff erupts when it is revealed that associates of Pres. Clinton sought changes at the office before the accounting review took place. The incident is seen as an example of the political favoritism Clinton decried during his campaign. . . . U.S. district judge James A. Redden rules that a 1991 law banning the use of autodialers is unconstitutional since it infringes on free speech.

Pres. Clinton officially names Miles Lerman as chair of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, which oversees the Holocaust Museum. . . . Officials in Shelby County, Tennessee, file a lawsuit seeking to force the state to reinvestigate the death of singer Elvis Presley in 1977.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 16

May 17

May 18

May 19

May 20

May 21

468—May 22–27, 1993

May 22

World Affairs

Europe

The U.S., Russia, the U.K., France, and Spain agree on a joint policy on Bosnia-Herzegovina, which encourages a negotiated settlement to the civil war “building on the VanceOwen process,” the peace plan named for its chief authors, Cyrus R. Vance and Lord Owen. They also agree to warn Croatia that it may face sanctions if it assists “ethnic cleansing” by Croat forces in Bosnia. The Croatian government and Serbs in Croatia are urged to settle their differences.

Vladimir F. Promyslov, 85, mayor of Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union, for 23 years who was removed from office by Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev in 1986, dies of unspecified causes.

May 25

May 26

The Americas

More bombs detonate in Belfast, Northern Ireland, bringing the total number of explosions to three since the attack of May 20. . . . Up to 10,000 people march in Palermo, the Sicilian capital, to commemorate the first anniversary of the assassination of leading anti-Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone. . . . Eastern German steel workers in the IG Metall union, who started a series of job actions May 3, reach an agreement with their employers.

May 23

May 24

Africa & the Middle East

The U.S. acquittal of Rodney Peairs in the fatal shooting of Yoshihiro Hattori is met by anger and disbelief in Japan, where 74 people, 67 of them with ties to organized crime, died of gunshot wounds in Japan in 1991.

The Ethiopian province of Eritrea formally declares itself an independent country with a ceremony in Asmara, the capital.

PKK guerrillas kill more than 30 Turkish soldiers in an attack near the city of Bingol in eastern Turkey. The attack ends a cease-fire in place since the PKK proposed it in March.

Four Israeli soldiers are accidentally killed when two Israeli paratrooper squads fire on each other in Israel’s self-declared security zone in southern Lebanon. . . . South African police begin to arrest dozens of black radicals.

Judge Dinora Lazo orders the release of Severiano Fuentes and Ferman Hernandez, who executed two U.S. military advisers, Lt. Col. David Pickett and Private Earnest Dawson, after their helicopter crashed in 1991. The order comes after a general amnesty in El Salvador issued in March. . . . Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo, 66, the archbishop of Guadalajara, Mexico, is shot to death during a gun battle between alleged members of the Tijuana drug cartel and the rival Sinaloa cartel. Six others are also killed, precipitating a national outcry in Mexico.

The UN Security Council votes unanimously to establish an 11judge war-crimes tribunal to bring to justice anyone guilty of atrocities in fighting in the former Yugoslav republics. It will be empowered to impose prison terms, but not death sentences.

In response to the May 24 attack, near Bingol, Turkey, acting Turkish premier Erdal Inonu suspends an amnesty decree for members of the PKK (which is banned in Turkey) who were not involved in military actions.

An estimated 12 Iranian military planes attack two bases of the People’s Mujahedeen (Mujahedeeni-Khalq), a guerrilla movement of Iranian exiles opposed to the Teheran government. It is the first such raid in more than a year. . . . Combined with those arrested May 24, South African police hold 75 black radicals in custody, eliciting the ire of black leaders.

Guatemalan president Jorge Serrano Elias institutes executive rule by decree, dissolving government institutions and imprisoning opponents, in order to “purge the state of all its forms of corruption.”. . . Representatives of the Canadian government, the Northwest Territories, and the Inuit sign a native land-claims agreement, clearing the way for the creation of Nunavut, a new 77.2-million-squaremile (200-million-sq-km) territory within the Canadian confederation.

In response to the May 25 action of Guatemalan president Serrano, almost all Latin American countries, Spain, and the U.S. have condemned his government by decree. . . . Albanian president Sali Berisha urges the U.S. and NATO to send troops to the Serbian province of Kosovo to prevent “ethnic cleansing.” . . . In reaction to the May 25 UN decision, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic states he will refuse to cooperate with the international war-crimes tribunal.

Armenia and Azerbaijan sign a peace treaty. . . . In Germany, thousands of left-wing protesters block streets, seeking to disrupt a Bundestag vote on political asylum. The lower house, however, approves constitutional changes that will dilute the nation’s guarantee of foreigners’ rights to seek asylum in Germany.

The Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, an Iranian Kurdish rebel group based in northern Iraq, reports that it has been under heavy shelling by Iranian guns for two days.

The Constitutional Court, ostensibly dissolved by Guatemalan president Serrano’s decree, declares that the president’s actions are unconstitutional and therefore invalid. Pres. Serrano begins to tightly censor newspapers and ban television news broadcasts.

Fighting intensifies in BosniaHerzegovina in several areas identified by the UN as safe areas. . . . Five people are killed and at least two dozen people are injured when a car bomb explodes near the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy. . . . Lord Gormley (born Joe Gormley), 75, president of Britain’s National Union of Mineworkers, 1971–82, dies in Wigan, England.

Saudi Arabian authorities bar 100,000 Iranian pilgrims in the Islamic holy city of Mecca from conducting a “deliverance from pagans” protest against the U.S. and Israel during the hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage. . . . In South Africa, 43 of the 75 suspected radicals arrested since May 24 are released due to a lack of evidence linking them to any crimes.

In Guatemala, 1,000 demonstrators defy a ban on public assembly. The police disperse the crowd with tear gas. Protestors attend a mass at the National Cathedral to listen to Rigoberta Menchu, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Guatemalan Indian leader. Both Germany and the U.S. announce they will suspend aid. . . . The Canadian House of Commons votes for legislation implementing NAFTA.

May 27

Asia & the Pacific

Thousands of Tibetans demonstrate in Lhasa, Tibet’s capital, sparking the first and most violent of five days of demonstrations against the Chinese government since March 1989. A demonstration against high prices draws around 4,000 people, and protesters reportedly begin throwing stones at Chinese soldiers and attacking Chinese-owned stores. The soldiers respond by firing plastic bullets and tear gas into the crowd, killing one person and injuring several others.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court orders the reinstatement of Nawaz Sharif as prime minister, declaring that the ouster of his government and the congress in April was unconstitutional. The court decision marks the first judicial restoration of a civilian government in the nation’s history. . . . Dissident Xu Wenli, 49, is released from prison in China after 12 years in solitary confinement. . . . In response to a series of comments by judges that minimize the sexual rights of women, the Australian Senate votes to investigate gender bias in the judiciary.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 22–27, 1993—469

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Vice Admiral J. Paul Reason, who has reviewed 120 cases of alleged misconduct in connection with the scandal over the 1991 Tailhook Association naval aviators’ convention, finishes disciplining 10 officers for indecent exposure. The actions taken include letters of admonition to seven lieutenants, two juniorgrade lieutenants, and one lieutenant commander and the docking of $1,000 from the pay of each of them. None of the officers is identified.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Mieczyslaw Horszowski, 100, pianist whose career lasted more than nine decades as he debuted as a child prodigy in 1901, dies in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

A jury in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, acquits Rodney Peairs of manslaughter in the fatal shooting of Yoshihiro Hattori, 16, a Japanese student who mistakenly rang his doorbell. The case draws international attention on gun-related violence in the U.S. from which, according to the FBI, 24,000 people are killed each year. . . . Former president George Bush receives $80,000 in his first paid speaking appearance in the U.S. since leaving office. In U.S. v. Landano, the Supreme Court unanimously rejects a FBI request to allow confidentiality for all its sources used during criminal investigations. . . . The Senate confirms, 58-31, Roberta Achtenberg as assistant secretary for fair housing and equal opportunity at the HUD, which makes her the first openly homosexual nominee to be confirmed by the Senate to a high federal office.

May 22

May 23

Referring to the “unique context of defense contracting,” U.S. District Judge Jean C. Hamilton rules that the Warn Law does not support a suit filed by 1,200 former employees of General Dynamics Corp., which gave less than 60 days’ notice to 3,000 workers dismissed in 1991. . . . At an awards dinner speech at the Soesterberg Air Base in the Netherlands, air force major general Harold N. Campbell, 53, calls Pres. Clinton a “dope-smoking,” “skirt-chasing,” “draft-dodging” commander in chief.

Clinton administration officials rehire five of the seven staff members of the White House travel office who were dismissed May 19. The move comes after allegations of political favoritism.

The Supreme Court rules, 8-1, that employers cannot fulfill their commitments to their employees’ pension plans by the sale or transfer of property to the plans. . . . Reports state that Louisiana-Pacific Corp. has agreed to pay an $11.1 million fine for environmental violations and install $70 million in antipollution devices. . . . The Center for Resource Economics accuses the EPA of reacting to environmental hazards on the basis of public fears rather than scientific evidence and thus devoting unnecessary funds to low-risk pollutants.

Microsoft Corp., the world’s largest computer-software company, unveils new operating software, Windows NT, at an industry trade show in Atlanta.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., overturns a 1992 ruling that determined that the federal government had broken a 1981 agreement with Glendale Federal Bank, the nation’s sixth-largest savings and loan, and would be required to provide restitution.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board cites poor on-board communication as the primary reason the British cruise ship Queen Elizabeth 2 ran aground off the southern coast of Massachusetts in August 1992.

At the Cannes Film Festival, the Palme d’Or goes to two films: The Piano, directed by Australian Jane Campion; and Farewell My Concubine, directed by Chen Kaige. It is the first time the Palme d’Or is awarded to either a woman or a Chinese filmmaker. . . . John Ludlow (Jack) Gould, 79, critic for The New York Times, 1944–72, dies in Concord, California, of complications of a gall bladder infection.

May 24

May 25

A federal grand jury in Miami indicts a Chilean arms dealer, Carlos Cardoen Cornejo, and a Los Angelesbased military contractor, Teledyne Inc., for illegally exporting more than 100 tons of weapons-grade zirconium that was eventually used in cluster bombs supplied to the Iraqi government of Pres. Saddam Hussein.

An audit finds that, during the last decade, a Labor Department office effectively barred final decisions on a number of cases involving government whistle-blowers and job discrimination.

Joseph Pulitzer Jr., 80, chairman of Pulitzer Publishing and of the Pulitzer Prizes, which were established by his grandfather, dies in St. Louis, Missoun, of colon cancer. . . . Andrzej Wasowski, 69, Polish pianist who, in 1939, toured the Soviet Union for two years as a prisoner of war, dies in Washington, D.C., of lung cancer.

Airman Apprentice Terry M. Helvey, 21, is sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his navy shipmate Allen R. Schindler, who was beaten to death October 27, 1992, after disclosing that he was a homosexual.

In a nationwide action, 10,000 prounion demonstrators protest the National Labor Relations Board, which they claim has been hostile to the interests of labor during the past 12 years. Some 300 demonstrators are arrested in 26 cities. . . . The House passes, 219-213, legislation to enact the tax increases and spending plans at the core of Pres. Clinton’s economic agenda. . . . The Dow closes at a record 3554.83.

Actress Kim Basinger files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, one day before she is scheduled to post a bond of between $11 million and $14.8 million to signal her readiness to pay about $8 million in damages for failing to appear in the film Boxing Helena.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 26

May 27

470—May 28–June 1, 1993

May 28

Europe

The IMF releases a report listing the size of the economies of the world’s countries by using a new method, which places the U.S., Japan, and China in the top three positions. Under the old method, Germany would have ranked third and China tenth. . . . The UN General Assembly admits the African state of Eritrea and the European principality of Monaco, boosting its membership to 183.

In a UN-designated safe area, Gorazde, Serb gunners launch an assault. . . . Beverly Allitt, a British nurse, is sentenced to 13 life terms in prison for the murders of four children in her care and attacks on nine others. It is the greatest number of murders committed by a British woman in the 20th century. . . . In Florence, Italy, 100,000 people protest in response to the May 27 car bombing. Rallies are also held in Milan, Bologna, Naples, and Rome. . . . Germany’s upper house of parliament approves constitutional changes that dilute the nation’s guarantee of foreigners’ rights to seek asylum.

Pro-independence demonstrations occur sporadically in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.

After the May 28 approval of a law regarding asylum, five members of a Turkish family that has lived in Germany for more than 23 years die in Solingen after their home is firebombed. Several other people are injured. . . . Serb forces besieging Gorazde break through the defenders’ lines in the north and east. . . . Violating an agreement over the Black Sea fleet, one ship raises the Ukrainian flag, and in response, 200 other vessels hoist the Russian naval ensign.

Ramesh More, a member of the radical Shiv Sena group, is killed by unidentified assailants in Bombay, India.

German police arrest a suspect described as a right-wing extremist in connection with the May 29 bombing of a Turkish family, the deadliest of nearly 3,000 attacks on foreigners in 17 months. Turks and other protesters demonstrate in Solingen and other locations. . . . Fighting continues around Brcko in northern Bosnia. Bosnian government forces overrun a Serb position on Mt. Trebevic. Heavy fighting in Sarajevo erupts, and at least 20 people are killed, while at least 150 are wounded.

In Pakistan, the assemblies in the Punjab and Northwest Frontier provinces are dissolved, and new elections ordered in a further instance of the jockeying for power among Ishaq Khan, Nawaz Sharif, and Benazir Bhutto.

May 29

May 30

May 31

June 1

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

The OECD predicts that its 24 nations’ economies will grow by just 1.2%, compared with a December 1992 estimate of 1.9%. . . . Reports confirm scientists have found that atmospheric pollution over the Arctic has decreased during the past decade. The officials argue that the drop in pollution is linked to major decreases in emissions from industrial plants in Europe and the former Soviet Union. . . . EC ministers approve the community’s working-time directive, which limits working weeks to a maximum of 48 hours and sets other guarantees of workers’ rights

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In a secret vote, Pres. Dobrica Cosic is ousted by the combined voting power of the Serbian Radical Party, led by Vojislav Seselj, and the Socialist Party, led by Slobodan Milosevic. . . . The Russian currency, the ruble, falls to a record low rate of 1,024 rubles to one U.S. dollar in trading on the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange.

A group of 192 Libyans arrive in Israel to conduct a pilgrimage to Islamic sites. It is the first time an Arab state officially at war with Israel has allowed its citizens to travel there.

Mexican police discover an elaborate cocaine-smuggling tunnel that was under construction at the Mexican-U.S. border. The tunnel is more than 1,400 feet (420 m) in length, making it the longest underground drug corridor discovered at the border to date.

Tamil Tiger guerrillas raid the base of a rival Tamil militia, the People’s Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam, and at least 31 people die in the attack.

Yugoslav president Dobrica Cosic is ejected from office after the May 31 vote, and 4,000 demonstrators storm the parliament building in Belgrade. One policeman dies, and more than 30 people are injured. Two Serb mortar shells burst among spectators at a soccer game near Sarajevo airport, killing at least 15 civilians and wounding another 80. Serb forces continue shelling the town of Maglaj in an assault that has killed more than 20 people and wounded at least 65. . . . More than 800 miners in Poland’s troubled coal industry lose their jobs.

The coordinator of the Libyan group that arrived in Israel on May 31, Daw Tajuri, holds a news conference in which he unexpectedly calls for the overthrow of the Israeli “Zionist occupiers” and the establishment of a democratic Palestinian state.

Guatemalan president Jorge Serrano Elias is forced from office by the military following an appeal to the ministries of defense and government from the Constitutional Court to implement its ruling that Serrano’s May 25 “self-coup” is unconstitutional.

Three Tibetans are arrested after 10 men unfurl Tibetan flags and shout pro-independence slogans in Lhasa’s main square. . . . Premkumar Sharma, a Maharashtra state assemblyman and a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, is shot to death in Bombay, India. He is the second Hindu leader killed in Bombay within a week due to the May 29 slaying of Ramesh More.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 28–June 1, 1993—471

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

An Orlando, Florida, jury acquits William Lozano, a Hispanic former Miami police officer, in a retrial on two counts of manslaughter in the January 1989 deaths of Clement Anthony Lloyd and Allan Blanchard, which touched off three days of rioting in Overtown, a predominantly black neighborhood in Miami. . . . Two separate surveys find that Pres. Clinton’s public approval rating after four months in office is lower than that of any president since modern polling practices were instituted in the 1930s.

Pres. Clinton signs an executive order extending most-favorednation (MFN) trading status to China for one year. Clinton conditions the renewal on improvements in human rights in China during the coming year.

The National Labor Relations Board declares illegal the worker-management teams established by E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. to deal with safety and fitness issues at one of the company’s plants. . . . Reports confirm that a Hawaiian state forestry worker mistakenly cut down the islands’ last known Xylosma crenatum tree, which is on the U.S. list of endangered species. . . . The Commerce Department reports that U.S. gross domestic product grew at a rate of 0.9% in the first quarter, the smallest quarterly gain since the 1991 fourth quarter.

Leading AIDS researchers Jonas Salk and Gene Shearer recommend that doctors attempt to create an AIDS vaccine that will achieve cell-mediated immunity.

Actor and former body builder Arnold Schwarzenegger, a politically active Republican, announces his resignation as chairman of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness.

Pres. Clinton names David R. Gergen, a former strategist and spokesman for Pres. Ronald Reagan, to serve as White House communications director.

Sidney R. Bernstein, 86, former editor and publisher of Advertising Age magazine, dies in Chicago, Illinois, of a heart attack. . . . William David (Billy) Conn, 75, former lightheavyweight boxing champion who was elected to the Boxing Hall of Fame in 1965, dies in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, of pneumonia.

Figures indicate that at least 50 people were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct, inciting to riot, or looting, and five people were reported injured In the scattered incidents of violence that took place after the May 28 verdict in Miami, acquitting a former police officer of manslaughter.

Sun Ra (born Herman (Sonny) Blount), 79, jazz band leader who released more than 200 albums, dies in Birmingham, Alabama. . . . Marjorie H. Buell, 88, cartoonist who created the Little Lulu cartoon character, dies in Elyria, Ohio, of lymphoma. . . . In auto racing, Emerson Fittipaldi of Brazil wins the Indy 500.

Pres. Clinton pays tribute to the 58,000 U.S. servicemen and women killed during the Vietnam War. Clinton, whose efforts to avoid the draft to fight in Vietnam were blasted by critics during his campaign, makes the speech to a crowd of about 8,000 people and becomes the first president to commemorate Memorial Day at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial monument. In Smith v. U.S., the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that a federal law designed to more severely punish felons who use guns in the course of another crime may be applied in a case in which a gun is not used as a weapon. . . . Wisconsin State representative Peter Barca (D) is certified as the winner of a May 4 special election after a recount . . . . In Sullivan v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that a judge’s failure to properly instruct a jury that a defendant must be proven guilty beyond a “reasonable doubt” should invalidate a criminal conviction.

Fortune magazine reports that combined profits at the 500 top U.S. service companies total $73.2 billion, a 9% gain from the 1991 figures.

Arthur F. Gay Sr., 56, longest-living heart transplant recipient who received a heart on January 11, 1973, dies in Washington, D.C., of cancer of the esophagus.

The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller remains on the top of the bestseller list.

In Mertens v. Hewitt Associates, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that employees cannot seek monetary damages from providers of professional services who have advised their employers regarding their pension plans. . . . In Musick, Peeler and Garrett v. Employers Insurance of Wausau, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that defendants in federal securities-fraud cases may seek to make other parties who were not named in the fraud suit contribute to any damages. . . . Data shows that the purchasing managers’ index rose to 51.1% in May.

May 28

May 29

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May 31

June 1

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

472—June 2–7, 1993

World Affairs

After the June 1 violence in Belgrade, 120 people are arrested, including more than 30 opposition figures, such as Vuk Draskovic, leader of the opposition party to the government of Serbian president Milosevic. Data shows that in Gorazde, the attack launched by Serb gunners on May 28 left dozens of people dead and scores wounded. . . . In Italy, police state they have arrested Giuseppe Pulvirenti, who was said to head a criminal group in the Catania region.

June 2

June 3

June 4

The leading economic ministers from the 24 nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development close their annual ministerial meeting and issue a communiqué, which asserts its priority is “to achieve a substantial, comprehensive and balanced outcome of the Uruguay Round [of GATT] by the end of the year.”

Reports suggest that at least 20 other opposition politicians and journalists arrested in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, during the June 1 violence were beaten.

The UN Security Council passes a resolution which authorizes UN troops—including an expected deployment of up to 25,000 new soldiers—to use force in responding to attacks on the six designated safe areas in Bosnia in which Moslems can take refuge from their enemies.

Surat Huseynov, with a private militia of 3,000–5,000 in total, seizes Gyandzha, the secondlargest city in Azerbaijan, killing 60 people. The rebels demand Pres. Abulfaz Elchibey’s resignation.

June 7

Africa & the Middle East Melchior Ndadaye, who represents the majority Hutu tribe, unexpectedly defeats his Tutsi opponent, Pres. Jean Pierre Buyoya, in Burundi’s first democratic presidential election since independence. . . . South Africa’s highest court upholds the 1991 conviction of Winnie Mandela, but it voids the five-year prison sentence, hands out a two-year suspended sentence, and orders her to pay a fine.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Guatemala, Vice Pres. Gustavo Espina Salguero declares his constitutional right to assume the presidency after the June 1 ouster of Pres. Serrano, who flies to El Salvador.

Guatemala’s Congress refuses to back Gustavo Espina Salguero’s June 2 claim to the presidency.

As tabulations for Cambodia’s first multiparty election since 1972 near completion, Funcinpec and CCP emerge as the strongest political forces. Prince Norodom Sihanouk, a former Cambodian monarch serving as titular head of state, falls short of creating a coalition of the two parties and unilaterally declares he is “officially assuming the functions” of head of state, premier, and commander of the armed forces in order to steady Cambodia’s passage through the formulation of a new constitution and the establishment of a permanent government.” Reports indicate that 1,000 miners at Peabody mines in Australia have launched a sympathy strike for the U.S.’s United Mine Workers, which started a series of job actions May 10.

Latvia holds its first parliamentary election since the country’s 1991 independence from the former Soviet Union. . . . A conference in Moscow to deliberate a new constitution for Russia opens, and almost immediately disputes break out between Pres. Boris N. Yeltsin and his political opponents.

In a series of well-orchestrated attacks that take place after UN troops inspect munitions depots controlled by Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid, the most powerful warlord in Mogadishu, Somalia, 23 United Nations peacekeepers, all Pakistanis, are slain. It is the worst single-day death toll for UN soldiers since 1961. The number of Pakistani wounded is 59. For the Somalis, the day’s death toll is reported to be between 16 and 35, with an uncertain number wounded. In retaliation, U.S. helicopters bomb three arms dumps belonging to Aidid and destroy a number of Somali artillery pieces and armored vehicles.

Sen. Ramon Jose Velasquez Mujica is overwhelmingly elected by Venezuela’s bicameral Congress to serve as interim president, succeeding Pres. Carlos Andres Perez, who was suspended from office in May in the face of charges of misappropriating government funds. . . . In Guatemala, Ramiro de Leon Carpio wins a near unanimous vote in the second, uncontested round of congressional balloting following the withdrawal of Arturo Herbruger, the president of the Supreme Electoral Council.

Therese Cartwright is killed by a 12foot great white shark off the northern coast of the state of Tasmania.

After the June 5 attack in Somalia, the UN Security Council issues a resolution condemning the attacks and demanding “the arrest and detention for prosecution, trial and punishment” of those responsible.

Spanish premier Felipe Gonzalez wins a fourth consecutive term in office. . . . Swiss voters back the nation’s military establishment in two referendum votes. . . . Italians voting in local elections largely reject the parties discredited by a massive nationwide corruption scandal that has been going on for months.

In response to the June 5 attack in Mogadishu, Somalia, the UN begins evacuating more than 200 civilian aid workers and warns private relief groups to keep clear of Gen. Aidid’s compounds.

Guatemala’s human-rights ombudsman, Ramiro de Leon Carpio, takes the presidential oath of office, ending a crisis over the presidential succession that followed the June 1 ouster of Pres. Serrano. . . . Michael Wilson, Canada’s international trade minister, lifts restrictions on Canadian farmers’ barley trade with the U.S.

Mongolian voters reelect Pres. Punsalmaagiyn Ochirbat in the country’s first direct presidential poll.

The Ninth International Conference on AIDS opens in Berlin, Germany, and is attended by more than 14,000 people.

Azerbaijan premier Panakh Huseynov—who is not related to the rebel commander—offers his resignation at the behest of Surat Huseynov, who led the offensive against Gyandzha on June 4. . . . The battle for Travnik ends with what the UN states are hundreds of combatant and noncombatant deaths. In response the June 4 UN resolution, the Bosnian government announces that it has accepted an international plan for safe areas. . . . The Latvian parliament chooses Guntis Ulmanis, 53, as president and Anatolijs Gorbunovs as parliamentary speaker.

Five of the prisoners taken during the June 5 attack in Somalia are freed.

Guatemala’s ousted Pres. Serrano receives asylum in Panama.

Figures show that Australia’s 1992 population totaled 17.6 million, up 184,700 from the year-earlier number. The rate of population growth in 1992 was 1.06%, down from the 1991 rate of 1.25%, which makes it the slowest in 14 years.

June 5

June 6

Europe

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 2–7, 1993—473

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Former Missouri State attorney general William L. Webster (R) pleads guilty to charges that he misused public resources for political purposes during his unsuccessful 1992 gubernatorial campaign. Under the plea agreement, Webster faces a prison sentence of up to 18 months and a fine of up to $500,000.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Norton Winfred Simon, 86, industrialist and art collector, for whom the Norton Simon Museum is named, dies in Los Angeles of respiratory failure. . . . John Robert (Johnny) Mize, 80, major league baseball player, dies in Demorest, Georgia.

Pres. Clinton withdraws his nomination of Lani Guinier, a black law professor, to head the civil-rights division of the Justice Department after she was the target of a concerted campaign by conservative activists to draw the attention to her controversial ideas on race and votingrights issues in her scholarly writings. The withdrawal sparks controversy on all sides of the issue.

June 2

June 3

U.S. president Clinton issues an executive order imposing sanctions on individuals and institutions with close ties to the military-led government in Haiti. The executive order targets 83 individuals and 35 institutions.

The California Court of Appeals in San Francisco reverses a 1992 ruling by an arbitrator that allowed Advanced Micro Devices Inc. permanent, worldwide rights to sell clone copies of Intel Corp.’s 386 model microchip.

Texas State treasurer Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) crushes interim senator Bob Krueger (D) by a two-to-one margin in a special election to fill the Senate seat vacated by Lloyd M. Bentsen, the secretary of the Treasury.

Figures show that ticket sales in NYC’s Broadway theater district for the 1992–93 season reached a record $327.7 million. The Broadway box-office gross for the season was up $34.7 million from the 1991–92 season, which had set the previous record.

Pope John Paul II approves an African cardinal, Bernardin Gantin, to head the College of Cardinals, the group that elects the pope. He is the first African to head the College of Cardinals. . . . Conway Twitty, 59, country music superstar, dies in Springfield, Missouri, of an abdominal aneurysm. . . . In tennis, Steffi Graf wins her third French Open title by defeating Mary Joe Fernandez.

Pres. Clinton and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D, Mass.) join dozens of other political and cultural leaders at a memorial service at Arlington National Cemetery commemorating the 25th anniversary of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

In a smuggling operation, a ship carrying nearly 300 illegal Chinese immigrants runs aground off the coast of Queens, New York. At least six of the passengers die, and several are injured. Officials, apprehend 276 passengers.

In Minnesota v. Dickerson, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that police officers may seize narcotics or other illegal substances that they clearly identify on a suspect’s person during a search for weapons conducted without a warrant. . . . In Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that the school district of Center Moriches, New York, should permit religious groups access to school facilities equal to those granted to community organizations.

After the June 6 crash near Queens, New York, the ship’s captain and 10 crew members are charged in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York, with conspiring to smuggle illegal immigrants into the country. As conditions on the ship are reported to be squalid, at least five are thought to have contracted tuberculosis during the voyage. The INS states it will oppose the asylum requests of the 276 Chinese people.

James Bridges, 57, Oscar-nominated screenwriter, dies in Los Angeles of kidney failure. . . . The Tonys are presented, and Tony Kushner’s Angels in America wins four awards, including best play. . . . Sergi Bruguera of Spain upsets defending tennis champion Jim Courier to win the French Open.

In U.S. National Bank of Oregon v. Independent Insurance Agents of America, the Supreme Court unanimously reinstates the validity of a provision of a 1916 banking law that allows bank branches located in small towns to sell insurance. . . . Amax Inc., the nation’s thirdlargest coal producer, announces its intention to withdraw from the BCOA, prompting 400 of the company’s striking UMW members to return to work.

NASA submits three scaled-down plans for the space station Freedom, but none of them meet the reduced spending targets.

A judge awards custody of filmmaker Woody Allen’s three children to actress Mia Farrow. . . . Pop music star Prince changes his name to a symbol that combines the male and female signs. . . . New Jersey Nets guard Drazen Petrovic, who led the Croatian basketball team to a silver medal in the 1992 Olympics, is killed in a car accident.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 4

June 5

June 6

June 7

474—June 8–13, 1993

World Affairs

June 8

June 11

June 12

June 13

Africa & the Middle East

René Bousquet, who was likely to face a trial in France for war crimes, is shot dead in Paris by Christian Didier, 49, who is arrested . . . . The Bosnian army seizes Croatian villages around Travnik as thousands of Croats flee toward the town of Vitez, the headquarters of the British UN troops. . . .Four former Bulgarian officials go on trial in connection with the deaths of 14 people in communist-run prison labor camps in the years up to 1962.

Kuwait states it and other Arab states have dropped their “indirect boycott” of Israel, which applied to international companies that conducted business with Israel. . . . Chancellor Franz Vranitzky becomes the first Austrian leader of government to visit Israel. . . . Two Somalis are reported killed in clashes with Pakistanis. . . . A bomb in Cairo, Egypt, kills one person and wounds 15 others, including five British tourists

Balkan negotiators Lord Owen and Thorvald Stoltenberg meet with Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic in the Serbian and Yugoslav capital, Belgrade. . . . Investigating magistrates in Rome link seven-time Italian premier Giulio Andreotti to the 1979 murder of journalist Carmine (Mino) Pecorelli.

June 9

June 10

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada emerges as the winner of the Bolivian presidential election. . . . Guatemalan authorities apprehend Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the reputed head of the Sinaloa cartel and the apparent target of a May 24 attack that killed Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo.

Crown Prince Naruhito, 33, marries Masako Owada, 29, in a Shinto religious ceremony at Japan’s Imperial Palace in Tokyo. She is the first woman with a career to join the royal family. Japan declares it a national holiday. . . . A great white shark devours John Ford, 31, near Byron Bay, 370 miles (600 km) north of Sydney, the capital of the Australian state of New South Wales. He is the second person killed by a shark in less than a week. An average of two people per year are killed by sharks in Australia.

The UN’s Children’s Fund estimates there are 2 million children orphaned by AIDS. . . . U.S. Trade Rep. Kantor announces the U.S. will exempt German companies from the U.S. policy that bars EC firms from bidding on government telecommunications contracts. In return, Germany will not follow the EC directive, which calls for EC nations to give preference to EC firms on such contracts. After a series of bilateral talks with the U.S., the highest-level official contact between the two countries since the end of the Korean War, North Korea states it will suspend its plans to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. . . . The European Commission officially demands an explanation from the German government for its June 10 decision not to follow an EC directive.

The annual Queen’s Birthday Honors list, with more liberal criteria, is published and includes W. F. Harvey, a London bus driver, and R. E. J. Hayward, a milkman. The actress Thora Hird and writer Muriel Spark receive the Order of the British Empire, taking the title of dame. . . . M(uriel) C(lara) Bradbrook, 84, British authority on William Shakespeare and the first woman to become a professor of English at Cambridge University, dies in Cambridge, England.

U.S. attack helicopters destroy four depots of General Mohammed Farah Aidid, the strongest warlord in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. After the air strikes, several hundred Pakistani, Kuwaiti, Egyptian, Turkish, and Tunisian ground troops seize artillery pieces, tanks, anti-aircraft guns, rifles, and large amounts of ammunition and capture some 200 of Aidid’s men. Allied forces resume their attacks against Gen. Aidid in Mogadishu, Somalia.

Azerbaijan’s parliamentary chairman, Isa Gambarov, resigns.

Iranian president Hojatolislam Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani is elected to a second four-year term of office in a four-candidate election. . . . The Israeli army announces that it will no longer ban homosexuals from sensitive security positions.

In Cambodia, the BLDP and Funcinpec form a parliamentary alliance, thereby giving their 68-seat bloc a majority in the assembly.

At least three Somali civilians are killed when Pakistani peacekeepers shoot into a stone-throwing mob. . . . Nigeria holds its first presidential election since 1983.

Binay Ranjan Sen, 94 Indian director general of the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, 1956–67, who, in 1960, launched the Freedom from Hunger Campaign, which led to the World Food Conference in 1963, dies in Calcutta, India.

Pakistani peacekeeping troops fire machine guns into a crowd of Somali demonstrators, killing about 20 people, including women and children, and wounding at least 50 others. It is the deadliest use of force against civilians in the history of UN peacekeeping missions.

A convention of the Progressive Conservative Party in Ottawa elects Defense Minister Kim Campbell to be party leader. In that position, she will succeed Brian Mulroney as Canada’s prime minister and become the country’s first female prime minister.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 8–13, 1993—475

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Sam Farr (D, Calif.) wins a special election to succeed Leon E. Panetta in the House of Representatives. . . . Richard Riordan (R) defeats city councilman Michael Woo (D) in an election to replace retiring Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, a Democrat. . . . In Seattle, Washington, U.S. district judge Barbara Rothstein sentences Joseph Meling to life in prison without parole for lacing capsules of Sudafed with cyanide.

A Quebec court acquits four U.S. marines, Sergeant Leonard Permell and Lance Cpls. Terry Cobb, Mark Cunningham, and Clarence Morris, of sexually assaulting a 12year-old Quebec girl in 1991. . . Judge Sterling Johnson Jr. orders Janet Reno to immediately release Haitian refugees detained because they have HIV. He characterizes the detention site as an “HIV prison camp.”

New Mexico state health officials start trapping rodents in and adjacent to the Navajo reservation in an attempt to identify a specific hantavirus strain, which has taken the lives of 14 people since March. . . . In a highly unusual move, black caucus members turn down a request from Pres. Clinton to discuss the Guinier affaire. . . .Heidi Fleiss, 27, is arrested for allegedly running an elite prostitution service and selling drugs.

The Clinton administration states it will comply with the June 8 order to release 158 Haitian political refugees held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

June 8

Seven of the country’s largest cable-television companies settle an antitrust suit filed against them by attorneys general of 40 states, initiated in 1988. . . . The FDIC announces that the nation’s 11,328 commercial banks earned profits totaling $10.9 billion in the first quarter of 1993. That is $2.7 billion more than their 1992 fourthquarter profits.

Alexis (Margaret Alexis Fitzsimmons Smith) Smith, 72, award-winning star of stage and screen known for her beauty, dies in Los Angeles of cancer. . . . In hockey, the Montreal Canadians win their 24th NHL Stanley Cup over the Los Angeles Kings. . . . The U.S. national team upsets England, 2-0, in a soccer game for the first time since 1950.

Judge Thomas P. Griesa cuts Leona Helmsley’s prison sentence to 30 months from four years. . . . The FDA announces new rules requiring restaurants to document nutrition claims on menus. . . . Milward Simpson, 95, former Republican Wyoming governor, 1954–58, and senator, 1962–67, dies in Cody, Wyoning, after suffering from Parkinson’s disease. He is survived by his son Sen. Alan Simpson (R, Wyo.).

The House votes, 224-187, in favor of a $1.8 billion appropriations bill for the legislative branch which will reduce spending in fiscal 1994 by about 1% compared with 1993 levels. . . . The New York Times Co. agrees to buy Affiliated Publications Inc., the parent company of The Boston Globe newspaper, for $1.1 billion. The purchase price is the largest ever paid for a single U.S. newspaper.

Richard Webb, 77, TV actor best known for his eponymous role in Captain Midnight, shoots himself to death after suffering from a debilitating respiratory ailment. . . . Arleen Auger, 53, operatic soprano, dies in Leusden, the Netherlands, of brain cancer.

In Wisconsin v. Mitchell, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that states can impose stiffer sentences on defendants who commit crimes motivated by racial, religious, or other biases. . . . U.S. district judge Robert Ward sentences Randall Terry, founder of the antiabortion group Operation Rescue, to five months in prison for aiding and abetting Harley D. Belew when he presented an aborted fetus to thenArkansas governor Clinton in July 1992. . . . Rep. Mike Kopetski (D, Oreg.) is convicted on misdemeanor charges of driving while intoxicated.

One of eight endangered California condors released in 1992 into the Sespe Condor Sanctuary is killed either by a power line or an automobile. With the death of this bird and the killing of another one in May, 76 California condors remain in existence. California Condor Recovery Program plans to recapture six other birds released in 1992.

In Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, the Supreme Court votes unanimously to declare unconstitutional a ban imposed in Hialeah, Florida, on ritual animal sacrifice since it violates the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion for members of the Santeria faith. . . . Ray Sharkey, 40, actor who won a 1980 Golden Globe, dies in New York City.

The raids in Somalia mark the first time that U.S. Pres. Clinton orders troops into combat.

June 9

June 10

June 11

June 12

Leonard Franklin McCollum, 91, who built up industry giant Conoco, dies in Houston, Texas, after a brief illness.

Doctors announce a new method of monitoring diabetes that may forestall or prevent serious effects of the disorder. The new regimen involves checking blood sugar with a special meter and injecting insulin four to seven times daily to keep blood sugar at a normal level. . . . Donald Kent (Deke) Slayton, 69, one of seven original U.S. astronauts, known collectively as the Mercury Seven, who, with two other American astronauts manned a historic flight in which the Apollo docked with a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft, dies in League City, Texas, of brain cancer.

Golfer Patty Sheehan wins the Mazda LPGA Championship in Bethesda, Maryland, by one stroke over Lauri Merten.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 13

476—June 14–18, 1993

World Affairs

June 14

June 15

June 16

The Basel, Switzerland-based Bank for International Settlements finds that the EC was the leading recipient of foreign investment in 1992. The overall level of foreign investment worldwide in 1992 totaled $158.5 billion, down 13% from the year-earlier level. The report also indicates that the gap between people living in the world’s richest and poorest nations expanded between 1960 and 1990.

Defense ministers of six of the 10 member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States agree to disband the supreme command of the CIS joint armed forces. . . . Reports indicate Yugoslavia and Iraq have formulated a military alliance intended to allow each country to evade sanctions applied by the United Nations. The current alliance is particularly remarkable because of public outrage in the Arab world over Serbian brutality toward Bosnian Moslems.

Africa & the Middle East In the first daytime attack in Mogadishu, Somalia, a U.S. helicopter fires two missiles at a Soviet-built rocket launcher. One missile finds its target, but the other hits a tea shop. Although it does not detonate, its impact wounds up to 12 people. . . . Saudi Arabia announces that its two main state-owned oil companies will merge to form the largest oil producer in the world. . . . Malawian voters overwhelmingly approve a referendum favoring multiparty politics.

A peace plan between Armenia and Azerbaijan is signed by the ethnic Armenian leaders in NagornoKarabakh. Separately, Heydar A. Aliyev is elected Azerbaijan’s parliamentary chairman. . . . Canadian peacekeeping troops begin their final withdrawal from the divided Mediterranean island of Cyprus. The pullout marks the conclusion of a 29-year Canadian presence on the island since Canadian troops were sent there as the first United Nations force in 1964.

The UN Security Council votes unanimously to impose a worldwide oil, arms, and financial embargo on Haiti.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

An unidentified U.S. company donates a 180,000-acre (70,000 hectare) plot of land in Venezuela to the Nature Conservancy, an environmental preservation group. The Nature Conservancy states that the donation is the largest in conservation history and that the land will be joined with an adjacent 1.5-million acre (600,000 hectare) Venezuelan national park.

In Cambodia, the constituent assembly convenes for the first time and, in a near-unanimous show of hands, grants Prince Sihanouk whatever powers he deems necessary “as chief of state in order that he may save our nation.” Hun Sen’s Vietnameseinstalled government renounces all state powers following the vote.

Haiti’s military-backed parliament for the first time recognizes JeanBertrand Aristide’s presidency as legitimate when it requests Aristide to name a new premier to succeed Haiti’s de facto premier, Marc Bazin. The parliament, however, conditions its decree on Aristide’s acceptance of all parliamentary legislation enacted since the coup. Consequently, the offer is rejected. . . . Mexican attorney general Jorge Carpizo McGregor fires 67 federal narcotics agents for alleged ties to Mexican drug cartels. American aircraft strafe Gen. Aidid’s headquarters and chief weapons cache in Mogadishu, Somalia. . . . In Nigeria, the military government of Pres. Babangida suspends the release of the results of the June 12 elections until fraud charges are investigated. . . . The Israeli army announces Mohammed Joma Hilmu Jarad, an Arab-American, pled guilty to transporting funds from the U.S. to Hamas and was sentenced to six months in prison.

Harshad Mehta, who is the central figure in India’s billion-dollar securities scandal, publicly alleges that he made a $300,000 payment to Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao in exchange for future political favors. Rao denies the charge and states the accusation leaves him “shocked and pained.” . . . In South Korea, workers at Hyundai Motors strike over pay.

Eight UN military observers enter the Muslim enclave of Gorazde, in Bosnia, after negotiating for three weeks. A local doctor tells the peacekeepers that 2,000 people received medical treatment in the previous 20 days and that as many as 150 wounded people should be evacuated. . . . Fighting flares across Tajikistan’s border with Afghanistan when unidentified gunmen shoot and kill two Russian military officers at a border base near Pyandzh, 90 miles (145 km) south of the Tajik capital, Dushanbe. One Tajik soldier is wounded.

June 17

June 18

Europe

The UN Development Program approves an $18 million grant to Myanmar.

Azerbaijan’s president Abulfaz Elchibey flees the capital, Baku, but does not resign. Heydar A. Aliyev claims the presidency in Elchibey’s absence. . . . In central Bosnia, a Canadian serviceman becomes the 47th UN soldier to die in Bosnia and Croatia since peacekeepers arrived in 1992. . . . An advance group of eight U.S. military officers arrive in The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of the radical Hezb-i-Islami military faction, is sworn in as premier of Afghanistan in a village near Kabul, the capital. Eleven other cabinet ministers are inaugurated at the same time. The ceremonies are made possible by a May 20 ceasefire agreement.

In Egypt, a bomb filled with nails explodes on a Cairo street, killing seven people.

Prince Norodom Ranariddh and Premier Hun Sen, the leaders of Cambodia’s two major political parties, agree to share leadership in an interim government. . . . Japan’s Diet passes a no-confidence resolution that topples the government of Premier Kiichi Miyazawa. . . . In Nepal, protests break out after a governmentappointed judge rules the deaths of two communists leaders in a suspicious car crash were the result of negligence.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 14–18, 1993—477

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

MacArthur Fellowships are awarded to many activists, including Pedro Jose Greer Jr., Carol Levine, and Sokoni Karanja. . . . After an almost three-month search for a new Supreme Court justice, the longest in U.S. history, Pres. Clinton nominates Ruth Bader Ginsburg to replace retiring Justice Byron R. White. . . . Sen. Arlen Specter (R, Pa.), 63, undergoes surgery to remove a brain tumor. . . . Gov. Robert Casey (D, Pa.) undergoes a rare heart-liver transplant

The U.S. Army publishes a revised edition of its Field Manual 100-5, “Operations,” last updated in 1986. The new edition stresses offensive operations in unanticipated locations, underlines that the Army is part of an integrated force structure, and devotes a new chapter to peacekeeping, civil intervention, and humanitarian assistance. . . . The first 27 of the Haitian refugees with HIV held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, fly to the U.S.

MacArthur Fellowships are presented to environmentalists, such as Amory Bloch Lovins, 45, founder and director of the Rocky Mountain Institute. . . . The dollar reaches a record low against the yen in New York trading, closing at 105.23 yen.

MacArthur Fellowships are awarded to several scientists and professors, including Stephen Lee, Demetrios Christodoulou, and Maria Luisa Crawford.

MacArthur Fellowships are given to several artists, including Ann Lauterbach, Ann Hamilton, Thom Gunn, and Ernest J. Gaines. . . . Vincent T. Hamlin, 93, cartoonist who created the “Alley Oop” comic strip, dies in Spring Hill, Florida.

Doctors report that Sen. Arlen Specter (R, Pa.) is recovering well and that his tumor is benign. . . . Doctors report that Pennsylvania governor Robert P. Casey (D) is successfully recovering from transplant surgery performed on June 14. Lt. Gov. Mark Singel (D) takes over gubernatorial duties pending Casey’s recovery. . . . John Bowden Connally Jr., 76, former Texas governor, 1963–69, and U.S. Treasury secretary, 1971–72, dies in Houston, Texas, of complications of pulmonary fibrosis.

Honda Motor Co. extends a voluntary recall to involve 1.8 million cars, the largest recall effort ever mounted in the U.S. It is expected to cost Honda up to $20 million.

Reports suggest that teams of experts have been unable to determine the cause of a mystery illness that has reached epidemic proportions in Cuba. The nervous-system disorder that first made itself evident in January 1992 has affected more than 43,000 Cubans. No deaths have been attributed to the disease. . . . The FDA approves a test for chlamydia that relies on a urine sample from males or a cervical swab from females. It is said to be quicker and more accurate than the cell-culture test.

James Hunt, 45, British former Formula One race-car champion, dies in London of a heart attack. . . . Major League Baseball’s ban on the smoking or chewing of tobacco by minor-league players, coaches, and umpires goes into effect.

Rep. Sam Farr (D, Calif.) is sworn in, so all seats of the 103rd Congress are filled for the first time since January. . . . Kennedy assassination researchers ask the U.S. Justice Department to try to remove any bullet fragments that might have remained in John Connally’s body after he was shot in the 1963 assassination of Pres. Kennedy. Connally died on June 15.

Pres. Ron Carey of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters places Teamsters Local 705 in Chicago under trusteeship, accusing its leaders of fraudulent use of union funds and ties to organized crime. . . . The UMW intensifies its selective strike by adding mines in Kentucky and West Virginia. The move swells the number of striking miners to 14,000 and carries the strike, which began May 10, into its sixth week.

A study finds that Americans on average have lower blood cholesterol than they have had in the past, reducing their risk of heart disease.

Pres. Clinton accepts one of the plans for the space station Freedom submitted by NASA June 7. The program calls for a scaleddown version of the space station and estimates that it will cost $10.5 billion over five years and will allow four astronauts to be in orbit by the year 2001. . . . The Ukrainian Academy of Sciences announces the death of Aleksandr S. Davydov, 80, Ukrainian chemical physicist.

The FDA and PepsiCola conclude that a series of complaints that syringes were found in Pepsi sodas was fraudulent. . . . Despite the June 16 request, John Bowden Connally Jr. is buried without having the operation to recover bullet fragments from the 1963 assassination of Pres. Kennedy.

The U.S. forcibly repatriates 87 Haitians whom it intercepted in boats at sea. . . . The House approves, 309-111, a $13 billion fiscal 1994 appropriations bill for foreign operations.

Pres. Clinton holds his first nationally televised prime-time evening news conference to launch his new budget plans. . . . The Senate passes, 60-38, a broad campaignfinance reform bill intended to limit overall spending in congressional elections and to curb campaign contributions by special-interest groups.

In Helling v. McKinney, the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, prison inmates have a right to be protected from exposure to cigarette smoke if they can prove that smoke constitutes a health hazard. . . . In Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School District, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that local governments may comply with a federal law requiring equal educational opportunities for disabled children by paying for special services in parochial schools.

Officials announce that U.S. Air Force major general Harold N. Campbell, 53, has been fined $7,000 and will retire early, on July 1, for having disparaged Pres. Clinton at an awards dinner speech May 24. . . . Pres. Clinton nominates Doris M. Meissner to serve as commissioner of the INS. . . . Pres. Clinton nominates Edward P. Djerejian to become ambassador to Israel. . . . Pres. Clinton meets with King Hussein of Jordan for the first time at the White House.

District Judge Sam Sparks rules that former U.S. Atty. Gen. Richard Thornburgh is partly liable for about $300,000 in campaign debts dating from his unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate seat from Pennsylvania in 1991. . . . In Harper v. Virginia, the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that its 1989 decision that states cannot tax the pension income of retired federal workers while exempting state and local retirees should bring about compensation for people who are taxed unfairly.

June 14

June 15

June 16

June 17

June 18

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

478—June 19–24, 1993

World Affairs

Leaders of the Serbs in Croatia, acting in the name of the self-proclaimed Krajina republic, claim that a referendum shows overwhelming favor of union with the Bosnian Serbs. . . . Italians voting in local elections largely reject parties discredited by the nationwide corruption scandal. . . . A law that would require residents to petition for citizenship and pass an Estonian language exam within two years sparks protests by ethnic Russians in the northeastern city of Narva.

June 20

The leaders of the 12 nations of the European Community meet for their regular semiannual summit.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Guatemalan president Ramiro de León Carpio makes his first nationally televised address, in which he outlines his administration’s first six-month plan.

Surat Huseynov, the commander of a rebel militia, declares he is assuming power in Azerbaijan. Heydar Aliyev unexpectedly expresses support for Huseynov. . . . Two car bomb blasts in Madrid kill seven people and injure about 25 others. It is the country’s most deadly bomb attack since 1986. . . . The Estonian parliament passes a law on foreign nationals that prompts protests by ethnic Russians

Lloyd’s of London, the 305-year-old insurance market, reports a record loss of £2.91 billion ($4.33 billion) for 1990.

June 22

June 23

Africa & the Middle East

Reports state that ethnic Armenian forces have advanced on the towns of Martakert and Agdam in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

June 19

June 21

Europe

The UN Security Council imposes oil and arms embargoes on Haiti and freezes the worldwide financial assets of supporters of the 1991 coup.

Representatives of the warring Serb, Croat, and Muslim factions in Bosnia-Herzegovina hold talks in Geneva, Switzerland, on a Serb and Croat proposal to divide the country into three ethnically based states. The Muslim president of Bosnia, Alija Izetbegovic, refuses to attend. . . . Italy’s Senate gives final passage to a tough antiracism bill that will set jail sentences for spreading “ideas based on racial or ethnic superiority or hatred.”

The British Columbia government announces that 2.5 million acres (1 million hectares) of wilderness in the extreme northwest of the province will be set aside as a provincial park. The decision stops plans to mine for copper and gold on a part of the site known as Windy Craggy.

Nigerian military leader General Ibrahim Babangida voids the results of the recent presidential election and rescinds his promise to surrender power to a civilian government on August 27. . . . In South Africa, ANC president Nelson Mandela and Inkatha Freedom Party president Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi meet for the first time in more than two years.

Canada’s Senate ratifies NAFTA, becoming the first of the three nations involved to do so.

On his first visit to South Korea, Australian prime minister Paul Keating meets with Pres. Kim Young Sam in Seoul, the capital.

Kurdish militants raid Turkish diplomatic missions, businesses, and travel and banking establishments in dozens of Western European cities. Kurdish militants take about 20 people hostage at the Turkish consulate in Munich, Germany, in a siege that lasts 15 hours. At the Turkish embassy in Bern, Switzerland, a demonstrator is killed and at least seven other people wounded by gunfire. . . . Azerbaijan’s parliament votes to relieve Pres. Elchibey of his duties.

June 24

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 19–24, 1993—479

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

James Benton Parsons, 81, who in 1975 was named the first black chief judge of a federal court, dies in Chicago, Illinois. . . . Retired publishing magnate Walter Annenberg announces that he is donating a record $365 million in cash grants to the University of Southern California, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, and the Peddie School, a private preparatory school in Hightstown, N.J. The sum is the largest one-time gift ever made to private education in U.S. history.

Sir William Golding, 81, author of Lord of the Flies (1954) who won the Booker Prize in 1980, and the Nobel Prize in 1983 and was knighted in 1988, dies near Truro, Cornwall, England. The cause of death is thought to be a heart attack.

Reports suggest that Pres. Clinton’s father, William Jefferson Blythe III, had a child from a previous marriage, Henry Leon Ritzenthaler, 55. Clinton and his immediate family apparently have not previously known about Ritzenthaler.

Lee Janzen wins the U.S. Open golf tournament. . . . Pres. Clinton announces that he has chosen Olympic track star Florence Griffith-Joyner and former Maryland congressman and basketball star Tom McMillen as cochairmen of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. . . . The Chicago Bulls win their third consecutive NBA title over the Phoenix Suns.

Leaders of the Republican Party announce the formation of the National Policy Forum, a partyaffiliated organization intended to attract new voters to the GOP and to solicit ideas on policy issues from the public. . . . Former president George Bush informs Republican Party officials that he has decided to stop accepting a $150,000 annual stipend from the party, which the GOP also pays to former Pres. Reagan.

In Sale v. Haitian Centers Council, the Supreme Court rules, 8-1, that a U.S. policy in which boats carrying Haitian refugees are intercepted on the high seas and the refugees forcibly returned to Haiti without receiving asylum hearings does not violate U.S. and international laws.

In Brooke Group Ltd. v. Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corp., the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that intense price cutting by a generic cigarette manufacturer did not violated antitrust legislation.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rules that Pres. Clinton’s Task Force on National Health Care Reform may hold meetings in secret. . . . Pat Nixon (born Thelma Catherine Ryan), 81, wife of former president Richard Nixon, dies in Park Ridge, New Jersey, of lung cancer.

The U.S. Commerce Department raises tariffs imposed on steel imports from 19 countries, following complaints by U.S. steel makers that foreign companies are “dumping” steel, or selling it in the U.S. at prices lower than they charge in their domestic markets. . . . The House approves, 295-126, a measure extending to December 15 the administration’s “fast-track” negotiating authority regarding the GATT talks.

The Federal Reserve Board reports that business activity in the U.S. is increasing at a “slow to moderate pace.” . . . The House approves, 263-153, a $22.7 billion fiscal 1994 appropriations bill for the Treasury Department, the U.S. Postal Service, and other government agencies.

Lorena Bobbitt, 24, cuts off her husband’s penis after he allegedly raped her. She is charged with malicious wounding. . . . The U.S. Judicial Conference formally recommends that Congress impeach U.S. District Judge Robert F. Collins of Louisiana, who was convicted in 1991 of accepting a $100,000 bribe from a convicted drug smuggler. . . . Charles J. Epstein, a geneticist at UCSF, is injured by a letter bomb. Authorities believe it was sent by the same person or persons who targeted universities and high-technology firms in the 1970s and 1980s.

The House passes, 347-67, a bill appropriating $10.3 billion for military construction in fiscal 1994.

Mayor Tom Bradley (D) of Los Angeles signs into law a bill banning smoking in restaurants. . . . In Heller v. Doe, the Supreme Court upholds, 5-4, a Kentucky law that allows the state greater freedom to involuntarily institutionalize the mentally ill. . . . In Johnson v. Texas, the Supreme Court rules, that 5-4, that a Texas law allowing juries to issue the death penalty to teenagers convicted of murder is constitutionally sound.

The FBI arrests eight men, all described as Muslim extremists, on charges of plotting a series of terrorist bombings at prominent sites in New York City. Among the five men captured is the alleged ringleader, Siddig Ibrahim Siddig Ali, 33. Law-enforcement officials state the group planned to assassinate UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, Sen. Alphonse D’Amato (R, N.Y.) and New York state assemblyman Dov Hikind.

The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral to retrieve a European satellite and perform scientific experiments.

June 19

June 20

June 21

Victor Maddern, 67, British character actor who appeared in more than 200 films, dies of cancer in London, England.

June 22

June 23

The House approves, 350-73, a $21.7 billion appropriations bill for energy, water, and nucleardefense programs.

The crew of the U.S. space shuttle Endeavour plucks from orbit the European Space Agency’s EURECA (European Retrievable Carrier) probe.

Archie Williams, 78, who won a gold medal in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany, and who, along with other black athletes, helped discredit Nazi German leader Adolf Hitler’s claims of Aryan athletes’ superiority, dies in Fairfax, California, of a heart attack.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 24

480—June 25–30, 1993

June 25

Europe

Jacques Attali announces his resignation as president of the EBRD. . . . Japan announces that it will provide $120 billion in foreign aid to developing countries from 1993 to 1997. The projected outlays by Japan make it the world’s largest donor nation. . . . The World Conference on Human Rights approves a final declaration that calls on the UN to consider the establishment of a High Commissioner for Human Rights. The conference is the first large-scale international human-rights meeting since 1968.

The Yugoslav parliament elects Zoran Lilic, 39, as president of the Yugoslav Federation, which comprises the republics of Serbia and Montenegro. Lilic succeeds Dobrica Cosic. . . . Kurds and Turks fight at the Turkish consulate in Karlsruhe, Germany, after Kurds blockade the building. . . . Lithuania introduces a new national currency, the litas. . . . Russia ceases pumping natural gas to Estonia. While it is not the official reason, experts argue that the stoppage is punishment for the Estonian law passed June 21.

Militant white separatists storm and vandalize a convention center outside Johannesburg where some of South Africa’s leading politicians are holding negotiations on a future government.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin announces that a new constitution for Russia has been drafted after three weeks of discussion.

U.S. armed forces launch a missile attack aimed at Iraq’s intelligence headquarters in Baghdad. Justifying the attack, the U.S. cites evidence that the Iraqi government sponsored a plot to assassinate former U.S. Pres. Bush. The Iraqi government announces that eight people were killed and a dozen wounded in the attack. Thousands of Iraqis protest the raid.

Armenians seize the town of Martakert, inside NagornoKarabakh. . . . A bomb explodes in the Turkish resort of Antalya. . . . In Germany, police engage in a shoot-out with terrorist suspect Wolfgang Grams. One GSG-9 man is killed, and Grams is shot dead. Accounts suggest he was executed by police.

In Somalia, two U.S. soldiers and a Pakistani peacekeeper are wounded in an ambush.

A passenger train near Genc in southeastern Turkey is attacked. . . . Estonian president Lennart Meri refuses to ratify the residency law passed June 21 and states that he will refer it to the Council of Europe and to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe for expert opinions. Separately, the Estonian government declares a plebiscite on territorial autonomy proposed by the Narva city council to be illegal.

Somali gunmen kill a Pakistani and wound two others. U.S. gunships respond by bombarding a suspected sniper’s nest, killing at least two. . . . In South Africa, police seize 21 suspected participants in the June 25 attack.

In response to a pact made by Russian president Boris Yeltsin and Ukrainian president Leonid Kravchuk that provides for an even division of the Black Sea fleet between Russia and Ukraine, naval officers state they will refuse to obey orders to divide the fleet.

A US plane patrolling a UN-imposed “no-fly zone” in southern Iraq fires on an Iraqi antiaircraft battery. . . . About 1,000 people gather at the grave of former Algerian head of state Mohammed Boudiaf in Algiers, the capital, to commemorate the first anniversary of his assassination. Many of the mourners begin a protest in which they accuse the government of covering up key facts in Boudiaf’s death.

Russia resumes pumping natural gas to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, having stopped pumping it Estonia on June 25. . . . The Azerbaijan parliament names rebel leader Surat Huseynov premier with expanded authority over the ministries of defense, interiors, and security. Huseynov topple, the democratically elected president, Abulfaz Elchibey, after a military campaign that started June 4.

U.S. helicopters blow up an arms cache in Mogadishu, Somalia, belonging to Osman Ato, Gen. Aidid’s financier.

June 26

June 27

June 28

The Iraqi government lodges a formal protest against the June 26 raid with the UN Security Council, and it denies the existence of any plot to assassinate former U.S. president George Bush. However, Kuwaiti officials contend that the Iraqis were to have detonated their car bomb during Bush’s April 15 speech at Kuwait University or, if that failed, on a crowded street.

June 29

June 30

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine agree to set up a threeyear program and establish a donor fund of $32 million to protect the Black Sea from pollution. . . . The UN Commissioner for Refugees announces that for 10 weeks, food rations given to 1.4 million people in Bosnia will be reduced by half because both supplies and money are lacking. . . . The IMF approves a loan to Russia of $1.5 billion, part of a $3 billion “fast-track” economic-reform loan.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Kim Campbell is sworn in as Canada’s 19th prime minister. She is the first woman to become prime minister in Canada.

Data shows that more than 1,000 people in China are infected with HIV. . . . In Afghanistan, forces loyal to the prime minister shell the capital, killing at least 12 people.

In Haiti, soldiers and armed civilians burst into a televised service at one of Port-au-Prince’s largest churches and beat parishioners who display pro-Aristide posters. The soldiers reportedly arrest at least 10 people.

In Manipur state, about 1,100 miles (1,750 km) east of New Delhi, Naga tribe guerrillas, one of several ethnic-based insurgencies in India’s northeast region, kill more than 25 Indian soldiers during an ambush of an army convoy. The armed strike marks a resurgence of fighting in the northeast. . . . Reports indicate that more than 100 suspected drug dealers were executed in late June in China’s southern Yunnan province, timed to coincide with the global Anti-Drug Day June 26. Belize’s opposition United Democratic Party (UDP) wins a razorthin election victory over the ruling People’s United Party (PUP), enabling Manuel Esquivel to regain the post of prime minister that he lost in 1989 to PUP veteran leader George Price.

In a sudden reversal, Khmer Rouge military commanders agree to merge their forces with the army of the transitional Cambodian government that emerged following United Nations-supervised elections in May.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 25–30, 1993—481

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The Chicago Board of Education elects Argie K. Johnson as the general superintendent of the Chicago school system. . . . Pres. Clinton appoints Kristine M. Gebbie as the government’s first AIDS policy coordinator.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

In St. Mary’s Honor Center v. Hicks, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that workers must provide explicit evidence that they were discriminated against on the basis of their race, religion, or other status in order to qualify for protection under civil-rights legislation. . . . The Senate passes, 49-50, legislation to enact the spending plans and tax measures central to Pres. Clinton’s long-term economic program. Vice Pres. Al Gore, acting in his capacity as president of the Senate, casts a tie-breaking vote.

A government-sponsored panel recommends that the antiviral drug AZT (azidothymidine or zidovudine) no longer be automatically prescribed to patients with the AIDS virus who have a low CD-4 immune cell count but no AIDS symptoms. The advice reflects recent evidence from the medical community that AZT neither extends the life nor eases the eventual symptoms of people who take it before the onset of AIDS.

A poll finds that American perception of immigrants has grown less favorable during the past several years, as 68% of those polled agree that “most of the people who have moved to the United States in the last few years are here illegally,” compared with 49% who held that view in 1986.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

June 25

Roy Campanella, 71, Baseball Hall of Fame catcher who played with the Brooklyn Dodgers, 1948–57, dies in Woodland Hills, California, of a heart attack. . . . Mary Courtney Kennedy, 36, the daughter of the late Sen. Robert Kennedy, weds Irish activist Paul Hill, 38. Hill is one of the “Guildford Four,” who was wrongly convicted in 1975 for some IRA bombings.

The Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission recommends the closure of about 30 major military installations and scores of smaller facilities.

Monroe Edward Spaght, 83, former president and chairman of Shell Oil Co., dies in France of a heart attack.

In Shaw v. Reno, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that states with irregularly shaped electoral districts drawn to create minority voting districts may be challenged constitutionally. . . . Police officers arrest Joel Rifkin, 34, and he confesses to slaying 17 women. . . . In U.S. v. Dixon, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that a man convicted of contempt of court after attacking his wife can be tried on new charges relating to that attack. . . . Justice Byron R. White completes his final day on the Supreme Court after more than 31 years of service.

U.S. and Japanese negotiators reach a stalemate on a framework for future economic and trade talks between the two countries.

U.S. District Judge Harold Ryan halts nuclear-waste shipments to the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Engineering Laboratory pending federal government proof that the material poses no environmental decay.

Boris Christoff, 79, Bulgarian operatic bass, dies in Rome, Italy. . . . Thomas A. Dine, the executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), resigns his position after comments ascribed to him are judged insult to ultra-Orthodox Jews.

Bernard Miller, convicted in April in the 1992 carjacking death of Pam Basu and throwing her 22-monthold daughter from the vehicle, is sentenced to life in prison. . . . In Oregon, residents of Junction City and Canby and the counties of Douglas, Josephine, Linn, and Klamath approve ballot measures prohibiting their local governments from passing laws to protect homosexuals from discrimination. Oregon voters in 1992 rejected statewide curbs on homosexual rights by a margin of 57% to 43%.

Argentine president Carlos Saul Menem meets with U.S. president Clinton in Washington, D.C. It is the first visit by a Latin American leader during the Clinton presidency.

The House passes, 304-119, a fiscal 1994 spending bill for the Agriculture Department, the FDA, and other related agencies. . . . The House votes, 313-110, to approve an $87.9 billion appropriations bill for the HUD, VA, and independent agencies. Former Rep. Nicholas Mavroules (D, Mass.) is sentenced to 15 months in prison and is fined $15,000 for illegally accepting gratuities and filing false tax records.

Hector Lavoe (born Hector Perez), 46, salsa singer who, in 1988, was nominated for a Grammy Award, dies in New York City of cardiac arrest.

Pres. Clinton names Einar Dyhrkopp to fill the seat on the Postal Board that was disputed in December 1992.

In Washington, D.C., U.S. district judge Charles R. Richey rules that the U.S. government must file a report outlining the possible environmental impacts of the proposed NAFTA treaty. . . . The U.S. Senate approves, 7-16, a measure extending to December 15 the administration’s “fast-track” negotiating authority regarding the GATT talks. The measure cleared the House June 22.

The House passes, 305-124, a $215.7 billion bill to fund the Departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services and other agencies for fiscal 1994. . . . The House, 213-211, passes its spending bill for the District of Columbia. . . . The UMW reaches an agreement with three of the four companies in the Independent Bituminous Coal Bargaining Alliance.

The heads of the four major TV networks announce that their stations will introduce parental advisory warnings for violent shows.

The National Academy of Sciences makes public a long-awaited report on the use of pesticides. The report recommends a tenfold increase in the tolerance standards applied to potentially damaging pesticides and heightened sampling of foods for pesticide residues.

Actress Julia Roberts, 25, marries singer-songwriter Lyle Lovett, 35, in a small ceremony in Marion, Indiana.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 26

June 27

June 28

June 29

June 30

482—July 1–6, 1993

July 1

July 2

July 3

July 4

July 5

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

Russian president Boris Yeltsin declares that his country will extend its own seven-month nuclear test moratorium, which expires today. Yeltsin states that he and U.S. president Clinton have agreed to lobby for a worldwide ban on nuclear warhead testing. . . . Gen. Jean Cot of France succeeds Swedish lieutenant general LarsEric Wahlgren as commander of all UN forces in the former Yugoslavia.

The Sverdlovsk region claims republican status under the name of the Urals Republic, but it does not set its laws above federation ones. . . . Vuk Draskovic, the leader of the Serbian Renewal Movement arrested with his wife on June 1, begins a hunger strike to protest against his detention and to demand the release of his wife. . . . Serb and Croat militiamen demand tolls from aid organizations. . . . Reports indicate that, as a result of the fighting in Azerbaijan, eight foreign oil companies have suspended negotiations over drilling rights near the Caspian Sea.

Two Palestinian gunmen kill one Israeli woman and take another captive in an apparent attempt to commandeer a commuter bus in Jerusalem. The two men, as well as their captive, are killed when they exchange gunfire with Israeli troops. The militant Islamic group Hamas claims responsibility for the act, the first Palestinian attack on Israeli civilians since March, when the Israeli government sealed the borders of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Western donor countries allocate $7.4 billion for aid to India in the 1993–94 fiscal year to help it implement an economic-liberalization program. . . . U.S. president Clinton ends U.S. opposition to multilateral loans to Vietnam, thereby opening the way for Vietnam to repay its debt to the IMF and gain access to international credit markets. However, he maintains the core of the U.S. economic embargo.

In Sivas, militant Muslim fundamentalists set fire to the Madimak Hotel while it is hosting a meeting of leftists and intellectuals, killing 37. It is the worst outbreak of Islamic violence in Turkey since 1978. . . . Reports confirm that an offensive is being staged in Sukhumi, Abkhazia. Georgia’s Parliament votes to give Eduard Shevardnadze special powers to issue decrees and to hire and fire cabinet ministers, except the premier.

Three Italian soldiers are killed and about 20 wounded in an ambush by Somali militiamen in Mogadishu. . . . South African president F.W. de Klerk and ANC president Nelson Mandela announce that negotiators in Johannesburg have ratified April 27, 1994, as the date of the first election in which black South Africans will be able to vote.

Russia withdraws the remaining forces of the Soviet mechanizedinfantry brigade sent to Cuba during the 1962 missile crisis with the U.S. . . . In accordance with comments regarding a worldwide ban on nuclear warhead testing made by Russian president Yeltsin on July 1, U.S. president Clinton extends by 15 months a congressional moratorium on the testing of nuclear weapons. Reports indicate that the Chinese military has been urging a resumption of nuclear tests.

The principality of Liechtenstein’s Crown Prince Alois and Bavaria’s Duchess Sophie are married in Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein. . . . Police in the City of London begin shutting off most streets leading into the financial district in an effort to deter attacks by the Provisional Irish Republican Army.

The head of a UN special commission on Iraq, Rolf Ekeus, instructs UN weapons’ inspectors to leave Iraq since Iraqi authorities have refused to allow them to install 24-hour surveillance cameras at two missile testing sites, as per Resolution 715. . . . In response to July 1 and July 3 comments about nuclear testing, France also calls for a worldwide ban.

Georgian president Shevardnadze visits Abkhazia and narrowly escapes injury when shrapnel passes within inches of his convoy. . . . Rudolf Seiters resigns as Germany’s interior minister amid suspicion that the killing of a suspected left-wing terrorist, Wolfgang Grams, was a police execution. . . . U.S. billionaire Marvin Davis and his wife are robbed of $10 million in jewelry and $50,000 in cash in France by four masked gunmen.

Egyptian foreign minister Amre Moussa formally requests that the U.S. extradite Abdel Rahman, arrested on July 3. The sheik faces a retrial in Egypt on charges stemming from a 1989 antigovernment riot outside a mosque in Fayoum. He was acquitted of those charges in 1990.

Reports indicate that the British government, which relies on U.S. facilities to test its nuclear warheads, has stated that the U.K. can “live with” the test ban announced July 3.

Tansu Ciller wins a vote of confidence in the Turkish parliament and officially becomes the nation’s premier. . . . A sniper shoots dead a British aid worker, Christine Witcutt, 56, in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.

In the first serious unrest since the electoral cancellation in June, thousands of Nigerians in Lagos protest against the military. The Campaign for Democracy, an alliance of 25 groups, organizes a general strike in the capital.

Figures suggest that more than 160 people have been arrested in connection with blockades set up by demonstrators to seal off logging crews’ access to the forest at Clayoquot Sound on Vancouver Island, Canada.

Georgian leader Eduard Shevardnadze imposes a 60-day period of martial law in the northwestern region of Abkhazia, which is already under curfew. A United Nations representative, Swedish lieutenant colonel Per-Erik Korstrom, states that two villages, Shroma and Akhalsheni, have been destroyed.

As protests that started July 5 continue in Nigeria, at least 25 people are killed when federal troops are dispatched to suppress the demonstrations.

U.S. Coast Guard boats stop ships full of Chinese émigrés in international waters near Mexico. Mexican authorities, following the resolution of a diplomatic impasse with the U.S. over the fate of the refugees, permits the ships to enter Mexican waters under escort of the Mexican navy and to dock.

July 6

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Cuban security forces foil an attempt by U.S.-based Cuban exiles to transport asylum seekers to Florida from the Caribbean island by means of high-powered speedboats. Three exiles are killed in the incident. . . . El Salvador’s defense minister, General Rene Emilio Ponce, and 17 other top military officers officially retire, thereby fulfilling conditions established in the 1992 United Nationsbrokered pact that ended the nation’s 12-year civil war. Pres. Cristiani names Col. Humberto Corado Figueroa to replace Ponce.

In separate incidents in Pakistan, religious processions are attacked by armed assailants, leaving at least 19 people dead. Some 14 Moslems are killed in the area of Hyderabad, and five people are shot to death in Gujrat.

Deposed Haitian president JeanBertrand Aristide and the military commander who led the 1991 coup d’etat that ousted him sign a United Nations-brokered accord that provides for the reinstatement of Aristide at the head of a democratic government in Haiti by October 30, guarantees amnesty for all military leaders involved in the coup and calls for a conditional end to the embargoes imposed on Haiti by the UN and the Organization of American States. In Nepal, a general strike brings commercial activity in Nepal to a halt as antigovernment protests continue after the June 18 ruling that the deaths of Madan Bhandari and Jiv Raj Ashrit, two communist leaders, in a car crash were caused by negligence. Many protest that verdict, and figures show that 13 people have died since demonstrations began. . . . In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge reopens its offices in Phnom Penh, the capital.

U.S. president Clinton makes his first visit to Japan as president. . . . Pope John Paul II signs a decree approving a nun, Mary MacKillop, as Australia’s first saint. MacKillop, the founder of the Roman Catholic order of the Sisters of Saint Joseph, died in 1909. . . . Rev. Vincent Zhu Hongsheng, 76, Roman Catholic figure imprisoned in China for a total of 31 years for being loyal to the Vatican, dies in Shanghai of a heart ailment.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 1–6, 1993—483

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Gian Luigi Ferri, whose lawsuit against a party is represented by Pettit & Martin, enters their law offices and goes on a shooting spree in San Francisco, killing eight people and wounding six others before shooting himself to death. . . . The FBI reports the death of Aladena (Jimmy the Weasel) Fratianno, 79, former acting boss of the Los Angeles crime syndicate who, in 1977, became a government witness and aided in the convictions of more than two dozen Mafia figures. He reportedly died in his sleep in an undisclosed U.S. city.

Defense Secretary Les Aspin announces that 92 U.S. military facilities abroad will be closed or scaled back.

Figures show that the purchasing managers’ index fell to 48.3% in June, the lowest point since December 1991. A measure above 50% for the index generally indicates an expanding manufacturing sector. . . . Congress clears a $3.5 billion supplemental spending bill for fiscal 1993 that includes limited new funding for summer-job programs, loans to students and small businesses, and other economic stimulus measures backed by the administration.

The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour touches down on the airstrip at Cape Canaveral.

Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (D, Va.) criticizes Pres. Clinton for endorsing the reelection campaign of Sen. Charles Robb (D, Va.). Political analysts argue the endorsement of a candidate facing an intraparty election fight is unprecedented for a modern president. . . . White House Chief of Staff Thomas McLarty issues a report that acknowledges the May dismissal of White House travel staff was inappropriate and asserts the affair involved no criminal violations.

Following a 20-hour standoff, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, a radical Muslim cleric whose followers are implicated in two recent NYC bombing plots, surrenders to federal authorities and is placed in detention. . . . Pres. Clinton approves and sends to Congress the independent Base Closure and Realignment Commission’s recommendations to close 130 U.S. military bases and cut back 45 others.

Pres. Clinton signs the $3.5 billion supplemental spending bill for fiscal 1993 cleared by Congress on July 1.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

July 1

The FCC rules cable-TV companies are required to carry home-shopping channels since they are in the public-interest category. . . . Fred (Frederick Hubbard) Gwynne, 66, award-winning actor for stage, film, and TV, dies in Taneytown, Maryland, of complications of pancreatic cancer.

Don Drysdale, 56, pitcher for the Dodgers who won the Cy Young Award in 1962 and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1984, dies in Montreal, Canada, of a heart attack. . . . Joe (Curly) DeRita, 83, the last surviving member of the Three Stooges, dies in Los Angeles of pneumonia. . . . Steffi Graf wins her third consecutive singles tennis title at Wimbledon.

Ongoing downpours in the Midwest that started in April and continued through June have caused flooding in several Midwestern states. Pres. Clinton visits floodravaged Davenport, Iowa, whose citizens three times voted down flood-protection projects so as not to obstruct their view of the river. . . . A punctured blimp crash-lands on the roof of an apartment building in Manhattan. Both the pilot and copilot receive minor injuries.

A Kenyan runner, Richard Chelimo, breaks the world record for 10,000 meters when he clocks 27 minutes, 7.91 seconds in Stockholm, Sweden.

Harrison Evans Salisbury, 84, The New York Times’s Moscow correspondent, 1949–55, a period when few Western journalists were in residence in the Soviet Union, who won the 1955 Pulitzer Prize for a series of 14 articles on the Soviet Union, dies of a heart attack outside Providence, Rhode Island. In response to antigay initiatives passed by residents of two Oregon towns and four Oregon counties in June, the Oregon House passes an antidiscrimination measure.

At Wimbledon, Pete Sampras wins the men’s tennis final. . . . Anne Shirley (born Dawn Evelyeen Paris), 75, child film actress under the name Dawn O’Day who starred in the popular Anne of Green Gables (1935), dies in Los Angeles.

Olive Ann Beech, 89, president, 1950–68, and chairwoman, 1950–82, of Beech Aircraft Co., dies in Wichita, Kansas, of unspecified causes.

July 2

July 3

July 4

July 5

July 6

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

484—July 7–12, 1993

World Affairs

July 7

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

An Iraqi delegation begins talks with the UN designed to allow a limited sale of Iraqi oil, which has been banned since 1990. . . . Trade officials from the U.S., Japan, Canada, and the EC announce they have reached an agreement eliminating or significantly reducing tariffs on a wide range of goods. The accord, which some proponents call the largest tariff-reduction agreement ever, is expected to break a current stalemate in the six-year-old Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations. . . . The heads of the G-7 open their 19th annual summit.

The UN Security Council approves a plan that calls for the replacement of government troops in Abkhazia with Russian peace-keepers and 50 United Nations military observers. . . . The G-7 summit closes, and a communiqué states that the leaders’ “highest priority” is reaching a speedy conclusion to ongoing trade talks being conducted under the auspices of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

The government of Egypt hangs seven Islamic militants convicted in April of participating in six separate attacks on tourists. It is the largest execution at one time in Egypt’s modern history.

Buddhadassa Bhikkhu, 87, Thai Buddhist monk with an international following, dies at his temple in southeastern Thailand.

The Russian parliament claims the Ukrainian city of Sevastopol for Russia, reopening a dispute between the two countries over the Black Sea fleet. . . . In response to a hunger strike, Pres. Slobodan Milosevic orders the release from prison of Vuk and Danica Draskovic. . . . Reports state that seven of the 10 members in the collective presidency of BosniaHerzegovina voted against a proposal by Serbs and Croats to divide Bosnia into states assigned to Serbs, Croats and Moslems. U.S. president Clinton visits South Korea for the first time as president. While there, he discusses North Korea’s nuclear capabilities and threatens to seek more restrictive economic sanctions against North Korea if it does not allow nuclearsite inspections.

July 10

July 11

Asia & the Pacific Khmer Rouge guerrillas seize the 1,000-year-old Hindu temple of Preah Vihear on the Thai-Cambodian border after a brief skirmish with Cambodian government troops.

The Far East region, also known as the Pacific Maritime Territory, declares itself a republic. The region, with more than 2 million inhabitants, has Vladivostok as its capital. . . . Doctors treating Vuk Draskovic, leader of the Serbian Renewal Movement political party who started a hunger strike July 1, warn a district court that Draskovic could die within hours.

July 8

July 9

Europe

Efforts by the United Nations to monitor two Iraqi missile test sites continues when Iraqi authorities refuse to allow a UN team to temporarily seal the sites while the U.N. conducts negotiations with Iraq regarding permanent monitoring.

Seven of the 10-member collective presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina closes a meeting in the Croatian capital, Zagreb, in which they “agreed the constitutional make-up of Bosnia-Herzegovina should be along the lines of a federal state in which all citizens of three nationalities will have equal rights.” The last of 300 U.S. troops assigned to UN peacekeeping duty in The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia arrive in Skopje. They are the only U.S. ground forces in the former Yugoslavia. . . . A constitutional conference approves a draft of a new charter for Russia that provides for a presidential republic with a bicameral legislature and strong provincial autonomy.

July 12

An American helicopter attacks one of Gen. Aidid’s strongholds in Mogadishu, Somalia. According to Aidid’s group, the attack leaves 73 Somalis dead, but the UN puts the number at 13. After the offensive, Somali mobs kill three journalists and seriously wound two others in an ambush. Israel and Vietnam announce the establishment of full diplomatic ties between their countries.

Canada’s prime rate is lowered to 5.75%, a 26-year low.

Japan is struck by an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale. The quake’s epicenter is 50 miles (80 km) west of the island of Hokkaido, beneath the Sea of Japan. The worst-hit area is the small island of Okushiri, where more than 100 people die. . . . In response to U.S. president Clinton’s July 10 remarks in South Korea, a North Korean officials warns “If anyone dares to provoke us, we will immediately show him in practice what our bold decision is.”

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 7–12, 1993—485

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

U.S. State Department spokesman Joseph Snyder discloses that the U.S. has protested to Cuba concerning five alleged instances in which Cuban border guards opened fire on Cuban swimmers seeking asylum at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, in late June.

About one-third of the 1,500 police officers in New Orleans, Louisiana, stage a “sickout” to protest the elimination of overtime pay and the city’s refusal to permit the police to form a union. . . . A federal jury in Los Angeles convicts Charles W. Knapp, a banker and former head of the nation’s largest savings and loan, Western Federal Savings and Loan Association, on three of four counts of making false financial statements and engaging in conspiracy.

Ben Chapman, 84, centerfielder for the New York Yankees, 1930–35, dies in Hoover, Alabama, of an apparent heart attack. . . . Publishers Weekly lists The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller as the bestseller.

U.S. District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer sentences Charles H. Keating Jr. to 12 years and seven months in prison for his role in defrauding investors in the defunct Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. Keating will serve his sentence concurrently with his 10-year state jail sentence in California. . . . The House Natural Resources Committee projects the U.S. government will need to spend tens of billions of dollars to clean up environmental damage on federally owned land.

Lowell Nesbitt, 59, realist painter best known for his huge paintings of flowers, is found dead in New York City.

A federal court jury in Boise, Idaho, acquits white separatist Randall Weaver and his friend Kevin Harris of the August 1992 murder of William F. Degan, a federal marshal, in an incident that prompted an 11-day siege in August 1992. . . . The National Center for Health Statistics reports that the difference in mortality rates between wealthy, well-educated Americans and poor, meagerly educated ones widened greatly between 1960 and 1986.

The U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals rejects Abdel Rahman’s request for political asylum. . . . Humberto Alvarez Machain, a Mexican doctor kidnapped in 1991 and taken to stand trial in the U.S. before charges against him were dismissed in December 1992, sues the U.S. DEA for more than $20 million in damages.

An attorney in a case that provoked national interest, Carole GrahnHayes, confirms that David and Sharon Schoo, who left their two young daughters home alone in December 1992 while they vacationed in Mexico, have given up their daughters, Nicole and Diana, for adoption.

Data suggests that the nation’s 100 largest law firms (in terms of number of partners) earned a record total of $14.3 billion in 1992.

By using DNA evidence, British government scientists claim to have proved “virtually beyond doubt” that bones found in eastern Russia in 1991 are those of Czar Nicholas II and members of his family. . . . Rains continue in the Midwest, and in Davenport, Iowa, the Mississippi River reaches a local crest record of 22.6 feet.

Prompted by the State Department’s caution that used weapons-grade uranium fuel from foreign-based research facilities may fall into the hands of nations that pursue policies hostile to U.S. interests, the Energy Department agrees to resume its program of serving as a repository for the volatile fuel.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Walt Disney announces it will alter the lyrics in its animated film Aladdin that run, “I come from a land/From a faraway place/Where the caravan camels roam./Where they cut off your ear/If they don’t like your face./It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home.” Arab-American activists have denounced the lyrics as racist.

A poll shows that 84% of U.S. Catholics reject the church’s ban on artificial birth control, 58% think that not all abortions should be banned, 76% believe priests should be allowed to marry, and 63% favor the ordination of female priests. . . . Runner Yobes Ondieki of Kenya breaks the world record for 10,000 meters set July 5 when he clocks in at 26 minutes, 58.38 seconds.

U.S. president Bill Clinton and Japanese premier Kiichi Miyazawa reach an agreement setting the framework for future trade negotiations between the two countries after two rounds of discussions between lower-level officials were unsuccessful.

Sen. Robert Smith (R, N.H.) ends a fact-finding visit to Vietnam by insisting that sufficient evidence exists to continue an investigation into allegations that Vietnam has lied in asserting that it released all remaining U.S. POWs in 1973.

Johnathan Doody, 19, is convicted in the 1991 slaying of nine people at a Buddhist temple near Phoenix, Arizona. Alessandro Garcia, the other defendant, testified against Doody in a plea-bargaining arrangement. . . . Before Joseph Gallardo, convicted of the statutory rape of a 10-year-old girl, is freed from prison, police warn residents in Lynnwood, Washington—where Gallardo plans to live—of his past. The vacant house he was to occupy is burned down by an arsonist.

Science, Technology, & Nature

In Des Moines, Iowa, the Des Moines River crests at 34.3 feet, a record 11.3 feet above the city’s flood stage. A levee on the Raccoon River breaks, disabling the area’s principal water-treatment plant and leaving the town without safe drinking water and running water.

Golfer Jack Nicklaus wins the U.S. Senior Open at the Cherry Hills Country Club in Englewood, Colorado. . . . Mario Bauza, 82, bandleader who helped introduce Latin music to the U.S. in the 1940s, dies of cancer in New York City.

Davey Allison, race-car driver on the NASCAR Winston Cup circuit, crashes a helicopter at Talladega (Alabama) Superspeedway. The only other passenger, fellow driver Red Farmer, is injured in the crash, and Allison sustains severe head injuries.

As a result of flood and rain damage in the Midwest, the U.S. Agriculture Department cuts its 1993 forecast of the nation’s corn and soybean production. Nearly 5 million acres—in an expanse from Nebraska to Minnesota to Illinois— were either washed out by the flood or went unplanted due to muddy conditions.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 7

July 8

July 9

July 10

July 11

July 12

486—July 13–17, 1993

World Affairs

Europe

Asia & the Pacific Following an artillery attack from Afghan territory, 200 rebels and Afghan guerrillas fight a 24-hour battle with Russian soldiers at an unidentified border post. In the battle, 25 Russian servicemen and 100–200 Tajik civilians are killed.

Spanish premier Felipe Gonzalez’s government is officially sworn in by King Juan Carlos in Madrid. . . . In a case that drew wide attention, Joseph Elliot, 19, is acquitted of murdering Bob Osborne, who confronted Elliot with a hammer when the youth was slashing car tires. The jury evidently accepts Elliot’s contention that he acted in selfdefense.

The UN announces that it has removed from duty Gen. Bruno Loi, the commander of the 2,442-soldier Italian force taking part in the UN peacekeeping operation in Somalia. The dismissal calls attention to recent tension between the UN and Italy as the country suggests that, in combating forces loyal to Gen. Aidid, the UN is losing sight of its original goal of disarming and pacifying Somalia.

Agents from the U.S. FBI arrest Omar Mohammed Ali Rezaq, a Palestinian, in Nigeria for involvement in the 1985 hijacking of an Egyptian airliner to Malta that resulted in 62 deaths. . . . Data shows that EBRD disbursements for projects in Eastern Europe for the first half of 1993 rose 15% from the second half of 1992, to reach $115.9 million. But over the same period, planned investment fell 13%, to $865.6 million.

Reports indicate that Estonian president Lennart Meri has signed the residency law after refusing to do so at least twice and sending it back to Parliament for reconsideration. . . . Three armed robbers make off with an estimated £7 million ($10.5 million) in jewels from the Graff jewelers workshop in London’s Hatton Garden gem district. The haul includes a 25.78-carat diamond worth an estimated £1.5–2 million.

Reports disclose that about 250 Jews from Yemen have secretly immigrated to Israel over the past year. They are the first Yemeni Jewish immigrants since 1961.

Officials announce that James Bennett, a former head of Soviet counterespionage for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), is to be compensated for false accusations that drove him from his job in 1972.

In response to the July 13 battle, the Russian parliament authorizes the government “to protect our compatriots by [using] means which correspond to the situation.” Officials estimate that 6,000 Afghan and rebel Tajik militants are operating in the area of conflict. The Afghan government denies that its forces are involved. . . . Figures show that Taiwan’s foreign currency reserves, the world’s largest, totaled $83 billion at the end of 1992.

At the conclusion of the annual Ibero-American conference, leaders of 21 Latin American nations, Spain, and Portugal call for an end to the 31-year-old U.S. embargo against Cuba. . . . Jacques Attali, the president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) who resigned June 25, severs his ties with the institution hours after an audit report that strongly criticizes the bank’s lax financial controls, and Attali’s spending of EBRD money is presented to the bank’s board.

An agreement under which Croatian Serbs drop objections to the bridge at Maslenica, which is the sole land route linking central Croatia with the coastal province of Dalmatia not controlled by the Serbs, is reached. The terms specify that it is administered by the UN upon the withdrawal of Croatian troops from the area and from the Zemunik airport outside the Adriatic port town of Zadar. . . . The director of Britain’s MI5 internal intelligence service, Stella Rimington, submits her first official photographs in a further easing of secrecy for MI5. The Egyptian government executes five Islamic militants convicted of attempting to assassinate the country’s information minister, Safwat elSharif, in April. . . . Eschel Mostert Rhoodie, 60, South Africa’s information secretary in the 1970s, dies in Atlanta, Georgia, of a heart attack.

The Mexican government begins to repatriate by air the Chinese émigrés aboard the smuggling ships confiscated by Mexican immigration authorities on July 6.

Two former defense ministers—Lee Jong Koo and Lee Sang Hoon—are arrested and charged with accepting bribes from military suppliers. The arrests are described as the most significant in an ongoing investigation into the procurement practices of the South Korean military. . . . The Russian command reinforces border garrisons with troops as reports emerge that five Tajik government soldiers and 40 rebels were killed in a raid on a Tajik village.

July 14

July 16

The Americas

The office of the attorney general of the United Arab Emirates indicts 13 former BCCI officials on fraud and forgery charges.

July 13

July 15

Africa & the Middle East

The city of Narva votes 97.2% in favor of autonomy from a central government that imposed Estonian language requirements as part of new, more stringent citizenship laws for non-Estonians. . . . The Czech Republic and Slovakia agree jointly to patrol their common border to reduce the number of thirdcountry illegal immigrants crossing from Slovakia to the Czech state en route to Germany and other Western European countries.

July 17

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 13–17, 1993—487

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Law professor Lani Guinier, whose nomination to head the civil-rights division at the Justice Department was withdrawn in June by Pres. Clinton, addresses the annual convention of the NAACP and receives the Torch of Courage award.

Former president George Bush is issued a subpoena to testify at the trial of Christopher P. Drogoul, accused of supplying Iraq with $5 billion in illegal loans while serving as the Atlanta branch manager of an Italian state-owned bank, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro.

President Clinton nominates Stanley Tate to serve as chief executive officer of the RTC. . . . After five years of legal battles over pollution, the Clinton administration, the Florida government, and several sugar-cane producers announce an agreement regarding a $465 million plan to restore the Everglades, the world’s largest freshwater marsh. . . . Alyeska Pipeline Service agrees to pay $98 million to as many as 60,000 Alaska residents for damages resulting from the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. It is the first time private citizens have won damages relating to the Exxon Valdez spill.

Reports confirm that two people died and three others suffered serious adverse reactions in a trial of an experimental drug treatment for chronic hepatitis B, an incurable viral disease of the liver that afflicts more than 300 million people worldwide. Although the experiment stopped June 30 when first signs of side effects were reported, the two subjects who died needed emergency liver transplants. . . . Reports suggest archaeologists have found a fossil near the headwaters of the Tigris River that is the oldest known piece of cloth, a 9,000-year-old piece woven from flax fibers.

Davey Allison, 32, race-car driver on the NASCAR Winston Cup circuit who racked up 19 career victories, is declared dead in Birmingham, Alabama, of head injuries sustained in the July 12 helicopter crash . . . . . The American League wins Major League Baseball’s annual All-Star game, 9-3, over the National League.

President Clinton announces an emergency-assistance program worth nearly $2.5 billion for Midwestern states ravaged by ongoing floods. The floods, which reach from South Dakota to Missouri, are regarded as among the worst in U.S. history. . . . The White House states that Atomic physicist Neal F. Lane will be nominated to become director of the National Science Foundation.

A Texas jury sentences to death Ronald Ray Howard, 19, who claims that antipolice rap music influenced him to kill Bill Davidson, a Texas state trooper, in April 1992.

Federal authorities state they have arrested eight people on weapons charges in a crackdown on white supremacists in Southern California. The suspects are members of the Fourth Reich Skinheads, led by Christopher Fisher, 20. They are accused of plotting to attack a Los Angeles black church and to assassinate Rodney King, who was beaten in 1991 by four white Los Angeles police officers.

The House passes, 278-138, a $12.7 billion fiscal 1994 appropriations bill for the Interior Department and related agencies. . . . The White House Office of Management and Budget reports that it expects the federal budget deficit to reach $285 billion in fiscal 1993. That figure is substantially lower than the $322 billion that the Clinton administration projected earlier in the year.

Native American rights activist Ada Deer is confirmed by voice vote as head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. . . . Seven-year-old Jesse (Baby Jesse), Sepulveda Jr., a child who received a heart transplant at the age of 16 days in a case that caused a national stir, dies. In arranging the transplant, a case of a Kentucky baby at the top of the list for a heart transplant was inadvertently bypassed, prompting federal legislation in 1986 to create a computerized organ-donor register.

The board of governors of the Federal Reserve Board name William McDonough as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, one of the Fed’s 12 regional banks. . . . California governor Pete Wilson (R) signs into law a set of medical guidelines that seek to reduce the workers’ compensation expenses of California-based companies. It is expected to slash an estimated $1.5 billion a year from the $11 billion that employers spend in compensating workers for job-related injuries.

U.S. officials charge an Egyptian immigrant to the U.S., Abdo Mohammed Haggag, with planning to assassinate Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak during Mubarak’s April visit to the U.S. Haggag is identified as a follower of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, whose devotees were implicated in the bombing of New York City’s World Trade Center in February.

The House approves an amendment that will cut funding for the NEA by about 5% from 1993 levels, to $166 million. . . . David Brian (born Brian Davis), 82, film and television actor whose films include Intruder in the Dust (1949), dies in Los Angeles.

Aaron Cohen, the director of Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, announces his resignation to take a teaching post at Texas A&M University. . . . The Missouri and Mississippi rivers converge near St. Charles, Missouri—20 miles upstream from their normal junction—after the Missouri breaks through a levee.

July 13

July 14

July 15

July 16

Despite volunteers’ extensive efforts to save it, the Bayview Bridge between Quincy, Illinois, and West Quincy, Missouri—the only open route across the Mississippi River for about 200 miles (320 km)—is knocked out of commission when a levee bursts. . . . A launch of the U.S. space shuttle Discovery is aborted about a half hour before liftoff because of problems with the craft’s explosive bolts.

July 17

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

488—July 18–22, 1993

World Affairs

July 18

July 19

North Korea and the U.S. reach a compromise agreement in which North Korea pledges to reopen discussions with the IAEA regarding inspections of its facilities and the U.S. agrees to consider helping North Korea to convert its nuclear light-water reactors, the model used most frequently for commercial purposes in the U.S. . . . The government of Iraq agrees to consider allowing the UN to monitor its weapons programs on a long-term basis. The agreement comes on the fifth day of discussions in Baghdad.

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Romania agrees to grant its ethnic minorities wider educational and linguistic rights. The agreement provides for the training of 300 Hungarian teachers and more elementary school classes to be taught in minority languages. It also permits polyglot street signs in communities where a minority makes up at least 30% of the population. . . . The bridge at Maslenica is reopened in accordance with the July 16 pact with Croatian Serbs.

Islamic militants try to kill an Egyptian general in Cairo, Egypt’s capital. The general escapes, but four people, including two of the assailants and one police officer, are killed in exchanges of gunfire.

A joint session of the French National Assembly and Senate approve constitutional changes that make it easier to bring current or former ministers to trial. The amendments come in the wake of a scandal involving blood supplies tainted with HIV. . . . Cardinal Gordon Gray, 82, Scotland’s first cardinal in residence in more than 400 years, dies in Edinburgh after suffering from a heart ailment. . . . Two judges of Britain’s High Court agree that the court should hear a challenge to Britain’s ratification of the Maastricht Treaty.

The military bars Nigerian courts from considering any legal challenges to the voided June 12 election.

The Americas

Pakistan’s prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, and president, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, resign, ending a five-month political tug of war. Moeen Qureshi, 63, a political independent, is named to act as caretaker prime minister, and the Senate chairman, Wasim Sajjad, becomes acting president. . . . Japan’s ruling LDP is denied a majority in general elections for the lower house of the Diet, for the first time since the party was founded in 1955. Belize’s Prime Minister Esquivel declares it will suspend legislation that the former administration successfully negotiated with Guatemala to resolve the two nations’ 130-year-old border dispute. He adds that any territorial pact with Guatemala will need the approval of Belize’s electorate in a referendum.

Almost 20,000 police officers rally at Wembley Stadium in London to protest a report recommending overhauls in the compensation system for police. . . . Police in London arrest a man identified as Colin Ireland, 39, in connection with the murders of five homosexual men in London.

July 20

July 21

July 22

Asia & the Pacific

Russian aircraft bomb rebel positions east of Dushanbe.

Russian lawmakers confirm that Russia’s July 17–18 attacks killed 380 people and displaced 6,000 villagers in Afghanistan. Tajik rebels shell Tajikistan’s border post, wounding at least two Russian soldiers. . . . Myanmar’s military junta extends the house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi for a fifth year. . . . In South Korea, 10,000 riot police are deployed in response to a series of job actions at Hyundai Motors since June 16.

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees states that the war in the territory of former Yugoslavia has created more than 4 million refugees.

In Nicaragua, rebels known as the Revolutionary Front of Workers and Peasants launch an attack on areas of Esteli, Nicaragua’s fourthlargest city, located 60 miles (100 km) north of Managua, the capital. They reportedly rob $4 million from three banks, plunder a supermarket, and attack police stations.

In South Korea, riot police evict hundreds of striking workers from a Hyundai Motors factory near Ulsan and mobilize outside other Hyundai plants affected by work stoppages. In response to the show of force, labor leaders agree to a new contract. . . . Reports indicate that in Myanmar, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) has negotiated a cease-fire with the junta during informal talks. . . . The death toll from the July 12 earthquake in Japan is placed at 185. Police state 57 people are still missing.

Fighting in and around Sarajevo intensifies. . . . The U.S. and Belarus sign agreements that will provide U.S. expertise and up to $59 million in U.S. funds to help Belarus safely ship about 80 long-range strategic nuclear missiles to Russia to be dismantled.

The Nicaraguan army retakes pockets of the city of Esteli, which came under rebel attack July 21. The conflict, marks the worst round of fighting since the country’s 10-year civil war ended in 1990. Two soldiers, 41 rebels, and two civilians die in the clashes. About another 100 people are injured.

Japanese premier Kiichi Miyazawa resigns, but he is expected to retain his post until a new governing coalition is formed.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 18–22, 1993—489

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Jean Negulesco, 93, Romanianborn film director whose movies include How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), dies in Marbella, Spain, of heart failure. . . . Golfer Greg Norman of Australia sets a record of 64 when he wins the 122nd British Open.

President Clinton fires William S. Sessions as director of the FBI, six months after the release of an ethics report that criticized Sessions’s conduct. Sessions is the first FBI director to be dismissed in the 70-year history of the bureau. . . . The Colorado Supreme Court upholds, 6-1, a lower court’s injunction against state enforcement of Amendment 2, a measure that prohibits localities from passing laws to protect homosexuals from discrimination. The court writes, “Fundamental rights may not be submitted to a vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.”

President Clinton announces that homosexuals may serve in the armed forces provided that they are discreet about their sexual orientation and do not engage in homosexual acts. Commanders are forbidden to investigate service people for homosexual behavior on suspicion or hearsay alone. However, personnel may be discharged if such behavior is proved. The policy modifies an unqualified ban on homosexuals in the military that had stood for 50 years. The policy is described as “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue.”

The National Center for Disability Services finds that 29% of U.S. citizens with a work disability are employed. The figure is virtually unchanged from the one prevailing before the employment-rights provision of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 went into effect. . . . Robert Rota, House postmaster, 1972–92, pleads guilty to conspiracy and embezzlement charges, admitting he had helped unidentified House members illegally obtain money from the House Post Office during his tenure.

Data shows that, due to floods in the Midwest, at least 40,000 homes and businesses have been damaged or destroyed and at least 50,000 people have been left permanently or temporarily homeless. Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes.

The Senate votes, 68-31, to revise the Hatch Act, a law that bars most of the federal government’s 3 million employees from taking part in partisan political activities. . . . Vincent W. Foster Jr., the deputy White House counsel, is found dead in a park of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. . . . Pres. Clinton nominates U.S. District Judge Louis Freeh as director of the FBI. Deputy Director Floyd Clarke will serve as interim director.

The House passes, 327-98, a $23.6 billion appropriations bill for the Departments of Commerce, Justice and State and the federal judiciary. . . . A U.S. District Court jury in Newark, New Jersey, convicts Eddie Antar on all 17 counts against him in a case that alleges he defrauded Crazy Eddie stockholders of about $80 million. . . . Fed chairman Alan Greenspan predicts that the U.S. economy will grow between 2.25% and 2.75% in 1993.

Former Rep. Albert G. Bustamante (D, Tex.) is convicted of accepting $340,000 in bribes while in office between 1985 and 1992.

The Michigan legislature votes to eliminate the use of property taxes to fund public schools, beginning in the 1994–95 school year. The action, which strips Michigan schools of all $6.5 billion of their state funding and makes no provision for new financing, is backed by lawmakers as a move to force the state to draw up a more equitable plan for education funding. . . . The United Steelworkers of America union ratifies a pact with Inland Steel Industries Inc. that is widely viewed as establishing future parameters for U.S. steelindustry agreements.

The estimated cost of flood damage in the Midwest reaches more than $10 billion, more than half of which has been suffered by farmers. About 16 million acres (6.5 million hectares) of land are covered or completely flooded with water.

The state of Alaska files a lawsuit accusing the federal government of violating Alaska’s statehood agreement by preventing the state from developing park and refuge lands within its borders. . . . Eddie York, who does not belong to the striking miners’ union, finishes cleaning sludge at a striking mine in Charleston, West Virginia, and is shot to death as he leaves the mine site.

As a result of flooding in the Midwest, reports confirm that Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin, South Dakota, and Kansas have all been declared disaster areas, and 33 deaths have been recorded. Water service, cut off July 11, resumes in Des Moines, but tap water is still deemed unsafe to drink. . . . India launches the second communications satellite in its Insat-2 series, which is placed in a geostationary orbit by a European space rocket.

Roscoe Robinson Jr., 64, first black American to become a fourstar army general, whose many awards and decorations include the Distinguished Service Medal, dies in Washington, D.C., of leukemia.

Elmar Klos, 83, Academy Awardwinning film director, dies in Prague. . . . Charles Hamilton claims an untitled, unsigned play in the British Museum Library is Cardenio, a drama by William Shakespeare presumed lost. His case centers on handwriting samples. Many literary scholars contend the drama is not up to the playwright’s standards.

Reports suggest that bestselling author John Grisham has sold the film rights to his novel-in-progress to Universal Pictures for $3.75 million. That sum is thought to be the highest price ever paid for film rights to an unpublished book.

July 18

July 19

July 20

July 21

Leslie Robbins of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and his fiancée, Colleen De Vries become the winners of the single largest lottery payoff in U.S. history. The $111 million will be paid out over 20 years, and the first year’s after-tax payment totals $3.6 million.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 22

490—July 23–28, 1993

World Affairs

Africa & the Middle East

The Conservative Party government of British prime minister John Major wins a vote of confidence in the House of Commons over its handling of the European Community’s Treaty on European Union. . . . Raul Gardini, 60, former chairman of Ferruzzi Finanziaria S.p.A., is found in a bedroom of his Milan apartment with a single gunshot wound to the head. He is the second industrialist in Italy to commit suicide in less than a week. The incidents bring renewed attention on Italy’s widening bribery scandals.

July 23

July 24

July 25

July 26

July 27

July 28

Europe

The Israeli attacks on Lebanon draw international criticism from the UN, Syria, Egypt, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and other Arab states. The U.S., which often allies itself with the Middle Eastern nation, also condemns the Israeli offensive.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In downtown Rio de Janeiro, eight homeless boys, aged about eight to 15, are shot to death.

The Russian central bank announces that it is withdrawing from circulation all banknotes issued before 1993 and giving ruble holders two weeks to exchange limited amounts of old paper money for new. The announcement causes disarray. . . . Francis Bouygues, 70, French industrialist who, in 1952, founded Bouygues S.A., dies in St. Malo, Brittany, of a heart attack.

A U.S. Air Force jet fires at a missile site in southern Iraq.

A Serb artillery attack on French UN soldiers at a base in Sarajevo destroys 10 vehicles. . . . Margaret, Duchess of Argyll (born Ethel Margaret Whigham), 80, Scottish socialite, dies in London, England.

In South Africa, five black gunmen storm the predominantly white St. James Church in the Cape Town suburb of Kenilworth, killing 10 and wounding at least 53. . . . After a series of attacks that have killed seven Israeli soldiers since early July, Israel shells sites throughout Lebanon described as bases of guerilla groups. Hezbollah guerrillas respond by firing Katyusha rockets at Qiryat Shemona and other towns, killing two Israeli civilians. The rocket attacks prompt the Israelis to intensify their raids on southern Lebanon in an attempt to crush Hezbollah’s support networks. . . . Three Syrian soldiers are killed in the Bekaa valley west of Beirut, Lebanan.

Abkhazian rebels accept a Russianbrokered peace plan approved by the Georgian government. . . . The UN forces chief in Bosnia, Lt. Gen. Francis Briquemont of France, discloses that he has ordered commanders to return fire if they are attacked again.

An 11th victim dies from the July 25 attack in a suburb of Cape Town, South Africa. . . . The Israeli raids and Hezbollah rocket attacks continue.

In a televised address commemorating the 40th anniversary of the military operation that launched the Cuban revolution, Pres. Fidel Castro Ruz declares that his government will introduce economic and political “concessions” as a means of preserving “the triumphs of socialism.”

A bomb explodes in Milan, Italy, in front of a modern art gallery near the La Scala opera house, killing five people and injuring seven. . . . Ukrainian defense minister Konstantin Morozov and U.S. Defense Secretary Les Aspin sign a military cooperation agreement which provides for the U.S. to finance the dismantling of nuclear missiles on Ukrainian territory.

Reports indicate that Ireland has lodged a protest with Israel since two Irish soldiers serving with UN peacekeeping forces in Lebanon were injured by Israeli shells.

In Rio de Janeiro, security officials detain three military policemen in connection with the July 23 murders of eight homeless boys. . . . Thousands of farmers demonstrate in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for tax relief and subsidized loans to help offset the losses they have sustained recently from sharp drops in global prices for soybeans and other commodities.

In Rome, bombs explode in front of the 17th-century Basilica of St. John Lateran and the ancient church of San Giorgio in Velabro, parts of which date to the seventh century.

Data suggests that about 100 people, mostly Lebanese civilians, were killed in the Israeli raids. Israeli shelling is also causing a mass exodus from southern Lebanon. Thousands of Hezbollah supporters hold a rally in Beirut to condemn Israel and the U.S., its leading ally.

Russian forces begin an air and ground offensive in Tajikistan aimed at wiping out a 400-strong rebel contingent that crossed the Pyandzh River from Afghanistan with mortars and heavy machine guns.

A massive artillery and mortar barrage is laid down in Afghan territory. In response, Afghanistan demands the withdrawal of Russian forces along the border and states it will retaliate if there are any more attacks. . . . Retired general Aslam Beg, a former director of Pakistan’s nuclear program, discloses that Pakistan possesses a nuclear bomb and is prepared to use it if faced with defeat in a conventional war with India.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 23–28, 1993—491

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. District Judge Louis F. Oberdorfer declares invalid then-Pres. Bush’s January appointment of Thomas Ludlow Ashley to the Postal Board of Governors. In a bid to settle a dispute over postage rates, Bush had bypassed the Senate confirmation process.

The 11th suspect in the plot to bomb the UN, identified as Matarawy Mohammad Said Saleh, 37, is arrested in North Wildwood, New Jersey. Ashraf Mohammed, 31, is also arrested in the raid on charges of knowingly concealing a federal fugitive.

Joseph A. Strauss, a top aide at the Department of Housing and Urban Development during the administration of Pres. Reagan, is indicted on six counts of fraud, perjury, and obstruction of justice.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The FDA approves interferon beta 1B, the first drug to be marketed in the U.S. to treat multiple sclerosis, The new drug is genetically engineered and is licensed for patients who exhibit “relapsing-remitting” symptoms of MS. . . . Four boys and two counselors are killed during a flash flood in a cave at Missouri’s Cliff Cave County Park, about 15 miles (25 km) south of St. Louis.

July 23

A launch of the U.S. space shuttle Discovery is scrubbed 19 seconds before lift-off because of a problem detected in a solid-fuel booster rocket.

Abram Leon Sachar, 94, chancellor and founding president of Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, 1948–78, dies in Newton, Massachusetts, of respiratory failure.

Vincent J. Schaefer, 87, creator of the first artificially induced snow and rainfall, dies in Schenectady, New York.

The manager of the Olympique Marseilles soccer team of France, Jean-Pierre Bernes, resigns in the wake of a bribery scandal. . . . Miguel Indurain of Spain completes his third consecutive triumph in the Tour de France cycling race. . . . Lauri Merten wins the U.S. Women’s Open at the Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Indiana,

Matthew Bunker Ridgway, 98, distinguished commander of the famed 82nd Airborne Division troops during World War II who served as army chief of staff, 1953–55, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1986 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1991, dies in Fox Chapel, Pennsylvania, of cardiac arrest.

Arthur Levitt Jr. is confirmed by voice vote as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Economists Joseph Stiglitz and Alan Blinder are approved as members of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, also by voice vote. . . . The Dow index closes at a record 3567.70.

Reports indicate that only Gary Mahr, 13, survived the July 23 cave flood at Missouri’s Cliff Cave County Park. . . . North Dakota is declared a disaster area, brining a total of nine states to the list.

The U.S. Congress passes a resolution that “strongly” opposes Beijing as the host of the Olympic Games. The vote is criticized by China and some officials within the Olympic movement as interference in the selection process.

The U.S. International Trade Commission rejects more than half of the tariffs imposed by the U.S. Commerce Department on steel imports to the U.S. from 19 countries.

The Senate passes, 70-29, its fiscal 1994 spending bill for the District of Columbia. The bill leaves out a provision featured in past spending bills that prohibited the district from using local revenue to fund abortions. . . . The Senate votes, 90-10, to approve a $71 billion fiscal 1994 appropriations bill for the Agriculture Department and related agencies.

The House votes, 400-27, approval of a bill providing $2.8 billion in appropriations and allowing the release of $300 million more in federal loans to areas affected by flooding in the Midwest.

NBC wins the U.S. rights to broadcast the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta with a record bid of $456 million. . . . Boston Celtics guard Reggie Lewis, 27, dies after collapsing while practicing in Waltham, Massachusetts Lewis, who fainted during an NBA game in April, had sought three medical opinions concerning a possible heart condition and received conflicting diagnoses.

The Senate votes, 77-23, to suspend $98.2 million in aid to Nicaragua pending a probe of the Chamorro administration’s alleged links to groups involved in international terrorism.

Judge Dominic F. Cresto of the Rhode Island Superior Court in Providence sentences Joseph Mollicone Jr. to 30 years in prison for allegedly embezzling $15.8 million from Heritage Loan and Investment Co. between 1986 and 1990. His actions precipitated the worst banking crisis in the state’s history, culminating in the forced closure of 45 small banking institutions in 1991.

In Kansas City, Missouri, where the flood stage is 32 feet, the Missouri River swells to a crest record of 48.9 feet.

July 24

July 25

July 26

July 27

July 28

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

492—July 29–August 2, 1993

World Affairs

Reports indicate that, in Abkhazia, both the government and the secessionists have accused each other of breaking a cease-fire almost immediately.

July 29

July 30

The UN orders an immediate inquiry into charges by Africa Rights that UN forces in Somalia have violated the rights of civilians. Among the charges is that Belgian soldiers participated in unjustified killings in Kismayu.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Israel’s Supreme Court overturns the conviction of John Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian native who extradited to Israel from the U.S. and sentenced in 1988 to death for committing war crimes as a guard at a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. The court holds that there is “reasonable doubt” that Demjanjuk is “Ivan the Terrible,” a notoriously cruel guard at the Treblinka death camp in Poland.

Yohei Kono is elected to replace Japanese premier Kiichi Miyazawa.

Israeli forces end a campaign of air raids and artillery strikes that started July 25 against villages and suspected guerrilla bases in Lebanon, putting into effect what Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin calls a ceasefire “understanding” with Lebanon, Syria, and Hezbollah.

Serb forces overrun Muslim defenders on Mount Bjelasnica and are poised to take Mount Igman. . . . Belgian premier JeanLuc Dehaene announces that Prince Albert, 59, will assume the throne vacated after King Baudouin died July 31. Prince Albert is the late king’s brother.

Aug. 1

EC finance ministers announce a radical shake-up of the exchange rate mechanism of the European Monetary System. The ministers agree to let most currencies in the exchange rate mechanism fluctuate by 15% in either direction against one another, which compares with the fluctuation restriction of just 2.25% for most currencies prior to the change.

In Croatia, Serbs in the Krajina enclave shell and sink part of an 825-foot (250-m) pontoon bridge at Maslenica, which the Croats reopened July 18. Reports suggest that fierce combat since July 22 in Zuc, a hilly area northwest of Sarajevo, has resulted in the deaths of as many as 300 people. . . . Most of the 45,000 coal miners in Romania’s Jiu Valley strike over wages. . . . Britain formally ratifies the Maastricht Treaty, becoming the 11th of the 12 EC members to do so.

Asia & the Pacific Tajik rebels firing from Afghanistan shell a border post. The Tajik government announces an amnesty for rebels and invites refugees who fled the violence to return to their homes.

In Albania, former communist premier Fatos Nano is arrested for abuse of power. . . . Britain’s High Court rejects a challenge to the EC’s Maastricht Treaty. . . . A Spanish UN soldier is killed and 17 others are wounded when a shell destroys their barracks at Jablanica, 30 miles (50 km) southwest of Sarajevo. In a case that draws attention, Irma Hadzimuratovic, 5, is severely wounded by a mortar attack that kills her mother. . . . Representatives of the Croats, Muslims, and Serbs in BosniaHerzegovina agree to principles for the division of the country into ethnic republics. Some members of Bosnia’s collective leadership oppose the agreement. King (Baudouin Albert Charles Leopold Axel Marie Gustave), Baudouin, 62, king of Belgium and Europe’s longest-reigning monarch, dies while on vacation in Motril, Spain; he is survived by his wife, Queen Fabiola.

July 31

Aug. 2

Europe

Clashes continue along the border between Afghanistan and Russia. . . . A rash of arson incidents in southern Thailand reportedly spreads to some three dozen structures, leaving at least 12 schools destroyed or severely damaged. . . . India’s 1.8 million truckers strike to protest the nation’s highway and interstate taxes.

Reports indicate that, in Israel, some 20,000 residents of the northern town of Qiryat Shemona and nearby communities—about three-quarters of the local population—have fled to escape retaliatory rocket strikes by guerrillas.

Reports state that workers at four Hyundai units remain on strike, including 18,000 employees at Hyundai Heavy Industries, the world’s largest shipyard located in Korea.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 29–August 2, 1993—493

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

In response to antigay initiatives passed by residents of two Oregon towns and four Oregon counties in June, the Oregon Senate passes an antidiscrimination measure. . . . Judge Chris Piazza rules that Arkansas’s measure limiting federal congressional terms is unconstitutional. The judgment marks the first court ruling against a term-limit initiative approved by popular vote. . . . A federal grand jury indicts Christopher Fisher on charges of conspiracy to make and use bombs against blacks and Jews. After much debate, the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee votes, 13-4, to approve Pres. Clinton’s nomination of Dr. Joycelyn Elders to the post of surgeon general.

The Senate Armed Services Committee approves Pres. Clinton’s nomination of Sheila E. Widnall as secretary of the air force. . . . Stuart E. Eizenstat is confirmed by voice vote as the U.S. ambassador to the European Community.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Senate passes by voice vote a bill to strengthen the Treasury Department’s authority in conducting auctions for government securities. The body also passes by voice vote a bill to remove provisions in a 1975 law that requires money managers to use independent brokers to make trades. . . . The Senate votes, 87-13, to pass a $23.6 billion appropriations bill for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State and the federal judiciary.

Joyce Haber, 60, powerful Hollywood gossip columnist, 1968–76, dies of kidney and liver failure in Los Angeles.

The Commerce Department finds that new-home sales soared by 11% in June, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 678,000. That compares with a revised 12.5% decrease in new-home sales reported in May.

Fifteen cable services, including HBO, Showtime, USA, MTV, and Nickelodeon, agree to air parental advisory warnings for violent shows. . . . Reports confirm that president Clinton has selected actress Jane Alexander as chairman of the NEA.

Paul Brentwood Henry, 51, Republican representative from Michigan who was first elected to Congress in 1984, dies in Grand Rapids, Michigan, of brain cancer.

The Pro Football Hall of Fame inducts running back Walter Payton, quarterback Dan Fouts, offensive guard Larry Little, and coaches Bill Walsh and Chuck Noll.

In a highly publicized case, Jan and Roberta DeBoer are forced to return a two-year-old girl they call Jessica DeBoer to her biological parents, Daniel and Cara Schmidt. In a scene witnessed by scores of reporters, the girl cries and screams “Mommy!” as she is taken. . . . John Bobbitt, whose wife cut off his penis June 23 after he allegedly raped her, is indicted for marital sexual abuse. . . . Gov. Barbara Roberts (D, Oreg.) signs into law a measure intended to prohibit local authorities from enacting laws that bar civil-rights protections for homosexuals.

Figures show that the purchasing managers’ index rose to 49.5% in July, an increase of 1.2 percentage points from June’s revised level of 48.3%. . . . The city council of Atlanta, Georgia, votes to grant limited health and other benefits to the homosexual domestic partners of city employees. . . . Data reveals that the number of farms in the U.S. currently totals 2,068,000. That is about 1% fewer than the number in the 1992 survey. . . . Former Rep. Lawrence J. Smith (D, Fla.) is sentenced to three months in prison and two years’ probation for one count of tax evasion and one count of filing false campaignfinance reports with the FEC.

The Mississippi River crests in St. Louis, Missouri, at a record 49.4 feet. . . . The Coast Guard stops listening for Morse code distress signals on the 500-kilohertz radio frequency, which it had monitored continuously since 1924. The watch is discontinued because the Morse system has almost disappeared among mariners, who use new technologies.

The Baseball Hall of Fame inducts slugging outfielder Reggie Jackson. . . . Ewing M. Kauffman, 76, owner of the Kansas City Royals baseball team since 1969, dies in Mission Hills, Kansas, after suffering from bone cancer.

A Titan IV rocket launching a secret U.S. spy satellite system explodes over the Pacific Ocean 101 seconds after takeoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. . . . The FDA approves the first drug in 10 years geared to prevent partial seizures in adult epilepsy patients. The drug, felbamate, is also approved to treat Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy in children.

The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller remains at the top of Publishers Weekly’s bestseller list.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 29

July 30

July 31

Aug. 1

Aug. 2

494—August 3–8, 1993

World Affairs

Europe

Social Democrat chief Moshood Abiola, who was the likely winner in voided June elections, flees Nigeria, claiming that he has received death threats.

Aug. 3

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Ecuador, a plane crashes into a mountain obscured by clouds, killing five. Among the dead are two preeminent tropical field biologists from the U.S.—Theodore Parker, 40, and Alwyn Gentry, 48—and Ecuadoran ecologist Eduardo Aspiazu. . . . The Bank of Canada rate falls to 4.32%, from 4.41%, the lowest since 1965.

Four Russian fighter aircraft and two helicopters raid Afghanistan’s northern Takhar province in support of artillery attacks. . . . The Indonesian government withholds recognition of the Indonesia Welfare Labor Union.

Italy’s parliament gives final approval to an overhaul of the nation’s electoral system. The action comes amid a massive political scandal and overwhelming public support for political reform. Pres. Oscar Luigi Scalfaro signs the bill into law.

Aug. 4

Aug. 5

Aug. 6

Africa & the Middle East

The European Commission holds an emergency meeting in Brussels, Belgium, in the wake of the currency crisis over changes in the exchange rate mechanism (ERM) of the European Monetary System announced Aug. 2. . . . The IMF suspends Sudan’s voting rights because it failed to meet its financial obligations to the organization. Sudan’s debt to the IMF reportedly amounts to $1.6 billion.

Aug. 7

Aug. 8

The Japanese government officially acknowledges that the country’s army forced an estimated 200,000 women in Asia to serve as sex partners to Japanese military personnel from 1932 until the end of World War II in 1945.

Figures show that the number of foreigners seeking asylum in Germany fell nearly 34% to 20,658 in July from June. July was the first month under Germany’s more restrictive asylum policy. . . . Moldova’s parliament fails by four votes to ratify the December 1991 agreements that created the Commonwealth of Independent States, of which Moldova is a member.

In response to the continued violence that erupted July 2 in South Africa’s black townships, Pres. de Klerk deploys 2,000 police officers and soldiers in addition to the 1,000 peacekeepers already there. . . . Reports suggest an Israeli cabinet minister, Yossi Sarid, met secretly with a senior adviser to PLO chairman Yasir Arafat, sweeping away a taboo on contacts between the historic enemies.

Warehouse explosions rock the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, killing at least 15 people and forcing the evacuation of 150,000 others.

Reports indicate Bulgaria’s last communist premier, Andrei Lukanov, was charged with diverting the equivalent of $60 million of public money and was arrested July 9, 1992. . . . In Georgia, the government led by Premier Tengiz Sigua resigns, and Parliament appoints Georgian head of state Eduard Shevardnadze as acting premier. . . . The first Jewish high school established in Germany since the end of the Nazi era opens in Berlin with 24 students, about one-third of whom are not Jewish.

Henry Pharoun, 92, former Lebanese foreign minister who designed the Lebanese flag, is found stabbed to death in Beirut, Lebanon. His driver and bodyguard, Youssef Sorour, was also stabbed to death, and police suspect robbery as the motive.

The lower house of Japan’s parliament (the Diet) elects Morihiro Hosokawa the country’s new premier. . . . Reports confirm that Khmer Rouge raids in Cambodia killed 11 ethnic Vietnamese during the previous three weeks.

UN observers arrive in Georgia in response to the fighting in Abkhazia. They represent the first such UN venture into the former Soviet Union. . . . Buckingham Palace is opened to the public for the first time and attracts 4,300 visitors. . . . In Belgium, King Baudouin I, who died July 31, is buried. . . . Reports reveal that the last of the Russian (initially Soviet) troops stationed in Poland since the end of World War II have begun to withdraw. The last Russian combat troops left Poland in October 1992.

The new deputy police chief in the southern province of Qena, General Abdel-Hamid Mohammed Ghobara, is shot and killed along with two aides in the town of Nag Hammadi, 285 miles (450 km) south of Cairo, Egypt.

U.S. Central Intelligence Agency officer Fred Woodruff, 45, is killed by a single bullet to the forehead while riding in a car with the chief of Georgia’s intelligence service near Tbilisi, the capital. The Georgian, Eldar Guguladze, is unhurt in the attack.

Four U.S. soldiers stationed in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, as part of the U.N. peacekeeping force are killed by a remote-controlled land mine. The four men are the first U.S. troops killed in Somalia since the UN began to lead the operation there in May.

The most powerful earthquake in the world since 1989 strikes the U.S. territory of Guam. The quake measures at least 8.1 on the Richter scale and has an epicenter in the Pacific Ocean, 50 miles (80 km) west-southwest of Agana, the capital. The quake causes no deaths and only minor injuries.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 3–8, 1993—495

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The Senate votes, 96-3, to confirm Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the Supreme Court. . . . In nationally televised addresses, Pres. Clinton and Senate minority leader Robert Dole (R, Kans.), urge viewers to voice their views on Clinton’s budget plan by calling Congress. . . . The Senate adopts by voice vote an amendment that bans smoking, except in designated areas, in all federal office buildings. . . . The Senate passes, 58-41, the nationalservice bill. Dr. Jack Kevorkian assists Thomas Hyde, 30, who suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, in ending his life near Detroit by supplying an air mask connected by a tube to a tank of lethal carbon monoxide gas. . . . A federal judge in Los Angeles sentences Sergeant Stacey Koon and Officer Laurence M. Powell, convicted in April, to two and a half years in prison for violating the civil rights of Rodney King, a black motorist they beat in a videotaped incident in March 1991.

A federal grand jury in New York City indicts Abdul Rahman Yasin as the seventh suspect involved in the February bombing of the World Trade Center. Yasin is currently in Iraq.

Senate Republicans block a floor vote on the confirmation of Dr. Joycelyn Elders to the post of surgeon general, forcing a postponement of the vote until after Congress’s August recess.

The House approves the final version of a bill to create the national service program, which would allow young people to repay federal assistance for education through community service. The Senate passed the measure on Aug. 3. . . . The Senate unanimously and without debate confirms U.S. District Judge Louis J. Freeh as director of the FBI.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Labor Secretary Robert Reich announces Food Lion Inc., a supermarket chain, has agreed to pay $16.2 million to settle charges of child-labor and overtime-pay violations. It is the largest amount that a private employer has ever paid in a wage-and-hour claim brought by the Labor Department. . . . The Senate approves, 73-27, a $22 billion bill to fund the Treasury Department, the U.S. Postal Service, and other government agencies for fiscal 1994.

Pres. Clinton names Dr. Harold Varmus, the winner of the 1989 Nobel Prize for medicine, to serve as director of the National Institutes of Health.

Eugene Maleska, 77, crossword puzzle editor for The New York Times since 1977, dies of throat cancer in Daytona Beach, Florida. . . . The Senate votes, 76-23, to confirm Sheldon Hackney as chairman of the NEH.

Pres. Clinton issues an executive order requiring that new revenues and savings created by the budget bill be placed in a “deficit-reduction trust fund,” where they cannot be made available for new government spending. He also issues a separate order that requires the White House to make an annual report to Congress and the public on whether spending on benefits through so-called entitlement programs, such as Medicare and Social Security, have exceeded projections.

Data shows that, of the flood region’s 275 federal levees in the Midwest, 31 have overflowed, eight have ruptured as a result of erosion and three have been breached. Workers in Prairie du Rocher, Illinois, an historic French settlement on the Mississippi River, use dynamite to blast holes in a nearby secondary levee in an effort to relieve pressure on the town’s main levee. The Senate passes by voice vote a $6.2 billion relief package.

Aug. 4

The House approves, 218-216, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, which enacts the spending plans and tax measures central to Pres. Clinton’s long-term economic agenda. The program aims to reduce federal budget deficits through fiscal 1998 by a total of $496 billion. . . . The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 goes into effect.

The Senate approves the so-called Open Skies Treaty, which permits the U.S., Canada, Russia, and 24 European states to fly unarmed surveillance aircraft over each other’s territory.

The Senate clears, 51-50, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, passed by the House on Aug. 5. . . . The FEC reports the on 1988 presidential campaign of Sen. Robert Dole (R, Kans.) has agreed to pay a $100,000 civil penalty to settle charges of financial violations. It is the largest fine ever assessed against a presidential campaign. . . . The House passes by voice vote a $71 billion fiscal 1994 appropriations bill for the Agriculture Department and related agencies. . . . Congress clears a $2.3 billion fiscal 1994 spending bill for the legislative branch.

Aug. 3

Aug. 5

The House gives final approval, by voice vote, to the $6.2 billion relief package for the flooding in the Midwest and adds $10.3 million to the package.

The Indiana Court of Appeals upholds the 1992 rape conviction of former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson.

Pres. Clinton announces his nominees for three federal appeals court judgeships and 10 federal district court posts.

Aug. 6

Aug. 7

Claude Rimington, 90, British biochemist, dies in Askeroy, Norway.

Aug. 8

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

496—August 9–14, 1993

Aug. 9

World Affairs

Europe

In response to the fighting in Bosnia, NATO approves a list of military targets for possible allied air strikes and warns the Bosnian Serbs to lift the siege against Sarajevo “without delay.”

Former King Constantine II makes his second visit to Greece in 26 years and sparks protests. . . . Albert II is sworn in as the new king of Belgium.

Aug. 10

Aug. 11

Africa & the Middle East

The withdrawal of approximately 4,000 Bosnian Serb soldiers from the 6,817-foot (2,078-m) Mt. Bjelasnica and the 6,547-foot (1,996-m) Mt. Igman begins. Their place is to be taken by 150 UN military observers, so the abandoned positions will not be reoccupied by mostly Muslim Bosnian government troops.

Negotiators in Johannesburg representing at least 20 of the nation’s political parties unveil the second draft of South Africa’s first multiracial constitution in Johannesburg. . . . UN forces close two airfields in Somalia indefinitely to prevent arms and a popular narcotic, khat, from reaching a factional militia loyal to Gen. Aidid. Two airfields, one about 30 miles (50 km) west of Mogadishu and a second one nearby, are barricaded by Pakistani UN troops.

Striking coal miners in Romania’s Jiu Valley return to work, ending a strike that started Aug. 2. However, railway workers launch a job action. . . Great Britain’s Financial Times–Stock Exchange 100 stock index closes above the 3,000 mark for the first time ever. . . . The Georgian, Eldar Guguladze, who was in the car when U.S. CIA officer Fred Woodruff was killed on Aug. 8, is suspended pending an inquiry.

Data shows the wave of violence in South Africa’s black townships has claimed almost 800 lives since July 2, when negotiators set a date for multiracial elections. For the most part, the clashes involved supporters of the ANC and those loyal to the Inkatha Freedom Party. Violent slayings were concentrated in the townships of Katlehong, Tembisa, and Tokoza, located east of Johannesburg. Inkatha president Buthelezi urges 3,000 of his supporters at a rally to make peace with their ANC rivals.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Police in British Columbia arrest and charge more than 250 demonstrators blocking logging crews’ access to the forest at Clayoquot Sound, on Vancouver Island. The protest is part of a series of rallies started in early July. It is reportedly the biggest mass arrest ever made in British Columbia.

Morihiro Hosokawa formally reports his appointment as premier to Emperor Akihito and names his new cabinet, marking the end of 38 consecutive years of rule by the Liberal Democratic Party. His cabinet contains three women, the most ever in a Japanese cabinet. . . . Reports state that, in India, the strike started Aug. 1 ended when the government agreed to cancel a road toll.

Six Taiwanese legislators formally leave the ruling Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) to form a new party. This marks the first split in the Kuomintang since the party fled to Taiwan in 1949 from the Chinese mainland. . . . The director of Guam’s civil defense, Joe Terlaje, estimates that the damage caused by the Aug. 8 quake will probably exceed $250 million.

U.S. troops passing in patrols through a rally in Mogadishu are pelted with stones by hundreds of supporters of Gen. Aidid. The soldiers respond by opening fire and spraying mace into the crowd. At least three Somali men are wounded by gunshots during the brief confrontation. . . . In Nigeria, Campaign for Democracy sponsors a “stayaway” protest, urging workers to oppose the government’s voiding of the June 12 election. Millions of workers join the action, which closes nearly all businesses, government offices, and public transportation in Lagos.

Aug. 12

Aug. 13

Aug. 14

In Romania, a supreme court rules that the job action started Aug. 11 is illegal. In response, the strike widens, so about 32,000 rail workers are participating. The strike stops nearly all rail movement throughout the country, and it is reportedly Romania’s worst postcommunist labor dispute.

Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres announces that his government will continue to negotiate with Palestinian representatives in the Middle East peace talks despite the fact that key members of the Palestinian team have accepted official duties in the PLO.

The Royal Plaza Hotel, a six-story building in Korat, Thailand, collapses, killing more than 100 people. The building is located 150 miles (240 km) northeast of Bangkok, the capital. . . . Indonesian president Suharto reduces the sentence of East Timor separatist leader Jose Alexandre Gusmão from life imprisonment to 20 years. Suharto’s decision comes after an outcry from international human-rights groups.

Georgian and Abkhazian forces in Abkhazia begin to disengage. Most of those forces are concentrated in and around Sukhumi, the Abkhazian capital city. . . . Reports state that Estonia’s national court has annulled the July 17 referendum results in which the mostly ethnic Russian residents of the northeastern city of Narva voted heavily in favor of regional autonomy.

In Nigeria, the strike started Aug. 12 ends after the government orders all employees to return to work or face dismissal. . . . A civilian court in Cairo acquits 24 fundamentalists in connection with the 1990 assassination of the speaker of Egypt’s parliament, Refaat Mahgoub. The High Security Court acquits the men after ruling that some confessions in the case were extracted by torture.

Citing his alleged anti-Chinese activities while abroad, China deports Han Dongfang, 30, a prominent dissident who organized China’s first communist-era labor union in 1989 and was imprisoned for 22 months without trial.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 9–14, 1993—497

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The deaths of four U.S. soldiers in Somalia on Aug. 8 trigger debate. Clinton administration officials reveal that the U.S. will not withdraw its forces from Somalia as long as Gen. Aidid’s militant faction continues to serve as a disruptive force in the country.

Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg is sworn in as the 107th Supreme Court justice. . . . In reaction to a measure to extend job benefits for homosexual partners of city employees of Atlanta, Georgia, that passed Aug. 2, the commissioners of Cobb County, Georgia, a conservative suburban area north of the city, vote 3-1 to pass a resolution stating that “life styles advocated by the gay community are incompatible with the standards to which this community subscribes.” Pres. Clinton issues an executive order that requires stricter federal licensing of gun dealers. He also issues an executive order that bans the import of foreign-made semiautomatic assault-style handguns, expanding a ban imposed by Pres. Bush in 1989. . . . A Tuolumne County, California, jury finds Ellie Nesler guilty of voluntary manslaughter in the Apr. 2 courtroom slaying of Daniel Driver, a man accused of molesting her son.

A Towson, Maryland, jury convicts Rodney Solomon, 27, in the 1992 carjacking death of a woman, Pam Basu. The case gained nationwide attention since the carjackers dragged Basu to death behind her stolen vehicle and threw her 22month-old daughter from the automobile.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

An advisory panel to the FDA unanimously recommends the approval of DNase, the first new treatment for cystic fibrosis in 30 years. . . . Flooding in the Midwest begins to ebb, and data shows that 50 deaths were attributed to the flood. Nearly 70,000 people have been left homeless. The estimated cost of flood damage is estimated at $12 billion, of which nearly $8 billion is suffered by farmers.

Reports confirm that 40 unpublished poems written by T. S. Eliot between 1909 and 1917 will be published in about two years.

Pres. Clinton signs the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, passed by the House on Aug. 5 and the Senate on Aug. 6.

Pres. Clinton names army general John Malchase David Shalikashvili, 57, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to succeed Gen. Colin Powell . . . . Walter Cadman, the INS’s district director in Miami, Florida, discloses that under a new policy, Haitian refugees seeking political asylum in the U.S. are increasingly being released into the general community, rather than held at a detention center while they await their federal hearings.

Due to flooding in the Midwest, the Agriculture Department cuts its estimate of the size of the nation’s 1993 corn crop to 7.42 billion bushels, a 5.4% drop from the department’s July estimate. It is more than 1 million bushels smaller than the original spring estimate, which had forecast a 1993 corn harvest totaling 8.5 billion bushels. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a $2.3 billion fiscal 1994 spending bill for the legislative branch, cleared by Congress on Aug. 6.

Reports indicate that the INS has granted political asylum to Marcelo Tenorio, 30, on the grounds that he would face persecution in Brazil because of his homosexual orientation. The ruling reportedly marks the first time that a homosexual person has received asylum in the U.S. on a claim that homosexuals are persecuted in the claimant’s country of origin. Tenorio was brutally beaten outside a gay bar in Rio de Janeiro in 1989.

Du Pont reaches a $4.25 million settlement with four growers who sued the company over damage allegedly caused to their crops by Du Pont’s Benlate DF fungicide. . . . John H. Dessauer, 88, chemical engineer who helped transform a photographic products manufacturer into the billion-dollar Xerox Corp, dies in Rochester, New York. . . . In a largely symbolic gesture, the Clinton administration removes legal barriers to the reemployment of air traffic controllers fired in 1981 after they launched a strike in defiance of government regulations.

A convicted sex offender, Joseph Gallardo, who was driven from Lynnwood, Washington, after his release from prison on July 12, returns to the town since residents of Deming, New Mexico, met him with more protests.

Aug. 10

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts overturns on a technicality the 1990 manslaughter conviction of David and Ginger Twitchell, a Christian Scientist couple whose son, Robyn, 2, died after they relied on prayer rather than conventional medical care to treat him

A launch of the U.S. space shuttle Discovery is aborted three seconds before the craft was set to take off when a sensor measuring fuel flow registers a problem and shuts down Discovery’s engines. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a bill providing $6.2 billion in federal relief to victims of floods that ravaged the Midwest for two months. The floods, which struck states from North Dakota to Missouri, are regarded as among the worst in U.S. history.

Pope John Paul II visits Denver, Colorado, to mark the World Youth Day festival, a gathering that has attracted 160,000 young Roman Catholic delegates from 70 countries. It is Pope John Paul’s third major visit to the U.S., and he meets with Pres. Clinton for the first time. The pope speaks to a crowd of 90,000 at Denver’s Mile High Stadium.

Reports state that U.S. researchers have linked a gene that helps process cholesterol in the bloodstream to the most common form of Alzheimer’s disease.

Trade negotiators from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico announce that they have reached agreement on supplemental amendments to NAFTA that are designed to strengthen NAFTA’s environmental and labor-protection standards. The breakthrough clears a major hurdle for the pact, which now faces a ratification battle in the U.S. Congress.

Aug. 9

Aug. 12

Aug. 13

Speaking before about 18,000 people at Denver’s McNichols Sports Arena, Pope John Paul II publicly addresses child sexual abuse by priests for the second time ever. . . . Two 18-year-old men are taken into custody in North Carolina and charged with the murder of James Jordan, the father of basketball superstar Michael Jordan.

A New York State jury acquits Robert Altman of four charges of fraud in connection with his dealings with the corruption-ridden Bank of Credit and Commerce International. The trial of Altman, 46, a prominent Washington, D.C., lawyer and political power broker, started March 30.

Aug. 11

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 14

498—August 15–20, 1993

World Affairs

In Sarajevo, Bosnia, medical teams identify 39 cases of civilians who are in need of treatment no longer available in the war-besieged country, and those patients are airlifted to other nations.

Aug. 15

Aug. 16

Aug. 17

Reports confirm that, responding to the media coverage, at least 15 countries, including some in Western Europe, North America, and the Middle East, have offered more than 700 hospital beds to sick and wounded Bosnian evacuees.

Aug. 18

Aug. 19

Europe

The EBRD names Jacques de Larosiere, the governor of the Bank of France, as its president, succeeding Jacques Attali. . . . The U.S. Federal Reserve Board intervenes in world currency markets in an effort to halt the fall of the dollar against Japan’s currency, the yen.

Africa & the Middle East About 400 Palestinian men deported from Israel to southern Lebanon in 1992 agree to accept terms set by Israeli for their return, ending a sixmonth impasse. Israeli defense ministry spokesman Oded Ben-Ami states that 187 of the deportees will be repatriated in mid-September, while the remaining 208 will be allowed back into the country in December.

Asia & the Pacific

Juan Carlos Wasmosy, a millionaire construction engineer, is sworn in as the first freely elected civilian president in Paraguay’s 182 years of independence.

Talks on the future of BosniaHerzegovina resume in Geneva, Switzerland after a two-week hiatus and the withdrawal of most of the Bosnian Serb military forces from Mt. Bjelasnica and Mt. Igman. At the talks, the leaders of the warring Croatian, Muslim, and Serbian factions in Bosnia tentatively agree to the eventual demilitarization of Sarajevo in favor of an interim United Nations administration.

In the Philippines, Antonio Sanchez, mayor of Calauan for the past 28 years, and six of his aides are charged in the rape and murder of Eileen Sarmenta, 20, of the University of the Philippines. Allegedly, Sanchez’s aides in June kidnapped the student as “a gift” for Sanchez. Sarmenta was raped and murdered, and a male companion of hers was also murdered in the incident.

Romanian premier Nicolae Vacaroiu informs railway strikers to return to work or face instant dismissal.

The Thai army reports that 102 bodies have been recovered from the rubble of the hotel that collapsed on Aug. 13. More than 270 people were injured. . . . Indonesia states it will withdraw all its combat troops from East Timor by October.

A fire destroys most of the 650year-old Kapellbruecke covered wooden bridge in Lucerne, Switzerland. . . . Russia announces a program to immunize its 150 million citizens against diphtheria since more than 100 people have died from the airborne bacterial disease since January. More than 4,000 cases of the illness were identified over the same period. . . . After the Aug. 17 ultimatum, Romanian railway strikers resume work. . . . Three British miners die when a roof at the Bilsthorpe Colliery in Nottinghamshire collapses.

In Egypt, a bomb near one of Cairo’s busiest squares kills five people. The apparent target of the bombing, Interior Minister Hassan al-Alfi, survives the blast with moderate injuries.

In Nicaragua, the National Assembly passes a Violeta Chamorro– sponsored amnesty for members of armed groups. The vote occurs after lawmakers of the National Opposition Union (UNO) staged a protest walk-out.

Taiwan’s president, Lee Teng-hui, is reelected chairman of the ruling National Party (Kuomintang) at the party’s 14th congress in Taipei, the capital. . . . Faced with a surge in Khmer Rouge resistance, forces of the interim government, headed by Ranariddh and Hun Sen, launch an offensive against the guerrillas. The drive, involving 6,000 troops, is mainly against three Khmer Rouge bases within the organization’s military bastion in northwest Cambodia.

In Albania, former communist president Ramiz Alia and six former members of the defunct Communist Party politburo are arrested on charges of massive appropriation and misuse of state funds. . . . Reports find that five-year-old Irma Hadzimuratovic, who received international attention when she was severely wounded in the mortar attack that killed her mother July 30, has been treated in London for her shrapnel wounds and for meningitis but is still gravely ill.

U.S. pilots patrolling the “no-fly zone” in Iraq see surface-to-air missiles launched and bomb the site. The Pentagon calls the incident “among the most serious” since the end of the Persian Gulf war. . . . Salah Jadid, 63, effective ruler of Syria, 1966–70, who was one of the world’s longest-held political prisoners, dies in Damascus, Syria, of a heart attack. . . . In Egypt, police claim two of the five killed by the Aug. 18 bomb were Muslim extremists responsible for the attack.

In Nicaragua, a band of 400 rearmed former contra rebels (known as re-contras) abducts a 38-member government delegation near the mountain village of Quilali, 150 miles (240 km) north of Managua, the capital.

Reports state that the Cambodian government has overrun a guerrilla headquarters at Kouk Krabas, north of Plum Chat, capturing about 200 rebels and an assortment of weapons. Officials also suggest that government forces have taken a guerrilla base at Spay Damnak, situated about 36 miles (60 km) north of Kompong Thom. . . . In Korea, officials from Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., the world’s largest shipyard, announce that nearly 18,000 striking workers have approved a labor pact.

In response to the Aug. 19 abduction of a government delegation, some 20 retired Sandinista soldiers, calling themselves the Sovereignty and National Dignity Command, seize 34 conservative politicians at the headquarters of the rightist National Opposition Union (UNO) coalition in Managua, Nicaragua. Among the Sandinistas’ hostages are Vice President Virgilio Godoy Reyes and Alfredo Cesar, the president of the national assembly.

In Cambodia, some 2,500 government troops seize Plum Chat, a major Khmer Rouge arms depot near Thailand. Gen. Khoun Reoun, the commander of the Cambodian government forces at Plum Chat, states that he allowed about 400 guerrillas and some 1,000 of their relatives to seek refuge in Thailand during a temporary cease-fire.

Georgian authorities reveal that that a Georgian soldier, Anzor Sharmaidze, 21, whom they were holding, confessed to shooting American Fred Woodruff on August 8. Separately, reports confirm that the Georgian parliament has accepted the appointment of Otar Patsatsia as premier, succeeding Tengiz Sigua.

Aug. 20

The Americas

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 15–20, 1993—499

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Robert Max Wasilii Kempner, 93, member of the U.S. prosecution team at the Nuremberg war crimes trials who, in 1947, discovered the Wannsee Protocol, a record of a 1942 meeting in which high-ranking Nazis approved plans for the “final solution,” the mass extermination of Jews, dies in Frankfurt, Germany, after a long illness.

Robert Lessnau, a white former police officer, is found not guilty of a charge of assault with intent to cause great bodily harm in the 1992 fatal beating of Malice Green, 34, a black motorist in Detroit, Michigan. The verdict is sealed until the trials of the other defendants in the case close. . . . Pres. Clinton gives a broad outline of his planned health-care reform proposals at a meeting of the National Governors’ Association in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle On the last day of his U.S. visit, Pope John Paul II speaks to a crowd estimated at between 350,000 and 400,000 during a 31⁄2 hour mass south of Denver. . . . Golfer Paul Azinger wins the PGA Championship at the Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio.

Charles L. Brieant, a U.S. District Court judge in White Plains, New York, upholds the government’s order to deport Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman. . . . Jacob Dyneley Beam, 85, U.S. ambassador to Poland, 1957–61, to Czechoslovakia, 1966–69 and to the Soviet Union, 1969–73, dies in Rockville, Maryland, of a stroke.

Dr. Jack Kevorkian is charged by a Wayne County, Michigan, prosecutor with violating the state’s law banning assisted suicides. Kevorkian is the first person charged with violating a Michigan law enacted in February and aimed at Kevorkian, who has assisted in 17 suicides since 1990. . . . Robert C. Maynard, 56, first black editor and owner of a major daily newspaper in the U.S., dies in Oakland, Calif., of prostate cancer.

Herbert Arthur Philbrick, 78, author of I Led Three Lives, which inspired a 1950s TV series and detailed his years spying on the Communist Party for the FBI, dies in North Hampton, New Hampshire. . . . Stewart Granger (born James Lablanche Stewart), 80, actor known for his swashbuckling film roles who appeared in more than 60 films, dies in Santa Monica, California, of prostate and bone cancer.

The dollar falls to a post–World War II low of 100.40 yen during trading in New York City before rising slightly to 101.02 yen in late trading. It marks the first time the currencies’ values reached the socalled parity level—100 yen to a dollar.

The College Board finds the 1993 results for the SATs improved for the second consecutive year. . . . AT&T reports that more than 5 million people, a record, attempted to call members of Congress between Aug. 3 and Aug. 6, dates which correspond to Pres. Clinton’s urge to call Congress about the passing of the budget. . . . A Sarasota, Florida, judge, Stephen Dakan, rules that Kimberly Mays, 14, who was switched at birth with another baby, is not required to have any contact with her biological parents, Ernest and Regina Twigg.

Defense Secretary Les Aspin announces a Defense Department investigation into the alleged manipulation of Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars) test data that former and current government officials allege were used to deceive both Congress and the Soviet Union in the 1980s. . . . The U.S. State Department officially notifies the Sudanese government that the country will be added to the list of nations the U.S. considers supportive of international terrorism.

The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration fines mine operators $439,172 for eight violations that the agency links directly to a 1992 explosion that killed eight miners in a mine in Norton, Virginia.

Dr. George R. Tiller is shot and wounded outside the abortion clinic he operates in Wichita, Kansas. The shooting is the second to occur outside an abortion clinic in 1993. . . . A Towson, Maryland, jury sentences Rodney Solomon, 27, to life in prison without parole in the 1992 carjacking death of Pam Basu. Solomon was convicted Aug. 13 in a case that gained nationwide attention, particularly since the carjackers threw an infant from the vehicle.

President Clinton names William M. Daley to lead a White House task force that will seek support for NAFTA in Congress and from the U.S. public.

National Medical Enterprises Inc., sued in July 1992 by 10 insurance companies, files a countersuit against 19 insurers, accusing them of not paying legitimate mentalhealth care claims. National Medical is one of the nation’s largest health-care providers. . . . Michigan governor John Engler (R) signs the tax ban passed by the legislature in July to eliminate the use of property taxes to fund public schools.

An antiabortion protester, Rachelle Shannon, is arrested in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in the Aug. 19 shooting of Dr. George Tiller. . . . Dr. David Satcheri is appointed director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Satcher, who will succeed Dr. William L. Roper, will be the first black ever to head the CDC.

Fishermen in Alaska’s Prince William Sound blockade a key oiltanker route to call attention to the long-term effects of the Exxon Valdez tanker accident and to protest Exxon Corp.’s response to the spill.

David Trosch, a Roman Catholic priest in Alabama, is denounced by church leaders for an advertisement he attempted to run that advocates killing doctors who perform abortions.

Charles P. Bailey, 82, pioneering heart surgeon who introduced a new surgical procedure for repairing the mitral valve of the heart, dies in Marietta, Georgia, of prostate cancer.

Aug. 16

Aug. 17

Aug. 18

Vernon Jordan throws a party for Pres. Clinton’s 47th birthday. . . . At the World Track & Field Championships, Sally Gunnell of Great Britain sets a world record when she wins the 400-meter hurdles in 52.74 seconds.

Surgeons at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia separate conjoined twins Amy and Angela Lakeberg, sacrificing Amy to give Angela the liver and malformed heart the two shared.

Aug. 15

At the World Track & Field Championships, Colin Jackson of Great Britain breaks Roger Kingdom’s 1989 record in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 12.91.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 19

Aug. 20

500—August 21–26, 1993

World Affairs

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Kasdi Merbah, 55, former premier of Algeria and the leader of a moderate opposition party, is shot dead in an ambush in Bordj el-Bahri, 12 miles (20 km) east of Algiers, the capital. Four others are also killed. . . . In Egypt, four Islamic militants are sentenced to death by a military court outside of Cairo for plotting to overthrow the government. . . . Algeria’s High State Council dismisses Premier Belaid Abdesalam and names Redha Malek to replace him.

Brazilian officials reveal that 73 Yanomami Indians were massacred in Haximu. The figure is based on an extensive interview with an Indian who claims to be a survivor of a mass killing at a Yanomami lodge in July. . . . In Nicaragua, pro-Sandinista rebels release 16 of the 34 detainees taken Aug. 20, including two ailing politicians.

The largest of the Marshall Islands’ 100 islets, Kwajalein, “skips” the day to bring all its constituent Pacific islets into chronological alignment. Kwajalein had synchronized its day of the week with that observed on the U.S. mainland when the U.S. army set up a missile-testing site there about 40 years earlier.

Russia unilaterally breaks off talks with Lithuania on the withdrawal of the approximately 2,500 remaining Russian troops in the Baltic republic, as Russia refuses to pay compensation demanded by its neighbor for damage the Russian (initially Soviet) soldiers caused over the half-century of their presence in Lithuania. . . . Dinmukhamed A. Kunayev, 81, former effective ruler of the Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, 1964–86, dies near Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan.

Six unidentified U.S. soldiers are wounded in Mogadishu, Somalia, in an explosion set off by a wire-controlled bomb that destroys their reinforced vehicle. The attack marks the third act of violence aimed at U.S. troops since four Americans were killed by a similar explosion August 8. . . . Figures show that attacks by Islamic militants killed 175 people over the previous 18 months in Egypt.

In Nicaragua, the rightist captors, commanded by Jose Angel Talavera, free 20 of the 38 hostages they captured Aug. 19 in response to the Aug. 21 releases. However, pro-Sandinista leftist gunmen take nine journalists hostage, ostensibly because the leftist commander, Donald Mendoza, was identified in reports by name.

Georgian leader Eduard A. Shevardnadze and Russian president Boris N. Yeltsin agree to commit their countries to an agreement of friendship and cooperation.

Cyril Ramaphosa, secretary general of the ANC, the largest antiapartheid group in South Africa, releases an independent report that details several cases of abuse, torture, and execution of some of its own members in ANC guerrilla camps during the organization’s exile in the 1970s and 1980s. The report directly implicates a dozen current ANC officials, five of whom are security officers at the organization’s base in Johannesburg.

Aug. 21

Aug. 22

Aug. 23

Aug. 24

UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali announces the appointment of Mohamed Aly Niazi to a new post created to investigate persistent allegations of fraud, mismanagement and financial abuse within the United Nations.

Aug. 25

Aug. 26

United Nations secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali initiates an austerity program to cut costs at the UN

Africa & the Middle East

Two Iraqi diplomats—Hamid elJabouri, who was Iraq’s ambassador to Tunisia, and Husham el-Shawi, who was its as ambassador to Canada—defect in London in a protest against the regime of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

Canadian prime minister Kim Campbell announces that Canada will contribute an additional $13 million in humanitarian aid to Haiti.

Reports disclose that Commonwealth of Independent States foreign ministers have adopted agreements on joint responses to drugs, pollution, terrorism, and the spread of weapons of mass destruction in the CIS. . . . Russian president Boris Yeltsin, on his first official visit to Poland, and Polish president Lech Walesa sign a trade agreement that regulates customs procedures between their countries

Amy Elizabeth Biehl, 26, a white Stanford University graduate and Fulbright scholar studying women’s rights, is beaten and stabbed to death by a group of black youths in Guguletu township near Cape Town. Biehl is reportedly the first American killed in South Africa’s political violence.

The Haitian parliament accepts ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s choice for premier, Robert Malval. . . . In Nicaragua, the re-contras modify their demands and agree to release their hostages after mediators promise to communicate rightist grievances to the government. They release their hostages and the pro-Sandinistas do as well, ending a crisis that started Aug. 19.

UN trucks carrying food and medicine reach the Muslim half of Mostar, in Bosnia-Herzegovina. According to officials, the supplies arrive only days before an estimated 55,000 Muslims on the eastern side of the Neretva River would have begun to die of starvation. . . . The Russian central bank announces that old small denomination banknotes will remain legal tender until the end of the year, softening the impact of the July 24 ruble call-in. . . . Czech president Vaclav Havel and Russian president Boris Yeltsin sign a friendship treaty that ends 25 years of tension.

Gen. Ibrahim Babangida resigns as Nigeria’s president and military commander, ending his eight-year dictatorship. He cedes authority to former industrialist Ernest Shonekan, who will head a non-elected, interim administration consisting of civilian and military members. . . . Somali demonstrators set up burning roadblocks and stone cars to protest a search for illegal weapons by UN peacekeepers. Separately, a contingent of 400 U.S. Army Rangers arrives.

Lord (Lawrence) Kadoorie, 94, businessman who helped the British colony of Hong Kong achieve its post-World War II economic rise, dies.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 21–26, 1993—501

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

An abortion doctor, George Wayne Patterson, is fatally shot in the parking lot behind an adults-only movie theater. Police do not know if the murder is related to Patterson’s job or the result of an attempted robbery attempt. . . . Walter Budzyn is convicted of second-degree murder in the 1992 fatal beating of Malice Green, 34, a black motorist in Detroit, Michigan. His verdict is sealed until the close of another defendant’s trial.

Reports state that letters signed by more than 80 members of the U.S. Congress request that the U.S. suspend the resettlement of former Iraqi prisoners of war in the U.S.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Mars Observer spacecraft loses contact with command centers on Earth. The craft, launched in September 1992, is the first U.S. probe of Mars since two Viking craft reached the planet in 1976.

Tatiana Troyanos, 54, mezzosoprano opera singer, dies in New York City of cancer. . . . At the World Track & Field Championships, held in Stuttgart, Germany, Ana Biryukova of Russia sets a record in the women’s triple jump of 49 feet, 6 inches (15.1 m).

At the World Track & Field Championships, the U.S. four-by-400 meter relay team breaks the world record with a time of 2:54.29. . . . In Nicaragua, a U.S. college-age allstar baseball team withdraws from a tournament after a stone shatters the window of a team bus and slightly injures two U.S. players. . . . Eddie Chiles, 83, oil executive and former owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team, dies in Fort Worth, Texas.

Fishermen halt the blockade they started Aug. 20 when Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt pledges to press for more efficient action by Exxon and the federal and Alaska governments to help the area recover from the Exxon Valdez spill.

More than 800,000 pages of documents relating to the 1963 assassination of Pres. Kennedy are made public. . . . San Francisco mayor Frank Jordan dismisses Rev. Eugene Lumpkin from a Human Rights Commission after Lumpkin’s antihomosexual remarks provoked protests from the city’s large gay community. . . . Larry Nevers, a white former police officer, is convicted of second-degree murder in the 1992 fatal beating of Malice Green, 34.

The Defense Department confirms Pres. Clinton’s decision to order 400 U.S. Army Rangers into Somalia. . . . Attorney General Janet Reno reverses a late June decision and approves the recommendation of the U.S. attorney in New York City, Mary Jo White, to seek the indictment of Abdel Rahman.

Black candidates win a majority on the city council of Selma, Alabama, for the first time. The election follows a protracted battle over redistricting during which blacks—who make up 58% of the town’s 24,000 residents—battled efforts by white lawmakers. . . . David Mason, 36, convicted of robbing and killing four elderly Oakland, Calif., residents in 1980 and fatally strangling a prison cellmate in 1982, becomes the second person executed in California since 1976.

The U.S. determines that China has violated the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), a 1987 international pact banning the export of missile technology, by selling missile components and technology to Pakistan.

Archbishop Oscar Lipscomb of Mobile, Alabama, removes Rev. David Trosch, who tried to run an ad that advocated the killing of doctors who performed abortions, from his parish. . . . German sprinter Katrin Krabbe is banned for two more years by the International Amateur Athletic Federation.

The Clinton administration unveils a package of legislative and regulatory measures intended to establish federal policy for the preservation of wetland areas.

A federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia, overturns a provision in the Cable Act of 1984 that prohibits telephone companies from owning cable-television systems in areas where they provide telephone service.

A federal grand jury indicts a radical Muslim cleric, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, and 14 others on conspiracy charges related to the World Trade Center bombing, a foiled plot to bomb the UN, and the 1990 slaying of a Jewish militant, Rabbi Meir Kahane. The indictment is the first to consider the trade center and UN bomb plots the work of a single organization. . . . In response to the Aug. 24 finding, the U.S. imposes trade sanctions on China and Pakistan. Washington mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly and civil-rights leader Jesse Jackson are among 20 demonstrators arrested for blocking Independence Avenue in a rally for statehood for the District of Columbia. . . . Thomas F. Fay, the chief justice of Rhode Island’s Supreme Court, pleads not guilty to three misdemeanor charges of misusing his office.

Rev. Edward Lee Roy Elson, 86, influential Presbyterian church leader who served as the chaplain for the U.S. Senate, 1969–81, dies of congestive heart failure in Washington, D.C.

Agents of the Justice Department raid more than 20 National Medical Enterprises Inc. facilities nationwide in an effort to determine whether the hospital-operating company has conspired to defraud insurers and patients.

Rockin’ (Alton Rubin Sr.) Dopsie, 61, a prominent zydeco (southern Louisiana) musician, dies in Opelousas, Louisiana, after a heart attack. . . . Reports reveal the Christian Science Church was ordered to pay $14.2 million in damages for the death of an 11year-old boy whose mother relied on church teachings which urge prayer as the only remedy for physical ailments.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 21

Aug. 22

Aug. 23

Aug. 24

Aug. 25

Aug. 26

502—August 27–September 1, 1993

Aug. 27

World Affairs

Europe

In response to Haiti’s Aug. 25 acceptance of Robert Malval as premier, the Organization of American States and the UN Security Council vote to suspend the sanctions the groups imposed on Haiti following the ouster of president JeanBertrand Aristide. . . . The World Bank states that its new information policy will reduce secrecy and make previously confidential documents available for public scrutiny.

Muslims in eastern Mostar, Bosnia, prevent the departure of the UN personnel and trucks and about 60 Spanish UN peacekeeping troops that arrived Aug. 26. The blockade is intended as a guarantee against further Croat attacks on the Muslim sector of the city.

The Bosnian parliament and the self-proclaimed Croat and Serb parliaments in Bosnia vote on the internationally sponsored draft peace agreement. The Bosnian parliament votes unanimously to reject it, while the Croat assembly and the Bosnian Serb assembly accept the plan. The civilian UN workers and their vehicles detained Aug. 27 are allowed to leave Mostar. . . . E(dward) P(almer) Thompson, 69, British social historian and peace activist, dies near Worcester, England.

Aug. 28

Aug. 31

In Nigeria, a nationwide strike begins when trade unions and professional associations heed the call of the Campaign for Democracy to “stay-away” in protest against the failure of the military government to recognize Social Democrat chief Moshood Abiola as the elected leader of Nigeria.

Max Henry (Fredy) Fisher, 71, British merchant banker and editor of The Financial Times of London dies in London.

Aug. 29

Aug. 30

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Brazilian president Itamar Franco designates an 18,919-square-mile (50,000 sq km) area of Para state as a reserve for the Menkragnoti Indians. . . . Venezuela’s acting president, Ramon Velasquez, appoints a special commission charged with protection of the Yanomami Indians.

A dam at the Gouhou reservoir in the western Chinese province of Qinghai bursts, releasing torrents of water that kill hundreds of people and destroys several villages in a remote area about 60 miles (100 km) west of the provincial capital of Xining. . . . Officials state that a wild elephant that went on a rampage after straying from its herd reportedly killed at least 44 people in northeast India.

Four military police are ambushed in Vigario Geral by gunmen who are reportedly members of the Comando Vermelho, or Red Command, Brazil’s largest cocaine and marijuana cartel. . . . Ian Martin, the human-rights director of the UN civil mission, estimates that 50 politically motivated killings have occurred in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, since July 1. . . . Reports reveal that U.S. anthropologist Bruce Albert found that 13 Yanomami, not 73 as announced on Aug. 21, were actually killed at Haximu, Brazil.

Reports confirm that India’s Supreme Court has ordered the closure of 212 factories that release pollutants which are damaging the Taj Mahal, a majestic 17th-century tomb. . . . Ong Teng Cheong, 57, wins Singapore’s first direct presidential elections. The role of president is largely ceremonial. . . . Amnesty International reports that Indonesian troops killed about 2,000 civilians as part of official counterinsurgency efforts against Muslim separatists in the northern Aceh region of the island of Sumatra.

In a Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, slum, 21 people are murdered when a gang of hooded gunmen fires indiscriminately at residents. Slum dwellers and others maintain that the military police are responsible for the massacre, which is widely perceived as retaliation for the Aug. 28 killing of four military policemen.

A ship loaded with Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka departs from Madras, India, for the Sri Lankan port of Trincomalee. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees states that the refugees left voluntarily. The operation marks the first time that India has allowed the UNHCR to carry out duties in India since 1973.

Reports state that the World Health Organization has called for the destruction of the last remaining stocks of the smallpox virus by the end of the year. . . . A Russian government commission releases an official report that states the former Soviet Union “bears no guilt” in the 1983 downing of a Korean Air Lines jet in which 269 people died.

Russia and Lithuania announce that the withdrawal of Russian troops will proceed. . . . Figures suggest that France’s unemployment rate rose to a post–World War II high of 11.7% in July.

Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres announces an unprecedented preliminary accord on Palestinian self-rule in the occupied territories, reached in secret talks in Norway and Tunisia between the PLO and the Israeli government. The accord calls for an initial Israeli military withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho, and sets the stage for declarations of mutual recognition between the PLO and Israel.

The UN soldiers detained Aug. 27 in Mostar, Bosnia, are released. However, Spanish, UN peacekeeping troops, sympathetic to the Muslims’ fears, voluntarily take the place of their compatriots. Separately, 450 Muslims are set free from Croat detention camps. . . . The last 2,500 Russian troops remaining in Lithuania leave the Baltic country, beating by 14 minutes a deadline for the withdrawal.

Brazilian security officials sharply reduce their estimate of the number of Yanomami Indians massacred to 16 rather than the 73 announced by the government’s Indian-protection agency Aug. 21. The officials also find that the site of the majority of the killings is in Venezuela, five miles (eight kilometers) south of the poorly demarcated border. The Brazilian police consequently halt their probe into the mass killings. . . . In Nicaragua, a band of former Sandinista soldiers take 200 civilians hostage.

More than 33 people die in preelection violence in Pakistan. Among the dead are seven men shot by a lone gunman as they prayed in a mosque in Lahore.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin suspends Vice President Aleksandr V. Rutskoi from office, citing damaging allegations of corruption.

Nicaraguan army troops attack a band of former Sandinista soldiers who have been holding 200 civilians hostage since Aug. 31 in Managua. All of the hostages are freed in the incident, and three of the abductors are killed.

Ong Teng Cheong, 57, is sworn in for a six-year term as Singapore’s first directly elected president.

Sept. 1

As Israeli and PLO representatives continue to search for agreement, several thousand demonstrators gather outside the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem to underscore their opposition to the Israeli-PLO accord. Sporadic fighting breaks out, and the police use water cannon to maintain control. Stonethrowing Palestinian youths apparently initiate attacks upon Israeli soldiers in Gaza, where Hamas sentiment against any political accommodation with Israel is strongest. . . . The U.S. Army Rangers mount their first operation, raiding several buildings in Mogadishu, Somalia.

Robert Malval is installed as Haiti’s premier during a ceremony at the Haitian embassy in Washington, D.C. . . . In Brazil, Vigario Geral residents drive police cars from the area with a hail of stones, barricade streets, and block Rio’s northern commuter rail line to protest the Aug. 29 massacre.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 27–September 1, 1993—503

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Reports confirm two scientists have agreed that a 19th-century photograph is probably the second known photograph of Old West gunfighter Billy the Kid, aka William H. Bonney. The picture was passed down to Ray John de Aragon of New Mexico from his great-grandmother.

An estimated 75,000 people gather in Washington, D.C., to commemorate the 1963 civil-rights demonstration at which Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

Aug. 27

Aug. 28

Brandie Burton wins the Du Maurier Classic in London, Ontario, the fourth and final major tournament for the Ladies Professional Golf Association Tour.

New York City’s Board of Education chooses Ramon Cortines to be New York City’s schools chancellor.

Richard Jordan (born Robert Anson Jordan), 56, actor who appeared in more than 100 plays, dies in Los Angeles of a brain tumor. . . . Latenight television talk-show host David Letterman’s new show debuts on CBS. . . . Without Remorse by Tom Clancy tops the bestseller list.

Kenneth DeShields, 33, convicted of the fatal shooting of a woman during a 1984 robbery, becomes the third person executed in Delaware and the 218th in the U.S. since 1976.

A federal jury in Los Angeles awards Litton Industries Inc., a Beverly Hills, California-based military contractor, $1.2 billion in damages from rival Honeywell Inc. after determining that Honeywell violated a Litton patent on an airlinenavigation system.

U.S. judge Louis J. Freeh is sworn in as director of the FBI in the agency’s Washington, D.C., headquarters.

The White House Office of Management and Budget projects a deficit of $285.3 billion for fiscal 1993, down from its January projection of $327.3 billion. . . . Data shows that the purchasing managers’ index fell to 49.3% in August. A measure below 50% for the index, which is considered a significant bellwether of economic health, generally indicates a contracting manufacturing sector.

A fifth volunteer in a U.S. clinical trial testing of fialuridine, an experimental drug to treat hepatitis B, dies. After patients died from the testing in June, the National Institute of Health (NIH) halted the procedures.

Al Trace, 92, bandleader and songwriter who scored a 1943 hit with his version of the ditty “Mairzy Doats,” dies in Sun City West, Arizona.

Aug. 29

Aug. 30

Aug. 31

Sept. 1

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

504—September 2–7, 1993

World Affairs

Sept. 4

Sept. 5

The PFLP, DFLP, Hamas, and seven smaller Palestinian groups issue a joint statement in Damascus declaring that the accord on interim Palestinian self-rule “does not represent the Palestinian people.”

UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali offers to send UN peacekeeping troops to the Gaza Strip and Jericho following Israel’s military pullback.

The Russian Parliament votes to halt the implementation of Pres. Yeltsin’s Sept. 1 decree suspending Vice Pres. Rutskoi on the ground of unconstitutionality. . . . Reports confirm that former communist premier Georgi Atanasov has begun serving a 10-year prison sentence for misusing $8,400 from a state orphans’ fund. . . . Diego Curto, the head of commercial court in Milan, is arrested on bribery charges. He is reported to be the first judge to face charges in Italy’s ongoing bribery scandals.

In a surprise phone call to president Mario Alberto Soares of Portugal, UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi states that he will allow emergency aid airlifts to provide food for 3 million Angolans without supplies.

Representatives from China, the U.S., and Saudi Arabia sign an agreement certifying that a Chinese ship is not carrying chemicals used to manufacture nerve gas or mustard gas, two lethal chemical compounds. The statement marks the end of a month-long diplomatic dispute.

Pope John Paul II begins a weeklong visit to the formerly communist Baltic states when he arrives in Lithuania. It is the first time the pope has visited any former Soviet republics.

Jordan states its support of the Israeli-PLO plan. Some 50,000 Israelis participate in a pro-accord demonstration in Tel Aviv. Ibrahim Ghosheh, a Hamas spokesman, reveals that the fundamentalist group will intensify its armed struggle against Israel as a means of preventing the implementation of limited Palestinian self-rule.

Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates agree to support the Israeli-PLO plan in the context of a “just, lasting and comprehensive (regional) peace settlement.”

Sept. 6

Sept. 7

Africa & the Middle East

An assembly set up by armed Gamsakhurdia supporters in the Mingrelia region of western Georgia, which borders Abkhazia, votes to call Zviad Gamsakhurdia back to Mingrelia from his place of exile in Grozny, the capital of the selfdeclared republic of Chechnya, within Russia’s borders.

Sept. 2

Sept. 3

Europe

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, a United Nations-affiliated body, recommends that its 120 member nations impose sanctions against Taiwan and China as part of an effort to force the two countries to halt illegal trading of rhinoceros horns.

Somali gunmen kill seven UN peacekeepers from Nigeria while they were taking over military posts from 800 Italian forces set to be redeployed to the Somali countryside. One Nigerian soldier reportedly is taken hostage by the Somali gunmen, and seven other Nigerians are wounded in the attack. Reports emerge that at least five Muslim prisoners died of beatings and 30 were wounded on one occasion when drunken Croat guards fired machine guns through the walls of a hangar used to house prisoners at a camp in the village of Dretelj, near Medjugorje. . . . A riot at Wymott prison near Leyland, Lancashire, England, involving 400 inmates causes an estimated £10–20 million ($15–30 million) in damage.

In response to the Sept. 5 ambush in Somalia, UN secretary general Boutros-Ghali formally requests a delay in the redeployment of the Italian troops.

Croat leaders meet to pledge compliance with international treaties on the treatment of prisoners of war. However, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, a former Polish premier who is currently the chief UN human-rights investigator for Bosnia, claims that as many as 10,000 Muslims in and around Mostar were placed in what he calls brutal and degrading camps.

The ruling National Party of South Africa agrees to a plan to share limited powers with a multiparty council, the Transitional Executive Council. . . . U.S. Army Rangers arrest 17 Somali militiamen in Mogadishu after a brief firefight with 24 Aidid gunmen. Two Rangers and two Somalis are wounded. . . . Tens of thousands of Israelis rally in West Jerusalem to denounce the interim autonomy plan. In clashes, 27 protesters and seven police officers are injured and 30 demonstrators are arrested.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Reports disclose that, in response to the Aug. 29 massacre in a Rio de Janeiro slum, the Brazilian government has established a federal police unit to investigate death squads.

The UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs reports that the Chinese government placed the death toll from the Aug. 27 dam burst at 1,257. The agency finds 336 people were injured and 30,000 were displaced, and it estimates the burst caused $27 million in damage. . . . A nationwide strike to protest economic reforms announced by caretaker prime minister Moeen Qureshi halts public transport and closed shops in Karachi, Pakistan’s commercial hub.

Reports indicate that five military policemen have been arrested for allegedly taking part in the Aug. 29 massacre of 21 people in a northern Rio de Janeiro slum.

In a power struggle in Guatemala’s congress, the nation’s constitutional court temporarily reinstates Jose Lobo Dubon as the Congress president. About 100 trade union members and Mayan Indian peasants force their way into Congress and hold a three-hour demonstration demanding the resignation of all assembly members. . . . More than 100 gunmen occupy City Hall in Port-au Prince, Haiti, and warn that they will attempt to kill Evans Paul if he tries to reassume the office of mayor.

India and China agree to a series of “confidence-building measures,” including a mutual troop reduction along their long frontier in the Himalayan mountains, to pave the way for a negotiated settlement of their 31-year-old border dispute. . . . The body of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos is returned by plane to his home province of Ilocos Norte, where he will be buried four years after his death and burial in exile in the U.S.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 2–7, 1993—505

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

U.S. vice president Al Gore and Russian premier Victor Chernomyrdin sign an agreement that calls for the two countries to jointly design and build an international space station before the end of the decade. The unprecedented agreement brings to a close decades of cold war competition in space. . . . As there has been no communication from the Mars Observer spacecraft since it lost contact Aug. 21, the craft is presumed lost.

Pres. Clinton names four members to the Assassinations Review Board, which will decide what information regarding the 1963 assassination of Pres. Kennedy should be withheld from the public. Thousands of documents relating to the Kennedy assassination still remain classified.

Sept. 2

The NEA announces that it is withdrawing most of its $5,000 grant for a project meant to honor the contributions of illegal immigrant laborers to the U.S. economy in which artists Elizabeth Sisco, Louis Hock, and David Avalos would hand out $10 bills to illegal immigrants near the California-Mexico border. The NEA claims that such giveaways are an “unallowable expense.”

Herve Villechaize, 50, diminutive actor best known as Tattoo on the ABC television show Fantasy Island, dies in Los Angeles of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Claude Renoir, 78, highly regarded French film cameraman, dies in Troyes, France. . . . Noureddine Morceli of Algeria shatters the world record in the mile run with a time of 3 minutes, 44.39 seconds, taking nearly 2 seconds off the old mark set by Steve Cram of Britain in 1985. A Utah state judge in Tooele County orders Texaco to pay Gold Standard Inc. $404 million in punitive and compensatory damages related to Texaco’s 1985 sale of a gold mine owned jointly by the two companies.

The Union of European Football Associations bans Olympique Marseilles of France from defending its 1993 European Cup championship in the wake of charges that Marseilles’s representatives bribed members of a competing French team six days prior to the 1993 cup final.

The Senate, 65-34, confirms Dr. Joycelyn Elders as surgeon general. . . . A West Palm Beach, Florida, jury convicts Mark Kohut and Charles Rourk, white day laborers, of kidnapping a black tourist, Christopher Wilson, and setting him afire in January. Wilson suffered burns on 40% of his body. . . . A circuit court judge in Richmond, Virginia, upholds a juvenile court’s decision to award Kay Bottoms, 42, custody of her twoyear-old grandson, Tyler Doustou, on the grounds that Tyler’s mother, Sharon Bottoms, 23, is a lesbian.

Rap performer Snoop Doggy Dogg (Calvin Broadus), his bodyguard, and a companion are charged with first-degree murder in the shooting of Philip Woldemariam.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 3

Sept. 4

Sept. 5

Sept. 6

Sept. 7

506—September 8–13, 1993

Sept. 8

Sept. 9

World Affairs

Europe

The EC announces that it is prepared to provide about $590 million in development assistance to the West Bank and Gaza Strip in Israel during the five-year period leading up to a permanent settlement.

A student of Bangladeshi descent, Quaddus Ali, 17, is severely beaten by a group of nine whites in London’s East End. . . . Kresimir Zubak, the vice president of the Bosnian Croats’ principal militia, admits that Muslim prisoners were mistreated in Croat detention camps. Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic fails to persuade the U.S. to set and enforce a deadline for the use of force against Bosnia’s Serbs if they continue to besiege Sarajevo.

At the end of a two-day meeting in Paris of the International Committee for the Reconstruction of Cambodia, 31 donor countries and 11 international organizations pledge $119 million in additional financial aid to Cambodia. . . . Reports show that Tunisia has backed the Israeli-PLO accord, while Iraq, Libya, and Sudan opposed it.

Sept. 10

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Algeria endorses the PLO-Israeli accord.

Evans Paul, the elected mayor of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, is formally reinstated in the capital’s City Hall. Violence reportedly breaks out following the ceremony, and one unconfirmed death is reported.

In India, the ruling Congress (I) party decrees that 27% of the nation’s civil-service jobs will be reserved for members of low-caste groups and other socially disadvantaged citizens.

Ukraine premier Leonid Kuchma resigns, claiming he has been thwarted in his attempts to reform the economy. . . . Greece’s parliament is dissolved after the New Democratic Party of Premier Constantine Mitsotakis loses its majority. . . . In the first such breach in eight months, Croats begin an offensive around Gospic, in western Croatia, at the edge of the rebel Serb enclave of Krajina. Croats seize three villages, allegedly in retaliation for earlier Serbian attacks along the cease-fire line.

As many as 100 Somali gunmen and civilians are killed in Mogadishu when U.S. and Pakistani peacekeeping forces fire on Somalis reportedly throwing grenades. One soldier dies, and eight are wounded. . . . Israel permits more than 180 of the 396 accused Islamic militants deported in December 1992 to return. . . . The PLO Executive Committee approves the Israeli-PLO accords. . . . In South Africa, gunmen fire rifles into crowds of black commuters, killing at least 21 and wounding 25 others in two separate attacks.

Pres. Fidel Castro Ruz inches Cuba a step closer toward a mixed economy when he approves a decree allowing restricted forms of private enterprise. . . . The Peruvian military discloses that Shining Path guerrillas murdered 15 farmers in Monzón, 200 miles (320 km) northeast of Lima. The attack apparently was part of intensified violence to mark the anniversary of the capture of Abimael Guzmán, the group’s leader.

Reports indicate that All-Indonesia Workers’ Union, the nation’s only government-authorized labor organization, has restructured itself into units representing 13 industries.

In London, supporters of Quaddus Ali, 17, who was severely beaten Sept. 8, throw bottles and stones at police officers outside the hospital, injuring 26. . . . In response to the Sept. 9 attack, Serbs begin to shell civilian and government positions in Karlovac, about 30 miles (50 km) southwest of the Croatian capital, Zagreb. Croatian army installations near Osijek, in eastern Croatia, are also hit. The strongest of the Bosnian Serb military formations start an internal rebellion in Banja Luka over pay and poor living conditions.

In a historic moment, the PLO unequivocally reaffirms its recognition of Israel’s right to exist, and the Jewish state mutually recognizes the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people, with the right to participate in the peace process on their behalf. . . . Somali gunmen attack UN positions, firing mortars and rocket grenades at UN bases. Five Somalis who worked for the U.S.’s CNN are among those killed in the fighting.

Antoine Izmery, one of JeanBertrand Aristide’s major financial backers, is shot in the head after being dragged out of a church service by about a dozen men in downtown Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Sept. 11

Data show that in 1992 there were 7,793 racist incidents reported in Britain, up 78% from 1988.

Sept. 12

Sept. 13

The body of the late president Ferdinand Marcos is laid to rest in a mausoleum in Batac, 250 miles (380 km) north of Manila, the capital of the Philippines.

Reaching across a tortured history, Israel’s P.M. Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, the chairman of the PLO, shake hands in Washington, D.C., sealing a breakthrough accord that commits Israelis and Palestinians to share a land that they both claim as their own. Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres and Mahmoud Abbas, a negotiator for the PLO, sign a declaration of principles for interim Palestinian selfrule. The agreement comes in the context of the U.S.-Russia–sponsored Middle East peace conference in 1991 in Madrid, Spain, and after several months of Norwegian-mediated secret negotiations.

A car bomb explodes in downtown New Delhi, India, killing at least eight people and wounding more than 35. Maninder Singh Bitta, the president of the governing Congress (I) party’s youth wing and the apparent target of the attack, emerges with minor injuries.

Three Israeli soldiers are shot to death in an ambush in the Gaza Strip. The Qassam Brigades, the guerrilla wing of Hamas, takes responsibility. Elsewhere in Gaza, three Palestinians opposed to the accord are also killed. In southern Israel, a Palestinian stabs an Israeli bus driver to death and is in turn shot to death by an Israeli soldier. The signing of the accord that will bring interim self-rule to Jericho and the Gaza Strip prompts a mixed reaction among Palestinians and among Israelis.

In Haiti, Wilson Ciceron, a prosecutor investigating the slayings of several Aristide supporters, resigns after receiving numerous death threats.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 8–13, 1993—507

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The Boston (Massachusetts) Teachers Union votes in favor of a new contract that will tie teachers’ pay to improvements in their students’ performance. . . . The Senate votes, 57-40, to pass the final version of Pres. Clinton’s nationalservice initiative. . . . The Education Department finds that 90 million of the U.S.’s 191 million adult citizens possess inadequate skills in math and reading English.

A German tourist, Uwe-Wilhelm Rakebrand, is fatally shot while driving on a Miami, Florida, highway. His murderers were driving during the slaying as well.

The Congressional Budget Office released a report contending that the Clinton budget package will fall short of its $496 billion deficitreduction goal. The CBO report projects that the plan will trim $433 billion from federal deficits through fiscal 1998. . . . The yield on the Treasury Department’s benchmark 30-year bond reaches a record low of 5.86%, and the yield on the Treasury’s 10-year note also breaks a record when it falls to 5.22%.

Dr. Jack Kevorkian assists Donald O’Keefe, 73, who was suffering from bone cancer, to end his life in Redford Township, Michigan. . . . Judge Anne E. Thompson of U.S. District Court in Trenton, New Jersey, sentences New York State’s former top judge, Sol Wachtler, to 15 months in prison for threatening to kidnap the daughter of his former lover, Joy Silverman.

Defense Secretary Les Aspin reveals that three 1983 Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”) missile tests were rigged as part of a plan to deceive the Soviet Union. . . . The Senate passes a nonbinding resolution requesting that Pres. Clinton outline U.S. goals and objectives in Somalia and justify the UN mission or face funding cuts. . . . The Senate defeats, 63-33, a proposal by Barbara Boxer (D, Calif.) that would leave the question of the treatment of homosexuals in the military as a wholly presidential prerogative.

President Clinton mandates the creation of the Community Enterprise Board, a cabinet-level entity that Vice Pres. Gore will head. A memorandum suggests that the board will create “empowerment zones” to encourage business investment in impoverished areas.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle The earl of Westmorland (born David Anthony Thomas Fane), 69, chairman of Sotheby’s board, 1980–82, dies in Tetbury, England. . . . Wang Junxia, 20, of China breaks the world record in the women’s 10,000-meter run by 42 seconds with a time of 29:31.78.

The FDA approves the drug Cognex for treating the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. It is the first drug shown to relieve some symptoms of the disease and the first approved to treat the disorder.

Helen O’Connell, 73, big-band singer, dies in San Diego, California, of cancer. . . . New York Giants guard Eric Moore is sentenced to three years’ probation, 100 hours of community service, and a $5,000 fine. Moore pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of anabolic steroid possession.

The Labor Department reports that the index of prices charged by producers for finished goods fell 0.6% in August from July. The August figure is the largest decline in producer prices since February 1991 and marks the fourth consecutive month that the index has fallen, according to revised data.

Pres. Clinton announces that U.S. companies may participate in World Bank-funded ventures in Vietnam.

The Justice Department announces that two of the largest independent blood-testing laboratories in the U.S., MetPath and MetWest, have agreed to pay the government $39.8 million to settle charges that they submitted false claims to Medicare for unnecessary blood tests.

Sept. 9

Sept. 10

Qu Yunxia of China sets a new record in the 1,500 meters, posting a time of 3:50.46. . . . In tennis, at the U.S. Open, Steffi Graf of Germany wins the women’s singles. . . . Erich Leinsdorf, 81, leading orchestra conductor, dies in Zurich, Switzerland, of cancer.

Pres. Clinton signs three executive orders that instruct federal agencies to devise initiatives to improve customer service, halve their regulations, and prepare reports on how to reduce their staff by 12%.

Reports suggest that Antioch College has instituted new guidelines requiring students and staff to obtain mutual and specific verbal consent before “each new level of physical and/or sexual contact or conduct” during all encounters. Under the policy, a partner’s consent might not be considered “meaningful” if he or she is intoxicated.

Sept. 8

The U.S. space shuttle Discovery blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, to carry out a mission devoted to launching two satellites and testing tools for repairing the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope.

Raymond William Stacy Burr, 76, actor best known for playing the title role in the television series Perry Mason, dies near Healdsburg, California, of kidney cancer. . . . In, tennis, Pete Sampras wins the U.S. Open men’s singles title.

Frederick Campion Steward, 89, pioneering botanist and cell biologist whose landmark findings, published in 1958, are considered the foundation of plant molecular biology, dies in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

A controversial and violent martialarts home video game, “Mortal Kombat,” is released for the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo video game systems. . . . Hyperion Press announces it will publish a book featuring the purported diary of Jack the Ripper, although some experts claim the manuscript is a hoax. The book will address the debate over the diary’s authenticity.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 11

Sept. 12

Sept. 13

508—September 14–19, 1993

Sept. 14

Sept. 15

Sept. 16

Sept. 17

Sept. 18

Sept. 19

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The UN reports that more than 1,000 people are dying each day in Angola of starvation and other war-related effects. It is currently the highest death toll in any conflict throughout the world.

The Serbs shoot down a Croatian air force plane sent to attack missile-launching sites in Krajina. Bosnian government troops massacre at least 35 Croatian civilians in and around the village of Uzdol, in central Bosnia. Nine HVO soldiers are also killed in the attack, which reportedly involves as many as 100 Muslim troops. A cease-fire is agreed.

Representatives of Israel and Jordan reach an “agenda for peace.” . . . Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani condemns the Sept. 13 accord as a sign of “the most degrading times for the Islamic holy war in Palestine.”. . . U.S. Army Rangers arrest 31 Somalis at the home of Ali Ugas, a prominent Somali clan leader in northern Mogadishu, Somalia.

Angolan foreign minister Venancio de Moura tells the UN Security Council that starving people in the city of Cuito, under siege by UNITA forces for eight months, have been eating the flesh of the dead to survive. He accuses UNITA of “horrendous massacres.” The UN Security Council votes unanimously to impose the sanctions but grants UNITA a grace period.

Bosnian government troops advance along a new front about 20 miles (30 km) northwest of the divided city of Mostar. UN peacekeeping troops begin moving between the two sides in light of the Sept. 14 cease-fire. . . . French farmers disrupt traffic in and around Paris as part of their efforts to force the government to remain firmly opposed to the EC-U.S. compromise.

A military court in Cairo, Egypt, condemns two Muslim militants to death by hanging and imposes in absentia life prison terms on four others involved in an assassination attempt on General Osman Shahin in July. . . . Somali gunmen shoot and kill two Italian soldiers jogging near Mogadishu’s port. Separate mortar attacks launched by militiamen who reportedly have ties to Aidid wound 11 peacekeepers in the UN compound and kill a Somali child.

The IMF approves a standby credit package for Pakistan worth $377 million over the following year. . . . The International Atomic Energy Agency rejects terms offered by North Korea that would have governed the IAEA’s inspection of North Korea’s nuclear-energy facilities. The inspectors reportedly were denied desired access to several facilities during a visit in August.

Rebels launch an offensive on the Abkhazian capital, Sukhumi. . . . Former East German defense minister Heinz Kessler, Fritz Streletz and Hans Albrecht are convicted in the deaths of East Germans killed seeking to flee to the West, and they are sentenced 71⁄2, 51⁄2, and 41⁄2 years in jail, respectively. They are the highest East German officials yet tried. . . . In retaliation for the Sept. 14 massacre, Croatian forces shell the Muslim-held towns of Gornji Vakuf and Jablanica.

King Fahd of Saudi Arabia issues a decree calling for the establishment of advisory assemblies in each of the country’s 13 regions, to serve under the governing emir. The decree receives notice since it introduces a limited degree of democracy into the tightly ruled Islamic monarchy.

The UN General Assembly completes the selection of 11 judges to sit on a war crimes tribunal to hear charges of atrocities in the Balkans.

The revolt started by the strongest of the Bosnian Serb military formations Sept. 10 ends with the withdrawal of tanks and armored vehicles from the streets after Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic pledges to improve the soldiers’ living conditions. Several rebel troop leaders are arrested. . . . For the first time since World War II, Daimler-Benz AG, Germany’s largest industrial company, reveals it suffered a loss for the first half of the year.

The Financial Times lists the unemployment rates from EC nations as follows: Luxembourg (2.5%), Portugal (5.2%), Germany (8.4%), Great Britain (10.4%), Belgium (10.5%), Italy (10.7%), Netherlands (10.9%), France (11.7%), Denmark (12.4%), Ireland (18.6%), and Spain (21.1%).

Russian president Boris Yeltsin appoints former acting premier Yegor Gaidar as first deputy premier in charge of economic affairs. The move is widely interpreted to signal the government’s commitment to shoring up faltering economic reforms. . . . The Sept. 14 cease-fire announced by Croat leader Tudjman and Bosnian president Izetbegovic is slated to go into effect, but it is not observed.

Reports state that the IMF has decided to delay indefinitely the disbursement of a $1.5 billion loan to support economic reform in Russia because the country has not made promised budget cuts and has not reined in credits to industry.

Polish voters hold general elections, precipitated by a May 28 vote of no-confidence in the government. . . . In London, police arrest 27 people in the East End after fighting between supporters of the Bangladesh National Party and antiracist groups.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific China announces it has freed Wei Jingsheng, 43, a prominent dissident been jailed since 1979 and whose release had been sought by international human rights organizations and foreign governments for several years.

Brazil’s Supreme Court declares unconstitutional a bank-transaction tax central to Pres. Itamar Franco’s efforts to reduce the federal deficit.

Reports indicate that Thailand’s premier, Chuan Leekpai, has expelled the Social Action Party has from his five-party ruling coalition, replacing it with the smaller Seritham (Justice Freedom) party. The move reduces the coalition’s parliamentary majority to 13 seats, from 27. . . . Data suggests that China’s summer grain harvest totaled a record level of nearly 108 million tons, an increase of 4.7 million tons from 1992.

Statistics show that there were 28.75 million people living in Canada on July 1, an increase of 1.9 million residents since 1988.

An Israeli Supreme Court justice, Theodore Orr, announces that he dismissed all appeals seeking a retrial of John Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian native who was acquitted in July of charges that he was “Ivan the Terrible,” a notoriously cruel guard at the Treblinka death camp in Poland during World War II. Demjanjuk has been in prison since 1986. . . . Reports suggest Suha Arafat has said that she told her husband, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, that “if he does not accept the rights of women, myself will lead the protests outside the offices of the Palestinian interim government.”

Indian and Pakistani soldiers exchange gunfire on the border of India’s disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir, killing three Pakistani soldiers. . . . In Cambodia, the Funcinpec party and Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) agree to a power-sharing configuration.

Australian prime minister Paul Keating announces that he has formally told Queen Elizabeth II of his proposal to convert Australia from a constitutional monarchy to a federal republic by the year 2001.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 14–19, 1993—509

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Dr. Jack Kevorkian is charged for a second time with violating Michigan’s law banning assisted suicides for his Sept. 9 act. . . . South Dakota residents vote down a ballot initiative aimed at increasing betting limits at the state’s casinos.

The Senate passes, 92-7, a $261 billion defense-authorization bill, which raises controversy since it codifies the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding homosexuals in the military. It goes further than the July proposal when it states that the question of sexual orientation can be reintroduced if deemed necessary by the defense secretary. . . . A British tourist, Gary Colley, is fatally shot at a highway rest stop in Florida. He is the ninth tourist killed in the state since October 1992.

The House approves, 214-208, a financing bill that will provide a total of $26.3 billion to the Resolution Trust Corp. and a new Savings Association Insurance Fund that will monitor thrift institutions after the RTC’s mandate ceases.

The FAA successfully tests a new satellite-navigation control system on a civilian aircraft for the first time. The system, known as the Global Positioning System (GPS), is designed to provide more precision to aircraft guidance and to substantially improve navigation, particularly in inclement weather.

Katherine Ann Power, a radical opponent of the Vietnam War wanted for a 1970 bank robbery in which a police officer was slain, surrenders to police in Boston, Massachusetts. During the robbery, one of Power’s cohorts, William Gilday Jr., fatally shot a police officer, Walter Schroeder Sr., and is currently serving a life sentence in prison for his role in the crime. Power pleads guilty to state charges of manslaughter, armed robbery, and robbery. The Office of Thriff Supervision reports that savings and loans institutions earned $1.28 billion in the second quarter of 1993, a 2.3% rise from 1992 second-quarter profits and the 10th consecutive quarter with an overall profit.

Pres. Clinton appoints Mary Frances Berry to head the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, succeeding Arthur A. Fletcher. Berry will be the first woman to head the panel.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Sept. 14

A study by the U.S. National Cancer Institute and the Cancer Institute of the Chinese Academy of Medical Science in Beijing finds that daily intakes of beta carotene, vitamin E and selenium reduce the rate of cancer deaths.

The issue of Forbes magazine that lists the world’s highest-paid entertainers becomes available, and Oprah Winfrey, TV host and producer, is at the top with total earnings of $98 million.

The New England Journal of Medicine concludes that routine sonogram examinations performed each year on millions of pregnant women in the U.S. are costly and unnecessary. . . . A British girl, fiveyear-old Laura Davies, undergoes a multiple transplant operation and receives seven organs—a liver, stomach, pancreas, large and small intestines, and two kidneys— in an operation that is the first of its kind.

Willie Mosconi, 80, pocket billiards player who beat Minnesota Fats in a 1978 high-profile televised match, dies in Haddon Heights, New Jersey, of a heart attack.

Captain Enio Ravelo Rodriguez, a Cuban air force pilot, aborts a military-training flight to seek asylum at the U.S. Navy air base located about five miles (eight km) east of Key West, Florida.

Sept. 15

Sept. 16

Sept. 17

Sept. 18

At the Emmy Awards, Picket Fences wins for Best Drama Series, Seinfeld wins for Best Comedy Series and Saturday Night Live wins as Best Variety, Music or Comedy Series.

In an unprecedented drug-interdiction effort between the Cuban government and the U.S., Cuban authorities in Havana hand over two suspected American cocaine smugglers to officials of the U.S. DEA.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 19

510—September 20–25, 1993

Sept. 20

Sept. 21

Sept. 22

Sept. 23

Sept. 24

Sept. 25

World Affairs

Europe

The Arab League, composed of 20 Arab countries and the PLO, declare that the Israeli-PLO interim agreement is “an important first step toward realizing the land-forpeace principle.”

Azerbaijan’s parliament votes to join the CIS. . . . Bosnian Muslim leaders and their Croatian government counterparts come to terms on the proposed postwar Muslim state’s access to the Adriatic Sea. . . . In Abkhazian, government forces come under air attack by Russianbuilt fighter-bombers. It is believed that the sorties are from Russiancontrolled bases in northern Abkhazia, or from airfields in southern Russia.

The UN General Assembly opens its 48th session with 184 members. . . . In response to the conflict in Russia, both U.S. president Clinton and British prime minister Major express their support for Pres. Yeltsin. . . . Israel becomes the 80th country to begin formal adherence to the section of the IMF’s Articles of Agreement that prohibits IMF members from restricting current financial transactions among IMF countries and calls on members to adhere to a single, nondiscriminatory exchangerate formula.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin dissolves Parliament and calls elections for December 11–12 to fill a new legislative assembly. Within hours, Parliament declares Yeltsin’s action to be a coup d’état and votes to depose him. The defense ministry states that the army will observe “strict political neutrality.” . . . The Azerbaijan parliament votes to lift the nationwide state of emergency that had been in force since Apr. 2. . . . During the fighting in Abkhazian, a civilian airliner is shot down near the Abkhazian capital.

The IMF projects that the world economy will grow by 2.2% in 1993, a figure unchanged from their April report. . . . In response to the crisis in Russia, Germany, France, and Japan express support for Pres. Yeltsin. NATO echoes those statements, and Willy Claes, speaking for the EC, states that the EC supports Yeltsin’s actions, even though they are unconstitutional. . . . The UN Security Council adopts a resolution that sets a March 1995 withdrawal date for UN peacekeeping forces in Somalia.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Abu Shaaban, a leader of the mainstream Al Fatah movement, is shot dead by a masked Palestinian gunman in the Gaza Strip. . . . U.S. troops capture Osman Hassan Ali, one of Gen. Aidid’s chief aides, and three other aides during a helicopter raid. A number of Somalis are killed. In another incident, three Pakistani peacekeepers are killed and seven are injured during an ambush in Mogadishu. . . . In Angola, UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi states he has ordered a unilateral cease-fire, but the government maintains that fighting continues.

A strike protesting recent vehicle taxes and high gasoline prices in Nicaragua turns violent when demonstrators throw stones at cars and use rocks and burning tires to barricade streets in Managua, the capital, and other major national arteries. A police official and a mother of five are shot to death during an exchange of gunfire between strikers and police in Managua.

In Cambodia, the assembly votes to adopt a new constitution that calls for a pluralistic “liberal democracy” headed by a two-tiered premiership.

In Russia, Vice President Aleksandr V. Rutskoi is sworn in as acting president. He annuls Boris Yeltsin’s Sept, 21 declaration, while Yeltsin invalidates Rutskoi’s decrees. . . . Ukrainian president Leonid Kravchuk names Yefim Zvyagilsky as acting premier. . . . Reports indicate that Russia has repudiated a Sept. 3 agreement with Ukraine involving nuclear warheads. . . . Another civilian airliner is shot down near the Abkhazian capital. With the deaths from the Sept. 21 crash, 108 people have been killed.

In South Africa, the white separatist Afrikaner-based Conservatives denounce the chief government negotiator, Roelf Meyer, as a “despicable traitor,” and all its members subsequently are ordered to leave the parliamentary chamber. . . . After a letter of appeal from Swedish king Carl Gustaf, Iraq releases three Swedes serving seven-year prison terms imposed after they wandered into Iraqi territory in 1992.

Press accounts cite an unidentified UN official in Haiti as saying that “The attachés are just going into the neighborhoods and opening fire to terrorize the population.” The “attachés” refer to special plainclothes agents of the police department.

The UN Security Council authorizes the deployment of a 1,300member contingent to Haiti under the terms of the Governor’s Island accord.

In Russia, Parliament votes, 636-2, to oust Pres. Yeltsin. . . . In Sukhumi, the Abkhazian capital, an airliner is fired on while it is on the tarmac boarding passengers.

In a historic moment, the South African parliament votes to allow blacks to participate for the first time in the national government, approving creation of a multiracial council that will oversee the country’s preparations for its first universal election, scheduled for April 27, 1994. . . . A solid majority in the Israeli Knesset votes to approve Israel’s Sept. 13 pact with the PLO.

Cuban refugees occupying the grounds of the Mexican embassy in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, accept the Dominican government’s offer of temporary housing at a state-run resort.

The U.S. recognizes the new Cambodian government. . . . . After the Sept. 23 vote in South Africa, both the U.S. and Canadian governments move to end sanctions against South Africa, and Commonwealth nations indicate that they will act similarly. . . . . At a CIS summit meeting, Azerbaijan accedes to the 1991 treaty that created the grouping of former Soviet republics. A wider treaty on economic union is signed by 10 CIS members.

Results from the Sept. 19 elections in Poland show that the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) has won 171 seats in the 460-seat Sejm. The Alliance, led by Aleksander Kwasniewski, is the successor to the defunct United Workers’ Party. . . . The Finnish parliament votes against constructing a new nuclear power plant. . . . The Ukrainian parliament votes to hold parliamentary and presidential elections.

The finance ministers and centralbank heads of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations meet in Washington, D.C.

Sir John Moores, 97, founder of the Littlewoods Organization, Britain’s largest private company, who was knighted in 1980, dies in Freshfield, England.

A transportation strike that involved 30,000 workers, was supported by Nicaraguans of all political persuasions, and halted commercial activity in Nicaragua ends when the government repeals recent vehicle taxes and freezes gasoline prices.

Three U.S. soldiers are killed when their helicopter is shot down in Mogadishu, Somalia, reportedly by Gen. Aidid’s supporters. The helicopter’s pilot and copilot survive the ensuing crash. Reports confirm that the State Department has advised all U.S. citizens to leave Somalia, even if they work for internationally supervised relief agencies. . . . A policeman is killed in Egypt, bringing to nine the number of Egyptian police officers assassinated in September.

Norodom Sihanouk assumes the throne as Cambodia’s king, regaining the position he had abdicated in 1955. He announces that Prince Norodom Ranariddh, his son, will hold the title of first premier, and Hun Sen, the outgoing premier, will serve as second premier. . . . Imelda Marcos, wife of the late Philippines president Ferdinand Marcos, is convicted of corruption and sentenced to 18–24 years’ imprisonment.

Reports indicate that Interim Prime Minister Moeen Qureshi will suspend Pakistan’s nuclear program.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 20–25, 1993—511

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

In a case that had garnered national attention, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole commutes the three-year sentence of Dehundra Caldwell, a black teenager convicted of stealing ice-cream bars from a school cafeteria. After pleading guilty, Caldwell was sentenced by white Superior Court judge Andrew Whalen, which prompted some to accuse Whalen of racism.

The Senate approves, 83-12, the closure of 130 U.S. military bases and the scaling back of 45 others, as recommended in July.

Despite the fact that the Oregon State legislature voided such measures, voters in six towns and one county in Oregon pass ordinances that bar their local governments from enacting laws to protect homosexuals from discrimination. . . . President Clinton signs the National and Community Service Trust Act, which will provide some young people with money to pay for college in return for community service. . . . The House votes, 33985, in favor of revisions to the Hatch Act, a 1939 law that bars most federal employees from taking part in partisan politics.

The Justice Department confirms that Acting Secretary of the Army John Shannon admitted shoplifting women’s clothing from an army post exchange at Fort Myer, Virginia. The department adds that Shannon, 59, will not be prosecuted if he completes a program for offenders.

A Michigan judge orders the University of Michigan to pay $1.2 million in damages to Carolyn Phinney, a scientist, after a jury finds that the school did not investigate properly her claim that her supervisor, Dr. Marion Perlmutter, had engaged in scientific misconduct had when Perlmutter submitted Phinney’s research findings for federal grants without naming her as the principal investigator.

Pope John Paul II meets with the chief rabbi of Israel’s Ashkenazi Jews, Yisrael Meir Lau. The meeting is the first ever between a pope and one of Israel’s chief rabbis.

Pres. Clinton unveils his longawaited health-care reform proposal in a speech to a joint session of Congress. . . . Figures suggest that four-year public colleges raised their tuition and fees by an average of 8% for the 1993–94 academic year, from $2,334, to an average of $2,527. Private fouryear colleges’ tuition and fees rose by an average of 5.5% to $11,025, from $10,449.

John Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian native acquitted in July of charges that he was “Ivan the Terrible,” a notoriously cruel guard at the Treblinka death camp in Poland during World War II, is met by 100 protesters from the Kahane Chai militant Jewish group at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, where they chant anti-Nazi slogans and burn Demjanjuk in effigy. A smaller group peacefully pickets Demjanjuk’s home. Demjanjuk goes into hiding near Cleveland, Ohio, to avoid protesters

An Amtrak train plunges off a trestle bridge and into a bayou about 10 miles (15 km) north of Mobile, Alabama, killing 47 passengers and crew. The death toll is the highest in any Amtrak accident since the passenger line began operating in 1971. . . . The U.S. space shuttle Discovery touches down safely on the airstrip at Kennedy.

Maurice Abravanel, 90, orchestra conductor who received the National Medal of Arts from President George Bush in 1991, dies in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The FCC approves a plan that provides a blueprint for a new generation of wireless communications services that is expected to radically alter the nation’s current communications technology.

The International Olympic Committee chooses Sydney, Australia, to host the 2000 Olympic Summer Games. . . . Vicki Van Meter, 11, becomes the youngest female to pilot a plane across the U.S. Van Meter flew the plane herself, although she was accompanied by flight instructor Bob Baumgartner.

Studies conducted by BristolMyers Squibb Co. confirm that silicone breast implants with polyurethane plastic coatings erode and send small amounts of potentially cancer-causing chemicals into women’s bodies. . . . Bruno Pontecorvo, 80, Italian-born nuclear scientist who defected to the Soviet Union in 1950, dies in Dubna, Russia, of pneumonia after suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

After a long scandal, Frank Maco, a state attorney in Litchfield, Connecticut, states that, although he has “probable cause,” he will not prosecute filmmaker Woody Allen on charges that he molested his adopted daughter, Dylan O’Sullivan Farrow.

In a gesture of support for Russian president Yeltsin, the Senate passes, 88-10, a 1994 foreign aid appropriations bill that includes $2.5 billion for Russia. . . . Captain Leonides Basulto Serrano, a Cuban air force pilot, aborts his militarytraining flights to seek asylum at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

Katherine Ann Power, who turned herself in Sept. 15 for a 1970 bank robbery, pleads guilty to a federal charge of theft of government property stemming from a burglary three days before the bank heist. As part of a plea agreement, the government recommends that Power be sentenced to a five-year prison term to run concurrently with the state sentence she is to receive for the robbery and murder.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle C(yrus) L(eo) Sulzberger, 80, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist for The New York Times, 1944–78, dies in Paris. . . . Author Salman Rushdie’s novel Midnight’s Children wins the Booker of Bookers award, a special honor celebrating the prize’s 25th anniversary.

Officials of Los Angeles International Airport agree temporarily not to enforce a new airport regulation that raises landing-right fees collected from airlines. The move defuses a crisis that has been building since July, when the city of Los Angeles, which owns the airport, announced landing fees would be tripled.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., rules, 3-0, that the Clinton administration will not be forced to submit NAFTA to a formal environmental review. . . . In response to the Sept. 23 vote in South Africa, the Senate unanimously approves legislation that will lift sanctions on international lending and government-togovernment aid to South Africa.

Sept. 20

Sept. 21

Sept. 22

Sept. 23

Sept. 24

Sept. 25

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

512—September 26–30, 1993

Sept. 26

Sept. 27

Sept. 28

Sept. 29

Sept. 30

World Affairs

Europe

The United Nations Security Council bans sales of arms and fuel to the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).

Supporters of Russian president Yeltsin and acting president Aleksandr Rutskoi hold rival demonstrations in central Moscow. The leaders of about 40 regional councils call for simultaneous parliamentary and presidential elections.

Trade negotiators for the U.S. and the European Community fail to resolve a growing dispute over agricultural subsidies that threaten to prevent completion of the socalled Uruguay Round of the GATT talks.

In Ukraine, Pres. Kravchuk takes direct control of the Ukrainian government, stating he is eliminating the job of premier. . . . The first major rift in Bosnian Muslim solidarity appears when the northwestern enclave of Bihac dissociates itself from the government in Sarajevo. A 400-member assembly, meeting in the town of Velika Kladusa, votes to make Bihac an Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia. . . . Rebels capture the Abkhazian capital, Sukhumi, after an offense that started Sept. 16.

The IMF and the World Bank open their joint annual meeting in Washington, D.C., and representatives from most of the 178 member countries attend the meeting, which focuses on possible measures to boost worldwide economic growth.

The Georgian embassy in Moscow reports that the Abkhazian victors in Sukhumi captured and killed Zhiuli Shartava, the head of the local Georgian government. Georgian leader Eduard Shevardnadze states the Abkhazians entering Sukhumi have murdered scores of people. . . . Russian president Yeltsin orders that vehicles and razor wire ring the White House.

The World Bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development release a joint study asserting that a successful conclusion of the GATT talks will add $213 billion annually to world income by 2002. . . . The EC states that it will replace its 1975 freetrade agreement with Israel with a more comprehensive pact. . . . Foreign ministers of the Organization of African Unity approve the removal of economic sanctions against South Africa, except for a mandatory arms embargo, voluntary restrictions on oil sales, and nuclear-related trade.

Security forces loyal to Alija Izetbegovic seize police posts and local radio stations in five towns in the Bihac enclave and are resisted by local people, who form human chains to impede them. The Bosnian parliament votes to dismiss Fikret Abdic from the collective presidency. Although it is not immediately reported, Croat forces forcibly expel Muslims from the mainly Croatian western half of Mostar to the mainly Muslim eastern half. The Bosnian parliament rejects current proposals for the partition of Bosnia between its Muslim, Serbian, and Croatian populations.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development releases reduced 1994 economicgrowth estimates for the U.S., Japan, and Germany to total 3%, 2%, and 0.5% in the U.S., Japan, and Germany, respectively.

Abkhazian secessionists capture the towns of Ochamchira, on the Black Sea coast, and Gali, about 15 miles (20 km) inland. The rebels’ military successes send at least 70,000 refugees into flight, some of them into the mountainous interior, where they face possible starvation and exposure.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Eight financial-sector workers are executed for their roles in an embezzlement case considered one of the largest since the Communists took power in China in 1949. . . . In Afghanistan, guerrilla leaders agree on an interim constitution as a prelude to elections in 1994.

Security troops in the West Bank capture Ahmed Awad Ikmail, the leader of the Black Panthers military wing of the PLO’s mainstream Fatah faction. Israeli authorities describe Ikmail as their mostwanted Palestinian fugitive. . . . The leader of the Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party in Kwathema township, Sammy Motha, is shot and killed.

Reports suggest that the mysterious illness that causes vision loss and impaired coordination in almost 51,000 people in Cuba has apparently run its course.

In Pakistan, Ghulam Hyder Wyne, a former chief minister of Punjab province and a close colleague of P.M. Nawaz Sharif, is shot to death in an ambush in central Punjab.

The Supreme Court of Canada denies Sue Rodriguez, who is in the last stages of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease), the right to a doctor-assisted suicide.

A powerful earthquake wreaks havoc in central India. The earthquake measures 6.4 on the Richter scale, and estimates of its death toll run as high as 30,000.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 26–30, 1993—513

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R, Tex.) is indicted on five felony counts of official misconduct, tampering with evidence, and tampering with government records. Hutchison is the 10th senator ever—but the second in the current Congress—to be indicted while in office. Sen. David Durenberger (R, Minn.) is the other one, having been he was charged in April with submitting false expense claims to the Senate.

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A team of eight researchers emerge from Biosphere 2, a contained ecosystem in which they were sealed for two years. The project’s backers report that they successfully created a prototype for space colonies and a laboratory for the study of ecology. However, critics note that the researchers pumped air into the Biosphere three months into the experiment, and one member of the team had taken supplies back into the Biosphere after leaving to have surgery performed.

The U.S. team of golfers retains the Ryder Cup over European golfers in match-play competition.

Gen. James Harold Doolittle, 96, aviation pioneer known for leading the first bombing raid on Japan during World War II, who won the Medal of Honor in 1952 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1989, dies in Pebble Beach, California, after recently suffering a stroke.

Sept. 26

Sept. 27

The House of Representatives votes, 406-26, to approve a nonbinding resolution requesting that Pres. Clinton explicitly outline U.S. goals and objectives in Somalia and justify the UN mission or face funding cuts.

Postmaster General Marvin Runyon reveals that the Postal Service lost about $100 million in 1993 as a result of postage meter fraud. . . . The RTC announces it has reached a $45 million settlement with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, a New York City law firm, on charges that the firm was negligent in its work for a Miami, Floridabased thrift, Centrust Savings Bank, seized by the RTC in 1990.

Peter De Vries, 83, comic novelist who served as a staff contributor to the New Yorker magazine, 1977–87, dies in Norwalk, Connecticut, of pneumonia.

A Planned Parenthood office in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is severely damaged by a firebomb.

The House approves a foreign-aid appropriations bill that sets conditions on the release of $98.2 million in aid to Nicaragua. . . . The House passes, 268-162, a $263 billion defense-authorization bills for fiscal 1994, with the same provisions about homosexuals in the military cleared by the Senate Sept. 14. . . . The House passes, 321-108, a $13 billion appropriations bill to fund the government’s foreign operations for fiscal 1993.

The Commerce Department notes that after-tax profits of U.S. corporations rose by 5% in the second quarter from the previous quarter, to an annual rate of $272.3 billion. . . . Congress approves a stopgap spending measure that will provide funding for federal government operations for the first few weeks of the 1994 fiscal year. . . . The Senate approves, 82-17, a $256.3 billion appropriations bill to fund the Departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services and related agencies for fiscal 1994.

The full Senate unanimously confirms actress Jane Alexander as chairwoman of the NEA. . . . CBS News anchor Dan Rather criticizes the television news industry for emphasizing ratings over quality.

Clinton administration officials announce they have reduced the staff of the White House to 1,005 employees, from 1,394 staffers. . . . The New England Journal of Medicine finds that obese people face a greater risk of social, educational, and economic discrimination than thinner people. . . . A report evaluating the initial raid on the Branch Davidians near Waco, Texas, lambastes high-ranking ATF officials, prompting Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen to remove Stephen Higgins as ATF director effective immediately.

The Senate approves by voice vote a bill to appropriate $9.8 billion for military construction in fiscal 1994. . . . The House passes, 325-102, a $239.6 billion defenseappropriations bill. . . . The Senate clears, 88-11, and Pres. Clinton signs a $13 billion appropriations bill to fund foreign operations for fiscal 1993. . . . General Colin Powell retires as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Powell, the youngest and only black person to be appointed to the post, receives his second Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Pres. Clinton signs the stopgap spending measure passed by Congress on Sept. 29.

The heads of the four major television networks begin to air parental advisory warnings for violent shows.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 28

Sept. 29

Sept. 30

514—October 1–5, 1993

Oct. 1

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

A special donors conference of 43 nations pledges about $2 billion in aid to the Palestine Liberation Organization. . . . The world’s longest offshore gas pipeline, called the Zeepipe, measuring 500 miles (800 km), goes into service. It runs from the North Sea off the coast of Norway to Zeebrugge, Belgium, and carries the first shipment of natural gas as per the 1986 Troll agreement.

Separatists in Georgia’s northwestern Abkhazia region succeed in expelling from the territory government forces fighting to put down the insurrection there.

Peace activist Abie Nathan closes down his ship-based “Voice of Peace” radio station, in operation since 1973, citing dwindling finances and the dawn of a new era in Israeli-Palestinian relations.

In Georgia, Gamsakhurdia loyalists seize the port of Poti, depriving the government in Tbilisi of its last significant outlet to the Black Sea. . . . In Britain, figures suggest that the opening of Buckingham Palace to tourists has generated the equivalent of $3.3 million in profits.

Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip attack suspected hideouts of an armed wing of the fundamentalist group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), which opposes the Israel-PLO accord. They kill two Hamas commanders and capture 16 other guerrillas in their raid. . . . Sheik Amin Tarif, 95, spiritual leader of the Arab Druse in Israel since 1928, dies in Julis, Israel.

Human-rights monitors in Haiti report that there have been more than 100 assassinations of Aristide supporters in Port-au-Prince since the signing in July of the Governor’s Island agreement. There have also been 30 documented “disappearances” in the capital during the same period.

In response to the Sept. 30 earthquake, the Indian government announces that it will for the first time accept foreign relief assistance. Since gaining its independence in 1947, India has historically refused foreign offers of disasterrelief aid.

The World Health Organization estimates there are 2.5 million AIDS cases worldwide.

In Russia, violent riots break out in reaction to the crisis that started Sept. 21. About 5,000 armed demonstrators sympathetic to parliament members engage police and breach the cordon of security forces around the White House. The mayor’s office is taken after a firefight, and another group of anti-Yeltsin rioters gather at a TV complex and fire a rocket-propelled grenade, triggering yet another gun battle. The president’s supporters stage a march, and 15,000 of them put up barricades on Tverskaya Street, where Yeltsin works through the night. Western press reports argue that the violence is the worst in Moscow since 1917.

At least 12 U.S. Army soldiers are killed in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, when a battle erupts with supporters of Somali warlord General Mohammed Farah Aidid. At least two foreigners are killed and six wounded. More than 75 U.S. soldiers reportedly are wounded during the battle.

The Justicialist (Peronist) Party of Argentine president Carlos Saul Menem scores convincing victories in midterm congressional elections.

The U.S. delivered India its first foreign shipment of relief supplies after the Sept. 30 earthquake.

The UN Security Council votes unanimously to extend by six months the mandate of the 22,000 peacekeepers in Croatia, Bosnia, and Macedonia in Resolution 871, which also links the lifting of economic sanctions against Serbia to progress in resolving the SerboCroat conflict in Croatia. . . . Pres. Clinton names Gen. George Joulwan as supreme allied commander, Europe, the top military job in NATO. Joulwan, 53, succeeds Gen. John Shalikashvili.

Russian troops put down the Oct. 3 armed uprising of rebellious parliamentarians and their supporters against Pres. Boris Yeltsin and regain control of the parliament building in Moscow, the mayor’s office, and the Ostankino television complex. Skirmishes with scattered bands of armed rebels continue. Ruslan Khasbulatov and Aleksandr Rutskoi surrender and are placed under arrest. . . . Bosnian government troops bombard the town of Velika Kladusa.

A Palestinian linked to Hamas launches a suicide car-bomb attack near the Jewish West Bank settlement of Beit El, wounding 30 Israelis. . . . At the conclusion of the battle in Somalia, U.S. defense secretary Aspin reportedly orders four heavy tanks and other equipment to be deployed immediately to Somalia along with an infantry battalion of 220 troops. . . . Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak easily wins reelection in a referendum in which he ran unopposed.

China conducts an underground nuclear-weapon test in remote western China, effectively breaking an informal global moratorium on such tests. In response, several nations urge China not to proceed, and the U.S. states that it will begin preparations to possibly conduct its own test in 1994.

While fighting Turkish forces, the PKK is also accused of targeting civilians when 37 die in an attack in Siirt and Batman provinces. . . . In Bosnia, reports suggest that 2,500 government army troops have defected to the rebel side, and that scores of combatants on both sides have been killed or wounded in the last two days of fighting. . . . In western Georgia, two people are killed when Gamsakhurdia supporters attack government installations. Authorities impose curfews in Sukhumi and Tbilisi.

Oct. 2

Oct. 3

Oct. 4

Oct. 5

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Reports suggest that preelection violence in Pakistan has taken the lives of about 50 people.

Bermuda prime minister John Swan is reelected as his United Bermuda Party (UBP) wins a narrow majority in the island’s House of Assembly. The party retains its uninterrupted hold on power since the British colony became selfgoverning in 1968.

Indian authorities report that they have officially recorded fewer than 10,000 fatalities from the Sept. 30 earthquake. UN officials estimate the death toll at 12,000–13,000 and that that the quake left 120,000 homeless.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 1–5, 1993—515

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

In the July arrest regarding a conspiracy to bomb a black church and a synagogue, Christian Nadal is convicted of manufacturing, possessing, and selling guns. Nadal’s wife, Doris, is convicted on conspiracy to possess illegal weapons. . . . Former Rep. Albert Bustamante (D, Tex.) is sentenced in federal district court to serve 31⁄2 years in prison and pay $55,000 in fines for bribery and racketeering.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Labor Department finds that 40% of women who die on the job are homicide victims, compared with 15% of men. . . . Rupert Murdoch officially repurchases the New York Post newspaper. . . . Paul M. Mozer, the former head of the governmentsecurities division of Salomon Brothers, pleads guilty to two felony counts of lying. Mozer also agrees to set up a $500,000 fund to be used to settle future SEC fines.

Reports suggest that the FDA has approved an injectable protein to treat stress urinary incontinence.

A Hackensack, New Jersey, Superior Court judge sentences soul singer Wilson Pickett, 52, to a year in jail and five years’ probation after Pickett pled guilty to hitting an elderly pedestrian while driving drunk in April 1992.

Henry Ringling North, 83, former co-owner and manager of Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, 1936–67, dies in Begnins, Switzerland, after a long illness.

Reports suggest that three House members from Oklahoma—Ernest J. Istook Jr. (R), James M. Inhofe (R) and Bill Brewster (D)—stated they would not hire people who are openly homosexual . . . Reports confirm that an attorney who recently filed suit regarding HIVtainted blood supplies, Leonard Ring, has disclosed that at least 10,000 hemophiliacs in the 1980s used the tainted products.

Long-shot Urban Sea, ridden by Eric St. Martin, wins the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, continental Europe’s most prestigious horse race, with a time of 2:38.

The Supreme Court opens its 1993–94 term with a full complement of nine justices when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg formally succeeds Byron White. . . . The Census Bureau reports that 37.4 million Americans, or 14.7% of the population, had no health insurance during 1992. That is an increase from 35.4 million, or 14.1%, of all Americans during 1991.

News reports from Somalia following a battle cause debate and calls on Congress for withdrawing U.S. on troops from Somalia. . . . Defense Secretary Aspin overrules a recommendation by Navy Secretary John Dalton to fire Admiral Frank Kelso as chief of naval operations for allegedly failing to respond vigorously to the Tailhook naval aviators scandal. In the scandal, 83 women reported that they had been sexually molested or assaulted.

California governor Pete Wilson (R) signs into law a bill that will move the date of the state’s 1996 presidential primary forward to the last week of March, from early June. . . . Appearing in Nassau County Court in Mineola, New York, Joseph Buttafuoco pleads guilty to one count of statutory rape involving teenager Amy Fisher. Fisher is currently serving 5–15 years in jail for shooting Buttafuoco’s wife, Mary Jo Buttafuoco.

The Senate confirms General John Shalikashvili, Pres. Clinton’s nominee for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. . . . More than 200 members of Congress meet with Defense Secretary Les Aspin and Secretary of State Christopher Warren, and most of the legislators, both Republican and Democrat, call for the administration to withdraw U.S. troops from Somalia as soon as possible.

The Census Bureau reports that the number of Americans living below the poverty level in 1992 rose for the third straight year, reaching its highest total since 1962.

The Justice Department announces that the makers of the $2 billion Hubble Space Telescope have agreed to pay $25 million to the federal government to settle liability claims related to the orbiter’s defects.

James R. Porter, a former Roman Catholic priest accused of molesting dozens of children in three states in the 1960s, pleads guilty to 41 counts of sexual molestation in Bristol County Superior Court, Massachusetts. . . . The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller tops the bestseller list.

A satellite, Landsat 6, which is planned to spend five years studying the global environment, land use, mineral deposits, timberlands, and water-flow patterns, is launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, receiving its boost into orbit from a Titan 2G rocket.

Pope John Paul II releases his 10th encyclical on fundamental moral theory. In it, he writes that the church faces a “genuine crisis” that is “no longer a matter of limited and occasional dissent, but of an overall and systematic calling into question of traditional moral doctrine.”

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 1

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Oct. 3

Oct. 4

Oct. 5

516—October 6–10, 1993

World Affairs

Poland and Russia state they have recalled their respective military attachés, Brigadier Roman Hormoza and Colonel Vladimir Lomakin. It is the first time since the breakup of the Warsaw Pact that a Russian military attaché has been forced to leave Poland. . . . Election results show that parliamentary speaker Heydar Aliyev has won the presidency of Azerbaijan. . . . UN attempts to stop the conflict in Bihac end in failure when Abdic refuses to meet the commander of peacekeeping forces in Bosnia, General Francis Briquemont, and Bosnia’s military commander, General Rasim Delic.

Oct. 6

Oct. 9

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The number of U.S. troops killed in the Oct. 3 attack in Somalia rises to at least 13 when an unidentified Ranger dies of wounds suffered in the battle. An attack on a U.S. Army compound at Mogadishu’s airport kills another Ranger and wounds 12 others to bring the total U.S. death toll in Somalia in four days to 14, all from the same Ranger regiment. . . . Rebels continue to shell Menongue, in southern Angola.

The British Columbia Supreme Court convicts 44 environmental activists in connection with protests against commercial logging around Clayoquot Sound, on Vancouver Island. . . . In Colombia, Pablo Escobar’s presumed senior lieutenant, Alfonso Leon Puerta Muñoz, is slain by a joint armypolice force in a gun battle in Medellin. Alfonso Puerta’s brother, Jaime, is also killed.

Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) wins the most seats in the National Assembly, leaving Bhutto poised to be restored to the prime minister post from which she was ousted in 1990.

Russia observes a day of mourning for those killed in the Oct. 3 riots. Estimates put the number of people who died at 142. Pres. Yeltsin suspends the Constitutional Court until a new constitution is adopted. . . . The UN force in Croatia accuses the Croatian army of having killed Serb civilians during the fighting in Krajina as part of “a comprehensive scorched earth policy.” The report notes that UN troops who entered Serb villages given up by the Croats under a cease-fire found 18 burnt and bullet-riddled bodies. The Croats hand over to the UN 52 other civilian corpses, but 28 civilians and Serb soldiers are still unaccounted for. The Muslims expelled on Sept. 29 state that they saw 45 dead bodies as they were deported.

Oct. 7

Oct. 8

Europe

Three bombs explode in Bogota, Colombia. The most powerful of the blasts, triggered by remote control, destroys a police bus, killing two policemen and injuring 38 others.

Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze closes a summit with Russian president Boris Yeltsin, Armenian president Levon TerPetrossian and Azerbaijani president Heydar Aliyev by announcing that had said that Georgia will join the CIS. . . . The UN General Assembly lifts most of its nonmandatory economic sanctions against South Africa, ending 30 years of embargoes and voluntary restrictions in trade, investment, and sports. The assembly also presses its 184 members to initiate business in South Africa to stimulate the nation’s battered economy.

In Italy, Salvatore (Toto) Riina, the “boss of bosses,” arrested in January, is sentenced to life in prison by a court in Palermo following his conviction for ordering the murders of two members of a rival clan in 1989. . . . Russian police state that 187 people, including 76 noncombatants, were killed in the October 3–4 violence in Moscow and 437 were injured. Pres. Yeltsin extends the state of emergency in Moscow.

Pres. F. W. de Klerk orders the South African Defense Force to target a suspected hideout of a terrorist group, the Azanian People’s Organization, located in Umtata in the black homeland of Transkei. In the raid, five black youths are killed.

Amnesty International states that Myanmar continues to violate the rights of its citizens.

Somali warlord Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid offers a cease-fire with U.S. and UN forces in Somalia.

In an ongoing investigation, the chairwoman of the German Hemophilia Society, Ute Braun, contends that 1,500–2,000 patients infected with HIV-tainted blood supplies, and nearly 400 have died.

Reports indicate that four Arab gunmen killed at least two Israeli hikers in the Wadi Qelt area near Jericho. Separately, Israeli gunboats abort an apparent attempt by PFLP guerrillas to enter northern Israel by sea from Lebanon. At least one guerrilla is killed.

U.S. agriculture secretary Mike Espy becomes the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit China since the Clinton administration took office in January.

In Georgia, Zviad Gamsakhurdia calls for the overthrow of Eduard Shevardnadze’s government. . . . Heydar A. Aliyev is sworn in as president of Azerbaijan. . . . The Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) wins a landslide victory in Greek general elections, and the country’s new premier will be Andreas Papandreou.

In response to Gen. Aidid’s call for a cease-fire on Oct. 9, thousands of Somalis parade through the streets of Mogadishu in support of the end of fighting.

Hundreds of passengers and crew die when an overloaded ferryboat sinks off Chollabukdo province in western South Korea after capsizing in a storm. Most of the passengers aboard the ship, the West Sea Ferry, are tourists. . . . Factional fighting erupts between the Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims in Kabul, the Afghan capital, and in Jalalabad and Sarobi, which are east of Kabul. The battles mark the heaviest fighting in Afghanistan in several months.

Oct. 10

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 6–10, 1993—517

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Pres. Clinton signs the Hatch Act Reform Amendments of 1993, legislation that allows employees of the federal government to take part in a wide range of partisan political activities while off duty. . . . A Massachusetts state judge sentences Katherine Ann Power, who surrendered in September after 23 years as a fugitive, to 8–12 years in prison for her role in a 1970 bank robbery. . . . Reports find that children with physical, mental, or emotional disabilities are abused or neglected at 1.7 times the rate of other children. . . . In Washington, D.C., 68 women are arrested for blocking access to the Capitol Hill office of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.). The blockade was organized by the antiabortion group Operation Rescue.

In a letter, 65 House Republicans led by Minority Leader Robert H. Michel (R, Ill.) demand that the president submit a plan detailing plans for the U.S. withdrawal from Somalia. . . . Law-enforcement authorities in Monticello, Florida, state that they have charged four boys with first-degree murder in the September slaying of Gary Colley, a British tourist at a highway rest stop near Monticello.

Jack Russ, the former House sergeant at arms and manager of the now-defunct House Bank, pleads guilty in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to three felony counts of embezzlement and fraud. Russ is the first person to face criminal charges stemming from the overdraft scandal that led to the bank’s closure in 1991.

Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, state that they have identified a mathematical error in a breast cancer study published in a July issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study estimated that only 2.5% of breast cancer occurs in women with a family history of the disease. When recalculated, the percentage rises to 6%, closer to risk estimates in similar studies. . . . A study finds that men whose diets include substantial amounts of animal fat from red meat face an 80% greater risk of developing advanced, lifethreatening prostate cancer than men who eat low amounts of such foods.

NBA superstar Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls announces he is retiring after nine seasons.

U.S. health officials reveal that the teenage pregnancy rate in the U.S. rose for the fifth year in a row in 1991. . . . A study finds that the likelihood of being killed in a household that keeps guns is 2.7 times higher than in homes without guns.

The Oct. 3 battle in Somalia prompts Pres. Clinton to announce in a nationally televised speech that he is sending reinforcements to the East African country. He also sets a deadline of March 31, 1994, for the eventual withdrawal of all but a few hundred U.S. combat troops from Somalia. . . . The Senate confirms President Clinton’s nominee for top military commander of NATO, Gen. George A. Joulwan. . . . The leader of the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels demonstration flying team, Commander Robert Stumpf, is cleared of any wrongdoing in the Tailhook scandal.

The Senate votes to confirm Shirley Sears Chater as commissioner of the Social Security Administration.

A report evaluating the Apr. 19 raid on the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, exonerates Attorney General Janet Reno and the FBI. The report contrasts the one released Sept. 30. . . . A federal appeals court upholds the 1992 murder and racketeering conviction of John Gotti, the reputed boss of the powerful Gambino organized-crime family. . . . California gov. Pete Wilson (R) vetoes a bill to establish a pilot needle-exchange program designed to stop the spread of AIDS among drug users.

The Tailhook Association convenes for the first time since the 1991 scandal. The meeting attracts about 700 members, in contrast to the 4,000 who attended the 1991 convention in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Shirley Sears Chater is sworn in as commissioner of the Social Security Administration.

Toni Morrison wins the Nobel Prize in Literature. She is the eighth woman and the first black American to receive the honor. . . . Agnes George De Mille, 88, renowned dance choreographer who received the Kennedy Center Career Achievement Award in 1980 and the National Medal of the Arts in 1986, dies of a stroke. . . . Pres. Clinton confers National Medals of Arts and Charles Frankel Prizes for humanities on 18 American cultural figures. It is the first time the two awards are presented together. . . . Cyril Cusack, 82, critically acclaimed Irish actor, dies in London, England, after suffering from a motor neuron disease.

The Landsat 6, a $228 million Earthobservation satellite launched Oct. 5, is declared missing after a series of erroneous reports that it is in the wrong orbit, or `is in the correct orbit but failing to communicate.

A 1920 photograph, “Georgia O’Keeffe: A Portrait—Hands and Thimble,” by Alfred Stieglitz sells for a world record total of $398,500 at an auction by Christie’s to an anonymous buyer. . . . Jane Alexander is sworn in as chairwoman of the NEA. . . . Darcy Burk charges that the MTV cartoon show Beavis and Butt-head inspired her five-year-old son to start a fire that killed his 2year-old sister, Jessica Matthews.

A panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia dismisses a lawsuit brought by a federal prison inmate, Brett C. Kimberlin, who alleges he was placed in solitary confinement in 1988 after he tried to tell reporters his claim that he sold marijuana to former vice president Dan Quayle in the 1970s.

Oct. 6

Oct. 7

Oct. 8

Oct. 9

Edward Kennedy Jr., son of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.), weds psychiatrist Katherine Anne Gershman in a church on Block Island, Rhode Island.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 10

518—October 11–15, 1993

World Affairs

The Norwegian publisher of the controversial novel The Satanic Verses is shot three times and seriously wounded in Oslo, the capital of Norway. The author of the book, Salman Rushdie, is in hiding because of a death sentence issued by authorities in Iran in 1989, and the shooting of publisher William Nygaard brings to at least three the number of attacks on people who aided in publishing the book.

Oct. 11

Oct. 14

Oct. 15

Africa & the Middle East The PLO Central Council ratifies the Sept. 13 framework accord on Palestinian self-rule. Delegates representing the PFLP and the DFLP boycott the meeting. Reports indicate that 10 Palestinian rejectionist groups and Hamas have coordinated a new leadership structure for the intifadah–uprising in the occupied territories. . . . The first privatesector commercial bank opens in Tanzania, ending nearly 30 years of a state monopoly. . . . The Algerian government executes 13 Muslim fundamentalists.

Germany’s Constitutional Court rejects challenges to Germany’s ratification of the Maastricht Treaty on European political and economic union. Within hours of the ruling, German president Richard von Weizsaecker signs the ratification law. . . . Air France ground crews launch a strike, and French mail and other transport unions stage a one-day walkout protesting planned job cuts in their sectors.

Oct. 12

Oct. 13

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Haiti, an angry crowd of about 100 anti-Aristide armed demonstrators and small Haitian ships position themselves to prevent U.S. and Canadian noncombat troops from landing in Port-auPrince, the capital. The 194 U.S. troops and 25 Canadian air force construction engineers on board the U.S. ship are part of a 1,300member UN contingent authorized by the Security Council Sept. 23. Anti-Aristide protesters barricade some of the capital’s streets.

Russian president Boris N. Yeltsin makes his first official visit to Japan since becoming president in 1991.

British Columbia attorney general Colin Gabelmann states that Sikhs serving on the province’s municipal police forces will be allowed to wear the turban, sword, steel bracelet, and other tokens of their religion while on duty.

Russian president Yeltsin formally apologizes to Japanese premier Hosokawa and the Japanese people for the detention in Siberia of 600,000 Japanese prisoners of war in the years following the end of World War II. . . . The official death toll from an earthquake that struck India in September is placed at 9,748. . . . Estimates suggest that 200 people died in the fighting that started Oct. 10 in Kabul, Jalalabad, and Sarobil, Afghanistan.

In response to the Oct. 11 barricade in Haiti, the UN Security Council unanimously votes to reinstitute the embargo against Haiti, suspended in August. The council stipulates a grace period through midnight Oct. 18. . . . Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin acknowledges that Israel had sold arms to China, a state of affairs that both countries have long denied. . . . Reports confirm that the World Bank has granted Poland a loan of $450 million.

The Kazakh parliament ratifies a Sept. 7 pact to go on using the ruble under the monetary discipline of the Russian central bank, making Kazakhstan the first of the five signatories to do so. . . . Piero Cannata is arrested in Prato, Italy, for defacing a 15th-century fresco by Fra Filippo Lippi. Cannata was found to be mentally ill after he damaged the toe of the statue of David by Michelangelo in Florence, Italy, in 1991.

Soldiers from the South Lebanon Army soldiers kill three guerrillas of the PFLP in Israeli-occupied southern Lebanon.

Guatemalan president Ramiro de Leon Carpio’s anticorruption drive stalls when the Supreme Electoral Tribunal denies him authority to hold a referendum on whether he should have the right to dismiss the National Congress and Supreme Court.

Trade negotiators for the U.S. and the European Community fail to resolve trade-policy disputes that threaten the completion of the Uruguay Round of global trade talks currently being conducted in Geneva, Switzerland, under the auspices of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

Albanian defense minister Safet Zhulali signs a military cooperation agreement providing for educational programs and exchanges of personnel with the U.S. It is the first such agreement the U.S. has entered into with a former Communist country. . . . Polish president Lech Walesa names Polish Peasant Party (PSL) leader Waldemar Pawlak, 34, as premier.

Janusz Walus, 38, and Clive DerbyLewis, 57, are convicted by a judge in Johannesburg of assassinating Chris Hani, secretary general of the South African Communist Party. Gaye Derby-Lewis is acquitted of conspiracy charges. . . . In Angola, UNITA agrees to guarantee the security of emergency aid deliveries. . . . In Somalia, Gen. Aidid frees a Nigerian soldier, Umar Shantali, and a U.S. pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Michael Durant.

In Haiti, gunmen assassinate Guy Malary, the justice minister in Robert Malval’s transitional government. Two of Malary’s aides are also slain in the incident. About 50 Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers, who arrived as part of the proposed 1,300-strong UN contingent of foreign police officers and soldiers on Oct. 7, leave Haiti.

The Nobel Committee awards the Nobel Peace Prize jointly to South African president F. W. de Klerk and African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela. The committee cites Nelson Mandela, 75, and de Klerk, 57, for displaying “personal integrity and great political courage” in working together to bring about change in South Africa.

Reports indicate that Kurdish separatists have kidnapped and released some 26 foreigners since ending a unilaterally declared cease-fire in May.

In South Africa, Janusz Walus, 38, and Clive Derby-Lewis, 57, convicted Oct. 14 in the assassination of Chris Hani, are sentenced to death.

All but a few of the 250 humanrights monitors of a joint UN–Organization of American States mission in Haiti are redeployed to the neighboring Dominican Republic.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 11–15, 1993—519

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Suzane Doucette, a nine-year FBI veteran, announces that she is resigning from the bureau because of how it handled her accusations of sexual harassment against a fellow agent. Doucette testified about her plight before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee on May 26.

Michigan judge George Crockett sentences two former white police officers, Larry Nevers and Walter Budzyn, to 12–25 years in prison and 8–18 years in prison, respectively, for the beating and murder of Malice Green, a black motorist. . . . Postmaster General Marvin Runyon unveils to postal workers a new logo, which features an eagle’s head and the words United States Postal Service.

The House votes to allow Pres. Clinton to suspend U.S. restrictions on the PLO. . . . The House approves by voice vote most-favored-nation trade status for Romania.

Judge David Reynolds rules that Wal-Mart has violated a state law banning predatory pricing and orders the retail chain to pay a total of $298,407 in damages. . . . The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Nobel Prize in Economic Science to Robert Fogel and Douglass North.

FBI director Louis Freeh names Burdena Pasenelli to be the bureau’s chief financial officer and Manuel Gonzalez to head the personnel division. Pasenelli and Gonzalez become the first woman and the first Hispanic, respectively, to hold upper-echelon FBI posts. . . . Data shows that public-school teachers nationwide were paid an average salary of $35,104 in the 1992–93 school year. That figure, an increase of 3.2% over the previous year, is the highest-ever average salary for public-school teachers.

The House, by voice vote, approves the conference committee version of a $10.1 billion military-construction appropriations bill.

Nicholas Rizzo pleads guilty to defrauding the 1992 presidential campaign of former Sen. Paul Tsongas (D, Mass.) of more than $1 million. Prosecutors maintain that Rizzo’s violations constitute the largest case of campaign-finance fraud in U.S. history. Judge Joseph Tauro sentences Rizzo to a prison term of four years and four months and a fine of $1.5 million.

The House passes, 307-118, a package of educational reforms endorsed by Pres. Clinton. . . . Circuit Court judge Eugene Lerner sentences Ronald Price, a former teacher, to 26 years in prison for having sex with three of his female students. . . . Reports reveal that the Boy Scouts of America dismissed about 1,800 scoutmasters suspected of molesting scouts between 1971 and 1991, although others still lead groups.

The Senate votes to allow Pres. Clinton to suspend U.S. restrictions on the PLO. The House passed the bill on Oct. 12.

A white supremacist, Mark Kowaalski, 24, pleads guilty to the July 20 bombing of an office of the NAACP in Tacoma, Washington, as part of what authorities called another plot to spark a “race war.”

Navy Secretary John H. Dalton censures retired vice admiral Richard Dunleavy, Rear Admiral Wilson Flagg, and Rear Admiral Riley Mixson for their roles in failing to prevent sexual assaults and misbehavior by junior officers at the 1991 Tailhook naval aviators convention. Thirty other admirals who also attended the gathering are cautioned. Among the 30 admirals who are cautioned is Admiral Frank B. Kelso, whom Defense Secretary Aspin retained Oct. 4. . . . The Senate confirms Doris M. Meissner as commissioner of the INS.

The NASDAQ index reaches a record high, closing at 787.42. . . . Congress passes a $71 billion fiscal 1994 spending bill for the Agriculture Department and related agencies. . . . The Social Security Administration announces that payments to the 45 million people who receive Social Security will increase in 1994 by 2.6% to adjust for inflation. The costof-living adjustment will raise the monthly payment to the average Social Security recipient to $674 from $657.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Karolinska Institute for Medicine in Stockholm awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to American Phillip Sharp and Briton Richard Roberts for their independent discoveries of “split genes” in 1977.

Hans W. Heinsheimer, 93, author and musical publisher, dies in New York City. . . . Jess Thomas, 66, operatic tenor, dies in San Francisco, California, of a heart attack. . . . Andy Stewart, 59, Scottish singer and entertainer, dies of heart disease in Arbroath, Scotland.

Leon Ames (born Leon Waycoff), 91, last surviving founder of the Screen Actors Guild, dies in Laguna Beach, California, from complications resulting from a stroke. . . . Anne Thompson MacDonald, 96, founder of Recording for the Blind, dies in her sleep in Huntington, New York.

Researchers at the George Washington University Medical Center report they have cloned human embryos. . . . The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Kary Mullis and Michael Smith for individual accomplishments in genetic research. The Nobel Prize in Physics goes to astronomers Joseph Taylor and Russell Hulse for their 1974 discovery of the first binary pulsar. . . . Harriet L. Hardy, 87, the first female full professor at Harvard Medical School, dies in Boston, Massachusetts, of lymphoma.

A Hamburg, Germany, court convicts Guenter Parche for stabbing tennis player Monica Seles during a match in April. Parche, 39, an obsessive fan of Seles’s rival, Steffi Graf, receives a two-year suspended sentence. . . . Baseball’s Philadelphia Phillies defeat the Atlanta Braves, 6-3, to capture the National League Championship Series.

The U.S. space shuttle Columbia’s launch is delayed by a last-minute technical malfunction.

The House votes, 304-119, to reauthorize funding for the NEA, the NEH, and the Institute for Museum Services through fiscal 1995. . . . While upset over the lenient sentence against her attacker handed down on Oct. 13, Monica Seles announces that she will attempt to return to tournament play by January 1994.

Scientists report that gene therapy has proven effective in correcting the underlying molecular defect believed to cause cystic fibrosis. . . . Justice Department and FDA officials state that Murray Hill, New Jersey-based C. R. Bard Inc. has agreed to plead guilty to 393 counts of fraud and human experimentation for knowingly selling untested heart catheters and illegally conducting product trials on unsuspecting heart patients. The company will pay $61 million, the largest fine in the history of FDA enforcement cases.

The musicians who play in the opera house orchestra at Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts end a seven-week strike after reaching an agreement with the center to guarantee a minimum number of performances each year.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 11

Oct. 12

Oct. 13

Oct. 14

Oct. 15

520—October 16–21, 1993

Oct. 16

Oct. 17

Oct. 18

Oct. 19

Oct. 20

Oct. 21

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The UN Security Council votes unanimously to impose a naval blockade on Haiti. Leaders of 13 Latin American and Caribbean nations, meeting in Santiago, Chile, for a summit of the Rio Group, express support for the reimposed UN embargo.

Shelling by Serbs in Sarajevo becomes heavier.

In Sudan, Omar Hassan al-Bashir is officially appointed president, taking over from the Revolutionary Command Council, which is dissolved. . . . In Angola, the rebels allow the first food aid to be flown into the besieged central Angolan city of Cuito, which relief workers have called “hell city” since as many as 20,000 people are reported to have died in Cuito from war-related causes.

About 20 U.S. Marines arrived in Port-au-Prince to shore up security at the U.S. embassy. U.S. officials state that the detachment may be employed to evacuate the estimated 1,000 U.S. citizens who remain in Haiti.

Amid protests by Muslim separatists fighting for the secession of Jammu and Kashmir from India, 65 armed separatists occupy the mosque in Srinagar, Kashmir’s capital city.

Japan vigorously protests when Russia dumps 900 tons of toxic waste into the Sea of Japan.

Shelling by Serbs that intensified Oct. 16 has left 10 people dead. . . . In Georgia, rebels seize Samtredi, a critical rail and road junction town.

Food aid to Angola is suspended temporarily when UNITA reportedly demands to inspect incoming aid shipments for weapons at Cuito’s airport, currently under government control. . . . In Somalia, Aidid supporters demonstrate in Mogadishu against a visit by UN secretary general Boutros-Ghali.

Thousands of foreigners based in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, crowd the international airport to obtain passage out of the conflict area.

U.S. government scientists report that ozone levels over Antarctica are at an all-time low. Although the ozone hole is not as wide as it was a year ago, scientists state that the ozone is completely destroyed from the altitude of 8.4 miles to 11.8 miles (13.5 km to 19 km).

Saying that the Georgian army had “virtually disintegrated,” Pres. Shevardnadze broadcasts an appeal for Russian armed support in the fight against Zviad Gamsakhurdia’s supporters. . . . Russian president Yeltsin lifts the state of emergency imposed Oct. 3. . . . German coal miners protest in Hamm and other towns against a plan by Economics Minister Guenter Rexrodt to cut output capacity in the industry by more than 40% by the year 2005.

A UN oil and arms embargo against Haiti resumes after the Haitian army and police signal their determination to block a UN-brokered accord to return exiled president Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power in Haiti. U.S. and Canadian warships deployed off the coast of Haiti immediately stand ready to enforce the embargo, and a British Royal Navy frigate joins the blockade.

The warring Muslim and Croatian factions in Bosnia-Herzegovina begin exchanging prisoners by swapping 728 Muslim detainees for 309 Croats held in government-run camps. . . . Reports confirm that Latvia has declared its national currency, the lat, to be the country’s only legal tender. . . . In Georgia, more than half of the 219 members vote to join the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Reports state Iraqi troops are randomly shelling and torching villages that help sustain Muslim Shi’ite rebels. . . . Israel signals its intention to release Palestinian prisoners when it frees Salim Hussein Zerai, the longest-held Palestinian, after 23 years in jail. . . . U.S. president Clinton announces the 400 U.S. Army Rangers in Somalia will withdraw immediately, signaling determination to work toward a political settlement of the Somali conflict.

Reports state that France has indicated it will be sending frigates to join the blockade effort on Haiti that resumed Oct. 19.

In response to Eduard Shevardnadze’s Oct. 18 plea, Russian troops—some of them already stationed in Georgia—begin deploying to protect the railway that links Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, with the Black Sea port of Poti, currently in rebel hands.

In Angola, UNITA agrees to allow three UN Food Program officials and 100 stranded foreigners to leave Cuito. UNITA also states that airlifts, suspended Oct. 17, may resume.

NATO defense ministers agree to offer former Warsaw Pact states and neutral European countries “partnerships for peace” as a first step toward qualifying for full membership in the alliance. . . . The UN Security Council votes unanimously to appoint Venezuela’s attorney general, Ramón Escovar Salóm, as the prosecutor to bring suspects before a war-crimes tribunal regarding the war in the former Yugoslavia. . . . In Limassol, Cyprus, 47l leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States nations meet for their biennial conference.

Fikret Abdic, the Muslim leader of the self-declared Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia, signs a peace accord with Mate Boban, the head of the Bosnian Croat entity of Herzeg-Bosna.

In Burundi, paratroopers storm the national palace and capture Pres. Melchior Ndadaye and three cabinet ministers. The military seals Burundi’s borders, and coup leaders impose a curfew, cut telephone service, seize control of the radio, and close the airport. . . . Thousands of protesting employees of Israel Aircraft Industries temporarily shut down Ben Gurion Airport. . . . Assad Saftawi, 58, a leader of the PLO’s Fatah faction in the Gaza Strip, is assassinated by masked gunmen. The previously unknown Arab Palestine Organization, claims responsibility.

A commander of the Canadian Airborne Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Carol Mathieu, is charged with negligent performance of his duties. Members of the regiment face criminal charges in connection with the March 16 death of a Somali man in Canadian forces’ detention.

Australian prime minister Paul Keating states he will promote to cabinet level the Office of the Status of Women, a unit that advises him on women’s policy.

The confirmed death toll in the Oct. 10 ferryboat accident off South Korea reaches 285. Police report that 74 people were rescued. The incident is South Korea’s worst ferry disaster since 1970. . . . Benazir Bhutto of the Pakistan People’s Party is elected prime minister, defeating former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of the Muslim League in a parliamentary vote, 121-72.

A court in Panama convicts Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, the deposed Panamanian leader currently serving a prison term in the U.S., of ordering the 1985 tortureslaying of an outspoken political opponent, Hugo Spadafora. Noriega and two former soldiers, Julio Cesar Miranda and Francisco Eliecer Gonzalez Bonilla, receive 20-year prison sentences.

P.M. Benazir Bhutto announces that Pakistan will continue efforts to pursue a nuclear program.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 16–21, 1993—521

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Michael Shingledecker, 18, and Dean Bartlett, 17, are struck by a pickup truck while imitating a scene from The Program, which depicts intoxicated college football players lying in the middle of a busy road in order to prove their bravery. Shingledecker is killed, and Bartlett is critically injured. Another youth, Michael Macias, 17, is critically injured in a similar incident in Bayville, New York. Houston Oiler offensive tackle David Williams is docked a week’s pay for missing the team’s 28-14 NFL victory over the New England Patriots. Williams was not present so that he could attend the birth of his first child.

The U.S. space shuttle Columbia blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, to carry out a mission devoted to testing the effect of weightlessness on the human body.

An Los Angeles jury convicts Damian Williams and Henry Watson, two black men videotaped beating Reginald Denny during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, on six charges. . . . District court judge Edward Lodge sentences white separatist Randall Weaver, who instigated a siege and shoot-out in August 1992, to 18 months in prison and fines him $10,000 for failing to appear at a federal weapons trial. Weaver has already been acquitted on charges related to the shoot-out.

The Senate clears, 80-15, a $256.3 billion appropriations bill to fund the Departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services and related agencies for fiscal 1994. . . . Seventeen leading investment banks and securities firms announce that they will observe a voluntary moratorium on political campaign contributions that appear to be intended to win municipal bond-underwriting contracts from local governments.

Christopher David Fisher, the alleged leader of a white supremacist group accused of planning violent attacks on blacks and Jews in an effort to incite a “race war,” pleads guilty to charges of arson and conspiracy to manufacture and use destructive devices.

The House votes, 341-89, to approve the final version of an $87.8 billion appropriations bill funding the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and various independent agencies for fiscal 1994. . . . The House passes, 303-100, a $23.4 billion appropriations bill to fund the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the federal judiciary, and related agencies for fiscal 1994.

Touchstone Pictures states it will remove a scene from The Program involved in the Oct. 16 incidents that left two teenagers dead and one critically injured. . . . In a report on sexuality, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America states the church sees masturbation and homosexuality as healthy and that the distribution of condoms is a “moral imperative.”

A Los Angeles County Superior Court jury acquits Damian Williams and Henry Watson, two black men videotaped beating Reginald Denny during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, of attempted murder. . . . Jeffrey Pellett, in a plea bargain, is sentenced to 61⁄2 years in prison for aiding in an armed carjacking, in which Christopher Wilson, a black, was set on fire.

The Clinton administration issues an executive order requiring that 20% of all paper products used by federal agencies be made of recycled material by the beginning of 1994, doubling the current amount. . . . Voters in Greenfield, Mass., reject a commercial zoning proposal that would have permitted Wal-Mart to build a store. It is the first time that Wal-Mart is denied approval to erect a store.

Reports indicate that Don Cornelius is stepping down after 22 years as the host of the syndicated dance show Soul Train. . . . Atty. Gen. Janet Reno calls on the television industry to decrease the level of TV violence.

A regional gang peace summit opens in Chicago. Organizers estimate that 1,200–3,200 people— including current and former gang members and community activists— participate in the summit.

Pres. Clinton signs a $10.1 billion military-construction appropriations bill. The legislation adds $300 million to the Senate version of the bill passed Sept. 30. . . . The Senate passes by voice vote a $239.1 billion defense-appropriations bill, which is $500 million less than the House version passed Sept. 30. . . . The Senate passes a measure to confer most-favored-nation trade status on Romania.

The Senate clears an $87.8 billion appropriations bill passed by the House Oct. 19. . . . Congress clears a $13.9 billion appropriations bill for the Department of Transportation in fiscal 1994. . . . The Senate passes, 90-10, a $23.4 billion appropriations bill passed by the House Oct. 19 . . . Congress passes another stopgap measure. . . . Pres. Clinton signs two appropriation measures for fiscal 1994; a $71 billion bill for the Agriculture Department; and a $256.3 billion bill for the Departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services.

Reports indicate that the Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums has agreed to aid Keiko, a killer whale suffering from a skin disease and weight loss, problems marine mammal experts blame on inadequate facilities at the whale’s home at the El Nuevo Reino Aventura amusement park in Mexico City.

Arbitron announces it will discontinue its TV ratings service at the end of 1993, which leaves A. C. Nielsen with a virtual monopoly. . . . In response to Oct. 8 allegations, MTV states it does not consider Beavis and Butt-head responsible for an incident in which a twoyear-old girl was killed, but it now airs the show in a later time slot.

Gary Kasparov of Russia clinches victory in his match against Nigel Short of Great Britain under the auspices of the breakaway Professional Chess Association.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 16

Oct. 17

Oct. 18

Oct. 19

Oct. 20

Oct. 21

522—October 22–27, 1993

Oct. 22

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Georgian president Eduard A. Shevardnadze signs a decree taking his country into the Commonwealth of Independent States.

A proposed Oct. 19 exchange of all prisoners of war in Bosnia collapses when transport for some Croatian detainees is blocked by Muslim women in Mostar. Before the exchange is suspended, 1,018 Muslim and Croatian prisoners have been released. Fikret Abdic signs a peace agreement with Radovan Karadzic. . . . Georgian government troops retake Samtredi, a critical rail and road junction town.

An estimated 30,000 Hutu civilians begin to flee from Burundi to neighboring Rwanda as coup leaders declare a state of emergency and establish a “Committee of National Salvation.”. . . UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali visits Mogadishu, the Somali capital, despite warnings. . . . South Africa adopts stricter immigration rules to deter an influx of refugees into the country from Eastern Europe and Asia.

Members of the main Bosnian Croat militia, the Croatian Defense Council (HVO), attack the Muslim village of Stupni Do, near Vares in central Bosnia. Reports suggest that at least 80 civilians, including children, were slashed, shot, or bludgeoned to death and their bodies burned. Nearly all of the buildings in Stupni Do are razed. . . . A suicide bomb explodes in Belfast, killing nine Protestant civilians and the IRA man who carried the weapon. A total of 57 people are injured, and the attack sets back a month-old peace initiative.

Shi’ite refugees who fled to Iran allege Iraqi troops used chemical weapons in late September against Shi’ites near the village of Kariet Eloui, about 15 miles (25 km) northeast of the port city of Basra.

More IRA bombs explode in England, targeting railway stations. . . . Lord (Joseph) Grimond, 80, British Liberal Party leader, 1956–67, dies in the Orkney Islands, after a stroke.

Reports confirm that Burundian president Melchior Ndadaye was killed in a military coup, just three months after being elected in the nation’s first democratic poll. Reports indicate violence between Tutsis and Hutus has erupted in the countryside. . . . Three French citizens are abducted in Algiers, the Algerian capital, by suspected Islamic extremists. . . . Two Israeli soldiers are murdered, apparently by militants of Hamas.

In additional attacks, IRA bombs in England cause extensive delays along British Rail lines in southern England. . . . A Danish UN convoy transport driver is killed by a sniper in central Bosnia. . . . Georgian government troops retake Poti.

Violence continues in Burundi. . . . At least 17 Somalis are killed and 50 wounded when rival factions of Mohammed Ali Mahdi and Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid open fire on each other in Mogadishu. The violence marks the end of a sevenmonth-long cease-fire in the Somali civil war. . . . Four Nigerian gunmen hijack a Nigeria Airways flight to Niger. After landing, the hijackers free 125 of 159 people, including Chinese vice president Rong Yiren.

Canada’s opposition Liberal Party regains power after nine years with an overwhelming victory over the ruling Progressive Conservatives in a general election that reduces the former government’s representation in the House of Commons to two seats from 154. Outgoing prime minister Kim Campbell loses her seat in the riding (district) of Vancouver Centre. . . . In El Salvador, FMLN leader and political candidate Francisco Velis is shot to death.

The Asian Development Bank agrees to loan Vietnam $76.5 million. It is the institution’s first loan to the country in 15 years.

In Northern Ireland, four Ulster Roman Catholics are murdered, bringing the number of slayings in sectarian violence in 1993 to 62. . . . Prompted by the Oct. 25 death in Bosnia, the UN suspends relief convoys. . . . Erich Mielke, former chief of the East German secret police, is convicted of murdering two police officers in 1931 and is sentenced to six years in prison. He is the only former East German leader in prison. . . . Waldemar Pawlak is sworn in as Poland’s premier.

A gunman shouting “God is great” opens fire on foreign tourists dining in a luxury hotel in Cairo, killing three and injuring several other people. . . . Since Oct. 19, Israel has released 617 Palestinians from jail. . . . Adnan Yassin, a senior aide of Hakam Balawi, is arrested by Tunisian police for allegedly spying for Israel’s intelligence service. . . . The French foreign ministry suggests that the estimated 25,000 French citizens living in Algeria should leave the country.

Gunmen strategically position themselves around the Haitian parliament in an act of intimidation that prevents either house from securing a quorum.

The World Bank approves loans to Vietnam totaling $228 million. It has not granted loans to Vietnam for more than 15 years. . . . The Caribbean Community (Caricom) announces that it has decided to switch its stance and support NAFTA.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin signs a decree permitting the unrestricted sale, rental, and leasing of land in Russia for the first time since the Bolsheviks abolished those rights after the 1917 Russian revolution. . . . The Georgian government issues warrants for the arrest of Zviad Gamsakhurdia and his leading deputies.

Eugene Terre’Blanche, leader of the right-wing Afrikaner Resistance Movement, who was convicted of public violence against Pres. F. W. de Klerk during a rally in Ventersdorp in 1991, is fined 10,000 rand ($3,000) and given an 18-month prison term that will be suspended for five years.

Oct. 23

Oct. 24

Oct. 25

Oct. 26

Oct. 27

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Tensions that started Oct. 16 with the occupation of the mosque in Srinagar, Kashmir’s capital city, erupt, and at least 29 protesters are killed in clashes with soldiers. . . . Australian prime minister Paul Keating reports that Queen Elizabeth II “understands and can accommodate” his proposal to convert Australia from a constitutional monarchy to a federal republic by the year 2001.

More than 50,000 people attend a free open-air concert at the Sydney Opera House that concludes a week-long celebration of the landmark’s 20th anniversary.

In Indonesia, the ruling Golkar party elects its first civilian chairman, Harmoko.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 22–27, 1993—523

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rules that the composition of the FEC violates the Constitution’s doctrine of the separation of powers. . . . Florida State circuit court judge Donald C. Evans sentences Charles Rourk and Mark Kohut to life in prison for kidnapping Christopher Wilson and setting him afire outside of Tampa, Florida. In addition, the men receive sentences on other counts relating to the crime.

A report finds that U.S. industrial companies currently hold an overall edge in productivity over manufacturers in Japan and Germany. . . . In the September slaying of a British tourist, Gary Colley, a grand jury indicts four youths: Aundra Akins, 14; John Crumitie, 16; Cedrick Green, 13; and Deron Spear, 16.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Cosmonaut Aleksandr Serebrov breaks a world record for spacewalks, becoming the first man to venture outside an orbiting spacecraft nine times. . . . A study links a gene mutation that prevents the production of an enzyme, monoamine oxidase, with aggressive, impulsive, and violent behavior in some men.

William Kennedy Smith, who was acquitted in a highly publicized Florida rape case in 1991, is arrested and charged with assaulting Henry Cochran, a bouncer outside an Arlington, Virginia, bar.

Oct. 22

Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II (D, Mass.), son of the late Robert Kennedy, weds his political aide Anne Kelly in a civil ceremony. . . . The Toronto Blue Jays score a four-games-to-two triumph in baseball’s 90th World Series. It is the team’s second straight World Series win.

In the ATP’s first tennis tournament in Beijing, China, the Salem Open, Michael Chang wins the finals.

Pres. Clinton turns down a request from Washington, D.C., mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly (D) that Clinton issue an executive order allowing her to call up National Guard troops to aid in fighting crime in the capital.

Defense Secretary Les Aspin swears in Gen. John Shalikashvili as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Researchers at the Pasteur Institute in France announce they have discovered a new receptor molecule on the surface of blood cells that helps HIV to penetrate and infect cells. The discovery is viewed as a breakthrough in AIDS research that may help lead to the development of a vaccine against AIDS.

An editorial in the Vatican’s newspaper L’Osservatore Romano criticizes the embryo cloning research reported Oct. 13 and urges the U.S. to set strict guidelines. . . . Vincent Price, 82, actor who achieved cult status and appeared in such horror classics as The Fly (1958), The House of Usher (1960), and The Theater of Blood (1973), dies in Los Angeles, California, of lung cancer.

An alleged member of the Fourth Reich Skinheads, Carl Daniel Boese, pleads guilty to manufacturing illegal weapons and plotting to bomb a black church and a synagogue. . . . Deborah Gore Dean, a high-ranking aide at the Department of HUD during the administration of Pres. Reagan, is convicted in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on 12 counts. Dean is the 11th person convicted in the HUD investigation.

The House and Senate clear a $22.5 billion fiscal 1994 appropriations bill for the Treasury Department, the Postal Service, the Executive Office of the President, and other government agencies. . . . The House votes, 332-81, to approve a $22 billion fiscal 1994 appropriations bill for energy, water, and nuclear-defense programs.

A fire ignites in California.

Television ratings released October 26 by A. C. Nielsen show that the World Series averaged a 17.3 rating, the second-lowest since ratings for the series began in 1959.

The House passes a resolution providing a formal apology to native Hawaiians for the U.S. role in the 19th-century overthrow of an independent Hawaiian monarchy. . . . Pres. Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton deliver the administration’s legislative proposal for health-care reform to congressional leaders at a ceremony at the Capitol.

Congress clears a $13.9 billion appropriations bill for the Department of Transportation in fiscal 1994 and the fiscal 1994 appropriations bill for the District of Columbia. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a $23.4 billion appropriations bill to fund the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State and the federal judiciary in fiscal 1994. . . . The Senate, 80-11, votes, 332-81, to approve a $22 billion fiscal 1994 appropriations bill for energy, water, and nuclear-defense programs.

The fire that began Oct. 26 in California blazes in several spots in a 200-mile (320-km) stretch from Ventura County to the Mexican border.

The Booker Prize, Great Britain’s most prestigious literary award, is won by Irish author Roddy Doyle, 35, for his novel Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 23

Oct. 24

Oct. 25

Oct. 26

Oct. 27

524—October 28–November 1, 1993

World Affairs

Oct. 28

Oct. 29

Oct. 30

Oct. 31

Nov. 1

The head of the IAEA tells the UN General Assembly that North Korea continues to resist the agency’s efforts to conduct inspections of its nuclear-development sites. In response, the General Assembly passes a resolution calling on North Korea to cooperate. . . . The Maastricht Treaty, which creates a new, 12-nation “European Union” (EU), goes into effect.

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The U.S. Defense Department announces that it will reduce its drug interdiction efforts in the Caribbean and Central America and concurrently upgrade its program to help Latin American countries apply direct pressure to drug cartels.

In Australia, a district court jury in Brisbane, the capital of the state of Queensland, convicts a former Labor Party member of Parliament, Keith Wright, of raping and sexually assaulting a teenage girl over a three-year period in the 1980s. Wright is sentenced to eight years in prison.

The first trial resulting from a massive political corruption scandal in Italy, which involved investigations of several thousand business people and politicians, opens in Milan in the case of Sergio Cusani. A fourhour general strike in Italy shuts down much of the public-service, banking, and industrial sectors. . . . An estimated 60,000–100,000 German construction workers protest in Bonn against plans by the government involving pay structures.

The UN confirms a coup that began in Burundi Oct. 21 against the country’s first democratically elected government has collapsed. Pres. Melchior Ndadaye was killed, but Premier Sylvie Kinigi has reasserted her control. The violence prompted as many as 800,000 Burundians to flee to neighboring African nations. . . . Data shows that over 200 deaths have occurred in Egypt as a result of the surge of extremist violence.

Britain’s House of Commons approves the ordination of women priests in the Church of England.

Thousands of Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank begin a rampage when Haim Mizrachi, a resident of Beit El, a settlement 10 miles (15 km) north of Jerusalem, is abducted. The settlers stone Arabs’ cars, erect roadblocks with burning tires, and set fire to a number of Palestinian homes. . . . Reports confirm that the Saudi government has quietly negotiated a reconciliation accord with the Reform Movement, an exiled Shi’ite Muslim opposition group.

In the largely Roman Catholic town of Greysteel, County Londonderry, in Northern Ireland, two masked men open fire with automatic weapons, killing six Catholics and one Protestant. Eleven people are injured. . . . The last of the striking Air France workers vote to go back to work.

The Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas claims responsibility for the killing of Haim Mizrachi, abducted Oct. 29. His body is found stabbed to death. The continuing rampage marks the worst violence in the West Bank since Sept. 13. . . . Three employees of the French consulate-general in Algiers who were abducted Oct. 24 are freed by security forces. Reports indicate more than 1,100 French citizens have left Algeria.

Reports confirm that ships taking part in the blockade of Haiti intercepted two boats transporting a total of 45 refugees. The report states that 15 people were returned to Haiti, where they were arrested by unidentified armed men. Other reports suggest that the murders of civilians is becoming increasingly common under cover of night.

The first officially acknowledged clash between Russian soldiers and Zviad Gamsakhurdia’s men takes place along railway lines in two locations in Georgia.

In Algeria, an extremist faction, the Islamic Armed Group, claims responsibility for the Oct. 24 kidnapping of the French consular officials released Oct. 30, as well as for the deaths of the three oil workers and two French citizens.

Peruvian voters narrowly approve a new constitution that will strengthen the presidency and align the country more firmly behind a free-market ideology. . . . Reports disclose that the remains of 70 women and 107 children allegedly massacred by Guatemala’s security forces in 1982 were exhumed from a common grave near Rio Negro. The Guatemalan judicial system ordered an unearthing of the remains to determine whether the victims were guerrillas.

Turkmenistan, which is not a party to the ruble zone accord signed in September, drops the ruble and begins circulating its national currency, the manta. . . . Georgian government troops continue to rout rebels as they retake Senaki.

Algerian security forces, in an effort to clamp down on fundamentalist violence, kill 17 Islamic militants in the Djebel Bouzegza region, 40 miles (60 km) east of Algiers. The interior ministry reports that security forces killed four suspects during operations that led to the Oct. 30 release of the French citizens.

Argentina and Britain sign a fishing agreement that increases Argentina’s rights near the Falklands Islands, the disputed territory over which the two nations went to war in 1982.

Reports show that many as 30 people have been charged in a construction scandal in Japan.

The Australian government announces it will grant permanent residency to about 19,000 Chinese nationals living in Australia at the time of the 1989 military crackdown in Beijing. . . . Billionaire businessman and former South Korean political opposition leader Chung Ju Yung is convicted and sentenced to three years in prison for illegal campaign funding and embezzlement related to his failed 1992 presidential bid.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 28–November 1, 1993—525

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The CDC indicates that measles has been virtually eradicated in the U.S. It also reports that AIDS has become the leading killer of American men ages 25–44 and the fourth-leading killer of women in the same age group.

Pres. Clinton signs legislation passed by the House Oct. 12 and the Senate Oct. 14 that allows the president to suspend U.S. restrictions on the PLO.

Pres. Clinton signs three fiscal 1994 appropriation measures—a $87.8 billion bill for the VA and the HUD; a $22.5 billion bill for the Treasury Dept., the Postal Service, and the Executive Office of the President; and a $22 billion bill for energy, water, and nuclear-defense programs. . . . Congress passes a third stopgap bill. . . . Figures show that the federal budget deficit of $254.9 billion for fiscal 1993 is smaller than the deficits incurred in 1991 and 1992. It is the first yearto-year decrease in the deficit since 1989.

Pres. Clinton declares five California counties—Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Diego, and Ventura— disaster areas as fires continue to rage.

Doris Duke, 80, philanthropist who became known as the “Richest Girl in the World” at age 12 when her father, the tobacco and real-estate tycoon James Buchanan Duke, died and bequeathed most of his $300 million estate to her, dies in Beverly Hills, California, of cardiac arrest resulting from pulmonary edema.

The Supreme Court lifts a district court order that prevented the military from discharging homosexual soldiers.

Pres. Clinton signs a fiscal 1994 appropriations bill for the District of Columbia.

Edwin A. Walker, 83, U.S. Army general who led federal troops called in to help control rioting during the historic integration of the Little Rock, Arkansas, school system, dies in Dallas, Texas, of lung disease.

U.S. District Court judge Stephen V. Wilson sentences Robert S. Brown, 23, a Los Angeles gang member whom the FBI links to 175 bank robberies in California and Las Vegas, Nevada, over the past four years, to 30 years in federal prison. His accomplice, Donzell Thompson, 24, is sentenced to 25 years in federal prison. Prosecutors state that Brown has carried out a record number of bank robberies.

A bronze sculpture honoring the 11,500 women who served in the Vietnam War is installed in Washington, D.C.

Data shows the purchasing managers’ index rose to 53.8% in October, an increase of 4.1 percentage points from September’s revised level of 49.7%. It is the first time since May that the index topped 50%. . . . The Wall Street Journal reports that the net income of 597 major corporations totaled $40.22 billion in the third quarter. That is a 24% gain over those companies’ 1992 third-quarter profits.

In case that draws much attention, a group of U.S. luge athletes is attacked in the German town of Oberhof by right-wing skinhead youths who taunt the Americans, including black luger Robert Pipkins, with Nazi and racist slogans. One American, Duncan Kennedy, is beaten.

On the U.S. space shuttle Columbia, veterinarian Martin J. Fettman, 36, performs the first animal dissection in space so that scientists on earth can examine tissue as it appears in a weightless environment. . . . The fires that have blazed in six southern California counties since Oct. 26 are mostly extinguished or under control.

Dallas Malloy wins a unanimous three-round decision over Heather Poyner in a U.S. amateur boxing match in Lynnwood, Washington. The bout is the first ever between women in a sanctioned U.S. amateur match.

The California Office of Emergency Services estimates damage to date by the fires that started Oct. 26 to be $500 million.

River Phoenix, 23, critically acclaimed actor from the age of 16, dies in Los Angeles after suffering a seizure. . . . Federico Fellini, 73, Italian filmmaker who was awarded the 1993 Oscar for lifetime achievement, dies in Rome of cardiorespiratory failure. . . . Rap performer Tupac Shakur is charged for allegedly shooting two off-duty police officers.

The spacecraft Discovery lands at Edwards Air Force Base, California, in a flight that was five hours longer than the previous record shuttle journey in 1992. . . . Severo Ochoa, 88, Spanish biochemist who shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology in 1959 for his groundbreaking research on RNA (ribonucleic acid), dies in Madrid, Spain, of pneumonia.

Rapper Flavor Flav is charged on criminal counts after allegedly shooting at a neighbor. . . . The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller tops the bestseller list. . . . Russian Anatoly Karpov defeats Jan Timman of the Netherlands in the International Chess Federation championship,

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 28

Oct. 29

Oct. 30

Oct. 31

Nov. 1

526—November 2–7, 1993

World Affairs

Nov. 2

Nov. 3

UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali informs the Security Council that human-rights monitors in El Salvador have discovered a “persistence of serious humanrights violations . . . [and] that politically motivated violations have become more open.” . . . For the second consecutive year, the UN General Assembly issues a symbolic condemnation of the 30-yearold U.S. economic embargo of Cuba.

Nov. 4

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Figures suggest has that the Turkish-Kurdish conflict has killed more than 2,000 people to date, the worst annual toll in the nine-year history of the Turkey-PKK fighting. . . . The DAX index of shares in Frankfurt hits its highest level, closing at 2095.58. . . . Russia’s Security Council approves a new military doctrine that renounces a 1982 pledge that the country will not be the first to use nuclear weapons.

Eleven extremists are killed in five smaller raids in Algeria.

Russian defense minister Pavel Grachev tells reporters that the policy adopted Nov. 2 forbids the use of nuclear arms against nonnuclear signatories to the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty unless they are in league with a nuclear power. He states, “As for those states that have nuclear weapons, the doctrine says nothing.”

Egypt hangs three Muslim militants in a Cairo prison, bringing to 18 the number of militants executed by Egyptian authorities in 1993.

Kurdish separatists attack Turkish diplomatic offices and businesses in dozens of Western European cities and towns. A total of 26 people are reported arrested in Germany in connection with the attacks. . . . In Georgia, reports state that government forces have recaptured Khobi from Gamsakhurdia supporters. . . . Vares, lying on the road between the capital Sarajevo, and Tuzla, the main Muslim enclave in north-central Bosnia, is occupied by the mostly Muslim Bosnian army after an offensive that began Oct. 23.

Voters elect Jordan’s first woman parliamentarian, Toujan al-Faisal, 44, a committed feminist whose candidacy was vociferously opposed by Muslim fundamentalists.

Workers at SEAT, Volkswagen’s Spanish unit, hold their third strike to protest the company’s plans to end car production at the Zona Franca SEAT plant near Barcelona. . . . In Germany, civil servants stage a one-day strike to protest government plans to privatize some public services. . . . The government’s controversial legislation to privatize British Rail Corp. receives royal assent.

Nov. 5

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The Judicial Committee of Britain’s Privy Council, the highest appeals court in the British Commonwealth, commutes the death sentences of two Jamaican men to life imprisonment, ruling that their incarceration on death row since 1979 has constituted “inhuman and degrading treatment and torture.” The ruling is expected to affect the status of several hundred other prisoners in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Belize and Mauritius, which honor Privy Council decisions.

U.S. Defense Secretary Les Aspin makes his first visit to Japan since taking office in January.

U.S. defense secretary Les Aspin visits South Korea for the first time since taking office in January.

Jean Chrétien is sworn in as Canada’s 20th prime minister.

Haiti’s military leaders decline to take part in a scheduled conference in Port-au-Prince with representatives of exiled president JeanBertrand Aristide and Haitian political leaders. The refusal is seen as a signal of the military’s intention to retain power in the face of an international oil and arms embargo.

Forces loyal to Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze enter Zugdidi, the last remaining rebel stronghold in the region.

Nov. 6

Initial results from general elections in New Zealand suggest a hung Parliament, with neither the ruling National Party nor the opposition Labour Party winning an absolute majority of seats in the 99-member body.

Rabbi Haim Druckman, 60, a cofounder of an ultranationalist settler movement, is wounded by Palestinian gunmen. His driver is shot to death. In response, Jewish settlers block roads, torch Palestinian cars, and destroy shops in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Syrian-based DFLP takes responsibility. . . . The UN states it has released 16 aides of Somali warlord Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid.

Nov. 7

Murtaza Bhutto, the brother of P.M. Benazir Bhutto who won a seat in the Sindh assembly in October’s provincial elections, is arrested immediately after arriving in Pakistan from the United Arab Emirates.

Dario Londono Cardona, the vice president of Colombia’s senate, dies from gunshot wounds to the head suffered earlier in the week in Medellin during an attack by a hit team. Reports indicate that a previously unknown group—Death to Protectors of the Cali Cartel— has claimed responsibility for the shooting.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 2–7, 1993—527

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Senate votes, 94-6, to take legal action to force Sen. Bob Packwood (R, Oreg.) to surrender his diaries in an investigation of allegations of sexual harassment. . . . Voters in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Lewiston, Maine, repeal laws protecting homosexuals from discrimination. . . . Washington residents vote to approve a “Three Strikes, You’re Out” crime initiative. . . . Christine Todd Whitman is the first woman elected governor of New Jersey. The Republicans bring the number of governorships they control to 20 with wins in New Jersey and Virginia.

President Clinton signs legislation that grants most-favored-nation trading status to Romania.

The FTC rules that some joint ventures formed by physicians and medical equipment companies violate antitrust laws. The ruling marks the first time the FTC uses antitrust laws to challenge such ventures, under which doctors may send their patients to have prescriptions filled at equipment firms in which the doctors are investors.

Another spate of fires ignites in California. The earlier fires were extinguished Oct. 30.

Jack McDowell of the Chicago White Sox is named baseball’s American League Cy Young Award winner as the league’s best pitcher.

The school board in Minneapolis, Minnesota, votes unanimously to hire the Public Strategies Group Inc. consulting firm to run Minneapolis’s schools. Peter Hutchinson, the firm’s president, will become the school system’s superintendent. However, because he is not a certified educator, Hutchinson will require the approval of the Minnesota Department of Education before he may assume the post.

Ecuadoran Indian tribes sue the U.S. oil company Texaco Inc. in a federal court in New York City for $1 billion in damages. The Indians accuse Texaco of two decades of “massive” oil contamination of the Indians’ Amazon rain forest home. A Texaco spokesman characterizes the allegations as “outrageous and categorically untrue.”

California governor Pete Wilson (R) tours the Malibu fire area and offers a $125,000 reward for information leading to the arrests of arsonists responsible for the blazes started Oct. 26 and Nov. 2. . . . Leon Theremin (born Lev Sergeyevich Termen), 97, inventor of electronic musical instruments, including his 1920 advance in what is technically the first synthesizer, dies in Moscow, Russia.

At a Sotheby’s auction, French impressionist Henri Matisse’s paper cutout “The Wine Press” (1951) is bought for $13.75 million by Swiss Bank Corp., a record price for a work on paper. . . . The Cy Young Award for baseball’s National League goes to Greg Maddux of the Atlanta Braves.

Physicians at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston report that by using a combination of surgery, medicine, and radiation, physicians can successfully treat some bladder cancer patients without removing their bladders. . . . As the fires that started Nov. 2 calm, California officials estimate that 300 homes and 18,000 acres were destroyed by the blazes in the Malibu area.

Cleveland Indians pitcher Cliff Young is killed in a truck accident in Willis, Texas.

A U.S. magistrate, P. Michael Mahoney, rules that public schools in Rockford, Illinois, have violated school-desegregation laws, especially with a practice of preventing minority students from enrolling in accelerated classes. . . . The U.S. Department of Education finds that schools are not adequately challenging gifted and talented students, especially those who are poor or members of minorities. . . . The Senate unanimously passes a nonbinding resolution asking the Justice Department to toughen its stance on pornography. An experimental village consisting of 18 dome-shaped houses for the homeless opens in Los Angeles. Two dozen people live in the village, the Genesis I project, founded by activist Ted Hayes. . . . Dr. Jack Kevorkian is imprisoned in Wayne County jail in Detroit, Michigan, after refusing to post bail for his role in the suicides of Thomas Hyde in August and Donald O’Keefe in September.

Under congressional pressure, the State Department, Defense Department, and CIA declassify 12,000 U.S. documents related to foreign policy.

The Labor Department reports that the national unemployment rate in October, as gauged by the department’s household survey, stands at 6.8%.

The FDA approves bovine somatotropin (bST), a growth hormone that supplements natural hormones in cows and increases the production of milk.

Reports indicate that nine of the 18 daily newspapers in Oregon, Sen. Bob Packwood’s home state, have formally urged him to quit in the midst of a scandal involving allegations that he sexually harassed several women.

Researchers at Duke University Medical Center unveil evidence suggesting that in 60% of patients with Alzheimer’s disease, a blood protein triggers a chemical imbalance deep within brain cells, causing them to collapse and decay.

Nov. 3

Nov. 4

Nov. 5

The Vatican announces that it projects a budget deficit totaling more than $26 million for fiscal 1994. The comparatively high deficit is ascribed to the recent institution of a new pension plan. . . . Arcangues, a French colt, wins the Breeders’ Cup Classic in Arcadia, California. William L. Webster (R), the former Missouri state attorney general, agrees to pay a $100,000 settlement stemming from campaign misdealings in his failed 1992 gubernatorial bid.

Nov. 2

On the LPGA circuit, golfer Betsy King wins the season-ending Japan Queens Cup in Yokawa. . . . Seven major paintings and sculptures by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, valued at $60 million, are stolen from the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm, Sweden.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 6

Nov. 7

528—November 8–12, 1993

Nov. 8

Nov. 9

Nov. 10

Nov. 11

Nov. 12

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

Jacques Diouf, 55, of Senegal is elected director general of the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, the largest of the UN’s specialized agencies.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin approves and signs a draft constitution that strengthens executive power. . . . In France, students begin to stage a series of protests against school conditions, seeking more funding for education. . . . Britain’s High Court in London issues an injunction barring Mirror Group Newspapers PLC from publishing any more secretly taken photographs of Princess Diana of Wales working out at a gymnasium. The Nov. 7 publication of the photos prompted near-unanimous condemnation.

Hamas, like the DFLP, takes responsibility for the Nov. 7 shooting of a rabbi. Two Palestinians are injured when settlers spray their car with machine-gun bullets. A militant Jewish group, the Committee for Security on the Roads, takes responsibility. . . . The Somali chief security officer for CARE International is killed and at least six other Somalis are wounded when Malaysian UN peacekeepers shoot at two Somali gunmen who opened fire. . . . In Jordan, election results show a majority has been won by candidates who support King Hussein’s strategy for peace with Israel.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees states that the total number of refugees worldwide—those who have crossed an international border—has risen steadily to 19.7 million to date from 2.5 million in 1970, and that another 24 million have been displaced within their own borders. . . . The OECD revises upward its September figures when it claims that implementing GATT provisions following the completion of a successful Uruguay Round will add as much as $270 billion to the world economy by 2002.

Croatian gunners destroy the Stari Most, the old bridge that had spanned the Neretva River at Mostar since the Ottoman era. . . . Russian president Yeltsin cancels a July 1 declaration by the Sverdlovsk region in which it assumed the name and claimed the status of the Urals Republic.

Palestinian militants kill an Israeli Arab, Suleiman al-Hawashla, who was traveling by car in the Gaza Strip.

The Argentine congress ratifies the 1967 Tlatelolco Treaty that bans nuclear weapons from South and Central America and the Caribbean.

Authorities in The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia arrest a number of ethnic Albanians, including two deputy ministers, on charges of preparing an armed rebellion. Macedonian police renew a clampdown on the towns of Gostivar and Tetovo, which are largely populated by ethnic Albanians. . . . Nine American tourists and a British driver are killed and 36 people are injured in a bus crash near Canterbury.

In Nigeria, the Lagos High Court rules that the interim government is illegal in a case brought by Chief Moshood Abiola, the likely winner of presidential elections that Gen. Ibrahim Babangida voided in June. The ruling inspires celebrations in Lagos.

The UN Security Council approves a resolution tightening commercial sanctions against Libya in an effort to force Libya’s government to extradite suspected terrorists to the West for trial.

British transport secretary John MacGregor announces that Britain’s planned high-speed train link between London and the Eurotunnel is unlikely to open before the year 2002.

In Nigeria, demonstrations are staged in protest of a government plan to raise fuel prices sevenfold.

Officials representing 37 countries vote to support a ban on the dumping of radioactive waste into the world’s oceans.

After revelations that at least two German companies have allowed blood products containing HIV to be distributed, German health minister Horst Seehofer announces tighter restrictions on Germany’s blood supply and a plan to compensate people who were infected through transfusions. . . . Jill Tweedie, 59, British feminist author who wrote for The Guardian, 1969–88, dies in Great Britain of motor neuron disease.

The government of Tunisia states that it will no longer ban Israeli tourists from entering Tunisia. . . . Reports suggest that Iraqi troops have stepped up their campaign against the villages of Shi’ite Muslim rebels in Iraq’s southern marshlands.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Colombia, reports indicate that the leftist National Liberation Army, like the Death to Protectors of the Cali Cartel, has claimed responsibility for the attack on Dario Londono Cardona on Nov. 7.

China and Russia sign a militarycooperation accord in Beijing.

In the Dominican Republic, 87 Cuban refugees claim they have been jailed after failing to reach Puerto Rico. The group includes 73 people who accepted the Dominican government’s offer of temporary housing in September . . . . Data shows that at least 1,078 people died of AIDS in Canada in 1992.

Tamils attack a base at Pooneryn on the Jaffna peninsula in northern Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan military sources state the raid may have been launched in response to an attack, reported Sept. 30, which destroyed at least 300 rebel boats and killed 350 guerrillas. . . . An unknown Australian soldier killed during World War I is buried in the Australian War Memorial’s Hall of Memory to mark the 75th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I. A Chilean Supreme Court judge, Adolfo Banados, sentences retired general Manuel Contreras Sepulveda, who headed the military’s intelligence service, to seven years in prison and his former deputy, Brigadier Pedro Espinoza, to six years for directing the assassination of Orlando Letelier in Washington, D.C., in 1976. The convictions mark the first time that high-ranking military officers have been given prison sentences for rights abuses perpetrated during the reign of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

The Tamils state that 93 members of their forces were killed in the Nov. 11 fighting in Sri Lanka.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 8–12, 1993—529

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

George W. Bush, the eldest son of the former president, announces his candidacy for the 1994 Republican gubernatorial nomination in Texas. Bush, the managing partner of the Texas Rangers baseball team, was defeated in a 1978 House race in Texas in his only previous bid for elective office. . . . Deputy Secretary of State Clifton Wharton Jr. submits his resignation to Pres. Clinton and Secretary of State Warren Christopher. Wharton is the first high-ranking Clinton appointee to leave the administration.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Reports confirm that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has introduced a stricter examination procedure designed to evaluate controls used by mortgage-lending banks to eliminate lending bias.

Dr. Kelly Tucker of the cardiology department of the University of Florida at Gainesville argues that a suction device that works similarly to a toilet plunge is twice as effective as standard cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in reviving cardiac arrest cases. . . . The House approves a bill that will provide grants to help local governments, schools, medical centers, and other nonprofit organizations to connect themselves to the socalled information superhighway, a planned nationwide network for transmitting data. The bill will set aside $250 million for establishing such links in fiscal 1995 and 1996.

U.S. district judge Manuel Real lifts provisions of an antitrust consent decree that limits TV networks’ involvement in the lucrative rerun business. The decision removes the final obstacle to the implementation of an April FCC ruling. . . . Adelaide Hall, 92, internationally renowned jazz singer and cabaret artist, dies in London, England, from complications resulting from a fall.

In Florence County School District Four v. Carter, the Supreme Court unanimously rules that publicschool systems can be held responsible for paying the tuition of disabled children who transfer to private schools even if they do not meet state requirements. . . . Secretary of State Warren Christopher dismisses two State Department officials believed to have been involved in leaking to the press information from the confidential personnel files of two appointees of former president George H. W. Bush.

The House votes, 224-203, in favor of pulling U.S. forces from Somalia by January 31, 1994. However, an hour later, the House reverses itself and backs, 226-201, a nonbinding resolution to endorse Pres. Clinton’s March 31, 1994, withdrawal date. . . . Vice Pres. Al Gore and 1992 independent presidential candidate Ross Perot argue over NAFTA during an acrimonious 90minute debate moderated by talkshow host Larry King on his CNN television program.

The House and the Senate clear a $13.4 billion fiscal 1994 appropriations bill for the Interior Department and related agencies. . . . In Harris v. Forklift Systems Inc., the Supreme Court rules unanimously that workers do not have to prove that they suffered serious psychological damage as a result of sexual harassment in the workplace to win discrimination cases against employers.

A Prince William County, Virginia, Circuit Court jury acquits John Wayne Bobbitt, whose wife cut off his penis in a highly publicized incident in June, of marital sexual assault. The charge was alleged by his wife when authorities arrested her.

Undersecretary of Defense John Deutch reveals that the causes of illnesses afflicting U.S. troops who served in the Persian Gulf war— ranging from cancers to heart problems and fatigue—remain “a complete mystery to us.”. . . The House and Senate clear a $240.5 billion defense-appropriations bill for fiscal 1994.

The Boston Teachers union ratifies a new contract implementing socalled school-based management at all 117 schools in the district.

The director of high-speed research at NASA states that the agency will begin work in 1994 on the second stage of a program to build a supersonic airliner to replace the Anglo-French Concorde.

Figures show that, in their major NYC fall auctions, Christie’s and Sotheby’s took in $86.7 million and $115.1 million, respectively. . . . The FCC announces it will extend a freeze on cable-TV rates while regulators examine new FCC regulations designed to limit rate increases.

A bronze sculpture, which portrays three women helping a wounded male soldier and the 11,500 women who served in the Vietnam War, is dedicated. The memorial, designed by Glenna Goodacre of Santa Fe, New Mexico, is positioned about 300 feet (90 m) from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall. . . . Pres. Clinton signs the fiscal 1994 defense appropriation passed by Congress on Nov. 10.

Some independent truckers stage wildcat strikes to protest an increase in diesel fuel prices, random drug testing of drivers, and NAFTA. Two drivers in Ohio are wounded and nine others are shot at by snipers. . . . Pres. Clinton signs the fiscal 1994 appropriation for the interior passed by Congress on Nov. 9.

Laura Davies, 5, who received seven organs in a groundbreaking September operation, dies of a stroke at Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She dies after her parents decide to shut off her respirator because doctors state she suffered irreversible brain damage.

Erskine Hawkins, 79, jazz trumpeter and composer, whose Erskine Hawkins Orchestra is known for “Tuxedo Junction” and “After Hours,” dies in Willingboro, New Jersey, of heart failure.

The United Auto Workers union opens a three-day strike against Caterpillar Inc. to protest a union officer’s suspension from an Illinois plant and other alleged unfair labor practices.

The Office of Research Integrity, a division of the Health and Human Services Department, drops its charges of scientific misconduct against Dr. Robert C. Gallo, a codiscoverer of HIV. In December 1992, the ORI accused Gallo of making false statements to exaggerate his role in isolating HIV in a 1984 scientific paper.

Cardinal Joseph Bernardin is accused of sexual molestation in a lawsuit filed by Steven Cook. . . . William Malcolm (Bill) Dickey, 86, baseball hall-of-famer, dies in Little Rock, Arkansas. . . . Reports indicate that actor River Phoenix died from an overdose of cocaine and heroin or morphine in October.

The CDC reports that the lung cancer death rate for women has surpassed that of breast cancer, and will probably continue to increase beyond the year 2000. . . . H(arry) R(obbins) (Bob) Haldeman, 67, top aide to Pres. Richard Nixon known for his involvement in the Watergate scandal, dies in Santa Barbara, California, of abdominal cancer.

Gerald Thomas, 72, British film director who directed the 29 comedy films in the Carry On series from 1959 to 1992, dies in Beaconsfield, England.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 8

Nov. 9

Nov. 10

Nov. 11

Nov. 12

530—November 13–18, 1993

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Farooq Leghari, who is endorsed by P.M. Bhutto, is elected to the post by lawmakers in the national assembly, the senate, and Pakistan’s four provincial legislatures. He will succeed acting president Wasim Sajjad. . . . The Sri Lankan army sends 1,000 reinforcements to the base at Pooneryn on the Jaffna peninsula in northern Sri Lanka that was attacked on Nov. 11.

Nov. 13

Nov. 14

Nov. 15

Nov. 16

Nov. 17

Nov. 18

Asia & the Pacific

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization releases a study indicating that world agricultural production will increase gradually over 20 years and will continue to outpace population growth.

German chancellor Helmut Kohl and Pres. Richard von Weizsaecker dedicate a controversial national war memorial in Berlin. The memorial includes urns bearing the ashes of an unknown soldier, a resistance fighter, and a death-camp victim. Critics of the memorial argue it fails to differentiate between German aggressors in World Wars I and II and their victims.

The World Health Organization reports that tuberculosis (TB) will cause 30 million deaths over 10 years unless aid agencies allocate more funding toward preventing the spread of the disease. The report also finds that 12 million of the 30 million deaths can be prevented by increasing spending on treatment programs to $100 million a year, from the current $15 million.

Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan introduce their own currencies, the tenge and the som coupon, respectively. The move threatens to disrupt a Sept. 7 pact with Russia to go on using the ruble under the monetary discipline of the Russian central bank. . . . Luciano Liggio (Leggio), 66, allegedly the former boss of the Sicilian Mafia, dies at the Badu e Carros prison in Sardinia after an apparent heart attack.

After 300 Sri Lankan commandos are deployed to a beach five miles from the base attacked on Nov. 11, the Sri Lankan army regains control of the base and rescues the 900 soldiers trapped there. Representatives from the Sri Lankan army state that a total of 500 soldiers are missing or were killed in the fighting and estimate that the rebels lost 700 fighters. Lt. Col. Mouin Shabaytah, the deputy commander of a 3,000strong Fatah militia in Lebanon, is assassinated in Sidon, Lebanon, by two gunmen. . . . In Nigeria, a general strike to protest fuel prices closes big banks, factories, and major shops in Lagos. In addition, fuel and public transportation are scarce. . . . Iraqi authorities release from jail a U.S. oilman, Kenneth Beaty, who served 205 days of an eight-year sentence for illegally entering the country from Kuwait.

Four Buddhist monks accused of starting the largest public demonstration since the Vietnam War are sentenced to three- and four-year prison terms.

The UN Security Council votes to end its failed attempt to arrest Somali warlord Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid. The council unanimously requests that UN secretary general Boutros-Boutros Ghali create a special commission to determine who was responsible for armed attacks that killed more than 55 UN peacekeeping soldiers since June. The UN also announces that eight of Aidid’s aides who are being detained will be released, and indicates that others soon will be freed as well.

Hezbollah fighters attack Israeli positions in Lebanon. The guerrillas capture 12 SLA soldiers, and one Hezbollah fighter is killed. Israeli planes hit guerrilla bases in belonging to Hezbollah. . . . About 300 Iraqi protesters threaten Kuwaiti workers constructing a 130-mile (200 km) long security trench parallel to the border. . . . An Algerian court sentences 37 Muslim extremists to death for crimes that include the murders of 21 people, and sentences 63 others to prison terms ranging from three years to life.

Muslim separatists end their month-long occupation of the Hazratbal, the most sacred mosque in the province of Jammu and Kashmir, when they surrender to the Indian army, which has surrounded the shrine in a siege since Oct. 16.

Reports reveal that NATO and the ex-Warsaw Pact states voluntarily destroyed 17,000 of their own artillery pieces and aircraft under the first disarmament phase of the revised version of the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe treaty. . . . A UN war-crimes tribunal opens, its purpose being to hear trials of suspects accused of crimes against humanity in the former Yugoslavia.

An Algerian court sentences 10 Muslim militants to death for killing six police officers in 1992. . . . Nigerian defense minister General Sani Abacha forces out Interim Pres. Ernest Shonekan and declares himself Nigeria’s ruler

In final election results, the ruling New Zealand National Party emerges with a one-seat majority in the 99member Parliament.

Representatives of South Africa’s ruling National Party and leaders of 20 other black and white political parties approve a majority-rule constitution that provides “fundamental rights” to blacks, who have been disenfranchised by white groups for more than 300 years.

Thousands of Muslims stage a protest rally in Dacca, the capital of Bangladesh, calling for the arrest of writer Taslima Nasreen, who condemns followers of Islam for their religious intolerance, repression of sexual freedom, and mistreatment of women.

The UN Security Council unanimously passes a resolution that extends the UN mission in Somalia to May 31, 1994. . . . The Ukrainian parliament ratifies the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (1991). However, the deputies make conditional total nuclear disarmament and Ukraine’s accession to the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty on security guarantees from Russia and the West as well as financial compensation. . . . Before the APEC summit, the members’ foreign ministers vote to admit Mexico and Papua New Guinea.

More than 10,000 French publicsector workers march in Paris, protesting the government’s privatization program. . . . French president François Mitterrand inaugurates a new wing at the Louvre in Paris on the 200th anniversary of the museum’s opening. . . . Leaders of the warring Muslim, Croatian, and Serbian factions in Bosnia-Herzegovina agree to allow safe passage to UN relief convoys, which had been suspended Oct. 26.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 13–18, 1993—531

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Reports indicate that the Servants of the Paraclete Treatment Center in Jemez Springs, New Mexico, a center offering treatment for priests who sexually molested their parishioners, has agreed to pay $8 million to victims of the former priest and convicted child molester James Porter, who underwent treatment at the center on two occasions.

The Illinois General Assembly approves a $410 million, two-year bailout measure for the debt-ridden Chicago schools system. Gov. Jim Edgar (R) signs the measure, which also includes a two-year pact with the Chicago Teachers Union.

In the New York City marathon, twotime runner-up Andres Espinosa wins the race in a time of 2:10:04. Bob Kempainen places second, the best finish for a U.S. man in the race since 1989. . . . Auto racer Dale Earnhardt clinched his sixth Winston Cup NASCAR season title.

The House passes by voice vote legislation that will prohibit smoking in most federal government and court buildings. . . . The House approves by voice vote the Schoolto-Work Opportunities Act, a bill intended to broaden opportunities for vocational training for highschool students who did not plan to attend college. . . . A Mineola, New York, judge, Jack Mackston, sentences Joseph Buttafuoco to six months in jail for the statutory rape of teenager Amy Fisher.

The House passes, 273-135, passes the final version of a $261 billion defense-authorization bill that writes into law a variant of President Clinton’s policy permitting homosexuals to serve in the military.

A study based on FEC figures finds that a total of 109 private individuals exceeded the $25,000 annual ceiling on donations to federal elections during the 1991–92 election cycle.

U.S. District Judge S. Arthur Spiegel blocks the implementation of an amendment to the Cincinnati, Ohio, city charter that would have voided a year-old law and barred any future laws protecting homosexuals from discrimination. . . . The House approves by voice vote a resolution providing a formal apology to native Hawaiians for the U.S. role in the 19th-century overthrow of an independent Hawaiian monarchy.

The Senate votes, 69-30, to pass a bill designed to protect abortion clinics and their patients and staff from attacks, blockades, and acts of intimidation by opponents of abortion.

The Labor Department reports that a survey it used to determine the unemployment rate is faulty, and that there are more jobless workers in the country than previously believed. . . . The Dow closes at 3710.77, marked the first time it closes over the 3,700 level.

The House approves, 234-200, legislation to implement NAFTA. . . . A Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit rules that the Citadel must permit Shannon Faulkner to attend classes while it hears her challenge to the college’s men-only admissions policy. . . . The Senate passes, 77-22, the final version of a $261 billion defense-authorization bill that writes into law a variant of Pres. Clinton’s policy permitting homosexuals to serve in the military.

Pres. Clinton nominates Ricki Tigert to take over the chairmanship of the FDIC. . . . Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy names Jack Ward Thomas, a biologist who headed a Forest Service research post in Oregon, as the chief of the Forest Service, replacing Dale Robertson, dismissed in October.

An insurance-industry group estimates that fires that raged in Southern California counties in October and November caused $950 million in insured damage.

The National Book Foundation presents its awards to E. Annie Proulx, Gore Vidal, and A. R. Ammons. Anthologist and editor Clifton Fadiman is awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

The House votes, 316-108, to overhaul the laws pertaining to mining operations on federally owned land . . . . The 21,000-member Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA) at American Airlines begins what they call an 11-day strike.

Research suggests that fossilized human remains recently found in Africa support the theory that, despite their varying size, different specimens discovered over the years are of the same species. . . . Reports state that the FDA has approved experimental medical trials of RU-486 for use in treating women with advanced breast cancer.

Rapper Tupac Shakur is charged with forcible sodomy. . . . The National Conference of Catholic Bishops approves a policy stating that men should participate in household- and child-rearing duties. The bishops revoke a policy that prevented the removal of priests accused of molesting minors on occasions more than five years previously.

A U.S. District Court judge, Frederick Motz, upholds a University of Maryland scholarship program open only to black students because the effects of the university’s past discrimination against blacks are still felt at the school. . . . The Senate votes, 76-21, to reauthorize for five years a law providing for independent counsel to investigate alleged wrongdoing by top government officials. . . . The House passes by voice vote a bill designed to protect abortion clinics from acts of intimidation by opponents of abortion.

The FDA announces that it will impose new regulations requiring scientists to more thoroughly research potential side effects of experimental drugs. The FDA states that this stems from five recent deaths linked to the toxic side effects of fialuridine (FIAU), an experimental drug for hepatitis B.

Nov. 13

Nov. 14

Nov. 15

Lucia Popp, 54, opera soprano, dies in Munich, Germany, of a brain tumor. . . . Pres. Clinton signs the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, legislation intended to make it more difficult for states to restrict religious practices that may violate state law.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 16

Nov. 17

Nov. 18

532—November 19–24, 1993

World Affairs

Nov. 19

Europe

The four-year-old Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group holds its first large-scale summit meeting in Seattle, Washington. For the first time, Chinese president Jiang Zemin and U.S. president Clinton meet.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Police clash with demonstrators in Abeokuta, Akure, and Ilorin, in southwestern Nigeria. It is believed that the protests are a response both to Pres. Shonekan’s fuel price mandate and to the November 17 coup by Gen. Sani Abacha. Tear gas is used to disperse the demonstrators. About 300 Iraqi protesters briefly cross the frontier and threaten Kuwaiti workmen constructing part of a 130-mile-long (200 km) security trench parallel to the border.

Nov. 20

In Nigeria, a general strike ends when the main oil trade union federation agrees to accept a deal with negotiators representing the new military government to return to work in exchange for cutting fuel prices by a third. Separately, 67 of Nigeria’s elected senators protest the Nov. 17 coup, vow that they will not give up their seats, and urge Nigerian citizens to oppose Gen. Abacha’s military dictatorship.

Three former Panamanian soldiers are found guilty of involvement in the previously unsolved 1971 murder of Hector Gallego, a Roman Catholic priest of Colombian nationality.

Armenia introduces its own currency, the dram, a move which threatens the Sept. 7 agreement in which Armenia agreed with Russia to go on using the ruble under the monetary discipline of the Russian central bank.

Three of seven black men charged with the murder of a white U.S. Fulbright scholar, Amy Biehl, are released from prison in Cape Town, South Africa, after a key witness refuse to testify against the suspects.

Mexico ratifies NAFTA, becoming the last country to do so. . . . Chinese president Jiang Zemin ends the first visit by a Chinese president to Cuba since Castro seized power in 1959.

British artist Rachel Whiteread wins the prestigious Turner Prize for the British artist with the best exhibition of the year.

A UN human-rights investigator, Gaspar Biro, reports that Sudan has engaged in severe humanrights violations, including summary executions, forced disappearances, and systematic torture.

Two boys are convicted of the brutal murder in February of two-yearold James Bulger in Liverpool, England, after abducting the toddler from a shopping mall. They boys, who were both 10 years old at the time of the murder, are sentenced to be detained indefinitely. . . . An arms cache that contains more than 300 assault rifles and two tons of explosives destined for the outlawed Ulster Volunteer Force is intercepted. The shipment is said to be the largest arms haul ever discovered in Britain.

Israeli undercover soldiers track down and shoot to death Imad Akel, 24, who was a commander in Gaza of the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas. . . . An 11member military junta, the Provisional Ruling Council, is sworn in in Nigeria. . . . Jordan’s King Hussein confers with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in their first official meeting since the 1991 war to end Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait.

Nov. 21

Nov. 22

Nov. 23

Nov. 24

In a landmark decision on sexual discrimination, the South Australian Equal Opportunity Tribunal awards A$60,100 (US$40,000) in damages to David Paul Jobling, 31, a homosexual playwright infected with HIV, who in 1992 was fired from a temporary teaching position because he was homosexual and HIV-positive.

In India, 26 people are charged with taking part in the 1991 assassination of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. . . . Reports state that Prime Minister Bhutto has ordered the Pakistani government to hire women to fill 5% of all civil service jobs.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 19–24, 1993—533

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The Senate approves a broad anticrime bill that authorizes at least $22.3 billion in spending over five years. . . . The Senate votes to confirm Reed Hundt as the chairman of the FCC. . . . The House gives final approval to a bill that will quadruple federal funding for tribal judicial systems for Native Americans.

The House passes, 296-103, a bill repealing U.S. sanctions against South Africa.

The Senate gives final approval to a bill passed by the House on Nov. 19 that will quadruple federal funding for tribal judicial systems for Native Americans.

Pres. Clinton signs a $261 billion defense-authorization bill that codifies provisions on homosexuals in the military. . . . The Senate approves, 61-38, legislation to implement NAFTA. . . . The Senate passes by voice vote legislation repealing U.S. sanctions against South Africa. . . . The Senate clears the final version of a bill that instructs the Department of Veterans Affairs to guarantee access to medical treatment for former military personnel suffering from mysterious illnesses believed to be related to their service in the 1991 Persian Gulf war. . . . Congress approves a bill authorizing spending for intelligence operations in fiscal 1994.

The House votes, 277-153, to defeat a bill proposing to make the District of Columbia the 51st U.S. state. The vote marks the first time that a full chamber of Congress votes on statehood for the district.

U.S. Economy & Environment

The Senate approves, 79-20, a bill providing an extra 7–13 weeks of unemployment benefits to about 1 million out-of-work Americans who have already exhausted their states’ standard benefit packages. . . . The Senate Ethics Committee clears Sen. Orrin Hatch (R, Utah) of any misconduct related to his defense of the BCCI. . . . The Senate approves, 54-45, a compromise bill appropriating $18.3 billion to the RTC to complete its mandate to clean up the savings-and-loan crisis that first erupted in the late 1980s.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

By voice vote, the Senate passes a bill that will provide aid to floodstruck Midwestern homeowners who want to relocate from flood plains.

Kenneth Burke, 96, who became a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1951 and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1966, dies in Andover, New Jersey, of heart failure.

The Senate confirms Dr. Harold Varmus, a Nobel Prize-winning cancer researcher, as director of the National Institutes of Health. . . . The House gives final approval by voice vote to the version of the Senate bill passed Nov. 19 that will provide $110 million in aid to floodstruck Midwestern homeowners who want to relocate from flood plains.

Golfer Heather Farr, 28, who, in 1985, was the youngest player to qualify for the LPGA, dies in Scottsdale, Arizona, after a widely publicized battle with cancer. . . . Emile Ardolino, 50, director and producer of dance documentaries and films who won Emmys in 1979 and 1983 as well as the 1983 Oscar, dies in Los Angeles, California, of AIDS.

The House approves by voice vote a bill backed by Pres. Clinton that will set aside $382 million in federal funds to subsidize lending by financial institutions that make community-development loans in poor urban and rural areas.

Bill Bixby, 59, television actor known for his role in The Incredible Hulk, 1978–82, dies in Century City, California, of prostate cancer. . . . Germans Steffi Graf and Michael Stich win the season-ending events on the women’s and men’s tennis tours.

Winchester Ammunition announces that it will no longer sell to the general public its controversial hollow-point Black Talon bullets. . . . The plaza in Dallas, Texas, where president Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 is dedicated as a national historic landmark to mark the 30th anniversary of Kennedy’s death. . . . The First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules unanimously that discrimination against obese people in the workplace violates federal disability laws. The case, Cook v. State of Rhode Island, is the first civil-rights case involving obesity considered in a federal appeals court.

The House clears the final version of a bill that instructs the Department of Veterans Affairs to guarantee access to medical treatment for former military personnel suffering from mysterious illnesses believed to be related to their service in the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

The Senate approves by voice vote a bill providing protection for investors in limited partnerships that are restructured. . . . The House, 320-105, approves a bill extending benefits passed by the Senate on Nov. 20. . . . The House approves, 272-163, legislation intended to reduce federal spending by about $37 billion through fiscal 1998. . . . The House votes, 255-175, in favor of a broad campaign-finance reform initiative. . . . The APFA strike that began Nov. 18 comes to an end.

Anthony Burgess, 76, British author best known for his novel A Clockwork Orange (1962), dies of cancer in London, England.

John R. McKernan Jr. (Maine) is elected chairman of the Republican Governors Association, replacing George V. Voinovich (Ohio).

Grumman Corp., the 10th-largest U.S. military contractor, agrees to pay $20 million to the federal government in lieu of being charged with defrauding the navy. The settlement ends a five-year investigation that was part of Operation Ill Wind, the Defense Department procurement scandal probe. . . . Pres. Clinton signs legislation repealing U.S. sanctions against South Africa.

The House passes by voice vote a bill providing protection for investors in limited partnerships that are restructured. . . . . The House votes, 235-191, in favor of a compromise bill appropriating money to the RTC to complete its mandate to clean up the savings-and-loan crisis that first erupted in the late 1980s. The Senate approved the bill on Nov. 20.

The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturns an FCC ban on the radio or TV broadcast of so-called indecent material between 6:00 A.M. and midnight. The court rules that the ban is too broad and violates First Amendment rights.

The final version of the Brady Bill, a measure that imposes a five-day waiting period for the purchase of a handgun, clears Congress. . . . The principal of Wingfield High School in Mississippi, Bishop Knox, is dismissed for allowing students to recite a short, nondenominational prayer over the school’s intercom on three separate occasions. . . . Florida governor Lawton Chiles (D) signs into law a bill banning the possession of firearms by people under 18, unless they are using them for hunting or target shooting.

Pres. Clinton nominates Lt. Gen. Barry McCaffrey to be commander in chief of the U.S. Southern Command. . . . Pres. Clinton meets with British writer Salman Rushdie, who is in hiding because of a death sentence issued against him in 1989 by since-deceased Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini for perceived blasphemies against Islam in his novel The Satanic Verses.

A federal jury in Miami, Florida, convicts David Paul, the former chairman of Miami-based CenTrust Savings Bank, on 66 of 69 counts of fraud and conspiracy related to his alleged siphoning of funds for personal use from cash-strapped CenTrust in the 1980s. The thrift failed in February 1990 with a loss of $1.7 billion. . . . Pres. Clinton signs legislation to extend unemployment benefits. . . . The Senate approves, by voice vote, a bill that will bar presidential appointees from receiving bonuses during presidential election years.

Former Olympic diver Bruce Kimball is released from custody after serving less than five years of a 17-year sentence for manslaughter stemming from a 1988 drunk-driving accident that killed two teenage boys. . . . Albert Collins, 61, blues guitarist who won a Grammy in 1986, dies in Las Vegas, Nevada, of lung cancer.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 19

Nov. 20

Nov. 21

Nov. 22

Nov. 23

Nov. 24

534—November 25–30, 1993

World Affairs

Nov. 25

Nov. 26

Iraq’s government announces that it has agreed to allow long-term UN monitoring of its industrial activity, formally ending its resistance to UN Security Council Resolution 715. The resolution, adopted in 1991, sought to prevent Iraq from rearming itself with weapons of mass destruction. . . . Officials state that Jan Eliasson, the first UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, has submitted his resignation.

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Hundreds of thousands of people demonstrate throughout Spain against the planned reforms that will end the government’s monopoly on job-placement services for the unemployed, facilitate parttime employment, create apprentice jobs, and seek to cut the costs of dismissing workers.

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip begin to wage running street battles with Israeli troops in response to the Nov. 24 killing. . . . A car bomb explodes near the motorcade of Atef Sedki, the Egyptian prime minister, in a northern suburb of Cairo, the capital. The blast kills an 11year-old girl and wounds 20 other people, but Sedki escapes. The militant group Al-Jihad claims responsibility. . . . UN reports reveal 100 Burundian refugees die of malnutrition and disease each day in Rwandan refugee camps.

Belgian workers launch their first general strike since 1936. The action, protesting a government austerity plan, brings the nation to a virtual standstill and prompts the center-left government to schedule talks with unions. . . . Germany bans the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and 35 allied groups. The PKK is believed to have organized two separate spates of terrorist attacks across Europe in recent months.

In Burundi, officials estimate that the death toll from the ongoing tribal killings is expected to approach or even rise above tolls resulting from similar ethnic fighting in 1972, when about 150,000 people died. . . . Israeli security forces kill Khaled Mustafa Zeer, 25, who had allegedly killed a Jewish settler and two Israeli soldiers earlier in the year.

The Americas

Reports indicate that an outbreak of dysentery has killed 245 people in and around Boma, Zaire. . . . Nigeria’s self-proclaimed ruler, General Sani Abacha, removes 17 army officers loyal to the former military ruler, General Ibrahim Babangida. Abacha’s cabinet, comprised of mostly civilians, including at least two members of an interim government forced out by Abacha, is sworn in.

Nov. 27

Nov. 28

Nov. 29

Nov. 30

British officials confirm that secret contacts have been made with the outlawed Provisional Irish Republican Army, with the goal of ending the violence in Northern Ireland.

Israeli soldiers shoot to death Ahmed Abu al-Reesh, 23, a Hawk member, as he stands among other Fatah Hawks in a Gaza refugee camp.

British government papers show there have been no major largescale IRA attacks since Nov. 12.

Israeli undercover troops capture Fatah Hawks commander Taisir Bardini. . . . Somali faction leader General Mohammed Farah Aidid boycotts a UN-sponsored conference on reconstruction that foreignaid donors bill as Somalia’s “last chance” to continue receiving international monetary aid and diplomatic assistance.

France bans two organizations that it charges are fronts for the PKK (Kurdish Workers Party). . . . Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II knights former U.S. president George Bush at Buckingham Palace in London. Bush is made a GCB, or Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, the highest British honorary rank available to a foreigner.

Israeli generals and leaders of AlFatah, the dominant faction of the PLO, meet in the occupied Gaza Strip in an effort to stem a rash of violence in Gaza between Israeli troops and Palestinians. Brigadier General Ehud Barak, the Israeli army’s chief of staff, issues a public apology for the Nov. 28 killing of Abu al-Reesh, whose death he characterizes as “inadvertent.” . . . The government of Mozambique and the former rebels of the Mozambique National Resistance (Renamo) movement agree to immediately open 20 assembly points for their troops to disarm.

Asia & the Pacific

Eleven Muslim militants fighting for an independent Kashmir are killed as the Indian army seals off the rebel-controlled town of Sopur in the Kashmir Valley.

Carlos Roberto Reina of the centerright Liberal Party wins the Honduran presidential election, defeating the ruling National Party’s Oswaldo Ramos. The Liberal Party also wins a firm majority in the congress.

J(ehangir) R(atanji) D(adabhoy) Tata, 89, Indian industrialist and philanthropist who was chairman of Tata Sons, which became India’s largest commercial holding company, 1938–91, dies in Geneva, Switzerland, of complications from a kidney infection.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 25–30, 1993—535

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle James Carville, the chief strategist for Pres. Clinton’s 1992 election campaign, and Mary Matalin, the deputy campaign manager for then-Pres. Bush, wed. Carville and Matalin’s romantic relationship has received wide attention in the news media.

House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D, Wash.) declares the adjournment of the House for the year, marking the formal conclusion of the first session of the 103rd Congress.

Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor temporarily lifts a lowercourt order that prevented the federal government from deporting illegal aliens seeking citizenship through an expired amnesty program. The case is INS v. Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

Nov. 25

Nov. 26

Congressional Quarterly finds that, in House and Senate floor votes where Pres. Clinton took a position on the issue in question, Congress backed Clinton 88% of the time. Clinton did not veto any bills. . . . Reports indicate a set of fires have broken out in some Chicago, Illinois, department stores.

\

Nov. 27

Canadian police arrest 61 people at the U.S. border and seize 187 copies of U.S. newspapers in an attempt to enforce a court-ordered ban on the publication of details of the trial of Karla Homolka, charged with the sex killings of two teenaged girls. U.S. publications printed trial details that were banned in Canada.

Garry Moore (born Thomas Garrison Morfit), 78, TV variety and quizshow host, dies on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, of emphysema. . . . Tennis players Jacco Eltingh and Paul Haarhuis, both of the Netherlands, win the ATP World Doubles Championship in Johannesburg, South Africa.

In Washington, D.C., attention to homeless issues resurfaces when the body of a homeless woman, Yetta Adams, is found outside HUD headquarters. . . . The former chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, Thomas Fay, is convicted in federal court on misdemeanor ethics charges for appointing one of his business associates to handle state arbitration cases. The former jurist is fined $3,000 and put on probation for a year.

The Supreme Court lets stand without comment a lower-court ruling stating that the FEC should not have rejected 1992 presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche’s request for federal matching funds. The FEC maintained that LaRouche was ineligible for the funding because he was convicted in 1988 for criminal campaign fund-raising.

President Clinton signs the Brady Bill, which imposes a five-day waiting period for the purchase of a handgun. . . . Reports state that an underground animal-rights group, the Animal Liberation Front, has claimed responsibility for setting eight incendiary small fires at three Chicago stores that sell fur products on Nov. 27–28. . . . The Supreme Court upholds without comment a New Jersey court decision intended to discourage voluntary segregation in the state’s public high schools. The case is Board of Education of Englewood Cliffs v. Board of Education of Englewood.

Judge John A. K. Bradley of the New York State Supreme Court dismisses all criminal charges against Clark Clifford in connection with his dealings with the BCCI, citing the 86-year-old Clifford’s poor health. . . . Data shows that the Conference Board’s index of consumer confidence rose 10.7 points in November, to 71.2, from its revised October level of 60.5. The November level is the highest since January.

Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend by Robert James Waller tops the bestseller list. . . . An investigative board reports it has found evidence to substantiate sexual abuse charges leveled at 11 friars at the nowdefunct St. Anthony’s Seminary in Santa Barbara, California.

An Amtrak train derails in Intercession City, Florida, after colliding with an oversized truck stuck on the tracks, injuring the driver of the truck and 60 passengers and crew. . . . FDA Commissioner David Kessler criticizes the American Medical Association for its support of silicone breast implants, which most often are dangerous and only used for cosmetic purposes.

Nov. 28

Nov. 29

Nov. 30

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

536—December 1–6, 1993

Dec. 1

Dec. 2

Dec. 3

World Affairs

Europe

The UN issues sanctions on Libya for refusing to turn over suspects linked to the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, in which 270 people died. . . . WHO officials estimate that 180 countries are marking the sixth annual World AIDS Day . . . . The CSCE asks its secretariat to draw up rules under which the CSC might approve Russian peacekeeping operations in other former member states of the Soviet Union.

The Georgian government and representatives of the rebel-held region of Abkhazia agree to exchange prisoners of war and allow refugees to return to their homelands. In addition, the UN is invited to send international peacekeepers to Abkhazia to police a fragile cease-fire there.

The head of the IAEA, Hans Blix, states that his agency can no longer give assurance that North Korea is using its nuclear facilities for peaceful purposes only. . . . NATO endorses a proposal for “partnerships for peace”—cooperative arrangements between NATO and its former Warsaw Pact adversaries that do not include full mutual security guarantees.

A UN report finds that the world’s 290 million physically or mentally disabled people worldwide face discrimination, abuse, and neglect.

Dec. 6

The U.S., Canada, Japan, and a consortium of European nations agree to invite Russia to participate in work on a redesigned international space station, expected to be the world’s largest collaborative space project.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Colombian police and soldiers shoot dead fugitive drug trafficker Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria in Medellin, the headquarters of his cocaine cartel. . . . Canadian prime minister Jean Chretien announces that his government has reached satisfactory agreements on supplemental accords to NAFTA. . . . Reports suggest that 45 Cubans defected during the Central American and Caribbean Games held in Puerto Rico in November. . . . In St. Kitts, demonstrators battle police following the establishment of a minority coalition government headed by P.M. Kennedy Simmonds.

Final election returns for India’s state legislatures show that the fundamentalist Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the ruling Congress (I) party have won fewer seats than expected. . . . In Pakistan, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif is shot at by snipers but escapes injury in the incident.

Palestinian militants shoot to death two Israelis on a road in Al-Bireh, about 12 miles (20 km) north of Jerusalem. Both Hamas and the DFLP claim responsibility for the murder. In response, Jewish settlers set up roadblocks and stone Arab cars in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. . . . A judge in Cairo sentences to death Abdel-Shafi Ahmed Ramadan for the 1992 shooting murder of Faraq Foda, a prominent critic of Islamic extremism. Jewish settlers respond to the Dec. 1 killings by going on a rampage in Hebron, firing at Palestinians with machine guns and smashing the windows of Arab vehicles. Palestinians in turn throw rocks and bottles at the settlers, as Israeli soldiers reportedly stand by without intervening. . . . Ethiopiansponsored discussions aimed at reaching a political settlement to the conflict in Somalia are the first that are attended by all 15 major Somali factions since March as both Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid and Mahdi Mohammed arrive for the informal negotiations.

Three Austrians are injured by letter bombs. . . . An expert on Japan in the Russian foreign ministry, Andrei Krivtsov, estimates that 575,000 Japanese prisoners of war died in Siberian labor camps after World War II, which is 10 times the official government estimate.

In Colombia, drug trafficker Pablo Escobar, hailed as a hero and a benefactor among many of the poor in the slums of Medellin, where he spent money on houses, roads, sports facilities, and on a form of unemployment insurance, is buried and mourned by an unruly crowd numbering in the thousands.

A Palestinian vegetable seller is shot dead and several other Arabs are wounded as the rampage in Hebron that started Dec. 2 begins to settle. . . . UN estimates suggest that more than 700,000 people have fled Burundi to neighboring Tanzania, Rwanda, and Zaire since October, and that 208,000 additional citizens were displaced within the country’s borders.

Reports argue that, by conservative estimate, drug lord Pablo Escobar, killed Dec. 2 in Colombia, was responsible for more than 1,000 civilian deaths and the murders of at least 500 policemen.

The mayor of Vienna, Austria, Socialist Helmut Zilk, loses three fingers when he opens a letter bomb apparently mailed by political rightists opposed to immigrants and other foreigners in Austria.

After a spate of violence from settlers, Moshe Shahal, Israel’s police minister, and General Ehud Barak, the Israeli army chief of staff, vow to clamp down on settlers who take the law into their own hands. . . . A Palestinian brandishing an assault rifle is shot to death in a suburb of Tel Aviv after he kills an Israeli reserve soldier during an attack on a bus.

Rafael Caldera Rodriguez, 77, a former president who campaigned as an independent, regains Venezuela’s highest office in elections. . . . Mexican security officials arrest Francisco Rafael Arellano Felix in connection with the botched assassination attempt on a rival drug lord in May in which Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo was murdered.

A fourth person has been injured in Austria by a letter bomb since Dec. 3, bring the total of defused bombs to 10. . . . Markus Wolf, the former head of East Germany’s foreign spying operations, is convicted of treason and bribery and sentenced to six years in prison. Wolf, 70, admitted to the acts but claims that they cannot constitute treason because he was acting as an official of another sovereign nation at the time.

A Palestinian gunman shoots dead a Jewish father and his son near the West Bank settlement of Kiryat. Arba undercover troops shoot to death a suspected Hamas militant near the West Bank town of Ramallah.

Dec. 4

Dec. 5

Africa & the Middle East

Tens of thousands of people from the Dalit class in India, formerly the so-called untouchables, convert to Buddhism at a mass ceremony in northern India.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 1–6, 1993—537

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Two white supremacists, Jeremiah Gordon Knesal, 19, and Wayne Paul Wooten, 18, linked to the NAACP bombing and the race-war plot uncovered in July, plead guilty to federal weapons and explosives charges. . . . The ACLU, NOW, and Legal Services of New Jersey file a lawsuit in federal court challenging New Jersey’s “child exclusion” rule, which bars any increases in AFDC benefit payments to women who conceive children while already on the welfare rolls.

Major airlines agree to pay higher landing-right fees to the Los Angeles International Airport. . . . Pres. Clinton approves the first of a series of “locality pay” raises intended to elevate the salaries of white-collar federal employees to a level competitive with the pay of workers with comparable jobs in the private sector. . . . Data shows the purchasing managers’ index rose to 55.7% in November, the second consecutive month that the index has topped 50%.

Atty. Gen. Janet Reno announces that a prohibition of bias against gay and lesbian employees will be included in the policies of the Justice Department. . . . Debra DeLee is named to the newly created position of Democratic National Committee executive director. . . . Alan Winterbourne, who has been jobless since 1986, fatally shoots three workers and wounds four other people at an unemployment office in Oxnard, California. On a subsequent police chase, he shoots and kills a police officer before being fatally shot by police.

Reports indicate that employees of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union has approved its first contract in its 90-year history.

Two studies provide the strongest evidence to date that people who fail to exercise regularly face 100 times their usual risk of a heart attack if they suddenly engage in strenuous physical activity. . . . The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral to carry out a mission devoted to repairing the Hubble Space Telescope, launched into space in 1990. . . . Two teams of researchers jointly announce they have separately isolated the genetic flaw that causes an inherited, common and potentially fatal form of colon cancer.

Officials in the National Hockey League return to work after launching the first NHL-wide strike of officials in mid- November.

The Census Bureau reports that total state government revenues rose 12% in 1992 from 1991, to $742 billion. Expenditures by states also grew 12% over that period, to $701 billion. . . . The Labor Department reports that the national unemployment rate in November, as gauged by the department’s household survey, stood at 6.4%. That is a drop of four-tenths of a percentage point from the 6.8% rate recorded in October and marks the largest monthly decline in 10 years and the lowest jobless rate since January 1991.

The National Cancer Institute states it no longer recommends that healthy women ages 40–49 undergo annual breast cancer screenings because research shows that such testing does “not result in reduced mortality.”. . . Pres. Clinton signs a measure passed by Congress that aids Midwest flood victims in relocation efforts. . . . Lewis Thomas, 80, doctor, hospital administrator, and writer who was president of the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, 1973–80, dies in NYC of Waldenstrom’s disease, an affliction similar to lymphoma.

A Gallup survey reports that 50% of all teenagers attend church on a weekly basis, while 40% of adults are likely to attend services regularly.

Frank A. Sturgis, 68, one of the five men arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters at the Watergate building in Washington, D.C., in 1972 whose arrest was the first event in the Watergate scandal, dies in Miami, Florida, of cancer.

The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour has a rendezvous with the Hubble Space Telescope in the highest orbit ever attempted by a shuttle.

Frank Zappa, 52, rock musician and composer known for his avantgarde satire, dies in Los Angeles, California, of prostate cancer. . . . Margaret Landon (born Margaret Dorothea Mortensen), 90, author best known for her novel Anna and the King of Siam (1944), dies in Alexandria, Virginia.

The FBI reports that the rate of violent crimes in the U.S. during the first six months of 1993 was 3% less than during the same period a year earlier. . . . Dozens of people exchange guns in return for tickets to concerts and sporting events in an Oakland, California, program. Police officers collect more than 65 weapons during the one-day program that is the first of its kind in the area.

Astronauts aboard the U.S. space shuttle Endeavour take the second-longest space walk in the shuttle program’s history when they spend almost eight hours outside the shuttle replacing four of the Hubble’s six gyroscopes.

The Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime achievement in the performing arts go to Johnny Carson, Stephen Sondheim, Arthur Mitchell, Sir Georg Solti, and Marion Williams. . . . In tennis, Germany wins the Davis Cup over Austria.

U.S. District Judge Warren Urbom dismisses a felony fraud indictment stemming from false expense claims against Sen. David Durenberger (R, Minn.) on the ground that prosecutors acted improperly in presenting evidence against the senator to a grand jury.

Wolfgang Paul, 80, German physicist who won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1989 for his research on charged atomic particles, dies in Bonn, Germany, of heart failure.

Judge Robert Steadman sentences former priest James R. Porter to 18–20 years in jail for 41 counts of sexual assault. . . . Canadian Sylvie Frechette is declared a gold medalist in the individual synchronized swimming event at the 1992 Olympics. . . . Don Ameche, 85, versatile actor in who won an Oscar in 1986, dies in Scottsdale, Arizona, of prostate cancer.

Pres. Clinton signs legislation passed by Congress that quadruples Native American tribal court funding.

Nine crew members of a ship that attempted in June to smuggle 300 illegal Chinese immigrants into the U.S. are sentenced to six-month jail terms by a U.S. District Court. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a fiscal 1994 appropriation bill for the funding of U.S. Intelligence. . . . A special panel of judges announces it will allow the public disclosure, with only “limited deletions,” of a final report by independent prosecutor Lawrence Walsh on his 61⁄2-year investigation into the Iran-contra arms scandal.

PBS names Ervin Duggan, an FCC member, as its president, succeeding Bruce Christensen. . . . A postage stamp portraying a red ribbon, symbolic of the AIDS-awareness movement, is issued by the U.S. Postal Service.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 1

Dec. 2

Dec. 3

Dec. 4

Dec. 5

Dec. 6

538—December 7–12, 1993

World Affairs

Dec. 7

The U.S. and the EC settle a major dispute concerning their so-called Blair House accord, a 1992 farmpolicy agreement.

Dec. 8

Dec. 9

Dec. 10

Russia and the EC sign a declaration pledging closer political and economic cooperation.

Africa & the Middle East

Asia & the Pacific Eight leaders of the fundamentalist Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are arrested for their involvement in the destruction of a Muslim mosque in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh state in 1992. Among those arrested is BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani. . . . An American linguist abducted in mid-November, Charles Walton, is released by Muslim extremists in the southern Philippines.

In Germany, Michael Peters, 26, and Lars Christiansen, 20, are sentenced to life in prison and 10 years in prison, respectively, for arson, attempted murder, and murder in the 1992 bombings in the town of Moelln that killed a Turkish grandmother and two girls. Germany reports that right-wing attacks in the first 11 months of 1993 total 1,699, down almost 30% from 2,366 in the first 11 months of 1992.

Gunmen believed to be members of the Armed Islamic Movement open fire on police officers attempting to control a crowd of shoppers in the Algiers suburb of Sidi Moussa. Eight officers and two civilians are killed, and one other officer is injured.

In the eighth such incident in 1993, a Chinese businessman hijacks a domestic flight and forces the plane to Taiwan.

Danny Blanchflower, 67, British soccer player who played for London’s Tottenham Hotspur club, 1954–64, and who wrote about sports for the Sunday Express newspaper for 25 years, dies in London, England, of Alzheimer’s disease.

Reports suggest four foreigners were killed in Algeria in the last week. The U.S. advises its citizens to leave Algeria and will reduce diplomatic personnel at its embassy. . . . Iraqi president Hussein pardons and frees three Britons after meeting with former British prime minister Heath. . . . Gabon announces that Pres. Omar Bongo, who has ruled Gabon for 26-year ruler, won multiparty presidential elections.

In EI Salvador, gunmen near San Salvador kill Jose Mario Lopez, a former rebel commander who was campaigning for political office on the FMLN ticket. As this is the latest in a string of killings of FMLN members, fears of the revival of death squads rises. . . . The Ontario legislature passes a job-equity bill that requires employers to hire and promote women, so-called visible minorities, and the disabled.

The UN World Food Program estimates that more than 2 million people in Angola will require emergency food aid in the first half of 1994. . . . Violence breaks out in Congo between government supporters and opposition militants in Brazzaville, the capital. . . . The Ivory Coast’s Supreme Court officially names Henri Konan Bedie president. . . . Gunmen open fire on a vehicle near the West Bank town of Hebron, killing three Palestinians. The ultrarightist Kach movement takes responsibility.

Russia holds parliamentary elections.

A UN General Assembly committee approves after more than 40 years of international discussion the establishment of a new post of High Commissioner for Human Rights. The commissioner will be appointed by the UN secretary general and will be responsible for monitoring human-rights violations and engaging “in dialogue with governments with a view to securing full enjoyment of all human rights.”

The Americas

On the 33rd anniversary of independence from France, Ivory Coast president Felix Houphouet-Boigny, 88, dies when his life-support system is shut off following a long battle with prostate cancer. . . . Malawian president Hastings Kamuzu Banda resumes control of the government after a recent attack in which 200 army soldiers stormed Pioneer headquarters and district offices in Lilongwe. At least 22 people were killed and 100 injured.

South African president F. W. de Klerk and ANC president Nelson Mandela accept their joint Nobel Peace Prize award in Oslo, Norway. . . . Leaders of the 12 EC nations hold their semiannual summit and address unemployment in the EC, which currently stands at 17 million workers, or 11.3% of the work force.

Dec. 11

Dec. 12

Europe

Jozsef Antall, 61, Hungarian premier who led his party to victory in free elections in 1990, marking the formal end of communist rule in his country, and who was the longestserving leader of a post-communist European state, dies in Budapest, Hungary of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. . . . Two police officers of the Royal Ulster Constabulary are shot dead in their patrol car in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. The IRA claims responsibility for the shootings.

Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle of the ruling center-left Coalition of Parties for Democracy (CPD) scores a victory in Chile’s presidential election, outdistancing his nearest rival, Arturo Alessandri Besa. Incomplete results of the congressional voting indicate that the balance of power in Congress will remain virtually unchanged.

The Ethiopian-sponsored discussions regarding Somalia that began Dec. 2 break down without any agreement. . . . Data suggests that a total of 38 Palestinians and 18 Israelis have been killed in violence related to the self-rule accord since it was signed Sept. 13.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 7–12, 1993—539

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Superior Court judge John Ouderkirk sentences Damian Williams to a 10-year jail term for charges stemming from his attacks at the onset of the 1992 Los Angeles riots. . . . Robert A. Taft Jr., 76, Republican congressman and senator from Ohio, 1963–77, dies in Cincinnati from complications of a stroke. . . . A gunman opens fire on a Long Island Rail Road commuter train in New York, killing four people and wounding 19.

The U.S. State Department reveals that it has been training Indonesian army soldiers, although Congress cut off funding for the military training of Indonesian soldiers in 1992 to protest the army’s killing of civilians in East Timor. The State Department claims that the military instruction provided was paid for by the Indonesian government.

Secretary of Energy Hazel O’Leary reveals that the U.S. did not inform the public of 204 underground nuclear test blasts performed from 1963 to 1990. The previously unreported tests brings the number of tests the U.S. has acknowledged having performed since 1945 to 1,051, and accounts for about 20% of all known U.S. nuclear testing. According to O’Leary, the last 18 of the tests took place between 1980 and 1990.

A county grand jury in Austin, Texas, indicts Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R, Tex.) on five counts of ethics violations related to her 1993 Senate campaign. The indictment is identical to one that was dismissed in October on a technicality.

Pres. Clinton signs NAFTA into law. The pact, which will go into effect January 1, 1994, will lower or eliminate tariffs and remove other restrictions on trade and investment between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. . . . The air force destroys the Minuteman II missile silo in Missouri, the first of its 500 underground nuclear missile silos pledged for elimination under a 1992 U.S.-Russia disarmament pact.

The Postal Service announces that its fiscal 1993 losses totaled $371 million. That figure is lower than the $500 million loss predicted by the service in August.

The Energy Department reveals that experimenters at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, fed radioactive substances to pregnant women during the 1940s to determine the effects on the development of the fetus.

Carlotta Monti, 86, film actress whose 13-year-long tempestuous relationship with actor W. C. Fields is recounted in her autobiography, which was made into the 1976 film W. C. Fields and Me, dies in Woodland Hills, California.

A study finds that health-insurance status, not medical symptoms, have the strongest influence on treatment provided to 140,000 people with clogged coronary arteries. . . . In a poll, 68% of the respondents believe that Pres. Clinton has the “honesty and integrity to serve as president.” That is a higher integrity rating than Clinton had attained during his 1992 presidential campaign.

Christopher Drogoul, the defendant at the center of a case involving allegedly illegal loans made to Iraq, is sentenced to 37 months in jail. Drogoul is the last defendant sentenced in the case. . . . The director of the OMB, Leon Panetta, confirms that the Pentagon is short $40–$50 billion of the money needed to carry out the administration’s defense plans over the five years through 1998.

A county grand jury in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, recommends that the state legislature begin impeachment proceedings against Gov. David Walters (D). Walters, who pled guilty in October to a misdemeanor campaign-finance violation charge.

Scientists at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory set a world record for the amount of power produced in a nuclear fusion reactor with the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor. The burst of fusion-produced power is measured at about 3 million watts, double the power achieved in 1991 by a similar reactor in England, the Joint European Torus.

A home video-game industry group led by Sega Enterprises announces a plan for an industry-led videogame ratings system.

A federal appeals court in rejects a 1992 ruling that ordered an overhaul of the Louisiana state university system, which is largely segregated. . . . The FBI agrees to prohibit discrimination against current and prospective employees on the basis of sexual orientation and settles a class action lawsuit by former agent Frank Buttino. . . . Massachusetts governor William Weld (R) signs into law a bill intended to protect lesbian and gay students in public schools from discrimination. The bill is believed to be the first piece of statewide legislation in the country to address the civil rights of young homosexuals.

Defense Secretary Les Aspin announces plans to trim the Army National Guard and Army Reserve by 127,300 personnel over the six years through 1999.

Aboard the Endeavour, astronauts release the repaired Hubble Space Telescope. After the Hubble is released, Pres. Clinton and Vice Pres. Gore congratulate the Endeavour crew by telephone on fulfilling “one of the most spectacular space missions in all of our history.”. . . Scientists at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in Plainsboro, New Jersey break the record they set Dec. 9 when their nuclear reactor releases 5.6 million watts of power, 56 times the energy produced by the most advanced fusion reactor of the 1970s.

Alice Bigelow Tully, 91, who anonymously gave most of the funds for a $4.5 million chamber-music hall at Lincoln Center, which was named in her honor in 1970, and who was awarded a Handel Medallion, New York’s most prestigious cultural award, dies of influenza in New York City.

Andrew Wiles, a British mathematician teaching at Princeton University in the U.S., announces that he will publish his widely heralded proof of Fermat’s last theorem, a renowned 17th-century mathematical problem, in February 1994.

Charlie Ward, the quarterback for Florida State University, is named the winner of the Heisman Trophy as the nation’s top college football player.

Reports state that former Rep. Carroll Hubbard Jr. (D, Ky.) has revealed that he worked for several months as an informer for the FBI in order to avoid prosecution for campaign-finance violations. . . . Steve Nelson, 90, former Communist Party member whose conviction for sedition in Pennsylvania led to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling revoking the right of the states to prosecute for sedition, dies in New York City of complications from aorta surgery.

The EPA ends a three-day-old advisory that some 600,000 Washington, D.C., residents and about 200,000 people in two northern Virginia suburbs have been boiling their drinking water since the EPA found the water to be contaminated.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Dec. 7

Dec. 8

Dec. 9

Dec. 10

Dec. 11

Dec. 12

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

540—December 13–18, 1993

Dec. 13

Dec. 14

Dec. 15

Dec. 16

Dec. 17

Dec. 18

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The EC gives final ratification to the treaty creating the European Economic Area, which will include the 12 EC nations and Austria, Iceland, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. The free-trade pact is set to go into effect January 1, 1994.

In Kazakhstan’s capital, Alma Ata, U.S. vice president Al Gore signs an agreement with Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev under which Kazakhstan will begin to dismantle the more than 1,300 strategic nuclear weapons it inherited at the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Kazakh parliament votes overwhelmingly to ratify the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. . . . Hungarian interior minister Peter Boross is named interim premier.

Israel’s P.M. Yitzhak Rabin cautions that an Israeli pullout from Gaza and the West Bank town of Jericho may be delayed. Palestinians stage a three-hour strike in protest. Israeli troops shoot to death two Palestinians they allege are fugitive guerrillas associated with the PFLP. A Palestinian stages a suicide attack and wounds an Israeli soldier. . . . U.S. troops stationed in Somalia and offshore begin to withdraw.

The UN endorses the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements signed by PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin on Sept. 13. . . . Trade negotiators from the U.S. and the EC compromise on a number of contentious trade issues in order to meet a Dec. 15 deadline to complete the socalled Uruguay Round of global trade talks being conducted under the auspices of the GATT.

The Iraqi government announces that Pres. Hussein has pardoned a 25-year-old French prisoner, JeanLuc Barriere, and a German, Kai Sondermann, 28, both of whom were held for illegal entry. Their release follows personal appeals to Iraqi officials from French and German politicians.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Pres. Fidel Ramos signs into law a bill restoring the death penalty in the Philippines.

Officials in St. Kitts and Nevis lift a state of emergency imposed on St. Kitts when demonstrators battled police Dec. 2.

Peter Sutherland, GATT’s director general, formally declares the conclusion of the Uruguay Round in a ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland. Anti-GATT demonstrations are held in various countries, including South Korea and India, and in Brussels, Belgium, where the EC is based.

Incomplete results from Russia’s Dec. 11 elections show that the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party, described as neo-fascist by its reform-minded critics and headed by Vladimir Volfovich Zhirinovsky, has unexpectedly taken the lead. The initial tally shocks Russia’s domestic reformers and foreign governments. . . . British prime minister Major and Irish prime minister Reynolds issue a historic “framework for lasting peace” in Northern Ireland.

Twelve Croatian and Bosnian technicians are stabbed to death in a surprise attack in Algeria. . . . Israel repatriates the last 197 Palestinian Islamic militants of the 415 deported to southern Lebanon about one year earlier. . . . Reports indicate that at least 60 people have been killed in ethnic fighting in Congo that broke out Dec. 10. . . . About 997 of 1,095 French troops stationed in Somalia withdraw.

Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and the U.K. announce that they are establishing full diplomatic relations with The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Those declarations are denounced by Greece, which states its northern neighbor has claims on the territory of the Greek province of Macedonia. Macedonian president Kiro Gligorov responds that his country has no claims on any of its neighbors and will be willing to sign an accord guaranteeing the current border with Greece.

Election results show that the constitution signed by Russian president Boris Yeltsin Nov. 8 to replace the current Soviet-era charter was approved by an estimated 57.4% of the electorate. . . . Records suggest that, in the violence between Ireland and Britain, the IRA has been responsible for the deaths of 35 people in Ulster to date in 1993, while Protestant paramilitaries have killed 47.

A fundamentalist organization, the Armed Islamic Group, claims responsibility for the Dec. 15 attack, which brought to 16 the number of foreigners killed in Algeria since Dec. 1, the deadline the extremists set for foreigners to leave or risk facing “sudden death.” . . . Israeli soldiers block roads leading to five Jewish settlements near Nablus in the northern West Bank, designating the area a “closed military zone.” The term has previously been applied solely to Arab towns under Israeli curfew.

In the Argentine city of Santiago del Estero, rioting erupts when the provincial government informs 4,000 city employees that it cannot pay their four months of overdue wages. Workers storm the governor’s palace, set fire to the provincial legislature, and loot shops and the homes of local politicians. . . . Brazil’s Supreme Court upholds a Senate decision that bars former president Fernando Collor de Mello, ousted on corruption charges in 1992, from holding elected office through the year 2000.

At a meeting in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia agree to coordinate their defense policies and upgrade their military equipment to NATO standards.

In the first trial by jury in Russia since the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, Artur and Aleksandr Martynov are found guilty of manslaughter by a court in Saratov and sentenced to 18 months and 12 months in prison, respectively. . . . Sir Robert Reid, 72, British Rail chairman, 1983–90, dies.

Israeli authorities arrest five Americans and one Israeli on suspicion of planning terrorist attacks against Arabs and for illegal weapons possession.

Argentine military police restore order in the northwestern city of Santiago del Estero after the Dec. 16 riots.

Reports disclose that the UN General Assembly has unanimously adopted a nonbinding resolution calling on states to stop selling antipersonnel mines in a bid to reduce civilian deaths from the devices.

Tajikistan’s premier, Abdumalik Abdulajanov, steps down as the republic’s ambassador to Russia.

Amnesty International finds that more than 200 people involved in separatist movements in India have disappeared after being arrested since 1990. . . . Sir Penaia Ganilau, 75, president of Fiji, who took the post while he was serving as Fiji’s governor general appointed by Queen Elizabeth at the time of two military coups in 1987, dies in Washington, D.C., where he was being treated for leukemia.

In the Argentine city of Santiago del Estero, news accounts reveal that at least six people were killed, scores injured, and 170 arrested during the Dec. 16 riots.

Kakuei Tanaka, 75, former Japanese premier known as a pioneer of the so-called money politics that shaped modern Japanese politics, dies of pneumonia.

Officials from China and Taiwan meet in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital, to discuss improving trade and cultural links. It is the first time in 44 years that an official Chinese delegation has been in Taiwan.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 13–18, 1993—541

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

In U.S. v. James Daniel Good Real Property, the Supreme Court, 5-4, mandates the federal government cannot seize real estate owned by suspected drug dealers without a hearing. . . . Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson (R) signs into law a bill that calls for the state’s withdrawal from the AFDC program. It is the first state to seek to do so. . . . . Michigan circuit judge Richard Kaufman declares key sections of the Michigan law banning assisted suicide are unconstitutional.

Army Reserve sergeant David J. Martinez pleads guilty to a charge of sodomy and to one of making false statements in connection with an attack on a woman reservist in Saudi Arabia in 1991. He is given a bad-conduct discharge. . . . The government of Vietnam turns over to the U.S. eight sets of remains of MIAs, bringing to 67 the number of remains handed over in 1993.

The FEC announces that it is dropping its investigations of 137 cases of alleged campaign violations, or more than 30% of its case load. . . . In John Hancock v. Harris Bank, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that insurance companies’ investment of some group pension funds— those in excess of the obligation of the insurance company to annuity plans—fall under federal, not state, jurisdiction.

The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour touches down at Kennedy Space Center after completing a landmark mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.

Reports indicate that a notebook containing 21 previously unknown keyboard pieces by 17th-century British composer Henry Purcell was discovered by a British antiquarian music dealer. The notebook is one of only six known existing Purcell manuscripts.

A federal judge in sentences Charles Knapp, a former head of American Savings and Loan Association, to 61⁄2 years in prison, the maximum sentence allowed. . . . The Employee Benefit Research Institute reports that the number of uninsured people in the U.S. rose to 38.9 million in 1992 from 36.3 million in 1991. . . . United Mine Workers union members ratify a new five-year contract, bringing to an end a seven-month-long strike that spread to mines in seven states.

Michigan circuit judge Richard C. Kaufman drops charges against Dr. Jack Kevorkian in Wayne County. . . . An FBI sting operation leads to the arrest of 12 Washington, D.C., police officers who are charged with bribery, conspiracy, and drug distribution. . . . A Colorado state district court judge, Jeffrey Bayless, strikes down as unconstitutional Amendment 2, a voter-approved state measure that prohibits localities from passing laws to protect homosexuals from discrimination. Bayless’s ruling makes permanent an injunction issued in January.

Houston Oiler defensive tackle Jeff Alm shoots himself to death after a car accident that killed his passenger, Alm’s long-time friend Sean Lynch. . . . Myrna Loy 88, film actress from the The Thin Man series, dies in New York City while under surgery. . . . Reports state that six missing keyboard sonatas by Franz Joseph Haydn were discovered in Munster, Germany.

After hundreds of students staged walkouts and vigils, the Jackson, Mississippi, school board votes to reinstate the principal of Wingfield High School, Bishop Knox, who was dismissed on Nov. 24 after he allowed students to recite a nondenominational prayer over the intercom. . . . A gunman goes on a shooting spree at a Chuck E Cheese restaurant in Aurora, Colorado, killing four employees and wounding one.

Defense Secretary Les Aspin tenders his resignation, to take effect January 20, 1994.

The Fed reports that U.S. factories, mines, and utilities operated at 83% of capacity in November, the highest rate since August 1989. . . . The FDIC reports the nation’s 11,081 commercial banks earned a record $11.45 billion in the third quarter of 1993. . . . Sen. John Glenn (D, Ohio) releases evidence that the federal government dropped radioactive material over Utah, New Mexico, and Tennessee from 1948 to 1952 to measure how fallout travels.

French researchers announce they have completed a roughly accurate map of the human genome, the set of some 100,000 genes within human cells that determine physical development. . . . NASA announces plans to launch, in February 1996, the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid, Eros, to determine its composition, geology, and magnetic fields.

Russian author Vladimir Makanin is awarded a Russian Booker Prize. . . . The Oscar won by Vivien Leigh for the film Gone With the Wind (1939) is sold to an anonymous bidder for a record $562,500.

Sen. Bob Packwood (R, Oreg.) surrenders his personal diaries to a federal district judge in Washington, D.C., Thomas Jackson, who orders that he do so. An attorney for Packwood, Jacob Stein, acknowledges that the senator altered some of his diary tapes. . . . Reports show that two people injured in the Dec. 7 attack on a crowded Long Island Rail Road commuter train have died, bringing the total deaths to six.

Pres. Clinton names retired admiral Bobby Ray Inman to replace Les Aspin as defense secretary. . . . U.S. Navy petty officer Keith Meinhold—who in 1992 was discharged from the service for his homosexuality and then reinstated—reenlists in the Navy.

Reports find that the Lucky Stores Inc. grocery chain has agreed to pay nearly $75 million to about 14,000 Northern California women in a class-action settlement of a sex discrimination case. The landmark settlement stems from an August 1992 decision by a federal district judge, Marilyn Hall Patel. . . . Richard M. Hersch, the president of a taxpreparation service, is indicted on federal charges of tax fraud and money laundering. He is charged with filing 431 fictitious or altered tax returns and laundering more than $1 million.

A study concludes that moderate consumption of alcoholic beverages (one to three drinks per day) is highly effective in preventing heart disease.

Swedish police reveal that they have recovered three of six works by artist Pablo Picasso stolen in a November robbery at the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm. . . . Charles Moore, 68, postmodern architect, dies in Austin, Texas, after suffering a heart attack.

Retired publishing magnate Walter Annenberg pledges to give public education $500 million in the form of matching grants over five years. It is the largest single sum ever dedicated by a private individual to public education in the U.S. . . . Sen. Nancy Landon Kassebaum (R, Kans.) becomes the first Republican senator to publicly call for Sen. Bob Packwood (R, Oreg.), currently involved in a sexual harassment scandal, to resign.

An independent U.S.-Canadian binational trade panel rules that the U.S. Commerce Department must remove tariffs it initially imposed in 1992 on all imports of Canadian softwood lumber to the U.S.

The FDIC and First City Bancorp. tentatively settle a $3 billion lawsuit filed in September. . . . Pres. Clinton signs legislation passed by Congress to provide securities regulation and partnership investor protection and authorize fiscal 1994 funds for the savings and loans bailout. . . . Jack Russ, the first person to face criminal charges related to the 1991 House Bank overdraft scandal, is sentenced to two years in prison for fraud and embezzlement.

Reports state that researchers in France claim to have developed a material that can superconduct electricity at the warmest temperatures yet achieved, -10°F (-23°C). . . . Reports state that researchers at the Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratory exposed the testicles of prisoners at the Oregon State Prison to radioactivity to determine the effects of radiation on the production of sperm.

Fox Broadcasting wins the rights to televise the National Football League’s National Conference games when it outbids CBS.

Joseph H. Ball, 88, Republican senator from Minnesota, 1942–48, dies in Chevy Chase, Maryland, from a stroke.

The Clinton administration releases revised inflation forecasts that, if accurate, will lower an estimated five-year Defense Department budget shortfall to $31 billion from $50 billion.

The Clintons’ Whitewater records become a subject of wide speculation, when The Washington Post reports that U.S. Park Police officers investigating the death of White House counsel Vincent W. Foster Jr. saw paperwork related to the real-estate dealings among the late attorney’s files but were denied access to them by White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum.

Sam Wanamaker, 74, actor and director who led the effort to rebuild the Globe Theatre in England, where many of William Shakespeare’s plays were first performed, dies in London of cancer.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 13

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Dec. 15

Dec. 16

Dec. 17

Dec. 18

542—December 19–23, 1993

World Affairs

Dec. 19

Dec. 20

The UN General Assembly ratifies the Dec, 12 recommendation to establish a new post of High Commissioner for Human Rights. The General Assembly also passes a resolution demanding that the ruling council in Myanmar free Aung San Suu Kyi and reinstate democracy and civil rights. . . . The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reveals that the number of infant deaths worldwide from pneumonia, diarrhea, measles, tetanus, and whooping cough is declining. The report states that incidences of severe malnutrition are also decreasing even though the number of children under five years of age rose 20% over 10 years.

Dec. 21

Dec. 22

Dec. 23

Reports confirm that the IMF has approved a loan equivalent to some $63 million for Kenya in support of the government’s economic and financial program for October 1993–September 1994.

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

In elections, Serbia’s ruling Socialist Party, led by President Slobodan Milosevic, increases to 123 from 101 the number of seats it holds in the 250-seat parliament . . . Italy, wracked by an ongoing corruption scandal, completes passage of electoral laws reforming its system of strict proportional representation.

Algeria’s five-member militarybacked ruling council, which has ruled the country since January 1992, states that it is extending its stay in power by one month, to January 31, 1994.

In Montenegro, Vice Premier Mihajlo Ljesar, 43, is shot to death in his office in the capital, Podgorica. . . . In London’s Old Bailey courthouse, Colin Ireland is sentenced to five life terms in jail after pleading guilty to murdering five homosexual men earlier in 1993. Ireland, 39, states he committed the crimes in order to attract publicity.

The Egyptian government executes six Islamic militants, raising the number executed in 1993 to 29. . . . The largest terrorist bombing in two years in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, shatters parts of the headquarters of the rightist Falange Party, the main political force of the country’s 1 million Maronite Christians. At least two people are killed and another 130 wounded in the incident.

The Turkish interior ministry states that 4,180 people were killed in 1993 in battles between Turkish forces and separatist Kurds. The toll is the highest since the revolt began in 1984. The total death toll is put at 10,500. . . . Heavy rain storms begin to batter Europe. . . . Hungary’s parliament confirms Acting Premier Peter Boross as premier to succeed Jozsef Antall, who died in office Dec. 12.

The government of Abu Dhabi, one of the emirates in the United Arab Emirates, files a civil suit against the Bank of Credit & Commerce International and 13 of the bank’s former top officials.

Heavy rain continues to lash Europe, and in Germany a flood surge along the Rhine river inundates much of the old town of Cologne when emergency embankments fail. More than 2,000 people are evacuated in eastern Belgium, and a man apparently drowns after falling into the Meuse River. Luxembourg is also affected by rising waters.

The South African Parliament adopts the nation’s first constitution that provides “fundamental rights” to blacks. In response, proapartheid white groups and conservative black parties threaten to boycott South Africa’s first universal elections. . . . Reports state that in a disarmament program that started Nov. 30, more than 10,000 troops from the government of Mozambique and Renamo have arrived at the UN-monitored points to turn in their guns.

Reports state that Venezuela’s outgoing president, Ramon Velasquez, has pardoned Lieutenant Colonel Joel Acosta Chirinos and Lieutenant Colonel Jesus Ortiz Contreras, leaders of a 1992 military coup attempt.

At Bonn, the Rhine tops the flood mark by 33 feet, breaking a 1926 record. At least five people in Germany drown or are missing. Officials in northern France describe the floods there as the worst of the century. Two women in France die of flood-related causes. . . . A holiday cease-fire to have been observed Dec. 23– Jan 15 is broken with shelling and sniper fire in Sarajevo, which kills at least six people and wounds 55.

Reports indicate that Pres. Lansana Conte of the Party of Unity Progress was declared the winner of a first round of voting in Guinea’s first multiparty presidential election. At least three civilians and one soldier died in election-related violence.

Reports find that Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) gave the mayoral seat of Merida to the conservative National Action Party (PAN), in an apparent effort to calm outcries of electoral rigging.

Asia & the Pacific The leader of the Muslim Majahideen separatist movement in Kashmir, Ahsun Dar, is captured by the Indian army in a raid on his house in Srinagar.

Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines, is acquitted of fraud charges.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 19–23, 1993—543

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Controversy erupts when two state troopers who served on Pres. Clinton’s security detail when he was the governor of Arkansas allege that Clinton had frequent extramarital affairs during his years in office. . . . Wallace F. Bennett, 95, Republican senator from Utah, 1950–74, whose son Robert was elected to the seat in 1992, dies in Salt Lake City of natural causes.

Dec. 19

A cross erected by a Ku Klux Klan group in Cincinnati, Ohio, draws protest. . . . Pres. Clinton awards 74 U.S. cities $50 million in grants to put more police on their streets. . . . Pres. Clinton signs the National Child Protection Act, legislation designed to fight child abuse. The measure will establish a national database containing the names of those indicted or convicted of child abuse, which can be used by employers of child-care workers. . . . Pres. Clinton names Patrick Griffin to replace Howard Paster as the chief lobbyist for the White House in Congress.

Pres. Clinton signs a bill guaranteeing priority treatment for U.S. veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf war who are sick with illnesses that might be linked to exposure to toxic substances during the conflict.

Reports state that the EPA has asked Du Pont to continue producing CFCs, chemicals thought to harm the ozone layer, until 1995. Du Pont had planned to end production in 1994, two years before the deadline set by the EPA. . . . The Labor Department reports that employers and employees in private industry and state and local governments spent $258.5 billion for workers’ health insurance in 1992. . . . W. Edwards Deming, 93, U.S. quality-control expert who helped revolutionize Japanese manufacturing and has a prize named after him given by the Japanese to companies with high efficiency, dies in Washington, D.C., of cancer.

Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend by Robert James Waller remains at the top of the bestseller list. . . . CBS, which has broadcast NFL games for 38 years, is shut out of football league broadcasts when NBC retains the rights for American Conference games and FOX gained the rights to the National Conference on Dec. 17. . . . Realestate mogul Donald Trump weds actress Marla Maples at Trump’s Plaza Hotel in New York City.

The Federal Highway Administration issues a rule making it illegal to use radar detectors in most interstate trucks and buses. . . . A study finds that families account for 43% of homeless people in 1993, compared with 33% the previous year. . . . Hillary Clinton takes the unusual step of directly rebutting the charges of infidelity against her husband in interviews with the AP, Reuters, and UPI.

Pres. Clinton attends a groundbreaking ceremony in Arlington National Cemetery for a memorial honoring the victims of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Airways Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. . . . Alina Fernandez Revuelta, 37, the estranged daughter of Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz, arrives in the U.S. on a flight from Spain after she was granted asylum at the U.S. embassy in Madrid.

A Minnesota union welfare fund agrees to pay $100,000 to the estate of a construction worker who died of AIDS in 1992. The payment is to settle charges that the fund discriminated against members with AIDS. The settlement marks the first large cash award involving an AIDS-related refusal of health insurance under the 1990 American With Disabilities Act.

Alexander MacKendrick, 81, film director who, in 1969, became dean of the California Institute of the Arts’ film school, dies in Los Angeles, California, of pneumonia.

A cross erected by the Ku Klux Klan outside the statehouse in Columbus, Ohio, is repeatedly toppled by protesters. . . . Wal-Mart Stores, the U.S.’s largest retailer, states that it will discontinue handgun sales at its stores. It will still stock rifles and shotguns. . . . Pres. Clinton announces more than $411 million in grants for programs aiding the homeless. . . . On NPR, in response to allegations first made Dec. 19 by Arkansas state troopers, Pres. Clinton argues, “The only relevant questions are questions of whether I have abused my office, and the answer is no.”

The Defense Department issues rules defining the Clinton administration policy of permitting homosexuals to serve in the military provided they do not engage in homosexual acts and maintain silence about their sexuality.

The Clinton administration announces that pay raises will be extended to senior civil servants, Foreign Service employees, administrative law judges, and other federal workers not covered by the Dec. 1 raise order. Altogether, the raises are expected to increase the federal payroll by about $1.7 billion.

A study suggests that pregnant women who consume an amount of caffeine equivalent to one and a half to three cups of coffee daily may nearly double their risk of miscarriage.

White House spokesmen announce that the Clintons have instructed their personal attorney to yield to federal investigators their financial records and legal documents related to their co-ownership of Whitewater Development Co., a defunct Arkansas real-estate firm. . . . Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary announces the Energy Department has set up a “human experimentation hot line” offering information to people who were involved in radiation experiments.

The Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite is retired from service after a four-year mission devoted to studying the origins and evolution of the universe.

Lauchlin Currie, 91, economic adviser to Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, dies in Bogota, Colombia, of a heart ailments.

Don DeFore, 80, actor best known for his roles in television comedies in the 1950s and 1960s, dies in Santa Monica, California, of cardiac arrest.

Dec. 20

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Dec. 22

Dec. 23

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

544—December 24–29, 1993

Dec. 24

Europe

Russia and its 11 partners in the Commonwealth of Independent States sign multilateral agreements at a summit meeting of the organization held in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan’s capital.

Accounts state that at least 50,000 residents of Cologne, Germany, have been driven from their homes due to flooding.

Palestinian gunmen in open fire on an Israeli army jeep, killing Lt. Col. Meir Mintz, who is reportedly the most senior Israeli officer killed in Gaza since the onset of the Palestinian uprising in December 1987. With his death, the number of Israelis killed in Israeli-Palestinian violence since the Sept. 13 signing rises to 17; some 45 Palestinians were killed in related violence during the same period. . . . Grenade attacks are launched at the offices of Catholic Relief Services, wounding two Somali guards.

United Nations secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali becomes the first UN head to visit North Korea.

In the Netherlands, 12,000 people are evacuated in the southeastern province of Limburg due to flooding. . . . In Sarajevo, some 700 shells hit the city, bringing the toll there since the truce was to have begun Dec, 23 to 11 dead and 99 wounded.

In Israel, the West Bank town of Bethlehem officially celebrates Christmas for the first time in seven years.

Reports disclose that the first day of the newly elected government in India’s state of Uttar Pradesh ended in brawling between the members of opposite parties. More than 40 members of parliament and marshals were hospitalized

Dec. 25

In Spain, three people die when a landslide caused by rain and snow collapses their house in the Asturias region. Gales in the Catalan capital, Barcelona, knock down trees, power lines, and billboards, prompting a sharp increase in emergency calls. . . . Government forces fight with Bosnian Croats in central Bosnia near Kiseljak and around Busovaca, Vitez, and Novi Travnik. The eastern Bosnian Muslim enclave of Gorazde is shelled by surrounding Serb forces, as is Olovo, northeast of Sarajevo. Data suggests that 200,000 people have died in the Bosnian civil war since it began in April 1992.

Dec. 26

Dec. 27

The latest edition of the U.S. magazine Time names Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, South African president F. W. de Klerk, and African National Congress president Nelson Mandela as “Men of the Year” because of their strides in peacemaking.

Dec. 28

Dec. 29

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

The Americas

Paul Issa, the treasurer of the promilitary Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti, is murdered.

Asia & the Pacific

Three grenades are thrown into the San Pedro Cathedral in Davao City during a mass, killing at least six worshipers and wounding about 120 others. . . . About 10,000 leading members of China’s Communist Party gather in Beijing to commemorate the birth date of Mao Zedong, China’s former paramount leader.

Reports disclose that the government of the Netherlands has declared the flooding there to be a national disaster. . . . A chase across parts of Russian in pursuit of kidnappers who abducted 12 children and a teacher from a school in Rostov-on-Don ends with the capture of four gunmen and the recovery of most of $10 million in ransom they received. . . . The IRA observed its annual cease-fire over the Christmas holiday, but attacks resume less than an hour after the expiration of the truce.

In Egypt, three men attack a bus transporting 18 Austrian tourists near Cairo’s historic Hanging Church, injuring eight of the Austrians, three seriously, and wounding eight Egyptian bystanders.

In Haiti, some 200 dwellings in Cite Soleil, a Port-au-Prince slum known as an Aristide stronghold, are destroyed by fire, killing at least four. Residents reportedly claim that the torchings are in retaliation for the Dec. 26 murder of Paul Issa.

Official results of Russia’s Dec. 11 election confirm that the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party has won the largest single party representation in the State Duma. The party’s leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, is ordered out of Bulgaria during a visit for offences that are described as insults to the country and its leaders. . . . Officials estimate flood damage in German states at more than $590 million. French insurance companies report costs for fall flooding, including December, will be between $260 million and $347 million.

The Islamic Group claims responsibility for the Dec. 27 attack in Cairo, Egypt.

An advance team of some 150 U.S. Army engineers arrives in Colombia for the stated purpose of building rural roads and schools.

In the Philippines, in apparent retaliation for the Dec. 26 attack, an assailant throws a grenade into a mosque in a Muslim area of Davao City, injuring six people.

U.S. troops in Somalia number 5,300 on shore and 3,800 on ships offshore since the Dec. 13 withdrawal began. . . . Saudi Arabia’s first representative assembly, known as the Shura (Consultative) Council, holds its inaugural session in Riyadh, the capital.

Peru’s Pres. Alberto Fujimori signs a new constitution that voters approved in a national plebiscite in October.

The world’s largest statue of Buddha, the spiritual focus of Buddhism, is dedicated on an outlying Hong Kong island. It is a 112-foot-tall (34 m) bronze statue.

The Convention on Biological Diversity pact becomes international law. In the treaty drafted at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, its 167 signatories have pledged to protect plants, animals, and microorganisms and their natural habitats. The treaty also mandates that industrialized nations have to share profits of biotechnology ventures with the developing countries that provided the natural resources.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 24–29, 1993—545

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Bruce C. Vladeck, who heads the U.S. Medicaid program, states the Clinton administration has decided to require that individual states pay for abortions for low-income women in cases of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Norman Vincent Peale, 95, religious leader whose philosophy asserts that optimism can lead to material success, dies in Pawling, New York, after a stroke. . . . The auction houses of Sotheby’s and Christie’s announce their 1993 worldwide auction-sales totals, $1.32 billion and $1.09 billion, respectively.

A 59-year-old British woman gives birth to twins at a London hospital. The unidentified woman is believed to be the oldest woman ever to give birth.

Dave Beck, 99, labor union leader, 1952–57, dies in Seattle, Washington.

Reports confirm that Georgia has won permission from the federal government to impose a two-year freeze on benefit payments to mothers on welfare who conceive another child.

Reports reveal that Sheik Khalid bin Mahfouz, a leading Saudi banker, has agreed to pay fines totaling $225 million in exchange for the dismissal of all charges against him in the U.S. for his alleged role in defrauding BCCI customers of up to $300 million.

Dec. 25

Reports reveal that a group of 19 mentally retarded boys were given doses of radioactivity in glasses of milk from 1946 to 1956 at the Fernald State School in Waltham, Massachusetts, in an experiment run by scientists from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study the digestive system.

Dec. 26

Officials state that the government of New York City is facing a budget deficit of more than $2.2 billion in the fiscal year beginning July 1, 1994.

The Census Bureau reports that the U.S. population on July 1 was 257,908,000. . . . A panel of federal district judges orders the state of Louisiana to remap its congressional districts, ruling that a redistricting plan that went into effect after the 1990 census was “the product of racial gerrymandering.”. . . . Judge John F. Onion Jr. strikes down four of five counts of ethics violations against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R, Tex.) on the grounds that they were too vaguely formulated.

The Commerce Department expects health-care spending in the U.S. to rise to $1.06 trillion in 1994, or 15% of the country’s total output of goods and services. . . . The IRS finds that the federal government loses about $150 billion a year in revenue due to tax evasion and inaccurate reporting of taxable income. . . . The Conference Board states its index of consumer confidence rose in December to 80.2, from its revised November level of 71.9. The December level is the highest since September 1990.

Four New York State bombings that are aimed at relatives of Brenda Lazore kill five people, including Lazore’s mother and sister.

The Dow closes at a record high of 3794.33.

Dec. 24

Dec. 27

The Department of Energy reveals that approximately 800 people were exposed to radiation in experiments performed by the government from the 1940s through the 1960s.

William L. Shirer, 89, radio broadcaster, print journalist, and author best known for his book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960), dies in Boston, Massachusetts, of heart ailments.

Dec. 28

Dec. 29

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

546—December 30–31, 1993

World Affairs

Dec. 30

Dec. 31

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Data shows that the population growth in Poland in 1993 was the smallest since World War II. . . . Heavy rain and strong winds cause flooding in southern England and Cornwall. Six men and boys are arrested for looting after flood waters scour a supermarket in Sussex county. . . . A British soldier, Daniel Blinco, is shot dead in Crossmaglen in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, by a sniper from the outlawed Provisional Irish Republican Army. . . . Germany’s Frankfurt exchange DAX index closes at a record 2266.68 level.

PLO chairman Yasser Arafat rejects Israel’s proposed compromise for implementing Palestinian self-rule in the occupied territories, as disagreements over autonomy details prolong the delay in the phased transfer of power, originally set to begin Dec. 13 in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho. . . . In South Africa, black gunmen fire into a crowded Cape Town bar, killing at least four whites and seriously injuring five others.

Data shows that the heavy rain and severe storms that started Dec. 21 have caused the worst flooding in a century across western Europe. At least 10 people have died of weather-related accidents, and at least 60,000 people have been forced from their houses. Damage is estimated at nearly $1 billion. . . The London exchange’s Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100 stock index closes the year at 3418.4, up 20% from the year-earlier close.

In South Africa, two black militant groups claim responsibility for the Dec. 30 attack.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The Honduran military announces that it will open its secret files to civilian authorities and permit the courts to question officers accused of human-rights abuses in the 1980s. An estimated 300 leftists were killed during that period, and about 200 remain missing.

The Nikkei average rises 2.9% over the year to close at 17,417.24.

The best-performing Asian stock market in 1993 is in Hong Kong, where the market’s Hang Seng index registers a 115% annual gain to close at a record high of 11,888.39.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 30–31, 1993—547

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The U.S. dollar closes at 111.61 yen and at 1.74 German marks. The Dow Jones industrial average closes the year at 3754.09, up 452.98 points, or 13.7%, from the 1992 year-end level of 3301.11. NASDAQ gained 14.8% during the year to close at 776.80. The American Stock Exchange closes at 477.15, up 16.3% from its 1992 close of 399.23.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The FDA approves DNase, the first new drug in 30 years to be authorized for use in the treatment of cystic fibrosis. . . . After a string of reports on radioactive experimentation on humans, the Departments of Defense and Veterans’ Affairs and NASA announce that they will undertake their own investigations to uncover atomic-energy tests performed on humans.

Irving (“Swifty”) Lazar, 86, famous talent agent who won huge contracts for many entertainers and writers, dies in Beverly Hills, California, of kidney failure. . . . Israel and the Vatican formally establish diplomatic relations after 45 years of often rancorous dispute between the Jewish and Roman Catholic states.

Thomas J. Watson, 79, former chairman of International Business Machines (IBM) Corp., who is credited with taking his company and the U.S. into the era of the computer, dies in Greenwich, Connecticut, after a stroke.

Dec. 30

Dec. 31

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1994 A Bosnian Muslim carries water in containers past a wall damaged by shelling in East Mostar, Bosnia, on January 26, 1994, the day after the cease-fire.

550—January–September 1994

Jan.

Feb.

March

April

May

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

World Affairs

Europe

Both the European Economic Area (EEA) agreement and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) go into effect.

Bosnian government figures show that 141,065 people have been killed and 160,000 wounded in the 21-month-old civil war.

NATO fighter aircraft shoot down four suspected Bosnian Serb ground-attack jets operating over central Bosnia in violation of the UN no-fly zone. The air engagement is the first combat action undertaken by NATO in its 45-year history.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

About 100 gunmen attack a Togolese army base in a failed assassination attempt on Pres. Gnassingbe Eyadema. At least 40 people are killed in the battle.

A previously unknown rebel group calling itself the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) attacks four towns in Mexico’s southeastern state of Chiapas in a “declaration of war” against the federal government.

The militia of renegade general Abdul Rashid Doestam, in alliance with nominal premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, launches an assault against government forces in Kabul, the Afghanistan capital, in an effort to oust Pres. Burhanuddin Rabbani.

Romania’s two largest unions hold a general strike, and 2 million workers—one-fifth of the nation’s workforce—stay away from work. It is reported to be the biggest labor action since 1989.

A U.S.-born Israeli settler, Baruch Goldstein, sprays Palestinians with automatic rifle fire at a mosque in Hebron, leaving 40 worshipers dead and 150 wounded. The massacre is the worst in the West Bank since 1967.

The last significant band of former contra rebels who battled Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front government in the 1980s agrees to lay down their arms.

Hong Kong’s legislature approves the first bill containing several controversial democratic-reform proposals sought by Hong Kong governor Chris Patten. In response, Chinese officials vow to disband completely all elected bodies in Hong Kong when it takes control in 1997.

The UN Human Rights Commission unanimously passes a resolution condemning anti-Semitism as a violation of human rights. It is the first time that a UN body has officially recognized anti-Semitism as a form of racism.

For the first time, the British Foreign Office publicly announces the name of the new chief of MI6, Britain’s foreign-intelligence service, when it reveals that David Rolland Spedding will take the post, succeeding Sir Colin McColl, who was the first head of that agency publicly identified.

Pres. Lucas Mangope of Bophuthatswana is deposed by the South African government, the Transitional Executive Council, and the ANC following a revolt against the government by protesters. Tjaart van der Walt assumes temporary responsibility of the homeland.

Government representatives and the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union reach a breakthrough agreement that includes a humanrights accord and an agenda for ending Guatemala’s 33-year-old civil war.

In Seoul, reformist monks launch a series of battles with supporters of Suh Eui Hyun, the conservative administrative head of the Chogye group, South Korea’s main Buddhist sect.

The GATT Uruguay Round concludes when officials from 125 nations sign a pact to liberalize existing national and regional trade regulations, eliminate tariffs, and institute measures to boost global trade.

Attacks by Bosnian Serb forces intensify in the Muslim enclave of Gorazde, in eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina. The attack is estimated to take the lives of at least 600 people in the city.

Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira and Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana are killed when their plane crashes while landing in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital. The crash sparks massive wave of ethnic and political violence in Rwanda.

More than 200 Cuban exiles attend a government-sponsored conference in Havana, Cuba’s capital.

Paul Keating makes the first visit by an Australian prime minister to Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam War.

Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa’s first black president after a landslide victory for the ANC in South Africa’s first all-race elections, ending decades of the apartheid system of racial separation that had received international condemnation.

The Channel Tunnel, hailed as one of the foremost engineering achievements of the 20th century, is inaugurated by British queen Elizabeth II and French president François Mitterrand.

Full-scale civil war erupts in Yemen, and the former South Yemen secedes from the Republic of Yemen.

Dominican president Joaquin Balaguer orders his military chief to enforce the UN embargo on Haiti by sealing the border.

In a case that draws extensive publicity, Michael Fay, 18, a U.S. citizen convicted of spray-painting cars and other acts of defacement in Singapore in October 1993, is flogged four times with a rattan cane by prison authorities in Singapore.

Several heads of state and government leaders commemorate the 50th anniversary of the massive amphibious assault on D-Day— June 6, 1944—that launched the Allied reconquest of Western Europe from Nazi Germany and helped bring World War II to a close.

Representatives of the two major warring factions in Bosnia-Herzegovina sign a month-long ceasefire, but sporadic fighting by both sides continues.

In Nigeria, prodemocracy campaigners loyal to Moshood Abiola, the apparent winner of 1993 elections that were nullified, launch protests when Abiola is arrested.

The Canadian government ends its freeze, instituted in 1978, on aid to Cuba, arguing that the post–cold war era demands new policies.

Data shows that an estimated 2,500 people have been killed in clashes between the rival Islamic factions since the start of the year in Afghanistan.

Citing the need for an “exceptional response” to the political impasse in Haiti, the UN Security Council authorizes a U.S.-led multinational invasion force to oust the military regime and reinstate exiled pres. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, whose democratically elected government was deposed in 1991 by a military coup.

Germany’s highest court rules that German armed forces may take part in international military missions as long as they win majority approval in the Bundestag.

PLO chairman Yasser Arafat steps on Palestinian soil for the first time in 27 years and takes the oath as head of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA).

In Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, a powerful car bomb decimates a seven-story building that houses the headquarters of the Delegation of Argentine Jewish Associations, in what is called the worst-ever terrorist attack on Argentine soil.

North Korean president Kim Il Sung, 82, dies in Pyongyang, the country’s capital, of an apparent heart attack. Kim, who led North Korea for 46 years, is apparently succeeded by his son Kim Jong Il.

The presidents of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay—the four member nations of the Mercosur trade pact—sign some one dozen trade agreements that set terms for a common market that will take effect January 1, 1995.

The last Russian troops leave Latvia and Estonia, 54 years after the former Soviet Union invaded the Baltics.

Zaire continues to be beset by Rwandan refugees, and 700–800 of them are dying each day.

Anti-Castro protesters battle Cuban police and government supporters along Havana’s waterfront and in other parts of the capital.

In Sri Lanka, violence erupts during polling, killing at least 24 people.

At the UN’s third International Conference on Population and Development, all the 179 national delegations represented endorse a sweeping strategy aimed at stabilizing population growth over the next 20 years.

Fighting breaks out in the secessionist republic of Chechnya in southern Russia.

The leaders of Liberia’s three main rebel factions sign a peace accord aimed at ending the civil war and staging general elections.

Haiti’s military-led de facto government agrees to relinquish power and to restore the democratically elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, averting an invasion by U.S. airborne forces already en route to Haiti.

In what is thought to be Australia’s first-ever political assassination, state legislator John Newman is fatally shot in the Sydney suburb of Cabramatta.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

January–September 1994—551

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

In The National Organization for Women v. Scheidler, the Supreme Court overturns two lower court rulings when it finds unanimously that abortion-rights groups can use a federal antiracketeering law to sue antiabortion demonstrators who allegedly organized violent and criminal acts against abortion clinics.

Shannon R. Faulkner, a woman who sued to be allowed to enroll in the all-male Citadel military college in Charleston, South Carolina, attends her first classes at the academy.

Atty. Gen. Janet Reno names Robert B. Fiske Jr. to head a special criminal inquiry in Whitewater Development Corp., a now-defunct realestate venture that once involved Pres. Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

A powerful earthquake strikes Los Angeles, California, leveling buildings and collapsing freeway overpasses. Scores are killed in the disaster.

Nancy Kerrigan, the favorite to win the women’s U.S. Figure Skating Championship, is assaulted at Cobo Arena in Detroit, Michigan. Rival skater Tonya Harding admits that “some persons that were close to me may have been involved in the assault.”

Oregon becomes the first state in the U.S. to extend Medicaid coverage to nearly all residents below the poverty line.

Pres. Clinton announces the end of the U.S.’s 19-year-old trade embargo against Vietnam, citing Vietnam’s cooperation in trying to locate the remains of 2,238 U.S. soldiers still listed as MIA.

The AFL-CIO labor federation announces that it will earmark at least $10 million, the largest amount ever for a single cause, for a campaign to cultivate support for Pres. Clinton’s health-care reform plan.

A federal jury in San Francisco, California, orders Microsoft Corp. to pay $120 million in damages to Stac Electronics Inc. for patent infringement in developing a datastorage feature for recent versions of its MS-DOS model software.

Officials vote unanimously to remove the Georgia state flag—which features the Confederate States of America battle insignia—from display in Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

Pres. Clinton signs into law the Goals 2000: Educate America Act.

Pres. Clinton signs an executive order reviving the so-called Super 301 provision a of a 1988 U.S. trade law designed to force its trading partners to improve domestic market access to other countries’ goods and remove other trade barriers.

The Senate fails to pass an amendment to the Constitution that would require the federal government to balance its annual budgets. The measure is backed by 63 senators, falling four votes short of winning the two-thirds majority needed.

Between 20 and 30 tornadoes tear through five states in the Southeast, from Alabama to North Carolina.

In Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music Inc., the Supreme Court rules unanimously that written, visual, and musical parodies can be excluded from copyright law under some circumstances.

In an unprecedented conference, Pres. Clinton meets with 322 representatives from the nation’s 547 federally recognized American Indian and native Alaskan tribes.

A federal judge sentences former CIA official Aldrich Hazen Ames to life in prison for spying for the former Soviet Union and Russia.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters begins a strike against 22 major unionized trucking companies. About 75,000 workers participate.

Indictments are handed down against a MIT student in what is called the largest piracy case of its kind in the U.S.

The Vatican officially commemorates the murder of 6 million Jews during World War II for the first time with a concert in Rome attended by Pope John Paul II, Jewish leaders, and survivors of Nazi concentration camps.

Congress passes and Pres. Clinton signs into law the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a bill designed to protect abortion clinics and patients and staff who work at the clinics from attacks, blockades, and acts of intimidation.

Pres. Clinton presents the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award, to the widows of Master Sergeant Gary Gordon and Sergeant First Class Randall Shughart, two U.S. soldiers killed in Somalia while trying to rescue a U.S. Ranger unit.

Florida governor Lawton Chiles (D) signs into law the Everglades Forever Act, a $685 million bill to clean up the Everglades jointly financed by the federal government and local sugar producers, who diverted water contaminated with agricultural waste products into the protected marshland for several decades.

The space probe Clementine 1 malfunctions, prompting the Defense Department’s Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (the successor to the SDI, or “Star Wars” program) to abort the second phase of the mission.

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, 64, widow of Pres. John Kennedy and Greek shipping mogul Aristotle Onassis and one of America’s most glamorous and widely admired women, dies of nonHodgkin’s lymphoma in New York City.

O. J. Simpson is charged in the slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman after leading police on a televised 60-mile (95 km) chase.

Florida deports and commutes the sentences of 24 illegal aliens imprisoned for drug-related nonviolent crimes in an unprecedented move to free up prison space in the state.

Occidental Petroleum Corp. agrees to pay New York State $98 million in an out-of-court settlement related to the burial of toxic waste in the Love Canal, ending New York’s 14-year-old lawsuit against Occidental.

The World Wildlife Federation reveals that scientists have captured a live specimen of a rare ox previously known only through skulls and pelts.

Michael Kearney, 10 becomes the U.S.’s youngest-ever college graduate when he receives a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the University of South Alabama in Mobile.

The Senate confirms federal judge Stephen G. Breyer to the high court, making Breyer the 108th Supreme Court justice.

U.S. District Judge C. Weston Houck rules that the state-financed Citadel military college in Charleston, South Carolina, must admit Shannon Faulkner, 19, to its all-male cadet corps.

Exxon Corp. agrees to pay $20 million in damages to Alaskan natives whose hunting and fishing grounds were polluted when the Exxon Valdez tanker spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989.

Dozens of wildfires scorch parts of 11 western states—California, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Montana, New Mexico, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington— and more than 14 firefighters die in attempts to contain the blazes.

A federal grand jury in Los Angeles indicts Heidi Fleiss, who allegedly ran an exclusive Hollywood prostitution service, on 14 counts of conspiracy, tax fraud, and money laundering.

Three convicted murderers are executed by lethal injection on the same day in Varner, Arkansas. It is the first time since 1962 that a state puts to death three people on one day.

Responding to prospects of a massive Cuban exodus to the U.S., Pres. Clinton announces an end to a 28-year-old U.S. policy that allowed Cuban refugees to take up residence in the U.S. if they reach its shores or are rescued in its waters.

A panel of federal judges appoints Kenneth W. Starr, a former top government lawyer during the administration of Pres. George Bush, to replace Robert B. Fiske Jr. as the independent prosecutor in the Whitewater inquiry.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology announces that a team of physicists froze celsium atoms to 700 billionths of degree warmer than absolute zero, a new record low.

Eldrick (Tiger) Woods wins the Amateur Golf Championship. At 18, Woods is the youngest player to win the Amateur title, the first black player to win the title, and the only player to have won both the Amateur and the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship titles.

Pres. Clinton signs into law a broad anticrime package that authorizes $30.2 billion in funding over six years. It also bans some types of assault weapons and expands the federal death penalty.

The Air Force reclassifies the status of the last listed U.S. prisoner from the Vietnam War—Col. Charles E. Shelton—when they declare that Shelton was killed in action.

The Labor Department agrees to pay $4.5 million to settle a racial discrimination suit filed by black employees who were fired or demoted at the department’s ETA division in the 1980s. It is one of the largest settlements ever awarded in a racial-discrimination claim against the federal government.

The crew of the U.S. space shuttle Discovery makes the first untethered space walk in 10 years.

Pres. Clinton appoints John Brademas as the chair and names 32 other people as members on the President’s Committee on the Arts.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

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July

Aug.

Sept.

552—October–December 1994

Oct.

Nov.

Dec.

World Affairs

Europe

Israel and Jordan sign a peace treaty that formally ends their 46year-long history of war and mistrust.

Queen Elizabeth II of England makes the first trip ever to Russia by a British monarch.

NATO warplanes bomb the Udbina air base in the Serb-held Krajina region of Croatia in the biggest air raid carried out by NATO since it was formed in 1949.

At the Summit of the Americas, leaders from 34 Western Hemisphere nations agree to take steps to establish a comprehensive freetrade body by the year 2005.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In the most deadly single violent terrorist attack in Israel since 1978, at least 21 Israeli civilians are killed and as many as 50 wounded when an explosion rips through a crowded bus in Tel Aviv.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide returns to Haiti and is reinstalled as the nation’s president amid the tumultuous cheers of tens of thousands of his supporters.

An outbreak of cerebral malaria is killing thousands of people in the desert region of the Indian state of Rajasthan.

Voters elect Imamali Rakhmanov president in Tajikistan’s first presidential election, and they approve a constitutional referendum.

Iraqi president Saddam Hussein signs a statement declaring that Iraq “recognizes the sovereignty of the State of Kuwait, its territorial integrity and political independence” and that it accepts the border between Iraq and Kuwait.

Brazil’s military starts a campaign of dozens of sweeps aimed at restoring order within Rio de Janeiro’s shantytowns, most of which are in a state of anarchy.

Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga is sworn into office and becomes the first woman to serve as Sri Lanka’s president.

Russian forces launch a full-scale offensive on Grozny, capital of Chechnya.

Looting is reported in the capital of Burundi, Bujumbura, as ethnic fighting continues.

The rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) increases its protests in the wake of recent elections in Mexico.

For only the second time since 1979, a cabinet-level U.S. official visits Taiwan when U.S. transportation secretary Federico Pena makes a trip to that country.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

October–December 1994—553

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A gunman with a semiautomatic assault rifle fires 27 rounds at the north face of the White House before bystanders and Secret Service agents subdue him.

Pres. Clinton lifts a 20-year ban on official contact between the U.S. government and Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA).

The Treasury Department and the White House Office of Management and Budget report a federal budget deficit of $203.4 billion for fiscal 1994. That is the smallest deficit reported since 1989.

After successfully mapping 98% of Venus’s surface, the spacecraft Magellan concludes its mission with a final experiment that requires the craft to make a suicidal descent toward Venus’s surface.

The leading black and white denominations of the U.S. Pentecostal Church establish a new multiracial national association, ending 88 years of racial separation in the church.

The Republican Party sweeps to a landmark victory and will control both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years. Republicans also hold a majority of the nation’s governorships for the first time since 1970.

Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill to provide federal veterans’ benefits for soldiers suffering from “Persian Gulf syndrome.”

Energy Department officials reveal that weapons-grade uranium has leaked from a defunct reactor at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and is accumulating in a filter pipe outside of the reactor building.

Scientists for the Heavy Ion Research Center in Dramstadt, Germany, create a new element, 110 on periodic tables.

Abraham Zapruder’s home movie of the assassination of Pres. Kennedy becomes the first amateur film added to the National Film Registry.

A federal judge in Salem, Oregon, bars Oregon from putting into effect the nation’s only assistedsuicide law until a court rules on its constitutionality.

At U.S.-run holding camps in Panama, Cuban refugees riot against U.S. soldiers to protest their prolonged detention amid continuing uncertainty as to their ultimate destination or political fate.

Orange County, California, the U.S.’s fifth-most-populous county, files for bankruptcy protection. The filing, the result of a failed investment strategy that led to losses of about $2 billion, is one of the largest ever by a municipality.

Scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center reveal images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope that show the first clear views of the universe in its infancy.

The Olympic Council states that 11 Chinese athletes who tested positive for DHT will be stripped of the medals won at the Asian Games.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct.

Nov.

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554—January 1–6, 1994

Jan. 1

World Affairs

Europe

The European Economic Area agreement, which includes the 12 nations of the European Community, four Scandinavian nations, and Austria, goes into effect. . . . The North American Free Trade Agreement, which outlines tariff cuts and the elimination of other trade barriers over 15 years between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, officially takes effect.

Russian authorities ban the use of Western convertible currencies for cash transactions, implementing an order announced in Oct. 1993.

Figures show that the number of international tourists worldwide in 1993 totaled about 500 million, a 3.8% increase from the year-earlier figure, and that tourism receipts were up 9% from 1992, to an estimated $324 billion.

Asia & the Pacific

A previously unknown rebel group calling itself the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) attacks four towns in Mexico’s southeastern state of Chiapas in a “declaration of war” against the federal government. The group declares in a statement that it is protesting alleged discrimination against the region’s Indians and is calling for the resignation of Pres. Carlos Salinas de Gortari and fair elections. . . . British troops begin to withdraw from Belize.

The militia of renegade general Abdul Rashid Doestam, in alliance with nominal premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, launches an assault against government forces in Kabul, the Afghanistan capital, in an effort to oust Pres. Burhanuddin Rabbani. . . . A herd of about 50 elephants on a 125-mile (200-km) rampage is brought under control near Calcutta, India. It is reported to be the largest elephant herd to go on a rampage, and a dozen villages are evacuated by Indian authorities.

Government sources state that at least 24 rebels and five soldiers have been killed in a fierce gun battle in Chiapas, Mexico, in response to the Jan. 1 attack by the EZLN.

Figures show that Japan’s birth rate reached a record low of 9.6 births per 1,000 people in 1993.

At the Sabaneta prison in Maracaibo, Venezuela’s second-largest city, 400 Guajiro Indian inmates firebomb a cellblock holding non-Indians in a revenge attack. Most of the victims burn to death. A riot erupts after the attack. . . . In Mexico, reports state that rebels have kidnapped a former Chiapas governor, Absalon Castellanos Dominguez, and two members of his family. The army has moved tanks into the area of Ocosingo, one of the towns attacked on Jan. 1.

A meeting between India and Pakistan ends in a stalemate over the disputed region of Jammu and Kashmir. The talks mark the first time India allows the Kashmir issue to formally enter talks. . . . Afghanistan government forces broaden their counterattack to the Jan. 1 assault. Fighting is reportedly heavy in Mazar-i-Sharif, the large northern town where General Abdul Rashid Doestam’s headquarters are based.

In Venezuela, the riot at the Maracaibo jail continues. With attention diverted to that melee, 40 prisoners at the Tocoron prison in Aragaua state carry out a jailbreak. Of the 40 escapees, 11 are shot dead and another nine recaptured. One national guardsman is also killed. . . . In Mexico, the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) abandons its position and withdraws to the region’s heavily wooded mountains, ending the Jan. 1 attack.

The Chinese official news agency reports that an eight-month-long corruption probe implicates 300,000 government officials in eastern Anhui province, one of the nation’s poorest regions. The officials have allegedly misused as much as $95 million since the 1950s. . . . The Afghanistan government begins bombing raids in an attempt to destabilize its rivals.

About 100 gunmen attack a Togolese army base in a failed assassination attempt on Pres. Gnassingbe Eyadema. At least 40 people are killed in the battle, including seven soldiers and three civilians. . . . The white-led South African Defense Force, the country’s official army, along with the armed wing of the ANC and black homeland armies, begin integrating their formal military and peacekeeping command councils.

Reports confirm that the death toll from the Jan. 3 riot at the Sabaneta prison in Maracaibo stands at 122, making it the deadliest prison riot ever to occur in Venezuela.

Police in Larkana, Pakistan, open fire on a crowd of supporters of Nusrat Bhutto, the former leader of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the mother of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto At least one demonstrator is killed, and several others are wounded. . . . Afghanistan government troops take the Kabul airport from Gen. Doestam’s militia.

Reports indicate that Lt. Gen. Aboo Samah Aboo Bakar of Malaysia has been named commander of the UN mission in Somalia, replacing Lt. Gen. Cevik Bir of Turkey.

The death toll from the fighting that started Jan. 1 in Mexico stands at 96. According to military sources, 61 rebels and 35 soldiers, police officers, and civilians have been slain.

The Cambodian government dispatches more than 1,000 soldiers in its largest offensive against Khmer Rouge rebel force since elections were held in May 1993. The attack targets the rebel-controlled Anlong Veng munitions base in northwestern Cambodia.

Three gunmen assault a compound used by the UN World Food Program in the southern city of Baidoa in Somalia. The attack leaves one Somali guard dead and seriously wounds a Somali driver.

A Tu-154 airliner crashes and explodes 12 minutes after takeoff from the Siberian city of Irkutsk en route to Moscow, killing as many as 125 people. The dead include all aboard and reportedly one on the ground. . . . Data shows that foreigners invested a record $2.2 billion in Hungary in 1993 compared with inflows of $1.7 billion in 1992.

Middle East Watch accuses the Algerian government and militant fundamentalists of entrenching the nation in a “virtual civil war in which the rights of no one are inviolate and the democratic process has been all but abandoned.”. . . Two United Nations relief organizations, the UN Development Program and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, evacuate their offices following a string of attacks on humanitarian agencies throughout Somalia.

Britain expels Sudan’s ambassador, Ali Osman Yassin, following Sudan’s refusal to reconsider its order to Britain’s ambassador to leave the country. . . . Tajikistan announces it will cease using the Soviet-era rubles and use the Russian ruble as its currency beginning Jan. 8. The switch makes Tajikistan the only former Soviet republic to share the ruble with Russia. . . . Bosnian government figures show that 141,065 people have been killed and 160,000 wounded in the 21-monthold civil war.

Jan. 4

Jan. 5

The Americas

Reports indicate that in late December 1993 Russian police arrested Aleksandr Barkashov, the last ringleader wanted in connection with an October 1993 rebellion and siege by parliamentarians opposed to Pres. Boris Yeltsin. . . . Pierre-Paul Schweitzer, 81, French financier and director of the International Monetary Fund, 1963–73, dies in Geneva, Switzerland.

Jan. 2

Jan. 3

Africa & the Middle East

Data shows that average healthcare costs among the 24 countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development increased to 7.8% of gross domestic product in 1990, from 3.9% in 1960.

Russia and Belarus sign an agreement in principle that merges the two countries’ economies. . . . The death of former Georgian president Zviad Gamsakhurdia, 54, is reported, but accounts differ about the place and circumstances of his demise. . . . The Bank of France formally becomes independent from the government. . . . Anzor Sharmaidze, 21, confesses to killing U.S. citizen Fred Woodruff, a CIA agent shot in a car with the Georgian presidential security chief in August 1993.

Jan. 6

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 1–6, 1994—555

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Cesar Romero, 86, actor best known as the Joker on the 1960s TV Batman series, dies in Santa Monica, California, of complications related to a blood clot. . . . Microsoft Corp. chair and cofounder William Gates, who is said to be the U.S.’s wealthiest bachelor, marries Melinda French.

Dixy Lee Ray (born Margaret Ray), 79, governor of Washington State, 1977–81, dies on Fox Island, Washington, after suffering from a severe bronchial condition.

William Morris, 80, publishing executive and editor of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 1964–71, dies in Columbus, Ohio, of congestive heart failure.

Reports confirm that archaeologists have discovered what is believed to be the world’s oldest tin mine, dating back to the Bronze Age (3000 B.C.–1100 B.C.), and the skeletal remains of children who apparently worked in the mine’s network of shafts and tunnels. The mine is located at Kestel, about 60 miles (100 km) north of Tarsus, Turkey.

The CDC and the HHS announce a new radio and TV ad campaign that seeks to prevent the spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases by promoting the use of condoms. The plan sparks controversy, even though the ads will urge sexual abstinence. . . . . Reports state that Utah will refuse to pay for abortions in cases other than to save a woman’s life.

Pres. Clinton makes his first visit to the Langley, Virginia, headquarters of the CIA since his election. He pays tribute to CIA agents and workers killed in the line of duty since the agency’s creation in 1947, and he tells a group of 400 CIA workers, “In many ways, you helped win the cold war.”

The U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke approves $4.5 million for three institutions to measure the success of implanting fetal tissue into brains of patients with Parkinson’s disease. The grant is the first given for research utilizing fetal tissue since Pres. Clinton ended a five-year ban on federal financing of practices that use cells from aborted fetuses.

The Indiana Court of Appeals rules that Francine Todd’s written promise to Edward Straub that she would not seek child support if he fathered her daughter is nonbinding. . . . Thomas Phillip (Tip) O’Neill Jr., 81, Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, 1952–87, who was Speaker of the House of Representatives, 1977–87, dies in Boston, Massachusetts, of cardiac arrest.

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Virginia, clears the way for Shannon Faulkner to enter the all-male Citadel military college in Charleston, South Carolina, by denying the Citadel’s request for a rehearing of the court’s order requiring the college to admit women. . . . Warren Zimmermann, 59, head of refugee programs at the U.S. State Department, announces his resignation, effective in February.

An independent investigatory committee cannot provide conclusive evidence to explain why the Mars Observer spacecraft lost contact with command centers just three days before it was to enter the planet’s orbit following its 11month, 450-million-mile trek from Earth. Circumstantial evidence suggests an explosion caused the problem. . . . Two studies find that older patients who undergo kidney dialysis have bleak chances for long-term survival.

Keith Eugene Wells, 31, convicted of fatally beating two people with a baseball bat in a Boise, Idaho, bar in 1990, becomes the first person executed in Idaho since 1957. He is the 227th person executed in the U.S. since 1976. . . . Jeffrey David Powell, wanted for assaulting a police lieutenant during a Vietnam War protest in October 1969, surrenders in Chicago. . . . Virginia Kelley, Pres. Clinton’s mother, dies in her sleep in Hot Springs, Arkansas, after suffering from breast cancer. The president cancels a foreign-policy address in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Eighty-four U.S. troops join Vietnamese and Laotian personnel in the largest search effort for the remains of U.S. MIAs in Vietnam since the war ended. . . . The U.S. Commerce Department announces that it will comply with a December 1993 ruling and eliminate tariffs imposed in 1992 on all imports to the U.S. of softwood lumber from Canada.

A survey finds that the governments of 45 states reported themselves to be in good financial condition after the first half of fiscal 1993. Only 25 states had made such claims in a similar survey released a year earlier. Another survey discloses that 62% of municipal officials polled described overall economic conditions in their cities as “good” or “very good,” and 23% stated their communities’ economic conditions worsened in 1993, down from about 50% who reported a decline in 1992.

The National Society of Film Critics select the Holocaust drama Schindler’s List, directed by Steven Spielberg, as the best film of 1993. . . . Figures suggest the Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 concerts by Barbra Streisand, her first performances in 20 years, set a $12 million U.S. record for a pop concert gross.

Jan. 1

Jan. 2

Jan. 3

Jan. 4

Jan. 5

Nancy Kerrigan, the favorite to win the women’s U.S. Figure Skating Championship, is assaulted at Cobo Arena in Detroit, Michigan. The attack garners much publicity. In men’s figure skating, Scott Davis, 21, wins the U.S. men’s title and Brian Boitano, 30, finishes second.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 6

556—January 7–12, 1994

World Affairs

Europe

Jan. 7

Jan. 8

U.S. president Clinton arrives in Brussels, Belgium, on the first stop of his first European tour as president.

Jan. 9

Jan. 10

Jan. 11

At a summit meeting in Brussels, Belgium, NATO issues formal invitations to the Eastern European countries, including nuclear powers Russia and Ukraine, to join a “partnership for peace.” . . . UN secretary general Boutros BoutrosGhali recommends that 16,000 UN troops be retained in Somalia after a Mar. 31 deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. forces.

A summit meeting in Brussels closes after NATO endorses a previously developed proposal to offer all former members of the Warsaw Pact limited association with NATO as a means of enhancing European security. The alliance also threatens to use air strikes against Bosnian Serbs to keep open supply lines to the besieged Bosnian capital, Sarajevo.

Both houses of Russia’s new parliament, operating under the first post-Soviet constitution, hold opening sessions.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Israel allows the early release of 101 Palestinian prisoners in a gesture of goodwill to Palestinian supporters of the peace process.

Paulo Cesar Farias, the alleged mastermind of a kickback scheme that prompted the ouster of Brazilian president Fernando Collor de Mello in 1992, is sentenced by a court in Brasilia to a four-year prison term for tax evasion. Farias also awaits trial on nine other charges. . . . A barge runs into a reef about 500 yards off the shore of San Juan, Puerto Rico, spilling nearly half of the 1.5 million gallons (5.7 million liters) of heating oil it was transporting.

Phoumi Vongvichit, 84, Laotian communist leader who served in several high-ranking government positions, including deputy prime minister and acting president, until he retired in 1991, dies of heart disease.

Reports state that Iraq’s health ministry claims that UN sanctions imposed in 1990 have resulted in the deaths of nearly 400,000 Iraqis. The dead include 140,000 children under the age of five.

Fighting related to the EZLN, which staged the Jan. 1 attack, continues in Chiapas. Several bombs and grenades explode in Mexico City, Acapulco, and other areas.

The warring factions in Kabul, Afghanistan, honor a Pakistan-brokered cease-fire, enabling some of the wounded to reach hospitals. The cease-fire also allows foreign diplomats and thousands of civilians to seek refuge outside the capital.

Abdul Shariff, 31, a South African journalist, is killed in Katlehong, a black township, when gunmen open fire on a delegation that includes two ANC leaders. . . . Col. Steve Rausch, a U.S. military spokesman, states that marine snipers who fired at a man cradling a machine gun shot and killed a pregnant woman, Halima Khalif Ibrahim, 30, in Mogadishu, Somalia . . . . Gunmen believed to be Islamic militants kill an unreported number of people in Algeria. Syria reverses its position and endorses the September 1993 Israel-PLO accord.

The Guatemalan government and the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union, an umbrella organization of three leftist militias, reaches a breakthrough accord that establishes a negotiating framework for ending the nation’s 33-year-old civil war. . . . The Zapatistas claim responsibility for one of the Mexico City bombs that exploded Jan. 8, and Procup-PDLP, an urban guerrilla group, states that it set off several of the other explosions to express solidarity with the EZLN.

Renewed fighting in Afghanistan ends a cease-fire that began Jan. 8.

About 20 gunmen ambush an Algerian government convoy, killing Mohammed Bellal, the governor of Algeria’s Tissemsilt province, and 18 others. In a separate attack, gunmen believed to be Islamic militants kill other people. This attack and the Jan. 9 murders leave a total of 15 people dead, including four policemen and three members of the former ruling party of Algeria.

The Nova Scotia government discloses that it has revoked the lease on the Westray coal mine in Plymouth, Nova Scotia, site of an underground explosion that killed 26 miners in 1992.

Thailand’s cabinet approves banking reforms that mark the first step in Thailand’s effort to open up its banking system to foreign competition.

In Mexico, Pres. Carlos Salinas de Gortari declares a unilateral ceasefire in response to the violence that erupted Jan. 1. . . . Colombian military officials acknowledge that the 250 U.S. troops previously said to be on a “humanitarian mission” are in fact helping the Colombian government track guerrillas and drug traffickers.

The fighting in Afghanistan has reportedly taken the lives of more than 400 people and wounded some 4,500 others.

Reports state that Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan signed an agreement to create a single economic zone, beginning in February. . . . Reports reveal that Latvia and Lithuania have agreed to jointly build an oil terminal at the Baltic Sea port of Liepaja, Latvia, 30 miles (50 km) from the Lithuanian border . . . . Britain’s Home Office announces that it will restrict the use of restraining devices in its handling of deportees. The action follows the 1993 death of Joy Gardner, who died of suffocation after being restrained and gagged.

Jan. 12

A series of bush fires that has been ravaging cities along the 750-mile (1,200-km) eastern coastline of the Australian state of New South Wales peaks when the number of fires reaches 155. The fires are described as the country’s most widespread blazes in 200 years.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 7–12, 1994—557

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Rep. Glenn English (D, Okla.) leaves office to take a senior position with the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, a lobbying group. . . . William Polley, a Superior Court judge in Sonora, California, sentences Ellie Nesler, convicted in the April 1993 courtroom slaying of Daniel Driver, a man accused of molesting her son, to a total of 10 years in prison.

The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sets aside a November 1993 ruling that struck down old Defense Department rules banning homosexuals from serving in the military. The court states that it will reconsider the case of Joseph C. Steffan, a midshipman who in 1987 disclosed that he was a homosexual and was forced to leave the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, before his graduation.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Judge Michael Hoff sentences pop singer Rick James to five years and four months in prison for two separate attacks on women. . . . Data shows a record 375,000–400,000 people subscribed to radio personality Howard Stern’s pay-per-view special, “Miss Howard Stern New Year’s Eve Pageant.”

The funeral of Virginia Kelley, Pres. Clinton’s mother, is attended by nearly 3,000 mourners, including Vice Pres. Al Gore, White House Chief of Staff Thomas McLarty, Associate Atty. Gen. Webster Hubbell, television producer Harry Thomason, and singer and actress Barbra Streisand.

A study finds that heart attack or stroke survivors who take small regular doses of aspirin can prevent recurring heart complications.

Officials from the U.S. and Abu Dhabi reach agreement on an accord that grants access to U.S. investigators to crucial files currently stored in Abu Dhabi detailing the operations of the corruptionridden BCCI. In return, all BCCIrelated criminal and civil charges filed in the U.S. against Abu Dhabi and its ruler, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahayan, are dropped.

Tonya Harding wins the women’s U.S. Figure Skating Championship. The U.S. Figure Skating Association selects Nancy Kerrigan, injured Jan. 6, to join Harding to fill the two spots on the Olympic team. . . . Harvey Haddix, 68, baseball pitcher named to the All Star team three times, dies in Springfield, Ohio, of emphysema.

Sen. Daniel Moynihan (D, N.Y.) becomes the first Democrat to back a special probe to investigate possible wrongdoing by Pres. Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in relation to the Whitewater scandal.

About 2,000 mourners, including 100 current and former members of Congress, attend the funeral of former House speaker Thomas (Tip) O’Neill. . . . The Alaska state Senate unanimously censures Sen. George Jacko (D) for violating ethics laws in several instances of sexual harassment. . . . Leonard Wishart resigns as professional administrator of the House after complaining that lawmakers, whom he does not identify, obstructed his efforts to shield hiring and promotion practices from political influence. White House officials announce that J. Veronica Biggins, an executive vice president of NationsBank Corp., will become the White House director of presidential personnel.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Members of the local United Auto Workers union at a General Motors plant in Shreveport, Louisiana, start a job action. . . . In Ratzlaf v. U.S., the Supreme Court overturns, 5-4, the conviction of a couple found guilty of violating banking regulations. The high court’s ruling effectively limits legislation imposed to track bank transactions of drug dealers, tax evaders, and others who deposit and withdraw money used for illegal purposes.

Jan. 7

Jan. 8

Jan. 9

A survey concludes that Americans over 50 are six times less likely to use condoms and five times less likely to get tested for HIV. . . . Scientists at Cray Research Inc. of Eagan, Minnesota, announce that they have discovered a 258,716-digit prime number, the largest to date.

Charles Stoneham (Chub) Feeney, 72, baseball executive who was president of baseball’s National League, 1970–86, dies in San Francisco, California, after suffering two heart attacks.

Thomas Lambros, a U.S. District Court judge in Cleveland, Ohio, rules that USAir Group acted negligently in a 1992 crash that killed 27 passengers and crew and injured 24 at La Guardia Airport in New York City. . . . The FDA for the first time in a decade approves the sale of a new over-the-counter pain reliever, naproxen sodium.

A financial officer for the Roman Catholic Church tells a council of archdiocesan priests that the church spent $2.8 million in fiscal 1993 on legal costs related to sexabuse lawsuits involving clergy.

Pres. Clinton asks Atty. Gen. Janet Reno to name a special prosecutor to examine his real-estate and financial dealings with James McDougal. The request comes in the face of growing public and congressional pressure. . . . Federal and New Jersey state prosecutors announce they have found no evidence to support allegations that the New Jersey Republican Party bribed black ministers and Democratic Party workers in an effort to curb black voter turnout in the state’s 1993 gubernatorial elections.

Pitcher Steve Carlton is elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. . . . Figures suggest that advertising pages in U.S. magazines in all of 1993 totaled 167,917.6 pages, a 1.2% increase over total 1992 pages, compared with a 2.4% rise in 1992 from 1991.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 10

Jan. 11

Jan. 12

558—January 13–18, 1994

World Affairs

Jan. 17

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The Burundian parliament elects Cyprien Ntaryamira as president to replace Melchior Ndadaye, Burundi’s first democratically elected president who was slain in a failed military coup in October 1993.

Mexico’s peace commissioner for Chiapas, Manuel Camacho Solis, extends political recognition to the EZLN, fulfilling another of the rebels’ demands. . . . Rough waves cause the barge that ran into a reef off the shore of San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Jan. 7 to spill another 168,000 gallens of oil. . . . The reputed kingpin of Peru’s drug-trafficking network, Demetrio Limoniel Chavez, is deported by Colombian authorities to Peru.

Officials state that the blazes in Australia, which have burned some 1.9 million acres (770,000 hectares) of land, claimed four lives, and forced the evacuation of 20,000 people, are largely under control or contained. . . . Reports state that Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara has been appointed president by Fiji’s Great Council of Chiefs.

U.S. president Clinton, Russian president Yeltsin and Ukraine president Kravchuk sign an agreement to dismantle Ukraine’s nuclear arsenal.

Five Palestinians and one Israeli die in clashes in the occupied territories, marking the bloodiest day of conflict since the signing of the September 1993 accord. . . . Rival army factions in Lesotho engage in sporadic battles in the streets of the capital, Maseru. . . . Reports indicate that Yemeni tribesmen have freed Canadian George Hawkins and Briton Peter Jackson after holding them hostage for 11 days.

In the first officially approved fuel shipment to arrive in Haiti since the UN reimposed an oil embargo in October 1993, about 400,000 gallons (1.5 million liters) of UN-authorized fuel for humanitarian use is unloaded at Port-au-Prince.

Reports state that China has released Gendum Rinchen and Lobsang Yonten, two prominent Tibetan dissidents who were arrested following antigovernment riots in Lhasa, Tibet’s capital, in May 1993.

Turkmenistan’s President Saparmurad A. Niyazov wins an overwhelming endorsement of his leadership in a nationwide referendum, which extends his mandate by five years to the year 2002 and bypasses a constitutional requirement for the reelection of a president every five years.

Reports disclose that the pro-Iranian Hezbollah (Party of God) has suspended military actions against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, following a meeting between Hezbollah and Syrian officials in Damascus. . . . South African foreign affairs minister Roelof F. Botha flies to Lesotho in an effort to mediate disputes that started Jan. 14 between the rival army factions.

The Haitian military ignores a deadline to signal a readiness to restore democracy. . . . In an effort to staunch the flow of oil into the ocean, the Coast Guard tows the barge that crashed Jan. 7 to sea and sinks it into the Puerto Rican Trench, a deep undersea canyon about 50 miles (80 km) north of the island.

After a summit between Syrian president Hafez al-Assad and U.S. president Bill Clinton in Geneva, Assad for the first time publicly signals his country’s readiness to negotiate a wide-ranging peace treaty with Israel in conjunction with Israel’s return of the Golan Heights to Syrian sovereignty.

In response to a recent ruling by France’s Constitutional Council that overturns a 1993 law allowing for increased government aid to private schools, 250,000–300,000 people march in protest. The rally is the largest demonstration in France since education protests in the mid1980s.

Two major clans in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, reach a peace accord after secret talks. . . . Rev. Mehdi Dibaj, an Assemblies of God minister allegedly sentenced to death because of his conversion from Islam, is released after nine years in prison. Iran denies that a death sentence was imposed. . . . Three Muslim fundamentalists belonging to the outlawed Islamic Liberation party are sentenced to death by a Jordanian military tribunal for plotting in 1993 to assassinate Jordan’s King Hussein.

In Colombia, FARC abducts two U.S. missionaries, Stephen Welch and Timothy Van Dyke, to protest the presence of U.S. soldiers involved in constructing a military base and training Colombian troops in antiguerrilla maneuvers. Separately, the ELN blows up the stateowned Cano Limon-Covenas oil pipeline, Colombia’s longest line. A spokesperson estimates that 5,000 barrels of oil is lost in the incident.

Reports indicate that UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali has fired the highest-ranking U.S. official working at the UN, Melissa Wells, who served as the undersecretary general for administration and management for 10 months.

In Germany, Silvio Eschrich, 21, is sentenced to 32 months in prison and Tino Voelkel, 16, receives a 12month sentence for their attack on Duncan Kennedy, a U.S. luger beaten by the neo-Nazi skinheads in October 1993. . . . Yevgeni E. Ivanov, 68, ex-intelligence officer for the former Soviet Union, dies in Moscow of unreported causes.

The UN Security Council votes unanimously to send 1,800 UN observers to South Africa to monitor the country’s April elections.

Jan. 15

Jan. 16

Africa & the Middle East

Italian premier Carlo Azeglio Ciampi tenders his resignation. . . . Data suggests that attacks on foreigners in Germany fell 42% in 1993. . . . Georgia and Abkhazia call for the deployment of UN peacekeeping troops to police a cease-fire. . . . Johan Jorgen Holst, 56, foreign minister of Norway who facilitated the Sept. 1993 Palestinian self-rule agreement, dies in Oslo after suffering a stroke. . . . Herve Alphand, 86, French diplomat, dies in Paris.

Jan. 13

Jan. 14

Europe

The Venezuelan government assumes control of Banco Latino, the nation’s second-largest commercial bank, to save it from liquidation. . . . Colombia’s finance minister, Rudolf Hommes, emerges unhurt from an apparent assassination attempt after a remote-controlled bomb explodes near his armor-plated car. No deaths are reported. The leftist ELN claims it targeted Hommes to protest unemployment in Colombia. Lt. Gen. Aboo Samah Aboo Bakar of Malaysia replaces Lt. Gen. Cevik Bir of Turkey as the commander of UN forces in Somalia. Separately, UN peacekeeping forces release eight Somali detainees loyal to factional leader Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid in an effort to advance prospects for political stabilization in Somalia.

Jan. 18

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 13–18, 1994—559

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The publicized case of Erik Menendez, who is accused with brother Lyle of the 1989 fatal shootings of their parents, ends in a mistrial. . . . To partly fulfill a 1980 federal desegregation order, four black families move into a formerly all-white public housing complex in Vidor, Texas. . . . District Court judge William Matthew Byrne sentences Christopher Fisher, leader of the Fourth Reich Skinheads, to eight years and one month in prison.

Defense Secretary Les Aspin announces that risk alone will not be a sufficient criterion to exclude women from certain ground combat support roles in the armed forces. The change is expected to open as many as 15,000–20,000 positions to women in the military, including the reserves.

NASA confirms that repairs performed in December 1993 on the Hubble Space Telescope were successful. . . . A Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus train derails near Lakeland, Florida, killing two circus entertainers and injuring 15 other employees. . . . A study finds that premenopausal women who breast-feed their children are at less risk of developing breast cancer than women who do not nurse.

The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, overturns a May 1993 decision to stay the implementation of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act.

Operation Ill Wind, a seven-yearold military procurement scandal investigation, ends when a unit of Litton Industries Inc. pleads guilty to charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, and illegal conversion of government property, and it agrees to pay $3.9 million in fines, civil claims, and prosecution costs. . . . The Justice Department announces that Target Rock Corp. has agreed to pay $17.5 million to settle a civil suit alleging it overcharged the navy on contracts for parts for nuclear-powered vessels.

Reports confirm that in 1992 researchers unearthed the fossil remains of a 50-million-year-old mammal that they believe may be an ancestor of modern whales. The fossils, which are the most complete skeleton of an ancestral whale ever found, were discovered in an ancient seabed in the Kala Chitta Hills of northern Pakistan. Researchers have named the creature Ambulocetus natans. . . . A cold snap begins in states in the Northeast and Midwest and as far south as Alabama.

Reports confirm that Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R, Tex.) will go to trial in February on charges that she used state employees and equipment for her own political purposes during her Senate campaign.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Flo-Sun Inc., a Florida sugar company, signs an agreement with the U.S. government and the state of Florida in which it pledges to participate in efforts to clean up the Everglades region, which includes Everglades National Park, Florida Bay, and other ecosystems and is the world’s biggest freshwater marsh.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Jan. 13

Eugene Lipman, 74, rabbi who was a leader of the reform Judaism movement in the U.S. and founded the Washington Interfaith Conference, dies in Bethesda, Maryland, of brain cancer.

Harry Nilsson (born Harry E. Nelson III), 52, popular singer and songwriter who won Grammy awards in 1969 and 1973, dies in Agoura Hills, California, of heart disease.

Jan. 14

Jan. 15

Jan. 16

Members of the local United Auto Workers union at a General Motors plant in Shreveport, Louisiana, ratify a three-year contract, ending a strike that started Jan. 11.

Lawrence Walsh, the independent prosecutor who conducted a 61⁄2year investigation into the Iran-contra arms scandal, releases his final report, which criticizes former presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush for their roles in events related to the scandal but finds no credible evidence of criminal activity by either man. . . . Supreme Court chief justice William Rehnquist lifts his stay on Shannon Faulkner’s admission into the all-male Citadel.

A powerful earthquake strikes Los Angeles, leveling buildings and collapsing freeway overpasses. It measures 6.6 on the Richter scale and has an epicenter in the Northridge section of Los Angeles, about 20 miles (30 km) northwest of downtown. The quake leaves 680,000 people without electricity and 200,000 without running water. California governor Pete Wilson and Los Angeles mayor Richard J. Riordan both declare a state of emergency.

Fred Snowden, 57, the first black head coach to lead a major college basketball team, dies in Washington, D.C., after suffering a heart attack. . . . Helen Stephens, 75, sprinter who won two gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, dies in St. Louis, Missouri, after suffering a stroke.

Reports reveal that the Jan. 17 quake in Los Angeles caused the collapse of three major overpasses, and officials estimate that repairs will take from one year to 18 months to complete. Reports state that 2,000 National Guard troops have been mobilized to maintain order and prevent looting.

Jan. 17

Jan. 18

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

560—January 19–24, 1994

World Affairs

Jan. 19

Jan. 20

Jan. 21

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Serbia and Croatia sign a bilateral accord that provides for the restoration of transport and communications links between the two republics. . . . . The Russian ruble’s value against the U.S. dollar plunges to a record low 1,607 rubles per dollar on Moscow’s interbank currency exchange.

Ten Palestinian groups opposed to the September 1993 Israeli-PLO accord formally organize themselves into a coalition known as the Alliance of Palestinian Forces.

In Brazil, Cesar Maia, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, bans the sale and manufacture of guns and ammunition in the city in an effort to curb gun-related violence.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Lloyd M. Bentsen becomes the highestranking U.S. official to visit China since 1991.

The Marine Accident Investigation Branch of Britain’s Department of Transport releases a report on its investigation into the 1993 wreck of the Braer tanker and the ship’s subsequent oil spill in the Shetland Islands, 100 miles (160 km) north of Scotland. The report holds the captain of the ship, Alexandros Gelis, responsible for the accident.

Jaramogi Ajuma Oginga Odinga, 82, Kenyan political leader who, in 1963, helped Kenya gain independence from Great Britain and in 1991 founded the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy, dies in Kisumu, Kenya, after suffering a heart attack. . . . Representatives of black townships agree that organizations and black community residents will resume rent and tax payments discontinued 10 years, if the government, in exchange, will restart its services to townships and will improve electricity, water, sewage, and garbage-collection systems.

Reports reveal that, in Argentina, officials at the Senasa animalhealth service were fired by the agriculture department for failing to prevent foot-and-mouth disease from spreading to the southern Patagonia region from the north of the country. Senasa since December 1993 has ordered the killing of 9,000 infected sheep and cattle to stem Patagonia’s worst outbreak of the disease in two decades.

India’s cabinet decides to lift the ban on foreign investments in construction projects.

Major Basil al-Assad, 33, the eldest son of Syrian president Hafez alAssad who was being groomed as his father’s possible successor, dies in a traffic accident on the outskirts of Damascus.

A special investigative committee of Brazil’s Congress recommends the expulsion of 18 fellow lawmakers for alleged involvement in a multimillion-dollar kickback scheme. . . . The Mexican congress passes an amnesty law applicable to combatants on both sides of the conflict started Jan. 1 by the EZLN. Separately, 1,500 farmers protest in Ocosingo, claiming that the government has failed to protect them from rebel violence.

Japan’s finance ministry reports that Japan’s 1993 merchandise trade surplus reached a record $120.4 billion, a 13% increase over the revised 1992 surplus of $106.62 billion.

At least two soldiers are killed and four civilians are wounded in artillery and mortar attacks in Lesotho as the fighting that started Jan. 14 peaks.

Reports state that the Mexican government has opened a dialogue with about 120 nonguerrilla peasant organizations concerning possible reforms to improve the condition of Indians. . . . In Colombia, gunmen thought to be members of the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) attack political rivals assembled at an outdoor gathering, killing 35 persons.

Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto issues an order calling for the country’s workers to strike to show Pakistan’s support for Muslim separatists fighting against Indian rule in the territory of Jammu and Kashmir. At the India-Pakistan border in the Punjab region, 20,000 Pakistani people attend a rally.

Europe

Reports indicate that Kazakhstan has been accepted as a member of the Asian Development Bank, which will treat Kazakhstan as a test case of the shift toward market mechanisms from central economic control.

Jean-Louis Barrault, 83, French film and theater actor and director, dies in Paris of an apparent heart attack.

Jan. 22

Marshal Nikolai V. Ogarkov, 76, military leader and international spokesman for Soviet foreign policy, dies of unreported causes. . . . Brian Redhead, 64, who spent 18 years hosting the BBC’s daily morning talk show, “Today,” dies in Macclesfield, England, after undergoing surgery for an abdominal abscess.

Jan. 23

About 60 Muslim fundamentalists are released from Ain M’Guel, a desert prison camp in Algeria. . . . PLO chairman Yasser Arafat visits Saudi Arabia for the first time since his support for Iraq during the 1990–91 Persian Gulf crisis prompted the Saudis to suspend their substantial financial aid to the PLO.

Jan. 24

Britain’s Prince Charles visits Australia for the first time since 1988.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 19–24, 1994—561

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

In Weiss v. U.S., the Supreme Court rules unanimously that the military judicial system is constitutional.

In Thunder Basin Coal Co. v. Reich, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that a coal-mining company lacked grounds for its request to issue an order preventing union officials from being present during a federal safety inspection in 1990. . . . The Federal Reserve Board reports that “economic activity continued to expand with signs of acceleration in some sectors.”

Pres. Clinton tours parts of Los Angeles hit by the Jan. 17 earthquake, and reports confirm that Clinton has declared the affected region a federal disaster area, making it eligible for federal disasterrelief funds.

The Vatican appoints Msgr. Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo as its first ambassador to Israel. . . . Elton John, Rod Stewart, Duane Eddy, John Lennon, Bob Marley, the Animals, the Band, and the Grateful Dead are indicted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The Center for Reproductive Law and Policy files a complaint with the NIH against the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, claiming that the hospital has, since 1989, illegally tested pregnant women for drug use without their knowledge.

Shannon R. Faulkner, a woman who sued to be allowed to enroll in the all-male Citadel military college in Charleston, South Carolina, attends her first classes at the academy.

The Commerce Department reports that housing starts in 1993 totaled 1.29 million units, a 7.1% increase from the year-earlier level. The 1993 figure is the highest calendar-year total since 1989. . . . Atty. Gen. Janet Reno names Robert B. Fiske Jr. to head a special criminal inquiry into Whitewater Development Corp., a now-defunct real-estate venture that once involved Pres. Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The federal government and private businesses in Washington, D.C., shut down when Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly (D) declares a state of emergency due to power shortages caused by record cold weather. Figures suggest that there have been 130 weather-related deaths nationwide since the Jan. 14 beginning of the cold snap. . . . The official death toll from the Jan. 17 earthquake in California stands at 51. Nearly 5,500 people have reportedly suffered quake-related injuries.

German fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld apologizes to Muslims for using passages from the Koran as patterns in three dresses in his collection for the Chanel fashion house. Lagerfield states he was told the passages were part of a love poem and was unaware that the text came from the Koran. . . . Kotashaan wins the Eclipse Award as the top male turf horse.

District Court judge Barbara Rothstein sentences the head of the American Front white supremacist group, Mark Kowaalski, to 11 years and eight months in prison for involvement in the bombing of a NAACP office in Tacoma, Washington. . . . A Prince William County Circuit Court jury in Manassas, Virginia, acquits Lorena Bobbitt by reason of temporary insanity for cutting off her husband’s penis in June 1993.

Reports indicate that the U.S. has released $40 million of the $104 million in Nicaraguan aid frozen in June 1993 as an acknowledgement of Nicaragua’s strides toward reducing the influence of the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front and resolving U.S. compensation claims for expropriated property.

Federal judge Marcel Livaudais Jr. approves a settlement in a classaction suit brought by investors in limited partnerships sold by Prudential Securities Inc. in the 1980s. The settlement calls for Prudential to pay more than $90 million to 115,000 energy-partnership investors who claim to have been defrauded.

The Smithsonian Institution formally names Spencer Crew as director of its National Museum of American History. . . . Robert Kraft announces an agreement to purchase the New England Patriots for a reported $160 million, a record for a National Football League franchise.

Republican lawmakers and other GOP leaders close the winter meeting of the Republican National Committee in Washington, D.C., during which they advocated tough new measures to combat crime and accused Pres. Clinton of being “phony” in his endorsement of stronger crime laws.

Telly Savalas (born Aristotle Savalas), 70, actor best known for the TV series Kojak, dies in Universal City, California, of prostate cancer. . . . A Gallup poll finds that 59% of U.S. citizens state that religion is an important part of their lives. . . . At the Golden Globe Awards, Schindler’s List wins as Best Drama while Mrs. Doubtfire is named Best Musical or Comedy. Oliver Smith, 75, theater set designer who helped found the Ballet Theater Workshop and the Emerging Artists Laboratory, dies in New York City from emphysema. . . . David Leon Chandler, 56, journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1962, dies in Denver, Colorado, of complications from diabetes.

In Albright v. Oliver, the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, the 14th Amendment cannot be invoked in lawsuits by victims of false arrests. . . . In The National Organization for Women v. Scheidler, the Supreme Court overturns two lower-court rulings when it finds unanimously that abortion-rights groups can use a federal antiracketeering law to sue antiabortion demonstrators who allegedly organized violent and criminal acts against abortion clinics. . . . The AMA launches an ad campaign against Pres. Clinton’s proposed health-care plan.

Pres. Clinton nominates Deputy Defense Secretary William Perry as defense secretary to succeed Les Aspin. . . . After a seven-month probe, the Navy Inspector General’s office discloses that over 80 third-year students at the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, cheated on a 1992 examination.

In ABF Freight System v. National Labor Relations Board, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that an employee who was wrongfully fired can receive back pay and reinstatement even if he or she lied during a later investigation of the circumstances of the dismissal. . . . . In Northwest Airlines Inc. v. Kent County, the Supreme Court rules, 71, against claims made by commercial airlines that landing fees imposed on them by airports violate a 1973 federal law regulating such charges.

New York City’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts names retired opera singer Beverly Sills as its new chairwoman, to succeed retiring chairman George Weissman.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 19

Jan. 20

Jan. 21

Jan. 22

Jan. 23

Jan. 24

562—January 25–30, 1994

World Affairs

Jan. 25

Jan. 26

Jan. 27

Europe

Amnesty International criticizes the UN for its failure to observe its own human-rights standards in some of its 17 worldwide peace-keeping operations. . . . GATT figures show that world trade expanded by less than 3% in 1993, from the yearearlier level. That compares with growth of 4% in 1992. . . . International negotiations on a comprehensive treaty to ban the testing of nuclear weapons begin in Geneva, Switzerland.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

In Lesotho, the government announces that warring army factions have agreed to end their fighting and join the government for talks to end the conflict started Jan. 14.

Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto opens the first police station with an all-female staff in Pakistan.

The IMF agrees to grant the Philippines a $683 million loan package and to lend Kazakhstan about $255 million. . . . Romania becomes the first country to sign NATO’s “partnership for peace” plan, under which the new democracies of Eastern Europe will collaborate with the Western alliance on peacekeeping duties and military exercises.

Boris Fyodorov resigns as Russia’s finance minister, charging that the recent appointment of a new cabinet unsympathetic to reform has resulted in an “economic coup” in Russia. Fyodorov’s deputy, Sergei Dubinin, is named acting finance minister. . . . The parliament of Belarus dismisses its liberal chairman, Stanislav S. Shushkevich, who is also the Belarusian head of state.

The former director of state police and prisons in Chiapas, Mexico, Ignacio Flores Montiel, is arrested for his alleged role in 26 kidnappings tied to land disputes. Flores was previously dismissed from his position for failing to institute preventative measures against the Zapatistas.

The International Monetary Fund approves a loan for Mauritania equivalent to some $23 million, in support of the government’s economic and financial program for 1994.

Reports state that Azerbaijan has postponed indefinitely joint plans with Turkey to build a $1.4 billion pipeline to carry oil from Azerbaijan to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. . . . Reports find that Kyrgyzstan has joined an economic union of former Soviet republics whose founder members are Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Carlos Roberto Reina of the centerright Liberal Party takes the oath of office as the president of Honduras. . . . Ten human-rights monitors of a joint UN-OAS team return to Haiti to reinstitute a mission suspended in October 1993.

Bosnian premier Haris Silajdzic states that 25,000–30,000 Croatian regulars are fighting in Bosnia alongside the main Bosnian Croat militia. Bosnia appeals to the UN Security Council for action to be taken against Croatia. . . . The parliament of Belarus elects a former communist, Mechislav Grib, 55, as its chairman and the Belarusian head of state.

The Haitian Chamber of Commerce and 14 other business-oriented organizations institute a work stoppage to prompt a negotiated end to the UN oil embargo against Haiti. . . . The Mexican government frees 38 prisoners held on charges of participating in the Jan. 1 rebellion, in the latest of several goodwill gestures toward the EZLN.

Jan. 28

Jan. 29

Jan. 30

Romania and Bulgaria sign an agreement that establishes guidelines for joint operations by the two countries’ armed forces.

Three Israeli soldiers are wounded in a grenade attack in Gaza. . . . Naeb Imran Maaytah, the first secretary of Jordan’s embassy in Beirut, is mortally wounded by a gunman.

Pro-Russian lawyer-politician Yuri A. Meskhov is elected as the first president of Crimea, an autonomous republic within Ukraine. . . . Kyrgyz president Askar Akayev wins a resounding vote of confidence in a nationwide referendum.

Purported Fatah militants claim responsibility for the Jan. 29 attack on Israeli soldiers. . . . Iranian authorities acknowledge the death of Bishop Haik Hovsepian Mehr, who disappeared over a week ago in Teheran. . . . Algeria’s military-dominated High Security Council appoints the defense minister, General Lamine Zeroual, as president, replacing the country’s collective presidency. . . . Bahjat Talhouni, 82, former prime minister of Jordan, 1958–70, dies of unreported causes.

Asia & the Pacific

At an Australia Day celebration in front of 20,000 people in Sydney’s Tumbalong Park, a student fires two blanks from a starter’s pistol at Prince Charles of Britain. The student, David Kang, is quickly subdued.

Reports confirm that Japan has agreed to provide Kazakhstan with assistance of $145 million.

Both houses of Japan’s Diet approve a political-reform package designed to limit corruption and restructure the electoral system.

Guatemalan voters overwhelmingly back a package of constitutional reforms that Pres. Ramiro de Leon Carpio sponsored as a means of combating rampant political corruption.

The Philippine government and the Muslim separatist Moro National Liberation Front sign a cease-fire agreement after 20 years of fighting in which more than 50,000 people have been killed. . . . Reports indicate that David Kang, who attacked Prince Charles on Jan. 26, staged the incident as a stunt to call attention to the issue of Cambodian refugees being detained in Australia, which currently number 97. . . . Human Rights Watch reports that Thai border guards and police have abducted more than 20,000 Burmese women and girls and forced them to work in brothels in Thailand.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 25–30, 1994—563

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Pres. Clinton gives his first State of the Union message to a joint session of Congress and a national TV audience. The president calls on Congress to unite behind a broad range of social-policy initiatives— including reforms of health care and welfare and tough federal crime laws—intended “to renew our own American community.” Senate minority leader Robert Dole (R, Kans.) delivers the Republican Party’s response to the State of the Union message.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Census Bureau finds that the median net worth of U.S. households declined by 12% between 1988 and 1991. . . Figures suggest that sales of existing homes in 1993 totaled 3.8 million, the highest level since 1979. . . . The Conference Board reports that its index of consumer confidence stood at 83.2 points in January, a 3.4 point increase from its revised December 1993 level.

An unmanned probe, Clementine 1, is launched into space from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the first U.S. lunar exploration mission since 1972. The seven-month mission is a joint military-scientific effort. . . . Classes resume in 759 of Los Angeles’s 835 schools, which had been closed since the Jan. 17 earthquake.

Joan Brady wins the Whitbread Book of the Year Award. . . . Pope John Paul II appoints Archbishop Justin Rigali, 58, to head the Roman Catholic archdiocese of St. Louis, Missouri. . . . Pop star Michael Jackson settles a suit, brought by a 14-year-old boy who accused the singer of sexually molesting him, for an undisclosed sum.

A study finds that drinking a glass of milk each day helps to counter osteoporosis, or bone loss, in women who are long-time coffee drinkers. . . . The AP reports that the death toll from the Jan. 17 earthquake in Los Angeles is at 61. More than 9,300 were injured.

Lejaren Hiller, 69, experimental composer who, with Leonard Isaacson, created the Illiac Suite for String Quartet, the first substantial musical work composed on a computer, dies in Buffalo, New York, of Alzheimer’s disease.

FEMA estimates that nearly 45,000 residences were damaged or destroyed in the Jan. 17 quake in Los Angeles.

Skater Tonya Harding admits that “some persons that were close to me may have been involved in the assault” on rival Nancy Kerrigan. . . . Claude Akins, 67, actor known for the TV series B.J. and the Bear, dies in Altadena, Calif., of cancer. . . . The Republican Party airs Rising Tide, a weekly TV program. It is the first regularly aired program produced by a U.S. political party.

Political extremist and five-time presidential candidate Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. is released from a federal prison in Rochester, Minnesota, after serving five years in jail. LaRouche, 71, announces he intends to run for the presidency again in 1996.

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton receives an award from AIDS Project Los Angeles. . . . Deputy Attorney General Philip B. Heymann submits his resignation to Pres. Clinton.

The Senate votes, 62-38, to pass an amendment to the State Department’s authorization bill that presses Pres. Clinton to lift the embargo on Vietnam “expeditiously.”

In a publicized case, New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman (R) grants clemency to a dog sentenced to death for injuring a girl, Brie Halfond, in late 1990. . . . The highly publicized trial of Lyle Menendez, accused of the 1989 fatal shootings of his parents, ends in a mistrial. A mistrial was declared in the case of his brother Erik on Jan. 13.

The Congressional Budget Office projects a federal budget deficit of $171 billion for fiscal 1995. That estimate is revised significantly downward from previous CBO forecasts. . . . The Commerce Department reports that durable-goods orders rose 8.6% in 1993, to $1.60 trillion, the strongest calendar-year gain since 1988.

The Commerce Department reports that U.S. gross domestic product grew at an inflation-adjusted annual rate of 5.9% in the fourth quarter of 1993, the most substantial quarterly improvement since the 1987 fourth quarter. . . . William Jaird Levitt, 86, developer whose company, Levitt & Sons, is credited with inventing the modern American suburb when it built the first “Levittown,” dies in Manhasset, N.Y., of kidney disease.

The National Governors’ Association opens its winter session in Washington, D.C.

Jan. 26

Jan. 27

Jan. 28

Three major aftershocks of the Jan. 17 earthquake, one measuring 5.0 on the Richter scale, strikes Los Angeles, damaging four freeway bridges and other structures.

Pres. Clinton overrules U.S. State Department officials and decides to allow Gerry Adams, the leader of the Sinn Fein political wing of the outlawed Provisional Irish Republican Army, to receive a 48-hour visa, prompting angry criticism from British officials.

Jan. 25

Figures suggest that orders for U.S.-made machine tools totaled $3.28 billion in 1993, a 32% increase from the year-earlier total and the industry’s most lucrative calendar year since 1988.

Steffi Graf wins her fourth straight Grand Slam title. . . . Austrian Ulrike Maier, a two-time world skiing champion, is killed during a World Cup race in Germany.

The Dallas Cowboys beat the Buffalo Bills, 30-13, in Super Bowl XXVIII at the Georgia Dome. During the football game, civil-rights leaders protest the use of the Confederate States of America insignia on Georgia’s flag. Separately, Dan Quayle appears in the first TV ad to feature a former vice president. . . . In tennis, Pete Sampras wins his third Grand Slam title. . . . Pierre Boulle, 81, French author known for his novel Planet of the Apes (1961), dies in Paris.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 29

Jan. 30

564—January 31–February 4, 1994

World Affairs

The 145-year-old Liceo Theater in Barcelona, Spain, is destroyed by fire. . . . The military command of the self-proclaimed Srpska Republic—comprising those parts of Bosnia under Serbian control— orders a general mobilization of Bosnian Serbs. Separately, U.S.financed Radio Free Europe begins to broadcast to the states of the former Yugoslavia in an effort to counter ethnic hatred and what RFE calls biased local reporting.

Jan. 31

Feb. 1

Feb. 2

Feb. 3

Feb. 4

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

A police raid on an Islamic Group hideout in Cairo, the Egyptian capital, leaves seven militants dead . . . . A gunman allegedly tries to assassinate Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in Teheran, the Iranian capital.

Turkish premier Tansu Ciller and Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto visit Sarajevo to support the Bosnian government and to hold talks with Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic.

In an apparent act of retaliation to the Egyptian government’s Feb. 1 raid in Cairo, a state security official is shot to death in Asyut in central Egypt. . . . South African president F. W. de Klerk officially announces that the country’s first universal suffrage elections will be held in April. De Klerk is greeted at the World Trade Center, outside Johannesburg, by 3,000 predominantly white supporters of his National Party.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin and Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze sign a military treaty and a number of other cooperation agreements aimed at improving the strained relations between their countries. Georgian deputy defense minister Nika Kekelidze is killed in his home by a remotely detonated bomb only a few hours before Yeltsin arrives in Tbilisi to sign the agreements. . . . Striking fishermen in France begin a series of protests against inexpensive imports of fish.

The UN Security Council unanimously votes to reduce the UN peacekeeping role in Somalia to a maximum of 22,000 troops, mostly from Third World nations, which will no longer be responsible for disarming Somali factions that are blocking the distribution of relief aid.

Asia & the Pacific

Eight Somalis die and a dozen others are wounded when 22 U.S. Marines open fire in a crowded street in Mogadishu, the Somali capital. The marines claim they fired in self-defense.

UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali appoints Jose Ayala Lasso, a diplomat from Ecuador, to serve in the newly created post of UN high commissioner for human rights.

The World Court dismisses Libya’s claims on a strip of land in northern Chad, an area that has prompted violence repeatedly during the past two decades.

The Americas

At least nine Aristide backers are allegedly shot to death by security officials in an abandoned house in Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital.

In Libreville, Gabon, 64 illegal immigrants from several West African countries are found dead in a police detention camp cell. . . . Reports indicate that Kuwait has ratified a 1979 accord “with reservations” that promotes equal treatment for women, including equal opportunities and pay in employment, mixed educational facilities, and protection against discrimination on maternity. . . . Israeli soldiers disguised as Palestinians kill Salim Muafi, a fugitive leader of the Fatah Hawks, a group affiliated with Al-Fatah. In Libreville, Gabon, 130 illegal immigrants are arrested. . . . Reports indicate that Sudan’s government has launched a ground and air offensive against the rebel SPLA. In another incident, 19 people are killed and at least 15 are wounded when gunmen fire on worshipers leaving a mosque in Omdurman. . . . In Cairo, presumed militants of Al-Jihad shoot to death Sayyed Ahmed Yahya, a witness in a trial regarding the assassination attempt against Premier Sedki.

In Haiti, Bernard Sansaricq, an opponent of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, becomes the new Senate speaker, but he is not expected to receive international recognition because of the disputed nature of his election.

The nine sultans who rule Malaysia choose Sultan Jaafar bin Abdul Rahman as the 10th king of the country, succeeding Azlan Shah.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 31–February 4, 1994—565

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The National Governors’ Association issues a bipartisan “Call to Action” on health care that calls for large-scale reforms of the existing insurance system but differs significantly from specific reform proposals put forward by Pres. Clinton.

Gerry Adams, the leader of the Sinn Fein political wing of the outlawed Provisional IRA, visits New York City after receiving the controversial visa issued Jan. 30, and he appears on several major U.S. news and interview programs

The Office of Thrift Supervision imposes a temporary moratorium on all sales and purchases of mutual savings and loans associations and savings banks that it regulates.

Talk America Radio Network debuts a show hosted by former California governor Edmund (Jerry) Brown. . . . Disclosure by Michael Crichton tops the bestseller list. . . . Data shows that a record 134.8 million people watched at least part of the Super Bowl telecast on Jan. 30.

Oregon becomes the first state in the U.S. to extend Medicaid coverage to nearly all residents below the poverty line. . . . Police officers in Chicago find 19 children, who range in age from infancy to 14, living in a squalid, two-bedroom apartment. . . . Data shows that the U.S. is experiencing its worst and longest blood-supply shortage since World War II. . . . Pres. Clinton names Deval Patrick to be assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s civil-rights division.

The U.S. State Department releases its annual human-rights report, a 3,000-page survey that examines conditions during 1993 in 193 countries worldwide. The report is especially critical of conditions in China. . . . The U.S. administration approves a $250 million sale that will send 36 U.S.-made Skyhawk fighter bombers to Argentina. . . . The U.S. administration approves U.S. imports of an Israeli space-launch vehicle and Israeliproduced equipment that was previously off-limits.

The Ozone Transport Commission, a committee comprising the governors of 12 northeastern states and the mayor of the District of Columbia, votes, 9-4, to ask the EPA to impose a strict program of regulation governing automobile emissions in their regions. . . . David Mullins, the Federal Reserve Board’s vice chairman, resigns effective Feb. 14.

Jeff Gillooly pleads guilty to a charge of racketeering in connection with organizing the attack on skater Nancy Kerrigan on Jan. 6 and is to be sentenced to two years in jail. . . . American Heritage magazine contains what is purported to be the earliest known photograph of Pres. Abraham Lincoln, which is estimated to have been taken in 1843.

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund finds that a total of 228 prisoners have been executed since 1976. In 1993, 38 people were executed, up from 31 prisoners in 1992 and 14 people in 1991. There are currently more than 2,800 jail inmates facing death sentences. . . . The Business Roundtable, an organization comprising the chief executives of about 200 of the largest U.S. companies, votes to endorse a healthcare reform bill opposed by the Clinton administration.

Pres. Clinton approves $12 million in U.S. aid to Somalia in an effort to reestablish policing units there that eventually will be responsible for the nation’s security after the U.S. planned withdrawal. . . . The U.S. Justice Department states that it found no evidence of any wrongdoing by Commerce Secretary Ronald Brown, accused of accepting a $700,000 bribe from Vietnamese government officials in return for his aid in bringing the U.S. embargo on trade with Vietnam to an end.

The Commerce Department and HUD reveal that new-home sales surged 11.4% in December 1993 from the previous month, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 862,000. The December increase brings new-home sales to their highest monthly annual rate since March 1986.

Two studies conclude that cigarette smoking increases both men’s and women’s risk of developing colon cancer. . . . A seven-year study finds that the use of permanent hair dyes does not increase women’s risk of cancer.

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan denounces Khallid Abdul Muhammad and removes him from his position as senior aide for making “repugnant” statements about Jews and others. . . . A Massachusetts jury convicts Wayne Lo, 19, of first-degree murder and sentences him to life in prison without parole for killing a teacher and a student in December 1992. . . . The Senate passes, 75-22, an amendment to Goals 2000 that will cut off federal aid to public schools that bar voluntary prayer on the part of students.

The Senate votes, 97-0, to confirm William Perry as secretary of defense, endorsing Pres. Clinton’s choice of a successor to Les Aspin. . . . Pres. Clinton announces the end of the U.S.’s 19-year-old trade embargo against Vietnam, citing Vietnam’s cooperation in trying to locate the remains of 2,238 U.S. soldiers still listed as MIA. The leaders of the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, AmVets, Disabled American Veterans, and Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation voice their opposition to the decision.

Transportation Secretary Federico Pena unveils new federal policies that require more transportation workers to undergo drug and alcohol testing. The new testing program is scheduled to go into effect January 1, 1995. . . . Jim Baca resigns as director of the Bureau of Land Management.

A study shows that sugar and aspartame, an artificial sweetener, do not cause hyperactivity in normal children or wild behavior in children who already are hyperactive. . . . The U.S. space shuttle Discovery blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The Senate passes, 78-8, an amendment allowing public-school students to partake in brief periods of contemplative silence. . . . A Clay County jury convicts Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr., 18, who admitted to watching a 1993 incident in which teenagers beat and raped children and who prevented one victim from escaping, of murder. Judge David Burnett sentences Misskelley to life in prison plus 40 years, to run consecutively.

In response to Pres. Clinton’s Feb. 3 decision to lift the U.S. trade embargo against Vietnam, PepsiCo hands out 168,000 free sample bottles of its cola on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam, marking the most highly visible entries into the country’s domestic market by a U.S. firm.

For the first time since September 1992, the Federal Reserve Board raises the interest rate banks charge on overnight loans made to each other to 3.25% from 3%, prompting the Dow Jones to plunge 96.24 points, or 2.43%, its sharpest one-day fall in more than two years. The Dow closes at 3,871.42.

Top Commerce and Justice Department officials state that the Clinton administration will implement its April 1993 plan to use, and encourage the private sector to use, the Clipper Chip, a computer chip that allows users to send data in indecipherable code. . . . Japan’s National Space Development Agency successfully launches the country’s first domestically designed and built rocket.

Willie Mae Ford Smith (Mother Smith), 89, gospel singer who received a National Heritage Award in 1988, dies in St. Louis, Missouri, of heart failure. . . . John Rewald, 81, who wrote two seminal art history texts, dies in New York City of congestive heart failure.

Jan. 31

Feb. 1

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Feb. 3

Kotashaan, a six-year-old Frenchbred turf racer, is named 1993 Horse of the Year.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 4

566—February 5–10, 1994

World Affairs

In Sarajevo, 68 people die in a mortar attack on an open-air market, which kills more people than any other single incident in the Bosnian civil war. More than 200 people are wounded. . . . During a protest in Rennes, France, by striking fishermen, fire destroys a 17th-century landmark that served as the region’s parliament building. . . . Hermann Josef Abs, 92, German banker who, in 1953, led the team of delegates that negotiated the London Debt Accord, dies in Bad Soden, Germany.

Feb. 5

Feb. 6

Feb. 7

Feb. 8

Feb. 9

Europe

In response to the Feb. 5 attack in Sarajevo, UN secretary general Boutros-Ghali asks NATO to authorize him to order air strikes against Serb gun emplacements if civilians are attacked again.

Renewed fighting breaks out between Abkhazian rebels and the Georgian government. . . . Martti Ahtisaari, a long-time diplomat for the United Nations, is elected president of Finland.

Reports state that Estonia, Lithuania, and Poland have also joined Romania in NATO’s “partnership for peace,” under which the new democracies of Eastern Europe will collaborate with the Western alliance on peacekeeping duties and military exercises. . . . The UN International Court of Justice elects Mohammed Bedjaoui of Algeria to be its president and Stephen Schwebel of the U.S. to be its vice president.

Anzor Sharmaidze, 21, who confessed at his trial to killing U.S. citizen Fred R. Woodruff in Georgia, is sentenced to 15 years’ hard labor. . . . Witold Lutoslawski, 81, Polish composer known for his sometimes atonal works that often incorporate improvisation, dies in Warsaw after a brief illness.

Africa & the Middle East Reports disclose that violence in some regions of Sudan has forced humanitarian groups to stop deliveries of relief aid, affecting an estimated 2 million people.

Four Israeli soldiers are killed and five wounded in a Hezbollah ambush near Sojoud in Israel’s selfdeclared security zone in southern Lebanon. Israel’s retaliatory air strikes target Hezbollah guerrilla positions in three villages north of the ambush site. . . . Anatole Kanyenkiko is named premier of Burundi, succeeding Sylvie Kinigi. . . . Egypt’s militant Gamaa al-Islamiya group warns foreigners to leave the country “immediately” or “suffer the consequences.”

Feb. 10

In what it is reportedly the first overt challenge to the new Polish government, 30,000 Poles demonstrate in the Polish capital, Warsaw, against the proposed budget in a march organized by the Solidarity trade-union movement. . . . Georgia calls on Russia for help in fighting Abkhazian rebels who the government claims are driving ethnic Georgians from their homes in Abkhazia, leaving more than 100 civilians dead and 3,000 homeless.

Israel and the PLO sign accords resolving key security disagreements that helped cause an eightweek delay in implementing interim Palestinian self-rule in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho. . . . Two members of the British Parliament, three workers from Action Aid, and a journalist for the Glasgow Herald are seized by Somali gunmen during a dispute between rival clans.

A cease-fire starts to be observed in Sarajevo. . . . In England, three men convicted in the 1993 bombing of gas-storage tanks in Warrington, Cheshire—Pairic MacFhloinn, Denis Kinsella, and John Kinsella—are sentenced to 35, 25, and 20 years in prison, respectively. . . . Dominic (Mad Dog) McGlinchey, 40, the former leader of the Irish National Liberation Army, a more radical group that split from the IRA, is shot and killed in Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland.

Reports suggest that the Sudanese government launched an air attack on the village of Pageri, 20 miles (30 km) northeast of Nimule, and destroyed what is believed to be either an SPLA arsenal or a military police post.

Asia & the Pacific As urged by Prime Minister Bhutto on Jan 23, workers stage a nationwide strike to show Pakistan’s support for Muslim separatists fighting against Indian rule in the territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

In Costa Rica, Jose Maria Figueres Olsen of the moderate-leftist National Liberation Party (PLN) becomes president by a narrow margin. . . . Luis Alberto Sanchez, 93, Peruvian politician who wrote more than 100 books and who, in 1985, served as the country’s vice president and premier, dies in Lima, Peru, of a kidney infection.

Ukraine joins NATO’s “Partnership for Peace” scheme, under which the new democracies of Eastern Europe will collaborate with the Western alliance on peacekeeping duties and military exercises.

NATO gives the Bosnian Serb forces besieging Sarajevo until 1:00 A.M. local time Feb. 21 to pull back their heavy weapons or run the risk of attack by alliance aircraft. NATO also grants BoutrosGhali’s Feb. 6 request. Romania denounces the proposed strikes, and Greece forbids NATO’s use of its air support bases in connection with the proposed strikes. . . . The U.S. recognizes The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia as an independent state, overriding Greek objections to the republic’s claim to the name of Macedonia.

The Americas

The Pakistani government announces that it has banned public hangings. . . . Reports reveal that Chinese premier Li Peng has signed two decrees setting stricter regulations on religious practices.

In Mexico, 400 sugar-cane workers in the west-central state of Michoacán demonstrate for improved social conditions and express their readiness to take up arms on the side of the EZLN.

In Mexican state of Puebla 3,000 people in Tehuitzingo declare they have set up the Zapatista Movement of the South. . . . In Nicaragua, Roman Catholic Bishop Juan Abelardo Mata, a mediator between the government and the contras, announces that the rebels have accepted a peace plan that he presented to them.

The Japanese government unveils a record economic-stimulus package worth 15.25 trillion yen ($140 billion) designed to prod the stagnant economy out of its worst recession since World War II.

Reports disclose that peasant farmers in Chiapas, Mexico, acting independently of the rebels, protested social neglect and official corruption by taking over the towns of Teopisca, Huetuetan, Tuzantan, and Mapastepec.

In Sydney, 55 workers are dismissed by Australian Stevedores, prompting a strike. . . . Seven members of a foreign Christian delegation are arrested by Chinese authorities for allegedly violating new laws controlling religion announced Feb. 6.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 5–10, 1994—567

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A county jury in Jackson, Mississippi, convicts white supremacist, Byron De La Beckwith, 73, for the 1963 slaying of black civil-rights leader Medgar Evers. Presiding judge L. Breland Hilburn sentences Beckwith to a mandatory life term in prison. . . . The directors of the National Association of Manufacturers, a trade group representing some 12,000 manufacturers, votes to reject Pres. Clinton’s health-care reform bill “in its present form.”

Feb. 5

Hilda Simms (born Hilda Moses), 75, black stage and film actress, dies in Buffalo, New York, of cancer. . . . Jack Kirby (born Jacob Kurtzberg), 76, comic-book artist at DC and Marvel Comics, dies in Thousand Oaks, California, after a heart attack. . . . Joseph Cotten, 88, film and stage actor, dies in Los Angeles, California, of pneumonia.

Acting in his capacity as the overseer of federal courts in Pennsylvania, Supreme Court justice David Souter declines to issue an emergency order to prevent a state law limiting women’s access to obtaining abortions from going into effect. . . . Television mogul Ted Turner gives $75 million to three educational institutions: Brown University, the Citadel, and the McCallie School.

The Vietnamese government relinquishes to U.S. officials what is believed to be the remains of 12 U.S. soldiers listed as MIA. . . . Some 75 Haitian refugees land in Florida from the Bahamas, where 1993 laws threatened their repatriation to Haiti. Four other Haitians drown. . . . Richard M. Bissell Jr., 84, CIA official who, in 1961, planned and presided over the U.S.’s unsuccessful attempt to unseat Fidel Castro, dies in Farmington, Connecticut, after suffering from a heart condition.

Pres. Clinton sends to Congress a $1.52 trillion proposed budget for the fiscal year 1995, which begins Oct. 1. The budget boosts spending for education, job training, and other social “investment” programs. Restrictions imposed by recent deficit-reduction bills require Clinton to seek spending cuts in other programs to pay for those increases.

The crew of the U.S. space shuttle Discovery cancels the launch of a science satellite after technical malfunctions. . . . Officials estimate that insured losses from the Jan. 17 earthquake in Los Angeles will amount to about $2.5 billion, which makes it the nation’s costliest insured quake. Separately, seismologists revise their initial estimate of the quake’s measurement on the Richter scale to 6.7, from the initial figure of 6.6.

A Chicago jury convicts Anthony Garrett, 35, of shooting Dantrell Davis, who was killed while he walked to school with his mother from the Cabrini-Green public housing project. Garrett confessed to mistakenly shooting Davis while firing a rifle at members of a rival street gang. . . . Reports state that eight people were charged with neglect and other counts in the case of the 19 children found living in squalid conditions on Feb. 1 in Chicago, Ill.

In dismissing cases against three Navy officers implicated in the Tailhook scandal, navy judge Captain William Vest Jr, accepts the accuracy of the testimony of witnesses and defendants who claim that Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Frank B. Kelso II observed misconduct, including public nudity and “leg-shaving,” during the incident at the Las Vegas hotel.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office finds that a plan to guarantee universal private healthcare coverage will increase the aggregate federal deficit in the short term, rather than reducing it as the Clinton administration asserts.

California officials estimate that the Jan. 17 earthquake caused $13– $20 billion in damage.

Texaco announces that it has settled a five-year-old royalty dispute with the state of Louisiana by agreeing to pay the state government $250 million over three years. . . . A governor on the Federal Open Market Committee, Wayne D. Angell, will leave the Federal Reserve Board since his term expires.

Howard Martin Temin, 59, cancer researcher who shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in medicine for his discovery of reverse transcriptase, dies in Madison, Wisconsin, of cancer.

Jarmila Novotna, 86, Czech-born opera soprano who, from 1940 to 1956, starred in many major operas at the Met, dies of unreported causes in New York City. . . . Bud (Charles) Wilkinson, 77, college football coach who served as the first director of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, dies in St. Louis, Missouri, of congestive heart failure.

The American Stock Exchange announces that Richard Syron will be its new chairman as of Apr. 1. . . . Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D, Ill.) acknowledges that he reimbursed the House for potentially improper purchases of office supplies and gifts that he and his staff made with public funds. Congressional aides state that the reimbursements total about $82,000.

A study finds that smoking increases women’s risk of developing osteoporosis, or bone deterioration, in middle or old age.

Reports suggest that Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis is suffering from cancer of the lymphatic system. . . . Fashion designer Calvin Klein announces he is discontinuing his production of furs in the wake of an attack on his offices by members of People for Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Federal judge William Dwyer rules a Washington state law that imposes limits on the number of terms that can be served by the state’s representatives in Congress violates the Constitution. It is the first ruling by a federal court on term-limit laws. . . . The House votes, 356-56, to reauthorize for five years a law providing for the appointment of independent counsels to investigate alleged criminal acts by officials of the executive branch.

The U.S. Navy confirms that Lt. Paula Coughlin, the officer who first exposed the Tailhook scandal by publicizing the assault against herself, has resigned from the navy. Her publicized letter of resignation states that “the physical attack on me by the naval aviators at the 1991 Tailhook convention and the covert attacks on me that followed have stripped me of my ability to serve.”

In a daily comic strip, police officer Dick Tracy is served divorce papers from his wife of 45 years, character Tess Tracy. . . . The Newbery Medal is awarded to Lois Lowry for The Giver. The Caldecott Medal is awarded to Allen Say for Grandfather’s Journey.

Feb. 6

Feb. 7

Feb. 8

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 9

Feb. 10

568—February 11–16, 1994

World Affairs

Europe

The famed painting The Scream (1893) by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch is stolen from the National Art Museum in Oslo, Norway, by two thieves.

Tony Worthington, who is Labour MP for Clydebank and Milngavie and one of the British hostages taken in Somalia on Feb. 9, tells reporters that a local Somali doctor rescued the MPs and drove them to a safer area of Erigavo.

Crimean president Yuri Meskhov appoints an ethnic Russian, Yevgeny Saburov, as Crimean premier.

In Somalia, reports reveal the fighting that began Feb. 11 in Kismayu left 60 people dead and drove more than 5,000 to flee the city. Separately, Somali gunmen kill an Egyptian soldier and wound another when they ambush the troops’ convoy about 50 miles (80 km) north of Mogadishu.

The International Monetary Fund approves a loan for Zimbabwe equivalent to some $144 million.

In Russia, convicted serial killer Andrei Chikatilo, 58 or 59, known as the “Rostov Ripper” for more than 50 grisly murders committed over 12 years, is executed by firing squad in a prison in the southern region of Rostov-on-Don.

Suspected Islamic militants open fire on a bus transporting Romanian engineers employed in Asyut. No one is injured in the attack.

North Korea notifies the International Atomic Energy Agency that it will allow full inspections of seven nuclear-development sites, at which the agency suspects North Korea is extracting plutonium and building nuclear weapons in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

After a meeting in Moscow, British prime minister John Major and Russian president Boris Yeltsin sign an agreement calling on the two countries not to target nuclear missiles at each other. . . . In Salonika, 50,000 Greeks march to protest the Feb. 9 U.S. decision to recognize The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia as an independent state. Some of the demonstrators throw stones at the city’s U.S. consulate.

Israeli soldiers start dismantling Central Gaza Prison in the Gaza Strip.

Britain and China announce their intention to comply with an international ban on dumping atomic waste into the world’s oceans.

Greece breaks off consular relations with The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and denies it the use of the Greek port of Salonika, which landlocked Macedonia’s nearest outlet to the sea. . . . Fishermen in France, striking since Feb. 3, begin returning to work.

Feb. 12

Feb. 13

Feb. 15

Feb. 16

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Forces loyal to clan leader Col. Ahmad Omar Jess launch an attack at Bulo Xaaji, Somalia, 50 miles (80 km) southwest of Kismayu, where followers of Jess’s rival, Gen. Mohammed Siad Hersi Morgan, are camped. . . . Reports state that four Palestinians were arrested in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, for alleged roles in the Jan. 29 assassination of Naeb Imran Maaytah, the first foreign diplomat murdered in Lebanon since 1990.

Feb. 11

Feb. 14

Africa & the Middle East

Several gasoline drums that allegedly belong to the Haitian military and were smuggled into the country from the Dominican Republic in defiance of a UN embargo explode in Port-au-Prince, destroying half a block of commercial establishments and warehouses.

Colombian officials report that Juan David Ochoa, a leader of the Medellin drug cartel, was sentenced to 61⁄2 years in prison for his drug-related activities.

Myanmar’s ruling junta allows U.S. Rep. Bill Richardson (D, N.Mex.) to visit political dissident Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest since July 1989. The visits are the first she has received from anyone other than a doctor, government official, or family member during her incarceration.

Seven members of a foreign Christian delegation arrested Feb. 10 are released by Chinese authorities.

Reports confirm that Peruvian prime minister Alfonso Bustamante has resigned in protest over the government’s enactment of a law giving certain legal jurisdiction to a military court. . . . In Mexico, the EZLN frees Absalón Castellanos Domínguez, a former Chiapas governor abducted by the rebels, in a televised ceremony.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 11–16, 1994—569

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A Maricopa County Superior Court judge sentences Jonathan Doody, 19, who was convicted in 1992, to life in prison for slaying nine people at a Buddhist temple near Phoenix, Arizona, after a 1991 robbery. . . . A jury in Fort Worth, Texas, finds Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R, Tex.) not guilty on five counts of misusing state funds and employees for political purposes after the case’s lead prosecutor, D.A. Ronnie Earle, refused to open his case because of problems over the admissibility of evidence crucial to his arguments.

Pres. Clinton announces that trade talks with Japan have collapsed after negotiators failed to reach agreement on U.S. demands that Japan open its markets and take other measures designed to narrow the large trade imbalance between the two countries.

Pres. Clinton signs an executive order directing federal agencies that run programing affecting the environment to refrain from discriminating against communities in which poor people and minorities are concentrated. The order creates an interagency task force, headed by EPA Administrator Carol Browner, to make sure that federal agencies follow the mandates. . . . Data shows retail sales fell 0.5% in January, to a seasonally adjusted figure of $180.96 billion. It is the first decline since March 1993.

NASA acknowledges super-strength glue, available in model toy shops, was used without authorization to repair space shuttle main-engine pumps. Officials assert that the glue did not threaten the safety of the shuttle missions. . . . The U.S. space shuttle Discovery touches down safely at Kennedy Space Center. . . . The House, 245-6, approves a supplemental appropriations bill that includes $8.6 billion in relief for California in response to the Jan. 17 earthquake. The Senate by voice vote passes the same measure.

In Florida, Neil Bonnett, 47, a NASCAR driver and commentator, is killed in a crash during practice at the Daytona International Speedway. . . . William Conrad, 73, actor who was the radio voice of sheriff Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke, 1952–61, and the latter of the two title roles in Jake and the Fatman, 1987–92, dies in North Hollywood, California, of a heart attack.

Pres. Clinton signs a supplemental appropriations bill that includes $8.6 billion in relief for the state of California, where a powerful earthquake had struck the Los Angeles area on Jan. 17.

Ray Dandridge, 80, who played third base in the Negro leagues, dies in Palm Bay, Florida, of prostate cancer. . . . Donald Clarence Judd, 65, leader in the minimalist art movement, dies in NYC of lymphoma. . . . The XVII Winter Olympic Games open in Lillehammer, Norway. The Olympic Committee agrees to allow skater Tonya Harding to compete despite the involvement of her associates in a Jan. 6 assault on rival Nancy Kerrigan. The National Book Critics Circle presents its awards to Ernest J. Gaines, Alan Lomax, Edmund White, John Dizikes and Mark Doty. . . . The Eastern Conference wins the NBA All-Star Game.

Dow Corning, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Baxter Healthcare announce that they will contribute more than $3.6 billion over 30 years to a proposed $4.75 billion settlement with thousands of women who claim to have suffered from diseases allegedly related to silicone breast implants. . . . A letter by Pres. Clinton to a homosexual political action committee asserts that he opposes ballot initiatives to limit the rights of homosexuals.

Pres. Clinton announces big increases in the U.S. aid to Kazakhstan for economic development and disarmament. The declaration comes after a meeting between Clinton and Kazakh president Nursulatan Nazarbayev in Washington, D.C., at which Nazarbayev handed Clinton papers formally documenting Kazakhstan’s adherence to the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

The Council of Economic Advisers, the White House’s top economicpolicy body, issues a report that focuses on the nation’s growing income disparity and is seen as more supportive of government intervention than previous recent surveys.

Statistics suggest that the number of new AIDS cases peaked in 1992 in San Francisco, Calif., the first U.S. city to be hit by the epidemic; new cases are expected to decline gradually over the next few years. . . . Danny Rolling, currently serving a life sentence in Florida for convictions on robbery, burglary and weapons charges, pleads guilty to slaying five college students in Gainesville, Fla., in 1990.

Claiming that he has been made a scapegoat for the Tailhook sexual harassment scandal, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Frank B. Kelso II announces that he will retire two months early, on Apr. 30.

The EPA announces proposals to reduce air pollution in parts of California that have not set clean-up plans as stipulated by the Clean Air Act.

Rodney Orr, 31, is killed in a onecar crash in practice, bringing the number of fatalities at the Daytona, Florida, racetrack to 25 since its opening in 1959. . . . Christopher Lasch, 61, leftist history professor and author, dies in Pittsford, New York, of cancer.

Feb. 11

Feb. 12

Feb. 13

Feb. 14

Feb. 15

William Paul, a prominent immunologist, is appointed to head the NIH’s Office of AIDS Research as its first full-time director. . . . An alliance of U.S. television manufacturers selects its preferred signal-transmission method for the high-definition television (HDTV) standard it is developing. The choice is described as the final major technical decision the alliance will make prior to the testing of an HDTV system in the U.S. in 1995.

Norway’s Johann Olav Koss, who set world records in three speedskating races at the Olympics, states he will donate his national gold-medal bonus money to Olympic Aid, a special fund to aid the war-torn city of Sarajevo, BosniaHerzegovina, host to the 1984 winter games.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 16

570—February 17–22, 1994

Feb. 17

World Affairs

Europe

Mario Sarcinelli resigns from his post at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to take over the chairmanship of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL), a state-owned bank. . . . The Bundesbank, Germany’s central bank, cuts its discount lending rate by half a percentage point, to 5.25% from 5.75%. Central banks of Italy, Austria, Belgium, and the Netherlands follow the German move with rate cuts.

Reports state that Bosnian Serb forces besieging Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, are beginning to withdraw most of their heavy weapons from around the city in advance of a NATO deadline. Russian deputy foreign minister Vitaly Churkin announces that the Serbs have accepted a proposal that they withdraw in exchange for the deployment of 800 Russian peacekeeping troops in the Sarajevo area.

Africa & the Middle East The Congo’s interior minister, Martin Mberri, acknowledges that the government has hired a private Israeli arms supplier to upgrade the nation’s army.

Feb. 19

Feb. 20

The European Union puts pressure on Greece to halt its blockade imposed Feb. 16 on The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in an ongoing dispute over Macedonia’s statehood. . . . After conferring by telephone with NATO command, the UN special envoy to former Yugoslavia, Yasushi Akashi, asserts that the work done by the peacekeepers “up to this point assures us there is no need for air strikes.” NATO secretary general Manfred Woerner states that, in line with UN recommendations, the alliance will not launch strikes in the area “at this stage.”

Feb. 22

Asia & the Pacific

Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori reshuffles his cabinet and names Foreign Minister Efrain Goldenberg Schreiber as premier.

In Colombia, ELN guerrillas protest U.S. troop presence by detonating a small bomb at the American School in Cali, slightly damaging the building but causing no injuries.

Feb. 18

Feb. 21

The Americas

In Australia, reports confirm that the Art Gallery of New South Wales has become the country's first gallery to appoint an aborigine, Daphne Wallace, as curator to oversee its indigenous art collection.

In Great Britain, the IRA carries out a series of firebombings of eight stores in London’s West End, cause extensive damage but no injuries. . . . Georges Watin, 71, one of nine conspirators involved in a 1962 attempt to assassinate French president Charles de Gaulle, dies near Asuncion, Paraguay.

Four gunmen storm a house in Natal, South Africa, and stab and shoot dead 11 ANC supporters as they sleep. Three others are slain as they attempt to escape, and another dies in a hospital. . . . Reports state a closed military court has sentenced three Egyptian soldiers to death and another three to hard labor for their involvement in an unsuccessful December 1993 plot to kill Pres. Hosni Mubarak.

The commander of UN forces in Bosnia, British lieutenant general Michael Rose, states that 23 of 42 Serb positions overlooking Sarajevo have been abandoned, and UN monitors have taken control of 10 of the remaining 19. . . . Swiss citizens vote to ban foreign truck traffic through the Swiss Alps mountains within 10 years, a move that is widely criticized by other European nations.

Yemen’s two feuding political leaders, Pres. Ali Abdullah Saleh and Vice Pres. Ali Salem al-Baidh, sign an agreement designed to calm the threat of a civil war. Hours later, however, fighting erupts between northern Yemeni armed forces and southern-based forces. . . . Jordanian security officials arrest 15 suspected members of the Fatah Revolutionary Council.

At least five Haitian refugees die when a fiberglass boat transporting 20–40 asylum seekers toward Florida sinks off the coast of the Bahamas.

Masked gunmen, who claim they are not aligned with any of Afghanistan’s warring factions, hijack a school bus in Peshawar and drive to Islamabad. After negotiations, the gunmen release 55 of the boys and six female teachers. Then they take refuge in the embassy with 13 schoolboys and one teacher, and they demand food and money for Afghanistan’s war-ravaged capital, Kabul.

Britain’s House of Commons votes to reduce the age for legal consensual sexual relations between men to 18 from 21. The age of 18 is backed after the house rejects a proposal to lower the age to 16, the age of consent for heterosexual relations in Britain.

Islamic Group gunmen open fire on a train in Cairo, Egypt.

In a case that is described as a litmus test for Peru’s human-rights conditions, a military court sentences Major Martin Rivas and Major Carlos Pichilingue to 20 years’ imprisonment each, and General Juan Rivero, the chief of army intelligence planning, receives a five-year prison sentence for the July 1992 killings of a university professor and nine students. The court hands down sentences of four to 15 years to six enlisted soldiers in the attack. . . . Prime Minister James Mitchell gains his third consecutive five-year term in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

In Pakistan, gunmen free eight of the boys taken hostage Feb. 20, but, after negotiations stall, Pakistani government commandos burst into the Afghan embassy in Islamabad, killing three Afghan gunmen and freeing five boys and a teacher unharmed. . . . A report “shows clearly that political repression is increasing, not decreasing, and that it extends to virtually every province in China and throughout the Tibetan plateau.”. . . Singapore reports its inflation-adjusted gross domestic product expanded 9.9% in 1993, the biggest year-on-year increase since 1988.

The General Synod, the governing body of the Church of England, votes to allow women to become priests in a measure that is the last in a series of formalities required to make the change in church doctrine.

Reports indicate that Ali Djeddi and Abdelkader Boukhakam, two senior officials of the banned Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) who were convicted in 1992 for their roles in an “insurrectional movement” against the government and sentenced to four years in prison, have been released by the Algerian government.

Jaime Orjuela Caballero, the alleged leader of the Cali cartel’s operations in New York, U.S., is arrested in Cali, Colombia. . . . The International Commission of Jurists finds that Mexican soldiers summarily executed prisoners and tortured detainees before a cease-fire ended fighting in Chiapas. The commission reveals that it has found no evidence pointing to EZLN abuses of civilians.

Phoolan Devi, 34, the former leader of a thievery ring who became a heroine of India’s lower castes and feminists after she was jailed in 1983 without trial for the murders of 22 upper-caste men, is released from prison.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 17–22, 1994—571

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Catalina Vasquez Villalpando, the treasurer of the U.S. from December 1989 until January 1993, pleads guilty in federal district court in Washington, D.C., to a felony charge of obstructing the federal inquiry into allegations of influence peddling at the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the 1980s. Villalpando is the 12th person to be convicted or plead guilty in the HUD scandal since the beginning of the inquiry in 1990.

The D.C. Court of Appeals upholds a 1992 decision that prohibits doctors from prescribing marijuana for medical purposes. . . . In the Justice Department’s first case involving the harassment of homosexuals, Atty. Gen. Janet Reno orders mediators to Ovett, Miss., where religious residents are trying to close a women’s retreat run by lesbians. . . . District Judge Clarence Newcomer overturns the November 1993 election of Pennsylvania state sen. William Stinson (D), citing “massive absentee ballot fraud.” His Republican opponent, Bruce Marks, is to take his place.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Commerce Department reports the 1993 U.S. merchandise trade deficit stood at $115.78 billion, its highest level since 1988, when the trade gap totaled $118.5 billion. . . . The Justice Department indicts David Hale, who alleged that Pres. Clinton and James McDougal pressured him in 1986 to make a $300,000 loan to Susan McDougal to benefit Whitewater, on charges of conspiring to defraud the Small Business Administration in order to fund questionable loans through his investment firm, Capital Management Services.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission authorizes the nation’s medical societies to establish so-called peer-review programs, which will allow professional medical organizations to discipline member physicians for price gouging and to publicize their actions. . . . The FAA announces that commercial airlines can begin to use a military satellite system, the Global Positioning Satellite System, to help navigate landings in inclement weather.

Reports confirm that Florida governor Lawton Chiles (D) and several advocacy groups have criticized the state Citrus Commission’s hiring of conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh to do advertisements for Florida orange juice on his radio show. . . . Randy Shilts, 42, journalist known for his reporting on the AIDS epidemic, dies in Guerneville, California, of AIDS.

The U.S. State Department announces that the U.S. is to restore “senior-level contacts” with New Zealand on “political, strategic and broad security matters.”

Reports reveal that White House counsel Nussbaum confirmed in a letter that the Clintons are paying for their legal expenses in the Whitewater case out of their own pockets.

Reports indicate that 200 vultures, which are protected by federal law, have been attacking cats, ducks, dogs, and horses in Stafford County, Virginia. . . . Five emergency room workers in Riverside, California, are hospitalized when treating Gloria Ramirez, 31, who has cervical cancer. Two workers faint after noting what they call an ammonia-like smell coming from the patient’s blood.

Oscar Collazo, 80, Puerto Rican nationalist, who, on Nov. 1, 1950, attempted to enter Pres. Harry Truman’s temporary residence at the Blair House in Washington, D.C., dies in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, of a stroke.

Mary Woodard Lasker, 93, philanthropist who, with her husband, Albert Davis Lasker, established the Lasker Foundation in 1942, dies in Greenwich, Connecticut, of heart failure.

At the Winter Olympics, Dan Jansen wins the 1,000-meter speed-skating event in a world-record time of 1 minute, 12.43 seconds.

Feb. 18

Derek Jarman, 52, British filmmaker and homosexual-rights activist whose last film was Blue (1994), dies in London of AIDS.

Feb. 19

In tennis, Martina Navratilova wins the Paris Women’s Open over Julie Halard of France. . . . Auto racer Sterling Marlin wins the Daytona (Florida) 500, the NASCAR seasonopening event.

In what is called one of the most important cases of espionage ever carried out against the U.S., a counterintelligence officer of the CIA, Aldrich Hazen Ames, and his wife, Colombian-born Maria del Rosario Casas Ames, are arrested separately on charges of selling information to the Soviet Union and Russia over at least a nine-year period.

After extensive debate, the Senate votes, 66-31, to confirm Strobe Talbott as deputy secretary of state.

The AFL-CIO labor federation announces that it will earmark at least $10 million, the largest amount ever for a single cause, for a campaign to cultivate support for Pres. Clinton’s health-care reform plan.

In its quarterly earnings review, The Wall Street Journal reports that the net income of 674 major corporations totaled $34.75 billion in the 1993 fourth quarter. That is a 61% gain over those companies’ 1992 fourth-quarter profits, which totaled $21.56 billion. The Journal’s 1993 third-quarter survey, which covers profits at 597 companies, showed a 24% year-on-year profit gain.

In response to three bombing attacks against Mormon sites in Colombia launched during the previous month, the Church of LatterDay Saints (Mormon) asserts that it is a politically neutral institution and does not represent U.S. political interests in the region.

U.S. government prosecutors in Houston, Texas, file criminal fraud and bribery charges against eight people working either for NASA or three of its contractors, and a partner in a consulting firm headed by a former NASA administrator. The charges stem from an FBI inquiry into possible fraud, bribery, and corruption at the Johnson Space Center.

Feb. 17

John (Papa John) Creach, 76, known for playing electric violin with the rock group Jefferson Airplane, dies in Los Angeles after undergoing treatment for heart and respiratory ailments. . . . South Korean speedskater Kim Yoon-Mi, 13, becomes the youngest gold medalist ever in the winter Olympic games.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 20

Feb. 21

Feb. 22

572—February 23–28, 1994

Feb. 23

World Affairs

Europe

Belgium recognizes The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia as an independent state, joining six other EU nations and the U.S.

Bosnia’s Croats and Muslims sign a cease-fire agreed upon in talks in Zagreb between the two sides’ military commanders and UN generals. The truce is aimed at halting the fighting in central and southwestern areas of the republic. . . . The lower house of the Russian parliament votes to grant an amnesty to the imprisoned leaders of a 1993 uprising against Pres. Boris Yeltsin, and to the accused chief conspirators in a failed 1991 coup against then-Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev.

An attack in Israel draws international condemnation. U.S. president Clinton, calling the massacre in Hebron “a gross act of murder,” issues an immediate call to PLO chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin to maintain the momentum toward peace and send negotiators to Washington, D.C., to complete terms for implementing Palestinian self-rule in Jericho and the Gaza Strip.

Buckingham Palace announces that Prince Charles’s apartment in St. James Palace in London has been burglarized.

Feb. 26

Feb. 27

Feb. 28

The Americas

In reaction to the Feb. 19 sentencings of three Egyptian soldiers, purported Islamic Group militants set off a bomb just south of Asyut on a train bound for Aswan from Cairo.

Former Georgian president Zviad Gamsakhurdia, who led an unsuccessful rebellion against the current government, is buried in the declared independent republic of Chechnya. His body was exhumed from a shallow grave in western Georgia a week earlier.

Feb. 24

Feb. 25

Africa & the Middle East

Asia & the Pacific China unveils plans to build four nuclear reactors in southern Guangdong province over the next two years. . . . In response to the Feb. 21 shooting, in Islamabad, an angry mob in Kabul ransacks the Pakistani embassy, assaulting two security guards. . . . The body of Tambo, an Australian aborigine who had been kidnapped in 1883 and forced to perform in an international traveling freak show, is buried on Palm Island, Queensland, exactly 110 years after he died in the U.S.

The last significant band of former contra rebels who battled Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front government in the 1980s agrees to lay down their arms.

Hong Kong’s legislature approves the first bill containing several controversial democratic-reform proposals sought by Hong Kong gov. Chris Patten. In response, Chinese officials vow to disband completely all elected bodies in Hong Kong when it takes control in 1997.

A U.S.-born Israeli settler, Baruch Goldstein, sprays Palestinians with automatic rifle fire at a mosque in Hebron, leaving 40 worshipers dead and 150 wounded. The massacre is the worst in the West Bank since 1967. Palestinians in the occupied territories react violently with gunfire and repeated brick and stone attacks against Israeli soldiers. Israeli Arabs stage fierce protests in Nazareth and Jaffa and in a Bedouin community outside Beesheva. One Israeli is slashed to death. Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin reportedly tells PLO head Yasser Arafat that, “as an Israeli, I am ashamed” in a phone call.

The Council of Australian Governments endorses a plan under which 60% of school children will be taught Asian languages. . . . The government of Malaysia announces trade sanctions against Britain in protest of reports in the British press suggesting there were incidences of bribery in securing government contracts in Malaysia.

Government security forces in Algiers, the Algerian capital, kill the country’s most-wanted fugitive and the head of the Muslim extremist Armed Islamic Group, Mourad Si Ahmed, 29. Nine other members of the organization are also slain.

Data suggest that more than 1,000 people have died in the fighting that started Jan. 1 against Afghanistan government forces in Kabul.

The finance ministers and centralbank heads of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations meet near Frankfurt, Germany. . . . The administration of U.S. president Clinton confirms that Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon, in an apparent gesture of solidarity with the PLO after the Feb. 25 massacre, in Hebron, Israel, have broken off peace talks with Israel.

In the former Soviet republic of Moldova’s first parliamentary elections, pro-Russian parties win most of the vote for representation in the legislature. . . . Sir Harold Acton, 89, English author and leader of the so-called dandy esthetes, who dedicated themselves to art appreciation during the 1920s, dies near Florence, Italy.

In response to the Feb. 25 attack in Hebron, the Israeli government authorizes measures to disarm and arrest settlers it deems dangerous. Baruch Goldstein, responsible for the Feb. 25 deaths, is buried in a temporary grave in Qiryat Arba by a throng of right-wing supporters. . . . A mortar bomb explodes in a Maronite Catholic church in Junieh, north of Beirut, the Lebanese capital, killing at least nine people and injuring another 55. . . . Eight presumed Islamic Group militants die in gun clashes with Egyptian police in Edfu, after the suspected militants open fire on a police station. Two police officers are killed.

China announces new marriage rules that allow Chinese authorities to legally separate couples who live together before the official marriage ages of 22 for men and 20 for women. The government also states that it will seek to prevent marriages between couples it deems unsuitable. The measures are part of China’s strict population-control program.

NATO fighter aircraft shoot down four suspected Bosnian Serb ground-attack jets operating over central Bosnia in violation of the UN no-fly zone covering Bosnian airspace. Two other Bosnian Serb warplanes escape the NATO attack. The air engagement is the first combat action undertaken by NATO in its 45-year history.

Romania’s two largest unions hold a general strike protesting the lack of economic reform, and 2 million workers—one-fifth of the nation’s workforce—stay away from work. It is reported to be the biggest labor action since the 1989 overthrow of the Communist government. . . . Hungary opens the biggest chapter in its program to privatize industry by announcing the first four public offerings in a sell-off.

Namibia and South Africa sign a treaty transferring sovereignty over the town of Walvis Bay to Namibia. . . . The Israeli army makes public interim findings of its probe of the Feb. 25 massacre. The findings state that all 111 bullet shells recovered in the mosque were fired from Baruch Goldstein’s rifle, substantiating the army’s initial claim that Israeli soldiers did not contribute to the death toll.

In Fiji, recently appointed president Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara swears in Sitiveni Rabuka for a second term as prime minister. . . . Aisin Giorro Pu Jie, 87, the brother to the last emperor of China and heir to the throne, dies in Beijing, China, reportedly of prostate cancer.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 23–28, 1994—573

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Atty. Gen. Janet Reno announces the nomination of Jamie S. Gorelick to the post of deputy attorney general, the second-highest ranking position at the Justice Department.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

In Department of Defense v. Federal Labor Relations Authority, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that federal agencies are prohibited from giving labor unions the home addresses of their employees. . . . In FDIC v. Meyer, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that federal agencies are not liable in cases filed by former employees of failed savings and loan institutions who claim that they were unfairly dismissed after federal regulators took control of the thrifts.

A federal jury in San Francisco, California, orders Microsoft Corp. to pay $120 million in damages to Stac Electronics Inc. for patent infringement in developing a datastorage feature for recent versions of its MS-DOS model software.

Officials vote unanimously to remove the Georgia state flag from display in Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium, as it features the Confederate States of America battle insignia. . . . At the Winter Olympics, U.S. speedskater Bonnie Blair wins the gold in the 1,000 meters, giving her a career total of five gold medals, the most of any American female Olympian.

The American Association of Retired Persons announces that it will not back Pres. Clinton’s healthcare reform proposal.

A federal appeals court upholds a five-month prison sentence for Randall Terry, the founder of the antiabortion group Operation Rescue, for his role in the presentation of a fetus to then-Arkansas governor Bill Clinton. . . . Deborah Gore Dean, a second cousin of Vice Pres. Al Gore, is sentenced to 21 months in prison and a $5,000 fine on bribery, corruption, and perjury charges related to the HUD scandal. . . . Justice Department officials announce that a federal grand jury has issued a new indictment charging Sen. David Durenberger (R, Minn.) with two felony counts of making false expense claims to the Senate.

Dinah Shore (born Frances Rose Shore), 76, singer who was the first women to be successful as a TV host and received a total of 10 Emmy awards, dies in Beverly Hills, California, of cancer.

The U.S. orders a high-ranking Russian diplomat, Aleksandr Lysenko, to leave the country on the grounds that he was “in a position to be responsible” for employing Aldrich Hazen Ames, and his wife, Maria del Rosario Casas, who are accused of being CIA spies.

Jersey Joe Walcott (born Arnold Raymond Cream), 80, heavyweight boxing champion, dies in Camden, New Jersey, of complications from diabetes. . . . The Veterans Committee of the Baseball Hall of Fame selects Phil Rizzuto and the late Leo Durocher for induction.

A District Court jury in San Antonio, Texas, acquits 11 members of the Branch Davidian cult of murder and conspiracy charges stemming from the deaths of four federal agents during a February 1993 raid on the cult’s compound outside of Waco, Texas. Seven sect members are convicted on lesser charges.

Research suggests that bone loss experienced by astronauts during space flights potentially can be reversed with common drugs that prevent calcium deficiencies. . . . Avery Robert Fisher, 87, a pioneer in the electronics industry and philanthropist who started Fisher Radio, dies in New Milford, Connecticut, after suffering a stroke. British prime minister John Major visits the U.S.

Supreme Court justice Harry Blackmun issues his dissent in 15 deathrow appeals rejected by the eight other justices on the high court. . . . A Prince William County, Virginia, Circuit Court judge releases Lorena Bobbitt, who in January was acquitted by reason of temporary insanity for cutting off the penis of her husband in 1993, from a mental hospital.

The Defense Department’s policy allowing homosexuals to serve in the military—known as the “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue” rules— takes effect. . . . The Coast Guard repatriates 141 Haitian refugees after forcing them to disembark from their boat in international waters. . . . U.S. embassy counselor James Morris is asked to leave Russia in response to the Feb. 25 expulsion of a Russian diplomat.

Vreni Schneider of Switzerland wins the women’s slalom to become the first woman to win three gold medals in alpine skiing.

The XVII Winter Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway, conclude, and the Norwegians captured the most medals, 26. German athletes won 24, and Russian athletes won 23 medals overall. Athletes from the U.S. won 13 medals, the most ever by Americans in the winter games, including six gold medals, which matches U.S. highs reached in 1980 and 1932.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce votes to oppose a so-called employer mandate requiring employers to help pay for their workers’ health insurance.

Steven Cook, 34, who accused Roman Catholic cardinal Joseph Bernardin of sexually abusing him, withdraws his accusations. . . . Publisher’s Weekly lists Accident by Danielle Steel as the top seller.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 23

Feb. 24

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Feb. 26

Feb. 27

Feb. 28

574—March 1–6, 1994

March 1

World Affairs

Europe

The World Bank approves a $508.5 million loan to Argentina.

Under Russian pressure, the Serbs agree to allow humanitarian flights into Tuzla. . . . Martti Ahtisaari is sworn in as president of Finland. . . . German president Richard von Weizsaecker attends the German premiere of Schindler’s List, a U.S. film about the Holocaust. Chancellor Helmut Kohl does not screen the movie.

Russia cuts natural-gas shipments to Ukraine by 1.7 billion cubic feet (48 million cub m) because Ukraine has accrued unpaid debt. Russia also begins cutting gas supplies to neighboring Belarus, saying that Belarus is $300 million in arrears. . . . In Paris, tens of thousands of students, unions, and other youth and leftist groups stage a street protest in response to a plan by the government of french premier Edouard Balladur that allows employers to pay young people less than standard minimum wages.

March 3

Reports indicate that a Brazilian plan to form an expanded free-trade area in South America has been endorsed by Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay, Brazil’s partners in the proposed regional common market known as Mercosur, which will serve as a prelude to “some kind of convergency” with NAFTA. The phased implementation of Mercosur is scheduled to begin in 1995.

March 5

March 6

The Americas

Data suggests that more than 20 Palestinians (including one Israeli Arab) were killed by Israeli soldiers during street clashes following the Feb. 25 assault in Hebron. Israel frees 596 Palestinian prisoners. . . . Namibian president Sam Nujoma opens a free-trade zone in the town of Walvis Bay, which was under South African sovereignty for 74 years until Feb. 28.

Reports indicate that the Georgian parliament has ratified the country’s membership in the Commonwealth of Independent States over the objections of the opposition National Radical Party, which complains of procedural irregularities.

March 2

March 4

Africa & the Middle East

A strike prompted by the Feb. 10 dismissals of 55 workers by Australian Stevedores in Sydney, Australia, ends.

In Colombia, the ELN releases U.S. mining engineer Louis Manning, who was seized in February 1993. Separately, FARC rebels kidnap two French tourists in the La Macarena nature preserve, located 110 miles (175 km) south of Bogota, the capital. . . . The Mexican government and EZLN representatives reach a tentative agreement on a package of reforms during peace talks in San Cristobal de las Casas, in the southern state of Chiapas.

Israel releases 400 Palestinian prisoners, bringing to almost 1,000 the number freed since the Feb. 25 massacre in Hebron.

The British Foreign Office announces that David Rolland Spedding will become the new chief of MI6, Britain’s foreign intelligence service, succeeding Sir Colin McColl, who was the first head of that agency publicly identified. The announcement marks the first time that a new head of the MI6 has been publicly announced.

Asia & the Pacific

A parcel bomb explodes in the Adelaide, South Australia, office of the National Crime Authority lawenforcement agency, killing an NCA officer and injuring five others. . . . Nominal Premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar agrees to ease a food blockade on Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, in response to entreaties from Pakistan and independent relief agencies.

A Panama jury rules that Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, the deposed Panamanian leader serving a 40-year drug-related prison term in the U.S., is guilty of ordering the execution of an army major, Moises Giroldi, who led a failed attempt to overthrow him in October 1989. . . . In Tijuana, Mexico, police engage federal agents in a gunfight initially described as an operation engineered by drug traffickers. Three federal drug agents and a police officer die in the battle.

Reports confirm that three Cuban diplomats were expelled from Canada in February for attempting to recruit informants and for agitating among Cuban expatriates in Canada.

Russia cuts natural-gas shipments to Ukraine by 2.8 billion cubic feet because Ukraine owes Russia about $900 million in unpaid energy bills.

Hundreds of Hutu men, women and children are killed in two Hutu neighborhoods in Bujumbura, the Burundian capital, while the army is looking for weapons in a Hutu neighborhood. . . . Abdullah al-Salal, 74, first president of what was formerly North Yemen, 1962-1967, dies in Yemen of heart failure.

Officials in the states of Chiapas and Oaxaca in southern Mexico report that that at least 10 farmers have died in incidents of violence since Mar. 1.

In a plebiscite, voters in the former Soviet republic of Moldova reject nationalist demands for the independent country’s reunification with neighboring Romania. . . . Melina Mercouri (born Maria Amalia Mercouri), Greek film actress who became the first woman in Greece’s senior cabinet when she was made minister of culture in 1981, dies in New York City of lung cancer.

A U.S. Marine sniper shoots and wounds two Somali youths after they point what seems to be a pistol at a UN Egyptian soldier in Mogadishu. The pistol turns out to be a toy.

Reports confirm that the Commission for Reconciliation, a Chilean human-rights organization, has revised its estimate of the number of government-directed political murders under Pres. Augusto Pinochet carried out from 1973 to 1989 to 3,129, up from its earlier figure of 2,279. . . . Mexican federal authorities state they have issued arrest warrants for government officials and police officers in the state of Baja California in connection with the Mar. 3 shoot-out in Tijuana.

More than 10,000 people march in the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in Sydney, the capital of the state of New South Wales. Police estimate that a record 600,000 spectators attend the controversial annual event.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 1–6, 1994—575

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

A gunman in a car opens fire on a van carrying 15 Hasidic Jewish students over the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City. . . . In Fogerty v. Fantasy, the Supreme Court overturns a lower-court ruling when it decides unanimously that defendants who win copyright-infringement suits can be compensated by plaintiffs for lawyers’ fees incurred during litigation.

The Senate fails to pass an amendment to the Constitution that would require the federal government to balance its annual budgets. The measure is backed by 63 senators, falling four votes short of winning the two-thirds majority needed. . . . The EPA issues the Chemical Manufacturing Rule, a regulation ordering chemical plants to reduce by 88% the amount of toxic emissions they release into the air by 1997. . . . Negotiations between WheelingPittsburgh Steel Corp. and the United Steelworkers of America break down, prompting a strike.

Police arrest a Lebanese national, Rashid Baz, and charge him with attempted murder in the Mar. 1 attack on Hasidic Jewish students in New York City. . . . Supreme Court chief justice William Rehnquist rejects a request by Sen. Bob Packwood (R, Oreg.) for a stay order to prevent investigators working for the Senate Ethics Committee from viewing Packwood’s diaries.

William Gould IV, a law professor at Stanford University, is confirmed by the Senate to head the National Labor Relations Board. . . . Controversy over contact between the White House and regulators escalates when White House officials acknowledge that White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum and Jean Hanson, general counsel of the Treasury Department, discussed the RTC inquiry into Madison Guaranty’s affairs in meetings in September and October of 1993 during the inquiry about Whitewater.

Pres. Clinton appoints Rachelle Chong to fill a vacant seat on the FCC. . . . Rep. William Natcher (D, Ky.) is not present at a House procedural vote due to illness, ending a 40-year streak during which he did not miss a vote in the chamber. . . . The Justice Department settles a claim when the Empire State Building’s owners agree to effect changes in the structure in accordance with federal disability law. It is one of the first cases to be brought under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1992.

Pres. Clinton signs an executive order reviving the so-called Super 301 provision a of a 1988 U.S. trade law designed to force its trading partners to improve domestic market access to other countries’ goods and remove other trade barriers. . . . The Defense Department states that peacetime registration for the Selective Service System, the agency that registers young Americans for a potential military draft, can be suspended “without irreparable damage to national security.”

Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp. and the United Steelworkers of America union come to an agreement on a new contract, ending a strike that started Mar. 1. . . . The RTC inspector general’s office announces that it is beginning an inquiry into possible overbilling in savings and loan cases by the Rose Law Firm, a Little Rock, Arkansas, firm in which Hillary Clinton and other administration officials were once partners.

Kathryn F. Clarenbach, 73, a cofounder of NOW who served as the organization’s chair, 1966–70, and who helped form the National Women’s Political Caucus, dies in Madison, Wisconsin, of emphysema.

A U.S. District Court jury finds four Arab defendants—Mohammed A. Salameh, Nidal A. Ayyad, Mahmud Abouhalima and Ahmad M. Ajaj— guilty of all counts against them in the February 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. . . . Pres. Clinton announces that economic and disarmament aid to Ukraine will be more than doubled, conditional upon its implementation of economic reforms and nuclear disarmament.

Robert B. Fiske Jr., the special prosecutor named to investigate the Whitewater affair, issues subpoenas requiring Roger Altman, Bernard Nussbaum, Jean Hanson and the other six White House and Treasury officials who attended questionable briefings to testify before a grand jury considering evidence in the Whitewater case.

A Florida Circuit Court jury convicts Michael F. Griffin of first-degree murder in the March 1993 fatal shooting of Dr. David Gunn outside a Pensacola abortion clinic. Judge John Parnham sentences Griffin, 32, to life in prison. . . . David Aaron Halberstam, 16, who was wounded in the Mar. 1 attack on Hasidic Jewish students, dies. Reports suggest that convicted serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, who admitted to the mutilation murders of 17 men and boys and is currently serving 16 consecutive life terms in prison, has received more than $12,000 in donations from people worldwide.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle ABC airs a controversial episode of Roseanne in which the title character, portrayed by Roseanne Arnold, is kissed by a woman, played by Mariel Hemingway, in a gay bar. . . . At the Grammys, Whitney Houston picks up the awards for Best Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal. Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, and Curtis Mayfield receive special honors.

March 1

March 2

At an auction by Christie’s International PLC, part of entertainer Barbara Streisand’s collection of 20thcentury decorative and fine art fetches $5.7 million.

The U.S. space shuttle Columbia takes off from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, to carry out a mission devoted to conducting scientific experiments and testing new technology for NASA’s planned international space station.

John Franklin Candy, 43, comedic actor who won two Emmy Awards for writing in 1981 and 1982 and who was known for movies like Splash (1984), dies of heart failure in Chupederos, Mexico, where he was filming the movie Wagons East.

White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum, who played a central role in key events in the Whitewater controversy, resigns from his post.

March 3

March 4

March 5

Following four canceled starts, an unarmed U.S. cruise missile is successfully tested over the Canadian Arctic in accordance with Canada’s recent authorization of two such trials under a Canada-U.S. agreement.

March 6

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

576—March 7–12, 1994

World Affairs

March 11

March 12

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Pres. Lucas Mangope of Bophuthatswana refuses to allow the homeland to take part in South Africa’s April elections, sparking protests. Riot police fire rubber bullets and use tear gas on protesters and strikers. . . . The transitional Council of State, led by David Kpormakpor, is installed in Liberia to replace an interim government established in August 1993. . . . Israeli army gunfire kills two Palestinians who were throwing rocks. . . . A delegation of 57 Israeli Arabs makes the first governmentsanctioned visit to Syria by an Israeli team.

In Colombia, clashes erupt as part of preelection violence.

In Afghanistan, reports state that anti-Rabbani factions permitted three UN trucks each carrying 100 tons of flour to enter Kabul.

To focus scrutiny on the past misdeeds of the Socialist—formerly the Communist—Party when it held power before 1989, Hungary’s parliament passes legislation to compel former police agents and informers to retire from politics or face having their histories exposed.

Bophuthatswana’s President Mangope rejects a request to permit election campaigning and polling. Demonstrators occupy the Bophuthatswana Broadcasting Corp. and detain Eddie Mangope, son of the president, before riot police storm in. . . . Accounts suggest the Tutsidominated army killed between 200 and 300 Hutus during the Mar. 5 attack in Burundi. . . . In South Africa, a commuter train derails 12 miles (20 km) west of Durban.

In a general election in Antigua and Barbuda, Lester Bird, 56, is elected prime minister, succeeding his father, Vere Bird Sr., 84, who stepped down from office to end his 54-year-long political career. The younger Bird’s victory gives the Antigua Labour Party its fifth consecutive term of rule.

Amnesty International criticizes the government of South Korean president Kim Young Sam, the country’s first civilian ruler in more than 30 years and a former high-profile dissident, for not taking steps to improve human-rights conditions and alleges that at least 200 prisoners are being held under the harsh National Security Law. South Korean foreign minister Han Sung Joo rejects Amnesty’s charges.

The UN Human Rights Commission unanimously passes a resolution condemning anti-Semitism as a violation of human rights. It is the first time that a UN body has officially recognized anti-Semitism as a form of racism. It also votes to censure for human-rights abuses Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Togo, Sudan, Haiti, and the three major ethnic groups involved in the Yugoslav conflict, singling out the Serbs as severe offenders. . . . A 19-nation meeting called by Britain agrees to send as many as 7,185 additional peace-keeping troops to Bosnia.

The British House of Commons votes to extend the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which allows terrorist suspects to be detained for up to seven days without charges. Separately, the outlawed Provisional IRA fires several mortars north of Heathrow Airport. . . . In response to former U.S. president Nixon’s Mar. 7 meetings, Russian president Yeltsin cancels a meeting with Nixon. . . . Fernando Rey (born Fernando Casado Arambillet), 76, Spanish actor who was the president of the Spanish Academy of Cinematic Arts and Sciences, dies in Madrid of cancer.

Strikes and clashes intensify between police and protesters in Bophuthatswana. At least 32 people are wounded, and one police officer is killed. Nearly all civil servants strike. . . . The Burundian government confirms that hundreds of Hutus were killed in the Mar. 5 attacks and the killings triggered retaliatory murders of scores of Tutsis. . . . The AP establishes a death toll of 30 in the Feb. 25 attack at the mosque in Hebron. . . . The death toll from the Mar. 8 train accident in South Africa is 64, and 370 are injured.

Justice Minister Francisco Cumplido announces that Pres. Patricio Aylwin has pardoned three leftists imprisoned for their roles in a 1986 assassination attempt on General Augusto Pinochet, who was then Chile’s president. . . . In Colombia, the defense ministry reports that 12 guerrillas and 12 soldiers have died in clashes since Mar. 7.

Data shows that loans and equity investments by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union more than trebled in 1993 from 1992. Total disbursements in 1993 increased to $491 million, from $138 million in 1992.

According to final results in Kazakhstan’s first post-Soviet parliamentary elections, supporters of Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev take the majority in balloting criticized by Western observers as unfair. . . . Britain’s High Court removes the last legal obstacle to the Church of England’s decision to ordain women as priests. . . . Britain sends to Bosnia the first 90 of 900 extra troops pledged as reinforcements.

The government of Bophuthatswana collapses amid protests as police officers and soldiers join protestors. Thousands of armed white rightwing extremists from South Africa enter Bophuthatswana to back Pres. Lucas Mangope. . . . The government of Abu Dhabi and liquidators of the BCCI announce they have reached agreement on a revised $1.8 billion creditor-compensation plan. . . . Muslim gunmen free 1,684 jailed militants from a prison near Batna, Algeria.

Representatives from 32 countries, the EU, and 12 international organizations promise Cambodia more than $700 million at the conclusion of a conference on the reconstruction of Cambodia. . . . The InterAmerican Press Association, a group of publishers from Western Hemisphere nations, approves the Declaration of Chapultepec, which affirms press freedom as an inalienable right, not a “concession” granted at the discretion of governments.

Slovak’s premier, Vladimir Meciar, fails on a vote of no-confidence in Parliament. . . . The outlawed Provisional IRA launches another mortar attack at London’s Heathrow Airport.

Bophuthatswana president Mangope agrees to allow Bophuthatswana to participate in the elections. Figures show that at least 40 people have been killed and injured in antigovernment protests involving election proponents, armed Bophuthatswana security forces (who ultimately joined the revolt) and white extremists, who entered the country Mar. 10 and were expelled by the 1,500–2,000 South African army forces sent by Pres. F. W. de Klerk.

Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle takes the oath of office as Chile’s president, succeeding Patricio Aylwin. . . . Brazilian police arrest Bolivia’s former president, General Luis Garcia Meza, 60, who was sentenced in absentia by a Bolivian court in 1993 for corruption and human-rights abuses during his reign in 1980–81.

Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari becomes the first head of state to endorse the Declaration of Chapultepec, a 10-item document passed by the Inter-American Press Association on Mar. 11.

The Church of England ordains 32 women, ranging in age from 30 to 69, as its first female priests in a special ceremony at Bristol Cathedral.

In Bophuthatswana, Pres. Lucas Mangope rescinds his agreement to allow participation in elections and maintains that he has regained control over Bophuthatswana. . . . . A man presumed to be an Islamic militant opens fire the Moharrak Coptic Christian monastery in Egypt, killing five.

A leader of the Cali cocaine-trafficking cartel, Julio Fabio Urdinola, surrenders to Colombian authorities under the government’s policy of offering lenient prison sentences to traffickers who turn themselves in.

March 8

March 10

Africa & the Middle East

Former U.S. president Richard Nixon meets former Russian vice president Aleksandr Rutskoi, a leader of a 1993 failed political rebellion against Pres. Boris Yeltsin who has recently been released from prison under a parliamentary amnesty against Yeltsin’s wishes.

March 7

March 9

Europe

Seven leading Chinese intellectuals release a petition calling for the release of all political prisoners and an end to government repression. . . . India’s foreign ministry announces that it will not allow a mission from Amnesty International to enter Kashmir to investigate allegations of human-rights abuses because the group “has not been fair or balanced or just with regard to India.”

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 7–12, 1994—577

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

In Liteky v. U.S., the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that judges generally cannot be removed from presiding over a case because of remarks made or actions performed during the course of a trial. . . . The Supreme Court refuses to reinstate a lawsuit filed by the city of Detroit, Michigan, against the U.S. Census Bureau that was filed after the bureau discovered it had significantly undercounted the country’s black residents in the 1990 census.

Pres. Clinton protests a Singapore court’s sentencing of an 18-yearold U.S. citizen, Michael Fay, who confessed to spray-painting cars and stealing Singapore flags and traffic signs, to a four-month jail term, a substantial fine and six lashes by a rattan cane, calling the punishment “extreme.”. . . . The first women to be assigned to navy sea combat roles under new Defense Department rules allowing them to so serve join the aircraft carrier Eisenhower. Sixty women are initially assigned to the ship.

Pres. Clinton admits for the first time that he learned before the news became public that regulators were seeking a criminal investigation of Madison Guaranty in the Whitewater scandal. . . . New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman (R) signs legislation enacting a 5% reduction in the state’s income-tax rate, retroactive to January 1. The tax reduction is reportedly the first in the state’s history.

In Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music Inc., the Supreme Court rules unanimously that written, visual, and musical parodies can be excluded from copyright law under some circumstances. . . . Ray Arcel, 94, trainer who was said to have helped 22 boxers to win championships, dies in New York City.

Cook County circuit court judge Earl Strayhorn sentences Anthony Garrett, 35, convicted of shooting Dantrell Davis, 7, while he walked to school with his mother from the Cabrini-Green public housing project in 1992, to 100 years in prison. . . . Pres. Clinton appoints Lloyd Cutler, 76, as a temporary replacement for White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum, who left his post on Mar. 5.

The Defense Department announces a ban on smoking in military workplaces wherever U.S. forces serve, to take effect Apr. 8.

The Labor Department reports that the nation’s productivity in nonfarm sectors rose at an annual rate of 6.1% in the fourth quarter of 1993, the biggest gain since the first quarter of 1986 and an increase from the previous estimate of 4.2% for the quarter.

Officials state that the 1994 John M. Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion will be presented to Michael Novak, a neoconservative Roman Catholic scholar.

Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy criticizes Congress’s imposition of mandatory minimum sentences for some federal crimes. . . . Reports indicate that the American Medical Association has refused to offer its support to any of the seven health-care reform plans currently under consideration in Congress, including the Health Security Act proposed by Pres. Clinton.

Pres. Clinton announces a legislative initiative to help workers who lost their jobs to receive training in another vocation. The programs are designed to assist laid-off workers who are unable to find jobs in their field because of a shrinking job market brought about by corporate downsizing, NAFTA, and cuts in defense-related industries.

Lawrence Edmund Spivak, 93, founder of the news show Meet the Press, which at the time of his death was the longest-running show in TV history, dies in Washington, D.C., of congestive heart failure. . . . Charles Bukowski, 73, writer who published more than 40 volumes of poetry and fiction, dies in Los Angeles of leukemia.

The CDC finds that the number of new AIDS cases in the U.S. in 1993 more than doubled. . . . Sen. Charles Robb (D, Va.) releases a letter in which he admits to “socializing under circumstances inappropriate for a married man” during the 1980s. . . . Figures show that 44 members of Congress will not seek reelection, which exceeds the 1992 departure rate. . . . Two gunmen in the Little Haiti section of Miami, Florida, shoot three outspoken supporters of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, killing one.

Clinton administration officials begin their testimony in the investigation of the Whitewater affair.

The Massachusetts Supreme Court upholds an earlier ruling barring the exclusion of a homosexual group— the Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston— from the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade in Boston, prompting parade organizers to cancel the March 20 event.

The House passes, 223-175, budget resolutions that approve the outlines for federal spending proposed by Pres. Clinton in February.

A federal jury in San Jose, California, overturns a 1992 verdict that granted Intel Corp. copyright protection for the microcode it developed for use in its own chips.

March 7

March 8

March 9

March 10

March 11

The California State Board of Education votes to reconsider the use of three stories by Pulitzer Prizewinning authors Alice Walker and Annie Dillard in the reading section of the 1995 state achievement exams for public school students.

March 12

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

578—March 13–17, 1994

World Affairs

March 15

March 16

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

The outlawed Provisional IRA launches its third mortar attacks at London’s Heathrow Airport since Mar. 9. The threat of new attacks closes both Gatwick and Heathrow for about two hours. . . . Britain’s top military officer, Chief of the Defense Staff Sir Peter Harding, resigns in the midst of a scandal involving an adulterous affair. The politically embarrassing episode is one of a series of scandals involving Conservative Party officials.

Pres. Lucas Mangope of Bophuthatswana is deposed by the South African government, the Transitional Executive Council, and the ANC following a revolt against the government by protesters. The South African ambassador to Bophuthatswana, Tjaart van der Walt, assumes temporary responsibility of the homeland. . . . As part of a crackdown on extremist Jewish settlers in the wake of the Feb. 25 massacre, the Israeli cabinet unanimously approves a resolution that bans the Kach and Kahane Chai movements and other similar Jewish extremist groups. . . . Six gunmen enter an integrated Bahai church in Mdantsane, outside East London in the southeast, and kill three whites.

Colombia’s governing Liberal Party retains its majority in both the Senate and House of Representatives in legislative elections.

Labor and finance ministers from the Group of Seven (G-7) leading industrialized nations meet for their first-ever “jobs summit” to discuss the global implications of unemployment and labor markets in their respective countries. . . . U.S. president Clinton names Vice Admiral Leighton W. Smith Jr. as NATO’s Southern Command commander. . . . Guatemalan president Ramiro de Leon Carpio signs the Declaration of Chapultepec, passed by an International press group on Mar. 11.

The European edition of The Wall Street Journal and Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland’s largest daily newspaper, launches a weekly Polish-language business news section for inclusion in Gazeta Wyborcza.

Seven UN troops are killed and one is missing off the coast of Kenya in a crash of a Specter gunship . . . . Israeli police search the homes of selected settlers in Hebron, confiscating weapons. A senior Israeli general claims that settlers held 9,000 army-issued submachine guns. . . . Official reports from Algeria indicate that 24 of the inmates who escaped from prison on Mar. 10 were killed, and 114 have been recaptured. Separately, Algerian playwright Abdelkader Alloula dies after being shot in the head by militant Muslims.

Reports confirm that battles between Mayan Indians and landowners in the state of Chiapas, Mexico, have killed six peasants since Mar. 3. . . . Gunmen kidnap billionaire Alfredo Harp Helu, chairman of Mexico’s largest bank and brokerage firm.

The U.S. and Russia agree to permit each other’s specialists to inspect sites where plutonium triggers from dismantled nuclear warheads are stored. . . . The UN Security Council votes to renew trade sanctions on Iraq, including a ban on the sale abroad of Iraqi oil, imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990.

Ukrainian president Leonid Kravchuk declares the Crimea region’s stated intention to hold a referendum on greater autonomy to be illegal.

ANC president Nelson Mandela visits Bophuthatswana and is cheered at a rally by 35,000 supporters for his efforts in removing Lucas Mangope from office and allowing the homeland to participate in the elections.

Amnesty International states that most of the 20,000 political murders that have occurred in Colombia since 1985 were carried out by the government’s security forces or their allied paramilitary groups rather than by drug traffickers or leftists. . . . In Brazil, rights monitors are abducted by inmates at a prison during an investigation into alleged overcrowded conditions. The inmates flee with the hostages, and one prisoner and one guard die in gunfire.

IAEA inspectors state that they were prevented from conducting a complete inspection—including sampling radioactivity levels—at one of North Korea’s seven targeted nuclear sites.

A new Slovak cabinet, led by Premier Jozef Moravcik, is sworn in. . . . The Czech government announces it will compensate a total of $33.7 million to the 20,000 citizens who were jailed or placed in concentration camps during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia between 1939 and 1945.

March 13

March 14

Europe

In Turkey, reports confirm that six Kurdish members of Parliament have been arrested for backing the outlawed PKK. . . . U.S. defense secretary William Perry starts his first official visit of Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus. . . . Bosnian Serbs and the Bosnian government sign an agreement to permit civilians to cross siege lines in Sarajevo for the first time in 23 months. . . . Tens of thousands of protestors demonstrate against A French plan to allow employers to pay young people less than standard minimum wages.

March 17

Asia & the Pacific

A court-martial convicts a Canadian soldier, Private Elvin Kyle Brown, 25, of manslaughter and torture in connection with the death of Shidane Abukar Arone, 16, a Somali beaten to death at a Canadian compound at Belet Uen. . . . UN officials state that 70 Aristide supporters were killed by the military and its sympathizers during the prior six weeks. . . . In Brazil, the inmates who escaped from prison on Mar. 15 free 13 hostages. WHO officials declare a February outbreak of cholera in the city of Bossaso, Somalia, is an epidemic. Since February, more than 1,700 cholera cases and more than 100 deaths have been documented, and outbreaks have been confirmed in at least nine Somali cities. . . . Egyptian authorities execute two army officers convicted for an unsuccessful plot to assassinate Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in December 1993, and issues death sentences against nine Islamic militants for a carbomb attempt on the life of Premier Atef Sedki.

Brazilian police capture six of the 14 fugitive prisoners who abducted hostages on Mar. 15.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 13–17, 1994—579

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Police arrest Henry Louis Wallace, 28, and charge him with the murders of 10 young black women in Charlotte, North Carolina, dating back to May 1992.

Sen. Bob Packwood (R, Oreg.) announces he will abandon his court battle to prevent the Senate Select Committee on Ethics from gaining access to his personal diaries. . . . Hulond Humphries, principal of Randolph County High School in Wedowee, Alabama, is suspended with pay after he threatened to cancel the prom if interracial couples attend. Humphries, who is white, also called student Revonda Bowen a “mistake” because of her mixed-race parentage.

Pres. Clinton names Admiral Jeremy M. Boorda, 55, to be chief of naval operations, succeeding Admiral Frank B. Kelso II in the top navy job.

Michigan voters in special balloting approve a proposal that will increase the state’s sales and cigarette excise tax in order to fund public education, ending a battle begun in 1993. . . . Pres. Clinton appoints Susan Ness to fill a vacant seat on the FCC. . . . The Census Bureau reports that the population of Nevada between 1990 and 1993 increased faster than that of any other U.S. state, growing 15.6%. It also notes that the U.S. median age as of July 1, 1993, was 33.7 years.

The U.S. announces that its moratorium on nuclear weapons testing will be extended to September 30, 1995.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton acknowledges that she, Pres. Clinton, and the White House staff made “mistakes” in their handling of information about the Arkansas real-estate and financial dealings at the heart of the Whitewater affair. But she asserts that she and her husband were not involved in intentional or unintentional wrongdoing related to the affair.

Reports confirm that a U.S. inquiry found that Dr. Roger Poisson, a Canadian researcher, falsified data in a breast cancer study published by the New England Journal of Medicine in 1985 and updated in the publication in 1989 that was considered a landmark in breast cancer research. The study had concluded that full mastectomies, are not always necessary to prevent the spread of early forms of cancer and recommended radiation therapy combined with a partial mastectomy or lumpectomy to deter recurrence of the disease.

Danny Barker, 85, jazz musician and one of the first jazz historians, dies in New Orleans, Louisiana, of cancer.

Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell, a close friend of Pres. Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and one of the highest-ranking officials at the Justice Department, unexpectedly submits his resignation in the midst of the Whitewater probe.

Martin Buser wins the 1,160-mile (1,870-km) Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race with a record time of 10 days, 13 hours, and 2 minutes. . . . Mai Elisabeth Zetterling, 68, Swedish film actress who was one of the few women directors to find work in the 1960s and 1970s, dies in London, England, from cancer.

U.S. withholds approval of a new Japan Airlines route between Sendai, Japan, and Honolulu, Hawaii, just two days before the first flight was scheduled to take place, surprising and angering Japanese officials. . . . In response to the IAEA’s statement, the U.S. cancels high-level talks with North Korea.

At a meeting of the American Heart Association, a study shows that the average weight of young men and women in the U.S. increased by 10 pounds over seven years, despite healthier eating habits.

Sally Mary Caroline Belfrage, 57, reporter whose books document social and political movements around the world, dies in London of cancer. . . . The general director of the Washington (D.C.) Opera, Martin Feinstein, announces that he will retire in June 1995.

The Senate passes, 59-40, a bill authorizing grants and loans of $1.9 billion over two years to small, high-technology companies in the private sector to boost the companies’ ability to compete globally.

In the first attempt by a state to seek punitive damages in a pollution case, U.S. District Judge John Curtin rules that Occidental Petroleum Corp., which was already found liable for $325 million in clean-up costs, does not have to pay punitive damages for its role in the contamination at Love Canal, New York, which was evacuated in 1980. . . . The House rejects a proposed amendment to the Constitution that would require the federal government to balance its annual budgets since the measure is supported by 271 representatives, 12 votes short of a two-thirds majority.

Figure skater Tonya Harding pleads guilty to a conspiracy charge stemming from the Jan. 6 assault on Nancy Kerrigan. She receives three years’ probation, is fined $100,000, and is compelled to resign from the U.S. Figure Skating Association, which ends her amateur skating career.

Israeli prime minister Rabin meets with Pope John Paul II in Rome. . . . U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove criticizes most “gangsta rap” music as “irresponsible” for having violent and intolerant lyrics. . . . Ellsworth Vines, 82, tennis champion of the 1930s, dies in La Quinta, California, of complications from kidney disease.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 13

March 14

March 15

March 16

March 17

580—March 18–22, 1994

March 18

March 19

Europe

The UN Security Council condemns the Feb. 25 massacre in Hebron, Israel, and calls for protective measures for Palestinians, meeting one of the PLO’s demands for resuming formal talks with Israel. The body also endorses the deployment of foreign monitors in Hebron.

The Muslim-dominated government of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the republic’s Croats sign a constitution for a federation of territories under their respective control. Also signed is an agreement to join that new entity with Croatia. However, the accords are not signed by the Serbs. . . . Gunter Mittag, 67, communist East Germany’s secretary for the economy for nearly 30 years, dies of complications arising from diabetes. . . . British prime minister Major announces a £12 million ($18 million) aid package for Sarajevo.

During a rally in Ulindi, Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini tells thousands of Zulus they should boycott the elections in South Africa. Separately, an independent commission finds that senior officials of the South African police aided Zulu nationalist rivals of the ANC in an effort to destabilize the country before its first universal suffrage elections. . . . Reports suggest that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein has deployed soldiers in proximity to Kurdish positions in northern Iraq.

Finance ministers from the 18 members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group meet in Honolulu, Hawaii.

An exchange of prisoners of war held by the Bosnian government and the Bosnian Croats begins, and 500 Muslim detainees held at a Croat-run camp near Mostar are let go, while 357 Croats are freed by the Bosnian army from camps near eastern Mostar and the town of Bugojno.

Violent clashes involving electionrelated disputes flare up in KwaZulu and Natal province between supporters of the ANC and members of Inkatha.

Canadian peacekeeping troops discover a number of Bosnian Serb heavy weapons, including four tanks, three antiaircraft guns, and 22 mortars, all of which are banned in a 12-mile (20-km) NATOimposed exclusionary circle around Sarajevo. Separately, the first relief convoy in five months reaches the Muslim enclave of Maglaj in northcentral Bosnia.

Two journalists working for an Italian television network are shot and killed in Mogadishu when Somali gunmen apparently attempt to hijack their truck. . . . Egyptian militants in Sidfa shoot to death at least four policemen.

Armando Calderón Sol of the ruling Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) party emerges from El Salvador’s first round of presidential elections. The election marks the culmination of a peace process that ended El Salvador’s 12-year civil war.

The Hezbollah movement claims credit for bomb attacks that leave two Israeli soldiers and three militiamen dead. Shrapnel from retaliatory Israeli artillery fire hits a school bus in Nabatiyeh, killing a 12year-old girl and wounding 22 other children and the bus’s driver. . . . In response to the Mar. 20 shootings in Sidfa, security forces kill at least six suspected Islamic militants in southern Egypt. . . . Thousands of inmates in at least three of South Africa’s prisons demand the right to vote; 21 prisoners are killed and more than 100 others wounded. . . . Clashes erupt in Bujumbura, Burundi, between the Tutsi-dominated army and Hutu gunmen.

Reports state that Mexican cattle ranchers claim that more than 200 private properties in the county of Ocosingo in Chiapas state have been “invaded” by peasants since Jan. 1.

In the nominally independent South African black homeland of Ciskei, police demand that the government pay officers’ pensions immediately. Brigadier Oupa Gqozo, the military leader, refuses, and, in response, several thousand police officers take 15 senior officials hostage. Gqozo resigns. Separately, the Transitional Executive Council takes control of the self-governing territory of Lebowa in the midst of a two-week strike by 30,000 workers.

Two charges of negligent performance of duty are lodged against Sergeant Perry Gresty, accused of failing to intervene in the beating of Shidane Abukar Arone, who was beaten to death while in detention at a Canadian forces compound at Belet Uen. Gresty’s court-martial is the first in Canada to consider the case of a soldier not actively involved in the torture and killing.

March 20

March 21

March 22

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

The International Atomic Energy Agency passes a resolution demanding that North Korea allow IAEA officials to complete their inspections of North Korea’s nucleardevelopment sites. . . . The first international pact that was agreed to at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janerio, Brazil, goes into effect.

The IMF agrees to lend Russia $1.5 billion. . . . The U.S. and a group of developing countries agree to establish a committee, with an initial life span of only two years, to consider the impact of the GATT trade pact’s provisions on the environment.

The first UN relief flight into Tuzla airport, in northeastern Bosnia, touches down. . . . U.S. financier George Soros states he will give The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia a private grant of $4 million to help the landlocked Balkan country survive a Greekimposed trade embargo.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Private Elvin Kyle Brown, 25, convicted Mar. 16 of manslaughter and torture in connection with the death of a 16-year-old Somali youth, is sentenced to five years in prison for his crimes and is discharged in disgrace from the Canadian military. . . . In Brazil, police capture three of the fugitives that escaped Mar. 15. One of those three is killed by police gunfire, and a second is wounded.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 18–22, 1994—581

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

A Jonesboro, Arkansas, jury convicts Damien Echols, 19, and Charles Jason Baldwin, 16, of the May 1993 murders of three eightyear-old boys, whose naked bodies were found beaten, sexually assaulted, and hog-tied.

U.S. officials transfer 86 Mexicans imprisoned in U.S. jails to Mexican authorities in exchange for Mexico’s return of 11 U.S. citizens serving sentences in Mexico to the U.S. The prisoners will serve the remaining parts of their sentences in their native countries.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Reports confirm that at least 170 people in Ventura County, California, have developed coccidioidomycosis, a potentially fatal illness with flu-like symptoms that physicians believe is related to the Jan. 17 earthquake in Los Angeles since it stems from a fungus found in the soil. . . . The U.S. space shuttle Columbia lands at Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral.

March 18

A Jonesboro, Arkansas, jury sentences Damien Echols, 19, to death for the 1993 murders of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis. The jury sentences a codefendant Charles Jason Baldwin, 16, to life in prison without parole. . . . A new version of the Scholastic Aptitude Test, renamed the Scholastic Assessment Test, debuts nationally. It is the first time in 20 years that the SAT has been overhauled and is now designed to emphasize critical thinking.

March 19

A Pennsylvania state law that limits and regulates abortions, the Abortion Control Act, goes into effect.

A strong aftershock from the January 17 quake strikes Los Angeles. The aftershock, one of 5,000 following the major quake, measures 5.3 on the Richter scale and results in minor new damage to freeways and buildings.

Lewis Grizzard, 47, journalist whose critics accuse of promoting the old South’s conservative attitudes, dies in Atlanta, Georgia, after suffering from brain damage sustained following a fourth operation for a congenital heart defect.

Macdonald Carey, 81, actor who had played Dr. Tom Horton on Days of Our Lives since 1965, dies in Beverly Hills, California, of lung cancer. . . . At the Oscars, Schindler’s List wins seven awards, including best picture and best director. A special lifetime achievement award is presented to actress Deborah Kerr, and actor Paul Newman receives the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

In Sandoval v. California and in Victor v. Nebraska, the Supreme Court upholds convictions in those separate cases in which the judge instructed jurors to rely on their “moral certitude” to determine if a defendant was guilty beyond a “reasonable doubt.” The high court, however, makes it clear that the references to personal morality in the instructions are outdated and potentially confusing to jurors.

The Clinton administration announces that it will waive a visa rule in order to permit HIV-infected foreigners to attend the Gay Games athletic event in New York City. Attorney General Janet Reno approves the waiver.

The House approves by voice vote legislation that allows commercial banks to link their separately chartered branch networks in individual states into one nationwide system. . . . David Hale, a former municipal judge who is the only party in the Whitewater affair to have publicly accused Pres. Clinton of wrongdoing, pleads guilty to two felony counts of conspiring to defraud the federal Small Business Administration.

Walter Lantz, 93, animator known for creating the cartoon character Woody Woodpecker, dies in Burbank, California, of heart disease.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 20

March 21

March 22

582—March 23–27, 1994

World Affairs

Europe Giulietta Masina, 73, Italian actress, dies in Rome of cancer.

March 23

March 24

March 25

At a meeting at the UN, most democratic industrialized nations agree to stop exporting hazardous wastes to poor or developing countries, Eastern European nations, and former Soviet states.

Students, unions, and other youth and leftist groups stage a demonstration to protest French premier Edouard Balladur’s plan to allow employers to pay young people less than standard minimum wages.

The Americas

In South Africa, the Transitional Executive Council appoints Pieter Goosen and Rev. Bongani Blessing Finca to govern Ciskei temporarily. Reports state the council also reversed rules that previously prohibited inmates from voting. . . . Israeli troops kill at least three Palestinians in an 18-hour siege of a building in Hebron. A pregnant Palestinian woman also dies. . . . Lebanese soldiers take into custody six suspects in connection with the bombing of a church in February. Separately, the government outlaws the Lebanese Forces as a political party.

Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta, 44, the presidential candidate of Mexico’s long-governing Institutional Revolutionary Party who was the odds-on favorite to succeed Pres. Carlos Salinas de Gortari, is assassinated by gunshots in Tijuana. Separately, the Mexican Congress approves a package of democratic reforms that the PRI and eight opposition parties backed in January. . . . In Brazil, a number of unions strike to protest Pres. Cardoso’s economic-stabilization plan. In Brasilia, 5,000 civil servants hold a protest march.

Gen. Mohamed Farah Aidid and Ali Mahdi, Somalia’s most powerful clan leaders, sign a peace accord that provides for a cease-fire and paves the way for elections and Somalia’s first government since January 1991.

Reports disclose that four of the 18 members of the Brazilian Congress targeted in a congressional probe of a multimillion-dollar kickback scheme have resigned, thereby removing themselves from the probe’s jurisdiction.

The U.S. officially ends its 15-month mission in Somalia. UNICEF reports that the country’s widespread famine was over by May 1993, and it has vaccinated 753,000 Somali children, built 3,700 wells, and put 62,000 children into schools. According to UNICEF officials, currently there are 60,000 displaced Somalis in Mogadishu and some 150,000 Somali refugees in neighboring Kenya. . . . In Durban, South Africa, 50,000 ANC supporters march as part of a campaign of mass action intended to reveal that most Zulus opposed Chief Buthelezi’s defiance of election participation.

Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta, assassinated Mar. 23, is buried in his native Magdalena del Kino, in the state of Sonora, Mexico.

Data shows that clashes that erupted Mar. 21 in Bujumbura, the Burundian capital, between the Tutsi-dominated army and Hutu gunmen left about 1,000 people dead and caused 15,000 to flee to neighboring Zaire.

March 26

March 27

Africa & the Middle East

The 35-nation Organization of American States votes to select Colombian president Cesar Gaviria Trujillo as its secretary general.

Asia & the Pacific

Reports confirm that the Cambodian army has captured the remote northwestern town of Pailin, a stronghold of the Khmer Rouge rebel force. . . . Australian prime minister Paul Keating makes some major changes in the composition of his cabinet.

Five British soldiers led by Lt. Col. Robert Neill, who were lost in Low’s Gully on Mt. Kinabalu in Borneo, are rescued after two weeks of searching that involved 400 Malaysian soldiers and police and British mountaineers. . . . South Korean president Kim Young Sam makes his first visit to China since becoming president in February 1993.

The Alliance for Freedom, a coalition of three conservative parties, wins the most votes in Italy’s watershed general elections. . . . The political opponents of Pres. Leonid Kravchuk make strong gains in the first round of a two-part parliamentary election. Coincident with the parliamentary election, the Crimea region in Ukraine holds an “opinion poll” on greater autonomy from the central government, and early results show that 70% to 90% of those casting ballots on the questions favor more independence from Ukraine and the right to dual Russian-Ukrainian citizenship.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 23–27, 1994—583

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

White House officials announced that William Kennedy III, the White House associate counsel, has been stripped of his responsibilities for screening potential administration appointees for possible ethical problems. . . . Joseph Buttafuoco is released after serving four months and nine days of a sixmonth sentence for the statutory rape of Amy Fisher. . . . Reports find that Republican Party elected officials, party workers, and donors are split on the issue of abortion, with nearly 40% favoring broad abortion rights.

An F-16D jet fighter and a C-130 transport plane collide in midair over Pope Air Force Base outside Fayetteville, North Carolina. The fighter plane crashes and skids down a runway, hurtling debris at a parked C-141 transport plane that a group of paratroopers is preparing to board. The debris strikes the C141, causing its fuel tanks to explode. . . . Pres. Clinton refuses to grant clemency to Jonathan Jay Pollard, a former U.S. naval intelligence analyst sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for selling classified information to Israel.

The House, by voice vote, gives final passage to the Federal Workforce Restructuring Act of 1994, which is designed to help shrink the federal workforce by authorizing government agencies to offer cash payments, or “buyouts,” to workers who voluntarily resign or opt for early retirement.

A section of a natural-gas pipeline in Edison, New Jersey, explodes into a bright orange fireball, igniting fires that burn eight apartment buildings and leave 300 people homeless. The blast leaves a crater 120 feet wide and 60 feet deep. About 100 people are injured. There is only one reported fatality, a 32-year-old woman who died from a heart attack.

Alvaro del Portillo, 80, leader of the Opus Dei who was ordained as a bishop by Pope John Paul II in 1991, dies in Rome after suffering a heart attack. . . . Center Wayne Gretzky of the Los Angeles Kings breaks Gordie Howe’s record for the most goals in a National Hockey League career when he nets the puck for the 802nd time.

A Florida jury unanimously recommends that Danny Rolling, who pleaded guilty to slaying five college students in Gainesville in 1990 be sentenced to death. . . . The House votes, 315-110, in favor of legislation that prohibits lobbyists—but not the companies and special-interest groups that hire them—from providing members of Congress with gifts.

The INS grants asylum to a homosexual Mexican man who claims that he suffered “unspeakable degradations” in Mexico because of his sexual orientation. It is the first time that the INS acknowledges that a homosexual can qualify as a member of a persecuted “social group.”

The Senate, 99-1, gives final passage to the Federal Workforce Restructuring Act of 1994. . . . Pres. Clinton, in a prime-time White House news conference, gives an extensive defense of his conduct and that of First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in affairs related to their investment in the Whitewater Development Corp. real-estate venture.

Nine-year-old Rachel Carter becomes the youngest female to pilot a plane across the U.S., when she lands after a multistop journey from San Diego, California to Brookhaven, New York.

A retired black Methodist minister, Rev. Accelynne Williams, 75, dies of heart failure shortly after a police SWAT team mistakenly carries out a drug raid on his apartment in Boston, Massachusetts. The incident sparks outrage among many in the local black community. However, tensions seem to diffuse when city police and public officials quickly admit the mistake and apologize. . . . A jury in Wichita, Kansas, convicts Rachelle Shannon of attempted murder in the August 1993 shooting of Dr. George R. Tiller outside an abortion clinic.

In what is called “Operation Quickdraw,” the last U.S. peacekeeping contingent sails from Mogadishu, the Somali capital. While the mission’s humanitarian efforts are generally thought of as successful, the peacekeeping component of the mission is questioned. . . . The death toll from the Mar. 23 accident in North Carolina is at 23, and 80 other paratroopers were injured. . . . Two Japanese college students are shot during a carjacking in the San Pedro section of Los Angeles. The attacks spark outrage in Japan, where the U.S. is already considered a dangerous and lawless place.

The Senate passes, 57-40, budget resolutions that approve the outlines for federal spending proposed by Pres. Clinton in February. The Senate’s measure calls for $26 billion in unspecified spending cuts over five years that are not included in Clinton’s proposals. . . . The Clintons for the first time make public tax records from the years 1977 through 1979 that detail their Whitewater losses. . . . Labor Secretary Robert Reich unveils new federal regulations that will prohibit smoking, except in specially designated areas, in all of the nation’s indoor workplaces.

Writer Alice Walker, who initially declined the state Governor’s Arts Award since her stories were not approved by the California State Board of Education, accepts the prize that recognizes her as a “state treasure” after the Board’s Mar. 12 reversal.

The Commerce Department reports that after-tax profits of U.S. corporations rose 6.7% in 1993, to $249.1 billion. That compares with revised 1992 profits of $232.5 billion.

Pres. Clinton’s half brother, Roger Clinton, 37, marries Molly Martin, 25, at the Dallas Arboretum in Texas.

The Senate votes, 63-22, to grant final passage to the Goals 2000: Educate America Act.

The two Japanese college students shot Mar. 25 during a carjacking in the San Pedro section of Los Angeles die after being taken off life support.

Between 20 and 30 tornadoes tear through five states in the Southeast, from Alabama to North Carolina.

March 23

March 24

March 25

March 26

March 27

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

584—March 28–April 2, 1994

World Affairs

March 30

March 31

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Government representatives and the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union reach a breakthrough agreement that includes a humanrights accord and an agenda for ending Guatemala’s 33-year-old civil war. Separately, a mob in rural Guatemala brutally beats a U.S. tourist, June Weinstock, in the latest of a series of attacks fueled by rumors that foreigners are abducting children in Guatemala.

Reformist monks launch a series of battles with supporters of Suh Eui Hyun, the conservative administrative head of the Chogye group, South Korea’s main Buddhist sect, in Seoul. . . . The city legislature in New Delhi, India’s capital, passes a law banning the slaughter of cows and the sale of beef in the city.

In Italy, a National Alliance rally held after the polls close includes an incident in which hundreds of rightwing youths give the straight-armed fascist salute. . . . . After nearly a month of protest, the government of French premier Edouard Balladur abandons a plan that would allow employers to pay young people less than standard minimum wages.

At least 53 people are killed and more than 300 are wounded in gun battles between police, Inkatha Freedom Party Zulu nationalists, and the ANC during a protest march by 10,000 Zulus. Johannesburg and 10 other districts are declared “unrest areas.” Data indicates that more than 150 people have died in political violence in Natal since clashes broke out Mar. 19. . . . A dozen Somali gunmen ambush a UNICEF car in Kismayu and kill two UN Indian peacekeepers. . . . Six PLO activists are killed by Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip.

The European Union finalizes agreements to admit four new members: Austria, Sweden, Norway, and Finland.

Serb forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina begin a concerted assault on the predominantly Muslim enclave in and around Gorazde, a town about 35 miles (55 km) southeast of Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital. . . . Slovenia’s parliament votes to dismiss Defense Minister Janez Jansa for reportedly abusing his powers.

Data shows that there are currently 18,763 UN soldiers stationed in Somalia. . . . The Mar. 28 shooting deaths of six Palestinian activists by Israeli soldiers spark pitched battles throughout the occupied territories between Palestinian protesters and Israeli soldiers, leaving one Palestinian dead and more than 70 people injured.

The U.S. announces that it will lift export controls on sales of sophisticated U.S.-made telecommunications and computer equipment to countries—primarily the former Soviet bloc and China—covered by restrictions imposed by the 17member Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (Cocom).

Lithuania pegs its currency, the litas, at four litas to one U.S. dollar, effective Apr. 1. . . . Ten French sailors die of asphyxiation when a steam pipe bursts in their submerged submarine while participating in exercises in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Toulon. . . . The IRA announces a three-day planned cease-fire which will expire Apr. 8. Excluding annual Christmas truces, the cease-fire is the first by the IRA since 1975.

The Israeli army acknowledges that one of its undercover units mistakenly killed six members of Fatah, Yasser Arafat’s mainstream PLO faction, on Mar. 28 in Gaza’s Jebaliya refugee camp.

Cocom, formed in 1947, is officially dissolved. Members are unable to reach agreement on a successor organization, but they are expected to continue cooperating in restricting the spread of high-technology weapons systems. . . . The UN Human Rights Committee rules that the Australian state of Tasmania’s laws against homosexual sex violates an international human rights agreement of which Australia is a part.

Leon Degrelle, 87, leader of Belgium’s Nazi party during World War II who was sentenced to death in 1944 but fled to Spain, dies in Malaga, Spain.

The PLO and Israel reach an accord that allows 160 lightly armed foreign observers to be deployed in the occupied town of Hebron to protect Palestinians. Once both sides sign the document, the PLO agrees to reopen negotiations with Israel on implementing Palestinian self-rule in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip and the town of Jericho. . . . South African president F. W. de Klerk declares a full state of emergency in KwaZulu and in Natal province. It is the first state of emergency in South Africa since June 1990.

A civilian judge in Chile, Milton Juica, sentences five former federal policemen and a police informer to prison terms for the murders of Manuel Guerrero, Jose Manuel Parada, and Santiago Nattino, three leftist activists, in 1985. The judgment represents the most forceful punishment meted out for human-rights violations committed during the 1973–90 military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte.

A Singapore court fines five people a total of about $9,000 for breaking the country’s Official Secrets Act. . . . The bodies of 24 Taiwanese tourists are discovered burned to death on the lower deck of a boat on a lake in eastern Zhejiang province in China. Chinese officials term the deaths an accident.

Reports confirm that several Bosnian units, made available for service by a recent cease-fire with Croatian forces, attacked Serb-held areas near Maglaj, Kupres, and other central Bosnian towns.

Fighting continues in the KwaZulu homeland and Natal despite the arrival of 2,000 troops to enforce a state of emergency declared by South African president de Klerk.

Epaminondas Gonzalez, the president of Guatemala’s Constitutional Court, is assassinated. . . . The Bank of Mexico, Mexico’s central bank, becomes formally independent.

Wei Jingsheng, a leading dissident, is declared missing by an aide, Tong Yi, after Wei reportedly was seized by Chinese authorities.

March 28

March 29

Europe

April 1

In South Africa, violence continues in the KwaZulu homeland and Natal. Nine people, including a fivemonth-old infant and two older children in a family that backs the ANC, are hacked and stabbed to death. . . . Reports state that PLO chair Yasser Arafat has appointed Mustafa Natshe, 64, as mayor of Hebron.

April 2

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 28–April 2, 1994—585

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The Census Bureau discloses that about 25% of all Americans went without health insurance for at least one month between February 1990 and September 1992.

Walter F. Mondale, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, apologizes at a press conference in Tokyo for the Mar. 25 murders of two Japanese students in Los Angeles.

William H. Natcher, 84, Democratic representative from Kentucky who set what is believed to be a congressional record by participating in all 18,401 votes that took place from his election in 1954 until his failing health kept him from voting on Mar. 3, 1994, dies in Washington, D.C., of heart failure.

The Clinton administration announces that the INS will institute a “fast-track handling of asylum claims” in an effort to discourage immigrants from filing fraudulent petitions.

California State approves a plan under which Los Angeles County applicants for the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) welfare program will have to undergo fingerprint checks. The fingerprinting plan is the first in the nation to apply to AFDC, a joint federal-state program. . . . Data shows that the Brady law in its first month in effect prevented at least 1,605 people from buying handguns.

Hulond Humphries, the principal of Randolph County High School in Wedowee, Alabama, who was suspended with pay Mar. 14 for his controversial remarks on interracial dating, is reinstated after a vote by the school board. . . . The Justice Department announces it has reached an out-of-court settlement with the Educational Testing Service to allow disabled students an additional opportunity to take the revised SAT exam in the current academic year. . . . Pres. Clinton signs into law the Goals 2000: Educate America Act.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Figures show that at least 41 people were killed and 250 injured in the tornadoes that struck Mar. 27. About half of the fatalities occur when a tornado demolishes the crowded Goshen Methodist Church outside Piedmont, Alabama.

The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield tops the bestseller list. . . . Eugene Ionesco (born Eugen Ionescu), 81, who pioneered the Theater of the Absurd, dies in Paris, France. . . . Albert Goldman, 66, author of controversial biographies of Elvis Presley and John Lennon, dies of heart failure on a flight to London from Miami.

Helen Wolff (born Helen Mosel), 88, publisher and editor, dies in Hanover, New Hampshire, of a heart attack. . . . Bill Travers, 72, actor best known for Born Free (1966), dies in Dorking, England. . . . Reports state that J. Carter Brown is the director of an art exhibit that will coincide with the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

The Census Bureau reports the proportion of Americans with fulltime jobs whose incomes are too low to bring a family above the poverty level rose by 50% between 1979 and 1992. . . . Pres. Clinton signs the Federal Workforce Restructuring Act of 1994. . . . The Dow plunges 2%, or 72.27 points, to close at 3626.75, its lowest level since November 4, 1993.

Pres. Clinton declares Alabama a disaster area due to tornadoes, making the state eligible for federal aid. Vice Pres. Al Gore visits the ruins of the Piedmont church.

March 29

March 30

A report by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative criticizes three dozen nations as well as trading blocs such as the EU, the Arab League, and the CIS for maintaining obstacles to free trade, from the U.S. perspective. . . . A Court of Appeals rules that it is unconstitutional to indefinitely incarcerate Alexis Barrera Echavarria, a Cuban refugee from a 1980 boatlift. She is one of up to 5,000 Cubans in U.S. federal prisons who have not been charged with a federal crime but are similarly imprisoned.

After shooting and wounding two sheriff’s deputies near Dayton, Ohio, Michael Mower, 36, who allegedly threatened to kill Pres. Clinton in March, kills his mother and himself after a standoff with police. . . . Data indicates that 177,500 carjackings occurred in the U.S. between 1987 and 1992, and 52% were successful. . . . Figures show the Supreme Court’s newest justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has voted with the majority opinion in all of the court’s 25 decisions since the start of the term.

March 28

March 31

The Labor Department reports that 456,000 nonfarm jobs were added during March, the largest such increase since February 1988. . . . Reports reveal that the RTC prosecuted Arkansas businessman Seth Ward for his role in unspecified transactions that helped bring about the collapse of Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan.

Robert Doisneau, 81, French photographer known for his black-andwhite pictures of Parisian life, dies in Paris of acute pancreatic complications arising from an October 1993 heart-bypass operation.

According to FBI statistics, 25,000 carjackings occurred in 1992, up from the year-earlier figure of 19,000. The FBI reports that Los Angeles tops the list of cities with the most instances of successful carjackings that year.

Pat Harper, 59, who in 1980 became the first woman to anchor an independent news show when she was made the lead newscaster of USA Tonight, dies in Capileira, Spain, after suffering a heart attack. . . . Betty Furness, 78, actress, TV reporter, and one of the first consumer advocates, dies in New York City of stomach cancer.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 1

April 2

586—April 3–8, 1994

World Affairs

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

An Albanian judge sentences former communist premier Fatos Nano, 41, to 12 years in prison for his part in a 1991 embezzlement scandal involving food-aid shipments from Italy to Albania.

April 3

April 4

April 5

April 6

Europe

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade indicates that the volume of merchandise trade worldwide in 1993 increased 2.5% from 1992. That compares with a rise of 4.5% in 1992 from the previous year.

April 7

April 8

Asia & the Pacific The Secret Service confirms that since the beginning of the year, Pres. Clinton has received two death threats sent via computer network to the White House’s electronic-mail address.

Georgian rebels in the region of Abkhazia sign a cease-fire agreement and a refugee-return plan with the Georgian central government.

The nominally independent black self-governing homeland of Transkei officially is reincorporated into South Africa. . . . Egyptian police shoot dead Adel Siam, head of the armed wing of Islamic Jihad (Holy War). . . . The Bank of Jordan opens a branch in the West Bank city of Ramallah, making it the first commercial bank to open its doors in the Israeli-occupied territories since Israel and the PLO signed the selfrule accord in September 1993.

Serb and UN officials report that Serb infantry and tanks broke through Bosnian army defense lines from the south and reached the Drina River, dividing the town of Gorazde roughly in half. . . . Margaret Wright, 31, is brutally beaten, shot, and killed by a mob at an illegal Protestant drinking club in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Wright apparently was mistaken for a Roman Catholic.

Israel allows an estimated three to four dozen Palestinian exiles to return to Jericho and the Gaza Strip. . . . More than 20,000 armed Zulus march in Empangeni in Natal in support of King Goodwill Zwelithini’s demand that KwaZulu be made a sovereign monarchy.

Speakers for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees report that at least 50 civilians died and 300 were wounded in the fighting by the town of Gorazde in Bosnia.

Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira and Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana are killed when their plane crashes while landing in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital. Eight others aboard the plane also reportedly die. Rwandan sources claim that the plane was shot down . . . . Hamas claims responsibility for a suicide carbombing of a school bus in Afula, located about 20 miles (30 km) northeast of Hadera. In the attack, seven Israelis and the 19-year-old Palestinian assailant die. The death toll is the highest for a terrorist attack inside Israel since 1989.

Obdulio Chinchilla, the only congressman from Guatemala’s Revolutionary Party, is seriously wounded by gunfire when he leaves a restaurant in Guatemala City, the capital.

Golo Mann, 85, German historian and son of renowned novelist Thomas Mann, dies in Leverkusen, Germany, of cancer.

A Palestinian from the Gaza Strip shoots to death one Israeli and wounds four in the city of Ashdod before being killed by bystanders. Antigovernment protests are held in 17 Israeli communities. Israel will close its borders to the West Bank. . . . Fighting breaks out in the wake of Rwandan president Habyarimana’s Apr. 6 death. Among those reported dead are Rwanda’s Tutsi premier, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, at least 10 Belgian UN peacekeepers, and 17 Rwandan Jesuit priests.

Reports confirm that Tiebele Drame, the senior UN human-rights official in Haiti, has documented 112 summary executions and unexplained deaths since Jan. 31.

The Serbs overrun territory near the enclave of Gorazde, including the Gradina promontory. . . . Germany halts shipments of arms to Turkey after protests that the weapons will be used against Kurds. . . . Helen Homewood, who was forced to leave the British army because she was pregnant, is awarded £299,851 ($442,280) by an industrial tribunal in Glasgow, Scotland. The award is the largest to date for any of the 2,000 women seeking compensation for unfair dismissal.

In Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, groups of Hutus and Tutsis roam the streets shooting, knifing, and hacking civilians to death. The fighting dissolves a 1993 peace accord aimed at ending nearly three years of civil war. About 4,000 refugees flee. Venat Theodore Sindikubwabo becomes interim president. . . . Reports indicate Saudi Arabia has taken action against Osama bin Laden, a multimillionaire, for providing financial support to militant Muslim organizations in Arab countries.

The government of the Bahamas states that it will no longer receive Cuban refugees detained at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard. . . . Canadian and U.S. authorities arrest 10 people in Scarborough, Ontario, and Detroit, Michigan, breaking up what the Canadian police describe as the largest immigration smuggling ring ever smashed in Canada.

Protests against GATT draw a total of more than 200,000 people in New Delhi, India’s capital. The pact is condemned as a threat to India’s sovereignty and attempts to maintain economic self-sufficiency. . . . A criminal justice commission in the Australian state of Queensland clears Brisbane police of assaulting or mistreating an aborigine teenager, Daniel Yock, who died in police custody in November 1993.

Japanese premier Morihiro Hosokawa resigns abruptly, after only eight months in power, amid allegations of financial impropriety leveled by the opposition Liberal Democratic Party.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 3–8, 1994—587

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Dr. Jerome Lejeune, 67, French geneticist who discovered the genetic cause of Down’s syndrome, dies in Paris of lung cancer.

Frank G. Wells, 62, Walt Disney Co.’s president and COO since 1984, dies along with two others in a helicopter crash in central Nevada during a skiing expedition. Two survive the crash, which investigators blame on mechanical problems.

Former Rep. Carroll Hubbard Jr. (D, Ky.) pleads guilty in federal district court in Washington, D.C., to felony charges of obstruction of justice, misuse of congressional staff, and illegal use of campaign funds during his unsuccessful bid for reelection in 1992. . . . Voters in Missouri narrowly defeat a proposed constitutional amendment to allow slot machines on riverboats on the Missouri and Mississippi rivers.

The Supreme Court’s oldest member, Justice Harry A. Blackmun, 85, announces that he will retire after the court’s current term ends in June. Blackmun’s name is indelibly linked with the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that upholds women’s right to choose to have an abortion, for which he wrote the 7-2 majority opinion. . . . Rep. Jamie L. Whitten (D) 83, who is currently serving his 27th term representing northern Mississippi and has served for 53 years in the House—longer than any other representative in U.S. history—announces he will not run for reelection in November.

Mississippi governor Kirk Fordice (R) signs legislation that allows student-initiated prayers in the state’s public schools. The law is prompted by the case of Bishop Knox, who was fired in November 1993 for allowing students to read prayers over the Jackson, Mississippi, school’s intercom and is to be reinstated in July.

The U.S. Coast Guard reverses the U.S. policy that guarantees entry to Cubans who sail from a third country when it turns away 19 Cubans, who then arrive in the Bahamas.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

April 3

The Dow Jones industrial average closes at 3593.35 points, down 276.11 points from Mar. 23 and a decline of 9.7%, or 385.01 points, from its Jan. 31 all-time high of 3978.36. Analysts suggest that the drop ends a bull market that has lasted more than two years. . . . In Oregon Waste Systems v. Department of Environmental Quality, the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that states cannot impose a higher tax at waste disposal sites on garbage imported from other states.

Marlon Riggs, 37, Emmy-winning videomaker whose work examines the lives of black homosexual men, dies in Oakland, California, of AIDS. . . . First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton throws out the first ball at the home opener of the Chicago Cubs, a 12-8 loss to the New York Mets.

The Dow index surges 82.06 points to close at 3675.41. That is the largest one-day increase since Dec. 23, 1991.

Andre Tchelistcheff, 92, eminent California wine maker and enologist, dies in Napa, California, of cancer of the esophagus.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters begins a strike against 22 major unionized trucking companies. About 75,000 workers participate. . . . The SEC approves a rule designed to limit corruption in the $1.2 trillion municipal-bond business by curbing donations to elected officials from people connected with underwriters. It also approves a rule that will require bond dealers to disclose to potential individual investors all the risks municipal bonds can pose and to determine whether investors understand the risks.

An aftershock from a June 1992 earthquake in California’s Yucca Valley strikes the area around Lake Arrowhead in the San Bernardino Mountains. The aftershock, one of 60,000, measures 4.8 on the Richter scale, but it causes little damage.

The English Football Association states that the national soccer team is withdrawing from a match in Berlin against the German national team scheduled for Apr. 20, the birthday of Adolf Hitler, to avoid planned demonstrations by rightwing extremists.

A federal grand jury in Boston, Massachusetts, indicts David LaMacchia, 20, an MIT student, on a charge that he ran two computernetwork bulletin boards that allowed users to illegally copy computer software worth a total of more than $1 million. Prosecutors call the computer piracy case the largest of its kind in the U.S.

The Vatican officially commemorates the murder of 6 million Jews during World War II for the first time with a concert in Rome attended by Pope John Paul II, Jewish leaders, and survivors of Nazi concentration camps.

Florida and the INS reach an agreement that permits Florida to deport 500–1,000 illegal aliens incarcerated in Florida’s state prisons.

Pope John Paul II unveils the restoration of the fresco The Last Judgment, located on the west wall of Rome’s Sistine Chapel. . . . Kurt Cobain, 27, lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter for the rock band Nirvana who was touted as the founder of grunge rock, is found dead in Seattle, Washington, of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 4

April 5

April 6

April 7

April 8

588—April 9–14, 1994

April 9

April 10

April 11

Europe

The mass killings in Rwanda following the Apr. 6 death of Pres. Juvenal Habyarimana spurs several Western nations to begin evacuating their citizens from the Central African nation.

The outlawed Provisional IRA launches four minor grenade and gunfire attacks on police and army posts. No injuries are reported.

Islamic militants assassinate Raouf Khayrat, a senior Egyptian antiterrorist official, in an automaticweapons and firebomb attack in Cairo. . . . A group of Palestinians in East Jerusalem defy an Israeli military ban on marking the 30th anniversary of the founding of the PLO within the city.

The Socialist Renewal Movement (CRS)—one of the four Colombian guerrilla groups at war with the government—accepts terms for its disarmament and reintegration into civilian society. With the signing of the peace accord, an estimated 8,000 rebels from the other three leftist organizations remain in combat.

Responding to a request by the UN military commander in BosniaHerzegovina, U.S. warplanes under NATO command attack Bosnian Serb positions near Gorazde, a predominantly Muslim enclave in southeast Bosnia. The Bosnian Serb supreme military command protests to the UN about the NATO engagement and argues that in approving it, the international body has taken sides with the Muslims in the Bosnian war.

The Communist Party in Ukraine, together with its Socialist Party ally and other sympathizers, wins the largest number of declared seats after the second round of voting in a general election that is still incomplete. . . . Viktor Afanasyev, 71, editor in chief of the then-Soviet newspaper Pravda, 1976–89, dies.

Data shows that more than 150 people have been killed since Apr. 1 in the KwaZulu homeland and Natal, South Africa, despite the presence of 2,000 troops deployed to enforce a state of emergency. . . . In Rwanda, government workers escorted by soldiers and aid organization workers, remove hundreds of bloodied corpses from main roads in Kigali. About 800 Belgian paratroopers arrive in Kigali to evacuate the 1,500 Belgian citizens living there. France reports that 460 of its paratroopers have evacuated 525 of 600 French expatriates to neighboring Burundi and the Central African Republic.

Haitian senators, whose power derives from disputed elections that the international community judges to be illegitimate, declare the Haitian presidency vacant. . . . Argentine president Carlos Saul Menem’s Justicialist (Peronist) Party wins a plurality victory in elections for an assembly to rewrite the nation’s 141-year-old constitution.

Artillery, machine gun, and mortar fire continue throughout Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, as 2,400 rebel forces close in. The U.S. reports that the 230 expatriates who wanted to leave Rwanda have been evacuated. . . . Eight men between 18 and 25 years old, while distributing nonpartisan voter-education pamphlets, are decapitated at a primary school in a remote region of Natal, South Africa.

In Mexico, the Association of Human Rights of the Southeast states that a group of 80 armed landowners in Chiapas kidnapped its president, Enrique Perez . . . In an effort to stem instability in Guatemala, Pres. Ramiro de Leon Carpio announces that he has directed the military to assume internal-security responsibilities from the police force. . . . In Canada, Sergeant Perry Gresty is acquitted by a court-martial of two counts of negligent performance of duty in connection with the March 1993 death of Shidane Abukar Arone, a Somali man.

Responding to a request by the UN military commander in BosniaHerzegovina, U.S. warplanes under NATO again attack Bosnian Serb positions near Gorazde.

An incomplete tally by UN aid workers puts the number of casualties in the Serb offensive on Gorazde that started Mar. 29 at 182 dead and 747 wounded. . . . Loyalist paramilitaries claim responsibility for the murder in Belfast, Northern Ireland, of Ian Hamilton, 21, whom police were seeking in connection with the Apr. 5 murder of Margaret Wright.

As many as 20,000 rebels begin advancing to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. Unrelenting violence in the city forces members of an interim government and more than 100,000 refugees to flee the capital. All foreign embassies are closed. . . . . A prominent Iraqi opposition figure, Taleb al-Suheil, 64, is murdered in Beirut, the Lebanese capital.

The European Union’s European Commission formally begins legal proceedings against Greece for its refusal to lift a trade embargo against its northern neighbor, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Nicholas Elliot, 77, British intelligence officer known for confronting fellow agent H. A. R. “Kim” Philby, who was working as a spy for the former Soviet Union, dies in London of cancer.

In Rwanda, 1,180 Tutsis, 650 of them children, are killed in a church in Musha, 25 miles (40 km) east of Kigali. A joint convoy of the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders is the first one to reach Kigali since Apr. 6. . . . Lebanese authorities arrest Iraqi diplomats Khaled Khalaf and Mohammed Kadhem for alleged involvement in the Apr. 12 murder of Taleb al-Suheil. . . . A Palestinian suicide bomber detonates explosives in Hadera, killing five Israelis and wounding 30 others.

Two U.S. Air Force warplanes mistakenly shoot down two U.S. Army helicopters engaged in a UN humanitarian mission for Kurds in northern Iraq’s “no-fly zone,” killing all 26 UN representatives from many nations, including the U.S., Britain, France, and Turkey.

Serb fighters confine six UN peacekeeping soldiers to barracks in the village of Mokro. In the village of Cifluk, near Sarajevo, between 14 and 17 Canadian UN troops, while monitoring Serb weapons, are abducted at gunpoint. The Bosnian Serbs expel all U.S. journalists from the 70% of Bosnia under their control.

A massive wave of ethnic and political violence continues in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. The violence, which started Apr. 7 and spread to the countryside, has left between 10,000 and 20,000 dead. . . . South Africa president F.W. De Klerk and ANC president Nelson Mandela meet for the country’s first public presidential debate.

April 12

April 13

April 14

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Paul Keating makes the first visit by an Australian prime minister to Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam War.

Suh Eui Hyun, the conservative administrative head of the Chogye group, South Korea’s main Buddhist sect, resigns in order to placate reformist monks who fought with Suh supporters and have staged a series of battles since Mar. 29. At least 38 people were injured and 140 monks arrested during the rioting.

Hugh Worrell Springer, 80, governor general of Barbados, 1984–90, dies.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 9–14, 1994—589

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

A Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, jury convicts a State Supreme Court justice, Rolf Larsen, of two counts of conspiracy for having staff workers obtain prescription drugs for his use.

A ballot initiative to recall California state senator David Roberti (D) fails when voters in his district reject it by a margin of 59% to 41%. . . . A study shows that up to half of the 12 million U.S. children under the age of three face developmental risks, and recommendations include the expansions of national immunization and prenatal services, the Head Start education program, and the Family and Medical Leave Act.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour blasts off from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, to carry out a mission devoted to research on the effects of natural processes and human activity on the Earth’s surface.

Miinnehoma wins the Grand National steeplechase at Aintree race course outside Liverpool, England.

April 9

Jose Maria Olazabal of Spain wins the Masters golf tournament on the Augusta (Georgia) National golf course.

April 10

The U.S. imposes limited trade sanctions against Taiwan, accusing the country of failing to take measures to stem illegal trading of tiger bones and rhinoceros horns. . . . Florida governor Lawton Chiles (D) sues the U.S. government for reimbursement of expenses that Florida spent on social services supplied to illegal immigrants in the state.

Pres. Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton pay $14,615 in federal and state back taxes and interest stemming from capital gains they garnered in 1980.

The Santa Monica Freeway, the world’s busiest freeway, which was severely damaged in the Jan. 17 earthquake, reopens.

Reports state that legendary singer Ella Fitzgerald in 1993, had both of her legs amputated below the knee as a result of complications from diabetes.

Randall Robinson, the executive director of Washington, D.C.-based TransAfrica, a lobbying group for African and Caribbean issues, begins a highly publicized liquiddiet fast to protest what he calls the U.S.’s “grossly discriminatory” policy on Haiti.

James McDougal, the former partner of Pres. Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Whitewater Development Corp., publicly releases about 2,000 pages of documents related to the real-estate venture.

Reports state that the crew of Endeavour have located high levels of pollution over the Euphrates River Valley in Iraq, Indonesia, and parts of Africa, and lower levels below the Earth’s equator.

Pulitzer Prizes are awarded, and winners include E. Annie Proulx, David Remnick, and Edward Albee.

Reports confirm that 200 students at the University of Miami in Florida have protested the school paper’s publication of an advertisement placed by Bradley Smith questioning historical reports of the Holocaust. . . . Six of the nation’s largest tobacco companies release a list of nearly 600 additives used in processing cigarettes.

April 11

April 12

April 13

Sam C. Pointer Jr., chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Alabama, gives preliminary approval to an expanded settlement of more than $4.2 billion to be paid by eight medical-supply companies to women who claim to have suffered from diseases allegedly related to silicone breast implants.

The CDC finds that an average of 17 workers were killed on the job each day in the 1980s, and a total of 63,589 died between 1980 and 1989. . . . Citing the closure of Alaska Pulp’s mill at Sitka, Alaska, the Forest Service cancels its contract with the company. . . . In the largest corporate fraud settlement ever made with the government, National Medical Enterprises announces it has reached a preliminary agreement to settle for $375 million all outstanding fraud charges by federal and state authorities.

Federal judge Charles Brieant sentences Rev. Edward Pipala, a Roman Catholic priest who pleaded guilty to about 30 counts of sexual abuse, to serve eight years in prison. . . . In New York City, surrogate court judge Eve Preminger finds that art in the estate of the late Andy Warhol is worth $390.9 million, four times what the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has claimed.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 14

590—April 15–20, 1994

April 15

April 16

Europe

The GATT Uruguay Round concludes when officials from 125 nations sign a pact to liberalize existing national and regional trade regulations, eliminate tariffs, and institute measures to boost global trade. . . . At a summit meeting of the CIS, members assent to a variety of measures that increase and consolidate Russia’s preeminence in the 12-nation body.

In Bosnia, the Serbs continue to fight with tank, artillery, and smallarms fire against Gorazde. Two British military observers are wounded by Serb artillery fire at the front line.

Israel begins to crack down on more than 400 Palestinians in the occupied territories who allegedly have ties to Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Some $3.9 million in U.S. bills kept unguarded in a locked filing cabinet is stolen from the United Nations headquarters in Mogadishu, the Somali capital. It is the biggest theft from the organization in UN history and causes international embarrassment.

In Bosnia, a British Sea Harrier reconnaissance and ground-attack jet is shot down by a Serb surfaceto-air missile in the vicinity of Gorazde. . . . Reports state that legislation intended to protect the French language by banning the use of non-French words in seminars, contracts, public announcements, advertising, and radio and TV broadcasts if a “suitable local equivalent” for the foreign phrase exists has passed the Senate and moved to the National Assembly.

King Hussein outlaws the militant Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas, in Jordan.

Bosnian Serb forces engaged in an offensive against the UN-declared safe area of Gorazde enter the town after smashing through remaining lines. In penetrating into the town center, the Serbs defy a continued threat of further NATO air strikes. . . . Officials state that a spring offensive by the Turkish military against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq killed 57 Kurds in five days.

The Israeli cabinet gives approval for 20,000 work permits for West Bank and Gaza Palestinians, which marks an easing of restrictions imposed Apr. 7, when Israel sealed its borders from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The British pilot whose plane crashed Apr. 16 and seven of the 12 UN military observers in Gorazde are evacuated from the enclave by helicopter because of fears for their safety if they are captured by Serbs.

An ax-wielding Palestinian injures two passengers on a bus in Jerusalem before being shot in the leg and subdued by Israeli forces. . . . Lebanon breaks diplomatic relations with Iraq and gives Iraq’s embassy staff 72 hours to leave the country. . . . Jordan’s King Hussein formally marks the completion of an 18-month-long project to renovate the seventh-century Dome of the Rock mosque in the walled Old City of East Jerusalem. The eight-sided mosque is located on the plateau that Muslims call the Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary), Islam’s third holiest site, and that Jews refer to as the Temple Mount.

At its annual meeting, the board of governors of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development unanimously endorses organizational changes and a new strategy developed by bank president Jacques de Larosiere.

Serbs, in violation of a heavyweapons exclusion order, take 18 antiaircraft guns. Russian officials intervene, and 13 guns are returned. The Serbs begin releasing some UN personnel. . . . Paul Touvier, a former chief of a World War II pro-Nazi militia in Lyons, is convicted of crimes against humanity and receives the maximum sentence of life in prison. He is the first Frenchman found guilty of crimes against humanity for collaboration with Nazi German occupiers during 1940–44.

Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi agrees to allow Inkatha to participate in elections. Hundreds of Inkatha supporters cheer the decision in in Ulundi, KwaZulu’s capital. . . . In Rwanda, more than 20 people are killed and hundreds wounded when government forces shell the Amahoro Stadium in Kigali, where thousands have taken refuge. . . . Figures show that, since Apr. 15, Israel has more than 400 Palestinians in the occupied territories in what is the most extensive crackdown on Islamic extremists since December 1992.

The U.S. State Department confirms reports that its embassy in Haiti purchased fuel smuggled into Haiti in defiance of the UN embargo. U.S speaker Mike McCurry defends the contraband purchases on the grounds that they allowed humanitarian agencies to deliver food to impoverished areas of the countryside.

The International Monetary Fund projects that economic output worldwide will increase 3% in 1994 and 3.7% in 1995. The world economy expanded 2.3% in 1993. The IMF also announces that it has released a $1.5 billion loan to Russia agreed in March.

Serb gunfire destroys large parts of the Gorazde hospital, critically wounding four medical workers and injuring seven others. A UN estimate puts the death toll from the three weeks of fighting at 345 and 1,187 wounded. More than 18,000 people have been displaced. . . . Spain’s parliament passes a package of anticorruption measures proposed by Spanish premier Felipe Gonzalez.

When Iraq refuses to surrender diplomats Khaled Khalaf and Mohammed Kadhem, wanted for alleged involvement in the murder of Taleb al-Suheil, police surround the Iraqi embassy in Beirut.

Studies show that 20% of Haitian children under the age of five are either moderately or severely malnourished.

April 17

April 18

April 19

April 20

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific The Australian Labor Party announces that it has removed the representation of the British Union Jack flag from the federal party logo.

The first shipment to South Korea of U.S.-made Patriot antimissile batteries arrives on two U.S. ships. . . . Former Singapore prime minister Lee Kuan Yew angers some of the island nation’s women when he states his government was “young, ignorant and idealistic” when it extended equal rights—including access to education—to women early in his 31 years in power.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 15–20, 1994—591

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Joseph A. Strauss, a top aide at HUD during the administration of Pres. Ronald Reagan, pleads guilty in federal court to two felony counts related to payments he received from real-estate developers.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The White House makes public the 1993 tax returns of Pres. Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton, which show the Clintons paid federal taxes of $62,670 on an adjusted gross income of $293,757, and they claimed $15,815 in deductions for state and local income-tax payments. The returns show that the couple is eligible for a refund of $7,982.

NASA scientist Henry Reichle notes that the Endeavour’s crew has found significantly high concentrations of carbon monoxide in the earth’s Northern Hemisphere. . . . A study published in Cancer Research suggests there is evidence that HIV may also directly cause cancers of the immune system by invading strands of DNA and activating a dormant cancer-causing gene.

Reports state that the Vatican will officially permit girl altar servers to aid priests during Roman Catholic mass services. . . . John Anthony Curry, 44, figure skater and 1976 Olympian gold medalist, dies in Binton, England, of AIDS.

Ralph Waldo Ellison, 80, writer whose novel, Invisible Man (1952), is one of the masterpieces of 20thcentury literature, dies in New York City of pancreatic cancer.

Dr. Roger Wolcott Sperry, 80, neurobiologist who shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1981 for his study of nerve fibers in the brain, dies in Pasadena, California, of a heart attack.

A jury in Los Angeles awards Rodney King $3,816,535.45 in compensatory damages in a civil lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles stemming from King’s March 1991 videotaped beating by police. . . . In J. E. B. v. T. B., the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that lawyers cannot use gender as justification for disqualifying a juror.

After six hours of debate, the Senate votes, 54-43, to retire Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Frank B. Kelso II at four-star rank, despite controversy over his role in the 1991 Tailhook sexual harassment scandal. All seven women senators in the chamber oppose the measure.

April 16

April 17

The Federal Reserve Board raises a key short-term interest rate, the socalled federal funds rate, to 3.75% from 3.5%. . . . An issue of Fortune magazine notes that the aggregate profits of the nation’s 500 largest industrial corporations rebounded in 1993 to a total of $62.6 billion. In 1992, the nation’s 500 largest industrial companies lost a combined $196 million, primarily the result of massive noncash charges to cover the costs of retirees’ health benefits.

Reports reveal that the sexualabuse lawsuit filed by Steven Cook against Roman Catholic priest Ellis Harsham of Cincinnati and the Cincinnati diocese has been settled for undisclosed terms.

In Central Bank of Denver N.A. v. First Interstate Bank of Denver N.A., the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that investors cannot sue financial advisers who were involved indirectly in securities fraud.

Reports confirm that Philip Roth has won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for his 20th novel, Operation Shylock.

A Gainesville, Florida, Circuit Court judge sentences Danny Rolling, who pled guilty to slaying five college students in 1990, to death. . . . With surprising anger from both parties, the Senate rejects, 53-44, a resolution calling for members of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the diplomatic corps to give up free reserved parking spaces at National Airport and Dulles International Airport.

April 15

The validity of conclusions that were drawn in part from falsified data in a landmark breast-cancer study is affirmed in a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study concludes that it is not always necessary for women with breast cancer to undergo full mastectomies. . . . The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour touched down at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

April 18

April 19

April 20

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

592—April 21–26, 1994

April 21

April 22

World Affairs

Europe

The UN Security Council votes unanimously to reduce its peacekeeping force in Rwanda to about 270 troops, from an estimated 2,500 stationed there before the fighting erupted upon the Apr. 6 death of Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana.

In Poland, coal miners begin a cumulative series of strikes. . . . An appeals court in Belfast, Northern Ireland, overturns the 1975 murder conviction of Paul Hill, a member of the “Guildford Four.”. . . Reports state that Azerbaijan sent poorly trained young conscripts to the front and that the winter campaign cost the lives of 4,000 Azeri fighters, more combatant deaths than Azerbaijan incurred in the previous two years of battle.

NATO member states demand that the Serbs pull back 1.9 miles (3 km) from the center of Gorazde by 2:01 A.M. local time Apr. 24, which will coincide with a cease-fire.

Reports state that Hungary and Slovakia have agreed to return property seized from Jews during World War II or to compensate the owners or surviving heirs. . . . Talks between Russia and Ukraine on the disputed status of the Black Sea fleet fail in the wake of a series of armed air, land, and naval confrontations between the two countries.

April 23

April 24

The finance ministers and centralbank heads of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations express optimism that inflation will remain relatively low while economies strengthen in the group’s member-nations.

April 25

April 26

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The military wings in the Gaza Strip of the mainstream PLO faction Fatah and Hamas agree to a 30-day halt in the killing of alleged Palestinian collaborators with Israel.

More than 200 Cuban exiles attend a government-sponsored conference in Havana, Cuba’s capital. Separately, the Cuban government announces that it has pared down its bulky administrative apparatus in an effort to curb costs and to adapt to new needs created by the end of the Cold War. . . . In Haiti, soldiers and FRAPH militants carry out what UN observers characterize as an “indiscriminate attack” on a poor neighborhood in Gonaives, a port city 100 miles (160 km) north of Port-au-Prince. The incident leaves at least four dead.

South Korean premier Lee Hoi Chang resigns after only four months in office. He reportedly clashed with Pres. Kim Young Sam over the premier’s role and influence in the government.

The Serbs continue to shell Gorazde, but at the same time, they start to pull back from the Muslim enclave in eastern BosniaHerzegovina.

Data suggests that 2 million people have been displaced within Rwanda by fighting, and another 30,000 have fled to neighboring countries, including Burundi, which reportedly is also facing an upsurge of ethnic violence between Hutus and Tutsis.

An assault on presumed pro-Aristide fishermen and merchants is launched in Gonaives, a port city 100 miles (160 km) north of Port-auPrince, Haiti, taking the lives of up to 40 persons.

China unexpectedly releases Wang Juntao, 35, a prominent dissident who played a major role in prodemocracy demonstrations that led to the military crackdown in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989.

About 170 patients and staff members are killed in an assault on a hospital in Butare, a city southwest of Kigali, Rwanda. . . . Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin visits Russia, marking the first trip ever to Russia by an Israeli head of state.

A bomb explodes without warning in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa, on the eve of the legal end to political campaigning. Among those who die is Susan Keane, a white ANC candidate for the Johannesburg region’s provincial legislature. The blast kills at least nine people and injures 92.

Armando Calderon Sol of El Salvador’s governing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) party coasts to victory in the runoff election to decide the presidency.

David Langton (born Basil Muir Langton-Dodds), 82, British actor best known for his role on the British TV series Upstairs, Downstairs, 1971–76, dies in Stratfordupon-Avon, England, after suffering a heart attack.

More than a dozen bombs explode throughout South Africa. A car bomb is set off in Germiston, east of Johannesburg, killing at least 10 people and injuring more than 36. Two people die and 29 are injured when a bomb thrown into a Pretoria restaurant frequented by blacks explodes. . . . Egyptian police kill Talaat Yassin Hamam, 31, the Islamic Group’s leader, and six other militants in Cairo. . . . Rebel forces evacuate 11,000 refugees to Byumba, a town north of Kigali, Rwanda.

Canadian soldier Sergeant Mark Adam Boland pleads guilty to negligent performance of duty while soldiers tortured and killed Shidane Abukar Arone, a Somali youth detained by Canadian troops in Somalia. A statement reveals that Arone’s main tormentor was Master Corporal Clayton Darrell Matchee, who suffered brain damage in a subsequent suicide attempt. A court-martial rules that Matchee will not stand trial because of his impairment.

Russian parliamentarian Andrei Aizderdzis is killed by a single shotgun blast in a Moscow suburb. His killing is reportedly the first to befall a Russian politician. Separately, figures show that the public approval rating of Russian president Boris Yeltsin has fallen to an all-time low of 19%.

Thousands of voters of all races line up at at least 700 polling stations for the at day of voting in South Africa’s first all-race elections. . . . Unilateral cease-fires declared by the primarily Tutsi Rwanda Rebel Patriotic Front and Hutu-dominated government forces take effect. . . . Queen Zein al-Sharaf, 80, mother of King Hussein of Jordan, dies in Lausanne, Switzerland, where she was undergoing treatment for a heart ailment.

Tsutomu Hata is elected by the Diet as Japan’s 51st premier, succeeding Morihiro Hosokawa, who resigned Apr. 8. . . . Chinese Aerospace confirms that an early April explosion destroyed a $75 million advanced weather satellite, killed at least one person, and destroyed a laboratory.

A Taiwanese airliner crashes and bursts into flames on landing at Japan’s Nagoya Airport, 160 miles (260 km) west of Tokyo.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 21–26, 1994—593

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The House approves, 285-141, an anticrime bill that authorizes $27.9 billion over six years. . . . The Alabama State Supreme Court upholds, 6-0, the 1993 conviction of the state’s former governor, Guy Hunt (R), on charges of diverting money from a nonprofit fund for personal use. . . . Judge James Linn convicts six people and acquits a seventh man of neglecting 18 children found living in a squalid Chicago apartment.

The Senate confirms Jeremy Boorda as chief of naval operations.

The Senate votes, 94-0, to approve a compromise bill to amend specific provisions of the 1978 U.S. Bankruptcy Code. . . . Teledyne Inc. settles two long-standing so-called whistle-blower suits with the U.S. government for a total of $112.5 million. . . . Judge William Dwyer of District Court in Seattle, Washington, approves the Clinton administration’s plan to allow some logging in the Pacific Northwest to resume.

Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th President of the United States and the only president in U.S. history to have resigned from office, dies in NYC of complications resulting from a severe stroke suffered earlier. . . . A judge orders the reinstatement of the principal of Wingfield High School, Bishop Knox, who allowed students to read prayers over the intercom. . . . The president of Howard University, Franklyn Jenifer, resigns after being named president of the University of Texas at Dallas. He will be the first black ever to head one of the Texas state system’s 15 universities.

The U.S. announces that it will take unilateral measures to curb imports from Canada of wheat, barley, and malt in response to alleged unfair subsidies provided to Canadian farmers by their government. . . . The Coast Guard intercepts more than 400 Haitians and escorts them ashore in Florida. A State Department official states that the refugees were taken into custody rather than repatriated because of “extraordinary circumstances” which reportedly include an outbreak of violence on board the Haitian ship.

Pres. Clinton nominates two economists, Janet Yellen and Alan Blinder, to fill vacancies on the seven-member Federal Reserve Board.

The NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference sponsors a prom at Randolph County High School in Wedowee, Alabama, to protest comments made by the school’s principal, Hulond Humphries, who on Feb. 24 threatened to cancel the school’s prom if interracial couples attend the event. . . . Pres. Clinton proclaims the day of former Pres. Nixon’s funeral, Apr. 27, to be a national day of mourning.

Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Frank B. Kelso II formally steps down, handing over the top Navy job to Admiral Jeremy M. Boorda.

Figures indicate that the total number of bankruptcy filings in 1993 in the U.S. reached 918,734, of which about 93% were consumer filings. That marks the first decline after eight years of steady growth; the number of filings peaked at 971,517 in 1992.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

April 21

The lunar mapping phase of the mission by the probe Clementine is completed.

Norwegian Boerge Ousland, who started his 620-mile (1,000-km) journey on foot on Mar. 2, becomes the first person to reach the North Pole alone and without outside support. . . . Boxer Michael Moorer earns a majority decision over Evander Holyfield and becomes the first heavyweight champion who fights left-handed.

April 22

April 23

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts presents best-film and best-director awards to Schindler’s List and Steven Spielberg. Acting awards go to Anthony Hopkins, Holly Hunter, Ralph Fiennes, and Miriam Margolyes.

Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards (D) signs into law a measure that changes the boundaries of the state’s U.S. House districts in response to a December 1993 court ruling that held a district map that went into effect after the 1990 census was “the product of racial gerrymandering.”

Members of New York City’s two largest commodities exchanges, the New York Mercantile Exchange and the Commodity Exchange (Comex), approve a plan to merge their operations by the end of the year. . . . Business Week finds that the average salary and bonus compensation for the top two executives at 361 companies was $1,274,893, a 15% increase from 1992. A record 502 of those executives earn more than $1 million.

A jury in Los Angeles rules in favor of the Isley Brothers in a copyright suit against singer Michael Bolton. . . . Reports confirm that an unfinished novel, Le Premier Homme (The First Man) by French author Albert Camus, who died in 1960, has been published posthumously in France.

District Court judge Gregory Waller sentences Rachelle Shannon to 10 years and eight months in prison for the 1993 shooting of Dr. George Tiller outside the Wichita, Kansas, clinic he operates. . . . In two consolidated cases, Landgraf v. USI Film Products and Rivers v. Roadway Express, the Supreme Court issues two 8-1 rulings that bar the Civil Rights Act of 1991 from being applied retroactively.

The Senate by voice vote passes legislation that will remove barriers to commercial banks’ ability to expand across state lines.

Majel Barrett Roddenberry reveals that the ashes of her late husband, Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the science-fiction TV series Star Trek, were flown aboard a mission of the space shuttle.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 24

April 25

April 26

594—April 27–May 1, 1994

April 27

World Affairs

Europe

The UN Security Council unanimously approves the dispatch of another 6,550 peacekeeping soldiers to Bosnia, bringing the total number of UN troops in all of former Yugoslavia to 44,870.

Attacking Bosnian Serb forces pull back from the Muslim enclave of Gorazde, in eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina. The attack on Gorazde is estimated to have taken the lives of at least 600 people in the city and wounded nearly 2,000 since Mar. 29. . . . Syria and Russia sign a military and technical cooperation pact, the first such agreement between the two parties since the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

In a historic moment, ANC leader Nelson Mandela casts the first ballot of his lifetime. . . . South Africa’s new constitution and bill of rights take effect. The black homelands are dissolved, and nine new all-race provinces come into being. . . . Despite the Apr. 26 ceasefire in Rwanda where an estimated 100,000 people have died since Apr. 6, the Tutsis and Hutus launch assaults. . . . . Fighting breaks out between forces in northern and southern Yemen at Amran, located 40 miles (65 km) north of Sana. Southern forces in Yemen fire fierce exchanges at Amran . . . . Reports to the UN suggest that violence in northern Burundi is increasing, possibly since ethnic fighting may be spreading into Burundi from Rwanda. . . . In South Africa, F. W. de Klerk approves a request by the IEC to extend voting to a fourth day in six rural regions of South Africa that faced serious logistical problems.

April 28

Nine Bosnian Serb soldiers are killed and at least four are wounded in a battle with UN troops near Tuzla in Bosnia. The confrontation is described as one of the largest battles in the area involving UN troops since they arrived in 1992. British troops kill three Bosnian Serb soldiers inside the exclusion zone after being shot at by the Serbs. . . . In Poland, factory workers join coal miners in a strike that started Apr. 21. Some 500,000 workers participate, and the strikes are reportedly the largest since the government took power in October 1993.

April 29

Tsutomu Hata is formally appointed premier by Emperor Akihito. Hata announces a 21-member cabinet. . . . Lee Young Duk, Pres. Kim Young Sam’s choice to replace Lee Hoi Chang, is approved by South Korea’s parliament as premier.

In Yemen, fighting spreads to the southern provinces of Abyan and Lahei. Gunmen in Sana wound Deputy Premier Hassan Mekki of the General People’s Congress party. . . . In a mass exodus, 250,000 refugees from Rwanda swarm into Tanzania in what is reported by UNHCR as the largest and quickest exit the organization has ever witnessed. . . . . Burundi’s army shells a Hutu stronghold in Bujumbura after a government ultimatum to militias to relinquish their weapons expires. . . . Representatives of the PLO and Israel sign a landmark economic agreement that seeks to establish a basis for the economic viability of territories under limited Palestinian self-rule.

Latvia and Russia sign a treaty providing for the complete withdrawal of the remaining 10,500 Russian (formerly Soviet) troops in Latvia by Aug. 31. . . .Lord Aylestone (born Herbert William Bowden), 89, British politician who was made a life peer in 1970, dies in London.

April 30

Asia & the Pacific

A court-martial sentences Canadian soldier Sergeant Mark Adam Boland to 90 days in a military jail and demotion to the rank of private for negligent performance of duty in the death of Shidane Abukar Arone, a Somali youth killed while detained by Canadian troops in Somalia. Khallid Abdul Muhammad, a black activist associated with the U.S.based Nation of Islam who caused a furor with his anti-Semitic remarks, fails to appear as a speaker at a scheduled meeting in Toronto after Canadian immigration authorities state that he is forbidden to enter the country.

May 1

The death toll from the Apr. 26 crash of a Taiwanese airliner at Japan’s Nagoya Airport stands at 264, with only seven survivors.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 27–May 1, 1994—595

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Richard Milhous Nixon the 37th president of the United States, is buried on the grounds of his birthplace in Yorba Linda, California, after a nationally televised funeral. . . . Timothy W. Spencer, 32, convicted of raping and fatally strangling four women in Virginia over a 10-week period in 1987, is put to death in the electric chair. Spencer is the first person convicted of a capital crime in the U.S. based on DNA testing and the first person to be executed in the U.S. on the basis of such tests.

April 27

Bruce S. Marks (R), is certified as the election winner since the November 1993 election of Pennsylvania state senator William Stinson has been annulled twice.

Navy Secretary John Dalton orders the expulsion of 24 midshipmen from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, for their part in the biggest cheating scandal in the institution’s 149-year history. In the instance, 134 midshipmen cheated on a December 1992 exam. . . . A federal judge sentences former CIA official Aldrich Hazen Ames to life in prison for spying for the former Soviet Union and Russia after Ames pleads guilty to espionage and tax evasion as part of a plea bargain.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters ends its strike that began Apr. 6 against 22 of the nation’s largest trucking companies. The Teamsters walkout involved 70,000 workers and was the longest ever organized by the Teamsters against the trucking industry.

In an unprecedented conference, Pres. Clinton meets with 322 representatives from the nation’s 547 federally recognized American Indian and native Alaskan tribes. . . . Judge Earl Strayhorn finds Jonathan Haynes, a Nazi sympathizer who testified that, in 1993, he killed Dr. Martin Sullivan because the doctor produced “fake Aryan beauty” through plastic surgery, guilty of first-degree murder. . . . The CDC finds that the U.S. infant mortality rate declined during the 1980s, but the gap in mortality rates for white and black infants during that period widened. By the year 2000, black babies will be three times more likely to die by their first birthday than white newborns.

Judge Jackson Kiser of District Court in Roanoke, Virginia, rules that the Virginia Military Institute may continue its policy of admitting only men provided it finances a “women’s leadership institute” at nearby Mary Baldwin College, a private women-only school.

A District Court judge in Newark, New Jersey, sentences Eddie Antar, who was convicted in July 1993 of defrauding Crazy Eddie shareholders of more than $80 million by selling stock at artificially inflated prices, to 121⁄2 years in prison for racketeering and stock fraud.

Berton Roueche, 83, writer who originated the “Annals of Medicine” series for the New Yorker magazine, dies in Amagansett, New York, of an apparently self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head.

April 28

Russell Amos Kirk, 75, writer who achieved national recognition for his book The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Santayana (1953), dies in Mecosta, Michigan, of congestive heart failure.

Richard McClure Scarry, 74, children’s book author and illustrator who wrote more than 250 books, dies in Gstaad, Switzerland, after suffering a heart attack.

The FBI reports that the number of violent crimes committed in the U.S. in 1993 was 1% less than those committed during the yearearlier period. However, the 1993 murder rate increased by 3% over the 1992 figure, according to the report.

In its quarterly earnings review, The Wall Street Journal reports that the net income of 623 major corporations totaled $50.18 billion in the first quarter. That is a 142% gain over those companies’ revised 1993 firstquarter profits, which totaled $20.73 billion.

Brazilian Ayrton Senna, 34, a threetime world champion on the Formula One automobile racing circuit, dies after crashing in the San Marino Grand Prix in Imola, Italy.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 29

April 30

May 1

596—May 2–6, 1994

May 2

Europe

The World Bank announces that it has readied a $1.2 billion aid program to renew the infrastructure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and to stimulate foreign investment in those areas. . . . . . African National Congress president Nelson Mandela claims a landslide victory for the ANC in South Africa’s first allrace elections, and he proclaims that black South Africans who have been disenfranchised for decades under the apartheid system of racial separation are “free at last.”

British foreign secretary Douglas Hurd announces that Britain will give South Africa a financial aid package of £100 million (US$150 million) over three years.

In response to Nelson Mandela’s win in South Africa’s first all-race elections, black South Africans dance and chant Mandela’s name in the streets of townships and cities across South Africa, from Soweto to Johannesburg.

The Red Cross reports that a threeweek offensive by ethnic Armenian forces on Nagorno-Karabakh killed or wounded several hundred people and caused 50,000 Azeris to flee. . . . The Dutch ruling coalition of the centrist Christian Democrat Party and the left-of-center Labor Party is broken up in general elections when the two parties fail to win enough seats to sustain a majority in the lower house of the Netherlands’ parliament.

A northern spokesman in Yemen states that southern forces are moving troops to the oil-producing region of Shabwa, in former South Yemen. . . . Egyptian authorities report that five militants convicted of an assassination attempt on Premier Atef Sedki in November 1993 were hung.

Central banks from 17 countries, led by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board and Treasury, intervene in world currency markets in an effort to boost the value of the dollar against the Japanese yen and the German mark. . . . An Iranian air force jet carrying raw materials for weapons production and at least 60 tons of explosives for Bosnian government forces arrives in Zagreb, the Croatian capital. The delivery violates the UN’s arms embargo and is reportedly the first in a series agreed to by Iran, Croatia and the Bosnian government.

Spain continues to be rocked by financial scandals, and Agriculture Minister Vicente Albero Silla resigns from the government. . . . Princess Stephanie of Monaco, 29, gives birth to her second child, a girl named Pauline, in Paris.

P.M. Yitzhak Rabin of Israel and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat sign an accord to implement Palestinian self-rule in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank enclave of Jericho. The accord marks the culmination of a threshing out of details in fulfillment of the breakthrough Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government that the PLO and Israel signed in September 1993. Israel releases some 225 Palestinian prisoners in Gaza.

Singapore’s president, Ong Teng Cheong, rejects a plea and a clemency petition in the case of Michael Fay, 18, a U.S. citizen who was sentenced to caning. He reduces the number of caning strokes to four from six, however. . . . Shigeto Nagano, Japan’s justice minister, draws criticism when he declares in an interview that the 1937 massacres in Nanking, China—in which more than 150,000 people are believed to have been killed or raped by occupying Japanese troops—were a “fabrication.”

In response to the March victory of the neo-fascist Alliance for Freedom party in Italy, the European Parliament passes a controversial resolution denouncing the “horrors” of fascism and Nazism and reminding Italians that they “must be faithful to the fundamental values which lay behind the foundation of the European Community.”

Reports suggest that five Bosnian Serb tanks traveled through the 12.4-mile (20-Km) NATO-imposed exclusionary zone circling Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital. The reports prompt criticism of Yasushi Akashi, the UN’s special envoy to the former Yugoslavia, for allowing several the passage. . . . In Spain, Interior Minister Jose Luis Corcuera and Carlos Solchaga, the Socialist parliamentary leader, quit Parliament.

Full-scale civil war erupts in Yemen between northern forces loyal to Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh and southern forces supporting Vice Pres. Ali Salem al-Baidh as the two sides launch bombing raids and engage in tank, artillery, and rocket duels in at least seven provinces. Saleh declares a nationwide 30-day state of emergency and formally dismisses Baidh from the cabinet.

Michael Fay, 18, a U.S. citizen convicted of spray-painting cars and other acts of defacement in Singapore in October 1993, is flogged four times with a rattan cane by prison authorities. The caning has attracted extensive international media attention. . . . Lee Teng-hui, Taiwan’s president, embarks on the first official trip abroad by a Taiwanese head of state since 1977 when he begins a four-nation tour.

The UN Security Council votes unanimously to impose a broad trade embargo on Haiti and sets a deadline of May 21 for Haiti’s military rulers to return power to JeanBertrand Aristide under the terms of a July 1993 agreement. . . . Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati presents Bosnian president Izetbegovic with $1 million and a chit for 10,000 tons (9,100 metric tons) of diesel fuel, demonstrating that Iran and many other Islamic nations are willing to violate the UN embargo to help Bosnia’s Muslims.

A nuclear plant at Beloyarsk in Russia’s Ural Mountains, catches fire. There are no injuries, and officials report that radiation levels remain normal. . . . The Channel Tunnel, hailed as one of the foremost engineering achievements of the 20th century, is inaugurated by British queen Elizabeth II and French president François Mitterrand. . . . Reports find election experts in Russia charge that there was fraud in December 1993 election . . . . Rabbi Moses Rosen, 81, Romanian Jewish leader, dies in Bucharest, Romania, of heart failure.

As air attacks in Yemen continue, northern ground forces advance on Aden. The French destroyer Jules Verne transports 60 French nationals and 240 other foreigners across the Red Sea to Djibouti, from Aden. . . . The South African national and provincial elections are deemed “free and fair” by electoral officials, and the ANC is declared the winner, polling 62.6% of the 19,533,498 votes cast and claiming a victory in seven of the nine new provinces created under the country’s all-race constitution.

The Australian state of New South Wales awards a license to build and operate Sydney’s first casino.

May 3

May 4

May 5

May 6

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 2–6, 1994—597

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

A Michigan jury acquits Dr. Jack Kevorkian of violating the state law for aiding in the 1993 suicide of Thomas W. Hyde Jr. The trial is the first in which Michigan’s assistedsuicide law was invoked. . . . A Los Angeles jury acquits Lance Jerome Parker, the last of four men to be tried in the videotaped beating of white truck driver Reginald Denny, of three felony weapons charges. However, the jury convicts him of firing a gun at Denny’s truck. . . . A slate of candidates backed by TV evangelist Pat Robertson fails to win any seats in school-board elections in Virginia Beach, Virginia, which surprises analysts since the city hosts Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network and Christian Coalition.

The U.S. pledges $15 million in humanitarian aid for Rwanda.

In Chicago v. Environmental Defense Fund, the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that the ash from incinerators that burn household and industrial waste are subject to federal toxic-waste regulations and cannot be automatically disposed of in normal landfills like other trash.

In Seattle, Washington, District Judge Barbara Rothstein strikes down a state law prohibiting assisted suicide, arguing that the law violates the 14th Amendment guarantee that individual rights will not be infringed upon by the state.

Pres. Clinton discusses and defends his administration’s foreign policy in a news conference transmitted live to more than 200 countries and territories by CNN. It is Clinton’s most extensive public discussion to date on foreign affairs.

Florida governor Lawton Chiles (D) signs into law the Everglades Forever Act, a $685 million bill to clean up the Everglades jointly financed by the federal government and local sugar producers, who diverted water contaminated with agricultural waste products into the protected marshland for several decades.

Earl Strayhorn, a Cook County (Illinois) circuit court judge, sentences Jonathan Haynes, a Nazi sympathizer who admitted to the August 1993 fatal shooting of Dr. Martin Sullivan, to death. . . . The Senate passes, 87-10, legislation designed to improve the accuracy of credit records and make it easier for individuals to obtain credit information and resolve disputes with credit bureaus.

Randall Robinson, who on Apr. 12 began a highly publicized liquid-diet fast to protest what he called the U.S.’s “grossly discriminatory” policy on Haiti, is hospitalized for dehydration.

The Federal Reserve Board reports that much of the country is experiencing “solid economic growth.”

The House passes, 241-174, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a bill designed to protect abortion clinics, patients and staff from attacks, blockades, and acts of intimidation by opponents of abortion. . . . The House passes, 216-214, a bill that will ban the manufacture, sale, or possession of 19 types of semiautomatic assault weapons.

Pres. Clinton pledges U.S. cooperation to the new South African government and offers $600 million in aid over three years.

The House gives final approval, 220-183, to a budget resolution that preserves, largely intact, Pres. Clinton’s proposals for federal spending through fiscal 1999.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Officials state that the 16th annual Pritzker Architecture Prize for lifetime achievement was awarded to Christian de Portzamparc, who is the first French architect to receive the prize. . . . The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield tops the bestseller list.

May 2

May 3

May 4

Joe Layton (born Joseph Lichtman), 64, Emmy Award–winning choreographer and producer, dies in Key West, Florida, after a long illness.

Internal documents indicate that senior executives of Brown & Williamson Tobacco decided in 1963 not to disclose to the surgeon general evidence of health hazards linked to cigarette smoking. . . . Paula Corbin Jones files a federal civil lawsuit accusing Pres. Clinton of making “persistent and continuous” unwanted sexual advances toward her in May 1991. . . . John Pearson Roche, 70, professor who served as an adviser to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, dies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, of complications from a stroke.

The popular rock band Pearl Jam files a complaint with the antitrust division of the U.S. Justice Department against Ticketmaster, claiming that the U.S.’s largest ticketselling agency has a monopoly in the ticket-selling business and that the agency inflates ticket prices through excessive service fees.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 5

May 6

598—May 7–12, 1994

World Affairs

Scandals in Spain continue to prompt a wave of Socialist resignations from the government and parliament. . . . Police recover virtually undamaged the famed painting The Scream (1893)—which, in February, was stolen from the National Art Museum in Oslo, Norway—in a hotel in Aasgaardstrand, Norway, 40 miles (65 km) south of Oslo.

May 7

May 8

As fighting in Yemen continues, a number of governments organize emergency evacuations of foreign nationals, and at least 1,700 foreigners departed from the country. . . . A total of 117 unarmed observers from Norway, Denmark, and Italy—known officially as the Temporary International Presence in Hebron— arrive in Hebron to monitor security arrangements for Palestinians in the West Bank city.

May 11

Africa & the Middle East

UN military observers set up an observation post in Brcko, a strategic northern Bosnian city across the Sava River from Croatia. . . . The Hungarian Socialist (formerly Communist) Party gains the most support in the first of two rounds of voting in a general election.

Some 100,000 people of all races gather to hear Nelson Mandela speak in front of Cape Town’s city hall. At another function, former Pres. F. W. de Klerk states, “We have opened up a new era of hope, security and bright future beyond words.”. . . . Amnesty International charges that Saudi officials beat and tortured some Iraqi refugees who had fled to Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Peter Sutherland, the GATT director general, endorses China’s bid to join GATT or its planned successor group, the World Trade Organization. . . . Canada’s fisheries minister, Brian Tobin, defends the government’s intention to police the North Atlantic more than 200 miles (320 km) from its shoreline, which effectively extends Canadian jurisdiction into international waters, as necessary to protect dwindling fish stocks.

Spanish premier Felipe González names Joaquín Almunia, a former labor and civil service minister, to replace Carlos Solchaga as parliamentary leader.

ANC president Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa’s first black president. In his postinaugural address, he raises F. W. de Klerk’s hand with his own. . . . In Lebanon, Israeli warplanes attack bases of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General Command, a Palestinian faction opposed to the PLO’s peace accords with Israel. At least two guerrillas die in the bombing. . . . The U.S. announces it has started delivering humanitarian aid to Rwandan refugees in Tanzania.

The IMF approves a $700 million loan for Romania.

Bosnian Croat leaders and officials from the Muslim-dominated Bosnian government reach a federation agreement that calls for the creation within Bosnian territory of eight cantons, four of which will be predominantly Muslim, two heavily Croat and two ethnically mixed. . . . In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi is sworn in as the head of the government, more than a month after the Alliance for Freedom won a majority in parliamentary elections.

A Scud missile launched from Aden explodes in Sana, Yemen, killing at least 23 civilians. . . . The first transfer of power under the selfrule accord occurs in the town of Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, as 150 armed Palestinian police enter from Egypt to assume security responsibilities.

Bulgaria’s National Electricity Co. announces plans to spend an additional $200 million to upgrade and boost the safety of its aging Kozlodui nuclear-power complex, which currently supplies 40% of the country’s power. . . . John Smith, 55, the leader of Britain’s opposition Labour Party, dies after suffering a heart attack in London.

May 12

The Americas

Four U.S. aircraft fly U.S. and British citizens from Sana as fighting continues in Yemen.

The Baltic states and the so-called Visegrad Group of countries join two other Eastern European nations in becoming associate partners of the Western European Union.

May 9

May 10

Europe

Asia & the Pacific Shigeto Nagano, Japan’s justice minister, resigns in the wake of an international furor caused by his May 4 assertion that a key event in recent Asian history—the Rape of Nanking by Japanese soldiers— was exaggerated by its Chinese victims and historians worldwide.

Ernesto Perez Balladares, a millionaire businessman of the left-leaning Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD), wins a narrow victory in Panama’s presidential election. Perez Balladares’s victory signals the reemergence of the PRD, the party of ousted dictator Manuel Noriega.

Hiroshi Nakai is sworn in as Japan’s justice minister, replacing Shigeto Nagano, who resigned under pressure on May 7.

Federal police place Erich Priebke, a former Nazi special-forces officer, under house arrest in southern Argentina following Priebke’s admission that he participated in the killing of 335 Italian civilians near Rome in 1944, in what is reportedly the worst massacre of Italians during World War II.

Reports disclose that residents of Christmas Island, located in the Indian Ocean 2,050 miles (3,300 km) northwest of Perth, voted in favor of becoming a self-ruling territory within Australia. . . . Western diplomats report that police in Shanghai, China, have seized and detained four members of a leading human-rights group, included Ling Muchen.

It is reported that Chinese authorities have decided to allow a prominent democracy advocate, Yu Haocheng, to leave the country.

In an act interpreted as an indication that the Haitian military will continue to reject demands that Aristide be returned to office, a promilitary bloc within Haiti’s Senate— with the active backing of the military leaders—installs Emile Jonassaint, 81, a Haitian Supreme Court justice, as the nation’s provisional president. . . . In Brazil, Rep. Ricardo Fiuza, one of 18 members of Congress recommended for expulsion, retires after being found innocent of corruption charges. Mexico holds the first presidential campaign debate in the country’s history. The 90-minute debate is televised.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 7–12, 1994—599

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Voters in Austin, Texas, repeal a city policy that gives health-insurance benefits to domestic partners of homosexual and other unmarried city employees and thus becomes the first of about 20 U.S. cities with such policies to repeal the benefits.

The U.S. Navy hands back control of the island of Kahoolawe, which had been used as a target site for Navy gunners since 1941, to the state of Hawaii. The navy will continue to control access to the island until 2003.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Clementine 1, an unmanned experimental research probe, malfunctions.

A British yachtsman, Mike Golding, 33, sets a new speed record of 167 days for an east-to-west around-theworld solo sea voyage. . . . Go for Gin wins the 120th running of the Kentucky Derby. . . . Clement Greenberg, 85, influential art critic, dies in New York City of emphysema.

In response to growing pressure, Pres. Clinton announces that the U.S. will grant asylum interviews to Haitian refugees intercepted in international waters en route to the U.S. In response, Randall Robinson ends the hunger strike he started on Apr. 12.

Los Angeles Superior Court judge Carlos Moreno sentences Fidel Ortiz and Leonard Sosa, who pled no contest to voluntary manslaughter in the fatal beating of Wallace Tope during the 1992 riots, to respective prison terms of 11 and six years. . . . A Nassau County Court jury finds serial killer Joel Rifkin, who confessed to fatally strangling 17 women, guilty of second-degree murder. . . . In Chicago, demonstrations are held both for and against the execution of John Wayne Gacy, convicted for the slayings of 33 people.

The Saudi government awards the U.S.’s AT&T Corp. a $4 billion contract to modernize the entire country’s telecommunications system within six years, a deal for which the Clinton administration lobbied.

John Wayne Gacy, 52, convicted in 1980 for the sex slayings of 33 young men and boys in Chicago in the 1970s, is put to death by lethal injection in Joliet, Illinois. Gacy is the second inmate executed in Illinois and the 237th in the nation since 1976. . . . The Michigan Court of Appeals reinstates murder charges against Dr. Jack Kevorkian for having assisted in the suicides of two women in 1991. However, the court, in a separate ruling, overturns a 1993 assisted suicide law that makes it illegal to help another person commit suicide.

The national team of Canada wins the World Hockey Championship title for the first time in 33 years. . . . George Peppard, 65, actor who appeared in more than 25 films, including Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), dies in Los Angeles, California, of pneumonia.

A study finds there is no evidence to back up the charges of “environmental racism” leveled by minority communities chosen as the sites for toxic waste facilities. The findings are contested.

Lewis B. Puller Jr., 48, Vietnam War veteran and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of his autobiography, dies in Mount Vernon, Virginia, of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The House clears, 393-20, a bill designed to expand and improve Head Start, a social services program for low-income preschool children. . . . The Senate passes, 69-30, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a bill designed to protect abortion clinics and patients and staff who work at the clinics from attacks, blockades, and acts of intimidation. . . . Articles suggest that the tobacco company Brown & Williamson patented the prototype of a safer cigarette in 1966 but never marketed it.

The U.S. Senate approves, 50-49, a measure that calls for Pres. Clinton to seek support from Western allies in lifting the Bosnia arms embargo. However, the Senate also votes, 5049, to pass a measure which would unilaterally end U.S. compliance with the embargo. The two somewhat contradictory amendments are seen as having only symbolic value.

May 8

May 9

Joseph Hazelwood, the captain of the Exxon Valdez oil tanker that spilled 11 million gallons of heavy crude oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989, testifies for the first time in public about the accident. . . . The Treasury Department releases a 30-page regulatory document that defines which activities by businesses and interest groups constitute lobbying.

The Senate approves, 98-1, legislation designed to expand and improve Head Start, a social services program for low-income preschool children. . . . The Senate votes, 95-4, in favor of a bill that will bar virtually all gifts to members of Congress by lobbyists, corporations, and interest groups.

May 7

Cleanth Brooks, 87, influential literary critic and professor emeritus at Yale University, dies in New Haven, Connecticut, of cancer of the esophagus.

May 10

May 11

The Senate, 53-46, gives final approval to a budget resolution that preserves largely intact Pres. Clinton’s proposals for federal spending through fiscal 1999. . . . The California Air Resources Board reaffirms its support for regulations that require the sale in California of 25,000 electric vehicles in 1998, rising to about 250,000 in the year 2003.

Erik H. Erikson, 91, highly influential German-born psychoanalyst and Pulitzer Prize–winning, author who, in 1950, caused a stir by leaving a position at the University of California since he objected in principle to signing a loyalty oath saying he was not a communist, dies in Harwich, Massachusetts, after a brief illness. . . . Roy J. Plunkett, 83, inventor of Teflon who was named to the National Inventors’ Hall of Fame in 1985, dies in Corpus Christi, Texas, of cancer.

May 12

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

600—May 13–18, 1994

World Affairs

May 13

Europe

The UN Security Council agrees to deploy 5,500 troops to Rwanda.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

In tandem with the Israeli military departure from Jericho, some 460 Palestinian policemen enter the West Bank town from Jordan in trucks and buses, to the salutes of joyous well-wishers. . . . Gunmen storm a house in the Tokoza township near Johannesburg, South Africa, and kill at least 12 people, all of whom are black and between 13 and 25 years old.

A court in Shijiazhuang, China, sentences two U.S. citizens, Francisco Hung Moy and Raymond C. Lee, and two unidentified Chinese banking officials to prison terms of between 11 and 20 years for trying to swindle $10 billion from a bank. . . . Chinese newspapers report the government has toughened existing public-order laws to give police more wide-ranging powers to restrict the activities of dissidents.

In an unexpected move, China announces that dissident and prodemocracy advocate Chen Ziming was “released on bail for medical treatment.”

May 14

Princess Diana of Britain helps save the life of a drowning man, Martin O’Donoghue, at Regent’s Park in London.

May 15

British officials announce plans to provide more police officers in London with guns and to allow them easier access to their use. Almost all of the capital’s police officers, however, will continue to patrol unarmed in the British tradition.

May 16

May 17

Asia & the Pacific

The UN Security Council votes unanimously to scale down a plan to deploy 5,500 African troops to Rwanda and agrees to a more manageable, two-phase operation in which 500 Ghanaians are ordered to Kigali immediately and 150 observers will be sent to seek out refugees. The force of 5,500 will be sent as part of the second phase. The body passes a separate resolution which imposes a total arms embargo against Rwanda.

Reports suggest that Venezuela’s costs for Banco Latino and eight other banks reached $6.1 billion. . . . Disputed elections in the Dominican Republic return Pres. Joaquin Balaguer, 87, to power.

In Yemen, fighting rages within a 60-mile (100-km) arc north of Aden and at Al-Anad, 40 miles (65 km) northwest of Aden. . . . The UNHCR states that Rwandan refugees have accused the rebel group of torture and killings. . . . Malawi holds its first multiparty presidential and parliamentary elections. . . . Police in Cairo, Egypt, use rubber bullets, tear gas, and force to prevent a protest by 2,000 lawyers in response to the May 16 reports regarding Abdel Harith Madani. . . . Two Israeli settlers are shot to death and a third sustains a serious head wound in an ambush south of Hebron. Hamas claims it is retaliation for the May 16 violence. The Ukrainian parliament in a secret ballot elects Oleksander Moroz its chairman.

May 18

In Hebron, Israeli soldiers and settlers open fire on Palestinian youths throwing stones at the settlers. At least nine of the Palestinians are wounded. . . . The Malawian parliament approves an interim constitution that strips many of the absolute powers enjoyed by Malawi’s longtime president, Hastings Kamuzu Banda. . . . Reports indicate that employees at the morgue that received the body of Abdel Harith Madani, 32, a lawyer who died in police custody Apr. 27, assert that puncture wounds were the apparent cause of his death, which contradicts claims made by Egyptian officials that he died from asthma.

Israel’s armed forces complete their withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, marking the PLO’s assumption of authority over Gaza and the West Bank town of Jericho. The withdrawal is in accordance with a pact on interim Palestinian selfrule. . . . Figures suggest that the continuing massacres in Rwanda have claimed an estimated 200,000 –500,000 lives.

Police in Beijing, China, break up a TV interview of dissident Wang Dan conducted by NBC News of the U.S. The police briefly detain Wang and NBC correspondents Lucky Severson and Gary Fairman, whom they accuse of engaging in “unauthorized news coverage.”

Former Venezuelan president Carlos Andres Perez is jailed without bail upon orders of the Supreme Court. Perez was suspended in May 1993 when the Senate authorized the Supreme Court to try him for misappropriating government funds. . . . In Brazil, the Chamber of Deputies expels Ibsen Pinheiro from Parliament on charges of corruption and tax evasion.

Japan’s Atomic Energy Commission announces that it will delay at least until 2010 a decision on whether to build a second nuclearfuel reprocessing plant.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 13–18, 1994—601

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Pres. Clinton names Judge Stephen Breyer, 55, of the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston to replace Justice Harry Blackmun in the Supreme Court. . . . In a publicized case, Judge Stephen Dakan approves a settlement giving parental rights to Ernest and Regina Twigg, the biological parents of Kimberly Mays, 15, switched at birth with another baby. Mays drew attention when in August 1993 she won the right to live with her adoptive parents.

May 13

Hazel Brannon Smith, 80, one of the few white newspaper editors in the South to publicly denounce white extremists in the 1950s and 1960s and the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing, dies in Cleveland, Tennessee. . . . Sydney Biddle Barrows, 42, known as the “Mayflower Madam”in 1985, weds Darnay Hoffman, 46. The Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics finds that the number of violent crimes involving handguns in 1992 rose to 930,700, an increase of nearly 21% over the year-earlier figure.

The Supreme Court issues an order allowing New Jersey to sue New York State for political and administrative jurisdiction over Ellis Island and agrees to appoint a special arbiter to examine the case, New Jersey v. New York. . . . The Clinton administration announces that Roussel-Uclaf S.A., a French firm that manufactures the abortion pill RU-486, finalized an agreement to donate its U.S. patent rights to the drug and related technology to the New York City-based Population Council, a nonprofit contraceptive research group. The agreement clears the way for the FDA to begin the approval process for the drug.

Gilbert Roland, 88, Mexican actor who appeared in silent films, dies in Beverly Hills, CA of cancer. . . . The Andy Warhol Museum opens in Pittsburgh, PA. It is the biggest museum in the U.S. dedicated to one artist. Under provisions of the Mining Act of 1872, which Pres. Ulysses Grant signed to promote settlement of the West, the federal government reluctantly sells to a Canadian company, American Barrick Resources Inc., the right to mine billions of dollars worth of gold from federally owned land in Nevada at a price far below market value.

In C&A Carbone v. Town of Clarkstown, the Supreme Court rules, 63, that local so-called flow-control laws which require garbage to be sent to particular processing plants before being shipped to other facilities for final treatment, are unconstitutional.

An Amtrak train derails near Selma, North Carolina, after striking a loose cargo trailer protruding from a freight train traveling in the opposite direction. The crash kills an Amtrak engineer and injures 370 passengers and crew. The crash brings to five the number of Amtrak train accidents in the past 14 months.

New York University opens a conference celebrating 50 years of the Beat Generation artistic and literary movement, which rejected traditional Western social and artistic forms and embraced bohemian ideals.

Articles state that the 1988 presidential campaign committee of former president George Bush has agreed to pay a civil fine of $40,000 for alleged violations of spending and donation rules. . . . The Federal Reserve Board raises the so-called federal funds rate and the discount rate, each by one-half of a percentage point, in its latest move to combat possible inflationary pressures in the expanding economy.

On the 29th anniversary of its founding, Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill designed to expand and improve Head Start, a social services program for low-income preschool children.

May 14

May 15

May 16

May 17

The Interior Department appoints Terrence “Rock” Salt, to head the newly created South Florida Ecosystem Task Force. . . . In a report on derivatives, a class of investment instruments whose popularity has surged in recent years, the GAO calls for strengthened regulatory oversight of the derivatives market and for more transparent data-disclosure procedures.

Reports state that Random House plans to put out an unpublished story by the late Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. Geisel’s widow, Audrey Geisel, discovered a manuscript, “Daisy-Head Mayzie,” in her La Jolla, California, home.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 18

602—May 19–23, 1994

World Affairs

May 19

May 20

May 21

May 22

May 23

Europe In a rare public response to Sinn Fein, the political wing of the outlawed Provisional IRA, the British government states explicitly for the first time that it will hold a referendum among Northern Ireland’s electorate on the question of Northern Ireland’s future governance.

At least 30 patients are killed when mortar shells, reportedly fired by rebels, strike the main hospital in Kigali, Rwanda. . . . Malawi’s longtime president, Hastings Kamuzu Banda, concedes defeat in the country’s first multiparty presidential and parliamentary elections, and Bakili Muluzi, 51, a former secretary general of Banda’s ruling Malawi Congress Party and the leader of the opposition United Democratic Front, is the winner.

The Crimean parliament votes to restore a constitution for the region adopted originally in May 1992 but suspended later that month after Ukraine granted several concessions. . . .Britain’s Conservative prime minister John Major is among the 900 mourners at Labour Party leader John Smith’s funeral in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Reports reveal that legislation passed in the last days of white rule in South Africa transferred millions of acres of land in the KwaZulu homeland to Zulu king Goodwill Zwelithini. The land deal prompts questions of whether the transfer served as an incentive for Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi to join the elections. . . . Islamic militants shoot to death two Israeli soldiers at a border checkpoint in the northern Gaza Strip. The shooting poses a test of the law-enforcement abilities of the new Palestinian police.

Giovanni Goria, 50, former Italian premier, 1987–88, dies in Asti, Italy, of a lung tumor.

The former South Yemen secedes from the Republic of Yemen. . . . Bakili Muluzi, 51, is sworn in as Malawi’s new president. He closes three prisons in which torture was commonly used, decrees the release of all political prisoners, and commutes 10 death sentences. . . . Israeli commandos kidnap Mustafa al-Dirani, a Muslim guerrilla leader, in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley in an attempt to gain information about an Israeli airman shot down in 1986. . . . Secret police in Cairo prohibit Sheik Mohammed al-Ghazali, from delivering a sermon marking the Feast of the Sacrifice, Islam’s holiest day.

A broadened United Nations embargo against Haiti goes into effect.

The U.S. and Britain hasten to announce their recognition of Ukrainian sovereignty over Crimea amid reports of stepped up military maneuvers in the peninsula by Ukrainian troops and the creation of independent Crimean armed police units since the May 20 vote.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

In Rwanda, rebel forces take control of Kigali’s airport and the government’s Kanombe base. Uganda declares a disaster area on the shores of Lake Victoria, where as many as 40,000 mutilated bodies of Rwandan massacre victims washed up after being carried 60 miles (100 km) downstream on the Kagera River. The decomposing corpses threaten to contaminate local drinking water. Roman Herzog, 60, the chief justice of Germany’s federal constitutional court, is elected by a special assembly of lawmakers to serve as the country’s next president. . . . UN officials note that Bosnian Serb forces have not complied with their pledge to remove all their troops from a 1.9mile (3-km) exclusion zone around the besieged city of Gorazde in eastern Bosnia.

Asia & the Pacific

In what is described as the nation’s largest-ever manhunt, Australian police arrest Ivan Milat, 49, a former truck driver suspected of killing seven young backpackers in the state of New South Wales.

During a ritual in Mina, located about 3 miles (5 km) from Mecca, hundreds of people die in a stampede during the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, Islam’s holiest city. . . . In South Africa, three men accused of stabbing and beating to death Amy Biehl, a white American Fulbright Scholar, in August 1993 are released on $70 bail each. Crowds of supporters cheer the three as they leave the courthouse.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 19–23, 1994—603

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, 64, widow of Pres. John Kennedy and Greek shipping mogul Aristotle Onassis and one of America’s most glamorous and widely admired women, dies of nonHodgkin’s lymphoma in New York City. Her death is acknowledged by Pres. Clinton and other world leaders.

Indian prime minister P. V. Narasimha Rao meets with U.S. president Clinton in Washington, D.C., during the first visit by an Indian prime minister to the U.S. since Rajiv Gandhi’s trip in 1987.

The Senate votes 95-3, to pass a bill that will loosen safety requirements for state and local drinkingwater systems, overhauling guidelines imposed by the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974. . . . In a report detailing a two-year probe of major brokerage firms and so-called problem brokers, the SEC issues recommendations to protect customers from brokers who have been the subject of numerous past complaints.

The Defense Department’s Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (the successor to the SDI, or “Star Wars” program) decides to abort the second phase of the mission of the space probe Clementine 1, which malfunctioned May 7 and subsequently began to spin out of control.

Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Gregory Corso read their work at New York University’s conference celebrating 50 years of the Beat Generation. . . . Henry Morgan (born Henry Lerner von Ost Jr.), 79, radio satirist known for his sharp wit and pranks, dies in New York City of lung cancer.

May 19

May 20

Tabasco Cat wins the 119th running of the Preakness Stakes, at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland.

May 21

May 22

In Staples v. U.S., the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that in order to be convicted under the National Firearms Act, a defendant has to be aware that the weapon in question is a machine gun. . . . In Custis v. U.S., the Supreme Court rules, 63, that repeat offenders facing strict sentences required under federal law cannot have earlier convictions reviewed.

Pres. Clinton presents the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award, to the widows of Master Sergeant Gary Gordon, 33, and Sergeant First Class Randall Shughart, 35, two U.S. soldiers killed in Somalia while trying to rescue a U.S. Ranger unit. . . . In Dalton v. Specter, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that the decisions the federal government makes regarding which military bases to close down are not subject to review by federal courts.

In Associated Industries of Missouri v. Lohman, the Supreme Court rules that state governments cannot impose higher taxes on items bought out of state than on those bought in-state. . . . In National Labor Relations Board v. Health Care Corp., the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that nurses who oversee other employees at hospitals are by definition supervisory employees and therefore are not protected by federal labor laws governing unionorganizing activities.

Joe Pass (born Joseph Anthony Jacobi Passalaqua), 65, jazz guitarist, dies in Los Angeles of liver cancer. . . . At the Cannes film festival, the Palme d’Or goes to Pulp Fiction, directed by Quentin Tarantino. The choice sparks controversy due to the film’s graphic violence. . . . Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis is buried beside the body of Pres. John F. Kennedy.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 23

604—May 24–29, 1994

World Affairs

Europe

Russian defense minister Pavel Grachev presents to NATO defense ministers a document outlining proposals for Russian participation in the alliance. . . . The UN Security Council lifts its arms embargoes against South Africa. . . . UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali states that he has “begged” more than 30 Western heads of state to commit troops to a humanitarian mission to Rwanda, noting that “More than 200,000 people have been killed and the international community is still discussing what ought to be done.”

Asia & the Pacific

The main hospital in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, is reported to be abandoned.

Hundreds of Rwandan government army troops begin fleeing Kigali. . . . The death toll from a May 23 human stampede among Muslims taking part in the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, or hajj, stands at 270.

May 26

Dominican president Joaquin Balaguer orders his military chief, Lt. Gen. Constantino Matos, to take firm measures to enforce the UN embargo by sealing the border to Haiti. . . . Canada states it has ended its embargo on governmentto-government aid to South Africa.

A series of corruption scandals involving both senior political and business leaders begin to sweep through France.

May 27

May 28

The Americas

In South Africa, ANC secretary general Cyril Ramaphosa is elected by a joint session of Parliament to chair the assembly that will write the country’s new constitution. . . . Arabic-language newspapers in East Jerusalem carry a notice from PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, in which he declares that Israeli laws are no longer operable in the autonomous areas of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho.

May 24

May 25

Africa & the Middle East

Joan Kirner, who served as the Australian state of Victoria’s first female premier from 1990 to 1992, steps down from her state parliamentary seat.

IAEA officials leave Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, claiming that their efforts to inspect the refueling process failed because of North Korean recalcitrance and warnings that the country will “never allow” outside groups to mark and sample the fuel rods. The Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party wins a majority in Hungary’s parliament. . . . Erich Honecker, 81, former East German head of state who was forced to resign in 1989 and faced charges of manslaughter and treason for the deaths of 49 East German citizens shot while trying to flee the country, dies in Santiago, Chile, of liver cancer.

May 29

Rwandan government ministers and officials reportedly begin evacuating Gitarama. . . . Iraqi president Saddam Hussein fires his premier, Ahmad Hussein Khudayir al-Samarrai, and takes over the post himself in an effort to bring Iraq’s worsening economic crisis under control.

In Colombia, no candidate secures a majority in presidential elections, forcing a runoff.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 24–29, 1994—605

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Flagstar, the parent of the Denny’s restaurant chain, agrees to pay more than $54 million to settle lawsuits filed by black customers who allege they were discriminated against because of their race. . . . The National Urban League civil-rights organization names Hugh Price as its new president. . . . In an election that receives national attention, Ron Lewis (R), a Baptist minister, defeats former Kentucky state senator Joe Prather (D) in a special election to fill the House seat vacated by the Mar. 29 death of Rep. William Natcher.

District Court judge Kevin Duffy sentences Mohammed A. Salameh, Nidal A. Ayyad, Mahmud Abouhalima, and Ahmad M. Ajaj to prison terms of 240 years each for their roles in the February 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

John Barrington Wain, 69, British writer who achieved widespread recognition for his first novel, Hurry On Down (1953), dies in Oxford, England, of a stroke.

The Tennessee Parole Board rejects the first parole bid of convicted assassin James Earl Ray, serving a 99-year prison term for the 1968 slaying of civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. . . . The Senate by voice vote gives final approval to a bill that renews the federal statute providing for the appointment of independent counsels to investigate alleged wrongdoing by top officials of the executive branch.

Pres. Clinton signs into law the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a bill designed to protect abortion clinics and patients and staff who work at the clinics from attacks, blockades, and acts of intimidation. . . . George Wildman Ball, 84, official in the U.S. State Department, 1961–66, dies after recently being diagnosed with terminal abdominal cancer.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Smithsonian Institution names I. Michael Heyman, a former chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley, as its next secretary.

Pres. Clinton announces that he has decided to sign an executive order extending for one year socalled most-favored-nation (MFN) trading status for China. In a major policy shift, the president also states that his administration will cease linking trade and humanrights issues when making future decisions regarding China’s MFN status, prompting much criticism.

May 24

May 25

May 26

In the Jerusalem Post, 19 rabbis place an ad calling a planned service to honor the tens of thousands of homosexuals persecuted during World War II because of their sexual orientation an “abomination.”. . . Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas performs the wedding ceremony for conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh and former aerobics instructor Marta Fitzgerald.

Florida governor Lawton Chiles (D) vetoes a bill that would have allowed parents to spank their children so long as they do not leave “significant” bumps or bruises. . . . Benjamin L. Hooks, chair of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights since 1979, retires.

Daniel Flood, 90, former Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania who resigned from office in 1980 after pleading guilty to accepting bribes from five people, dies in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, of pneumonia.

May 27

May 28

An assailant shoots and wounds Khallid Abdul Muhammad, a controversial former spokesman for the Nation of Islam, shortly after Muhammad finishes a speech before a largely black crowd at the University of California at Riverside. James Edward Bess, the suspected gunman, is severely beaten by a crowd of 60 before being taken away by police.

Al Unser Jr. wins the 78th running of the Indianapolis 500 automobile race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indiana.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 29

606—May 30–June 3, 1994

World Affairs

The former Yugoslav republic of Croatia officially begins using a newly revived currency, the kuna, to replace the dinar, the currency used throughout Yugoslavia before its disintegration. . . . Juan Carlos Onetti, 84, Latin American novelist and poet who was awarded Spain’s most prestigious literary honor, the Cervantes Award, in 1980, dies in Madrid, Spain, of a heart attack. . . . Baron Marcel Bich, 79, French manufacturer who introduced disposable, inexpensive pens to the mass market and started a line of disposable lighters, dies in Paris.

May 30

May 31

June 1

June 2

June 3

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Israel frees an estimated 300–500 Palestinian prisoners as part of its self-rule agreement with the PLO. . . . Tony Burgener, a speaker for the International Committee of the Red Cross, states that more than 500,000 refugees near Gitarama, Rwanda, have been cut off from food and drinking water because the rebels have blocked a main supply route from the south.

South Africa joins the Non-Aligned Movement of developing nations.

A constituent assembly of Muslims and Croats choose Kresimir Zubak, a Croat former judge, to be the president of the newly formed Bosnian-Croat federation. . . . Sidney Gilliat, 86, British screenwriter, film director and producer from the 1930s through the 1960s, dies in Pewsey Vale, England, of leukemia.

South Africa becomes the 51st member of the Commonwealth of Nations, resuming ties with the organization for the first time since 1961.

Ukraine’s parliament approves a four-point resolution quashing the constitution approved by the Crimean parliament on May 20.

A UN commission’s report accuses Bosnian Serbs of “crimes against humanity” and “genocide” for their actions during the ongoing civil war. Serbs are cited for so-called ethnic cleansing and for a “systematic rape policy” in some regions.

A helicopter flying in heavy fog crashes into Beinn na Lice mountain on the southwestern Scottish headland known as the Mull of Kintyre, killing 29 people, many of whom are top British intelligence officials en route to a security conference.

About 10 Israeli fighter jets and helicopter gunships kill at least 26 proIranian Hezbollah fighters during a raid on a guerrilla training base in the Bekaa Valley of Syrian-dominated eastern Lebanon. Presumed guerrillas respond by firing Katyusha rockets across the border into Israel. . . . . A rebel officer, Lt. Frank Ndore, states that rebels control the palace of Rwanda’s former Pres. Habyarimana, who died April 6.

Fourteen African nations, including Ethiopia, Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, pledge troops to Rwanda to stop the massacres there.

In an effort to defuse tensions stemming from Ukrainian resistance to Crimea’s attempts to assert autonomy, negotiators representing Ukraine and Crimea sign a communiqué reaffirming that Crimea is part of Ukraine and calling for the establishment of a joint committee that will seek to resolve legislative differences between Crimea and the central government. . . . Right Reverend Lord (Stuart Yarworth Blanch) Blanch, 76, archbishop of York in the Church of England, 1975–83, dies of cancer.

In response to the June 2 violence, Israel deploys tanks and artillery on its border with Lebanon in an apparent show of force to discourage further rocket attacks against Israeli targets. Sporadic clashes continue between pro-Iranian guerrillas and Israel and the South Lebanon Army, Israel’s Lebanese proxy.

Asia & the Pacific Masakatsu Nozoe, a right-wing Japanese militant, fires a shot in Tokyo at former Japanese premier Morihiro Hosokawa. No one is injured.

Venezuela restores a constitutional provision guaranteeing a person’s right to “engage in the economic activity of his choice” free of unnecessary government restraints. . . . Jamaica announces that it has agreed to allow the U.S. to process Haitians in Jamaican waters for six months.

The Indonesian government announces that it will remove certain limits on foreign investment, including minimum capital requirements.

The British-ruled Turks and Caicos Islands, located southeast of the Bahamas, announces that it will permit the processing of Haitian refugees at a coastal site on the islands.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 30–June 3, 1994—607

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle At the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, 150 Jewish homosexuals hold the first service honoring the tens of thousands of homosexuals persecuted by Nazis during World War II. . . . Pope John Paul II asserts the church should never ordain women priests. . . . Ezra Taft Benson, 94, leader of the Mormon Church since 1985, dies in Salt Lake City, Utah, after being hospitalized for congestive heart failure.

In Waters v. Churchill, the Supreme Court rules that government agencies can dismiss workers for making allegedly insubordinate remarks only if the employer can show that the language is either damaging to workplace effectiveness or a matter of private concern outside the scope of the First Amendment. . . . A federal grand jury indicts Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D, Ill.), one of the most influential members of Congress, on 17 felony counts, including embezzlement, fraud, and obstruction of justice. A U.S. District Court jury in Los Angeles decides against awarding Rodney King punitive damages in a civil lawsuit against six city lawenforcement officers stemming from King’s 1991 videotaped beating by the police. The same panel in April awarded King more than $3.8 million in compensatory damages in a suit against the city of Los Angeles. . . . . Hundreds of Los Angeles police officers begin to call in sick, effectively staging a strike.

The city council in Chelsea, Iowa, which has experienced floods 15 times in the last 25 years, votes in favor of accepting federal funding to move the town’s homes and businesses to higher ground. The town’s 330 residents are sharply divided over the move, which will be voluntary.

Federal district judge Thomas Zilly orders the reinstatement of Col. Margarethe Cammermeyer, a highly decorated colonel who was ousted from the Washington State National Guard because of her sexual orientation. Zilly asserts that the past ban on military service by homosexuals is “grounded solely in prejudice” and violates the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.

President Clinton embarks on a diplomatic tour of Western Europe.

May 31

Data shows that ticket sales in NYC’s Broadway theater district for the 1993–94 season reached a record $356 million. The Broadway box-office gross for the season is up $28.3 million from the 1992–93 season, which set the previous record.

The IRS announces that, in cases where a company pollutes its land and then spends money to restore it, the clean-up costs are necessary expenses and can be written off immediately. . . . The Commerce Department reports the composite index of leading economic indicators is unchanged in April from March. The reading of 101.2 is the index’s highest level since the department first began reporting it in 1948. Seven towns in Alaska and six organizations representing the state’s indigenous people drop Joseph Hazelwood, the captain of the Exxon Valdez oil tanker when it dumped million gallons of crude oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound, as a defendant in a separate lawsuit since they believe he cannot pay large amounts in damages. . . . The Labor Department reports that the nation’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate declined to 6% in May, from 6.4% in April. The fourtenths of a percentage point decline is the largest monthly fall in the rate since November 1983.

May 30

Ned Andrews, 13, from Knoxville, Tennessee, wins the 67th National Spelling Bee when he correctly spells the word “antediluvian.” ESPN airs coverage of the spelling bee for the first time.

David Hinson, the head of the FAA, announces that an ambitious multibillion-dollar plan launched in the early 1980s to modernize the nation’s air-traffic control system will be scaled back. Hinson maintains that passenger safety will not be jeopardized and that plan revisions ultimately will save taxpayers millions of dollars.

June 1

June 2

June 3

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

608—June 4–8, 1994

June 4

June 5

June 6

June 7

June 8

World Affairs

Europe

More than 30,000 Allied veterans of the D-Day invasion take part in a series of commemorative events in Normandy, Britain, and their home countries. . . . An international meeting on Indonesian-governed East Timor closes after delegates create a coalition aimed at ending the alleged repression of Timorese. The delegates propose a peace plan that includes a referendum on Timorese independence and a phased withdrawal of Indonesian troops from East Timor.

The Hungarian Socialist Party at a special congress officially chooses its leader, Gyula Horn, to be Hungary’s next premier. . . . Lord Peter Thorneycroft, 84, British politician who served as a member of Parliament, 1939–66, and was made a life peer of the House of Lords in 1967, dies after a long illness.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Kuwait sentences five Iraqis and one Kuwaiti to death by hanging for involvement in a plot to assassinate former U.S. president George Bush during a trip Bush made to Kuwait in April 1993. The three-judge panel also orders seven other Iraqis and Kuwaitis charged in the plot to serve prison sentences of from six months to 12 years. One of the 14 defendants, a Kuwaiti, is acquitted.

India tests its Prithvi ballistic missile by launching it over the Bay of Bengal. . . . In Bangladesh, author Taslima Nasreen is quoted as stating that the Koran, the holy text of the Muslim faith, had to be “revised thoroughly” to reflect contemporary issues and attitudes. Leading Islamic clerics file suit against her under a little-used provision of Bangladesh’s penal code that outlaws statements offending the religious feelings of any group.

Reports indicate that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein has introduced strict penalties apparently based on sharia, or Islamic law, to combat rising crime in Iraq. Under these laws, car thieves and others stealing goods worth more than 5,000 dinars (about $12) will have one of their hands amputated at the wrist, and a second conviction for a similar crime calls for amputation of a foot at the ankle. Anyone found guilty of armed robbery will face execution by firing squad. . . . Reports state that more than 5,000 people in droughtstricken southern Ethiopia have died over the past two months.

The Australian unit of U.S. tobacco company Philip Morris launches a High Court challenge to the Commonwealth Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Act, federal legislation banning tobacco advertising.

Prime Minister Erskine Sandiford of Barbados loses a no-confidence vote in the House, the lower chamber of Parliament.

Nearly 70,000 people gather on Southsea Common in Portsmouth, England, for a religious ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of the D day invasion. In attendance are British prime minister John Major, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Pres. Bill Clinton of the U.S., P.M. Jean Chrétien of Canada, and P.M. Paul Keating of Australia. At a review in Portsmouth harbor of a fleet of more than 300 Allied warships, the audience includes Polish president Lech Walesa, Czech Republic president Vaclav Havel, and Pres. Michal Kovac of Slovakia. The Organization of African Unity, which denounced apartheid for decades, formally admits South Africa as its 53rd member. . . . French president François Mitterrand, Queen Elizabeth II of Britain, U.S. president Clinton, and Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien are among the heads of state and government leaders who gather in Normandy, France, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the massive amphibious assault on D-Day— June 6, 1944—that launched the Allied reconquest of Western Europe from Nazi Germany and helped bring World War II to a close.

Economic and trade officials from the 25 OECD nations endorse a report outlining more than 60 specific measures designed to reduce unemployment in member nations. . . . Reports state that the Norwegian government will defy a worldwide ban on whaling and permit its country’s whalers to catch 301 minke whales.

Dennis Christopher George Potter, 59, renowned British TV writer who wrote more than 30 television plays, dies near Ross-on-Wye, England, of cancer of the pancreas and liver.

Israeli and Jordanian negotiators announce that they will establish joint commissions to consider border disputes, water rights, tourism, the environment, and economic issues.

The UN Compensation Commission distributes its first payments to victims of Iraq’s 1990–91 occupation of Kuwait, paying a total of about $2.75 million to 670 claimants currently living in 16 countries.

Representatives of the two major warring factions in Bosnia-Herzegovina sign an agreement committing their governments and militias to a month-long cease-fire, beginning June 10. . . . U.S. president Clinton, who attended Oxford University from October 1968 to June 1970 as a Rhodes scholar but did not graduate in order to begin studies at a U.S. law school, receives an honorary doctorate in civil law at Oxford.

In Rwanda, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Kigali, Vincent Nsengiyumva, is killed along with two other bishops and 10 priests by rebel soldiers assigned to guard them at a religious complex at Kabgaye in southwestern Rwanda . . . . Israeli warplanes carry out attacks against guerrilla positions in Lebanon.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 4–8, 1994—609

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Earle Warren, 79, jazz musician, dies in Springfield, Ohio, of complications after a stroke and kidney failure. . . . An estimated 20,000 gays and lesbians attend the “Gay and Lesbian Day at Walt Disney World,” a gathering which is not sponsored by the park and is protested by Christian groups.

In Farmer v. Brennan, the Supreme Court rules, 9-0, that prison officials can be held liable if they know that an inmate is at risk of being harmed by other inmates but fails to take precautionary measures to try to protect the prisoner. . . . Six antiabortion protesters who use chains and containers filled with concrete are the first people charged under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. . . . In Nichols v. U.S., the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that a judge can lengthen the sentence of a defendant previously convicted of a misdemeanor, even if the defendant was not represented by a lawyer in the earlier case.

Officials of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters announce that the union’s rank-and-file have approved a new contract with the trucking industry.

Michael Kearney, 10 becomes the U.S.’s youngest-ever college graduate when he receives a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the University of South Alabama in Mobile. . . . Spaniards Sergi Bruguera and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario win the men’s and women’s singles tennis titles at the French Open in Paris.

U.S. District Court judge William L. Dwyer lifts a three-year-old ban on logging in the Pacific Northwest, stating that the plan submitted by the Clinton administration will protect the main habitat of the endangered northern spotted owl. . . . In Key Tronic Corp. v. U.S., the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that companies or individuals responsible for cleaning up polluted sites under the Superfund law cannot recover fees for litigation or negotiation in successful suits against other parties liable for the pollution.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon Church, names Howard Hunter, 86, as its 14th president, succeeding Ezra Taft Benson, who died May 30. . . . Barry Sullivan, 81, actor who portrayed the defense attorney in The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (1954), dies in Sherman Oaks, California, after suffering from a respiratory ailment.

Statewide primary elections are held in Alabama, California, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota. In the only upset of an incumbent, William Janklow, a former governor of South Dakota, defeats current governor Walter Miller in that state’s Republican primary.

An FDA advisory panel votes to allow breast cancer prevention trials involving the controversial drug tamoxifen to resume, despite recent studies showing that the drug may carry the risk of cancers of the uterus.

Vicki Van Meter, 12, becomes the youngest female to pilot a plane across the Atlantic Ocean. She was accompanied by a flight instructor, Curt Arnspiger.

Ira Wexner, a Nassau County Court judge, sentences admitted serial killer Joel Rifkin to 25 years to life in prison for the murder of prostitute Tiffany Bresciani. . . . U.S. District Court judge Malcolm Muir sentences Darvin Ray Peachey, 23, who pled guilty in December 1993 to burning eight Amish barns in Belleville, Pennsylvania, in 1992, to 10 years in prison. . . . In response to a civil lawsuit, the Detroit City Council approves a $5.25 million settlement to be divided among 14 family members of Malice Green, a black motorist who was beaten to death in 1992 by white police officers.

June 4

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June 7

June 8

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

610—June 9–12, 1994

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

June 9

June 10

International aid donors who are meeting offer $42 million in emergency aid over a three-month period to the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction (PECDAR), the Palestinian agency that will administer international aid during Palestinian self-rule.

June 11

June 12

Elections in the 12 nations of the European Union conclude, and parties to the left of the political center remain the largest single bloc in the European Parliament.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Canada, the Ontario legislature defeats, by a vote of 68 to 59, a controversial bill that would have extended to same-sex couples the rights and obligations currently enjoyed by common-law couples of heterosexual orientation.

Statistics show that Australia’s overall population at the end of 1993 totaled 17,746,600, up 174,700 from the year-earlier figure.

Despite the cease-fire that is to take effect in Bosnia, sporadic shelling by both sides near Tuzla is reported.

China conducts an underground nuclear-weapon test in the remote western province of Xinjiang, the country’s 40th such test since 1964. The test draws criticism from the U.S. and Britain. Separately, reports suggest that Chen Ziming, a prominent political prisoner arrested in 1989 for his role in prodemocracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square who was released from prison for medical reasons in May, has been allowed to return to his home.

Bosnian government forces escalate efforts to subdue and reclaim territory held near Bihac in northwestern Bosnia by forces loyal to Fikret Abdic, a Muslim militia leader who opposed the Muslim-dominated government and did not sign the June 8 cease-fire accord.

Moshood Abiola, a millionaire businessman who was the apparent winner of presidential elections annulled in June 1993 by Nigeria’s then-military leader, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, declares himself president of Nigeria. Abiola’s declaration defies the country’s current regime led by Gen. Sani Abacha, who proclaimed himself ruler after forcing out an interim government in November 1993.

Austrian citizens in a nationwide referendum vote to approve Austria’s entry into the European Union, clearing the way for Austria to formally join the EU on January 1, 1995. . . . In a national referendum, Swiss citizens vote to maintain Switzerland’s traditional neutrality by keeping Swiss soldiers out of UN peacekeeping missions.

In response to Moshood Abiola’s June 11 declaration in Nigeria, Gen. Sani Abacha declares in a nationwide radio and TV address that he will punish opponents of the government.

Haiti’s military-backed provisional president, Emile Jonassaint, declares a state of emergency, saying that Haiti faces possible “invasion and occupation.”

Chinese authorities convict three men of robbing and murdering 24 Taiwanese tourists and eight Chinese crew on a pleasure boat in eastern China in March.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 9–12, 1994—611

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The House approves, 244-178, an amendment to the fiscal 1995 defense authorization bill requiring the Clinton administration to end all participation in the UN-sponsored international arms embargo against Bosnia.

Attorney General Janet Reno announces that the Justice Department fined three companies—Plastics Inc., Polar Plastics Manufacturing and Comet Products—for conspiring to fix prices on plastic cutlery during a one-year period ending in December 1992. Reno states four executives from those companies agreed to plead guilty to price-fixing, and that three others were indicted on one count each of conspiracy.

Jan Tinbergen, 91, Dutch economist who shared the Nobel Prize in 1969 and created the model of the U.S. economy for the League of Nations in 1938, dies in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. . . . Angela Lakeberg, the conjoined twin who in August 1993 was surgically separated from her sister who perished in the procedure, dies in the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 20 days shy of her first birthday.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

June 9

Pres. Clinton further lengthens the list of U.S. sanctions aimed at dislodging Haiti’s military-led regime by immediately freezing most financial transactions between the U.S. and Haiti and by halting commercial flights between the two countries. The U.S. State Department urges the estimated 8,000 U.S. citizens remaining in Haiti to leave at their earliest convenience. . . . Japan’s Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko start a visit of the U.S.

Reports state that the College Board plans to recalibrate the SAT’s scoring system in April 1995 when it will recenter the exam’s scoring scale, raising average scores on the test’s math and verbal sections to 500 points each.

June 10

Philip Vera Cruz, 89, cofounder of the United Farm Workers union who resigned as vice president of the organization in 1977, dies in Bakersfield, California, of emphysema.

Reports confirm that two U.S. newspapers have refused to run a “Doonesbury” comic strip in which one of the characters asserts that the Roman Catholic Church sanctified gay marriages in the past, citing information from a widely publicized book, Same Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, by Yale University professor John Boswell.

The National African-American Leadership Summit, a conference for black leaders organized by Rev. Benjamin Chavis Jr., the executive director of the NAACP, opens in Baltimore, Maryland. . . . The American Medical Association names Dr. Lonnie R. Bristow as the group’s president. Bristow will be the first black in the organization’s 147-year history to hold the leadership position. . . . The former wife of O. J. Simpson, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, are murdered in Los Angeles.

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, 92, leader of the Lubavitcher Hasidic Jewish sect whose followers believe he might reveal himself as the messiah, dies in New York City after suffering a stroke several months earlier. . . . At the Tony Award ceremonies, Passions, a musical, picks up four awards. Angels in America: Perestroika wins for the best play. The first-ever lifetime achievement Tony award goes to actors Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 11

June 12

612—June 13–16, 1994

June 13

June 14

June 15

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

In the midst of international tension over the issue, North Korea threatens to withdraw fully from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN body attempting to monitor at least seven nuclear sites at Yongbyon, North Korea.

Shelling by both sides near the strategic northern town of Brcko in Bosnia is reported.

Reports suggest that Rwandan rebel forces overran Gitarama, the seat of the interim government 30 miles (50 km) south of Kigali. . . . In Nigeria, prodemocracy campaigners loyal to Moshood Abiola begin a week of protest against Gen. Sani Abacha’s regime. About 600 protesters march in Lagos. At least 10 demonstrators are arrested, and numerous injuries are reported in clashes with riot police in Ketu. Police fire tear gas on protesters setting up roadblocks in Akure, 120 miles (190 km) northeast of the capital. . . . A magistrate in Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, indicts Samir Geagea, the former leader of the disbanded Lebanese Forces militia for “crimes punishable by death,” including allegedly ordering the bombing of a packed Maronite Catholic church in February that left 11 people dead and scores injured.

Ecuador’s president Sixto Durán Ballén signs the agricultural-development law. Tens of thousands of Indians in Ecuador begin a series of protests in response, claiming that the new law ignores their land and water rights.

UN weapons experts complete the dismantling of Iraq’s major chemical-weapons production facility, located in Muthanna, about 60 miles (100 km) north of Baghdad, the capital.

Russian president Yeltsin signs a much-anticipated decree aimed at empowering the government to deal firmly with Russia’s mounting epidemic of organized crime. The decree will enable the police to hold mafia suspects—whom Yeltsin terms “criminal filth”—for up to 30 days without charge, permit police searches of property and examination of financial records without warrant or evidence of a crime, and allow certain crime-ridden cities and districts to be placed under “special control.”

Representatives of Rwanda’s interim government and the rebel group agree to an immediate cease-fire. However, sporadic fighting between Hutu-dominated government forces and rebels continues in Kigali and elsewhere. . . . Agha Hasan Abedi, founder and former chair of BCCI, and 11 other former BCCI officials are found guilty by an Abu Dhabi court of various criminal charges related to their role in BCCI. The 12 men are ordered to pay a total of $9 billion in compensation and are sentenced to a total of 61 years in prison.

In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, unidentified gunmen kill Hermogenes Almeida Filho and Reinaldo Guedes Miranda, two members of a commission probing the summer 1993 shooting deaths of eight homeless boys and 21 slum residents in the city.

The international crisis stemming from North Korea’s refusal to allow complete inspections of its nucleardevelopment sites appears to be defused somewhat following a visit to that country by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin’s June 14 decree on crime provokes a storm of outrage from across the political spectrum.

Artillery and machine-gun fire erupts along the front line in Kigali, Rwanda, and each side blames the other for provoking further fighting. UN officials and rebels report that they found thousands of civilians buried in mass graves in Kigali suburbs, and the surrounding countryside.

Sporadic fighting continues in various areas across Bosnia since the June 10 cease-fire took effect.

June 16

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Statistics show the rate of deaths of Australian aborigines while in police custody has not fallen since May 1989.

The Mexican government’s chief negotiator in talks with the peasantrebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) resigns, accusing the ruling party’s presidential candidate, Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León, of “making efforts to build peace more difficult.”

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 13–16, 1994—613

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

In Ladue v. Gilleo, the Supreme Court rules, 9-0, that municipalities and states cannot prohibit homeowners from posting signs on their property proclaiming their opinions on political or personal matters. . . . Allegheny County (Pennsylvania) Common Pleas Court judge Terrence O’Brien removes from the bench Pennsylvania State Supreme Court justice Rolf Larsen, who was convicted of having staff, workers obtain prescription drugs for his use. Larsen is also sentenced to two years’ probation and 240 hours of community service . . . In Romano v. Oklahoma, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that state prosecutors in a murder trial do not violate the Constitution when they tell the jury that the defendant has already been sentenced to death for another murder.

Col. Charles Alvin Beckwith, 65, retired colonel who, as head of the army’s antiterrorist Delta Force, led an unsuccessful 1980 mission to rescue 52 hostages held in the U.S. embassy in Teheran, Iran, dies in Austin, Texas, of natural causes.

A federal jury in Anchorage, Alaska, rules that Exxon Corp. acted recklessly in allowing Joseph Hazelwood, who has a history of alcoholism, to serve as captain of the Exxon Valdez oil tanker, which dumped 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989 in the worst oil spill in U.S. history. The ruling means that an estimated 10,000 plaintiffs may now seek punitive damages and compensatory damages from Exxon. . . . A state appeals court in Atlanta, Georgia, overturns a 1993 jury verdict ordering GM to pay $105.2 million in damages to the parents of Shannon Moseley, who was killed in a 1989 automobile accident. . . . In U.S. v. Carlton, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that Congress may retroactively close a loophole in federal tax law and collect taxes that were unpaid as a result of the loophole. . . . In O’Melveny & Myers v.MI FDIC, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that lawyers and accountants who represent or work for failed banks and savings-and-loan institutions are liable in negligence cases under state, not federal, law. . . . The House passes by voice vote a measure designed to improve consumers’ access to their personal credit information, improve the overall accuracy of credit records, and overhaul key provisions of the 1970 Fair Credit Reporting Act. . . . In New York v. Milhelm Attea, the Supreme Court unanimously upholds New York State restrictions on vendors who sell untaxed cigarettes on Indian reservations.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation awards its annual fellowships, honoring individuals in many fields. Twenty of the so-called genius grants are awarded, 11 fewer than in 1993. Eight of the 20 grants go to minorities, the highest percentage in the award’s history. . . . K. T. Stevens (born Gloria Wood), 74, actress who was the daughter of film director Sam Wood and who was an official of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists since 1978, dies in Brentwood, California, of lung cancer.

Pres. Clinton announces his administration’s long-delayed plan for reforming the federal welfare system. . . . The Supreme Court rejects without comment a joint request by TV host Phil Donahue and David Lawson, 38, who is sentenced to death for a 1980 fatal shooting, that his execution be televised by the Donahue talk show. . . . Thomas J. Lane, 95, former Democratic congressman from Massachusetts who served a total of 20 years in the House, dies in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

Mohammed al-Khilewi, 31, a highranking Saudi Arabian diplomat, applies for political asylum in the U.S. after maintaining that he has in his possession thousands of documents that are potentially damaging to the Saudi government.

The Senate passes a resolution that orders the Senate Banking Committee to begin hearings into incidents related to the Whitewater affair by July 30.

The New York Rangers win the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup over the Vancouver Canucks. The Rangers’ Stanley Cup victory is their first since 1940. . . . Henry Mancini, 70, composer and conductor of music for almost 250 movies who won 20 Grammy Awards and four Academy Awards, dies in Beverly Hills, California, of complications from pancreatic cancer.

The House Ways and Means Committee estimates that a total of 14.1 million people currently receive assistance through the main federal welfare program, AFDC. . . . David Lawson, 38, sentenced to death for the 1980 fatal shooting of a man during a robbery at the victim’s home, is executed in the gas chamber in Raleigh, North Carolina. Lawson becomes only the sixth prisoner to be put to death in North Carolina and the 244th in the U.S. since 1976.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Israel and the Vatican disclose that they have signed an agreement forging full ties.

The Illinois Supreme Court overturns a lower court decision when it orders a Chicago area couple to return their three-year-old adopted child, known as Baby Richard, to his biological father, whom the child has never seen. The decision touches off a debate on adoption and parental rights. . . . District Court judge Leonie Brinkema upholds the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act in a case filed by an antiabortion group.

A study argues that there is no evidence to prove an association between silicone breast implants and connective-tissue diseases and disorders.

Reports find that ESPN’s broadcast of game seven of the Stanley Cup playoffs on June 14 garnered a 5.2 national cable rating, the highestever cable rating for a hockey game.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 13

June 14

June 15

June 16

614—June 17–22, 1994

World Affairs

June 17

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Terence de Vere White, 82, Irish writer and editor of The Irish Times newspaper, 1961–77, dies in London after suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

Rebels outside Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, fire a rocket-propelled grenade from close range at a UN vehicle, killing a peacekeeper from Uruguay.

Police arrest two leaders of the Sendero Luminoso guerrilla organization during separate raids in a working-class district of Lima, Peru’s capital.

The president of the Algerian Human Rights League, Yousef Fathallah, is assassinated in a fatal shooting in Algiers.

Prime Minister Erskine Sandiford of Barbados announces that new elections for the nation’s 28-member House of Assembly will be held two years earlier than scheduled. Sandiford, the leader of the Democratic Labour Party, is prompted to take the action after losing a noconfidence vote June 7.

June 18

June 19

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter discloses to U.S. officials full details of various concessions and demands offered by high-level North Korean officials, including Pres. Kim Il Sung, as part of an effort to ease the international crisis stemming from North Korea’s refusal to allow complete inspections of its nucleardevelopment sites. At a prayer hall in the city of Mashad, 450 miles (720 km) east of Teheran, the Iranian capital, a bomb explodes, killing 25 people commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed. . . . Israeli warplanes carry out attacks against guerrilla positions in Lebanon.

June 20

June 22

Ernesto Samper Pizano of the ruling Liberal Party wins Colombia’s presidential runoff election by a razor-thin margin.

Jose B. Fernandez, 70, Philippine bank official who initiated the investigation of charges against Ferdinand Marcos and his wife, Imelda, dies in Manila, the Philippines, of cancer.

The Canadian government ends its freeze, instituted in 1978, on aid to Cuba, arguing that the post-Cold War era demands new policies.

Reports state that Chinese authorities have executed three men convicted June 12 of robbing and murdering 24 Taiwanese tourists and eight Chinese crew on a pleasure boat in eastern China in March. . . . Michael Fay, 19, a U.S. citizen who was flogged four times in an incident that attracted widespread international media attention, is released from a Singapore prison less than two months after his caning.

An advance team of 20 French troops arrives at the Zaire-Rwanda border in preparation for an operation known as Operation Turquoise, which involves some 2,500 marines and Foreign Legion soldiers to move refugees, children, religious missionaries and clergy, and the wounded to safer areas in Rwanda.

June 21

Russia enrolls in NATO’s “partnership for peace” program. . . . The UN Security Council approves the French plan for intervention in Rwanda. Reports reveal that Senegal has pledged 500 troops to the mission. . . . U.S. president Clinton announces that the U.S. and North Korea have reached an agreement under which North Korea will freeze indefinitely all activity at its nuclear complex.

Asia & the Pacific

The government of Indonesia bans three magazines that were openly critical of the government.

Ernesto Samper Pizano, elected president of Colombia on June 19, faces controversy with the public disclosure of two audiotapes suggesting that the Samper campaign was funded by drug money. Separately, guerrilla leader Francisco Caraballo, who heads the People’s Liberation Army, is captured by government troops near Cajica, a town 18 miles (30 km) north of Bogota.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 17–22, 1994—615

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

O. J. Simpson is charged in the June 12 slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman. He is arrested after leading police on a televised 60-mile (95 km) chase. . . . District Court judge Walter Smith Jr. sentences eight members of the Branch Davidian cult who engaged in a standoff with federal agents in Waco, Texas, to prison. . . . An appeals court overturns the January 1993 conviction of Lance Henry Wilson, found guilty of bribery in the HUD scandal, arguing that the statute of limitations had expired for his alleged offense.

INS inspectors aboard the USS Comfort moored in the harbor of Kingston, the Jamaican capital, begin instituting a revised U.S. policy that calls for asylum hearings for U.S.-bound Haitian refugees intercepted in international waters by U.S. Coast Guard boats. The inspectors hear the claims of 35 Haitians and determine that six of them have a “well-founded fear of persecution” by the military regime in Haiti.

In MCI Communications v. AT&T, the Supreme Court rules that the FCC went beyond its authority in relaxing regulatory measures on long-distance carriers competing with AT&T. . . . In West Lynn Creamery Inc. v. Massachusetts, the Supreme Court votes, 7-2, to prohibit Massachusetts from subsidizing the state’s milk producers. . . . The House approves, 234-192, an amendment to a Transportation Department appropriations bill abolishing the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), the nation’s oldest regulatory body.

A 30-member advisory panel rejects proposals to conduct largescale studies to determine the effectiveness of the two most fully developed AIDS vaccines in the U.S. after the panel concluded that the vaccines show little promise in their effectiveness in fighting off HIV infection. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a federal agency overseeing efforts to find an AIDS vaccine, endorses the rejection.

Golfer Arnold Palmer plays what he states is his last round in the U.S. Open. . . . The broadcast of the police pursuit of O. J. Simpson traveling in a white Ford Bronco van on an interstate highway in Orange County, transfixes the country. . . . Jean Borotra, 95, French tennis player, dies in Arbonne, France.

The United Transportation Union, representing about 2,300 Long Island Rail Road employees, agrees to end their two-day strike against the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

New York City hosts the fourth Gay Games, an Olympic-style athletic competition, in conjunction with the 25th anniversary of the socalled Stonewall uprising, a clash between NYC police and homosexuals often cited as the beginning of the gay-rights movement.

June 17

June 18

June 19

In Reed v. Farley, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that a state prison inmate who is not brought to a second trial within the legal time limit cannot challenge the state court’s refusal to dismiss his second case. . . . Former professional football star O. J. Simpson pleads not guilty in the slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, who were killed June 12.

In two cases considered together, Barclays Bank PLC v. Franchise and Colgate-Palmolive Co. v. Franchise Tax Board, the Supreme Court upholds California’s method of taxing local subsidiaries of multinational corporations. . . . . In Director v. Greenwich Collieries, the Supreme Court decides, 6-3, to strike down a 50-year-old Labor Department rule concerning workers’ disability benefits, arguing federal law dictates the burden of proof falls on the individual who seeks disability benefits.

The Virginia Court of Appeals overturns a lower court judge’s decision in which Kay Bottoms was awarded the custody of the son of her lesbian daughter. The threejudge appeals court panel unanimously rules that a parent’s homosexuality is not necessarily grounds for having custody of a child taken away. . . . The House, 317-105, gives final approval to a bill that renews the federal statute providing for the appointment of independent counsels to investigate alleged wrongdoing by officials of the executive branch.

Occidental Petroleum Corp. agrees to pay New York State $98 million in an out-of-court settlement related to the burial of toxic waste in the Love Canal, ending New York’s 14-year-old lawsuit against Occidental. . . . The dollar falls below 100 yen for the first time since World War II when it reaches 99.90 yen in trading in New York before closing at 100.30. . . . Rose Totino, 79, entrepreneur who helped start one of the first brands of frozen pizza, dies in Rochester, Minnesota, of cancer.

Pres. Clinton further broadens sanctions against Haiti by freezing deposits held by all Haitians in U.S.owned banks.

Ernie Els of South Africa wins the U.S. Open golf tournament at the Oakmont (Pennsylvania) Country Club.

Microsoft Corp., the world’s largest software company, reaches a settlement with Stac Electronics Inc. in a patent-infringement dispute. The settlement is viewed as a major victory for Stac, and it reportedly marks the first time ever that Microsoft clearly loses a battle over proprietary technology. . . .William Wilson Morgan, 88, astronomer who discovered the shape of the Milky Way galaxy, dies in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, of a heart attack.

The World Wildlife Federation reveals that scientists have captured a live specimen of a rare ox in Vietnam that was previously known only through skulls and pelts.

June 20

June 21

In basketball, the Houston Rockets win their first-ever NBA title when they defeat the New York Knicks, 90-84.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 22

616—June 23–27, 1994

World Affairs

Europe Aleksandr Lukashenko wins a stunning victory in the first round of Belarus’s presidential elections. . . . To help cut the Defense Ministry budget, Queen Elizabeth II agrees to give up the royal yacht Britannia in 1997, after which the ship, which was launched in 1953, will be decommissioned.

June 23

June 24

June 25

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

France moves troops into Rwanda to protect civilians from massacres and strife that claimed more than 200,000 lives. The rebels expel French relief workers, medical personnel, and journalists from rebelcontrolled territory. . . . In Nigeria, Moshood Abiola, the apparent winner in the annulled 1993 presidential elections, is arrested. In Lagos, hundreds of prodemocracy campaigners march, demanding Abiola’s immediate release and the removal of Gen. Sani Abacha. . . . Reports estimate that 200,000 people have been killed in fighting between the Angolan government and UNITA since October 1992.

The Guatemalan government and leftist rebels agree on details for a commission to investigate humanrights abuses perpetrated during the Central American nation’s civil war, which is in its 34th year. Separately, Guatemala’s national police announce that four mass graves containing the charred remains of 1,000 men, women, and children was discovered in Quiche province, located about 100 miles (160 km) north of the capital, Guatemala City. It is widely presumed that the people were killed during the early 1980s.

In Nigeria, marches in support of Moshood Abiola, who was arrested June 23, continue. . . . George Bodzo Nyandoro, 67, African nationalist who helped found the movement against white supremacy in Southern Rhodesia, now known as Zimbabwe, dies in Harare, Zimbabwe.

A jury at a Canadian armed forces base in Petawawa, Ontario finds Lt. Col. Carol Mathieu not guilty of negligent performance of duty in connection with the shooting deaths of three Somali men and the beating death of a Somali teenager, Shidane Abukar Arone, in 1993.

The leaders of the 12-nation European Union close a summit, during which they could not agree on a successor to Jacques Delors for the presidency of the European Commission, the EU’s top executive post, because of a veto by British prime minister John Major.

Tsutomu Hata resigns as premier of Japan before facing a no-confidence vote. . . . Forces loyal to Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani launch massive artillery, infantry, and air strikes against rebel positions held by nominal premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and his allies, driving them from their bases in Kabul. Shaun Taylor, 20, a British UN peacekeeper, is killed in the exclusion zone around Gorazde, a UN safe area, by a Bosnian Serb sniper. The UN lists 94 peacekeepers killed and more than 1,000 injured in the former Yugoslavia since it began sending troops there in 1992.

June 26

Asia & the Pacific

An Israeli panel that conducted a probe into the massacre of 29 Palestinian worshipers in February in the West Bank city of Hebron states that Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish settler, acted alone in perpetrating the shootings and that the government bears no responsibility for the incident.

Afghanistan government troops capture about half of a 1,000member contingent loyal to renegade Gen. Abdul Rashid Doestam, an Uzbek, who joined Gulbuddin Hekmatyar Jan. 1 in launching an assault to take Kabul and topple Burhanuddin Rabbani’s regime. Rebel forces retaliate by initiating bombing strikes against government forces in the western city of Heart.

Data shows that an estimated 2,500 people have been killed in clashes between the rival Islamic factions since the start of the year in Afghanistan. . . . In Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, demonstrations protesting the June 21 ban on three magazines that were openly critical of the government are staged. At least 40 demonstrators are detained by police, who use violent force to break up the action.

June 27

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 23–27, 1994—617

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Andre Deputy, 45, convicted of the 1979 fatal stabbings of an elderly couple at their home in Harrington, Delaware, is executed by lethal injection in Smyrna, Delaware. He is only the fourth person put to death in Delaware and the 245th in the nation since 1976.

In Shannon v. U.S., the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that in a case involving a criminal defendant who seeks to be acquitted by reason of insanity, the judge does not have to instruct the jury that the defendant will be placed in a mental hospital if judged insane. . . . In Davis v. U.S., the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that police are not required to stop interrogation procedures if the suspect makes an ambiguous request for a lawyer. At issue in the case is the landmark 1966 Miranda v. Arizona ruling . . . In Honda v. Oberg, the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that a jury’s decision on the amount of punitive damages a defendant is required to pay has to be subject to judges’ review.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Studies confirm that people in their 80s and 90s who exercise also improve their legs’ muscle tone and are able to climb stairs better and walk more quickly and easily.

Marvin Throneberry, 60, major league baseball player, 1958–63, dies in Fisherville, Tennessee, of cancer. . . . No Excuses Sportswear awards Paula Corbin Jones, a former Arkansas state employee who filed a sexual-harassment lawsuit against Pres. Clinton, a $50,000 cash prize as “the most alive and uncensored woman in America.”

To commemorate the U.S. troops killed in the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan’s Emperor Akihito lays a wreath at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii.

June 24

A set of wildfires begins in California, and they start to spread to other Western states.

An estimated 100,000–1.1 million people gather at NYC’s Central Park as a conclusion to two marches by homosexual men and women and their supporters marking the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, which is cited as the beginning of the gay-rights movement. The marches cap a week of gay and lesbian cultural festivities. . . . Norman Roy Grutman, 63, trial lawyer whose clients included Jerry Falwell and Doris Duke, dies in Greenwich, Connecticut, of liver cancer. In Board of Education of Kiryas Joel v. Grumet, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that a school district carved out specifically to accommodate children of the orthodox Jewish enclave of Kiryas Joel, New York, is unconstitutional. . . . District judge Harold Albritton orders the Randolph County, Alabama, school board’s insurers to pay Revonda Bowen $25,000 when she turns 19, or earlier if the money is used to pay for her college education, since principal Humphries called her a “mistake” because she is of mixed-race parentage.

June 25

The Senate confirms Alan S. Blinder to be the Fed’s new vice chairman.

Pres. Clinton assigns veteran White House operative David Gergen to a new post as an adviser on foreign policy to both the president and Secretary of State Warren Christopher.

June 23

Pres. Clinton announces that Leon Panetta, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will replace Thomas F. (Mack) McLarty III as the White House chief of staff. He names Alice M. Rivlin, the OMB’s deputy director, to succeed Panetta.

June 26

The FDA approves stavudine, or D4T, to treat patients infected with HIV.

Aerosmith becomes the first major rock band to release a song distributed exclusively in the U.S. through a computer on-line service. The track, “Head First,” which is three minutes and 14 seconds, takes at least one hour to download for free.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 27

618—June 28–July 3, 1994

World Affairs

June 28

June 29

June 30

July 1

July 2

The World Health Organization estimates that 17 million people worldwide are infected with HIV, a recordhigh increase of 3 million from the previous year. WHO also estimates that the number of infected people might rise to between 30 and 40 million by the year 2000. An estimated 4 million people have developed full-blown AIDS, including those who died.

July 3

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

The French National Assembly votes to lift parliamentary immunity from prosecution on left-wing member Bernard Tapie.

Reports indicate that in the armed struggle for power in northern Iraq that started in May between the two main Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party headed by Massoud Barzani and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan led by Jalal Talabani, more than 500 people have died in clashes.

French populist left-wing National Assembly member Bernard Tapie is arrested and indicted on tax and fraud charges. . . . In a sympathetic and flattering documentary, Prince Charles of Britain admits that he committed adultery, suggests that divorce should not disqualify him from becoming king, and raises the possibility of changing the role of Britain’s monarchy as head of the Church of England. The airing of the program is timed to mark the 25th anniversary of Charles’s investiture as the Prince of Wales.

On the second anniversary of the assassination of Mohammed Boudiaf, 15,000 demonstrators against Algeria’s Islamic fundamentalist regime stage a rally during which two explosions injure at least 64 people. . . . French troops evacuate up to 43 Roman Catholic Rwandan, American, Belgian, and British nuns who took refuge in a convent in Kibuye, Rwanda, where almost an entire community of Tutsis were killed by government troops and armed Hutu gangs.

A new Airbus A330 jet crashes shortly after takeoff on a test flight at the airport in Toulouse, France. All seven crew members aboard, including Airbus’s chief test pilot, are killed. . . . British prime minister John Major gives his government’s full backing to Prince Charles’s view that divorce should not prevent him from becoming king.

Nearly 50 French troops move into the hills above Gishyita near Lake Kivu, an area in southwest Rwanda held by the government, as part of a mission to protect Tutsis hiding from government militias. . . . Hundreds of right-wing Israelis disrupt traffic in Jerusalem to protest PLO leader Yasser Arafat’s expected attempt to pray in Jerusalem.

The French parliament passes the Franglais ban, which seeks to protect the French language by forbidding the use of foreign words and phrases from most official and public discourse.

PLO chairman Yasser Arafat steps on Palestinian soil for the first time in 27 years, and he kneels to kiss the ground at Rafah on the Gaza Strip. Separately, a Palestinian critically stabs a Jewish couple, and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine claims responsibility. On the Gaza Strip, presumed Islamic militants wound two Israeli soldiers and two Jewish settlers. A Palestinian is discovered shot to death, and a new Jewish extremist group, the Sword of David, takes credit for what it calls “a present for Arafat.”

In Brazil, a new currency, the real, is placed in circulation. . . . Canada becomes the first country to prohibit smoking on flights by commercial airlines based in its territory. The ban, however, does not apply to flights of foreign airlines that originate outside of Canada.

Former president Ramiz Alia, Albania’s last communist leader, is convicted by a court in Tirana, the capital, of abusing power and violating citizens’ rights. He is sentenced to nine years in prison.

PLO chairman Yasser Arafat journeys to the Jabalya refugee camp, the birthplace of the Palestinian intifadah, where he is greeted by thousands of the camp’s residents. About 10,000 mostly right-wing Jews hold a protest pray-in at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City.

Residents of the Kahnawake Mohawk reserve in Quebec narrowly reject a referendum proposal that would have prepared the way for construction of the first large-scale casino owned by aboriginal peoples in Canada.

Louis J. Freeh makes the first visit to Moscow by a director of the U.S.’s Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In Rwanda, Patriotic Front guerrillas fire on French troops for the first time, shooting at a convoy of French marine commandos who evacuated 100 religious workers and more than 600 orphans from Butare. No casualties are reported.

Asia & the Pacific Afghanistan’s Supreme Court orders a six-month extension of Pres. Burhanuddin Rabbani’s term, which technically expires on this day.

Off the country’s southeast coast, 30 Haitian refugees drown when a police motor launch fires on their boat, causing the craft to overturn.

The lower house of Japan’s Diet elects Tomiichi Murayama, the leader of the Social Democratic Party of Japan, as the country’s new premier at the head of a coalition government comprising the SDPJ and the Liberal Democratic Party. He replaces reformist Tsutomu Hata, who resigned June 25.

In Bangladesh, a nationwide general strike is held in protest of author Taslima Nasreen. In Dhaka, fighting between her opponents and supporters breaks out, killing one person and injuring 200 others. . . . Hong Kong’s Legislative Council approves a controversial democratic-reform bill that broadens suffrage. Separately, Britain and China reach agreement on future use of the 39 existing British military bases in Hong Kong after its sovereignty reverts to China in 1997.

In Cambodia, 200–300 dissident soldiers led by Prince Norodom Chakrapong and Gen. Sin Song, approach Phnom Penh, the capital, but are stopped by government forces 20 miles (30 km) east of the city. . . . Reports indicate that Gen. Abdul Rashid Doestam’s forces have maintained control of the four provinces that constitute their stronghold in northern Afghanistan. . . . Maung Maung, 69, former president of Burma, now Myanmar, dies in Yangon, Myanmar, of a heart attack. Reports state that, in Afghanistan, Burhanuddin Rabbani’s air force have pounded rebel positions on the eastern fringes of Kabul. Troops loyal to Hekmatyar and Doestam reportedly respond with artillery and rocket fire.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 28–July 3, 1994—619

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Los Angeles police chief Willie L. Williams upholds the dismissal of Timothy Wind, a white police officer acquitted in both state and federal trials stemming from the March 1991 videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King by the police.

Pres. Clinton orders the reopening of a refugee-processing station at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. . . . FBI director Louis J. Freeh starts a tour of nine central and eastern European countries.

The House passes two bills designed to prompt a sweeping overhaul of the telecommunications industry. The House’s two bills are passed by votes of 423-5 and 423-4. . . . Pres. Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton establish a defense fund to raise money to pay legal expenses stemming from the Whitewater inquiry and a sexual-harassment lawsuit against the president.

The Clinton administration revokes the U.S. visas of almost all Haitians except those already resident in the U.S. . . . Florida commutes the sentences of 24 illegal aliens imprisoned for drug-related nonviolent crimes in an unprecedented move to free up prison space in the state. The prisoners, who are handed over to federal authorities, accept deportation on condition that they will not face related prison terms in their countries of origin.

The House passes by voice vote a $2.4 billion fiscal 1995 appropriations bill for the legislative branch. . . . The FCC approves, 5-0, a program to boost small telecommunications firm and those owned or run by women or minorities. . . . Atty. Gen, Janet Reno announces that National Medical Enterprises has agreed to plead guilty to fraud charges filed by the federal government and 28 states and to pay nearly $380 million to settle those charges. The agreement is reportedly the largest corporate fraud settlement ever reached with the U.S. government.

Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill that provides for the appointment of independent counsels to investigate alleged wrongdoing by officials of the executive branch. . . . In two separate cases, the Supreme Court rules against the creation of voting districts to boost minority representation. . . . In Madsen v. Women’s Health Center, the Supreme Court upholds, 6-3, most of an injunction restricting the activities of antiabortion protesters. . . . Pretrial hearings on the O. J. Simpson case open. A Detroit, Michigan, jury convicts a former Detroit police sergeant, Freddie Douglas, of neglect of duty. Douglas was the ranking officer at the scene of the 1992 fatal beating of a black motorist, Malice Green.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Fredi (Fredricka) Washington, 90, one of the first black actresses to gain national recognition who helped found the Negro Actors Guild, dies in Stamford, Connecticut, of pneumonia. . . . The Washington (D.C.) Opera announces that Placido Domingo will be its new artistic director.

The Senate passes, 73-27, a $2.4 billion fiscal 1995 appropriations bill for the legislative branch.

June 28

June 29

Robert Fiske Jr., the counsel investigating the Whitewater affair, makes his first public report, and it suggests that actions taken were ill-advised but not criminal. . . . The Interior Department moves to take the North American bald eagle off the endangered-species list and place it in the “threatened” category. . . . In United Mine Workers of America v. Bagwell, the Supreme Court throws out $52 million in civil contempt fines levied against members of the union. Some 137 Cuban men, women, and children arrive in Florida aboard a 75-foot (120-m) freighter, the largest single boatload to arrive in the U.S. since the Mariel boatlift in 1980. Their arrival raises the number of Cuban refugees who have disembarked in Florida in the year to date to 3,854. In all of 1993, a total of 3,656 refugees arrived in Florida by sea from Cuba. . . . FBI director Louis J. Freeh states that the FBI plans to open an office in Poland.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The U.S. Figure Skating Association strips skater Tonya Harding of her 1994 national championship title and bans her for life from the USFSA because of the athlete’s role in the January assault on rival skater Nancy Kerrigan.

In the San Jacinto Mountains in California, a lightning strike starts another fire. At least 14 homes are destroyed by that blaze.

Data shows that 30 million people watched some of the first day of the O. J. Simpson on hearing on TV. . . . Disgraced TV evangelist Jim Bakker, 53, moves into a halfway house in Asheville, North Carolina, after serving four years in a federal prison in Jesup, Georgia, for fraud and conspiracy.

The Senate Finance Committee endorses its plan to reform the U.S. health-care system, making it the fourth out of five congressional committees with jurisdiction over health-care legislation to approve their respective proposals.

A USAir jet crashes shortly after its pilots attempt to abort a landing at an airport in Charlotte, North Carolina, during a heavy rainstorm. Thirty-seven passengers perish in the accident, and the other 20 people on board, including all five crew members, suffer injuries.

Andres Escobar, a Colombian soccer player, is shot to death by two men who excoriate him for his World Cup play. . . . At Wimbledon. Conchita Martinez of Spain wins the women’s tennis title. . . . Marion Williams, 66, who, in 1993, became the first singer to receive a MacArthur grant, dies in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, of vascular disease.

In response to the Illinois Supreme Court’s June 16 decision to revoke the adoption of a 31⁄2-year-old child known as Baby Richard, Illinois governor Jim Edgar (R) signs into law a bill that requires a court hearing in cases where biological parents seek to nullify an adoption. . . . According to press accounts, calls to domesticviolence hotlines rose significantly in the wake of the release of audiotapes of emergency telephone calls placed by Nicole Simpson on Oct. 25, 1993.

Tropical Storm Alberto hits Florida and moves northward into Georgia. . . . Forty-three people are killed in accidents on Texas highways, setting a record for traffic fatalities on a single day in that state.

In tennis, American Pete Sampras wins his second consecutive singles title at Wimbledon. . . . Lew(is) Alan Hoad, 59, Australian tennis champion during the 1950s, dies in Spain of a heart attack after suffering from leukemia.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 30

July 1

July 2

July 3

620—July 4–8, 1994

World Affairs

Europe The U.S. officially opens its new embassy in Sarajevo with Victor Jackovich acting as the first U.S. ambassador to Bosnia. Separately, in Banja Luka in northwestern Bosnia, Bosnian Serb police reportedly beat 45 Muslim and Croat civilians waiting in line outside a UN refugee office. . . . Louis Freeh opens the first FBI liaison office at the U.S. embassy in Moscow.

July 4

The Tutsi rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front captures major government installations in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, and takes control of Butare. French troops establish a limited “humanitarian security zone” manned by Foreign Legion soldiers and paratroopers. . . . French president François Mitterrand becomes the first foreign leader to visit South Africa since Pres. Nelson Mandela’s inauguration in May. . . . In Nigeria, an oil union begins a strike.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Up to 150 refugees die when their boat capsizes a half-mile from the western coast of Haiti.

In Rwanda, rebels halt their advance six miles (10 km) from the line set by the French around the safe zone, which is flooded by thousands of mostly Hutu refugees. . . . In what amounts to a second homecoming ceremony, a crowd estimated at 5,000–8,000 people watch PLO chairman Yasser Arafat take the oath as head of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), the temporary Palestinian governing body. Separately, Farid Jarboua becomes the first Palestinian prisoner to die while in the custody of Palestinian security officials.

July 5

July 6

July 7

July 8

Africa & the Middle East

U.S. president Bill Clinton becomes the first American president to visit the Baltics. He meets with the presidents of the three Baltic countries and speaks to a crowd of about 35,000 in Riga’s Freedom Square.

A Nigerian federal high court named by the government files formal treason charges against Moshood Abiola, arrested June 23. Nigeria’s major oil workers’ union threatens to join the job action initiated July 4 and strike indefinitely. . . . Figures suggest 600,000 refugees have fled to the safe zone in Rwanda. . . . In South Africa, about 10 attackers near the black township of Katlehong open fire on vehicles operated by a rival taxi company, which sometimes hold political affiliations, killing 11 people and wounding 11 others.

Police announced that they have recovered most of a rare collection of Jewish artifacts stolen in December 1993 from Hungary’s Budapest Jewish Museum.

Yasser Arafat, the PLO chairman, states he will convene the Palestine National Council (PNC), the Palestinian parliament-in-exile, in order to repeal all references in the PLO Covenant that call for the destruction of Israel. . . . Reports confirm that seven Italian sailors were killed by suspected guerrillas in the port of Jenjen, 160 miles (260 km) from Algiers. . . . Rebels control all but the western third of Rwanda.

In Cambodia, the National Assembly votes to outlaw the Khmer Rouge rebel group. Separately, reports find that Cambodian police have arrested 14 Thais said to be connected with the July 2 attempted coup.

A Palestinian National Authority official states that a pathologist found that the July 5 death of Farid Jarboua “was the result of the use of violence.”

North Korean president Kim Il Sung, 82, dies in Pyongyang, the country’s capital, of an apparent heart attack. Kim’s death prompts fears worldwide of a destabilizing power struggle.

The UN Security Council names South African Supreme Court judge Richard J. Goldstone, 55, chief prosecutor for the Balkan war crimes tribunal in The Hague, the Netherlands. . . . The heads of the world’s seven leading industrialized nations, the Group of Seven (G-7), meet in Naples, Italy, for their 20th annual summit.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 4–8, 1994—621

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The National Education Association, which has 2.2 million members and is the U.S.’s largest teachers’ union, votes to boycott Florida orange juice if the state Citrus Commission renews a contract with conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh to do advertisements for the beverage on his popular national radio show.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Statistics show that a total of more than 60 fatalities occurred on Texas roadways during the Independence Day weekend. . . . A blaze is sparked by a lightning strike near Glenwood Springs, Colorado, located 180 miles (290 km) west of Denver.

Publishers Weekly puts The Chamber by John Grisham at the top of its bestseller list.

A federal judge in Miami, Florida, awards $41 million in punitive and compensatory damages to six Haitian opposition leaders who were ordered tortured by Gen. Prosper Avril during the his reign as Haiti’s president. The decision sets a precedent under which Raoul Cédras and other Haitian military leaders may be similarly convicted. Separately, the U.S. halts its resettlement of Haitian refugees and states it will instead seek to arrange “safe haven” for the refugees in Panama or other Caribbean countries.

July 4

July 5

Fourteen firefighters are killed by a fire that started July 4 near Glenwood Springs, Colorado, located 180 miles (290 km) west of Denver. The fire is one of several raging through several Western states.

In Little Rock, Arkansas, three national antiabortion groups—Operation Rescue, Rescue America, and the Pro-Life Action Network— protest together for the first time when 60 people picket two city clinics to oppose the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. A coalition of antiabortion groups that oppose the abortion pill RU-486 announce a boycott of 76 medicines manufactured by U.S. affiliates of the French pharmaceutical company.

Panamanian president Guillermo Endara, citing “a complete lack of communication” with the U.S., withdraws from a U.S. plan under which Panama would provide safe haven for up to 10,000 Haitian refugees. Separately, the U.S. dispatches 1,900 troops to take up positions off the coast of Haiti in preparation for the possibility of an emergency evacuation of 3,000 Americans and “designated foreign individuals” from Haiti.

John S. R. Shad, 71, former SEC chair, 1981–87, the longest term of anyone in that position, dies in New York City following heart surgery.

The National Interagency Fire Center reports that nearly 240,000 acres (97,000 hectares) of land have been scorched since June 25, and that 34 major blazes are burning on 150,000 acres of land in Western states. . . . In the wake of Tropical Storm Alberto, which hit Florida July 3, reports state that 21.1 inches (54 cm) of rain fell in one 24-hour period in Americus, Georgia.

In Little Rock, Arkansas, 30 antiabortion protesters are arrested for trespassing after they block the entrance to a clinic. . . . Los Angeles Superior Court judge FlorenceMarie Cooper sentences Lance Jerome Parker, 28, the last of four black men tried in the 1992 videotaped beating of a white truck driver, Reginald Denny, to three years’ probation. . . . In Waco, Texas, district judge Walter Smith sentences cultist Kathryn Schroeder to three years in prison, three years’ supervised release, and a $5,000 fine for her role in a February 1993 gun battle at the compound of the Branch Davidians.

Swaleh Naqvi, the former chief executive of the corruption-ridden BCCI, pleads guilty in a federal court in Washington, D.C., to three felony counts of fraud, conspiracy, and racketeering. The charges relate to his role in causing losses of more than $255 million to investors in the U.S. through BCCI.

In New York, the dollar trades as low as 97.77 yen before closing at 98.10 yen. The dollar trades at 1.5588 German marks, its lowest level since December 1992, before closing at 1.5617 marks. . . . LarsEric Linblad, 67, pioneer in world travel who, in 1958, established the U.S.-based Lindblad Travel, a company that organized expedition-like vacations to remote and exotic areas, dies in Stockholm, Sweden, of a heart attack.

The U.S. space shuttle Columbia blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, to carry out a mission devoted to testing the effects of gravity on astronauts’ bodies; on materials; and on the mating behavior, embryonic development, and growth of mainly aquatic creatures.

Cameron Mitchell, 75, stage, film, and television actor, dies in Pacific Palisades, California, of lung cancer.

July 6

July 7

Dick Sargent (born Richard Cox), 64, actor from the TV series Bewitched (1969–72), who in 1991 publicly announced that he was homosexual and criticized California governor Pete Wilson (R) for vetoing a gay-rights bill, dies in Los Angeles, California, of prostate cancer.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 8

622—July 9–14, 1994

World Affairs

July 9

Haiti’s military-backed government orders human-rights monitors from a joint mission of the UN and the Organization of American States to leave Haiti within 48 hours. Dante Caputo, the UN special envoy for Haiti, states of the military regime and its alleged repression, “They kill, they murder and rape people, and they do not want any witnesses.”

July 12

July 13

Africa & the Middle East

G-7 leaders reject U.S. president Clinton’s proposal that, during 1994, the G-7 initiate a new tradeliberalization effort that would eliminate trade barriers beyond those to be removed under provisions in the recently signed Uruguay Round of GATT talks. Separately, the leaders agree on an aid package of $4 billion for Ukraine and pledge $200 million toward closing the Chernobyl nuclear plant.

July 10

July 11

Europe

France announces its decision to join the U.S. in extending sanctions to Haiti after the country’s July 11 order to remove human-rights monitors.

July 14

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

U.S. Marines already based in Portau-Prince build a protective wall of sandbags around the U.S. embassy in the Haitian capital, indicating a possible U.S. invasion.

Ukraine voters replace their leader in a presidential runoff election in which Leonid Kuchma scores an upset victory over incumbent president Leonid Kravchuk. . . . In a runoff election, Belarusians elect their first president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, ousting the current leader, Premier Vyacheslav Kebich . . . . French officials temporarily seal off the Louvre in Paris after discovering that a 17thcentury drawing by French artist Robert Nanteuil was stolen.

Palestinian laborers and Israeli soldiers clash at the Erez checkpoint.

Ray Smallwoods, a former paramilitary spokesman for a hard-line loyalist group, the Ulster Democratic Party, is shot dead by a gunman outside his Lisburn home.

In Rwanda, the rebels launch an offensive against the remaining government positions in the northwest. . . . Five foreign engineers who work for the Algerian government are shot dead by suspected Islamic militants. In a separate incident in Algiers, gunmen enter a restaurant and kill two technicians from the former Yugoslavia who work for the state-owned HydraElektra company. The deaths increase to 51 the number of foreigners killed in Algeria since September 1993.

India detains Pakistani envoy Afzal Khan Bajwa in New Delhi, India’s capital, for alleged spying.

Germany’s highest court rules that German armed forces may take part in international military missions as long as they win majority approval in the Bundestag. . . . An IRA mortar bomb attack forces a Royal Air Force helicopter to crash-land in Newtonhamilton, Northern Ireland, but there are no injuries. . . . U.S. president Clinton addresses a crowd of about 75,000 from the Brandenburg Gate, which once divided East and West Berlin . . . . James Bysse Joll, 76, British historian, dies in London, England, of cancer of the larynx.

Rebels cross volcanoes on the borders of Uganda and Zaire to attack the last major Hutu army garrison, at Ruhengeri in north Rwanda. . . . PLO chairman Yasser Arafat returns to the Gaza Strip to take up permanent residence and establish his base of operations for coordinating the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), the interim governing body for limited Palestinian self-rule in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho.

In response to the July 11 detainment of Afzal Khan Bajwa in India, Pakistan expels Indian diplomat V. S. Chauhan, ordering him to leave the country within seven days.

The cabinet of Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi issues a decree eliminating the judicial use of pretrial preventive detention in a wide variety of crimes, including corruption and other white-collar offenses. It also increases defendants’ rights in several other ways. . . . Latvia’s premier, Valdis Birkavs, and his government resign, but remain in place on an interim basis.

A Rwandan rebel group, the Patriotic Front, overruns Ruhengeri and cuts the road to Gisenyi, routing the remnants of the old regime and panicking “a wall of people” consisting of hundreds of thousands of Hutu civilians into fleeing to Zaire.

A Canadian federal government panel asserts that Canada’s relocation of 17 Inuit families in 1953 and 1955 to a remote area in the Northwest Territory, north of the Arctic Circle, was illegal, dishonest, and inhumane.

Kim Jong Il, the son of North Korean president Kim Il Sung, who died July 8, appears as the next leader when North Korea’s state-run radio states that “Our dear leader and comrade Kim Jong Il, the sole successor to our great leader, now holds the revered positions at the top of the party, the government and the revolutionary forces.”

German troops, invited to participate in France’s Bastille Day military parade, march through Paris for the first time since 1944 . . . . Italian president Oscar Luigi signs the bill passed July 13 that increases the rights of criminal suspects. The decree sparks an immediate uproar, and the entire team of Milan magistrates conducting the “clean hands” probe into a massive political scandal in Italy request reassignment.

Construction starts on a 169-unit apartment complex in the Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. The $6.9 million project is the first Palestinian project under self-rule funded by international aid donors.

A convicted murderer, Glen Ashby, 31, is executed by hanging in Trinidad and Tobago, despite the fact that Trinidad’s final appeals court is concurrently weighing the merits of allowing the death sentence. The execution raises debate concerning the nation’s adherence to due process, particularly since a fax ordering a stay in the execution arrives nine minutes after the hanging.

Tensions between North Korea and South Korea flare when the South Korean government announces that it will not relax a ban on its citizens’ contact with North Korea in order to allow South Koreans to attend Kim Il Sung’s funeral.

The Chilean government announces that retired army colonel Marcelo Moren Brito was arrested on charges that he conspired to kidnap four leftist activists in 1974.

After his proposed social and economic program suffers defeat in Parliament, Nepal’s Premier Girija Prasad Koirala resigns from his post and asks King Birendra to call new elections. Koirala, the country’s first democratically elected premier in three decades, has served three years of his five-year term.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 9–14, 1994—623

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

July 9

The NAACP national convention opens in Chicago, Illinois.

The Washington Post reports that the Defense Department has put the finishing touches on plans for an invasion of Haiti. William Gray III, Clinton’s adviser on Haiti, makes it clear that the Haiti impasse has reached the proportions of a major foreign-policy crisis within the U.S. administration.

July 10

The dollar reaches a low of 1.5202 against the German mark during trading. . . . The Agriculture Department releases its Poultry Enhancement Program, a proposal designed to reduce the birds’ level of bacteria that cause several diseases harmful to human consumers.

Firefighters contain the blaze in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, in which 14 firefighters died July 6. . . . Seventy-eight billion gallons (295 billion liters) of water from the Flint River flows by Albany, Georgia. That figure, an area record, is nearly 20 times the normal flow.

Portland, Oregon, circuit judge Philip Abraham sentences Shawn Eckardt, Tonya Harding’s former bodyguard who confessed to involvement in the January assault on skater Nancy Kerrigan, to 18 months in prison.

The White House Office of Management and Budget estimates that the federal budget deficit for fiscal 1994, which will end Sept. 30, will total $220.1 billion. That projection is revised downward from the $234.8 billion deficit forecast by the White House in February. . . . The dollar sinks to a post-World War II low of 96.60 yen during trading.

A helicopter transporting firefighters crashes on a ridge of the Black Range mountains about 30 miles northeast of Silver City, New Mexico, killing the pilot and two firefighters. Two other firefighters survive. At the time of the crash, the helicopter reportedly was flying to a five-acre fire from one covering 6,200 acres.

The National League wins MLB’s annual All-Star game, beating the American League, 8-7, in the 10th inning at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The Defense Department releases a 3,000-page report citing a series of human errors as the cause of the Apr. 14 downing of two U.S. Army helicopters over northern Iraq by two U.S. Air Force F-15C fighter jets. In the accident, all 26 passengers and crew, including 15 Americans, were killed.

Treasury Department officials unveil to members of the House Banking Committee the most extensive makeover of the nation’s currency since 1929. The changes, to be initiated in 1996, are designed to reduce the ability of high-technology counterfeiters to successfully reproduce undetectable copies of official U.S. currency.

Pres. Clinton announces $66.1 million in federal aid for parts of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida ravaged by floods since July 3. In the disaster, 50,000 people have been evacuated, and water covers 1 million acres (400,000 hectares) of farmland in the region.

Multnomah County (Oregon) Circuit Court judge Donald Londer sentences Jeff Gillooly, the former husband of skater Tonya Harding who confessed to involvement in the January assault on skater Nancy Kerrigan, to two years in prison, as specified in his plea agreement, and orders him to pay a $100,000 fine.

The Senate votes, 57-42, to kill an amendment that would have established a bipartisan congressional commission to determine whether it is appropriate for the U.S. to invade Haiti to overthrow the military regime. . . . A female officer, known only as “Jane Doe Thompson,” files a suit against the CIA, arguing that a CIA report falsely characterized her as “a drunk and a sexual provocateur” and destroyed her 23-year career with the agency.

The Council of Economic Advisers releases its required midyear review in which it hails the increase in economic activity in the country since Pres. Clinton took office in January 1993 and issues forecasts for moderate economic growth over the next few years.

The worst of the flooding in the Southeast is considered over. Statistics show that the deluge claimed the lives of 30 people in Georgia and one in Alabama. One of the hardest hit areas was Albany, Georgia, where a quarter of the city’s 80,000 people were evacuated from their homes. All 150,000 people in the Macon metropolitan region are without drinkable water. . . . A study suggests that bulged disks are not necessarily the cause of back discomfort.

Confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court nomination of federal judge Stephen G. Breyer open. . . . The Illinois Supreme Court upholds its controversial June 16 decision ordering a Chicago area couple to return their 31⁄2- year-old adopted child, known as Baby Richard, to his biological father, whom the child has never seen.

Los Angeles police chief Willie L. Williams fires Theodore Briseno, a white police officer acquitted in both state and federal trials stemming from the March 1991 videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King by the police.

Flooding continues in the Southeast while fires rage in the West. In Albany, Georgia, the Flint River crests at 48 feet (15 m), 28 feet above the flood stage. Data shows that Pres. Clinton has declared dozens of counties in Georgia, Florida, and Alabama to be federal disaster areas. In Western states, 15 major blazes are burning on more than 67,000 acres.

July 11

July 12

July 13

July 14

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

624—July 15–19, 1994

World Affairs

July 15

The leaders of the 12 EU countries select Luxembourg’s premier, Jacques Santer, as president of the European Commission, the European Union’s top executive post, to succeed Jacques Delors, scheduled to step down in January 1995.

July 16

July 17

July 18

Europe

Negotiators from several of the world’s major trading nations reach an agreement that calls for the elimination of government subsidies in the shipbuilding industry. The pact culminates five years of talks and requires ratifications by the participants which include the U.S., the EU, Japan, South Korea, Norway, and Finland.

Johanna Grombach, head of the International Red Cross delegation in Goma, Zaire, describes the influx of refugees from Rwanda as the equivalent of “quite a big European city, and coming into a small town in a remote area in 24 hours.” Relief workers estimate that the speed and scale of the exodus is unprecedented, surpassing the 250,000 Rwandans, mostly Hutus, who fled to Tanzania within a 24hour period in April.

A threat to the government of Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi develops when the coalition allies of his Forza Italia party—responding to the public uproar—states they cannot accept the July 13 decree without modifications.

The government of Egypt sentences to death five militants of the Islamic movement Jihad for their assassination attempt on Interior Minister Hassan al-Alfi in August 1993.

Reports state that Bosnian Serb militias in the town of Bijeljina expelled 135 Muslim civilians from their homes and detained 200 draft-age Muslim men. . . . The mutilated body of Caroline Mooreland is found near the Irish border. The IRA claims it “executed” her for being an informer. . . . French president François Mitterrand formally dedicates a memorial to the 76,000 French Jews deported to Nazi death camps during World War II.

Israeli and Palestinian forces exchange gunfire after Palestinian laborers, frustrated by delays at the checkpoint on the Gaza border, hurl stones at the Israelis. The clash sparks rioting that leaves two Palestinians dead and 100 people injured. Israeli officials close the border. . . . In Rwanda, at least 100 Hutus are killed at the border by mortar fire and a stampede as rebel troops move into Gisenyi. . . . Northern troops loyal to Pres. Saleh capture Aden, South Yemen’s largest city, reintegrating South Yemen into the union by force.

The UN Security Council retains sanctions against Iraq, after concluding its 20th review of UNimposed conditions for lifting trade restrictions and a ban on Iraqi oil sales in the wake of the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi withdraws the July 13 decree completely after public protest.

July 19

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Colombia discloses that 400 presumed members of the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla movement attacked a state-owned oil installation in southwest Colombia. The army states that 24 soldiers of a 70-strong government commando unit were killed and that seven rebels also died in the fighting, which took place near the town of Orito. A spokeswoman for the Orito town administration claims that 17 troops and one guerrilla were killed in the clash.

Reports confirm that furor over Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen has continued as 4,000 demonstrators marched on the U.S. embassy in Dhaka after the Voice of America radio network broadcast an editorial defending “the right to speak of those with whom we may intensely disagree.”. . . A Perth judge sentences the former premier of Western Australia, Brian Burke, to two years in prison for using false pretenses in obtaining more than A$17,000 (US$12,000) from a government account between 1984 and 1986.

Major General Paul Kagame, military leader of the Patriotic Front, declares victory in his group’s fouryear struggle to oust the Hutudominated Rwandan government and announces a cease-fire. . . . At least 20 people are reported killed in prodemocracy demonstrations in Lagos, Nigeria.

In Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, a powerful car bomb decimates a seven-story building that houses the headquarters of the Delegation of Argentine Jewish Associations, in what is called the worst-ever terrorist attack on Argentine soil.

The Rwandan Patriotic Front installs a coalition government naming Pasteur Bizimungu as president and Faustin Twagiramungu as premier. France recognizes the rebel victory in Rwanda and pledges to work with the new government toward the withdrawal of French forces. As refugees continue to flee, Oxfam, a private British aid group, calls the situation a “disaster on a scale not witnessed in modern times.” Figures suggest that 2 million people have streamed across the border within a week. Hundreds of thousands of Hutus continue on to the Zairean region south of Lake Kivu. . . . In Gaza, Hamas militants shoot to death an Israeli soldier in retaliation for the July 17 violence.

A commuter plane explodes over Panama, killing all 21 people on board. . . . Leftist rebels assassinate Major Gen. Carlos Julio Gil Colorado, the commander of the army’s Fourth Division, in Villavicencio, 45 miles (75 km) southeast of Bogota, the capital. Gil is the most senior army officer to be slain in Colombia in 20 years. A rebel coalition identifying itself as the Simón Bolívar Guerrilla Coordinator immediately claims responsibility for the attack.

Two million people gather in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, for the funeral of Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s president for 46 years.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 15–19, 1994—625

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Arizona Superior Court judge Gregory Martin sentences Alessandro Garcia to 10 consecutive life terms in prison for helping Jonathan Doody slay nine people at a Buddhist temple near Phoenix in 1991. . . . A five-month-long crosscountry march seeking clemency for American Indian activist Leonard Peltier, serving two life terms for the 1975 deaths of two FBI agents on a South Dakota Indian reservation, culminates in a rally in Washington, D.C. Nearly 700 people attend, about 20 of whom walked the 3,800-mile (6,100-km) route.

Pres. Clinton orders the Washington, D.C., embassy of the defunct Rwandan government closed and its assets frozen.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Microsoft Corp. and the Justice Department reach agreement on an antitrust consent decree designed to reduce Microsoft’s dominance of the world’s computer software industry. The pact marks the end of a four-year probe by the federal government, which was eventually joined in its inquiry by the European Commission, into alleged anticompetitive practices by Microsoft.

Fragments of a disintegrating comet known as Shoemaker-Levy 9 collide with the planet Jupiter, setting off spectacular explosions and creating swirling, discolored “bruises” in the planet’s cloudy outer atmosphere. . . . Julian Seymour Schwinger, 76, theoretical physicist who shared the 1965 Nobel Prize for contributions to the field of quantum electrodynamics and was awarded the 1964 National Medal of Science, dies of pancreatic cancer.

A Chicago study asserts that youths ages 12–17, who make up less than 10% of the U.S. population, account for 23% of the victims of assault, robbery and rape. One out of 13 people in the 12–17 age bracket were the victims of those crimes; that is a higher rate than any other age group. . . . Henry W. Maier, 76, mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1960–88, dies in Delafield, Wisconsin, of pneumonia.

July 15

Operatic tenors José Carreras, Plácido Domingo, and Luciano Pavarotti perform together in Los Angeles on the eve of the 1994 World Cup soccer final. The concert is seen by an estimated 1.3 billion TV viewers in 70 countries, which reportedly makes it the most-watched musical event ever.

Brazil wins the 1994 World Cup soccer tournament with a victory over Italy in Pasadena, California. . . . Hanns Kornell, 83, German-born vintner who was the first American wine-maker to use the “champagne method” of making sparkling wine, dies in St. Helena, California, of complications arising from strokes.

A piece of Shoemaker-Levy 9 known as Fragment G, estimated to measure up to 2.5 miles (4 km) in diameter, upon impact with Jupiter creates a plume that rises an approximated 1,300 miles and a “bruise” that measures about 8,000 miles (12,700 km) across—about the same diameter as the Earth.

The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approves the Supreme Court nomination of federal judge Stephen G. Breyer to the Supreme Court. . . . Everett Frederic Morrow, 85, the first black man to occupy a senior position at the White House when he was an administrative assistant to Pres. Dwight Eisenhower, 1955–61, dies in New York City.

A mistrial is declared in the case against Dandeny Muñoz Mosquera, a Colombian charged with planting a bomb in an Avianca Airlines jetliner that exploded in 1989 near Bogota, killing 107 people on board, including two Americans. U.S. prosecutors state they will retry the case.

A large piece of Shoemaker-Levy 9 known as Fragment K strikes Jupiter. It is estimated to measure up to 2.5 miles (4 km) in diameter.

July 16

July 17

July 18

Rudolf Firkusny, 82, renowned Czech-born pianist who performed frequently with the New York Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestra and who appeared with professional basketball player David Robinson in a popular 1990 commercial for Nike, dies in Staatsburg, New York, of cancer.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 19

626—July 20–25, 1994

World Affairs

July 20

July 21

Europe

Bosnian Serb leaders reject an international peace plan drawn up by the U.S., Russia, Britain, France, and Germany for the territorial division of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The European Parliament endorses the appointment of Luxembourg’s premier, Jacques Santer, to a fiveyear term as president of the European Commission, the European Union’s top executive post.

July 22

July 25

The 13-member Caribbean Community and Common Market (Caricom) and 12 other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean region sign a pact establishing the Association of Caribbean States (ACS). The ACS becomes the fourth-largest trading bloc in the world, with a potential market of 200 million people.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Israel’s foreign minister, Shimon Peres, becomes the highest-level Israeli government official to set foot publicly on undisputed Jordanian territory. He is greeted by Jordan’s Abdel Salem al-Majali, his counterpart, who is also the Jordanian premier.

In North Korea, Kim Jong Il is lauded in front of hundreds of thousands of people at a memorial service, as high-level officials vow to support Kim Jong Il and refer to him as head of state. . . . Japanese premier Tomiichi Murayama declares that the existence of Japan’s military, of which he is commander in chief, is legal, signaling the end of a longstanding antimilitary doctrine that held that Japan’s 1946 constitution forbids the establishment of armed forces.

In Bosnia, after five months of relative normalcy in Sarajevo since the NATO ultimatum forced the Serbs to stop their bombardment of the city in February, shelling and sniper attacks resume in earnest. . . . Nobel laureate Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn, 75, returns to Moscow after 20 years of exile from his native Russia, and about 1,000 people greet the author.

In Zaire, spurred by a cholera outbreak among Rwandan refugees, the U.S. joins with the UN and private relief agencies in a belated effort to provide assistance around Goma.

Japanese premier Tomiichi Murayama pledges that his coalition government will maintain Japan’s security treaty with the U.S., a pact that allows U.S. troops to be based in Japan.

The Latvian parliament votes to remove a quota system that would have restricted to 2,000 the number of non-Latvians who could receive Latvian citizenship each year. . . . In Sarajevo, gunfire hits three UN cargo planes, forcing the city’s airport to close.

Mutinous soldiers stage a coup in Gambia, ousting Pres. Sir Dawda Jawara. . . . Israel ends the closure of its border with the Gaza Strip instituted July 17.

Officials reveal that the Lebanonbased Partisans of God group has claimed responsibility for the July 18 bombing in Argentina.

The soldiers who staged the July 22 coup in Gambia establish a military government. They claim that no blood was shed in the coup, though there are reports of gunfire. . . . Lennox Sebe, 67, former president of South Africa’s Ciskei homeland since it was granted self-rule in 1981 until he was ousted in 1990, dies after collapsing.

Cuba’s Communist Party newspaper Granma reports that 32 Cubans drowned after the tugboat they stole in Havana, the capital, collided at sea with a government ship that pursued it. The Cuban coast guard reportedly rescued 31 people in the incident.

July 23

July 24

Africa & the Middle East

At a delegate conference in Letterkenny, Ireland, 800 party members of Sinn Fein dismiss the 1993 Anglo-Irish Downing Street Declaration as inadequate and tilted too much in favor of the Ulster unionists.

Abdul Salam (nicknamed “Mullah Rocketi”), a warlord who controls Afghanistan’s southwestern Zabul province, releases two Chinese and seven Pakistanis he had been holding hostage for about a year.

The market in the Gambian capital, Banjul, is open, and people go to work as normal after the July 23 action. Ousted president Sir Dawda Jawara arrives in Senegal, where he is granted asylum . . . . Zairean soldiers, after days of keeping the border crossing near Goma closed, reopen it, and the first tide of Hutus begin the reverse journey home to Rwanda.

At a ceremony, hosted by U.S. president Clinton in Washington, D.C., King Hussein of Jordan and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel sign a Washington Declaration that formally ends the 46-year-long state of war that has overshadowed their two countries’ repeated and surreptitious attempts to achieve a functional peace.

Canadian officials seize two U.S. trawlers dragging for scallops off Canada’s east coast and arrest their captains, Charles Rodrigues and Michael Willett. The trawlers, the Warrior and the Alpha Omega II, are in international waters, but Canadian officials state that because the boats fish for Icelandic scallops, a so-called sedentary species, they are still in Canada’s jurisdiction.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 20–25, 1994—627

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Fragment Q1, a piece of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet that is estimated to measure up to 2.5 miles (4 km) in diameter, strikes Jupiter.

The Florida Citrus Commission announce that it will not renew a six-month, $1 million contract with Rush Limbaugh to advertise Florida orange juice on his national radio show. The contract was protested by several advocacy groups because of Limbaugh’s controversial views, which some perceive as racist and sexist. . . . Hugh Doggett Scott Jr., 93, former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania and Senate minority leader, dies in Falls Church, Virginia, of cardiac arrest.

A military court in Fayetteville, North Carolina, convicts Army Sergeant First Class Ervin M. Graves of premeditated murder, murder while attempting rape, attempted rape, and assault while attempting rape for the July 10, 1993, murder of Second Lieutenant Lisa N. Bryant. Graves, 36, and Bryant, 21 at the time of her death, had shared a barracks in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks at the launch of the Health Security Express, a caravan of buses carrying health-care reform supporters across the country to Washington, D.C. from Portland, Oregon. . . . O. J. Simpson, appearing before Los Angeles Superior Court judge Cecil Mills, pleads “absolutely, 100% not guilty” to the murder charges against him.

Army Sergeant First Class Ervin M. Graves is sentenced by a military court in Fayetteville, North Carolina, to life in prison and a dishonorable discharge for the July 10, 1993 murder of Sec. Lt. Lisa Bryant. . . . U.S. District Judge C. Weston Houck rules that the state-financed Citadel military college in Charleston, South Carolina, must admit Shannon Faulkner, 19, to its all-male cadet corps.

July 20

Vice Pres. Al Gore discloses in a letter that the Clinton administration is scaling back its plans to seek universal adoption of a controversial encryption system based on the Clipper Chip, a computer chip that allows users to send data in indecipherable code.

Pres. Clinton signs a $2.4 billion fiscal 1995 appropriations bill for the legislative branch.

July 21

The third Goodwill Games open in St. Petersburg, Russia. The quadrennial sporting event features 2,000 athletes from 60 countries.

The U.S. space shuttle Columbia ends its 15-day flight, the longest in shuttle history, when it touches down at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. . . . Time-lapse photographs relayed from the Hubble telescope show evidence of huge sound waves spreading through Jupiter’s outer atmosphere from the site of the impact of fragments from of Shoemaker-Levy 9. A study finds that between 1988 and 1992, the number of juvenile court cases involving serious offenses grew 68%. There were more than 118,600 such cases— involving homicides, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults— in 1992, up from 77,900 in 1988.

Kenyan boxer Wangila Napunyi, 26, who won a gold medal in the 1988 Olympic Games, dies as a result of head injuries suffered during a welterweight bout with David Gonzalez in Las Vegas.

Golfer Patty Sheehan wins the U.S. Women’s Open in Lake Orion, Michigan. . . . ICM sells a film script for The Long Kiss Goodnight by writer Shane Black to New Line Cinema for a record sum of $4 million. . . . Miguel Indurain of Spain wins his fourth consecutive Tour de France cycling race.

Exxon Corp. agrees to pay $20 million in damages to Alaskan natives whose hunting and fishing grounds were polluted when the Exxon Valdez tanker spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989. The settlement affects 3,500 people, or about one-quarter of the residents of the area seeking damages from Exxon in a federal trial.

July 22

July 23

July 24

July 25

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

628—July 26–31, 1994

World Affairs

July 26

July 27

July 28

July 31

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

A car bomb rocks the Israeli embassy in London, England, injuring more than a dozen people. . . . Russian president Boris Yeltsin and Estonian president Lennart Meri sign an agreement that calls for Russia to withdraw all its troops from Estonia by Aug. 31, the same date that Russia previously promised to have its troops removed from the rest of the Baltics. . . . Terry Scott (born Owen John Scott), 67, British comedian best known for his roles on BBC shows, dies in Godalming, England, of cancer.

Panamanian investigators confirm that a bomb caused the July 19 crash of a commuter plane that took the lives of all 21 people on board, including the three crew members. . . . Cubans seeking refuge in the U.S. seize three shuttle ferries in the harbor of Havana, the capital, raising the specter of largescale escapes by sea.

Khmer Rouge rebels abduct three Western backpackers—Mark Slater, 28, of England; David Wilson, 29, of Australia; and Jean-Michel Braquet, 27, of France—from a passenger train in southern Cambodia and take them to a rebel base at Phnom Voar, located approximately 90 miles (145 km) south of Phnom Penh, the capital.

Serbs cut off the only currently open land route to Sarajevo. A British peacekeeper is killed in a Bosnian Serb attack on a UN convoy. . . . A car bomb explodes at the Joint Israel Appeal’s fund-raising headquarters in north London. Five people are injured in the blast.

The death toll from the July 18 car bomb in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, stands at 96. . . . Canadian air force captain Harry Munro is killed after parachuting from his T33 Silver Star military jet, which crashes near Windsor, Nova Scotia, during a routine flight.

At a meeting of UN-member Latin American and Caribbean nations representatives from Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Uruguay, the Dominican Republic, Belize, and Cuba reportedly express their opposition to an invasion of Haiti.

The IRA fires three mortar shells at a police station in Newry, Northern Ireland, wounding five policemen and soldiers and 39 civilians. . . . At least two thieves steal three 19thcentury landscape paintings worth $44 million from the Schirn Kunsthalle gallery in Frankfurt, Germany.

July 29

July 30

Europe

The U.S., Germany, Britain, France, and Russia decide to tighten economic sanctions against what remains of Yugoslavia—the republics of Serbia and Montenegro—after the Bosnian Serbs rejected a peace plan July 20.

The Constitutional Council strikes down major provisions of a controversial French law, the so-called Franglais ban, which was given final approval by the French parliament July 1 and which forbids the use of foreign words and phrases from most official and public discourse. The council rules that, while the government may restrict the language of public officials and companies, it cannot enforce the law against private citizens, companies, broadcast media, or advertising.

In Resolution 940, the UN Security Council, citing the need for an “exceptional response” to the political impasse in Haiti, authorizes a U.S.-led multinational invasion force to oust the military regime and reinstate exiled president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, whose democratically elected government was deposed in 1991 by a military coup.

In Belfast, Northern Ireland, the IRA kills Joe Bratty and Raymond Elder, two suspected leading members of the outlawed Ulster Freedom Fighters.

France begins withdrawing 300 of the 2,500 troops it has in southwestern Rwanda, despite requests from the U.S. and UN to delay the pullout until a full UN peacekeeping contingent is ready for deployment.

Mirwais Jalil, 25, a BBC reporter, is pulled from his car and shot to death shortly after he conducted an interview with Premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.

Air France suspends its flights to and from Haiti, marking the full suspension of all commercial flights serving Haiti.

The first 200 U.S. troops arrive in Kigali, Rwanda.

Data suggests that, in an offensive against the government that started July 15, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas have killed about 50 government troops. More than 100 guerrillas have reportedly died in the fighting.

Taiwan’s National Assembly approves a proposal for direct presidential elections. The first nationwide election is scheduled for 1996.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 26–31, 1994—629

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Riverhead, New York, judge Joel L. Lefkowitz sentences John Esposito, who imprisoned a young girl, Katie Beers, in a small underground bunker for 16 days in December 1992 and January 1993, to 15 years to life in prison. Esposito pled guilty as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors who wanted to spare Beers, now 11, from having to testify during a trial.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

House and Senate committees begin their public hearings into the Whitewater affair, a tangle of legally questionable financial and realestate dealings in Arkansas during the 1980s that had involved Pres. Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Reports confirm that Australian and Indonesian researchers have discovered a primitive previously unknown tree kangaroo in the remote Indonesian Mauke Mountain Range on the island of New Guinea.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

July 26

The House approves, 298-128, the California Desert Protection Act, a bill that designates about 9.4 million acres (3.8 million hectares) of California desert as protected wilderness.

Both in bulletproof vests, Dr. John Bayard Britton and James Barrett, a volunteer escort, are fatally shot in the head outside a Pensacola, Florida, abortion clinic at which Britton works. Police arrest Paul J. Hill, a militant antiabortion protester, as a suspect. The incident brings to three the number of murders at U.S. abortion clinics since March 1993. . . . The Senate confirms federal judge Stephen G. Breyer to the high court, making Breyer the 108th Supreme Court justice.

A poll in The Wall Street Journal indicates that 56% of Americans oppose an invasion of Haiti, while 36% are in favor of such an action.

At the close of a sale that started July 25, the FCC raises a total of $617 million by selling 10 nationwide licenses for advanced paging and messaging networks on public airwaves in an auction. The sum far exceeds what most analysts anticipated.

July 27

A Memphis, Tennesse, jury convicts Robert and Carleen Thomas, a couple from Milpitas, California, of transmitting obscenity on a computer bulletin board. It is the first time that bulletin-board operators are tried in the state where material was received, not sent. . . . Dozens of wildfires that have scorched parts of 11 Western states since June 25 are contained. The affected states were California, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Montana, New Mexico, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.

Colin MacMillan Turnbull, 69, influential, British-born anthropologist who wrote two key texts, dies in Kilmarnock, Virginia, of pneumonia. . . . A federal grand jury in Los Angeles indicts Heidi Fleiss, who allegedly ran an exclusive Hollywood prostitution service, on 14 counts of conspiracy, tax fraud, and money laundering.

Dorothy Hodgkin (born Dorothy Mary Crowfoot), 84, chemist who was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize for her work in using X-ray technology to understand the configuration of biochemical compounds and who, in 1965, was made a member of the Order of Merit, Britain’s highest royal order, dies in Shipston-on-Stour, England, after suffering a stroke.

Reports suggest that film director Steven Spielberg will contribute his personal profits from Schindler’s List to form a foundation for Jewish causes. . . . Gary Pemberton announces he will be the permanent CEO for the 2000 Olympic Summer Games in Sydney, Australia.

Robin Cook (born Robert William Arthur Cook), 63, British crimenovel writer who also used the pseudonym Derek Raymond for his later novels to avoid being confused with the novelist Robin Cook who wrote Coma, dies in London of cancer.

Caitlin Thomas (born Caitlin McNamara), 80, writer and widow of the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, dies in Catania, Italy. . . . Anne Shelton, 70, British pop singer who performed for Allied troops during World War II, dies in London, England, after an apparent heart attack.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 28

July 29

July 30

July 31

630—August 1–6, 1994

World Affairs

Europe A new law banning insider trading in securities takes effect in Germany, bringing the country in line with European Union regulations. Germany is the last major financial center to enact such legislation. . . . The Bosnian government puts an emergency water treatment plant into operation so that running water will returned to many parts of Sarajevo for the first time since the war began in 1992.

Aug. 1

Aug. 3

Aug. 4

U.S. jets under NATO command attack a Bosnian Serb antitank vehicle near Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The air strike comes in response to a Bosnian Serb theft of heavy weapons, which is in defiance of a NATO ultimatum. . . . The presidents of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay— the four member nations of the Mercosur trade pact—sign some one dozen trade agreements that set terms for a common market that will take effect January 1, 1995.

Bosnian Serbs reject another international peace plan and vote to hold a referendum on the issue.

Iran’s parliament rejects a proposal to separate the city of Qazvin from Zanjan province, which denies the city of more aid and sparks thousands to riot. . . . In Lagos, Nigeria, two marches that draw a total of 7,000 people are dispersed by police who fire on protesters, killing two. Three others are killed by youths on a rampage. . . . Reports suggest that 700–800 Rwandan refugees in Zaire are dying per day, down from the daily death figure of 1,800 during the first week of the cholera epidemic.

Slobodan Milosevic announces Yugoslavia is severing ties with the self-declared Bosnian Serb republic and closing their common border because of the Bosnian Serbs’ repeated refusals to accept international peace plans to partition Bosnia between Serbs and a Muslim-Croat federation. . . . Reports confirm that German government regulators have authorized the restart of Superphenix, the world’s first commercial fastbreeder nuclear reactor. . . . Giovanni Spadolini, 69, former Italian premier, 1981–82, dies in Rome of respiratory failure.

In response to the Aug. 3 upheaval in Qazvin, Iran’s worst riots since 1979, Pres. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani proposes increasing the city’s state financing by making it part of Teheran province. . . . The Nigerian Labor Congress, the nation’s largest union, suspends a general strike to negotiate for the release of civilian opposition leader Moshood Abiola. . . . UN and other aid workers disclose that they collected 8,000 orphans—a fraction of the total—from the camps around Goma, Zaire.

Bosnian Serbs seize a tank, two armored personnel carriers, and an antiaircraft gun from a UN weapons depot in Ilidza, a Serb-held suburb in the exclusion zone west of Sarajevo. One of the 30 Ukrainian peacekeepers guarding the depot is injured. The raid sparks a NATO air strike.

The Bosnian Serbs return the weapons stolen Aug. 5 to the UN depot at Ilidza. Trucks trying to travel between Yugoslavia and Bosnia are turned back at border crossings, as Yugoslavia begins enforcing its Aug. 4 promise to sever relations with the breakaway Bosnian Serb republic. The Sarajevo streetcar system, running since February, is forced to stop operating because of sniper fire.

Aug. 6

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Responding to the UN’s July 31 resolution, Haiti’s military leaders declare that Haiti is under “a state of siege” and that constitutional guarantees have been suspended and civilian power officially transferred to the military leadership. Reynold Georges, a former Haitian senator and leader of an opposition party, is wounded by gunfire after giving a TV interview in which he stated that Raoul Cédras should be removed from power by any means. Military leaders in Gambia free all of the 10 former cabinet members detained in the July 22 coup. . . . Iran’s government reveals that Mahdi Nahvi, the main suspect in the June 20 bomb explosion in Mashad, confessed to planting the bomb and holding membership in the People’s Mujahedeen before dying from wounds sustained in a shoot-out with security officials.

Aug. 2

Aug. 5

Africa & the Middle East

The Central Electoral Board, the nation’s highest electoral authority, declares Joaquin Balaguer victorious in the disputed May 16 election for the president of the Dominican Republic.

Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen, who is under a death threat from Muslim fundamentalists, surfaces briefly from hiding to appear in court to face charges of having defamed the Muslim faith. The court grants her bail on a bond of an amount equivalent to $250, and Nasreen immediately goes back into hiding.

Cuba’s National Assembly enacts the widest range of taxes in more than 25 years in an effort to reduce the government’s budget deficit.

Anti-Castro protesters battle Cuban police and government supporters along Havana’s waterfront and in other parts of the capital. Several hundred protesters are arrested and two police are killed during clashes. . . . Prominent Mexican businessman Angel Losada Moreno, abducted in April, is freed because his family paid an undisclosed ransom sum to the kidnappers.

Reports suggest that the extremist Hutu militia, or interahamwe, thought to be responsible for the systematic massacre of many of the Tutsis killed in Rwanda, is growing active in the refugee camps in Zaire.

Reports confirm that a court in Beijing, China’s capital, has ruled in favor of the U.S. entertainment firm Walt Disney Co. in a copyright infringement suit. The case is reportedly the first time a U.S. company sought redress under China’s new tribunal on intellectual property, and its outcome is seen to herald efforts by China to crack down on copyright piracy.

India removes its troops from around the Hazratbal shrine, the holiest Muslim mosque in the disputed Jammu and Kashmir region. The Indian troops have been stationed there since Kashmiri separatists ended a month-long occupation of the shrine in October 1993.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 1–6, 1994—631

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The House passes by voice vote an appropriations bill allocating $8.8 billion for military construction spending in fiscal 1995. . . . Canada and the U.S. agree on a plan that will effectively cut exports of Canadian wheat to the U.S. to 1.5 million metric tons (1.7 million tons) for the next 12 months, down from about 2.7 million in the year to date.

In its quarterly earnings review, The Wall Street Journal reports that the net income of 632 major corporations totaled $56.01 billion in the second quarter. That is a 26% gain over those companies’ revised 1993 second-quarter profits, which totaled $44.44 billion.

A federal jury in New York City orders Japanese video-game maker Nintendo Co. to pay $208.2 million in damages to Alpex Computer Corp. for violating a videogame patent.

The daughter of the late rock singer Elvis Presley, Lisa Marie Presley, confirms rumors that she married pop singer Michael Jackson more than two months earlier. . . . The Gift by Danielle Steel tops Publishers Weekly’s bestseller list.

Pres. Clinton’s chief AIDS policy coordinator, Kristine Gebbie, resigns under growing criticism from AIDS advocacy groups. . . . An FDA advisory panel refutes claims by the tobacco industry that its products are not addictive, ruling that the amount of nicotine in cigarettes is sufficient to cause addiction. . . . William Pat Jennings, 74, former Democratic House Representative from Virginia, 1954–66, dies in Marion, Virginia, in a tractor accident.

The U.S. states that it has set aside plans to establish safe-haven sites in the Caribbean region for Haitian refugees. Instead, it will concentrate on providing refuge for the more than 16,500 Haitians at the refugee-processing center at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Three convicted murderers—Hoyt Franklin Clines, 37; Darryl V. Richley, 43; and James William Holmes, 37—are all executed by lethal injection in Varner, Arkansas. It is the first time since 1962 that a state puts to death three people on one day. The deaths bring to 249 the number of executions in the U.S. since 1976 and to nine in Arkansas. . . . Judge Stephen G. Breyer is sworn the 108th Supreme Court justice.

Despite the UN’s July 31 resolution, Pres. Clinton states that there are no immediate plans to invade Haiti. The Senate unanimously passes a nonbinding resolution revealing that Congress will not necessarily approve of any military action against Haiti authorized under the UN measure.

The House passes, 410-2, the Community Development Act, which sets up a $382 million fund to promote and encourage the establishment of viable financial institutions and development-oriented partnerships in lower-income areas.

The House passes, 341-85, a bill setting aside $13.8 billion in funding in fiscal 1995 for foreign aid and other U.S. foreign operations.

The first legal arguments regarding corruption charges against Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D, Ill.), the former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, are filed. . . . The Senate, by voice vote, passes a bill that will make the Social Security Administration an independent government agency.

Aug. 1

Aug. 2

A Chicago-bound Amtrak train derails near Batavia, New York, injuring some 100 passengers and crew, only a few of whom are seriously hurt.

Aug. 3

The House passes by voice vote legislation that will remove barriers to commercial banks’ ability to expand across state lines. The interstate-banking measure will substantially overhaul the McFadden Act of 1927.

Aug. 4

The first round of congressional hearings on the so-called Whitewater affair conclude without clear proof of wrongdoing on the part of Clinton administration officials. A panel of federal judges, however, appoints Kenneth W. Starr, a former top government lawyer during the administration of Pres. George Bush, to replace Robert B. Fiske Jr. as the independent prosecutor the Whitewater inquiry.

Aug. 5

Randolph County High School in Wedowee, Alabama, whose principal made controversial remarks on interracial dating and is facing a Justice Department inquiry, is partially destroyed by a fire. It is unclear as to whether the racial problems of the principal are related to the fire.

Domenico Modugno, 66, Italian musician best known for the pop song formally called “Nel blu dipinto di blu,” but commonly known as “Volare,” which sold 30 million copies and won a 1959 Grammy, dies on Lampedusa, an Italian island south of Sicily.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 6

632—August 7–12, 1994

Aug. 7

World Affairs

Europe

The 10th International Conference on AIDS opens in Yokohama, Japan. The event attracts more than 10,000 researchers, public health officials, activists, AIDS patients, and journalists from 128 countries.

The outlawed Ulster Volunteer Force shoots and killed a pregnant Catholic woman, Kathleen O’Haga, in front of her five children, in Omagh, Northern Ireland. The UVF claims that she was a republican sympathizer . . . . Reports confirm that Britain’s military chiefs held meetings with the Labour Party’s shadow defense secretary. The meetings mark the end of an 80-year ban on chiefs of staff briefing opposition politicians.

Africa & the Middle East

The Sarajevo airport opens intermittently so that airlifts can resume. Reports state that the Bosnian army has captured 23 square miles (60 sq km) of territory and 30 villages, and it has advanced to within about six miles of Velika Kladusa, Fikret Abdic’s headquarters.

Aug. 9

Aug. 12

The rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) and a broad spectrum of its leftist sympathizers warn that they will launch a barrage of civil protests to paralyze Mexico if the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) attempts to retain power through fraudulent means in elections. . . . Reports suggest that the Cali drug cartel has infiltrated Colombian police units when security forces discover the names of more than 100 police officers on a seized cartel payroll.

The office of Colombia’s attorney general reports that in September 1993 the army shot to death Carlos Prada and Evelio Antonio Bolano, two negotiators who at the time were involved in peace talks with the government. It states that two army officers and five other soldiers implicated in the incident will be dismissed from the military.

The military branch of the Russian Supreme Court acquits former general Valentin I. Varennikov, the last remaining defendant in the August 1991 coup attempt against then-Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, of high treason. Varennikov, 70, is the only one of 12 accused conspirators to go to trial for trying to overthrow Gorbachev.

Negotiators from the U.S. and North Korea announce that they have reached a tentative agreement in talks aimed at defusing an 18-month crisis stemming from North Korea’s refusal to allow international inspections of its nucleardevelopment sites.

Officials from Taiwan and China sign an accord in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital, that is aimed at resolving contentious bilateral disputes.

Manuel Cepeda Vargas, 64, the lone senator representing the Communist Party and the Patriotic Union party, is shot to death in Bogota, the capital of Colombia.

Aug 10

Aug. 11

Asia & the Pacific

Ernesto Samper Pizano takes the presidential oath of office in Bogota, the capital of Colombia, as questions persist as to whether his campaign was financed by drug traffickers.

Official estimates find that 40,000 of the Rwandans who fled to eastern Zaire died over a three-week period, most of them in cholera and dysentery epidemics that spread through the squalid refugee camps. . . . In Israel, 83 international observers leave Hebron, where they had held positions in the city as a preventive measure designed to encourage stability and secure Palestinians’ safety in the wake of a mosque massacre.

Aug. 8

The Americas

Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen, under a death threat from Muslim fundamentalists, flees to Sweden after spending two months in hiding in Bangladesh.

Canadian and U.S. regulators seize control of Confederation Life Insurance Co., Canada’s fifth-largest life insurer. . . . Cuban president Fidel Castro states that a Cuban naval officer, Lt. Roberto Aguilar Reyes, was shot to death during the hijacking of a military boat in Cuba.

Reports indicate that refugees joined the 5,000 protesters who filled the streets in Goma after a Zairian soldier shot and killed a man who was changing money on the black market.

Japan’s environmental affairs minister, Shin Sakurai, reportedly suggests that Japan did not act with aggressive intent during World War II and that its wartime occupation of several other Asian countries was actually good for those nations.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 7–12, 1994—633

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Harry Kloor, 31, becomes the first person in the U.S. ever to be awarded two doctorate degrees simultaneously when he receives degrees in physics and chemistry from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.

The third Goodwill Games held in St. Petersburg, Russia, close. Russia won 171 medals, the most overall. The U.S. won 119 total medals followed by China with 27 medals. Athletes and teams from 21 other countries also won medals.

A panel of three judges rules the administration of then-president George Bush failed to adequately justify its decision not to adjust the 1990 census. . . . Pres. Clinton awards the Medal of Freedom to Rep. Robert H. Michel, Lane Kirkland, James Grant, R. Sargent Shriver, Arthur Flemming, former Rep. Barbara Jordan, Dorothy Height, and Herbert Block. Cesar Chavez is honored posthumously . . . . In an apparent attempt to head off the Justice Department, Randolph County High School’s principal, Hulond Humphries, who threatened to cancel a prom if interracial couples attend, is reassigned.

Dr. J. Richard George of the CDC reports that several variants of the AIDS virus can escape detection by some commonly used blood tests. . . . A scientist at the Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, becomes infected with Sabia arenavirus, a rare Brazilian virus that the researcher is studying. The Yale scientist is only the third person known to have been infected with Sabia arenavirus, which was discovered in 1990.

District judge S. Arthur Spiegel strikes down an amendment to the Cincinnati, Ohio, city charter that would have barred future laws protecting homosexuals from discrimination. . . . Atty. Gen. Janet Reno announces that she has asked an independent counsel be named to investigate whether Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy violated ethics laws. . . . By voice vote, the Senate passes the Community Development Act, which passed in the House Aug. 4.

The FDA announces it has approved AZT for use by pregnant women.

The AARP recommends its 33 million members to support both health-care plan measures under debate but does not indicate a preference for either. . . . Attorneys for Pres. Clinton file a brief in federal district court in Little Rock, Arkansas, arguing that a sexualharassment lawsuit brought against the president by Paula Corbin Jones should be dismissed for the duration of Clinton’s time in office. . . . Jessie Sumner, 96, Republican congresswoman from Illinois, 1938–47, dies in Watseka, Illinois, of congestive heart failure.

The Senate passes, 95-5, an $8.8 billion fiscal 1995 appropriations bill for military construction. . . . The Senate passes, 88-12, a bill setting aside $13.8 billion in funding in fiscal 1995 for foreign aid and other foreign operations. . . . In the first public hearing on the NRO, agency officials testify before the House and Senate intelligence committees. The Senate panel states that the $310 million and $350 million estimated cost of the new NRO headquarters being built in Virginia is twice as much as what was quoted earlier

Freshman representative Walter R. Tucker III (D, Calif.) is indicted by a federal grand jury on 10 counts of extortion and tax evasion. . . . The House passes, 431-0, a bill that will make the Social Security Administration an independent government agency. . . . The House blocks from further consideration a broad anticrime bill that would authorize $33.5 billion in spending over six years. The surprise result is seen as a major blow to Pres. Clinton.

Aug. 7

Aug. 8

Aug. 9

The House approves, 393-34, a $20.5 billion appropriations bill to fund energy, water-development, and nuclear-weapons programs in fiscal 1995. . . . Under pressure from public-interest groups and the media, the judicial panel asking that Robert B. Fiske be dismissed from the Whitewater case makes public letters by conservative Republican lawmakers in regard to the issue.

Aug 10

The Senate passes by voice vote a $20.5 billion appropriations bill for energy, water, and nuclear-weapons programs in fiscal 1995. . . . Reports reveal that Kenneth Starr, who was appointed as the independent prosecutor in the Whitewater affair, agreed in May to help a conservative women’s group prepare a legal brief opposing Pres. Clinton’s position in the Paula Jones harassment case . . . . The Senate confirms Janet L. Yellen to serve on the Fed board.

Peter Wilton Cushing, 81, British actor best known for playing crazed scientist Baron Frankenstein in several different movies, dies in Canterbury, England, of cancer. . . . In the eighth Major League Baseball work stoppage in 22 years, players strike at the conclusion of all scheduled games.

A federal jury in Anchorage, Alaska, awards more than 10,000 Alaskan commercial fishermen $286.8 million in compensatory damages for losses they incurred as a result of an oil spill from the Exxon Valdez tanker in Prince William Sound in 1989.

Woodstock ’94, a musical concert marking the 25th anniversary of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair concert, opens in Saugerties, New York. . . . Reports disclose that author John Grisham has sold the film rights to his novel A Time to Kill for more than $6 million, the highest price ever paid for film rights to a book.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 11

Aug. 12

634—August 13–18, 1994

Aug. 13

Aug. 14

Aug. 15

World Affairs

Europe

Manfred Woerner, 59, secretary general of NATO who, in 1988, became the first German named to that position, dies in Brussels, Belgium, of cancer.

The IRA claims responsibility for two Semtex bombs planted on bicycles that explode in southern England coast resorts, one in Bognor Regis and one in Brighton. No one is injured.

Aug. 16

Aug. 17

In response to the Aug. 8 findings regarding police and the Cali drug cartel, Colombian defense minister Fernando Botero Zea reveals that a special anticorruption brigade has been established to probe the influence of drug traffickers within the police force in the city of Cali. . . . Queen Elizabeth II of England and her husband, Prince Philip, visit Canada and are greeted at Halifax by a crowd of more than 10,000 spectators.

Hamas guerrillas kill one Israeli civilian and wound at least seven others in two separate armed attacks on Israeli vehicles in the Gaza Strip. The shooting death marks the first Israeli civilian murdered in armed clashes in Gaza since self-rule was instituted there in May.

Right-wing parties in Guatemala score significant gains in legislative elections. . . . Reports from Colombia confirm that Henry Orlando Umbacia, a police captain who helped direct the elite government task force that tracked down and killed Medellin cartel kingpin Pablo Escobar Gaviria, was shot to death.

Marian Zacharskias is named chief of Poland’s Office for State Protection, or civilian intelligence agency, amid controversy over his 1981 conviction in the U.S. on charges of espionage. Polish president Lech Walesa rejects Zacharski’s appointment to the position.

Thousands of people demonstrate in Lesotho for the reinstatement of former king Moshoeshoe II, who in 1990 was stripped of his powers in a coup. . . . Police on orders from the military regime close down Nigeria’s most respected liberal newspaper, The Guardian.

An Ontario court approves the liquidation of Confederation Life Insurance Co., Canada’s fifth-largest life insurer. The firm’s collapse is reportedly the largest insurance company failure on record in North America.

Polish state television reports that nearly all of Poland’s top intelligence positions are held by former communist security officials.

Reports confirm that Hamas has taken responsibility for the Aug. 14 attacks in the Gaza strip, claiming they were in retaliation for the killing of two Hamas activists by Israeli police on Aug. 13.

Joaquín Balaguer takes the oath of office for a seventh term as president of the Dominican Republic. He will serve a reduced two-year term rather than the usual four years, the result of allegations that he fraudulently won reelection. . . .Gustavo de Greiff, Colombia’s prosecutor general, states that a preliminary investigation has found no proof that drug money was accepted by either Ernesto Samper Pizano or his main challenger, Andres Pastrana. De Greiff notes that as a consequence he will not order a formal investigation into the tapes regarding the scandal that connected drug money to campaign funds.

The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) projects that the world’s population in the year 2050 might be as low as 7.8 billion, if birth rates continue to fall, or as high as 12.5 billion.

Asia & the Pacific

Japan’s environmental affairs minister, Shin Sakurai, resigns after creating a furor with his Aug. 12 comments that essentially defended Japan’s military actions during World War II.

The People’s Alliance, headed by Chandrika Kumaratunga, wins 105 seats in the 225-member parliament in Sri Lanka’s general elections, falling eight seats short of winning a clear majority. The ruling United National Party (UNP) wins 94 seats, losing a general election for the first time in 17 years. A state of emergency and a general curfew are reimposed after violence erupts during polling. Data shows that during the month-long campaign period, at least 24 people were killed in clashes.

King Letsie III of Lesotho announces that he is dissolving the cabinet of the country’s first-ever democratically elected leader, P.M. Ntsu Mokhehle. Four people are killed and at least 10 injured when security forces loyal to the king fire on thousands of demonstrators, who reportedly throw stones and try to seize weapons from security officers while marching on the royal palace in Maseru. Marian Zacharski resigns as chief of Poland’s Office for State Protection, or civilian intelligence agency, amid controversy over his 1981 conviction in the U.S. on charges of espionage. Zacharski was assigned the post on Aug. 15.

Aug. 18

The Americas

Two Hamas activists are killed by Israeli police in Jerusalem.

Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, the fugitive Venezuelan-born international terrorist better known as “Carlos” and “the Jackal,” is seized in Sudan. He is wanted in several countries for murders during the 1970s and 1980s.

Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, the fugitive Venezuelan-born international terrorist known as “Carlos” or “the Jackal,” is extradited to France to stand trial for murders he committed there in the 1970s and 1980s.

Africa & the Middle East

Yeshayahu Leibowitz, 91, Israeli scientist, social critic, and philosopher who, in 1993, turned down the Israel Prize, the country’s most prestigious award, after Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said that he would boycott the award ceremony, dies in Jerusalem of a heart attack.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 13–18, 1994—635

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Some 20 U.S. military police officers and 45 Haitian refugees suffer minor injuries during a four-hourlong altercation involving hundreds of refugees at a refugee-processing station at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Attendance at Woodstock ’94 peaks with a crowd estimated at between 300,000 and 350,000. This compares with the 500,000 people who attended the original Woodstock festival, which is considered a defining event of the late 1960s.

The U.S. wins the men’s world basketball championships by defeating Russia, 137-91, in Toronto. . . . Elias Canetti, 89, Bulgarian-born Nobel Prize–winning writer, dies in Zurich, Switzerland. . . . Golfer Nick Price of Zimbabwe wins the PGA Championship at the Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahama. Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill that makes the Social Security Administration an independent government agency.

A Steuben County, New York, jury convicts Eric Smith, 14, of the fatal beating of a four-year-old, Derrick Robie, in August 1993. Smith, who was tried as an adult, confessed to choking and bludgeoning Robie with a rock in a wooded area in Savona, New York.

The California State Supreme Court unanimously upholds provisions of an insurance-reform bill known as Proposition 103, passed by California voters in a 1988 referendum. The decision overturns a Los Angeles superior court judge’s 1993 ruling. The state Supreme Court’s ruling is considered a major blow to insurers.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology announces that a team of physicists have frozen celsium atoms to 700 billionths of degree warmer than absolute zero, a new record low.

Paul Anderson, 61, weightlifter who at one time was considered the world’s strongest man and who won a gold medal in weightlifting at the 1956 Olympics, dies in Vidalia, Georgia, of complications arising from a 1983 kidney transplant.

Commerce Secretary Ronald Brown and Japan’s ambassador to the U.S., Takakazu Kuriyama, sign an accord designed to resolve long-standing disputes between the two nations over patents.

The Federal Reserve Board announces that its policy-making Federal Open Market Committee voted unanimously to boost two key short-term interest rates by one-half of a percentage point each. The federal-funds rate goes up to 4.75% while the discount rate rises to 4%. Both of those levels are the highest in three years.

Henry Geldzahler, 59, curator of American art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1960–77, and the first director of the visual-arts program of the NEA, dies in Southampton, New York, of cancer . . . . Cuban writer Norberto Fuentes states he will continue his two-week-old hunger strike to protest the Cuban government’s ban on his attending a meeting of PEN, an international writers organization, in New York City.

The House Ways and Means Committee reaches agreement on its version of GATT-implementation legislation, which will renew the administration’s fast-track authority for three years, with a three-year extension option.

After two weeks of congressional hearings in which lawmakers of both major parties rebuked Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman for what they call misleading testimony about his conduct in the Whitewater affair, Altman offers his resignation to Pres. Clinton and Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, who recommends that Frank Newman be nominated as a replacement.

Jack Sharkey (born Joseph Paul Cukoschay), 91, former boxing champion who was inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame in 1994, dies in Beverly, Massachusetts, of respiratory arrest.

Pres. Clinton turns down a request from Florida governor Lawton Chiles (D) that the U.S. administration declare a federal emergency to permit action to stem the waves of Cuban boats and rafts arriving in Florida.

The House passes, 322-98, a $27.7 billion appropriations bill to fund the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State; the federal judiciary; and related agencies for fiscal 1995. . . . After hearing many objections, a panel of federal judges announces it has no authority to review or rescind its selection of Kenneth W. Starr to head the inquiry into the Whitewater affair. In the midst of the scandal, Jean Hanson submits her resignation to Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen. Bentsen recommends that Edward S. Knight replace Hanson.

The takeoff of the space shuttle Endeavour from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, is aborted 1.9 seconds before liftoff when the spacecraft’s computers detect an overheated fuel pump on the craft. The Endeavour incident is the fifth automatic engine shutdown in the 13-year shuttle program, and the third since April 1993. . . . Richard Laurence Millington Synge, 79, British biochemist who won the 1952 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for research that focused on separating acetyl-amino acids, dies of myelodysplastic syndrome.

Gottlob Frick, 88, German opera singer, dies in Pforzheim, Germany. . . . In Victoria, British Columbia, the Commonwealth Games open.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 13

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Aug. 15

Aug. 16

Aug. 17

Aug. 18

636—August 19–24, 1994

World Affairs

Europe Russian health officials announce efforts, including a quarantine in Dagestan, to contain the epidemic of the cholera that broke out in June.

Aug. 19

Africa & the Middle East In Lesotho, a provisional council is sworn in in Maseru, the capital. Hae Phoofolo, a human-rights lawyer, is appointed chairman. . . . The head of Nigeria’s military government, Gen. Sani Abacha, starts a crackdown on the opposition.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Data shows that, since Aug. 5, more than 2,700 Cubans have attempted the hazardous, 90-mile (145-km) sea journey to Florida.

Chandrika Kumaratunga is sworn in as prime minister of Sri Lanka.

Fearing a greater influx of Rwandan refugees, Zairian officials close the border crossing over the Rusizi River to the city of Bukavu, stranding up to 5,000 refugees on the Rwandan side.

Aug. 20

Aug. 21

Aug. 22

Sean McNulty, an English-born IRA recruit, is convicted of bombing oil and gas installations in the north of England in June 1993.

The last of 2,500 French soldiers withdraw from the “humanitarian safe zone” established in June in southwestern Rwanda, prompting the estimated 500,000–800,000 displaced Rwandans in the area to take refuge elsewhere.

Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon of Mexico’s PRI is elected president, extending the party’s unbroken control over the federal government since its inception in 1929. The PRI also wins the majority in legislative elections. Fighting breaks out at a number of booths when officials run out of ballots, prompting cries of fraud. . . . Irish president Mary Robinson makes her first official visit to Canada.

Queen Beatrix swears in Labor Party leader Wim Kok as the new premier of the Netherlands at the head of a 14-member cabinet. . . . After four separate incidents in which German authorities seized weapons-grade nuclear material that they said was smuggled from Russia, Russian and German officials agree to tighten border controls and improve communication between their intelligence agencies. . . . Sean McNulty, an Englishborn IRA recruit who was convicted Aug. 21, is sentenced to 25 years in prison.

The head of Nigeria’s military government, Gen. Sani Abacha, fires and replaces the country’s army and navy commanders. The Academic Staff Union of Universities joins two oil-workers’ unions that have been striking since July 4, to demand that the results of the 1993 election are recognized. Data suggests that 50 prominent Nigerians, including Anthony Enahoro who helped lead Nigeria to independence, have been arrested since Aug. 19. . . . The government of Egypt executes five militants of the Islamic movement Jihad for their assassination attempt on Interior Minister Hassan al-Alfi in August 1993.

Ramon Juan Alberto Camps, 67, former Argentine army general who helped lead the military dictatorship’s campaign of repression in the “Dirty War” against the country’s leftists from 1976 until 1983, was convicted in 1986 for humanrights abuses, sentenced to a 25year jail term, and pardoned in 1990, dies of prostate cancer.

A steady flow of thousands of refugees leaves the city center of Bukavu for Hongo, a newly opened camp in Zaire for 80,000 Rwandan refugees on the shores of Lake Kivu.

Aug. 23

Russian experts begin decommissioning two nuclear reactors at a naval base in the port of Paldiski, on the Baltic Sea.

Aug. 24

Israeli and PLO negotiators initial an accord under which Israel agrees to transfer a range of administrative powers throughout the West Bank to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). . . . In Rwanda, reports suggest that only 100,000 of an estimated 2.5 million refugees returned home. Separately, the UN discloses that five people caught stealing food were hacked to death by a mob of refugees at a camp in Kapale. . . . Masked gunmen kill two Spanish tourists in a hotel in Marrakesh, Morocco.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 19–24, 1994—637

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Illinois state prosecutors in Chicago make public an indictment that charges first-term Rep. Mel Reynolds (D, Ill.) with 20 counts of statutory rape, solicitation of child pornography, obstruction of justice, and other charges. Reynolds, who is black, contends that the charges are racially motivated and proclaims his innocence.

Pres. Clinton, responding to prospects of a massive Cuban exodus to the U.S., announces an end to a 28-year-old U.S. policy that allowed Cuban refugees to take up residence in the U.S. if they reach its shores or are rescued in its waters. The president states that Cubans intercepted at sea by the U.S. navy or Coast Guard will be transferred to holding camps such as the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay.

The Senate clears, 88-10, a $27.7 billion appropriations bill to fund the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State; the federal judiciary; and related agencies for fiscal 1995. The bill also allocates emergency aid for domestic disaster-relief efforts and funds for the U.S.’s contribution to international peace-keeping missions.

The unidentified Yale researcher who was infected with a rare virus on Aug. 8 is successfully treated with the antiviral drug ribavirin. . . . Linus Carl Pauling, 93, who won the 1954 Nobel Prize in chemistry for research on the nature of the chemical bonds between atoms and the 1962 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in the antinuclear movement, thereby becoming the only person to be the sole recipient of Nobel Prizes in two separate categories, dies near Big Sur, California, of cancer.

The NAACP ousts its executive director, Rev. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., for actions that are “inimical” to the interests of the organization. In late July, allegations that the civilrights leader had secretly arranged for the use of NAACP funds to head off a threatened sex-discrimination suit against him surfaced. The board names Earl T. Shinhoster as interim head of the organization.

The U.S. announces restrictions on maximum financial disbursements that U.S.-based Cubans may provide relatives in Cuba and a ban on charter flights to Cuba from the U.S.

The House passes, 235-195, a broad anticrime package that will authorize $30.2 billion in spending over six years. The legislation’s passage follows an August 11 House procedural vote which blocked a $33.5 billion anticrime bill from further consideration.

Albert P. Blaustein, 72, law professor who helped more than 40 nations in transition to draft constitutions, dies in Durham, North Carolina, after suffering a heart attack.

The Justice Department announces it has reached an $11 million agreement with Chevy Chase Federal Savings Bank, settling charges that the bank discriminated against minorities and low-income people in its marketing practices. The racial-discrimination suit reportedly is the department’s first ever against a lending institution regarding marketing practices; previous suits centered on loan-application discrepancies and bias.

The U.S. Coast Guard intercepts 2,548 Cubans at sea.

American College Testing releases the results of the 1994 ACT, a standardized college admissions test. The gender gap in the scores is the smallest ever. Nationally, the average score on the ACT is 20.8, on a scale ranging from one to 36. That is an increase of 0.1 point from 1993. Male scores fell 0.1 point, to 20.9, while female scores rose 0.3 point, to 20.7

Pres. Clinton signs an appropriations bill allocating $8.8 billion for military construction spending in fiscal 1995. . . . Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill setting aside $13.8 billion in funding in fiscal 1995 for foreign aid and other U.S. foreign operations. . . . The Coast Guard intercepts 2,886 Cuban refugees between Florida and Cuba, raising to more than 7,000 the number intercepted since Aug. 19.

The College Board releases the 1994 results for the SAT, a standardized college admissions test. The average verbal score for women was 421 (up one point from 1993) and for men, 425 (down three points). The average math score for women was 460 (up three points) and for men, 501 (down one point). Statistics reveal that, of all groups, black women have shown the largest score improvements over the past eight years.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Aug. 19

A rough-cut version of Don Quixote, an unfinished film by the late director Orson Welles, debuts at the Edinburgh Film Festival in Scotland. A Spanish-language cut of the film was shown at the Cannes International Film Festival in 1992.

Aug. 20

Aug. 21

Aug. 22

At the Inland Fisher Guide plant for General Motors, 3,300 United Auto Workers strike to protest the company’s plans to send more parts production work to outside suppliers, a practice known as “outsourcing.”

Aug. 23

The Dow records the year’s second-largest one-day increase when it surges by 70.90 points, or 1.88%, to close at 3846.73, its highest closing level since Mar. 23.

Aug. 24

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

638—August 25–30, 1994

World Affairs

Aug. 25

Aug. 26

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Bankers from around the world meet in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, at an annual conference. Much of the discussion centers on labor policy in industrialized nations, where unemployment rates, especially in Europe, have been high for the past few years.

Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, and Quett Masire of Botswana demand that King Letsie of Lesotho reverse his decision to dissolve the democratic government. . . . UN estimates indicate that 70,000 Rwandans—mostly members of the Hutu tribe, which comprises 85% of Rwandans—fled into Zaire from the safe zone that French troops left Aug. 21. The figure is substantially lower than expected.

Ramdas Nayak, the local president of the right-wing Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who was an outspoken critic of political corruption, is killed when gunmen on motorcycles fire 54 bullets into Nayak’s car with automatic rifles. His bodyguard is also killed. . . . In South Korea, a 63-day strike by workers at Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. (HHI), the world’s largest shipbuilding company, ends.

Reports disclose that the European Union and the U.S. have suspended most of their aid to Gambia since the July 22 coup, pressing for the return of civilian rule.

Reports state that the provisional government in Gambia has barred all political activity, arrested two socialist journalists, and detained under house arrest many of the coup leader’s superiors. . . . Presumed Islamic militants fire on a tourist bus in Nag Hammadi in eastcentral Egypt, killing a 13-year-old Spanish boy and seriously injuring his father. . . . Two Israeli construction workers are stabbed to death near Tel Aviv. . . . Morocco takes steps to bar the entry of Algerians into Morocco because it suspects Algerians were behind the Aug. 24 killings of two Spanish tourists.

In response to the Aug. 25 murder of Ramdas Nayak, Hindu groups stage a general strike in Bombay, India. In an attempt to enforce the strike, some protesters stone trains and buses.

Hamas militants claim responsibility for the Aug. 26 stabbing deaths of two Israeli construction workers the day before near Tel Aviv. . . . Reports reveal that violence is rampant in the refugee camps in eastern Zaire, resulting in what a UN High Commissioner for Refugees spokeswoman, Ruth Marshall, calls “spontaneous lynchings.”

Some 150,000 workers from Bombay Municipal Corp. strike to protest employment conditions. . . . U.S. commerce secretary Ronald H. Brown becomes the first U.S. cabinet official to visit China since Pres. Clinton renewed most-favorednation (MFN) trading status for China and ceased linking trade and human-rights issues.

Bosnian Serb voters overwhelmingly reject an international peace plan that would have given them control of 49% of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Muslim-Croat federation control of the remaining 51%. The plan would have required the self-declared Bosnian Serb republic to give up about a third of the Bosnian territory it won during the 28-month civil war.

Aug. 27

Jericho mayor Jamil Sabri Khalaf, a Palestinian, resigns after 17 years in the post. Khalaf hands over power to a new 13-member municipal council comprised of backers of all major Palestinian factions. . . . In reaction to Morocco’s Aug. 26 decision regarding the entrance of Algerians, Algeria institutes similar restrictions for Moroccans.

Aug. 28

A prominent pro-Aristide grassroots organizer, Rev. Jean-Marie Vincent, is shot to death in Port-auPrince, the capital of Haiti, by gunmen with presumed ties to the military. . . . Ecuador’s voters support six of seven constitutional-reform proposals in a nonbinding plebiscite. The proposals permit the executive branch of government to exercise more control over the national budget, allow the president and lawmakers to seek second consecutive terms of office, permit legislators to maintain independent affiliations, and let Ecuadorans hold dual nationality.

Japanese premier Tomiichi Murayama visits Singapore’s memorial to victims of the Japanese World War II occupation, lays a wreath at the site, and apologizes for Japan’s wartime past. . . . Human Rights Watch/Asia accuses the Chinese government of violating international human-rights and medical-ethics provisions by using as many as 3,000 organs annually from condemned prisoners for transplant purposes. . . . In India, the strike started Aug. 27 by workers at Bombay Municipal is settled when union negotiators reach an agreement with the municipal commissioner.

Israel and the PLO sign the accord initialed Aug. 24, in which Israel agrees to transfer a range of administrative powers throughout the West Bank to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). The agreement marks the first expansion of Palestinian authority beyond the autonomous enclaves of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho, which came under Palestinian self-rule in May.

Aug. 29

Aug. 30

Africa & the Middle East

Jamaica, Barbados, Belize, and Trinidad and Tobago formally commit troops to broad international participation in any possible invasion to oust Haiti's de facto government if the Haitian military continues to block the reinstatement of the democratically elected government of exiled president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Reports conclude that an outbreak of cholera that began in June has spread through parts of Russia and killed 19 people in the southern region of Dagestan, four in nearby Chechnya and three in Moscow. As many as 1,000 cases have been reported. . . . Lindsay Anderson, 71, British film and theater director who won an Academy Award in 1954 and was a founding member of the English Stage Company at the Royal Court, dies of a heart attack while vacationing in the Dordogne region of France.

The deputy prime minister of Papua New Guinea, Sir Julius Chan, is elected the country's prime minister in a parliamentary election ordered by the Supreme Court. Chan succeeds Paias Wingti, who was not up for reelection.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 25–30, 1994—639

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

In a major victory for Pres. Clinton, the Senate passes, 61-38, a broad anticrime package that will authorize $30.2 billion in spending over six years. The bill provides funding for police, prisons, and crime-prevention programs; it bans some types of assault weapons; and expands the federal death penalty.

Democratic congressional leaders and White House officials acknowledge that the current session of Congress is not likely to pass legislation guaranteeing universal healthinsurance coverage.

Defense Secretary William Perry announces that the U.S. will pay $100,000 to each of the families of 11 foreign victims of a helicopter downing in which six British, French, and Turkish officers and five Kurdish workers as well as 15 Americans were killed. All passengers were members of a UN humanitarian mission intended to aid Kurds in northern Iraq. An investigative panel in July found that numerous errors had been made by all the flight crews.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

America West Airlines, the nation’s ninth-largest carrier, officially emerges from bankruptcy protection. . . . General Motors and the United Auto Workers reach an agreement that ends a strike started Aug. 23.

Reports state that Chinese swimmer Ren Xin was stripped of the three gold medals won at the 1994 Goodwill Games after testing positive for drug use. . . . Hugh W. Culverhouse, 75, owner of the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers, dies in New Orleans, Louisiana, of heart failure.

Pres. Clinton signs a $20.5 billion appropriations bill to fund energy, water-development, and nuclearweapons programs in fiscal 1995. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a $27.7 billion appropriations bill to fund the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State; the federal judiciary; and related agencies for fiscal 1995, The bill also allocates emergency aid for domestic disaster-relief efforts and funds for the U.S.’s contribution to international peacekeeping missions.

The Cuban government allows writer Norberto Fuentes to the U.S. to attend a PEN literary meeting. Fuentes ends a 23-day-long hunger strike launched in protest over the government’s ban. . . . Bert Yancey, 56, professional golfer, dies of an apparent heart attack in Park City, Utah, after collapsing while practicing for a Senior PGA Championship.

A team from Venezuela wins baseball’s Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, defeating a team from Northridge, California, 4-3.

In the Roseland neighborhood of Chicago’s South Side, semiautomatic fire at a group of teenagers playing football kills Shavon Dean, 14. Sammie Seay, 16, is wounded in the hand.

Five DEA agents die when their twinengine jet crashes in Peru during a routine reconnaissance mission. The deaths mark the highest fatality total for DEA agents killed in any single incident in the agency’s history.

Eldrick (Tiger) Woods wins the Amateur Golf Championship. Woods, 18, becomes the youngest player to win the Amateur title, the first black player to win the title, and the only player to have won both the Amateur and the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship titles. . . . José María Olazabal of Spain wins the World Series of Golf in Akron, Ohio.

In former first lady Barbara Bush’s memoirs, she reveals publicly for the first time that she supports a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion, although she personally opposes abortion as a means of birth control.

Aug. 25

Aug. 26

Aug. 27

Aug. 28

Aug. 29

Two prominent IRA members, Joseph Cahill and Patrick Treanor, arrive in New York City on visas approved by Pres. Clinton.

The Dow closes at 3917.30, the first time it has closed above 3900 since Feb. 22.

Aug. 30

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

640—August 31–September 4, 1994

Aug. 31

World Affairs

Europe

Japanese premier Tomiichi Murayama announces that his government will spend 100 billion yen ($1 billion) over 10 years as part of an effort to atone for the brutal behavior of its occupying forces during World War II, including the sexual enslavement of women throughout East Asia. . . . Britain offers to supply a frigate and support vessel and a team of military trainers to international forces if there is to be an invasion of Haiti to reinstate the government of Pres. Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The outlawed Provisional IRA announces a cease-fire in its 25-year-old armed struggle to end British rule in Northern Ireland, also known as Ulster. The sectarian conflict has killed more than 3,000 people since 1969. However, hours before the announcement, a Catholic man is found shot dead near Antrim. . . . The last Russian troops leave Latvia and Estonia, 54 years after the former Soviet Union invaded the Baltics. Russia also pulls out its remaining troops stationed in Germany. Russian president Boris Yeltsin and German chancellor Helmut Kohl place memorial wreaths at a mass grave of 7,000 Soviet soldiers killed in the Battle of Berlin.

Sept. 3

China announces that it will withdraw from the Military Armistice Commission, the three-member body that oversaw the 1953 Korean War truce. The move is considered largely symbolic because the commission has not met since 1991.

The Americas

The U.S. embassy in Haiti states that the nation's military-backed rulers have agreed to allow the departure of more than 1,000 Haitians holding valid asylum papers issued by the U.S.

Fighting breaks out in the secessionist republic of Chechnya in southern Russia when government forces loyal to Pres. Dzhokhar Dudayev battle supporters of Ruslan Labazanov, the pro-Russian rebel leader. Chechnya expels all Russian journalists and cuts phone links between Moscow and Grozny. . . . Chinese president Jiang Zemin becomes the first Chinese head of state to visit Moscow since 1957. . . . Bulgarian premier Lyuben Berov, in power since December 1992, resigns. . . . Roy Castle, 62, British comedian, dancer, and musician, dies of lung cancer in Buckinghamshire, England.

In response to the Aug. 31 easing of an embargo, Velupillai Prabhakaran, leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebel group, invites Sri Lankan prime minister Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga to Jaffna to begin peace talks and seek an end to Sri Lanka’s 11-year-old civil war, which has taken more than 30,000 lives. . . . The Khmer Rouge releases a videotape of three Western captives abducted July 26. The rebels state that they will not release the hostages until the Cambodian army stops shelling the rebels’ compound.

Reports show that only 26 nations have ratified the recent GATT pact, and the world’s three largest trading economies—the U.S., Japan, and the EU—have yet to do so. . . . Reports confirm that attacks on foreigners in Algeria have prompted Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, Denmark, and Austria to close their embassies in Algeria.

Papua New Guinea prime minister Julius Chan and Sam Kauona, the military leader of the Bougainville Revolutionary Army separatist group, sign commitments of peace. Since 1988, the BRA has been fighting for independence for Bougainville, a copper-rich island in Papua New Guinea’s North Solomons province. In England, reports indicate that gangs of local youths vandalized and robbed the homes of 68 Bosnian Muslim refugees who were given priority in public-housing projects in South Ockendon, Essex. . . . A car bomb explodes outside Sinn Fein’s Belfast, Northern Ireland, offices, causing some damage but no injuries. The Ulster Volunteer Force takes credit for the blast.

Sept. 4

Asia & the Pacific Sri Lankan prime minister Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga lifts an embargo on 28 items to areas controlled by the Tamil separatists who are ensconced in Jaffna, the rebels' headquarters city. . . . China reveals that its parliament voted unanimously to abolish all existing institutions in Hong Kong whose members were directly elected as of July 1, 1997. . . . Naohiro Amaya, 68, Japanese trade official, dies of lung cancer in Tokyo.

In the first killing after the Aug. 31 cease-fire, the Ulster Freedom Fighters claim responsibility for the murder in Belfast of a Catholic man, John O'Hanlon. Suspicions that the government made secret concessions to Sinn Fein are further aroused when four IRA prisoners are transferred from jails to be nearer their families, long a demand of Irish nationalists.

Sept. 1

Sept. 2

Africa & the Middle East

A staff member of the Liberté (Freedom) newspaper, published in Portau-Prince, Haiti, states that death threats and other forms of harassment have forced the prodemocracy weekly paper to close its offices.

In Sri Lanka, Chandrika Kumaratunga’s government announces that it will suspend the rights of the army and police to arrest and detain individuals. . . . Kansai International Airport, serving the Osaka metropolitan area. formally opens. The airport, which took more than seven years to build and cost about $15 billion, is Japan’s first to be operated 24 hours a day

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 31–September 4, 1994—641

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The U.S. Treasury Department signs a comprehensive bilateral tax treaty with France that the department claims will save U.S.-based multinational businesses and other organizations millions of dollars.

The Commerce Department reports that the composite index of leading economic indicators, the government's primary gauge of future economic activity, was unchanged in July from June. The reading— 101.5—was the index's highest level since the department first began reporting it in 1948.

In an incident that gains national attention and intensifies public debate on the issue of juvenile crime, Robert Sandifer, 11, who was a Chicago gang member suspected of the Aug. 28 murder of a 14-year-old, is discovered murdered.

HUD announces that it will discontinue its policy of investigating individuals who peacefully protest its project proposals. . . . Harold LaMont Otey, 43, convicted of the 1977 rape and murder of a photography student, is put to death by electric chair in Lincoln, Nebraska. Otey confessed to the killing, but he later recanted. Some 2,000 demonstrators, both for and against capital punishment, stage rallies. Otey is the first prisoner executed in Nebraska in 35 years and the 250th put to death in the U.S. since 1976.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Aug. 31

A San Francisco jury awards Rena Weeks, 40, a former secretary at Baker & McKenzie, the world's largest law firm, $7.1 million in damages in a sexual-harassment case. The $7.1 million judgment is thought to be a record for a sexualharassment case.

Sept. 1

The Transportation Department publicly discloses that commercial airlines from nine countries—Belize, the Dominican Republic, Gambia, Ghana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Zaire—have been barred from flying to the U.S. because of safety concerns. . . . Judge Philip Pro of U.S. District Court rules that the Defense Department’s report detailing its investigation of the Tailhook convention cannot be used as evidence in a civil suit since it “is replete with double hearsay and summaries of testimony attributed to various unidentified individuals who were not subject to cross-examinations.”

Sept. 2

Billy Wright (born William Ambrose Wright), 70, British football (soccer) player who won the Footballer of the Year title in 1952, dies of cancer in London, England.

In Hilton Head, South Carolina, an NAACP march to protest the Confederate States of America flag above the state capitol building in Columbia draws 1,000 people. Hours later, about 400 people march in support of keeping the Confederate States of America flag. . . . Elliot Liebow, 69, who studied urban street life and homelessness and was chief of the Center for the Study of Work and Mental Health until 1984, dies of cancer in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Sept. 3

Sept. 4

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

642—September 5–10, 1994

Sept. 5

Sept. 6

Sept. 7

Sept. 8

Sept. 9

World Affairs

Europe

The UN Third International Conference on Population and Development convenes in Cairo, Egypt, and is attended by an estimated 20,000 foreign dignitaries, activists, and journalists.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Government forces loyal to Pres. Dzhokhar Dudayev of the secessionist republic of Chechnya, in southern Russia, capture the rebel stronghold of Argun in the worst violence in Chechnya since the republic declared itself independent from Russia in 1991. More than 15 supporters of Ruslan Labazanov, the pro-Russian rebel leader, are killed, along with an unverified number of opposition troops and about 50 of Dudayev’s troops. . . . Kyrgyzstan’s Pres. Askar Akayev and his government resign after months of political squabbling in Parliament.

On the remote island of Davis Inlet, which is one of the poorest communities in Canada, the Innu use debris to block the island’s only airstrip, and Innu from the Canadian mainland arrive in the area to support the local population.

John Newman, a state legislator in the Australian state of New South Wales who crusaded against Asian gangs, is fatally shot in the Sydney suburb of Cabramatta. The slaying is thought to be Australia’s firstever political assassination.

According to the 1994 World Competitiveness Report, the U.S. has the world’s most competitive economy. The reports defines competitiveness as “the ability of a country or a company to, proportionally, generate more wealth than competitors in world markets.” Following the U.S. are Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Sweden.

In the first official meeting between a leader of the Irish Republic and the Sinn Fein in Dublin, Irish prime minister Albert Reynolds holds unprecedented talks with Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the outlawed Provisional IRA. British prime minister John Major meets with Ian Paisley, a Protestant hard-liner and leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, but the session ends acrimoniously.

The opposition Barbados Labour Party (BLP), led by Owen Arthur, ends 10 consecutive years of Democratic Labour Party (DLP) rule with an electoral victory that gives the BLP a majority in the House of Assembly. . . . Fernando Chamorro Rappaccioli, 62, Nicaraguan insurgent who fought against the regime of Pres. Anastasio Somoza for two decades, dies of complications from an embolism in Managua.

Japan’s Fair Trade Commission raids the headquarters and offices of more than 20 Japanese trading companies suspected of participating in an illegal cartel that allegedly predetermined which firms will win contracts under Japan’s foreign-aid program.

In preparation for a possible U.S.led invasion of Haiti, 266 troops from Jamaica, Barbados, Belize, and Trinidad and Tobago begin training at a U.S. naval base in Puerto Rico.

The parliament of Crimea, a semiautonomous region in southern Ukraine, votes to rescind much of Pres. Yuri Meshkov’s power and to establish a collective “head of state” made up of members of parliament.

Delegates at the UN’s International Conference on Population and Development reach a consensus to increase the amount of money spent worldwide to stabilize population growth to $17 billion annually by the year 2000. That amount will be raised to $22 billion by the year 2015. . . . Approximately 1 million Berlin residents and 29 foreign ministers attend the dozens of parades to bid farewell to the last 200 Allied troops in Germany.

After repeated refusals by Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic to allow monitoring of Yugoslavia’s six-week-old embargo against Serb-held territory in Bosnia, he agrees to accept civilian observers. . . . In Bulgaria, the cabinet of Premier Lyuben Berov, who stepped down Sept. 2, resigns.

Algerian president Lamine Zeroual concedes that the number of people killed in Algeria by militant Muslims and government forces since January 1992 is more than 10,000, rather than the previous government estimate of 3,000.

Barbados Labour Party (BLP) leader Owen Arthur is sworn in as the new prime minister of Barbados. . . . Cuban foreign minister Roberto Robaina meets with three prominent Florida-based Cuban exiles, Ramon Cernuda, Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo, and Alfredo Duran. The meetings are reportedly the first acknowledged talks between a senior Cuban official and Cuban exiles critical of the Castro regime. The Newfoundland government announces it has canceled a plan to use Royal Canadian Mounted Police to reestablish a provincial court on the island of Davis Inlet, where the native Innu community forcefully evicted a judge in December 1993 and blockaded the area’s only airstrip Sept. 5. . . . Reports confirm that Roberto Hernández Paniagua, the PRD leader in the Mexican town of Jaltenango de la Paz, was shot to death.

After contentious debate at the UN’s International Conference on Population and Development, the Vatican ends its struggle to weaken further the plan’s language on abortion after accepting minor changes.

Members of the Australian Maritime Union strike, protesting what they call the federal government’s failure to come up with a restructuring plan for the federally owned Australian National Line shipping operation.

The U.S. corporation Union Carbide, which in 1984 had a chemical leak In Bhopal, India, that killed more than 3,800 people and injured more than 20,000, announces its agreement to sell its 51% stake in Union Carbide India, Ltd., to Calcutta-based McLeod Russel (India) Ltd. for $90 million.

In Bosnia, shelling in Sarajevo escalates as new offensives begin. . . . Pope John Paul II makes a short visit to Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. It is the first visit by a Roman Catholic pope to any part of the former Yugoslavia. . . . A riot breaks out during a boxing match at a Birmingham arena. Police clear a section of 500 seats.

Sept. 10

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 5–10, 1994—643

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The CDC finds that about 600 passengers and 40 crew members aboard the cruise ship Viking Serenade were stricken by an intestinal illness, shigellosis, which is caused by the bacterium Shigella flexneri. Clarence Bazar, 78, a passenger who reportedly had diabetes and a preexisting heart condition, died in Ensenada, Mexico, before the boat completed its roundtrip back to Los Angeles.

A state grand jury in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, indicts former Sen. Vance Hartke (D, Ind.) on 12 misdemeanor counts of “reckless” entrance into polling places during a November 1993 referendum on riverboat gambling. . . . Through the National Archives, the Clinton administration makes public 234 boxes, each containing 2,500 pages from First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Task Force on National Health Care Reform.

Donald C. Smaltz is appointed by a special panel of federal appellate court judges as the independent counsel to investigate the conduct of Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy. The panel designates Smaltz to determine whether Espy broke any laws by accepting gifts from companies subject to USDA regulation.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Publishers Weekly lists Debt of Honor by Tom Clancy as the top bestseller. . . . The World Swimming and Diving Championships open in Rome, Italy, and Chinese swimmer Le Jingyi completes the 100-meter freestyle in 54.01 seconds, beating American Jenny Thompson’s 1992 record.

Materials detailing a suit filed July 14 by a female CIA agent against the agency are declassified. The officer, known as “Jane Doe Thompson,” is revealed to be Janine Brookner, who claims the agency created a misleading report that damaged her career.

James Clavell, 69, best-selling novelist whose best-known works include Shogun (1975) and Noble House (1981), dies of complications from cancer in Vevey, Switzerland.

Former FBI special agent Joanne Misko files a sex-discrimination suit against the bureau.

At the World Swimming and Diving Championships in Rome, the 400-meter freestyle Chinese relay team of Le Jingyi, Shan Ying, Le Ying, and Lu Bin complete their race in 3 minutes, 37.91 seconds, an impressive 1.54 seconds quicker than the 1992 record.

The Tailhook Association reaches a settlement for an undisclosed sum with Paula Coughlin, a former navy lieutenant who was sexually assaulted by male aviators during the 1991 Tailhook convention. . . . The Department of Defense announces the air force has charged Lt. Col. Randy W. May, a pilot in the April “friendly fire” downing of two helicopters over Iraq, with 26 counts of negligent homicide and two counts of dereliction of duty.

A GAO report finds that current regulatory efforts to identify and punish problem brokers, who continue to work at major brokerage firms even though they are the subject of numerous serious complaints, are inadequate. . . . The Labor Department announces Honeywell has agreed to pay back wages totaling $3.5 million to 6,000 current and former female employees to settle a sexual-discrimination suit first filed in 1977.

All 132 passengers and crew aboard USAir flight 427 die when the plane nose-dives and crashes in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. The death toll is the highest in a U.S. plane crash since 1987. . . . The air force concludes that the wreckage of a flying object that crashed in 1947 near Roswell, New Mexico, was most likely part of a balloon used in the top-secret Project Mogul to monitor Soviet nuclear testing. The air force initially claimed the wreckage was a weather balloon.

Cuba and the U.S. sign an agreement that commits the U.S. to accept a minimum of 20,000 legal Cuban immigrants a year in exchange for Cuba’s promise to deter its citizens from fleeing Cuba on U.S.-bound rafts and other vessels.

Reports disclose that Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary authorized a shipment of waste from weaponsgrade uranium to arrive in South Carolina. In response, South Carolina files a lawsuit to halt the shipment, on the grounds that the Energy Department has not prepared an adequate environmental impact statement. In a separate case, reports confirm that South Carolina state officials in June forced a Snelling, S.C., nuclear waste dump to stop accepting waste from outside the Southeast.

The U.S. space shuttle Discovery blasts off from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, to carry out a mission to study the atmosphere and launch a satellite for solar studies.

Terence Young, 79, British filmmaker who directed Dr. No (1962), dies of a heart attack while working on a documentary in Cannes, France. . . . Sister Parish (born Dorothy May Kinnicut), 84, interior designer who aided Jacqueline Kennedy in the restoration of the White House, dies in Dark Harbor, Maine.

Sept. 5

Sept. 6

Sept. 7

Sept. 8

Sept. 9

Amy Clampitt, 74, poet who wrote The Kingfisher (1983) , dies of ovarian cancer in Lenox, Massachusetts. . . . At the U.S. Open tennis player Arantxa Sanchez Vicario becomes the first Spaniard to win the women’s singles title.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 10

644—September 11–16, 1994

World Affairs

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In reaction to Parliament’s Sept. 7 vote, Crimean president Yuri Meshkov disbands Parliament and local councils and takes control of the republic, ordering emergency rule and using presidential guards to block deputies from entering the parliament building in Simferopol. In an emergency session, members of Parliament declare the president’s decree unconstitutional.

Sept. 11

Sept. 12

Sept. 13

Europe

The UN’s Third International Conference on Population and Development closes after all the 179 national delegations represented endorse a sweeping strategy aimed at stabilizing population growth over the next 20 years. The plan, which was fashioned in three years of preparatory meetings by representatives from 180 countries, officially supersedes the 1974 UN policy that was updated in 1984. The new plan for the first time recognizes that the status, health, and rights of women is essential to population control.

Sept. 14

Sept. 15

Sept. 16

Figures suggest that more than 100 French business executives are under investigation in a series of corruption scandals. . . . Britain raises its benchmark interest rate, to 5.75% from 5.25%. It is Britain’s first increase in its bank base lending rate in five years. . . . Hans Koschnick, the EU administrator for Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina, officially opens the city’s newly built bridge across the Neretva River.

The leaders of Liberia’s three main rebel factions—Charles Taylor, Gen. Hezekiah Bowen, and Alhaji Kromah—sign a peace accord aimed at ending the civil war and staging general elections. . . . Clashes between government troops and Hutu militants break out in Kamenge, a suburb of Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi.

Yuri Meshkov, president of Crimea, a semiautonomous region in southern Ukraine, rescinds the Sept. 11 suspension of Crimea’s parliament.

PLO chairman Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres, Israel’s foreign minister, reportedly agree to defer negotiations on the contentious issue of the status of Jerusalem. In doing so, they clear the way for an emergency aid disbursement to the cash-strapped PLO for governance and development projects in the autonomous Gaza Strip and West Bank town of Jericho.

In the breakaway republic of Chechnya in southern Russia, rebels blow up two government television transmitters.

Crowds celebrate in Maseru, the capital of Lesotho, because an accord immediately restores P.M. Ntsu Mokhehle and his government to power. . . . . Burundi defense ministry officials estimate that 60 Hutus and two Tutsi soldiers have been killed in clashes that started Sept. 12, and spread to other suburbs. . . . Reports state Muslim militants are being blamed for the mutilation and beheading of 16 civilians found dead in three regions of Algeria.

Reports reveal that Dzhokhar Dudayev, president of the breakaway republic of Chechnya in southern Russia, has imposed martial law on the region.

A rebel force made up of renegade soldiers from the defunct Liberian national army seize the presidential mansion in Monrovia, the capital. The rebels are led by Gen. Charles Julue, who gained a reputation for committing atrocities as a military commander under Pres. Samuel Doe. The new group is called Liberian New Horizons. West African peacekeeping forces bombard and storm the mansion, overpowering the more than 100 rebels inside. . . . The last remaining U.S. diplomats leave the U.S. liaison office in Mogadishu, Somalia.

The first of 135 international inspectors are stationed on the border between Yugoslavia and BosniaHerzegovina.

Gen. Charles Julue, who staged the Sept. 15 attempted coup, is captured by Liberian citizens who recognize him as he attempts to walk, disguised in Arab robes and headdress, past a roadblock set up by the West African forces. The citizens beat Julue and strip him naked before he is taken away by peacekeepers.

The separatist Parti Quebecois, which calls for independence for Quebec, narrowly wins a parliamentary election in Quebec, regaining power for the first time since 1985. . . . Workers in Brazil’s automotive industry go on a strike. . . . Susana Higuchi, wife of Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, announces she has formed an opposition political party and will seek to challenge her husband in the upcoming presidential election. Members of the Australian Maritime Union end their strike, which began Sept. 8.

Reports confirm that three women are among the BLP’s victorious candidates, marking the most women ever elected in the 350year history of the legislature of Barbados.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 11–16, 1994—645

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Vernon N. Houk, 64, environmental health specialist who confirmed that an atomic weapons test in Nevada in the 1950s had caused a higher incidence of cancer cases and who, in 1983, was appointed director of the National Center for Environmental Health, dies of tracheal cancer in Atlanta, Georgia.

At the Emmys, Picket Fences wins as Best Drama and Frasier as Best Comedy. . . . Allegations of drug use by record-breaking Chinese swimmers surface. . . . .Jessica Tandy, 85, actress whose awards include a Kennedy Center Lifetime Achievement medal, a National Medal of Art, and an Oscar, dies in Easton, Conn., of ovarian cancer. . . . Andre Agassi wins the U.S. Open men’s tennis title. Tom Ewell (born Samuel Yewell Tompkins), 85, actor best known for the movie The Seven Year Itch (1955), dies in Woodland Hills, California . . . . The Olympic Council of Asia effectively revokes an earlier invitation to Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui to attend the October games in Hiroshima.

Frank Eugene Corder, 38, an unemployed truck driver with a history of substance abuse, crashes a small airplane on the South Lawn of the White House after evading detection by security personnel. Corder dies in the crash. . . . A three-judge panel orders the redrawing of the borders of Georgia’s 11th House District, which they say was designed to create a “minority-majority” area that would send a black representative to Congress.

The trial of the Las Vegas Hilton, which was the site of the 1991 Tailhook Association convention during which women were sexually harassed and abused by defense personnel, opens.

The House votes, 313-61, to approve the final version of a $90.1 billion appropriations bill funding the VA, HUD, the EPA, NASA, and other related independent agencies for fiscal 1995.

Pres. Clinton signs into law a broad anticrime package that authorizes $30.2 billion in funding over six years. It also bans some types of assault weapons and expands the federal death penalty. . . . Reports reveal that the CDC plans to establish an Office of Women’s Health to coordinate federal programs that relate to women’s health. . . . An Education Department study finds that in 1993, 11% of the 16–24 age bracket, or 3.4 million people, were high school dropouts. . . . Election primaries are held in nine states.

The Senate passes, 80-18, a bill authorizing $263.8 billion in defense spending for fiscal 1995.

Judge Matthew Perry bars two ships carrying nuclear waste from Europe from entering U.S. waters in response to a suit filed by South Caroline on Sept. 9. . . . The Senate passes, 94-4, legislation that will remove barriers to commercial banks’ ability to expand across state lines. . . . The House passes, 268-5, legislation to extend the North American Wetlands Conservation Act, an existing program that protects and restores wetlands in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, through fiscal 1998.

Richard J. Herrnstein, 64, psychologist whose controversial book IQ and Meritocracy (1973) linked intelligence, race, and class, dies of lung cancer at in Belmont, Massachusetts.

A team of U.S.-led scientists announce they have located a gene that they believe to be responsible for almost half of the breast cancer cases linked to heredity, or 2–5% of all cases. The finding ends a furious four-year race among genetics laboratories worldwide to pinpoint the gene.

State District Judge Bill Brown orders a homeowner, Rodney Peairs, to pay $653,000 in damages and funeral costs to the parents of Yoshihiro Hattori, 16, a Japanese exchange student whom he fatally shot in October 1992. Brown rules there was “no justification whatsoever” in the slaying of Hattori, who had mistakenly rung the doorbell of Peairs’s home looking for a Halloween costume party. In 1993, Peairs was acquitted of manslaughter in the shooting. The suit was filed by Yattori’s father in Japan.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Dow rises 58.55 points, or 1.5%, to close at 3953.88, the index’s highest closing level since Feb. 3.

A federal court jury in Anchorage, Alaska, orders Exxon Corp. to pay $5 billion in punitive damages to Alaskan fishermen and natives to atone for the March 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. The fine is reportedly the highest ever imposed in an environmental pollution case and the largest punitive award ever ordered against a company.

Sept. 12

Sept. 13

Acting MLB commissioner Allan (Bud) Selig announces that the remainder of the 1994 baseball season will be canceled and that 26 of 28 team owners have approved a resolution that accuses the players’ union of intransigence during negotiations to end the strike that started Aug. 12.

The earliest known musical recording of the late rock singer John Lennon fetches £78,500 ($122,770) at Sotheby’s auction house in London. The 1957 recording features Lennon’s first band and was made on the day that Lennon, then 16, met Paul McCartney.

The crew of the U.S. space shuttle Discovery makes the first untethered space walks in 10 years.

Sept. 11

More than 3,000 members of the Christian Coalition, the most prominent political organization of U.S. religious conservatives, gather at the group’s annual convention.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 14

Sept. 15

Sept. 16

646—September 17–22, 1994

Sept. 17

Europe

Reports state that the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA), the only organization at the UN to represent homosexual rights, was suspended because of its perceived ties to groups that appear to promote pedophilia.

Bosnian Serbs begin to expel Muslim civilians from the northeastern town of Bijeljina and from northwestern Bosnia, forcing them to cross front lines to reach Muslimcontrolled territory. . . . Sir Karl Raimund Popper, 92, Austrianborn British philosopher known for his strong anti-Marxist views who was given a knighthood in 1965, dies of complications from cancer in Croydon, England.

A UN Children’s Fund convoy is attacked near Qena, Egypt, by gunmen believed to be Muslim militants. An Egyptian UNICEF worker and four police officers escorting the convoy are killed.

Bosnian government troops reportedly fire hundreds of mortar rounds at Bosnian Serb forces in the northeast part of Sarajevo. Bosnian Serbs retaliate with shelling and by temporarily taking French UN troops manning a weapons collections site as hostages. . . . Sweden’s left-wing Social Democratic Labor Party wins in elections, defeating Premier Carl Bildt’s governing four-party conservative coalition. Data shows that Bosnian Serbs have expelled more than 3,000 Muslim civilians from the northeastern town of Bijeljina and 700 from northwestern Bosnia since Sept. 17. The expulsions, during which many Muslims were beaten and robbed, are reportedly the largest example of ethnic cleansing in two years.

Sept. 18

Sept. 19

Sept. 20

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

The UN Security Council begins discussing proposals made by the so-called contact group on the Bosnian war, made up of the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, and Russia.

The 49th United Nations General Assembly, with 184 members, opens at UN headquarters in New York City. Acting on the first order of business, the General Assembly elects Amara Essy, 49, of the Ivory Coast as president for the 49th session.

Premier Poul Nyrup Rasmussen’s ruling center-left coalition loses several parliamentary seats in general elections in Denmark, but Rasmussen is expected to return as the nation’s leader atop a new minority government.

Sept. 21

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Kamenge, a suburb of Bujumbura in Burundi, officials report that the army has restored calm after the fighting that started Sept. 12. Apparently, large quantities of arms were seized from the Hutu militants. Separately, after weeks of talks between rival parties and ethnic violence, an agreement is signed by nine of 13 factions on how to elect a president.

Haiti’s military-led de facto government agrees to relinquish power and restore the democratically elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide after talks with U.S. mediators in Port-au-Prince, the capital, averting an invasion by U.S. airborne forces already en route to Haiti.

In the first fully democratic elections for legislative bodies in Hong Kong, the colony’s largest prodemocracy, party, the United Democrats–Meeting Point alliance wins the most seats for local district boards.

Inkatha supporters attack the royal palace of the king of South Africa’s Zulus, Goodwill Zwelithini, in Nongoma.

About 3,000 U.S. troops begin arriving in Haiti to pave the way for ousted Pres. Aristide’s return. In sporadic incidents, truncheonwielding Haitian police forcefully disperse some of the crowds as U.S. troops, under strict orders not to intervene in street conflicts, look on. . . . Some 50,000 metal workers in Sao Paulo state return to their automotive-related jobs, ending a strike that started Sept. 12.

Reports reveal that 83% of New South Wales and 38% of Queensland is in a drought. The last major drought to hit Australia occurred in 1982–83.

The king of South Africa’s Zulus, Goodwill Zwelithini, severs all ties with Zulu nationalist leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi and dismisses Buthelezi from his traditional role as prime minister to the king. . . . A convoy of Tanzanian peacekeepers and several civilians who fled intense fighting in the town of Gbarnga arrives in Monrovia, Liberia.

Haitian military and police as well as plainclothes “attachés” mete out random beatings to pro-Aristide demonstrators and bystanders, killing at least one civilian. Haitian demonstrators reportedly plead with U.S. troops to disarm their attackers.

Prodemocracy dissident Aung San Suu Kyi meets with junta leaders for the first time since her house arrest in 1989 in Myanmar. . . . . Reports indicate that an outbreak of deadly pneumonic plague has erupted around the western Indian city of Surat. . . . Tamil rebels sink Sri Lanka’s largest naval warship, killing at least 25 sailors. The rebels reportedly capture the ship’s captain and another sailor. Five rebels are killed.

Reports confirm that UN peacekeepers discovered 4,000 decomposed bodies in southwestern Rwanda. The bodies were found near Lake Kivu about 20 miles (30 km) from Kigali. . . . The convoy that reached Monrovia in Liberia reports that several civilians and two Tanzanian peacekeepers were killed by rebel soldiers near Kakata, 40 miles (65 km) north of Monrovia.

Haiti’s military government bans public demonstrations and directs security officials “to take all necessary measures” to ensure public order. In response to the Sept. 20 violence, U.S. president Clinton states that U.S. forces will be allowed to intervene in instances of unreasonable force “to moderate the conduct of Haitian security forces without assuming their responsibilities.”

Bosnian Serbs launch a rocket-propelled grenade at a French armored car in the northeastern Sarajevo section of Kromolj. Forces also shoot at French peacekeepers. In response, NATO warplanes attack a Bosnian Serb tank near Sarajevo. . . . Lord (Edward Arthur Alexander) Shackleton, 83, British cabinet minister in the Labor government of Harold Wilson and son of Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, dies in Lymington, England.

Sept. 22

U.S. troops take control of and cart away the Haitian army’s major stockpile of heavy weapons, armored vehicles, and artillery kept at Camp d’Application, near Port-auPrince.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 17–22, 1994—647

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Pres. Clinton dispatches a delegation led by former president Jimmy Carter to Port-au-Prince in a lastditch effort to avoid a military conflict in Haiti.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle A deaf woman, Heather Whitestone, 21, becomes the first contestant with a major disability to win the Miss America pageant. . . . The Atlanta, Georgia, apartment house that is a protected landmark as the place where the late author Margaret Mitchell wrote most of the Gone with the Wind, is heavily damaged by fire.

A team of U.S. golfers wins the inaugural Presidents Cup by defeating an international team in Gainesville, Virginia. . . . ,Vitas Gerulaitis, 40, tennis player ranked among the top 10 players from 1977 until 1983, dies of carbon monoxide poisoning while sleeping at a friend’s home in Southampton, New York.

The Council for Aid to Education reports that U.S. corporations and their related foundations gave $6.05 billion in donations to charity in 1993, a 2% increase over 1992’s $5.92 billion.

Nancy Reagan, the wife of former President Ronald Reagan, reveals for the first time that she supports a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion.

The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. recorded a $10.99 billion deficit in trade in goods and services in July. The gap, which was 21.6% larger than June’s revised gap of $9.04 billion, includes the second-largest monthly merchandise trade-gap level ever—$15.70 billion. . . . The House passes, 425-0, the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act, which will simplify the federal government’s purchasing system.

Sixteen Republican Senate candidates, most of them challengers to Democratic incumbents, hold a rally at the Capitol building.

A Houston, Texas, jury sentences to death Efrain Perez, 17, the last of six teenage gang members to be sentenced in the June 1993 rapes and murders of two teenage girls— Elizabeth Pena, 16, and Jennifer Lee Ertman, 14. Four of the other gang-member assailants have been sentenced to death as well, and one was tried as a juvenile and sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Pres. Clinton appoints John Brademas, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana, as the head of the President’s Committee on the Arts. The committee, established in 1982, is designed to promote arts and humanities, but it has not met for nearly two years. Clinton also names 32 other people as committee members.

The U.S. space shuttle Discovery touches down at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

Jule Styne (born Julius Stein), 88, songwriter and composer who wrote and published an estimated 1,500 songs and was honored in 1990 by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, dies of heart failure in New York City.

Scientists announce they have uncovered fossils of a new species that is the oldest known ancestor of human beings. The 4.4-million-yearold fossils, found in Ethiopia, represent “the oldest known link in the evolutionary chain that connected us to our common ancestor with the living African apes,” according to Tim D. White, a paleontologist at the University of California at Berkeley and coordinator of the international team that found the fossils in the Ethiopian desert about 45 miles (70 km) south of Hadar.

Prosecutors announce they will not charge pop singer Michael Jackson with child molestation after concluding a criminal investigation launched in August 1993.

The U.S. Air Force reclassifies the status of the last listed U.S. prisoner from the Vietnam War, Col. Charles E. Shelton, when they declare that Shelton was killed in action. Shelton’s plane was shot down over Laos during a reconnaissance mission in April 1965.

Leonard Feather, 80, influential music critic who produced the first recordings of Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughan, dies of complications from pneumonia in Encino, California. . . . The California Court of Appeals overturns an $8.1 million judgment against actress Kim Basinger for backing out of the 1993 film Boxing Helena.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

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Sept. 19

Sept. 20

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Sept. 22

648—September 23–28, 1994

World Affairs

Sept. 23

Europe

The Americas

The UN Security Council votes to temporarily lift some of the sanctions against Yugoslavia, which comprises the republics of Serbia and Montenegro.

A spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) discloses that Sarajevo has enough food to last for two weeks. In compliance with an agreement, Bosnian Serbs reopen a gas valve they closed over a week ago in Ilidza, a suburb west of Sarajevo.

Sept. 25

Sept. 26

Sept. 27

Russian president Yeltsin and U.S. president Clinton close a summit by announcing they have reached accords on accelerating nuclear disarmament. . . . The IMF issues a report projecting that global economic output will expand by 3.1% through 1994, a slight upward revision from the previous IMF forecast, which estimated 1994 growth to be 3%. . . . The European Court of Justice rules that male and female employees performing equivalent work must receive equal pension benefits.

Asia & the Pacific National and local governments begin rushing emergency supplies of antibiotics to Surat, India, where pneumonic plague was reported Sept. 20. At least 100 plagueinfected patients reportedly discharged themselves from Surat’s New Civil Hospital and fled the city, prompting fears that the disease will spread. . . . Despite pleas from Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and the Dutch foreign ministry, Singapore authorities hang Johannes Van Damme, 50, on narcotics charges.

The Croatian parliament votes against renewing a mandate to keep UN forces in Croatia unless they begin taking a military role in returning Serb-controlled territory in Croatia to the Croatian government.

Sept. 24

Sept. 28

Africa & the Middle East

In one of the worst ferry disasters on record, a ferry capsizes and sinks off the coast of Turku, Finland, in the Baltic Sea, killing more than 900 passengers and crew. In a joint operation by Sweden, Estonia, and Finland, 141 people are rescued . . . . In Bosnia-Herzegovina, electricity is restored to Sarajevo, and running water begins to return to the city. . . . The rail workers union in Britain accepts a deal to end a series of 24- and 48-hour strikes against British Rail that started in June.

U.S. Marines patrolling the northern port city of Cap-Haitien engage in their first armed combat with pro-junta forces. The battle leaves 10 Haitians dead and one marine wounded, and it prompts general chaos in the city and other areas of northern Haiti as other Haitian police and military forces abandon their posts and flee in fear of further armed exchanges and reprisals on the part of pro-Aristide supporters. Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi and his bodyguards barge onto the set of a South African Broadcast Corp.’s nightly TV program and attack Prince Sifiso Zulu, an adversary and guest on the show. Buthelezi storms the set after hearing Zulu discussing the Sept. 20 rift between the king and Buthelezi. Zulu suffers a broken wrist in the melee. . . . In Algeria, a popular Berber singer opposed to Muslim militancy, Matoub Lounes, is abducted by Muslim fundamentalists. Saudi Arabia’s interior ministry confirms the campaign against fundamentalists, stating that authorities arrested Sheik Salman alAudah and 110 of his followers during the prior three weeks. . . . In Algeria, the head of the militant Armed Islamic Group (GIA), Cherif Gousmi, is killed.

U.S. troops occupy the police headquarters in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, long regarded by the junta’s foes as a foremost symbol of military brutality. The move is loudly cheered by thousands of Haitians. . . . Jacques Parizeau, leader of the Parti Quebecois, is sworn in as the 26th premier of Quebec, Canada.

The Indian national government dispatches 800 paramilitary troops to Surat to search neighborhoods for plague victims and to guard hospital entrances to prevent more patients from fleeing. The first plague case was reported Sept. 20.

Accounts state that the UN has stopped asking refugees to return to Rwanda because of a report which concludes that there is “an unmistakable pattern of killings and persecution” aimed at Hutus by RPF soldiers.

U.S. forces seize control of the Haitian parliament building and the city hall in Port-au-Prince. Separately, three Haitians are murdered. . . . Carlos Lleras Restrepo, 86, president of Colombia, 1966–70, dies from a respiratory infection in Bogota.

Indian officials state that, although most of the plague victims are located in Surat, India, doctors have confirmed cases in New Delhi. Reports reveal that quarantine stations have been set up at airports in Japan, Singapore, and the Philippines, and other countries are monitoring passengers on flights from India.

Abdoulaye Souley is appointed premier of Niger.

The Haitian parliament convenes under the protection of heavily armed U.S. troops. The number of U.S. troops deployed in Haiti totals 15,679. . . . Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, the second-ranking official of Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), is killed by a single gunshot from an automatic weapon in Mexico City.

Thirteen government soldiers are killed in an ambush by Tamil rebels in Tharakulam, 110 miles (180 km) east of Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 23–28, 1994—649

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Pres. Clinton signs the Community Development Act, which sets up a $382 million fund to promote and encourage the establishment in lower-income areas of viable financial institutions and developmentoriented partnerships.

A 400-page draft CIA report reveals that confessed spy Aldrich Ames exposed 55 clandestine U.S. and allied operations to the Soviet Union and Russia, as well as the identities of 34 secret agents. The document finds that the number of operations undermined by Ames is nearly twice as many as the agency previously reported.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The House passes, 287-107, a $69.1 billion fiscal 1995 spending bill for the Agriculture Department and related agencies.

A study contributes new evidence suggesting that long-term use of drugs used to treat infertility increases women’s risk of developing ovarian cancer.

A jury in State Superior Court in Anchorage, Alaska, awards $9.7 million to the borough of Kodiak Island and six Alaska native corporations that sued Exxon Corp. for land damages caused by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. The plaintiffs, who sought more than $120 million from Exxon, express disappointment with the verdict.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Sept. 23

Barry Bishop, 62, who was a member of the first American team to reach the summit of Mount Everest on May 22, 1963, dies in a car accident near Pocatello, Idaho.

Sept. 24

Sept. 25

Superior Court judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly finds James E. Swann Jr., not guilty by reason of insanity and orders him confined in a psychiatric facility for an indefinite period. Swann was accused of a 1993 series of drive-by shotgun attacks that resulted in four slayings. . . . A national health-care coverage bill dies in Congress.

Pres. Clinton, seeking to revitalize Haiti’s decimated economy, lifts the majority of sanctions that the U.S. had imposed. Separately, the U.S. Coast Guard returns 221 Haitian refugees to Port-au-Prince, marking the first repatriation of Haitian refugees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since the arrival of U.S. troops in Haiti.

The SEC releases a 33-page report that makes recommendations on how to monitor and regulate derivatives contracts effectively.

Reports confirm that a previously unpublished novel by 19thcentury author Jules Verne was recently released in France. The book, which was rejected in 1863, is set in the year 1960 and presages the car and other technologies.

More than 300 Republican House candidates, including about 150 incumbents, sign a “Republican Contract with America” at a rally in Washington, D.C. The contract represents a platform of policies that Republican lawmakers will seek to pass if their party wins a majority in the House in congressional elections in November.

For fiscal 1995, the Senate passes, 90-9, a $90.1 billion appropriations bill for the VA, HUD, EPA, and NASA. . . . The House clears, 36053, a $23.5 billion appropriations bill for the Treasury, the Postal Service and several other government agencies for fiscal 1995. . . . The House by voice vote clears a $13.7 billion fiscal 1995 appropriations bill for the Interior Department and related agencies. . . . The Senate passes by voice vote a $69.1 billion fiscal 1995 bill for the Agriculture Department and related agencies. . . . The House clears by voice vote a stopgap financing bill for the SEC.

A federal advisory committee recommends to Harold Varmus, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), that the government end a 15-year-old moratorium on human embryo research.

Steven Spielberg, movie director, tops Forbes magazine’s annual list of the world’s highest-paid entertainers with an estimated income of $335 million for 1993 and 1994.

Data shows that four-year private colleges raised their tuition and fees by an average of 6%, to $11,709, for the 1994–95 academic year. During the same period, fouryear public colleges’ tuition and fees rose by an average of 6%, to $6,511. . . . Robert L. F. Sikes, 88, conservative Democratic congressman who represented Florida from 1940 until 1978, except for a brief period during which he served in World War II, dies of Alzheimer’s disease in Crestview, Florida.

Pres. Clinton signs a $90.1 billion fiscal 1995 appropriations bill for the VA, EPA, HUD, and NASA. . . . The Senate by voice vote passes a $23.5 billion fiscal 1995 appropriations bill for the Treasury, Postal Service, and several other government agencies. . . . The Senate, 927, clears a $13.7 billion fiscal 1995 appropriations bill for the Department of the Interior. . . . The Senate, 93-16, passes a $250.6 billion fiscal 1995 appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, Education, and HHS.

A study reveals additional evidence that moderate consumption of alcohol decreases the risk of heart attacks.

Harry Saltzman, 78, coproducer of the first nine James Bond films, dies of a heart attack in Paris, France.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 26

Sept. 27

Sept. 28

650—September 29–October 4, 1994

Sept. 29

Sept. 30

Oct. 1

Oct. 2

World Affairs

Europe

The Pan American Health Organization, an arm of WHO, concludes that the polio virus has been eradicated in North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean. . . . NATO unanimously names Willy Claes, Belgium’s deputy premier and foreign minister, its new secretary general, succeeding Manfred Woerner, who died in August. . . . The UN Security Council votes to lift all remaining international sanctions against Haiti when ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide is formally reinstated.

Slovak officials seize 26.5 ounces (750 grams) of uranium-235 from four Slovaks trying to smuggle the material across the border to Hungary.

Saudi Arabia and the five other Persian Gulf Arab nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) announce that they will reduce their adherence to the 46-year-old Arab trade boycott of Israel.

Former premier Vladimir Meciar and his Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) wins 34.96% of the vote in Slovakia’s first national elections, paving the way for HZDS to form a coalition government.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Algeria, a well-known singer opposed to Muslim militancy, Cheb Hasni, is killed. Separately, the radical Muslim group GIA announces that Mohammed Said has replaced Cherif Gousmi, who was killed Sept. 26, as its leader.

Five Haitians are killed in a handgrenade attack on a pro-Aristide march in a Port-au-Prince slum. As many as 60 others are injured in the attack.

Figures suggest that as many as 1,400 people in 20 cities across India have been afflicted with the outbreak of pneumonic plague first reported Sept. 20. Accounts state that offers of medicine have come from the U.S., Russia, WHO, UNICEF, and various nonprofit organizations worldwide in response to India’s call for aid. Separately, kidnappers identified as members of a Muslim separatist group, Al-Hadid, abduct a British citizen, Rhys Partridge.

Burundi’s National Assembly elects Sylvestre Ntibantunganya to the presidency since he is considered the candidate least likely to provoke a civil war. Ethnic and political unrest in Burundi prevented national elections . . . . Katale, a refugee camp in eastern Zaire housing an estimated 270,000 Rwandans, is taken over by members of the Hutu militia. Aid workers are forced to flee after being threatened with machetes and rocks. Separately, the last of 478 U.S. soldiers who had taken part in the humanitarian mission to aid Rwandan refugees leave central Africa.

Eight Haitians are killed when supporters of the de facto regime fire on a march commemorating the third anniversary of the coup that deposed Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Separately, U.S. troops seize control of Haiti’s state-run radio and television stations . . . . Roberto Eduardo Viola, 69, head of an Argentine military dictatorship in 1981 who was sent to prison in 1985, dies of heart failure in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Palau ends its 47-year status as a U.S.-administered UN trust territory. The island becomes self-governing, although the U.S. will retain responsibility for defending the country. Palau was the last remaining UN trust territory.

In Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, 30,000 people attend a ceremony where Vice President and Defense Minister Paul Kagame discourages reprisal killings.

The rising death toll of pro-Aristide civilians in Haiti reportedly prompts the Clinton administration to expand the U.S. troops’ role to include taking significant measures to disarm and curb the power of paramilitary groups.

The first of 470 Japanese soldiers, who will to work in cooperation with UN troops to help Rwandan refugees, arrives in Goma, Zaire. It is the first time since World War II that Japanese troops participate in a mission outside of Japan, except under UN command.

Tunisia and Israel agree to exchange low-level representatives, making Tunisia the third such Arab state to do so.

Azeri president Heydar Aliyev declares a state of emergency in Baku, the Azeri capital, claiming that police and armed supporters will attempt a coup backed by Premier Surat Huseynov.

Oct. 3

Oct. 4

Africa & the Middle East

The IMF holds its annual meeting. . . . The U.S. and China announce an agreement under which the U.S. will end a year-old ban on sales to China of various high-technology goods, and China will cease exporting medium-range missiles that the U.S. claims are being sold in violation of the 1987 international Missile Technology Control Regime.

During the UN military mission in Somalia, the first in which UN-mandated troops are authorized to use force to achieve peace, 18 U.S. soldiers and one Malaysian are killed.

Reports state the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, will publicly display paintings, including works by artists Edgar Degas and Vincent van Gogh, that were taken from Germany by Soviet soldiers at the end of World War II. It is the first time the Heritage officially acknowledges that it has the paintings in its possession.

U.S. troops raid four sites and two weapons caches in Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, in an effort to crack down on violence by paramilitary units. In the first significant casualty inflicted on U.S. troops since arriving in Haiti, Sergeant Donald M. Holstead, is shot in the stomach in an ambush in the southern Haitian town of Les Cayes. . . . Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the architect of Brazil’s current economic-stabilization plan, wins Brazil’s presidential election.

Lt. Col. Joseph Michel François, the chief of police in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, flees to the Dominican Republic. Separately, FRAPH’s leader, Emmanuel (Toto) Constant, gives a news conference in which he surprises Haitians by stating he will no longer oppose Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s return and urging all Haitians to lay down their arms.

A major undersea earthquake rocks the Russian-held Kurile Islands off Japan’s northern coast, killing at least nine islanders. The quake’s epicenter is 100 miles (160 km) east of Hokkaido Island, and it measures 7.9 on the Richter scale. The tremor is the strongest to affect Japan since 1923, but little damage is done there.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 29–October 4, 1994—651

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The House, 327-86, and Senate, by voice vote, approve a $243.7 billion defense-appropriations bill for fiscal 1995. . . . In response to criticisms by veterans groups and members of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum announces that it is substantially revising its planned exhibit featuring the forward fuselage of the Enola Gay, the airplane that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945.

Congress clears a $14.3 billion appropriations bill for the Department of Transportation in fiscal 1995. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a bill that removes barriers to commercial banks’ ability to expand across state lines. . . . The Labor Department agrees to pay $4.5 million to settle a racial discrimination suit filed by black employees who were fired or demoted at the department’s Employment & Training Administration division in the 1980s. It is one of the largest settlements ever awarded in a racial discrimination claim against the federal government.

The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation announces the winners of the 1994 Lasker Medical Research Awards are John Clements and Stanley Prusiner, both of the University of California at San Francisco. A special award is presented to Maclyn McCarthy, the lone survivor of a team that in the 1950s discovered the DNA molecule.

The Academy of American Poets names poet W. S. Merwin the winner of the first annual Tanning Prize. The prize, worth $100,000, is the U.S.’s largest annual literary prize. . . . The Tennessee Department of Health reaffirms the findings of Jerry Francisco, who attributed the 1977 death of rock singer Elvis Presley to heart disease.

Justice Stephen Breyer is formally seated on the Supreme Court as the successor to Harry Blackmun, who retired in June. . . . Arizona state attorney general Grant Woods certifies Rep. Sam Coppersmith as the winner of Arizona’s Democratic Senate primary. He won by only 59 votes over Richard Mahoney, Arizona’s secretary of state.

Pres. Clinton signs a $243.7 billion defense-appropriations bill for fiscal 1995 and a foreign-aid bill appropriating $2.5 billion in aid to Russia and other republics of the former Soviet Union for fiscal 1994. . . . Congress approves a bill authorizing spending for intelligence operations in fiscal 1995. The exact amount of the bill widely known as the “black budget” is undisclosed.

President Clinton signs several fiscal 1995 appropriations measures, including a $23.5 billion bill for the Treasury, the Postal Service, and several other government agencies; a $14.3 billion bill for the Department of Transportation; a $13.7 billion bill for the Interior Department and related agencies; a $250.6 billion bill for the Departments of Labor, HHS, and Education; and a $69.1 billion bill for the Agriculture Department. . . . The House reauthorizes, 262-132, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the government’s major school-aid program, for five years, with a $12.7 billion bill for fiscal 1995.

A study of an operation known as carotid endarterectomy, which removes fatty deposits from the neck arteries of patients who show no outward symptoms of having clogged arteries, finds that the surgery significantly lowers their risk of stroke. . . . The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour blasts off from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, to carry out a mission devoted to mapping remote regions of the earth and measuring seasonal and other environmental changes on the earth’s surface. . . . Andre Lwoff, 92, French cellular biologist who shared the 1965 Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine, dies in Paris, France.

Gary Bettman, commissioner of the NHL, announces that the start of the 1994–95 hockey season will be postponed for two weeks until owners and players can agree on a new collective bargaining agreement.

Hillary Rodham Clinton for the first time makes a series of appearances in the greater Miami area to support the campaign of her brother, Hugh Rodham Jr., who is the Democratic nominee to the Senate from Florida.

Nelson Mandela makes his first visit to the U.S. as president of South Africa. . . . U.S. and Japanese trade officials reach agreements designed to open some domestic Japanese markets to foreign competition. The pacts avert the threatened imposition by the U.S. of trade sanctions against certain Japanese companies.

Sept. 29

Sept. 30

Oct. 1

Ron Wikberg, 51, who, as an inmate in a Louisiana penitentiary, documented prison conditions in the journal The Angolite, dies of cancer in Rohrersville, Maryland. . . . Harriet Nelson, 85, who costarred with her husband, Ozzie, in the TV show The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, dies of congestive heart failure in Laguna Beach, California. Judge Katie Kennedy approves a settlement under which Wanda Webb Holloway—accused of attempting to hire a hit man to kill the mother of a cheerleading rival of her daughter—is to pay $150,000 to the rival, Verna Heath, and her family. . . . Illinois state prosecutors charge Rep. Mel Reynolds (D, Ill.) with harassing a witness in a case that alleges Reynolds had a sexual relationship with a teenage girl. . . . Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy announces he will resign, effective Dec. 31.

The House passes by voice vote a bill that will allow U.S. government agencies to cooperate more closely with foreign nations in pursuing antitrust cases in return for reciprocal information-access rights. . . . Pres. Clinton lifts a 20-year ban on official contact between the U.S. government and Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA).

The House passes by voice vote a bill authorizing a sweeping reorganization of the Agriculture Department (USDA) and the federal government’s crop-insurance program.

In San Francisco, California, District Court judge Marilyn Hall Patel rules that the state’s use of the gas chamber at the San Quentin prison is illegal and orders that it be shut down. It is the first time a federal jurist has found an execution method to be unconstitutional . . . . Lake County, Florida, voters effectively reject the county school board’s cultural-values policy, which would have required that students be taught the superiority of U.S. culture over other cultures.

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams meets with State Department officials in the first formal contact between the U.S. government and Sinn Fein in 20 years.

The House passes, 413-0, a bill to amend the 1978 Petroleum Marketing Practices Act. . . . Reports state the Y-12 plant in Tennessee, the sole facility designed to hold uranium from disassembled nuclear bombs, was shut down since it violated hundreds of regulations. . . . The Senate passes by voice vote a bill to reorganize the USDA and the cropinsurance program. . . . The Senate passes legislation to extend through fiscal 1998 the North American Wetlands Conservation Act. . . . The Senate confirms, 90-7, Ricki Tigert as the chair of the FDIC.

The Supreme Court upholds a ruling by an appeals court that said the FBI acted correctly when it seized a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil from a private dealer, the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research, in 1992. The fossil, one of the best-preserved specimens of its species, was extracted without federal permission from land on an Indian reservation held in trust by the government.

Taltos by Anne Rice tops the bestseller list.

Danny Gatton, 49, guitarist known for his self-styled “redneck jazz,” dies in Newburg, Maryland, of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 2

Oct. 3

Oct. 4

652—October 5–10, 1994

World Affairs

Oct. 5

Oct. 6

Oct. 7

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Reports confirm that prodemocracy activist Wei Jingsheng, one of China’s best-known dissidents, has been granted parole.

In Switzerland, the bodies of 48 members an international religious cult known as the Order of the Solar Temple are found dead in what is thought to be a mass suicide ritual or a mass execution.

Burundi’s Premier Anatole Kanyenkiko, a Tutsi, names an ethnically balanced government.

Some 262 troops from Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, and Belize arrive in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to assume responsibility for security at the port.

Romanian president Ion Iliescu refuses to allow former Romanian king Michael to enter Romania when his plane lands at the airport in Bucharest.

In Rwanda, relief officials disclose that mass graves containing more than 7,000 bodies were found near the town of Mabanza, 60 miles (100 km) west of Kigali. The victims have been dead for months.

Five members of an international religious cult known as the Order of the Solar Temple are found dead in Quebec, Canada. Because members of the same cult were found dead in Switzerland Oct. 5, the incident receives much attention. . . . Data suggests that nearly 20,000 U.S. troops are in Haiti.

Reports state that seven rebels were killed by Azerbaijan government forces. . . . After public fighting between Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi and Milan’s public prosecutors, the police raid the corporate headquarters of the premier’s media conglomerate, Gruppo Fininvest S.p.A., Italy’s second-largest private company. The conflict heightens the growing tensions between the public prosecutors and Berlusconi’s government.

Iraq moves 20,000 of its elite Republican Guard troops to a location near Basra, some 20 miles (30 km) north of the Kuwaiti border. Those troops join some 50,000 Iraqi army troops permanently stationed there. . . . Khaled al-Hassan, 66, founding member who was considered to be the leader of the mainstream Fatah movement of the PLO, dies in Rabat, Morocco, after suffering from an unspecified illness.

Haiti’s parliament overwhelmingly adopts a measure that authorizes Jean-Bertrand Aristide to grant an amnesty to military leaders for political crimes. The scope of the amnesty is narrower than what was sought by military leaders and leaves them open to prosecution for corruption and human-rights abuses such as murder and rape.

China conducts an underground nuclear-weapon test at Lop Nor in the remote western province of Xinjiang. It is the 41st such test reported to have been conducted by the country since it first exploded a nuclear weapon in 1964, and it draws widespread criticism.

Stevenson Magloire, a rising Haitian artist and vocal Aristide supporter, is beaten to death by a gang of 10 thugs with reported ties to the military leadership.

Oct. 8

Oct. 9

Oct. 10

In London, after a rally attended by an estimated 20,000 people to protest the Criminal Justice Bill, a riot breaks out. Police make 48 arrests. . . . Austrian chancellor Franz Vranitzky’s ruling coalition loses several parliamentary seats but maintains a legislative majority in general elections. The two parties of the ruling coalition, the leftof-center Social Democratic Party and the conservative People’s Party, have their worst electoral showing since 1945.

Reports reveal that in April, Hutu soldiers attacked Rwanda’s main psychiatric hospital in the town of Ndera, near Kigali, and killed most of the 750 mentally handicapped patients, along with about 1,000 refugees gathered there. . . . Two heavily armed Palestinians open fire in Jerusalem, killing two Israelis and wounding more than 10. The Palestinians are both killed by Israeli border police. The Qassem Brigades, a radical wing of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, kidnaps an Israeli soldier, Corporal Nahshon Waxman, 20.

Great Britain announces that it will deploy 800 troops to the Persian Gulf region.

Hamas claims responsibility for the Oct. 9 attack in Jerusalem.

In Haiti, a bus driver steers his vehicle into a crowd of prodemocracy demonstrators in the town of Djimezen, about 60 miles (100 km) west of Port-au-Prince, killing 24 people.

In Haiti, Lt. Gen. Raoul Cédras formally resigns as head of Haiti’s military government in a brief public ceremony. Under the protection of U.S. forces, Cedras delivers a farewell address that is drowned out by the jeers of thousands of pro-Aristide Haitians.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 5–10, 1994—653

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

A federal jury in Pensacola, Florida, convicts Paul J. Hill on federal charges in the July slayings of Dr. John B. Britton and his escort, James H. Barrett, outside a Pensacola abortion clinic. He is also charged in the wounding of the other escort, Barrett’s wife, June.

Pres. Clinton signs a bill authorizing $263.8 billion in defense spending for fiscal 1995.

The Senate votes, 77-20, to reauthorize the U.S. government’s major school-aid program, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, for five years. . . . Congress clears a bill that will amend a 1978 act that regulates oil companies’ relations with their franchises. . . . The House by voice vote approves a bankruptcyreform bill that will significantly overhaul the 1978 U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

Data shows there is no evidence that using hair dye increases women’s risk of developing hematopoietic cancers, which include leukemia, multiple myeloma, Hodgkin’s disease, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. . . . The House by voice vote clears a bill that requires telecommunications companies to make their new digital networks accessible to law-enforcement agencies seeking to conduct wiretaps.

A survey finds that Americans lead more conventional sex lives than previous studies had indicated . . . . CDC officials conclude that, in 1993, a record two-thirds of all U.S. children between 19 months and 35 months old were adequately vaccinated against diptheria, polio, tetanus, whooping cough, measles, mumps, and rubella. . . . The Census Bureau reveals the number of Americans without health insurance increased by more than 1 million in 1993.

South African president Nelson Mandela becomes the third foreign leader to twice address a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress . . . . The Senate passes a measure that calls for a “prompt and orderly withdrawal” of U.S. forces from Haiti but sets no deadline for their departure.

Congress clears a bill that increases the threshold at which Social Security taxes have to be paid on the wages of domestic workers. . . . Thirty-two insurance companies and 20 states reach a $36 million out-of-court settlement that ends an antitrust suit first filed by the states in 1988. . . . The Census Bureau states the number of Americans living below the poverty level rose slightly and median household income declined slightly in 1993.

The House approves, 348-3, a revision of its internal rules that will require the congressional chamber to abide by federal labor and civilrights laws from which Congress currently is exempt. . . . The House passes by voice vote a bill that will allow general health claims to be made in the labeling and advertising of vitamins and dietary supplements.

The House passes by voice vote a bill to compensate victims of the Persian Gulf syndrome, a mysterious collection of ailments afflicting more than 3,000 U.S. veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf war against Iraq. . . . In response to Iraq’s deployment on the Kuwait border, U.S. president Clinton announces that U.S. Navy and Marine forces will be sent immediately to the Persian Gulf area. . . . The House votes, 258-167, to endorse an Oct. 6 Senate measure regarding U.S. forces in Haiti.

The Labor Department reports that September’s unemployment was at 5.9%, a four-year low. . . . The Senate approves by voice vote a bankruptcy-reform bill that will significantly overhaul the 1978 U.S. Bankruptcy Code. . . . The House passes by voice vote a bill that will place 6 million acres (2.4 million hectares) of desert land in California under federal protection. . . . Congress clears a bill that authorizes a one-year extension of water-bank agreements due to expire at the end of 1994.

The Senate clears a bill that will allow general health claims to be made in the labeling and advertising of vitamins and dietary supplements. . . . The 103rd Congress ends its regular session. The session was marked by partisan disagreement.

The New York Times reports that unidentified U.S. government officials have admitted that Emmanuel Constant, the leader of FRAPH, a group widely believed to have carried out brutal human-rights violations in Haiti, was a paid informer of the CIA for a two-year period up until the spring of 1994. . . . The Senate passes by voice vote a bill to compensate victims of Persian Gulf syndrome. . . . The U.S. orders 4,000 army troops to Kuwait.

The Senate passes by voice vote a stopgap financing bill for the SEC that is designed to close a $192 million gap in the agency’s budget. . . . The Senate by voice vote passes a bill that will place vast tracts of desert land in California under federal protection.

Oct. 5

Oct. 6

British doctors find that people who consume moderate amounts of alcohol live longer than those who do not. . . . Niels K. Jerne, 82, immunologist who shared the 1984 Nobel Prize for medicine for his research on the human immune system, dies in Pont du Gard, France, of throat cancer. . . . The Senate passes by voice vote a bill that requires telecommunications companies to make their new digital networks accessible to lawenforcement agencies seeking to conduct wiretaps.

Judge Edward W. Nottingham rules that Robert James Howard, an inmate at a federal prison near Denver, Colorado, may practice Satanic rituals in his jail cell since he is entitled to “the same privileges granted to every other religious group.”

James Hill, 75, British film director who was best known for Born Free (1966), dies in London of an undisclosed illness. . . . Fred Lebow (born Fischl Lebowitz), 62, running advocate who founded the New York City. Marathon in 1970, dies in New York City of brain cancer.

Pres. Clinton signs a stopgap financing bill for the SEC designed to close a $192 million gap in the agency’s budget.

Oct. 7

Oct. 8

The number of U.S. troops deployed to Haiti increases to about 36,000.

The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, which operates an area of Williamsburg, Virginia, made to resemble the city as it was in the 18th century, holds a controversial mock slave auction. The dramatization, viewed by an audience of 2,000, is disrupted by six demonstrators.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Karolinksa Institute for Medicine in Stockholm awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to two Americans, Alfred G. Gilman and Martin Rodbell, for their discovery of G-proteins, molecules that help carry messages between cells.

Oct. 9

Oct. 10

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

654—October 11–15, 1994

World Affairs

Oct. 11

Oct. 12

The EU and Great Britain halt economic and military aid to Gambia's military government, which seized power in July.

Oct. 13

Oct. 14

Oct. 15

The Norwegian Nobel Committee announces that the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, and Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Premier Sergei Tereshchenko of Kazakhstan and his cabinet resigns at the request of Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev. . . . The Russian ruble plunges 21.5% against the U.S. dollar, reaching a record low 3,926 rubles per dollar by closing on the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange.

The AP receives a note declaring that Corporal Nehshon Waxman, abducted Oct. 9, will be killed unless Israel releases 200 imprisoned members of Hamas, including Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin, by Oct. 14. Israeli prime minister Rabin closes the borders. . . . Officials disclose that the Iraqi soldiers deployed Oct. 7 have begun to withdraw from the Kuwait border.

In Guatamala City, the capital of Guatamala, Jennifer Harbury, a lawyer from Washington, D.C., begins a hunger strike with the aim of pressing the Guatemalan government for a full accounting on the fate of her husband, Efraín Bamaca Velásquez, a leftist Mayan guerrilla leader whose whereabouts have been unsubstantiated since he was wounded in a battle with government forces in March 1992.

Reports state that three leading Chinese dissidents and humanrights activists, Bao Ge, Yang Zhou and Yang Qinheng, have been sentenced to three-year terms in labor camps.

Reports indicate that Romanian authorities seized 15.5 pounds (7 kg) of uranium and strontium and arrested three Moldovans, two Romanians and two Jordanians . . . . The mayor of Grenoble, Alain Carignon, who resigned his position as communications minister in July, is jailed as a growing corruption scandal in France’s political and business circles reaches Premier Edouard Balladur’s centerright coalition government.

Some 40,000 U.S. ground troops, 28 ships, and more than 650 aircraft are in or on their way to the Persian Gulf region. Reports indicate that Iraqi troops continue to withdraw, from the Kuwait border.

Emile Jonassaint, Haiti’s de facto president installed by the military in May, announces his resignation.

The Australian High Court rules that the media may publish information critical of politicians or public figures involved in political debate. The 4–3 decision, which experts hail as a landmark ruling, increases the scope of the constitutional right to free political speech.

Outlawed Protestant paramilitaries in Northern Ireland announce a cease-fire in their armed struggle to maintain the province’s union with Britain.

Iraq expresses a readiness to recognize Kuwait’s sovereignty and internationally recognized borders. . . . PLO chairman Yasser Arafat orders 9,000 Palestinian policemen into action in a sweep against Hamas, arresting about 200 of the militants and their supporters in an effort to uncover the whereabouts of Corporal Nahshon Waxman, abducted Oct. 9.

In Italy, trade unions hold a nationwide strike to protest Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s budget for 1995, which includes sweeping reforms to the country’s extensive pension system. An estimated 3 million people take to the streets nationwide. . . . Bernadette and Adrian Mooney, a couple from Britain, are sentenced in Bucharest to two years and four months in prison for illegally buying a Romanian baby and trying to smuggle her out of the country. They are the first foreigners prosecuted under Romania’s strict new adoption laws.

Hamas militants shoot Corporal Nahshon Waxman to death when Israeli forces storm their hideout north of Jerusalem in a failed attempt to free the kidnapped hostage. One Israeli soldier from the rescue team and three Islamists are also killed, and 12 soldiers are reportedly wounded in the operation. . . . Naguib Mahfouz, 82, an Egyptian novelist and 1988 Nobel Prize laureate, is seriously wounded in a stabbing attack in Cairo.

Voters on the islands of St. Martin, St. Eustatius, and Saba vote to retain their current political configuration within the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba, under which the islands determine their own internal policies and the Netherlands sets foreign policy.

The Sri Lankan government and members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebel group hold peace talks in Jaffna, the rebels’ base city, to end the Tamils’ 11year-old insurrection.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide returns to Haiti and is reinstalled as the nation’s president amid the tumultuous cheers of tens of thousands of his supporters in Port-au-Prince, the capital.

The Sri Lankan government releases 13 prisoners who are members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebel group.

Europe

Russia reluctantly joins in a unanimous UN Security Council vote that condemns Iraq for its Oct. 7 transfer of 20,000 elite troops southward to Basra, some 20 miles (30 km) north of the Kuwaiti border. The resolution also calls on Iraq to cooperate with the long-term monitoring system in place to prevent Iraq from producing weapons of mass destruction.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 11–15, 1994—655

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The Colorado State Supreme Court strikes down as unconstitutional Amendment 2, a voter-approved state measure that prohibited localities from passing laws that protect homosexuals from discrimination. . . . Fred Wertheimer, the president of the public-interest lobbying group Common Cause since 1980, announces that he will resign as soon as a successor can be named. . . . A report summarizing an investigation of Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy does not render judgment on whether Espy violated ethics standards for federal officials and recommends that no further action be taken against him. Reports confirm that a woman who was pregnant in each of her two uteri, Cynthia Silveira, gave birth to two healthy girls eight days apart at Good Samaritan Hospital in San Jose, California. . . . A medical study reports that more than half of the babies born in the U.S. do not receive all of the immunization injections they need during their first seven months of life.

Labor Secretary Robert Reich announces that the U.S. will not investigate allegations that the Mexican government failed to adequately protect workers’ rights at two factories in Mexico owned by U.S. companies. The ruling comes in response to the first formal complaints lodged under the labor side pact of NAFTA.

The CDC reports that the annual homicide rate for males ages 15–19 jumped 154% between 1985 and 1991. Guns are linked to 97% of the increase in homicides. . . . Reports state that the New York City-based Jewish Theological Seminary of America received a $15 million donation from Michigan industrialist William Davidson. It is the largest financial donation ever given to a single Jewish educational institution in the U.S. Joseph Strauss, a former senior HUD aide, is fined $20,000 and sentenced to three years’ probation for his role in an influencepeddling scandal at the agency during the administration of Pres. Reagan. . . . Two boys are charged with murder for dropping a fiveyear-old boy, Eric Morris, to his death from a vacant 14th-floor apartment in Chicago. Police state that the boys, ages 10 and 11, committed the murder after Morris refused to steal candy for them. The case highlights the problem of youth crime in Chicago.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Eight U.S. airlines reach a $40 million settlement in a price-fixing suit filed against them by 10 state attorneys generals. . . . The Dow surges 55.51 points to close at 3876.83.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science to three academics for their work in the field of “game theory.” The winners are two Americans, mathematician John F. Nash of Princeton University and mathematical economist John C. Harsanyi of the University of California at Berkeley; and a German, economist Reinhard Selten of the University of Bonn. . . . The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour touches down at Edwards Air Force Base after carrying out a mission devoted to mapping remote regions of Earth.

Frank (Francis Joseph) Mcguire, 80, basketball coach who was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1977, dies in Columbia, South Carolina, of complications from a stroke. . . . The Booker Prize is won by Scottish writer James Kelman for his novel How Late It Was, How Late. Kelman is the first Scot to win the prize.

Data shows that the Justice Department in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 garnered a record $1.09 billion in awards and settlements stemming from civil fraud cases. . . . Richard Kessel, chair of the Long Island Power Authority, announces that the two-year effort to dismantle the Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant is complete, and all radioactive materials have been removed. . . . The EPA announces it will review and phase out the use of cancer-causing pesticides and herbicides present in processed foods.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to U.S. professor George Olah for his advances in hydrocarbon research. The Nobel Prize in Physics goes to American Clifford Shull and Canadian Bertram Brockhouse for their development of neutron scattering. . . . After successfully mapping 98% of Venus’s surface, the spacecraft Magellan concludes its mission with a final experiment that requires the craft to make a suicidal descent toward Venus’s surface.

Three of Hollywood’s most powerful figures, David Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Steven Spielberg, announce plans to form a new motion picture studio and entertainment company to rival the six major studio groups that currently dominate the industry.

Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill that reforms government purchasing. . . . Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill that reorganizes and reauthorizes the Agricultural Department.

The Clinton administration states that more than 155 Cuban refugees will be allowed to enter the U.S. on humanitarian grounds.

The Social Security Administration announces that Social Security payments will increase by 2.8% in 1995 to account for inflation. This means that Social Security recipients will receive an average of $698 a month in 1995, a rise of $19.

The Swedish Academy of Letters awards the Nobel Prize in Literature to Japanese author Kenzaburo Oe. He is the second Japanese writer to win the prize.

WHO announces it has approved large-scale trials of vaccines designed to prevent infection with HIV.

Pres. Clinton confers National Medals of Arts and the Charles Frankel Prizes for humanities on 16 U.S. cultural figures and one organization. Sen. Claiborne Pell (D, R.I.), who cocreated the NEA and NEH, receives the Presidential Citizens Medal. . . . Secretary of Labor Robert Reich announces the appointment of William Usery as a special mediator in the ongoing baseball strike.

Oct. 11

Oct. 12

Oct. 13

Oct. 14

Oct. 15

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

656—October 16–20, 1994

Oct. 16

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The UN Security Council’s embargo of Haiti is lifted.

Finnish citizens in a nationwide referendum vote to approve Finland’s entry into the EU. . . . In The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’s first presidential and parliamentary elections since it declared independence in 1991, incumbent president Kiro Gligorov wins reelection, amid allegations of abuse in the election process. . . . The ruling party of German chancellor Helmut Kohl dwindles to a slim 10-seat edge in Parliament, from a 134-seat majority, in general elections.

Israel’s P.M. Rabin reopens the borders of the West Bank and gaza Strip, which that were sealed off Oct 11. . . . Police in Cape Town, South Africa, state that 11 people were killed and at least 12 injured in shooting between two rival taxi companies. . . . Egypt’s interior ministry reveals that police fatally shot an Islamic militant who had planned the Oct. 14 attack on Naguib Mahfouz, and arrested several other members of the radical Islamic Group.

Reports estimate that 60 political and business leaders are under investigation in a corruption scandal in France. . . . Elizabeth II, queen of England, makes the first trip ever to Russia by a British monarch. . . . Dmitri Kholodov, 27, an investigative reporter planning to testify before Russia’s parliament, is killed in a bomb explosion. . . . Bulgarian Pres. Zhelyu Zhelev dissolves Bulgaria’s parliament calls for early elections and appoints Reneta Indjova premier of an interim government until the elections.

Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan initial a draft peace treaty that sets the stage for fully normalized relations between the two erstwhile enemies. . . . The PLO releases from prison in the Gaza Strip about 50 Hamas activists detained in the standoff over the kidnapped soldier, Corporal Waxman, who was killed Oct. 14. Hundreds of other Hamas members remain in prison. . . . Reports indicate that Saudi Arabia has freed about 130 of 157 Muslim militants recently arrested in a government crackdown that started Sept. 26.

Oct. 17

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Colombian police disclose that former senator Regina Betancourt de Liska, a renowned witch who finished fourth in the first round of presidential balloting in May, was kidnapped by armed men thought to be leftist guerrillas.

North Korea’s presumed leader, Kim Jong Il, appears in public for the first time since the funeral of his father in July. . . . Two British tourists, Christopher Myles Croston and Paul Ridout, are taken hostage by the Kashmiri militant group that also abducted British citizen Rhys Partridge on Sept. 29. The group is reportedly trying to focus international attention on the five-yearold civil war against Indian rule in the Jammu and Kashmir state of India.

Intense fighting is reported across Angola. . . . A representative from Syria and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat sharply object to the Jordanian-Israeli accord that was initialed Oct. 17.

Oct. 18

Oct. 19

Oct. 20

Australian prime minister Paul Keating unveils a cultural policy, called Creative Nation, that will provide A$252.7 million (US$187 million) in spending initiatives over four years for artistic and cultural programs.

Reports confirm that Russian authorities seized 60 pounds (27 kg) of uranium-238 in Moscow and arrested several people in the incident. . . . Oldrich Cernik, 72, Czech leader who served as premier, 1968–70, dies in Prague, the Czech Republic, of heart failure.

In the most deadly single violent terrorist attack in Israel since 1978, at least 21 Israeli civilians are killed and as many as 50 wounded when an explosion rips through a crowded bus in Tel Aviv. The Qassem Brigades, a radical wing of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, claims responsibility for the blast, which is attributed to a suicide bomber identified as Saleh Abdel Rahim al-Souwi, 27. . . . One man dies when a bomb explodes in the religious-affairs ministry in Baghdad, Iraq.

Legal shipments of fuel arrive in Haiti for the first time since October 1993. Separately, Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the U.S. Agency for International Development sign a $15 million aid package aimed at stabilizing Haiti’s economy and laying the basis for long-term national growth. . . . Brazil’s Supreme Court votes to allow the extradition of former Bolivian dictator Luis Garcia Meza, currently imprisoned in Brazil for drug trafficking and homicide. A Bolivian court in 1993 convicted Garcia Meza in absentia for corruption and human-rights abuses during his reign from 1980 to 1981.

A U.S. citizen, Bela Josef Nuss, is taken hostage, by a Kashmiri militant group that is reportedly trying to focus international attention on the five-year-old civil war against Indian rule in the Jammu and Kashmir state of India. The group is thought to be the same one that kidnapped three British tourists Sept. 29 and Oct. 16.

In Russia, more than 10,000 mourners attend the funeral of Dmitri Kholodov, who was killed Oct. 17 by a package bomb that exploded in his office. . . . Sergei Bondarchuk, 74, acclaimed Russian film director and actor, dies in Moscow of a blood disease. . . Francis Steegmuller, 88, writer best known for his works on French author Gustave Flaubert, dies in Naples, Italy, of heart failure.

Reports state the Iraqi troops that massed on the Kuwait border Oct. 7 have returned to central Iraq. In response, the U.S. reveals it will limit the deployment of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf region . . . Israeli soldiers demolish the home of Saleh Abdel Rahim al-Souwi, the suicide bomber in the Oct. 19 attack. . . . The Islamic Iraqi Vanguards for National Salvation claims responsibility for the Oct. 19 blast in Baghdad.

In the first document of its kind in Canada, a policy paper from the provincial government in Alberta instructs universities to start dismantling the tenure system that guarantees professors job security.

Finance Minister Sam Rainsy is removed from his post in a cabinet reorganization initiated by the senior premier and son of King Norodom Sihanouk, Prince Norodom Ranariddh. Sam’s dismissal is met with widespread disapproval.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 16–20, 1994—657

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

In Baltimore, Maryland, county circuit court judge Robert Cahill sparks a controversy when he hands down an 18-month prison sentence, perceived as lenient, to Kenneth Peacock, 36, who pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the Feb. 9 slaying of his wife, Sandra, 31, after finding her in bed with another man. The judge prompts more criticism when he states, “I seriously wonder how many married men—married five, four years—would have the strength to walk away without inflicting some corporal punishment.”

U.S. Economy & Environment

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Heavy rains fall in parts of eastern Texas, causing severe flooding in the Houston region.

Michael Schumacher of Germany wins the European Grand Prix automobile race in Jerez, Spain.

Reports reveal that the Maine Yankee nuclear power plant in Wiscasset, Maine, has discontinued tours of its facility after 10 college students were exposed to radiation during an Oct. 11 visit. . . . A total of 1,346 pharmacies file similar lawsuits in federal courts in 15 states, claiming that U.S. and foreign-based drug manufacturers discriminate against them by charging higher prices for drugs than they charge hospitals and certain types of prescription services. The manufacturers are also accused of antitrust violations.

The Environmental Working Group finds that 3.5 million people in 121 Midwestern cities face an elevated cancer risk as a result of the presence of pesticides in their drinking water. . . . Rep. Charlie Rose (D, N.Dak.) discloses he reached a settlement in a case involving his failure to publicly report several campaign loans received in the 1980s. In the settlement, Rose agreed to pay a fine of $12,500. A book by the late Harvard University professor Richard Herrnstein and conservative social scientist Charles Murray, The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life, which argues that black Americans score lower than whites on intelligence tests due in part to genetic differences, sparks controversy as critics attack the book on a variety of fronts.

Science, Technology, & Nature

U.S. District Court judge Joyce Hens Green sentences Swaleh Naqvi, the former chief executive of the scandal-tainted Bank of Credit & Commerce International, to an eight-year prison term for his role in defrauding hundreds of thousands of investors in Luxembourg-based BCCI. He is also ordered to pay $255.4 million in restitution to former U.S. investors in BCCI.

Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill to reauthorize for five years the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The new law revises some federal education-aid programs and authorizes $12.7 billion in federal education spending in fiscal 1995. . . . The Illinois Board of Education votes to give the state of Illinois financial control of the impoverished East St. Louis, Illinois, school district, which is $10 million in debt.

Oct. 16

Oct. 17

As rain continues to plummet Texas, the San Jacinto River rises a record 15 feet (5 m) above its banks. Reports confirm that Gov. Ann Richards (D) has declared 48 counties state disaster areas. Pres. Clinton declares 26 Texas counties disaster areas.

Members of the Pentecostal Fellowship of North America, a coalition of 21 white denominations, vote to dissolve their 46-year-old racially segregated church.

A medical study finds that two prescription drugs currently available in the U.S., methotrexate and misoprostol, will induce abortions in 90% of women who take them in combination.

The leading black and white denominations of the U.S. Pentecostal church establish a new multiracial national association, ending 88 years of racial separation in the church. . . . Martha Raye (born Margaret Reed), 78, singer, actress, and popular entertainer of U.S. soldiers during three wars, dies in Los Angeles, California, of complications from a stroke.

Two major fuel pipelines located under the flooded San Jacinto River east of Houston rupture, sending 100-foot-high flames into the air and burning fuel drifting down the river. The Texas Railroad Commission and the U.S. Department of Transportation order all other pipelines in the area shut.

Burt(on Stephen) Lancaster, 80, who appeared in nearly 70 films during his 45-year career as one of the cinema’s most popular leading men, dies in Los Angeles, California. . . . . A book by Pope John Paul II is released in 35 countries and published in 21 languages on the 16th anniversary of his election to the papacy.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 18

Oct. 19

Oct. 20

658—October 21–25, 1994

World Affairs

Oct. 21

Europe

Negotiators from the U.S. and North Korea formally sign an agreement aimed at resolving an 18-month international crisis stemming from North Korea’s refusal to allow inspections of its nuclear-development sites. . . . A committee of international arbitrators rules that Argentina is entitled to all but 12 square miles (30 sq km) of 205 square miles of territory in the southern Andes that has long been under dispute between Chile and Argentina.

Oct. 22

Oct. 23

Oct. 24

Oct. 25

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Nigeria, which supplies most of the 10,000 peacekeeping troops in Liberia, states that it will remove 4,000 of its troops for logistical and economic reasons. Separately, a Nigerian court rules that the imprisonment of Moshood K. O. Abiola, who is believed to have won voided presidential elections in 1993 and was arrested in June, is illegal and calls on the government to pay Abiola $45,454 in damages.

Colombian government officials reveal that 174 federal police officers were dismissed for accepting bribes from drug traffickers. . . . Reports reveal that the Mohawks of the Kahnawake Reserve in Quebec have signed an agreement with Canada to manage their own employment and training programs, currently run by the federal government.

A section of the Songsu Bridge in Seoul, South Korea, collapses, killing 32 people. . . . A bomb is thrown at the home of opposition presidential candidate Gamini Dissanayake in Kandy, northeastern Sri Lanka. No one is harmed.

Reports estimate that 150,000 Liberians have been killed since the civil war began, and that more than half of the population of 2.3 million people has been displaced. Refugee camps in Burkina Faso and Guinea are home to more Liberians than any Liberian city except Monrovia.

Thirteen human-rights monitors from a joint mission of the UN and the OAS return to Haiti, from where they were expelled in the summer of 1994.

Indian newspapers report that an outbreak of cerebral malaria has killed between 2,000 and 4,000 people in the desert region of western Rajasthan state since September.

Spanish premier Felipe Gonzalez’s ruling Socialist Party loses almost half its parliamentary seats in the Basque autonomous region in elections.

Two Spanish nuns are shot dead as they leave a chapel in Algiers, the capital of Algeria.

Reports confirm a major oil spill pouring from a ruptured pipeline in the Russian Arctic province of Komi, and officials disclose that the oil may have been leaking from the pipeline for months. Estimates of the amount of oil vary from 102,200 to 2 million barrels (4.3 million to 84.6 million gallons) . . . . Aleksandr N. Shelepin, 76, Soviet intelligence officer who headed the KG state security agency, 1958–61, dies.

At a Rwandan refugee camp in northern Burundi, 54 men, women, and children are killed and 16 are wounded by uniformed gunmen. . . . The United Nations begins evacuating by helicopter the first of 500 orphans stranded near the front line of the Liberian civil war, outside of Gbarnga.

The oil slick in the Russian Arctic province of Komi is burning rapidly, causing massive harm to the delicate arctic environment.

The 120-member Israeli Knesset votes to ratify a peace treaty between Israel and Jordan. . . . Three black men—Vusumzi Ntamo, 23; Mongezi Manqina, 22; and Mzikhona Nofemela, 19—are convicted of murdering American exchange student Amy Biehl, who was stoned and stabbed to death in August 1993. The state was forced to drop charges against three of six defendants because three eyewitnesses refused to testify.

Opposition presidential candidate Gamini Dissanayake and several other leaders of his political party are among dozens killed by a bomb blast at a campaign rally near Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital. Officials estimate that 50 people are killed and more than 200 others injured in the blast. Dissanayake’s death is the third political assassination in Sri Lanka in the past 18 months. . . . Reports state that another 70,000 people in India have tested positive for cerebral malaria . . . . In response to the Oct. 20 dismissal of Finance Minister Sam Rainsy, Prince Norodom Sirivuddh announces that he will resign as foreign minister and vice premier of Cambodia. Ernesto Cardenal, a prominent figure in the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), which ruled Nicaragua from 1979 until 1990, states that he is resigning from the party to protest what he regards as the Sandinista leadership’s hardline policies.

South Korea reveals that a South Korean prisoner of war escaped from North Korea 43 years after being captured by North Korea’s Chinese allies during the Korean War. The man, Cho Chang Ho, reportedly is the first POW detained by North Korea after the war to have returned to South Korea. Cho claims he was forced to work in North Korean coal mines for 13 years after the war ended before being exiled to a remote area of the country. Cambodian government troops take control of the Phnom Voar base. . . . Yang Dezhi, 83, Chinese military figure who led the communist army’s escape during the army’s “Long March,” a 6,000-mile (10,000-km) retreat from Nationalist forces in 1934 and 1935, dies of an undisclosed illness.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 21–25, 1994—659

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The state of Texas files suit against the Ku Klux Klan for allegedly violating fair-housing laws by intimidating black residents who moved into a public housing project in Vidor, Texas, in 1993. . . . The board of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change unanimously elects Dexter Scott King, the youngest son of slain civil-rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., as its new chairman and chief executive.

Judge Donald Stohr sentences Tawfiq Musa and brothers Luie Nijmeh and Saij Nijmeh, three members of the Abu Nidal organization, formerly known as the Fatah Revolutioary Council, to 21 months in prison on federal racketeering charges related to terrorist activities. . . . Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and a delegation of U.S. officials embark on a diplomatic tour of several African countries. . . . Rosario Ames, wife of convicted spy Aldrich Ames, is sentenced to a 63-month prison term.

The Energy Department unveils plans to build a $1.8 billion nuclear fusion facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. The approval of the project, the National Ignition Facility (NIF), is considered a major step toward modernizing the government’s nuclear-weapons testing policy. The device, which will be the first machine ever to control thermonuclear ignition, will be used to determine the possibilities of harnessing nuclear fusion energy to generate electrical power for civilian use.

In the flooded San Jacinto River east of Houston, leaks from two pipelines worsen spills caused by the Oct. 20 explosions. . . . Jerome Bert Wiesner, 79, scientist and influential analyst of military technology who served as a special adviser on science and technology to Pres. John Kennedy, dies in Watertown, Massachusetts, of an undisclosed illness.

In what is apparently a record for the rights to a first novel, British scriptwriter Nicholas Evans accepts a $3 million offer for the rights to his unfinished first novel, The Horse Whisperer.

Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill that reforms the bankruptcy code.

The Coast Guard estimates that 200,000 gallons (760,000 liters) of fuel and oil products have spilled into the San Jacinto River since Oct. 20. . . . Rollo May, 85, one of the original purveyors of humanistic psychology and one of the first psychologists to establish a nonFreudian view of human nature in the 1950s, dies in Tiburon, California, of congestive heart failure.

Pres. Clinton signs a directive implementing a provision of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that mandates the automatic suspension for one year of children who take guns into schools.

The Justice Department announces that Rachelle Shannon, sentenced for the 1993 attempted murder of an abortion doctor, was indicted on 30 federal counts related to attacks on nine clinics in California, Idaho, Nevada, and Oregon in 1992 and 1993. . . A Native American tribe, the Mashantucket Pequot, donates $10 million to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. It is the largest cash gift in the Smithsonian’s history.

In Lexington, Kentucky, Sergeant Philip Vogel, a white police officer, fatally shoots Antonio Orlando Sullivan, a black teenager, sparking 100–200 black youths to riot. At least nine minor injuries are reported. . . . The CDC discloses that the rate of births to teenage girls in the U.S. ages 15–17 declined 2% in 1992, the first decline since 1986. . . . Statistics show more than half of the 20.6 million Americans enrolled in colleges or vocational schools during the 1990–91 school year received financial aid from outside their families.

Three large chemical companies— E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., the Shell Oil Co., and the Hoechst Celanese Corp.—tentatively agree to reimburse U.S. homeowners who installed defective polybutylene pipes the firms produced and marketed. The agreement, valued at about $750 million, is reportedly the largest property-damage settlement ever reached in the U.S.

Oct. 22

Scientists at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines announce they have developed a new breed of rice that can boost harvests by up to 25%.

Andrew Kopkind, 59, journalist who advocated social protests during the 1960s in his controversial writings, dies in New York City of cancer. . . . William A. Leonard II, 78, news director and producer who helped create successful magazine-style news programs, and who, in 1979, became the first on-air reporter ever to serve as president of CBS News, dies in Laurel, Maryland, of a stroke.

Data shows that more than 11,000 people have had to evacuate their homes, and flooding has claimed 19 lives in Texas. Pres. Clinton declares 35 Texas counties disaster areas. . . . Two studies find no link between silicone breast implants and connective-tissue disease . . . . Myron Samuel Malkin, 70, physicist and chief designer of the U.S. space shuttle program, dies in Bethesda, Maryland, of heart failure.

Raul Julia (born Raul Rafael Carlos Julia y Arcelay), 54, acclaimed actor known for both serious and comic roles, dies in Manhasset, New York, of complications from a stroke.

Lt. Kara S. Hultgreen, 29, one of the navy’s first female fighter pilots, is killed when her F-14 Tomcat crashes into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of southern California during a training exercise. . . . The U.S. State Department notes that 13,500 of the 20,000 Haitians detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been voluntarily repatriated.

Oct. 21

Vatican officials announce they have established “permanent and official” relations with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 23

Oct. 24

Oct. 25

660—October 26–31, 1994

World Affairs

Oct. 26

Israel and Jordan sign a peace treaty that formally ends their 46-year-long history of war and mistrust. It is the second full peace accord between Israel and an Arab neighbor, following the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian agreement. In attendance at the signing are representatives from eight Islamic countries. . . . For the third consecutive year, the UN General Assembly condemns the U.S. economic embargo of Cuba. . . . The IMF approves a $371 million loan to Ukraine.

The Americas

President-elect Jacques Santer of the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, unveils portfolio assignments for his 21member commission. The new commission is characterized by its high number of newcomers, 13; and a record number of women, five.

Figures indicate that the UN spent more than $390 million on its mission in Mozambique, including $12 million specifically for Renamo, since the 1992 peace accord.

Oct. 31

Asia & the Pacific

Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide formally nominates Smarck Michel for the key post of premier in his evolving government. . . . Cuba’s communist government authorizes, effective Dec. 1, new retail markets where consumer goods and manufactured products may be sold at prices determined by supply and demand.

More than 90% of Mozambique’s 6 million eligible voters cast their ballots in the elections. . . . Fighting between the Abgal and Murosade clans forces the closure of the airport in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia.

Reports state that government forces have closed in on Bosanska Krupa, a Serb-held town 130 miles (210 km) northwest of Sarajevo, Bosnia’s capital. They have also attacked Serb positions southwest of Sarajevo.

Oct. 28

Oct. 30

Africa & the Middle East In response to the peace accord between Israel and Jordan, the PLO and Hamas set aside differences to jointly call a general strike. In Hebron, thousands of Palestinians demonstrate, and in Nablus, protesters pelt Israeli soldiers with stones, drawing tear gas and occasional gunfire. . . . In South Africa, the three black men convicted Oct 25 of murdering Amy Biehl are each sentenced to 18 years in prison. . . . Bill Clinton becomes the first U.S. president to address a joint session of the Jordanian parliament.

Estonia’s parliament votes in support of Environment Minister Andres Tarand as premier. . . . The government of Russian premier Viktor Chernomyrdin survives a secret parliamentary no-confidence vote.

Oct. 27

Oct. 29

Europe

A Cambodian military court in Phnom Penh, the capital, finds nine Thais guilty of participating in a failed coup in July. The court gives the defendants suspended sentences. The court also releases the names of an additional 15 people who it believes conspired in the coup, including King Norodom Sihanouk’s son, Prince Norodom Chakrapong.

Algerian president Lamine Zeroual acknowledges publicly that peace negotiations between the government and the militant Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) were unsuccessful. . . . Shlomo Goren (born Schlomo Goronchik), 77, political activist who was the chief rabbi of Israel for the Ashkenazic sect of Jews, 1972–83, dies in Tel Aviv, Israel, after suffering a heart attack.

Accounts state that the Bosnian army claimed that towns are being burned by retreating Serb soldiers.

A bomb outside a Roman Catholic church in Baghdad, Iraq, kills three police officers and a church official.

Milan Martic, president of the selfstyled Serb Republic of Krajina in Croatia, states that special Croatian Serb units are prepared to join Bosnian Serbs in resisting the Bosnian government offensives and recapturing lost territory. . . . Sir John Wyndham Pope-Hennessy, 80, British art historian who was the only person to serve as the director of both London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, 1967–73, and its British Museum, 1974–76, dies in Florence, Italy, of complications from a liver ailment.

Data shows that more than 25 people were killed and 171 injured in a week of fighting between the Abgal and Murosade clans in Mogadishu, Somalia. . . . The Angolan government and UNITA initial a peace treaty in Lusaka.

The Prosecutor’s Office in Seoul, South Korea’s capital, announces it has determined, after a 16-month investigation, that two of the country’s former presidents engaged in a “premeditated military rebellion” in 1979 that led to a coup that eventually propelled them to power. The office said, however, that it will not prosecute the two men, Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo, citing potential divisiveness and the men’s positive contributions. Mario Aburto Martínez, the confessed assassin of Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta, who was the ruling PRI’s presidential candidate when killed, is found guilty of premeditated murder and sentenced to 42 years’ imprisonment. . . . As many as 100 prisoners, some of whom were under detention for alleged humanrights violations, escape from Haiti’s national penitentiary in Port-auPrince. Eight of the escapees are reportedly recaptured.

In Ghaziabad, a town just east of New Delhi, India, police find and release a U.S. man, Bela Josef Nuss, who informs them that he was kidnapped by the same group holding three British citizens hostages. The group, identified as members of a Muslim separatist organization based in the tribal areas of Afghanistan, Al-Hadid, threatens to behead the British hostages if the Indian government does not release 10 jailed Kashmiris.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 26–31, 1994—661

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen and the IRS announce proposals designed to curb fraudulent claims for tax refunds. . . The USDA states that it will drop plans to implement new inspection controls for poultry products proposed on July 11. . . . Pennzoil Co. reveals it has reached an agreement with the IRS, in which Pennzoil will pay $456 million to resolve disputes over a $3 billion settlement received by Pennzoil from Texaco Inc. in 1988.

Measurements taken by the Hubble Space Telescope indicate that the universe is between 8 billion and 12 billion years old, considerably younger than the oldest known stars, which scientists believe to be between 14 billion and 18 billion years old. The new data, if confirmed, will challenge astronomers’ fundamental theories on the age, size, and origin of the universe.

Florida governor Lawton Chiles (D) announces that the state and the INS will institute a three-month pilot program under which illegal immigrants accused of misdemeanors or nonviolent felonies may choose voluntary deportation rather than face trial. . . . The Defense Department announces that U.S. attack jets for the first time will be based in Kuwait.

Prudential Securities reaches an agreement with federal prosecutors that calls for the firm, the nation’s fourth-largest brokerage house, to pay $330 million into a special fund to compensate investors who lost millions of dollars in Prudential energy partnerships that failed in the 1980s.

The Population Council announces that U.S. clinical trials to determine the safety and effectiveness of the abortion pill RU-486 began in September.

A federal jury in Las Vegas orders the Las Vegas Hilton and its parent company, Hilton Hotels Corp., to pay Paula Coughlin, a navy helicopter pilot who was sexually assaulted at a 1991 aviators convention held at the hotel, $1.7 million in compensatory damages. . . . The U.S. cuts off aid to Gambia, calling for the restoration of democracy within 12 months. U.S. officials said that humanitarian aid will not be halted.

The Treasury Department and the White House Office of Management and Budget report a federal budget deficit of $203.4 billion for fiscal 1994, which ended Sept. 30. That is the smallest deficit reported since 1989.

The Atlanta, Georgia, police department names a black woman, Beverly Harvard, as its new chief. Harvard, 43, will be the first black woman to head a major U.S. police department.

A three-judge panel in Richmond, Virginia, unanimously strikes down a University of Maryland scholarship program open only to black students, arguing that the school failed to demonstrate how the program makes up for the university’s past discrimination against blacks. . . . The Justice Department reveals that the prison population in 1994 topped 1 million for the first time, with 1,012,851 men and women in state and federal prisons on June 30.

A gunman with a semiautomatic assault rifle fires 27 rounds at the north face of the White House before bystanders and Secret Service agents subdue him. The accused gunman, Francisco Martin Duran, is a convicted felon.

Oct. 26

Oct. 27

Oct. 28

Reports conclude that tests of an experimental malaria vaccine, SPf66, yielded what researchers call encouraging results, despite a success rate that is too low to warrant widespread use of the vaccine.

The Justice Department reports that the number of violent crimes and attempted violent crimes rose 5.6% in 1993, to 10.9 million. . . . More than 300 teenagers are arrested in Detroit, Michigan, for violating curfew on Devil’s Night, the evening before Halloween traditionally marked by arson. A one-year-old girl dies in a blaze in the Highland Park suburb . . . Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan (R) crosses party lines to praise the record of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D, Calif.). Clinton administration officials announce that they will step up their ongoing review of presidential security procedures in light of recent attacks on the White House.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Oct. 29

Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, 88, Romanian-born economist who in the mid-1930s wrote several widely influential works on consumer behavior, dies in Nashville, Tennessee, of complications from diabetes.

A federal jury in Las Vegas, Nevada, orders the Las Vegas Hilton and its parent company, Hilton Hotels Corp., to pay Paula Coughlin, a Navy helicopter pilot who was sexually assaulted at a 1991 aviators convention held at the hotel, $5 million in punitive damages.

Pres. Clinton signs into law legislation to protect vast amounts of land in the California desert.

Oct. 30

All 68 passengers and crew aboard a twin-turboprop airplane die when the plane crashes in a soybean field in northwestern Indiana during a heavy storm.

A Phoenix, Arizona, jury acquits John Henry Carpenter, 66, accused of the 1978 killing of Bob Crane, an actor best known from the TV series Hogan’s Heroes. . . . . Insomnia by Stephen King is at the top of the bestseller list.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 31

662—November 1–5, 1994

Nov. 1

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Middle East–North Africa Economic Summit comes to a close as delegates issue a 14-point declaration that marks the first tentative steps toward a regional common market.

Bosnian government and Croat forces rout Bosnian Serb forces around the Serb-held town of Donji Malovan. . . . Russian president Boris Yeltsin dismisses Deputy Defense Minister General Matvei Burlakov amidst allegations of military corruption. . . . Sydney Dernley, 73, who was assistant to Britain’s chief executioner, 1948–53, and Britain’s last surviving hangman, dies in London of a heart attack.

Antigovernment forces attack a village in western Rwanda, killing 10 adults and 26 children with grenades, rifles, and machetes. . . . A bomb explodes in a cemetery in the western town of Mostaganem, killing four Algerian children and wounding 30 other people observing the 40th anniversary of the start of the war that won Algeria’s independence after 130 years of French rule.

Nov. 4

The UN Security Council votes unanimously to withdraw the 17,300 UN peacekeeping troops that remain in Somalia by Mar. 31, 1995, citing the inability of UN forces to help reconcile rival factions and establish a government in the war-torn country. Aid efforts will continue as long as security conditions permit. . . . After two years of contentious wrangling, Chinese and British officials sign an agreement regarding a HK$185 billion (US$20.5 billion) infrastructuredevelopment project in Hong Kong.

Asia & the Pacific

Immigration Minister Sergio Marchi announces substantial changes in Canada’s immigration policy.

Indian police rescue Christopher Myles Croston, Paul Ridout, and Rhys Partridge, three British tourists taken hostage by a Muslim separatist group, Al-Hadid, that is based in the tribal areas of Afghanistan. Two police officers and one of the captors are killed by gunfire in a rescue raid on the rebels’ hideout in Saharanpur, northern India. Police arrest five of the kidnappers—two Afghans and three Kashmiris—and state that three others escaped.

The military commander of Algiers, Col. Dhelloul Hadj Cherif, and at least nine Muslim militants are killed in a gun battle in a 36-hour standoff in the capital. Cherif is the highest-ranking military officer reported to have been killed by militants. . . . Hani Abed, 35, an engineering professor and newspaper publisher widely believed to be a senior Islamic Jihad official, is killed by a bomb in the Gaza Strip town of Khan Yunis. . . . The village of Durunka, Egypt, located 200 miles (320 km) south of Cairo, is struck by flash flood waters carrying burning fuel.

In the Malakand district of Pakistan’s North West Frontier province, about 95 miles (150 km) northwest of Islamabad, activists from the Muslim group Tehriq Nifaz Shariat-iMohammadi (TNSM), occupy several government buildings in the region and take control of an airport in Saidu Sharif.

In an important victory, the Bosnian army and the Croatian Defense Council capture the central Bosnian town of Kupres. Data indicates the government army, joined by Bosnian Croat forces, have seized 150 square miles (390 sq km) of formerly Serb-held territory since Oct. 26. . . . Britain’s controversial Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill becomes law after a year of public protests and parliamentary battles.

UN officials estimate there are as many as 1.3 million Rwandan refugees in Zaire and 550,000 in Tanzania. . . . Angry supporters of the Islamic Jihad, shouting that PLO chief Yasser Arafat’s negotiations with Israel contributed to the Nov. 2 killing of Hani Abed, shove Arafat out of a mosque in Gaza City during Abed’s funeral Islamic Jihad leaders reportedly apologize for the incident.

TNSM rebels shoot and kill Badiuz Zaman, a member of Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, after taking him hostage in the town of Mingora. The murder prompts the North West Frontier province’s chief minister, Aftab Ahmad Sherpao, to declare that Islamic law will be established in the district within one week, and sharia courts will be in place in December.

During a visit to Britain, Romanian president Ion Iliescu pardons Adrian and Bernadette Mooney, a British couple sentenced to 28 months in a Romanian prison for trying to smuggle a baby out of Romania. He states he will encourage changes in Romanian law to make it easier for foreigners to legally adopt Romanian children . . . . In London, five protesters, angered by the Nov. 3 enactment of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill, climb onto the roof of the Parliament and stay there for several hours.

The death toll from the Nov. 2 flash flood that also carried burning fuel into the village of Durunka, Egypt, is placed at more than 500. . . . Heavy fighting in the region is reported as government forces approach Huambo in Angola.

Government officials state that paramilitary troops are being sent to Pakistan’s North West Frontier province in response to the TNSM actions that started Nov. 2.

Nov. 2

Nov. 3

The Americas

The body of an abducted French tourist is discovered, raising the number of foreigners killed in Algeria since September 1993 to 69. Of those, 21 were French nationals. . . . Johan Heyns, 66, a controversial white church leader who was head of the Dutch Reformed Church, 1986–90, and who opposed the apartheid system of racial separation, is shot dead at his home in Pretoria, South Africa. . . . Fighting between Somali factions is reported near Baidoa.

Nov. 5

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 1–5, 1994—663

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Ingham County, Michigan, circuit judge William Collette rules that charter schools, alternative learning institutions overseen by private boards, are ineligible for state funding. . . . In U.S. v. Shabani, the Supreme Court unanimously rules that individuals found guilty of conspiring to commit a narcotics crime can be subject to the same punishments as those caught perpetrating the crimes, regardless of whether the conspiracy was carried out.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence issues a highly critical assessment of the CIA’s shortcomings in the Aldrich H. Ames spy case. . . . Pres. Clinton announces an increase in U.S. financial aid to Ulster and Ireland, beginning in fiscal 1996.

Employees of the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Examiner go on strike after having worked for a year without a contract. The last strike against the two papers occurred in 1968.

NASA launches a spacecraft, called Wind, to study the mass and momentum of charged particles, called solar wind, that are constantly emitted by the sun. . . . A study finds that women are more than twice as likely than men to become infected with HIV during heterosexual sex. . . . The FCC discloses that 74 companies nationwide have filed applications to participate in an auction for wireless-telephone service licenses.

Noah Beery Jr., 81, actor known for his portrayal of character James Rockford’s father in the 1970s television series The Rockford Files, dies in Tehachapi, California.

An Escambia County, Florida, Circuit Court jury convicts Paul J. Hill, who was convicted in October on federal charges, of two first-degree murder counts in the July slayings of Dr. John Britton and volunteer escort James Barrett outside a Pensacola abortion clinic.

Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill to provide federal veterans’ benefits for soldiers suffering from “Persian Gulf syndrome.” He also signs legislation that calls for U.S.-foreign governmental cooperation in antitrust cases.

During early trading, the U.S. dollar falls sharply to a post-World War II low of 96.08 yen, prompting the Federal Reserve Board to intervene in the world’s currency markets, spending an estimated $1.5 billion in an effort to prop up the value of the dollar against the Japanese yen and the German mark. . . . The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union files a formal grievance on behalf of some 50 NAACP employees who were furloughed in an effort to recover from its $3.8 million deficit.

The FDA approves seven genetically engineered foods, five for people and two for animals.

Peter Matthew Hillsman Taylor, 77, author who, in 1986, received a Pulitzer Prize for his novel A Summons to Memphis, dies in Charlottesville, Virginia, after suffering several strokes in October . . . . Erwin Knoll, 63, editor of the U.S.’s Progressive magazine since 1973, dies in Madison, Wisconsin, of a heart attack.

Susan V. Smith, 23, a South Carolina woman who reported that her two young sons were abducted by a carjacker, is arrested and charged with two counts of murder in the children’s deaths. Smith’s previous allegations that an armed black man had commandeered her car at a traffic signal sparked a nationwide search for the children that involved local authorities, volunteers and the FBI.

Reports confirm that Wendy Delane and Julie Marler, two of dozens of women who state they were sexually assaulted at a 1991 convention of the Tailhook Association, reached out-of-court settlements against the association and against the Las Vegas Hilton and its parent company, Hilton Hotels Corp. The amounts of the settlements are undisclosed.

Researchers claim that the mysterious fumes that resulted in the hospitalization of five ER workers in Riverside, California, in a highly publicized incident in February were likely the result of a series of chemical reactions that produced a nerve gas in the blood of a dying patient, Gloria Ramirez, 31. . . . The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Susan Smith, 23, who was charged with the death of her two young sons Nov. 3 after alleging that they had been abducted by a carjacker, is arraigned and met by an angry crowd yelling “Baby killer!” and “Murderer!”

Reports reveal that three football players at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, were disciplined for an October incident in which the players groped female cadets at a football pep rally. The punishment involves 35 demerits, 80 hours of marching tours, and 90 days of restriction to the academy’s grounds.

Reports confirm that a team of U.S. and Mongolian scientists in the summer of 1993 discovered the first fossilized embryo of a carnivorous dinosaur in at Ukhaa Tolgod, a mile-wide basin in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia.

Former president Ronald Reagan, 83, discloses that he has been diagnosed as suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, an often fatal brain disorder whose main symptoms included gradual memory loss, mental disorientation, and physical deterioration.

Nov. 1

Nov. 2

Nov. 3

Nov. 4

In horse racing, Concern runs a dramatic last-to-first race to win the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 5

664—November 6–11, 1994

World Affairs

Nov. 8

The Americas

Iran fires several Scud missiles into a military base of the People’s Mujahedeen, an Iraq-based opposition group, in Ashraf, about 50 miles (80 km) north of Baghdad, in retaliation for a Mujahedeen assault on Iranian oil installations. . . . Angolan government forces, assisted by a group of South African mercenaries, launch an air and ground offensive against the rebel base in Huambo.

The Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal makes its first indictment when it issues a warrant for Dragan Nikolic, who commanded the Bosnian Serboperated Susica detention camp, for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Nikolic’s whereabouts are unknown, however, and the tribunal does not have the authority to compel extradition.

Data reveals that recent floods killed at least 74 people and caused billions of dollars in damage in southern Europe, hitting Italy’s Piedmont region hardest. . . . Britain’s Energy Secretary Tim Eggar approves BP and Shell Oil to develop a huge Atlantic Ocean oil field.

Reports state that the Algerian government killed at least 112 people less than a week after launching a new offensive against militant Muslims. Reports also disclose that two Islamic women who refused to accept proposals for short-term pleasure marriages, which are popular in some Muslim groups, were killed by militant Muslims.

A military tribunal in Petawawa, Ontario, acquits Private David Brocklebank, a Canadian Airborn Regiment soldier who was a member of a UN peacekeeping mission in Somalia in 1993, of torture and negligent performance of duty in the beating death of Shidane Abukar Arone, a 16-year-old Somali boy.

The Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal asks Germany to extradite an accused war criminal, Bosnian Serb Dusan Tadic, a former camp commander arrested in Germany in February. . . . The UN Security Council votes to establish an international tribunal to prosecute individuals accused of atrocities in Rwanda. . . . French president François Mitterrand and 35 African leaders attend the 18th FrancoAfrican summit in Biarritz, France. Rwanda is not represented at the summit for the first time since 1975.

The Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, comes under the worst shelling since a NATO ultimatum in February brought some calm to the city. Five civilians, including at least three children, are killed in the attacks, bringing the total casualties to eight killed and 47 wounded in a twoweek period. . . . In London, Feilim O’Hadhmaill is sentenced to 25 years in prison for his role in masterminding several IRA bombing missions. . . . French police detain more than 90 suspected Muslim militants following raids on several houses, sports centers, and mosques throughout the country.

Israel and the PLO agree to a series of measures aimed at shoring up PLO chairman Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) in the face of growing challenges to the peace process from Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) and other Palestinian Islamists.

Smarck Michel, nominated as premier by reinstalled Pres. JeanBertrand Aristide, and his cabinet take their oaths of office in Haiti.

A Serb fighter jet from an air base in Croatia flies into Bosnia and hits the town of Bihac with rocket fire, wounding 14 civilians.

Iranian jet fighters carry out bombing runs in Iraq’s northern no-fly zone, targeting bases of both the Mujahedeen and the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran, an Iranian opposition group.

In the first serious outbreak of violence in Northern Ireland since cease-fires declared in August and October, suspected IRA members kill Frank Kerr, a postal worker in Newry, County Down, 45 miles (70 km) south of Belfast, during a robbery. . . . Britain’s high court rules that British foreign secretary Douglas Hurd broke British law when he allocated £234 million ($378 million) from Britain’s Overseas Development Administration budget in 1991 to fund a hydroelectric dam project on Malaysia’s Pergau River.

Iraqi president Saddam Hussein signs a statement declaring that Iraq “recognizes the sovereignty of the State of Kuwait, its territorial integrity and political independence” and that it accepts the border between Iraq and Kuwait.

Tropical Storm Gordon brings heavy rains to Haiti, where more than 750 storm-related casualties are reported. . . . Two Haitians employed at the U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince are shot to death during a robbery after they picked up the embassy’s payroll. About $60,000 is stolen in the incident.

A young Palestinian bicyclist with explosives concealed in his vest blows himself up near a heavily guarded Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, killing three Israeli soldiers and wounding six other Jews and six Palestinians. The Islamic Jihad immediately claims responsibility for the bombing, saying that it was in retaliation for the Nov. 2 assassination of Hani Abed.

Jennifer Harbury, a lawyer from Washington, D.C., ends her fast, which she started Oct. 11 with the aim of pressing the Guatemalan government for a full accounting on the fate of her husband, Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, a leftist Mayan guerrilla leader. Harbury tells reporters that she is ending the fast in order to travel to Washington because U.S. officials have offered their assistance.

Nov. 9

Nov. 10

Africa & the Middle East

Voters elect Imamali Rakhmanov president in Tajikistan’s first presidential election, and they approve a constitutional referendum. . . . Voters in a referendum reject a new constitution supported by Albanian president Sali Berisha.

Nov. 6

Nov. 7

Europe

Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s formal recognition of Kuwait fulfills one of the UN Security Council’s conditions for ending economic sanctions on Iraq. . . . The administration of U.S. president Clinton will unilaterally withdraw from enforcement of the UN arms embargo against Bosnia-Herzegovina, starting Nov. 12.

Nov. 11

Asia & the Pacific TNSM rebels in Pakistan’s North West Frontier province, about 95 miles (150 km) northwest of Islamabad, agree to end their rebellion when P.M. Benazir Bhutto concedes to their demand to enforce sharia, or Islamic law, in their district. . . . China’s official Xinhua News Agency reports that eight dissidents were released from jail prior to the completion of their sentences. Four of the men were imprisoned for their roles in the 1989 prodemocracy movement, and the other four men were Tibetan political prisoners.

Islamic militants free 50 government officials taken hostage Nov. 2 in the Malakand district of Pakistan’s North West Frontier province, about 95 miles (150 km) northwest of Islamabad, the capital. . . . Reports state that Mark Slater of England, David Wilson of Australia, and JeanMichel Braquet of France, three hostages abducted in July by Khmer Rouge rebels in Cambodia, were apparently clubbed to death by the rebels around Sept. 28.

Prime Minister Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga of the People’s Alliance coalition wins a landslide victory in Sri Lanka’s presidential election. Police state that four people were killed and 15 wounded in violent clashes in the weekend preceding the election.

Indian doctors state that they doubt that an epidemic that swept the country in September was pneumonic plague, as originally reported, and contend that the disease was caused by an unidentified agent.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 6–11, 1994—665

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Dean Anderson Gallo, 58, Republican congressman for New Jersey since 1985 who in August withdrew his bid for reelection for health reasons, dies in Denville, New Jersey, of prostate cancer.

Some 85 Cubans detained at the Guantanamo Bay base break through two fences and jump off a 40-foot-high cliff at the shoreline in an attempt to make a one-mile swim through heavily mined waters to Cuban territory. . . . The administration of Pres. Clinton announces that 6,000 of the 15,200 U.S. troops currently in Haiti will be withdrawn by Nov. 30.

Milton J. Petrie, 92, who was one of the wealthiest people in the U.S. and who was known for his generous contributions to both organized charities and individuals, dies in New York City of complications from lung and kidney ailments.

Steuben County, New York, judge Donald Purple Jr., sentences Eric Smith, 14, to nine years to life in prison. Smith was tried as an adult and convicted in August of the 1993 fatal beating of a four-yearold, Derrick Robie.

In general elections, the Republican Party sweeps to a landmark victory and will control both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years. Republicans also hold a majority of the nation’s governorships for the first time since 1970. The GOP picks up at least 50 House seats and captures eight Senate seats from Democrats. Measures aimed at curtailing the rights of homosexuals are rejected in Oregon and Idaho. Wyoming voters reject a bill to prevent women from obtaining legal abortions. In Proposition 187, Californians approve a controversial plan to cut off illegal immigrants’ access to state benefits such as welfare.

In its quarterly earnings review, The Wall Street Journal reports that the net income of 679 major corporations totaled $58.98 billion in the third quarter of 1994. That is a 39% gain over those companies’ revised 1993 third-quarter profits, which totaled $42.38 billion.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Germán Silva of Mexico wins the 25th running of the New York City Marathon despite making a wrong turn with less than a mile to go before the finish line. He wins with a time of 2:11:21. . . . George Foreman, 45, becomes the oldest boxer in any weight class to win a championship fight when he knocks out Michael Moorer.

NOAA scientists note that the $220 million GOES-8 weather satellite is transmitting images of unprecedented quality. . . . Apple, IBM, and Motorola announce that they will develop a computer capable of running many operating systems, regardless of hardware manufacturer.

Milton (Shorty) Rogers, (born Milton Rajonsky),70, jazz trumpeter, dies in Van Nuys, California, of an undisclosed illness.

Reports indicate that 39 of the 85 Cubans who escaped from Guantanamo Bay on Nov. 6 apparently reached Cuba, while U.S. forces caught the other 46 and took them back to the U.S. naval base.

The GOP widens its new majority when Richard C. Shelby, a Democrat from Alabama, switches his party affiliation. Statistics show that, overall, voter turnout stood at 38.7% of voting-age Americans, up from a record-low 36.4% in 1990 midterm elections.

Historians commissioned by the Department of Education and the NEH release new, voluntary standards for teaching world history that shifts emphasis to non-Western cultures. . . . Pres. Clinton names Patricia Fleming as the new White House director of AIDS policy. . . . Data shows voters in Oregon passed a measure that allows terminally ill people to obtain lethal prescriptions to enable them to end their lives. . . . Polls show 54% of men voted for Republicans and 46% voted for Democrats; among women, the numbers were reversed, with 54% supporting Democrats.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Nov. 7

Nov. 8

The Census Bureau states the number of working U.S. farms in 1992 totaled 1,925,300, the smallest number since 1850. . . District Judge Louis Oberdorfer sentences former Rep. Carroll Hubbard Jr. (D, Ky.) to three years in prison and orders him to pay $153,794 for obstruction of justice and misuse of congressional staff and campaign funds.

Scientists for the Heavy Ion Research Center in Dramstadt, Germany, create a new element, 110 on periodic tables. The scientists spent 10 years trying to create the ideal conditions to bring the element into existence, and it lasts for only about a thousandth of a second. The unnamed element has an atomic weight of 269, the heaviest ever produced.

The combined sales from the fall auctions at Christie’s and Sotheby’s are down about $70 million from the year-earlier figure. . . . Michael O’Donoghue, 54, writer who helped create Saturday Night Live, dies in New York City of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Louis Nizer, 92, lawyer known for representing celebrity clients, dies in New York City of kidney failure. . . . Carmen McRae, 74, jazz singer known for her innovative scat singing, dies in Beverly Hills, California, of complications from a stroke.

Pres. Clinton signs an executive order that ends the classified status of almost 44 million pages of military and intelligence documents dating from as far back as World War I.

Pedro Zamora, 22, Cuban-born AIDS activist who educated teenagers about the disease after he tested positive for HIV and who was the director of the AIDS Action Council advocacy group, dies in Miami, Florida, of complications from AIDS. . . . John Anthony Volpe, 85, former Republican governor of Massachusetts and U.S. secretary of transportation, dies in Nahant, Massachusetts, of natural causes.

Nov. 6

A notebook of sketches and writings by Italian Renaissance artist and thinker Leonardo da Vinci is sold to William Gates, the chairman of Microsoft Corp., for $30.8 million at an auction held by Christie’s. It is the highest auction price ever paid for a manuscript.

A survey from Catalyst, a nonprofit women’s research organization, shows that 58% of the country’s Fortune 500 companies and Fortune 500 service companies had at least one female director during 1993. That is up from 49% in 1992. However, Catalyst also notes that two-thirds of the companies with female directors have only one woman on the board.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 9

Nov. 10

Nov. 11

666—November 12–16, 1994

World Affairs

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Two bombs explode in Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, leaving a suspected bomber dead and three people injured. . . . Reports indicate that senior military officers in Gambia attempted to overthrow the military government in Banjul, the capital, but were thwarted by officers loyal to the junta. . . . In Angola, Huambo is reported to be under government control.

Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga is sworn into office and becomes the first woman to serve as Sri Lanka’s president. Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader of the Tamil Tiger rebels, announces a truce. . . . Bill Clinton becomes the first U.S. president to visit the Philippines since 1975. He is greeted with some anti-U.S. protests. . . . In Jakarta, about 30 East Timorese students scale the walls of the U.S. embassy and begin a sit-in to mark the third anniversary of a violent crackdown on protestors in Dili in which as many as 100 East Timorese were killed.

Swedish citizens in a nationwide referendum vote to approve Sweden’s entry into the European Union. . . . The Sarajevo Holiday Inn, temporary home to the U.S. embassy, is hit by rocket and machine-gun fire. It is the first time in nearly a year that the hotel, which also houses many foreign journalists, has been attacked.

Algerian security officers reveal that 49 Muslim fundamentalists were killed over the previous week by government forces.

Hundreds of people rampage through the streets of Dili, East Timor’s capital, protesting Indonesian rule.

The UN Security Council retains its oil and general trade embargoes on Iraq, despite Iraq’s formal recognition of the sovereignty of Kuwait on Nov. 10.

In Bosnia, heavy shelling and fighting is reported in the towns of Bihac, Mostar, and Tuzla. Data suggests that Bosnian Serb forces have retaken much of the territory lost to a Bosnian army offensive in the Bihac area of northwestern Bosnia two weeks earlier. . . . Public train service through the Channel Tunnel, a rail tunnel connecting Britain and France under the English Channel, begins. The 31-mile (50-km) tunnel is the longest underwater tunnel in the world and is declared by many to be one of the greatest engineering feats of the century. . . . Tickets for Britain’s first national lottery since 1826 go on sale.

As many as 30 prisoners are killed and 60 prisoners and guards are wounded when soldiers move in to quash a riot that erupted Nov. 13 at a prison in Algiers. . . . The police in Gaza City block marchers in a memorial demonstration for the suicide-bomber who died Nov. 11, prompting the Islamic Jihad leadership to cancel the march so as to avoid further inflaming its relations with the PNA.

Taiwanese troops stationed on Little Quemoy Island fire at least 12 artillery shells onto the nearby Chinese mainland, wounding four Chinese civilians in the village of Tatou.

NATO states that the alliance will continue to enforce the naval blockade of arms to Bosnia without the participation of the U.S. . . . At the conclusion of a summit held in Jakarta, leaders of the 18 members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group sign an agreement committing their nations to extensive trade liberalization over the next 25 years.

Chancellor Helmut Kohl is narrowly elected by the Bundestag to serve a fourth term as Germany’s leader. . . . Reports suggest that the UN peacekeeping unit in Bihac is armed with only one rifle for every four troops and has no medical supplies or hospital. . . . Humphry John Berkeley, 68, British politician who served in the House of Commons, 1959–66, dies of a heart attack.

Oscar Mafakafaka Mpetha, 85, South African union leader and leading figure in the antiapartheid African National Congress dies in Cape Town, South Africa, of complications from diabetes.

Sri Lankan president Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga appoints her mother, Sirimaro Bandaranaike, who, in 1960, served as the nation’s first female prime minister, to retake the post as Kumaratunga’s successor. . . . The leftist alliance Communist Party of Nepal gains the largest bloc of seats in Nepal’s parliamentary elections. . . . Taiwan’s defense ministry apologizes for the Nov. 14 firings on Tatou, mainland China, calling them an accident.

Ukraine’s parliament votes to ratify Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. . . . Adrian and Bernadette Mooney, a British couple sentenced to 28 months in a Romanian prison for trying to smuggle a baby out of Romania, are freed and ordered to leave the country after a court overturns their sentences and after Romanian president Ion Iliescu pardoned the couple, on Nov. 4.

Officials state that clashes between rival clans have erupted in Hargeisa, capital of the breakaway republic of Somaliland.

Nov. 13

Nov. 15

Africa & the Middle East

Italian trade unions hold a general strike and a demonstration in Rome to protest proposed cuts in Italy’s generous pension system. The rally, attended by more than 1 million people, is described as the largest such event in Rome since the end of World War II. . . . J(ohn) I(nnes) M(ackintosh) Stewart, 88, professor at Oxford University who also wrote popular mystery novels, under the pseudonym Michael Innes, dies in Surrey, England, of an undisclosed illness.

Nov. 12

Nov. 14

Europe

Nov. 16

The chief of Ecuador’s army, Gen. Miguel Iturralde, is among 10 military officers killed when the helicopter in which they are traveling crashes in the Ecuadorian jungle near Peru.

Citing the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Australia extends its offshore territory by 4.2 million square miles (11 million sq km), effectively doubling the size of the country’s overall territory.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 12–16, 1994—667

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Reports confirm that a school district in Colorado Springs, Colorado, has instituted a fund-raising plan under which it sells commercial advertising space in locations such as school gymnasiums and school buses. The cash-strapped district apparently is the first in the U.S. to sell ad space.

Wilma Glodean Rudolph, 54, sprinter who overcame scarlet fever, double pneumonia, and polio to become the first woman to win three gold medals in track and field in a single Olympics and to receive the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Silver Anniversary Award, dies in Brentwood, Tennessee, of a malignant brain tumor.

San Francisco police fatally shoot a heavily armed drifter, Victor Boutwell, 37, bringing to an end a 25minute gun battle in which one policeman dies and three other people are wounded.

Michael Schumacher, 25, of Germany clinches the Formula One auto-racing title at Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide despite crashing out of the race.

In Harleston v. Jeffries, the Supreme Court vacates a ruling made in April by a New York City federal appeals court that found that the City College of New York violated the freespeech rights of Professor Leonard Jeffries, who was removed as chairman of the school’s black studies program by the college in 1993 after he made derogatory remarks against Jews and Italians. . . . Statistics reveal that voters between the ages of 18 and 29 represented 14% of the electorate in 1994, down sharply from 21% in 1992. . . . Federal judge Charles Schwartz approves a plan designed to desegregate the Louisiana state university system in a lawsuit filed in 1974 by the Justice Department.

Employees of the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Examiner ratify a contract and return to work, ending a strike that started Nov. 1 which involved 10 unions representing 2,600 employees. . . . In Hess v. Port Authority, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey are not protected under the 11th Amendment provision that individuals cannot file suit against states in federal courts. The ruling allows two injured employees to proceed with their negligence suits against Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corp.

White House officials announce that Pres. Clinton has selected Shirley S. Chater to continue as the head of the Social Security Administration when it becomes an independent agency in March 1995. . . . Judge J. P. Stadtmueller of U.S. District Court in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, finds six antiabortion protesters, who are the first charged under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, guilty. . . . Sen. David Boren (D, Okla.) officially resigns.

The Federal Open Market Committee votes unanimously to increase two short-term interest rates by three-fourths of a percentage point each. The new federal funds rate is 5.5, while the new discount rate is 4.75. The increase in the discount rate is the largest boost in that rate since May 1981. Both rates are now at their highest levels in three years. More than 100 protestors assemble outside the Fed’s headquarters in the capital, contending that higher rates will lead to substantial job losses.

Statistics show that Pres. Clinton in his first two years in office appointed 129 judges to the federal judiciary, of whom an unprecedented 58% were either women or minorities. . . . Federal district judge William Matthew Byrne Jr. temporarily bars California authorities from enforcing the central provisions of Proposition 187, a citizen-sponsored initiative that sought to rescind illegal immigrants’ rights to state benefits such as education, welfare, and nonemergency health services.

The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis touches down at Edwards Air Force Base, California, after carrying out a mission devoted to studying the earth’s atmosphere, in particular the depletion of the ozone layer.

Abraham Zapruder’s home movie of the assassination of Pres. Kennedy becomes the first amateur film added to the National Film Registry. . . . In a papal letter, Pope John Paul II urges the Roman Catholic Church to mark the year 2000 by publicly admitting its transgressions committed over the last 2,000 years. . . . The novel Un Aller Simple (A One-Way Ticket) by Didier van Cauwelaert wins the Goncourt Prize.

Nov. 12

Nov. 13

Nov. 14

Nov. 15

NASA announces the resignation of Jeremiah W. Pearson, the director of the space shuttle program.

At a conference, 280 bishops condemn what they call the U.S.’s “culture of violence” and support plans to give more opportunities for women in the church. . . . The National Book Foundation awards go to Sherwin Nuland, William Gaddis, and James Tate. Poet Gwendolyn Brooks wins the Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 16

668—November 17–21, 1994

World Affairs

Nov. 17

Nov. 18

Nov. 19

The UN Security Council approves the NATO air-strike operation against the Udbina air base in the Serb-held Krajina region of Croatia.

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Irish prime minister Albert Reynolds of the Fianna Fail party resigns in the midst of a split in his two-party coalition government. . . . Rainer Rupp, a former NATO employee, is convicted by a federal court in Dusseldorf, Germany, of giving copies of classified NATO documents to the Stasi, the former East Germany’s secret police. He is sentenced to 12 years in prison for treason.

South African president Nelson Mandela signs the Land Restitution Bill, which allows blacks to reclaim land taken from them under apartheid policies such as the 1913 Land Act and the Group Areas Act of 1966.

In Jakarta, Indonesia, residents report that security forces rounded up about 120 youths, some of whom were tortured, since the Nov. 12 embassy sit-in.

The Finnish parliament, respecting the results of Finland’s Oct. 16 referendum, vote to ratify EU membership. . . . Serb jets attack Bihac with napalm and cluster bombs, flying from the Udbina airfield. The bombs do not explode. Snipers kill a seven-year-old boy in Sarajevo.

When 200 police officers reportedly remove loudspeakers erected for a Hamas rally in central Gaza City, some militants respond by pelting the police with stones, sparking riots. Palestinian police loyal to Yasser Arafat open fire for the first time on militant Islamic demonstrators. The clashes leave at least 14 dead and up to 200 wounded . . . . Iranian officials disclose the passage of a law that gives wives who are divorced by their husbands the right to up to 50% of assets acquired during marriage.

The Singapore government charges a U.S. professor employed by the National University of Singapore, Christopher Lingle, with contempt of court for an article he wrote which was critical of unnamed Asian governments and their judicial systems.

Bertie Ahern of Fianna Fail is unanimously chosen to succeed Irish prime minister Albert Reynolds, who resigned Nov. 17. . . . Julian Gustave Symons, 82, prolific British mystery novel writer who cofounded and chaired the Crime Writers’ Association and was the recipient of numerous literary awards, dies in London, England, of cancer.

Violence continues as Palestinian youths in the West Bank throw stones at Israeli troops. During a clash in the West Bank town of Tulkarm, Israeli soldiers shoot dead two Palestinians. In Netzarim, an Israeli soldier is seriously wounded by gunfire, and Israeli troops shoot dead one Palestinian. . . . Joaquim A. Chissano and his ruling Frelimo Party are declared the winners in the first multiparty elections ever in Mozambique.

Brazil’s military starts a campaign of dozens of sweeps aimed at restoring order within Rio de Janeiro’s approximately 400 hillside favelas, or shantytowns, most of which are overrun by drug gangs whose turf wars left the slum areas in a state of anarchy.

The Angolan government and the rebel National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) sign a peace treaty aimed at ending a 19-year-old civil war that has killed more than half a million people. The prospects for peace, however, are undermined by the absence of the UNITA leader, Jonas Savimbi, from the signing. . . . In a gesture to calm tensions in Gaza, PLO leader Yasser Arafat orders the release of 31 imprisoned Islamic militants.

Nov. 20

Nov. 21

Africa & the Middle East

NATO warplanes bomb the Udbina air base in the Serb-held Krajina region of Croatia in the biggest air raid carried out by NATO since it was formed in 1949. The raid comes in response to at least three Serb air attacks that included cluster bombs and napalm launched from the air base on the area around the Muslim-held town of Bihac in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The air raid involves 39 NATO planes from four countries.

The NATO air raid damages a runway, antiaircraft artillery, and surface-to-air missiles at the Udbina air base in the Serb-held Krajina region of Croatia. Serb officials in Croatia state that one person is killed and seven wounded and that two villages near Udbina are damaged. Bosnian Serb forces launch an attack on the town of Bihac in the southern tip of the so-called Bihac pocket. Serb forces begin taking UN peacekeepers hostage.

Japan’s foreign ministry releases documents admitting that it was responsible for failing to officially declare war on the U.S. before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941, the event that brought the U.S. into World War II. . . . Japan’s parliament gives final approval to a comprehensive political-reform package that will significantly restructure the country’s electoral system and enforce measures to limit corruption in the political process.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 17–21, 1994—669

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Federal prosecutors charge Francisco M. Duran, 26, with attempting to assassinate Pres. Clinton, along with 10 other felony counts in an Oct. 29 incident. . . . Statistics show that the Navajo Nation, a tribe whose reservation spreads across parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, is the poorest Native American tribe in the U.S. and that 48.8% of the Navajo lives below the federal poverty line.

Circuit Court judge F. E. Steinmeyer of Monticello, Florida, declares a mistrial in the case of John (Billy Joe) Crumitie, 17, charged in the 1993 slaying of a British tourist, Gary Colley, and wounding Margaret Jagger, also of Britain, at a highway rest stop. The crime, the ninth slaying of a foreign tourist in Florida in a 13-month period, gained international attention regarding violence in the U.S. and was seen as harmful to the state’s $31 billion tourism industry.

Alaska’s largest petroleum producer, British Petroleum PLC, states that it has agreed to pay the state of Alaska $1.4 billion to settle various tax disputes dating from 1978.

Erwin Nathaniel Griswold, 90, who was the dean of the Harvard Law School, 1946–57, and who tried more cases before the U.S. Supreme Court than any other lawyer, dies in Boston, Massachusetts, of an undisclosed illness.

Paul Carpenter (D), a former California state senator, is extradited to the U.S. from Costa Rica to face sentencing for his role in a wideranging scandal involving influence peddling in the California state legislature.

Reports state that a federal court in Los Angeles has ordered the city to pay motorist Rodney King’s lawyers $22,000 for trial-related expenses.

The Republican Governors Association, which comprises GOP governors and governors-elect, convenes in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Nov. 17

A study shows that the drug simvastatin, which lowers cholesterol, is also found for the first time to reduce the overall death rates of heartdisease patients. . . . Science publishes a study by Scott Woodward, a microbiologist, in which he claims to have isolated DNA from what he believes are bone fragments from dinosaurs that lived in Utah 80 million years ago. The scientist’s claim is the first report of success in isolating dinosaur DNA to be published in an authoritative journal.

The Social Security Administration reveals that it underpaid up to 426,000 retirees a total of $478.5 million due to a computer error that dated back to 1978. The underpayments affect fewer than 1% of the 43 million people receiving Social Security benefits, and the administration wants to reimburse the retirees or their survivors.

Cab(ell) Calloway, 86, influential jazz singer and band leader, dies in Hosckessin, Delaware, from complications of a stroke suffered in June. . . . The Rolling Stones broadcast 20 minutes of audio and video in the first major concert carried live on the Internet. Only about 200 sites log on since the equipment necessary is expensive.

Reports state that Stash, a New York City record label, has released a recording of Pres. Clinton playing a saxophone he received from Czech president Havel in January. The impromptu recording, “The Pres Blows,” was recorded and released without Clinton’s permission.

The Justice Department announces that Herbert Steindler, a former GE executive who was a central figure in a scheme involving money diverted from defense contracts between the government of Israel and GE, has been sentenced to a sevenyear prison term.

The Indiana Supreme Court rules, 4-1, that the state’s law permitting riverboat gambling is constitutional. . . . The ACLU files a suit in federal court in Lake Charles, Louisiana, against Judge Thomas P. Quirk, who sentenced at least 350 people to attend church . . . . Thomas Henry Kuchel, 84, senator from California who was the Republican Party whip, 1959–69, dies in Beverly Hills, California, of lung cancer.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Pope John Paul II beatifies five prominent European religious figures at a service in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. . . . Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina and Pete Sampras win the season-ending events on the women’s and men’s tennis tours.

Contract negotiations between the Postal Service and its three largest unions collapse, so both sides are required to submit to binding arbitration. . . . A unit of American Express agrees to pay a $7 million fine to settle federal charges that some of its employees helped launder drug money through the bank’s Beverly Hills, California, branch. The settlement is described as the largest such penalty ever imposed on a U.S. financial institution.

Willem Jacob Luyten, 95, astronomer who studied faint blue stars and stars known as white dwarfs and taught astronomy at the University of Minnesota, 1930–67, dies in Minneapolis, Minnesota, of heart failure.

Reports state that Rep. Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.) refuses to have contact with the Atlanta Constitution, the leading paper in his district, because of an editorial cartoon that referred to a publicized incident in which he reportedly presented his wife with divorce papers while she was recovering from cancer surgery.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 18

Nov. 19

Nov. 20

Nov. 21

670—November 22–27, 1994

Nov. 22

Nov. 23

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

Serb missiles attack two British aircraft on NATO patrol.

Refic Saric, 31, is convicted by a Copenhagen court on 14 counts of gross violence at a Croat-run prisoner of war camp in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Saric, who was imprisoned with other Muslims at the camp at Dretelj, was given guard duty and allegedly beat other prisoners, some to death. . . . Anticorruption public prosecutors in Milan, Italy, inform Premier Silvio Berlusconi that he is being investigated for bribes that he allegedly made on behalf of his media conglomerate.

About 50 American, British, French, and Dutch aircraft under NATO command bomb three Serb missile bases within 30 miles (50 km) of Bihac, in the Bosnian towns of Bosanska Krupa and Otoka and in Dvor, Croatia.

British officials announce the first troop reductions in Northern Ireland. . . . Col. William Henry Whitbread, 93, chairman of his family’s brewing company, Whitbread & Co., 1944–71, during which period it became one of Britain’s “big six” brewers, dies.

Some 5,000–10,000 supporters of Yasser Arafat, including armed militants of Fatah, the Arafat-led faction that comprises the core of the PLO, hold a rally in the West Bank town of Jericho.

Research reveals that Finland is the first country to eradicate indigenous cases of measles, German measles, and mumps.

The two largest Kurdish guerrilla factions in northern Iraq—the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan—sign a pact that ends eight months of armed conflict between their forces in which 4,000 people reportedly died.

In India, reports state that Madhukar Pichad, the state minister for tribal development in Maharashtra, has taken responsibility for the deaths caused in the Nov. 23 stampede and resigned.

French school officials announce that 31 Muslim students were expelled for wearing traditional Islamic headscarves in class. Education Minister François Bayrou had issued a ban on wearing such “religious symbols” in September, and since then 68 students have been expelled. . . . The Evening Standard Drama Awards, London’s oldest theater awards, are announced, and Three Tall Women by Edward Albee is named best play.

Troops from Zaire clash with Rwandan refugees living in camps in Zaire, leaving eight refugees and one soldier dead. . . . Members of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction and anti-Arafat dissidents fight armed battles in the Ain Hilwe refugee camp in Sidon, Lebanon. At least seven people reportedly die in the clashes.

Japan discloses, for the first time ever, the amount of plutonium stockpiled in the country when the government states that a total of 10,300 pounds (4,684 kg) of plutonium currently are held at reprocessing facilities, at so-called fastbreeder reactors, or at fuel fabrication facilities. . . . Lee Ki Taek, the leader of South Korea’s main opposition party, resigns his seat in parliament as a protest of the government’s Oct. 29 decision not to prosecute Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo.

Bosnian Serb soldiers take a convoy of British soldiers hostage near Gorazde, a UN-declared safe area. . . . British prime minister John Major and his Conservative Party government win a parliamentary confidence vote when the House of Commons approves the European Community Finance Bill, which will increase Britain’s contributions to the European Union. Major and his cabinet had vowed to resign if the bill failed to clear the House of Commons.

Hamas holds a rally in Gaza City, drawing a crowd that reportedly numbers between 10,000 and 20,000.

Reports confirm that Nicaragua’s congress has approved a number of constitutional reforms, including measures that shorten the presidential term to five years from six and prohibit an incumbent president from seeking a consecutive term of office. . . . Arturo Rivera y Damas, 71, Salvadoran archbishop who succeeded Oscar Arnulfo Romero after his 1980 assassination by rightwing extremists, dies in San Salvador, El Salvador, of a heart attack.

Gunmen shoot to death Rabbi Ami Olami and wound an Israeli policeman by opening fire on their car near the West Bank city of Hebron. Hamas claims responsibility for the killing. . . . Zaire deports 37 refugees to Rwanda, claiming they were involved in recent crimes in Katale, Zaire. . . . . Ali Akbar Saidi Sirjani, 63, Iran’s leading dissident writer, dies in detention after having been jailed for eight months on charges of espionage and drug and alcohol abuse.

Former president Julio Sanguinetti of the opposition Colorado Party regains the presidency in a tightly contested three-way race that political analysts describe as Uruguay’s closest presidential election.

Nov. 24

Nov. 25

Nov. 26

Nov. 27

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Almost 80% of Brazil’s oil refinery workers go on strike in a bid for better wages and benefits. . . . Mexico’s deputy attorney general, Mario Ruiz Massieu, resigns his position, charging that the attorney general and other senior officials of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) blocked the official investigation he headed into the assassination of the party’s secretary general, José Francisco Ruiz Massieu.

About 50,000 people from the region’s poorest tribal communities gather in the Indian city of Nagpur in Maharashtra state to demand greater educational and employment opportunities. An estimated 130 people are killed and another 500 people injured when a stampede breaks out during the protest

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 22–27, 1994—671

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Jacksonville, Florida, police arrest Gary Ray Bowles, 32, who reportedly confessed to the slayings of six homosexual men. . . . In police headquarters in Washington, D.C., a man armed with an assault weapon, Bennie Lawson Jr., 25, opens fire, killing two FBI agents and a district police detective and wounding two other people. He is also fatally shot during the incident. . . . Officials state that total U.S. health-care costs rose by 7.8% in 1993, to $884.2 billion. That is the slowest annual rate of growth in health-care spending since 1986.

The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rules, 7-3, that the U.S. Naval Academy properly dismissed midshipman Joseph C. Steffan in 1987 because he admitted that he was a homosexual. . . . A military judge recommends that charges against Lt. Col. Randy W. May, one of two F-15 pilots who shot down the helicopters over Iraq in an April “friendly fire” incident, be dismissed. . . . The U.S. military forces in Haiti number 9,989.

California’s insurance commissioner, John Garamendi (D), orders 28 insurance companies to refund a total of $1.25 billion to customers across the state, as mandated by a controversial insurance-reform bill, passed by California voters in a 1988 referendum. . . . The Dow tumbles 91.52 points, or 2.4%, to close at 3677.99. That is the largest one-day plunge in the index since Feb. 4.

Reports finds that an experimental combination of the drug AZT and a new drug called 3TC has, in two European studies, produced a pronounced but short-term reduction of the amount of HIV in the blood of people infected with the AIDScausing virus. . . . Studies show that prostate cancer, which afflicts about 165,000 men in the U.S. each year, is linked to a defect in a gene that weakens the body’s defenses against environmental carcinogens.

The International Air Transport Association reports that U.S. airlines in 1993 carried more passengers between the U.S. and Latin America—15.8 million people— than between the U.S. and Europe. It is the first time since World War II that Europe is not the most popular international destination for U.S. carriers.

Reports reveal that the U.S. completed a secret operation to transfer more than 1,300 pounds (600 kg) of poorly protected weaponsgrade uranium from a nuclear plant in Kazakhstan to a storage facility in the U.S. The operation, codenamed “Project Sapphire,” was initiated after U.S. officials expressed concern that the uranium was vulnerable to black marketeers or terrorist regimes. Officials estimate that the uranium could have been used to make 20 nuclear weapons.

Reports disclose that a U.S. Army depot in California shipped nearly 1 pound (.5 kg) of plutonium to New Mexico’s Los Alamos National Laboratory by air via Federal Express Co., violating federal regulations . . . . The Office of Thrift Supervision and the FDIC adopt new regulations protecting mutual savings and loans’ depositors in the event of sales or conversions to shareholder institutions.

Milton Jerrold Shapp (born Milton Jerrold Shapiro), 82, Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, 1971–79, dies in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, of Alzheimer’s disease.

The International Swimming Federation suspends for two years Yang Aihua, a Chinese female swimmer who tested positive for steroid use. . . . . Georgia Erick Hawkins (born Frederick Hawkins), 85, modern dance choreographer who received the National Medal of Arts in October, dies in New York City of prostate cancer.

The RTC sues Coopers & Lybrand, accusing the accounting firm of conducting a “grossly negligent audit” of the Lubbock, Texas-based Caprock Savings and Loan Association, which failed in 1990.

Energy Department officials reveal that weapons-grade uranium has leaked from a defunct reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and is accumulating in a filter pipe outside of the reactor building. A cleanup crew is draining water from around the pipe where the uranium has accumulated in order to prevent a chain reaction from occurring. As a precaution, officials have evacuated 40 employees who worked in an area near the filter pipe.

Nov. 23

Nov. 24

The federal Office of Research Integrity reports that it has found a former MIT student, Thereza ImanishiKari, guilty of 19 allegations of misconduct stemming from an article published April 25, 1986 in the journal Cell. Imanishi-Kari has filed an appeal of the office’s rulings.

Nov. 25

Pope John Paul II formally invests 30 new Roman Catholic cardinals in a ceremony at St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. The cardinals are selected from 24 countries and are characterized as sharing the pontiff’s conservative opinions on church doctrine.

A survey suggests that employers nationwide plan to add workers during the 1995 first quarter at the fastest rate in five years.

Nov. 22

A rare and virulent strain of Group A streptococcus bacteria, the socalled flesh-eating bacteria, kills a U.S. man in southern California.

The International Amateur Athletic Federation reinstates hurdler Danny Harris, and by doing so, it uses for the first time a rule that allows reinstatement under “exceptional circumstances.”

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 26

Nov. 27

672—November 28–December 2, 1994

Nov. 28

World Affairs

Europe

The 12-nation European Union announces it has lifted an embargo on arms sales Syria that the body, then known as the European Community, imposed in 1986 for alleged Syrian complicity in a plot to blow up an Israeli jetliner. . . . UN undersecretary general Kofi Annan announces that NATO will no longer provide close air support for UN personnel around Bihac unless the alliance is also permitted to attack Serb missile batteries.

In Bosnia-Herzegovina, data show that Serbs occupy about 20% of the safe area around Bihac town. . . . Cardinal Enrique Vicente y Tarancon, 87, archbishop of Madrid, 1971–83, dies in Valencia, Spain, of lung cancer. . . . Job actions between Iberia, Spain’s state-owned airline, and five unions halt nearly all air travel into and out of Spain.

Dec. 1

Dec. 2

The Americas

Officials state that Ethiopia’s assembly has established a parliamentary system and approved a plan that will divide the country into nine ethnically based regions. . . . Ayatollah Mohammed Ali Araki, Iran’s grand ayatollah and highest-ranking leader, or “marja taqlid” (source of emulation), of the world’s Shi’ite Muslim religion, whose age is reported as between 100 and 106, dies in Teheran, Iran, of an undisclosed illness.

Twenty-two donor nations and the World Bank agree to grant more than $200 million in aid to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) to pursue programs aimed at bolstering Palestinian support of the peace process. . . . Data shows that Bosnian Serbs have taken 450 UN peacekeepers hostage since Nov. 21. The hostages are from the Netherlands, Great Britain, Canada, Russia, Ukraine, and France. Bosnian Serbs release 43 UN peace keepers, including the British soldiers captured Nov. 26.

Bosnian and Croatian Serbs virtually surround the Muslim-held enclave of Bihac, a UN-declared “safe area.” The Croatian army clashes with Croatian Serb forces near the Dalmatian coast in the largest battle since a March cease-fire. . . . Ismajl Reka, who campaigned for the rights of ethnic Albanians in Yugoslavia, dies in a Serb prison in Kosovo. . . . Former president Ramiz Alia’s prison sentence is reduced to six years from nine years by Albania’s Supreme Court.

The Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro catches fire off the coast of Somalia. . . . A Palestinian kills a female Israeli soldier with an axe in the northern Israeli town of Afula.

At a summit meeting on AIDS in Paris, representatives from 42 industrialized and developing nations sign a declaration that calls on all countries to work more closely with each other and with a new UN program to fight AIDS. The meeting takes place on World AIDS Day, which is observed around the world, with events intended to increase awareness of the disease.

Irmgard Moeller, convicted in 1972 for the murder of three U.S. soldiers, is released from a prison in Lubeck, Germany, after serving 22 years of a life sentence. . . . Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi bows to the trade unions’ pressure by cutting out several pension reforms from his 1995 budget. . . . Leaders of the PDS, formerly the Communist Party of East Germany, go on a hunger strike to protest plans to collect PDS back taxes by confiscating party property.

Israel completes a five-tiered transfer of administrative powers to PNA authorities on the West Bank, yielding power over taxation (excluding customs duties) and health services. . . . Up to 30,000 Rwandan refugees are walking toward refugee centers in Zaire after they are forced to leave their makeshift encampments by soldiers. . . . In Burundi, violence erupts when Tutsi youths protest the election of Jean Minani, a Hutu, as parliamentary speaker.

Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León is inaugurated president of Mexico. An estimated 10,000 people gather in Mexico City to protest Zedillo’s assumption of power and the PRI’s long rule. At least 50 people reportedly are injured during clashes between police and rock-throwing protesters. . . . In Canada, Bloc Quebecois leader Lucien Bouchard’s left leg is amputated in Montreal, Quebec, after he suffers a sudden attack of necrotizing myositis.

The Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro, which caught fire Nov. 30, sinks in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Somalia. Of the 979 people on board, two passengers, both elderly men, die. The others are rescued, and eight people are reported injured.

In Guatemala, U.S. lawyer Jennifer Harbury, who launched a hunger strike in October to press for information related to her husband, a leftist Mayan guerrilla leader captured by government forces in March 1992, confirms that the government of Guatemala has ordered her to remain in the country pending the resolution of charges it brought against her for “making accusations without evidence” against the army.

UN and NATO officials state that they have suspended NATO flights enforcing a no-fly zone over Bosnia, in a move to appease Bosnian Serbs, who are holding hundreds of UN peacekeepers hostage. Members of the UN leadership in Bosnia travel to Pale, capital of the selfstyled Bosnian Serb republic.

Asia & the Pacific A general strike is called in Bombay to protest the Nov. 23 deaths in Nagpur, India.

Norwegian citizens vote against Norway’s joining the European Union in 1995. . . . Ronald (Buster) Edwards, 62, member of the gang that perpetrated Britain’s notorious “Great Train Robbery” in 1963, is found hanged to death in a London garage. . . . Iberia, Spain’s stateowned airline, and five unions come to terms on several key issues to end a series of labor strikes, which have halted nearly all air travel into and out of Spain.

Nov. 29

Nov. 30

Africa & the Middle East

Reports confirm that a Manitoba couple, Robert and Jane Sanders, have settled with the Canadian Medical Protection Association over what has come to be known as Canada’s first “wrongful life” lawsuit. The couple alleged that the results of a prenatal serum alpha fetal protein test were abnormal, although they were told otherwise. The couple said they would have aborted the fetus if they had known their son would have Down’s syndrome. Man Mohan Adhikary is sworn in as Nepal’s prime minister by King Birendra in Katmandu, the capital. He is the first communist prime minister in the nation’s history. . . . Reports confirm that Maoist guerrillas killed nine people by detonating a landmine near the town of Warangal in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, India.

A Philippine ferry, Cebu City, sinks in Manila Bay after being hit by a container ship, Kota Suria.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 28–December 2, 1994—673

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Convicted serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, who admitted to the murders of 17 young men and boys in 1992, is beaten to death in a prison in Portage, Wisconsin. . . . Philadelphia’s Mayor Edward G. Rendell (D) states that 911 operators will be disciplined for mishandling calls regarding the fatal beating of Edward Polec by a baseball batwielding group of youths. . . . Jerry Clyde Rubin, 56, a member of the “Chicago Seven,” dies of cardiac arrest after suffering from injuries sustained after being struck by a car on Nov. 15. In U.S. v. X-Citement Video, the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, to uphold a federal child pornography law contested on the ground that it is vaguely worded and violates rights protected by the First Amendment. . . George Bell Timmerman Jr., 82, segregationist Democratic governor of South Carolina, 1955–59, dies in Columbia, South Carolina, of injuries sustained in a Sept. 4 car accident.

After five hours of often impassioned debate, the House passes, 288-146, a bill to implement the Uruguay Round GATT provisions.

Former president George Bush performs the ceremonial groundbreaking for the construction of his presidential library at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. The $85 million library is scheduled to open in 1997.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Records show that congressional candidate debt totals $70.5 million. . . . Superior Court judge John Munter reduces to $3.5 million the $6.9 million in punitive damages awarded to a former secretary, Rena Weeks, in a sexual-harassment case against Baker & McKenzie, the world’s largest law firm, and against one of its former partners, Martin Greenstein.

The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield tops the bestseller list.

The Conference Board businessresearch organization reports that its index of consumer confidence stood at 101.3 points in November, up 12.2 points from its revised October level of 89.1. The surge is the largest since November 1993, when the index rose 11.4 points.

The Olympic Council of Asia announces that 11 Chinese athletes who competed in the Asian Games in October tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in random tests performed.

Data indicates that after-tax profits of U.S. corporations rose 2.8% in the third quarter from the previous quarter, to an annual rate of $330.5 billion. That compares with aftertax profits in the second quarter totaling a revised $321.4 billion annual rate. The 2.8% quarterly raise is lower than the 6.8% increase recorded in the second quarter. . . . The independent Postal Rate Commission approves the Postal Board of Governors’ March proposal to increase the price of a first-class stamp 10.3%, to 32 cents from 29 cents.

Connie Kay (born Conrad Kirnon), 67, jazz drummer, dies in New York City of cardiac arrest. . . . Lionel Stander, 86, actor, best known as Max on the TV series Hart to Hart, dies in Los Angeles of lung cancer. . . . Rap performer Tupac Shakur is shot four or five times and robbed in the lobby of a recording studio with his manager and an associate.

An NYC jury convicts a Lebanese immigrant, Rashid Baz, of murder and attempted murder stemming from the March shooting attack on a van carrying 15 Hasidic Jewish students over the Brooklyn Bridge. . . . Officials report that no charges will be brought against officials from the Bush administration in a case involving a 1992 search of the State Department passport files of rival Bill Clinton. . . . The CDC reports that deaths from drunken driving accidents decreased 31% between 1982 and 1993.

The Senate passes, 76-24, legislation to implement the Uruguay Round GATT provisions. . . . Pres. Clinton states he has approved the resumption of U.S. antidrug operations in Colombia. . . James Wold, deputy assistant secretary of defense for POW-MIA affairs, secures an agreement with Laotian officials to let North Vietnamese soldiers help U.S. officials locate the possible burial sites of missing U.S. servicemen. There are reportedly 505 U.S. servicemen listed as missing in Laos.

In Miami, Florida, U.S. District Court judge Donald Graham sentences David Paul, the former head of Miami-based CenTrust Savings Bank, to 11 years in prison and orders him to pay $60 million in restitution and a $5 million fine for his role in precipitating the collapse of CenTrust in 1990, a failure that cost taxpayers $1.7 billion. . . . The FEC approves spending rules that specifically bar congressional candidates from using campaign funds to pay for a variety of personal expenses.

A team of U.S. scientists report that for the first time they have isolated and cloned a gene in mice that causes obesity when it malfunctions. The researchers claim that they found a likely counterpart to the mouse gene in humans.

A New York State Supreme Court jury convicts rap performer Tupac Shakur and his road manager of sexually abusing a woman in November 1993. The rapper and the manager, Charles Fuller, are acquitted of more serious sodomy and weapons charges.

A U.S. District Court judge in Pensacola, Florida, sentences Paul Hill, convicted of killing Dr. John Britton and James Barrett, to two concurrent life sentences without parole for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinics Act, a 1994 federal law designed to protect abortion clinics and their staff members from violence. Hill is the first person prosecuted and sentenced under the act.

The INS announces that, because human rights in El Salvador have “improved significantly” since the civil war ended there in 1992, it will not renew a temporary amnesty program that allowed 200,000 Salvadorans to live in the U.S. . . . CIA officials distribute recently declassified copies of National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) produced by the agency between 1954 and 1984 that are believed to have been extremely influential in shaping U.S. policy during the cold war.

Transportation Secretary Federico Pena states that his department has reached an agreement with GM settling charges that certain pickup truck models manufactured between 1973 and 1987 pose substantial safety hazards. Under the settlement, GM agrees to spend $51.3 million to help fund general motor vehicle safety programs sponsored by the department. . . . According to a Labor Department survey, payrolls increased by 350,000 in November. That is nearly double the number added to the economy in October.

Pres. Clinton issues a directive stating that federal funds cannot be used to support research on human embryos created specifically for research purposes.

A Los Angeles Superior Court jury finds Heidi Fleiss, who allegedly ran an exclusive Hollywood prostitution service, guilty of pandering.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 28

Nov. 29

Nov. 30

Dec. 1

Dec. 2

674—December 3–7, 1994

World Affairs

Sir Geoffrey Rudolph Elton, 73, historian and professor who was president of the Royal Historical Society, 1972–76, and was knighted in 1986, dies.

Dec. 4

Dec. 6

Africa & the Middle East

Georgy Chanturia, leader of the opposition National Democratic Party in Georgia, is killed in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, by a gunman who fires on Chanturia’s car. Chanturia’s wife, Irina Sarishvili, who is a member of the Georgian parliament, and the driver of the car are wounded in the attack.

Dec. 3

Dec. 5

Europe

Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma signs the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Ukraine, with 1,800 nuclear warheads, is the world’s third-largest nuclear power. Ukraine’s acceptance of the treaty clears the way for the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), to be implemented. . . . At an annual meeting of Arab League environmental ministers, World Bank officials pledge that the bank will advance $1 billion a year in loans for environmental projects.

The town of Velika Kladusa in Bosnia is under heavy bombardment from Croatian Serb forces.

The 53-nation CSCE meets in Budapest, where it fails to reach a consensus on how to respond to the fighting in the former Yugoslavia. . . . Michael Portillo, the British representative on the EU’s social affairs council, vetoes two EU proposals that would have extended workers’ rights. Portillo’s veto prompt the council to announce that it will exercise its option to leave Britain out of its decisions regarding social legislation.

At an exchange of UN soldiers taken hostage, Serbs refuse to release the officer to be exchanged and seize both of the arriving UN peacekeepers. . . . Antonio Di Pietro, one of the most visible of Italy’s high-profile anticorruption magistrates, announces his resignation, maintaining that political interference does not allow him to do his job effectively. . . . In Britain, several parliamentary members of the ruling Conservative Party break ranks and vote with the opposition on a Labour Party amendment to remove a crucial VAT increase in P.M. John Major’s fiscal 1995–96 budget. Separately, Queen Elizabeth II gives permission to a Canadian company to begin exploratory oil drilling on the grounds of Windsor Castle.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) elects Sen. Maria de los Angeles Moreno as its president, making her the first woman to hold the position.

Statistics show that 37 people are dead, 453 people are rescued, and more than 100 people are still missing from the Dec. 2 sinking of a Philippine ferry, Cebu City, in Manila Bay. . . . Voters in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital, elect Chen Shui-bian, a member of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), as their mayor. It is the first time since the party was founded in 1987 that it wins the opportunity to rule and administer a major entity.

Angolan rebel leaders return to Luanda, the capital, for the first time since Angola’s civil war reignited in October 1992, to discuss details of the peace plan. . . . Said Mekbel, the editor of the Algerian daily Le Matin, becomes the third Algerian journalist killed by Muslim fundamentalists in a 72-hour period.

U.S. transportation secretary Federico Pena visits Taiwan. It is only the second time since 1979 that a cabinet-level U.S. official has gone to Taiwan.

The Mexican government negotiates a short-term agreement with opposition leaders in Chiapas, an impoverished region of southern Mexico, in an effort to avert violence.

Former Indian prime minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh announces his resignation from Parliament.

Iran’s Islamic regime, in an apparent unilateral move, appoints Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the nation’s spiritual leader, to be the “marja taqlid” (source of emulation), or supreme spiritual leader, of the world’s 100 million Shi’ite Muslims. . . . A special terrorist court in Paris sentences an Iranian, Ali Vakili Rad, 35, to life imprisonment for the 1991 assassination of former Iranian premier Shahpur Bakhtiar. The court also metes out a 10-year prison term to a second Iranian, Massoud Hendi, for complicity in the murder. A third Iranian, Zeyal Sarhadi, a great-nephew of Iran’s Pres. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, is acquitted and ordered released.

In Mexico, 1,500 peasant protesters seize the central square in the Chiapas capital, Tuxtla Gutiérrez, to secure the site for the swearing in of Amado Avendaño Figueroa of the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), the second-place finisher to Robledo in the disputed August 21 election.

Dec. 7

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 3–7, 1994—675

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Elizabeth Glaser, 47, AIDS activist who gained national attention for her emotional speech at the 1992 Democratic National Convention, in which she recounted how she contracted HIV through a 1981 blood transfusion and who cofounded the Pediatric AIDS Foundation in 1988, dies in Santa Monica, California, of complications from AIDS.

An FBI report finds that the number of serious crimes that were reported to law-enforcement agencies nationwide declined 3% in the first half of 1994.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Reports state that a rare and virulent strain of Group A streptococcus bacteria, the so-called flesheating bacteria, killed a man in Los Angeles on Nov. 27. His death raises the number of fatalities in the U.S. from the bacteria to at least five since June.

The Olympic Council states that 11 Chinese athletes who tested positive for DHT will be stripped of medals won at the Asian Games. . . . In tennis, Sweden wins the Davis Cup after taking an unbeatable 3-0 lead against Russia in the finals in Moscow.

Reports state that more than 2,000 U.S. Marines have been deployed in the Adriatic Sea in preparation for the possible withdrawal of UN peacekeeping forces from BosniaHerzegovina.

An analysis by NARAL concerns the number of abortion foes in the 104th Congress as the group identifies 218 of the 435 members of the next House as “sure” antiabortion voters and 45 certain antiabortion senators out of 100.

Nick Faldo of Britain wins golf’s Million Dollar Challenge in Sun City, South Africa. . . . The Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime achievement in the performing arts are awarded to folk singer Pete Seeger, singer Aretha Franklin, actor Kirk Douglas, theater producer and director Harold Prince, and composer Morton Gould. U.S. District Court judge George Smith throws out the Justice Department’s complex criminal antitrust case against GE, claiming that the government failed, in five weeks of testimony, to prove that the company knowingly conspired to fix prices in the worldwide industrial-diamond market. . . . Robert Palmer pleads guilty to conspiracy with Madison Guaranty to falsify documentation regarding loans made by the company in the 1980s. He is the first person prosecuted by Kenneth Starr since Starr became the Whitewater counsel in August.

The FCC conducts the first part of a massive auction for wireless-telephone service licenses. . . . Adair County, Missouri, circuit judge Bruce Normile sentences James Scott to life in prison for sabotaging a Mississippi River levee during summer 1993 floods in the Midwest in order to prevent his wife from returning home. The damaging levee breach flooded some 14,000 acres (5,700 hectares) and knocked out a bridge that inked Missouri and Illinois.

Scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center reveal images taken by the Hubble telescope that show the first clear views of the universe in its infancy.

Pres. Clinton and Vice Pres. Gore address the Democratic Leadership Council, a coalition of leading moderate and conservative Democrats that Clinton chaired before running for president in 1992. . . Florida Circuit Court judge Frank Bell sentences Paul Hill, convicted of murdering Dr. John Britton and James Barrett outside a Pensacola, Florida, abortion clinic, to death. . . . Congressional Republicans and Democrats select their party leaders in the House and Senate for the 104th Congress. As expected, Rep. Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.) and Sen. Robert Dole (R, Kans.) are nominated unopposed to the posts of House speaker and Senate majority leader, respectively. . . . The House Republican Conference causes a furor when it votes to eliminate government funding for the 28 special House caucuses known as Legislative Service Organizations (LSOs). Among the groups that will lose funding are the Congressional Black and Hispanic caucuses and the Caucus for Women’s Issues.

Claude Daniel Marks and Donna Jean Willmott, fugitives charged with plotting a prison escape for Oscar Lopez Rivera, the reputed head of the Puerto Rican separatist group Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN), surrender in Chicago. The two, indicted in 1986, were on the FBI’s 10 most-wanted list, and were living under assumed names in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at the time of their surrender, which comes after nearly a year of negotiations.

The Department of Energy announces that plutonium held at nuclear weapons facilities across the U.S. is stored in containers vulnerable to leaks and ruptures, which poses a threat to weapons facilities workers and the public. . . . Webster Hubbell pleads guilty in U.S. District Court to one felony count each of mail fraud and tax evasion. The charges are tangentially related to the Whitewater affair. . . . Treasury Secretary Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. submits his resignation to the president. Clinton announces that he will nominate Robert E. Rubin to the Treasury post. . . . Orange County, California, the U.S.’s fifth most-populous county, files for bankruptcy protection under the federal Bankruptcy Code’s Chapter 9 provisions. The filing, the result of a failed investment strategy that led to losses of about $2 billion, is one of the largest ever by a municipality. . . . In Reich v. Collins, the Supreme Court in a unanimous decision rejects an attempt by the state of Georgia to avoid paying full refunds to federal retirees whose pensions were illegally taxed by the state.

The House Republican Conference approves a broad range of changes in House rules designed to dramatically revise its lawmaking procedures. . . . A federal appeals court in San Francisco upholds an Arizona federal court ruling that struck down an amendment to Arizona’s constitution requiring state and local government employees to conduct all business in English. . . . A study finds that 44% of college students polled in 1993 admitted to “binge drinking” in the previous two weeks.

Cuban refugees at U.S.-run holding camps in Panama riot against U.S. soldiers. The Cubans, who were intercepted at sea in September while attempting to reach U.S. shores for asylum, are apparently protesting their prolonged detention amid continuing uncertainty as to their ultimate destination or political fate. . . . The CIA agrees to pay Janine M. Brookner $410,000 to settle a sexual-discrimination suit that she filed against the agency in July.

The Commerce Department closes 17% of the most heavily used fishing waters off the New England coast in an effort to restore fish populations. . . . A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., indicts Billy R. Dale, the former director of the White House travel office, on two felony counts. Dale is the first person to face charges related to a scandal involving alleged fraud at the office.

Dec. 3

Dec. 4

Dec. 5

Alun Owen, 69, best known for his screenplay for the film A Hard Day’s Night (1964), dies in London, England, of an undisclosed illness. . . . A Los Angeles Superior Court jury orders the heirs of Moe Howard, one of the original members of the Three Stooges comedy team, to pay $2.6 million to the heirs of Stooges Curly Joe DeRita and Larry Fine.

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, announces that it will display a previously unknown still life painting by Dutch-born artist Vincent van Gogh. The painting’s anonymous owner purchased the work at a flea market in France after World War II and stored it in an attic until it was appraised in 1993.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 6

Dec. 7

676—December 8–12, 1994

Dec. 8

Dec. 9

Dec. 10

Dec. 11

Dec. 12

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The UN plans the possible withdrawal of peacekeeping forces from Bosnia-Herzegovina, after weeks of harassment of UN personnel by Serbs, who hold 300 UN troops hostage to deter NATO air strikes. Bosnian Serbs release 55 Canadian hostages. Officials confirm that U.S. president Clinton, who previously was unwilling to commit U.S. ground troops to Bosnia, has pledged as many as 25,000 American soldiers to aid in the evacuation.

Serbs from Bosnia and Croatia continue their attack on the Muslim-held Bihac pocket. . . . A federal court in Ankara, Turkey, sentences eight parliament members to prison terms of up to 15 years each for maintaining ties with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a separatist group fighting a terrorist war against the Turkish government. . . . Enrique Lister (born Enrique Lister Forjan), 87, communist general who fought against Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War, dies in Madrid, Spain, after suffering from a brain hemorrhage.

Human Rights Watch assails democratic nations for placing the expansion of trade above human rights in 1994, naming Germany, France, the U.S., Japan, Canada, and Australia, and questions the UN’s policy of neutrality when “faced with genocide and mass slaughter.”. . . EU leaders discuss policies regarding the civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina and EU expansion into Eastern Europe at a summit in Essen, Germany.

Formal negotiations aimed at ending 25 years of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland begin as British officials meet publicly in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, with members of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, for the first time since 1972.

Australia’s parliament passes controversial national privacy legislation that will give consenting adults the right to have intercourse in private. The bill is designed to override the state of Tasmania’s laws against homosexual sex.

Yitzhak Rabin, Yasser Arafat, and Shimon Peres accept emblazoned gold medals in Oslo, Norway, that symbolize the shared Nobel Peace Prize that they were jointly awarded for their pivotal roles in fashioning the Israeli-PLO peace process. . . . Serb commanders release 187 French, Russian, and Ukrainian peacekeepers taken hostage in previous weeks to deter threatened NATO air strikes.

Bosnian Serb soldiers near Sarajevo hijack a UN fuel convoy at gunpoint. In another incident, Bosnian Serbs hijack vehicles carrying satellitecommunications equipment from Dutch UN troops. . . . Lord Joseph (born Keith Sinjohn Joseph), 76, Conservative member of Parliament, 1956–87, who served in several cabinet posts, including secretary of state for industry, 1979–81, dies in London, England, of complications from a stroke he suffered in 1993.

A new Japanese political party, the New Frontier Party (NFP), is formally launched in Yokohama. With 214 members in the lower house of the Diet, the NFP is the secondlargest party overall and the leading opposition group to the ruling coalition of Premier Tomiichi Murayama.

Leaders from 34 Western Hemisphere nations close the Summit of the Americas, during which they agreed to take steps to establish a comprehensive free-trade body by the year 2005. The proposed formal trading zone, known as the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), will be the world’s largest, encompassing 850 million people. . . . Chile, South America’s most advanced economy in terms of trade liberalization, is invited to join NAFTA.

Russian army forces invade the breakaway republic of Chechnya in southern Russia. . . . Croatian Serbs block Lt. Gen. Sir Michael Rose, commander of UN forces in Bosnia, from passing through Croatian territory to visit Bangladeshi peacekeepers trapped in the Bihac region. . . . Stanislaw Maczek, 102, Polish military commander during World War II, dies in Edinburgh, Scotland of an undisclosed illness.

Israel and Jordan open embassies in each other’s countries, marking a further step toward normalized relations.

Reports confirm that the World Bank has launched a $4 million program, called Seeds of Hope, to revive agriculture in Rwanda by restocking the country’s seed supply. . . . Peter Piot, a Belgian scientist and associate director of WHO’s global program on AIDS since 1992, is named to head a new UN office designed to coordinate the efforts of six international organizations working on AIDS research, treatment, and prevention.

Serb missiles attack a UN armored personnel carrier in the Bihac area where Bangladeshi peacekeepers are being held hostage.

Liberian rebels shell African peacekeepers in Monrovia, in what is the first fighting in the capital city since January 1993.

The ruling South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) wins Namibia’s first post-independence elections. . . . Israel Aaron Maisels, 89, South African attorney who successfully defended 157 antiapartheid protesters, including current South African president Nelson Mandela, dies in Johannesburg.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The officially declared winner of gubernatorial elections in the Mexican state of Chiapas, Eduardo Robledo Rincón of the ruling PRI, is sworn in amid renewed threats of armed conflict by the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN). Opponents of the Robledo inauguration, claiming electoral fraud, administer the gubernatorial oath to Amado Avendaño Figueroa of the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), the secondplace finisher to Robledo in the disputed Aug. 21 election.

A fire breaks out in a theater in Karamay, northwest China, killing more than 300 people, mostly schoolchildren and teachers. . . . Japan’s ruling coalition ratifies World Trade Organization establishment bills.

A bomb explodes aboard a Philippines Airlines jet, killing one passenger and wounding at least six others. The plane, carrying more than 290 passengers and crew, lands safely in Okinawa, Japan. The Philippines’ Abu Sayyaf Muslim separatist group claims responsibility. . . . Yao Yilin, 77, hard-line conservative Chinese government official who held several senior economic posts after the communists came to power in 1949, dies in Beijing of an undisclosed cause.

Brazil’s Supreme Court finds former president Fernando Collor de Mello not guilty of a corruption charge in connection with his alleged ties to a multimillion-dollar influence-peddling ring that purportedly operated during his presidential reign. Separately, President-elect Fernando Henrique Cardoso wins the backing of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (PMDB), the country’s largest political party.

Gen. Chatichai Choonhavan, former premier of Thailand and leader of the Chart Pattana (National Development) party, agrees to bring his party—which holds 60 parliamentary seats—into the coalition government of Premier Chuan Leekpai. The move enables Chuan’s coalition to retain its parliamentary majority. . . . In India, Andhra Pradesh state bans the sale of alcohol.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 8–12, 1994—677

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Gregory Resnover, 43, sentenced to death for killing a police sergeant in Indianapolis, Indiana, is executed in the electric chair in Michigan City, Indiana. He is the third person executed in Indiana and the 256th in the U.S. since 1976. . . . The Florida Supreme Court upholds a lower court’s ruling that struck down as unconstitutional a state law prohibiting the publication of rape victims’ names.

The riots started Dec. 7 by Cuban refugees at U.S.-run holding camps in Panama leave 221 service personnel and 28 Cubans injured. . . . The U.S. Postal Service, bowing to pressure from the administration of Pres. Clinton, abandons plans for a stamp depicting the U.S.’s 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese government and other critics complained about the use of the emotional image. . . . Pres. Clinton signs legislation to implement the Uruguay Round GATT provisions, a sweeping global tariff-cutting pact.

U.S. Economy & Environment

A crowd of Cuban Americans, estimated at larger than 60,000, gather in Miami’s Orange Bowl stadium for a rally in support of the embargo against Cuba.

Reports confirm that the American Medical Association has changed its stance on health-care reform and will no longer demand that reform plans immediately guarantee health insurance to all Americans. . . . The Arizona chapter of the ACLU names former senator Barry M. Goldwater (R, Ariz.) its Civil Libertarian of the Year for 1994.

U.S. troops stage sweeps through U.S.-run holding camps for Cuban refugees in Panama, arresting 435 Cubans suspected of fueling the Dec. 7 rioting. . . . (David) Kenneth Rush, 84, U.S. ambassador to West Germany, 1969–72, who helped negotiate the historic 1971 Quadripartite Berlin Agreement, dies in Florida of complications from heart and blood ailments.

A survey shows that illegal drug use among teenagers continued to rise in 1994. . . . The Census Bureau reports that just over 20% of U.S. households moved into a new residence in the 15 months before the 1990 census. . . . A Jefferson County, Kentucky, circuit court jury rejects a lawsuit claiming that the antidepressant Prozac caused Joseph Wesbecker to go on a 1989 shooting rampage that left nine of his former coworkers dead and 13 wounded before he killed himself.

In Brown v. Gardner, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that veterans are entitled to compensation for injuries that result from medical treatment given to them by the VA, even if the care is not negligent. . . . INS officials state that stepped-up patrolling along a 14mile (22-km) stretch of California’s border with Mexico that began Oct. 1 appeared to halve the number of attempted illegal crossings into the U.S. from Mexico. However, illegal crossing attempts increased in adjacent less-guarded parts of the U.S.Mexican border.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Antonio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim, 67, Brazilian musician who helped popularize the bassa nova sound during the 1960s and was inducted into the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame in 1991, dies of heart failure in New York City.

Regents at Texas Woman’s University in Fort Worth, Texas, vote to admit men to all its undergraduate degree programs. . . . Dr. Joycelyn Elders, the U.S. surgeon general, steps down after Pres. Clinton demands her resignation. Elders came under fire after she made remarks that were widely interpreted as an endorsement of teaching schoolchildren about masturbation.

Statistics shows that Republican candidates in House elections in November won 33.2 million votes, or 51.3% of all House votes cast, to 30.2 million and 46.6% for Democrats. . . . Thomas J. Mosser, a top advertising executive, is killed in North Caldwell, New Jersey, by a mail bomb that the FBI claims was sent by the same person responsible for 14 other bombing incidents since 1978. The serial bomber, called Unabomber by authorities, is now blamed for killing two men and wounding 23.

Science, Technology, & Nature

An asteroid about 20–43 feet (6–13 m) in diameter comes within 65,000 miles (105,000 km) of Earth. The asteroid, designated 1994 XM1, is discovered by James V. Scotti, a University of Arizona astronomer.

A Los Angeles civil court jury orders pop singer Rick James to pay $1.8 million in compensatory damages to Mary Sauger, a woman he was convicted of imprisoning and assaulting in a hotel room in 1992.

Researchers state they have identified a previously unknown source of a new strain of the rare and often fatal hantavirus, ending a search for the source of the hantavirus that killed David Rosenberg, 22, of Providence, Rhode Island, in January. The new strain was found in the white-footed mouse. At least 50 people have died from hantavirus infections since it emerged in the Southwest in the spring of 1993.

Brian Boitano and Kristi Yamaguchi win the men’s and women’s title events at the 1994 World Professional Figure Skating Championships. . . . University of Colorado junior running back Rashaan Salaam is named the winner of college football’s 60th Heisman Trophy.

Dec. 8

Dec. 9

Dec. 10

Dec. 11

The Tennessee Valley Authority, one of the nation’s largest utilities, announces that it will halt construction on three nuclear reactors due to its rising debt. They are the last nuclear power plants under construction in the U.S. . . . In Nebraska v. Loewenstein, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that income earned from mutual funds that is invested in federal securities through repurchase agreements may be taxed by states.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. announces that the FDA has approved for the first time the use of a semisynthetic version of the drug Taxol, which is used to fight breast and ovarian cancer. The new version of the drug is manufactured without using materials from the endangered Pacific yew tree. . . . Robert Crippen, director of the Kennedy Space Center, announces that he will retire. . . . Stuart Allen Roosa, 61, astronaut who piloted the Apollo 14 command module during its 1971 lunar mission, dies in Falls Church, Virginia, of complications from pancreatitis.

Dec. 12

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

678—December 13–17, 1994

Dec. 13

Dec. 14

Dec. 15

Europe

An International Investment Forum in Belfast, Northern Ireland, attracts 270 delegates and potential investors from around the world. The forum is intended to boost investors’ confidence in the Ulster economy following the IRA ceasefire.

Russian troops begin shelling the outskirts of Grozny in Chechnya. . . . Slovak nationalist Vladimir Meciar is sworn in as premier. . . . French police arrest 42 people who are linked to the Order of the Solar Temple, a religious cult involved in a mass ritual of suicides and slayings that left 53 cult members dead in Switzerland and Canada in October. . . . Czech police in Prague seize more than 6 pounds (3 kg) of weapons-grade uranium.

The Paris Club of Western donors pledges $800 million in assistance to Kenya.

Chechen separatists shoot down a Russian helicopter 25 miles west of Grozny, killing both the pilot and copilot. Chechens reportedly take dozens of Russian soldiers prisoner. Peace talks between the two sides collapse. The Russian parliament passes a resolution criticizing Pres. Boris Yeltsin’s decision to use military force in Chechnya.

About 1,800 UN troops join with 1,500 Rwandan government troops to raid a refugee camp in southwest Rwanda, apparently in an attempt to disarm Hutu refugees suspected in violent acts. However, the main suspects reportedly flee before the troops arrive.

Muslim leaders of the 52-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference issue a communiqué that decries “extremism and religious fanaticism” and condemns terrorism as “a blatant disgrace to Islamic teachings and a violation of our values, culture and heritage.” It also praises the Arab-Israeli peace process and urges Iraq to honor UN resolutions relating to Iraq’s 1990–91 occupation of Kuwait. Conference participants pledge at least $300,000 to a fund to aid the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Data shows that clashes between Russian forces and Chechen rebels that started Dec. 11 have left as many as 70 Russian soldiers and 50 Chechen civilians dead . . . In Belfast, representatives of unionist paramilitary organizations meet with British officials. . . . A German federal court overturns a one-year suspended sentence for neo-Nazi leader Guenther Deckert and orders a regional court in Karlsruhe to hand down a stricter sentence. . . . A new governing coalition in the Dail elects John Bruton as Ireland’s new prime minister.

Up to 48 civilians are hacked and burned to death by rebel forces in Liberia. . . . Reports indicate that government forces in Angola attacked Chivala, a stronghold of the rebel National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) east of Jamba. Hundreds of people were killed or wounded in the raid, considered the most serious violation yet of a Nov. 20 treaty.

The Americas

The presidents of four South American nations—Brazil’s Itamar Franco, Argentina’s Carlos Saul Menem, Paraguay’s Juan Carlos Wasmosy, and Uruguay’s Luis Alberto Lacalle—meet in Ouro Preto, Brazil, to sign a pact formally joining their nations in a trade zone that will become the world’s second-largest customs union when it takes effect on January 1, 1995.

Asia & the Pacific Figures show that the unemployment rate in China’s major cities stands at 17%, while the rate is as high as 37% in certain rural areas. An estimated 12 million people in the country’s largest cities live below the official poverty line.

The Casino Control Authority of the Australian state of New South Wales clears the Sydney Harbour Casino consortium to build and operate Sydney’s first legal casino.

Bosnian Serbs announce that the airport in Sarajevo will be allowed to reopen after being closed since Nov. 21 because of Serb threats to attack planes with surface-to-air missiles.

Dec. 16

Dec. 17

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

A court in Beijing, China’s capital, sentences nine dissidents to prison terms for “spreading counterrevolutionary propaganda” since they attempted to mark the anniversary of the Chinese government’s crackdown on prodemocracy protesters in June 1989. Hu Shigen, 39, a lecturer at a Beijing university, is given the longest sentence—20 years. Other terms range from three to 17 years.

In South Africa, the ruling African National Congress holds its 49th national conference and its first since winning elections in April.

A U.S. Army reconnaissance helicopter goes down near Kungang, North Korea, about three miles (five km) north of the heavily armed demilitarized zone separating that country from South Korea. One of the two pilots aboard the helicopter, Chief Warrant Officer David Hilemon, is killed in the incident, which prompts a diplomatic crisis between the U.S. and North Korea.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 13–17, 1994—679

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

In a case involving as many as 60,000 present and former nonsmoking flight attendants, health problems caused by secondhand smoke is accepted for the first time as grounds for a class-action suit. . . . The Michigan Supreme Court reverses a lower-court ruling by upholding the constitutionality of the ban on assisted suicides. . . . Glenn Malcolm Anderson, 81, who served in Congress (D, Calif.), 1968–92, dies in Los Angeles of complications from Alzheimer’s disease.

Some 500 U.S. soldiers are airlifted to Panama to bolster the 2,000 U.S. troops already guarding the 8,480 Cubans detained in the Panama camps where a riot broke out Dec. 7.

A blast at a fertilizer plant near Sioux City, Iowa, kills five people and injures at least 15. The explosion releases a potentially harmful cloud of ammonia gas, prompting the evacuation of 1,700 people.

An American Eagle commuter flight crashes while approaching the Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina. Fifteen of the plane’s 20 passengers and crew die.

In Los Angeles, U.S. District Court judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer issues a preliminary injunction that prevents California from enacting most of Proposition 187, an initiative that sought to rescind illegal immigrants’ rights to state benefits. . . . Orval Eugene, Faubus, 84, governor (D, Ark.), 1955–67, best known for defying federal desegregation orders in 1957 to prevent black students from entering Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, dies in Conway, Arkansas, after suffering from cancer.

The U.S. Navy announces that four male instructors at the San Diego Naval Training Center will be courtmartialed on charges of sexual harassment, dereliction of duty, and indecent assault. The charges involve alleged harassment of 16 enlisted women, ages 18–21, who were students at the center’s communications school. Six other male instructors were fined, demoted, or confined to quarters for sexual harassment of the female recruits or for failing to report harassment.

The Northwest Power Planning Council, a panel that manages fish and wildlife protection programs and sets hydroelectric power policies for Idaho, Oregon, Montana, and Washington State, approves a plan that will rebuild the region’s declining salmon stocks by modifying dam operations on the Snake and Columbia rivers. . . . The FEC instructs the 1992 reelection campaign of Pres. George Bush and Vice Pres. Dan Quayle to return $842,000 to the government.

Reports confirm that scientists found in Wollemi National Park, northwest of Sydney, Australia, a 1.2 acre (0.5 hectare) grove of tall conifers that are said to be living fossils from an era in which dinosaurs lived. Only 23 adult trees and 16 juveniles are found, making the pines among the world’s rarest plants.

Pioneering sex researcher William Masters, 78, states he is retiring and will close the Masters and Johnson Institute, which he cofounded in 1954 with Virginia Johnson. . . . The British Athletic Federation finds runner Diane Modahl guilty of taking performance-enhancing drugs and suspends her from competition for four years.

The Clinton administration and California governor Pete Wilson (R) announce they have signed an accord that will protect the water and wildlife in the San Francisco Bay and its Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta, resolving decades of conflict. . . . The FEC rules that Pres. Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign committee received federal matching funds to which it was not entitled and is required to return more than $1 million to the government.

Jay Honeycutt, is named to replace Robert L. Crippen as director of the Kennedy Space Center.

Reports state that a Los Angeles civil court jury has ordered pop singer Rick James to pay $225,000 in punitive damages to Mary Sauger, a woman he was convicted of imprisoning and assaulting in a hotel room in 1992.

The CDC notes that the average life expectancy in the U.S. rose to a record-high 75.8 years in 1992, up from 75.5 in 1991. . . . Washington State officials charge a state trooper, Lane Jackstadt, with unlawful imprisonment and official misconduct for detaining Deanna Thomas and Justin Cooper, who were on their way to an abortion clinic. . . . Dee Dee Myers, the first woman and the youngest person ever to serve as White House press secretary, confirms she has resigned.

Indiana becomes one of 26 states granted waivers by the federal government to make welfare changes. . . . Vincent Biviano, a man facing molestation charges, is charged with attempting to hire a hitman to kill his five-yearold accuser to prevent her testimony. . . . The Connecticut State Supreme Court upholds the reelection of Rep. Sam Gejdenson (D), claiming that he won by 21 votes out of 186,000 cast.

The DEA claims a two-year-long drug money-laundering investigation has established direct links between Colombia’s Cali drug cartel and Italian organized-crime groups. The sting resulted in the arrests of more than 90 people and netted 9 tons of cocaine, $39 million in cash, and valuable artworks . . . . Defense Department officials announce that Pres. Clinton has agreed to send 3,000 marine troops to assist in the withdrawal of UN forces from Somalia.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Dec. 13

Researchers from Columbia University report they have found traces of an unknown virus in tissue samples of a cancer that afflicts 15–20% of people with AIDS. The often-fatal cancer, called Kaposi’s sarcoma, is 20 times more likely to develop in gay or bisexual men with AIDS than in hemophiliac men with AIDS. The discovery suggests that a sexually transmitted virus causes the cancer.

At least four small-caliber bullets are fired at the south face of the White House, apparently from long range. No one is injured. It is the third breach of the White House security perimeter in three months. . . . . Barbara Webb, 68, who is believed to have been infected with HIV by her dentist, David Acer, dies of AIDS in Stuart, Florida. She is Acer’s fourth patient to die of AIDS complications.

Dec. 14

Dec. 15

Dec. 16

Samuel Lipman, 60, pianist who, as a member of the National Council on the Arts, 1982–88, sought to steer government arts funding away from avant-garde artists, dies in New York City of leukemia.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 17

680—December 18–22, 1994

World Affairs

Dec. 19

Dec. 21

Dec. 22

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter travels to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Serb forces fire mortars at Sarajevo, wounding a French UN soldier. . . . An alleged Provisional IRA bomb is discovered in a store in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland. British police defuse the bomb, which reportedly contains 2 pounds (0.9 kg) of Semtex, a commercial explosive. . . . The Bulgarian Socialist Party, formerly the Communist Party, wins an estimated 125 seats in Bulgaria’s 240-member parliament.

Dec. 18

Dec. 20

Europe

China acknowledges that it will fail to meet its year-end deadline to reach agreements with other major trading economies regarding reentry into GATT. The admission essentially dashes China’s hopes to be a founding member in 1995 of the World Trade Organization, GATT’s planned successor body. . . . Reports state Israel and 12 Arab countries have agreed on steps to ease Arab-Israeli tensions. . . . The World Bank announces that it will provide a $40 million loan to Haiti to finance the purchase of emergency supplies.

The World Bank approves a $500 million loan to Ukraine to help the country move toward a market economy. . . . EU ministers vote to allow Spanish fishermen access to the Celtic Sea, which is between southeast Ireland and southwest Britain, but denies them access to the Irish Sea and the Bristol Channel. . . . European Union ministers formally approve GATT’s Uruguay Round provisions, enabling the EU to meet the deadline for being a charter member of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

North Korea announces that its forces downed the U.S. aircraft near Kungang on Dec. 17 and confirm that Chief Warrant Officer David Hilemon is dead. The other pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Hall, reportedly is unharmed. . . . Reports suggest that D. Sasikumaran, a senior scientist in India’s rocket program and a suspect in India’s largest spy case, has been charged with gaining $100,000 in profits from a sex, money, and secrets scandal.

The IRA denies that they planted the bomb found Dec. 18. British officials and representatives of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, agree to continue their ongoing peace talks.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees discloses that it has reversed policy and will again assist Rwandan refugees who wish to return home, though it will not encourage them to do so.

In Mexico, pro-EZLN troops slip through army cordons to occupy dozens of towns and villages and block highways in Chiapas. . . . Pedro Affonso Collor de Mello, who in 1992, advanced the initial allegations that linked his brother, Fernando Collor, to an influencepeddling scheme, prompting the chain of events that led to Fernando Collor’s ouster as president, dies of brain cancer in New York City.

After meeting with Bosnian government officials in Sarajevo and with Bosnian Serb leaders in Pale, former US. president Jimmy Carter announces that a cease-fire agreement has been reached. The cease-fire is scheduled to begin Dec. 23 and last for four months. . . . In Spain, Judge Baltasar Garzon orders the imprisonment of Julian Sancristobal, director general of state security, 1984–86, on counts of attempted murder, kidnapping and misuse of public funds.

At least eight people are killed as rival clans fight in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. . . . The government of Bahrain reveals that Shi’ite Muslims opposed to the monarchy staged public protests during the previous two weeks. The government admits that one police officer was killed, and protesters disclose that nine civilians died in clashes between demonstrators and security officials.

In Mexico, the EZLN quickly withdraws fighters who occupied locations in Chiapas Dec. 19 as several hundred government troops enter the area. . . . The Cuban government announces that a “convertible peso”—with a fixed value of one U.S. dollar—has been placed in circulation for use in international transactions. . . . The Mexican government effectively devalues Mexico’s currency, the peso, when it allows the peso to plunge by 13% against the U.S. dollar.

The European Commission imposes record fines of $1.92 billion on member states for not monitoring misuse of EU farm funds within their countries. Italy, Spain, Germany, and Greece receive the heaviest fines.

Asia & the Pacific

Warring factions in Liberia sign a peace agreement in Ghana aimed at ending Liberia’s civil war. . . . A car bomb in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, kills three people, including Fuad Mughniyeh, a member of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah group and brother of Imad Mughniyeh, the suspected mastermind of the kidnapping of Terry Waite, Terry Anderson, and other Westerners in the 1980s.

Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi resigns to avoid three probable noconfidence votes in Parliament. . . . Statistics show that support for Britain’s ruling Conservative Party has reached the lowest level ever recorded, with only 8% of voters surveyed stating that they are satisfied with the way the government is running the country. . . . A 51-yearold former East German border guard, identified only as Guenter D., is handed an 18-month suspended sentence for his role in the 1965 slaying of two East Germans attempting to flee to West Germany.

Nepal’s Prime Minister Man Mohan Adhikary wins a vote of confidence. . . . Three members of the cabinet of Indian prime minister P. V. Narasimha Rao resign after they are implicated in two separate billion-dollar corruption scandals.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 18–22, 1994—681

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Bradford Morse, 73, six-term Republican congressman from Massachusetts, 1960–72, before he resigned from Congress to join the United Nations, dies in Naples, Florida, of an undisclosed illness.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Laura Davies of Britain wins the Australian Masters in Gold Coast to become the first golfer to win on five tours in one year (Australian, LPGA, European, Japanese, and Asian).

Pres. Clinton and Atty. Gen. Janet Reno name Joseph Brann, the chief of police in Hayward, California, to head the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program. . . . Members of the U.S. Conference of Mayors report that requests for emergency shelter and food aid rose sharply in cities over the past year, and warn that many cities lack the resources to help all people in need.

The U.S. Air Force announces that Captain Jim Wang, who was in charge of controllers aboard an AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) radar plane involved in the April downing of two U.S. Army helicopters over northern Iraq, will be court-martialed for his role in the incident. . . . Defense Department officials suggest that the pilots who crashed in North Korea on Dec. 17 accidentally guided the aircraft across the demilitarized zone.

Pres. Clinton outlines a “middleclass bill of rights” that includes tax cuts for middle-income families that will total $60 billion over five years. . . . The EPA approves an automobile-emissions program for 12 Northeast states and the District of Columbia. . . . Edward John De Bartolo Sr. (born Anthony Paonessa), 85, real-estate developer among the first to build suburban shopping malls, dies in Youngstown, Ohio of complications from pneumonia.

California governor Pete Wilson (R) files a lawsuit in U.S. district court in San Francisco, California, that seeks to prevent the federal government from forcing California and other states to implement the 1993 National Voter Registration Act. . . . A U.S. Park Police officer shoots a homeless man, Marcelino Corniel, in front of the White House when Corniel brandishes a foot-long hunting knife at other officers . . . . (David) Dean Rusk, 85, U.S. secretary of state, 1961–69, dies in Athens, Georgia, of congestive heart failure.

Judge Edward B. Davis of U.S. District Court in Miami, Florida, dismisses a $1 billion lawsuit that Florida brought against the U.S. government in April for reimbursement of the state’s yearly expenditures on social services supplied to illegal immigrants.

Former representative Carl C. Perkins (D, Ky.) pleads guilty in District Court. to three felony counts related to bank-fraud and campaign-finance violations. The charges reportedly arose from the Justice Department’s investigation of abuses of check-cashing privileges at the House Bank. . . . The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. recorded a $10.14 billion deficit in trade in goods and services in October. That is the secondlargest monthly trade deficit ever and is up from a revised gap of $9.4 billion in September.

Marcelino Corniel, a homeless man shot after wielding a knife in front of the White House on Dec. 20, dies of complications from his wounds at George Washington University Medical Center. . . . A homemade firebomb goes off aboard a New York City subway car, injuring more than 40 passengers.

David Gergen steps down from his post as a special adviser to Pres. Clinton and to the State Department on foreign policy.

Judge William Dwyer of District Court in Seattle, Washington, declares that the Clinton administration’s forest-reform and logging plan for the Pacific Northwest region is legal. . . . The FEC announces that Prudential Securities Inc. has agreed to pay a $550,000 fine—the largest civil settlement in FEC history—to settle allegations that it illegally raised $250,000 for nine House and Senate candidates between 1986 and 1993.

Ernie Els of South Africa is named PGA European tour player of 1994.

The CDC reports that 25% of U.S. adults, or 46 million people, are “current smokers,” down from 26.3%, or 48 million people, in 1992. The survey also shows that 70% of the adults who smoke want to quit, but only about 1 million, or 8%, of the more than 15 million who tried to quit are successful. . . . The CDC finds that the percentage of pregnancies in the U.S. ended by legal abortions in 1992 was the lowest since 1977. In 1992, there were 1,359,145 legal abortions, down 2.1% from 1991.

North Korea returns the body of Chief Warrant Officer David Hilemon, shot down Dec. 17, to U.S. officials after a meeting at the truce village of Panmunjon on the border between North and South Korea.

Bankers Trust New York Corp. agrees to pay a $10 million fine settling charges by the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that it misled a major client, Gibson Greetings Inc., on certain key investment decisions centered on derivatives contracts.

Controversy erupts over reports of a $4 million advance offered by HarperCollins Publishing to House Speaker-elect Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.) for a book of conservative political and social philosophy.

Politically Correct Bedtime Stories by James Finn Garner is at the top of the bestseller list.

Intel Corp. offers to replace free of charge all Pentium-model computer chips currently installed in more than 4 million computers nationwide. The offer is made to combat growing uncertainty as to the chips’ accuracy amidst reports of a major flaw involving numbers with several digits.

Robert Chesley Osborn, 90, caricaturist known for his drawings in the New Republic, dies in Salisbury, Connecticut, of complications from bone cancer. . . . Reports state that Random House has bought the rights to publish A Long Fatal Love Chase, an unpublished manuscript by author Louisa May Alcott, which was rejected by a publisher in 1866.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 18

Dec. 19

Dec. 20

Dec. 21

Dec. 22

682—December 23–28, 1994

Dec. 23

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The UN announces that it will pay $210,800 to Catherine Claxton, an American employee at its headquarters in New York City. for damages and legal fees related to her sexual-harassment allegations against Argentinian Luis Maria Gomez, a senior UN diplomat. The payment settles what is said to be the first formal harassment case in the history of the international body.

Mario Conde, former chairman of Spain’s Banco Espanol de Credito (Banesto), is arrested for allegedly embezzling more than $53 million from the bank.

Looting is reported in the capital of Burundi, Bujumbura, and up to 30 people have been killed in ethnic fighting between members of the Hutu and Tutsi tribes in the previous week. . . . Hezbollah guerrillas attack Israeli troops in Israel’s self-declared security zone in southern Lebanon. Two Israeli soldiers reportedly die in the attack. Israel launches retaliatory air strikes against suspected Hezbollah positions in the area.

John James Osborne, 65, British playwright who first won acclaim in the 1950s, dies in Shrewsbury, England, of complications from diabetes. . . . Rossano Brazzi, 78, Italian-born actor who appeared in more than 200 films, dies in Rome of an unidentified neurological virus.

The leader of Burundi’s Union for National Progress, the main party representing the Tutsi tribe, states that his party is quitting the coalition government set up Sept. 10. . . . Four armed Islamic fundamentalists commandeer a plane in Algiers, the capital of Algeria, as the plane prepares take off for Paris. The hijackers demand to fly to France. They kill an Algerian and a Vietnamese passenger.

Pierre Dreyfus, 87, chairman of the French automobile maker Renault S.A., 1955–75, dies in Paris.

Ayman Radi, 21, a Palestinian suicide bomber in Jerusalem, injures 13 people and kills himself when his explosives detonate near a bus carrying Israeli soldiers. . . . The four Islamic fundamentalists who commandeered a plane in Algiers Dec. 24 kill an employee of the French embassy. The move prompts Algerian president Lamine Zeroual to allow the plane to leave for France.

French antiterrorist police storm a plane hijacked Dec. 24 after it lands at the Marseilles, France, airport, killing all four armed Islamic fundamentalists who commandeered the plane and freeing about 170 passengers and crew. Sixteen passengers and crew and nine policemen are wounded. . . . Unofficial results from Uzbekistan’s first multiparty election give the ruling Democratic Party, formerly the Communist Party, 30% of the seats. . . . Karl Schiller, 83, West German economics minister during the 1960s and 1970s, dies in Hamburg, Germany, of complications from abdominal hemorrhaging.

The Israeli Knesset votes authorize a law that bars the PNA to the PLO from setting up operations in Israel, including Arab East Jerusalem.

Peter Barker Howard May, 64, captain of the English national cricket team, 1955–61, who was considered one of the finest cricket batsmen in the history of the sport, dies. . . . Fanny Cradock (born Phyllis Primrose-Pechey), 85, popular British TV personality who cohosted cooking shows from the 1950s through the 1980s, dies in East Sussex, England.

Four Roman Catholic priests, three of them French and one Belgian, are killed in Tizi-Ouzou, Algeria.

Dec. 24

Dec. 25

Dec. 26

Dec. 27

The Americas

South Korean president Kim Young Sam announces his most significant cabinet reshuffle since taking office in February 1993. Fifteen of 22 cabinet members are replaced in the shift. . . . Reports suggest that Wang Dan, 25, a Chinese dissident who played a major role in the 1989 prodemocracy movement, has gone into hiding.

The Mexican government deploys troops to two villages within the EZLN’s Lacandon jungle stronghold.

Zail Singh, 78, president of India, 1982–87, dies in Chandigarh, India, of injuries he suffered in an automobile accident Nov. 29.

The Armed Islamic Group claims responsibility for the Dec. 27 slayings of four Roman Catholic priests in Tizi-Ouzou, Algeria. The group indicates that the priests’ murders were in retaliation for the Islamic hijackers’ slayings Dec. 26 in France.

Dec. 28

Asia & the Pacific

In Bangladesh, 147 of the 154 opposition members of Parliament resign from the legislature as part of a 10month-long campaign aimed at forcing Prime Minister Khaleda Zia from office.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 23–28, 1994—683

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The FDA states it has approved a test that detects HIV by using fluid from the mouth. The saliva tests are to be available only to physicians. . . . A preliminary market survey indicates that, for the first time, Compaq Computer Corp. is the worldwide leader in 1994 in number of computers shipped. Longtime leader IBM’s market share in 1994 was 8.7%, down from 11.1% in 1993.

Data shows that the 1993 worldwide auction sale totals for Christie’s and Sotheby’s were $1.26 billion and $1.3 billion, respectively. . . . MLB owners declare an impasse in the five-month-old players strike and unilaterally impose a salary cap.

Julie Haydon, 84, stage actress, dies in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, of abdominal cancer. . . . John Eastburn Boswell, 47, professor whose pioneering work argued that homosexuality was widely tolerated in medieval Europe and who won the 1981 American Book Award for history, dies in New Haven, Connecticut, of complications from AIDS.

Milton Pitts, 82, barber who styled the hair of Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and George Bush, dies in Washington, D.C., of heart failure.

A federal judge in Salem, Oregon, bars Oregon from putting into effect the nation’s only assisted-suicide law until a court rules on its constitutionality. The statute, Measure 16, was approved by voters on Nov. 8. . . . In Maryland, state legislator Ellen Sauerbrey (R) files suit to overturn election results, claiming voter fraud, in the race for governor against Parris Glendening (D), who is said to have won by a margin of 5,993 votes out of 1.4 million cast.

In Little Rock, Arkansas, federal district judge Susan Webber Wright rules that a sexual-harassment lawsuit filed against Pres. Clinton by Paula Corbin Jones may not be brought to trial until after Clinton leaves office. However, Jones’s attorneys may proceed with pretrial, fact-finding elements of the case that may include questioning the president. . . . The Census Department notes that the population of Texas grew 2% in 1994, to 18.4 million, making it the second most-populous U.S. state behind California.

CIA director R. James Woolsey Jr. announces his resignation, effective at the end of the year. . . . A group of Peruvian Indians file a class-action lawsuit in New York City against the U.S. oil company Texaco Inc. for $1 billion in damages. The federal suit alleges that the oil company improperly disposed of oil at its Ecuadoran operations and that the oil traveled by river into Peru.

FEC figures suggest that congressional candidates spent a record total of $589.5 million in the two-year campaign cycle that ended with the 1994 elections. Total spending was 17% higher than in the 1992 campaign season.

Time magazine names Pope John Paul II its “Man of the Year” for his “rectitude” and his success in getting his message to the masses.

Officials state that the Mason Tenders District Council of Greater New York have agreed to allow a court-appointed investigator to monitor new union leadership elections and oversee the union’s $270 million benefits fund. . . . The Conference Board reports that its index of consumer confidence stood at 102.2 in December, up from the November revised level of 100.4. The December level is the highest since the most recent recession began in 1990.

Allie (Albert Pierce) Reynolds, 79, pitcher for the New York Yankees baseball team, dies of complications from lymphoma and diabetes. . . . Data shows that Forrest Gump, with a gross of $297.2 million, is the top-grossing film of 1994.

The Coast Guard begins imposing a new federal regulation that requires oil tankers entering U.S. waters to have “certificates of financial responsibility,” known as COFRs, that prove that the ship’s owner can pay as much as $400 million in damages if the vessel were involved in an oil spill. The new regulation stems from a 1990 law enacted after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. . . . Dan Glickman is nominated by Pres. Clinton to become the new agriculture secretary.

Reports confirm that members of the U.S. intelligence community use a computer network called Intelink to share classified texts, satellite and photographic imagery, and other data with one another.

Dec. 23

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

684—December 29–31, 1994

Dec. 29

Dec. 30

World Affairs

Europe

The World Bank finds that Switzerland is the world’s wealthiest nation when using the traditional measure of economic output per person. The other top nations are Luxembourg, Japan, Denmark, and Norway. In terms of purchasing power parity, a new method, Luxembourg tops the list, followed by the U.S., Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar.

Russian air raids destroy an oil refinery west of Grozny, the capital of the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya, causing a massive fire. . . . Yelena Bonner, widow of dissident Andrei Sakharov, resigns from Pres. Yeltsin’s presidential commission on human rights in protest of military action regarding the Chechen rebellion.

World financial statistics show that the Nikkei average on the Tokyo Stock Exchange rose during 1994, closing at 19,723.06, up 13% from the 1993 year-end figure. Germany’s Frankfurt exchange DAX index was down about 7% from the 1993 year-end close, while in France the Paris Bourse’s CAC-40 index closes the year at 1881.15, down about 17% from the 1993 close of 2268.68. In Britain, the London Stock Exchange’s Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100 index closes the year at 3065.5, down nearly 11% from its 1993 year-end close.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Bangladeshi prime minister Khaleda Zia announces that she will step down before general elections scheduled for 1996. Zia’s announcement comes after a 10month-long campaign by the opposition party aimed at forcing her from office.

Israeli troops battle a crowd of Palestinian and Jewish protesters demonstrating against the government’s planned construction of 500 housing units linked to the Jewish settlement of Efrat, in the West Bank village of Al-Khader, south of Bethlehem.

Russian forces launch a full-scale offensive on Grozny, capital of Chechnya, attacking from the ground and the air. Chechen president Dzhokhar Dudayev refuses to surrender. Data suggests that only about 100,000 people remain in Grozny by the time of the attack, down from a prewar population of 400,000. . . . The warring parties in the bloody 33-month-long civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina sign an accord, negotiated by Lt. Gen. Sir Michael Rose, the UN commander in Bosnia, calling for the “complete cessation of hostilities” to go into effect Jan. 1, 1995, and last four months . . . In Britain, Queen Elizabeth II names her New Year’s Honor List, a roll of 1,200 citizens selected for knighthoods, peerages, and national medals.

Dec. 31

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 29–31, 1994—685

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The U.S. State Department tells the 4,400 Haitians living in U.S.-run safe-haven camps at a U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that the camps are to close. The State Department informs the camp residents that they will receive $80 in cash and the option of temporary employment if they voluntarily return to Haiti by Jan. 5, 1995.

At a Planned Parenthood Clinic in the Boston, Massachusetts, suburb of Brookline, a gunman kills receptionist Shannon Lowney and wounds three people. A similar attack takes place about 10 minutes later at the nearby Preterm Health Services clinic. Receptionist Leanne Nichols is killed, and two people are wounded. . . . The Census Bureau projects that the U.S. population at the end of the 1994 calendar year is 261,653,497. The increase in the nation’s population from the year-earlier date is 1%, or 2.5 million.

North Korea releases Chief Warrant Officer Bobby Hall, 28, one of the pilots of a U.S. Army reconnaissance helicopter that went down in North Korea on Dec. 17. The release follows days of talks in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, between North Korean officials and a U.S. envoy, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Hubbard.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

In Boston, Massachusetts, federal judge Richard Stearns dismisses an indictment against an MIT student, David LaMacchia, accused of running two computer-network bulletin boards that allowed users to illegally copy computer software, arguing that the federal wire-fraud statute the student is charged under does not apply to his alleged offenses. The Dow Jones industrial average on the NYSE closes the year at 3834.44, up 80.35 points, or 2.1%, from the 1993 year-end level of 3754.09. The ASE closes at 433.67, down 9.1% from its December 1993 close of 477.15. The dollar closes at 1.55 German marks, down from 1.74 marks at the end of 1993; and at 99.60 yen, down from 111.61 yen at the end of 1993. . . . Reports state that federal judge Alexander Harvey has ruled in Baltimore, Maryland, ruled that harassment by someone of the same sex is not a violation of federal-sexual harassment laws.

The California Supreme Court rules, 4-3, that Advanced Micro Devices has the legal right, under a controversial 1982 technology-sharing pact, to manufacture and sell clones of 386-model computer chips developed by Intel. The ruling reverses an appeals court decision and effectively ends any possibility that AMD will be forced to pay Intel royalties for past sales of the 386 chip. . . . The FDA approves the use of metformin, a new drug for treating diabetes.

Dec. 29

House Speaker-elect Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.) announces that he will give up a $4 million advance as part of a two-book contract reached with HarperCollins that has prompted complaints from Democrats and Republicans alike who assert that Gingrich is inappropriately “cashing in” on his new political influence.

Police arrest John C. Salvi III after he allegedly fires a rifle at an abortion clinic in Norfolk, Virginia He is suspected of perpetrating the slayings on Dec. 30 in the Boston, Massachusetts, suburb of Brookline.

Dec. 30

Dec. 31

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1995 Japanese army anti-gas chemical warfare unit members decontaminate subway cars that were poisoned by a nerve gas at a Tokyo subway station, March 1995.

688—January–August 1995

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World Affairs

Europe

The World Trade Organization, a global trade-monitoring body, comes into being.

Chechen resistance fighters fight the Russian onslaught as battles that started in December intensify.

The UN Security Council unanimously authorizes a 7,000-member international peacekeeping contingent for Angola, the largest UN operation in Africa since troops were approved for Somalia in March 1993.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

A car filled with explosives detonates in Algiers, the capital of Algeria, killing 42 people and wounding 286. The bombing is the single deadliest incident in a three-year struggle between the government and militant fundamentalists.

Peru reportedly mobilizes more than 100,000 soldiers to the disputed frontier with Ecuador.

A powerful earthquake strikes the city of Kobe in Japan, killing more than 5,000 people, collapsing buildings, and sparking fires. It measures 7.2 on the Richter scale and has an epicenter six miles (10 km) beneath Japan’s Awaji Island in Osaka Bay.

Four Gypsies in Oberwart, a city in eastern Austria, are killed while attempting to remove a boobytrapped anti-Gypsy sign. The incident is one of the country’s deadliest terrorist acts since World War II.

Heavy fighting among Somali factions erupts near the airport, halting the retreat of UN troops.

Mexican government forces, backed by air support, occupy 11 formerly EZLN towns.

The Taliban, a faction comprised of religious students who took up arms in 1994, emerges as the most powerful military force in Afghanistan when it routs Premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and his Hezb-e-Islami forces from their headquarters in Charasyab, 15 miles (25 km) south of Kabul.

The first UN World Summit on Social Development convenes in Copenhagen, Denmark, attracting 118 presidents, vice presidents, and premiers and at least 13,000 other attendees.

In what is described as Turkey’s largest military operation ever, a massive Turkish military force crosses into Iraq to eliminate guerrilla strongholds of the PKK.

Burundi is on the verge of a full-scale civil war, prompting the evacuation of foreign nationals.

In an article, a retired naval officer alleges that hundreds of leftist “subversives” were drowned during the later 1970s as part of the military dictatorship’s “dirty war” against political opponents in Argentina.

A national public outcry and a diplomatic crisis erupts in the Philippines after the hanging of a Filipina maid in Singapore.

As a UN summit on global warming closes, delegates from more than 120 countries approve a compromise plan that establishes a twoyear negotiation process regarding the reduction of emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases after 2000.

At the third anniversary of the war, Bosnian premier Haris Silajdzic states that the people of Bosnia should be prepared to fight for 10 years to win Bosnia’s independence.

Rwandan refugees who fled into Burundi in 1994 fear that ethnic strife in Burundi will send them to neighboring Tanzania as unrest continues.

Cuba and Chile restore full diplomatic relations, which were broken in 1973.

Fighting along Tajikistan’s border with Afghanistan spills into Afghanistan when Russian jets bomb the Darwaz district of Afghanistan’s Badakhshan region.

Representatives from 174 countries at UN headquarters in NYC approve by consensus the indefinite extension of the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, known as the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Croatian forces launch an attack on the Serb-held Krajina region of Croatia, shattering a 14-month-old “permanent cease-fire.”

An outbreak of the Ebola virus in Zaire kills more than 150 people.

In Saskatchewan province, Justice James Milliken accepts the recommendation of the Cree community that one of their members, William Bruce Taylor, 28, be banished to a remote area of Canada as punishment for sexual assault. It is only the second time in recent history that a court in North America accepts the recommendation for banishment by a native community.

The legislative assembly of Australia’s Northern Territory passes a bill legalizing voluntary euthanasia, or mercy killing, for terminally ill patients. The measure, the Rights of the Terminally Ill bill, is the world’s first voluntary euthanasia law.

More than 320 UN hostages are being detained in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and UN peacekeepers, unable to protect designated safe areas, abandon many of their posts. The UN Security Council passes a resolution to send as many as 12,500 additional peacekeeping troops to Bosnia.

Fighting for control of Chechnya spills beyond the borders of the republic when 200 rebels attack Budennovsk, a Russian town about 70 miles (110 km) north of the Chechen border.

After two years of feuding, Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, Qatar’s crown prince and defense minister, wrests the position of emir from his father, Khalifa bin Hamad al-Thani, in a bloodless coup.

Civil strife erupts in the state of Guerrero in southwestern Mexico.

A militant Muslim faction known as the Mohajir Qaumi Movement launches a rampage in Karachi, Pakistan’s commercial hub.

Thousands of demonstrators in Australia and New Zealand circle French consulates to demand a cancellation of proposed nuclear testing by France in the South Pacific and French Polynesia.

Bosnian Serb forces capture the town of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina, one of the UN’s safe areas whose civilians the UN vowed to protect. Tens of thousands of Muslim refugees are left to walk across front lines to reach government-held towns.

A suspected Palestinian Islamist detonates a bomb on a public bus in Tel Aviv, Israel’s largest city. The deaths raise the tally of Jews killed by Palestinian militants since September 1993 to 130.

Peru and Ecuador agree to demilitarize more than 200 square miles (518 sq km) in the Cordillera del Condor mountains.

As fighting in Sri Lanka continues, military troops kill an estimated 200 Tiger guerrillas on the Jaffna peninsula.

The U.S. releases to the UN Security Council spy-satellite photographs allegedly showing mass graves near the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, which Bosnian Serbs captured in July.

The Georgian parliament votes to adopt the country’s first constitution since it gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The constitution restores the office of president, which was eliminated after the 1992 coup.

Rebels attempt to launch a bloodless coup against Pres. Miguel Trovoada, Sao Tome and Principe’s first freely elected leader. Trovoada is reinstated after signing an amnesty law pardoning the soldiers who took part in the rebellion.

In a crash reported to be the worst in El Salvador’s history, all 65 passengers and crew members die when a Guatemalan jetliner hits the side of a volcano in El Salvador. The dead include the Brazilian ambassador to Nicaragua, Gerardo Antonio Muccioli, and the Danish ambassador to Nicaragua, Palle Marker.

Indonesian president Suharto orders the release of three prominent political prisoners who have been held for nearly 30 years because of their alleged roles in an abortive 1965 coup.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

January–August 1995—689

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

New York State Supreme Court judge Harold Rothwax sentences a Lebanese immigrant, Rashid Baz, to 141 years and eight months in prison for a 1994 shooting attack on a van carrying 15 Hasidic Jewish students over the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City.

The American Legion veterans group calls for the Smithsonian to cancel or change its planned exhibit featuring the Enola Gay, the warplane that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945.

The Labor Department reports that the nation’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in December 1994 was 5.4%, the lowest monthly figure since July 1990.

Russian cosmonaut Valery Polyakov completes his 366th day in outer space aboard the Mir space station, breaking the record for the longest continuous time spent in outer space.

The WB and UPN become the first national TV networks launched since 1986.

The state of Florida files suit against the tobacco industry seeking to recover $1.4 billion in state money spent through Medicaid over a fiveyear period to care for victims of smoking-related illnesses.

The Clinton administration announces it has declassified as many as 800,000 photographs taken by U.S. spy satellites between 1960 and 1972. It is the first time that the U.S. government makes public any surveillance-satellite photographs.

Officials from the Department of Energy admit that 9,000 people were used as subjects in 154 radiation experiments conducted by the federal government during the cold war.

The U.S. space shuttle Discovery blasts off from Kennedy Space Center on a test run for future shuttle dockings with the Mir space station. The flight includes the first female pilot of a U.S. spacecraft, air force lieutenant colonel Eileen M. Collins.

Sotheby’s announces that it will return to the Library of Congress four long-missing notebooks of 19th-century American poet Walt Whitman.

New York governor George Pataki (R) signs into law a measure reinstating the death penalty in New York State. By signing the bill, New York becomes the 38th state to currently have capital punishment.

In NYC, federal judge Eugene H. Nickerson strikes down the Defense Department’s policy restricting homosexuals’ service in the U.S. military, asserting that the “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue” rule violates free-speech and equal-protection rights provided in the First and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution. Nickerson’s decision is the first judicial rejection of the policy.

Pres. Clinton issues an executive order that prohibits the federal government from offering contracts to companies that hire permanent replacements for workers who are legally on strike.

In a historic finding, two competing teams of scientists announce they have found the top quark, the last unknown among the six quark particles thought to be the building blocks of matter.

Popular Mexican-American singer Selena, 23, is fatally shot at a motel in Corpus Christi, Texas, by the founder and former president of Selena’s fan club.

A massive bomb explodes outside a federal office building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, killing more than 100 people. It is the deadliest terrorist attack ever in the U.S.

The Defense Department investigates allegations of U.S. military involvement in Guatemala in the early 1980s. The investigation comes amid accusations that a Guatemalan army officer on the CIA payroll ordered the killing of Efrain Bamaca Velasquez and Michael DeVine. Bamaca’s wife, Jennifer Harbury, a U.S. lawyer, conducted a campaign of hunger strikes to press for details on the fate of her husband.

In an unprecedented move, the EEOC affirms that people who have abnormal genes that predispose them to illness but are otherwise healthy cannot be discriminated against by employers concerned about potential medical problems.

U.S. Department of Energy scientists report they have developed a new superconducting tape that carries substantially more current than existing “high-temperature” superconductors.

In Washington, D.C., the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus stages a one-ring performance in the east parking lot of the Capitol building to mark the circus’s 125th anniversary.

Alabama revives chain gangs, in which groups of convicts are chained together and made to labor outdoors. The reinstitution of chain gangs is part of an effort by Gov. Forrest (Fob) James Jr. (R) to make prison life tougher.

The Clinton administration ends a 30-year immigration policy when it announces that Cuban boat people seeking asylum in the U.S. will henceforth be summarily repatriated to Cuba.

Some 2,000 members of the United Rubber Workers (URW) union end their 10-month-long strike against Tennessee-based tire manufacturer Bridgestone/Firestone.

Scientists announce that for the first time they have decoded the entire deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) sequence for the complete gene set, or genome, of a free-living organism.

Christopher Reeve, actor best known as Superman in a series of films, becomes paralyzed from the neck down when he is thrown headlong from his horse during a riding competition in Culpeper, Virginia.

In Miller v. Johnson, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that electoral districts drawn to ensure fair political representation of minorities are unconstitutional if race is used as the “predominant factor” in drawing district boundaries.

Riots erupt at the Esmor Immigration Detention Center in Elizabeth, New Jersey, when 300 detainees awaiting deportation hearings take two guards hostage.

For the first time in his presidential tenure, Pres. Clinton vetoes a bill passed by Congress, which would cut $16.4 billion from spending previously appropriated by Congress for the fiscal year 1995.

The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis docks with the Russian space station Mir. It is the first of seven dockings scheduled to occur prior to the beginning of construction on the planned international space station.

Members of the Southern Baptist Convention vote overwhelmingly to formally repent for their church’s past support of slavery and to ask forgiveness from all blacks.

In a case that receives national attention, a circuit court jury in Union, South Carolina, sentences Susan Smith to life in prison for killing her two children.

President Clinton formally reestablishes full diplomatic ties with Vietnam, a move that draws mixed support from veterans groups and U.S. legislators.

The Dow volume of shares traded, 482.9 in millions of shares, is the heaviest since Oct. 20, 1987, and the third highest in the history of the New York Stock Exchange.

More than 800 people nationwide die from a heat wave. It is the highest such toll since 1980.

Pope John Paul II issues a letter addressed to women of all faiths in which he condemns centuries of bias and violence against women and apologizes for the Roman Catholic Church’s past discrimination against women.

Both The Washington Post and The New York Times print excerpts from a manuscript by the Unabomber, who has been linked to a series of bombing incidents spanning 17 years.

Officials from the Department of Labor and the INS raid three Los Angeles-area garment factories suspected of employing workers in sweatshop conditions. The agents arrest 55 people, including 39 Thai workers.

Chemical Banking Corp. and Chase Manhattan Corp. announce the largest bank merger in U.S. history, involving a stock swap worth about $10 billion. The deal will create the largest bank in the U.S., which is to be known as Chase Manhattan.

Scientists disclose that fragments of the fossilized remains of humans and stone tools found in Spain are at least 780,000 years old, indicating that humans lived in Europe substantially earlier than previously believed.

Mickey Charles Mantle, 63, New York Yankee who was regarded as one of the greatest baseball players of all time and an American icon, dies in Baylor, Texas, of cancer.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

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690—September–December 1995

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World Affairs

Europe

France detonates a nuclear device at the Mururoa Atoll in the South Pacific. In response, international antinuclear protests are held in several countries, and riots break out during a protest at the main terminal of the international airport in Papeete, the capital of Tahiti.

Some 160,000 Turkish workers strike to protest the government’s austerity measures.

The largest gathering of world leaders ever assembled convenes at UN headquarters in New York City to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the UN.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

A small force led by French mercenary Bob Denard launches a coup in Comoros, an Islamic three-island nation of 4,50,000 people located between Mozambique and Madagascar.

Violence continues to plague the northwestern region of Uraba, Colombia.

The Chinese Communist Party Central Committee removes Chen Xitong, a former Beijing party secretary charged with corruption, from the committee and from the Politburo. Chen is the highestranking official to be ousted in the current anticorruption campaign.

Irish prime minister John Bruton meets with David Trimble, leader of Northern Ireland’s Ulster Unionist Party, in the first talks between an Irish head of state and a leader of the Ulster Unionists in nearly 30 years.

Zanzibar holds its first-ever multiparty presidential and legislative elections.

An estimated 270 people die due to an outbreak of equine encephalitis in Colombia and Venezuela.

In the first pact brokered between the rebels and the government of Philippine president Fidel Ramos, government negotiators sign a peace accord with representatives from three rebel groups.

The presidents of Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina agree to a pact to end a nearly four-year-old war among Croats, Muslims, and Serbs in Bosnia that has claimed 250,000 lives. A NATO peacekeeping force of 60,000 troops will be deployed in Bosnia to sustain the accord.

Former Italian premier Giulio Andreotti is charged with murder along with four other people in connection with the 1979 killing of journalist Carmine Pecorelli.

Yitzhak Rabin, 73, Israel’s prime minister who shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize with Yasser Arafat, is assassinated after delivering a speech at a pro-peace rally in Tel Aviv. The shooting stuns the nation and the world. Foreign Minister Shimon Peres automatically assumes the post of acting prime minister.

In San Salvador, El Salvador’s capital, 200 veterans of the country’s 12-year civil war occupy a government building to demand land and compensation promised under terms of the 1992 peace accord.

In Afghanistan, Taliban forces, in four separate air strikes, bomb Kabul. Government officials characterize the attack as the heaviest air raid to target the capital in more than a year.

Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) vote unanimously to extend ASEAN membership to Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar.

A force of about 800 rebels seizes Gudermes, Chechnya’s secondlargest city. The clashes are among the worst since July.

For the first time in 29 years, Christmas is celebrated in Bethlehem under Palestinian control.

Police kill three alleged members of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement when they end a siege in La Molina, a suburb of Lima, Peru’s capital. At least one police officer is also killed.

Sri Lankan army troops raise the country’s flag in the city of Jaffna, the stronghold of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, capping the government’s most significant victory in the 12-year-old civil war.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

September–December 1995—691

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Senate Select Committee on Ethics votes, 6-0, to recommend the expulsion of Sen. Bob Packwood, (R, Oreg.), citing its conclusions that Packwood engaged in sexual misconduct, influence peddling, and obstruction of the committee’s investigation of his conduct. In response, Packwood announces his resignation from the Senate.

Defense Secretary William J. Perry orders U.S bases in Okinawa to hold a “day of reflection,” in the wake of a rape of a 12-year-old girl by U.S. servicemen in Japan.

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt reluctantly signs over the title to 110 acres of federal land in Clark County, Idaho, to a Danish mining company in accordance with the 1872 Mining Act.

Researchers state that fossil remains recently uncovered in Argentina reveal a carnivorous dinosaur that appears to be larger than Tyrannosaurus rex.

Philanthropist Paul Mellon donates 85 paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Experts value the works of art at more than $50 million.

Hundreds of thousands of black men participate in a rally in Washington, D.C., called the “Million Man March.” The demonstration sparks some controversy because it is led by Louis Farrakhan, who has made anti-Semitic remarks, and because it omits women.

A federal jury in New York City convicts 10 militant Muslims on 48 of 50 conspiracy charges stemming from a failed plot to bomb the UN headquarters building and other NYC targets and to assassinate political leaders. The proceedings constitute the biggest terrorism trial in U.S. history.

The Dow closes at a record high of 4802.45, marking the 50th record high registered for the Dow in 1995.

The case of two Ohio girls who underwent an experimental therapy using engineered versions of their own genes to treat a rare, inherited immune-system disease, provides the first evidence of successful gene therapy.

A record 150 million people nationwide watch the acquittal of O. J. Simpson of the June 1994 fatal stabbings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

The House votes, 288-139, to approve a bill that will ban a procedure known as intact dilation and evacuation, a rare method used to end pregnancies in their late stages. The bill is the first attempt by Congress to ban an abortion procedure since 1973.

Statistics show that more than 1 million legal immigrants applied for U.S. citizenship in fiscal 1995. That number is nearly double the fiscal 1993 figure and is the highest in the 20th century.

Pres. Clinton vetoes a continuing resolution, or stopgap bill, which forces a temporary, partial shutdown of the federal government.

NASA releases Hubble Space Telescope photographs that are said to be the most striking images to date of the birth of stars.

Pope John Paul II and the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith reaffirm that the Roman Catholic Church’s ban on the ordination of women priests is “infallible” doctrine not open to debate.

Pres. Clinton holds the first-ever White House conference on AIDS and HIV, hosting 300 advocates, lobbyists, and doctors.

After heated debate, Congress approves resolutions that give reluctant support to the deployment of American troops in the peace effort in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Pres. Clinton signs legislation that will abolish the Interstate Commerce Commission.

Astronomers’ calculations indicate the presence of a black hole with the mass of 1.2 billion suns, which is located about nine light-years from the center of the galaxy.

NBC agrees to pay $2.3 billion for the rights to broadcast the 2004 Summer Olympic Games, the 2006 Winter Olympic Games, and the 2008 Summer Olympics on TV and cable. The size of the deal is a record in sports TV history.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.

Dec.

692—January 1–6, 1995

Jan. 1

Europe

The World Trade Organization, a global trade-monitoring body, comes into being. . . . Austria, Finland, and Sweden join the EU. . . . The Southern Common Market (Mercosur) becomes operational. . . . U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor announces that the U.S. and the EU signed a trade agreement with India that will open India’s domestic market to exports of textiles.

A cease-fire in Bosnia goes into effect. It is broken sporadically in the region around Bihac, where rebel Muslim forces loyal to renegade Muslim leader Fikret Abdic and Serbs from the Krajina region of Croatia are involved in the fighting. Neither the rebel Muslims nor the Croatian Serbs signed the truce. . . . Frederick West, an alleged killer of 12 women and girls, is found hanged in his jail cell in Birmingham, England, in an apparent suicide.

Militiamen from rival Somali subclans battle in Mogadishu, the capital, for control of the Bermuda district, which has access to the seaport currently controlled by the United Nations.

Chechen resistance fighters repel the Russian onslaught that began Dec. 31, 1994, forcing Russian troops back to Grozny’s edges and leaving hundreds of Russian soldiers dead, wounded, or captured and Russian tanks incinerated by Chechen grenades. . . . A third party involved in the Bosnian civil war joins the truce when Kresimir Zubak, leader of the Bosnian Croats and president of the Muslim-Croat federation in Bosnia, signs the agreement. . . . A fire damages the west wing of Stormont, Northern Ireland’s parliament building, in Belfast.

Three Palestinian policemen are killed near a Gaza-Israel crossing point in an exchange of gunfire with Israeli soldiers who cross into Palestinian territory. In two separate incidents in the West Bank, Israeli troops kill three suspected Islamic militants. . . . Suspected members of the Islamic Group shoot eight policemen to death in four separate attacks in southern Egypt. Three civilians are also killed. . . . Maj. Gen. Mohamed Siad Barre, former Somalian president, 1969–91, whose age was reported as between 75 and 84, dies in Lagos, Nigeria, of a heart attack.

WHO reports that the official tally of AIDS cases worldwide for the first time exceeds 1 million.

Russian troops launch an assault on Grozny, bombing and attacking from the ground with army and interior ministry troops. Chechen fighters hit back with rocket fire. . . . Two wings of Everthorpe prison in North Humberside, England, suffers extensive damage in riots. Separately, three dangerous convicts escape from top-security Parkhurst prison on the Isle of Wight, off England’s south coast.

Plainclothes Israeli security personnel kill four Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank town of Beit Liqya, some eight miles (13 km) west of Ramallah, and four other Palestinians are wounded in two clashes near the Erez crossing point in Gaza.

A panel of scientists claims that it “could find absolutely no reliable intelligence and no medical or biological justification” for allegations that Iraq employed chemical or biological weapons against coalition forces during the Persian Gulf war in 1991. . . . At a meeting of interior ministers from 18 Arab countries, Egypt, Algeria, and Tunisia urge governments from throughout the Arab world to enact practical measures to halt violence by militant Muslim groups.

Statistics show that at least 11 Russian air raids have killed 78 people and wounded 200 others south of Grozny since Jan. 2. Russian president Boris Yeltsin orders the bombing of Grozny to stop, but reports suggest those orders are not obeyed.

Israeli undercover forces kill four members of the PFLP in the West Bank village of Beit Liqya. . . . In Somalia, elders from the Abgal clan, loyal to Ali Mahdi Mohammed, and the Murusade clan, loyal to Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid, sign a treaty calling for an end to the Bermuda district battles, which has killed 23 people and wounded more than 300. Neither Aidid, who controls much of southern Mogadishu, nor self-styled president Mohammed, who controls much of northern Mogadishu, are present at the signing.

Figures indicate that 650 people died at the hands of leftist guerrillas in Peru in 1994, a 50% decline from similar year-earlier fatalities. . . . The Order of Canada in the 1995 New Year’s list names 82 Canadians who achieved outstanding accomplishments or provided special services in various fields.

Officials from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimate that 100,000 residents of Chechnya have fled the republic.

Reports state that Jordan’s King Hussein has appointed Sharif Zeid bin Shaker as the nation’s new premier. . . . Hastings Kamuzu Banda, who ruled Malawi, 1964–94, is placed under house arrest in connection with the killing of four political rivals in 1983. . . . The commander of Iran’s air force, Brigadier General Mansour Satari, dies in a plane crash near Isfahan, about 200 miles (320 km) south of Teheran, the capital of Iran. Ten other officers, including four generals, also die in the crash.

In Mexico City, Mexico, 30,000 people demonstrate, expressing their concerns over the expected reduction in purchasing power as inflation overtakes wages.

Taiwan’s cabinet approves a plan to ease a ban, in effect since 1949, on direct transportation links with China.

Joe Slovo, 68, South African Communist Party leader who was instrumental in the fight against the apartheid system of racial segregation and was a longtime ally of current South African president Nelson Mandela, dies in Johannesburg, South Africa, of bone marrow cancer.

Peasants in Colombia end their two-week-long occupation of seven oil wells belonging to the stateowned Empresa Colombiana de Petroleos (Ecopetrol) oil company, which they seized to protest the government’s stepped-up campaign to eradicate drug crops.

In the Philippines police arrest two Arab men and seize bomb-making materials from an apartment near the Vatican’s papal nunciature in Manila.

Jan. 2

Jan. 3

Jan. 4

Jan. 5

Jan. 6

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Iraqi deputy premier Tariq Aziz meets in Paris with French foreign minister Alain Juppe in the first formal contacts between France and Iraq since before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. Juppe announces that France will resume limited diplomatic relations with Iraq, sparking criticism that the move violates UN Security Council resolutions.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Fernando Henrique Cardoso takes the oath as Brazil’s president, succeeding President Itamar Franco.

The Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebel group reach a cease-fire agreement, which calls for a twoweek “cessation of hostilities,” to go into effect on Jan. 8. The rebel leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, agrees to release four policemen held hostage since 1990.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

January 1–6, 1995—693

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The U.S. Defense Department reports to Congress that the Clinton administration’s Haiti-related expenses totaled about $765 million between Oct. 1, 1993, and Nov. 30, 1994.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Eugene P. Wigner, 92, Hungarianborn physicist who won the 1963 Nobel Prize in physics for his pioneering research in quantum mechanics, dies in Princeton, New Jersey, of pneumonia.

Jess Alexandria Stacy, 90, jazz pianist who played for some of the top “swing era” bands, dies in Los Angeles of congestive heart failure.

Six convicted murderers escape from the Glades Correctional Institution in Belle Glade, Florida. The six are all Cuban immigrants serving life sentences.

Jan. 2

Heavy rains begin in California.

The 104th Congress convenes with the Republican Party holding majorities in both the House and the Senate for the first time in 40 years. . . . Jesse Dewayne Jacobs, 44, convicted of the 1986 abduction and fatal shooting of a paramedic, is executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas. The execution is controversial because prosecutors acknowledge that the crime was committed by his sister. Jacobs is the 86th inmate executed in Texas and the 258th in the U.S. since 1976.

The House votes on a sweeping package of changes in House rules, which shrink and restructure the chamber’s committee system, reduce its work force, and dramatically revise many of its lawmaking procedures. . . . Pres. Clinton formally names State Department spokesman Michael McCurry as the new White House press secretary.

Jan. 1

Victor Riesel, 81, syndicated newspaper columnist who crusaded against labor racketeering in the 1950s and was the victim of a notorious acid attack in 1956, which left him blind, dies in New York City of a heart attack.

The Defense Department announces that it will begin shipping 500,000 tons of oil to North Korea. . . . The U.S. military begins to forcibly repatriate 4,000 Haitian refugees housed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. . . . Ben R. Rich, 69, engineer who helped design some of the U.S.’s most advanced military aircraft, dies in Ventura, California, of cancer. . . . Pres. Clinton announces that Admiral William O. Studeman will serve as interim director of the CIA when R. James Woolsey Jr. vacates the post Jan. 9.

Reports state a 26-year-old Pennsylvania woman who suffers from severe mental retardation was sterilized at her mother’s request in December 1994. The mother, Dolores Wasiek, first requested court permission to have her daughter, identified only as Cindy, sterilized in 1987, contending that her daughter, who also suffers from epilepsy, may be harmed or killed by the hormonal changes of pregnancy.

The House passes a bill, 429-0, that will require Congress to comply with federal civil-rights and occupational-safety laws and other labor statutes. . . . Crescent Ship Services pleads guilty to criminal charges of polluting the Mississippi River. The company agrees to pay a $250,000 fine, and the executives are the first individuals to face felony charges for violating federal pollution statutes. . . . Statistics show that the total number of new passenger vehicles sold in the U.S. in 1994 totaled 15.09 million, an 8.6% increase from 1993.

Reports state that Don Stine, a rare book dealer from Ocean Township, New Jersey, discovered what may be a previously unknown poem by Edgar Allan Poe. . . . The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum names Steven T. Katz, 50, as its next director.

Brooks Stevens, 83, influential designer who helped launch the industrial design movement in the 1930s, dies in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, of heart failure. . . . Jim Lee Howell, 80, head coach of the New York Giants professional football team, 1954–60, dies in Lonoke, Arkansas, from an undisclosed illness.

Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.) unveils a computer-data system, accessible through the Internet and other public-access computer networks, through which a wide range of information about congressional activities and legislation will be made available to the public.

Jan. 4

Jan. 5

In the Boston archdiocese’s Pilot newspaper, Roman Catholic cardinal Bernard Law reiterates a call for a moratorium on protests outside abortion clinics that he made after the Dec. 30 attacks in Brookline, Massachusetts.

The Labor Department reports that the nation’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in December 1994 was 5.4%, the lowest monthly figure since July 1990.

Jan. 3

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 6

694—January 7–12, 1995

World Affairs

Maj. Gen. Viktor Vorobyev, commander of Russia’s interior ministry troops in Chechnya, is killed by a mortar shell explosion. He is the highest-ranking Russian officer killed in the month-long conflict. . . . Harry Golembek, 83, who represented Britain in several international chess tournaments and who, in 1966, became the first person to receive the title of Officer of the Order of British Empire for contributions to chess, dies. . . . Larry Grayson (born William White), 71, popular British comedian, dies in Nuneaton, England.

Jan. 7

Austria’s currency, the schilling, joins the European Union’s exchangerate mechanism (ERM).

Jan. 12

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Rwanda, an attack on a refugee camp leaves 12 people dead and 36 wounded. . . . Opposition parties in Niger win a small majority in parliamentary elections.

A cease-fire between Tamil rebels and the Sri Lankan government goes into effect.

Port authorities in the southeastern English city of Shoreham halt livestock shipments to France amid increasing acts of violence by animal-rights activists. . . . Former East German head of state Egon Krenz and six other former Communist Party officials are charged in connection with the deaths of East Germans who attempted to flee to the west when Germany was divided.

The Rwandan army admits its troops were responsible for a Jan. 7 attack on a refugee camp. . . . Israel agrees to recognize passports issued by the PNA.

Data shows the value of foreign investment in South Korea surged 26% in 1994 from 1993, to a total of $1.31 billion. . . . North Korea announces an easing of restrictions on trade ties with the U.S. . . . Prince Souphanouvong, 82, known as the “Red Prince” for leading the Pathet Lao communist guerrilla group for more than two decades in a campaign to overthrow the Laotian rightist government of his half-brother, Prince Souvanna Phouma, dies of heart ailments.

Bosnian government forces start a blockade of 1,000 UN troops near Tuzla in northern Bosnia. The government forces are protesting the deployment of Colonel Slavko Guzvic, a Serb liaison officer, at the Tuzla airport. . . . The woman with whom Britain’s Prince Charles has had a long-standing on-and-off affair, Camilla Parker Bowles, and her husband, Brigadier Andrew Parker Bowles, announce that they are divorcing.

Eleven people are killed when gunmen fire on a bus in Batna, southeast of Algiers. In another incident, four people are killed when gunmen fire on a government-designated mosque in nearby Barika. Militant Muslims are suspected in the attacks. . . . A white doctor from Scotland, Richard McGown, accused of conducting morphinerelated medical experiments on black patients in Zimbabwe, is convicted of manslaughter in the deaths of two children. The doctor is acquitted in three other deaths.

Reports confirm that Chinese dissident Wang Dan has returned to his home in Beijing after spending one month in hiding.

Officials from more than 30 countries agree to form a task force to set guidelines for the creation of a Middle East development bank. . . . U.S. president Clinton and Japanese premier Tomiichi Murayama meet in the first summit between the leaders of the world’s two largest economies since February 1994.

The German government announces that Vietnam has agreed to accept the return of up to 40,000 Vietnamese illegal immigrants in exchange for economic aid. . . . Italy’s constitutional court announces it has struck down two referendums that could have completely abolished proportional parliamentary representation.

Israeli troops fire stun grenades to disperse Palestinian demonstrators gathered near the West Bank city of Nablus to protest a new building site at the Jewish settlement of Alei Zahav.

Panama’s interior minister, Raul Arango, states that 10 members of the national police force were arrested on charges of planning a coup that would have included the assassination of Pres. Ernesto Perez Balladares.

The UN Security Council votes to retain its oil and general economic embargoes on Iraq during its regular 60-day review of the Iraqi situation. Separately, the Council votes to renew for 100 days the suspension of some sanctions against Yugoslavia. Croatian president Franjo Tudjman informs the UN that Croatia will not renew the UN peacekeeping mandate in Croatia, under which 15,000 UN peacekeeping troops are stationed there as a buffer separating Serb and Croat forces.

Russian forces increase the intensity of their attacks on rebel Chechen forces in Grozny, the capital of the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya. The Russian assault since the beginning of the year has killed thousands of Chechen rebels and civilians. The Russian army’s stepped-up assault comes amidst significant public opposition. . . . Northern Ireland Secretary Patrick Mayhew announces that as of Jan. 16, British troops will no longer carry out daylight street patrols in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, or Ulster.

Nongovernmental relief agencies suspend all nonemergency aid in Mogadishu, Somalia, vowing that they will not resume relief efforts until Rudy Marq, 24, a French aid worker kidnapped in December 1994, is released.

U.S. forces in Haiti suffer their first fatality from hostile fire when a U.S. soldier is killed in a shoot-out at a military checkpoint in Gonaives, a coastal town about 100 miles (160 km) north of Port-au-Prince. A second U.S. soldier is wounded, and one Haitian is killed in the incident.

Jan. 10

Jan. 11

Africa & the Middle East

British police capture three convicts who escaped Jan. 3 from the topsecurity Parkhurst prison on the Isle of Wight, 10 miles (16 km) off the south coast of England.

Jan. 8

Jan. 9

Europe

Pope John Paul II begins an extensive Asian tour that includes stops in the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Australia, and Sri Lanka.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

January 7–12, 1995—695

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Jan. 7

Carlos Monzon, 52, Argentinian boxer who was the world middleweight champion, 1970–77, dies in Santa Fe, Argentina, in an automobile accident while on a furlough from prison. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.) asks for the resignation of Christina Jeffrey, a political science professor whom he appointed as the House historian. Gingrich dismisses Jeffrey after the public reemergence of comments she made eight years earlier in which she criticized a school history program about the Holocaust for not including “the Nazi point of view.”

In Los Angeles, federal judge Mariana Pfaelzer nullifies an August 1993 jury judgment awarding defense contractor Litton Industries Inc. $1.2 billion in damages from rival Honeywell Inc. for violating a Litton patent on an airline-navigation system.

The Arkansas Supreme Court rules, 4-3, that Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the nation’s largest retailer, did not violate a state law banning so-called predatory pricing. The decision dismisses an October 1993 lowercourt ruling that ordered Wal-Mart to pay a total of $298,407 in damages to three pharmacies in Conway, Arkansas.

Teams of astronomers from the University of Arizona and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico report they have created for the first time a working computer model for the explosion of a supernova. . . . Russian cosmonaut Valery Polyakov, 51, completes his 366th day in outer space aboard the Mir space station, breaking the record for the longest continuous time spent in outer space. Polyakov is scheduled to remain in orbit until March.

In Tome v. U.S., the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, to limit the use of third-party testimony to rebut a charge that a witness committed perjury during a trial. . . . Data shows that the death rate from breast cancer in the U.S. declined by 4.7% from 1989 to 1992.

The Senate confirms Robert E. Rubin as secretary of the Treasury. . . . A group of 26 air traffic controllers, who were among the more than 11,000 fired by then-Pres. Ronald Reagan during a bitter 1981 strike, report for retraining classes in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. They are the first controllers rehired since Pres. Clinton lifted a ban on their rehiring in August 1993.

Heavy rains that started Jan. 3 cause severe flooding in California. In Sonoma County, the Russian River crests at 15 feet (5 m) above flood level. Pres. Clinton issues a disaster declaration for 24 counties, making them eligible for federal aid. . . . An Atlas rocket launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, lifts into orbit a satellite that will relay telephone and television signals worldwide for the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (Intelsat), a Washington, D.C.-based consortium of 134 countries.

Arlin Adams, the independent prosecutor investigating charges of influence peddling HUD in the 1980s, announces that he will not prosecute Samuel R. Pierce Jr., the former HUD secretary during whose tenure the illegal activity occurred.

The Labor Department reports that the government’s index of consumer prices in 1994 rose 2.7% for the second year in a row. . . . The Senate votes, 98-1, to pass a bill that will end Congress’s exemption from 11 federal labor statutes, including occupational-safety and antidiscrimination laws.

A team of U.S. and Japanese astronomers announce that they have gathered the “most direct and definitive evidence to date” of the existence of a supermassive black hole near the center of the NGC 4258 galaxy, about 21 million light years from Earth. . . . Intel and Advanced Micro Devices announce that they settled a long-running dispute over the interpretation of a 1982 technology-sharing pact.

The WB is the first national TV network launched since 1986. . . . Josef Gingold, 85, one of the most influential violin teachers in the U.S., dies in Bloomington, Indiana, of a heart attack. . . . Players and team owners accept a contract in time to avoid cancellation of the 1994–95 National Hockey League season.

Qubilah Bahiyah Shabazz, the daughter of slain black nationalist leader Malcolm X, is arrested in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on federal charges of attempting to hire a hit man to kill Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who in the past has been accused of playing a role in Malcolm X’s assassination in 1965.

Reports indicate that members of the United Rubber Workers Union of America Local 7 in Akron, Ohio, have agreed to end their strike at a racing-tire production and research facility, and another 800 URW members have crossed picket lines at other plants in the midst of a sixmonth strike by URW against tire manufacturer Bridgestone/Firestone Inc.

Secretary of Transportation Federico Pena visits Southern California, where he allocates $5 million in emergency funds for initial restoration of storm-damaged roadways and bridges. . . . Two studies of HIV yield new understanding of the effects of drugs on the virus and of the daily cellular activity that occurs during its progression.

George Price, 93, cartoonist who is credited with helping to establish a new aesthetic in comic illustrations at The New Yorker magazine in the 1930s, dies in Englewood, New Jersey, after suffering from a brief, undisclosed illness.

Third baseman Mike Schmidt is elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, in his first year of eligibility. . . . Peter Cook, 57, comedian widely acclaimed as a founder of contemporary British satire, dies in London, England, of a gastrointestinal hemorrhage.

Jan. 8

Jan. 9

Jan. 10

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 11

Jan. 12

696—January 13–18, 1995

Jan. 13

World Affairs

Europe

The UN names Honore Rakotomanana, the former president of Madagascar’s supreme court, to serve as chief prosecutor for an international tribunal to try individuals accused of genocide and other war crimes in Rwanda. . . . Representatives of the so-called contact group—the U.S., Russia, Britain, France, and Germany—meet with Bosnian Serb leaders. The meeting is in violation of a UN Security Council resolution since the Bosnian Serb leadership has yet to accept the peace settlement.

Two ETA gunmen in Bilbao, a Basque-region coastal city, allegedly enter a government office and shoot two policemen in the head, killing one. . . . In order to placate protestors, the British Meat and Livestock Commission announces that calves exported from Britain to the Netherlands will not be housed in veal crates. . . . Italian president Oscar Luigi Scalfaro asks a political independent, Lamberto Dini, to be the nation’s premier and form a new government.

The Americas

Algerian opposition groups, including the outlawed Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), jointly issue proposals aimed at ending the civil strife that has plagued Algeria for three years.

Bosnian Serb shelling kills at least two people.

Jan. 15

Asia & the Pacific China Human Rights states that China’s best-known dissident, Wei Jingsheng, was ordered to serve 21⁄2 years of “reeducation through labor.” . . . Philippine authorities report they have uncovered an elaborate conspiracy to kill the pope orchestrated by 20 Muslim terrorists.

Bankrupt Australian businessman Alan Bond, 56, is arrested and charged in an East Perth, Western Australia, court with seven counts of fraud and corporate misconduct.

A Bosnian government offensive begins, and the Bosnian army seizes the villages of Klokot and Vedro Polje, northwest of Bihac. A Bosnian Serb mortar attack in downtown Bihac kills five people.

Jan. 14

Former South African Communist Party leader Joe Slovo, who died Jan. 6, becomes the first white man to be buried at Avalon cemetery in Soweto, a cradle of the movement against the apartheid system of racial separation. The funeral is marred by a crush of thousands of mourners, most of them black. . . . In Algiers, militant Muslims kill Salah Nour, a member of the National Transitional Council in Ben Omar.

In Mexico, a PRD protest rally in Villahermosa, the Tabasco capital, reportedly attracts 30,000 people.

The Roman Catholic Church’s celebration of the 10th World Youth Day draws an enthusiastic crowd of as many as 4 million people in Manila, the Philippines.

Paul Delouvrier, 80, French civil servant best remembered for leading an extensive urban reconstruction project in Paris during the 1960s, dies of an undisclosed illness in France.

Jan. 16

A powerful earthquake strikes the city of Kobe in Japan, collapsing buildings and sparking fires. It measures 7.2 on the Richter scale and has an epicenter six miles (10 km) beneath Japan’s Awaji Island in Osaka Bay. . . . A Singapore high court judge finds a U.S. professor, Christopher Lingle, guilty of contempt of court for an October 1994 article. Lingle is ordered to pay S$10,000 (US$7,000), reportedly the largest fine ever imposed in a Singapore contempt-of-court case.

Reports reveal that Russia has started to launch daily rocket attacks from the air on Chechen villages south of Grozny. A speaker for the Russian army discloses that nearly 1,200 dead Russian soldiers were counted there. That figure compares with the previous official count of 500 Russian soldiers dead. Some unofficial estimates put the number at 4,000. . . . In Italy, the cabinet of newly appointed premier Lamberto Dini is sworn in.

Jan. 17

Jan. 18

Africa & the Middle East

In a confidence vote, the EU’s parliament votes to approve the new European Commission, led by Jacques Santer. . . . A survey ranks Geneva, Switzerland, as the city that offers the highest quality of life in the world. The survey compares a variety of measures, including political and social stability, security, and health services, in 118 cities worldwide. At the bottom is Algiers, Algeria. . . . A study indicates that Japan was the world’s top ship-exporting nation in 1994. South Korea headed the list in 1993.

Russian bombs hit the palace in Chechnya’s capital, Grozny, killing dozens of Chechens and wounding Russian soldiers in the hospital in the building’s basement. . . . Lamberto Dini officially becomes the head of Italy’s 54th post-World War II government.

The South African government declares invalid a secret amnesty granted before elections in April 1994 to 3,500 police officers and former cabinet ministers for crimes committed under the apartheid system of racial separation. . . . An Algerian government spokesman rejects the proposals offered by opposition groups on Jan. 13. . . . Six people are killed, 20 are injured, and four are missing after an explosion on an oil platform in Mobil’s offshore Ubit oil field in Nigeria.

The Canadian dollar drops to its lowest point in almost nine years, trading at 70.36 cents to the U.S. dollar.

The Japanese government decides to send 13,000 troops to Kobe and other areas affected by the Jan. 17 earthquake and to build 1,000 temporary homes.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

January 13–18, 1995—697

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

In Maryland, Judge Raymond G. Thieme Jr. rejects a lawsuit by former state legislator Ellen Sauerbrey (R) that sought to nullify her narrow loss to Democrat Parris Glendening in the state’s 1994 gubernatorial election.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The federal government begins its program to reintroduce the endangered North American gray wolf to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and a wilderness area in Idaho. . . . The Commerce Department reports that the value of retail sales in 1994 totaled about $2.239 trillion, a 7.6% increase from the year-earlier level. The 1994 gain is the largest since 1984.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Reports confirm that a group of investors, including actor Paul Newman and novelist E. L. Doctorow, have purchased The Nation, a weekly magazine featuring a progressive political viewpoint. The 130-year-old publication is the oldest continuously published magazine in the U.S.

The flooding in California that extends from the Oregon border to deserts located around San Bernardino starts to recede. Statistics reveal that the disaster claimed the lives of 11 people and caused an estimated $735 million in damage. California governor Pete Wilson (R) has declared 37 of the state’s 58 counties to be disaster areas, and Pres. Clinton has added 10 federal disaster areas to the ones listed Jan. 10. Figures reveal that the rate of deaths resulting from heart disease in the U.S. dropped 24.5% between 1982 and 1992, although the rate of congestive heart failure more than doubled during the same period. Heart disease still causes 42.5% of all deaths in the U.S.

New York State Supreme Court judge Harold Rothwax sentences to 141 years and eight months in prison a Lebanese immigrant, Rashid Baz, who in December 1994 was convicted in a March 1994 shooting attack on a van carrying 15 Hasidic Jewish students over the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City.

Jan. 14

A study finds that electric-utility workers who are exposed to high levels of electromagnetic radiation levels are about twice as likely to die from brain cancer as the average person in the U.S. Researchers argue, however, that the question of whether low-frequency magnetic radiation causes cancer “remains unsolved.”

Vera Maxwell, 93, pioneering women’s clothes designer, dies in Rincon, Puerto Rico, after a brief illness. . . . The San Francisco 49ers win the NFC championship over the defending champion Dallas Cowboys. The San Diego Chargers win the AFC championship over the Pittsburgh Steelers.

An unmanned Experimental Reentry Space System (Express) capsule is jointly launched by Japanese and German space agencies, but it wobbles out of orbit and splashes down in the Pacific Ocean. The capsule would have tested how reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere affects different materials.

A new national television network, United Paramount Network (UPN), is launched. . . . The St. Louis, Missouri, Symphony orchestra names as its next music director Dutch conductor Hans Vonk.

The House clears, 390-0, the Senate’s version of the Congressional Accountability Act, a bill that ends Congress’s exemption from federal occupational-safety and antidiscrimination laws. It is the first bill passed by the 104th Congress. . . . The Federal Reserve Board notes that U.S. factories, mines, and utilities operated at 85.4% of capacity in December 1994, the highest level since October 1979.

Pres. Clinton tours flood-stricken Placer County, California, and vows to increase federal flood relief to $65 million, from the $50 million figure established earlier. . . . DuPont Merck Pharmaceutical reports that the FDA has approved naltrexone, a drug used to treat heroin addiction, for use in treating alcoholism. . . . The FDA finds that the median time required to approve 62 drugs in 1994 was 19 months, down 21% from 22.9 months in 1993.

In NationsBank of North Carolina v. Variable Annuity Life Insurance Co., the Supreme Court rules unanimously to allow nationally chartered banks to sell annuities. . . . In American Airlines v. Wolens, the Supreme Court rules, 6-2, that travelers may sue airlines for breach of contract over changes made to frequent-flier programs, a decision which allows an Illinois class-action lawsuit to proceed. . . . At GM’s AC Delco East parts-production complex, 6,500 UAW members walk off their jobs.

Researchers suggest that tuberculosis may afflict 90 million people and kill 30 million people in the 1990s if worldwide efforts to stem the spread of the disease are not improved. . . . Adolf Friedrich Johann Butenandt, 91, German chemist who shared the 1939 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, dies in Munich, Germany, of an undisclosed illness. . . . Reports confirm that a network of caves containing hundreds of apparently undisturbed paintings thought to date from 17,000 to 20,000 years ago have been discovered in southern France.

Jan. 13

Jan. 15

Jan. 16

Jan. 17

Ron Luciano, 57, former MLB umpire known for his flamboyant and combative style, is found dead in the garage of his Endicott, New York, home of carbon monoxide poisoning, an apparent suicide.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 18

698—January 19–24, 1995

World Affairs

Europe The presidential palace in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, falls to Russian troops, who raise a Russian flag over the palace, one of the most potent symbols of Chechen resistance to the Russian invasion, which began in December 1994. . . . Lord Cowdray (born Weetman John Churchill Pearson), 84, the third Viscount Cowdray and heir to one of Britain’s largest family fortunes, dies in Midhurst, England, of bronchial pneumonia.

Jan. 19

Robert Fryers and Hugh Jack are handed 25- and 40-year prison sentences, respectively, for their roles in a planned London bombing campaign. . . .The Russian ruble falls to its all-time low of 4,004 to the dollar.

Jan. 20

Jan. 21

Jan. 22

Jan. 23

Africa & the Middle East

The interior ministers of Algeria, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Tunisia discuss enacting a policy of cooperation between the security forces of their countries to combat and track Islamic fundamentalist militants.

A rally protesting the Chechen invasion is held in Moscow.

Cuba and the 13-nation Caribbean Community (Caricom) reach agreement on broad economic and technological cooperation.

Gregorio Ordoñez, a Popular Party spokesman and outspoken critic of ETA, is shot and killed by alleged members of ETA. . . . Russia sends 200 vehicles to Grozny as reinforcements.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

After news that Mexico may hold new elections, club-wielding PRI supporters in Tabasco stage protests, claiming that the government caved in to leftist demands.

The death toll from the Jan. 17 disaster in Japan is placed at more than 4,100 and is expected to top 5,000 once the bodies of missing people are unearthed. Some 275,000 refugees are living in shelters. The quake was the most deadly to hit Japan since 1923. . . . China’s Daily newspaper projects that China’s population will top 1.2 billion by the middle of February. The population in 1994 grew by 58,000 a day.

South African president Nelson Mandela and deputy president F. W. de Klerk meet to heal a rift that developed between them over a secret immunity deal made in April 1994 that Mandela rejected Jan. 18. . . . Mehdi Bazargan, 87, first premier of Iran after the 1979 Islamic revolution that overthrew the monarchy of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, dies in Switzerland of heart failure. In separate incidents, three customs employees are shot and killed in Tidjelabine, and the president of the Algerian Soccer Association is shot and killed in Algiers.

Sri Lanka Buddhist leaders boycott a meeting with Pope John Paul II and state they consider his visit an act of aggression They are reportedly angered by comments in the pope’s recent book which argue that “Both the Buddhist tradition and the methods deriving from it have an almost exclusively negative soteriology, or doctrine of salvation.”

Two Palestinian suicide bombers from the Gaza Strip detonate powerful explosions at a military transit point in central Israel, killing at least 18 Israeli soldiers, one Israeli civilian, and themselves. Some 65 others are injured. The terrorist group Islamic Jihad claims that two of its fighters carried out the operation in “general revenge” for Israel’s killing of several Palestinians in recent months. . . . Rudy Marq, 24, the French aid worker whose release was demanded by nongovernmental relief agencies in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Jan. 12, is freed unconditionally. . . . Muslim militants shoot and kill a French businessman in Algiers.

A heavy rain falls on Kobe, the site of the Jan. 17 earthquake, prompting the evacuation of some 2,200 families threatened by landslides. Accounts state that Japan has accepted assistance from 11 of 40 countries that offered.

Canadian defense minister David Collenette disbands the Canadian Airborne Regiment, a specially trained but scandal-ridden unit of paratroopers, after amateur videotapes of the unit’s brutish and racist behavior, widely shown on Canadian television, cause a public outcry.

In Chechnya, Russian forces attack Grozny with artillery, tank, and rocket fire. The village of Katiri Yurt is bombed by Russian aircraft. Three people are killed in the raid. . . . Thousands of people demonstrate in the city of San Sebastian in Spain’s Basque region to protest the Jan. 23 killing of Gregorio Ordoñez. . . . In an unprecedented admission, Germany’s Roman Catholic bishops state that Catholics, the Catholic Church, and other Christians in Germany share responsibility for the Holocaust since they did not act strongly enough.

Jan. 24

Two small bombs are thrown at the motorcade of Bangladeshi prime minister Khaleda Zia as she is returning to her office in Dhaka, the capital. In another region of the capital, opposition party leaders hold a 12-hour general strike, marred by violence and bomb throwing. More than 50 people are injured in clashes between police and protesters. . . . Japan reports that its U.S. dollar-denominated trade surplus in 1994 totaled a record $121.2 billion, up 0.8% from the year-earlier figure.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

January 19–24, 1995—699

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

John Coyle White, 70, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, 1978–81, dies in Washington, D.C. of pneumonia and kidney ailments.

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The American Legion veterans group calls for the Smithsonian to cancel its planned exhibit featuring the Enola Gay, the warplane that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945, after learning that Air and Space Museum director Martin Harwit is revising the estimate of U.S. casualties that would have occurred if the U.S. had invaded Japan, to 63,000 from 229,000. Veterans’ groups cite figures from 260,000 to 1 million.

Reports indicate that the hiring of permanent replacements has allowed continuous, 24-hour operations at the Bridgestone/Firestone tire manufacturing facilities where URW workers have been striking for six months.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle When beatifying a 19th-century nun briefly excommunicated for her feminist views, Pope John Paul II asserts, “The church stands firmly against every form of discrimination which in any way compromises the equal dignity of women and men.” However, he also reiterates the church’s opposition to the ordination of women priests.

The administration of Pres. Clinton announces that it will ease a 44year-old trade embargo against North Korea.

The Smithsonian Institution states it has cut off access to nude photographs taken from 1900 to 1960 of college freshmen at prestigious U.S. schools. Initially the photos were taken for posture studies, but they were later used by W. H. Sheldon, who tried to correlate personality types with physical traits, which has been discredited by scientists.

Alex Groza, 68, basketball player who helped lead the University of Kentucky team to NCAA championship titles in 1948 and 1949, dies of cancer in San Diego, California.

Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, 104, the mother of Pres. John Fitzgerald Kennedy and the matriarch of one of the most prominent families in U.S. politics, dies at the family’s home in Hyannisport, Massachusetts, of complications from pneumonia.

In Schlup v. Delo, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that a death-row inmate may present new evidence to prove that his execution will be “a miscarriage of justice.”. . . To mark the 22nd anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, tens of thousands of abortion foes march in the capital. . . . Albertis Sydney Harrison Jr., 88, former governor of Virginia (D), 1962–66, dies in Lawrenceville, Virginia, of a heart attack.

Members of the local United Auto Workers union at a GM parts plant in Flint, Michigan, approve a new contract and end their strike, which started Jan. 18.

Pres. Clinton issues an executive order that instructs 500 U.S. banks to search their files for accounts held by groups and individuals with alleged links to terrorist activity in the Middle East and to freeze any accounts found. . . . Lawyers commissioned by Atty. Gen. Janet Reno report they found no evidence to confirm allegations that aides to former president George Bush secretly facilitated arms transfers to Iraq prior to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

Pres. Clinton gives his State of the Union message, and his centrist speech draws positive responses from members of both major parties, New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman delivers the Republican Party’s rebuttal. . . . Kermit Smith Jr., 37, convicted of the 1980 kidnapping, rape, and murder of a college cheerleader, is put to death by lethal injection in Raleigh, North Carolina. Smith is only the second white person executed for killing a black person, the seventh person executed in North Carolina, and the 260th in the nation since 1976.

Jan. 19

Jan. 20

Jan. 21

Jan. 22

Pres. Clinton signs the Congressional Accountability Act. . . . In McKennon v. Nashville Banner, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that an employee dismissed due to age discrimination is entitled to back wages, even if the employer later learns that the worker engaged in misconduct on the job that would have led to a legitimate dismissal.

The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), a federally funded organization that monitors the global Internet, issues a formal warning to Internet users that public and private computer networks are increasingly vulnerable to illegal entry by outside intruders, known as “hackers.” . . . Surgeons in Toronto, Canada, separate Nida and Hira Jamal, two two-year-old Pakistani girls who were born joined at the head.

The First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, Massachusetts, rejects a New Hampshire newspaper’s claim that many of its staff journalists are not entitled to overtime pay under federal law because they are professionals. The ruling upholds a November 1993 lower court decision that ordered the paper, The Concord Monitor, to pay nearly $21,000 in overtime pay to 10 reporters and two photographers.

The director of California’s Office of Emergency Services, Richard Andrews, estimates that the storms and flooding that started Jan. 3 caused $735 million in damage, $375 million of which was inflicted on government buildings and roads. He reveals that insured losses to private property totaled $360 million. . . . The FDA urges patients with two heart pacemaker models to undergo special fluoroscopic X-ray examinations to check for possible faulty wires.

Edward Shils, 84, internationally acclaimed sociologist who, in 1983, received the Balzan Prize, an award given to scholars in fields not recognized with Nobel Prizes, dies in Chicago, Illinois, of cancer.

Jan. 23

Jan. 24

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

700—January 25–30, 1995

World Affairs

Jan. 27

Jan. 28

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

PNA police officers in Gaza disclose that they arrested more than 20 Islamic Jihad militants during the previous two days. Israeli forensic experts confirm Islamic Jihad’s assertion that the two Jan. 22 suicide bombers were Salah Shaker, 25, and Anwar Sukkar, 23. . . . Rebel forces attack the town of Kambia in northern Sierra Leone. Separately, the rebels kidnap seven Roman Catholic nuns, six from Italy and one from Brazil.

Holocaust survivors and political leaders from around the world gather at the former Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau near Oswiecim, Poland, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the camp from Nazi Germany. The U.S. delegation is led by Elie Wiesel, a survivor of Auschwitz and Nobel Prize–winning author. German foreign minister Klaus Kinkel calls Auschwitz “the symbol of our deepest shame,” and the German parliament remembers the victims of Auschwitz with a moment of silence.

Lt Gen. Rupert Smith of Britain arrives in Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, to assume his post as the new commander of UN peacekeeping forces in Bosnia. . . . Reports suggest former Georgian defense minister Tengiz Kitovani tried to invade territory in Abkhazia, but his forces were disarmed by Georgian head of state Eduard Shevardnadze’s troops. . . . Officials state that Russian forces control two-thirds of Grozny, which is without water, heat, or electricity. Fighting also reportedly occurs in four other towns in Chechnya.

Jordan’s King Hussein and Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, sign a wide-ranging accord for mutual cooperation.

Fighting erupts in a mountainous region along the disputed PeruvianEcuadorean border. . . . Reports reveal that 6,000 U.S. troops remain in Haiti, down from a force that once totaled about 20,000.

A Chinese-made rocket carrying a U.S. telecommunications satellite explodes above its launch pad in China’s Sichuan province. The explosion kills six people and injures 23 others, and it is the fifth mishap in three years to mar China’s satellite-launching record. . . . Australia’s first pay-television service, Galaxy, is launched.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp of AuschwitzBirkenau, Polish president Lech Walesa presides over a ceremony attended by 5,000 people, and more than 20 countries send delegates, who issue a statement condemning the events of the Holocaust as “the biggest crime in history.” Heads of state attending include Czech president Vaclav Havel and German president Roman Herzog.

Sean Kelly, a member of the Provisional IRA, is ordered to serve nine life sentences in prison for his role in a 1993 bombing that killed 10 people. . . . Mediators break off Bosnian peace talks aimed at reaching an agreement between Bosnian Serbs and the Bosnian government to extend the current cease-fire, which began Jan. 1.

Black police officers barricade themselves inside the Orlando police station in Soweto, South Africa, and demand the dismissal of five white officers accused of racism. Jabulani Xaba, a black warrant officer taking part in the protest, is shot and killed by an all-white force of riot police that storm the station.

Clashes between Peruvian and Ecuadorean forces reportedly escalate. Ecuadorean president Sixto Duran Ballen declares a state of national emergency and mobilizes reserve forces.

Reports confirm that Vietnam has reasserted its claim to sovereignty over the Paracel and Spratly island chains in the South China Sea in response to the Jan. 25 statement by Chinese researchers regarding the discovery of three new islets.

Officials in Guinea state that the Jan. 25 attack in Sierra Leone prompted as many as 30,000 people to flee. The refugees’ accounts indicate that several people were killed in the attack and that government forces did little to protect them. . . . U.S. soldiers begin arriving in the Kenyan port of Mombasa for a mission to aid the withdrawal of UN troops from Somalia.

George Woodcock, 82, prolific and influential Canadian author who wrote or edited more than 100 books, dies in Vancouver, British Columbia, of heart ailments.

James P. Grant, 72, executive director of the United Nations Children’s Fund from 1980 until just before his death, dies in Mount Kisco, New York, of cancer.

Jan. 29

Jan. 30

Africa & the Middle East

General Paata Datuashvili, a former Georgian deputy defense minister, is killed, and General Giorgi Karkarashvili, a former Georgian defense minister, is seriously wounded in a shooting attack in Moscow, Russia.

Jan. 25

Jan. 26

Europe

The UN Security Council authorizes the deployment of a 6,000-member UN peacekeeping contingent to assume security responsibilities in Haiti from U.S. forces by Mar. 31.

Violence breaks out at a soccer match in Italy when Vincenzo Spagnolo, 24, is attacked and killed in Genoa by supporters of rival AC Milan. Following the halftime cancellation of the match, police detain nearly 1,000 Milanese fans at the stadium. At the same time, mobs of Genoese supporters set fires, break windows, and destroy cars with Milan license plates.

South African president Nelson Mandela appoints George Fivaz, a white police general, to take over as national police commissioner. . . . An estimated 10,000 people demonstrate in Algiers in support of Pres. Zeroual and in protest of a peace plan proposed Jan. 13 by opposition groups, which the government rejected on Jan. 18.

Floods force 250,000 Dutch residents to flee their homes in what is the Netherlands’ largest peacetime evacuation. . . . Italian sports officials vote to cancel all sporting events on Feb. 5 to protest the Jan. 29 murder of a soccer fan in Genoa. The suspension is reported to be the first of its kind in Italy since the end of World War II. . . . Gerald Malcolm Durrell, 70, British conservationist who was among the first to promote the role of zoos in preserving endangered species, dies in St. Helier, Jersey, of complications from a 1994 liver transplant.

A car filled with explosives detonates in Algiers, the capital of Algeria, killing 42 people and wounding 286. The bombing is the single deadliest incident in a three-year struggle between the government and militant fundamentalists. . . . Israeli forces return three desert enclaves to Jordanian sovereignty in accordance with the peace treaty signed in October 1994. . . . Three people are killed and at least 13 are wounded when militiamen from rival factions battle over a building abandoned by a UN agency in Somalia.

The death toll from the Jan. 17 earthquake in Japan is 5,063, with 61 people missing and 26,509 injured. . . . China reports that its researchers have discovered three new islets within the Paracel and Spratly island chains in the South China Sea.

Peru reportedly mobilizes more than 100,000 soldiers to the disputed frontier with Ecuador.

Seven former Allied soldiers who were imprisoned in Japanese labor camps during World War II file suit in Tokyo against the Japanese government, seeking a formal written apology for their treatment. The former soldiers—from Britain, the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand—also seek “token compensation” totaling about $22,000 for each of more than 20,000 surviving former prisoners of war (POWs) in their countries.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

January 25–30, 1995—701

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

House Republicans censure Rep, Robert K. Dornan (R, Calif.) for contending that Pres. Clinton “gave aid and comfort to the enemy” during the Vietnam War by protesting the war and making efforts to avoid being drafted. Dornan’s remarks are stricken from the Congressional Record, and he is barred from taking part in floor debate for 24 hours. The last time the House took the step of barring a member from debate was in 1974.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Data show that sales of existing homes in 1994 totaled 3.97 million units, up 4.3% from the year-earlier level of 3.80 million. The 1994 figure is the second-highest level since 1978.

Albert William Tucker, 89, mathematician credited with establishing the foundations of linear programming, or operations research, whose students include mathematician Jack Milnor and Nobel Prize–winning economist John Forbes Nash Jr., dies in Hightstown, New Jersey, of pneumonia.

Eric Cantona of France, playing for Manchester United, jumps into the stands during a soccer game against Crystal Palace in London and attacks a spectator who reportedly taunted the French star.

Studies find that a powerful naturally occurring protein used by the body to spur nerve-cell growth has shown promise in guarding nerve cells from usually lethal damage and in regenerating damaged brain cells.

The six winners of the first annual Heinz Awards, established in honor of the late Sen. John Heinz (R, Pa.), are announced. The recipients are Geoffrey Canada, who runs programs for poor children and their families in Harlem; Paul and Anne Ehrlich, both environmentalists; Andrew Grove, the president and CEO of Intel; Henry Hampton, a filmmaker who produced the civilrights documentary Eyes on the Prize; and James Goodby, a former diplomat who had aided in armscontrol talks.

In separate cases in Miami, Florida, and Washington, D.C., Teledyne Inc., a California-based military contractor, agrees to pay a total of $13 million to the U.S. government to settle suits related to its export of zirconium to a Chilean arms maker in the 1980s. The material was eventually used in cluster bombs exported to Iraq from Chile.

The House votes, 300-132, in favor of an amendment to the Constitution that will require Congress to balance the annual budgets of the federal government, beginning in the fiscal year 2002.

Richard A. Moore, 81, TV and attorney who served as special counsel to Pres. Richard Nixon in the early 1970s and who served as ambassador to Ireland, 1989–92, dies in Washington, D.C., of prostate cancer.

Lockheed Corp. pleads guilty in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, Georgia, to charges that it gave an Egyptian legislator a $1 million bribe in 1988 as part of an eventually successful effort to secure a $79 million Egyptian government contract for three cargo jets. Lockheed agrees to pay a $24.8 million fine for violating the 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bars U.S. companies from extending payoffs to foreign officials.

Figures reveal that the U.S. gross domestic product grew at an inflation-adjusted annual rate of 4% in 1994. That is the highest calendaryear growth rate since 1984.

British soccer team Manchester United suspends Eric Cantona of France for the rest of the 1995 season for his Jan. 25 act. . . . At the request of Yale University, the Smithsonian Institution shreds a collection of nude photographs shut off from the public on Jan. 20.

The National Governors’ Association (NGA) holds its annual winter meeting in Washington, D.C., with welfare reform as the gathering’s main topic of debate.

The U.S. and Vietnam sign an agreement to exchange diplomats and open liaison offices in each other’s capitals. The move is the U.S.’s most significant step toward establishing full diplomatic ties with Vietnam since Pres. Clinton lifted the U.S.’s 19-year-old trade embargo against the country in February 1994.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, about $1.2 trillion in spending cuts and revenue increases will be required to balance the budget by the year 2002.

Mary Pierce of France overcomes Arantxa Sanchez Vicario of Spain to win the women’s Australian Open title, her first Grand Slam victory. . . . Steve Largent, Lee Roy Selmon, Kellen Winslow, and the late Henry Jordan are elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Also inducted is the late Jim Finks, former NFL executive.

Numbers reveal that the value of orders for U.S.-made machine tools rose 42% in 1994 from 1993, to $4.676 billion. The 1994 total is the highest since 1979. . . . California’s insurance commissioner, Charles Quackenbush (R), reaches agreement with Twentieth Century Industries, settling a long-running dispute over refunds mandated by a 1988 insurance-reform law. The amount of the settlement is at least $46 million.

In tennis, Andre Agassi wins the Australian Open men’s title over Pete Sampras. . . . The San Francisco 49ers rout the San Diego Chargers, 49-26, in the NFL’s Super Bowl XXIX in Miami, Florida. With the victory, the 49ers are the first team in National Football League history to win five Super Bowls.

The CDC finds that in 1993 AIDS for the first time became the leading cause of death among all people in the U.S. ages 25–44. Unintentional injury was second, followed by cancer, heart disease, and homicides and suicides.

The secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, I. Michael Heyman, announces that the Smithsonian will drastically scale back its planned exhibit featuring the forward fuselage of the Enola Gay, the warplane that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945. The Smithsonian decided to change the exhibit because of criticism from veterans groups.

NIH researchers announce that clinical trials have demonstrated the effectiveness of the first preventive treatment for sickle cell anemia. The researchers state that they are issuing a clinical alert to doctors nationwide that the drug hydroxyurea should be considered for treating adult patients who suffer severe sickle cell anemia.

Jan. 25

Jan. 26

The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield tops the bestseller list.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 27

Jan. 28

Jan. 29

Jan. 30

702—January 31–February 5, 1995

World Affairs

Jan. 31

Feb. 1

The World Bank discloses that its president, Lewis Preston, has cancer and will retire shortly. Ernest Stern, one of the bank’s three managing directors under Preston, is named acting president.

Africa & the Middle East

In Germany, the Rhine reaches nearrecord levels, flooding such cities as Coblenz, Mainz, and Bonn. In Cologne, the Rhine is 35 feet (11 m) above sea level, and the city’s historic downtown area is 6 feet under water. In the French town of Charleville-Mezieres, the River Meuse reaches a record high-water mark. French premier Edouard Balladur visits the besieged town.

A spokesman for the UNHCR states that 24,000 people have fled from Sierra Leone to Guinea since Jan. 25. . . . The official Algerian news agency, APS, reports that security forces claim to have killed 28 armed fundamentalists, 15 of them in Algiers, in the previous 48 hours. Ahmed Kasmi, a member of the opposition National Liberation Front (FLN) central committee, is abducted from his mother’s home.

Russian forces pound the western Chechen village of Samashki with rocket, cannon, and helicopter fire. An estimated 20 people are killed and dozens wounded. . . . Rivers begin receding in France, Germany, and Belgium. The European Commission increases its immediate aid to flood victims to 1.5 million European currency units ($1.8 million). . . . Sergei Skorochkin, a member of the Russian Duma, is abducted by four masked gunmen who claim to be police officers.

Somali militiamen loyal to Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid take over and loot the UN’s Mogadishu headquarters after the last remaining peacekeeping contingent withdraws to the nearby airport. . . . TV journalist Ouari Nasser is shot and killed, becoming the 31st journalist killed in Algeria since May 1993.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Japan’s Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko visit Kobe, the site of the Jan. 17 earthquake. While touring shelters, the empress clasps hands with and embraces refugees. It is considered rare for a member of the Japanese royal family to have physical contact with ordinary citizens.

In Grenada, George Brizan takes the oath as prime minister, succeeding Nicholas Braithwaite.

Sergei Skorochkin, 33, a member of the Russian Duma who was abducted Feb. 1, is found dead in a forest near the village of Sarybievo, south of Moscow.

Feb. 2

Feb. 3

Feb. 4

Europe

The G-7 finance ministers and central-bank heads meet in Toronto, Canada.

The Irish government grants an early release to five incarcerated IRA members in an attempt to bolster the Northern Ireland peace process.

In Algeria, Ahmed Kasmi, a member of the opposition National Liberation Front (FLN) central committee, is found dead at a train station southwest of Algiers.

Four Gypsies in Oberwart, a city in eastern Austria, are killed while attempting to remove a boobytrapped anti-Gypsy sign. The incident is one of the country’s deadliest terrorist acts since World War II. . . . Chechen forces shoot down a Russian attack jet south of Grozny, killing the pilot.

Reports disclose that between 200 and 300 white officers in Soweto, South Africa, requested transfers out of the black township, saying they were threatened by black officers.

Israel eases its restrictions on Palestinian crossings, allowing Palestinian teachers, doctors, nurses, and some merchants to resume work in Israel. . . . Jordan’s King Hussein hosts 28 members of the Israeli Knesset at an unprecedented banquet in Amman, the Jordanian capital. . . . The Armed Islamic Group (GIA) claims responsibility for the Jan. 30 car bomb that killed 42 people and wounded nearly 300 in Algiers.

Feb. 5

Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori acknowledges that Peru suffered 22 “casualties,” but he does not specify the number of dead and wounded in the fighting that erupted Jan. 26 along the disputed Peruvian-Ecuadorian border.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

January 31–February 5, 1995—703

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

For the first time in Texas, two people are executed on the same day when convicted murderers Clifton Russell and Willie Williams become 88th and 89th inmates to be executed in Texas and the 262nd and 263rd in the nation to be put to death since 1976.

The FBI announces it has agreed to pay former agent Suzane J. Doucette nearly $300,000 in an outof-court settlement of a sexual harassment lawsuit. When Doucette filed the suit in June 1993, it was the first sexual harassment case the FBI faced. . . . Pres. Clinton invokes presidential emergency authority to provide a $20 billion loan to Mexico to stabilize its falling currency, the peso, and to help Mexico avoid defaulting on its short-term debt.

The Department of Agriculture unveils a proposed new meatinspection policy that will mandate scientific testing by meat-processing companies. The new policy, described as the most sweeping change in meat-industry monitoring in decades, will replace a 90-yearold method based primarily on visual inspection alone. . . . Preston Fleet, 60, founder of the Fotomat film-developing company, dies in Santa Barbara, California, of cancer.

Reports confirm that scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory have produced preliminary evidence that elusive subatomic particles called neutrinos have a small amount of mass, providing at least a partial explanation for the inability of scientists to locate about 90% of the matter thought to exist in the universe. . . . George Stibitz, 90, mathematician and inventor of the Model I Complex Calculator, considered the first digital computer, dies in Hanover, N.H., of natural causes.

George Francis Abbott, 107, awardwinning playwright, director, and producer whose career in Broadway theater spanned more than 70 years, dies in Miami Beach, Florida, of a stroke. . . . The publisher Little, Brown reports that a book by O. J. Simpson that was released Jan. 27 has already gone into a second printing.

The CDC estimates that 9,000 deaths each year can be attributed to food-borne diseases. . . . A twoyear study suggests that 1,800 infants die annually from suffocation as a result of being placed on soft items such as pillows, comforters, and sheepskins.

The State Department releases to Congress its annual human-rights report based on human-rights conditions in more than 160 countries in 1994. China, with whom the U.S. is engaged in a contentious trade dispute, is rebuked in especially harsh terms. Other nations reprimanded include North Korea, Myanmar, Iraq, Iran, and Cuba.

The National Credit Union Administration seizes control of Capital Corporate Federal Credit Union in an attempt to staunch steep losses linked to derivatives contracts. The seizure marks the first time the NCUA has taken over a credit union organization since it was founded in 1970. . . . The Federal Open Market Committee votes unanimously to increase the federal funds rate to 6% and the discount rate to 5.25%. The Fed has raised rates seven times since February 1994.

Pres. Clinton nominates Dr. Henry W. Foster Jr., a black physician and former medical school professor and administrator, as the U.S. surgeon general.

Pres. Clinton announces the 17 members of a bipartisan Commission on Roles and Capabilities of the U.S. Intelligence Community, a committee to address agency-wide failures exposed in the Ames espionage case.

A federal jury in Birmingham, Alabama, orders Baxter Healthcare to pay $6 million to Brenda Toole, who claims to have suffered health problems resulting from siliconefilled breast implants that ruptured in 1988. . . . A male nurse, Bruce Alan Young, 45, pleads guilty to raping seven anesthetized women and girls in an Inverness, Florida, hospital’s surgery recovery room. Circuit Judge Hale Stancil sentences Young to 17 years in prison.

The yield on the Treasury Department’s benchmark 30-year bond tumbles to 7.62%. . . . In Arizona, Judge Thomas Dunevan III reduces to $461.8 million, from $1.47 billion, the amount that five current directors and one former director of Amerco Inc. are required to pay to compensate for actions during a 1988 takeover battle for the company.

Jan. 31

Feb. 1

Preliminary research shows that an experimental combination of the drug AZT and a new drug called 3TC provide longer suppression of the AIDS virus than other combinations of drugs.

Donald Pleasence, 75, British actor who appeared in more than 100 films, dies in St. Paul de Vence, France, after recently undergoing heart surgery. . . . Frederick John Perry, 85, the first tennis player to win all four Grand Slam tournaments, dies in Melbourne, Australia, of heart failure.

The U.S. space shuttle Discovery blasts off from Kennedy Space Center on a test run for future shuttle dockings with the Mir space station. The flight includes the first female air force pilot of a U.S. spacecraft, Lt. Col. Eileen M. Collins. . . German scientists report they have found the physical basis in the brain for perfect pitch, a rare talent that allows musicians to identify any musical note without comparison to a reference note. . . . Reports confirm that NIH director Dr. Harold E. Varmus has chosen Lt. Col. Wayne Jonas as director of the Office of Alternative Medicine.

Singer and actor Barbra Streisand gives a high-profile speech, entitled “The Artist as Citizen,” at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. . . . Baseball owners revoke the salary cap imposed late in 1994 after being informed by the NLRB that they might face a federal unfair-laborpractice charge.

U.S. trade representative Mickey Kantor announces the imposition of punitive tariffs of up to 100% on imports of a wide range of Chinesemade goods. China retaliates by slapping 100% tariffs on various U.S.-made goods exported to China. . . . Reports reveal a former NSC official, Howard Teicher, has charged the CIA “authorized, approved and assisted” the sale of cluster bombs to Iraq by way of a Chilean arms maker in the 1980s.

Patricia Highsmith, 74, crime novelist best known for creating the character of Tom Ripley, a refined murderer who appeared in five of her 20 novels, dies in Locarno, Switzerland, of leukemia.

Chester (Chet) Holifield, 91, a 16term Democratic congressman (Calif.), 1942–74, dies in Redlands, California, of pneumonia.

Doug McClure, 59, actor best known for the TV series The Virginian, 1962–70, dies in Sherman Oaks, California, of cancer.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 2

Feb. 3

Feb. 4

Feb. 5

704—February 6–11, 1995

World Affairs

Feb. 6

Feb. 7

Feb. 8

The UN Security Council unanimously authorizes a 7,000-member international peacekeeping contingent for Angola, the largest UN operation in Africa since troops were approved for Somalia in March 1993.

Feb. 11

Africa & the Middle East

In Great Britain, police announce that they found and dismantled four bombs, which were likely placed by animal-rights activists.

Gunmen kill an Israeli security guard on the outskirts of Gaza City.

In Chechnya, Russian forces bomb and shell villages south of Grozny, including the southwestern town of Bamut. . . . Thousands of people gather in Vienna, Austria, to protest the Feb. 4 explosion and other violent acts against Gypsies that are believed to have been committed by members of neo-Nazi “skinhead” groups.

Reports from Algeria reveal that the pesident of the FIS, Abassi Madani, and his deputy, Ali Belhadj, were transferred from house arrest to a military jail. . . . Hamas and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine claim responsibility for the Feb. 6 murder of an Israeli security guard on the outskirts of Gaza City.

A Turkish pilot is forced to eject from his crashing F-16 fighter plane after being pursued by two Greek Mirage F1 jets. . . . Spanish premier Felipe Gonzalez rejects calls for his resignation amid charges that his government was involved in an underground antiterrorist war in the mid-1980s. . . . Dzhokhar Dudayev, the separatist president of Chechnya, declares he and his military commanders are leaving Grozny, which effectively gives control of the city to Russian forces.

The head of Nigeria’s military government, Gen. Sani Abacha, fires his civilian cabinet, known as the Federal Executive Council. . . . Yasser Arafat, in accordance with his office as PNA president, issues an order establishing a state-security court that will try militants who “threaten the safety and security” of the Palestinian self-rule authority.

Belgian defense minister Karel Pinxten announces that mandatory armed service for young people will be discontinued as part of the military’s ongoing post–cold war downsizing.

Feb. 9

Feb. 10

Europe

The leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) gather for a summit meeting in Almaty, capital of Kazakhstan, and sign a nonbinding memorandum to encourage “peace and stability” among member states.

Foreign Minister Alois Mock announces that Austria has joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace program, but it will likely take part in humanitarian and peacekeeping operations only.

Asia & the Pacific

Ecuadorian officials disclose that 11 of their country’s soldiers died in the fighting that erupted Jan. 26 along the disputed Peruvian-Ecuadorean border.

Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, 27, who is believed to be the mastermind of the February 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City, is arrested in Islamabad, Pakistan.

The Philippines accuses China of seizing part of the disputed Spratly Islands, a chain of small, uninhabited islands in the South China Sea. . . . . Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, arrested on Feb. 7 in connection with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City, flies from Islamabad, Pakistan, to New York City.

Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León orders the army to launch offensive operations to capture leaders of the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN). Security forces seize one reputed EZLN leader in Mexico City and at least seven people in Veracruz with alleged EZLN links.

A series of territorial transfers concludes, during which Jordan regained control of a total of more than 130 square miles (340 sq km) of land patches along the Israeli-Jordanian border that were seized by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Two groups of skinheads destroy candles lit outside a church in Vienna, Austria, in memory of the Feb. 4 bombing victims.

The Americas

Mexican government forces, backed by air support, occupy 11 formerly EZLN towns, including Guadalupe Tepeyac in the Lacandon jungle, which serves as the rebels’ headquarters. One army colonel is shot in the head by a sniper. Attorney General Antonio Lozano Gracia states that a man identified as rebel leader Jorge Javier Elorriaga Berdegue was arrested in Chiapas.

Officials state that the reputed director of assassinations for the Fatah Revolutionary Council, Mahmoud Khaled Eintour, alias Abu Ali Majed, was arrested in Sidon, Lebanon.

The Taliban drives the forces of Afghanistan premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar from the town of Maidan Shahr, 18 miles (30 km) southwest of Kabul, the capital. . . . A survey finds that Singapore Airlines is the world’s best overall airline.

The UN’s special negotiator in Afghanistan, Mahmoud Mestiri secures the agreement of nine major mujaheddin factions on an apparent peace arrangement. The mujaheddin, or so-called soldiers of God, are waging armed resistance against the Soviet occupation that began in 1979 when Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan to prop up a communist government.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

February 6–11, 1995—705

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A New York City jury evenly splits the blame for the death of Libby Zion, 18, who died eight hours after being admitted to New York Hospital in 1984, between Zion herself and three of her four doctors. The decision culminates a decade-long legal struggle, which led to an overhaul in 1988 of New York State’s regulation of the hours of medical residents.

National Australia Bank Ltd., Australia’s largest bank, announces that it has agreed to acquire Michigan National Corp. of the U.S. for A$2.07 billion (US$1.56 billion). If approved, the transaction will be one of the largest-ever takeovers of a U.S. bank by a foreign interest.

Pres. Clinton sends to Congress a proposed $1.61 trillion budget for the fiscal year 1996. The budget details plans, first unveiled by Clinton in 1994, for a range of tax cuts designed to benefit middle-class families. . . . The House votes, 294– 134, to pass a bill that will give presidents the power to cut spending out of federal budget legislation through the use of a so-called line-item veto.

Statistics reveal that about 31% of all U.S. households owns a personal computer, suggesting that 3.8 million households bought a computer since July 1994, when 27% of all households reportedly owned one.

The 1995 Bollingen Prize in American Poetry is awarded to Kenneth Koch. . . . James Ingram Merrill, 68, Pulitzer Prize–winning poet, dies in Tucson, Arizona, of a heart attack. . . . The American Library Association announces that David Diaz has won the Caldecott Medal and Sharon Creech has won the Newbery Medal.

Former representative Michael Huffington (R, Calif.) officially concedes his loss to incumbent senator Dianne Feinstein (D) in a November 1994 Senate race. Final, official tallies give the victory to Feinstein by 165,562 votes out of almost 9 million cast, a margin of about 1.8%. . . . TheHouse votes, 430-0, in favor of legislation that will require people convicted of federal crimes to pay restitution to victims harmed physically, emotionally, or financially by those crimes. More than 500 students hold a protest rally at Rutgers University’s main campus in New Brunswick, New Jersey, to call for the resignation of the school’s president, Francis L. Lawrence, for remarks that suggest the “genetic, hereditary background” of disadvantaged students is linked to poor performance on college admissions exams. . . . Some Republicans and antiabortion groups continue to harangue Dr. Henry W. Foster Jr., nominated as surgeon general, for his stance on abortion and reproductive rights.

Judge Daniel P. Fitzgerald sentences rap performer Tupac Shakur to 11⁄2–41⁄2 years in prison for sexually abusing a woman in November 1993. . . . Pres. Clinton announces that his personal efforts to end the MLB baseball players’ strike was unsuccessful and that congressional intervention is likely the only way to settle the dispute.

Pres. Clinton nominates Michael P. C. Carns, a retired air force general, as director of central intelligence, to succeed R. James Woolsey, who stepped down in January 1995.

(James) William Fulbright, 89, Democratic senator from Arkansas, 1945–74, who, in 1946, founded the government-sponsored international student exchange program that became known as the Fulbright exchange fellowship and in 1993 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, dies in Washington, D.C., after suffering a stroke.

A study suggests that guidelines for desirable body weight issued in 1990 by the federal government classify as acceptable weight gain levels that actually increase a middle-aged woman’s chance of suffering a heart attack.

A federal grand jury and the federal SEC charges 17 people with violating bans on insider trading in one of the largest cases of its kind. . . . Officials from the Department of Energy admit that 9,000 people were used as subjects in 154 radiation experiments conducted by the federal government during the cold war. . . . Emilio Gabriel (Pete) Collado, 84, who was the U.S.’s first executive director of the World Bank in 1946, dies in Jupiter, Florida, of heart failure.

Houston Rockets basketball guard Vernon Maxwell is suspended without pay for at least 10 games and fined $20,000 for running into the stands and punching a heckling fan in Portland, Oregon. The punishment is the most severe imposed by the NBA in nearly 20 years.

FBI agents arrest Abraham Jacob Alkhabaz, a University of Michigan student, for posting on the Internet a sexually violent piece of fiction that mentions a female classmate of his by name. . . . Astronauts Bernard Harris Jr. and C. Michael Foale become the first black and first Briton, respectively, to walk in space. . . . Researchers report they have duplicated symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease in genetically altered mice. The achievement is hailed as a landmark in Alzheimer’s research.

Feb. 7

Feb. 8

Feb. 9

At the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Providence, Rhode Island, Jenni Meno and Todd Sand win the pairs’ competition, receiving six perfect scores of six for artistic interpretation, a record for U.S. pairs skaters.

The U.S. space shuttle Discovery touches down at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. During the mission, the spacecraft flew to within 37 feet (11 m) of the Russian space station Mir. The rendezvous is considered a major step in a multibillion-dollar cooperative venture between the U.S. and Russian space agencies.

Feb. 6

Nicole Bobek, 17, wins the women’s title at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Providence, Rhode Island, filling a title vacant since 1994, when the U.S. Figure Skating Association stripped it from thenchampion Tonya Harding for her involvement in an assault against rival skater Nancy Kerrigan.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 10

Feb. 11

706—February 12–17, 1995

World Affairs

Feb. 12

Feb. 13

The Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal indicts Zeljko Meakic, former commander of the Omarska concentration camp run by Serbs in Bosnia, with “genocide and crimes against humanity.” The indictment is the first charge of genocide ever made by an international tribunal. . . . In Germany, a ceremony to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Dresden’s destruction by a controversial allied bombing raid in World War II is attended by U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. John Shalikashvili, German president Roman Herzog, the military chiefs of Britain and Germany, and the Duke of Kent, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth II.

Feb. 14

Feb. 15

Feb. 16

Feb. 17

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Oleg Adolfovich Lyalin, 57, intelligence officer in the KGB whose defection to Great Britain in 1971 was credited with drastically curtailing Soviet spying capacities, dies of an undisclosed illness.

Algerian security forces reveal they have killed 20 militant Muslims, 10 of them in a single operation in Mascara, west of Algiers. . . . In Angola, UNITA agrees to honor the 1994 accord and to welcome the UN peacekeeping force. . . . Human Rights Watch/Middle East accuses the PNA of various human-rights violations, including arbitrary arrests and denial of press freedoms.

In Sleptsovsk, in the Russian republic of Ingushetia, Col. Gen. Anatoly Kulikov, the commander of Russia’s interior ministry troops, and Col. Aslan Maskhadov, the Chechen chief of staff, agree to a limited cease-fire.

Azeddine Medjoubi, the head of Algeria’s national theater, is killed in Algiers.

Police in Zurich, Switzerland, close down a notorious heroin market in an effort to clamp down on the drug trade that sprung up there due to the city’s liberal drug policy. . . . In Grozny, rocket and shell fire breaks out between Russian forces and Chechen rebels. Russian forces shell Chechens near the town of Alkhan Kala. . . . In Britain, the funeral of Jill Phipps, an animalrights activist who was crushed by a truck while protesting, draws international attention, in part because it is attended by Brigitte Bardot.

About 3,000 black pupils who are bused to an unused school in the Ruyterwacht suburb of Cape Town, South Africa, are met by white protesters, some of them armed. The confrontation is among the most intense to occur since the new academic year began in mid-January. Separately, Pres. Nelson Mandela presides over the inauguration of South Africa’s first Constitutional Court.

Russian and Chechen officials announce a short-term cease-fire agreement. . . . At a soccer match between the English and Irish national teams in Dublin, several English fans riot, reportedly to protest the ongoing Northern Ireland peace process. Nearly 60 people are treated for minor wounds. . . . Lord Taylor (born Francis Taylor), 90, British civil engineer who founded the Taylor Woodrow Group, dies in Sarasota, Florida.

The UN World Food Program estimates that civil strife in Sierra Leone displaced as many as 900,000 people either internally or as refugees in neighboring countries. . . . Nabila Djahnine, president of the feminist group The Cry of Women, is killed in Tizi-Ouzu, capital of the Kabyl region in Algeria.

In a speech, Russian president Boris Yeltsin defends Russian military operations against separatists in the breakaway republic of Chechnya, saying that a “dictatorial regime” has taken over there. He admits, however, that human-rights violations have taken place in Chechnya and that both sides have suffered huge losses. . . . An Albanian-run university catering to Macedonia’s large ethnic Albanian minority opens in Tetovo.

Burundi premier Anatole Kanyenkiko, a Tutsi, resigns. . . . In response to the busing problems that started Feb. 14 in Cape Town’s Ruyterwacht suburb, South Africa education minister Martha Olckers bars the students from attending the school “because it is a health risk.” The move sparks protestors to occupy the office of Western Cape premier Hernus Kriel. The sit-in is followed by a rampage of hundreds of black students through Cape Town.

In response to the Albanian-run university catering to Macedonia’s large ethnic Albanian minority that opened Feb. 16, demonstrations turn violence, and one person is killed and 28 others injured. . . . In Spain, Rafael Vera, a former secretary of security, is remanded in custody for his alleged role in an organization that waged an underground antiterrorist war during the 1980s. Vera is the highest-ranking member of Premier Felipe Gonzalez’s government implicated in the widening investigation.

In South Africa, Western Cape premier Hernus Kriel overturns the Feb. 16 ruling made by Education Minister Martha Olckers, saying that he will not allow racial tensions to hamper efforts to educate black students.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Pres. Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) is dealt its biggest electoral setback in the party’s 66 years of uninterrupted rule in Mexico, losing almost all major races in Jalisco state. The results are widely interpreted as a vote of disapproval on Zedillo’s handling of the peso crisis.

Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León directs the army to discontinue offensive operations ordered Feb. 9. He calls instead for a resumption of EZLN-government talks to set terms for ending the EZLN’s smoldering rebellion.

The Taliban, a faction comprised of religious students who took up arms in 1994, emerges as the most powerful military force in Afghanistan when it routs Premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and his Hezb-e-Islami forces from their headquarters in Charasyab, 15 miles (25 km) south of Kabul. . . . U Nu, 87, first prime minister of Burma (now Myanmar), 1948–62, dies in Yangon, Myanmar, of an undisclosed illness.

Gallup Organization Inc. releases results of its first-ever poll conducted in China, and 68% of Chinese surveyed agree that their central philosophy is to “work hard and get rich,” while only 4% state they follow the philosophy espoused by former long-time Chinese leader Mao Zedong urging them to “Never think of yourself, give everything in service to society.”

Peru and Ecuador sign a pact ending armed clashes that broke out Jan. 26 over a remote stretch of their long-disputed border.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

February 12–17, 1995—707

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Reports confirm that Jim Mays, a professor in Dublin, Ireland, has discovered 300 poems by 19th-century British poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. . . . Todd Eldredge, 23, takes the men’s title at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Providence, Rhode Island.

In a 7-2 vote, the Supreme Court refuses to halt an Illinois court order that gives custody of an adopted boy, known as “Baby Richard,” to his biological father, Otakar Kirchner.

The Council of Economic Advisers forecasts slowing economic growth in 1995 that will likely lead to lower interest rates, and also notes that surging productivity growth in recent years may herald improvements in Americans’ standards of living.

The House approves, 238-192, anticrime legislation that will authorize more than $10 billion in block grants for local officials. The measure will eliminate federal funding for putting 100,000 new police officers on the streets, which is the centerpiece of a $30.2 billion anticrime law signed in 1994.

Data suggest that the cost of employee health benefits paid by employers in the U.S. in 1994 declined for the first time in a decade.

A jury in Houston, Texas, orders Dow Corning Corp. and Dow Chemical Co. to pay $5.2 million in damages to a couple, Gladys and Robert Laas, who claim that Gladys Laas suffered neurological and other health problems resulting from leaking silicone breast implants made by the two companies. It is the first time that Dow Chemical, a parent company of Dow Corning, is found liable in a breast-implant suit.

Four soldiers in training for the U.S. Army Ranger program, considered the army’s most grueling, die from hypothermia during a training exercise. The dead soldiers are Captain Milton Palmer, Second Lieutenant Spencer D. Dodge, Second Lieutenant Curt G. Sansoucie and Sergeant Norman Tillman.

The House passes, 241-181, the National Security Revitalization Act, a bill that will reduce U.S. contributions to UN peacekeeping operations around the world. . . . Figures reveal that the U.S. Coast Guard and Florida law-enforcement officials have intercepted more than 160 Cuban refugees since Feb. 14.

A Nassau County, New York, jury convicts Colin Ferguson on 25 counts, including second-degree murder, related to the Dec. 1993 shootings on a Long Island Rail Road train. . . . In New Orleans, Louisiana, Judge Okla Jones II rules that “all nicotine-dependent persons” in the U.S. may sue the tobacco industry in a class-action lawsuit. . . . The office of Senate minority leader Thomas Daschle (D, S.Dak.) rebuts allegations that Daschle intervened improperly after a Feb. 1994 plane crash with federal aviation inspectors to benefit a friend who owned B&L Aviation.

Feb. 13

In Washington, D.C., U.S. District Court judge Stanley Sporkin rejects a proposed consent decree agreed to in July 1994 between the Justice Department and Microsoft Corp. that would have settled government investigations into claims that the company engaged in anticompetitive and monopolistic behavior.

Michael V. Gazzo, 71, playwright best remembered for his groundbreaking drama A Hatful of Rain (1955), dies in Los Angeles, California, of complications from a stroke.

FBI agents arrest Kevin Mitnick, 31, a computer expert accused of stealing thousands of data files and credit card numbers from computer systems, at his apartment in Duraleigh Hills, North Carolina. Mitnick is considered one of the world’s most-wanted computer “hackers.”

Attorney General Janet Reno announces that the Justice Department has begun a preliminary criminal investigation into the financial affairs of Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown.

Feb. 12

Feb. 15

Researchers from Yale University report they have found evidence that the brains of men and women function differently when processing language.

In Houston, Texas, Judge Katie Kennedy rejects an August 1994 agreement under which three large chemical companies agreed to reimburse U.S. homeowners who installed defective polybutylene pipes. The agreement was described as the largest propertydamage settlement ever reached in the U.S. . . . The Commerce Department reports the U.S. recorded a $108.1 billion deficit in trade in goods and services in 1994. That is up 42% from the 1993 deficit of $75.7 billion and is the largest calendar-year gap since 1988.

Feb. 14

Feb. 16

Sotheby’s announces that four long-missing notebooks written by 19th-century American poet Walt Whitman have been located. Among the recently found works is an early draft of the poem “Song of Myself.” Sotheby’s states it will return the notebooks to the Library of Congress.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 17

708—February 18–23, 1995

World Affairs

Europe

Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, effectively the leader of Yugoslavia, rejects a proposal by the contact group—the U.S., Russia, Britain, France, and Germany—trying to negotiate a peace settlement in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The proposal would have lifted all UNimposed sanctions on what remains of Yugoslavia, the republics of Serbia and Montenegro.

Asia & the Pacific

In South Africa, tensions over integration of schools in Cape Town’s mostly white, low-income Ruyterwacht suburb continue when the entrance to the school is destroyed by an arson fire, causing about $6,000 worth of damage.

A judge in Perth, Australia, sentences Ray O’Connor, a former premier of Western Australia, to 18 months in jail for stealing a A$25,000 (US$18,500) check from the now-defunct Bond Corp. investment group in 1984. . . . The Australian Stock Exchange introduces 16 indexes designed to improve the means of evaluating the performance of small and medium-sized companies.

A commission report estimates that 24,400 civilians have died in Chechnya since Russia invaded the republic in December 1994. Sergei Kovalyov, the commission’s leader, claims that the figure may be as high as 30,000. . . . Ibrahim Ali, 17, is shot and killed in the southern French city of Marseille, allegedly by campaign workers for France’s extremist National Front party.

Zulu chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi leads his Inkatha Freedom Party in a walkout from South Africa’s multiparty parliament. He accuses the ANC and the National Party of failing to follow through on an agreement, signed in April 1994, to submit Inkatha political demands to international mediation. . . . Statistics show that, in separate reports of violence, Islamic militants have claimed responsibility for blowing up three bridges in or near Algiers and for killing at least 11 prominent citizens in the arts and civil affairs in a oneweek period.

Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide announces that he ordered the forced retirement of 43 senior army officers, including all of the army’s generals and lieutenants. The purge effectively removes all remaining officers who held senior positions under the military-led government that ousted Aristide in 1991.

The UN Security Council selects Arusha, Tanzania, as the site of an international tribunal to try individuals accused of genocide and other war crimes in Rwanda. . . . A U.S.-led seven-nation force of 23 ships, 80 aircraft, and more than 14,000 soldiers assemble off the coast of Mogadishu, Somalia, to aid in the mission to pull out the peacekeepers.

Russian forces renew large-scale attacks in Chechnya, with warplanes bombing Chechen brigades in Gudermes, Argun, and Samashki and on the outskirts of Grozny. . . . The French government announces it has asked the U.S. to recall five Americans, four of them diplomats, for alleged political and economic espionage.

In Burundi, Antoine Nduwayo, a Tutsi and a member of UPRONA, is appointed premier. . . . A UN Development Program convoy is attacked by Somalis in two armed pickup trucks. One Somali is reported killed. . . . Algerian security forces quash a revolt by militant fundamentalist Muslims at the Serkadji prison in Algiers, the capital. Estimates of the number of inmates killed in the revolt vary widely.

A total of 22 observers trek along a 48-mile (80-km) segment of the Cordillera del Condor mountain range, the disputed border between Ecuador and Peru.

Russia informs the U.S. that it intends to fulfill a recent nuclearplant contract with Iran despite U.S. objections that to do so will bolster Iran’s weapons capability.

Fighting between Bosnian government forces and Muslim rebels loyal to warlord Fikret Abdic continues in the Bihac region of northwestern Bosnia, despite a Jan. 1 cease-fire.

The Algerian government states that 96 inmates died in the Feb. 22 uprising at the Serkadji prison in Algiers, and that 81 of them were prisoners charged with “terrorist” acts.

U.S. president Clinton makes his first state visit to Canada.

Feb. 21

Feb. 23

Sir Nicholas Fairbairn, 61, British parliamentarian who has represented the Scottish district of Perth and Kinross since 1974, dies in Dunfermline, Scotland of a liver ailment. . . . Yan Chernyak, 85, Soviet intelligence agent who served in Germany from 1930 until the end of World War II, dies in Moscow of undisclosed causes.

Belgian premier Jean-Luc Dehaene announces that general elections will be held seven months sooner than is required by law.

Feb. 20

Feb. 22

The Americas

The official Algerian news service reports that security forces have killed five militants suspected in the Feb. 15 slaying of Nabila Djahnine.

Feb. 18

Feb. 19

Africa & the Middle East

The Australian Bureau of Statistics releases the first detailed, nationwide survey of aboriginal Australians. It finds that the unemployment rate for aborigines is 38%, about four times the national average. The average aboriginal income is below the poverty line, at A$14,406 (US $10,700) annually.

A Pakistani court lifts death sentences that a lower court imposed against two Christians, one a 14year-old boy, accused of blaspheming Mohammed, the founder of Islam. Citing insufficient evidence, the Lahore High Court dismisses the blasphemy charges and releases the boy, Salamet Masih, and his uncle, Rehmat Masih.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

February 18–23, 1995—709

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The NAACP board of directors narrowly elects Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of slain civil-rights leader Medgar Evers, as the group’s new chair.

Feb. 18

A U.S. helicopter carrying five marines crashes just after takeoff from the U.S. helicopter carrier Essex off the coast of Somalia. Four of the marines are rescued, but Sergeant Justin Harris has yet to be found.

Calder Baynard Willingham Jr., 72, novelist and screenwriter of the film The Graduate (1967), dies in Laconia, New Hampshire, of lung cancer. . . . Sterling Marlin wins his second consecutive Daytona 500 automobile race.

U.S. military officials declare U.S. Marine sergeant Justin Harris, whose plane crashed Feb. 19, lost at sea.

The International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) and the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU) announce that they will merge their organizations to form UNITE, an acronym for Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees.

In O’Neal v. McAninch, the Supreme Court, 6-3, rules that judges who are unable to determine whether a prisoner’s constitutional rights were violated during a state trial should assume that they had been and order a new trial. . . . The Supreme Court rules, 8-1, that Amtrak, the National Railroad Passenger Corp., is a federal agency and is therefore bound by the Constitution to respect free-speech rights. . . . The state of Florida files suit against the tobacco industry seeking to recover $1.4 billion in state money spent through Medicaid over a five-year period to care for victims of smoking-related illnesses.

The U.S. and Mexico reach terms on a $20 billion U.S. aid package aimed at stabilizing Mexico’s currency, the peso, laying a basis for a gradual recovery of the Mexican economy.

In its quarterly earnings review, The Wall Street Journal reports that the net income of 668 major corporations totaled $59.55 billion in the 1994 fourth quarter. That is a 61% gain over those companies’ 1993 fourth-quarter profits, which totaled $37.09 billion. . . . Pres. Clinton promotes Laura D’Andrea Tyson, the CEA chair, to the cabinet-level post of chair of the National Economic Council (NEC). Tyson will succeed Robert E. Rubin. . . . The House votes, 381-44, to repeal a 1978 FCC program granting tax breaks favoring minority-owned firms that seek to purchase or establish media operations.

In Harris v. Alabama, the Supreme Court rules, 8-1, that an Alabama law that allows judges to overrule juries’ sentencing recommendations in death-penalty cases is constitutional. . . . A grand jury in Washington, D.C., indicts former Rep. Mary Rose Oakar (D, Ohio) on seven felony counts, including conspiracy, filing false financial reports, and lying to the FEC.

The House approves, 262-165, a $3.2 billion defense spending bill.

In U.S. v. National Treasury Employees Union, the Supreme Court overturns, 6-3, a federal ethics law that banned federal government employees from accepting honoraria payments for freelance speaking engagements or published articles. . . . The Supreme Court unanimously dismisses Anderson v. Green, a welfare benefits case in which a lower court declared that California’s imposition of a one-year residency requirement for eligibility for full welfare benefits violates the constitutional right to travel.

FBI agents in Dallas, Texas, arrest former Rep. Donald E. (Buz) Lukens (R, Ohio) on charges of having taken bribes from two Ohio businessmen in 1990.

Robert Bolt, 70, screenwriter and playwright who won Academy Awards for his screenplays for the films Dr. Zhivago (1965) and A Man for All Seasons (1966), dies near Petersfield, England, of heart ailments.

Feb. 19

Feb. 20

Feb. 21

The FDA approves Havrix, the first vaccine for hepatitis A, a liver infection contracted by as many as 150,000 people in the U.S. each year. . . . A study suggests that optic nerve decompression surgery, which is routinely performed to correct a type of vision loss that affects at least 6,000 people in the U.S. each year, is ineffective and possibly harmful.

Federal prosecutors in New York City announce they have charged three men with arranging a kickback scheme valued at $262,000 with a New Jersey bank seeking to win municipal-bond business from that state in 1990. The case is the most significant to date in the federal government’s probe, unveiled in May 1993. . . . The Dow crosses the psychologically important 4,000-point level for the first time, rising 30.28 points to close at 4003.33.

Feb. 22

Melvin Franklin, 52, original member of the music group the Temptations, dies in Los Angeles, California, of heart failure. . . . James Herriot (born James Alfred Wight), 78, British author of All Creatures Great and Small (1974), dies in Yorkshire, England, of cancer.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 23

710—February 24–March 1, 1995

World Affairs

German interior minister Manfred Kanther bans two neo-Nazi groups after a constitutional court ruled that the organizations are not true political parties. The German government has banned at least four neo-Nazi groups in an effort to cut down on right-wing violence, which, since 1990, has caused the deaths of 30 people, mostly foreigners. Separately, 11,000 members of Germany’s largest trade union, IG Metall, go on strike.

Feb. 24

Feb. 27

Feb. 28

Africa & the Middle East UN troops continue boarding planes out of Somalia, and numbers indicate that 4,000 of the 7,900 peacekeepers who were in Somalia in early February remain in the country.

In what is called an accidental explosion, 25 Russian soldiers and security service staff are killed in Mozdok, the Russian military headquarters near Grozny, the capital of Chechnya.

Feb. 25

Feb. 26

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

During U.S. president Clinton’s visit to Canada, Canada and the U.S. sign a so-called open-skies pact to reduce restrictions on air travel between the countries.

Mexican federal agents arrest Othon Cortes Vazquez as an alleged second gunman in the March 1994 slaying of the then-presidential candidate of the ruling PRI party, Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta. The arrest signals the apparent determination to reexamine the conclusions made by the previous government that Colosio was murdered by a lone, demented assassin.

In Pakistan, masked gunmen kill 20 Shi’ite Muslims at two mosques in Karachi. . . . Twelve prominent intellectual dissidents issue a statement urging the parliament to take bold steps to combat corruption in China. . . . O Jin U, 77, North Korean defense minister who had led the country’s army since 1976 and was a leading military figure in the Korean War, dies of cancer.

Officials from the Group of Seven (G-7) leading industrialized nations pledge to work together closely in developing and building the so-called information superhighway worldwide.

Barings PLC, Britain’s oldest merchant bank, declares bankruptcy after discovering that the firm’s chief trader in Singapore, Nicholas Leeson, lost approximately £625 million ($1 billion) of the bank’s assets on unauthorized futures and options transactions.

Yemen and Saudi Arabia sign an accord that reaffirms the 1934 Taif agreement after month-long talks aimed at settling their 60-year-old border dispute. . . . The heaviest fighting among Somali factions in recent weeks erupts near the airport, halting the retreat of UN troops. At least one Somali is reported dead.

Pakistani police state they have arrested 36 members of radical Sunni Muslim religious organizations suspected in the Feb. 25 attack.

In an investigation into the so-called Agusta affair, Willy Claes, the secretary general of NATO, voluntarily submits to questioning to clarify what he knew about alleged bribes paid to the Belgian Socialist Party in 1988 by Italian aircraft manufacturer Agusta S.p.A. . . . Max van der Stoel, a former Dutch foreign minister monitoring the rights situation in Iraq for the UN Commission on Human Rights, characterizes Iraq as among “the worst offenders of human rights since the Second World War.”

Reports state that the predominantly Muslim Bosnian government is restricting the movement of UN troops on government-controlled territory, straining already tense relations between the Bosnian government and the UN mission. . . . Bernard Cornfeld, 67, international financier noted for his flamboyant and hedonistic lifestyle, dies in London, England, of complications from a 1994 stroke.

Israel deports to Jordan a Palestinian police officer it recently charged with attacks on Israelis and Palestinian collaborators. The deportation is the first of its kind since Palestinian rule was established in Gaza and Jericho in May 1994. . . . A powerful car bomb rips through the market district of the Kurdish-controlled city of Zakho in northern Iraq, killing more than 50 people and injuring scores of others.

Luis Roldan, former chief of Spain’s paramilitary Civil Guard police force, is detained in Laos after a massive 10-month manhunt. . . . A group of Chinese dissidents issues two statements calling for the establishment of democracy and the guarantee of basic human rights and justice in China.

A UN force of 1,800 U.S. Marines and 400 Italian soldiers arrive in Mogadishu, Somalia, to aid in the mission to pull out the peacekeepers, and 900 Bangladeshi troops sail from Mogadishu for Tanzania. . . . Johan Delanghe, top advisor in 1988 to Willy Claes, the NATO secretary general, is arrested in connection with the Agusta scandal.

Luis Roldan, former chief of Spain’s paramilitary Civil Guard police force, is returned to Spain by Laos. Roldan fled Spanish charges of economic offenses, and the subsequent investigation uncovered widespread corruption in the interior ministry and sparked a massive scandal.

Reports reveal that the PNA has denounced the Feb. 27 deportation by Israel as a violation of the PLO’s accord with Israel. . . . Amnesty International finds that Kurdish political forces of all ideological persuasions are guilty of widespread human-rights violations in northern Iraq.

Premier Waldemar Pawlak steps down after losing a vote of confidence in the Polish parliament. . . . Pres. Leonid Kuchma announces the resignation of Ukraine’s premier, Vitaly Masol. He is replaced by First Deputy Premier Yevhen Marchuk, former head of Ukraine’s secret security service. . . . Vladislav Listyev, 38, general director of Russia’s largest state-owned TV channel and one of the country’s most famous personalities, is shot to death in Moscow. Police link the murder to organized crime.

About 1,500 Pakistani soldiers pull out of Mogadishu, Somalia, leaving the airport unguarded by international forces for the first time since December 1992. Hundreds of looters move in but are routed by forces loyal to Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid. His seizure of the airport flouts an accord to hold the airport by a coalition of clan officials. . . . Police detectives raid the home and offices of Winnie Mandela, the estranged wife of South African president Nelson Mandela, in search of evidence to support allegations of fraud.

March 1

Raul Salinas de Gortari, the brother of former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, is arrested and charged with planning and arranging the assassination in September 1994 of Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, the secretary general of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The charges shock most Mexicans.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

February 24–March 1, 1995—711

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Clinton administration announces it has declassified as many as 800,000 photographs taken by U.S. spy satellites between 1960 and 1972. The move marks the first time that the U.S. government makes public any surveillance satellite photographs.

The Dow rises 8.41 points to close at 4011.74, its highest closing level ever.

Researchers report that they isolated the first biological clock gene in plants. Experiments in the past have shown that many biological functions in plants and animals are governed by an unexplained internal biological clock.

Greg Louganis, 35, four-time Olympic diving gold medalist and the only male diver ever to win double gold medals at consecutive Olympic Games, acknowledges that he has AIDS.

Jack Clayton, 73, British film director best known for Room at the Top (1959), dies in Slough, England, of heart and liver ailments. . . . Boxer Gerald McClellan, 27, is hospitalized after being knocked out by Nigel Benn of Great Britain during a bout in London. The brutality of the fight and McClellan’s subsequent hospitalization lead to a call for a ban on boxing. Trade negotiators from the U.S. and China sign an accord designed to end a long-running dispute over the Chinese government’s inability to halt the widespread production in China of so-called pirated goods— illegal copies of goods protected by international and domestic copyright regulations. The agreement is signed the day that punitive tariffs, announced on Feb. 4, were to go into effect.

The National Book Critics Circle announces its annual awards have gone to Carol Shields for fiction, Lynn H. Nicholas for general nonfiction, Mikal Gilmore for biography, Gerald Early for criticism, and Mark Rudman for poetry.

Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin unveils a wide-ranging plan to overhaul the nation’s complex bankregulation laws.

In Arizona v. Evans, the Supreme Court, 7-2, rules that evidence obtained by police officers who acted on an invalid arrest warrant can be introduced at trial. . . . Richard Bailey, a former horse trainer accused of soliciting the murder of candy heiress Helen Vorhees Brach, pleads guilty in a federal court in Chicago to a series of charges against him, including racketeering and solicitation of murder, but denies involvement in Brach’s murder.

Pres. Clinton’s administration downgrades Colombia’s rating as an antidrug partner. While the evaluation, issued by the State Department, leaves U.S. aid to Colombia intact, it marks the first time in the report’s eight-year history that Colombia has received less than an unqualified certification of its drugfighting activities. The report draws an angry defense from the Colombian government.

The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield tops the bestseller list.

The House passes, 286-141, the Risk Assessment and Cost-Benefit Act of 1995, a comprehensive bill that will severely limit the federal government’s ability to impose environmental, health and occupationalsafety regulations on U.S. industries. . . . In Gustafson v. Alloyed Co. Inc., the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that a key protection offered to investors under a 1933 statute extends only to those who purchase stock in an initial public offering.

Denver International Airport, the first major commercial airport to be built in the U.S. in 20 years, officially opens. It is the nation’s largest airport, covering 53 square miles (137 sq km) of land about 23 miles (40 km) northwest of Denver, Colorado.

The Commerce Department reports that U.S. gross domestic product grew at a revised annual rate of 4.6% in the 1994 fourth quarter. That compares with an annualized GDP gain of 4% in the third quarter. The U.S. economy in the 1994 calendar year grew at a 4% annual rate, its largest expansion in 10 years.

German entertainment conglomerate Bertelsmann AG announces that it will enter into a joint venture with America Online Inc. of the U.S. to create an on-line computer service in Britain, France, and Germany. . . . Georges J. F. Koehler, 48, German biologist who shared the 1984 Nobel Prize in Medicine and is noted for his techniques in vaccinations, dies in Freiburg, Germany, of heart failure.

Feb. 24

Feb. 25

Feb. 26

Feb. 27

Feb. 28

At the Grammys, Bruce Springsteen is a big winner, picking up four awards, including best song of the year, best male rock vocal, and best rock song. Singer Tony Bennett wins two Grammys, including the best album of the year, and Sheryl Crow wins three awards, including best record and best new artist.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 1

712—March 2–7, 1995

World Affairs

March 2

March 3

Europe

The Americas

Seven-time Italian premier Giulio Andreotti is indicted for his alleged ties to the Mafia. . . . Reports confirm that a UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) convoy rescued 62 civilians from the isolated Muslim enclave of Gorazde. . . . Ukrainian authorities disclose they have arrested two doctors accused of stealing newborn babies from Ukrainian parents and selling them to foreigners for adoption abroad.

About 400 Italian soldiers and the remaining Pakistani peacekeepers, along with U.S. military hardware used by the UN, are evacuated from Mogadishu, Somalia.

Jorge Eliecer Rodriguez Orejuela, the brother of Miguel and Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, the alleged Cali kingpins, is arrested in Colombia. He reportedly is seized during a wide-ranging sweep carried out by 3,000 police and soldiers that net about 60 other drug-related detentions. . . . Eric Lamothe, 50, a proAristide member of the Chamber of Deputies, is found dead in his car in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, with two bullet wounds to the head.

The House of Commons unanimously passes a bill that largely prohibits game hunting in Britain. . . . Tens of thousands of mourners wait outside the Ostankino TV network’s Moscow headquarters for hours for a chance to pay their respects to Vladislav Listyev, who was killed Mar. 1. Listyev’s execution reportedly causes the greatest display of public mourning in Russia since human-rights activist Andrei D. Sakharov died in 1989.

The last remaining 2,400 UN peacekeeping troops in Somalia depart from a beach in south Mogadishu. Several Somalis are killed by marine gunfire as the last U.S. soldiers depart.

Former Mexican president Carlos Salinas begins a hunger strike, asserting that he will end it only if he is granted meetings with key officials of Pres. Zedillo’s government. . . . In an article, former commander Adolfo Francisco Scilingo, a retired naval officer, alleges that hundreds of leftist “subversives” were drowned during the later 1970s as part of the military dictatorship’s “dirty war” against political opponents in Argentina. . . . In Haiti, a member of a peasant organization that supports JeanBertrand Aristide is killed.

Asia & the Pacific

Pierre-Claver Rwangabo, a moderate Hutu and governor of Rwanda’s southern province of Butare, is shot and killed.

March 4

The AP reports that Russian forces have captured a key road between the Chechen-held villages of Samashki and Achkhoy-Martan, effectively isolating rebels in Samashky. . . . Voters in Estonia oust the ruling Fatherland Party of reformers and replace it with former communists from the Coalition Party and politicians from the Rural Peoples’ Union in general elections.

March 5

March 6

Africa & the Middle East

The first UN World Summit on Social Development convenes in Copenhagen, Denmark, attracting 118 presidents, vice presidents, and premiers and at least 13,000 other attendees. . . . Reports confirm that the G-7 has pledged $4 billion to Ukraine, partly to help dismantle its nuclear weapons. . . . The EU and Turkey agree to establish a trade alliance.

March 7

Inkatha agrees at a party meeting to end its boycott of South Africa’s multiparty parliament, which the group started Feb. 21.

Former Mexican president Salinas ends the hunger strike started Mar. 3 after Pres. Zedillo reportedly agrees to publicly absolve him of sole responsibility for having caused Mexico’s economic crisis and for having blocked probes into the March 1994 killing of Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta.

Reports suggest that Russian forces in Chechnya have driven out the last remaining rebels in Grozny. . . . Robert Hughes, a junior minister in Britain’s Office of Public Service and Science, becomes the 13th member of P.M. Major’s Conservative Party government to resign since 1990. . . . The Dutch financial conglomerate ING announces it will buy most of Barings, a 233-year-old British bank that collapsed.

Reports indicate that violence is escalating in Guatemala and that dead bodies are being discovered each day on the streets of Guatemala City, the capital.

Paul-Emile Victor, 87, French polar explorer who first gained fame in 1936 when he crossed Greenland on a dog-drawn sled, dies on BoraBora, French Polynesia, of heart ailments.

Longshoremen at ports on both the east and west coasts of Canada begin strikes in disputes with shipping lines over work procedures, job security, and retirement payments. The Montreal labor conflict is the first at that port in 20 years.

Thirteen influential Chinese exiles send an appeal to the congress on behalf of human-rights petitioners, arguing that the parliament should seek to fulfill the dissidents’ requests.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

March 2–7, 1995—713

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Under California’s “three strikes and you’re out” law, Los Angeles Superior Court judge Donald Pitts sentences Jerry Dewayne Williams, 27, to 25 years to life in prison for stealing a slice of pizza from a group of children. The petty theft charge was upgraded to a felony due to Williams’s previous convictions. . . . CDC officials report that for the first time they have documented a case of tuberculosis transmitted from one passenger to others aboard a commercial airliner. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, a Colorado Democrat in his first Senate term, announces that he will join the Republican Party, giving the GOP 54 seats in the Senate. . . . Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens states that officials from Chicago may go ahead with their 1992 plan to ban the sale of spray paint within the city’s limits in an effort to curb vandalism. . . . Federal judge Robert Krupansky for the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals puts the Cleveland, Ohio, public school system, which is nearly bankrupt, under state control.

U.S. authorities arrest former Mexican deputy attorney general Mario Ruiz Massieu, 44, in Newark, New Jersey, charging him with failing to report that he is carrying $46,000 in cash.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A proposed constitutional amendment that would put pressure on Congress to balance the annual federal budget falls just one vote short of the two-thirds majority needed to win passage in the Senate. Sen. Mark Hatfield (R, Oreg.) becomes the only Republican to vote against the measure.

In a historic finding, two competing teams of scientists announce they have found the top quark, the last unknown among the six quark particles thought to be the building blocks of matter. . . . .The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour blasts off from Kennedy Space Center. . . . Researchers reveal that intermittent infusions of interleukin-2 into the bloodstreams of patients infected with HIV increase the body’s production of infection-fighting CD4 lymphocyte cells.

Twenty-seven of 28 MLB clubs begin their circuit of spring-training exhibition games. The Baltimore Orioles does not field a team because its owner, Peter Angelos, refuses to hire replacement players.

Former representative Mary Rose Oakar (D, Ohio) pleads guilty to seven felony counts, stemming from a federal investigation into the misuse of the now-defunct House Bank. . . . The House passes, 277-141, the Job Creation and Wage Enhancement Act, a package of legislation regarding government regulation practices.

During the Endeavour mission, the Astro-2 observes a stellar explosion, or nova, called Nova Aquilae, in the constellation Aquila. . . . R(ussell) E(arl) Marker, 92, chemist who discovered a means of producing a synthetic form of the female hormone progesterone, dies in Wernersville, Pennsylvania, of complications from a broken hip.

Howard William Hunter, 87, who was appointed as leader of the Mormon Church in June 1994, dies in Salt Lake City, Utah, of prostate cancer. . . . The director-designate of the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., Steven T. Katz, resigns, citing recent news reports of reprimands he received while on the faculty of Cornell University.

The family of slain civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., in a truce with the U.S. Park Service, reopens King’s Atlanta, Georgia, birthplace and tomb to free tours conducted by the service. The family had barred the Park Service in late December 1994. . . . James Bryan McMillan, 78, judge who helped establish a national standard for school desegregation in the U.S. with a 1969 decision that ordered an extensive cross-town busing program in a Charlotte, N.C., school district, dies in Charlotte of cancer. Reports indicate that several Supreme Court justices and federal judges accepted gifts from a legal publishing company that has cases pending in lower courts. West Publishing Co. of Eagan, Minnesota, reportedly offered lavish trips to justices and judges who helped the company choose a recipient for its annual Edward J. Devitt Distinguished Service to Justice Award.

At an Atlanta, Georgia, indoor trackand-field competition, Michael Johnson of the U.S., runs the 400meter race in 44.63 seconds, setting a new indoor world record. Also from the U.S., Lance Deal throws the 35-pound (16-kg) weight 84 feet, 10 inches (25.9 m), beating his previous world mark of 81 feet, 8.5 inches (24.9 m).

Representatives announce a $1 billion deal that Houston, Texasbased Conoco Inc. signed to develop two Iranian oil fields and construct a natural-gas pipeline.

NASA reports that more than 350,000 requests for information have been logged since the Endeavour lifted off Mar. 2. During the Endeavour mission, NASA for the first time is offering public computer access via the Internet, a global computer network.

The one Australia yacht sinks in the Pacific Ocean during a challengers’ semifinal race against Team New Zealand. The yacht’s sinking is described as the most dramatic in the 144-year history of America’s Cup.

In Curtiss-Wright Corp. v. Schoonejongen. the Supreme Court rules unanimously that companies have the right to amend employee-benefit plans, even if the change terminates medical benefits for retired workers. . . . In Mastrobuono v. Shearson Lehman Hutton, the Supreme Court rules, 8-1, that arbitrators have the authority to award punitive damages to investors.

New York governor George Pataki (R) signs into law a measure reinstating the death penalty in New York state. By signing the bill, New York becomes the 38th state to currently have capital punishment. . . . The House passes, 232-193, the Attorney Accountability Act, a bill which will apply a “loser pays” principle in some lawsuits to discourage frivolous claims by plaintiffs and to encourage others to settle their cases out of court.

The U.S. dollar plunges to postWorld War II lows against the world’s two other major currencies, the German mark and the Japanese yen.

March 2

March 3

March 4

March 5

March 6

During the Endeavour mission, telescopes observe the collision of two galaxies about 90 million light years from Earth. Each of the galaxies is about 100 light years in diameter and is thought to have 20 billion times the mass of the sun.

Leon Day, Richie Ashburn, William Hulbert, and Vic Willis are elected to enter the Baseball Hall of Fame, in Cooperstown, New York.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 7

714—March 8–13, 1995

March 8

March 9

March 10

World Affairs

Europe

At the first UN World Summit on Social Development, delegates mark International Women’s Day. . . . The UN Human Rights Commission rejects an unprecedented measure to censure China for its human-rights record. It votes to condemn several governments, including Sudan and Iran, for their poor human-rights records.

The Greek parliament elects Costis Stefanopoulos to be the country’s president, a largely ceremonial position. . . . British home secretary Michael Howard announces that 16 people banned from entering the British mainland from Northern Ireland will also be given the freedom to travel where they wish. All of the people banned from travel are suspected terrorists.

Canadian authorities capture a Spanish trawler off the coast of Newfoundland and arrest the ship’s captain. The incident aggravates long-simmering international tensions over fishing rights in the North Atlantic Ocean. . . . Officials from the U.S., South Korea, and Japan announce the establishment of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, a multinational consortium that will control the raising of funds to complete the nuclearreplacement project.

Queen Elizabeth II makes her first visit to Northern Ireland since the IRA declared a cease-fire in August 1994. . . . Members of Germany’s largest trade union, IG Metall, ratify a two-year labor contract, ending a limited strike that started Feb. 24. . . . Reports reveal that war crimes were committed by all sides in the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but 90% of the “ethnic cleansing,” or the deliberate elimination of an ethnic group through murder, forcible expulsion, and persecution, was carried out by Serbs.

Japan holds a memorial service marking the 50th anniversary of the Allied firebombing of Tokyo during World War II. The service is attended by several people, including Walter Mondale, the first U.S. ambassador ever to attend a public ceremony commemorating the firebombing. He apologizes for the attack, which he describes as “that great human tragedy.”

March 13

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Two Americans, Jackie van Landingham, 33, and Gary C. Durell, 45, are killed and another one, Mark McCloy, is wounded when drive-by gunmen open fire on a van taking the three to the U.S. consulate in Karachi, Pakistan’s financial and commercial hub.

A car bomb explodes in Algiers, the capital of Algeria, near a residence for police and their families. At least 63 people are injured. . . . Nigeria’s military government confirms for the first time that it had foiled a coup attempt and detained 29 military officers and some civilians in connection with the planned coup. . . . Mattityahu Peled, 71, Israeli army general and member of Israel’s Knesset, 1984–88, dies of cancer.

Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of Kazakhstan, dissolves the country’s parliament and states he will rule by decree until new elections can be held. The government resigns. . . . Police in Zurich, Switzerland, report they have arrested about 200 heroin dealers, many of them foreigners who were deported, since the Feb. 14 shutdown of a notorious heroin market. . . . Gunfire and mortar attacks erupt in Sarajevo.

In Burundi, Energy Minister Ernest Kabusheye, a moderate Hutu, is assassinated.

U.S. president Clinton nominates James Wolfensohn as the new president of the World Bank. . . . About 6,000 angry Canadians gather in St. John’s, Newfoundland, to meet the Estai, the Spanish trawler seized Mar. 9. The Canadians shout and throw eggs at the captain, Enrique Davila Gonzalez, and at EU representatives and ambassadors.

As gunfire and shelling continue in Sarajevo, six people are killed and seven wounded in the worst violence since a general cease-fire took effect in Bosnia on Jan 1. . . . Riots erupt when gunmen open fire on several Alawite Muslims in Istanbul, killing two. . . . Croatian president Franjo Tudjman agrees to a new mandate to allow UN peacekeeping forces to remain in Croatia after Mar. 31, the scheduled expiration date.

Data show that several donor nations have failed to honor pledges they made in November 1994 for an emergency fund aimed at meeting the PNA’s operating expenses through March 1995. The shortfall, which reportedly leaves the fund depleted, jeopardizes salary payments to the PNA’s 24,000 employees.

The first UN World Summit on Social Development closes, and delegates from more than 180 countries endorse by consensus a plan aimed at eradicating poverty worldwide and combating social injustice.

In Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, the forces of Rovshan Javadov take over a police station. Street fighting erupts, killing several people. . . . Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz makes his first visit to France since the early 1960s. . . . In Bosnia, gunfire breaks out at the Sarajevo airport while a plane tries pick up Indonesian president Suharto. . . . Odette Hallowes (born Odette Marie Celine Brailly), 82, British special operations agent who was tortured by the Gestapo and became the first woman awarded Britain’s George Cross medal, dies in Walton-onThames, England.

In Burundi, Lucien Sakubu, a Tutsi adviser to the interior ministry and a former mayor of Bujumbura, is kidnapped. . . . Retired general Olusegun Obasanjo is arrested near Lagos in connection with the alleged coup plot the Nigerian government disclosed on Mar. 10.

March 11

March 12

Africa & the Middle East

Brazil’s central bank devalues the nation’s eight-month-old currency, the real, altering the real’s trading band for the second time in less than a week.

India’s ruling Congress (I) Party loses control of parliaments in the country’s two most industrialized states in elections.

A UN mission monitoring human rights in Guatemala decries the Guatemalan government for its failure to prosecute security officials who allegedly were involved in widespread rights abuses, including death-squad operations and drug trafficking. . . . About 480 foremen of the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union go on strike in Vancouver, British Columbia, and other ports on Canada’s Pacific coast.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

March 8–13, 1995—715

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

The House passes, 265-261, the Common Sense Product Liability and Legal Reform Act, a bill designed to prevent courts from assessing disproportionately high damages in personal-injury and malpractice suits. . . . Former Alabama governor George Wallace (D), a onetime opponent of racial integration, attends a ceremony marking the 30th anniversary of a 50-mile (80km) civil-rights march from Selma to Montgomery. Wallace has recanted his earlier stance since 1985.

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The State Department announces that it is suspending its military-aid program to Guatemala to protest what it calls Guatemala’s humanrights abuses. . . . Retired air force general Michael P. C. Carns, Pres. Clinton’s nominee to be director of central intelligence, withdraws from consideration after FBI agents confronted him with allegations that he and his wife violated labor and immigration laws when they brought a Filipino citizen to the U.S.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Pres. Clinton issues an executive order that prohibits the federal government from offering contracts to companies that hire permanent replacements for workers who are legally on strike. . . . The House clears, 325-99, the Securities Litigation Reform Act, which is designed to discourage shareholders from filing lawsuits that unfairly charge companies with securities fraud when the price of the companies’ stock declines.

Heavy rains begin in California. . . . A study finds that infants who live in homes where people smoke tobacco products are more than twice as likely to die of SIDS as infants in smoke-free homes. . . . A jury rules in favor of IBM in a lawsuit brought by Nancy Urbanski, who claims that her use of the company’s keyboards caused repetitive stress injuries (RSI). The case is the first RSI-liability suit against IBM to go to trial and is watched as a potential benchmark for pending RSI suits.

Paul George Vincent O’Shaughnessy Horgan, 91, Pulitzer Prize– winning author, dies in Middletown, Connecticut, of cardiac arrest. . . . Reports state the John M. Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion will go to physicist Paul Davies. . . . At the World Figure Skating Championships, in Birmingham, England, Czechs Radka Kovarikova and Rene Novotny win the gold in pairs.

Neal Ainley pleads not guilty on five felony counts stemming from an investigation by prosecutor Kenneth Starr into the Whitewater affair. . . . Six large securities firms release details of a plan in which they volunteer to submit their currently unregulated derivatives operations to federal scrutiny. . . . Edward L. Bernays, 103, the “father of public relations” whose clients included Procter & Gamble, GE, GM, and American Tobacco, dies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, of bladder cancer.

During the Endeavour mission, the Astro-2 teams with the Hubble Space Telescope to examine the effects on Jupiter’s atmosphere of volcanic eruptions on Jupiter’s moon Io. The shuttle telescopes are capable of detecting certain frequencies and properties of ultraviolet light that are out of Hubble’s range. . . . A study suggests that the bodies of both fat and thin people alter their metabolism in an effort to maintain a set weight.

Ian Ballantine, 79, publishing pioneer who founded three major paperback book houses, dies in Bearsville, New York, of cardiac arrest. . . . The artistic director of Russia’s Bolshoi Ballet, Yuri Grigorovich, submits his resignation. . . . Elvis Stojko of Canada wins the men’s title at the World Figure Skating Championships.

The Dow closes at a record high of 4035.61, up 52.22 points.

A study finds that people who take calcium channel blockers to lower their blood pressure face up to a 60% higher risk of suffering a heart attack than people taking other types of blood-pressure drugs. . . . Researchers report they have isolated two genes that, when mutant, cause a relatively rare inherited heart disorder known as long QT syndrome. . . . A 180-mile (290-km) section of I-5 is closed after a bridge in Coalinga, California, collapses due to floods.

Jonathan Schmitz, 24, who admits to slaying his homosexual admirer, Scott Amedure, 32, out of anger, pleads not guilty to first-degree murder. Amedure revealed his crush on Schmitz during a taping of The Jenny Jones Show. . . . Russians Oksana Gritschuk and Yevgeny Platov win the ice-dancing title at the World Figure Skating Championships.

At the World Figure Skating Championships, Chen Lu places first in the women’s competition to become the first Chinese skater to win a world title.

Judge Philip M. Pro of U.S. District Court in Las Vegas, Nevada, reduces to $5.2 million from $6.7 million the judgment awarded to Paula Coughlin, the whistle-blower in the U.S. Navy’s Tailhook convention sexual-assault scandal.

On the Endeavour mission, Astro-2 makes the first-ever ultraviolet observations of Earth’s moon.

Gordon B. Hinckley is ordained as the 15th president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon Church. Hinckley, 84, succeeds Howard William Hunter.

Attorney General Janet Reno submits a request to a panel of federal judges to appoint an independent counsel to determine whether HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros acted criminally by misleading federal investigators about support payments he made to his former mistress, Linda Medlar.

Pres. Clinton declares federal emergencies due to flooding in 39 of California’s 58 counties, making them eligible for federal aid. . . . The FCC concludes a three-month-long auction for wireless-telephone service licenses. The agency reportedly raised $7 billion, a sum that exceeds most initial estimates.

Leon Day, 78, baseball player who was a star pitcher in the Negro leagues in the 1930s and 1940s, before the major leagues were integrated, and who was selected for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame on Mar. 7, dies in Baltimore, Maryland, of heart ailments, diabetes, and gout.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 8

March 9

March 10

March 11

March 12

March 13

716—March 14–19, 1995

March 14

March 15

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

U.S. first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton addresses a conference, called “Women and the United Nations,” at UN headquarters in New York City.

Ireland’s parliament gives final approval to a controversial bill that would liberalize the country’s strict antiabortion laws. . . . France arrests 13 Algerians and one Frenchman of Algerian descent suspected of having ties to militant Muslim groups. . . . Nine French UN peacekeeping soldiers are killed and four wounded when their vehicle falls off a slippery road on Mount Igman, south of Sarajevo, the capital of BosniaHerzegovina.

UN figures suggest that total foreign direct investment in 1994 totaled about $204 billion worldwide.

Riots that broke out Mar. 12 in Turkey calm, and data shows that some 30 people were killed. The government states that 1,500 people took part in the demonstrations. . . . Lord Frederick William Mulley, 76, British Labour Party chairman, 1974–75, and defense secretary, 1976–79, dies of an undisclosed illness.

Carlitos Menem, the only son of Argentine president Carlos Saul Menem, dies in a helicopter crash. . . . In Bedford, Nova Scotia, former Nova Scotia premier Gerald Regan is charged with 16 counts of sex crimes, including rape, unlawful detention, and indecent assault.

Italian premier Lamberto Dini wins a confidence vote when the Chamber of Deputies, in two votes, narrowly approves his proposed “minibudget.” . . . Lord Simon Christopher Joseph Fraser Lovat, 83, British war hero who led a Scottish commando unit onto the Normandy beaches in the Allied forces’ 1944 D-Day attack, dies in Beauly, Scotland, of an undisclosed illness.

Canadian Forces captain Michael Sox is convicted by court-martial of negligent performance of duty. Sox is the last remaining defendant in the 1993 torture and beating death of a 16-year-old Somali in the custody of Canadian soldiers on a UN peacekeeping mission in Somalia.

March 16

Azeri government troops storm the headquarters of a rebel police unit about five miles (eight km) north of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, crushing the Mar. 13 coup attempt against Azeri president Heydar Aliyev. The leader of the police unit, Deputy Interior Minister Rovshan Javadov, is killed in the attack, along with 80 other people. . . . Ukraine’s parliament passes a resolution that abolishes the constitution of the autonomous republic of Crimea and ousts Crimea’s president, Yuri Meshkov. Ukraine deploys 200 riot police to Simferopol, but no unrest is reported.

March 17

The Social Democrat Party defeats the ruling Center Party in general elections, becoming Finland’s largest parliamentary party.

March 19

Asia & the Pacific

In Burundi, the mutilated body of Lucien Sakubu, a Tutsi kidnapped Mar. 13, is found, prompting Tutsi youths to attack Hutus in the capital with hand grenades and knives. A large number of Hutus reportedly are wounded before police intervene.

In Kigali, 24 Rwandan prisoners held on charges of participating in the 1994 massacres are found dead, apparently from suffocation, in a jail cell. . . . Ahmad Khomeini, 50, son of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution and played a key role when Iran held 52 Americans in 1979–81, dies in Teheran, Iran, of a heart attack.

A group of PKK guerrillas cross the border from Iraq to attack a Turkish convoy of 40 vehicles carrying 800 soldiers. An estimated 18 Turkish troops are killed. . . . Pres. Mary Robinson asks the Irish Supreme Court to review a controversial bill passed Mar. 14 that would liberalize the country’s strict antiabortion laws. . . . Spain’s Princess Elena, 31, weds Jaime de Marichalar y Saenz de Tejada, 31, in a Roman Catholic ceremony at the Cathedral of Seville. The ceremony is the first Spanish royal wedding in Spain in 89 years.

March 18

The Americas

The Australian High Court upholds the federal government’s Native Title Act, a controversial 1993 law establishing a system to protect aboriginal land where indigenous people can prove a continuing association with the land in question.

A national public outcry erupts in the Philippines after the hanging of a Filipina maid in Singapore. The maid, Flor Contemplacion, was hanged for the 1991 murders of another Filipina maid and a four-year-old Singaporean boy. Despite international pleas and new testimony suggesting that the woman was innocent, the Singaporean government refused to delay the hanging, and thousands of Filipino citizens take to the streets in what are considered the most emotional public demonstrations since 1986.

Canada’s railroad employees begin a nationwide rail strike, bringing to a virtual halt freight and passenger rail service across the country and threatening to damage Canada’s economy.

Snipers perched on a rooftop in Hebron spray an Israeli bus with automatic-weapons fire, killing two Jewish settlers and wounding several others. . . . Eight Belgians in a convoy are attacked by suspected Hutu extremists in Burundi. Two soldiers in Burundi’s army and three Belgians, including a four-year-old girl, are killed in the attack. . . . . Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II visits South Africa for the first time since 1947.

The protests that erupted Mar. 17 escalate when Philippine officials announce the postponement of an April visit by Singaporean prime minister Goh Chok Tong.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

March 14–19, 1995—717

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Commerce Department reports that the nation’s current-account deficit totaled $155.7 billion in 1994, up 33% from the 1993 calendaryear deficit of $103.9 billion. . . . Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman Ivan Selin announces that he will resign from his post on July 1, a year before his term ends.

Researchers report that frogs born in space in September 1992 have borne healthy offspring. . . . A Russian Soyuz rocket, carrying two cosmonauts and Norman E. Thagard, the first U.S. astronaut launched in a Russian spacecraft, lifts off in Kazakhstan. . . . William Alfred Fowler, 83, astrophysicist who won the 1983 Nobel Prize for developing “a complete theory for the formation of the chemical elements of the universe,” dies in Pasadena, California, of kidney failure.

In Alaska, Doug Swingley wins the 1,049-mile (1,689-km) Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Swingley, who is from Simms, Montana, completes the race in nine days, two hours, and 43 minutes. He is the first nonAlaskan to win the race in its 22year history.

U.S. president Clinton signs an executive order barring U.S. companies from engaging in petroleum-production activities in Iran, a country the U.S. has long branded as an instigator of international terrorism. Clinton’s moves effectively quash a $1 billion deal, announced Mar. 5, between Conoco and Iran.

The Senate passes, 91-9, a bill designed to deter Congress from passing “unfunded mandates,” or laws and regulations that the federal government imposes on states without providing funds for their enforcement. . . . The Glass Ceiling Commission, a bipartisan federal panel, reveals that women and minorities are extremely underrepresented in senior management posts, despite three decades of affirmative-action efforts.

The heavy rains that started Mar. 8 and spurred severe flooding in much of California begin to end. The disaster has claimed the lives of at least 15 people and caused an estimated $2 billion in damage.

Picabo Street, 23, becomes the first U.S. woman skier awarded the World Cup downhill title.

The Mississippi House of Representatives approves a resolution ratifying the 130-year-old 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which abolishes slavery. It was discovered earlier in 1995 that Mississippi never ratified the measure. . . . Atty. Gen. Janet Reno announces the Justice Department has found no improprieties in the awarding of a local-government contract to an investment firm that Transportation Secretary Federico Pena founded.

The Senate passes, 97-3, a $3 billion supplemental defense-appropriations bill that allocates funds to defense accounts drained by peacekeeping operations. . . . The U.S. lobby group TransAfrica announces it will lead an effort backed by prominent U.S. blacks to pressure Nigeria’s military government to restore democracy. It is believed to be the first time a group of African Americans undertakes a large-scale effort against a black-led African government.

The House passes, 227-200, a bill outlining more than $17 billion in spending cuts. The body also approves, 394-28, a bill designed to deter Congress from passing “unfunded mandates,” or laws and regulations that the federal government imposes on states without providing funds for their enforcement.

A study suggests that the practice of donating one’s own blood for possible transfusion during surgery is more expensive and less efficient than ordinary blood donation because of increased record keeping and waste. . . . A panel of eight experts report they have found “no evidence of negligence or carelessness” on the part of NIH scientists who ran a 1993 study of a hepatitis B drug called fialuridine. In the testing, five of the 15 people enrolled died, and two needed liver transplants.

Albert Hackett, 95, playwright who collaborated with his wife, Frances Goodrich, on numerous films and plays, dies in New York City of pneumonia. . . . Rap star Eazy-E, 31, discloses that he has AIDS.

In Chicago, a panel of judges on the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules, 2-1, that a group of hemophiliacs who claim to have contracted HIV from blood-clotting treatments cannot proceed as a class with a lawsuit against drug companies because differing laws in the 50 states make the class action unworkable. The decision reverses an August 1994 lowercourt ruling.

In Washington, D.C., Pres. Clinton meets with Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Provisional IRA, in the second of two controversial meetings.

The FDA approves the first vaccine in the U.S. to prevent chicken pox, which is contracted by 3.7 million people in the U.S. each year.

Reports confirm that the former director of NYC’s Museum of Modern Art, Richard Oldenburg, has been named chair of American operations at the U.S.-based Sotheby’s Holdings Inc. auction house.

The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour completes the longest flight in shuttle history when it touches down at Edwards Air Force Base, California, after carrying out a mission to conduct astronomical research.

The director of the Kremlin Ballet, Vladimir Vasilyev, is appointed the artistic director of Russia’s Bolshoi Theater. . . . Former NBA superstar guard Michael Jordan announces that he is returning to professional basketball after a 17-month hiatus.

Harvard University discloses that retired investment banker John L. Loeb and his wife, Frances Lehman Loeb, have given $70.5 million to the school in one of the 10 largest private gifts ever made to a U.S. college or university.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

718—March 20–25, 1995

World Affairs

The predominantly Muslim Bosnian government launches an offensive against Bosnian Serb positions, shattering a Jan. 1 truce. The government attacks areas near the Muslim enclave of Tuzla in northeastern Bosnia and the city of Travnik in central Bosnia. . . . Danish police arrest Gary Lauck, an American suspected of supplying propaganda to German neo-Nazis. . . . In response to the Mar. 18 attack, a massive Turkish military force crosses into Iraq to eliminate guerrilla strongholds of the PKK. It is described as Turkey’s largest military operation ever.

March 20

March 21

Belgian police raid the European Commission’s headquarters in Brussels to clamp down on alleged EU fraud. At the request of the commission, the police arrest three EU tourism officials accused of taking $492,000 in bribes from private companies seeking EU contracts.

March 22

March 23

Europe

The World Trade Organization (WTO) formally names Renato Ruggiero, a former Italian trade minister, as its new director general.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Rachida Hammadi, one of the few female reporters for Algeria’s staterun television, is injured by gunmen in Algiers, and her sister, Houria Hammadi, is killed. . . . In Burundi’s capital, Bujumbura, clashes erupt as Tutsis apparently seek retribution for the Mar. 19 killings. At least four people are killed. . . . Data reveal that more than 50 opposition lawmakers have been arrested in Kenya since 1993, although most of them were detained for only a short time. . . . Reports find that the Liberian cease-fire signed in December 1994 has been shattered.

Canada’s Immigration Ministry begins legal proceedings against Erichs Tobiass, a Canadian citizen born in Latvia who currently lives in Toronto, as part of an effort to deport him and revoke his citizenship. Tobiass, 84, is accused of war crimes, including the execution of civilians, during World War II.

A deadly nerve-gas attack paralyzes Tokyo’s subway system, one of the world’s busiest. The nation’s major mass-transit systems are placed on alert against other possible terrorist incidents. . . . A land-mine blast kills 12 people in Uri, in India’s disputed Jammu and Kashmir region near the Pakistani border. Brigadier Venugopal Sridharan, 49, and nine of his troops are among the dead, along with two civilians. . . . Tensions continue to rise when the mayor of the Davao City, the Philippines’ fourthlargest city, leads officials in burning a Singaporean flag.

The seven Roman Catholic nuns kidnapped by rebel forces on Jan. 25 in Sierra Leone are released.

Argentine interior minister Carlos Corach states that the government has no list of victims of the navy’s “death flights,” which were perpetrated in the later 1970s as part of the military regime’s “dirty war” of repression against presumed leftist dissidents. Corach’s statement comes amid renewed controversy after the remarks made Mar. 3 by a retired naval officer.

Peter Holmes Woods, 64, British journalist and news anchor for the BBC, dies in Yeovil, England, of cancer.

In South Africa, Judge Piet Streicher of the Rand Supreme Court declares invalid warrants obtained by police for a Mar. 1 raid of Winnie Mandela’s home and offices.

German officials raid the homes of 80 of the followers of Gary Lauck, an American arrested Mar. 20. Police confiscate guns and neoNazi racist propaganda. . . . Unidentified Turkish senior officials state that 35,000 soldiers will remain in Iraq until a buffer zone free of Kurds is set up along the Turkish-Iraqi border. . . . Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic informs the UN that he will extend the UN peacekeeping mandate in Bosnia, set to expire Mar. 31, by only 30 days.

In the Soweto township, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and South African president Nelson Mandela unveil a monument to 656 black members of the South African Native Labor Contingent who died in World War I. . . . Nigerian information minister Walter Ofonagoro reveals that the government will release Olusegun Obasanjo, who was arrested Mar. 13, in response to pleas made by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, who is touring Africa.

Philippine president Fidel Ramos recalls his ambassador to Singapore, bars women from the Philippines from working as maids in Singapore, and threatens to sever all ties with Singapore if a Philippine inquiry shows that Flor Contemplacion, whose Mar. 17 hanging sparked a diplomatic crisis, was wrongly convicted. Singapore recalls its ambassador to the Philippines. . . . Some 2,500 Japanese police officers raid 25 offices of the Aum Shinrikyo sect. In the port of Montreal, Quebec, the longshoremen’s union and the affected shipping lines both accept a federal mediator’s work-resumption proposal, and the longshoremen return to work, ending a job action that started Mar. 7.

In Burundi, at least one man is killed as fighting worsens. Tutsi soldiers and civilians attack suburban areas near Bujumbura, the capital. The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees discloses that fighting in Bujumbura has prompted 24,000 people to flee to neighboring Tanzania. Up to one-third of the refugees are said to be Rwandans who earlier fled to Burundi.

March 24

March 25

Africa & the Middle East

Cuba signs the 1967 Treaty of Tlatelolco, a pact among South American, Central American, and Caribbean nations that commits its signatories to refrain from using nuclear weapons. . . . Reports disclose that many developed nations indicated in 1994 that they will not meet the requirement of reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases in 2000 to 1990 levels. Among those nations are the U.S., Australia, Austria, Canada, Norway, Spain, and Sweden.

An Iraqi court sentences two U.S. citizens, William Barloon, 39, and David Daliberti, 41, to eight-year prison terms on charges that they illegally entered Iraq. The U.S. administration maintains that they accidentally strayed into the sixmile-wide demilitarized zone on the border with Kuwait. . . . More than 100 people are killed in Karosi, a village near Gasorwe in Burundi. Officials suggest that the death toll in the prior two weeks in the Muyinga region is at 200.

The death toll from the Mar. 20 deadly nerve-gas attack in Tokyo is at 10, and more than 5,000 people have been injured.

Onoe Baiko (born Seizo Terashima), 79, prominent Japanese actor in the traditional dramatic art of Kabuki who was designated a Living National Treasure by the Japanese government in 1968, dies in Tokyo of complications from pneumonia.

Reports estimate that 20 suspected robbers have been stoned, beaten, or hacked to death in incidents in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, since the beginning of the month. Data indicate that Haitian courts have convicted only about 100 of some 6,000 crime suspects arrested during the first stage of peacekeeping operations.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

March 20–25, 1995—719

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

In New Orleans, Louisiana, federal judge Morey Sear throws out a proposed settlement of a class-action lawsuit filed against Ford Motor Co. by owners of the Bronco II, arguing that the settlement is “of little or no value” to Bronco owners.

Sidney Kingsley, 88, playwright whose dramas center on urban social problems, dies in Oakland, New Jersey, of a stroke.

In Director v. Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co., the Supreme Court rules unanimously to limit the authority of federal agencies to file federal-court appeals on behalf of injured individuals.

Loral Corp. agrees to buy the military and aerospace businesses of Unisys Corp. for $800 million in cash. The deal will reportedly boost Loral’s operations in military information systems, satellite communications, and radar.

Chris V. Wade, an Arkansas realestate agent and former manager of Whitewater Development Corp., pleads guilty to two counts of fraud related to his 1990 bankruptcy filing. . . . James L. (Bud) Walton, 73, cofounder of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. whose wealth is estimated at $1 billion, dies in Miami, Florida, of an aneurysm.

Judge Donald Belfi sentences Colin Ferguson, a Jamaican immigrant convicted of the December 1993 murder of six people aboard a Long Island Rail Road train, to 200 years to life in prison. . . . In Anderson v. Edwards, the Supreme Court upholds a California welfare regulation that curbs benefits by classifying as a single family group children living under the care of a single relative in the same household, regardless of whether the children are siblings.

Rep. Robert Torricelli (D, N.J.) alleges that a Guatemalan army officer on the CIA payroll ordered the killing of Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, a rebel commander who was tortured and murdered by the Guatemalan army in 1992, and Michael DeVine, a U.S. citizen who owned an inn in the Guatemalan rain forest and was slain in 1990. Bamaca’s wife, Jennifer Harbury, a U.S. lawyer, had conducted a campaign of hunger strikes to press for details as to the fate of her husband.

The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. recorded a $12.23 billion deficit in trade in goods and services in January. That figure—a record high—is 40% larger than the revised December 1994 deficit figure of $7.26 billion. . . . Pres. Clinton signs the final version of a bill designed to deter Congress from passing “unfunded mandates,” or laws and regulations that the federal government imposes on states without providing funds for their enforcement.

Russian cosmonaut Valery Polyakov, 52, returns to Earth aboard a Soyuz descent module after spending a record 439 days in space while on Mir. . . . A study compares the safety effects of pediatric ibuprofen with those of pediatric acetaminophen and finds no significant differences.

Pres. Clinton outlines plans to review federal affirmative-action programs to confirm that they have not led to “reverse discrimination.”

In response to allegations made by Rep. Robert Torricelli (D, N.J.) on Mar. 22, the CIA denies that it had any knowledge of the killings “at the time the deaths occurred.”

The Senate passes, 69-29, a bill that will grant the president the power to limit federal spending through the use of the so-called line-item veto.

Researchers report that they treated a brain disease in mice similar to one that occurs in humans by transplanting immature brain cells into the brains of the mice. The researchers suggest that the technique may eventually lead to the development of treatments in humans for Sly disease, which is relatively rare, and for Gaucher’s and Tay-Sachs diseases, which are more common.

The Senate approves by voice vote a bill that will repeal a 1978 Federal Communications Commission program granting tax breaks to minorityowned firms that seek to purchase or establish media operations, as well as to nonminority firms that do business with them.

Scientists report they have developed a paste made from inorganic calcium and phosphate sources that can be injected into broken bone to form a hard substance similar to natural bone, potentially aiding the rehabilitation of damaged bones. . . . (Noel) Joseph Terence Montgomery Needham, 94, British biochemist who wrote an acclaimed book, dies in Cambridge, England, of an undisclosed illness.

The House votes, 234-199, in favor of a broad overhaul of the current federal welfare system. The bill, the Personal Responsibility Act, will institute the broadest overhaul of the U.S. social welfare system in 60 years and will cut projected welfare spending by some $66 billion over the next five years.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

March 20

March 21

James Samuel Coleman, 68, sociologist whose findings show that disadvantaged black students perform better in integrated classrooms, which shaped the debate on school desegregation in the 1960s and 1970s, dies in Chicago, Illinois, of prostate cancer.

March 22

Irving Shulman, 81, who wrote the original treatment for the screenplay of the movie Rebel Without a Cause (1955), dies in Los Angeles of Alzheimer’s disease.

March 23

March 24

House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.) admits he “totally mishandled” a controversial book contract, a venture that drew accusations of unethical behavior. It is Gingrich’s first formal response regarding the contract. . . . Former boxing champion Mike Tyson, 28, is released from the Indiana Youth Center prison after serving three years of a 1992 rape conviction.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 25

720—March 26–31, 1995

March 26

World Affairs

Europe

Seven European Union nations— Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain—eliminate their internal border controls to adhere to a 1985 open-border pact. As part of that agreement, the seven countries also enact a system of tighter controls on their external borders.

Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic orders a general mobilization of the entire population of Serb-held Bosnia to counter the government offensives that started Mar. 20. . . . Vladimir Yemelyanovich Maximov (born Leon Samsonov), 64, Russian author who was a leading Soviet dissident in the 1960s and 1970s, dies in Paris, France, of cancer.

Hanns Joachim Friedrichs, 68, highly respected German journalist for the country’s two national television networks, dies in Hamburg, Germany, of cancer. . . . Maurizio Gucci, former chair of the leather and fashion company that bears his name, is shot and killed in Milan, Italy.

March 27

March 28

March 29

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Pres. Sylvestre Ntibantunganya admits that fighting between the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups in and around Burundi’s capital, Bujumbura, has killed at least 150 people and has prompted an exodus of 50,000 others. Other estimates place the number of people killed as high as 500. . . . Algerian papers report that security forces in a fiveday offensive killed at least 300 of an estimated 1,000 GIA members.

A series of unexplained explosions at La Aurora military base, located outside Guatemala City, the capital of Guatemala, leaves four people dead. . . . Canada’s Parliament passes back-to-work legislation to force striking railroad workers to return to their jobs.

Public protests continue in the Philippines during funeral ceremonies for Flor Contemplacion, who was hanged in Singapore on Mar. 17. In Manila, the Philippines’ capital, grenades explode near a Singapore Airlines office and outside the Philippines foreign ministry building. No injuries are reported.

South African president Nelson Mandela dismisses his estranged wife, Winnie Mandela, from her cabinet post. The first cabinet minister ousted from the coalition government, she has been involved in a series of scandals. . . . Unknown armed attackers assault a refugee camp at Magara, Burundi, leaving 12 dead and 22 wounded. The attack prompts 41,000 Rwandans to flee. . . . The Sudanese government announces a two-month cease-fire in response to pleas made by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, who is touring Africa.

After the labor bill passed on Mar. 26, railroads in Canada resume operations, ending a shutdown caused by a labor strike that started March 18.

A UN summit on global warming, the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, convenes in Berlin, Germany.

In raids in Frankfurt and Aachen, German police arrest two Algerians suspected of smuggling firearms into Algeria. . . . A Dutch UN soldier is killed in northern Bosnia. . . . Italian magistrates file arrest warrants for 35 politicians, businessmen, and reputed mobsters linked to alleged corruption in the healthcare system.

Mireille Durocher Bertin, a prominent critic of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, is shot to death by three unidentified gunmen while in her car in Port-auPrince, the capital of Haiti.

Faced with the possibility of a fullscale civil war in Burundi, foreign nationals from the U.S., France, Belgium, Spain, and Italy begin evacuating Bujumbura. . . . The European Commission, the executive branch of the EU, announces that losses due to fraud increased in 1994 to around 1 billion European currency units ($1.3 billion), from about half that in 1993. The rise in detected fraud largely stems from better accounting methods and an increase in organized crime.

Officials in the Netherlands release Jacob Luitjens, 75, the country’s last remaining war criminal from World War II. Luitjens was convicted in absentia in 1948, sentenced to life, and starting serving his sentence in November 1992. A Dutch justice minister recommended the early release, citing Luitjen’s age and sentence reductions given to similar offenders.

The Canadian government admits that it was wrong to move nine Inuit families, comprising about 100 people, to a remote area north of the Arctic Circle during a relocation project in the 1950s.

March 30

March 31

Africa & the Middle East

In a ceremony in Port-au-Prince, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the UN secretary general, and U.S. president Clinton formally transfer peacekeeping responsibilities in Haiti from U.S.-led troops to forces of the UN Mission in Haiti (UNMIH). The UNMIH is composed of 6,000 military personnel and 900 police civilians, drawn from more than 30 countries. . . . The UN Security Council votes to renew until Nov. 30 its peacekeeping mission in the former Yugoslavia, hours before the mandate is to expire.

Reports suggest that the offensive launched Mar. 20 against Bosnian Serb positions has resulted in dozens of civilian casualties. Hundreds of soldiers on both sides have been killed in the battles. . . . About 15,000 more Turkish troops are sent into the Tunceli province of Turkey to root out PKK guerrillas. . . . Russian forces in the breakaway republic of Chechnya in southern Russia capture the town of Gudermes.

Residents of Burao, a town in the breakaway republic of Somaliland in northwest Somalia, estimate that 60 gunmen were killed a few days earlier in battles between rival clans. . . . In response to the government’s March 27 announcement, Sudan’s largest southern rebel group, the SPLA, declares a two-month “unilateral cease-fire.”. . . Reports confirm the Algerian government has launched a major offensive against militant fundamentalists.

Russian forces in the breakaway republic of Chechnya in southern Russia capture the town of Shali, considered the last urban stronghold of Chechen resistance. . . . A Romanian airliner crashes shortly after takeoff from Bucharest, the Romanian capital, killing all 60 people on board.

The Tanzanian government closes its border with Burundi, saying it is already overwhelmed with more than 700,000 Rwandan refugees currently living in camps there.

Mitsubishi Bank Ltd. and Bank of Tokyo Ltd. announce plans to merge, a deal that will create the world’s largest bank in terms of assets held.

The Australian cabinet agrees to protect 264 forest areas from logging and introduces a plan to improve the country’s forest reserve system.

The Guatemalan government and the rebel Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union (URNG) sign an accord to guarantee the rights of Guatemala’s Indians. Under terms of the pact, the Guatemalan constitution will be amended to grant recognition to the nation’s Maya, Garifuna, and Xinca peoples.

During a tour by U.S. first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, an estimated 2,000 protesters in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, take to the streets to denounce organizations that espouse women’s rights. Protesters in Nepal denounce their government’s ties with Western countries, and 23 protesters are arrested for throwing rocks at the first lady’s motorcade. . . . In Thailand, thousands of supporters of Yantra Ammarobhikkhu, a Thai monk, protest his expulsion from his religious order over his involvement in a sex scandal.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

March 26–31, 1995—721

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Eric (Eazy-E) Wright, 31, rap singer who led the “gangsta” rap group N.W.A., an acronym for Niggaz Wit Attitude, dies in Los Angeles of complications from AIDS. . . . The Pan American Games, held in Mar del Plata, Argentina, close, and the U.S. won a record 424 medals. Cuba won 238, and Canada won 117.

Maryland’s legislature enacts a ban on smoking in most workplaces.

Col. Julio Roberto Alpirez, the Guatemalan military officer accused Mar. 22 by Rep. Robert Torricelli (D, N.J.), insists that he is “totally innocent” of involvement in the killings and denies that he ever worked for the CIA.

Harris County, Texas, district judge Michael Schneider removes Dow Chemical Co. from a Feb. 15 jury verdict that ordered the company and its affiliate, Dow Corning Corp., to pay $5.2 million to a couple, Robert and Gladys Laas. . . . Statistics show that black women living in poverty and uneducated women of all races are more likely to have mildly retarded children than other mothers. The House defeats four bills that would have set limits on the number of terms that members of Congress can serve. The votes reportedly are the first ever held in either the House or Senate on seeking a constitutional amendment to restrict legislators’ terms.

John P. LaWare, one of the Federal Reserve Board’s 12 governors, announces his retirement, effective April 30.

The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield tops the bestseller list. . . . At the Oscars, Forrest Gump wins six awards, including best picture, best director, and best actor. Clint Eastwood receives the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, and musical producer Quincy Jones receives the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

In Qualitex Co. v. Jacobson Products Co., the Supreme Court rules unanimously that companies can gain trademark protection for colors that they use specifically to distinguish their products or packaging from competitors’ goods.

The U.S. Army discloses that nine instructors will be disciplined in connection with the February deaths of four soldiers in training. . . . In response to the Mar. 22 allegations regarding deaths in Guatemala, Pres. Clinton orders the Intelligence Oversight Board to conduct an inquiry into the killings. . . . The CIA reveals that it will pay more than $1 million to settle sexual discrimination charges lodged between 1986 and 1994 by several hundred women in its clandestine operations division.

The Senate unanimously approves a measure to delay for 45 days the implementation of federal agency regulations that will have an economic impact of $100 million or more. . . . The Commerce Department and HUD report that sales of new homes nationwide plunged 14% in February from January, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 551,000 units. The February rate is the lowest since April 1992.

In New York City, federal judge Eugene H. Nickerson strikes down the Defense Department’s policy restricting homosexuals’ service in the U.S. military, asserting that the “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue” rule, violates free-speech and equal-protection rights provided in the First and Fifth amendments of the Constitution. Nickerson’s decision is the first judicial rejection of the policy, which was endorsed by Pres. Clinton in 1993.

The Commerce Department reports after-tax profits of U.S. corporations rose 10.2% in 1994 from 1993, to $322 billion. That compares with 1993 profits of $289.2 billion. . . . The House passes by voice vote a bill that makes minor adjustments to the federal tax code, including one that reinstates a tax deduction for self-employed people who pay for their own health insurance.

March 26

March 27

March 28

March 29

Research shows that a Los Angeles boy tested positive for HIV who shortly after birth apparently shed the virus by age one. The boy, whose mother is HIV-positive, currently is healthy and apparently HIV-negative at age five. . . . Studies suggest that high doses of the nonprescription painkiller ibuprofen may significantly slow the damage that cystic fibrosis causes to the lungs, especially in children.

Dan Glickman is sworn in as secretary of agriculture, succeeding Mike Espy. . . . Reports state that an Alaska state judge, Brian Shortell, has ruled that Exxon Corp. does not have to pay $9.7 million in punitive damages to five Alaska native corporations. The ruling has no effect on the $5 billion in punitive damages that Exxon was ordered to pay to 14,000 Alaskan natives, fishermen, and property owners.

Pope John Paul II issues an encyclical in which he stakes out his opposition to abortion, birth control, in vitro fertilization, genetic manipulation, and euthanasia. His statement also includes the church’s strongest language to date against capital punishment.

Popular Mexican-American singer Selena, 23, is fatally shot at a motel in Corpus Christi, Texas. Police arrest Yolanda Saldivar, the founder and former president of Selena’s fan club, and charge her with murder.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 30

March 31

722—April 1–6, 1995

World Affairs

April 3

The Islamic Conference Organization meeting, attended by 300 delegates from more than 80 countries, closes, and delegates urge Islamic nations to continue the armed struggle against Israel.

Data show that Turkey killed 399 of the 2,800 PKK guerrillas hiding out in northern Iraq during the first three weeks of the invasion. Forty Turkish troops were killed in the fighting. . . . Fighting intensifies in the UN-designated safe area of Bihac in northwest Bosnia.

An estimated 50,000 Rwandan refugees, who fled into Burundi in 1994 amid ethnic violence in Rwanda, halt their flight from Burundi into neighboring Tanzania when they are reassured by UN officials that they will be protected by Burundi’s army. . . . An explosion in Gaza City destroys the middle floor of a three-story concrete building, killing eight people, including Kamal Kheil, a senior leader of Hamas’s military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades. More than 30 other people are injured in the blast. . . . Rachida Hammadi, who was injured by gunmen in Algiers Mar. 20, dies, bringing the number of journalists killed by suspected Muslim militants since May 1993 to 31.

European Union finance ministers and the governors of many of Europe’s central banks hold the first high-level discussions and determine that the EMU is unlikely to be in place until at least five years after the target date of 1997.

In an unprecedented move, a Scottish appeals court upholds a ruling that forces the government-owned BBC to black out a telecast of an interview with P.M. John Major in some parts of the country. The Labour and Liberal Democrat Parties sought an injunction to halt the broadcast in Scotland, arguing that the BBC would violate its impartiality mandate by giving the Conservative Party an unfair campaigning edge.

Western diplomats state that up to 1,500 people in Burundi have been killed in each of the prior three weeks, a marked increase from the usual rate of about 100 civilian deaths a week.

Bosnian government forces, aided by Croats, capture most of Mount Vlasic near the town of Travnik. Fighting between Bosnian government and Bosnian Serb forces peaks in the Majevica Mountains near Tuzla. . . . Ukraine’s parliament votes to dismiss the country’s cabinet in a no-confidence motion. The ministers will remain in their positions until Pres. Leonid Kuchma names a new cabinet. . . . Kenny Everett (born Maurice James Christopher Cole), 50, British disc jockey and TV comedian, dies of an AIDSrelated illness.

One man reportedly is killed and dozens of people injured when riot police try to disperse demonstrators protesting the government’s economic policies, in Islam-shahr, a working-class suburb located 12 miles (20 km) southwest of Teheran, the capital of Iran. . . . Kenyan police arrest two leading opposition members of Parliament, Paul Muite and Kiraitu Murungi, in Nairobi, the capital.

Bosnians mark the third anniversary of the war, and Bosnian premier Haris Silajdzic states that the people of Bosnia should be prepared to fight for 10 years to win Bosnia’s independence. . . . Christian Paul Francis Pineau, 90, French foreign minister, 1956–58, who signed the 1957 Treaty of Rome to establish the European Economic Community, which evolved into the European Union, dies in Paris.

The UN special representative to Burundi, Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, warns that unsubstantiated deathtoll reports made by the international community, including the UN, are helping to push the country toward genocide.

Fighting begins in Tajikistan between a Russian-led unit patrolling the border and Tajik rebels opposed to the current Russia-backed Tajikistan government. . . . Great Britain’s ruling Conservative Party fails to retain or take control of a single Scottish governing council in local elections.

The Rwandan government in Kigali, the capital, opens the trial of the first six of at least 30,000 people currently detained on charges of participating in massacres during an ethnic civil war in 1994. The trial, however, is delayed indefinitely so that prosecutors and defense lawyers can better prepare their cases.

April 4

April 5

Africa & the Middle East

Irma Hadzimuratovic, a critically wounded Bosnian girl who attracted international attention when she was rescued from Sarajevo in August 1993 at the age of five, dies in Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, England.

April 1

April 2

Europe

Officials from Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam sign a wateruse pact that creates the Mekong Commission and replaces the Mekong Secretariat, established in 1958. . . . The U.S. Federal Reserve and the central banks of Japan and Germany attempt to halt the U.S. dollar’s sharp decline against the yen and the mark, but the dollar closes at 86.05 yen, down from 86.20 yen, and at 1.3733 marks compared with 1.3780 marks.

April 6

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Peru, Shining Path rebels massacre 11 peasants in the village of Calemar, affixing signs to the dead bodies which read, “We will kill those who vote.”

In Tokyo, Japan, the death toll from the Mar. 20 nerve-gas attack increases to 11.

A band of 200 heavily armed Muslim separatists attack the town of Ipil on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, killing dozens of citizens, robbing banks, and setting the town’s commercial center ablaze. As many as 52 people are killed in the violence. Pres. Fidel Ramos sends troops to the area. . . . China’s first nuclear power plant, at Daya Bay in southern Guangdong province, is shut down indefinitely after control rods in one of its two reactors are found in violation of international safety standards.

In Peru, a scheme to mark 3,000 ballots in advance of the election is uncovered in Huanuco, located some 150 miles (240 km) northeast of Lima, leading to the arrest of 15 people.

A Philippine investigative commission submits a report citing evidence that strongly suggests that Flor Contemplacion, a maid whose hanging in March severely strained relations between Singapore and the Philippines, was innocent. The panel asserts that one of the murder victims, Delia Maga, had injuries so severe that Contemplacion would not have been strong enough to have inflicted them.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

April 1–6, 1995—723

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Deputy Defense Secretary John Deutch announces that the Defense Department has ordered a wideranging investigation into U.S. military involvement in Guatemala since the early 1980s, prompted by allegations made Mar. 22 by Rep. Robert Torricelli (D, N.J.).

Francisco Moncion, 76, charter member of the New York City Ballet who danced leading roles for the troupe for nearly 40 years, dies in Woodstock, New York, of cancer.

Hannes Olof Gosta Alfven, 86, physicist who won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1970 for establishing the field of magnetohydrodynamics, which focuses on the relationship between electricity-conducting fluids and magnetic fields, dies in Djursholm, Sweden, after suffering from influenza.

Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor becomes the first woman in U.S. history to preside over the high court when she takes control for a brief period during the absence of Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Stevens, second in seniority. . . . A federal jury in Alexandria, Virginia, finds the former president of the United Way of America, William Aramony, 67, guilty of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the charity. A U.S. district court jury in Washington, D.C., convicts Francisco Martin Duran, 26, of attempting to assassinate Pres. Clinton in an Oct. 29, 1994, shooting incident at the White House. The jury also finds Duran guilty on nine other federal criminal counts. . . . Wallace (Gator) Bradley and Hal Baskin, two former members of Chicago’s largest black street gang, the Gangster Disciples, are defeated in nonpartisan run-off elections for seats on the Chicago city council.

The Senate passes, by voice vote, a bill that makes adjustments to the federal tax code, including a measure that reinstates a tax deduction for self-employed people who pay for their health insurance. . . . In Oklahoma Tax Commission v. Jefferson Lines, the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that a state can impose a sales tax on the full-fare price of bus tickets sold for interstate travel, as long as the trip begins within that state. The Department of Defense announces that it will award the Purple Heart to 14 Americans killed in April 1994 when their U.S. Army helicopters were mistakenly shot down over northern Iraq by two U.S. fighter jets. . . . Reports state that Pakistan has extradited Iqbal Baig and Anwar Khattak, two of its most infamous drug traffickers, to the U.S., where they face 102 counts of heroin and hashish smuggling.

The Justice Department agrees to censure the FBI’s acting deputy director, Larry Potts, for his managerial failures during a 1992 siege of the Idaho cabin of white supremacist Randall Weaver. Three people were killed in the raid. . . . In 24 cities, customs officials raid 44 stores that sell electronic surveillance equipment. They charge 15 people with participating in an international conspiracy to smuggle illegal spying devices into the U.S. The CDC finds that the percentage of babies born with fetal alcohol syndrome rose sixfold between 1979 and 1993. . . . The Senate by voice vote clears the final version of the Paperwork Reduction Bill of 1995, a bill designed to decrease the paperwork requirements placed on small businesses and individuals by the federal government. The House votes, 423-0, to approve the measure.

The MLB players’ strike ends when team owners accept the players’ unconditional offer to return to work. . . . Tens of thousands of mourners flock to Corpus Christi, Texas, to view the coffin of singer Selena, 23, who was fatally shot Mar. 31. . . . Harvey Penick, 90, influential golf instructor, dies of unrevealed causes in Austin, Texas. . . . Julius Hemphill, 57, saxophonist who co-founded the World Saxophone Quartet. dies in New York City of complications from diabetes.

German judge Gertraut Goering upholds a suspended sentence against Guenter Parche, who stabbed tennis star Monica Seles in 1993. . . . Marion Tinsley, 68, considered the best checkers player in the history of the game, dies in Humble, Texas, of cancer.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average on the New York Stock Exchange closes at a record high of 4201.61.

The Senate, by voice vote, passes legislation that will put the financial affairs of the District of Columbia under the control of a presidentially appointed review board through at least the fiscal year 1999. . . . The Senate votes, 99-0, to pass a bill that will cut about $16 billion in funding that Congress previously approved to pay for a wide range of federal programs in fiscal 1995, which ends Sept. 30.

April 1

April 2

April 3

April 4

The House votes, 246-188, to pass a package of tax breaks for individuals and corporations that is expected to reduce federal tax revenue by $189 billion over five years.

Both houses of Congress approve a $3 billion supplemental defense appropriations bill that allocates funds to resupply defense accounts drained by peacekeeping and humanitarian operations in Haiti, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Somalia, Kuwait, Cuba, and South Korea.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

In Washington, D.C., the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus stage a one-ring performance in the east parking lot of the Capitol building to mark the circus’s 125th anniversary.

A prominent transplant surgeon, Dr. John Najarian, and his former colleague, Dr. Richard Condie, are indicted on federal charges of marketing and selling an antirejection drug called antilymphocyte globulin, or ALG, while concealing information on the drug’s potentially fatal side effects. . . . Two studies confirm the effectiveness of two types of currently standard breast cancer treatment.

April 5

April 6

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

724—April 7–12, 1995

April 7

World Affairs

Europe

A UN summit on global warming closes, and delegates from more than 120 countries approve a compromise plan that establishes a two-year negotiation process regarding the reduction of emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases after 2000. . . . Belgian police raid the home and office of Willy Claes, NATO’s secretary general, in connection with an inquiry into the 1988 sale of helicopters by the Italian company Agusta S.p.A. to the Belgian government. Claes maintains his innocence and rejects calls for his resignation.

The Russian military attacks the Chechen village of Samashki, killing scores of civilians.

April 10

April 11

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific In the town of Ipil on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, military officials state that at least 20 people, including five civilian hostages, have been killed in fighting between the rebels and government troops. Hundreds of civilians are reportedly fleeing the area.

Fighting continues in the Chechen town of Samashki, where hundreds of people are reported killed. . . . Countess Edda Mussolini Ciano, 84, daughter of Benito Mussolini, the fascist dictator of Italy from 1922 to 1943, dies in Rome of cardiac arrest.

April 8

April 9

Africa & the Middle East

More than 1,000 Holocaust survivors commemorate the 50th anniversary of the liberation of a Nazi concentration camp in Buchenwald, Germany, by Allied forces. It is one of several anniversary observations in April to mark such anniversaries.

In Sarajevo, the capital of BosniaHerzegovina, mortar attacks are launched. . . . Voters in Liechtenstein vote in a referendum to join the European Economic Area (EEA) free-trade union.

At least 62 people are killed when unidentified guerrillas armed with machetes attack the village of Yosi in Liberia. . . . Two Islamic militants carry out separate suicide carbombing attacks in the Gaza Strip, killing seven Israeli soldiers and a U.S. Jewish student. At least 45 other Jews, mostly soldiers, are injured. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad claim responsibility. Yasser Arafat, head of the PNA, initiates a crackdown on the militant groups.

Peru’s Pres. Alberto Fujimori wins reelection to a second five-year term.

UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali announces he has selected U.S. candidate Carol Bellamy to be executive director of UNICEF, despite a challenge for the post from the European Union.

At the UN’s request, NATO warplanes begin flying over Sarajevo in response to the mortar attacks that started Apr. 9. . . . Athens, the capital of Greece, begins a temporary trial ban of automobiles in the city’s business district. . . . Guenter Guillaume, 68, spy for East Germany whose discovery in 1974 led to the resignation of then-West German chancellor Willy Brandt, dies in Eggersdorf, Germany, of a heart attack. . . . Premier David Oddsson’s ruling coalition maintains its majority in Iceland’s Althing in general elections.

Statistics show that 125 Jews have died in attacks by Palestinians since May 1994. PNA officials announce that for the first time, the PNA has meted out a prison sentence to an Islamist accused of anti-Israel violence when it sentenced Samir Ali al-Jedi, from the Islamic Jihad, to 15 years in prison for recruiting youths for suicide operations. The trial is the first case ever heard by the PNA’s Higher Court for State Security, a military court. Separately, isolated exchanges of gunfire occur in Gaza City and in the southern Gaza town of Rafah.

Reports confirm that Cuba and Chile have restored full diplomatic relations, which were broken in 1973, soon after Chile’s military seized power in a coup overthrowing the socialist regime of Salvador Allende Gossens.

The UN Security Council unanimously approves a resolution to help nonnuclear countries in the event that they come under nuclear attack. The nuclear states pledge not to use nuclear arms against nonnuclear states that have signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty unless those countries attack in cooperation with a nuclear state. . . . The World Bank approves a $114 million loan to help support an overhaul of Ukraine’s electricity industry.

Russian helicopter gunships attack rebel forces near the town of Khorog along Tajikistan’s border with Afghanistan with rocket fire in two separate raids. A CIS spokesperson states that the raids are in retaliation for attacks by rebels on a CIS border post. At least 17 rebels are killed in the first raid and 30 in the second.

Gunmen open fire on a Rwandan refugee camp near Lake Kivu in eastern Zaire, killing 31 refugees and wounding 52. . . . The PNA announces that an Islamic Jihad member, Omar Shallah, 29, has been given a life prison sentence for inciting Palestinians to enlist as suicide bombers. . . . The Zimbabwe government announces that the ruling ZANUPF party of Pres. Robert Mugabe has won an overwhelming victory in parliamentary elections.

Data from Bosnia show that, in Sarajevo, the mortar attacks that started Apr. 9 have killed three people and wounded 14. . . . Turkish officials announce that 21 Kurds and two Turkish soldiers were killed in the fighting in Tunceli. The joint Iraqi and Tunceli attacks are described as the largest military operation in Turkey’s history. The Kurdish parliament in exile, at its opening session, condemns Turkey’s invasion into Iraq. . . . The Red Cross estimates that Russian forces have killed at least 250 people in the Chechen Samashki during the assault that started Apr. 7.

Figures indicate that the PNA has arrested 300 members and supporters of Hamas and Islamic Jihad since Apr. 9.

April 12

Morarji Ranchodji Desai, 99, prime minister of India, 1977–79, dies in Bombay, India, after undergoing surgery on a blood clot in his brain. . . . Chen Yun (born Liao Chengyun), 89, one of China’s “eight immortals,” a group of elite revolutionaries who led the People’s Republic of China after its founding in 1949, dies of an undisclosed illness.

Six aborigines mount a High Court lawsuit against the Australian government for forcibly removing them from their families during their childhoods. The six are among thousands of aboriginal people, known as the “stolen generation,” who were removed from their homes in the Northern Territory as children under an “assimilation” policy in effect from 1918 to 1953.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

April 7–12, 1995—725

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

House Republicans rally in Washington, D.C., to mark the fulfillment of their 1994 “Contract with America” campaign manifesto. . . . State regulators from the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration order University Community Hospital in Tampa, Florida, to discontinue elective surgery. The hospital was involved in a series of recent medical errors, including the accidental amputation of the left foot of a diabetic man, Willie King, 51, who was supposed to have surgery to remove his diseased right foot.

Nicholas Lee Ingram, 31, a British American convicted of the 1983 slaying of a man during a robbery in Cobb County, Georgia, is put to death in the electric chair in Jackson, Georgia, despite statements of protest from 53 members of the British Parliament, the archbishop of Canterbury, and the president of the European Parliament, Klaus Haensch. Ingram is the 272nd inmate in the U.S. and the 19th in Georgia to be put to death since 1976.

The House, by voice vote, approves legislation that will put the financial affairs of the District of Columbia under the control of a presidentially appointed review board through at least the fiscal year 1999. . . . Reports confirm that, in an unprecedented move, the EEOC has affirmed that people who have abnormal genes that predispose them to illness but are otherwise healthy cannot be discriminated against by employers concerned about potential medical problems.

Researchers report that a mystery illness that killed 14 horses and a horse trainer in Australia in fall 1994 has been traced to a still-unnamed new virus that belongs to the family that includes the measles and canine distemper viruses.

For the first time, the America Online computer network temporarily suspends a forum. The site, dedicated to Hole, a rock band, is spurred by repeated infractions by users, including a death threat. . . . Reports indicate that thousands of kangaroos in the state of South Australia have been infected with an unknown disease that renders them blind. Reports confirm that former secretary of defense Robert McNamara, who was a staunch proponent of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War in the 1960s, asserts in a new book, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, that U.S. policy in Vietnam was a mistake.

Rep. Nathan Deal of Georgia announces that he will leave the Democratic Party to join the GOP. . . . . In San Francisco, Superior Court judge James Warren rules that the maker of guns used in a 1993 shooting spree by Gian Luigi Ferri, who killed eight people in a San Francisco law firm, may be sued for the deaths. The decision reportedly is the first to hold that an assaultweapon maker might be liable for the criminal use of its product. . . . A New York City statute that bans smoking in almost all public places takes effect.

Transit workers in Philadelphia, Pennsylvenia, return to work, ending a two-week strike that crippled the city’s sprawling network of bus, subway, trolley, and train lines.

Pres. Clinton signs a $3 billion supplemental defense-appropriations bill that allocates funds to resupply defense accounts drained by peacekeeping and humanitarian operations in Haiti, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Somalia, Kuwait, Cuba, and South Korea.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court unanimously upholds a 1993 jury decision supporting Boston University’s ownership claim to about one-third of slain civil-rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s personal papers. . . . A study suggests that smoking by pregnant women results in about 5,600 infant deaths and between 19,000 and 141,000 miscarriages each year in the U.S.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

April 7

Royal Athlete wins the Grand National steeplechase at Aintree race course in Liverpool, England.

April 8

Ben Crenshaw wins his second Masters tournament at the Augusta, Georgia, National Golf Club.

April 9

The world’s first national DNA database becomes operational in Britain.

April 10

Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill that makes several minor adjustments to the federal tax code. Most prominent among the changes is a popular measure that reinstates a tax deduction for self-employed people who pay for their own health insurance.

The U.S. expels Edmundo Suarez Hernandez and Saul Hermida Griego, Cuban UN diplomats who refuse to waive their diplomatic immunity and face criminal charges for an alleged assault on a New York City police officer. . . . . In Boston, Massachusetts, federal judge Douglas Woodlock orders Gen. Hector Gramajo to pay a total of $47.5 million to Roman Catholic nun Dianna Ortiz and eight Guatemalan Indians terrorized by the Guatemalan military during the late 1980s. Gramajo was Guatemala’s defense minister at the time.

April 11

Researchers state that middle-aged men who consume large amounts of fruits and vegetables are less likely to suffer strokes later in life than are other men.

Reports state that author David Guterson has been awarded the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for his first novel, Snow Falling on Cedars.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 12

726—April 13–18, 1995

April 13

April 14

April 15

April 16

April 17

World Affairs

Europe

Reports suggest that a former agent of the Serbian secret police has provided the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal with documents implicating Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic in war crimes committed in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The Royal Ulster Constabulary, Northern Ireland’s police force, arrest two men and a woman after raiding an alleged weapons factory of the Ulster Volunteer Force, an outlawed unionist group, near Belfast. Police confiscate about 40 rifles, pistols, and machine-guns, the largest cache found since cease-fires were declared in 1994. . . . Paavo Lipponen is sworn in as Finland’s new premier at the head of a five-party governing coalition.

The UN Security Council passes a resolution to allow Iraq to sell up to $2 billion worth of oil to help alleviate pervasive shortages of food and medicine among its most economically pressed citizens. . . . In a dispute over fishing rights that has raged between Canada and Spain since March, Spain refuses a final settlement that was accepted by other members of the EU.

Sergeant Ralph Gunther, a French peacekeeper, is killed by sniper fire in Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital. . . . Jacques Mellick, a member of France’s parliament and mayor of the northern town of Bethune, is barred from office for two years and handed a six-month suspended sentence after admitting that he lied under oath to protect businessman Bernard Tapie, a former Socialist Party minister who is one of several leading public figures brought to trial as a result of a sweeping anticorruption campaign.

In response to Spain’s Apr. 14 rejection of a settlement over fishing rights, Canadian prime minister Jean Chretien orders two heavily armed naval gunboats to the disputed waters, where six Canadian fisheries patrol and Coast Guard boats are already stationed.

In Bosnia, a French soldier, Corporal Eric Hardoin, 30, is killed by sniper fire while working on an antisniping barrier outside the Sarajevo Holiday Inn, a common site for shootings of civilians.

Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s cabinet formally turns down the Apr. 14 UN Security Council offer to allow Iraq to sell up to $2 billion worth of oil to help alleviate pervasive shortages of food and medicine among its most economically pressed citizens. In explaining the rejection, Iraq’s state-run radio argues, “The [UN] resolution seriously compromises Iraq’s sovereignty and national unity.”. . . Canada and the European Union reach a fishing agreement, ending a six-week-long dispute over fishing rights that raged between Canada and Spain.

Stewart Miles MacPherson, 86, British radio commentator known for his coverage of sports events, dies of unreported causes.

Representatives from more than 170 nations meet at UN headquarters in New York City for the beginning of a four-week conference aimed at renewing the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (commonly known as the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or NPT).

In Spain Judge Baltasar Garzón indicts 14 people in connection with the government’s alleged “dirty war” against Basque separatists in the 1980s. Some of those charged are former government officials and state security personnel.

April 18

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Clashes that started Apr. 6 between Russian-led forces and Islamic Tajik rebels along Tajikistan’s border with Afghanistan spill over into the northern town of Taloqan in Afghanistan when Russian jets kill 125 civilians and wound 250. . . . Japanese authorities conduct searches at various sites associated with Aum Shinrikyo, a Japanese religious sect linked to the production of sarin, the nerve gas used in the Mar. 20 attack in Tokyo.

Eight residents of the village of Nyabishungu in southwestern Rwanda allegedly attack two government soldiers, prompting the Rwandan army to shoot and kill 16 Hutu villagers.

Haitian police arrest Claudy Lacroix, a suspect in the Mar. 28 slaying of Mireille Durocher Bertin, a prominent rightist opponent of Pres. JeanBertrand Aristide.

Shintaro Ishihara, one of Japan’s best-known legislators, resigns his seat in the lower house of the country’s Diet due to frustration over the state of the Japanese political system.

Members of the militant Muslim group Abu Sayyaf kill 14 people taken hostage in the Apr. 4 raid on the southern Philippine town of Ipil.

Israeli security agents reportedly disguised as Arabs shoot three Hamas members to death in an ambush in Hebron, the West Bank’s second-largest city. Separately, the PNA’s military court imposes its first sentences against Hamas militants when it orders two-year incarcerations for Mohammed Abu Shamala, 26, and Riad Atar, 24, for illegal weapons training and weapons use.

Iqbal Masih, 12, who gained international attention for his criticism of child-labor practices in Pakistan, is shot dead. Masih, sold into labor as a carpet weaver by his parents at the age of four, spent nearly six years shackled to a carpet loom before escaping at the age of 10 and speaking to an international labor conference in Sweden in 1994. . . . A controversial sculpture that portrays Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip, sitting naked on a park bench is removed from public view in Canberra, Australia, after vandalism to the sculpture nearly destroyed it.

In Burundi, three people are killed and 32 wounded when attackers throw grenades into a market in Ngozi. . . . Bahrain’s government announces it has released 120 political prisoners arrested during prodemocracy disturbances that started in December 1994 after the arrest of a popular Shi’ite Muslim leader, Sheik Ali Salman.

Rustico Secundo, who was taken hostage by a militant Muslim group during the Apr. 4 raid on Philippine town of Ipil, tells reporters that the extremists mutilated and beheaded their captives in a mass execution Apr. 15, and one woman is still being held captive. . . . Philippine foreign minister Roberto Romulo resigns from his post in an attempt to calm the ongoing political furor over the March 17 execution of Flor Contemplacion.

Two soldiers and five Hutu gunmen are killed when Hutu gunmen attack an army post in Gasorwe, Burundi. . . . At least 10 refugees are killed in a stampede that occurs after soldiers from the Rwandan army surround a refugee camp at Kibeho, Rwanda, and fire shots into the air.

The Bolivian government declares a 90-day state of siege after the collapse of union-government talks aimed at ending several weeks of strikes and civil unrest. . . . Arturo Frondizi, 86, president of Argentina, 1958–62, dies in Buenos Aires, Argentina, of a heart ailment.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

April 13–18, 1995—727

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, a private hospital-certification group, strips University Community Hospital in Tampa, Florida, of its accreditation. The hospital was barred from elective surgery by state regulators from the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration on Apr. 7.

The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, upholds a lower court’s ruling that the Citadel, a currently all-male military academy in Charleston, South Carolina, is required to admit a female student, Shannon Faulkner, to its Corps of Cadets.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A strong earthquake strikes west Texas and New Mexico. The quake measures 5.6 on the Richter scale and is the strongest to hit Texas in 64 years. Its epicenter is located in Marathon, Texas. . . . Researchers conclude that the largest-ever study of the possible heart benefits of consuming large amounts of fish fails to find any link between consumption of fish or fish oil and risk of heart disease.

April 13

Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives, 85, folk singer and actor who earned an Academy Award for best supporting actor in 1958, dies in Anacortes, Washington, of cancer.

FEC data indicates that Sen. Phil Gramm (R, Tex.) leads all candidates for the 1996 Republican presidential nomination in fund-raising and campaign spending to date. Gramm has raised $8.7 million and spent about $4.7 million on his campaign through the first three months of 1995.

April 15

Reports confirm that the 17th annual Pritzker Architecture Prize for lifetime achievement has been awarded to Tadeo Ando, a Japanese architect. . . . Cy Endfield, 80, film director whose left-leaning movies brought about his censure in 1951 by the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee, dies in Shipston-on-Stour, England, of an undisclosed illness.

A U.S. District Court jury in Uniondale, New York, awards $19 million to Faith Pescatore, the widow of one of 270 people killed in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. The judgment is the fourth to come in the case and is considered among the largest ever awarded to an individual in a commercial airline disaster. . . . Pres. Clinton signs legislation that will put the financial affairs of the District of Columbia under the control of a review board through at least the fiscal year 1999. In Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm Inc., the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that Congress does not have the constitutional authority to reopen cases on which federal courts have already passed judgment.

The U.S. State Department announces that Frederick C. Cuny, an American disaster-relief expert, has disappeared in Chechnya, the breakaway southern Russian republic embroiled in a war with Russian forces.

The dollar reaches a postwar low of 80.63 yen in New York trading. . . . In Freightliner Corp. v. Myrick, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that lawsuits against two trucking companies can go forward under a Georgia law that requires tractor trailers to have antilock brakes.

April 14

Cosmas N’Deti of Kenya wins his third consecutive Boston Marathon with a time of two hours, nine minutes, and 22 seconds. N’Deti is the third person ever to win three consecutive Boston Marathons.

U.S. Department of Energy scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico report that they have developed a new superconducting tape comprising metal and ceramic materials that carries substantially more current than existing “high-temperature” superconductors. The three-layer tape has zero resistance to electricity at -320°F (-196°C), the temperature of liquid nitrogen, and can carry more than 1 million amperes per square centimeter.

Philip M. Foisie, 73, journalist who helped establish the foreign news desk for The Washington Post newspaper, dies in Alexandria, Virginia, of a heart attack. . . . Pulitzer Prizes are awarded to Carol Shields, Jonathan Weiner, Horton Foote, Joan D. Hedrick, Philip Levine, and Morton Gould, as well as others.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 16

April 17

April 18

728—April 19–24, 1995

April 19

World Affairs

Europe

Libya has defied a UN ban by flying 150 Mecca-bound pilgrims to Saudi Arabia aboard an unauthorized Libyan plane. The UN sanctions committee eases its ban on flights to and from Libya to allow Libyans to take part in the hajj, or annual pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Islam’s most holy site, stipulating that Libyan pilgrims may fly between Libya and Saudi Arabia on Egyptian aircraft.

In Madrid, Spain, Jose Maria Aznar, the leader of the opposition Popular Party, is slightly injured in a blast from a car bomb. The explosion also injures 12 others and causes extensive damage to buildings and cars in the area.

April 20

April 21

April 22

April 23

April 24

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Soldiers expel more than 100,000 people from a refugee camp at Kibeho, Rwanda, the country’s largest. The refugees, most of them Hutu, are ordered to return to their homes. Several other camps close. . . . Reports reveal that hundreds of civilians were arrested in recurrent rioting and that at least three policemen and 10 civilians died in clashes in Bahrain. The unrest largely occurred in Shi’ite neighborhoods, a number of which were torched by rioters.

The Bolivian government discloses that some 380 union members have been arrested since the onset of the siege in March.

More than 300 people are taken to hospitals in Yokohama, Japan, after a poisonous gas is released in a crowded train that spreads throughout the city’s main railroad station. . . . Rebel forces from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam break a 14-week-long cease-fire agreement by blowing up two Sri Lankan government gunboats at a naval base in the eastern port of Trincomalee. Twelve sailors and four rebels are killed in the attack, and another 21 people are wounded.

In France, in a highly publicized case, Michel Noir, the mayor of Lyons, and Michel Mouillot, the mayor of Cannes, are handed 15-month suspended sentences and barred from seeking public office for five years. . . . Milovan Djilas, 83, Yugoslav communist revolutionary who became the country’s leading political dissident after denouncing his former comrades, dies in Belgrade, Serbia, of heart ailments.

Ten Europeans kidnapped by rebels in Sierra Leone between November 1994 and January 1995 are freed unconditionally at Sierra Leone’s border with Guinea. Six of those freed are British, three are Swiss, and one is German. Six Sierra Leone citizens also are freed.

In Canada, a bomb explodes at Province House, the provincial legislature building in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, injuring one person.

Fighting along Tajikistan’s border with Afghanistan spills into Afghanistan when Russian jets bomb the Darwaz district of Afghanistan’s Badakhshan region, killing 12 civilians and wounding 16. Statistics show that at least 200 Tajik rebels and 41 members of the Russian-led border unit have been killed in clashes that started Apr. 6 along border.

The Slovak Internal Affairs Ministry discloses that Slovak authorities have seized 37.4 pounds (17 kg) of uranium and arrested nine people near Poprad, Slovakia. The seizure is the latest in a series of incidents involving radioactive material, including weapons-grade plutonium and uranium, smuggled from countries of the former Soviet Union to Eastern or Western Europe.

At least 22 refugees are killed and 40 are wounded in the Kibeho camp, which houses as many as 100,000 refugees in Rwanda, when government soldiers open fire after a small group of refugees attempt to take a gun from a soldier.

Several Argentine unions stage a general strike to protest the government’s free-market policies.

Rauf Denktash is reelected to his third term as president of the breakaway ethnic Turkish section of Cyprus.

An estimated 2,000 refugees are killed in two incidents by gunfire or machetes or subsequent stampedes, when government soldiers attempting to close refugee camps in southwest Rwanda fire on refugees who rushed military lines. The outbreaks of violence are the deadliest since the end of Rwanda’s civil war in July 1994.

The IMF projects that world economic output will rise 3.8% in 1995 and 4.2% in 1996. These figures show a modest increase over 1994, when the world economy grew by 3.7%.

Socialist Party candidate Lionel Jospin is the surprise top finisher in the first round of French presidential elections.

The UN-sponsored Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal names Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic, the commander of the Bosnian Serb army, as suspects in war crimes allegedly committed in Bosnia. The tribunal also names Mico Stanisic, a former chief of the Bosnian Serb secret police, as a war-crimes suspect.

Britain’s Conservative Party prime minister John Major invites eight suspended Tory members of Parliament back into his parliamentary party. Major also urges one MP who voluntarily gave up his parliamentary privileges to rejoin the Tories.

Four Russian helicopter gunships attack the Afghan village of Maymay as fighting along the border continues.

Hideo Murai, 36, a top leader of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, suspected in recent gas attacks in Japan, is stabbed to death in Tokyo.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

April 19–24, 1995—729

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

A massive car bomb explodes outside a federal office building in Oklahoma City, Okla., The blast’s death toll is expected to top 200. More than 400 people are injured, and 150 of the building’s estimated 550 workers are missing. Several children are thought to be dead since the building houses a day-care facility. It is the deadliest terrorist attack ever in the U.S. . . . In McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, the Supreme Court strikes down, 7-2, an Ohio statute that bans the distribution of anonymous political literature.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

J(oseph) Peter Grace Jr., 81, chair of W. R. Grace & Co., a specialty chemicals and health-care company founded by his grandfather in 1854, dies in New York City of cancer. . . . Mary Caperton Bingham, 90, matriarch of a Louisville, Kentuckybased media empire, dies in Louisville after suffering a heart attack while attending a banquet in her honor.

A long-term study of 17,300 middleaged male Harvard graduates indicates that vigorous exercise, but not moderate exercise, increases life expectancy.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

April 19

In Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, workers install supports to keep the bombed building from crumbling. The FBI states that authorities have two suspects, described as white males. . . . The CDC finds that the suicide rate among adolescents ages 10–14 increased by 120% between 1980 and 1992, to 1.7 per 100,000 from 0.8 per 100,000.

April 20

Federal authorities take Timothy J. McVeigh, 27, a suspect in the Apr. 19 car-bombing attack in Oklahoma City, into custody. Officials also take into custody two brothers, Terry Lynn Nichols and James Nichols, described as potential witnesses, not suspects. . . . An Oswego, N.Y., jury convicts Waneta Hoyt of fatally smothering her five babies between 1965 and 1971. The deaths of the children initially were attributed to SIDS. . . . A University Community Hospital in Tampa, Fla., spokesman states that the Apr. 7 ban on elective surgery in the hospital was removed.

Tessie O’Shea, 82, British actress and music-hall singer who won a 1965 Tony, dies in Leesburg, Florida, of congestive heart failure.

Margaret (Maggie) Kuhn, 89, founder of the Gray Panthers, an organization that champions the rights of the elderly and fights age discrimination, dies in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, of numerous ailments.

Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel investigating the Whitewater affair, interviews Pres. Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton to collect testimony to present to a federal grand jury in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Naomi Nover (born Naomi Goll), 84, news columnist who covered the White House and Congress, dies in Washington, D.C., after undergoing surgery for an aneurysm.

Pres. Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton attend a memorial service for victims of the Apr.19 bombing at the Oklahoma City State Fair Grounds arena, along with more than 10,000 people. . . . John Cornelius Stennis, 93, conservative Democrat who represented Mississippi in the Senate for more than 40 years and was first elected to the Senate in 1947, dies in Jackson, Mississippi, of complications from pneumonia. Gilbert B. Murray, the chief lobbyist for the California Forestry Association, is killed when a mail bomb explodes in the group’s Sacramento, California, offices. Federal investigators blame the incident on the Unabomber, who has been linked to 15 other bombing incidents since 1978.

Eight of the 16 living Nobel Prize laureates in literature gather in Atlanta, Georgia, to for a series of discussions. . . . In Britain, the Alexander Korda Award for best British film goes to Shallow Grave. . . . Howard Cosell (born Howard William Cohen), 77, one of the best-known personalities in TV sports who gained national attention as the commentator for Monday Night Football, dies in New York City of a heart embolism.

The U.S. dispatches two diplomats to Chechnya to look for Frederick C. Cuny, an American disasterrelief expert whose disappearance was confirmed Apr. 18. The decision to send American diplomats to Chechnya is a change of policy for the U.S., which has sharply criticized the Russian military operation in the republic.

Business Week’s 45th annual survey of the two highest-paid executives at 371 companies finds that average salary and bonus compensation for the 742 executives is $1,399,698, a 10% increase from 1993. A record 537 of those executives earn more than $1 million. Charles Locke, chair and CEO of Morton International Inc., tops the list with earnings of $25,928,000.

The MLB season opens with several labor issues still unresolved after a 234-day players’ strike. . . . The Rainmaker by John Grisham tops the bestseller list.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 21

April 22

April 23

April 24

730—April 25–30, 1995

April 25

Europe

Thousands of people in Australia and Turkey commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Turkey at Gallipoli during World War I. . . . The finance ministers and central-bank heads of the Group of Seven (G-7) leading industrialized nations meet in Washington, D.C.

A commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Italy’s uprising against Nazi German forces is held in Milan. Pres. Oscar Luigi Scalfaro attends mass in honor of the 335 Italians executed by Germans following the uprising. . . . The first shipment of nuclear waste to be stored permanently in Germany arrives in Lower Saxony. . . . Turkey claims success in its military operation against Kurds in northern Iraq and announces that most of force was withdrawn.

Abd al-Samed Harizat, 30, a Palestinian, dies in Israel while in custody of Israeli security agents. He had been detained on suspicion of leading a branch of the Qassem Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas. . . . The Dutch government suspends $30 million in direct aid to the Rwandan government in the wake of recent massacres.

Malaysia’s ruling party, the National Front, increases its parliamentary majority in national elections.

The British government announces that it will pay the family of Winston Churchill, Britain’s prime minister during World War II, £13.25 million ($21 million) for Churchill’s pre1945 writings.

Twenty Rwandan refugees are found dead in a crowded jail cell just north of Butare. They were awaiting clearance to return home.

A British tanker carrying 14 tons (12.6 metric tons) of nuclear waste docks in the harbor of Rokkasho, Japan.

A major gas pipeline explodes in a remote area of north-central Russia near the town of Ukhta. No injuries are reported, but the pipeline explosion is the third disaster in less than a year involving Russia’s oil and gas industry. . . . Peter Wright, 78, British intelligence officer whose memoir Spycatcher (1987) generated a storm of controversy, dies in Tasmania, Australia, of complications from Alzheimer’s disease.

Fourteen Hutu refugees are stoned or beaten to death after returning home to the village of Huye, outside the southwestern city of Butare. . . . The Israeli government discloses a plan to confiscate 135 acres (55 hectares) of mainly Arab-owned land in disputed East Jerusalem as a site for Jewish housing units and an Israeli police station. The self-rule PNA and Arab countries promptly denounce the plan.

April 26

April 27

April 28

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Austria formally becomes the 10th member of the Schengen group, a border-free region within the European Union.

The Americas

Amnesty International states that it is “gravely concerned at the sharp increase” in executions in Saudi Arabia in recent months. Some 90 people reportedly were executed in Saudi Arabia between Jan. 20 and Apr. 19, compared with 53 executions during all of 1994. . . . A forensic pathologist from Scotland, Derrick Pounder, reports that that the Palestinian who died Apr. 25, Abd al-Samed Harizat, 30, suffered fatal brain damage while being tortured.

Rebel forces from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam down two Sri Lankan government air force planes, killing all 97 people aboard. The planes crash near the Palaly Air Base on the rebel-controlled Jaffna peninsula. . . . A leaking gas pipeline at a Taegu, South Korea, subway construction site explodes, killing at least 100 people and injuring about 200. Officials estimate that 60 of the fatalities were teenage students on their way to school.

In Kazakhstan, voters approve in a referendum a mandate to extend Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev’s term until 2000. . . . Fighting is reported on at least three fronts in Bosnia. . . . Data suggest that in the military operation that Turkey started in March, 505 PKK guerrillas and 58 Turkish soldiers were killed.

April 29

The predominantly Muslim government of Bosnia and leaders of the Bosnian Serbs refuse to extend a four-month cease-fire, set to expire May 1 at noon local time.

April 30

Asia & the Pacific

In a ceremony in Hanoi, the country’s capital, Vietnamese prime minister Vo Van Kiet recalls “genocidal crimes” committed by U.S. troops during the war, including the notorious 1968 My Lai massacre.

The last of the refugee camps in Rwanda close, as thousands of refugees are trucked home from the Ndera camp near Kigali, the capital.

The Vietnamese government celebrates the 20th anniversary of the fall of Saigon—now called Ho Chi Minh City—which ended the Vietnam War. Thousands of Vietnamese military personnel and civilians turn out to view a parade.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

April 25–30, 1995—731

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

In California Department of Corrections v. Morales, the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, to uphold a change in California parole law that reduces the frequency of parole hearings for some inmates. . . . In Birmingham, Alabama, U.S. district judge Sam Pointer Jr. rules that Dow Chemical can be held liable in federal court for health problems allegedly resulting from silicone breast implants made by Dow Corning. The ruling reverses an earlier decision.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Art Fazzin Fleming, 70, the original host of the TV game show Jeopardy!, dies in Crystal River, Florida, of pancreatic cancer. . . . Ginger Rogers (born Virginia Katherine McMath), 83, film star and the glamorous dance partner of Fred Astaire, dies in Rancho Mirage, California, of natural causes.

People across the nation observe a minute of silence at 9:02 A.M., exactly a week after the blast in Oklahoma City. Pres. Clinton declares Oklahoma City a major disaster area, allowing residents to receive longer-term federal aid. . . . In U.S. v. Lopez, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, which makes possession of a firearm within 1,000 feet (300 m) of a school a federal offense, is unconstitutional. . . . Corliss Lamont, 93, authority on humanist philosophy and director of the ACLU, 1932–54, dies in Ossining, N.Y., of heart failure.

Hira Jamal, a Pakistani conjoined twin who was separated from her sister in January, is released from the hospital. Her twin died in February. . . . An uncompleted study of heart-attack victims given cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) with a device resembling a toilet plunger shows the device is slightly less effective than standard CPR.

Reports confirm that Poet A. R. Ammons, a professor at Cornell University, has won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.

The death toll from the Apr. 19 explosion in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, stands at 110, and 15 of those are children. As many as 94 people are unaccounted for and presumed dead. Local officials state that 200 buildings in the downtown Oklahoma City area incurred structural damage. Ten buildings in the area collapsed.

Researchers report that cells from fetuses implanted into the brain of a 59-year-old man who had Parkinson’s disease began to reverse the effects of the disease prior to his death from an unrelated cause. . . . A study finds of 134,088 pregnancies suggests that biological factors put teenage mothers at a higher than average risk of having babies who are premature or have other health complications.

In Charlotte, South Carolina, Christophe Auguin of France wins the BOC Challenge solo round-theworld yacht race, finishing with a time of 121 days, 17 hours, 11 minutes, and 46 seconds.

Researchers report they have found in Zaire tools made from animal bones, including barbed points and blades, that are 75,000–90,000 years old. The tools are about 60,000 years older than similar artifacts found in Europe, where scientists previously believed humans first developed the ability to use such sophisticated tools. Some scientists, however, challenge the accuracy of the techniques used to date the Zairean tools.

World Wide Christian Radio, a powerful short-wave station in Nashville, Tennessee, removes from the air indefinitely Mark Koernke, the host of the “Intelligence Report” who suggested on the air that the government itself blew up the Oklahoma federal building on Apr. 19.

The Dow closes at a record high of 4321.27.

Angier Biddle Duke, 79, diplomat and scion of two wealthy and influential U.S. families who was noted for his work in protecting nonwhite foreign diplomats against racial prejudice in the U.S. during the 1960s, dies in Southampton, New York, after being struck by a car while in-line skating. In a case that received national attention, the adoptive parents of a four-year-old boy known as Baby Richard hand over the child to his biological parents, Otakar and Daniela Kirchner. Daniela Kirchner had told Otakar Kirchner that the baby was dead while they were estranged. When they reconciled, he learned the truth and filed for custody of the child, who had never met his biological father. The case sparked debate over the rights of adoptive parents.

April 25

April 26

April 27

April 28

April 29

Pres. Clinton announces an executive order to suspend all U.S. trade with Iran, citing what he calls Iran’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, its continued support for terrorism, and concern over a Russian-Iranian agreement that calls for Russia to construct one or more nuclear power reactors in Iran and provide nuclear training to Iranian technicians. . . . In Washington, D.C., hundreds of U.S. war veterans are joined by Vietnamese refugees and former South Vietnamese soldiers to mark the anniversary of the war’s end. About 500 Vietnamese refugees, including a group of 15 Buddhist monks, gather outside the White House to call for political and religious freedom in their homeland.

Eric Berger, 88, editor for Scholastic Magazines Inc., an educational publisher, dies in New York City of lung cancer.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 30

732—May 1–6, 1995

May 1

Europe

The UN World Health Organization (WHO) issues its first annual survey of global health. The report cites poverty as the primary underlying cause of disease and death worldwide. According to WHO, 2 billion of the world’s 5.6 billion people have been ill at any one time, and many have died from preventable causes.

Croatian forces launch an attack on the Serb-held Krajina region of Croatia, shattering a 14-month-old “permanent cease-fire” and ending more than three years of relative calm in Croatia since January 1992. . . . Clashes are reported in Grozny, the Chechen capital. . . . Thousands of communist protesters march in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and as many as 60 other cities across Russia to celebrate May Day. The demonstrators call for the removal of Pres. Boris Yeltsin.

A UN speaker reveals that four murdered Hutus were found dumped into a latrine in Huye, Rwanda.

The Sri Lankan government’s air force jets bomb rebel strongholds in the Jaffna region. . . . The Hindudominated government of India’s Maharashtra state officially changes the name of Bombay, India’s financial hub, to its traditional name, Mumbai. The federal government and some newspapers refuse to recognize the name change.

Croatian Serbs retaliate for the May 1 offensive by firing rocket-propelled cluster bombs on downtown Zagreb and near the airport south of the city, killing five people and injuring at least 134. . . . Salvatore Riina, the reputed head of the Sicilian Mafia, and 40 other alleged mob bosses go on trial for the 1992 murder of prosecutor Giovanni Falcone, his wife, and three of his bodyguards. The trial is considered the most damaging blow to the Mafia since 1987, when Falcone won jail sentences for 338 mobsters.

A Rwandan military court opens the trial of 14 soldiers from the Tutsi-led army accused of aggravated murder and other crimes against members of the Hutu majority.

Reports reveal that Yao Daorong, a farmer who trapped and killed a rare giant panda in a nature reserve in China’s southwestern province of Sichuan, has been given an 18year prison sentence.

May 2

Croatian Serbs hit Zagreb with five rockets, killing one policeman and wounding 40 civilians. . . . In Northern Ireland, Republican protesters, many of whom are reportedly affiliated with Sinn Fein, clash with police, injuring at least 12. . . . In a tribute attended by 10,000 people, French president Mitterrand throws a bouquet of flowers into the Seine River, where Brahim Bouarrem, a Moroccan immigrant, was drowned, allegedly by a rightist skinheads hours before a rally for the presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen from the National Front.

May 3

May 4

May 5

May 6

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

In Hyde Park, London, HRM Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, opens three days of celebrations in Britain commemorating the 50th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. The tributes are attended by leading figures from about 60 nations, including U.S. vice president Al Gore, British prime minister John Major, Canadian prime minister Jean Chretien, German chancellor Helmut Kohl, and Russian premier Viktor Chernomyrdin.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The British government names John Owen as the next governor general of the Cayman Islands, a British territory. . . . In Brazil, 48,000 oil workers go on strike to demand higher wages and to protest government proposals to privatize state-owned companies.

Croatian forces continue their offensive in western Slavonia, where clashes are reported near the town of Pakrac.

Jordan and the Palestinian National Authority sign a trade pact that sets the stage for an upsurge in trade between Jordan and the Palestinian territories.

Chechen rebels shoot down a Russian reconnaissance plane in eastern Chechnya, killing the pilot. . . . The Turkish army claims it has killed 555 PKK guerrillas in the sixweek operation that started in March. . . . The Italian justice ministry announces that it is investigating Italy’s anticorruption prosecutors for allegedly abusing their powers. The decision draws fire.

Iran and Turkey sign a $20 billion, 23-year deal under which Iran will supply natural gas to Turkey. The pact also calls for the two sides to construct a 1,000-mile-long pipeline for transporting gas to Ankara, Turkey, from Tabriz, Iran.

Jose Estenssoro, president and CEO of Argentine oil company YPF SA, dies in an aircraft crash in Ecuador.

Chechen rebels launch an attack on a column of Russian forces near the village of Novogroznensky in eastern Chechnya, killing three Russian soldiers and wounding 15.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

May 1–6, 1995—733

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

In Minneapolis, Minn., Federal District Court judge James Rosenbaum approves an agreement under which Qubilah Bahiyah Shabazz, the daughter of slain black nationalist leader Malcolm X, accepts responsibility and is placed on two years probation for her involvement in a plot to kill Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. . . . . In NYC, Judge Elliott Wilk sets aside the part of a February jury verdict that found hospital patient Libby Zion partly responsible for her own death. Keith Zettlemoyer, 39, convicted of the 1980 murder of a friend who had planned to testify against him in a robbery trial, becomes the first inmate executed in Pennsylvania since 1962 and the 275th in the nation since 1976, when the Supreme Court allowed states to resume capital punishment. . . . The North Carolina Court of Appeals orders new trials for Robert Kelly Jr. and Kathryn Dawn Wilson, two workers convicted of molesting children at an Edenton, North Carolina, day-care center.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Officials from the Episcopal Church accuse former church treasurer Ellen F. Cooke of embezzling $2.2 million from the church since 1990.

The Clinton administration ends a 30-year immigration policy when it announces that Cuban boat people seeking asylum in the U.S. will henceforth be summarily repatriated to Cuba. The 21,000 Cuban rafters currently detained at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba will be admitted into the U.S. . . . Hugh E. (Ted) Price announces his retirement from his post as chief of the CIA clandestine operations division, effective May 5. Admiral William Studeman names Price’s deputy, John J. Devine, as acting director of clandestine operations.

Neal Ainley pleads guilty in U.S. District Court in Little Rock, Arkansas, to two misdemeanor violations of federal financial disclosure laws. Ainley’s plea is related to transactions involving the 1990 reelection campaign of Bill Clinton, who was then Arkansas’s governor, from a 16-month-old investigation, currently led by independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr into the Whitewater affair.

Alabama revives chain gangs, in which groups of convicts are chained together and made to labor outdoors, and more than 300 Alabama inmates are shackled together and made to clear ditches, cut weeds, and pick up litter along a state highway. The reinstitution of chain gangs is part of an effort by Gov. Forrest (Fob) James Jr. (R) to make prison life tougher.

California governor Pete Wilson (R) acknowledges that in the late 1970s he employed an undocumented Mexican immigrant as a maid and failed to pay Social Security taxes on her wages.

The death toll from the Apr. 19 carbombing attack in Oklahoma City stands at 164, with two people unaccounted for and presumed dead. Nineteen children died in the blast. One rescue worker, a nurse, also died. The rescue operation concludes.

Lewis Thompson Preston, 68, financier and banker who was president of the World Bank from 1991 until just before his death and who had a 40-year-long career with commercial bank J. P. Morgan & Co., dies in Washington, D.C., of cancer.

The auction houses of Christie’s and Sotheby’s open their major New York City auctions. . . . Martin Harwit, the director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum, resigns due to “continuing controversy and divisiveness” over a planned exhibit of the Enola Gay.

May 2

May 3

May 4

A memorial service for victims of the Apr. 19 attack in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, is held at the blast site.

Mikhail Moisseyevich Botvinnik, 83, legendary Russian chess grandmaster, dies in Moscow of an undisclosed illness.

At a benefit attended by 1,400 people at the Apollo Theater in NYC to raise money for the legal defense of Qubilah Shabazz, the daughter of slain civil rights activist Malcolm X, the Nation of Islam leader, Louis Farrakhan acknowledges that “members of the Nation of Islam were involved in the assassination of Malcolm” and calls for forgiveness. . . . Ron Kirk (D), an attorney and former Texas secretary of state, is elected mayor of Dallas, Texas. Kirk, 40, will become the city’s first black mayor and the first black ever to lead a major Texas city.

May 1

A Danish study shows that a group of people who drank wine daily were less likely to die during the study period than a group who drank beer, hard liquor, or no alcohol at all.

Finland defeats Sweden, 4-1, to capture the world hockey championship in Stockholm, Sweden. It is Finland’s first-ever world title. . . . Thunder Gulch wins the 121st running of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 5

May 6

734—May 7–11, 1995

World Affairs

Paris mayor Jacques Chirac, leader of the neo-Gaullist Rally for the Republic (RPR) party, is elected to a seven-year term as president of France in a runoff election. . . . Bosnian Serbs shell Sarajevo, killing at least 10 people. Franjo Komarica, the Catholic bishop of Banja Luka, reports that a church near Bihac in the northwest was blown up and that Serbs attempted to burn down a church in the town of Vujnovici.

May 7

May 8

Thousands of World War II veterans and about 80 international leaders mark the 50th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. The world figures travel together through London, Paris, Berlin, and Moscow in the largest of dozens of V-E Day celebrations. V-E Day commemorative events are also held in Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, and Vatican City.

May 11

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Kenya, prominent paleontologist and conservationist Richard Leakey announces that he is forming a new political party to challenge longtime Pres. Daniel arap Moi and his ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU). Leakey forms the party, dubbed Safina (or Ark), with Paul Muite and others from the banned group Mwangaza Trust.

Reports confirm that Bosnian Serbs blew up a Roman Catholic church and monastery in Banja Luka, northwest Bosnia, killing a nun and a priest. . . . Reports reveal that international human-rights organizations have determined that the Russian military’s attack on the Chechen village of Samashki that started Apr. 7 was a massacre of civilians and that many of the Russian soldiers who participated in it were intoxicated. More than 100 people were killed in Samashki when 3,000 Russian troops fired on civilians at point-blank range, threw grenades and torched houses, according to survivors.

Fires gut the town of Charar-eSharief in India’s disputed Jammu and Kashmir region as fighting between government troops and Islamic separatists escalate. . . . Voters in the Philippines cast ballots to fill half of the country’s 24-seat Senate, the entire body of the House of Representatives, and thousands of local government posts. . . . Teresa (Deng Lijun) Teng, 40, Japanese singer known throughout East Asia for her romantic ballads, dies in Ching Mai, Thailand, reportedly of heart failure after suffering an asthmatic attack.

The UN begins relocating Serb civilians and soldiers from the western Slavonia region of Croatia, which Croatian forces recaptured from Serbs in the May 1 offensive. . . . French president François Mitterrand of the Socialist Party, who has held office for an unprecedented 14 years, announces that he will hand over the reins of the presidency to Jacques Chirac prior to the official expiration of his term.

The last of the Hutu refugees who remain ensconced in the Kibeho camp in southwest Rwanda abandon the camp.

Judge David Nevins of Canada’s Ontario Court’s Provincial Division strikes down an Ontario law that prevents homosexual couples from applying to adopt children.

U.S. president Bill Clinton and Russian president Boris Yeltsin state they have reached partial agreements on security in Europe after concluding a much-anticipated and debated summit meeting. The two leaders fail, however, to iron out their differences on more substantive issues.

According to a Reuters report, five Russian helicopters fire rockets at the Chechen village of SerzhenYurt. The attack reportedly comes shortly after Yeltsin claims that no Russian military actions are taking place in Chechnya. . . . Michael Ancram, the British government minister for Northern Ireland, meets with representatives of Sinn Fein. It is the first public encounter between a government minister and Sinn Fein since 1973. . . . Tajikistan introduces its own currency, making it the last of the ruble, which is pegged at 100 to the Russian ruble.

In South Africa, more than 100 workers die when an underground train falls into a shaft and crashes on top of an elevator in the Vaal Reefs gold mine near Orkney, 112 miles (180 km) southwest of Johannesburg. The train and the elevator plunge more than 1,000 feet (300 m) to the bottom of the 7,500-foot. shaft, and the accident is considered one of the worst mine disasters in South Africa’s history.

Canadian immigration officials reveal that as many as 75 of 87 members of a delegation of businesspeople from China are missing.

Representatives from 174 countries at UN headquarters in New York City by consensus approve the indefinite extension of the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, known as the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The NPT, which took effect in 1970 for a 25year period, is considered to be the key to global nuclear nonproliferation efforts.

The world’s tallest concrete structure, a gas-production platform standing 1,549 feet (472 m) high and weighing 1 million tons, is towed 200 miles (320 km) to a North Sea drilling location, setting a terrestrial record. . . . A French peacekeeper in Sarajevo is shot in the head by a sniper. Heavy fighting is reported near the Posavina corridor, which links Yugoslavia with Serb-held territory in Bosnia and Croatia.

Scientists from the CDC and WHO confirm that a mysterious disease that broke out in the city of Kikwit, 250 miles (400 km) east of Kinshasa, Zaire’s capital, is caused by the Ebola virus, one of the world’s deadliest virus. WHO states 49 people contracted the virus, and 27 of them died. The news sparks quarantine efforts.

May 9

May 10

Europe

Fires sweep the town of Charar-eSharief in India’s disputed Jammu and Kashmir region as fighting between government troops and Islamic separatists continues. The Indian government imposes 24hour curfews in cities throughout the Kashmir region. A 600-year-old mosque dedicated to Sheik Noorudin Noorani, a 14th-century Sufi poet and philosopher considered Kashmir’s patron saint, is destroyed in the fire.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

May 7–11, 1995—735

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle The librarian of Congress, James H. Billington, announces that Robert Hass has been named poet laureate of the U.S., succeeding Rita Dove.

Duncan McKenzie Jr., 43, convicted of murdering a teacher in Montana in the early 1970s, becomes the first person to be executed in Montana since 1943 and the 277th in the nation since 1976. . . . Terry Lynn Nichols, a material witness in the Apr. 19 car-bombing attack on a federal office building in Oklahoma City, is formally charged in the bombing.

In the first test of the U.S. policy announced May 2, the U.S. Coast Guard returns 13 Cuban boat people to Cuba. . . . Before flying to V-E Day ceremonies in Moscow, Pres. Clinton thanks the “extraordinary generation” that fought in the war. . . . Pres. Clinton signs an executive order announced Apr. 30 that imposes a trade embargo against Iran, effective for U.S. companies in 30 days.

Thomas Donahue announces that he will step down from his post as secretary treasurer of the AFL-CIO labor-union federation at the end of his term in October.

The Senate confirms, 98-0, John Deutch as the director of central intelligence. . . . A federal judge in Chicago, Illinois, sentences Claude Marks and Donna Willmott, who surrendered in 1994 after admitting to conspiring to transport explosives for use by the Puerto Rican separatist group Armed Forces of National Liberation. Marks is sentenced to six years’ imprisonment, and Willmott is sentenced to three years.

A URW local votes to end its 10month-long strike at a Decatur, Illinois, Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. tiremaking plant.

Marshal Walton Royal, 82, lead alto saxophonist for the Count Basie Orchestra, dies in Inglewood, California, of cancer. . . . Bill Spivey, 66, all-American basketball star, is found dead in Quepos, Costa Rica, of reportedly natural causes.

May 8

May 9

U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor announces that the U.S. is filing a grievance with the World Trade Organization (WTO) accusing Japan of unfair trade practices. At the same time, he discloses the U.S. will impose sanctions unilaterally on imports from Japan unless Japan opens its automobile and auto-parts markets.

Reports indicate that former president George Bush, a lifetime member of the NRA, has quit the gunrights organization. . . . Evelyn Norton Lincoln, 85, personal secretary to President John F. Kennedy, dies in Washington, D.C., of complications from a recent cancer surgery.

May 7

May 10

The board of Coors Brewing Co., a company with a reputation for supporting conservative causes, unanimously approves full benefits to employees’ unmarried domestic partners, including homosexual companions.

A study finds that women who consume one to three drinks a week of any type of alcohol have greater benefits for longevity than women who drink at any other rate of consumption.

At the end of the NYC fall auctions by Christie’s and Sotheby’s, art experts note that the total sales tallies are the highest since late 1990. Sotheby’s took in $143.7 million during the auctions, while Christie’s raised $126.3 million.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 11

736—May 12–17, 1995

May 12

World Affairs

Europe

Belgium’s highest court questions Willy Claes, secretary general of NATO, regarding allegations that his Flemish Socialist Party accepted bribes from a defense contractor in the late 1980s.

The UN tells its peacekeeping troops in Bosnia to shoot to kill to protect themselves. . . . The Irish Supreme Court approves a law that will liberalize strict antiabortion law. Under the new law, doctors may advise women on where to seek abortions outside Ireland. . . . About 20,000 demonstrators and several government ministers protest a German court ruling that will force an outdoor beer garden to close at 9:30 P.M. . . . Lord Arnold Abraham Goodman, 81, British newspaper publisher, arts patron, and political adviser, dies in London, England.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Native leaders of the Innu community of Davis Inlet, Newfoundland, and the Newfoundland government agree to settle a dispute over the Davis Inlet court system. The local Innu leaders forcibly evicted court officers from Davis Inlet in December 1993.

Said Abu Musameh, a senior official of Hamas and editor of the AlWatan newspaper, is arrested and convicted for publishing “seditious” articles in Al-Watan.

May 13

Croatian troops fail to fulfill a pledge to the UN to withdraw from a UNprotected zone in western Slavonia.

May 14

The self-rule Palestinian National Authority’s security court in Gaza metes out a two-year prison sentence to Said Abu Musameh, a senior official of Hamas and editor of the Al-Watan newspaper, convicted May 13. The court also orders the newspaper closed for three months.

Argentine president Carlos Saul Menem wins reelection outright in balloting, as voters apparently signal a preference for a continuation of free-market policies instituted under his administration.

Muslim gunmen raid the village of Bharat, some 150 miles (240 km) south of Srinigar. The rebels kill a Hindu family of eight in what is seen as retaliation for the May 11 mosque burning. Data suggest that, since May 8, some 30 separatist fighters and two government soldiers have been killed in gun battles in India’s disputed Jammu and Kashmir region.

Bernard Tapie, who was a cabinet member in 1992 under French president François Mitterrand, is sentenced to one year in prison and an additional one-year suspended term for his role in fixing a soccer match in 1993. Tapie has been a subject in an ongoing corruption scandal in France. . . . Eric Richard Porter, 67, British actor best known for his TV role in The Forsyte Saga, which garnered one of the biggest viewing audiences in BBC history, dies in London of colon cancer.

May 15

The Muslim-led government army in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Bosnian Serb forces battle in Sarajevo, around the northwestern town of Bihac, and in the northeastern town of Brcko, near the strategic Posavina corridor, in what is called the worst fighting in Bosnia in two years. . . . Figures show Milan prosecutors have requested criminal trials for 160 politicians and businessmen, including former premier Bettino Craxi. . . . Lola Flores (born Dolores Flores Ruiz), 72, Spanish flamenco singer, dies in Madrid, Spain, of breast cancer.

May 16

Hundreds of shells are fired into and out of Sarajevo. At least 11 civilians are killed and dozens wounded. Two UN peacekeepers, one Russian and one French, are wounded. . . . Jacques Chirac is inaugurated as France’s new president. Chirac picks Alain Juppe, a former foreign affairs minister, to be the country’s premier.

May 17

Japanese authorities arrest Shoko Asahara, the leader of Aum Shinrikyo, a Japanese religious cult linked to a March nerve-gas attack on Tokyo’s subway system that killed 12 people and injured 5,000 others. More than 100 other Aum Shinrikyo sites are raided by authorities with arrest warrants. Separately, a bomb explodes in the office of Yukio Aoshima, the new governor of Tokyo, seriously injuring an aide.

Rioting erupts in Ramadi, the provincial capital, after Iraqi authorities hand over the bruised and decapitated body of Gen. Mohammed Dulaimi to his family. The strife reportedly spreads to other parts of Al Anbar.

Reports confirm that the Jesuit Fathers of Upper Canada have paid more than C$1.5 million in compensation to the victims of Rev. George Epoch, a priest who allegedly sexually abused at least 97 Native American boys at a Nawash Chippewa reserve at Cape Croker, Ontario, between 1972 and 1983.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

May 12–17, 1995—737

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

A three-judge panel on the Michigan Court of Appeals upholds a 1991 injunction barring Dr. Jack Kevorkian from assisting in suicides. . . . Reports confirm that judges in Texas declared mistrials in two separate breast-implant lawsuits after Dow Corning ran a nationwide ad defending implants. The judges decide that finding an unbiased jury will be too difficult. Meanwhile, in Reno, Nev., Judge Connie Steinheimer rules that Dow Corning has a right to publish the ads and that a breast-implant suit will begin as scheduled on May 16.

The INS announces the arrest of Emmanuel Constant, head of the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), a rightist paramilitary group known for its human-rights violations in Haiti during the former military-led regime. . . . The U.S. Coast Guard returns a group of 11 Cubans picked up in the Straits of Florida to Cabanas.

CBS announces that golf commentator Ben Wright will not be fired for allegedly making statements regarding homosexuality in women’s golf. Wright allegedly told a reporter that “lesbians in the sport hurt women’s golf.” Wright vehemently denies making the statements.

An army court-martial convicts Captain Lawrence P. Rockwood, 36, a military intelligence officer who, in 1994, made an unauthorized visit to the National Penitentiary in Port-auPrince, the Haitian capital, on four charges. He claims he made the visit since prisoners were being mistreated by the Haitian military and his superiors ignored his reports of alleged abuses. Rockwood is acquitted of a fifth charge, dereliction of duty.

Alison Hargreaves of Great Britain becomes the first woman to reach the peak of Mount Everest without the assistance of oxygen tanks. Hargreaves is only the second person to climb Everest’s 29,028-foothigh (8,847.7-m) North Ridge alone. . . . Team New Zealand’s Black Magic 1 yacht wins the America’s Cup.

The widow of slain civil-rights leader Medgar Evers, Myrlie EversWilliams, is sworn in as chairwoman of the NAACP.

An army court-martial sentences Captain Lawrence P. Rockwood, convicted May 13, to discharge from the army and the loss of pay and benefits because of his actions in Haiti during the U.S. intervention there in September 1994.

In Hubbard v. U.S., the Supreme Court overturns, 6-3, a 40-year-old precedent and asserts a federal criminal law governing false statements does not apply to statements made in court or to Congress. . . . In City of Edmonds v. Oxford House, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that residential zoning ordinances cannot be used to discriminate against the establishment of group homes for handicapped people. . . . Arizona revives chain gangs in its prison system.

The Senate Select Committee on Ethics announces it has found “substantial credible evidence” to support allegations of sexual harassment, obstruction of justice and influence peddling against Sen. Bob Packwood (R, Oreg.). . . . Girvies L. Davis, 37, convicted of the 1978 slaying of an elderly, wheelchairbound man, becomes the fifth inmate executed in Illinois and the 280th person in the U.S. since 1976.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Christian Boehmer Anfinsen, 79, who shared the 1972 Nobel Prize for his work in the field of protein structure and who was head of the chemical biology laboratory at the NIH, 1963–81, dies in Randallstown, Maryland, after suffering a heart attack.

According to Fortune magazine, the nation’s 500 largest corporations registered aggregate profits of $215 billion in 1994. The figure represents a 54% rise over 1993 profit margins. The rise in profits stems in part from Fortune’s decision to allow the inclusion of service businesses on its list. . . . Dow Corning Corp., overwhelmed by lawsuits over silicone breast implants, files for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

U.S. officials announce the imposition of punitive tariffs of 100% on 13 Japanese-made luxury-class car models. . . . Harry Earl Bergold Jr., 63, ambassador to Hungary, 1980– 83 and to Nicaragua, 1984–87, dies in Paris, France, of cancer.

The Senate passes, 94-6, a measure that will expand states’ powers to limit their acceptance of out-ofstate municipal waste. . . . The Senate votes, 74-25, to repeal a current ban on exporting oil from the North Slope region of Alaska. . . . The House approves, 240-185, a dramatically scaled-back version of the 1972 Clean Water Act that will ease regulations that prevent industry and municipalities from discharging polluted runoff into lakes and rivers. It includes a controversial amendment that will sharply reduce wetlands protection.

Nora Slatkin is sworn as the director of the CIA. She is the first woman to hold a senior post at the CIA.

The Senate approves, 96-3, a resolution creating a special committee to hold public hearings examining the conduct of Pres. Clinton, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, and key members of the administration in the Whitewater affair. . . . Attorney General Janet Reno asks a panel of federal appeals judges to appoint an independent counsel to investigate the personal finances of Commerce Secretary Ronald Brown.

May 12

May 13

May 14

Archaeologists announce the discovery of a vast underground tomb with at least 67 chambers that they believe is the burial place of 50 of the 52 sons of Ramses II, a powerful Pharoah who ruled Egypt from 1279 B.C. to 1212 B.C. The tomb is the largest yet found in the Egyptian necropolis known as the Valley of the Kings.

May 15

May 16

May 17

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

738—May 18–23, 1995

World Affairs

May 18

May 19

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Russian premier Viktor Chernomyrdin visits Bulgaria, reaching two accords with Premier Zhan Videnov, a former communist elected in December 1994.

At least 3,000 people traveling to Kinshasa, Zaire, are stranded at the roadblocks to quarantine the region after an outbreak of the Ebola virus in the country.

Tajikistan president Imamali Rakhmanov and opposition leader Said Abdullo Nuri meet for the first time in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. They extended by three months a truce implemented in September 1994.

Reports confirm that the Ebola virus broke out in the Ivory Coast in November 1994. The outbreak killed 20 chimpanzees and infected one laboratory worker. Scientists state the strain of the Ebola virus in the Ivory Coast outbreak differs from the strain in the current outbreak in Zaire.

Pope John Paul II makes his seventh visit since 1989 to the Czech Republic and Poland. . . . Italy’s anticorruption magistrates in Milan request the indictment of former premier Silvio Berlusconi on bribery charges.

May 20

May 21

May 22

Belgian premier Jean-Luc Dehaene’s center-left ruling coalition retains a majority of seats in the Chamber of Representatives, Belgium’s lower parliamentary house, in the first elections held there under a new Belgian constitution, enacted in February 1993.

Lebanese premier Rafik al-Hariri begins a second term in office after emerging triumphant from a showdown with political opponents who stymied his plans for large-scale reconstruction in postwar Lebanon.

Pope John Paul II holds a mass in his native Skoczow, Poland. The ceremony is attended by 200,000 enthusiastic supporters.

The Israeli cabinet suspends a government plan to confiscate 135 acres (55 hectares) of mainly Arabowned land in disputed East Jerusalem in the face of international pressures and imminent noconfidence resolutions.

Asia & the Pacific

Thai premier Chuan Leekpai is forced to dissolve Parliament after the Palang Dharma Party withdraws from his ruling coalition.

Police in Toronto, Canada, discover a pipe bomb mailed to the home of Ernst Zundel, a denier of the Holocaust and a publisher of antiSemitic literature.

Bosnian Serbs defy a UN ultimatum by seizing heavy weaponry from a UN-guarded weapons depot near Sarajevo. . . . . The German federal Constitutional Court rules that spies who worked in the former East Germany during the cold war cannot now be prosecuted in the unified Germany. The ruling affects more than 6,300 alleged East German spies.

May 23

The Americas

Nearly 200 people are injured in demonstrations mounted by thousands of refugees housed at the Whitehead Detention Center in Hong Kong. The refugees try to block police from transferring a group of 1,500 detainees to a smaller camp as a prelude to their deportation to Vietnam.

Thousands of workers at Mount Isa Mines return to work, ending an impasse that followed more than three months of labor unrest at the Australian mining giant.

Judge Keith Ritter of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench acquits Marilyn Tan of charges that she had injected her former lover, Conrad Boland, with HIV-infected blood. In the highly publicized case, Tan is convicted on a lesser charge and sentenced to three months in prison for that offense.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

May 18–23, 1995—739

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The official death toll in the Apr. 19 bombing of a federal office building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, stands at 166, including 19 children. In addition, a nurse involved in the rescue operation died of a head injury incurred during the effort.

Juergen Schneider and his wife, Claudia, considered Germany’s most wanted white-collar fugitives, are arrested in Miami, Florida, by U.S. and German police. The Schneiders, who have been in hiding for 13 months, are held in the U.S. pending extradition to Germany on charges of fraud and falsification of documents.

The Dow closes at 4340.64, down 81.96 points, or 1.85%. The decline is the index’s largest single-day fall since November 22, 1994. . . . The House passes, 235-189, the final version of a bill that will cut $16.4 billion in funding that Congress previously approved to pay for a wide range of federal programs in fiscal 1995, which ends Sept. 30. . . . The House passes, 238-193, its version of the balanced-budget blueprint.

in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. district judge Edward Northrop orders the University of Alabama and four of its scientists to pay the U.S. government and researcher Pamela Berge a total of $1.6 million for stealing Berge’s work and using it to obtain federal funds.

Elisha Cook Jr., 92, character actor, dies in Big Pine, California, of an undisclosed illness. . . . Elizabeth Montgomery, 57 or 62, actress known for the TV show Bewitched, dies in Los Angeles of cancer. . . . (Boris) Alexander Godunov, 45, Soviet ballet dancer who defected to the U.S. in 1979, is found dead in Hollywood, California, from effects of alcoholism.

Kenneth Starr, the independent prosecutor investigating the Whitewater affair, makes clear that he will not indict White House deputy counsel Bruce Lindsey for banking violations related to Pres. Clinton’s 1990 gubernatorial reelection campaign in Arkansas.

Researchers report they have restored to life a dormant state bacteria from the stomachs of bees encased in amber believed to be at least 25 million years old. Many other scientists dispute the findings. . . . NASA administrator Daniel Goldin announces a plan to cut thousands of jobs. . . . Robert Sinclair Dietz, 80, geologist known for his pioneering research of the ocean floors, dies in Tempe, Arizona, of a heart attack.

Jimmy Garcia of Colombia dies of brain injuries sustained two weeks earlier during a World Boxing Council championship fight. The boxer’s death leads to renewed calls to reform the sport.

Levees on the Mississippi and Missouri rivers overflow.

CBS announces that Connie Chung will no longer coanchor the CBS Evening News. Chung was named coanchor in May 1993, and she and Barbara Walters are the only women to coanchor an evening news show on a major network. . . . Ulysses Kay, 78, leading black classical composer, dies in Englewood, New Jersey, of Parkinson’s disease.

Edward Rollins Jr., a political consultant working with Senate Majority Leader Robert J. Dole (R, Kans.), apologizes for what he calls a “totally inappropriate remark” made at a dinner in which he referred to Representatives Howard Berman (D, Calif.) and Henry Waxman (D, Calif.) as “Hymie boys.” Several Jewish and black House Democrats call on Dole to sever his ties with Rollins immediately.

Workers put up barricades to close a two-block stretch of Washington, D.C.’s Pennsylvania Avenue—a sixlane street with a sidewalk that passes within 150 feet of the north face of the White House—to all but pedestrian traffic. The closure, the first such measures ever taken to protect the White House, is part of a package of new presidential security provisions. Les(lie) Aspin Jr., 56, U.S. secretary of defense from January 1993 to February 1994 who served 22 years as a Democratic representative from Wisconsin, dies in Washington, D.C., after suffering a stroke.

May 18

May 19

May 20

May 21

In Wilson v. Arkansas, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that police officers who hold search warrants are required by the Constitution to announce themselves before entering a home to conduct a search. . . . In U.S. Term Limits Inc. v. Thornton, the Supreme Court, 5-4, hands down a significant ruling that blocks states and Congress from passing legislation limiting the number of terms that members of Congress can serve. The decision is considered among the court’s most important rulings on the balance of state and federal powers. . . . Attorney General Janet Reno appoints Joseph H. Hartzler to head the prosecution team in the Oklahoma bombing case.

Some 2,000 members of the United Rubber Workers (URW) union end their 10-month-long strike against Tennessee-based tire manufacturer Bridgestone/Firestone.

Bartholomew Torpey, a pool mechanic, is indicted on charges of criminally negligent homicide in the 1994 death of tennis star Vitas Gerulaitis.

In Washington, D.C., a man armed with an unloaded handgun is shot and wounded by a Secret Service agent on the South Lawn of the White House. . . . A Charleston, West Virginia, jury hands down the first conviction for violating the federal Violence Against Women Act when it convicts Christopher Bailey of kidnapping his wife, Sonya Bailey, after beating her into a coma. . . . The federal building bombed Apr. 19 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, is razed.

The Transportation Department announces that nine U.S. and Japanese automobile makers have agreed to voluntarily recall more than 8 million cars sold between 1986 and 1991 to repair or replace seat belt buckles found to have design flaws. The action is the second-largest auto recall in 30 years, and some industry analysts expect that the total cost of the recall may reach $1 billion.

The Kennedy family sells its house in Palm Beach, Florida, to New York City banker John K. Castle for an undisclosed sum. The famed seaside estate gained notoriety as the site of an alleged rape by William Kennedy Smith in 1991.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 22

May 23

740—May 24–28, 1995

World Affairs

May 24

May 25

NATO begins air strikes against Bosnian Serbs in response to the May 23 actions by Bosnian Serbs. Bosnian Serbs begin taking as hostages UN peacekeepers from Britain, France, Canada, Ukraine, and Russia.

Europe

The Americas

At a conference in the U.S., British Northern Ireland Secretary Sir Patrick Mayhew meets with Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Provisional IRA. The conference brings together highranking republicans, unionists, and British government representatives for the first time since peace negotiations began in 1994. . . . Lord (James) Harold Wilson, 79, British Labour Party leader who served as prime minister, 1964–70, 1974–76, dies in London after suffering from cancer and Alzheimer’s disease for several years.

Reports confirm that five Canadian automobile manufacturers have recalled 900,000 vehicles because of faulty seat belts. The automakers agree to repair the seat belts without charge to the owners, at an estimated cost in the tens of millions of dollars. The auto recall is the largest ever in Canada. . . . Five members of a delegation of Chinese businesspeople who were reported missing in Ontario on May 10 apply for refugee status in Canada. . . . The Brazilian army occupies four striketorn refineries owned by Petroleo Brasileiro (Petrobras), Brazil’s staterun oil monopoly.

NATO bombs the weapons depot near Pale. It is the first time NATO air strikes are launched so close to the Bosnian Serb headquarters. Bosnian Serbs respond by shelling five of the six safe areas in Bosnia, including Tuzla. The death toll of at least 71 is the worst in any single shelling incident since the Bosnian war began in 1992.

The Supreme Court of Canada rules that protection from discrimination under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms extends to homosexuals, even though sexual orientation is not specifically mentioned in the charter. The court, however, also decides that the government can deny benefits to homosexual couples.

In Bosnia, NATO launches air strikes, bombing anew the weapons depot near Pale.

May 26

Africa & the Middle East

Officials from the World Health Organization state that the number of people who died in a recent outbreak of the Ebola virus in Zaire is 121. WHO reveals that the outbreak of the Ebola virus, one of the deadliest known viruses, occurred in Kikwit, a city of some 600,000 people located about 300 miles (480 km) east of Kinshasa, Zaire’s capital.

Asia & the Pacific

Returns from the May 8 election in the Philippines show that the ruling Lakas-Laban coalition of Philippine president Fidel Ramos scored a decisive victory. . . . The legislative assembly of Australia’s Northern Territory passes a bill legalizing voluntary euthanasia, or mercy killing, for terminally ill patients. The measure, the Rights of the Terminally Ill bill, is the world’s first voluntary euthanasia law. Rebels from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam kill at least 42 civilians during an attack on the village of Kallarawa, about 155 miles (250 km) northeast of Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. The attack is the most deadly raid by the rebels, who have been fighting for a separate homeland for the country’s Tamil minority since 1992.

In Sarajevo, two French peacekeepers are killed when their unit is drawn into a direct battle with Bosnian Serbs over control of the Vrbanja Bridge in the center of the city. Four rebel Serbs are also killed.

May 27

A powerful earthquake strikes the large island of Sakhalin, off Russia’s east coast that is located in eight time zones and is 4,500 miles (7,200 km) east of Moscow. The earthquake measures 7.5 on the Richter scale, and its epicenter is off the shore of the island’s sparsely populated northern tip. . . . Serb forces near the town of Cetingrad in Serb-held territory of Croatia shoot down a helicopter carrying Bosnia’s foreign minister, Irfan Ljubijankic, killing him and five others. Separately, Britain announces it is sending 6,000 additional troops to Bosnia.

May 28

Mexico’s ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), suffers its worst defeat in 66 years when it loses by a 2-1 margin to the right-wing National Action Party (PAN) in the state of Guanajuato. The governorship of Guanajuato is won by Vicente Fox Quesada.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

May 24–28, 1995—741

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Leland W. Modjeski, the man who was shot and wounded May 23 on the South Lawn of the White House. is charged with assaulting federal officers and illegally transporting a weapon across state lines. . . . A panel of federal appellate judges appoint David Barrett as the independent counsel to head an inquiry into the conduct of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) secretary Henry Cisneros.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Statistics shows that charitable giving among U.S. individuals, corporations, and foundations totaled $130 billion in 1994. The 1994 sum is an increase of 3.6% over the revised 1993 figure of $125.3 billion.

Scientists announce that for the first time they have decoded the entire deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) sequence for the complete gene set, or genome, of a free-living organism.

Los Angeles Superior Court judge Judith Champagne sentences Heidi Fleiss, convicted of running an exclusive Hollywood prostitution service, to three years in prison and a $1,500 fine.

The Senate passes, 61-38, the final version of a bill that will cut $16.4 billion in funding that Congress previously approved to pay for a wide range of federal programs in fiscal 1995, which ends Sept. 30. . . . The Senate votes, 57-42, to approve a budget resolution that comprises the broad outlines of a plan to balance the federal budget by the year 2002.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia partially reverses the 1993 conviction of Deborah Gore Dean, who was found guilty of perjury, defrauding the government, and accepting bribes while at HUD. The appeals court strikes down five of the 12 charges on which Dean was convicted and orders Dean to be resentenced.

Locomotive engineers for the Long Island Rail Road stage a wildcat walkout that leaves more than 100,000 riders stranded and causes a nearly complete shutdown of the commuter line. The railroad obtains a court order to halt the strike, and the strikers return to their jobs that evening. . . . Philip Morris Cos. Inc. announces that it is issuing a voluntary recall of more than 8 billion filter cigarettes because manufacturing defects caused some of the filters to become contaminated with a chemical used in a commercial pesticide.

May 24

May 25

Scientists who analyzed a segment of the Y chromosome, the male sex chromosome, of 38 men of all major ethnic groups worldwide report that the most likely explanation for a lack of genetic variability found in the men is that they had a relatively small and recent group of common ancestors. The researchers suggest that the current worldwide male population descended from a group of a few thousand men who lived in an undetermined location about 270,000 years ago.

Isadore (Friz) Freleng, 89, cartoon animator who had a 30-year career with Warner Brothers studios, dies in Los Angeles of heart ailments.

Flooding in Missouri and Illinois, spurred by record rains, prompts Illinois governor Jim Edgar (R) to dispatch 160 National Guard members to aid in sandbagging efforts in rural Scott and Morgan counties, located on the Illinois River. More than 200 prison inmates also prepare levees in Illinois. The Missouri Emergency Management Agency estimates damage to public facilities at over $10 million.

Christopher Reeve, best known as Superman in a series of films, becomes paralyzed from the neck down when he is thrown headlong from his horse during a riding competition in Culpeper, Virginia.

A student at Harvard University, Sinedu Tadesse, stabs her roommate, Trang Phuong Ho, to death in their dormitory room and then hangs herself in one of the residence hall’s bathrooms. Tadesse and Ho were both 20-year-old juniors.

At the Cannes (France) film festival, the Palme d’Or goes to Underground, a film by Bosnian director Emir Kusturica. . . . Jean Elizabeth Muir, 66, British fashion designer, dies in London of breast cancer. . . . Auto racer Michael Schumacher of Germany wins the Monaco Grand Prix in Monte Carlo. . . . Jacques Villeneuve, 24, wins the 79th Indianapolis 500. Villeneuve is the first Canadian to win the auto-racing event.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 26

May 27

May 28

742—May 29–June 3, 1995

World Affairs

Final results in Spain’s regional and municipal elections show that the conservative Popular Party dominated the voting, which marks a radical shift in governing authority away from the Socialist Party, which has won every municipal election since coming to power in 1983.

May 30

June 1

The EU issues its first detailed report outlining the gradual implementation of economic and monetary union (EMU).

Britain’s Prince Charles becomes the first member of the British royal family to visit Ireland since 1922 and the first to visit Dublin, the capital of Ireland, since 1911. He meets with Irish prime minister John Bruton. . . . NATO warplanes continue to circle Sarajevo in spite of Serb threats to shoot them down. . . . Russia observes an official day of mourning for the May 28 earthquake victims.

Russian foreign minister Andrei Kozyrev announces that Russia has agreed to become an active member of NATO’s Partnership for Peace, a program to give Eastern European countries associate status in NATO. . . . The Greek parliament ratifies the Law of the Sea, which extends Greece’s territorial waters through much of the Aegean Sea.

Heavy fighting between Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian government troops breaks out in Gorazde. Data shows that more than 320 UN hostages are being detained in Bosnia-Herzegovina and that UN peacekeepers, unable to protect designated safe areas, abandoned many of their posts. Lord David Owen, a mediator in the conflict since 1992, announces he is resigning. . . . The Austrian parliament approves a 500 million schilling ($50 million) compensation package for an estimated 30,000 surviving Jewish victims of Nazi persecution between 1938 and 1945. Bosnian Serbs shoot down a U.S. fighter jet near Banja Luka, a Serb stronghold in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The U.S dispatches rescue teams to look for its pilot, air force captain Scott O’Grady. Bosnian Serbs release 121 of the UN hostages but seize 45 Canadians near Ilijas, north of Sarajevo. The number of UN hostages is estimated at 370. . . . Alexandre De Marenches, 73, former top French intelligence official, dies in Monaco of a heart attack.

June 2

June 3

Africa & the Middle East

Russia’s construction minister, Yefim Basin, states that Neftegorsk, a town almost entirely flattened by the May 28 quake and 40 miles northwest of the epicenter, will not be rebuilt. Many of the town’s 3,200 people were crushed as they slept during the disaster.

May 29

May 31

Europe

The defense ministers of 15 Western allied nations agree to form a multinational rapid-deployment force, composed of 10,000 troops and aimed at bolstering the UN mission in Bosnia and protecting it from attack. The force will operate under the UN command now in place, directed by French general Bernard Janvier, the UN commander in the former Yugoslavia, and British lieutenant general Rupert Smith, the UN commander in Bosnia.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Justice James Milliken of the Court of Queen’s Bench in Canada’s Saskatchewan province accepts the recommendation of the Cree community that William Bruce Taylor, 28, a member of the community, be banished to a remote area of Canada as punishment for sexual assault. The case reportedly marks the second time in recent history that a court in North America accepts the recommendation for banishment by a native community. Fighting erupts in suburban areas around Bujumbura, the Burundian capital, between militiamen from the majority Hutu ethnic group and soldiers from Burundi’s army, made up primarily of members of the minority Tutsi ethnic group. . . . Officials from the World Health Organization state the number of people who died in a recent outbreak of the Ebola virus in Zaire is 153, and the number of suspected or confirmed cases of infection, including the 153 deaths, is 205.

Chile’s Supreme Court unanimously upholds prison sentences meted out to retired general Manuel Contreras Sepulveda, the former head of the military secret police, and Brigadier Pedro Espinoza Bravo, his deputy, for directing the assassination of Orlando Letelier in Washington, D.C., in 1976. The ruling means that for the first time, high-ranking Chilean military officers will face prison terms for rights abuses perpetrated during the reign of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

The Israeli army kills a suspected Hamas militant, Hamed Yaghmour, in the West Bank city of Hebron.

Members of Brazil’s Oil Workers Federation vote to end their 31-day strike of Petroleo Brasileiro (Petrobras), Brazil’s state-owned oil monopoly. In response, Pres. Fernando Henrique Cardoso orders the withdrawal of troops that have been occupying the refineries since May 24.

The death toll from the May 28 earthquake on the large island of Sakhalin, off Russia’s east coast, numbers 866, with more than 1,100 others believed dead and hundreds more injured.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

May 29–June 3, 1995—743

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Searchers find the last three victims’ bodies in the rubble of the federal building bombed Apr. 19 in Oklahoma City. The official death toll is 167, including 19 children. . . . A spokesman confirms that Edward Rollins Jr. quit his post in the campaign of Sen. Bob Dole (R, Kans.). . . . Margaret Madeline Chase Smith, 97, (R, Maine), the first woman to win election to both houses of Congress, dies in Skowhegan, Maine, of complications from a stroke.

U.S. national security adviser Anthony Lake announces that U.S. forces are being moved to the Balkans as a “precautionary measure.”

The HUD assumes control of the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA), the largest public-housing agency ever taken over by the federal government. Crime and drug-trafficking are reportedly rampant in CHA’s buildings, and seven of the 10 poorest neighborhoods in the U.S. are in Chicago housing projects. . . . The Health Care Financing Administration cites Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, in the midst of controversy over patient drug overdoses, for deficiencies in patient care.

The U.S. moves seven ships, a nuclear-powered combat submarine, and some 12,000 marines and sailors to the Adriatic Sea, although there are no immediate plans to deploy U.S. military power in Bosnia.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Flooding in Missouri and Illinois begins to ease. The floods have claimed at least three lives in Missouri.

The Rainmaker by John Grisham is at the top of the bestseller list.

May 30

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt agrees to transfer 1,000 acres (400 hectare) of federal land to the state of California to use as a burial site for radioactive waste. The tract is about 20 miles (30 km) from the Colorado River, which supplies much of southern California’s drinking water. . . . The Dow closes at a record 4465.14, up 86.46 points, or 1.97% in the largest single-day increase since Dec. 23, 1991, Arlin Adams announces that he is stepping down, effective July 3, as the independent counsel in charge of an inquiry into influence peddling at the HUD during the 1980s, suggesting that the probe is nearing its end. . . . California governor Pete Wilson (R) issues an executive order curbing the use of affirmative action in some hiring and contracting done by the state.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher renews a 44-year-old U.S. pact with Portugal that allows the U.S. to use the Lajes air base in the Azores Islands for another five years, until the year 2000. Portugal will receive millions of dollars in aid for allowing the U.S. to use the islands, which are 800 miles (1,300 km) west of Lisbon, Portugal’s capital.

May 29

Two major environmental groups release studies based on 1993–94 EPA statistics and information from local water utilities. Their findings assert that more than one-fifth of the U.S. population drinks tap water contaminated by lead, fecal bacteria, toxic waste, and other pollutants.

The University of California at Irvine closes the Center for Reproductive Health, a leading fertility clinic, after filing a lawsuit charging that the clinic’s doctors transplanted patients’ eggs and embryos into other women without first notifying the patients or receiving their consent.

Stanley Elkin, 65, writer who won a National Book Critics Circle Award, dies in St. Louis, Missouri, of heart failure. . . . Sen. Bob Dole (R, Kans.), attacks the entertainers for producing movies and music that “debase our nation and threaten our children.”

The FDA approves the use of Depakote, a popular epileptic seizure medicine, to treat manic episodes caused by bipolar disorder, or manic depression. The drug is the first approved for manic depression, which afflicts more than 2 million people in the U.S., in 25 years.

Justin Carroll, 14, wins the 68th National Spelling Bee by correctly spelling “xanthosis.”. . . The U.S. Postal Service issues a stamp featuring the late Marilyn Monroe. . . . In response to Sen. Bob Dole’s May 31 attack, Oliver Stone, film director, claims it is “the height of hypocrisy for Sen. Dole, who wants to repeal the (1994) assault weapons ban, to blame Hollywood for the violence in our society.”

NASA officials state the planned June 8 liftoff of the U.S. space shuttle Discovery has been delayed indefinitely because of repairs required to fix dozens of holes poked in the shuttle’s fuel-tank insulation by woodpeckers.

Data show that ticket sales in NYC’s Broadway theater district for the 1994–95 season reached a record $406 million. Attendance for the 1994–95 season was 9 million, up 12% from the previous season’s 8.1 million figure.

Colorado scientists, led by Carl E. Weiman and Eric A. Cornell, create BEC, or Bose-Einstein condensate, a new state of matter first postulated 70 years ago by Albert Einstein, whose theory is based on work by Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose. They create BEC by cooling rubidium atoms to what is believed to be the coldest temperature ever reached in the universe, billionths of a degree above absolute zero. . . . J(ohn) Presper Eckert Jr., 76, co-inventor of Eniac, the first electronic digital computer, dies in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, of complications from leukemia.

Dilys Powell, 93, British film and TV critic who is considered to be one of the most influential critics in the history of film, dies in London after suffering several strokes.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 31

June 1

June 2

June 3

744—June 4–9, 1995

June 4

World Affairs

Europe

Johannes Weinrich, an alleged accomplice to the terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal, is extradited to Berlin, Germany, from Yemen. Weinrich is allegedly Carlos’s right-hand man and was sought on charges of attempted murder and illegal use of explosives in connection with several terrorist bombings worldwide throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Antonio Di Pietro, one of Italy’s most famous anticorruption magistrates, admits he took loans from a businessman now under criminal investigation. Di Pietro also announces he will resign from several special parliamentary posts in an effort to fight charges of corruption.

The BBC discloses extracts of a long-awaited report detailing Britain’s role in selling arms to Iraq in the late 1980s that implicates former prime minister Margaret Thatcher in addition to several current members of P.M. John Major’s Conservative Party government.

June 5

June 6

The European Union and Japan reach agreements on measures designed to increase the EU’s access to Japanese auto and autoparts markets.

June 7

June 8

Africa & the Middle East

Antoine Nduwayo, the premier in Burundi’s coalition government, orders troops to flush out armed militiamen who held off the army in Kamenge, one of the last remaining Hutu areas. Reports indicate 33 people have been killed since fighting broke out May 30. . . . The Israeli army states that Israeli security forces arrested 45 suspected members of the militant Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas, in the East Jerusalem area. Reports suggest at least 20,000 of the estimated 40,000–50,000 Hutu in Kamenge, Burundi, have fled. . . . South African judge Braam Lategan sentences Ntombeko Peni, 19, to 18 years in jail for the murder of Amy Elizabeth Biehl, 26, a white Fulbright scholar slain in August 1993. Separately, in its first case, South Africa’s highest court abolishes the death penalty, ruling that capital punishment is inconsistent with the human rights guaranteed in the country’s interim constitution.

In Bosnia, 111 UN peacekeepers are released. . . . The Czech government announces that it is canceling a trade-clearing agreement reached with Slovakia in April 1993.

Burundian army soldiers with tanks and armored vehicles move into Kamenge and the nearby Kinama and Gasenyi districts. Nine people, eight of them Tutsi, are killed by Hutu gunmen in Musaga, a Tutsi area.

Data show that Bosnian Serbs have released 232 UN peacekeepers. At least 53 UN troops remain in Bosnian Serb custody, and 93 are surrounded by Bosnian Serb forces. The UN for the first time begins moving heavy artillery to Mount Igman, a strategic position near Sarajevo. The pilot of the jet shot down June 2, U.S. Air Force Captain Scott O’Grady, is rescued by U.S. Marines backed by NATO air support.

Witnesses state about 40 Hutu civilians, many of them women, children, or elderly persons, were shot or killed with machetes by soldiers in Burundi.

In response to Croatian shelling of Serb villages in Krajina, Serbs respond by bombing Croatian army positions. . . . Two police officers trying to arrest two Asian youths for obstructing a path while playing soccer spark a mob of 300 Asian youths to riot in Bradford, England. Rioters loot several stores and firebomb several cars. Three police officers are injured, and 21 people are arrested.

June 9

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

About 3,000 refugees escape the Sungei Besi detention camp near Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital. Malaysian police armed with tear gas and riot gear force 600 Vietnamese refugees to return to the camp, and 13 people are injured in the clash.

Members of the Upper Nicola Indian tribe agree to end a blockade, started in May, of the Douglas Lake Ranch, Canada’s largest ranch and a popular resort, in exchange for promised talks with the British Columbia government over fishing rights. The ranch is located near Kelowna, about 155 miles (250 km) east of Vancouver.

After internal debate, the Japanese governing coalition agrees on a declaration of “deep remorse,” but not an apology, for Japan’s “acts of aggression” against other Asian nations during World War II. . . . Sect leader Shoko Asahara is indicted on charges of masterminding a fatal March nerve-gas attack on Tokyo’s subway system.

P.M. Paul Keating outlines his plan to transform the Australian system of government from a constitutional monarchy to a federal republic.

Juan Carlos Ongania, 81, president of Argentina, 1966–70, dies in Buenos Aires, Argentina, of a heart attack.

Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, reputed leader of the Cali cartel, the world’s largest drug cartel, is arrested by an elite police force in the southwestern Colombian city of Cali. . . . Record floods in Canada force about 5,000 people from their homes in Medicine Hat, Alberta. . . . Reports state that Robert Vesco, an American former financier wanted in the U.S. on fraud and cocaine trafficking charges, is being detained by Cuban authorities.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

June 4–9, 1995—745

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle At the Tony Awards, Sunset Boulevard receives a total of seven awards, including best musical. Love! Valour! Compassion! wins for best play. Lifetime achievement awards go to Carol Channing and to Harvey Sabinson.

In Reno v. Koray, the Supreme Court rules, 8-1, that federal inmates cannot count time spent in community centers or halfway houses as a credit to reduce their overall prison sentence.

Beatrix T(ugendhut) Gardner, 61, Austrian-born psychologist who taught sign language to a chimpanzee in a renowned experiment, dies while traveling in Padua, Italy, of a central nervous infection.

Philip Morris Cos. Inc. reaches an agreement with the federal government that requires the company to remove its billboards and other advertisements from the view of TV cameras at baseball, basketball, football, and hockey games in sports arenas and stadiums nationwide. . . . In Rochester, New York, federal judge Michael Telesca sentences Michael Stevens to seven life sentences for the December 1993 package bomb slayings of five people in New York State.

NASA releases images taken in 1994 by the Hubble Space Telescope that astronomers call the most detailed observations yet seen of the violent birth of stars.

The Senate passes, 91-8, a bill that will broaden the government’s powers in fighting domestic terrorism. In addition, the measure limits the number of appeals death-row prisoners can make. . . . The Census Bureau reports that the percentage of low-income Americans who voted in the November 1994 congressional elections is significantly lower than the turnout four years earlier. Overall, the proportion of all Americans of voting age who went to the polls in 1994 was 44.6%, down from 45% in 1990 and 46% in 1986.

Taiwan’s president, Lee Teng-hui, makes his first private visit as president to the U.S. to attend an alumni reunion at Cornell University. The Chinese government, which regards Taiwan as a renegade province of China, expresses anger over the visit, which the Clinton administration allowed under heavy pressure from the U.S. Congress. Lee’s visit is the first by a Taiwanese leader since the U.S. severed relations with Taiwan in 1979, recognizing mainland communist China as the sole Chinese government.

For the first time in his presidential tenure, Pres. Clinton vetoes a bill passed by Congress, a bill that would cut $16.4 billion from spending previously appropriated by Congress for the fiscal year 1995, which ends Sept. 30. . . . A federal grand jury in Little Rock, Arkansas, issues an indictment that accused, the state’s governor, Jim Guy Tucker (D), of conspiring to defraud the IRS and the federal Small Business Administration (SBA) in schemes involving cable-television firms.

Long Island, New York, automobile mechanic Joseph Buttafuoco, who served more than four months in jail for the statutory rape of teenager Amy Fisher, who herself is serving a jail sentence for shooting Buttafuoco’s wife, is charged with solicitation of a prostitute.

The FBI arrests Vyacheslav Kirillovich Ivankov, considered to be the most powerful Russian organized-crime leader currently in the U.S. . . . The House passes, 222192, the American Overseas Interests Act, a foreign-aid bill that will institute broad policy guidelines. . . . A former congressman, William Hendon (R, N.C.), is expelled from Vietnam after alleging that U.S. service members are being held in an underground jail near Hanoi. Vietnamese officials deny the charge.

Thomas D. Cabot, 98, industrialist who built Cabot Corp. into a leading multinational chemical company, contributed to a number of conservationist causes, and purchased 50 small islands off the coast of Maine to ensure their preservation, dies in Weston, Massachusetts, of an undisclosed illness.

Data show that PACs from entertainment groups have given $3 million in donations to the national Democratic Party since Pres. Clinton’s nomination in July 1992, while giving only $361,000 to the GOP over the same period.

June 4

June 5

June 6

June 7

A study shows the antidepressant drug Prozac is effective in relieving tension and irritability associated with severe premenstrual syndrome (PMS).

Baseball Hall of Fame outfielder Mickey Mantle, 63, undergoes surgery to replace a liver ravaged by cancer, hepatitis, and years of alcohol abuse.

In Alexandria, Virginia, U.S. district judge Albert Bryan Jr. approves a March settlement in which the CIA pays a total of $990,000 to 450 women from clandestine services. . . . In Belgrade, the Serbian and Yugoslav capital, U.S. citizen Shayna Lazarevich is reunited with her two children after trying for six years to retrieve them from her exhusband, Dragisa Lazarevich, who abducted and hid them in his native Yugoslavia in 1989.

June 8

June 9

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

746—June 10–15, 1995

World Affairs

June 14

June 15

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Medellín, Colombia’s secondlargest city, 29 people are killed and more than 200 are injured when a bomb explodes at an outdoor music festival.

Masaya Hanai, 82, director of Toyota Motor Co. starting in 1959 and board chairman, 1978–82, dies in Toyoda, Japan, of kidney failure.

In a series of referendums, Italian citizens vote against curbs on media ownership, thereby allowing former premier Silvio Berlusconi to maintain full control of his media empire, Fininvest S.p.A. . . . Reports state that at least three UN convoys have been turned back or confiscated by Bosnian Serbs.

June 11

June 13

Africa & the Middle East

Fighting between Croats and Croatian Serbs breaks out in Croatia. . . . Riots that started June 9 in Bradford, England, begin to calm.

June 10

June 12

Europe

Representatives of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia sign so-called association agreements with the European Union (EU). The accords include trade and cooperation arrangements and may eventually lead to full membership in the EU for the three former Soviet republics.

The first humanitarian aid convoy in three weeks reaches Sarajevo. The UN confirms that a peacekeeper from Kenya was killed by Croatian Serb gunmen near Knin while trying to prevent Croatian Serbs from hijacking an earlier UN convoy. . . . Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, 75, Italian concert pianist, dies in Lugano, Switzerland, of unreported causes.

French president Jacques Chirac announces his country will resume underground testing of nuclear weapons in the South Pacific. . . . The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions reports that 98 countries routinely committed workers’ rights violations during 1994. That figure is the highest number ever recorded by the organization.

Bosnian Serbs release most of the 144 remaining UN peacekeepers taken hostage by the Serbs after NATO bombings began May 25. . . . Spain’s defense ministry confirms that the military’s espionage service eavesdropped on hundreds of mobile-telephone conversations in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Reports reveal that Tutsi students with grenades and automatic weapons attacked Hutu classmates at Bujumbura University in Burundi. School officials state that at least nine people were killed in the attack.

Forest fires rage in several western Canadian provinces. In the Northwest Territories, at least 43 forest fires are reported, forcing the evacuation of 2,000 people.

Data show that 500 lives have been claimed in clashes since the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam broke an internationally monitored cease-fire in April. . . . King Birendra of Nepal dissolves the country’s parliament and schedules a general election for Nov. 23.

In response to France’s June 13 announcement, New Zealand prime minister James Bolger breaks defense links with France and denounces the planned nuclear tests as “the arrogant action of a European colonial power.” Japanese foreign minister Yohei Kono states that France has “betrayed the trust of nonnuclear nations.”

Some 200 rebels, led by Shamil Basayev, attack Budennovsk, a Russian town about 70 miles (110 km) north of the Chechen border. They kill at least 20 police officers. The attack marks the first time that fighting for control of Chechnya spills beyond the borders of the republic, where a war has raged since December 1994. . . . Pilots for Italy’s state-owned airline, Alitalia, begin a series of illegal “wildcat” strikes.

Israeli undercover soldiers at the border of the Gaza Strip and Egypt shoot and kill two members of Force 17, the elite Palestinian unit.

Data suggest that 3,628,430 acres of Canadian forest have been destroyed by fire to date in 1995. . . . Steve and Lorelei Turner are convicted of manslaughter in the starvation death of their three-yearold son, John Ryan Turner. It is said to be the first time in Canadian history that parents are convicted of manslaughter for failing to provide the necessities of life for a child.

Reports disclose that officials from India have agreed to provide military support for the Sri Lankan government after recent rebel attacks.

Leaders of the world’s seven wealthiest industrialized nations, the Group of Seven (G-7), meet in Halifax, Canada, for their 21st annual summit.

Chechen fighters, pressing for their demands, reportedly execute at least five hostages in a Budennovsk hospital. . . . UN officials report that Bosnian government troops attacked Serb positions north of Sarajevo with at least 1,600 detonations. The Bosnian Serb assembly votes to unify Serb-held territory in Bosnia with Serb-held territory in Croatia. Data indicates that at least 15 UN peacekeepers are still in Bosnian Serb custody and as many as 10 others are unaccounted for.

Reports disclose that a convoy of diplomats, including Robert Krueger, the U.S. ambassador to Burundi, were ambushed in the Cibitoke province in northwestern Burundi. No diplomats were hurt.

Parliamentary elections are held in the eastern Caribbean island of Dominica, and the United Workers’ Party (UWP) wins a majority in the House of Assembly, taking control of the body from the Dominica Freedom Party (DFP).

Monsoon storms begin in India, Bangladesh, and Nepal. The storms break a deadly three-week-long heat wave in India and Pakistan that has killed more than 550 people.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

June 10–15, 1995—747

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Lindsey Nelson, 76, Hall of Fame sportscaster, dies in Atlanta, Georgia, of complications from Parkinson’s disease and pneumonia. . . . Thunder Gulch, ridden by Gary Stevens, wins the 127th running of the Belmont Stakes in Elmont, New York. . . . Steffi Graf of Germany defeats Arantxa Sanchez Vicario of Spain to capture the women’s tennis title at the French Open.

Pres. Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.) hold an hourlong public discussion of policy issues and answer questions from an audience of 300 people at a senior citizens’ center in Claremont, New Hampshire.

Thomas Muster of Austria beats Michael Chang to win the French Open men’s tennis title.

In Missouri v. Jenkins, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that a federal judge exceeded his authority when he ordered the state of Missouri to fund teacher salary raises and magnet schools as part of a program to remedy past segregation. . . . In Adarand Constructors v. Pena, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that the federal government must adhere to the same strict constitutional standards that states have to obey when implementing affirmative action programs. . . . Arthur J. Kropp, 37, president of the civil-liberties group People for the American Way, dies from AIDS in Washington, D.C.

Astronomers announce they have made the first definitive detection of primordial helium in space, confirming predictions founded on the Big Bang theory of the universe’s origin. The findings are based on the observations of a telescope package known as Astro-2. . . .The U.S. biotechnology company Cephalon Inc. reports that its genetically engineered drug Myotrophin has helped to ease the symptoms and slow the progression of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, which affects about 30,000 people in the U.S.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta, India, the Roman Catholic nun who received a Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, opens a shelter for poor women suffering from AIDS in Atlanta, Georgia.

In a nationally televised address, Pres. Clinton proposes a budget plan that includes $1.1 trillion in spending cuts, spread out over 10 years, designed to bring the federal budget into balance by the fiscal year 2005. Clinton’s plan will reduce spending on Medicare, education, and other social services, but will seek to shield those programs from the deeper cuts favored by congressional Republicans.

Five white seniors at Greenwich High School in the affluent suburban town of Greenwich, Connecticut, are suspended after a coded racial slur is found in messages they included in their yearbook captions. . . . In Witte v. U.S., the Supreme Court rules, 8-1, that evidence that was already considered by a judge to lengthen a defendant’s prison sentence can be used as grounds for prosecution of a separate criminal offense.

The UAW union elects Stephen Yokich as its president. . . . In Oklahoma Tax Commission v. Chickasaw Nation, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that sales made on Indian tribal territories cannot be subjected to state excise taxes. . . . In Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Schleier, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that the federal government can tax awards paid out in age-discrimination suits brought under the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act.

A federal judge in Chicago, Illinois, sentences Richard Bailey to 30 years in prison for his alleged involvement in the death of candy heiress Helen Vorhees Brach, who was last seen in 1977 at the age of 65. . . . Five leaders of militia groups testify before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Government Information. The hearing, led by Sen. Arlen Specter (R, Pa.), marks the first time that militia members have testified before Congress.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation of Chicago awards its annual MacArthur Fellowships, or so-called genius grants, to 24 people in various fields. That is four more than what was granted in 1994.

The African-Americans Against Violence group protests plans to hold a parade and festival in New York City to honor former boxing champion Mike Tyson, who was convicted of rape in 1992.

A team of astronomers announce they have detected, in images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, the first direct evidence of the Kuiper Belt, a ring of objects believed to be located on the edge of the solar system.

Roger Zelazny, 58, science fiction writer, dies in Sante Fe, New Mexico, of kidney failure associated with cancer. . . . The Houston Rockets win their second consecutive NBA title over the Orlando Magic, 113-101.

Research suggests that women who receive treatments to replace the hormone estrogen after menopause are slightly more likely to develop breast cancer than were other women. . . . John Vincent Atanasoff, 91, coinventor of the first electronic computer in 1939, dies in Monrovia, Maryland, after suffering a stroke.

Charles Bennett, 95, screenwriter and director who collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock, dies in Los Angeles of unreported causes. . . . The Senate approves, 81-18, legislation that will ease restrictions on TV and radio broadcasts and will outlaw the distribution of “indecent” materials over on-line services and the Internet.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 10

June 11

June 12

June 13

June 14

June 15

748—June 16–21, 1995

June 16

Europe

The UN Security Council passes a resolution to send as many as 12,500 additional peacekeeping troops to Bosnia. . . . The Nordic Union, comprising Denmark, Finland, and Sweden, agrees to join the Schengen group, the European Union’s passport-free zone, at an unspecified future date.

The Bosnian government army launches an attack to break the Serbian siege of Sarajevo. . . . Queen Elizabeth II marks the official celebration of her 69th birthday by granting 1,055 knighthoods, peerages, and other honors.

In response to France’s June 13 announcement, a peaceful demonstration of about 80 protesters is held outside the office of Robert Pearce, a Perth plastic surgeon who is also the French honorary consul.

Heavily armed Russian troops backed by tanks storm the hospital in Budennovsk, Russia. Floor-by-floor fighting between Russian troops and the Chechen rebels continues for hours, and the Russian troops manage to free about 50 hostages. The Chechen fighters release about 150 more hostages but use others, including women and children, as human shields. . . . Lord (David Henley Ennals) Ennals, 72, secretary of state for the British Department of Social Services, 1976–79, dies in London after a long illness.

The office of Robert Pearce, a plastic surgeon in Perth, Australia, who is also the French honorary consul, is burned down, allegedly by antinuclear activists.

June 17

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Negotiations between Shamil Basayev, who attacked Budennovsk June 14, and Russian premier Viktor Chernomyrdin are broadcast live on TV throughout Russia. . . . Bosnian Serbs release the 26 remaining UN hostages. . . . Harry Tisch, 68, trade union leader in East Germany, 1975–89, dies in Berlin of cancer.

June 18

June 19

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Finance ministers from European Union member states agree to postpone the launch of economic and monetary union (EMU) until 1999, from 1997.

After freeing most of their hostages, the Chechen fighters leave Budennovsk in a convoy of several buses. The rebels take 150 hostages with them to the Chechen border to ensure their own safe arrival in Chechnya. . . . Peter Wooldridge Townsend, 80, British World War II fighter pilot who in 1955 was prevented from marrying Princess Margaret, the sister of Queen Elizabeth II, because he was divorced, dies in Paris, France, of cancer.

The new EU mediator, Carl Bildt, holds his first meeting with officials of the Bosnian government. Separately, Bosnian government troops trap more than 600 Canadian UN peacekeepers in the town of Visoko. . . . Rebels from Chechnya release the last of 2,000 hostages seized in Budennovsk, Russia, on June 14 before crossing the Chechen border. . . . French police arrest 140 people allegedly affiliated with Islamic terrorist groups.

June 20

Harry Gwala, 74, militant leader of the African National Congress in South Africa, dies in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, of heart failure.

Colombian officials launch a crackdown on the Cali drug cartel. Henry Loaiza Ceballos, the alleged “military leader” of the Cali cartel who is notorious for his alleged role in the torture and killing of 107 peasants over several months in 1990, turns himself in at an army base in Bogota.

The International Committee of the Red Cross announces that it will close its office in Yangon, Myanmar—formerly Rangoon, Burma— because the country’s military government denied its petition for access to political prisoners.

The Canadian House of Commons approves a bill to prevent suspects accused of assault or sexual assault from using extreme drunkenness as a defense. . . . The New National Party wins a slim parliamentary majority in Grenada. . . . The bodies of Timothy Van Dyke and Stephen Welch, two Americans kidnapped by FARC in 1994, are found buried near the town of Medina, Colombia.

Data shows that the monsoon storms that started June 15 have caused massive flooding in India, Bangladesh, and Nepal. Nearly 2 million people were stranded by flood waters, and the storms have claimed 50 lives in Bangladesh and 60 people in Nepal. Another 35 people are reportedly missing. . . . The Australian cabinet votes to recognize the aborigine and Torres Strait Islander flags as official flags of the Commonwealth of Australia.

A multidenominational gathering of religious leaders holds a ceremony to mark the opening of the first Muslim mosque ever built in Rome. . . . The Bosnian army allows UN convoys to deliver 600 tons of food. . . . Chechen leaders agree to help Russian investigators find Shamil Basayev, who attacked Budennovsk on June 14. . . . Tristan Jones, 71, British author and adventurer famous for his sailing expeditions, dies in Phuket, Thailand, after suffering a stroke.

June 21

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

June 16–21, 1995—749

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

In Tallahassee, Florida, Circuit Court judge F. E. Steinmeyer III upholds a law on which the state of Florida is basing a lawsuit filed against the tobacco industry to recover money spent by the state through Medicaid to care for victims of smokingrelated illnesses.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A study of prostitutes in Senegal shows that infection with a milder type of HIV seems to help prevent infection with a more virulent type of HIV. . . . Research suggests that people who try to quit smoking gradually on a preset schedule are twice as successful as those who quit abruptly.

Charles Elmer Martin, 85, artist best known for his cartoons for the New Yorker magazine, dies in Portland, Maine, of unreported causes. . . . The International Olympic Committee overwhelmingly elects Salt Lake City, Utah, to be the site of the Winter Olympics in the year 2002.

June 16

June 17

Riots erupt at the Esmor Immigration Detention Center in Elizabeth, New Jersey, when 300 detainees awaiting deportation hearings take two guards hostage for nearly six hours. Police reportedly use pepper spray on the detainees to end the standoff. Twenty inmates receive minor injuries.

Corey Pavin wins the U.S. Open golf tournament at the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton, New York.

In Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that constitutional freespeech guarantees give organizers of a St. Patrick’s Day parade the right to limit messages conveyed in their event and therefore permit them to exclude a group of homosexual marchers. The court unanimously holds that the central issue in the case is free speech, not gay rights. . . . In Sandin v. Connor, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that inmates cannot sue prison officials unless they have subjected the inmates to “atypical and significant hardship.” . . . Mother Teresa dedicates a shelter for women and newborn infants in Washington, D.C.

June 18

June 19

A military tribunal acquits air force captain James Wang on three counts of dereliction of duty in the friendly-fire downing of two U.S. Army helicopters over Iraq in April 1994. . . . The State Department confirms that Cuba has refused to extradite fugitive U.S. financier Robert Vesco. . . . Laurence McKinley Gould, 98, who explored Antarctica with Admiral Richard E. Byrd and led the U.S. in an effort to prevent future territorial claims on Antarctica, dies in Tucson, Arizona. In U.S. v. Aguilar, the Supreme Court, 8-1, upholds the government’s prosecution of U.S. District Judge Robert Aguilar for illegally disclosing a government wiretap to a former mobster. . . . In Florida Bar v. Went For It Inc., the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, to uphold a Florida state law that bars lawyers from soliciting business from accident victims and their relatives by direct mail within 30 days of an accident.

The Senate votes, 65-35, to repeal the 55-mile-per-hour speed limit set for automobiles on federal highways and allow states to set their own speed limits for passenger vehicles.

Pres. Clinton’s Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments admits that during the 1950s the federal government secretly collected tissue samples from human cadavers to measure the effects of radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons tests. The tissue was taken without the knowledge of or permission from families or doctors.

The Commerce Department reports that in April the U.S. recorded a seasonally adjusted $11.37 billion deficit in trade in goods and services, the largest deficit since the department began recording a combined sum in January 1992. The April figure marks a sharp jump from a revised gap of $9.79 billion in March.

In Detroit, Michigan, federal judge Avern Cohn dismisses all charges against Abraham Jacob Alkhabaz, a former University of Michigan student who posted a sexually violent story that mentions a female classmate of his by name on the Internet. . . . Reports confirm that HoffmannLa Roche Inc. plans to offer its experimental drug Invirase to 2,280 people with AIDS.

Former boxing champion Mike Tyson, convicted of rape in 1992, is welcomed back to his hometown, New York City, by thousands of fans. . . . Members of the Southern Baptist Convention vote overwhelmingly to formally repent for their church’s past support of slavery and to ask forgiveness from all blacks.

June 20

June 21

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

750—June 22–27, 1995

World Affairs

June 22

June 23

The World Bank and international conservation groups announce a plan that will establish or improve the environmental management of 155 marine protection areas, or MPAs, around the world.

June 24

June 25

June 26

Seven of the 15 EU nations—Greece, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Austria—sign a statement that assails France’s decision to resume nuclear testing in the South Pacific.

Europe British prime minister John Major resigns as head of the Conservative Party following months of dissension within the party over his government’s policy on the European Union. . . . Numbers indicate that troops of the predominantly Muslim Bosnian government army have surrounded and detained more than 600 UN peacekeepers.

An Israeli bombardment reportedly kills a young girl in the Lebanese village of Shaqra. . . .The government of Iran leaves standing a fatwa, or religious dictum, issued in 1989 by Iran’s then-ruler and spiritual authority Ayatollah Khomeini, which calls upon Muslims to kill the Indian-born British novelist Salman Rushdie. The move surprises EU representatives who had expected to receive a written revocation of the dictum.

Jean-Luc Dehaene is appointed to a second term as Belgium’s premier at the head of a center-left ruling coalition. . . . Morris Cohen (alias Peter Kroger), 84, spy who funneled information about the U.S. development of the atomic bomb to Soviet officials during the 1940s, dies in Moscow of heart failure.

In retaliation for the June 22 attack, Hezbollah (Party of God) Shi’ite guerrillas launch a rocket attack against Israel’s northwest coast, hitting a facility of the Paris-based Club Med tourist resort and killing a French chef employed there.

Italian anti-Mafia police in Palermo, Sicily, arrest Leoluca Bagarella, the reputed head of the Cosa Nostra organized-crime group, who is considered Italy’s most-wanted fugitive.

Meir Zorea, 72, Israeli general and politician who, after World War II, belonged to the “Avengers,” a Jewish group that sought to identify and kill alleged former members of Germany’s Nazi party, dies of unreported causes.

Bulgarian-American artist Christo and his French wife, JeanneClaude, officially present Wrapped Reichstag, a work of art in which the Reichstag building in Berlin, Germany is wrapped in a million square feet (93,000 sq m) of silver fabric. The German parliament approved the controversial project, for which the artist has been campaigning for more than 20 years, in February 1994.

Israeli soldiers in the northern West Bank city of Nablus open fire on Arab demonstrators, killing two and wounding 50. Separately, a Hamas suicide bomber on a donkey cart dies in a failed attack against Israeli soldiers near Khan Younis in the south-central Gaza Strip.

Representatives from more than 100 nations gather in San Francisco, California, to mark the 50th anniversary of the signing of the United Nations Charter. Events to mark the signing include speeches by U.S president Clinton and UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali. . . . The leaders of the EU’s 15 member states approve granting 6.69 billion European currency units (ECUs) ($8.83 billion) through the year 2000 to aid Eastern European countries seeking EU membership.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific A militant Muslim faction known as the Mohajir Qaumi Movement launches a rampage in Karachi, Pakistan’s commercial hub. Police report that the group has fired grenade launchers, burns several buildings in the city’s financial district and tortured several victims. . . . Cambodia’s National Assembly expels Sam Rainsy, an outspoken opposition member and former finance minister who accused the government of corruption and human-rights violations.

Riots erupt in Cordoba, Argentina’s second-largest city, prompted by the failure of the government of the province of Cordoba to pay state wages and pensions during the previous two months.

Australian prime minister Paul Keating temporarily recalls his ambassador to France to protest France’s expected resumption of nuclear testing in the French Polynesia area of the South Pacific.

Haiti holds its first elections since the October 1994 resignation of Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, leader of a military junta, and the return of the democratically elected president he had ousted, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Election observers describe the voting process as “chaotic” and state that official procedures are not being followed during the counting phase.

The violence that was started June 22 by a militant Muslim faction known as the Mohajir Qaumi Movement in Karachi, Pakistan’s commercial hub, has killed nearly 75 people. City officials state that over the past five weeks more than 300 people have been killed in factional fighting between rival Muslim groups and in attacks on police and security forces.

Egypt’s Pres. Hosni Mubarak escapes an assassination attempt without injury when gunmen open fire on his motorcade in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. Four people die in the attack. . . . The PNA intensifies its crackdown on Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip with arrests of more than two dozen Hamas leaders, including Mahmoud Zahar and Ahmed Bahar, both senior Hamas officials.

Gordon Wilson, 67, Protestant who was injured in an IRA bombing in which 11 Protestants, including his daughter, were killed and who publicly forgave the bombers before he launched a campaign for peace, dies in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, of a heart attack.

June 27

Africa & the Middle East

After two years of feuding, Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, Qatar’s crown prince and defense minister, wrests the position of emir from his father, Khalifa bin Hamad al-Thani, in a bloodless coup.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

June 22–27, 1995—751

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The Senate effectively rejects Pres. Clinton’s choice of Dr. Henry W. Foster Jr. to be surgeon general when Foster’s supporters fail to muster the 60 votes needed to end debate over his nomination, which has been embroiled in discussions of abortion rights. . . . In Alexandria, Virginia, federal judge Claude M. Hilton sentences the former president of the United Way of America, William Aramony, to seven years in prison and three years’ probation for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the charity that he spent on himself and his girlfriends.

In Newark, New Jersey, federal district judge Ronald Hedges denies the Mexican government’s request to extradite Mario Ruiz Massieu, a former Mexican deputy attorney general who is wanted on charges of covering up information in the assassination of his brother, Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu.

The Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission delivers its final recommendations on the closure and realignment of military bases around the country. The commission recommends the closure of nine bases that the Defense Department had not intended to close and votes to keep open 15 bases that the department wanted to close.

Research does not demonstrate a link between silicone breast implants and connective-tissue diseases, according to a medical study.

A Florida jury convicts Anthony Williams, 21, of murder and strongarm robbery in the highly publicized 1993 slaying of a German tourist, Barbara Meller Jensen, in Miami, Florida.

Esther Rome, 49, author and advocate of women’s health issues who, in 1969, helped form the Boston Women’s Health Collective, dies in Somerville, Massachusetts, of breast cancer.

June 22

Dr. Jonas Edward Salk, 80, virologist who in the 1950s developed a vaccine for poliomyelitis, or polio, which, during the six years following its introduction to the general public, caused the incidence of polio to fall by 95%, dies in La Jolla, California, of heart failure.

The U.S. and Japan reach an accord in a two-year trade dispute involving automobiles and auto parts hours before a U.S. deadline for imposing billions of dollars in punitive tariffs on Japan.

The Conference Board business research organization reports that its index of consumer confidence fell to 92.8 in June, down from a revised level of 102 in May. The unexpectedly large fall in the index is the steepest in almost three years and brings it to its lowest level since October 1994.

Warren Earl Burger, 87, former chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court who had the longest tenure of any chief justice in the 20th century, 1969–86, dies in Washington, D.C., of congestive heart failure.

In Vernonia School District v. Acton, the Supreme Court upholds, 6-3, a random drug-testing program for student athletes in an Oregon school district. . . . Rep. Greg Laughlin (Tex.) announces he will switch to the Republican Party after Republican leaders promised to create a new seat for him on the House Ways and Means Committee. Democrats vociferously object to the creation of a new seat without a corresponding seat for a Democrat. . . . The Senate, by voice vote, passes a bill that will extend a program intended to encourage senior citizens to use managed-care providers of health insurance to 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

In hockey, the New Jersey Devils win their first NHL Stanley Cup over the heavily favored Detroit Red Wings. The Devils are the first team since the NHL expanded in 1967 to win the title without enjoying homeice advantage in any playoff round.

Ernest T(homas) S(inton) Walton, 91, Irish physicist who shared the 1951 Nobel Prize for his work in splitting atoms, which has had a major influence on nuclear research, dies in Belfast, Northern Ireland, of unreported causes.

The Senate confirms by voice vote George J. Tenet as the new deputy director of the CIA.

A confidential study commissioned by the RTC finds that Pres. Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton were passive investors in the Whitewater Development Corp. realestate venture. The study states that the couple had “little direct involvement” in legally questionable transactions in the 1980s related to the venture.

The American Bar Association (ABA), under the threat of a lawsuit from the U.S. Justice Department’s antitrust division, agrees to modify the criteria used to accredit law schools.

June 23

June 24

The U.S. wins the U.S. Cup soccer title, with a 0-0 tie against Colombia in the final game.

June 25

Publishers Weekly puts The Rainmaker by John Grisham at the top of its bestseller list.

June 26

The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, to carry out a mission to dock with the Russian space station Mir.

June 27

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

752—June 28–July 3, 1995

June 28

June 29

June 30

World Affairs

Europe

The member nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council, including Saudi Arabia, recognize Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani as the new emir of Qatar, as does Iran.

Bosnian Serb forces fire rockets into central Sarajevo, killing five civilians and wounding dozens of people, including foreign journalists. . . . Spanish premier Felipe Gonzalez accepts the resignations of two cabinet ministers in connection with a recent electronic wiretapping scandal.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Civil strife in the state of Guerrero in southwestern Mexico begins when two trucks, each containing between 40 and 60 peasants, are stopped at a police checkpoint near the town of Coyuca de Benitez. Accounts of what provokes the ensuing violence vary widely.

In Sri Lanka, an attack by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam on Mandaithivu Island, located west of their Jaffna stronghold, claims the lives of an estimated 50 rebels and 75 government troops.

Retired general Juan Manuel Contreras Sepulveda, former Chilean chief of police who, in November 1993, was sentenced to seven years in prison for directing the 1976 car-bomb assassination of Chilean opposition leader Orlando Letelier and his secretary Ronni Moffitt in Washington, D.C., is put under arrest at a naval hospital after he forestalled his capture for nearly a month.

A five-story wing of a department store complex in Seoul, South Korea, collapses, killing hundreds of workers and shoppers in the worst peacetime disaster in modern Korean history.

The German parliament ratifies a decision by the cabinet of German chancellor Helmut Kohl to send warplanes and 1,500 troops to Bosnia to support UN peacekeepers there. The decision is controversial because Nazi German forces during World War II committed widespread atrocities in Yugoslavia.

In the state of Guerrero in southwestern Mexico, peasants and members of the Institutional Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), angry over the June 28 violence, raid and set fire to the town hall of Coyuca de Benitez.

The Australian Treasury reports a record-high current account deficit of A$2.9 billion (US$2 billion) for the month of May.

Greece’s former crown prince Pavlos, 28, weds American heiress Marie-Chantal Miller, 26, in a ceremony at the Cathedral of Saint Sophia in London, England. . . . Princess Stephanie of Monaco weds Daniel Ducruet, a former bodyguard for the royal family, in a ceremony in Monte Carlo, Monaco. The princess, 30, and Ducruet, 32, have two children together.

Chilean officials announce that the government will buy a tract of forest land in southern Chile in order to prevent a U.S. businessman, Douglas Tompkins, from purchasing it. . . . After the June 30 protests, the attorney general of Guerrero, Antonio Alcocer Salazar, announces that 10 policemen have been charged with homicide, but he does not retract the government’s earlier statement that the peasants initiated the June 28 attack.

The U.S. declines to accept an interim global financial-services pact under the auspices of the WTO when it announces that it will not open access to its financialservices markets on a nondiscriminatory (most-favored-nation) basis. The EU steps in to fill the leadership vacuum. . . . Six nations of the Schengen group—Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain—agree to eliminate frontier controls permanently, effective June 30. France states it will temporarily maintain border controls despite its participation in the Schengen group. The UN Security Council votes unanimously to extend until Sept. 15 its 70-member observer mission in Liberia. . . . Trade ministers from 34 countries discuss plans for the creation of a free-trade zone, the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), by the year 2005. . . . The IMF releases to Mexico the remaining $10.7 billion in aid it offered in February, making $2 billion available immediately.

July 1

The UN compound in Sarajevo is hit by a mortar shell, apparently fired from Bosnian Serb positions. Shrapnel hits the U.S. embassy. One Canadian and two British peacekeepers are wounded.

July 2

Thailand’s Chart Thai (Thai Nation) party wins 92 seats in the country’s 391-seat House of Representatives, gaining control from incumbent premier Chuan Leekpai and his Democrat Party, which garners 86 seats.

Private Lee Clegg, a Northern Ireland border guard convicted of killing a Roman Catholic girl, Karen Reilly, in 1990, is released from prison. In response, groups of armed men in Belfast and Londonderry, the largest cities in Ulster, begin rioting.

July 3

The opposition Labour Party defeats the ruling People’s Action Movement in parliamentary elections in the Caribbean nation of St. Christopher and Nevis.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

June 28–July 3, 1995—753

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The House votes, 312-120, in favor of a constitutional amendment that will allow federal and state authorities to prosecute people who burn, damage, or otherwise desecrate the U.S. flag. . . . Pres. Clinton orders federal agencies to institute minimum-security standards recommended by the Justice Department in the wake of the Apr. 19 blast in Oklahoma City.

An exhibit at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., featuring the forward fuselage of the Enola Gay, the warplane that in 1945 dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, opens to the public. The exhibit had received much attention from veterans groups before its opening.

The Senate votes, 70-29, to pass a bill that will discourage shareholders in companies from filing lawsuits alleging fraud by stockbrokers, corporate officials, or accountants. . . . In Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S. district judge George Howard Jr. sentences Webster Hubbell, the most prominent person to be convicted thus far as a result of the federal inquiry into the Whitewater affair, to 21 months in prison for tax evasion and mail fraud.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle A white polyester suit worn by actor John Travolta in the 1977 disco film Saturday Night Fever is sold for $145,500 to an anonymous telephone bidder at a sale by Christie’s auction house in New York City.

In Miller v. Johnson, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that electoral districts drawn to ensure fair political representation of minorities are unconstitutional if race is used as the “predominant factor” in drawing district boundaries. . . . In Capitol Square v. Pinette, the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that an Ohio Ku Klux Klan chapter has a constitutional right to erect a cross in a public park. . . . In Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of University of Virginia, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that the University of Virginia must provide funds for a student-run Christian journal.

The House, 239-194, and the Senate, 54-46, approve a historic fiscalpolicy blueprint that seeks to balance the federal budget by 2002 by implementing $900 billion in cuts in federal spending. . . . In Babbitt v. Sweet Home, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that the Clinton administration applied a justifiably broad interpretation of the 1973 Endangered Species Act when it sought to safeguard the habitat of the endangered northern spotted owl. . . . The House passes, 276-151, a bill that cuts $16.3 billion from spending previously appropriated by Congress for the fiscal 1995.

The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis docks with the Russian space station Mir. It is the first of seven dockings scheduled to occur prior to the beginning of construction on the planned international space station. . . . An international team of oceanographers state that adding large quantities of iron sulfate to the oceans may slow global warming. British and U.S. researchers reportedly have found that the introduction of iron sulfate between Tahiti and the Galapagos Islands stimulates growth of algae which absorb substantial amounts of carbon from the ocean water.

Lana Turner (born Julia Jean Mildred Frances Turner), 75, actress who was one of Hollywood’s most glamorous film stars from the 1940s until the 1960s, dies in Century City, California, after suffering from throat cancer.

Reports disclose that a serial bomber known as the Unabomber sent The New York Times and The Washington Post a manifesto that he asked be printed in exchange for his ending a series of bombing attacks that span 17 years. . . . The House passes, 350-68, legislation that extends to all 50 states and the District of Columbia a program intended to encourage senior citizens to use managed-care providers of health insurance.

The U.S. Treasury Department agrees to loan $146.7 million to Washington, D.C., to help carry it through the end of the 1995 fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. . . . Statistics show that after-tax profits of U.S. corporations rose 3.8% in the first quarter from the previous quarter, to an annual rate of $350.7 billion. After-tax profits in the 1994 fourth quarter were calculated at a $337.9 billion annual rate.

On Mir, the U.S. shuttle astronauts give their Russian colleagues chocolates and flowers and in return receive a traditional Russian greeting of bread and salt. The crew is congratulated by U.S. vice president Al Gore and Russian premier Viktor Chernomyrdin. . . . Reports state that scientists are suggesting that fossils of a squirrel-sized primate found in the Fayum Desert of Egypt are the earliest known common ancestor of the higher primates.

Gale Gordon (born Charles T. Aldrich Jr.), 89, comic actor best known for his work with Lucille Ball, dies in Escondido, California, of cancer. . . . NBA Commissioner David Stern imposes a lockout after basketball players fail to ratify a collective-bargaining agreement.

The National Basketball Association lockout formally begins, the first work stoppage in NBA history. . . . Wolfman Jack (born Robert Smith), 57, rock-and-roll disc jockey famous during the late 1960s, dies in Belvidere, North Carolina, of a heart attack.

George Seldes, 104, publisher and innovator in the field of journalism criticism, dies in Windsor, Vermont, of heart ailments. . . . Yugoslavia’s basketball team beats the Lithuanian team, 96-90, to win the European championship. Yugoslavia’s appearance is its first since the UN eased sanctions imposed in 1992. Players of the Croatian national team, the third-place finishers, walk off the podium while Yugoslavia’s national anthem is played. Judge Fredricka Smith of Dade County, Florida, Circuit Court sentences Leroy Rogers and Anthony Williams to life in prison for the high-profile 1993 slaying of a German tourist, Barbara Meller Jensen, in Miami. Williams is sentenced to another 30 years and Rogers an additional 15 years on robbery counts.

Data show that the purchasing managers’ index decreased to 45.7% in June, down from the revised May rate of 46.1%. Prior to May, the index rose for 20 consecutive months. A measure above 50% indicates an expanding manufacturing sector.

While in orbit aboard Mir, Russian and U.S. astronauts take questions from reporters at U.S. and Russian ground stations.

Richard (Pancho) Gonzalez, 67, tennis player famed during the 1940s and 1950s, dies in Las Vegas, Nevada, of stomach cancer.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 28

June 29

June 30

July 1

July 2

July 3

754—July 4–9, 1995

World Affairs

The UN Security Council votes to renew for 75 days the easing of some UN-imposed sanctions against Yugoslavia.

July 6

July 7

The member nations of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (Caricom) hold their annual summit meeting in Georgetown, the capital of Guyana, to discuss the creation of a single market in the Caribbean region by 1997.

July 8

July 9

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) outline an accord on the principles of the next phase of their peace agreement, including the redeployment of Israeli soldiers away from Palestinian population centers in the West Bank and a prisoner release.

Labour Party leader Denzil Douglas is sworn in as prime minister of the Caribbean nation of St. Christopher and Nevis. . . . Colombian officials arrest Jose Santacruz Londoño, reputedly a founder of the Cali drug cartel and its third-highest-ranking leader.

An extremist guerrilla group in India’s disputed Jammu and Kashmir state takes Britons Paul Wells and Keith Mangan and Americans John Childs and Donald Hutchings hostage.

In Armenia’s first post-Soviet parliamentary elections, the progovernment Hanrapetutiun (Republic) bloc of parties wins a majority of seats. Voters approve a draft of a constitution. . . . Turkey sends 3,000 troops backed by warplanes and heavy artillery into northern Iraq to destroy strongholds of Kurdish guerrillas in the region. . . . Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, urges an end to the violence that started July 3. The move causes riots to calm.

Twelve members of a peasant family near the village of Ajuchitlan del Progresso in Guerrero, Mexico, allegedly are forced to lie in a ditch and then are shot to death by unidentified assailants. The sole survivor of the attack, a 14-year-old boy, states that six armed men stopped the truck the family was riding in and that three of the men wore police clothing.

Takeo Fukuda, 90, Japanese premier, 1976–78, who worked to bring Japan into peaceful relations with several Asian countries, dies in Tokyo of chronic emphysema.

Bosnian Serbs begin to advance on Srebrenica. . . . In response to the July 5 attack by Turkey, an Iraqi Kurdish group alleges that Turkish troops attacked several villages, wounding three civilians and forcing 3,000 Iraqi Kurds to flee. Turkey maintains that no civilians have been hurt in the operation.

Pres. Rafael Caldera Rodriguez of Venezuela officially restores six constitutional rights suspended in June 1994. . . . Due to the riots that erupted June 23 in Argentina, the governor of Cordoba, Eduardo Angeloz, resigns after 13 years in office.

British prime minister John Major emerges as the winner in an unprecedented parliamentary election for leadership of the ruling Conservative Party. . . . Data suggest that in the first 20 hours of the disturbances that started July 3 in Ulster, 160 vehicles that were destroyed and 32 people were arrested.

July 4

July 5

Africa & the Middle East

Europe

French navy commandos in the South Pacific storm the Rainbow Warrior II, the flagship vessel of the international environmental group Greenpeace, to avert a protest against France’s planned resumption of nuclear testing in region. When the Greenpeace ship passes the 12-mile (20-km) exclusionary zone surrounding the Muroroa Atoll, French commandos fire tear gas and detain many of the ship’s 22 crew members.

A popular figure tried in Italy’s anticorruption sweep, former foreign minister Gianni De Michelis is convicted of illegal party financing and sentenced to four years in prison. . . . Government officials in the British colony of Gibraltar seize more than 50 speedboats as part of an antismuggling campaign, spurring riots by hundreds of youths. . . . The cabinet of Spanish premier Felipe Gonzalez approves legislation that will liberalize strict abortion laws. . . . Norway states that the Royal Dutch/Shell Group may temporarily store an idle oil platform in a Norwegian fjord.

The Iraqi government issues a statement demanding that Turkey withdraw its troops immediately, calling the offensive that started July 5 a “flagrant violation of Iraqi sovereignty.” Iraq also rejects “the pretexts cited by the Turkish government to justify its military operations inside Iraqi territory.”

In civil strife that started June 28 in the state of Guerrero in southwestern Mexico, five officers are killed when a police convoy is ambushed by unidentified gunmen near the town of San Rafael.

All of the speedboats seized July 7 in Gibraltar are impounded, prompting rioters to destroy one police car and smash several shop windows. More than 30 people are arrested. . . . A Dutch UN soldier is killed by the predominantly Muslim Bosnian government army.

Two Lebanese girls, ages 11 and 16, are killed when Israeli forces shell a town in southern Lebanon.

In the Upper Huallaga region in Peru, a guerrilla attack on the town of Nuevo Progreso leaves four policemen and 15 guerrillas dead. . . . Argentine president Carlos Saul Menem is sworn in to a second term in office. . . . Phanor Arizabaleta surrenders to Colombian police in Bogota, becoming the fifth Cali cartel leader taken into custody during the crackdown that began June 19.

Turkey reports that its troops have killed 110 members of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and has advanced 12 miles (20 km) into Iraq.

Hezbollah guerrillas lob rockets into northern Israel in retaliation for the July 8 deaths of two Lebanese girls. Hezbollah claims both girls died from injuries sustained from Israeli antipersonnel shells, which are prohibited under international warfare conventions. Israeli army officials state they targeted the town by mistake and are examining allegations about antipersonnel weapons. . . . A PLO spokesman in Jerusalem confirms that 3,500 of the Palestinians detained in Israeli-run prisons have ended a hunger strike after learning the July 4 accord includes a prisoner release.

Harry Wu, a Chinese-American human-rights activist detained as he tried to enter China from Kazakhstan, is accused by China of being a spy. . . . American John Childs, captured July 4 by an extremist guerrilla group in India’s disputed Jammu and Kashmir state, escapes. However, the militants abduct Hans Christian Ostro, 27, of Norway and Dirk Hasert, 26, of Germany, so they now have five Western hostages. Rescue workers find a young man alive while searching through the rubble of the department store complex in Seoul, South Korea, that collapsed June 29.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

July 4–9, 1995—755

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

The New Jersey Board of Education rules that the local school board should no longer control the school district of the town of Newark, the state’s largest school system. . . . Researchers suggest that many drug-related errors committed at two Boston hospitals during a sixmonth-long study period may have been avoided with improved communication and information systems, such as a computer bar-code system. . . . Foster Furcolo, 83, governor of Massachusetts, 1957–61, and the first Italian-American to hold that post, dies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, of heart failure.

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The U.S. Treasury Department extends a loan of $2.5 billion to Mexico.

The mayor of Washington, D.C., Marion Barry (D), signs into law a curfew designed to fight street crime by and against young people. Nearly 150 cities nationwide currently have youth curfews.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

In space, a Soyuz capsule detaches and backs away by about 200 feet in order to photograph the MirAtlantis orbital structure. Fifteen minutes later the American shuttle detaches from Mir.

Bob Ross, 52, host of the PBS show Joy of Painting, dies in Orlando, Florida, of cancer. . . . Eva Gabor, 74, Hungarian-born TV and film actress, dies in Los Angeles of respiratory distress and other infections.

The 113-year old typewriter company Smith Corona Corp. files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

A study shows that the antianxiety drug alprazolam, known by its brand name Xanax, is “significantly better” at easing the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) than is progestin.

A special panel of federal appeals court judges announce they have selected Daniel Pearson as independent counsel to lead the criminal investigation into the financial dealings of Commerce Secretary Ronald Brown. . . . The Federal Open Market Committee votes to reduce the federal funds rate, the interest rate banks charge on overnight loans made to one another, to 5.75%, from 6%.

A study shows that some people who think they are lactose intolerant actually are not and that those who are intolerant can digest small amounts of milk without suffering digestive problems. . . . The FDA approves the marketing of alprostadil, with a brand name of Caverject, the first prescription drug for diagnosing and treating impotence, a condition that affects between 10 million and 20 million U.S. men.

Pres. Clinton signs into law legislation that will extend Medicare Select, a program intended to encourage senior citizens to use managed-care providers of health insurance in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. . . . The CDC formally recommends that all pregnant women in the U.S. be counseled by doctors about HIV. . . . Joseph Buttafuoco, who served four months in jail for the statutory rape of teenager Amy Fisher, pleads no contest to soliciting sex from an undercover police officer posing as a prostitute and is sentenced to two years’ probation.

The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis touches down at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, after carrying out a mission during which it docked with the Russian space station Mir. Norman E. Thagard, 41, a physician aboard Mir since March, returns to Earth after spending 115 days in space, a U.S. record.

Statistics show that the U.S. infant mortality rate in 1994 reached a record low, but the gap between rates for whites and blacks increased.

July 4

July 5

July 6

Helene Johnson, 89, poet involved in the Harlem Renaissance literary movement in the 1920s and 1930s, dies in New York City after suffering from osteoporosis.

July 7

Steffi Graf of Germany wins the women’s tennis title when she takes her sixth singles championship at Wimbledon, England.

July 8

Pete Sampras wins his third consecutive men’s singles tennis title at Wimbledon, England.

July 9

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

756—July 10–15, 1995

World Affairs

July 11

July 12

July 14

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

In Portadown, a town south of Belfast, Northern Ireland, several hundred members of the Orange Order, a group of staunch Protestant loyalists, clash with police during one of the order’s yearly parades to celebrate the Battle of the Boyne, fought on July 12, 1690. . . .Turkey announces that it has begun withdrawing its soldiers from northern Iraq.

July 10

July 13

Europe

An Australian ship runs aground on a reef near the Tasmanian shore, spilling over 200,000 gallons (800,000 liters) of heavy fuel oil. It is one of the worst oil spills in Australia’s history. . . . Nobel Peace Prize winner and prodemocracy dissident Aung San Suu Kyi is freed by the military leaders of Myanmar, who have kept her under house arrest since 1989.

Bosnian Serb forces capture the town of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina, one of the UN’s safe areas whose civilians the UN has vowed to protect. Thousands of refugees from Srebrenica flee to Potocari, surrounding the UN’s compound, where they are trapped with 430 Dutch peacekeepers. Bosnian Serbs shell Potocari until NATO and the UN comply with a demand to withdraw NATO planes circling the area. . . . Mihai Botez, 54, Romanian ambassador to the U.S. and former anticommunist dissident, dies in Bucharest of internal hemorrhaging after suffering from cirrhosis of the liver.

Sheik Abdel-Baki Saharaoui, a cofounder of the radical Islamic militant group FIS, is shot to death at a mosque in Paris, France.

Tens of thousands of Muslim refugees from Srebrenica make their way to Tuzla as Bosnian Serbs begin busing refugees toward Bosnian government territory and leave them to walk across front lines to reach government-held towns. Bosnian Serbs detain draftage men to be investigated for what the Serbs call possible war crimes.

Israeli police arrest 38 ultranationalist Jewish settlers when they block the main Jerusalem-Hebron road in the occupied West Bank. At the same time, hundreds of other settlers reoccupy abandoned houses in the West Bank town of Efrat, which was built a decade earlier for Jewish settlers.

The European Union states it will resume its aid to Rwanda as a result of vows by the Rwandan government to promote national unity and the return of refugees.

Szymon Serafinowicz, 84, is charged under the War Crimes Act for killing four Jews in Eastern Europe during World War II. He is the first person in Britain to be accused of Nazi war crimes under the act. . . . U.S. tourist Matthew Peter Tassio, 22 is killed during the running of the bulls at the San Fermin festival in Pamplona, Spain. While every year there are nearly a dozen gorings and trampling injuries, no one had died during the run in the past 15 years. . . . Italian premier Lamberto Dini’s government wins a confidence vote in the Chamber of Deputies on a pensionreform package.

Thousands of demonstrators in Australia and New Zealand circle French consulates on France’s Bastille Day to demand a cancellation of the proposed nuclear testing in the South Pacific and French Polynesia. Air France is forced to cancel most of its flights between France and Australia because of a 24-hour ban on French flights by transportation workers in Sydney, Australia, and in New Caledonia.

Bosnian Serb forces launch an offensive on the eastern Bosnian town of Zepa, one of the six socalled safe areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina. . . . The German parliament passes a law that illegalizes most abortions but does not provide for punishments for women who seek abortions or doctors who perform them.

Asia & the Pacific

Rescue workers find a young woman alive in the rubble of a department store complex in Seoul, South Korea, that collapsed June 29. . . . The 19 crew members aboard the Australian ship that ran aground on July 10 are evacuated.

Returns show that the Lavalas Party, endorsed by Pres. JeanBertrand Aristide, won the majority in parliamentary elections June 25. Most of Haiti’s 28 opposition parties denounce the elections as fraudulent, claiming that the electoral council manipulated the vote count in favor of Lavalas. . . . The Toronto Stock Exchange 300 composite index hits a record high of 4,710.31. In Sri Lanka, reports indicate that hundreds of thousands of Tamils have begun fleeing to the eastern coast of the Jaffna peninsula since the government renewed its military campaign against the Tiger rebels. . . . In Thailand, Chart Thai leader Banharn Silpa-archa is appointed premier by King Bhumibol Adulyadej in a ceremony in Bangkok, the capital.

Rescuers find Park Sung Hyon, 19, alive in rubble after she was trapped without food or drinking water since the June 29 collapse of department store complex in an affluent section of Seoul, South Korea.

July 15

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

July 10–15, 1995—757

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Alfonso Joseph Zirpoli, 90, federal judge who gained attention when he intervened in the 1974 investigation of the Zebra murders and barred the police from questioning anyone who merely fit the “profile of the Zebra killer,” which encompassed most young black men, dies in San Francisco, California, of unreported causes.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The Standard & Poor’s Corp. credit rating agency declares Orange County, California, to be in default on municipal bonds worth $600 million. The default is the thirdlargest in the history of the U.S. municipal bond market.

Pope John Paul II issues a letter addressed to women of all faiths in which he condemns centuries of bias and violence against women and apologizes for the Roman Catholic Church’s past discrimination against women.

Pres. Clinton formally reestablishes full diplomatic ties with Vietnam, a move that draws mixed support from veterans groups and U.S. legislators. . . . The House votes, 333-89, to approve a foreign-aid appropriations bill of nearly $12 billion for fiscal 1996, which begins Oct. 1. . . . The NSA makes public for the first time 49 coded messages that the former Soviet Union used to communicate with a U.S. spy network of around 200 members, including convicted spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, during and after World War II.

The House Ethics Committee announces that it will not take action against Rep. Robert G. Torricelli (D, N.J.) for revealing to the public in March evidence of CIA involvement in the murders in Guatemala of Michael DeVine and of Guatemalan rebel leader Efrain Bamaca Velasquez.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) Director John Magaw announces an ATF probe into allegations that active and retired ATF agents helped organize an annual campout for law-enforcement officers marked by racist incidents. He states that six active and between 10 and 15 retired ATF agents participated in the May event.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

In baseball the National League wins its second consecutive AllStar game, 3-2, over the American League.

On the New York Stock Exchange, the Dow Jones industrial average closes at a record high of 4,727.29.

Pres. Clinton accepts the recommendations of the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission to close 79 military bases across the country and consolidate 26 others. The list is sent to Congress for its approval.

A heat wave strikes the Midwest and Northeast. . . . A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association asserts that women who receive treatments to replace the hormone estrogen after menopause are no more likely to develop breast cancer than are other women, a finding which contradicts the findings of a separate Harvard University analysis reported less than one month earlier.

July 13

An international panel of scientists concludes that the presence in the atmosphere of a major ozonedepleting chemical, the man-made chemical methyl chloroform, is beginning to decrease. The substance has declined to 120 parts per trillion molecules of air in 1994, from a high of 150 parts per trillion in 1990. . . . The FDA approves an experimental transplant of baboon bone marrow into a patient with AIDS. Baboons are the only primates that are naturally resistant to HIV-1, the virus strain that causes most AIDS cases worldwide. The NCSL reports that state economies for fiscal 1994–95, which ended July 1 in most states, were “the best they had been since the early 1980s.”

July 11

July 12

The temperature in Chicago, Illinois, reaches a record 106°F (41°C), and the death toll overwhelms the Chicago morgue. . . . The U.S. space shuttle Discovery blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. . . . Clinical trials in Europe show that a new type of vaccine for pertussis, or whooping cough, is more effective and causes fewer side effects than the version of the vaccine currently in use. . . . The Galileo spacecraft launches a probe that is scheduled to enter the planet Jupiter’s atmosphere in December.

Louis Freeh, the director of the FBI, demotes Deputy Director Larry Potts amid growing controversy over Potts’s role in a 1992 standoff with Randall Weaver, a white supremacist. During the standoff in Idaho, two people were killed by federal agents.

July 10

July 14

Reports confirm that thousands of cattle and tens of thousands of chickens in the Midwest and Plains States have died because of the heat wave that started July 12. Iowa’s livestock industry is especially hard-hit, with the deaths of 2,600 cattle and 150,000 chickens.

July 15

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

758—July 16–21, 1995

World Affairs

At a ceremony commemorating the 53rd anniversary of the first mass roundup of Jews in Paris, French president Jacques Chirac admits France was responsible for the deportation of thousands of Jews to Nazi concentration camps in Germany and Poland during World War II. . . . Reports disclose that incarcerated members of the Provisional IRA have begun a series of “dirty protests” in an effort to expedite their transfers to a prison in Northern Ireland, or Ulster.

July 16

France expels a planeload of 43 illegal African immigrants to Kinshasa, Zaire, drawing fire from humanrights activists. . . . Russian president Boris Yeltsin appears on Russian television and admits that he suffered a heart attack a week ago.

July 18

Iraq reverses an earlier position when it agrees to a UN demand that it destroy five pieces of equipment used to make engines for ballistic missiles.

July 20

July 21

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Ontario immigration adjudicator Ed MacNamara rules that accused war criminal Joseph Nemsila cannot be deported from Canada, regardless of whether he lied to immigration officers upon entering the country in 1950.

Ryoichi Sasakawa, 96, Japanese right-wing nationalist and entrepreneur who formed the Patriotic Masses Party in 1931, dies in Tokyo of a heart attack.

After meeting with U.S. Rep. Bill Richardson (D, N.Mex.), Iraqi president Saddam Hussein rescinds the eight-year prison sentences that an Iraqi court meted out to William Barloon, 39, and David Daliberti, 41, two Americans arrested in March for illegally crossing into Iraq from Kuwait. . . . Mordechai (Motta) Gur, 65, who has served in Israel’s Knesset since 1978 and was named deputy defense minister in 1992, dies in Tel Aviv, Israel, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound; he was suffering from cancer.

More than 4,000 people from Srebrenica, many of them Bosnian government soldiers, arrive in Tuzla after walking 30 miles (50 km) through Serb lines. . . . The governments of Sweden and Denmark award a 3.8 billion Danish krona ($680 million) contract to a European consortium to build the Oresund Tunnel. The 2.3-mile-long tunnel will connect Malmo, Sweden, and Copenhagen, Denmark.

July 17

July 19

Europe

The foreign ministers of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) eight-member contact group on Bosnia meet with Bosnian foreign minister Muhamed Sacirbey and state that the group considers the international arms embargo against the Bosnian government to be “invalid.” Members of the OIC contact group are Egypt, Iran, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, and Turkey.

Two 19-year-old Israeli hikers, one of whom is a soldier, are shot to death in Wadi Kelt, a dry riverbed 10 miles (16 km) east of Jerusalem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

South African president Nelson Mandela signs into law legislation creating a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate humanrights abuses committed during the decades when South Africa was ruled under the apartheid system of racial segregation.

An ethnic battle between paramilitary forces and factions of the Mohajir Qaumi Movement claims at least 30 lives in Karachi, Pakistan’s violence-torn commercial hub. The incident raises the number of deaths caused by ethnic fighting in Karachi in July to more than 200. . . . Philippine president Fidel Ramos announces that his administration will restore diplomatic ties with Singapore, ending several months of hostilities between the countries that stemmed from Singapore’s hanging of a Filipina maid, Flor Contemplacion, on murder charges.

As the battle for Zepa continues, Serbs launch a separate military thrust in the Bihac region of northwestern Bosnia near the Croatian border. The Bihac region is controlled by Bosnian government forces but surrounded on all sides by Serb-controlled land in Bosnia and Croatia. Statistics show that, of the 45,000 people who lived in Srebrenica, at least 11,000 are unaccounted for.

In the Upper Huallaga valley in northern Peru, 16 Peruvian soldiers are killed in an ambush by Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrillas. Twenty guerrillas are also killed. . . . The Supreme Court of Canada upholds a C$1.6 million (US$1.2 million) libel award, the largest in Canada’s history, against the Church of Scientology and Toronto lawyer Morris Manning.

The death toll from the June 29 collapse of a five-story wing of a department store complex in Seoul, South Korea, stands at 458, with more than 900 injured and 154 still thought to be trapped in the debris. . . . The Equal Opportunity Tribunal of New South Wales, a state in Australia, orders an insurance company to allow a same-sex couple and their son to receive family coverage.

Bosnian Serbs release more than 300 Dutch troops held since the Bosnian Serb assault on Srebrenica. . . . Viktor P. Barannikov, 54, former Russian security minister who in 1993 participated in an armed rebellion against Russian president Boris Yeltsin, dies near Moscow of a heart attack. . . . Italian anticorruption magistrates formally declare that former premier Bettino Craxi, who is living in self-imposed exile in Tunisia after being sentenced in absentia twice in 1994, is a “fugitive.”

Eight officers and two enlisted men are indicted by a Honduran civilian court for a 1982 week-long kidnapping and torture of six student activists in 1982. All 10 of those indicted had been members of an elite army unit called Battalion 316, which was allegedly trained by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Battalion 316 and other Honduran army units are believed by human-rights observers to have been responsible for the disappearances of at least 184 leftists during the 1980s.

China tests surface-to-surface ballistic missiles, firing them at targets in the sea about 80 miles north of Taiwan. . . . Sri Lankan police arrest U.S. relief worker Kenneth Mulder for alleged involvement with the Tiger rebels.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

July 16–21, 1995—759

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Sir Stephen Harold Spender, 86, British writer and poet, dies in London of a heart ailment. . . . May (Eleanore Marie) Sarton, 83, poet and novelist, dies in York, Maine, of breast cancer. . . . Auto racer Johnny Herbert of Britain wins the British Grand Prix Formula One race. . . . The Times Mirror Co. closes down the 10-year-old tabloid newspaper New York Newsday.

The U.S. uses a NAFTA provision to challenge heavy tariffs imposed by Canada earlier in 1995 on imports of poultry, eggs, dairy, and other farm products.

The Dow closes at a record high of 4736.29, up 27.47 points, or 0.58%, from the previous trading day’s close. This marks the sixth record high for the Dow during a period of nine trading days. . . . According to Forbes magazine, William Gates of Microsoft Corp. is the richest individual in the world with a fortune estimated at $12.9 billion.

Reports confirm that Merck & Co. Inc. has stated it will offer its experimental AIDS drug indinavir sulfate, known by the brand name Crixivan, free to 1,400 people in the late stages of the disease.

A special Senate committee holds the first of a new round of hearings examining the Whitewater affair, the complex tangle of financial and realestate dealings involving Pres. Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

After an administration review concluded that most affirmative-action programs are justifiable, Pres. Clinton signs an executive order that directs all federal agencies to ensure that their programs meet stringent judicial standards. The order also opposes programs that create quota systems or reverse discrimination. At the same time, 200 students, led by Rev. Jesse Jackson, protest a meeting of the Board of Regents for the University of California, which is considering an end to affirmative action admissions system. . . . Congressional hearings into a 1993 siege on a cult compound outside of Waco, Texas, open.

The Dow volume of shares traded, 482.9 in millions of shares, is the heaviest since October 20, 1987, and the third highest in the history of the New York Stock Exchange.

Juan Manuel Fangio, 84, Argentine grand prix race-car driver who dominated the circuit during the 1950s, dies in Buenos Aires, Argentina, after suffering from kidney failure and pneumonia.

Seattle Seahawks football receiver Brian Blades, 29, is charged with the manslaughter of his cousin, Charles Blades. . . . Fabio Casartelli, 24, Italian cyclist who won a gold medal at the 1992 Olympics, dies from head wounds sustained on a crash during the Tour de France. A study finds that women who receive hormone replacement therapy after menopause appear to have a reduced risk of getting colon cancer.

July 16

July 17

July 18

July 19

The Census Bureau reports that black Americans, people under the age of 18, and members of “female-householder families” had a much higher rate of chronic poverty than the American population as a whole between Jan. 1991 and Dec. 1992. . . . The Board of Regents for the University of California system votes to end by January 1997 the consideration of race, sex, religion, color, ethnicity, or national origin in its admissions.

July 20

The Senate Judiciary Committee holds a hearing on reports that active and retired ATF agents attended or helped organize a May campout marked by racist incidents. . . . The Common Fund, which manages investments for universities, announces that its recent losses, due to a rogue trader, are at $138 million, larger than originally estimated. . . . . Jon C(lifton) Hinson, 53, former Mississippi congressman who became active in the gay-rights movement during the 1980s, dies in Silver Spring, Maryland, of respiratory failure resulting from AIDS.

The Senate passes, 90-7, a bill that cuts a total of $16.3 billion from spending previously appropriated by Congress for the fiscal year 1995, which ends Sept. 30.

Pres. Clinton announces that $100 million in federal emergency aid will be distributed to 19 states affected by the heat wave that started July 12.

Minnesota Vikings football quarterback Warren Moon is charged with a misdemeanor for assaulting his wife. . . . NFL team owners approve the Los Angeles Raiders’ proposed move to Oakland, California. The relocation will leave the Los Angeles area without a football franchise for the first time in 50 years, as the Rams plan to move to St. Louis, Missouri.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 21

760—July 22–27, 1995

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Hundreds of masked youths, mostly of North African origin, riot in the depressed Paris suburb of Montataire, France. One person is killed and several injured in the violence. Some 200 riot police are called in, and five policemen are injured in the ensuing clashes, in which the rioters hurl rocks and gasoline bombs. . . . Turkey’s parliament approves a package of constitutional amendments intended to broaden the country’s voting and labor laws.

July 23

July 25

The Paris Club of donor nations links all further aid to Kenya to progress on political, economic, and human-rights matters.

In France, the riots that started July 23 in the Paris suburb of Montataire begin to calm after one policeman is injured and the rioters burn several cars and loot stores. . . . Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the UN representative for human rights in the former Yugoslavia, states that Bosnian Serb actions in Srebrenica involved “very serious violations of human rights on an enormous scale that can only be described as barbarous.”

The Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague indicts Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb military commander, on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. The tribunal states that international warrants for the arrest of Karadzic and Mladic have been issued.

The eastern Bosnian town of Zepa, one of the six safe areas of BosniaHerzegovina, is captured by Bosnian Serb forces. The UN evacuates 150 wounded civilians from Zepa to Sarajevo. The Bihac enclave comes under a three-pronged assault from Bosnian Serbs, Croatian Serbs, and rebel Muslims led by Fikret Abdic, whose stronghold is in the Bihac region. . . . A bomb explodes on a crowded commuter train in Paris, France, killing four people and injuring at least 80 people, 14 of whom are listed in critical condition.

The ruling coalition of Japanese premier Tomiichi Murayama is weakened in general elections for seats in the upper house of the Diet. The New Frontier Party (NFP) is considered the big winner in the contest.

A suspected Palestinian Islamist detonates a bomb on a public bus in Tel Aviv, Israel’s largest city. The blast kills six Jews as well as the bomber and injures more than 30 other people, at least two of them critically. The deaths raise the tally of Jews killed by Palestinian militants since September 1993 to 130.

Justice Thomas Riordan of the New Brunswick Court of Queen’s Bench sentences Steven and Lorelei Turner to 16 years in prison for manslaughter in the starvation death of their three-year-old son, John Ryan Turner, who prosecutors said was bound and gagged in his bed during the last six months of his life before dying of starvation. The sentence reportedly is the longest in a childabuse case in Canadian history.

Taiwan’s governor, James Soong, demands an end to the Chinese missile tests that started July 21, comparing them to China’s “bloody crackdown on the democratic movement in Tiananmen Square” in 1989. The tests are seen as an attempt to intimidate Taiwan and its leader, Pres. Lee Teng-hui, and discourage the country from trying to seek a more prominent international profile.

Peru and Ecuador agree to demilitarize more than 200 square miles (518 sq km) in the Cordillera del Condor mountains, the site of a border skirmish between the two countries in February.

Three people die from severe burns suffered in the July 25 blast in Paris, France, bringing the death toll from the explosion to seven. Mass-transit systems are shut down as a result of several bomb scares, and 8,000 people are evacuated from the Louvre museum when a threat is made.

July 26

July 27

Asia & the Pacific

Some 1,500 people, most of them army personnel and their families, stage a rally outside a military prison near Santiago, the capital of Chile, in a show of support for former brigadier general Pedro Espinoza Bravo, who was imprisoned for his role in the 1976 assassination in Washington, D.C., of Chilean exile Orlando Letelier.

July 22

July 24

The Americas

Foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) hold a summit in Brunei to discuss trade and security issues in the region.

Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the UN’s chief human-rights representative in the former Yugoslavia, resigns because of what he calls the international community’s “hypocrisy” and inaction after the “horrendous tragedy which has beset the population” of Srebrenica and Zepa.

Pres. Alberto Fujimori of Peru names former education minister Dante Cordova as the new premier. . . . Anselme Remy, the head of Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council, resigns amid harsh criticism of his handling of Haitian elections in June.

The Parliament of the Australian state of South Australia rejects a bill that would have legalized voluntary euthanasia, or mercy killing, for terminally ill patients.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

July 22–27, 1995—761

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

A circuit court jury in Union, South Carolina, convicts Susan Smith, 33, a woman who had confessed to drowning her two young sons, on two counts of first-degree murder. Smith gained nationwide attention when she told police that a black carjacker had kidnapped her boys, Michael, 3, and Alexander, 14 months, before confessing to letting her car roll down a boat ramp into John D. Long Lake with her sons locked inside.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

After carrying out a mission during which the crew deployed a communications satellite, the U.S. space shuttle Discovery touches down at the airstrip at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp, two amateur astronomers working separately, discover a comet thought to be farther from the sun than any yet found by amateurs. The find raises speculation that the comet, called the Hale-Bopp comet C/1995 O1, will be brightly visible from Earth in spring 1997. The last comet visible to the unaided eye was Comet West in 1976.

July 22

Uruguay wins the finals of the South American soccer championship, the Copa America, 5-3, over Brazil. . . . Miguel Indurain of Spain wins the Tour de France cycling race in a record fifth consecutive victory. . . . John Daly captures the 124th British Open golf title.

July 23

July 24

The Senate passes, 98-0, a bill that will require more lobbyists to register with the government and will force registered lobbyists to publicly report whom they represent, whom in the government they contact, and how much they earn. . . . Reports confirm that the Justice Department is investigating Philip Morris Cos. Inc. to determine if the company hid from the public and federal regulators research on the pharmacological effects of nicotine, and it is expanding a preliminary investigation to determine whether tobacco executives committed perjury in testimony before a House subcommittee in April 1994.

A report by Frederick P. Hitz, the inspector general of the CIA, is made public. The report finds that CIA field commanders, or station chiefs, in Guatemala did not violate any U.S. laws in relation to the deaths of Michael DeVine and of Guatemalan rebel leader Efrain Bamaca Velasquez. However, the report criticizes CIA officials for errors in judgment and failure to follow procedure. . . . Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, an alleged Palestinian terrorist with ties to Hamas, is arrested in New York City.

Charlie Rich, 62, baritone country singer known as the “Silver Fox,” who had several hits in the 1970s, dies in Hammond, Louisiana, of a blood clot in his lung.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals agrees to consider whether the largest class-action suit in U.S. history can continue against tobacco companies. . . . George W(ilcken) Romney, 88, former chairman of AMC and Republican governor of Michigan, dies in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. of a heart attack. . . . Baruch Korff, 81, rabbi known for his staunch support of Pres. Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal, dies in Providence, R.I., of pancreatic cancer.

The Senate passes, 69-29, a bill to end U.S. participation in the arms embargo against the Bosnian government.

Data show that a posthumously released album by Selena is the first album by a Latin artist to top the popular music charts. . . . . George Rodger, 87, known for his photographs of the 1944 liberation of Paris and of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, dies in England.

The Senate votes, 97-3, to reauthorize for five years a federal program that funds the care and treatment of people with AIDS.

Leaders of the U.S.’s three largest industrial labor unions—the UAW, the USW and the IAM—announce that they will merge their unions by 2000 and create a labor organization with an estimated 2 million members in North America. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a bill that cuts a total of $16.3 billion from spending previously appropriated by Congress for the fiscal year 1995. In June, Clinton had vetoed an earlier version of the bill; the new version restores some funding for programs favored by his administration.

Two astronomers report they have discovered at least two new moons, and possibly four, orbiting the planet Saturn. . . . Researchers announce that the FDA has approved a series of experimental procedures in which genetically altered pig livers will be attached to the circulatory systems of humans. Genetically altered animal organs have never been used in humans. . . . Data show that more than 800 people nationwide have died from the heat wave that started July 12. It is the highest such toll since a 1980. In Chicago, the death toll is 529.

Miklos Rozsa, 88, composer of film scores who won three Academy Awards, dies in Los Angeles after suffering a stroke. . . . Rick Ferrell, 89, record-setting baseball catcher who was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1984, dies in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, of arrhythmia.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 25

July 26

July 27

762—July 28–August 2, 1995

July 28

World Affairs

Europe

An interim global financial-services pact is concluded under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO). It seeks to widen the access that the more than 90 WTO full-member nations allow foreign companies to have into their securities, banking, and insurance markets. . . . ASEAN ministers admit Vietnam as the group’s seventh member. Vietnam is the only communist nation in the trade group.

July 29

July 30

July 31

Aug. 1

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Some 10,000 Croatian and Bosnian Croat troops capture the Serbheld towns of Bosansko Grahovo and Glamoc, cutting off Serb supply lines to Krajina. . . . Nora Owen, the justice minister for Ireland, announces that 12 people affiliated with the IRA will be released from a prison south of Dublin. . . . German commando police in Cologne kill Leon Bor after he kills the driver of a tourist bus and one woman before taking 19 hostages.

Pres. Alberto Fujimori of Peru is inaugurated for his second five-year term in office.

Military troops kill an estimated 200 Tiger guerrillas on the Jaffna peninsula. The offensive is the deadliest battle since a June 28 raid by Tiger rebels on Mandaithivu Island, located west of their Jaffna stronghold.

UN spokesman Alexander Ivanko discloses that Bosnian Serbs have torched the town of Zepa and executed the Bosnian government army’s regional commander, Avdo Palic, who in 1992 led an assault on Bosnian Serb forces described as one of their most crushing defeats.

A major natural-gas pipeline in the Canadian Prairies ruptures, causing a large explosion and disrupting gas deliveries to central Canada and the midwestern and northeastern U.S. No injuries are reported in the blast.

Russian and Chechen negotiators reach an accord they claim will end the war. Estimates suggest that, in the fighting in Chechnya since December 1994, 1,800 Russian soldiers have been killed, 250 are missing, and 6,500 were wounded. About 20,000 civilians, Chechens, and ethnic Russians, have died. . . . Croatian Serb leaders agree to withdraw from the Bihac enclave under a UN-brokered deal aimed at averting a wider war between Serbs and Croats.

Hezbollah fighters ambush an Israeli mechanized convoy in southern Lebanon, killing one Israeli soldier. The attack prompts Israeli troops and the South Lebanon Army to shell and fire on Hezbollah Shi’ite guerrilla positions in southern Lebanon. . . . Eyad Ismoil, who is believed to be the driver of the van containing explosives detonated in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in NYC, is arrested by Jordanian authorities.

At least six Russian soldiers are killed after Chechen fighters ignore the July 30 truce. Retaliatory strikes by Russian soldiers leave several Chechens dead. . . . Spain’s Supreme Court announces it will assign a special prosecutor to determine whether Premier Felipe Gonzalez will be indicted for his alleged role in forming antiterrorist death squads in the 1980s. . . . A special joint assembly of the French parliament approves constitutional reforms that are considered the most sweeping in France in about 30 years.

Israeli troops and border police dismantle tents and temporary structures erected by settlers on a hilltop encampment at al-Khader on the West Bank, just west of the city of Bethlehem.

New Zealand’s most wanted criminal, Joseph Stephenson Thompson, pleads guilty to 129 sex-related crimes committed during an 11year period. . . . Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son of the late Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos, is convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to nine years in prison.

NATO threatens Serbs in BosniaHerzegovina and Croatia with a broad air campaign if they attack any of the four remaining UN-designated safe areas in Bosnia: Gorazde, Bihac, Tuzla, and Sarajevo. . . . France recalls its ambassador to Australia amid growing international protests against Pres. Jacques Chirac’s decision to resume nuclear testing in the South Pacific.

Chechen leader Dzhokhar Dudayev approves the July 30 agreement and orders his soldiers to stop fighting. Russia and Chechnya carry out their first exchange of prisoners.

Aug. 2

Colombian defense minister Fernando Botero resigns due to a pending investigation into charges that he accepted money from the Cali drug cartel when he was campaign manager for Pres. Ernesto Samper Pizano’s election in 1994. . . . Statistics Canada reports that Canada’s violent crime rate dropped by 3% in 1994. The decline in violent crime is the first substantial drop in 15 years and the largest since Statistics Canada began tracking the crime rate in 1962.

Reports confirm that China has arrested two U.S. Air Force officers, Colonel Joseph Wei Chan and Captain Dwayne Howard Florenzie, for spying and will expel the pair within 24 hours.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

July 28–August 2, 1995—763

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

In a case that received national attention, a circuit court jury in Union, South Carolina, opts to sentence Susan Smith to life in prison rather than sentence her to death. . . . The Senate votes, 98-0, in favor of new rules that will bar senators and their staff from substantial gifts from anyone other than close friends and relatives. The rules apply only to the Senate and do not require approval by the House or the president.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Scientists suggest that fossils of foot bones found in South Africa belong to a human ancestor some 3–3.5 million years old and are adapted to both upright walking and tree climbing. . . . Reports confirm that researchers in three separate laboratories have found daily injections of a natural hormone into obese mice suppresses the animals’ appetites and increases their metabolisms, causing them to burn fat.

July 28

The Pro Football Hall of Fame inducts Steve Largent, Lee Roy Selmon, Kellen Winslow, the late Henry Jordan, and Jim Finks. Following the induction, the Carolina Panthers beat the Jacksonville Jaguars, both expansion teams, 2014, in their first exhibition game. . . . Monica Seles plays her first public tennis match, an exhibition event, since she left the tour in 1993. The Baseball Hall of Fame inducts Mike Schmidt, Richie Ashburn, the late Leon Day, Vic Willis, and National League founder William Hulbert.

In Atlanta, Georgia, district judge Frank Mays Hull upholds a state law that requires a minute of silent meditation at the beginning of each school day. . . . The Census Bureau reports that the number of births in the U.S. fell during 1994, and a record number of U.S. residents died that year. There were 3.949 million births in 1994, the first time since 1988 that the number of births fell below 4 million. . . . Dr. Thomas Ellsworth Morgan, 88, (D, Pa.), who served in Congress for 32 years, dies in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, of congestive heart failure.

Jennifer Harbury, an American lawyer whose husband, Guatemalan rebel leader Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, disappeared in Guatemala in 1992, files a lawsuit against the CIA for failing to provide her with information about her husband.

The House approves a $79.4 billion fiscal 1996 appropriations bill for the VA, HUD, and independent agencies. The bill, known as the VA-HUD appropriations bill, includes severe spending cuts for EPA programs. . . . The White House revises its estimate of growth for the 1995 calendar year downward to 1.9%, from the 2.4% forecast issued in February.

The U.S. George Washington Elementary School in Sherman, Texas, is the first school to open while participating in the Edison Project, a new program guided by the philosophy that public schools will be more effective if they are privately run. . . . Congressional hearings into the 1993 siege on a cult compound outside of Waco, Texas, close after producing little new information.

U.S. secretary of state Warren Christopher and Chinese foreign minister Qian Qichen agree to continue high-level talks on Sino-U.S. relations, which have been deteriorating since the Clinton administration approved the June visit of Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui to the U.S. . . . The House approves, 298-128, a bill that will require Pres. Clinton to end U.S. participation in the international arms embargo against Bosnia.

Thomas Donahue is elected interim president of the AFL-CIO labor federation. He will complete the current term of Lane Kirkland. . . . The purchasing managers’ index increases to 50.5% in July, up from the revised June rate of 45.7%. Generally, a measure above 50% indicates an expanding manufacturing sector, and a reading of 44.5% or higher indicates overall economic expansion.

The Senate votes, 52-48, against a proposal to force public hearings into charges of sexual harassment and official misconduct against Sen. Bob Packwood (R, Oreg.). Since May, the charges against Packwood have been the subject of particularly sharp public debate, during which several Democratic and women senators accused the Senate’s Republican majority of exercising a sexist double standard. . . . Both The Washington Post and The New York Times print excerpts from a manuscript by the Unabomber, who has been linked to a series of bombing incidents spanning 17 years.

Officials from the California Department of Industrial Relations raid a garment factory in El Monte, a working-class suburb of Los Angeles, California, and free nearly 70 immigrant workers from Thailand who have been held there against their will. All are in the U.S. illegally and reportedly were forced to work under squalid conditions. . . . Eyad Ismoil, who is believed to be the driver of the van containing explosives detonated in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City, and who was arrested in Jordan July 30, is turned over to the FBI and flown to New York.

The EPA announces that chemical manufacturer E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. has agreed to phase out production of cyanazine, a herbicide that the EPA suspects of posing a cancer threat to consumers and to workers who handle the chemical.

Memnoch the Devil by Anne Rice is at the top of the bestseller list. . . . Reports reveal that the Walt Disney Co. has agreed to purchase Capital Cities/ABC Inc. , a takeover that will create the world’s largest media and entertainment company. The merger is the second largest ever.

A study reveals that people who work in high-stress jobs are not more likely to suffer heart disease than those with low-stress jobs.

Former New York Yankees outfielder Mickey Mantle, 63, discloses that he has terminal lung cancer.

July 29

July 30

July 31

Aug. 1

Aug. 2

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

764—August 3–8, 1995

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

India’s Maharashtra state government decides to abandon the development of a $2.8 billion electrical power plant already under construction by a U.S. business consortium led by Enron Corp. . . . As expected, China expels Col. Joseph Wei Chan and Capt. Dwayne Howard Florenzie, the two U.S. Air Force officers arrested Aug. 2. The officers are thought to be the first U.S. officials expelled from China since 1979.

Aug. 3

Aug. 4

Governments from more than 100 countries approve a UN-sponsored global fishing accord aimed at slowing the depletion of the world’s fish stocks and averting international conflicts over fishing rights on the high seas. The agreement is the first international treaty to regulate fishing practices in international waters.

Tens of thousands of Croatian troops, backed by tanks, artillery, and jet aircraft, enter the selfdeclared Serbian Republic of Krajina in Croatia, a region held by rebel Serbs since 1992, from at least five major fronts in an offensive that spans more than 700 miles (1,100 km). Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic dismisses Gen. Ratko Mladic as commander of Bosnian Serb forces. . . . Hundreds of punk youths in Hanover, Germany, stage their annual “Chaos Days.”

On the first day of a general strike called by 49 union organizations in Panama City, a demonstration turns violent when riot police attempt to break down barricades set up by protesters that block off the city’s major streets. At least four people are reported killed, dozens injured, and 500 arrested. . . . Retired general Efrain Rios Montt, who led a coup in Guatemala in 1982 and installed himself as president for 18 months, is ruled by Guatemala’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal to be ineligible to run in the next presidential election.

Croatian troops capture the capital of Krajina, Knin, reportedly without much resistance from Croatian Serb forces. General Ratko Mladic, who was dismissed Aug. 4 by Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic, refuses to step down.

Aug. 5

Aug. 6

Asia & the Pacific

The World Bank reports that a “worldwide water crisis” is imminent, due to rapid population growth and increasing water pollution from industry, household waste, and agricultural chemicals. The organization estimates that $600 billion will be needed for water projects over the next decade.

The Bosnian government army joins with Croatian government troops to attack Serb forces in the republic of Krajina. Eighteen Bosnian Serb generals announce their support for Gen. Ratko Mladic, who refused to step down Aug. 5. . . . In Hanover, Germany, the “Chaos Days,” which began Aug. 4, attracting hundreds of punk youths, end. During that period, riots led to more than 600 arrests, and 94 police officers were injured. . . . Lord Harold Lever, 81, former cabinet minister and economic adviser to two British prime ministers, dies in London of unreported causes.

Warren Christopher becomes the first U.S. secretary of state ever to visit Hanoi and the first secretary to visit Vietnam since 1975 when he arrives to formally restore diplomatic relations. . . . Agha Hasan Abedi, 73, Pakistani businessman who in 1972 founded the Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI), which collapsed in 1991, dies in Karachi, Pakistan, of renal failure with blood clotting.

A bomb on a truck explodes at a power plant outside the town of Boufarik in Algeria, killing 11 people and wounding 25.

Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela, the alleged coleader of the Cali drug cartel, is captured by police in the city of Cali, southwestern Colombia. In a separate incident, the southeastern Colombian town of Miraflores is besieged by rebel leftist FARC guerrillas.

Croatian defense minister Gojko Susak acknowledges that Croatian soldiers have killed at least three UN peacekeepers in the offensive that started Aug. 4. Separately, the Bosnian government army regains the last remnants of Serb-held territory in the region of Bihac. . . . Brigid Brophy, 66, British writer famous for her experimental and controversial fiction, dies in Lincolnshire, England, after suffering from multiple sclerosis.

Aug. 7

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that the Croatian takeover of Krajina, combined with the Bosnian Serb capture of Srebrenica and Zepa in previous weeks, has forced 185,000 civilians from their homes. That figure is in addition to some 735,000 refugees who have already fled Croatia and Bosnia since 1991.

Aug. 8

Some 100,000 people gather in Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, Japan, to mark the 50th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of the city during World War II. A flock of 1,500 doves is released in Hiroshima to mark the 1945 explosion.

A bomb blast near Sri Lanka’s landmark Independence Memorial Hall in Colombo, the capital, kills at least 22 people and wounds more than 50 others. Police state that the bomber, who died in the blast, was a member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Two of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s top military aides who are also his sons-in-law, Lt. Col. Saddam Kamel Hassan al-Majid and Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel Hassan al-Majid, defect from Iraq with their wives. They are joined by more than a score of senior army officers. . . . A bomb attack on a train south of Algiers kills seven people and wounds 11. . . . Orthodox Jews opposed to expanding Palestinian autonomy stage demonstrations on major motor-vehicle arteries in Israel, snarling traffic in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and 18 other locations.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

August 3–8, 1995—765

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

In Portland, Oregon, U.S. district judge Michael Hogan rules unconstitutional an Oregon law that would have allowed doctors to prescribe lethal overdoses of medication to dying patients. The law was approved by Oregon voters in November 1994, but implementation was delayed pending court review.

Matarawy Mohammed Said Saleh, an immigrant from Egypt, pleads guilty to a minor conspiracy charge related to the February bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City. Saleh, 39, admits that he agreed to find stolen cars for the other alleged plotters to use to move various explosives, and in return, prosecutors agree to drop charges of attempted bombing against him.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Pres. Clinton announces his approval of a $53 million disaster-relief package for the U.S. fishing industry, which is suffering due to severe declines in fish stocks or seabed obstructions caused by flooding.

The journal Nature reports that Antarctic ozone depletion has increased steadily over the past decade. . . . Researchers announce that an analysis of 38 prior studies found that consumption of soy protein lowers cholesterol levels in people who have moderately high to high cholesterol.

Ida Lupino, 77, English-born movie actress and director who garnered broad critical acclaim throughout her career, dies in Burbank, California, after suffering a stroke.

The House passes, 219-208, a $256 billion fiscal 1996 appropriations bill to fund the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. . . . The California Labor Department reveals that a 1994 survey of 69 garment manufacturers and contractors found that 50% pay their workers below the minimum wage, 68% violate overtime requirements, and almost 93% violate child labor and workplace safety regulations.

The House approves, 305-117, a major overhaul of telecommunications laws. The House bill will relax regulations governing the ownership and operation of TV and radio stations, cable TV networks, and telephone services. The bill also addresses the issue of violent and pornographic materials on TV and on the Internet.

Aug. 3

Aug. 4

Aug. 5

Democratic representative W. J. (Billy) Tauzin (La.) announces in Thibodaux, Louisiana, that he is switching to the Republican Party. The move means that there are 233 Republicans, 201 Democrats, and one independent in the House. Tauzin is the fifth congressional Democrats to switch to the GOP since the Republicans won a congressional majority in the 1994 elections. The others are Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (Colo.), Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala.), Rep. Nathan Deal (Ga.) and Rep. Greg Laughlin (Tex.).

The World Track & Field Championships open in Goteborg, Sweden. They are the last major outdoor track and field events to be held prior to the 1996 Summer Olympic Games.

The U.S. Congressional Research Service discloses that in 1994 France surpassed the U.S. in arms sales to developing nations. The study reports that sales from France grew to $11.4 billion in 1994, from $3.8 billion in 1993. U.S. sales decreased to $6.1 billion in 1994, from $15.4 billion in 1993.

Louis J. Freeh, the director of the FBI, names Weldon Kennedy, 56, to replace Larry Potts as deputy FBI director. . . . Philip Morris Cos. Inc. announces that its U.S. unit will begin to voluntarily label all cigarette packs and cartons with the warning “Underage Sale Prohibited.”

Webster L. Hubbell, who served briefly as associate attorney general in the Clinton administration, begins a 21-month prison term at a minimum-security federal prison in Cumberland, Maryland. In June, Hubbell was sentenced for embezzling from clients at the Rose firm, which is related to the Whitewater scandal.

The Library of Congress states it has acquired the archives of Gordon Parks, a black writer, photographer, filmmaker, and composer. . . . NBC states it has secured the rights to air the upcoming summer and winter Olympic Games for a record $1.27 billion.

Pres. Clinton issues an executive order that requires federal contractors to continue to disclose their toxic emissions to the government.

The NBA and the basketball players’ union agree to a six-year labor contract that will end a management lockout. The deal is reached minutes before the union would have been eliminated, or decertified itself, as the players’ collective-bargaining representative.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 6

Aug. 7

Aug. 8

766—August 9–14, 1995

World Affairs

Aug. 11

Africa & the Middle East

A peace pact is signed by the Croatian army and a local Serb commander. . . . Spanish police arrest three alleged Basque guerrillas planning to assassinate a member of the Spanish royal family, possibly King Juan Carlos. . . . German prosecutors announce two business executives have been charged with three counts of murder and 5,837 counts of attempted murder for their roles in distributing blood contaminated with HIV in the late 1980s.

Aug. 9

Aug. 10

Europe

The Americas At least 10 people are killed and 350 arrested in a clash between farmers and 200 police officers in Brazil. . . . In a crash reported to be the worst in El Salvador’s history, all 65 passengers and crew members die when a Guatemalan jetliner hits the side of a volcano in El Salvador. The dead include the Brazilian ambassador to Nicaragua, Gerardo Antonio Muccioli, and the Danish ambassador to Nicaragua, Palle Marker.

The U.S. releases to the UN Security Council spy-satellite photographs allegedly showing mass graves near the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, which Bosnian Serbs captured in July. The U.S. claims the Bosnian Serbs committed massive atrocities in the capture of Srebrenica, including the mass execution of draft-age Muslim men. As many as 4,000 Muslim men and boys are thought to be still missing.

The French defense ministry announces that France would back a ban on all further nuclear testing after a planned series of tests are completed in 1996. France’s move is widely viewed as an attempt to derail growing protests against the country’s decision to resume nuclear testing in French Polynesia. . . . Germany’s federal constitutional court rules that the crucifix, a symbol of Christianity, must be removed from all public classrooms.

Reports confirm that Jordan has given asylum to the military aides and senior army officers who defected from Iraq on Aug. 8. . . . Richard Leakey and others, including Paul Muite, who formed the party Safina in May in Kenya, are attacked and beaten by a group of youths who Leakey alleges has ties to the ruling KANU, which denies any role in the attack.

FARC rebels pull out of the southeastern Colombian town of Miraflores, which was attacked Aug. 6. The rebels are pursued in the jungle by Colombian authorities. A total of 26 people—13 rebels, seven police officers, and six civilians—died in the rebel assault. The Red Cross airlifts aid to the town.

In response to the Aug. 10 spysatellite photographs, the U.N. announces an investigation into accusations that 2,700 men and boys were shot and buried in mass graves near the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, which Bosnian Serbs captured in July.

Thousands of Serb refugees who fled Krajina make their way to Serbheld territory in Bosnia and to Serbia, including Belgrade.

Rival Kurdish factions operating in the Western-protected zone of Iraq north of the 36th parallel reach terms on a draft peace agreement to end 15 months of hostilities that reportedly has taken the lives of at least 4,500 people. . . . Saudi Arabia executes two Turkish nationals for allegedly smuggling Captagon, a stimulant containing an amphetamine used as an aphrodisiac, into Saudi territory.

Two subway trains in Toronto, Canada, collide during rush hour, killing three passengers and injuring 36. Toronto Transit Commission officials call it the worst crash in the subway system’s 42-year history.

Aug. 12

Aug. 13

Asia & the Pacific

The Philippines and China agree to a bilateral pact to resolve without force their territorial disputes over the Spratly Islands chain in the South China Sea.

Croatian forces attack Bosnian Serb forces around the city of Dubrovnik, Croatia. Bosnian Serbs in nearby Trebinje, Bosnia, shell the area. On another front, the mainly Muslim Bosnian government army, aided by Bosnian Croats, launches an offensive around the Serb-held town of Donji Vakuf, in central Bosnia. . . . In Londonderry and Belfast, Northern Ireland, a total of 30 people are injured in clashes over a Protestant unionist group’s march to celebrate the 310-year anniversary of the defeat of King James II at the hands of William of Orange.

Eighteen people are killed when 40 gunmen enter a crowded bar in the small town of Chigorodo, Colombia, and open fire. Separately, Trevor Catton, 22, a British student kidnapped by left-wing guerrillas in June, is found shot dead near the town of Caqueza.

French drivers of Eurostar trains, which run between London and Paris, end a labor strike that started earlier in the week. . . . The Russian Duma, or lower house of parliament, passes a resolution to lift international trade sanctions imposed by the UN against Yugoslavia in 1992.

At least 20 people are killed during a series of raids by leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary groups in the Uraba region in northwestern Colombia. . . . In Haiti, makeup elections are held for 41 races in which irregularities in the original June balloting caused results to be declared invalid.

The body of Hans Christian Ostro, 27, of Norway is found decapitated on a road in a Himalayan village southeast of Srinagar. Ostro was one of five Western tourists taken hostage by members of an extremist guerrilla group in India’s disputed Jammu and Kashmir state in July. The guerrillas threaten to kill their four remaining captives if the Indian government refuses to release 15 jailed Kashmiri separatists.

Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission charges that police in the western state of Guerrero murdered 17 peasants in June. The shootings sparked a wave of violence that has left more than 30 people dead in the state over a twoweek period.

The All-Party Hurriyat Conference, a coalition of more than 30 Kashmiri militant separatist factions, calls for a general strike in the region to protest the killing of Hans Christian Ostro, 27, of Norway. His body was found Aug. 13.

Israeli planes carry out a rocket attack against a Lebanese base of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, the Ahmed Jabril-led Palestinian guerrilla group that opposes peace negotiations between Israel and Yasser Arafat’s PLO. . . . Saudi Arabia executes another two Turkish nationals for allegedly smuggling into Saudi territory Captagon, a stimulant containing an amphetamine used as an aphrodisiac.

Aug. 14

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

August 9–14, 1995—767

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Entertainment magnate David Geffen states he is donating $4 million to two leading New York City-based groups that provide services to people with AIDS. The donation reportedly is the largest ever to AIDSservices groups.

The EPA authorizes two pesticide developers, Mycogen Corp. and Ciba Seeds, to market a genetically modified corn seed in the U.S. It is the first corn seed ever to be genetically altered for pest resistance. . . Judge Paul Friedman sentences Walter Fauntroy, a former delegate to Congress for the District of Columbia, to two years’ probation, a $1,000 fine, and 300 hours of community service for falsifying a financial report.

A federal grand jury in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, indicts Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols on charges stemming from the April 19 car-bombing attack in Oklahoma City that killed at least 167 people. . . . Pres. Clinton states he is authorizing proposed FDA rules on the advertising and sale of tobacco products that are intended to curb tobacco use among teenagers. The five largest U.S. tobacco companies, along with an advertising agency, file suit, claiming that the FDA is exceeding both its legal rights and the intent of Congress.

A special Senate committee and the House Banking and Financial Services Committee conclude their respective rounds of new public hearings into aspects of the Whitewater affair without exposing clear evidence of wrongdoing by the presidential couple or by members of the Clinton administration.

Robert Brecheen, 40, convicted of a 1983 murder, is the sixth person in Oklahoma and the 291st in the U.S. to be executed since 1976. Brecheen’s case receives attention since he is executed after being revived from an earlier suicide attempt. . . . FBI director Louis Freeh suspends four high-ranking bureau officials indefinitely with pay due to a probe of the siege at white supremacist Randy Weaver’s cabin in Idaho.

Pres. Clinton vetoes a bill, passed by the House and the Senate, to end U.S. participation in the arms embargo against the Bosnian government. The veto is the second of Clinton’s presidency. . . . U.S. officials hold a lottery to determine the order in which 10,000 of the 13,000 Cuban refugees held at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba will be admitted into the U.S.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Jerry (Jerome John) Garcia, 53, singer, guitarist, and songwriter for the San Francisco-based rock band the Grateful Dead, an extremely popular touring band whose fans follow them on tour, dies in Forest Knolls, California, reportedly of a heart attack.

Three studies reveal that for the first time researchers have isolated a human gene linked to adult-onset diabetes, which is closely associated with obesity.

Scientists disclose that fragments of the fossilized remains of humans and stone tools found in Spain are at least 780,000 years old, indicating that humans lived in Europe substantially earlier than previously believed.

Aug. 9

Aug. 10

Kenneth (Lo Hsiao Chien) Lo, 81, Chinese chef who wrote more than 30 books on cooking, dies in London, England, of cancer. . . . Phil Harris, 91, radio comedian, band leader, and movie actor, dies in Rancho Mirage, California, after suffering a heart attack.

Ten Republicans who hope to be named the GOP presidential candidate speak at a convention organized by Ross Perot, a Texas billionaire and 1992 independent candidate for U.S. president, and United We Stand America, a grassroots political association founded by Perot.

Aug. 11

Aug. 12

The FAA orders officials at airports in the New York City metropolitan area to raise their security measures to the most stringent level since the 1991 Persian Gulf war after federal officials reportedly uncover two terrorist threats from Islamic militant groups.

Mickey Charles Mantle, 63, New York Yankee who was regarded as one of the greatest baseball players of all time, dies in Baylor, Texas, of cancer. . . . Alison Hargreaves, 33, who was the first woman to climb solo to the top of Mount Everest without carrying oxygen, dies in the Himalayas while climbing K2, the secondtallest mountain in the world.

Shannon Faulkner becomes the first female cadet at the Citadel, a state-supported military academy in Charleston, South Carolina, after having spent more than two years in legal battle with the school. Demonstrators both supporting and opposing Faulkner await her at the academy’s entrance.

The Grateful Dead rock band announces that it is canceling all of its scheduled fall concerts in the wake of the Aug. 9 death of group cofounder Jerry Garcia.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 13

Aug. 14

768—August 15–20, 1995

World Affairs

Europe

Aug. 17

Aug. 18

The Croatian government refuses to allow the UN and other humanitarian aid workers to reach 30,000 Muslim refugees trapped in Croatia.

After the Aug. 11 and Aug. 14 executions of Turkish nationals in Saudi Arabia, Turkey warns Saudi Arabia not to execute any more Turks. Amnesty International charges that defendants facing capital offenses in Saudi courts are being denied judicial due process.

The UN’s Human Development Report 1995, which this year focuses on women’s issues, finds that, while the world’s women in recent decades have gained significantly in areas such as education and health care, they still lack political and economic power and equality under the law. . . . The Association of Caribbean States (ACS) holds its first summit. . . . Iraq begins to disclose data on its biological- and nuclearweapons programs to the UN.

A bomb explodes in a crowded tourist section of Paris, injuring 17 people. . . . Family members of Frederick C. Cuny, a U.S. disaster-relief expert reported missing in the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya in April, announce that they have called off their search for Cuny, concluding that he was executed April 14 by Chechen rebels whom they believe were set up by the Russians.

The rebel soldiers who seized control of the government in Sao Tome and Principe on Aug. 15 name the parliamentary president, Francisco Fortunato Pires, as interim president. . . . Reports confirm that South African president Nelson Mandela has initiated proceedings to divorce his estranged wife, Winnie Mandela.

The UN announces that it is withdrawing its peacekeepers from the UN-declared safe area of Gorazde, in eastern Bosnia. The protection of Gorazde’s roughly 60,000 Muslim inhabitants will fall to NATO.

Swedish premier Ingvar Carlsson announces that he will step down from his post in March 1996. . . . Spain’s Supreme Court announces that it will take over a probe into Premier Felipe Gonzalez’s alleged role in organizing antiterrorist death squads in the 1980s.

Reports indicate that a family of five was killed in a bomb attack at their home near Blida, Algeria. Two car bombs explode outside Algiers, the capital, killing one girl. Hours later, the Algerian government announces that it will conduct a presidential election on Nov. 16. . . . The coup leaders in Sao Tome and Principe, after meeting with Angolan mediators, release Pres. Miguel Trovoada from an army barracks. . . . Hamas supporters in Gaza burn U.S. flags to protest the July arrest of Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, in NYC.

Three of the key American peace negotiators in Bosnia-Herzegovina—Robert C. Frasure, 53; Joseph J. Kruzel, 50; and Samuel Nelson Drew, 47—are killed when their armored personnel carrier plunges from a road on Mount Igman outside Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital.

The leaders of Liberia’s warring factions agree to a peace pact aimed at ending the country’s civil war, which began in December 1989, has taken more than 150,000 lives, and has outlasted a dozen cease-fire agreements. . . Zaire begins to forcibly expel Rwandan and Burundian refugees. . . . In Guyana, the Essequibo River is fouled with cyanidetainted water and clay when a reservoir holding effluent from a gold mine collapses.

María de los Angeles Moreno, president of the ruling Mexican Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), resigns. PRI secretary general Pedro Joaquín Coldwell also resigns, leaving the top two positions in the party open.

A British helicopter that is part of a new UN rapid reaction force crashes into the Adriatic Sea off the coast of Croatia, killing four British soldiers. One soldier is rescued from the sea by a Croatian fishing boat. . . . French police confirm that they are investigating a letter from Algeria’s Armed Islamic Group (GIA), claiming responsibility for bomb blasts in July and August.

The government of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin decides that it will not order an investigation into the alleged atrocities of the slayings of Egyptian prisoners in the 1956 and 1967 wars, which were recently disclosed by former Israeli officers.

An overcrowded smuggling boat carrying Haitian migrants lands in the Bahamas after being intercepted by Bahamian authorities and the U.S. Coast Guard. According to witnesses, the boat originally carried 600 people, only 457 of whom arrive in the Bahamas.

The government of Iraq closes discussions with Rolf Ekeus, chair of the UN Special Commission on Iraq responsible for overseeing the elimination of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. In the talks, Iraq disclosed extensive information on its biological- and nuclear-weapons programs. Iraq’s sudden decision to release the data follows the Aug. 8 defection of more than 20 officers, including Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel Hassan al-Majid, director of Iraq’s weapons program since 1987.

Asia & the Pacific A Vietnamese court sentences Thich Quang Do, the secretary general of the Unified Buddhist Church, to five years in prison. . . . Japanese premier Tomiichi Murayama offers a “heartfelt apology” for his country’s acts of “colonial rule and aggression” against other countries during World War II. In doing so, Murayama becomes the first Japanese leader to use the word “apology” in regard to the war.

The UN Security Council votes to suspend for one year an arms embargo on the Rwandan government.

Aug. 19

Aug. 20

The Americas

Rebel soldiers led by a five-man commission of army officers arrest Pres. Miguel Trovoada, Sao Tome and Principe’s first freely elected leader. In a bloodless coup, the rebels seize control of the government, disband parliament, and suspend the democratic constitution, which had taken effect four years earlier.

Aug. 15

Aug. 16

Africa & the Middle East

Bermuda, a self-governing British island colony in the mid-Atlantic Ocean, votes in a referendum to reject becoming independent from Great Britain. . . . A strike by 50,000 teachers, begun in July in Costa Rica, ends. . . . Colombian president Ernesto Samper Pizano announces a 90-day state of emergency, amid increasing violence and civil strife and amid accusations that Samper accepted money from the Cali drug cartel for his 1994 presidential election campaign.

Indonesian president Suharto orders the release of three prominent political prisoners, Foreign Minister Subandrio, 81, former air force commander Omar Dhani, 71, and former intelligence official Raden Sugent Sutarto, 77. The prisoners have been held for nearly 30 years because of their alleged roles in an abortive 1965 coup. . . . The All-Party Hurriyat Conference, a coalition of more than 30 Kashmiri militant separatist factions, holds a general strike to protest the killing of Western hostage Hans Christian Ostro by another militant Muslim group. China announces that it exploded a nuclear bomb in an underground test. China’s announcement does not specify where the test occurred or how powerful it was.

Hundreds of people are killed when a passenger train hits another train stopped in Firozabad, India. The accident, blamed on the error of a signalman, is one of the worst rail disasters in India’s history.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

August 15–20, 1995—769

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The Justice Department agrees to pay $3.1 million to the family of Randall Weaver, a white separatist whose wife and son were killed by federal agents during a 1992 standoff in Idaho.

U.S. Air Force chief of staff General Ronald Fogleman announces he has issued “letters of evaluation” rebuking seven officers involved in the April 1994 accidental downing of two U.S. Army helicopters over Iraq. The action comes amid criticism that the U.S. Air Force was too lenient in its initial assessment of the officers’ conduct.

Leon Moser, 52, convicted of killing his ex-wife and two daughters in 1985, is put to death by lethal injection in Bellefonte, Pennsylvannia. Moser is only the second person executed in Pennsylvania and the 293rd in the nation since 1976. . . . Oveta Culp Hobby, 90, who in 1941 created the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC), and who was the second female cabinet member in U.S. history, serving as head of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, 1953–55, dies in Houston, Texas, after suffering a stroke.

Reports confirm that the Labor Department has reached an agreement with Syntel Inc., a Troy, Michigan-based software-consulting firm, in which the company agrees to make reparations for paying its foreign employees in the U.S. belowmarket wages. The settlement marks the first major agreement in the federal government’s effort to prevent U.S.-based companies from exploiting foreigners in professionallevel jobs by paying them lower wages than U.S. workers would command.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announces new regulations designed to curb telemarketing fraud.

A federal grand jury in Los Angeles indicts nine Thai nationals suspected of running the El Monte sweatshop, which was raided Aug. 2.

A federal grand jury in Little Rock, Arkansas, indicts James B. McDougal and his ex-wife, Susan McDougal, on bank-fraud and conspiracy charges. The McDougals were the main partners of Pres. Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Whitewater Development Corp. real-estate venture.

Sylvester Adams, 39, convicted of the 1979 strangulation death of a teenage neighbor, is executed by lethal injection in Columbia, South Carolina. He is the first inmate to take advantage of a recently passed state law allowing condemned prisoners to choose injection over the electric chair and is only the sixth executed in South Carolina since 1976. He is the 294th person executed in the U.S. since 1976.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle John Cameron Swayze, 89, early television news anchor and spokesman for Timex Corp., dies in Sarasota, Florida, of unreported causes.

Aug. 15

Aug. 16

Scientists report that fossil remains unearthed near Lake Turkana in Kenya represent a new species of human ancestor that walked on two legs about 3.9–4.2 million years ago. . . . The Department of Energy reveals that an estimated 16,000 people were subjects in radiation experiments conducted by the U.S. government from World War II through the mid-1970s. It is nearly double the figure estimated in February.

Howard Koch, 93, screenwriter best known for his collaboration with Julian and Philip Epstein on the screenplay of Casablanca (1942), dies in Kingston, New York, after suffering from pneumonia.

Shannon Faulkner, the first female cadet at the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, withdraws from the military academy she entered just five days earlier, citing the stress of her legal confrontations with the Citadel. Faulkner is one of 35 new cadets to quit the Citadel during the first week of training, out of the 592 who entered.

Aug. 17

Aug. 18

Reports confirm that the Justice Department’s antitrust division is preparing to press a major pricefixing case against some large securities dealers in connection with alleged practices that artificially inflated their profits from trades made on the NASDAQ exchange of over-the-counter stocks.

Research shows that smokers in their 30s and 40s suffer five times as many heart attacks as nonsmokers in the same age group.

Aug. 19

Reports reveal that the State Regents for Higher Education has coordinated a collective effort by scholarship funds, local and state officials and universities to raise money for the 174 children who were injured in the April bombing in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, or whose parents were injured or killed in the blast. The fund of a total of $7.5 million will provided the children with financial assistance for college.

Aug. 20

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

770—August 21–26, 1995

World Affairs

Aug. 25

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

A Hamas suicide bomber detonates a powerful explosive in Jerusalem, killing at least five Jews as well as the bomber and injuring some 100 other people. Soon after the explosion, several hundred Jewish rightists gather at the bombing site to demonstrate against the Israeli-PLO talks.

Six people are killed and 38 wounded in Sarajevo by shells fired from Bosnian Serb positions. . . . Christopher Brain, an ordained priest of the Church of England, admits that he had improper sexual contact with about 20 women belonging to his Nine O’Clock Service church, which reportedly has taken on many characteristics of a fringe cult.

Pres. Miguel Trovoada of Sao Tome and Principe resumes his post, bringing to a close the Aug. 15 bloodless coup. Trovoada is reinstated after signing an amnesty law pardoning the soldiers who took part in the rebellion. . . . A new parliament in Ethiopia is sworn in for a five-year term, replacing the 1991 transitional government. Parliament elects Negasso Ghidada president. . . . Guyanese president Cheddi Jagan declares the zone around the Aug. 19 effluent spill an “environmental disaster area.”

The Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union (URNG), a coalition of four leftist guerrilla groups in Guatemala, announces a two-week cease-fire to coincide with general elections scheduled for Nov. 12. It will be the first cease-fire between the rebels and the government in 30 years. . . . Thomas Hargrove, a U.S. citizen kidnapped in Colombia by leftist guerrillas 11 months earlier, is released from captivity and returns to his home in a suburb of Cali, Colombia.

Lord Vincent Gordon Lindsay White, 72, cofounder of British conglomerate Hanson PLC, dies in Los Angeles, California, of a respiratory ailment.

Iraq’s official TV network broadcasts a speech by Jordan’s King Hussein which criticizes policies of Saddam Hussein. It is the first time in about 20 years that Iraq allows criticism of Iraqi leaders on its national TV system. . . . Meles Zenawi, head of Ethiopia’s transitional government, is chosen as premier by Parliament. . . . The Israeli government announces it has seized more than 30 members of the Hamas cell behind the Aug. 21 bombing in Jerusalem and the July 24 attack in Tel Aviv.

An appellate court in Argentina refuses a request by Italy to extradite Erich Priebke, a former Nazi special-forces officer, in connection with crimes committed during World War II.

Troops loyal to Pres. Burhanuddin Rabbani attack the Taliban at Delaram, a town in Afghanistan’s southwestern plains.

WHO declares an end to a recent outbreak of the Ebola virus in Zaire because 42 days, the time equal to two maximum incubation periods for the virus, has passed without any newly reported cases. In the outbreak, 244 of the 315 people known to have contracted the virus died.

British peacekeepers shoot and kill two men in Bosnian army uniforms who are attempting to raid a UN base in Gorazde. . . . The Georgian parliament votes to adopt the country’s first constitution since it gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The constitution restores the office of president, which was eliminated after the 1992 coup. . . . Russia’s banking system is thrown into a crisis when the country’s banks stop lending to one another.

Under international criticism, Zaire agrees to temporarily halt the forced expulsion of Rwandan and Burundian refugees. . . . Engineers plug a breach in the wall of the reservoir that collapsed Aug. 19 and fouled Guyana’s Essequibo River. . . . Reports suggest that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein has ordered the arrest of hundreds of officials deemed politically unreliable and restructured his personal security contingent in an apparent effort to consolidate power in the wake of the Aug. 8 defections.

In response to the mayor’s approval of the construction of a golf course near the village of Tepoztlan, 30 miles (50 km) south of Mexico City, a coalition of peasants, small business owners, and environmentalists in Tepoztlan seize the town hall. . . . Germany requests the extradition from Argentina of Erich Priebke, a former Nazi special-forces officer, in connection with crimes committed during World War II. The request comes the day after Argentina refused to extradite Priebke to Italy.

A court in Wuhan, China, convicts Harry Wu, a Chinese-American human-rights activist, of spying and sentences him to 15 years in jail and expulsion. However, China expels Wu without making him serve his sentence. The release of Wu, who worked to document abuses in China’s prison system, serves to ease tensions in Sino-U.S. relations.

Rolf Ekeus, chairman of the UN Special Commission on Iraq that is responsible for overseeing the elimination of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, reveals that newly disclosed Iraqi documents show that Iraq has around 10 times more anthrax available for use than previously acknowledged. Ekeus states Iraq has admitted that it also produced a third deadly chemical, aflatoxin.

The Sejm, the lower house in the Polish parliament, passes an antismoking law with a large majority.

Israeli undercover forces kill two presumed Hamas militants during a gunfight in Hebron.

David Saul is named Bermuda’s new prime minister after defeating C. V. Woolridge in a secret ballot of Bermuda’s legislators. . . . Reports state that a Colombian military intelligence agency admits that 87 foreign hostages are being held in Colombia. Other reports note a U.S. State Department speaker has claimed that there are currently four U.S. citizens being held hostage in Colombia, all of whom are missionaries.

UN officials report that the Iraqis have provided Rolf Ekeus, chairman of the UN Special Commission on Iraq responsible for overseeing the elimination of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, with detailed information on substantial quantities of stockpiled germ weapons, such as botulin and anthrax.

Aug. 23

Aug. 24

Africa & the Middle East

UN and human-rights investigators state that they have obtained evidence of mass graves in Krajina, a formerly Serb-held region of Croatia, and that Serbs were executed in that area. Human-rights officials also reveal that Croatians continue to burn formerly Serb villages to prevent the Serb population from returning.

Aug. 21

Aug. 22

Europe

The death toll from the Aug. 20 train crash in in Firozabad, India, stands at more than 340, with more than 400 injured. . . . Australian prime minister Paul Keating announces his decision to name Sir William Deane, 64, a High Court judge, as Australia’s new governor general.

The British Foreign Office confirms that Timothy Cowley, assistant to the defense attaché at the British embassy in Colombia, has been kidnapped by leftist guerrillas.

Aug. 26

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

August 21–26, 1995—771

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Spy Factory Inc., the U.S.’s largest chain of “spy shops,” or stores that sell electronic surveillance equipment, is indicted in a federal court for bringing illegal eavesdropping devices into the U.S. and selling them to the public. . . . Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who advocates physician-assisted suicide, attends his 25th suicide when Esther Cohan, 46, of Skokie, Illinois, who was suffering from multiple sclerosis and painful ulcers, dies.

Judge J. Robert Elliott of the U.S. District Court in Columbus, Georgia, imposes a $115 million fine on E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. for concealing evidence during a 1993 trial about potential crop and plant damage caused by the company’s Benlate fungicide.

Judge Thomas Jackson approves a 1994 antitrust settlement between the Justice Department and Microsoft Corp. . . . A commuter plane crash-lands near Carollton, Georgia, killing five people and injuring the other 24 passengers and crew. . . . Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, 84, Indian-born astrophysicist who won the 1983 Nobel Prize and is known for his studies on dying stars, dies in Chicago, Illinois, of a heart attack.

Rep. Mel Reynolds (D, Ill.) is convicted by a Cook County jury in Chicago of sexual assault, criminal sexual abuse, solicitation of child pornography, and obstruction of justice. The charges stem from accusations that he had sex with a teenage campaign worker.

Former Sen. David Durenberger (R, Minn.) pleads guilty to five misdemeanor charges of cheating on his Senate expense account. As a result of a plea arrangement with the Justice Department, the felony charges against Durenberger are dropped and no prison sentence is recommended. . . . A three-judge panel of the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, agree to let the federal government store 157 spent nuclear-fuel rods at a South Carolina military installation.

The FDA proposes a new program under which pharmacies will voluntarily provide to patients information on the side effects of prescription drugs. . . . Statistics show that scores on the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) increased in 1995 after the College Board changed the test’s format. The average score on the verbal section went from 423 to 428 while the average math score went from 479 to 482, the highest score since 1973.

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Aug. 21

Helen Darville, the 1995 winner of Australia’s top literary prize, the Miles Franklin Award, reveals that she had assumed a false name, ethnic identity, and cultural background when she wrote the prizewinning book that depicts Ukraine during World War II. Observers claim that her misrepresentations may have deceptively influenced judges.

Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke names U.S. Army brigadier general Donald Kerrick, James Pardew, Christopher Hill, and Roberts Owen to replace the diplomats who died Aug. 19 in a car crash near Sarajevo, Bosnia. . . . Officials from the Department of Labor and the INS raid three Los Angeles–area garment factories suspected of employing workers in sweatshop conditions. The agents arrest 55 people, including 39 Thai workers.

Alfred Eisenstaedt, 96, photographer who contributed to Life magazine for nearly 60 years and was most famous for a photograph of a sailor kissing a nurse in NYC’s Times Square during celebrations at the end of World War II, dies in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, of unreported causes.

At least nine members of Congress call on Rep. Mel Reynolds (D, Ill.), convicted Aug. 22, to resign from the House. . . . The CDC reports that more toddlers have been vaccinated than previously believed, but that a quarter of toddlers in the U.S. still are not adequately immunized.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court orders the suspension of a program that gives poor students in the city of Milwaukee public funds to pay for tuition at private religious schools. The program will be suspended until the court makes a ruling on its constitutionality. The Wisconsin voucher program would have been the first in the U.S. to provide vouchers for religious schools.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Reports show that the ratio of strains of a common disease-causing bacterium that are resistant to antibiotics has risen significantly in recent years. . . . Microsoft launches the retail sale of Windows 95 amid what many experts call the largest product advertising campaign ever.

Vatican officials report that Pope John Paul II has chosen Mary Ann Glendon as the first woman to head the Vatican’s delegation to the UN Conference on Women to be held in Beijing. . . Gary Evan Crosby, 62, singer, actor, author, and son of Bing Crosby, dies in Burbank, California, of lung cancer.

The Clinton administration announces that First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton will attend an international conference on women’s issues in China.

The campaign spokesman for Sen. Robert Dole (R, Kans.), Nelson Warfield, announces that the Dole campaign returned a donation from the Log Cabin Republicans, a group of homosexual Republicans. Warfield states that the senator felt obligated to return the $1,000 contribution because he disagrees with some of the group’s political positions, particularly the Log Cabin group’s support for lifting the ban on homosexuals in the military.

Aug. 22

Aug. 23

Aug. 24

Aug. 25

Officials from the Justice Department report that the government has signed an agreement with the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union that calls for a monitoring board to scrutinize the union’s alleged corruption and purported ties to organized crime.

Evelyn Wood, 86, creator of a world-renowned method for learning speed reading, dies in Tucson, Arizona, of unreported causes. . . . Ronnie White, 57, songwriter and musician, dies in Detroit, Michigan, of leukemia. . . . A team from Taiwan wins baseball’s Little League World Series over a team from Spring, Texas.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 26

772—August 27–September 1, 1995

Aug. 27

World Affairs

Europe

The Inter-Parliamentary Union, a Geneva-based organization, finds that the percentage of women elected to national legislatures worldwide declined by almost 25% in the previous seven years.

French police find an undetonated bomb containing 55 pounds (25 kg) of explosives on railroad tracks outside Lyons. . . . Carl Ronald Giles, 78, British cartoonist for London’s Daily Express and Sunday Express newspapers, dies in London after suffering a stroke.

Thirty-seven civilians are killed and more than 80 are wounded when two mortar shells, apparently fired by Bosnian Serbs, hit a marketplace in Sarajevo, the besieged capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Separately, a detachment of 250 British, Ukrainian, and Norwegian peacekeepers complete their withdrawal from the Gorazde safe area in southeastern Bosnia. . . . Michael Ende, 65, German author of children’s books who is best known for his book The Neverending Story (1979), dies in Stuttgart, Germany, of stomach cancer.

Aug. 28

Aug. 29

Aug. 30

In retaliation for the Aug. 28 attack in Sarajevo, more than 60 NATO warplanes bomb Bosnian Serb military positions near the city, in the largest action by NATO forces in the alliance’s history. Forty-eight of the warplanes are U.S. Air Force or Navy craft, with the rest provided by Britain, France, Spain, and the Netherlands. . . . A UN-sanctioned gathering that parallels the upcoming United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women opens in the Chinese town of Huairou.

Aug. 31

Sept. 1

French navy commandos in the South Pacific storm two protest ships belonging to Greenpeace to prevent the vessels from approaching the site of planned nuclear tests.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Members of a renegade native group, the Shushwap Traditionalists, who are occupying a campsite in British Columbia, exchange gunfire with police officers. The dispute revolves around claims that the area is sacred Indian land. . . . In an unofficial EZLN-sponsored nationwide referendum, Mexicans vote in favor of the EZLN gaining political status. However, only 1.2 million people, or 3% of Mexico’s eligible voters, participate in the referendum. The Rwandan parliament votes to back a motion, proposed by Pres. Pasteur Bizimungu, for the dismissal of Premier Faustin Twagiramungu. The departure of Twagiramungu, a moderate Hutu, comes amid a growing crisis involving refugees in neighboring Zaire and heightened fears among Hutu refugees who have refused to return to Rwanda.

Georgian head of state Eduard Shevardnadze is slightly wounded when a car bomb goes off near his motorcade in the capital city, Tbilisi, in an apparent assassination attempt. . . . A state court in Berlin, Germany, sentences neo-Nazi Bela Ewald Althans to 31⁄2 years in prison for denying that the Holocaust ever took place, a crime under German law.

At least 16 banana plantation workers are killed by gunmen in the region of Uraba in northwestern Colombia. Officials believe that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) is responsible for the massacre and that the guerrillas also kidnapped seven people.

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam guerrillas hijack a ferry near Mullaittivu, a village on the northeast coast of Sri Lanka. The vessel, is carrying approximately 130 passengers. . . . Japan announces that it will suspend direct foreign aid to China as a form of protest against China’s testing of nuclear weapons, particularly the Aug. 17 test.

NATO forces launch their first air strike in darkness at about 2:00 A.M. local time. That bombing run is the first of six flown by NATO jets before sundown. One NATO plane, a French Mirage 2000 fighter jet, is downed near Pale by a hand-held surface-to-air missile.

In response to the Aug. 29 killings of plantation workers in Uraba, northwestern Colombia, a general strike is held by the 11,000-member Union of Agrarian Workers in an attempt to pressure the government to provide better security in the violent Uraba region.

Rebels from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam who seized a ferry on Aug. 29 sink two Sri Lankan military vessels investigating why the ferry is anchored offshore. Most of the 28 members of the two gunboats’ crew are thought to have been killed in the attack.

At least two NATO air strikes are flown over Sarajevo in BosniaHerzegovina. . . . French police in Lyons and Paris arrest 20 Muslim fundamentalists, reportedly in connection with recent bombings.

Pierre Celestin Rwigema, a moderate Hutu and the former education minister, is sworn in as Rwanda’s new premier. . . . Tens of thousands of Liberians gather in the streets of Monrovia, Liberia’s capital, to celebrate the peace agreement signed Aug. 19.

NATO forces bring the round of bombing that started Aug. 30 to a halt at 5:00 A.M. local time at the request of French lieutenant general Bernard Janvier, the commander of UN forces in the former Yugoslavia. . . . In Paris, 260 protesters attempting to deliver an anti-nuclear testing petition with 3.3 million signatures to Pres. Chirac are detained during a banned rally.

In Liberia, a new six-member interim ruling council is formally sworn in under the terms of the Aug. 19 peace plan. The council members include Liberia’s three primary militia leaders—Charles Taylor, George E. Boley, and Alhaji Kromah—as well as three civilians. . . . Libyan head of state Colonel Muammer Gadhafi announces his intention to expel thousands of Palestinians in protest of efforts by the PLO to achieve peace with Israel.

Beant Singh, chief minister of India’s Punjab state, is killed by a car bomb outside the main government building in Chandigargh, the state capital. The blast kills at least 12 other people and injures 18 others. Leaders of Babbar Khalsa International, a militant Sikh separatist group, claim responsibility for the bombing. H. S. Brar, Punjab’s health and family welfare minister, is sworn in as Singh’s successor.

An Ontario Court finds Paul Bernardo, 31, guilty of the kidnapping, rape, torture, and first-degree murder of two teenaged girls in 1991 and 1992. The sensational trial received much attention, partially because of Bernardo’s ex-wife, Karla Homolka, 25, who described helping Bernardo kidnap and sexually abuse Leslie Mahaffy, 14, and Kristen French, 15. Homolka, as a result of a 1993 plea bargain, is serving a 12year sentence, a bargain struck before the discovery of videotapes that show Homolka taking part in the torture of the victims.

In Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, China holds ceremonies marking the 30th anniversary of its formal rule over Tibet, vowing to quash the separatist movement led by the Dalai Lama, the exiled Buddhist spiritual leader. Nine women exiles from Tibet stage a demonstration protesting repressive Chinese rule in Tibet, wearing silk scarves as symbolic gags.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

August 27–September 1, 1995—773

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The SEC announces that it will continue to offer its database of corporate information free on the Internet global computer network after current funding for project expires Sept. 30.

Chemical Banking Corp. and Chase Manhattan Corp. announce the largest bank merger in U.S. history, involving a stock swap worth about $10 billion. The deal will create the largest bank in the U.S., which is to be known as Chase Manhattan.

Aug. 27

Fashion designer Calvin Klein withdraws a controversial advertising campaign, which critics argued resembled auditions for pornographic films. . . . At the top of the bestseller list is From Potter’s Field by Patricia Cornwell.

The Consortium on Productivity in the Schools states that U.S. public schools do not use effectively the $285 billion received yearly from the federal government. One of its recommendations is to give schools and teachers more autonomy. . . . The Census Bureau finds that the proportion of people in the U.S. who were born in foreign countries increased to 8.7% in 1994, up from 7.9% four years earlier. The 1994 figure is the highest foreign-born percentage since 1940.

Aug. 29

A severed leg and foot are discovered in the rubble of the federal building in Oklahoma City that was bombed in April. Officials determine that the decomposed leg is not that of any of the 167 known blast victims, thus bringing the death toll to 168, not including a nurse who died of a head injury incurred during the rescue effort.

Sterling Morrison, 53, rock guitarist and cofounder of the New York City–based band the Velvet Underground, dies in Poughkeepsie, New York, of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

In Washington, D.C., federal district judge Royce C. Lamberth rules that a provision of a 1848 law allowing U.S. citizens to be extradited to foreign countries to face prosecution is unconstitutional. . . . Federal prosecutors present a check for more than $500,000 to the Justice Department’s Crime Victims Fund. The money comes from assets confiscated from convicted spy Aldrich Hazen Ames after his February 1994 arrest. Rep. Mel Reynolds (D, Ill.) announces his resignation from the House, prompted by his Aug. 22 conviction of charges of sexual assault, soliciting child pornography, and obstructing justice stemming from his sexual relationship with an underage campaign worker.

Aug. 28

U.S. immigration judge John Gossart rules in Baltimore, Maryland, that Emmanuel Constant, a former Haitian paramilitary leader, be deported to Haiti to face criminal charges. Constant is wanted in Haiti on charges of rape, torture, and murder. . . . Statistics suggest that the number of applicants for naturalization rose 225% in the previous five years. . . . The Army Criminal Investigation Command reveals that no commanders or instructors involved in the February deaths of four U.S. Army Ranger trainees are guilty of criminal wrongdoing.

Reports indicate that a combination of two widely available prescription drugs can be used to safely and effectively induce abortions in the early stages of pregnancy. Researchers caution doctors not to perform the procedure until further research has been done. . . . A unit of the NIH advises that high doses of the short-acting form of the heart drug nifedipine should be used “with great caution, if at all.” SEC rules that make it mandatory for mutual-fund companies to disclose the average commission rate they pay brokerage firms for buying and selling stocks and bonds go into effect. . . . Data shows that the purchasing managers’ index dropped to 46.9% in August, a decline from the revised July rate of 50.5%. A measure above 50% indicates an expanding manufacturing sector, and 44.5% or higher indicates overall economic expansion.

Aug. 30

Aug. 31

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio, is inaugurated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by 50,000 people.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 1

774—September 2–6, 1995

World Affairs

Sept. 3

Sept. 4

Sept. 5

Sept. 6

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Vaclav Neumann, 74, chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, 1968–90, dies in Vienna, Austria, of unreported causes.

A British Royal Air Force airplane nose-dives into Lake Ontario near Toronto, Canada, crashing within sight of hundreds of spectators at an aircraft exhibition. The crash kills all seven of the plane’s British crewmen. . . . The U.S. officially turns over two bases, Fort Davis and Fort Espinar, to Panama, as provided for in the 1977 Panama Canal Treaties. . . . A boat carrying 47 Cuban exiles on their way to a protest at the edge of Cuban territorial waters sinks. One person dies.

The Hezb-e-Islami forces of renegade Gen. Abdul Rashid Doestam reportedly launch air attacks on the Shindand air base in Afghanistan. . . . Data shows that Sydney, the capital of New South Wales, has set a city record of 48 days without rain.

Protests against France’s plans for nuclear testing in the South Pacific continue as French commandos board a third protest ship, the Kidu sailboat. An unidentified 33-year-old Spaniard hijacks a French airplane en route to Paris in an apparent protest against the testing. The hijacker surrenders in Geneva, Switzerland, freeing all 298 people aboard the plane.

UN peacekeeping troops open a road through Sarajevo’s airport that links Sarajevo to the Bosnian government-controlled road across nearby Mount Igman. The move is considered significant because UN troops previously have not taken any such action without permission from Bosnian Serbs. A food convoy enters the city. . . . In France, a detonator on a malfunctioning bomb explodes in a Paris market, causing minor injuries to four people.

In the northwestern region of Uraba, Colombia violence continues, and leftist guerrillas are suspected of the murders of 10 soldiers. . . . In the village of Tepoztlán, 30 miles (50 km) south of Mexico City, Mexico’s capital, provincial authorities send riot police to activists demonstrating against the planned construction of a golf course and computer center. The protesters take six state government officials hostage and barricade the town.

The Hezb-e-Islami forces of renegade general Abdul Rashid Doestam launch air attacks on Herat in Aghanistan. . . . Reports confirm that the Indian publisher of the Salman Rushdie’s latest novel, which presents a highly critical parody of Bal Thackeray, leader of Shiv Sena, an extreme nationalist and anti-Muslim political party, has decided not to release the book in India’s Maharashtra state. Rushdie has been living under police protection since his 1989 novel The Satanic Verses prompted Islamic fundamentalists to order his execution.

The UN Fourth World Conference on Women convenes in Beijing, China’s capital, and is attended by official delegations from 185 countries. . . . In the South Pacific, four protestors in two inflatable rafts are detained by French commandos. The four protesters, all members of Greenpeace, carry a protest letter addressed to Vice Admiral Philippe Euverte, the head of French naval forces in the South Pacific.

Bosnian Serbs fail to meet a NATO deadline to remove heavy artillery that surrounded the besieged capital of Sarajevo. . . . General Edmond Jouhaud, 90, French military leader who was involved in a 1961 attempted coup against Pres. Charles de Gaulle over the issue of Algerian independence, dies in Royan, France, of unreported causes.

Members of the 11,000-member Union of Agrarian Workers, striking since Aug. 30 in an attempt to pressure the government to provide better security in the violent Uraba region in Colombia, return to their jobs. . . . Gunfire is exchanged between Canadian police and the Shushwap Traditionalists, a renegade native group occupying a campsite in British Columbia. Separately, Chippewa protestors occupy Ipperwash Park, contending it is a sacred Indian burial ground.

Separatist fighters in India’s disputed Jammu and Kashmir state detonate a car bomb that kills at least 13 people and wounds 25 others in Srinagar, the state capital. Members of the guerrilla group Hizbul Mujaheddin, or Fighters of the Party of God, claim responsibility. . . . Afghanistan government troops reportedly initiate a counteroffensive in an effort to retake the Shindand base, which was the government’s second-largest air base.

French defense minister Charles Millon announces that France has detonated a nuclear device in the first of a series of planned tests. The underground explosion was conducted at the Mururoa Atoll in the South Pacific, where an international flotilla of ships has gathered to protest France’s decision to resume nuclear testing.

NATO warplanes resume their bombing raids against Bosnian Serb military positions near Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police move four armored vehicles to a remote area near Gustafsen Lake, about 280 miles (450 km) northeast of Vancouver, British Columbia, to protect its lines and try to force an end to a confrontation between police and the Shushwap Traditionalists.

The opposition Taliban militia captures Herat, a strategic city in western Afghanistan, as government troops flee the largely student forces without firing a shot. The Taliban militia establishes a new local government in Herat. Pres. Rabbani accuses Pakistan of backing Taliban rebels fighting government forces in the western regions of Afghanistan.

In response to the Sept. 5 announcement, of France’s detonation of a nuclear device, international antinuclear protests are held in several countries, and activists in The Hague, the Netherlands, attempt to block the entrance to the French embassy. Riots break out during a protest at the main terminal of the international airport in Papeete, the capital of Tahiti. Austrian police are forced to use tear gas to prevent demonstrators from scaling the walls of the French embassy in Vienna. New Zealand and Chile recall their ambassadors to France for consultation.

Ten people are arrested in the town of Torquay, in southern England, in connection with an international fraud ring, which allegedly bilked investors of an estimated £100 million ($156 million) largely through the sale of bogus certificates of credit. . . . The London Stock Exchange announces that it will unilaterally terminate a contract with a stock-brokerage firm and computer company that would have allowed customers to buy and sell shares on the Internet global computer network.

Police in Ontario, Canada, shoot and kill Anthony George, a member of the Chippewa Indian nation during a standoff started Sept. 4 at the Ipperwash Provincial Park near the border with the U.S. state of Michigan. The fatal shooting is thought to be the first of an Indian by Canadian authorities in about 100 years. . . . Protesters who took hostages Sept. 3 in the village of Tepoztlán, 30 miles (50 km) south of Mexico City, agree to release the hostages in exchange for the resignation of Mayor Morales, who steps down. . . . Haitian officials allege that the smugglers who landed in the Bahamas on Aug. 20 threw at least 100 migrants overboard when the vessel began to take on water. . . . Hurricane Luis, a 700mile-wide storm, wreaks havoc on eastern Caribbean islands. Hardest hit are Antigua and Barbuda, where some 75% of buildings are damaged and initial damage estimates are placed at $300 million.

In Sri Lanka, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam who hijacked a ferry near Mullaittivu on Aug. 29 release most of the ferry passengers to Red Cross officials. . . . Although reports confirm that Pakistan has denied any involvement in the fighting in Afghanistan, several thousand Afghan protesters, armed with clubs and steel rods, descend upon Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul. The demonstrators break into the embassy and set fire to the building. One embassy worker and one protester are killed, and more than 20 other embassy employees are injured.

Sept. 2

Europe

The city of Jerusalem, under the leadership of right-wing mayor Ehud Olmert, opens a 15-month-long celebration of the 3,000th anniversary of the conquest of Jerusalem by King David, the second monarch of the ancient kingdom of Israel. Palestinian Arabs and Western European governments boycott the event, maintaining that its symbolism is skewed in favor of Jewish interests.

In the Libyan city of Benghazi, violence breaks out between Muslim militants and Libyan security forces. The clashes stem from Libyan security forces’ attempts to gather foreign workers for deportation.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

September 2–6, 1995—775

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

A strike against the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News takes a violent turn as protestors clash with police.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle At the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 57,000 people attend a seven-hour concert. . . . Infinity Broadcasting Corp., the company that employs Howard Stern, agrees to pay $1.715 million to settle charges brought by the FCC in the largest settlement ever involving allegations of indecent broadcasts.

Sept. 2

Sept. 3

William Moses Kunstler, 76, radical lawyer best known for his defense of political activists and high-profile defendants during the 1960s, such as Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., dies in New York City of cardiac arrest.

In a speech in Pleasanton, California, Pres. Clinton announces that the federal government will award $3.4 million to a consortium to help it convert the defunct Alameda Naval Air Station into an electric car plant. . . . Violence during the strikes against the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News reportedly draws police in riot gear to use tear gas to disperse the strikers trying to block trucks from delivering newspapers. Several strikers are injured, and more than 30 are arrested.

Reports confirm that one school each in Wichita, Kansas; Boston, Massachusetts; and Mount Clemens, Michigan, have adopted Whittle Communications L.P.’s Edison Project, a new program guided by the philosophy that public schools will be more effective if they were privately run. The U.S. George Washington Elementary School in Sherman, Texas, is the fourth school in the project and opened Aug. 1.

The Senate passes, 62-35, a $242.7 billion fiscal 1996 appropriations bill for the Defense Department. . . . The Dalai Lama of Tibet begins a tour of several U.S. cities.

A GAO study finds that 80% of the people who live within 1 mile (1.6 km) of an urban waste site in the U.S. are white. This study compares to a widely reported 1987 survey conducted by the United Church of Christ which asserted that minorities are more likely than whites to live near dump sites.

The Senate Select Committee on Ethics votes, 6-0, to recommend the expulsion of Sen. Bob Packwood, (R, Oreg.), citing its conclusions that Packwood engaged in sexual misconduct, influence peddling, and obstruction of the committee’s investigation of his conduct. Under Senate rules, expulsion is the most severe punishment that the panel can recommend. No senators have been expelled since the Civil War. . . . The Senate Judiciary subcommittee on terrorism, technology, and government information opens hearings into a 1992 standoff between federal agents and white separatist Randall Weaver that took place at Weaver’s cabin in Idaho’s remote Ruby Ridge area.

The Senate passes, 64-34, a $265.3 billion defense-authorization bill, which sets policy and specifies the programs that the military will develop.

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt reluctantly signs over the title to 110 acres of federal land in Clark County, Idaho, to a Danish mining company. In accordance with the 1872 Mining Act, the land, estimated to hold more than $1 billion worth of minerals, was sold to Faxe Kalk Inc. for $275. At a news conference in Washington, D.C., Babbitt calls the failure of the Congress to revise the law a “flagrant abuse of the public trust.”. . . The House passes, 305-101, a $2.2 billion fiscal 1996 appropriations bill for the legislative branch.

Sept. 4

A task force appointed by Pres. Clinton recommends that information transmitted over computer networks be subject to copyright laws.

Reports confirm that Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman has won the second annual Dorothy and Lilian Gish Prize.

Buster Mathis, 51, heavyweight boxer who defeated Joe Frazier in the final heavyweight bout of the 1964 U.S. Olympic trials but was prevented from competing in the games due to an injury, dies in Grand Rapids, Michigan, of heart failure. . . . The FCC decides to lift immediately all rules that prevented national TV networks from competing in the syndicated TV market. . . . Shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. plays in his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking one of MLB’s most celebrated records. Pres. Clinton, Vice Pres. Al Gore, Joe DiMaggio, and a capacity crowd of 46,272 attend the game in Camden Yards, Maryland.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 5

Sept. 6

776—September 7–12, 1995

Sept. 7

Sept. 8

Europe

French Foreign Legionnaires are sent to Tahiti, from the Mururoa Atoll, to quell riots that started Sept. 6 in apparent protest of France’s nuclear tests.

A bomb 20 yards (18 m) from the entrance of the Jewish School of Lyons explodes only minutes before 700 children are scheduled to leave the building. The blast injures 14 people. The French government launches several emergency security measures. . . . The Supreme Court, Spain’s highest court, announces that Premier Felipe Gonzalez will not be subpoenaed in connection with antiterrorist death squads that operated in the 1980s. . . . British author Salman Rushdie makes his first preannounced public appearance since 1989 when he attends a literary panel discussion in London. The meeting is marked by high security.

In the northeastern city of Benghazi, at least 30 people reportedly are killed in clashes between Muslim militants and Libyan security forces that started Sept. 6.

The UN Security Council, in its review of Iraqi compliance with UN resolutions, extends trade sanctions against Iraq for at least 60 days. . . . The riots that started Sept. 6 in Tahiti come to an end when Oscar Temaru, leader of an independence movement in Tahiti, tells protesters to go home. The French government insists the riots were a protest against French rule in Tahiti organized by Temaru’s independence group. In the riots, the protesters set fire to cars, stores and the main terminal of the airport. More than 20 people were injured and 50 arrested.

The combatants in the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia agree to a pact aimed at ending the fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The peace plan will divide Bosnia into two parts, one controlled by a MuslimCroat federation and the other controlled by Serbs. The agreement is endorsed by the Muslim-dominated Bosnian government; Croatia; and Yugoslavia, acting on behalf of the Bosnian Serbs. NATO warplanes continue to bomb Bosnian Serb targets because the Bosnian Serb military has not removed any of the weapons from the zone.

Five masked assailants posing as Israeli army soldiers shoot dead one 25-year-old Palestinian man and terrorize others in the village of Halhoul, located just north of Hebron. The militant anti-Arab group Eyal, an offshoot of the late Meir Kahane’s Kach movement, claims responsibility for the attacks. Separately. Israeli and Palestinian negotiators acknowledge that talks for expanding limited Arab self-rule to wide areas of the West Bank have reached an impasse over Jewish settlers in the southern West Bank city of Hebron.

French police arrest 31 suspected Muslim militants in the Lyons area.

Sept. 9

Sept. 12

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific A package bomb explodes in the BBC’s office in Srinagar, India. Three journalists are wounded in the blast.

The Mexican federal government orders developers to temporarily suspend the planned construction of a golf course and computer center on the western border of the village of Tepoztlán, 30 miles (50 km) south of Mexico City, Mexico’s capital. The government’s action follows angry and often violent protests by residents of Tepoztlán that led to the resignation of the town’s mayor Sept. 6.

Some 30 gunmen open fire on a crowd at an Independence Day party in the Turano Hill shantytown in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, killing at least 10 people.

The U.S. warship USS Normandy, under NATO command, fires 13 self-propelled Tomahawk cruise missiles at Serb targets near Banja Luka to compel the Bosnian Serb military to remove its weapons from Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Jewish settlers in Hebron, with the intention of taking down a Palestinian flag displayed at a Palestinian girls school, reportedly beat the school’s headmistress and also injure four students during a student demonstration.

The Nepalese parliament ousts the ruling Communist Party of Nepal (UML), in a no-confidence vote.

UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali contends that UN finances are diminishing in part because members pay their dues late or not at all, and that the safety of UN peacekeeping personnel worldwide is in jeopardy.

The Bosnian government army, the Croatian army, and Bosnian Croat forces launch a new offensive in western Bosnia. . . . French police in Paris, Lyons, and Grenoble arrest 40 alleged Muslim fundamentalists, reportedly in connection with recent bombings. . . . Repola Oy and Kymmene Corp. announce that they will merge their holdings to create the largest forest pulp and paper company in Europe. The merged group, UPM-Kymmene Corp., based in Helsinki, Finland, will be the thirdlargest forestry company in the world.

After a Rwandan army lieutenant is killed in an ambush, the Rwandan army sweeps through villages in northwestern Rwanda, near the border with Zaire. More than 100 men, women, and children are killed in the raids, which take place about 20 miles (32 km) east of the village of Gisenyi.

King Birendra appoints Nepal Congress leader Sher Bahadur Deuba, 49, to succeed Man Mohan Adhikary as prime minister.

The World Meteorological Organization, the UN’s weather agency, reports that the hole in the Earth’s ozone layer that appears seasonally over Antarctica is expanding at a record rate and is twice as large as it was in September 1994.

The Swiss Bankers’ Association, which represents all banks in Switzerland, announces that it has uncovered 40.9 million Swiss francs ($34 million) in 893 dormant accounts that belonged to victims of the Nazi Holocaust. . . . A Belarusian military helicopter shoots down a hydrogen balloon flying over Belarus during an international balloon race, killing the two Americans aboard, Alan Fraenckel, 55, and John StuartJervis, 68. The two other U.S. teams, each of which comprises two crew members, are taken into custody.

Hundreds of Palestinians are stranded at the border with Egypt after being expelled from Libya.

Sept. 10

Sept. 11

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

A bomb explodes in a bar in Montreal, Canada, injuring nine people, in an incident allegedly linked to a motorcycle-gang war.

The Philippine Supreme Court votes to uphold former first lady Imelda Marcos’s victory in congressional elections held in May.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

September 7–12, 1995—777

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Sen. Bob Packwood (R, Oreg.) announces his resignation from the Senate after the Sept. 6 Senate vote to expel him. Packwood has served in the Senate since 1969. The Senate Select Committee on Ethics releases thousands of pages of information it uncovered during the investigation. . . . In New York City the Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturns a 1994 ruling that found that Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, had discriminated against biology professor Cynthia J. Fisher when it denied her tenure in 1985.

The House passes, 294-125, a $244 billion fiscal 1996 appropriations bill for the Defense Department.

Some 5,000 truck drivers affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union go on strike against Ryder System Inc., after months of contract negotiations.

Research shows that people who take four to six aspirin weekly for 20 years significantly reduce their risk of developing colon and rectal cancer. . . . Data suggest that wider use of a blood-thinning drug, warfarin, may prevent 40,000 strokes each year in the U.S.

The first issue of George, a political magazine founded by John F. Kennedy Jr. and Michael J. Berman, is publicly unveiled in a press conference in New York City.

Sen. Bob Packwood (R, Oreg.) announces that his resignation from the Senate will take effect Oct. 1, and that he will immediately relinquish his position as chair of the Senate Finance Committee. . . . In Portland, Oregon, federal judge James Redden sentences Rachelle (Shelley) Shannon—who pled guilty in June to setting fires at and vandalizing six abortion clinics in California, Nevada, and Oregon in 1992 and 1993—to 20 years in prison. She is currently serving a 10-year state prison term for the 1993 attempted murder of a Wichita, Kansas, abortion doctor.

Officials indict six Thai and Laotian nationals on charges of harboring and employing illegal immigrants at the three California factories that were raided by the Department of Labor and the INS on Aug. 23.

The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, to conduct a mission to deploy and retrieve two satellites.

Candidates for the Republican presidential nomination address members of the Christian Coalition, a group of politically active conservative Christians, during its annual two-day convention.

Jamie Lloyd Whitten, 85, former Democratic congressman from Mississippi who served for 53 years in the House, the longest tenure ever, dies in Oxford, Mississippi, after suffering from heart problems and kidney failure.

Steffi Graf of Germany wins the women’s tennis title at the U.S. Open. . . . Figure skater Nancy Kerrigan, 25, weds her agent, Jerry Solomon, 41, in Boston, Massachusetts. . . . Reports state that the Interfaith Alliance has blasted the Christian Coalition for its “extreme agenda and its efforts to gain control of the Republican Party.” Pete Sampras wins the men’s tennis title at the U.S. Open. . . . At the Emmys, NYPD Blue wins for Best Drama Series, and Frasier for Comedy Series. The show E.R. wins a total of eight awards for its first season, tying a record set in 1981 by the drama Hill Street Blues.

In Oswego, New York, Judge Vincent Sgueglia sentences Waneta Hoyt, who was convicted in April of fatally smothering five of her infant children between 1965 and 1971, to 75 years to life in prison. . . . Charles J(ohnston) Hitch, 85, former president of the University of California, 1967–75, and official in the administrations of Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, dies in San Leandro, California, after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

Due to planned cuts in the appropriations bill for the Department of the Interior which will lessen funds for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), tribal leaders begin lobbying Congress and the White House and hold a protest vigil on the Mall in Washington, D.C.

The Weekly Standard, a weekly political magazine whose editor and publisher is Republican strategist William Kristol, premieres. The magazine was founded by Kristol, former New Republic editor Fred Barnes, and former White House speech writer John Podhoretz.

The Senate Finance Committee formally asks Sen. William Roth (R, Del.) to take over as chair, succeeding Sen. Bob Packwood (R, Oreg.). Sen. Ted Stevens (R, Ark.) takes over Roth’s chairmanship of the Governmental Affairs Committee.

The U.S. Postal Service announces that it will end fiscal 1995 with a budget surplus of $1.8 billion.

Jeremy Brett (born Peter Jeremy Huggins), 59, British actor best known for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes, dies in London of heart failure. . . . In Denver, Colorado, Judge John Kane in orders the Church of Scientology to return computer disks it seized from Lawrence Wollersheim and Robert Penny, who had criticized the church on an on-line computer bulletin board.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 7

Sept. 8

Sept. 9

Sept. 10

Sept. 11

Sept. 12

778—September 13–18, 1995

Sept. 13

Sept. 14

Sept. 15

World Affairs

Europe

Greece announces that it will formally recognize the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia and end a 19-month-long trade embargo against that Slavic country.

The U.S. embassy in central Moscow, Russia, is hit by a rocketpropelled grenade. The embassy is evacuated, but no injuries are reported. . . . Two of the U.S. balloonists taken into custody by Belarus on Sept. 12 are released.

Ukraine officially joins the Partnership for Peace initiative, a program to involve countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in NATO without giving them full membership.

Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic agrees to withdraw the Bosnian Serbs’ heavy weapons from within a 12.5-mile (20 km) exclusion zone around Sarajevo within six days. In response, NATO suspends its air strikes. . . . In Britain, Nuclear Electric PLC, a state-owned power company, is given a record fine of £250,000 ($388,750) for a 1993 incident. . . . Belarus apologizes for the Sept. 12 deaths of two U.S. balloonist, but argues that their balloon flew into close proximity to military bases.

The United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women closes, and after contentious debate, delegates representing more than 180 nations endorse by consensus a nonbinding “Platform for Action” intended to serve as a blueprint for promoting women’s rights worldwide into the next century. . . . The Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization ratifies an agreement that settles a sixmonth dispute between Canada and the EU over fishing in international waters.

Belarus releases the last U.S. balloon team it took into custody Sept. 12. . . . Sarajevo’s airport reopens to humanitarian aid flights.

Sept. 16

Sept. 17

Sept. 18

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nationssponsored organization of 2,500 scientists responsible for advising signatories to a 1992 environmental pact, assert that a current trend in the warming of the Earth’s atmosphere is likely to cause significant economic, social, and environmental upheavals by the end of the 21st century, if emissions of greenhouse gases are not reduced.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

A powerful blast damages an apartment building in Gaza City, killing Ibrahim Naffar, who is reportedly a member of the military wing of Hamas.

Hurricane Marilyn strikes the Caribbean island of Barbados.

A military transport plane crashes off the western coast of Sri Lanka, killing all 80 military personnel aboard. . . . The Philippine government signs an agreement under which people who suffered humanrights abuses during the tenure of Pres. Ferdinand Marcos, which ended in 1986, will receive $100 million.

Pope John Paul II begins a tour of Africa.

Hurricane Ismael, a Pacific Ocean storm, strikes the state of Sinaloa in northwestern Mexico, killing more than 100 people.

Hurricane Marilyn hits the U.S. Virgin Islands with sustained winds of 100 miles per hour, destroying about a third of the homes on the island of St. Thomas.

Bosnian Serbs begin removing their heavy weapons from around Sarajevo, the capital of BosniaHerzegovina, in compliance with a NATO ultimatum.

An Islamic court in the United Arab Emirates sentences a Filipina maid, Sarah Balabagan, 16, to death for the 1994 murder of her employer, Almas Al-Baloushi. Balabagan’s death sentence draws strong protests from Filipinos, who, since the March hanging of a Filipina maid in Singapore, have been pressing the Philippine government to take measures to ensure the safety of maids working abroad.

In the wake of Hurricane Marilyn, Pres. Clinton declares the U.S. Virgin Islands a disaster area. In all, the storm killed at least eight people.

Parties opposing Sweden’s membership in the European Union make significant advances in the country’s first national vote for the European Parliament, the legislative branch of the EU. . . . Hundreds of people gather outside the U.S. embassy in Moscow to protest the NATO air raids against Serbs in BosniaHerzegovina.

An independent candidate for upcoming elections, Abdelmajid Benhadid, 50, is shot to death in Boudouaou, east of Algiers, the capital of Algeria.

A tense standoff between armed Native American protesters and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the Gustafsen Lake area of British Columbia ends without violence after medicine man John Stevens meets with the rebel group. In a separate instance, native protesters occupying the Ipperwash Provincial Park in southern Ontario reach an agreement with provincial police to allow a civilian special investigation unit to look into the fatal shooting of Anthony George by police on Sept. 6.

Georgian head of state Eduard Shevardnadze announces a plan to introduce a new Georgian currency, the lari, which will be pegged to the U.S. dollar, to replace Georgia’s provisional currency, the coupon, by Oct. 2. . . . The German government agrees to pay 11 U.S. survivors of Nazi concentration camps $2.1 million in reparations. The agreement comes after a 41-year legal battle by one of the survivors, Hugo Princz.

Michio Watanabe, 72, former foreign minister of Japan who was elected to the Japanese Diet in 1963 and remained in office until his death, dies in Tokyo of heart failure.

In legislative elections, Hong Kong voters deal a blow to China-backed candidates. Shortly after polls open, the New China News Agency reiterates the Chinese government’s vow to dissolve the new legislature in 1997 and to replace it with a provisional body with deputies selected by China.

Final tallies show that Hong Kong’s Democratic Party, led by lawyer Martin Lee, took 19 of the 25 seats its members had contested, making it the largest single party in the legislature.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

September 13–18, 1995—779

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Jimmie Wayne Jeffers, 49, convicted of killing his former girlfriend in 1976 in a Tucson, Arizona, motel room, is executed by lethal injection in Florence, Arizona. Jeffers is only the fourth inmate in Arizona and the 296th in the U.S. to be put to death since 1976.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

In Eugene, Oregon, U.S. District Court judge Michael Hogan rules that a budget resolution passed by Congress in July mandates the release of forests that the administration has since set aside for the protection of wildlife and water quality.

House Republican leaders unveil details of their proposed legislation to overhaul Medicare, the federal health-insurance program for the elderly, and it ignites rancorous partisan disagreement.

Government lawyers file a notice in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., stating that the government will resume extraditing accused criminals to foreign countries, pending the outcome of an appeal of Judge Royce Lamberth’s ruling in August.

In Nassau County, New York, Judge Jack Mackston sentences Joseph Buttafuoco, who is on probation for the statutory rape of teenager Amy Fisher, to a minimum of 67 days in jail for violating his probation when he solicited a Los Angeles police officer posing as a prostitute in May.

U.S. District Court judge Royce C. Lamberth, who in August struck down a law that allowed the U.S. to extradite accused criminals to other countries, widens that ruling to bar the government from sending any suspects to another country. The decision applies to both U.S. citizens wanted in foreign countries and foreign fugitives who have fled to the U.S.

The Dow closes at a record high of 4801.80. It is the third consecutive day that the Dow reaches a record high at closing.

Sept. 13

Research suggests that the use of the anti-AIDS drug AZT (zidovudine) alone is less effective than another drug, didanosine (ddI), and less effective than AZT used in combination with either ddI or zalcitabine (ddC). . . . A study finds that women who are mildly to moderately overweight, or who experience mild to moderate weight gain in middle age, increase their risk of premature death. A separate study finds that nonsmoking men who are 20–40 pounds over their optimal weight increase their mortality rates.

Sept. 14

Major electronics companies agree on a standard format for digital disks that will be capable of storing video, sound, and computer data.

Sept. 15

Astronauts James S. Voss, 46, and Michael L. Gernhardt, 39, leave the space shuttle Endeavour for six hours and 46 minutes while they walk in space.

Sept. 16

Sept. 17

A Suffolk County, New York, judge, John J. Jones Jr., sentences serial killer Joel Rifkin to 50 years in prison for the fatal strangulations of two women whom he buried in Southampton, New York. The sentence will be served after Rifkin finishes a 27-year term he received in June in a separate murder case.

The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour touches down on the airstrip at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, after carrying out a mission during which the crew deployed and retrieved two satellites and two astronauts walked in space, in preparation for the planned construction of an internationally operated space station.

Donald Alfred Davie, 73, British poet and literary critic, dies in Exeter, England, of cancer. . . . NBA team owners end their 79-day player lockout after both sides approve a six-year, $5 billion labor contract.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 18

780—September 19–24, 1995

Sept. 19

Europe

Delegates from the 185 member nations of the United Nations convene in New York City for the opening of the 50th UN General Assembly. Among the assembly’s first actions is the election of Diogo Freitas do Amaral, former deputy premier of Portugal, as president, succeding Amara Essy of the Ivory Coast.

The Bosnian government and the Bosnian Croats, under intense pressure from the Western allies, agree to halt the offensive in western and central Bosnia. . . . Reports confirm that Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev has issued a decree that will move Kazakhstan’s capital from its current location, Almaty, in the south to Akmola, in the country’s northern tip. Analysts suggest the planned move is a bid by Nazarbayev to thwart separatist sentiment among Kazakhstan’s ethnic Russians, who make up the majority of the population in the region around Akmola.

Jabari Rizah, 29, commandeers an airliner while en route from Teheran, Iran’s capital, to the Iranian island resort of Kish in the Persian Gulf. Rizah forces the pilot of the plane to land at Israel’s Ovda air force base, located about 18 miles (30 km) north of Eilat, a resort town. Rizah surrenders to Israeli authorities immediately upon landing. . . . An estimated 300,000 people attend an outdoor mass held by Pope John Paul in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital.

The death toll from Hurricane Ismael, which struck the state of Sinaloa in northwestern Mexico on Sept. 14 stands at more than 90, many of whom were fishermen on ships off the coast of Sinaloa taken by surprise by the storm that arrived hours earlier than expected.

Some 160,000 Turkish workers strike to protest the government’s austerity measures. The CHP, part of the ruling coalition, breaks with the government. Tansu Ciller, Turkey’s first female premier, resigns. . . . A bomb explodes on a bridge, injuring one official and one guard in the convoy carrying Russian diplomats to the Chechnya talks. . . . In Makhachkala, the capital of the Russian republic of Dagestan, two gunmen take 18 hostages aboard a bus.

The government of Israel allows the Iranian jet that was hijacked Sept. 19 to return to Iran with all of its passengers and crew. Five passengers reportedly had asylum requests turned down by Israeli authorities. . . . The government of Egypt discloses that two mass graves were discovered in the Sinai Desert that contain the remains of as many as 60 Egyptian POWs and unarmed noncombatants shot to death by Israeli troops during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

At least 24 banana plantation workers are killed while on their way to work in the northwestern region of Uraba, Colombia, in an apparent attack by leftist guerrillas.

Sept. 20

Sept. 21

Sept. 22

Sept. 23

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

UN and NATO officials confirm that Serb weapons have been removed from around Sarajevo in BosniaHerzegovina, and that NATO has no plans to resume its bombing campaign.

In Bosnia-Herzegovina, fighting is reported around the Serb-held stronghold of Banja Luka, which the Serbs have vowed to defend if attacked. Separately, regular ground shipments of relief supplies begin to reach Sarajevo. . . . Russian commandos free the 18 hostages aboard a bus that was hijacked on Sept. 20 in Makhachkala, the capital of the southern Russian republic of Dagestan.

The UN International Court of Justice in The Hague, the Netherlands, decides not to grant New Zealand’s request to place an interim ban on France’s nuclear tests.

Leaders of the European Union’s 15 member nations affirm that they will adhere to the current guidelines for attaining economic and monetary union (EMU) by 1999.

Asia & the Pacific

Japan unveils its largest-ever economic-stimulus package, worth 14.2 trillion yen ($137 billion).

Three members of the Jokers motorcycle gang, affiliated with the Hells Angels, are killed in Montreal, Canada. The incident brings to 25 the number of deaths in the past year, and half are related to Montreal’s ongoing motorcycle gang war. . . . The Canadian Supreme Court rules that the Tobacco Products Control Act, a 1988 law that banned tobacco advertising, violates free expression and is unconstitutional.

A constituent assembly elected in March 1994 in Uganda enacts a new constitution.

The Albanian parliament passes legislation to bar from office members of Albania’s former communist government, which was in power until 1991. The new law also bars from public office people who collaborated with the secret police, known as the Sigurimi.

A French teenager on a rampage kills 11 people and then himself in what are described as the worst multiple murders in France since 1989. The teenager is identified by police as Eric Borel, 16.

Sept. 24

The Americas

The Alberta government announces that in the future it will pay for abortions only in cases in which the procedure is determined to be “medically necessary.” Alberta’s decision makes it the first province in Canada to pledge to restrict a woman’s access to abortion.

It is the first day free of tropical storms in nearly two months in the Caribbean.

Reports suggest that, earlier in September, anti-Muslim demonstrators burned the Comoro market in Dili, East Timor. Reports also state that rioting occurred in the towns of Viqueque and Maliana, after a Muslim warden at a Maliana jail allegedly insulted the Roman Catholic religion, the predominant faith among East Timorese. . . . The Mount Ruapehu volcano on New Zealand’s North Island erupts.

Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) reach agreement on the pivotal second stage of interim Palestinian autonomy, setting terms for an Israeli military pullback from Palestinian cities and villages in the West Bank and the transfer of administrative authority to some 1 million Arabs, as a prelude to elections for a Palestinian legislative council.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

September 19–24, 1995—781

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The Senate approves, 87-12, the broadest overhaul of the social welfare system in 60 years, which will save an estimated $65 billion over seven years. . . The Washington Post publishes a manifesto by the Unabomber, who is linked to bombing incidents spanning 17 years. The bomber sent the manuscript in late June, seeking its publication in return for an end to his fatal bombings. . . . Data shows that programs that encourage drug addicts to exchange used needles for new ones greatly reduces the spread of HIV, and does not increase drug use. Charles Albanese, 58, convicted of the 1980 fatal poisonings of his father and two other relatives, is executed by lethal injection in Joliet, Illinois. He is only the sixth convict executed in Illinois and is the 298th executed in the U.S. since 1976.

The House passes, 236-98, the final version of an appropriations bill allocating $11.2 billion for spending on military construction in fiscal 1996.

The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals rules that the Village of Airmont, New York, violated provisions of the Fair Housing Act and the First Amendment rights of Hasidic Jews by passing zoning rules that ban rabbis from holding prayer services in their homes. . . . Data shows the total value of federal college loans in 1994 reached $23.1 billion, a significant increase over the 1984 figure of $7.9 billion. . . . Rudy George Perpich, 67, former governor of Minnesota, (D), 1977–79, 1983–91, dies near St. Paul, Minnesota, of colon cancer.

The House votes, 294-130, to tighten the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba. . . . The Senate votes, 91-9, to approve a $12.3 billion foreign-aid appropriations bill for fiscal 1996. . . . Reports confirm that the U.S. State Department has Guillermo Pallomari-Gonzalez, the alleged treasurer for the Cali (Colombia) drug cartel, in U.S. custody.

Phillip Lee Ingle, 34, convicted of the 1991 slayings of two elderly couples, is executed by lethal injection in Raleigh, North Carolina. Ingle becomes the 299th person put to death in the U.S. and the eighth in North Carolina since 1976. . . . The University of Maryland convenes a controversial conference on the links between genetics and criminal behavior. . . . A survey shows that 33% of ob-gyn doctors performed abortions in 1994, compared with a 42% rate in 1983.

A U.S. Air Force AWACS surveillance airplane crashes and explodes shortly after takeoff from Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska. The entire crew, which comprises 22 Americans and two Canadians, is killed. . . . The Senate votes, 86-14, to clear an appropriations bill allocating $11.2 billion for spending on military construction in fiscal 1996.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

An independent panel led by former Sen. Warren Rudman (R, N.H.) recommends that the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) separate from the NASDAQ stock market, which is overseen by NASD, in order to restore investor confidence in NASDAQ. . . . Orville Redenbacher, 88, businessman who developed and sold the most popular brand of popcorn in the U.S. and is widely recognized from TV commercials, is found dead in Coronado, California, where he drowned in a bathtub following a heart attack.

Sir Rudolph Ernst Peierls, 88, German-born physicist whose discoveries contributed to the development of the first atomic bomb and who later became a leading advocate of arms control, dies in Oxford, England, after suffering from a kidney ailment.

The Academy of American Poets awards the 1995 Tanning Prize for outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry to James Tate. The award, which is worth $100,000, is the largest literary prize given annually in the U.S.

AT&T Corp., the world’s largest telecommunications company, announces a plan to divide its operations into three separate companies. It will be the largest breakup of a corporation in U.S. history. . . . Walter A(braham) Haas Jr., 79, former president, CEO, and chairman of the board at Levi Strauss & Co., dies in San Francisco, California, of prostate cancer.

In a case that prompted worldwide concern about the vulnerability of electronic banking systems to tampering and theft, British authorities agree to extradite to the U.S. a Russian computer hacker, Vladimir Levin, accused of stealing about $400,000 from corporate accounts at New York City branches of the U.S. bank Citicorp. Levin allegedly tapped into the accounts from his office in St. Petersburg using a laptop computer.

Sept. 20

Researchers state that fossil remains recently uncovered in Argentina reveal a carnivorous dinosaur that appears to be larger than Tyrannosaurus rex. The newly discovered dinosaur is dubbed Giganotosaurus carolinii, after Ruben D. Carolini, an amateur fossil hunter who found the remains. . . . The NIH, acting on the results of a federal study, issues a clinical alert to physicians recommending that coronary bypass surgery, rather than angioplasty, be performed on diabetics with coronary artery disease.

Pres. Clinton announces a $364 million package of federal assistance for Los Angeles County, California, aimed at easing the county’s fiscal crisis. . . . The Senate passes, 94-4, a $2.2 billion fiscal 1996 appropriations bill for the legislative branch.

Researchers at the ColumbiaPresbyterian Medical Center in NYC report they have located the brain mechanism that is acted upon by nicotine.

The University of Maryland’s controversial conference on the links between genetics and criminal behavior is interrupted for about two hours by protesters, who accuse the forum of promoting racist “pseudoscience.”

Sept. 21

Time Warner Inc. and Turner Broadcasting System Inc. announce they have agreed to a merger, creating the world’s largest media company. . . . Showgirls, a film about strippers, is the first big-budget, major studio film to be released with an NC-17 rating.

Rookie pitcher Carlos Perez, 24, of the Montreal Expos baseball team is arrested on charges of rape and aggravated sodomy of an unidentified 20-year-old woman.

Reports confirm that the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), a secret intelligence agency for the government, has hoarded at least $1.5 billion in unspent budget appropriations from Congress. The discovery provokes outrage from many members of Congress at a time when drastic cuts are being made in programs such as welfare, Medicare, and Medicaid, in order to reduce the deficit.

Sept. 19

A European team of professional golfers wins the 31st Ryder Cup over the U.S.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 22

Sept. 23

Sept. 24

782—September 25–29, 1995

World Affairs

Sept. 25

The United Nations begins its annual period of general debate.

Sept. 28

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Two Israeli soldiers die when artillery fire hits their fortified military post in southern Lebanon. The incident raises to 14 the number of Israeli troops killed in Lebanon in the year to date.

Asia & the Pacific Five East Timorese men file requests for political asylum at the British embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, claiming that their lives are threatened by Indonesian military forces occupying the island. . . . Authorities ban flights under 25,000 feet (7,620 m) over Mount Ruapehu, a volcano that started erupting Sept. 23. A military base and ski resorts are evacuated.

The three rivals for control of Bosnia-Herzegovina—Bosnian Serbs, Croats, and the Muslimdominated Bosnian government— reach an agreement to establish a collective presidency and parliament in Bosnia. Important differences remain among the belligerents, however. . . . The trial of former Italian premier Giulio Andreotti, accused of trading favors to the Mafia, opens in Palermo.

Sept. 26

Sept. 27

Europe

Volcanologist Colin Wilson states that the eruption of Mount Ruapehu, which began Sept. 23, is New Zealand’s largest in 50 years.

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, rules that British soldiers acted unlawfully when they killed three unarmed Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) guerrillas in Gibraltar in 1988. . . . Great Britain and Argentina sign an accord on the controversial issue of oil rights in waters surrounding the Falkland Islands, located 300 miles (480 km) off the southern coast of Argentina and known in Argentina as the Malvinas.

The mainly Muslim Bosnian army reportedly is still advancing in the area around Kljuc in northwestern Bosnia. Separately, France confirms that the two French fighter pilots downed over Bosnia in August, Capt. Frederic Chiffot and Lt. Jose Souvignet, are alive and being detained by the Bosnian Serb military.

The Sierra Leone government reports that Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels have seized four villages in the Bo region, after several days of fighting in which more than 100 civilians and seven soldiers died.

Antonio Jose Cancino, an attorney representing Pres. Ernesto Samper in a probe into government corruption, is wounded in an apparent assassination attempt in Bogota, the capital of Colombia. Two of Cancino’s bodyguards are killed, and one is seriously wounded. A previously unknown group identifying itself as the Movement for Colombian Dignity claims responsibility for the attack. . . . About 5,000 protesters gather at Queen’s Park in Toronto to oppose government cutbacks. Several people are injured when some of the demonstrators clash with police.

The Russian coast guard seizes two Japanese fishing trawlers in disputed waters between the Japanese island of Hokkaido and the Russian island of Sakhalin. The captain of one of the trawlers is reportedly injured when a Russian vessel fires at the fishing boats.

The Sept. 24 accord reached by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which sets up the pivotal second stage of interim Palestinian autonomy, is formally signed in a ceremony at the White House in Washington, D.C. U.S. president Bill Clinton and a host of foreign dignitaries hail the accord as an historic achievement.

Despite the latest cease-fire agreement, fighting in Bosnia continues.

In Sierra Leone, government troops kill 200 RUF soldiers in an ambush. . . . Aboubakr Belkaid, a former interior minister and opponent of Muslim militants, is shot dead in Algiers, Algeria. . . . A small force led by French mercenary Bob Denard launches a coup on Comoros, an Islamic three-island nation of 450,000 people located between Mozambique and Madagascar. Rebels seize Pres. Said Mohamed Djohar in Moroni, the capital, and free Captain Combo Ayouba, who is named to head the junta. Two civilians are killed.

Cumulative results from three rounds of voting for congressional and local positions in Haiti show that the Lavalas movement, a three-party bloc endorsed by Pres. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, garnered an overwhelming majority of the votes and of the contested seats. . . . Romulo Escobar Bethancourt, 68, Panamanian political figure who led Panama’s negotiations with the U.S. over the 1977 Panama Canal Treaties, dies in Panama City, Panama, of throat cancer.

The Chinese Communist Party Central Committee removes from the committee and from the Politburo Chen Xitong, a former Beijing party secretary charged with corruption. Chen is the highest-ranking official to be ousted in the current anticorruption campaign, launched by Pres. Jiang Zemin in 1993. . . . In response to the rape of a Japanese girl by U.S. servicemen, the governor of Okinawa, Masahide Ota, states that he will not renew the leases for some land now used by the American bases when they expire in March 1996.

French police in a town outside Lyons, France, shoot and kill Khaled Kelkal, an Algerian Muslim wanted in connection with a recent spate of bombings throughout France.

Two mercenaries and five government soldiers are killed on Comoros as the coup that started Sept. 28 continues.

Sept. 29

Three U.S. servicemen—Marine Pfc. Rodrico Harp, Marine Pfc. Kendrick M. Ledet and Navy Seaman Marcus D. Gill—are charged with the abduction and rape of a 12year-old girl on Okinawa and taken into custody by Japanese police.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

September 25–29, 1995—783

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Texas billionaire Ross Perot announces that he intends to establish a third political party, called the Independence Party.

An administration-ordered review of the nuclear-weapons research laboratories concludes that they provide “essential services to the nation in fundamental science, national security, environmental protection and cleanup, and industrial competitiveness.” The report prompts Pres. Clinton to order the Energy Department to keep all three of its nuclearweapons research laboratories open.

Daiwa Bank in Japan discloses that an executive in its NYC office has conducted more than 30,000 unauthorized trades since 1984 and concealed about $1.1 billion in losses.

The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation gives its clinical medical research award to Barry Marshall, of the University of Virginia Medical Center. The award for basic medical research goes to five scientists: Jack Strominger of Harvard; Peter Doherty of the St. Jude Children’s Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.; Rolf Zinkernagel of the Institute of Experimental Immunology at the University of Zurich; Emil Unanue of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Mo.; and Don C. Wiley of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Harvard. Sen. Mark Hatfield (R, Oreg.) is named the public service award winner.

Forbes magazine lists Steven Spielberg, with earnings for 1994 estimated at $285 million, as the world’s highest-paid entertainer. . . . Dick Steinberg, 60, manager of the New York Jets, dies in Hempstead, New York, of stomach cancer. . . . Bessie (Annie Elizabeth) Delany, 104, author, dies in Mount Vernon, New York. . . . The Horse Whisperer, by Nicholas Evans, tops the bestseller list.

The U.S. Justice Department files a preliminary complaint charging Toshihide Iguchi, the trader whose misdeeds were revealed Sept. 25, with fraudulent trading and forgery.

A clinical trial finds that AIDS patients who take either of two drug combinations, AZT with ddI or AZT with ddC, have a 38% lower rate of death over two years than do patients who take AZT alone.

Dennis W. Stockton, 54, convicted of the 1978 contract killing of a teenage boy, is executed by lethal injection in Jarratt, Virginia. Stockton becomes the 300th person executed since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976. He is the 27th person executed in Virginia since 1976. . . . Statistics show that the number of babies born in the U.S. infected with HIV has leveled off for the first time since the start of the AIDS epidemic. The CDC estimates that in 1993, a total of 1,630 HIV-infected babies were born, down from 1,760 in 1991.

Defense Secretary William J. Perry orders U.S bases in Okinawa to hold a “day of reflection,” featuring lectures and discussions about cultural and conduct issues raised by the rape of a 12-year-old girl by U.S. servicemen in Japan. The suspects—Marine Pfc. Rodrico Harp, 21, Marine Pfc. Kendrick M. Ledet, 20, and Navy Seaman Marcus D. Gill, 22—are being held in a U.S. military jail in Japan. . . . U.S. officials estimate that deploying American troops to Bosnia to aid in the implementation of a peace agreement will cost at least $1 billion.

In Cook County, Illinois, Judge Fred Suria sentences Rep. Mel Reynolds (D, Ill.) to five years in prison on charges of sexual misconduct, solicitation of child pornography, and obstruction of justice. . . . Statistics show that costs at four-year colleges rose 6% in the 1995–96 school year from the previous year. The 6% rise is more than double the nationwide rate of inflation. The survey finds that students paid an average of $12,432 a year in tuition and fees at private four-year colleges, and an average of $2,860 at public four-year colleges.

Pres. Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton present the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor that a civilian in the U.S. can receive, to about a dozen people. . . . The Senate passes by voice vote a bill that maintains stiffer prison penalties for individuals convicted of crack cocaine offenses than for individuals convicted of similar offenses involving powdered cocaine.

The director of Central Intelligence, John Deutch, announces that he has fired two CIA officers and reprimanded eight others over their mishandling of covert operations in Guatemala in the early 1990s.

Sept. 26

Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin discloses that the Treasury Department will introduce a redesigned $100 bill into circulation in early 1996.

Time Warner states it has agreed to sell back its 50% stake in the Los Angeles-based rap music label Interscope Records Inc. to the label’s founders, Ted Field and Jimmy Iovine. Time Warner has come under fire for its part-ownership because of the record label’s distribution of so-called gangsta rap, in which performers often use misogynistic lyrics and boast of violent crime.

The House approves a continuing resolution—or stopgap bill—that will provide funding for federal government programs and agencies for the first 44 days of the 1996 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. . . . Reports suggest that one in every three Fortune 500 companies has at least two female directors, compared with one in four companies in 1993. . . . Exxon Corp. and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation launch a multimillion-dollar campaign to save the world’s five remaining tiger species from extinction.

Greg Harris of the Montreal Expos becomes the first pitcher in the modern era to pitch with both hands in the same game.

The Senate approves a continuing resolution—or stopgap bill—that will provide funding for federal government programs and agencies for the first 44 days of the 1996 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.

Research suggests that a small percentage of women of Jewish ancestry in the U.S. carry a gene mutation believed to predispose them to breast cancer.

Sept. 25

Philanthropist Paul Mellon donates 85 paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Experts value the works of art at more than $50 million. . . . The NBA enacts a lockout against basketball referees, effective Oct. 1.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 27

Sept. 28

Sept. 29

784—September 30–October 4, 1995

World Affairs

Oct. 2

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In response to the coup attempt of Sept. 28, 200 South African tourists who were vacationing on Comoros board a flight home.

Finance ministers for European Union member states agree to abide by strict economic criteria to create a single European currency.

Portugal’s Socialist Party emerges the winner in general elections, ending the 10-year reign of the Social Democratic Party (PSD). . . .Voters in Latvia in parliamentary elections divide their support among the leftwing party, the ruling centrist party and a party led by a German expatriate with ties to far-right groups in Germany. . . . Youths in Vaulx-enVelin, a suburb of Lyons, France, largely populated by immigrants, riot in protest of the Sept. 29 death of Khaled Kelkal. About 60 cars are burned. Police detain 12 of the youths for questioning.

Gunmen kill 18 people in an attack on a bus in Algeria. . . .In Nigeria, Gen. Abacha, bowing to international pressure, details a plan to implement democratic civilian rule by October 1998. He also commutes the sentences of some 40 people convicted in July of plotting a coup in March.

France conducts the second in a series of underground nuclear tests in the South Pacific, provoking a renewed wave of international protests. Australia, Japan, and New Zealand summon their French ambassadors to condemn the tests. Most foreign ministers for EU member states criticize the tests, along with the U.S. and Russia.

Irish prime minister John Bruton meets with David Trimble, leader of Northern Ireland’s Ulster Unionist Party, in the first talks between an Irish head of state and a leader of the Ulster Unionists in nearly 30 years.

In Kenya, Koigi wa Wamwere is sentenced with two other men to four years in prison and six lashes for trying to steal weapons from police. The trial has been watched closely by human-rights groups, which claim the charges were fabricated.

Statistics reveal that, despite the Venezuelan government’s efforts, inflation rose 71% from June 1994 to October 1995. . . . Reports suggest that a delegation of more than 80 Chinese businessmen who disappeared in Canada in May actually entered Canada as part of an elaborate C$5 million (US$3.7 million) scheme by organized-crime members to smuggle illegal aliens into the country.

Police officers in Queensland conduct raids targeting computer child pornography in several cities in the Australian state. The officers seize 15 computers and begin questioning 18 suspects in what is considered the first operation of the investigation of child pornography under the Classification of Computer Games and Images Act, which the Queensland parliament passed in April.

Macedonian president Kiro Gligorov is seriously injured in a carbomb attack in Skopje, the Macedonian capital. Gligorov’s driver is killed, and five bystanders are injured in the incident, at least two of them seriously. . . . The trial of Rosemary West, charged with 10 counts of murder, begins in the town of Winchester, England. The case received publicity when police uncovered the remains of at least 11 bodies underneath the couple’s home in Gloucester. Frederick West hanged himself in prison earlier in 1995.

Soldiers loyal to the military government of Captain Valentine E. M. Strasser quash an attempted coup in Sierra Leone. The government states that six officers and several civilians opposed to a plan to return to civilian rule were arrested in the coup.

Hurricane Opal assails Mexico, and it reportedly kills at least 10 people in the states of Campeche and Tabasco. . . . Former brigadier general Henri Max Mayard, who was the fourth-highest-ranking officer in Haiti’s now defunct military, is murdered by unidentified gunmen in a suburb of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital. Mayard is one of at least 20 supporters or officials of the former military who have been killed in what international human-rights officials term “commando-style executions” since the military junta was ousted in October 1994.

Hee Lon Tan, 55, is found guilty of charges stemming from a drug bust that netted about A$40 million (US$30 million) worth of heroin, the largest heroin seizure ever in the state of Victoria. Tan is suspected of leading an international drug syndicate.

Due to the Oct. 3 injuries of Macedonian president Kiro Gligorov, the government names Stojan Andov, the speaker of parliament, as acting president. . . . Serb surface-to-air missile sites lock their radar onto NATO planes flying a routine patrol over a no-fly zone in Bosnia. In response, NATO warplanes bomb Bosnian Serb targets. . . . Reports state that walkouts protesting the Turkish government have closed many Turkish ports and businesses.

Some 1,000 French soldiers in Comoros, a former French colony, help to put down a coup launched Sept. 28 by Bob Denard. Four or five Comorans are reported killed, and 10 are wounded. Comoran premier Caabi El Yachourtu Mohamed announces the formation of a new coalition government to replace the government of Pres. Djohar, who has grown unpopular since taking power in 1989.

Carlos Alonso Lucio reveals to a televised session of the Colombian Congress transcripts of what he states are wiretapped telephone conversations between a DEA agent from the U.S. in Colombia and his superiors in the U.S. On the tapes, the agents call Colombian officials “idiots.” The incident damages the already strained relationship between the two countries.

Angered by the September rape of a 12-year-old girl by U.S. servicemen in Okinawa, 4,000 people, including several Japanese parliament members, march on the streets of Tokyo calling for reform of a bilateral agreement between Japan and the U.S. regarding military bases.

Oct. 3

Oct. 4

Africa & the Middle East

Documents prepared by UN and EU monitors reveal that Croatian troops are executing Serb civilians and burning Croatian Serb villages. UN officials suggest the killings and arson are part of a campaign by the Croatian military to drive several thousand Serbs who remain in Krajina from their homes and prevent the 120,000 Serbs who fled from returning.

Sept. 30

Oct. 1

Europe

The IMF projects that global economic output will expand by 3.7% through 1995, from 3.6% in 1994. That marks a slight downward revision from the previous IMF forecast in April, which estimated 1995 growth to be 3.8%. The IMF also states that it expects the world economy to expand by 4.1% in 1996.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

September 30–October 4, 1995—785

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

Michael Bloomberg, the founder and owner of the Bloomberg L.P. news and information service, announces that he will donate $55 million to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. . . . The resignation of Rep. Mel Reynolds (D, Ill.), sentenced Sept. 28 to five years in prison, from his House seat goes into effect.

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

A federal jury in New York City convicts 10 militant Muslims on 48 of 50 conspiracy charges stemming from a failed plot to bomb the UN headquarters building and other NYC targets and to assassinate political leaders. The militants include Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, a blind cleric from Egypt, accused of leading his fellow defendants in plotting a “war of urban terrorism” in response to the U.S. government’s support of Israel and of Egypt’s current secular regime. The proceedings constitute the biggest terrorism trial in U.S. history.

The Supreme Court opens its 1995–96 term with 43 cases on the docket. In Rural West Tennessee African-American Affairs Council v. Sundquist, the justices affirm, without comment, a ruling issued by a panel of federal judges in Nashville, Tennessee, that approves a redistricting plan for the Tennessee state senate. In American Life League v. Reno, the justices reject without comment a constitutional challenge to the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. In a televised trial that captivated the nation, O. J. Simpson is acquitted of the June 1994 fatal stabbings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. Dubbed the “Trial of the Century,” the verdict sparks debate. . . . Washington State Superior Court judge James Allendoerfer sentences Simon Roberts and Adrian Guthrie to prison rather than banishment. He had allowed the teens, who are members of the Tlingit Indian tribe, to be banished for a 1993 beating and robbing incident, as per a tribal court. He now argues the banishment is flawed.

Pres. Clinton signs an executive order easing restrictions on travel and money transfers between the U.S. and Cuba and on humanitarian aid to Cuba by U.S. organizations. . . . Pres. Clinton signs an appropriations bill allocating $11.2 billion for spending on military construction in fiscal 1996. The bill is the first of the 13 appropriations bills for fiscal 1996, which began October 1, to be signed into law.

Harold Joe Lane, 50, convicted for the slaying of a teenage girl in a 1982 robbery, is executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas. Lane becomes the 100th person put to death in Texas since the state resumed executions in 1982. Lane is the 301st person put to death in the U.S. since 1976.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Virginia transportation officials open the first privately financed toll road built in the U.S. in a century. The toll road, the Dulles Greenway, is a 14.1-mile-long highway that links Washington Dulles International Airport with the rural suburb of Leesburg, Virginia. . . . Pres. Clinton signs into law a stopgap bill that will provide funding for the federal government for the first 44 days of the 1996 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.

A conference of Episcopalian bishops in Portland, Oregon, votes to compel four bishops to allow the ordination of women priests in their dioceses. . . . George Kirby, 71, comedian, singer, and impersonator, dies in Las Vegas, Nevada, after suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

After failing in November 1994 to reach an agreement on a new contract, the U.S. Postal Service and the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) agree to a federal arbitration board’s new contract.

Ernie Irvan competes in his first NASCAR race since leaving the circuit after a near-fatal crash in 1994. . . . Margaret Gorman Cahill, 90, winner of the first Miss America contest in 1921, dies in Bowie, Maryland, of cardiac arrest and pneumonia.

Figures disclose that the purchasing managers’ index rose to 48.3% in September, an increase from the August reading of 46.9%. Generally, a measure above 50% indicates an expanding manufacturing sector, and a reading of 44.5% or higher indicates overall economic expansion.

The FDA states it has approved the drug alendronate sodium for treating the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis. The drug is the first of a class of hormone-free drugs to gain FDA approval for treating the disease.

In the third veto of his presidency, Pres. Clinton vetoes the $2.2 billion fiscal 1996 appropriations bill for the legislative branch. Clinton states he supports the content of the bill, which will reduce Congress’s spending on its own functions, but he rejects the measure as a matter of principle, faulting Congress for passing its own budget before completing work that funds government agencies and services.

Wildfires ignite on the Pacific coastline in northern California. . . . About 100,000 people flee from coastal cities in Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi in anticipation of Hurricane Opal as it moves across the Gulf of Mexico. . . . The FDA approves the prescription sale of a patch, called Androderm, to deliver the male sex hormone testosterone to men whose bodies produce insufficient amounts of the hormone, a condition called hypogonadism.

John Clemens, accused of accepting bribes from a vendor, is ousted as president of a Baltimore, Maryland, local chapter of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. He is one of several top union officials dismissed from the Teamsters in a government-led campaign to root out corruption in the union.

Hurricane Opal comes ashore east of Pensacola, Florida. The hurricane kills at least 19 people in Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. It causes at least $1.8 billion in damage to insured property in Florida alone, making it the U.S.’s third-costliest storm. . . . Wildfires in Northern California destroy at least 40 homes in the small town of Inverness, located around 35 miles (60 km) north of San Francisco.

In Major League Baseball, Seattle Mariners win their first-ever division title when they beat the California Angels. . . . The NHL, its players’ union, and the International Ice Hockey Federation jointly announce that NHL players will be able to take part in the 1998 Winter Olympics, in Nagano, Japan.

Sept. 30

Oct. 1

Oct. 2

Oct. 3

Pope John Paul II begins a tour of the U.S., with stops planned in Newark, New Jersey; New York City; and Baltimore, Maryland. . . . Estimates suggest that a record 150 million people nationwide watched the Oct. 3 handing down of the verdict in the O. J. Simpson trial.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 4

786—October 5–10, 1995

Oct. 5

Oct. 6

World Affairs

Europe

Pope John Paul II addresses the United Nations General Assembly as part of the UN’s 50th anniversary celebration. It is the pontiff’s second address at the UN during his papacy. In his speech, the pontiff denounces countries’ mingling of nationalism and religious fundamentalism and urges the UN to rise above its bureaucratic role and act as a moral force to discourage ethnic and religious enmity within and between nations.

A cease-fire agreement is reached in the war pitting the mainly Muslim Bosnian government and its Croat allies against the Bosnian Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Separately, the UN announces that it will reduce the number of UN peacekeeping troops in Bosnia to approximately 21,000, from the current 30,500. . . . As per an agreement with Greece to end an embargo, Macedonia’s parliament approves a new flag, which replaces the ancient Greek symbol previously chosen.

The International Energy Agency estimates that the global demand for petroleum will grow to 71.4 million barrels a day in 1996. That figure is about 500,000 barrels a day above the estimated consumption level for 1995. . . . Belgium’s highest court requests permission from parliament to indict Willy Claes, secretary general of NATO, on corruption charges. The request triggers renewed calls for Claes’s resignation.

A bomb explodes near a subway station in Paris, injuring 13 people. The explosion comes hours after the funeral of Khaled Kelkal, an Algerian Muslim suspected in other bombings. . . . Two remote-controlled bombs explode in Grozny as a convoy carrying Lt. Gen. Anatoly Romanov, a strong advocate of the peace talks in Chechnya, passes. Romanov is severely injured and left in a coma. His driver and an aide are killed, and 15 others are wounded. . . . Hugh Charles (born Charles Hugh Owen Ferry), 88, British songwriter who composed more than 50 songs associated with World War II, dies of unreported causes.

Asia & the Pacific

In the village of Aurora 8 de Octubre in the northern Guatemalan province of Alta Verapaz, an attack by soldiers leaves at least 11 Indian peasants dead and 17 injured.

A powerful earthquake strikes the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The quake measures 7.0 on the Richter scale and is centered 10 miles (16 km) west of the town of Sungaipenuh, in northwestern Indonesia. The temblor, which kills scores of people and destroys or damages thousands of buildings, is considered to be the area’s worst since 1909.

John Cairncross, 82, the “fifth man” in a group of British spies recruited by the Soviet Union during the 1930s, dies in western England after suffering a stroke.

Yasser Arafat’s PNA frees Mahmoud Zahar, a prominent political leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, from detention. . . . Uganda’s new constitution takes effect.

Guatemalan defense minister General Mario Enriquez Morales resigns amid controversy over the Oct. 5 massacre in Alta Verapaz.

Estimates put the death toll from the Oct. 7 earthquake on the Indonesian island of Sumatra at about 100. Hundreds more were injured.

The Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, the Netherlands, opens the trial of Dragan Nikolic, the Serb commander of the Susica prison camp, which operated in Bosnia from June to September 1992. Nikolic is believed to be in hiding in Serb-held Bosnia.

In response to shelling by Bosnian Serbs in which one Norwegian UN peacekeeper dies, NATO warplanes bomb Bosnian Serb targets. . . . Lord Alexander Frederick DouglasHome, 92, former prime minister, 1963–64, and foreign secretary of Great Britain, 1960–63, 1970–74, dies in Berwickshire, Scotland, of unreported causes.

Tunisian authorities arrest Mohammed Moada, the head of the leading opposition group, the Movement of Democratic Socialists (MDS).

An earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale rocks Jalisco and Colima states in western Mexico. The epicenter of the quake is located 3 miles (5 km) off the Pacific coastline. It is Mexico’s worst earthquake since 1985.

Militants launch several rocket attacks on the Sindh Secretariat Office, a government building in Karachi, Pakistan. At least five people are wounded in the blasts. . . . Kukrit Pramoj, 84, former premier of Thailand, 1975–76, dies in Bangkok, Thailand, after suffering from heart disease and diabetes. . . . Four members of the militant Mohajir Qaumi Movement are killed in Pakistan.

The IMF holds a meeting in conjunction with the World Bank, its sister organization. Brunei becomes the 180th member of the IMF.

UN officials report that Serbs have renewed ethnic cleansing, or the forced expulsion of civilians from their homes, in the area of Banja Luka. Some 10,000 Muslims and Croats reportedly have been expelled since Oct. 7 from Bosanski Novi, Sanski Most, and Prijedor. . . . More than half of France’s 5 million public-sector workers stage walkouts, and some hold demonstrations to protest a salary freeze for fiscal 1996.

Israel releases about 900 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and begins its military pullout from Palestinian towns, taking the first concrete steps toward implementation of the Sept. 24 accord on interim Palestinian autonomy. . . . Nigeria’s Information Minister Walter Ofonagoro discloses that the life sentences given to Olesegun Obasanjo and others who attempted a coup have been reduced to 15 years and that the 14 originally sentenced to death instead will be jailed for life or 25 years.

Mexican government officials state that at least 48 people died in the Oct. 9 quake, and more than 100 were injured. . . . Tropical storm Roxanne, located in the Caribbean Sea, strengthens into a full hurricane, bringing the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean region’s current storm season to an unusually high 10.

Dissident and Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi is appointed as general secretary of the National League for Democracy (NLD), a party that she helped found in 1988. . . . Reports confirm that Pakistan’s government has expelled Masood Khalili, Afghanistan’s envoy to Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad, indicating increasing tensions between the countries.

Oct. 8

Oct. 10

A car bomb explodes in eastern Algiers, killing nine people and wounding 19. . . . Thousands of Israeli rightists hold a torch-lit protest march through Jerusalem. The march is organized by the Likud party and six smaller rightist political parties in protest of the secondphase accord with the PLO. . . . On the island of Comoros, French mercenary Bob Denard, who attempted a coup Sept. 28, and his force surrender. . . . An officer is arrested in Sierra Leone, bringing the number of people arrested in the Oct. 3 attempted coup to seven.

The Americas

An Algerian terrorist organization, the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), claims responsibility for the recent bombings in France.

Oct. 7

Oct. 9

Africa & the Middle East

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

October 5–10, 1995—787

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Data show that 827,440 black men in their 20s, or 32.2% of black males in that age group, are under judicial supervision. That figure compares with 6.7% of white men in their 20s and 12.3% of Hispanic males in the same age group. It also compares with a 1990 figure that estimated nearly one in four black men ages 20–29 were under the supervision of the criminal justice system. . . . Dan Peavy, a school board member in Dallas, Texas, resigns as a result of accusations that he used racial slurs during taped private conversations.

Deputy Secretary of Defense John White orders the army to end production of a rifle-mounted weapon capable of blinding enemy troops. . . . The Mexican government announces that it will repay, a few weeks ahead of its scheduled due date of Oct. 31, $700 million of the money it borrowed from the U.S.

The Census Bureau finds that 38.1 million people live in poverty, a drop of 1.2 million from the number of poor reported in 1993. According to the bureau, that decrease is the first in five years. The poverty rate, which measures the percentage of Americans living in poverty, was 14.5% in 1994, down from 15.1% in 1993. Preliminary estimates put the percentage of Americans without health insurance coverage at 15.2% in 1994, slightly down from 15.3% figure reported in 1993. . . . Congress has yet to pass 11 of 13 appropriations bills.

Pres. Clinton approves emergency federal disaster assistance to 15 Florida counties and parts of southeastern Alabama that were hit by Hurricane Opal. . . . Medical research shows that orthopedic surgeons, family doctors, and chiropractors are almost equally successful at treating lower-back pain.

Pres. Clinton confers National Medals of Arts and the Charles Frankel Prizes for humanities on 17 American cultural figures and one arts organization. . . . The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to poet Seamus Heaney, the third Irishman to win the prize. . . . A mass held by Pope John Paul II is attended by 80,000 people at Giants Stadium in New Jersey.

Pres. Clinton scales back federal restrictions on the sale of high-performance computers to customers in foreign countries.

Some 32,500 workers from the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union go on strike against Boeing Co. after rejecting a three-year contract. The striking machinists make up about 31% of Boeing’s total workforce. . . . Data suggest that in terms of income, the bottom 80% of the population have earnings well below the 1989 prerecession level.

A study finds that women during the early months of pregnancy who consume more than 10,000 international units (IUs) of vitamin A per day, twice the daily allowance recommended by the U.S. government, increase their risk of having babies with serious birth defects. . . . Swiss astronomers in Italy report finding the first evidence of a planet outside the solar system orbiting a “live” star—51 Pegasi, 40 light-years from Earth.

Pope John Paul holds an outdoor mass at the Aqueduct Race Track in New York City, and some 75,000 people attend.

Wildfires in Northern California continue to rage out of control. Since Oct. 3, a total of around 12,000 acres (5,000 hectares) on the Pacific coastline have been burned.

In New York City’s Central Park, 125,000 people gather to hear a mass by Pope John Paul II.

Reports suggest that fires in California have caused more than $40 million in damage.

Christopher Keene, 48, conductor who served as general director for the New York City Opera, dies in New York of lymphoma arising from AIDS. . . . Pope John Paul II holds a mass for 50,000 in Baltimore, Maryland. An estimated 300,000 people attend a parade afterwards.

The New York City Board of Education votes, 5-2, to select Rudolph Franklin Crew, superintendent of the Tacoma, Washington, school system, to be the new schools chancellor in New York City. The vote ends a long and difficult search hampered by political struggles between the mayor and the school board.

John Alfred Scali, 77, former television news correspondent and U.S. ambassador to the UN who helped resolve the Cuban missile crisis, dies in Washington, D.C., of heart failure.

California governor Pete Wilson (R) signs into law legislation that will allow officials in Orange County, which declared bankruptcy in December 1994, to divert more than $800 million in funding to the payment of the county’s debts. . . . Members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union agree to end their month-long strike against Ryder System Inc.

An Amtrak train derails as it passes over a trestle over a remote desert gulch 27 miles (40 km) east of Hyder, Arizona. One person is killed and some 100 others are injured. . . . The Karolinska Institute for Medicine in Stockholm awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology to two Americans, Edward Lewis and Eric Wieschaus, and a German, Christiane Nuesslein-Volhard, for their discoveries regarding genetic control of the body’s early development.

The Nobel Prize in Economic Science is awarded to Robert E. Lucas Jr., who is the fifth professor from the University of Chicago in six years to win the economics prize and the eighth overall from that institution. . . . Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary announces that the Department of Energy has abandoned its plans to build a nuclear reactor for making tritium, a radioactive gas needed to produce nuclear weapons, and will instead leasing or purchasing a commercial reactor.

Oct. 5

Oct. 6

Oct. 7

Oct. 8

Oct. 9

Paolo Gucci, 64, of Gucci leather goods, dies in London, England, after suffering from chronic hepatitis. . . . Reports state that Bill Gates has bought the Bettmann Archive, which contains millions of historical photographs. . . . Garry Kasparov of Russia successfully defends his world chess title over Viswanathan Anand of India.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 10

788—October 11–16, 1995

Oct. 11

World Affairs

Europe

Rolf Ekeus, head of the UN Commission on Iraq overseeing the dismantlement of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, discloses in a six-month report to the Security Council that the Iraqi government concealed the extent of advances it made in its nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs.

Oct. 12

Oct. 13

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awards the Nobel Peace Prize to Joseph Rotblat, a British physicist who helped develop the atomic bomb but went on to campaign against nuclear weapons; and the antinuclear group he heads, the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.

Oct. 14

Oct. 15

Oct. 16

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The Bosnian government army, joined by Croat forces, recapture the towns of Sanski Most and Mrkonjic Grad in that region. . . . Lloyds Bank PLC and TSB Group PLC announce that they will merge, creating Britain’s largest retail bank, the U.K.’s third-largest bank overall, and one of the 30 largest banks in the world. . . . Estonian premier Tiit Vahi hands in his resignation and that of his cabinet because of a wiretapping scandal involving Estonia’s interior minister, Edgar Savisaar.

Tropical storm Roxanne crosses the Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula with winds of 110 miles per hour. At least four people die. . . . Ecuador’s vice president, Alberto Dahik Garzoni, resigns and then flees to Costa Rica after Ecuador’s Supreme Court orders him arrested on criminal charges of misusing state funds.

Reports reveal that the Australian Stock Exchange and New Zealand’s stock market have agreed to create a joint stock index.

A cease-fire agreed to on Oct. 5 in the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina between the mainly Muslim Bosnian government and its Croat allies against the Bosnian Serbs goes into effect at 12:01 A.M. local time. . . . Austria’s governing coalition collapses after failing to agree on a fiscal 1996 budget.

International researchers announce they have documented a dramatic increase in the number of fires in Amazon rain forests in recent months. Weather satellites spotted 39,900 fires in the region in July— four times as many blazes as were detected in July 1994. . . . U.S. first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton launches a tour of Latin America.

Data shows that monsoon floods have claimed 171 lives and caused an estimated 3 billion Thai bahts ($117 million) in damage in Thailand since July. . . . Business activity in Karachi, Pakistan, is disrupted by a strike called by the militant Mohajir Qaumi Movement to protest the Oct. 9 killings. Six people die in violence during the strike. It is the 17th strike called by the group since January.

On the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Canada, Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien and Chinese premier Li Peng hold a state dinner in Montreal with several of Canada’s provincial premiers. The event is protested by several hundred people, who decry Li for his role in the massacre of prodemocracy students in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989.

In the first pact brokered between the rebels and the government of Philippine president Fidel Ramos, government negotiators sign a peace accord with representatives from three rebel groups—the Revolutionary Alliance of the Masses, the Soldiers of the Filipino People and the Young Officers Union. . . . In Weipa, a town in the state of Queensland, Australia, 76 miners go on strike at a CRA bauxite mine.

Austria’s parliament votes to dissolve itself to make way for general elections in December. . . . A German judge in Dusseldorf sentences four men described as neo-Nazi sympathizers to jail for their roles in setting a 1993 fire that killed five female members of a single Turkish family. Three of the defendants— Felix Koehnen, 18; Christian Reher, 19; and Christian Buchholz, 22—are tried as juveniles and given the maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Markus Gartmann, 25, is sentenced to 15 years in jail.

Results from a September referendum in Madagascar are announced, and voters decided the president, rather than parliament, should be granted power to appoint or dismiss the premier. In response, Premier Francisque Ravony, whose clashes with Pres. Albert Zafy compelled the referendum, resigns.

An armed gunman seizes a bus carrying 25 South Korean tourists and a Russian driver and tour guide in Moscow’s Red Square. The hijacking is reportedly the first hostage-taking incident to occur in Moscow. . . . In Italy, Judge Fabio Paparella rules that former premier Silvio Berlusconi will stand trial on corruption charges. . . . Helen Vlachos, 83, Greek newspaper publisher who opposed Greece’s military dictatorship, dies of unreported causes.

The head of the opposition Zimbabwe African National UnionNdonga, Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole, and others are arrested and charged with plotting to kill Pres. Robert Mugabe and bring down the government.

The armed gunman who seized a bus Oct. 14 releases all but four of the hostages. Russian commandos storm the bus and kill the hijacker, freeing the four captives. . . . A new minority government proposed by caretaker premier Tansu Ciller loses a vote of confidence in Turkey’s parliament. . . . Greece lifts a 19-monthlong trade embargo on The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Iraqi president Saddam Hussein wins overwhelming backing in a presidential referendum in which he is the sole candidate. . . . Hezbollah (Party of God) guerrillas kill six Israeli soldiers in an ambush in Israel’s self-declared security zone in southern Lebanon. The attack is the deadliest suffered by Israel in a single attack in southern Lebanon in two years, and it raises to 22 the number of Israeli troops killed in Lebanon in the year to date.

Tropical storm Roxanne causes the sinking of a barge off Campeche that claims at least five lives. The barge, which services petroleum platforms and pipelines, was carrying about 245 oil workers, the majority of whom are rescued. . . . UN secretary general Boutros BoutrosGhali and U.S. vice president Al Gore attend a ceremony marking the one-year anniversary of JeanBertrand Aristide’s return to power in Haiti. Rioters in Cite Soleil, a slum neighborhood in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, throw stones at a car in the motorcade of Mary (Tipper) Gore, wife of Vice Pres. Gore.

In Austria, two people are seriously injured in two separate letter-bomb attacks. . . . In light of the Oct. 15 vote, Turkish premier Tansu Ciller states that she will forge an interim government with her old coalition partner until elections take place.

The PNA, in an effort to smooth its relations with Hamas, releases Ahmed Bahar, a prominent Hamas leader in Gaza imprisoned by the PNA in late June. . . . An Algerian journalist and her chauffeur are shot and killed by unidentified gunmen in Algiers, raising the number of journalists killed in Algeria over two years to more than 50.

Haitian premier Smarck Michel submits his resignation to the Haitian cabinet and congress. . . . Three Honduran army officers—Col. Alexander Hernandez, retired major Manuel de Jesus Trejo, and retired Captain Billy Joya Almendola—disappear after a court orders their arrest for the week-long kidnapping and torture of six student activists in 1982. The three officers are among the ten members of Battalion 316, who were indicted on July 21.

Six Tibetans protesting the Chinese rule of Tibet, begin a hunger strike. . . . Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto confirms in a meeting with journalists that a group of army officers has secretly been arrested, although she will not discuss with journalists any details of the investigation.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

October 11–16, 1995—789

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Police take into custody 15 senior citizens who were shouting questions during a meeting of the House Commerce Committee planning a Medicare overhaul. . . . Ten Republican presidential candidates participate in a televised forum in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Nobel Prize in Physics to Americans Martin L. Perl and Frederick Reines for their separate discoveries of subatomic particles. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded to two Americans, F. Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina, and a Dutch citizen based in Germany, Paul Crutzen, for their discoveries about depletion of the ozone layer. The three reportedly are the first to receive a Nobel for work related to environmental sciences.

Oct. 11

The House, 288-132, and the Senate, by voice vote, approve the final version of a $63.2 billion spending bill that funds the Department of Agriculture, rural development programs, the FDA, and other related agencies for fiscal year 1996.

Oct. 12

Henry Roth, 89, writer best known for his 1934 autobiographical novel Call It Sleep who made a literary comeback 60 years later, dies in Albuquerque, New Mexico, of unreported causes.

President Clinton alludes to the O. J. Simpson case, during which Simpson admitted to beating his ex-wife, and to his own experience growing up with an abusive stepfather when he calls on men in the U.S. to pledge never to strike women. . . . Frank Lilly, 65, geneticist and one of the first openly homosexual presidential appointees when president Ronald Reagan selected him in 1987 to work on a panel to study AIDS, dies in NYC of prostate cancer.

Edith (Ellis Peters) Pargeter, 82, British author of mysteries who, under the pseudonym Ellis Peters, wrote 90 books between 1936 and 1994, dies in Shropshire, England, after suffering a stroke.

Father John Calicott returns to the Holy Angels Church in Chicago, Illinois, after having been suspended for molesting two boys in 1976. Calicott is the first priest in Chicago to be reinstated to a parish after such a suspension. . . . John Walker III, 88, former chief curator and director of the National Gallery of Art, dies in Amberley, England, of cardiopulmonary arrest.

Hundreds of thousands of black men participate in a rally in Washington, D.C., called the “Million Man March.” The march sparks some controversy because it is led by Louis Farrakhan who has made anti-Semitic remarks, and because it omits women. . . . The Census Bureau reports that 30.8% of U.S. families were headed by a single parent in 1994, up from 28% in 1990, 22% in 1980, and 13% in 1970.

The FEC makes public campaignspending reports from the Republican presidential candidates that show that Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole (R, Kans.), the current front-runner, raised $5.6 million in the third quarter, more than twice as much as any other candidate.

Actor Christopher Reeve makes his first public appearance since he was paralyzed from the neck down in a May horseback-riding accident.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 13

Oct. 14

Oct. 15

Oct. 16

790—October 17–22, 1995

Oct. 17

Europe

Nineteen heads of state and 23 foreign ministers from Spain, Portugal, and Latin American countries close the fifth annual Ibero-American Summit. The participants issue a final document condemning the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba. . . . The European Court of Justice, the judicial arm of the European Union, rules that setting quotas to increase the hiring and promotion of women is discriminatory.

A suspected terrorist bomb explodes on a crowded subway train in Paris, injuring 29 people, five of them seriously. . . . Striking air-traffic controllers reach a salary agreement with the Italian government, ending several weeks of labor unrest which delayed most flights into and out of Italy and forced the cancellation of domestic flights.

Iraqi president Saddam Hussein takes the oath of office for his new term during a nationally televised ceremony. . . . Winnie Mandela files papers with the Rand Supreme Court contesting her divorce from South African president Nelson Mandela, a move that raises the possibility of a public divorce trial.

The GIA, an Algerian militant group suspected in the Oct. 17 bombing and others, threatens to increase the bombings unless France cuts many of its ties to Algeria. . . . Italy’s Constitutional Court rules that Italian judges may imprison criminals suffering from AIDS or infected with HIV. . . . Germany’s Federal Court of Justice overturns the conviction of former East German espionage chief Markus Wolf and recommends another trial.

South African police wound and arrest Moses Sithole, 31, a man suspected of killing some 40 women over an 18-month period. . . . Reports confirm that former Palestinian guerrilla Mohammed Daoud Odeh—better known as Abu Daoud—has for the first time admitted that he oversaw the Black September commando group’s 1972 massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games.

The Senate, Italy’s upper house of parliament, passes a vote of no confidence against Finance Minister Filippo Mancuso. But Mancuso refuses to resign, forcing Pres. Oscar Luigi Scalfaro to relieve him of his portfolio. Scalfaro’s dismissal of Mancuso is described as unprecedented in modern Italian politics.

The Lebanese parliament passes a constitutional amendment that extends Pres. Elias Hrawi’s six-year presidential term for three years without new elections.

Oct. 18

Oct. 19

Oct. 20

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

The European Court of Justice, the judicial arm of the EU, rules that the British government’s policy of setting different ages for men and women to receive free drug prescriptions is discriminatory. The ruling sparks charges that the European court is undermining British sovereignty. . . . Belgium’s parliament approves the recommendation to deny Willy Claes, secretary general of NATO, immunity amid a domestic bribery scandal in his home country of Belgium.

The Nonaligned Movement closes the 11th summit of nonaligned nations. During the proceedings, a declaration was adopted that calls for developing nations to be given greater representation on the UN Security Council and for the UN to focus more on ending poverty. . . . Willy Claes resigns as secretary general of NATO amid a domestic bribery scandal in Belgium.

The largest gathering of world leaders ever assembled convenes at UN headquarters in New York City to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the UN. The anniversary celebration includes speeches from 178 representatives of member nations as well as from 23 observers, such as the PLO and the Vatican. Speakers also include Cuban president Fidel Castro, who has not addressed the UN since 1979. U.S. president Bill Clinton delivers the opening address.

Asia & the Pacific Sri Lankan president Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga launches a stepped-up military offensive against the Tigers after they reject a government plan. . . . In Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, chief minister Mayawati resigns after the hard-line Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) withdraws its support for the ruling coalition and her Bahujan Samaj Party.

Congress approves Eduardo Peña Triviño as the new vice president of Ecuador, succeeding Alberto Dahik Garzoni, who fled Oct. 11. . . . Gen. Luis Alonso Discua, head of the Honduran armed forces, states that the officers who disappeared Oct. 16 and others cannot be prosecuted for their crimes because of two amnesty agreements in 1987 and 1991 that cover human-rights abuses committed during the 1980s.

India’s national government imposes direct rule over Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most populous state, after its ruling coalition collapsed on Oct. 17.

Thousands of people in Guatemala City cheer the return of the remains of the late leftist president Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, which are reburied in Guatemala after being exhumed from a grave in El Salvador.

Oct. 21

Oct. 22

The Americas

Switzerland’s ruling coalition increases its parliamentary strength in general elections.

A car bombing in Relizane, Algeria, kills eight people and wounds 82 others. . . . In the Ivory Coast’s secondever multiparty presidential elections, Pres. Henri Konan Bedie is reelected in a vote boycotted by the opposition parties. Two protesters are fatally shot by government forces, and reports indicate that at least eight other people were killed in political violence prior to the election. . . . Zanzibar holds its first ever multiparty presidential and legislative elections.

The former leader of Chile’s secret police, retired general Juan Manuel Contreras Sepulveda, is imprisoned. Contreras, 66, was sentenced in May to seven years in prison for the 1976 assassination of Chilean exile Orlando Letelier in Washington, D.C.

Spurred by the September abduction and rape of a 12-year-old girl by U.S. servicemen in Japan, tens of thousands of Okinawans gather in Ginowan, Okinawa, as part of the largest-ever protest against the presence of U.S. military bases on their island.

The Nicaraguan National Assembly elects Julia Mena, a former legislator, as the country’s new vice president.

Police in Colombo reimpose a night curfew in the city in Sri Lanka after rebels blow up two of the city’s three major oil depots. More than 23 security forces and three rebels are killed in the attack. Officials estimate that more than $30 million in petroleum products are destroyed in the explosions.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

October 17–22, 1995—791

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Demonstrators protesting the elimination of affirmative-action admissions policies within the eight-campus University of California system erect tents in front of an administration building in Irvine, Calif., and they launch a hunger strike. . . . Attorney General Janet Reno signs an order that revises the rules on the use of deadly force by agents in nine federal law-enforcement agencies. The order is prompted by the 1992 standoff between federal agents and white separatist Randall Weaver.

Robert E. Rubin, secretary of the Treasury, announces that he will reduce government borrowing in an effort to prevent a default on government payments. Rubin states that, to avoid surpassing the U.S.’s $4.9 trillion debt limit, the Treasury Department will offer $6 billion in three-month Treasury bills at the next weekly auction. That figure is about half the amount usually offered.

Representatives of CNN disclose that the network has signed an exclusive agreement with AT&T Corp. to make CNN business and financial news available on a new AT&T on-line computer service, which will be called the AT&T Business Network.

Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment becomes recorded history’s longestliving person when she reaches the age of 120 years and 238 days. . . . The Cleveland Indians defeat the Seattle Mariners, 4-0, in the sixth and deciding game of MLB’s American League Championship Series.

The House passes, 332-83, its version of a bill that maintains stiffer prison penalties for individuals convicted of crack cocaine offenses rather than powdered cocaine offenses. The body then clears by voice vote an identical Senate bill. . . . In Chicago, Illinois, Judge Carol Kelly finds two unidentified boys, who in 1994 dropped five-year-old Eric Morse to his death because he refused to steal candy for them, guilty of murder.

The Commerce Department reports that in August the U.S. recorded a seasonally adjusted $8.82 billion deficit in trade in goods and services. That is the smallest monthly deficit in 1995, and it represents a sharp decline from a revised gap of $11.19 billion in July.

The House approves, 231-201, a plan authorizing an overhaul of Medicare. The plan is the largest and most controversial provision in the congressional Republicans’ plan to balance the federal budget within seven years. . . . Fights involving 150 prisoners break out at the Talladega Federal Correctional Institution in Alabama. At least eight people are injured. . . . Pres. Clinton endorses pending legislation that will bar employers from discriminating against individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation.

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

A military court at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., acquits navy captain Everett L. Greene, 47, of charges that he sexually harassed a female junior officer, Lt. Mary Felix. Greene’s case receives particular attention because he is the head of the equal opportunity office at the Navy and the highest-ranking naval officer in 50 years to undergo court-martial proceedings. . . . The U.S. Senate passes, 74-24, a watered-down version of a House bill that sought to strengthen the U.S.’s 33-year-old economic embargo against Cuba.

The Dow closes at a record high of 4802.45, marking the 50th record high registered for the Dow in 1995.

In Memphis, Tennessee, several prison buildings are set on fire. In Allenwood, Pennsylvania, a melee involving 150 inmates leads to the minor injury of a staff member. The Justice Department declares a lockdown at most federal prisons nationwide. In Greenville, Illinois, a riot breaks out when inmates refuse to obey that lockdown. Inmates set fires and take over parts of the prison. At least 10 staff members and prisoners are injured.

Oct. 18

Paleontologists report that fossil remains uncovered in China in 1994 represent a new species of the earliest known bird with a toothless beak. Scientists dubbed the new species Confuciusornis sanctus, or “holy Confucius bird.”

Rev. Thomas Schaefer, a Roman Catholic priest in the Washington, D.C., archdiocese, is sentenced to 16 years in prison for sexually abusing five boys between 1966 and 1982. Schaefer pled guilty to the charges. . . . Don Cherry, 58, jazz trumpeter and pioneer in the “world music” genre, dies in Malaga, Spain, of liver failure.

A study of two Ohio girls who underwent an experimental therapy using engineered versions of their own genes to treat a rare, inherited immune-system disease provides the first evidence of successful gene therapy. . . . The U.S. space shuttle Columbia blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, to conduct scientific experiments on the effects of near-weightlessness.

A presidential order that freezes the U.S. assets of dozens of companies and individuals believed to be linked to the Cali cocaine cartel in Colombia goes into effect at midnight.

Oct. 17

Pres. Clinton signs a $63.2 billion bill funding the Department of Agriculture, various rural development programs, the FDA, and other related agencies for the 1996 fiscal year.

Oct. 20

(Richard) Shannon Hoon, 28, lead singer of Blind Melon, a popular rock group, is found dead on the band’s tour bus in New Orleans, La., apparently of an accidental drug overdose. . . . Maxene Andrews, 79, a member of the Andrews Sisters, a singing trio whose popularity peaked during the 1940s, dies in Hyannis, Mass., after suffering a heart attack.

Cuban president Fidel Castro, who was granted a strictly limited visa allowing him to visit the U.S. and address the UN, speaks at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in the predominantly black Harlem area of New York City.

Oct. 19

Sir Kingsley Amis, 73, British novelist, poet, and cultural satirist who won Britain’s Booker Prize in 1986, dies in a London hospital after breaking two vertebrae in a fall. . . . Michael Schumacher of Germany, 26, clinches his second straight Formula One racing title in the Pacific Gran Prix in Aida, Japan, and is the youngest driver ever to have won two titles.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 21

Oct. 22

792—October 23–28, 1995

World Affairs

Oct. 23

Oct. 24

Africa & the Middle East

French president Chirac on a live TV interview broadcast states that France will conduct four more underground tests in the South Pacific, bringing the expected total to six. A protester from the group Greenpeace is arrested after using a jet-powered parachute to sail near the UN building displaying a banner that reads, “Stop Nuclear Testing.” The flight, timed to coincide with a speech by Chirac, is aimed at drawing attention to French nuclear testing. Prior to adjourning its anniversary celebration, the 185 UN member nations unanimously reaffirm the principles of the UN Charter and adopt a pledge to reform the oftencriticized, financially troubled organization. . . . . The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, announces that it will not attempt to block nuclear tests in the South Pacific planned by France by suing France in an international court.

Oct. 25

Oct. 26

Oct. 27

Europe

France explodes a nuclear device in a series of tests being conducted in the South Pacific. . . . Russian defense minister Pavel S. Grachev and U.S. secretary of defense William J. Perry announce that a “special operations unit” made up of Russian and American troops will be established to help implement a peace in Bosnia.

Oct. 28

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Pres. Jean-Bertrand Aristide names Foreign Minister Claudette Werleigh to be Haiti’s new premier. . . . A Salvadoran group called the Democratic Peasant Alliance organizes the takeovers of 59 properties that are among 285 identified by a government registry as being in excess of the legal limit of 621 acres per landholder.

Eighteen Russian soldiers are killed in an ambush of their convoy in Chechnya.

Preliminary returns from Zanzibar’s first-ever multiparty presidential and legislative elections suggest that Pres. Salmin Amour was reelected by a close margin. Opposition parties, alleging that the elections were rigged by the ruling CCM, demand a recount, and protesters clash with police.

Spain’s parliament rejects a proposed budget for fiscal 1996, reportedly to protest the government’s alleged involvement in a violent antiterrorist campaign in the 1980s. The vote marks the first serious parliamentary defeat for Premier Felipe Gonzalez’s 13-yearold Socialist Party government.

In Sudan, rebel forces launch an offensive. . . . a Libyan head of state Col. Muammar Gadhafi suspends the expulsion of 30,000 Palestinians. Egypt has strongly lobbied Gadhafi to halt the expulsions.

International news organizations report new information that supports accusations that Bosnian Serbs in July massacred thousands of Muslim men and boys around the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica. . . . Turkish trade union leaders for public-sector workers accept the government’s proposed wage increases and promise to end a series of devastating strikes. . . . Russian president Boris Yeltsin, 64, is hospitalized after suffering chest pains.

Emile Jonassaint, 82, former Haitian Supreme Court justice who served as Haiti’s military-backed president for four months beginning in May 1994, dies in Port-au-Prince, reportedly of natural causes.

Reports disclose that Myanmar’s military government has ruled that the Oct. 10 appointment of dissident Aung San Suu Kyi as general secretary of the National League for Democracy (NLD), a party that she helped found in 1988, is illegal. . . . A shoot-out with police in Puyo, 100 miles (160 km) from the North Korean border, leads to the death of one policeman and the beginning of a manhunt for a North Korean spy in South Korea.

Two men on a motorcycle fatally shoot Fathi al-Shiqaqi, 44, the leader of the militant Islamic Jihad movement in the Gaza Strip, in the town of Sliema, located 6 miles (10 km) northwest of Valletta, the capital of Malta. He is not immediately identified. . . . Election returns from Zanzibar show that Pres. Salmin Amour of the CCM has won 165,271 votes, topping Seif Sharif Hamad of the CUF, which won 163,706.

Reports state that an estimated 270 people have died due to an outbreak of equine encephalitis in Colombia and Venezuela.

Tamil Tiger rebels raid two Sinhalese villages in the Welioya district in northeastern Sri Lanka. The rebels reportedly shoot or hack to death more than 20 civilians in the raids.

Former Italian premier Bettino Craxi is sentenced in absentia to four years in prison for illegal party financing. . . . Turkey’s parliament eases the country’s antiterrorism laws, including those regarding free speech.

Six government soldiers are killed in an ambush by the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance in Senegal. . . . More than 250 Hutus are slain near Ngozi, Burundi.

Tens of thousands of people from all over Canada demonstrate in Montreal for Canadian unity on the question of whether Quebec should form its own nation.

Former South Korean president Roh Tae Woo confesses that while president from 1988 to 1993, he illegally collected 500 billion won ($654 million) in secret political donations. . . . Imelda Marcos, widow of former Philippine president Fidel Marcos, is sworn in as a member of the Philippines’ House of Representatives. . . . South Korean troops fatally shoot an alleged North Korean spy, Park Kwang Nam, who eluded a massive manhunt that began Oct. 24.

About 300 people are killed and at least 250 are injured when a crowded subway train catches fire in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital city.

In Niger, negotiations between the government and the Organization of Armed Resistance (ORA), which represents Taureg rebels, reconvenes with the goal of implementing a peace accord signed by the two parties, effective Apr. 25. The pact is aimed at ending a four-year conflict that has caused more than 200 deaths.

Enrique Haroldo Gorriaran Merlo, the former leader of the Argentine leftist guerrilla group known as the People’s Revolutionary Army (ERP) who has been a fugitive for 25 years, is captured by Mexican authorities in Mexico City.

Vietnam’s National Assembly adopts a national civil code, which lays out personal property, inheritance, and intellectual rights for the country’s 72 million citizens. The landmark legislation, drafted over a 10-year period, is the first legal-rights code ever adopted by the country’s communist government.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

October 23–28, 1995—793

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Defense Department announces that it will end a program designed to help minority-owned firms win defense contracts. The decision marks the first significant action taken by the Clinton administration following its review of federal affirmativeaction programs.

A federal judge in Boston, Massachusetts, fines Conrail Inc. $2.5 million in criminal charges for spilling oil into the Charles River over a 15-year period. . . . The AFL-CIO labor federation holds its 21st constitutional convention.

A private, unmanned Conestoga rocket explodes 45 seconds after liftoff in the first launch from a NASA facility on Virginia’s coast. The rocket, made for $14 million by Vienna-based EER Systems Corp., carried science experiments.

At the request of NYC mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R), Yasser Arafat is expelled from a concert for world leaders given by the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center. . . . A jury in Houston, Texas, convicts Yolanda Saldivar for the March murder of popular Mexican-American singer Selena in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Scientists reveal that the corpses of three Inca children sacrificed about 500 years ago were found alongside rare Inca artifacts on Mt. Ampato in the Peruvian Andes. . . . The board of directors of the American College of Rheumatology claims there is no proof that silicone breast implants cause disease.

NYC mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R) is criticized by Pres. Clinton for expelling PNA head Yasser Arafat from a concert Oct. 23 as a breach of international diplomacy. Giuliani defends the expulsion, calling Arafat a murderer due to ties between the PLO and past terrorist actions.

Both houses of Congress pass a Republican-led bill to force the U.S. administration to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, its current site. At the urging of Democratic senators, however, the measure allows the president to indefinitely postpone the move beyond its target date of mid-1999.

A federal jury in Dallas, Texas, orders abortion protesters to pay $8.6 million to Dr. Norman Tompkins, who claims that he and his wife were followed and harassed by the protesters. The jury’s award is a record amount for a judgment against abortion protesters. . . . James Lake, a prominent lobbyist and Republican campaign strategist, pleads guilty to one felony fraud charge and two election-law misdemeanor charges. The charges stem from his participation in an illegal scheme to help pay off the campaign debts of Henry Espy.

The House approves, 393-29, a $13.1 billion appropriations bill for the Department of Transportation and other agencies for fiscal 1996. . . . John J. Sweeney is elected president of the AFL-CIO federation, defeating incumbent Thomas Donahue in the first openly contested battle for the presidency in the organization’s 40-year history. . . . A three-judge appellate panel upholds a ruling that a budget resolution passed by Congress in July mandates the release of forests in the Pacific Northwest that the Clinton administration has since set aside for protection.

Seven high-school students, ages 14 to 18, are killed and more than two dozen others are injured when a commuter train crashes into the tail end of a school bus in Fox River Grove, Illinois, located about 40 miles (60 km) northwest of Chicago. The accident is the worst in the 21year history of Metra, the commuter train line. . . . Researchers report they have grown a human ear on the back of a hairless mouse, in an experiment they hope will help them to regrow human tissues for people with missing body parts.

Bobby (Robert Lorimer) Riggs, 77, tennis player best known for his 1973 loss to Wimbledon champion Billie Jean King in the so-called battle of the sexes, dies in Leucadia, California, of prostate cancer.

Dr. Hamilton Earl Holmes, 54, one of two students who integrated the University of Georgia by becoming the school’s first black students in 1961, dies in Atlanta after suffering from a heart ailment.

The House passes, 227-203, its versions of the budget reconciliation bill that calls for the elimination of the federal budget deficit by the fiscal year 2002 via nearly $1 trillion dollars in spending cuts. . . . In light of the Oct. 25 decision, Pres. Clinton lifts a ban on logging in thousands of acres of old-growth forest in the Pacific Northwest.

Lars Ramskold of the University of Uppsala in Sweden reports finding in China fossils of a 525-millionyear-old fishlike creature dubbed Yunnanozoon lividum. Researchers assert that the creature appears to be the oldest known to belong to the phylum Chordata, which includes vertebrates.

Reports state that the Vatican Library has approved commercial licensing projects. . . . Former education secretary William Bennett and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D, Conn.), launch a campaign against what they call offensive subject matter on daytime TV talk shows.

Figures show that U.S. gross domestic product grew at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.2% in the third quarter. That rate, the fastest since the fourth quarter of 1994, compares with an economic expansion of 1.3% in the April-June quarter.

Chinese scientists report that they found, near Jixian in China, more than 300 fossils of leaflike multicellular plants that lived in the sea more than 1.7 billion years ago, some 700,000 years earlier than the plants previously thought to be the oldest.

State health officials in Florida disclose that Elmer Hutto became infected with HIV at age 91 when he was bitten in August 1994 by a prostitute, Naomi Morrison, trying to rob him. The officials state it is the first confirmed case of transmission through a bite, but that the virus was transmitted through blood, not saliva. . . . Researchers estimate that 837,000 people attended the Oct. 16 “Million Man March.” The recount comes because the Nation of Islam has threatened to sue the National Park Service regarding its estimates.

A sniper opens fire on hundreds of soldiers on a field at an Army base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, killing Major Stephen Badger. In the attack, 18 others are wounded. The gunman, subdued by unarmed Special Forces soldiers jogging nearby, is identified as Sergeant William Kreutzer, a member of the 82nd Airborne Division, an elite unit.

A jury in state court in Reno, Nevada, finds Dow Chemical Co. liable for health problems that a plaintiff, Charlotte Mahlum, 46, claims she suffered because of her breast implants. The jury orders the company to pay Mahlum and her husband, Marvin Mahlum, $4.1 million in compensatory damages. It is the first time that Dow Chemical is found solely liable in a breastimplant case.

The Senate passes, 52-47, its version of the budget reconciliation bill. While the bill passed by the House Oct. 26 is very similar to this measure, observers believe it probably will take several weeks before a compromise version of the bill is complete.

Oct. 23

Oct. 24

Oct. 25

Oct. 26

Oct. 27

The Atlanta Braves win MLB’s 91st World Series with a 1-0 victory over the Cleveland Indians in Atlanta, Georgia. . . . Cigar wins the 12th running of the Breeders’ Cup Classic with a record time of 1 minute and 59.4 seconds.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 28

794—October 29–November 2, 1995

World Affairs

Oct. 29

Oct. 30

Oct. 31

Nov. 1

Nov. 2

An international war crimes tribunal indicts Gen. Mile Mrksic, Maj. Veselin Sljivancanin, and Capt. Miroslav Radic for involvement in the mass executions of Croatian men in November 1991. While other indictments have been handed down against Serbs in Bosnia, these are the first indictments for officials in Serbia. . . . After a summit, French president Jacques Chirac and British prime minister John Major announce a decision to coordinate their nuclear-defense policies.

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Reports reveal that the 425-member state assembly in Uttar Pradesh was disbanded by India’s central government.

Pres. Tudjman’s party, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), wins a majority of seats in parliamentary elections in Croatia.

Red Cross officials state that some 2,330 inmates have died from disease in overcrowded Rwandan jails during a 15-month period. The jails, which hold 57,000 suspects tied to the 1994 massacres, were built to hold about 12,000 people. . . . Six people are killed and 83 others are wounded when a car bomb explodes in front of a police station in Rouiba, Algeria. . . . The militant Islamic Jihad movement in the Gaza Strip confirms that its leader, Fathi al-Shiqaqi, was killed on Oct. 26. Followers of Shiqaqi burn Israeli and U.S. flags in Gaza City and throw stones at Israeli soldiers in the city of Hebron.

Enrique Haroldo Gorriaran Merlo, the former leader of the Argentine leftist guerrilla group known as the People’s Revolutionary Army (ERP) who was arrested Oct. 28 in Mexico, is extradited to Argentina. Gorriaran is wanted in Argentina in connection with numerous crimes, including a 1989 guerrilla attack on an Argentine army barracks that left 40 dead and 100 injured.

The Socialist Party government of recently elected premier, Antonio Guterres, takes office in Portugal.

Emmanuel Rakotovahiny is named premier of Madagascar. . . . A Nigerian special tribunal in Port Harcourt in the Ogoni region convicts and sentences to death five MOSOP (Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni Peoples) members. . . . Reports suggest that the Gazabased Islamic Jihad has named Ramadan Abdallah, 42, exiled in Syria, to replace Fathi al-Shiqaqi, killed on Oct. 26, as head of the movement.

Voters in the predominantly Frenchspeaking Canadian province of Quebec, by a margin of a little more than 1%, reject a proposal for sovereignty that would have led to Quebec’s separating from Canada to form its own nation.

A Nigerian tribunal convicts and sentences Ken Saro-Wiwa, 54, and three other members of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni Peoples (MOSOP) to death. MOSOP seeks to protect the Ogoni ethnic group.

In response to the Oct. 30 returns, Quebec premier Jacques Parizeau, the leader of the province’s separatist Parti Quebecois, announces that he will resign and leave political life as of Dec. 22, the last day of Quebec’s autumn legislative session.

An economic summit conference attended by 1,500 businesspeople and scores of political leaders and diplomats from the Middle East and North Africa concludes after delegates endorse a resolution, spearheaded by the U.S., to establish a Middle East and North Africa Development Bank, based in Cairo, Egypt.

The presidents of Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia—Slobodan Milosevic, Alija Izetbegovic, and Franjo Tudjman, respectively, gather at U.S. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base outside Dayton, Ohio, for the beginning of peace talks aimed to build on principles agreed to by all three warring parties in September to divide Bosnia into two entities, a Muslim-Croat federation and a Serb republic.

Africa & the Middle East

French police conduct raids in Paris, Lyons, and Lille and seize grenades, machine-guns, pistols, documents and computers. Police in Paris arrest an Algerian man suspected of overseeing a recent bombing campaign in several metropolitan areas. . . . Brian Lenihan, 64, who served as former foreign minister and deputy prime minister of Ireland, dies in Dublin, Ireland, of a liver ailment.

For the fourth consecutive year, the UN General Assembly condemns the U.S. economic embargo of Cuba.

The African National Congress wins a majority in South Africa’s firstever democratic local government elections.

Two Palestinian suicide bombers launch separate but apparently synchronized attacks against Israeli convoys in the Gaza Strip. Eleven Israelis are slightly wounded, and the two bombers die in the incidents. . . . In South Africa, former defense minister Magnus Malan and 10 other retired senior military officers are arrested and charged in connection with killings that took place in 1987. The 11 officers are the highest-ranking government officials yet charged in investigations of apartheid-era abuses.

In a pivotal battle with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Sri Lankan government forces take control of Neerveli, a small village 4 miles from Jaffna. . . . Sir Wallace Edward Rowling, 67, former New Zealand diplomat who served briefly as prime minister, 1974–75, dies in Nelson, New Zealand, of a brain tumor.

An estimated 25,000 Sri Lankan government troops are consolidating their position some 3 miles (5 km) outside of Jaffna.

Alvaro Gomez Hurtado, a prominent member of the opposition Conservative Party, is gunned down in Bogota, Colombia’s capital city. Pres. Ernesto Samper Pizano declares a 90-day state of emergency. A group calling itself National Dignity claims responsibility for the attack. . . . Argentina’s Supreme Court overturns a lower court’s ruling and approves the extradition of Erich Priebke, a former Nazi specialforces officer, to Italy in connection with crimes committed during World War II.

Typhoon Angela ravages the Philippines. Angela is the 14th such storm to hit the Philippines in 1995.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

October 29–November 2, 1995—795

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Police in Irvine, California, arrest five protestors who have been on hunger strikes since Oct. 17 for obstructing a police officer when the strikers refuse to leave their makeshift encampment. The strikers are protesting the elimination of affirmative-action admissions policies within the eight-campus University of California system.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Golfer Billy Mayfair wins the PGA’s Tour Championship at the Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma. . . . Terry Southern, 71, novelist and screenwriter best known as a coauthor of Dr. Strangelove (1964) and Easy Rider (1969), dies in New York City, reportedly of respiratory failure.

Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill that maintains stiffer prison penalties for individuals convicted of crack cocaine offenses rather than offenses involving powdered cocaine. . . . A jury in state court in Reno, Nevada, orders Dow Chemical to pay $10 million in punitive damages to Charlotte Mahlum, 46. When combined with the Oct, 28 compensation, the award is among the largest ever in cases involving silicone breast implants.

Standard & Poor’s Corp. finds that the U.S. insurance industry faces $40 billion in environmental related claims. . . . A state court jury in Indianapolis, Indiana, awards Vicki Ammerman and Alana Cuskaden a total of $62.4 million in damages against Ford Motor Co. in connection with a 1991 rollover accident involving a 1986 Ford Bronco II. The jury states that the vehicle’s design makes Ford liable for the accident.

A survey indicates that approximately 37 million people in the U.S. and Canada, or 17% of the adult population of those countries, have access to the Internet global computer network. The survey also finds that about 11% of adults in the U.S. and Canada, or 24 million people, have used the Internet during the previous three months.

The Lost World by Michael Crichton tops the bestseller list.

Soul singer James Brown, 62, is arrested at his Aiken, South Carolina, home on charges of criminal domestic violence.

In Citizens Bank of Maryland v. Strumpf, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that banks may temporarily freeze the assets of depositors who default on loans, even if those customers had previously filed for bankruptcy protection. . . . In Louisiana v. Mississippi, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that a stretch of land along the Louisiana bank of the Mississippi River known as Stack Island belongs to Mississippi. . . . Some 35,000 volunteers in Detroit, Mich., help to put out about 60 arson fires set on Oct. 30, or Devil’s Night.

CIA director John M. Deutch testifies in closed-door hearings before the House and Senate select committees on intelligence on the results of an 18-month investigation into the damage caused by convicted spy Aldrich Hazen Ames.

The House, 402-24, and the Senate, 89-6, approve a $19.7 billion fiscal 1996 appropriations bill to fund energy, water-development and nuclear-weapons programs. . . . The Senate, 87-10, passes a $13.1 billion fiscal 1996 appropriations bill for the Department of Transportation. . . . The House approves, 315-106, a $2.2 billion for fiscal 1996 to fund for the legislative branch. . . . The Energy Department states it will conduct six underground nuclear explosions at its Nevada Test Site over a two-year period.

A research report finds new evidence that genetic material on one segment of the X chromosome appears to influence the likelihood of homosexuality in males. The finding does not apply to females. . . . Data show that Compaq Computer Corp. continues to lead computer manufacturers in the number of personal computers (PCs) shipped during the third quarter of 1995.

The House votes, 288-139, to approve a bill that will ban a procedure known as intact dilation and evacuation, a rare method used to end pregnancies in their late stages. The bill is the first attempt by Congress to ban an abortion procedure since 1973. . . . In what is considered the most comprehensive study of students’ U.S. history knowledge, the Department of Education finds that about 64% of fourth-graders, 61% of eighth-graders, and only 43% of high-school seniors have attained at least the basic level of historical knowledge.

In Tokyo, Defense Secretary William J. Perry expresses his “deep sorrow and anger” for the rape of a 12year-old girl by U.S. servicemen in Okinawa. Pres. Clinton and U.S. ambassador to Japan Walter F. Mondale have also apologized for the incident.

Some 1,000 members of the United Automobile Workers (UAW) union walk off their jobs at Chrysler Corp.’s McGraw Glass Division plant in Detroit, Michigan.

Research suggests that people who each week consume the equivalent of 3.5 ounces (109 grams) of fish rich in two types of omega-3 fatty acids are half as likely to suffer cardiac arrest as those who eat no fish.

The New York State Court of Appeals rules, 4-3, in favor of extending to unwed couples, homosexual or heterosexual, the right to adopt children. The ruling makes New York the third state whose highest court grants unwed couples the right to adopt children. . . . A hostage rescue team in Miami Beach, Florida, fatally shoots Catalino (Nick) Sang, after he hijacks a school bus carrying 13 disabled children and leads authorities on a 25-mile (40-km), low-speed chase. No hostages are seriously hurt.

The U.S. Justice Department indicts Daiwa Bank Ltd., a major Japanese commercial bank, on 24 counts of fraud and conspiracy. In September Daiwa admitted that its chief trader of U.S. Treasury bonds, Toshihide Iguchi, had amassed and concealed huge losses over an 11-year period.

The Senate approves by voice vote a $2.2 billion fiscal 1996 appropriations bill for the legislative branch. . . . Congress clears a $712 million fiscal 1996 appropriations bill for the District of Columbia.

NASA releases Hubble Space Telescope photographs that are said to be the most striking images to date of the birth of stars. The images of about 50 stars in the Eagle Nebula, or M16, about 7,000 light-years from Earth, reveal evaporating gaseous globules from which stars will form at the tips of columns of gas 6 trillion miles high. . . . A study finds that a small area in the hypothalamus brain region of transsexual men is significantly smaller than the same brain area in other men.

Oct. 29

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Oct. 31

Nov. 1

Nov. 2

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

796—November 3–8, 1995

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Nov. 3

Nov. 4

Nov. 5

Nov. 6

Yitzhak Rabin, 73, Israel’s prime minister who shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize with Yasser Arafat, is assassinated after delivering a speech at a pro-peace rally in Tel Aviv. The assailant, identified as Yigal Amir, 24, a Jewish right-wing extremist, is immediately seized by security officers and placed in custody. The shooting stuns the nation. Foreign Minister Shimon Peres automatically assumes the post of acting prime minister. . . . Rwandan government soldiers launch a raid against Hutu rebels on the small island of Iwawa in Lake Kivu near Zaire.

Eduard Shevardnadze, 67, currently Georgia’s head of state, is elected president to serve a five-year term under the new constitution approved during the summer. Preliminary returns show that Shevardnadze’s party, the Citizens’ Union, has won a large number of seats in the parliament. . . . An interim government formed by Turkish premier Tansu Ciller easily wins a vote of confidence in Parliament.

In Sudan, rebel forces seize the Pagere village following the capture of eight other villages in an offensive begun Oct. 25.

The funeral for Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin is attended by 5,000 mourners, including scores of heads of state. Among those assembled are U.S. president Clinton, King Hussein of Jordan, British prime minister Major, French president Chirac, Russian premier Chernomyrdin, German chancellor Kohl, Italian premier Dini, and Canadian prime minister Chrétien. Premier Gonzalez of Spain also represents the EU, and the UN’s Boutros Boutros-Ghali attends. Egypt’s president Mubarak makes his first visit to Jerusalem to attend. The PNA, Oman, and Qatar send representatives as well.

Nov. 7

Nov. 8

Police in Great Britain arrest Abdelkader Benouif, reportedly a high-ranking member of the GIA and a suspect in recent bombings in France. . . . Former Italian premier Giulio Andreotti is charged with murder along with four other people in connection with the 1979 killing of a journalist, Carmine Pecorelli. . . . Paul Eddington (born Paul Clark-Eddington), 68, British actor known for TV situation comedies, dies in London of a rare skin cancer.

The 185-member UN General Assembly holds a secret ballot to fill the five Security Council seats that will be vacated in 1996. The five countries selected are Chile, Egypt, Guinea-Bissau, Poland, and South Korea.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

At least 13 people are killed and 330 injured when a fire in a military munitions plant in the town of Rio Tercera in Argentina touches off a series of explosions. Many of the town’s 3,000 residents flee. . . . Paul Bernardo, convicted of first-degree murder in a sensational trial in September, admits that he committed 13 brutal rapes in Scarborough, a Toronto, Canada, suburb in the late 1980s.

Typhoon Angela, the most powerful storm to hit the Philippines since 1984, tears through the archipelago, leaving more than 600 people dead. . . . In the longest and most expensive criminal trial in the history of the Australian territory, David Eastman, 50, a former official of the federal treasury, is convicted of the 1989 murder of Colin Winchester of the Australian Federal Police.

More than 10,000 protesters in Seoul demand that former South Korean president Roh Tae Woo, who confessed to amassing a slush fund while president, be arrested and that Pres. Kim’s alleged links to the slush fund be investigated.

A man armed with a knife breaks into the official Ottawa, Ontario, residence of Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien and his wife, Aline Chretien. Aline Chretien barricades the bedroom and calls the police, who apprehend the intruder, Andre Dallaire, 34.

In Sri Lanka, international relief agencies, citing heavy civilian casualties in Jaffna, estimate that between 300,000 and 400,000 people have fled the region to escape the fighting. The plight of many of the refugees, who reportedly have no shelter, is exacerbated by monsoon storms that begin hitting the region.

The Court Martial Appeal Court of the Canadian Armed Forces voids the 1994 acquittal of retired Lt. Col. Carol Mathieu, who commanded the now-disbanded Canadian Airborne Regiment when it took part in a humanitarian relief operation in Somalia in 1992 and 1993. The appellate court orders that Mathieu be tried again on charges of negligence of duty related to the killings of four Somalis by members of his regiment in 1993.

Franklin Castillo, a director at the Philippines’ Office of Civil Defense, states that the provinces hardest hit by Typhoon Angela Nov. 2–3 are inaccessible to rescue workers because of flooding and landslides. He estimates that 636,000 people have fled to government shelters. Castillo also estimates that Angela destroyed or damaged more than 96,000 houses and caused at least $77 million in damage to the country’s infrastructure.

Estonian president Lennart Meri approves a new coalition government and cabinet led by Premier Tiit Vahi. . . . In Portugal, the government halts construction of a dam that reportedly may damage carvings dating back to the Stone Age. . . . A British court of appeals overturns the 1992 convictions of four men found guilty of illegally selling arms to Iraq, finding that the government withheld crucial documents during the 1992 trial.

Rwandan government officials disclose that its soldiers, who are predominately of Tutsi extraction, have killed about half of a 600-strong force of Hutu rebels in a raid that started Nov. 4 on the small island of Iwawa in Lake Kivu, near the Zaire border. Other sources state that a rebel force of 300 was routed, 171 of them were killed, and five Rwandan army soldiers were killed. . . . An attack on an Egyptian passenger train wounds 10 Egyptian citizens.

Jean-Hubert Feuille, a member of Haiti’s legislature and a cousin of Pres. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, is fatally shot while riding in a car in broad daylight in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital. Rep. Gabriel Fortune, a passenger in the car, is wounded. Separately, Claudette Werleigh is sworn in and becomes Haiti’s first female premier.

Three U.S. servicemen plead guilty to conspiring to abduct and rape a 12-year-old girl in Okinawa. Seaman Marcus Gill, 22, admits beating and raping the girl. Pfc. Kendrick M. Ledet, 20, denies raping or beating the girl. Pfc. Rodrico Harp, 21, states he did not rape the girl, but admits to hitting her a single time. . . . The Sri Lankan government states that since early October, approximately 100,000 civilians have fled Jaffna.

French judge Pierre Renard-Peyen orders that British Airways pay some $4.8 million in cash damages to 61 French passengers who were taken hostage by Iraq just after that country’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. The plaintiffs are among 360 passengers and crew members aboard a flight that made an unscheduled landing in Kuwait on the day of the invasion.

Israeli police arrest extremist group Eyal’s leader, Avishai Raviv, and a Tel Aviv court orders him held on suspicion of conspiracy in the assassination of P.M. Rabin. . . . An attack on an Egyptian passenger train slightly wounds three people. . . . Despite international pleas for clemency in the case, the Nigerian government gives final approval to convictions and death sentences of the nine members of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni Peoples (MOSOP).

The Brazilian Senate approves a constitutional amendment ending the 42-year-old monopoly that state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro (Petrobras) has held over oil production, refining, and transport. . . . An Argentine air force plane crashes during a rainstorm in a remote mountainous region in central Argentina, killing all 53 people on board.

Robert S. McNamara, the U.S. secretary of defense during the Vietnam War, makes his first visit to Vietnam since the war.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

November 3–8, 1995—797

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

More than 2,000 people attend a memorial ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, for the 270 victims of the 1988 terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. . . . . In Monticello, Florida, Judge Nikki Clark sentences teenager John (Billy Joe) Crumitie to life in prison for the 1993 slaying of a British tourist, Gary Colley, at a highway rest stop in northern Florida.

Some 120 people are hospitalized when an accident at a Seattle, Washington, manufacturing plant of the Boeing Co. creates a cloud of toxic gas outside the plant. About 2,300 workers at the plant are evacuated because of the accident.

Research suggests that a gene mutation that previously was thought to cause only a portion of familial breast cancer cases also is linked to noninherited cases, which far outnumber familial cases.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Nov. 3

Nov. 4

Some 1,000 members of the United Automobile Workers (UAW) union vote to end the strike begun Nov. 1 at Chrysler Corp.’s McGraw Glass Division plant in Detroit, MI.

The American Medical Association (AMA) issues two sets of guidelines regarding sexual assault and family violence. The organization’s statistics reveal that more than 700,000 women are sexually assaulted each year, or one every 45 seconds. The AMA finds that 61% of female rape victims are under age 18, that threequarters of sexual assaults are committed by friends or acquaintances, and that males are victims in 5% of sexual assaults.

The U.S. Air Force at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center launches a Titan 4, the most powerful U.S. unmanned rocket, carrying the second in a Defense Department series of $1 billion Milstar communications satellites.

The U.S. space shuttle Columbia touches down at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, with the crew having completed scientific experiments on the effects of near-weightlessness in a microgravity laboratory in the shuttle’s cargo bay.

The Wall Street Journal reports in its quarterly earnings review that the net income of 711 major corporations totaled $63.25 billion in the third quarter of 1995. That is a 5% gain over those companies’ revised 1994 third-quarter profits, which totaled $60.22 billion. . . . Los Angeles–based First Interstate Bancorp agrees to be acquired by First Bank System of Minneapolis, Minnesota, for an estimated $9.8 billion. The sale will be the second-largest bank purchase to date in the U.S.

Maryland governor Parris N. Glendening (D) announces that the NFL’s Cleveland Browns have agreed to move to Baltimore, Maryland, prior to the start of the 1996–97 season. The popularity of the Browns among Cleveland fans sparks unprecedented protests against team owner Art Modell and the National Football League.

In Libretti v. U.S., the Supreme Court rules, 8-1, that convicted drug traffickers who agree to forfeit property to the government under pleabargaining pacts with prosecutors are not entitled to have a judge independently determine how much of their property the government may legitimately seize. . . . Maine voters reject a ballot initiative that would have prohibited Maine from enacting laws designed specifically to protect homosexuals as a group. The National Education Goals Panel, a bipartisan committee created to oversee a 10-year plan to improve education nationwide, reports that limited progress toward U.S. education goals has been achieved midway through the program. Members of the panel indicate that few, if any, of the panel’s goals will be met by the year 2000 if progress continues at the current rate.

Nov. 5

Slappy White (born Melvin White), 74, black stand-up comedian, dies in Brigantine, New Jersey, after suffering a heart attack. . . . John Patrick, 90, playwright who won the 1954 Pulitzer Prize, is found dead in Delray Beach, Florida, in an apparent suicide. . . . Novelist Pat Barker wins the 1995 Booker Prize for The Ghost Road.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California, rules that foreigners in the U.S. share the same free-speech rights as U.S. citizens. The ruling strikes down a provision of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, known as the McCarran-Walter Act. . . . A U.S. federal judge in Miami, Florida, orders the extradition of real-estate magnate Juergen Schneider and his wife, Claudia Schneider, to Germany from the U.S.

The House passes, 289-134, a measure that lifts a 22-year-old ban on exports of crude oil from Alaska’s North Slope to foreign countries.

Officials announces that William Franklin Graham III will succeed his father, the evangelist preacher Rev. Billy Graham, as head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 6

Nov. 7

Nov. 8

798—November 9–14, 1995

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

A Turkish court acquits an American journalist working for Britain’s Reuters news service who was charged with breaching the country’s antiterrorist laws. The reporter, Aliza Marcus, is the first foreign journalist to be prosecuted under Turkey’s strict freedom-of-expression statutes.

In Tel Aviv, PLO chairman Yasser Arafat visits the widow of P.M. Yitzhak Rabin, Leah Rabin, to offer condolences over the Nov. 4 assassination. It is the first publicly known visit by Arafat to Israel. Speculation on a right-wing conspiracy to kill Rabin intensifies with the arrests of two more suspects, Dror Adani, 26, and Ohad Skornick, 23. . . . The Islamic Group claims responsibility for the Nov. 8 attack on a train in Egypt.

The U.S. State Department announces that it is holding up a $4.5 million aid package to Haiti because of that country’s slowness in privatizing state enterprises and enacting civil-service reform. . . . Basdeo Panday is sworn in as Trinidad and Tobago’s new prime minister after his United National Congress (UNC) party agrees to form a coalition government with the smaller National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR).

An international war-crimes tribunal indicts six Bosnian Croats for “the persecution on political, racial and religious grounds” of Muslim civilians in Bosnia during 1992 and 1993. . . . Leaders from most of the British Commonwealth’s 52 member nations, the majority of which are former colonies of Britain, attend a summit and release a statement condemning France’s recent resumption of nuclear testing in the South Pacific.

Irish police in the border town of Carrickmacross intercept a van bound for Ulster containing 1,300 pounds (585 kg) of explosives.

Nigeria hangs writer Ken SaroWiwa and eight other minorityrights and environmental activists convicted of inciting the murder of four leaders of their Ogoni ethnic group in 1994. Saro-Wiwa maintained that he was framed in the killings. The hangings, carried out despite pleas from the international community for leniency, prompt many nations, including Britain, the U.S., South Africa, Germany, and Austria, to recall their ambassadors to Nigeria. . . . Gunmen in Algiers, Algeria, shoot dead a French nun and wound another.

Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso signs 40 decrees expropriating 250,000 acres (101,000 hectares) of unused land from large private estates, vowing to allocate the land to some 3,600 landless farming families.

Government troops participating in a stepped-up military campaign against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebel group advance into the outskirts of the rebel-held city of Jaffna on the northeastern peninsula of Sri Lanka.

In the wake of the Nov. 10 hangings in Nigeria, the 52-member British Commonwealth, meeting at its biennial summit, decide to suspend Nigeria from the organization for human-rights abuses.

Corneliu Coposu, 79, Romanian politician who, in 1989, revived the National Peasant Party, dies in Bucharest, Romania, after a heart attack.

McDonald’s Corp. opens the first of its planned restaurants in Johannesburg, South Africa.

At funeral ceremonies for JeanHubert Feuille, a member of Haiti’s legislature assassinated Nov. 7, Pres. Jean-Bertrand Aristide criticizes the UN peacekeeping force in Haiti for not completely disarming supporters of the ousted military regime.

Tamil rebels carry out two terrorist bombings in Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital, killing an estimated 20 people and injuring at least 40 others. Fighting in Jaffna causes 900 casualties. . . . Afghanistan’s state-controlled radio reports that Taliban forces have launched an attack against Kabul, killing 35 civilians and wounding 50. The Taliban refuses to claim responsibility for the offensive. . . . At least 56 people die in what is described as one of the worst avalanches in Nepal’s history. More than 500 others are stranded and rescued.

At a summit of the British Commonwealth’s 52 member nations, Mozambique is admitted into the Commonwealth and will become the only member not to have former colonial ties to Britain. . . . The 15 member states of the European Union opt to remove their ambassadors to Nigeria in reaction to the Nov. 10 hangings.

In Azerbaijan’s first parliamentary elections, the New Azerbaijan Party—aligned with Pres. Heydar Aliyev—wins the majority. . . . Sir Robert Stephens, 64, British actor regarded a master of Shakespearean performance, dies in London after suffering from liver and kidney ailments. . . . Jack Mann, 81, former British hostage held in Beirut, Lebanon, from in May 1989 to September 1991, dies in Nicosia, Cyprus, after suffering from heart and lung ailments.

The Polisario Front, a rebel group that had been backed by Algeria, turns over to the Red Cross 185 long-held Moroccan prisoners of war taken in a dispute over Western Sahara, which is claimed by both Morocco and the front. . . . Israelis end their formal mourning period for P.M. Yitzhak Rabin with a demonstration that draws 250,000 people to the square in Tel Aviv where he was assassinated Nov. 4.

Guatemala holds governmentannounced presidential elections. . . . Emmett Matthew Hall, 96, Canadian lawyer and judge who, in 1962, was appointed to Canada’s Supreme Court, dies in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, of unreported causes.

Heavy rains in Nepal cause falling earth to crush houses and tourist lodges in the Himalayan region districts of Manang and Panchathar, killing 17 people. . . . China’s official New China News Agency reports that the Chinese government has rejected the Dalai Lama’s appointee and will select a new Panchen Lama. The dispute over the designate underscores China’s continuing determination to assert authority over Tibet.

In response to the EU’s Nov. 12 decision regarding Nigeria, Nigeria recalls its envoys to those countries, defends the hangings of Nov. 10 as justified, and accuses foreign nations of meddling in its internal affairs.

An Egyptian envoy, Ahmed Ala Nazmi, 42, is shot to death in Geneva, Switzerland. An Islamic group takes responsibility the attack.

The Israeli military withdraws from the West Bank Arab city of Jenin, transferring control to the PNA, headed by Yasser Arafat, after 28 years of Israeli military occupation. . . . Two explosions rock a military training and communications center in Riyadh, the Saudi Arabian capital, killing seven people, including five Americans and injuring about 60 others. . . . In Tanzania, a coalition of all 10 opposition parties withdraws from the election process.

The World Trade Organization projects that trade in 1995 will continue a marked tendency toward globalization, with the volume of international merchandise trade for the year increasing 8% from 1994 levels.

Several workers’ unions hold a series of demonstrations to protest a package of spending cuts and tax hikes in France. . . . International observers claim that the Nov. 12 elections in Azerbaijan were seriously flawed.

World Affairs

Nov. 9

Nov. 10

Nov. 11

Nov. 12

Nov. 13

Nov. 14

Europe

Asia & the Pacific

A Japanese cabinet minister, Takami Eto, resigns over controversial remarks made a month earlier regarding Japan’s brutal occupation of Korea, which lasted from 1910 to 1945. Eto, the head of the Management and Coordination Agency, said that the occupation had done “some good things” for Korea.

Kashmiri militants holding four Western tourists hostage since July disclose that two of their captives are ill, one of whom is “struggling for life.”

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

November 9–14, 1995—799

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

One of the most conservative Democrats in the House, Rep. Mike Parker (Miss.), announces that he will switch to the Republican Party. Since the Republicans won control of Congress after the 1994 elections, three other House Democrats have joined the GOP. Parker’s switch leaves the House with 234 Republicans, 198 Democrats, one independent, and two vacancies.

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Statistics show that more than 1 million legal immigrants applied for U.S. citizenship in fiscal 1995. That number is nearly double the fiscal 1993 figure and is the highest in the 20th century. . . . One of Hong Kong’s richest developers, Gordon Y. S. Wu, announces he will donate $100 million to the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Princeton University. It is the largest cash donation ever by a foreigner to a university in the U.S.

The NRC grants a low-power permit to the TVA to operate its Watts Bar 1 nuclear power plant, ending a 23year TVA effort to gain a license for the only commercial nuclear power facility still under construction in the U.S. . . . The Senate passes, 49-47, a bill to increase the debt-limit for federal government funding.

Citing several cases of sexual misconduct by navy personnel, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jeremy Boorda announces that he has called for a one-day “stand down”— or cessation of normal duties—for the navy. Boorda discloses that navy units will spend that day discussing drug and alcohol abuse, sexual harassment, and the responsibilities of leadership. The standdown will affect the Navy’s 430,000 active-duty personnel.

The House passes, 219-185, a measure to increase the debt limit. The body also approves, 224-172, a continuing resolution. Both measures are designed to fund the federal government past deadlines while Congress works on appropriation bills.

John J. Sweeney, the recently elected president of the AFL-CIO labor federation, meets with Boeing workers, striking since Oct. 6, in Everett, Washington, and he leads a march of 300–400 Boeing strikers to a rally attended by several thousand people at Everett Memorial Stadium.

A suspected serial killer, Glen Rogers, is arrested in Waco, Kentucky, after leading police on a high-speed chase. Rogers, the subject of a nationwide manhunt, is suspected of killing four women— in California, Mississippi, Florida, and Louisiana—since September and of slaying an elderly man in Ohio.

After a year-long review of the cases of 2,202 servicemen still listed as MIA, the Defense Department discloses there is “virtually no possibility” that the bodies of 567 servicemen killed in the Vietnam War will ever be recovered.

The Senate passes a stopgap bill by voice vote. However, Pres. Clinton vetoes it, which forces a partial shutdown of the federal government. Clinton also vetoes a bill to increase the debt limit. Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin states he will tap into two federal retirement funds to avoid government default on $102 billion. Clinton signs a $19.7 billion appropriations bill for energy, water development, and nuclear weapons programs.

A study focusing on nine school districts from 1967 to 1991 shows that 38% of new school funding assisted the needs of disabled students and 19% went to other types of special education, while 26% was used for regular education costs.

Aundra Akins, 16, is sentenced to 27 years in prison for the 1993 slaying of a British tourist, Gary Colley, at a highway rest stop in northern Florida. The attack received international attention and called attention to problems facing tourism and safety in the U.S.

The Senate passes, 69-29, a measure that lifts a 22-year-old ban on exports of crude oil from Alaska’s North Slope to foreign countries. . . . The failure of Pres. Clinton and Republican leaders to reach an agreement on a continuing resolution bill forces a shutdown of federal agencies around the country.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Marcia Clark, lead prosecutor in the O. J. Simpson trial, receives a $4.2 million advance offer, which is the third-largest nonfiction book advance in U.S. publishing history. . . . Cartoonist Bill Watterson states he will stop drawing his strip, Calvin and Hobbes, in print since 1986, on Dec. 31.

Researchers report that a small group of Australians who have been infected with HIV for 11–14 years have remained healthy without developing AIDS because they are infected with a genetically weak strain of the virus.

Nov. 9

Nov. 10

Scientists claim they have found fossils in 45-million-year-old rocks in China of a small mammal called Eosimias, which is the oldest known anthropoid, the higher primates that includes humans, monkeys, and apes.

Charles Scribner Jr., 74, former head of the Charles Scribner’s Sons book-publishing company who was the personal editor for Ernest Hemingway, dies in New York City of pneumonia. . . . The NBA suspends a record 16 players for fighting during a Nov. 10 basketball game between the Indiana Pacers and the Sacramento Kings.

The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis lifts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, to carry out a mission to dock with the Russian space station Mir.

Jeff Gordon becomes the secondyoungest NASCAR champion when he clinches the Winston Cup. . . . German Silva of Mexico and Tegla Loroupe of Kenya successfully defend their titles at the New York City Marathon. . . . U.S. golfers win a record fourth consecutive World Cup title.

Russian-born novelist Andrei Makine is awarded the Goncourt Prize for his novel Le Testament Français (The French Will). Since Makine had already received France’s Medicis prize for Le Testament Français, he becomes the first writer to be awarded those two prizes for the same book.

Nov. 11

Nov. 12

Nov. 13

Nov. 14

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

800—November 15–19, 1995

World Affairs

Africa & the Middle East

Slovakia’s parliament passes a law that declares Slovak the only state language and bars the use of other languages in official communications, ceremonies, broadcasting, and advertising . . . French premier Alain Juppe wins parliamentary support for a sweeping package of spending cuts and tax hikes intended to reduce the country’s massive social-security deficit.

Nov. 15

Nov. 16

Europe

Russia reaches an accord with the so-called London Club of 600 Western creditor banks to reschedule, over the next 25 years, $32.5 billion in debts incurred by the former Soviet Union. . . . The Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague indicts Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic on new charges of genocide and crimes against humanity in connection with the capture of the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, which some analysts characterize as the worst massacre in Europe since World War II.

In France, Alain Carignon, a former communications minister and mayor of Grenoble, is sentenced to three years in prison on charges of corruption. Carignon is the most senior official jailed during France’s recent anticorruption campaign.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Coca growers in the Chapare region of Bolivia clash with police who are enforcing the government’s plan to eradicate coca crops, the plant used to make cocaine. A 13-yearold girl is killed. . . . Guatemala announces that the two candidates in Nov. 12 presidential elections, Alvaro Arzu Irigoyen and Alfonso Portillo Cabrera, will face a runoff vote. . . . Reports indicate that seven people have died in clashes during demonstrations in Haiti.

The Australian government agrees to provide funding for the first bridge to cross the Mekong River in Vietnam. About 20 million of Vietnam’s 72 million people currently rely on ferries across the Mekong for their transportation needs.

Algerian president Lamine Zeroual wins election to a five-year term in Algeria’s first contested presidential election since the country gained its independence from France in 1962. According to the government, nearly 75% of the country’s 16 million eligible voters turned out to vote, despite Islamic fundamentalist groups’ threats to kill voters at the polls. Several opposition parties boycotted the election. . . . Nigeria’s Committee for the Defense of Human Rights reveals that Nigeria has seized nine of its members to stifle protests.

Former South Korean president Roh Tae Woo is arrested for accepting hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes during his tenure as president, from 1988 to 1993. . . . Dockworkers embark on a series of national strikes coordinated by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU). . . . The official New China News Agency issues China’s first major policy statement on arms control, which states that China is committed to peace, will not “threaten or invade” another country, and will not substantially raise its defense spending without a serious threat to its security. U.S. president Clinton, in a lengthy interview broadcast on Japanese TV, apologizes for the September rape of a Japanese girl by U.S. servicemen. U.S. Navy admiral Richard C. Macke, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific region, is forced to retire after telling reporters, “I’ve said several times, for the price they paid to rent the car, they could have had a girl.”. . . Reports confirm that Lee Peng Fei, the alleged organizer of a 1993 attempt to smuggle 300 Chinese immigrants into the U.S. on a freighter called the Golden Venture, has been arrested in Bangkok, Thailand.

Nov. 17

Italian president Oscar Luigi Scalfaro signs a decree that attempts to restrict illegal immigration and allow for the expulsion of some immigrants convicted of crimes. The decree is criticized by the Vatican, which claims that elements of the law are racist. . . . Prince Joachim, 26, second in line to the throne of Denmark, marries former Hong Kong businesswoman Alexandra Manley, 31, at Frederiksborg Castle.

Nov. 18

Nov. 19

Leaders of the 18 member nations of the six-year-old Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group sign a framework agreement on principles for achieving free trade among APEC countries by the year 2020.

Aleksander Kwasniewski, 41, the leader of the formerly communist Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), narrowly defeats incumbent president Lech Walesa in Poland’s presidential runoff election.

Reports disclose that, in the city of Gonaives, Haiti, pro-Aristide demonstrators have clashed with UN peacekeepers from Nepal.

An important minority of Hamas members publicly announce their intention to establish a political party named Hizb al-Khalas alWatani al-Islami, or National Islamic Salvation Party, which they characterize as standing in opposition to the Israeli-PLO peace accords.

The Cerro Negro volcano in western Nicaragua begins to erupt, spewing lava, rocks, and gases, and covering the area within a 30mile (48-km) radius with volcanic ash.

A suicide car bomb destroys the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, killing 18 people and wounding 75 others. Three Egyptian Islamic groups claim responsibility. . . . . U.S. vice president Al Gore meets with Japanese premier Tomiichi Murayama in Osaka, Japan, and states that the U.S. will keep its troop level in Japan at 47,000, but may relocate some troops from Okinawa.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

November 15–19, 1995—801

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The health department of New York State issues a report stating that “systematic deficiencies” at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, one of the nation’s leading cancer-treatment centers, led its chief of neurosurgery, Dr. Ehud Arbit, to operate on the wrong side of a patient’s brain.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Pres. Clinton signs a $13.1 billion fiscal 1996 appropriations bill for the Department of Transportation and other transportation-related agencies. . . . The House, 374-52, and the Senate, 63-35, approve a Treasury and U.S. Postal Service appropriations bill for fiscal 1996. The bill provides $23.2 billion to the White House, the Postal Service, the Treasury Department, and Treasury agencies such as the IRS, the Secret Service, and the ATF.

Reports disclose that a study has shown for the first time that a cholesterol-lowering drug can cut rates of heart attacks and coronary deaths in men with high cholesterol levels who otherwise seem healthy. . . . The shuttle Atlantis docks with Mir.

The National Book Foundation presents awards to novelist Philip Roth and poet Stanley Kunitz. Tina Rosenberg receives the nonfiction award, and the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters is awarded to David McCullough.

The House passes, 422-6, a measure prohibiting its members and their staff from accepting gifts, free meals, and expense-paid trips from anyone except close friends and relatives. The new rule, which does not require approval from the Senate or the president, will take effect Jan. 1, 1996. . . . Attorney General Janet Reno discloses that she has Parkinson’s disease. . . . Billy R. Dale, the former director of the White House travel office, is acquitted of embezzlement charges by a federal jury in Washington, D.C.

The House, 270-158, and the Senate, 59-39, vote to approve a $243.3 billion fiscal 1996 Defense Department appropriations bill.

The House, 277-151, the Senate, 60-37, approve a new stopgap measure. . . . To date, Congress has sent the president only five of the 13 appropriations bills that provide funding for government offices and programs.

Researchers announce that fossil remains and stone tools found near the Yangtze River in China provide evidence that human ancestors lived in Asia at least 1.9 million years ago, much earlier than migration to Asia from Africa is believed to have occurred. The find may upset the prevailing theory, which holds that Homo erectus originated in Africa almost 2 million years ago and gradually migrated outward, reaching Asia about half a million years later.

Sales figures from the New York City fall auctions held by Sotheby’s and Christie’s reach a combined total of $255.7 million, indicating a continuing recovery from a slump in the art market that started in 1990. The auctions mark the first time since May 1990 that both houses collected more than $100 million in sales of modern and impressionist art.

The Connecticut State Senate rejects, 24-10, a proposal by Gov. John G. Rowland (R) to allow casino gambling in Bridgeport. The vote effectively halts plans by the Mashantucket Pequot Indian tribe to build an $875 million casino in the economically troubled city.

The U.S. House passes, 243-171, a bill that will prohibit the U.S. Defense Department from spending money on a Bosnian peacekeeping mission without specific permission from Congress.

The Senate passes, 52-47, a massive Republican reconciliation bill designed to eliminate the federal budget deficit by the year 2002. The bill also authorizes funding for government entitlement programs, which collectively account for about two-thirds of all federal outlays. . . . The Senate passes, 80-16, a measure that will repeal the federal 55 mile-per-hour highway speed limit.

The European Space Agency launches an Ariane 4 rocket carrying the Infrared Space Observatory. . . . Researchers claim that an experimental drug prevented monkeys from becoming infected with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), which is usually lethal and resembles HIV. The drug, known as PMPA, is chemically similar to the anti-AIDS drug AZT, or zidovudine.

Charles Gordone, 68, Pulitzer Prize– winning playwright, dies in College Station, Texas, of cancer. . . . (Ernest) Francis Brown, 91, editor of the New York Times Book Review, 1949–71, dies in Brunswick, Maine, of unreported causes. . . . Judge Lawrence McKenna declares a mistrial in the federal fraud case against boxing promoter Don King.

The House passes without debate by “unanimous consent” legislation that will repeal the federal 55 mileper-hour highway speed limit.

The Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith announces that the Roman Catholic Church’s ban on the ordination of women priests is “infallible” doctrine not open to debate.

Republican Mike Foster, a Louisiana state senator, defeats Rep. Cleo Fields (D, La.) in the Louisiana governor’s election. Foster is only the second Republican since the Reconstruction era to win the gubernatorial race in Louisiana.

Authorities charge Jacqueline Williams, Fedel Caffey, and Levern Ward in a triple slaying in Addison, Illinois, in which Deborah Evans was fatally shot and stabbed and had a live, full-term baby cut from her womb. Evans’s daughter, Samantha, 10, and her son, Joshua, eight, were also killed.

The Senate approves a compromise stopgap measure by voice vote.

Germans Steffi Graf and Boris Becker win the season-ending events on the women’s and men’s tennis tours. . . .The Baltimore Stallions becomes the first U.S. team to win the Canadian Football League’s Grey Cup with a win, 37-20, over Calgary.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 15

Nov. 16

Nov. 17

Nov. 18

Nov. 19

802—November 20–24, 1995

Nov. 20

Nov. 21

Nov. 22

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The European Union and Israel finalize a trade and cooperation pact negotiated in July. The agreement supersedes an accord signed in 1975. . . . The EU votes to back an arms embargo and an aid freeze against Nigeria.

Two remote-controlled roadside bombs explode in Grozny as a motorcade carrying Doku Zavgayev, the Russian-appointed head of Chechnya’s government, passes by. In a coordinated action, rooftop snipers open fire as soon as the bombs go off. Six people, including Zavgayev, are injured. . . . Greek premier Andreas Papandreou, 76, is admitted into intensive care after suffering from breathing problems brought on by pneumonia.

Labor unions and opposition parties hold a rally outside the government center in Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital, to protest proposed economic reforms, drawing a crowd of between 15,000 and 40,000 people.

The presidents of Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina agree to a pact to end a nearly four-year-old war among Croats, Muslims, and Serbs in Bosnia that has claimed 250,000 lives. A NATO peacekeeping force of 60,000 troops will be deployed in Bosnia to sustain the accord. . . . France detonates a nuclear weapon beneath the Mururoa Atoll in the South Pacific despite international protests.

In one of the most highly publicized murder trials in modern Britain, Rosemary West is found guilty of 10 counts of murder. The remains of 11 girls and women were discovered at the convicted killer’s Gloucester home. . . . Thousands of French college students begin a series of demonstrations to protest insufficient education funding.

An interview is published in which retired Bolivian general Mario Vargas Salinas discloses that the body of guerrilla leader Ernesto “Che” Guevara was cremated and buried in a mass unmarked grave in the village of Valle Grande, Bolivia, in 1967.

Nineteen people are injured when a bomb explodes in New Delhi, the capital of India. The Jammu-Kashmir Islamic Front claims responsibility. . . . Prince Norodom Sirivuddh of Cambodia is jailed on charges that he plotted to assassinate Cambodia’s second premier, Hun Sen Sirivuddh. . . . The strike that began Nov. 16 in Australia ends, but the Weipa miners continue to strike. . . . China formally arrests Wei Jingsheng and charges him with attempting to overthrow the Chinese government.

In response to the Nov. 21 accord, the UN Security Council votes to suspend its economic sanctions in effect since May 1992 against Serbia. . . . Japan, New Zealand, and Australia formally lodge complaints with their French ambassadors regarding the Nov. 21 nuclear test.

Rosemary West, convicted on 10 counts of murder Nov. 21, is sentenced to life in prison. The West case, which involved the remains of 11 girls and women, is one of the most highly publicized murder trials in modern Britain.

Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia are rocked by an earthquake with an epicenter in the Gulf of Aqaba some 70 miles (110 km) south of Eilat, Israel, and Aqaba (Jordan). At least 10 deaths are caused by the quake, which measures between 5.7 and 7.2 on the Richter scale. It is reportedly the most powerful tremor to hit the Jordan Rift Valley since 1927. . . . Shimon Peres takes the oath as prime minister of Israel.

The Canadian Senate passes and enacts into law a bill that will ban some handguns and require all firearms in Canada to be licensed and registered by the year 2003. The bill is Canada’s toughest guncontrol measure.

Khun Sa, head of an ethnic Shan rebel group known as the Mong Tai Army, formally tenders his resignation. Khun Sa is considered one of the world’s largest heroin traffickers, and U.S. officials have been seeking his arrest since March 1990, when they charged him with attempting to import 3,500 pounds (1,600 kg) of heroin into the U.S. between 1986 and 1988.

Spain’s parliament votes to lift the immunity from prosecution enjoyed by former interior minister Jose Barrionuevo, clearing the way for Barrionuevo to be investigated by Spain’s Supreme Court for his alleged involvement with antiterrorist death squads in the 1980s.

Benjamin W. Mkapa is sworn in as president of Tanzania. . . . A government military court metes out jail terms to 54 members of the Muslim Brotherhood Society and shuts down the society’s Cairo headquarters. The convicted Muslims, many of whom are doctors, academics, and community leaders, receive sentences of from three to five years for alleged political activities that include holding clandestine meetings and distributing antigovernment pamphlets.

In San Salvador, El Salvador’s capital, 200 veterans of the country’s 12-year civil war occupy a government building to demand land and compensation promised under terms of the 1992 peace accord. One person is killed and at least 15 people are injured when police open fire on the protestors. . . . A six-year-old girl is shot and killed when she is caught in the cross fire involving the police in Cite Soleil, a slum area of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The incident sparks clashes, killing at least three people.

Nov. 23

The Americas

Irish citizens vote in a national referendum to eliminate the country’s constitutional ban on divorce. . . . Most of France’s trade unions representing public-sector workers hold a series of strikes and demonstrations to protest Premier Alain Juppe’s plans to cut welfare spending. Some 300,000 people also take to the streets to protest the proposed cuts.

Nov. 24

Asia & the Pacific

Four people are shot dead and another 16 are wounded during a Muslim ceremonial parade led by members of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front in Kashmir. . . . Nicholas Leeson is charged in a Singapore court with three counts of forgery and eight counts of cheating for his role in bringing down Britain’s Barings PLC bank. . . . Three people die and one person is injured when their yacht is hit by a large ship 30 miles (50 km) off the coast of New Zealand.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

November 20–24, 1995—803

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

U.S. District Court judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer rules that major sections of California’s Proposition 187 are unconstitutional because the measures usurp the exclusive authority of federal immigration officials to regulate immigration. Proposition 187, approved in November 1994, sought to deny education, health, and welfare benefits to illegal immigrants. . . . A federal grand jury in Houston, Texas, indicts Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski, 53, on 75 counts stemming from his development and use of a drug he calls antineoplaston, which has not been certified by the FDA.

The GAO finds that blacks in the military are less likely to be promoted than whites. The GAO reaches no conclusion as to whether the disparity is caused by racism, but it recommends that the Defense Department improve its monitoring of minority promotions.

The House approves, 421-4, the compromise continuing resolution passed by the Senate on Nov. 19. Pres. Clinton signs it into law, thereby allowing the federal government to function through Dec. 15. . . . The House passes, 235-192, a massive budget reconciliation bill. The bill authorizes funding for government entitlement programs, which collectively account for about two-thirds of all federal outlays, and seeks to eliminate the federal budget deficit by the year 2002.

The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis, after docking with the Russian space station Mir earlier, touches down on the airstrip at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. . . . The FDA approves a new anti-AIDS drug, 3TC, for use in combination with the drug AZT, or zidovudine.

Sergei Grinkov, 28, Russian pairs figure skater who won two Olympic gold medals with his wife and skating partner, Ekaterina Gordeeva, dies in Lake Placid, New York, of a heart attack after collapsing on the ice during training.

A jury in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, convicts John Stanfa, the purported boss of a Philadelphia organizedcrime faction, on 33 counts, including murder. Seven of his associates are also convicted. . . . Statistics show that public school teachers’ salaries in the 1994–95 school year increased by an average of 2.7% nationwide from the previous school year. The annual increase is slightly lower than the annual rate of inflation. . . . George Delvecchio, 47, convicted of a 1977 rape and murder, becomes the 305th person executed in the U.S. and the seventh in Illinois since 1976.

The Dow tops the 5000-point level at the close of trading

Police arrest photographer Charles Rathbun in connection with the disappearance of Linda Sobek, a model and former cheerleader for the Los Angeles Raiders football team. . . . Research indicates that doctors often ignore the wishes of terminally ill patients.

To date, only six of the 13 appropriations bills that fund the federal government for fiscal 1996, which started Oct. 1, have passed.

A black gunman, Randall Craig Tolbert, bursts into the Rubidoux, California, halfway house where a former Los Angeles police sergeant, Stacey Koon, who was convicted for his part in the 1991 videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King, is being held and demands to see Koon. Tolbert kills a hostage before he is shot and killed by police.

Nov. 21

The FCC approves a plan by Westinghouse Electric Corp. to purchase the CBS Inc. television network for $5.4 billion in cash. The deal will make Westinghouse the leading broadcasting company in the U.S., with 16 TV stations and 39 radio stations.

Bernard M(ore) Oliver, 79, former director of research for the HewlettPackard Co. computer and electronics company who designed the first hand-held calculator in the early 1970s, dies in Los Altos Hills, California, of heart failure.

Data reveal that in 1993, an estimated one in 92 U.S. men between the ages of 27 and 39 were suffering infection with HIV, the virus that caused AIDS.

Nov. 20

Pres. Clinton signs into law a measure that lifts a 22-year-old ban on exports of crude oil from Alaska’s North Slope to foreign countries.

Junior Walker (born Autry DeWalt Jr.), 53, popular saxophonist and vocalist who founded the band Junior Walker and the All Stars, dies in Battle Creek, Michigan, of cancer. . . . Louis Malle, 63, French film director whose style was characterized as both romantic and skeptical, dies in Beverly Hills, California, of lymphoma.

Pope John Paul II reaffirms his commitment to the Roman Catholic Church’s ban on the ordination of women priests. . . . Ohio judge Kenneth Callahan orders an injunction against the move by NFL’s Cleveland Browns to Maryland, pending a Cleveland lawsuit against the team.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 22

Nov. 23

Nov. 24

804—November 25–30, 1995

World Affairs

Nov. 25

Nov. 26

Nov. 27

Nov. 28

Nov. 29

Nov. 30

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Bosnian Serbs in Serb-held neighborhoods and suburbs of Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, stage angry demonstrations against the Nov. 21 peace plan, which, in a transfer of some territory, will put an estimated 60,000 Serbs under MuslimCroat governance. . . . In Ireland, a referendum to eliminate a constitutional ban on divorce passes by a 50.3% to 49.7%. The margin of victory is some 9,100 votes out of 1.6 million ballots cast.

Lebanese president Elias Hrawi begins an additional three years in office.

Eduard Shevardnadze is sworn in as Georgia’s first president since 1992. . . . Reports confirm that the Armenian government has restarted the nuclear reactor at Metsamor. . . . Sergei Markidonov, 34, an incumbent of the Russian Duma who belongs to the small Stability party, is shot to death by his bodyguard during a campaign visit to Petrovsk-Zabaikalsky in Siberia. Markidonov is the fourth member of the Duma to be killed since 1993 parliamentary elections.

The Ivory Coast’s ruling Democratic Party wins a large majority in the country’s second multiparty legislative elections. . . . The Egyptian government steps up a clampdown on moderate Islamic activists, launching a nationwide sweep against those with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood Society, a technically outlawed organization that has operated openly in Egyptian society and eschews violence as a political means.

Voters in Ecuador reject a package of 11 constitutional reforms proposed by Pres. Sixto Duran Ballen.

Taliban forces, in four separate airstrikes, bomb Kabul, killing an estimated 37 people and wounding more than 140. Government officials characterize the attack as the heaviest air raid to target the capital in more than a year. . . . The sole survivor from the Nov. 24 yachting crash near New Zealand, Judith Sleavin, 43, is found on the east coast of North Island.

Reports state that Bosnian Croat soldiers are burning the towns of Mrkonjic Grad and Sipovo, which are slated under the Nov. 21 accord to be returned to the Serbs in a swap for land around Sarajevo. . . . Russian president Boris Yeltsin, who in October suffered his second heart attack of the year, is released from the Moscow Clinic Hospital. . . . Great Britain’s Financial TimesStock Exchange 100 climbs to a record high of 3,649.

In Algeria, Pres. Lamine Zeroual is sworn in. Separately, Gen. Mohammed Boutaghene, the coast guard commander, is shot dead in Algiers. He is the highest-ranking officer yet slain in the Islamic uprising. . . . The Muslim Brotherhood reveals that about 300 of its members who were detained in the Nov. 26 crackdown were slated to serve as poll observers in upcoming elections in Egypt.

Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien introduces legislation that will give the predominantly Frenchspeaking province of Quebec greater autonomy within the Canadian federation.

The International Herald Tribune newspaper agrees to pay S$152,000 (US$214,000) to former Singapore prime minister Lee Kuan Yew to settle a civil libel suit he brought over an October 1994 Tribune article that was critical of unidentified Asian governments and their judicial systems.

The EU reaches an agreement with 12 Middle Eastern and North African nations intended to foster closer economic and political relations. The pact, known as the Barcelona Declaration, will pave the way for a European-Mediterranean free-trade zone by the year 2010. . . . The Czech Republic becomes the first former communist state to sign on as a new member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Despite strong protests from the Slovak’s ethnic Hungarian minority and from the Hungarian government, Pres Michal Kovac signs a law that declares Slovak the only state language and bars the use of other languages in official communications, ceremonies, broadcasting, and advertising. . . . Germany’s government agrees to provide about 4,000 troops to the NATO peacekeeping mission in the former Yugoslav republics. The detachment will be the largest German military unit deployed outside the country since World War II.

Leaders from Rwanda, Burundi, Zaire, Uganda, and Tanzania agree on a plan to return home some 1.8 million Rwandan refugees scattered throughout the region at a conference sponsored by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter. . . . The UN condemns Bosnian Serbs for such atrocities as “executions, rape, mass expulsion, arbitrary detentions, forced labor and large-scale disappearances.” The report is a rare UN condemnation of an entire ethnic or national group.

Bosnian Serbs in Serb-held neighborhoods and suburbs of Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, stage demonstrations against the Nov. 21 peace plan since it will place an estimated 60,000 Serbs under Muslim-Croat governance. . . . Russian defense minister Pavel Grachev formally agrees to a plan under which up to 1,500 Russian troops will be included in a “consultative committee” of NATO members supervising the Bosnia operation.

South Africa’s president Nelson Mandela announces the appointment of 17 people to serve on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which will be headed by Anglican archbishop Desmond Tutu. The commission is to continue for at least 18 months in its efforts to investigate abuses by both the government and groups such as Mandela’s African National Congress during the apartheid era of racial segregation.

Thousands of residents of the city of Leon and surrounding villages are evacuated from their homes after the Cerro Negro volcano in western Nicaragua rains debris on the area. The volcano has been erupting since Nov. 19.

Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz visits China for the first time. Separately, China’s communist government holds an elaborate ceremony in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, and names six-year-old Gyaincain Norbu as the 11th Panchen Lama, the second-highest monk in Tibetan Buddhism. By naming the boy to the religious post, China rejects another boy previously chosen for the spot by the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled leader.

The 1995 Atlantic hurricane season closes, ending the third-worst season since record keeping began in 1871. A total of 19 tropical storms caused 137 deaths in the entire Atlantic region. The death toll in the U.S. mainland, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands was 58, with an estimated $5.2 billion in property damage. . . . The UN Security Council sets a timetable for the withdrawal of most of its peacekeepers from the Balkans, clearing the way for the arrival of the new NATO force.

U.S. president Bill Clinton becomes the first sitting U.S. president to visit Northern Ireland.

King Fahd of Saudi Arabia suffers a stroke. . . . Militants in the village of Qabatiya, south of Jenin, prevent Israeli soldiers from arresting Samir Zakarneh by taking two Israeli border policemen hostage in Jenin. Following negotiations between Israel and PNA officials, the two Israelis are freed, and Zakarneh surrenders to Palestinian police. Separately, 17 Palestinians are wounded in clashes with Israeli troops in Nablus, and gunmen open fire on an Israeli jeep near Jenin.

Alleged members of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, a Marxist guerrilla group in Peru, start a standoff at the guerrilla’s hideout in La Molina, a suburb of Lima, Peru’s capital.

Reports disclose that Chinese officials have detained 32 monks who are unsupportive of their decision to appoint a new Panchen Lama. Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, who was designated by the Dalai Lama as the 11th incarnation of the Panchen Lama, and his family are also reportedly detained by Chinese authorities.

Myanmar’s opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) delivers a letter to leaders of the ruling military regime, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), notifying them that the NLD will not participate in talks to draft a new national constitution. The military leaders reopen their constitutional convention in Myanmar’s capital, Yangon, and reaffirm their rejection of a dialogue with opposition forces. . . . A group of 15 Chinese dissidents, in a letter to Parliament, calls for the release of Wei Jingsheng, one of China’s best-known dissidents, and of other political prisoners.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

November 25–30, 1995—805

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Nov. 25

An arson fire seriously burns a subway token clerk in New York City.

Reports confirm that the California attorney general’s office has launched an investigation into whether a prominent prosecution witness in the O. J. Simpson trial, former police detective Mark Fuhrman, committed perjury during the proceedings. . . . The FBI joins the search for a missing Vicksburg, Mississippi, furniture heiress, Jacqueline Levitz, who was last seen on Nov. 18.

Jockey Jerry Bailey sets the U.S. earnings record in horse racing for a year, with $16,153,065.

In a nationally televised address, President Clinton urges Congress and the American public to support the deployment of 20,000 U.S. troops in Bosnia-Herzegovina as part of a NATO mission to enforce a peace treaty in the former Yugoslav republic.

In Chicago, Illinois, Juvenile Court judge Carol Kelly sentences two unidentified boys—now 11 and 12—who in 1994 dropped fiveyear-old Eric Morse to his death to be confined to a youth home for up to 10 years.

In Thompson v. Keohane, the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that federal judges have the authority to make their own determinations as to whether inmates were placed under police custody before being interrogated. . . . Former senator David Durenberger (R, Minn.) is sentenced to one year’s probation and fined $1,000 for political corruption charges. . . . The House passes, 421-0, a bill that will mandate broader definitions of lobbying and will force lobbyists to disclose more information about their employment.

Data suggest that the U.S. Coast Guard has intercepted more than 1,100 Haitian refugees to date in November. That number is greater than the total number of Haitian refugees intercepted during the previous 12 months. . . . Pres. Clinton embarks on a tour of Europe. . . . The CIA releases a study that shows the use of psychics by U.S. military and intelligence agencies to gather information was largely unsuccessful, and it recommends funding for the program be discontinued.

Independent counsel Joseph diGenova reveals he has found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing in allegations that aides of former president George Bush improperly searched the passport files of then Arkansas governor Bill Clinton. . . . St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, receives an anonymous $1 million donation in the form of a winning ticket from a game sponsored by McDonald’s. St. Jude’s, which accepts patients regardless of their ability to pay, will receive $50,000 a year for the next 20 years.

Figures show that sales of existing homes dropped 1.9% in October from September, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.07 million units. The decline is the first after five consecutive monthly advances.

The murder trial of rap singer Snoop Doggy Dogg (Calvin Broadus) opens in Los Angeles, California. . . . The Lost World, by Michael Crichton, is at the top of the bestseller list.

In National Labor Relations Board v. Town & Country Electric Inc., the Supreme Court rules unanimously that union organizers who seek or hold jobs in nonunionized companies are entitled to the same protection under federal labor laws as nonunionized employees. . . . Pres. Clinton signs legislation that will repeal the federal 55 mile-per-hour highway speed limit. The measure also designates 160,955 miles (259,040 km) of U.S. highways as the National Highway System and allocates $6.5 billion for the system’s maintenance.

Reports confirm that in 1999, NASA plans to launch a relatively small, low-cost craft called Stardust to fly within about 60 miles of the comet Wild-2 in the year 2004 to gather dust samples and return to Earth. . . . Robert Dean Cardin, a nineyear-old Michigan boy who in June 1986 received the sixth successful infant heart transplant in the U.S., dies after his immune system rejects the transplanted heart. The boy was known only as “Baby Calvin” at the time of the transplant.

The Dow closes at a record high of 5105.56, marking the 65th record high for the Dow in 1995 and the 14th record high set in the current month.

Astronomers report finding a planetlike object orbiting a nearby star, providing what they call the first undeniable evidence of a brown dwarf. The find caps a threedecade-long search for the “failed stars,” which lack the mass to sustain a star’s nuclear fusion. The object, GL229B, orbits the star Gliese 229 some 19 light-years from Earth.

Controversial British artist Damien Hirst, whose work displays pickled animals, is awarded Great Britain’s Turner Prize for contemporary art.

Nov. 26

Nov. 27

Nov. 28

Nov. 29

The House passes, 406-4, a bill that will reduce federal subsidies to Amtrak, the national passenger railroad, and give the company more authority to seek alternate sources of funding. . . . General Motors Corp. agrees to pay $45 million and recall more than 470,000 Cadillac model automobiles to settle a federal lawsuit charging that it intentionally skirted federal auto-emissions standards in order to correct a design flaw in 1991 through 1995 models of its 4.9-liter-engine Cadillacs.

Nov. 30

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

806—December 1–6, 1995

World Affairs

Dec. 1

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Foreign and defense ministers of NATO choose Javier Solana, the foreign minister of Spain, as NATO’s new secretary general. . . . Reports confirm that the World Bank and the IMF have halted a $45 million loan package to Haiti, citing the nation’s lack of progress on economic reforms.

Dec. 2

Dec. 3

U.S. president Bill Clinton and Spanish premier Felipe Gonzalez, who holds the rotating presidency of the EU, sign a broad agreement that pledge closer economic and political ties between the U.S. and the EU.

Jimmy Jewel (born James Arthur Thomas Jewel Marsh), 82, British actor and comedian, dies of unreported causes.

A Cameroon Airlines Boeing 737 jetliner crashes near the airport in the city of Douala, killing 72 of the 78 people on board.

A huge car bomb explodes outside the headquarters of the Russian administration headquarters in the center of Grozny, killing at least 11 people and wounding more than 60. . . . The first sizable NATO units begin arriving in Sarajevo.

Reports confirm that a journalist, Hamid Mahiout, has been found stabbed to death in Algeria.

NATO ministers formally elect Javier Solana, the foreign minister of Spain, to the leadership post at a meeting at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. France announces that it will rejoin NATO’s military planning committee, ending a 29-yearold rift.

In Russia, a bomb explodes at the Moscow parliament building. No one is hurt in the blast. . . Tens of thousands of protesters hold demonstrations in Paris and other French cities to protest a government plan to trim welfare spending. . . . Sir (Robert) Charles Evans, 77, Welsh mountain climber who was the deputy leader of the first expedition to climb Mt. Everest, in 1953, dies after suffering from multiple sclerosis.

U.S. vice president Al Gore and South African deputy president Thabo Mbeki sign agreements on cooperation and trade in the firstever meeting of a new binational commission. The pacts allow the U.S. Peace Corps into South Africa for the first time and create cabinetlevel binational groups to deal with cooperation on issues such as business, the environment, science, energy, education, and agriculture.

Qatar boycotts the final session of the 16th summit of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to protest the GCC’s rejection of Abdul-Rahman al-Attiyah, its nominee for secretary general of the organization.

Col. Gen. Dmitri Antonovich Volkogonov, 67, Russian historian known for harsh biographies of Soviet communist leaders who was widely considered a heretic and a traitor in the USSR, dies near Moscow of stomach cancer.

Official tallies show that Egypt’s ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) has won a commanding majority in parliamentary elections.

Dec. 4

Dec. 5

Dec. 6

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Peruvian police kill three alleged members of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement and arrest at least 15 after a siege that began Nov. 30 in La Molina, a suburb of Lima. At least one police officer is also killed. . . . The government of Montserrat begins the evacuation of 4,000 residents of Plymouth, the capital city, because of renewed activity in the Chances Peak volcano. . . . Argentine officials arrest 12 people in connection with the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center that left 87 people dead.

The Australian Medical Association reveals that its code of ethics no longer implicitly gives physicians the right to refuse to treat patients who were infected with HIV. Before the change, the code suggested that doctors with safety concerns or moral objections could refuse to treat HIV patients. . . . Weipa miners, striking since Nov. 16 in Australia, end the job action.

Raul Salinas de Gortari, older brother of former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, is charged by federal prosecutors in Mexico with falsifying bank documents. Raul Salinas has been jailed in Mexico since February in connection with the 1994 assassination of Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, a former top official of Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

Taiwan’s ruling Nationalist Party maintains a slim majority in Parliament, but it loses ground to opposition parties in parliamentary elections. . . . A criminal court in Singapore sentences Nicholas Leeson, accused of making covert derivatives trades, to 61⁄2 years in prison for his role in bringing down Britain’s Barings PLC merchant bank.

The Cerro Negro volcano in western Nicaragua, erupting since Nov. 19, ceases activity.

Former South Korean president Chun Doo Hwan, who ruled from 1980 to 1988, is arrested on charges of staging the December 1979 military coup that brought him to power. Upon his arrest, Chun begins a hunger strike.

Sri Lankan army troops raise the country’s flag in the city of Jaffna, the stronghold of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, capping the government’s most significant victory in the 12-year-old civil war. . . . Former South Korean president Roh Tae Woo is indicted on charges of accepting at least 282 billion won ($370 million) in bribes during his tenure as president. Seven of South Korea’s most prominent business leaders are also indicted. The U.S. government agrees to return more than 150,000 pages of documents seized by U.S. soldiers from the headquarters of the Haitian armed forces in September and October 1994.

Sri Lankan government officials estimate that nearly 2,000 rebels were killed and 5,000 were wounded during the offensive. It states that 400 government troops were killed and 1,600 soldiers were wounded. . . . Japanese authorities arrest former labor minister Toshio Yamaguchi on charges of breach of trust. Yamaguchi, now an independent member of the Diet, is accused of using his political clout to obtain 2.7 billion yen (US$26.7 million) in collateral-free loans for family members, knowing that the loans could not be repaid.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

December 1–6, 1995—807

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Rep. James A. Hayes of Louisiana announces his switch to the Republican Party, becoming the fifth House Democrat to do so since the Republicans won a majority in Congress in 1994. . . . Civil-rights leader Jesse Jackson announces he will resume his position as head of Operation PUSH. . . . Oklahoma’s regents of higher education approve an endowed professorship at the University of Oklahoma College of Law named for professor Anita F. Hill.

A $243.3 billion 1996 Defense Department appropriations bill becomes law without Pres. Clinton’s signature. When Congress is in session, any legislation that it clears becomes law within 10 days—excluding Sundays—if the president does not veto it. Clinton had repeatedly vowed to veto the defense bill, but, fearing that if he rejected the bill Republicans may retaliate by denying him funding to send U.S. troops to enforce a peace agreement for Bosnia-Herzegovina, Clinton agreed to accept the legislation.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

A Christie’s auction of 250 items owned by singer Frank Sinatra and his wife, Barbara, fetches a total of $2.07 million, far more than the $1.5 million expected.

Reports confirm that Yeshiva University in New York City has received a bequest of $22 million from Anne Scheiber, a retired stockbroker who had died in January and was never been affiliated with the university. . . . A Florida doctor, Rolando Sanchez, who in February amputated the wrong leg of a patient and in July removed another patient’s toe without consent, is fined $10,000 and barred from practicing medicine for six months by the state Board of Medicine.

NASA launches an Atlas-2AS rocket carrying the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), a craft designed to spend two years or more at 92 million miles from the sun relaying to Earth observations of that star. The $1 billion mission is a joint NASA-European Space Agency project. . . . A study finds that a group of people who adhered to a traditional Mediterranean diet had half the death rate as those who ate more Westernized diets.

Statistics indicate that the state and federal prison population has grown since June 30 by a record 89,707 inmates, to reach a record total of more than 1.1 million.

A group of eight Michigan doctors calling themselves Physicians for Mercy offer assisted suicide advocate Dr. Jack Kevorkian his firstever organized support. Kevorkian receives $20,000 from the Sovereign Fund, a private Los Angeles foundation, for what the group calls his work to guard individual rights. . . . Abbott Laboratories announce that in January 1996 it will hold a lottery to offer its experimental AIDS drug ritonavir free to 2,000 people in the U.S. and other countries who are in the late stages of the disease.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

(William) Robertson Davies, 82, Canadian writer, critic and professor, dies in Orangeville, Ontario, after suffering a stroke.

The 18th annual Kennedy Center Honors are awarded to Sidney Poitier, Neil Simon, B. B. King, Marilyn Horne, and Jacques d’Amboise. . . . The U.S. wins tennis’s Davis Cup with a victory over the Russian team in Moscow, Russia. The Cambodian government returns to U.S military officials what are believed to be the remains of U.S. Marines who died in a failed military mission during the Vietnam War.

Chrysler Corp. sues Lee Iacocca, its former chairman, charging that Iacocca funneled confidential corporate information to Kirk Kerkorian, a dissident Chrysler shareholder who in the spring waged an unsuccessful battle to take over the company. . . . The NASDAQ index reaches a record high, closing at 1069.79. . . . The United Automobile Workers (UAW) union calls off its 17-month-long strike against Peoria, Illinois-based Caterpillar Inc.

A lawyer for actress Kim Basinger announces that Basinger has settled out of court for an undisclosed amount with Main Line Pictures Inc., whose 1993 award of $8.1 million was struck down by the California Court of Appeals in September 1994. . . . NBA referees narrowly approve a new labor contract that ends a two-month-long management-imposed lockout.

Reports suggest that an Arizona state court judge has ruled that a public-school district has the right to require students to wear school uniforms. Lawyers characterize the ruling as the first to uphold a publicschool uniform requirement that cannot be overruled by parents.

The Senate approves, 65-30. a bill to curb the ability of stockholders to file securities-fraud suits.

Astronomers’ calculations indicate the presence of a black hole with the mass of 1.2 billion suns which is located about nine light-years from the center of the galaxy. . . . Clair Cameron Patterson, 73, geochemist known for determining the Earth’s age at 4.6 billion years from his study of metals in rocks, a figure that is still accepted at the time of his death, dies in Sea Ranch, California, of an asthma attack.

Officials announce that the ABC television network will launch a 24hour all-news television channel in 1997. ABC is the latest in a series of companies to announce plans for a 24-hour news service to compete with the CNN.

Pres. Clinton holds the first-ever White House conference on AIDS and HIV, hosting 300 advocates, lobbyists, and doctors. . . . Marion P. Hammer becomes the first female president of the NRA gun lobby. . . . In Bailey v. U.S., the Supreme Court rules unanimously that the government can invoke a 1988 federal law that mandates a minimum of five years extra for prison sentences of drug traffickers who use or carry firearms, only if the government proves that the defendant actively used the firearm in the commission of the crime.

Pres. Clinton vetoes the massive Republican reconciliation bill, designed to eliminate the federal budget deficit by the year 2002. Clinton says the bill mandates unacceptable cuts in social programs. . . . The House passes, 256166, a $27.3 billion fiscal 1996 appropriations bill for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State and the federal judiciary. . . . The House Committee on Ethics votes unanimously to appoint a special counsel to investigate allegations that House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.) violated tax laws when he taught a college class.

Researchers report they have discovered several immune-system chemicals that in laboratory experiments stopped growth of HIV, the AIDS-causing virus.

James Barrett Reston Jr., 86, Scottish-born journalist at The New York Times for 50 years who earned Pulitzer Prizes for journalism in 1945 and 1957, dies in Washington, D.C., of cancer.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 1

Dec. 2

Dec. 3

Dec. 4

Dec. 5

Dec. 6

808—December 7–11, 1995

Dec. 7

Dec. 8

World Affairs

Europe

Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania sign a free-trade accord with the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), which comprises Iceland, Switzerland, Norway, and Liechtenstein. . . . Reports confirm that the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has backed Jamil al-Hujilan, a Saudi citizen, for GCC secretary general.

British prime minister John Major, responding to reports of infected beef products, states that widespread fears over the so-called mad cow disease are largely unfounded. . . . Protests are held in Paris, Grenoble, Marseilles, and Bordeaux, where French premier Alain Juppe was mayor. Figures suggest that 700,000 of France’s 2 million public-sector workers are taking part in the strikes that started Nov. 24.

Representatives of more than 50 countries and international organizations meet in London, England, to discuss nonmilitary issues related to the Bosnian peace plan.

Mikhail Lezhnev, 48, a candidate for Our Home Is Russia party, is found dead of a gunshot wound on the doorstep of his home near Chelyabinsk, in the Ural region. . . . Philip Lawrence, the principal of a secondary school in London, England, is fatally stabbed during what is believed to be an incident of gangrelated violence. . . . Some 4,000 striking miners in eastern Lorraine, France, set fire to a mine office building. One policeman and 28 miners are injured in the violence.

Dec. 9

Dec. 10

Dec. 11

UNICEF reveals that some 2 million children were killed and 4 million disabled over the previous decade, as young people increasingly became participants, targets, and victims in a growing number of ethnic wars and violent conflicts. UNICEF proposes 10 antiwar measures, including a ban on land mines, a system for reporting war crimes against women and children, barring conscription of children younger than 18, and “carefully monitoring” the effects of UN economic sanctions against countries such as Iraq.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Senior Jordanian sources reveal that Jordanian authorities have intercepted “very sophisticated” missileguidance components slated for shipment to Iraq in violation of United Nations sanctions.

More than 100 East Timorese protesters stage sit-ins at the Dutch and Russian embassies in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, to mark the 20th anniversary of Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor, a former colony of Portugal. . . . The Japanese government files a lawsuit to force 35 landowners—who oppose U.S. bases in Okinawa because of the September rape of a 12-year-old girl by three U.S. servicemen—to renew their leases with the U.S. military.

Colombian police free British diplomat Timothy Cowley, who was kidnapped by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group in August. . . . Data reveals that in 1995 Central America was struck by at least four major disease epidemics. In the most severe outbreak, more than 100,000 cases of dengue fever, an often-fatal mosquito-borne disease, were reported in 1995 in Latin America and the Caribbean, with the highest concentration in Central America.

Voters in Kazakhstan cast ballots to elect members of the 67-seat lower house of the country’s new parliament. Candidates earn the absolute majority required for victory in races for only 43 of the seats, leaving the chamber short of the two-thirds quorum necessary to begin a session. Another round is scheduled for 1996.

Jordanian officials arrest Laith Shubailat, an Islamist who led the opposition in Jordan against the peace treaty that King Hussein signed with Israel in October 1994. . . . A drive-by gunman south of Bethlehem wounds a Jewish settler and his 10-year-old daughter.

Voters in Belarus go to the polls to complete balloting to elect the country’s first post-Soviet parliament.

Israel transfers administrative authority to Palestinians in Tulkarm, on the Israeli border to the northwest of Nablus. The move is met with an outpouring of joy in Tulkarm.

A remote-controlled car bomb is detonated in Madrid, Spain, killing six people. . . . Peace rallies are staged in both Moscow and Grozny to mark the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya. . . . At least one letter bomb explodes in a mail-box in the southern city of Graz, Austria. No one is injured. . . . Physicians in Athens, Greece, describe the medical condition of ailing Greek premier Andreas Papandreou as “dangerous” and put him back on a respirator. Papandreou has been receiving constant medical treatment since Nov. 20.

Israeli troops pull out of Nablus, the West Bank’s largest city, under terms of the Sept. 28 second-phase agreement on interim Palestinian self-rule. The pullback ends Israel’s 28-year-old military occupation of Nablus and signals Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres’s determination to continue with peace plans negotiated by former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. Tens of thousands of Palestinians take to the streets to celebrate.

Asia & the Pacific

A nuclear reactor in Monju, Japan, is shut down indefinitely after a sodium coolant leak occurs. . . . Chinese government officials hold a ceremony in Shigatse, Tibet, and install six-year-old Gyaincain Norbu as the 11th Panchen Lama, the secondhighest figure in Tibetan Buddhism. China chose the boy in late November after rebuffing a boy chosen earlier by the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled leader.

In Bangladesh, activists demanding the ouster of P.M. Khaleda Zia call for a general strike. It is the 75th work stoppage called for since April 1994.

Venezuelan finance minister Luis Matos Azocar announces a devaluation of the bolivar, Venezuela’s currency, by 41.4%, to 290 to the U.S. dollar from 170 to the dollar. Matos reveals that the devaluation is part of an attempt to secure a loan of up to $3 billion from the IMF to help fight Venezuela’s current recession.

A three-member panel of India’s Supreme Court upholds a 1951 law that prohibits politicians from appealing to individuals’ religious convictions to gain votes. . . . Scores of people are injured in Dhaka, Bangladesh, when armed militants from the governing Bangladesh Nationalist Party clash with rival opposition parties and police.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

December 7–11, 1995—809

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Bryan Freeman, 17, a neo-Nazi skinhead accused of slaying his parents and younger brother in February, pleads guilty to killing his mother, Brenda Freeman, and is sentenced to life without parole. . . . The Senate votes, 54-44, to approve a bill that will ban a rare procedure known as intact dilation and evacuation, to end pregnancies in their late stages. The bill will render performance of the abortion procedure by doctors a felony offense.

Pres. Jose Eduardo dos Santos becomes Angola’s first president to visit the U.S. . . . Michael James and Jackie Burden, a black couple from Fayetteville, North Carolina, are slain, and police arrest Pvts. Malcolm Wright and James Burmeister, two white army soldiers stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, who allegedly harbor white supremacist views.

The Senate approves, 50-48, a $27.3 billion fiscal 1996 appropriations bill for the Departments of Commerce, Justice and State and the federal judiciary. . . . The House approves, 227-190, a $80.6 billion fiscal 1996 appropriations bill for the VA, HUD, NASA, the EPA, and FEMA. . . . Pres. Clinton releases the White House’s plan for balancing the budget within seven years as an alternative to the Republicansponsored proposal that he vetoed Dec. 6.

The Galileo spacecraft fires its main engine and enters an orbit of Jupiter for a planned two-year study of the planet, the largest in the solar system. Galileo has traveled 2.3 billion miles (3.7 billion km) since its launching in 1989. . . . The FDA approves the use of a new anti-AIDS drug, saquinavir, the first approval worldwide for the class of drugs known as protease inhibitors.

Roland Smith, 51, storms a Jewishowned store in Harlem, shoots and wounds four people, sets a blaze that kills seven people, and then fatally shoots himself. Police state that Smith, who is black, allowed blacks to leave the store, which has been protested since its expansion plans led to the closure of a blackowned store next door. . . . Ernest LeRoy Boyer, 67, former president of the Carnegie Foundation and U.S. commissioner of education, dies in Princeton, New Jersey, after suffering from lymphoma.

The U.S. Navy announces that Rear Admiral Ralph L. Tindal, 55, was found guilty of sexual harassment, adultery, fraternization, and conduct unbecoming an officer. The charges against Tindal stemmed from his involvement with an unidentified enlisted woman who had worked for him.

A U.S. District Court jury in Compton, California, convicts Rep. Walter R. Tucker III (D, Calif.) on seven counts of extortion and two counts of tax evasion. . . . A Senate panel investigating the Whitewater affair votes, 10-8, along party lines to subpoena documents that concern a 1993 White House meeting.

The board of the NAACP unanimously elects Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D, Md.) as its top officer. . . . Walter Gellhorn, 89, law professor and scholar who served as member director of the ACLU and of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, dies in New York City of unreported causes.

Sergeant Randy Lee Meadows is charged with conspiracy for allegedly driving a car carrying Pvts. Malcolm Wright and James N. Burmeister in what police call the racially motivated slayings of a black couple in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on Dec. 7.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Dec. 7

Dec. 8

Running back Eddie George of Ohio State wins the Heisman Trophy. . . . Douglas Corrigan, 88, known as “Wrong Way Corrigan” since he flew his plane from NYC to Dublin, Ireland, instead of Los Angeles, when he made an error later thought intentional, dies in Orange, California, of unreported causes.

A subway token clerk in New York City, Harry Kaufman, who was burned in an attack in which arsonists poured lighting fluid onto his booth before igniting it, dies from wounds sustained in the Nov. 26 fire.

Reports disclose that many investors who brought fraud suits against Prudential Securities Inc. are claiming that they did not know about a settlement that was finalized Nov. 17. The company states it informed thousands of investors that their cases were settled according to terms of a class action suit, finalized Nov. 17, unless they opted out of the settlement in writing by an Oct. 30 court-imposed deadline. The legal tactic adopted by Prudential, if successful, will enable the company to escape millions of dollars in claims.

United Cerebral Palsy presents the Humanitarian Award to Diana, the Princess of Wales, and the Award for Outstanding Achievement to retired army general Colin Powell. . . . An official states that courtapproved administrators have determined that 294,537 individuals nationwide will share a $46 million settlement in two federal class-action lawsuits accusing Denny’s restaurant chain of racial discrimination.

Utah representative Enid Greene Waldholtz (R) holds an emotional press conference during which she admits that her 1994 campaign was financed in violation of FEC rules and accuses Joseph Waldholtz, her estranged husband and the campaign’s treasurer, of bilking her father of $4 million used to fund her campaign. . . . Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary is reprimanded by senior White House officials for making extravagant travel expenditures on trips overseas. . . . At least 25 people are injured when an explosion causes a fire at the Malden Mills textile factory, the largest employer in Methuen, Massachusetts. . . . The Commerce Department reports the number of businesses owned by black Americans grew 46% between 1987 and 1992, compared with a 26% rise in the total number of U.S. firms during the same period. However, the average revenue of black-owned businesses stood at only $51,000 at the end of 1992, compared with a $192,000 figure for U.S. businesses overall.

Dec. 9

Dec. 10

A jury in Waterville, Washington, acquits a Pentecostal lay preacher and his wife, Robert Roberson and Connie Roberson, of 14 counts of child molestation. The Robersons are among 28 adults charged with child molestation in a two-year investigation that led to the arrest of 40 people, at least 20 of whom are in prison.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 11

810—December 12–15, 1995

Dec. 12

Dec. 13

Dec. 14

Dec. 15

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The UN General Assembly passes a resolution condemning all nuclear testing and urging an end to all such programs. . . . Judge Richard Goldstone of South Africa, who is heading the UN tribunal to investigate and try individuals suspected of taking part in acts of genocide in 1994 in Rwanda, announces that the tribunal has issued its first indictments, charging eight people with planning or participating in four mass killings near Kibuye. Separately, the UN Security Council votes to extend its Rwandan peacekeeping mission for three months but will reduce its force to 1,200 troops and 200 military monitors.

Striking public-sector workers in France hold large demonstrations in major French cities, including Bordeaux, Toulouse, Rouen, and Le Havre. The strikes bring commuter traffic in and around Paris to a near standstill, and 100,000 marchers in Marseilles and 150,000 in Paris call for Premier Alain Juppe’s resignation. . . . About 90% of voters in Serb-dominated suburbs of Sarajevo vote against the November treaty in a nonbinding referendum. The Serbs oppose provisions in the pact that will transfer control of the districts where they live to the Muslim-Croat federation. Separately, Bosnian Serb soldiers release Capt. Frederic Chiffot and Lt. Jose Souvignet, French pilots whose plane was shot down during a NATO bombing raid in August.

The legislative branch of the EU, the European Parliament, overwhelmingly approves a customs pact with Turkey under which Turkey will become part of the EU market by adopting many of its trade laws and external tariffs.

Hundreds of youths in the workingclass London borough of Brixton riot over the death of Wayne Douglas, a black man who died in police custody on Dec. 5. . . . Three policemen are injured, 50 stores are damaged, and 22 people are arrested. . . . Alfons Noviks, the chief of security forces in then-Soviet Latvia in the 1940s and 1950s, is found guilty of genocide and sentenced to life in prison by a Latvian court.

Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) vote unanimously to extend ASEAN membership to Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar. . . . In Paris, France, leaders of the rival factions in the Bosnian civil war sign a treaty to end the nearly four-year-old conflict, formally approving the pact initialed in November. In an important diplomatic breakthrough, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which comprises Serbia and Montenegro, and the Bosnian government agree to establish formal relations.

Islamic fundamentalist paramilitary troops engage in a shoot-out with Croat militiamen at Zepce, Bosnia, that leaves five of the Muslims dead. . . . A force of about 800 rebels seizes Gudermes, Chechnya’s second-largest city, as part of campaign to disrupt local elections intended to ratify a Russianbacked government in Chechnya. The clashes are among the worst since Russian government and Chechen rebel officials signed an accord that was supposed to have ended the secessionist war in July.

Leah Rabin, widow of the late Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated Nov. 4, holds a private meeting with Pope John Paul II in Rome, during which he reportedly backs Israel’s claim that Jerusalem was its capital for the first time. . . . In Nigeria, more than 450 opposition politicians gather to push for a meeting with Gen. Sani Abacha and a restoration of civilian rule.

North Korea and an international group sign a $4.5 billion agreement for the construction of two lightwater nuclear reactors in exchange for North Korea’s agreement to halt its suspected nuclear arms program. . . . An international body studying the possible disarmament of paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland meets for the first time. . . . EU leaders agree to call the proposed single currency the “euro” and set the launch date for 1999. . . . ASEAN leaders sign a pact that declares their region a nuclear-free zone.

In Chechnya, rebels attack the town of Urus Martan, claiming the government is allowing open ballot fraud to take place there. . . . Many public sector employees of France decide to return to work following a 22-day strike.

Eritrean forces launch an attack against Yemeni troops on the disputed Greater Hanish island, located at the mouth of the Red Sea. . . . In South Africa, 10 people are killed near Port Shepstone, south of Durban. . . . The International Committee of the Red Cross states it has suspended its activities in Burundi after a series of grenade attacks on its offices there.

A car bomb explodes in Algiers, the capital of Algeria, killing 15 people and wounding 40.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Demonstrators calling for more government funding for universities take over Nicaragua’s Sandino Airport for four hours, forcing incoming flights to be diverted.

David Marshall, 87, chief minister in the government of Singapore, 1955–56, and a strong advocate for human rights, dies in Singapore after suffering from lung cancer.

About 200 students demonstrating for more government funding for universities reportedly hold hostages outside the residence of Pres. Violeta de Barrios Chamorro in Managua, Nicaragua’s capital. Riot police fire on the crowd, killing a university professor and wounding 19 people. Although it is not reported, a student is also fatally shot during the demonstration.

One of China’s best-known dissidents, Wei Jingsheng, is convicted of “conspiring to subvert the government” and sentenced to 14 years in prison. Wei has spent all but six months of the last 16 years in prison for his writings. . . . A coroner in Australia’s Northern Territory announces that the cause of death of Azaria Chamberlain, whose mother Lindy Chamberlain claimed that her daughter was taken and killed by a dingo, cannot be determined.

The Commission of Accusations, a Colombian congressional panel investigating allegations that Pres. Ernesto Samper Pizano accepted nearly $6 million from the Cali drug cartel to finance his 1994 presidential campaign, closes its preliminary investigation, citing a lack of evidence against Samper.

Japanese premier Tomiichi Murayama endorses a justice ministry request to proceed with efforts to disband Aum Shinrikyo, a Japanese religious cult linked to a fatal March nerve-gas attack on Tokyo’s subway system, under a 1952 antisubversion law. The law has never before been used against a group. . . . Amnesty International accuses the Indonesian military of raping and executing women human-rights activists in East Timor.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

December 12–15, 1995—811

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The House passes by unanimous consent an amended bill that will increase sentences for child pornography and child prostitution. . . . Rep. Walter R. Tucker III (D, Calif.), convicted Dec. 8 on seven counts of extortion and two counts of tax evasion, announces his resignation from the House. . . . Convicted murderer James Michael Briddle is executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas. He is the 56th and final inmate to be put to death in 1995. The year’s 56 executions are the most since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976. . . . (William) Homer Thornberry, 86, who served in Congress (D, Tex.) 1949–63, and was a 1968 Supreme Court justice nominee, dies in Austin, Texas, of cancer. . . . The Senate rejects a proposed amendment to the Constitution that would have barred desecration of the U.S. flag. The final tally is 62 for the amendment and 36 against, three votes short of the two-thirds majority needed. . . . Jesse Jackson Jr., son of civil-rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson, wins election to the House in a special election called to fill the seat vacated by former Rep. Mel Reynolds (D, Ill.), who resigned in September after being sentenced to five years in prison.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Senate and the House, both by voice vote, agree to repeal a provision from the Clean Air Act of 1990 that requires businesses located in high-pollution areas to compel their workers to carpool to work. . . . The White House, citing lawyer-client and executive privilege, refuses to hand over documents subpoenaed Dec. 8 by the Senate panel investigating the Whitewater affair.

Researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope estimate that the HaleBopp comet has a nucleus up to 25 miles across, far larger than Halley’s comet. . . . The FDA approves riluzole, sold by Rhone-Poulenc Rhorer Inc. as Rilutek, the first approval worldwide of a drug to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, which at any given time afflicts 30,000 people in the U.S. Separately, the FDA asserts that it is not slower in approving new drugs than agencies in other countries.

Andrew Nelson Lytle, 92, writer involved in the “agrarian” literary movement in the southern U.S., dies in Monteagle, Tennessee, of systemic failure. . . . NBC agrees to pay $2.3 billion for the rights to broadcast the 2004 Summer Olympic Games, the 2006 Winter Olympic Games, and the 2008 Summer Olympics on TV and cable. The size of the deal is a record in sports TV history.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit approves, 2-1, a redistricting plan for the state of Georgia that will eliminate two of Georgia’s three majority-black congressional districts. . . . Laurence Powell, who was convicted for his involvement in the 1991 videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King, is released from prison.

Wali Khan Amin Shah is indicted in the U.S. on charges that he participated in an aborted scheme, uncovered in January, to bomb 11 American airliners over the Far East. . . . The U.S. Congress, after heated debate, approves resolutions that give reluctant support to the deployment of American troops in the peace effort in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Senate measure passes by a 69-30 vote, the House resolution by a 287-141 vote.

The House passes, 244-181, a $12.2 billion appropriations bill for the Interior Department for fiscal 1996. . . . The Dow closes at 5216.47, the 69th record high registered for the Dow in 1995. . . . Workers end a 69-day strike against Boeing. Co.

Former Los Angeles police sergeant Stacey Koon, who was convicted for his involvement in the 1991 videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King, is released from federal custody after serving more than two years of his sentence. . . . Police arrest three teenagers—James Irons, Vincent Ellerbe, and Thomas Malik—suspected in the Nov. 26 arson attack that fatally burned Harry Kaufman, a subway token clerk in New York City.

The Senate approves, 82-16, the appointment of 18 ambassadors whose confirmations have been held up for months by Sen. Jesse Helms (R, N.C.).

The Senate clears, 54-44, an $80.6 billion fiscal 1996 appropriations for the VA, HUD, EPA, NASA, and FEMA. . . . The Senate clears, 5840, a $12.2 billion fiscal 1996 appropriations bill for the Interior Department. . . . The family of the late Senator H. John Heinz III (R, Pa.) announces a $20 million donation from a family philanthropic trust to establish a research center devoted to environmental policy studies.

A California AIDS activist in the late stages of the disease, Jeff Getty, 38, undergoes an experimental procedure in which baboon bone marrow is transferred into his circulatory system. Baboons are immune to HIV-1. . . . Researchers report they have found a new animal in the mouths of Norwegian lobsters that has a life cycle and anatomy so unusual that it belongs to a new phylum. It is the first new phyla reported since 1983 and about the 36th overall. The researchers assign it to the new phylum Cycliophora and dub the new species Symbion pandora.

David Freeman, 16, a neo-Nazi skinhead accused of slaying his parents and younger brother in February, pleads guilty to murdering his father, Dennis Freeman, and is sentenced to life in prison without parole. Freeman’s brother, Bryan Freeman, 17, pled guilty to related charges on Dec. 7. . . . Statistics reveal that illegal drug use among teenagers rose for the fourth consecutive year in 1995.

The House, 267-149, passes a $265.3 billion fiscal 1996 bill for military spending.

The Dow volume of shares traded is 636.8 million, the heaviest in the 203-year history of the New York Stock Exchange.

Researchers report that they have for the first time genetically engineered disease-resistant rice, the leading food source worldwide. . . . NASA transmits signals to Pioneer 6, which returns the transmission, confirming that it is still operable. The craft, launched in December 1965, has circled the sun 35 times and covered 18 billion miles.

Dec. 12

Dec. 13

The FBI releases files on the agency’s attempts to deport John Lennon in 1972–73. The files are released after a 12-year court fight led by Jonathan Wiener, a history professor at the University of California. . . . NBC and Microsoft announce that they will jointly launch a 24-hour all-news television channel, MSNBC, in 1996.

Dec. 14

Dec. 15

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Includes elections, federal-state relations, civil rights and liberties, crime, the judiciary, education, health care, poverty, urban affairs, and population.

Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

812—December 16–21, 1995

Dec. 16

Europe

EU leaders reach an agreement over the possible expansion of the EU. The summit is attended by leaders from countries seeking entry into the union, including 10 former members of the eastern bloc of communist countries, Malta, and Cyprus. Of the Eastern European nations, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia have formally requested entry.

Public-sector trade unions hold demonstrations throughout most of France’s largest metropolitan areas.

Cape Verde holds its second-ever multiparty legislative elections, and the ruling Movement for Democracy wins a clear majority. . . . The staterun press reports that Mohammed Saeed and Abdrrezak Redjam, two top Islamic leaders who had distanced themselves from acts of violence, were executed a month earlier by the GIA of Algeria. . . . Reports confirm that Ethiopia has appealed to Western donors to help feed 3.2 million of its citizens expected to face hunger in 1996.

Manoel Ribeiro, a councilman in the town of Corumbiará in Rondonia state, Brazil, is shot dead in front of his home.

Russian voters cast ballots to elect the 450 members of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament. . . . Chancellor Franz Vranitzky’s Social Democratic Party maintains its status as Austria’s dominant political party in general elections.

Yemen and Eritrea engage warships and aircraft in battle. . . . Three people die from toxic fumes caused by a sulfur fire at a chemical plant near the South African town of Somerset West. Poisonous sulfur dioxide clouds force the evacuation of 2,500 residents of the nearby town of Macassar.

René Preval, candidate for the Lavalas party, wins presidential elections in Haiti.

WHO estimates that at the end of 1994 there were 17 million worldwide cases of infection with HIV, the AIDS-causing virus, with some 6 million of those already advanced to AIDS. . . . The UN warns that North Korea is beginning to experience a severe winter famine—a problem exacerbated by devastating summer floods—that will worsen as temperatures fall.

Russian troops begin pounding Gudermes, the second-largest city in Chechnya, which was seized by rebels on Dec. 14, with artillery and missiles. . . . The wreckage of a Khabarovsk Airlines plane carrying 97 people, missing since Dec. 6, is discovered by a pilot over the remote Bo-Jaus mountains in eastern Russia. There are no survivors. . . . Francis Collins, a former IRA terrorist suspected of drug dealing, is fatally shot in Belfast, allegedly by an IRA hitman. . . . Sir Colville Deverell, 88, British governor of Mauritius, 1959– 62, dies in Wokingham, England, after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

At least 136 people die when a Zairian passenger jet crashes in Angola.

The Nova Scotia provincial Supreme Court sentences Mary Jane Fogarty, 39, to three years’ probation for aiding and abetting the suicide of her friend Brenda Barnes. Fogarty is the first person in Canadian history convicted of assisting a suicide. . . . Canadian fisheries minister Brian Tobin announces that the government will raise its limits on seal hunting along Canada’s Atlantic coast by about 30%, beginning in 1996.

The UN Security Council votes to approve holding a referendum to decide the fate of Western Sahara, which is claimed by both Morocco and the Polisario Front, a rebel group backed by Algeria.

Employees of Belgium’s stateowned airline and railroad hold massive strikes, bringing public transportation in the country to a near standstill. . . . Great Britain’s parliament rejects the government’s request for formal approval of British participation in the European Union’s Common Fisheries Policy.

Zairian officials report that there are five survivors from the Dec. 18 crash in Angola.

Reports disclose that 11 Peruvian soldiers were killed in a clash with members of the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrilla group in the Huallaga Valley coca-growing region in northern Peru. . . . Dame (Ruth) Nita Barrow, 79, governor general of Barbados since 1990 and the only woman ever to hold that post, dies in Bridgetown, Barbados, after suffering a stroke.

Ukraine and the Group of Seven leading industrial nations agree to close the Chernobyl nuclear power plant by 2000. . . Gen. Bernard Janvier of France, the commander of UN forces in Yugoslavia, formally relinquishes control over international military operations in the Balkans to U.S. admiral Leighton W. Smith Jr. of NATO.

Fabio Salamone, a public prosecutor in Brescia, Italy, requests the prosecution of Antonio Di Pietro, Italy’s former leading anticorruption magistrate, on charges of blackmail. . . . One of Lithuania’s largest commercial banks, Innovation Bank, is declared insolvent by the country’s central bank. . . . In England, Buckingham Palace discloses that Queen Elizabeth II has urged Prince Charles and Princess Diana to divorce.

In Mauritius, the main opposition group wins a landslide victory in general elections, ending the 13year rule of Prime Minister Anerood Jugnauth.

An American Airlines jet crashes into a mountain near Buga, Colombia, killing 159 of the 163 people on board. The crash of Flight 965 is the first American Airlines crash involving fatalities since 1979 and is the first-ever fatal crash of a Boeing 757.

International donors at a conference in Brussels, Belgium, pledge $500 million in aid to begin reconstruction efforts in Bosnia. The chairman of the conference, European Union external-affairs commissioner Hans van den Broek, warns that Bosnia’s Serbs can expect no aid for rebuilding unless they cooperate in handing over indicted war criminals for prosecution by an international tribunal in The Hague, the Netherlands.

The parliament of Latvia votes to approve Andris Skele, an entrepreneur who belongs to no political party, as the country’s next premier. . . . Sir (George) Trenchard Cox, 90, director and secretary of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, 1956–66, dies of unreported causes.

Palestinian police assume control of the city of Bethlehem on the West Bank as Israel withdraws its troops under the terms of a second-phase agreement on interim Palestinian self-rule. Separately, Hamas concludes talks with the PNA by reiterating that it will not participate in Palestinian elections nor halt attacks against Israelis. . . . Hutu guerrillas reportedly slay 30 people and kill Bede Nzobonimpa, governor of the northern Ngozi province.

Dec. 17

Dec. 18

Dec. 19

Dec. 20

Dec. 21

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Australia, Minister for Foreign Affairs Gareth Evans and his Indonesian counterpart, Ali Alatas, sign a security treaty between the two countries.

The U.S. agrees to reduce the amount of Okinawan land occupied by U.S. forces by 2% within three years as part of negotiations to remain in Okinawa after the September rape of a 12-year-old girl by U.S. servicemen.

More than 40 people are killed and at least 125 are injured when a car bomb explodes in Peshawar, Pakistan. . . . Prosecutors indict former South Korean presidents Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo for their alleged roles in the 1979 coup. . . . Prince Norodom Sirivuddh travels to Singapore on his way to France, where he has agreed to live in exile after being accused of plotting to assassinate Cambodian second premier Hun Sen.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

December 16–21, 1995—813

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The federal government is partially shut down because a continuing resolution funding parts of the government expired on Dec. 15. . . . Reports confirm that the Labor Department has ordered the VA to pay $21,500 annually to Philip Wiley, ruling that the death of his wife, Mildred Wiley, was at least partly caused by inhalation of secondhand smoke while working for that department.

Dec. 16

The FBI reveals that murders reported to police dropped 12% during the first six months of 1995, compared with the same period in 1994. . . . Senate majority leader Robert Dole (R, Kans.), the frontrunner in the Republican presidential nomination race, reverses an earlier stance when he vows he will not back a constitutional amendment prohibiting all abortions.

Dec. 17

Pres. Clinton signs an executive order that requires all people arrested on federal criminal charges to face drug testing.

Transportation Secretary Federico Pena announces that the U.S. and Mexico will delay implementation of a provision of NAFTA to grant trucks from Mexico unlimited access to U.S. highways in California, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.

Pres. Clinton vetoes a $12.2 billion fiscal 1996 appropriations bill for the Interior Department, arguing that it offers inadequate funding. . . . Pres. Clinton vetoes an $80.6 billion fiscal 1996 appropriations bill for the VA, EPA, HJUD, NASA, and FEMA, objecting to the bill’s reductions in environmental spending and its elimination of his national service program for college students. . . . The Dow closes at 5075.21, down 101.52 points, or 1.96%. The decline is the index’s largest single-day fall since Nov. 22, 1994.

IBM scientists report that they have shown the existence of “glueballs,” hypothetical subnuclear particles, after solving a million trillion arithmetic problems using 448 computers for two years. . . . Konrad Zuse, 85, German scientist credited with developing the first working computer, the Z3 program-controlled calculator, in 1941, dies in Hunfeld, Germany, of unreported causes.

The Christmas Box by Richard Paul Evans is at the top of the bestseller list.

Dec. 18

Massachusetts becomes the fifth state to sue tobacco companies to recover state money spent through Medicaid to pay for treatment for victims of smoking-related illnesses. . . . In Santa Monica, California, Superior Court judge Alan Haber orders O. J. Simpson, who in October was acquitted of killing his former wife and her male friend, to turn over his financial records to the families of the murder victims as part of a civil lawsuit.

The Senate clears a $265.3 fiscal 1996 defense-authorization bill.

Pres. Clinton vetoes a $27.3 billion fiscal 1996 appropriations bill for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State and the federal judiciary. Clinton objects to the bill’s alteration of a police hiring program. . . . Pres. Clinton vetoes a bill to curb the ability of stockholders to file securities-fraud suits and asks Congress to rewrite it. . . . The Federal Open Market Committee votes to reduce the federal funds rate, a key short-term interest rate, to 5.5% from 5.75%.

The FDA approves the nonprescription sale of the heartburn drug Zantac 75. It is the third of a new class of competing heartburn drugs to gain FDA approval for over-the-counter sale.

A Maryland priest, Alphonsus Smith, is sentenced to 16 years in prison after pleading guilty to molesting two boys.

Dec. 19

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit orders the attorney general of Georgia, Michael Bowers, to show a “compelling” governmental interest for his 1991 withdrawal of a job offer to Robin Shahar, a lesbian who participated in a commitment ceremony with another woman. Bowers rescinded the offer to Shahar when he learned of the ceremony. The panel rules that the pair has “the fundamental right of intimate association.” The House approves, 245-178, a sweeping reform of the federal system of welfare distribution. . . . A Senate Judiciary subcommittee releases a report on a 1992 standoff between federal agents and white separatist Randall Weaver in Idaho’s remote Ruby Ridge area. The report criticizes the conduct of the ATF, the FBI, and the U.S. Marshals Service, as well as that of Weaver.

House Republicans by voice vote approve a resolution requiring an agreement from Pres. Clinton to balance the budget in seven years using CBO economic projections before they will pass a continuing resolution. . . . The House votes, 319-100, to set aside the Dec. 19 veto of a bill to curb the ability of stockholders to file securities-fraud suits. . . . The California Public Utilities Commission votes in favor of a plan to deregulate the state’s utilities market by 1998. The House and Senate approve, both by voice vote, a bill authorizing spending for intelligence operations in fiscal 1996. Although the exact amount is classified, estimates place it at $28 billion.

Occidental Chemical Corp. agrees to pay $129 million to the federal government to cover toxic waste cleanup costs in the Love Canal subdivision of Niagara Falls, New York. . . . The Senate approves by voice vote a bill to dissolve the Interstate Commerce Commission, effective Jan. 1, 1996.

Dec. 20

Scientists report they have found a second major gene that, when mutated, causes breast cancer. . . . Researchers state that fossils of an 80-million-year-old nesting dinosaur found in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert have yielded the first direct evidence that some dinosaurs cared for their offspring. . . . A study finds that the anti-AIDS drug AZ T appears to significantly reduce the risk of transmission of HIV among healthcare workers stuck with sharp objects.

Boerge Ousland of Norway reaches the South Pole after skiing about 800 miles (1,290 km) through Antarctica, becoming the first person to complete the trek alone and unassisted.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 21

814—December 22–27, 1995

World Affairs

The United Nations Human Rights Commission warns that widespread ethnic violence in Burundi is pulling the country into a “genocidal trend.”

Dec. 24

Dec. 25

Dec. 26

Dec. 27

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

A car bomb explodes in León, Spain, killing Luciano Cortizo Alonso, a major in the Spanish army, and wounding his daughter, Beatriz Cortizo Alonso. . . . One of Lithuania’s two largest commercial banks, Litimpeks Bank, is declared insolvent by the country’s central bank. . . . James Edward Meade, 88, Nobel Prize–winning British economist who shared the 1977 economics prize, dies in Cambridge, England, of unreported causes.

Dec. 22

Dec. 23

Europe

Andrzej Milczanowski is sworn in as Poland’s president in Warsaw. Lech Walesa boycotts the inauguration. . . . French police discover the bodies of 16 people thought to have been members of an international religious cult known as the Order of the Solar Temple. In Oct. 1994, the cult orchestrated a similar mass suicide ritual, or mass execution, in Canada and Switzerland.

Hastings Kamuzu Banda, Malawi’s ruler, 1964–94, is acquitted of conspiring in the 1983 murders of four political rivals. Also acquitted are John Tembo, Banda’s former minister of police and state, and Cecilia Kadzamira, Tembo’s niece and reportedly Banda’s mistress, along with three senior police officers.

Kyrgyzstan’s Pres. Askar Akayev is reelected to a second five-year term. . . . Turkey’s Muslim fundamentalist Welfare Party, or Refah, emerges with the largest representation in Parliament in general elections. . . . Russian military commanders in the breakaway republic of Chechnya report they have regained control of Gudermes, the republic’s second-largest city, which was seized Dec. 14.

Nigerian security forces arrest Nosa Igiebor, editor in chief of a newsmagazine, and seize the magazine’s latest issue, with a story critical of Gen. Abacha, prior to its release. . . . For the first time in 29 years, Christmas is celebrated in Bethlehem under Palestinian control. Palestinian National Authority leader Yasser Arafat and his wife, Suha Arafat, attend Christmas eve mass at nearby St. Catherine’s Roman Catholic Church.

Gen. Anatoly Shkirko, the commander of Russian forces at Gudermes, states that the bodies of 267 civilians have been found and that 70 Russian soldiers and more than 300 Chechen rebels have died in the worst fighting in Chechnya since a July truce. The figures place the death toll from the clashes that started Dec. 14 at more than 600. . . . Pope John Paul II does not attend Christmas High Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica for the first time in his 17-year tenure and is forced to interrupt his Christmas Day address due to a bout of influenza.

In South Africa, at least 166 people die when the Umsunduzi River and several of its tributaries overflow and flood slum communities in the Edenvale valley in KwaZulu/Natal. Many others are reported missing. The floods, caused by torrential rains, leave more than 1,000 people homeless.

Thailand, Vietnam, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees sign an agreement under which some 5,000 Vietnamese people living in the Sikkiu refugee camp in northern Thailand will be repatriated.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin is released from full-time medical care for the first time since October, when he was hospitalized with a heart ailment for the second time in 1995.

France detonates a nuclear device under the Mururoa Atoll in the fifth of a series of tests. The blast measures 30 kilotons, roughly twice the explosive power of the bomb that destroyed the Japanese city of Hiroshima during World War II.

In Ireland, a so-called punishment killing is carried out when Martin McCrory is shot by an alleged republican gunman. . . . Shura Cherkassky, 84, Ukrainian-born pianist known for his interpretations of romantic music, dies in London, England, of unreported causes.

More than 500 people, over half of whom are children, die in a fire in the town of Mandi Dabwali, in the northern Haryana province in India. The hospital at Mandi Dabwali is unable to accommodate the large number of victims, and many are taken to hospitals as far as 125 miles (201 km) away.

The leftist Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union (URNG) guerrilla group begins a cease-fire to coincide with Christmas and runoff elections for president scheduled for Jan. 7, 1996.

In India, 5,000 mourners gather outside Mandi Dabwali’s hospital, protesting the lack of adequate facilities to care for victims of the Dec. 23 fire.

Reports confirm that authorities in Ecuador have arrested Gloria Canales, a Peruvian-born woman who is allegedly the head of an international operation that smuggled at least 10,000 people a year into the U.S. South African police disclose at least 135 people have been slain in a recent rise in strife in KwaZulu/ Natal province. The recent wave of strife began with the Dec. 15 killings in Port Shepstone. . . . Israeli troops pull out of the city of Ramallah and the smaller city of Al-Bireh, completing of the preelection transfer to PNA control of six large Palestinian cities and some 450 towns on the West Bank. That leaves Hebron as the only Palestinian city still under Israeli control.

North Korea releases the five surviving crew members of a South Korean trawler, captured in May, in an effort to spur the resumption of rice aid from South Korea.

A court in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, sentences Lee Joon, the owner of a Seoul department store that collapsed in June and killed scores of people, to 10 years in prison for criminal negligence. . . . Japan’s former labor minister, Toshio Yamaguchi, is indicted on embezzlement, fraud, and other charges stemming from his alleged arrangement of illegal loans for family members.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

December 22–27, 1995—815

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Senate approves, 52-47, a measure that will provide a sweeping reform of the federal system of welfare distribution.

Army officials reveal they have identified 22 soldiers in the 82nd Airborne linked to neo-Nazi skinhead groups or who hold extremist views. However, the officials state they have discovered no evidence of any formal ties with racist organizations.

The House passes, by unanimous consent, legislation that will abolish the ICC. . . . The Senate votes, 6830, to override Pres. Clinton’s veto of a bill to curb the ability of stockholders to file securities-fraud suits. It is the first time that Congress defeats a Clinton veto. . . . The White House hands over to the Senate Whitewater Committee notes the group had subpoenaed Dec. 8. . . . Congress approves and Pres. Clinton signs a spending measure that restores funding for various benefits while the government is shut down.

In the ongoing effort to map all of the approximately 100,000 human genes, researchers publish a map of 15,000 major landmarks, or sequence tagged sites, on human chromosomes.

(William) Thomas Pettit, 64, awardwinning journalist, dies in New York City of complications after cardiac surgery. . . . Butterfly McQueen, 84, black actress best known for her role in Gone With the Wind (1939), dies in Augusta, Georgia, of burns suffered during a fire at her home.

Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill that will increase sentences for child pornography and child prostitution.

Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill that will repeal a provision from the Clean Air Act of 1990 that requires businesses located in high-pollution areas to compel their workers to carpool to work.

Dec. 22

Dec. 23

Smoke inhalation from a fire at the Philadelphia Zoo in Pennsylvania kills 23 rare primates.

Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.) is named 1995’s “Man of the Year” by Time magazine. According to Time, Gingrich has changed the focus of political debate in the U.S. by taking on difficult issues such as the federal budget deficit.

Dec. 24

Nicolas Slonimsky, 101, musician, musicologist, and writer, dies in Los Angeles of unreported causes. . . . Dean Martin (born Dino Paul Crocetti), 78, popular singer and comic considered a member of the “Rat Pack,” who rose to stardom during the 1950s, dies in Beverly Hills, California, of acute respiratory failure.

Dec. 25

Dec. 26

Federal agents arrest Ellis Edward Hurst and Joseph Martin Bailie, two suspects in the attempted bombing of an IRS office in Reno, Nevada. The bomb did not detonate because of a malfunction.

The Clinton administration reveals that the U.S. deported a record 51,600 criminal and illegal aliens in 1995. The INS reports that the number of illegal aliens turned away at U.S. borders increased in 1995 to 9,400, from 5,669 in 1994.

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., reopens an historic exhibit of paintings by Jan Vermeer in spite of the partial shutdown of the government that forced it to close Dec. 16. Gallery officials divert $30,000 in private donation money to keep the largest exhibition of Verneer’s works open.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 27

816—December 28–31, 1995

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

The trial of three U.S. servicemen charged with the September rape of a 12-year-old Japanese girl in Okinawa is suspended, pending a ruling on a motion to move the trial out of Okinawa. . . . China’s National People’s Congress approves a committee that will oversee preparations for Hong Kong’s reversion to Chinese sovereignty, from British rule, in mid-1997.

Dec. 28

Dec. 29

Asia & the Pacific

At the end of 1995 trading, world financial data shows that Switzerland’s Zurich blue-chip Swiss Market Index surged to close 20.3% up from 1994’s close, and, the British index climbed 16.9% to 3689.3, from its 1994 year-end close of 3065.5. Germany’s DAX index gained 6.5% from the end of 1994. Japan’s Nikkei average rose less than 1% to 19,868.15 points, from 19,723.06 at the close of 1994.

Dec. 30

Russia’s Central Electoral Commission releases the final results of Dec. 17 elections for the State Duma. The final tally shows that the Communist Party of the Russian Federation will hold 157 of the 450 seats in the Duma, nearly three times as many as any other party. . . . British prime minister John Major announces the recipients of public awards on the New Year’s Honors List, which are made in the name of Queen Elizabeth II.

Philippine police in Manila, the capital, arrest nine men who are allegedly connected to an international terrorist ring. Among the nine arrested is Adel Anonn, who police assert is the brother of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the alleged mastermind behind the 1993 bombing of New York City’s World Trade Center. . . . Former South Korean president Chun Doo Hwan, who has been on a hunger strike in protest of his arrest since Dec. 3, is found unconscious and put on life support.

Army specialist Martin John Begosh becomes the first U.S. soldier to be wounded in Bosnia, suffering a fractured leg when his armored vehicle runs over a mine on a road near Bijela.

Activists calling for the ouster of P.M. Khaleda Zia cause the derailment of an express train near Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital. Some 25 people are injured. Protesters reportedly detonate bombs, set up barricades, and attack police as part of a national transportation strike. . . . A Sri Lankan army officer is wounded when a Tiger suicide bomber blows himself up in the Batticaloa district. . . . Former South Korean president Chun Doo Hwan ends the hunger strike started Dec. 3.

U.S. Army engineers finish building a pontoon bridge across the Sava River, which forms the border between Croatia and northeastern Bosnia-Herzegovina. The river has been the principal obstacle along the main route by which 20,000 U.S. soldiers are to enter Bosnia to join a 60,000-member NATO force that will oversee implementation of a peace treaty.

Dec. 31

Algerian president Lamine Zeroual names Ahmen Ouyahia as premier. . . . Reports suggest that renewed fighting in the western Liberian town of Tubmanburg threatens to destabilize a peace accord signed in August to end the country’s civil war. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) sends reinforcements to the area. . . . The office of the Nigerian magazine The News is set ablaze in what the magazine claims is arson.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

December 28–31, 1995—817

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Researchers report that the risk of contracting HIV through a blood transfusion is about half what it has been thought, with only 18–27 pints of the 12 million pints of blood donated in the U.S. each year infected with HIV.

Pres. Clinton vetoes the $265.3 fiscal 1996 defense-authorization bill, objecting to provisions that would have required development of a missile-defense system and would have limited his ability to deploy U.S. troops abroad. However, Clinton also issues an executive order giving military personnel a 2% pay raise, the most he is authorized to grant. . . . Pres. Clinton announces that he has suspended U.S. trade sanctions against what remains of the federation of Yugoslavia, which comprises Serbia and Montenegro.

To date, 22 House members, 15 of them Democrats, have said they will not seek reelection in 1996.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Two studies find that a relatively common and easily cured infection, bacterial vaginosis, is to blame for about 6% of premature births in the U.S.

Virginius Dabney, 94, award-winning writer and historian known for his opposition to racial segregation, dies in Richmond, Virginia, of unreported causes.

Pres. Clinton signs legislation that will abolish the ICC. . . . The Dow closes at 5117.12, up 1282.68 points, or 33.5% from the 1994 year close of 3834.44. In a stunning year, the Dow twice passed 1000-point milestones. The NASDAQ rose 39.9% during the year to close at 1052.13. The ASE closes at 548.23, up 26.4% from its 1994 close of 433.67. The dollar finishes the year at 103.40 yen, up from 99.60 at the end of 1994, and at 1.4366 marks, down from the 1994 end of 1.5498 marks.

Researchers report they have located the molecular receptors in cells that receive the body’s signal to stop eating. . . . Reports indicate that CompuServe Inc., an on-line computer service, has cut off all subscriber access to sexually oriented material. According to some accounts, no on-line service has ever before restricted access to its discussion groups.

The House passes by voice vote a measure to return employees to work by declaring all federal workers “essential,” rather than by restoring funding to government agencies. The government has been partially shut down since Dec. 16.

NASA launches, on a Delta-2 rocket, the $195 million X-ray Timing Explorer satellite. The 6,700-pound XTE is designed to study astronomical phenomena.

Dec. 28

Dec. 29

Dec. 30

The Senate rejects a measure that would return furloughed federal employees to work, which the House passed Dec. 30. The Senate objects to a provision that limits debate on the budget reconciliation bill to 10 hours.

Dec. 31

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1996 U.S. soldiers view a blast-shattered building in the American military base in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, June 1996.

820—January–August 1996

Jan.

Feb.

March

April

May

June

July

Aug.

World Affairs

Europe

The international airlift of humanitarian supplies to Sarajevo in BosniaHerzegovina ends. The airlift, which began July 3, 1992, has been the longest such operation in history.

François Maurice Mitterrand, 79, French president for two terms from 1981 to 1995 who was among the most influential post–World War II leaders, dies in Paris of prostate cancer.

NATO certifies that the Serbs have withdrawn all their military forces from a “separation zone” between Serb and Muslim-Croat territory. In response, the UN Security Council suspends its long-standing economic sanctions against BosniaHerzegovina’s ethnic Serbs.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd issues a royal decree in which he temporarily cedes power to his legal successor, Crown Prince Abdullah.

Some 300 student protesters storm the foreign ministry building in Managua, Nicaragua’s capital, demanding increased government funding for their universities.

A suicide bomber rams a truck filled with explosives into the gates of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka in the financial district of Colombo, the capital, killing 86 people and injuring more than 1,400 others.

In Grozny, Chechnya, Russian troops destroy the presidential palace, a symbol of Chechen independence since Russia invaded the republic.

Two sons-in-law of Pres. Saddam Hussein who defected to Jordan return to Iraq and are slain, apparently by enraged family members.

Rene Preval is sworn in as president of Haiti, succeeding Pres. JeanBertrand Aristide. Preval’s assumption of the presidency is the first peaceful transfer of power from one democratically elected president to another since Haiti gained independence from France in 1804.

In China, an earthquake measuring 7.0 on Richter scale strikes the sparsely populated southwestern province of Yunnan. The quake, centered near the town of Lijiang on the province’s border with Tibet, kills at least 240 people and injures at least 14,000.

Despite objections from Britain, the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, announces a worldwide ban on the export of British beef products amid fears that they pose a serious health risk.

In Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sarajevo and its environs are united under one government for the first time since Serbs began besieging the city in 1992.

In Benin, Mathieu Kerekou is the winner of a runoff presidential election. It is the first time that a subSaharan country has voted out a democratically elected leader.

Ruben Figueroa Alcocer, governor of the Mexican state of Guerrero, steps down while Mexico’s Supreme Court investigates a June 1995 massacre of 17 peasants by police in Guerrero.

Taiwanese incumbent president Lee Teng-hui wins a resounding victory in Taiwan’s first democratic presidential election. Lee’s win is seen as a blow to mainland China, which regards Taiwan as a renegade Chinese province.

Representatives of 43 African countries sign a treaty that bans nuclear arms from the continent.

Turkish soldiers renew an army offensive against the separatist guerrilla group known as the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

In Liberia, violence called the worst in at least three years breaks out despite an August 1995 peace plan to end the civil war.

At least 50,000 strikers riot in La Paz, prompting the Bolivian government to order in troops.

North Korea violates the 1953 armistice when hundreds of North Korean troops stage military exercises in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. In response, South Korea raises its intelligence monitoring to its highest level in 14 years.

The Council of Europe, a 39-nation intergovernmental body established in 1949 to promote democracy and human rights, postpones Croatia’s admission to the council indefinitely. It is the first time in the history of the council that it overrules a vote by its parliamentary assembly in favor of membership.

Russian premier Viktor Chernomyrdin and Chechen rebel leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev sign a peace agreement establishing a cease-fire in the 17-month-long secessionist conflict.

South Africa’s Constitutional Assembly votes overwhelmingly to approve a new democratic constitution. The new majority-rule charter, agreed upon after almost two years of negotiations, completes the transition to democracy from white-minority rule.

Officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in Halifax, Nova Scotia, board a container ship registered in Taiwan, and arrest its captain and six officers on three charges of murder of stowaways during its voyage.

Vietnamese refugees riot at a detention center in Hong Kong’s rural New Territories, setting ablaze 26 buildings and 53 cars.

The UN International Criminal Tribunal announces the indictment of eight Bosnian Serbs on charges of rape. It is the first time rape is treated as a war crime.

Ukraine completes its nuclear disarmament.

A powerful truck bomb explodes on the perimeter of a military complex near the eastern Saudi Arabian city of Dhahran, killing 19 U.S. servicemen and wounding several hundred people. It is called the most deadly guerrilla attack on Americans in the Middle East since 1983.

Colombia’s House of Representatives, the lower chamber of Congress, votes to drop charges that Pres. Ernesto Samper Pizano accepted $6 million from the Cali drug cartel to finance his 1994 presidential election campaign.

Street riots break out in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, as Pres. Suharto begins taking action to destabilize the PDI, one of two opposition groups officially sanctioned by the government.

The United Nations AIDS program estimates that at least 1.3 million people died from AIDS or AIDSrelated illnesses in 1995 and that HIV is expected to cause more than 3.1 million new infections in 1996.

In the wake of violence surrounding traditional parades, a car bomb explodes in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, injuring 17 people and virtually destroying a hotel. The blast is the first terrorist bombing in Northern Ireland, or Ulster, in 22 months.

Burundi’s Tutsi-dominated military seizes power in a coup and names Major Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi regarded as a moderate, as president. The action draws international condemnation.

Four police officers are indicted on charges of homicide for allegedly supplying the perpetrators with the van used in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, that killed 87 people.

Chinese major general Liu Zhenwu visits Hong Kong, marking the firstever visit to the British colony by a communist Chinese military general.

India formally vetoes a draft of the multinational Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which forbids its signatories to test nuclear weapons.

Pres. Boris Yeltsin is inaugurated as the first democratically elected Russian head of state.

Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid, a Somali clan leader who fueled Somalia’s civil war despite UN peacekeeping efforts, dies from gunshot wounds suffered in faction fighting.

At least 96 soldiers, policemen, rebels, and civilians, are killed in what Colombian officials call one of the deadliest series of attacks by left-wing rebels in decades. The rebels include factions from FARC and ELN.

The Seoul District Criminal Court in South Korea convicts and sentences to death former South Korean president Chun Doo Hwan for his role in the 1979 coup that brought him to power and the subsequent massacre of prodemocracy demonstrators in the southern city of Kwangju, as well as for accepting bribes. The three-judge panel also sentences Chun’s successor, Roh Tae Woo, to 22 years and six months in prison for his support of the coup and for accepting bribes.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January–August 1996—821

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

James Watt, in an agreement with prosecutors, pleads guilty to a misdemeanor charge of attempting to mislead a federal grand jury. Watt, who served as interior secretary from 1981 until 1983, is the highest-ranking member of the Reagan administration to be charged in the HUD scandal.

The U.S. Army for the first time reveals the size and location of its chemical weapons arsenal, and it states that it is slowly destroying the 60-million-pound (27.12 million kg) stockpile.

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton testifies before a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., concerning documents related to the investigation of the Whitewater affair. It is first time in U.S. history that a first lady testifies under oath before a grand jury.

A team of physicists in Geneva, Switzerland, announce that for the first time ever, they have created atoms of antimatter. Antimatter has the same mass as regular matter, but it has an opposite electric charge.

On a tour of the U.S., author Salman Rushdie, who is under a death threat from Muslim, militants, gives a lecture in Washington, D.C.

Congress passes and Pres. Clinton signs the broadest overhaul of the nation’s communications laws in 62 years. The reforms include the controversial Communications Decency Act. In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. district judge Ronald Buckwalter grants a restraining order that will temporarily block enforcement of that provision.

Pres. Clinton signs a $265 billion defense-authorization bill with a controversial provision that requires all service members who test positive for HIV to be discharged.

The Dow closes at a record high of 5630.49, marking a 10th record high for the Dow in February and the 16th record high registered in 1996.

Mir marks the 10th anniversary of its 1986 launch. The Russian space station has been manned continuously since September 1989.

Gary Kasparov of Russia defeats the Deep Blue chess computer, designed by IBM, in the first multigame regulation match between a world champion and a computer.

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California, strikes down a Washington State law that bars doctors from helping terminally ill patients to kill themselves, ruling that such patients have a constitutional right to a “dignified and humane death.” The ruling is the first on doctorassisted suicide by a full federal appeals court.

Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill that strengthens the U.S.’s economic embargo of Cuba by penalizing foreigners who invest in Cuba. The legislation draws protests from U.S. allies as an unacceptable extension of American law beyond U.S. territory.

As the debate over appropriations bills continues, Congress passes and Pres. Clinton signs the 12th continuing resolution enacted for the current fiscal year.

Shannon Lucid becomes the first of five U.S. astronauts to occupy Mir continuously through 1998. She is the second U.S. astronaut and the first U.S. woman to live on Mir.

When Michelle Kwan and Todd Eldredge win the women’s and men’s titles, respectively, at the World Figure Skating Championships, it is the first singles sweep for the U.S. since 1986.

Police take into custody a former university professor, Theodore Kaczynski, who is suspected of being the Unabomber, a serial bomber linked to a series of bombing incidents spanning 17 years in which three men have been killed and 23 other people wounded.

Congress clears and Pres. Clinton signs an antiterrorism bill, despite the fact that it excludes or weakens several provisions proposed by the president to combat terrorism.

Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill giving himself and future presidents a line-item veto, which permits presidents to invalidate particular spending items contained in appropriations bills.

The FDA approves the use of ultrasound equipment to determine whether lumps found in women’s breasts are cancerous or benign.

Baylor University in Waco, Texas, the largest university in the world affiliated with the Baptist church, holds an on-campus dance for the first time in its 151-year history.

In Romer v. Evans, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, to strike down an amendment to the Colorado constitution that prohibited any government body in the state from implementing policies that bar discrimination against homosexuals.

Admiral Jeremy M. (Mike) Boorda, 56, the highest ranking officer in the U.S. Navy, dies of a self-inflicted gunshot wound outside of his home at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C.

A federal jury in Little Rock, Arkansas, convicts James McDougal, Susan McDougal, and Gov. Jim Guy Tucker (D, Ark.) on fraud and conspiracy charges brought during an investigation of the Whitewater venture.

The FDA approves the drug Taxotere for use in treating breast cancer cases that do not respond to treatment with the drug doxorubicin, the standard initial chemotherapy treatment.

The religious group Pastors for Peace ends a 94-day hunger strike after the release of more than 300 computers bound for Cuba.

The last members of the militia the Freemen peacefully surrender from their complex near Jordan, Montana, after one of the longest-ever armed sieges in U.S. history.

A court-martial jury in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, convicts and sentences to death army sergeant William Kreutzer, 27, for opening fire on members of his own division, the 82nd Airborne Division, in an October 1995 sniper attack.

The Supreme Court rules, 7-2, in two separate cases involving free speech and political patronage issues, that independent government contractors cannot be fired for publicly criticizing the government bodies that hired them or for backing political candidates. The cases are Board of County Commissioners, Wabaunsee County v. Umbehr and O’Hare Truck Service Inc. v. City of Northlake.

The FDA reproductive health advisory panel unanimously rules that high doses of currently available birth-control pills are safe and effective when used soon after intercourse to prevent pregnancy.

In Denver Area Educational Telecommunications Consortium Inc. v. FCC, the Supreme Court, in a fragmented decision, rules that cable-TV operators may restrict access to indecent programs on certain commercial channels but not on public-access channels. The regulation at issue is known as the Helms Amendment.

Congress passes a sweeping overhaul of the welfare system that will give states unprecedented authority over the use of funding for poverty relief.

The Department of Defense indicates that 55% of women in the U.S. military reported some form of sexual harassment in the previous 12 months, including rape, assault, groping, and pressure for sexual favors. The figure is down from the 64% recorded in 1988.

Videotaped testimony by Pres. Clinton is played during a Whitewater-related fraud and conspiracy trial.

A Trans World Airlines (TWA) 747 jetliner bound for Paris crashes into the Atlantic Ocean about a half hour after taking off from Kennedy International Airport in New York City. All 230 people on board are killed in the crash.

A homemade pipe bomb goes off at an Olympic Games site in Atlanta, Georgia, killing one person and injuring 111 others. The park bombing is the first terrorist attack at the Olympics since the 1972 games in Munich, Germany.

California governor Pete Wilson (R) signs an executive order that bars state agencies and state-funded colleges and universities from providing benefits to illegal immigrants, effectively implementing part of Proposition 187, approved by California voters in a 1994 vote but not enforced because of legal challenges.

Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill that will impose economic sanctions on foreign companies that make large new investments in the energy sectors of Iran or Libya, which Clinton calls “two of the most dangerous supporters of terrorism in the world.” The measure is opposed by U.S. trading partners in Europe, whose companies may be subject to the sanctions.

Pres. Clinton signs into law legislation that will allow workers who change or lose their jobs to retain their health-insurance coverage and will limit insurance companies’ ability to withhold coverage because of preexisting medical conditions.

Computer hackers illegally enter the Department of Justice’s site on the World Wide Web and post obscenities, sexually explicit pictures, and harsh criticisms of the Communications Decency Act.

The FCC approves new regulations, including one that requires TV stations to air three hours of children’s educational programming each week.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

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822—September–December 1996

Sept.

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Dec.

World Affairs

Europe

Britain announces that it will proceed with production of the Eurofighter, an advanced combat jet to be developed jointly with Britain, Germany, Italy, and Spain.

Voters in Bosnia-Herzegovina take part in the ethnically divided country’s first nationwide elections since the end of its four-year-long civil war in 1995. Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic, a Muslim, is elected the chair of a three-member collective presidency. He will be joined by Momcilo Krajisnik, a Bosnian Serb, and Kresimir Zubak, a Bosnian Croat.

The UN Security Council votes unanimously to lift the sanctions imposed on the federation of Yugoslavia, which consists of Serbia and Montenegro, that have been in place since 1992.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

U.S. forces direct cruise missiles toward Iraqi targets, prompting Iraqi troops to withdraw from the Kurdish city of Erbil.

The government and the leftist Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union (UNRG), an umbrella organization representing the country’s main rebel groups, sign an accord hailed by both sides as a major breakthrough in efforts to end Guatemala’s 35-year-long civil war.

Muslim fundamentalist Taliban forces take control of Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, after a siege that results in hundreds of deaths. The rebels announce that Islamic law will begin to apply nationwide, and they capture and execute former president Muhammad Najibullah. Mohammed Rabbani is the Taliban rebel named to serve as Kabul’s provisional leader.

An unidentified gunman shoots and kills Bulgaria’s first premier of its postcommunist era, Andrei Lukanov, 58, in Sofia, the Bulgarian capital.

An outbreak of fighting erupts between units of the Zairian army and the Banyamulenge, a 400,000strong Tutsi community that has lived in the area south of Lake Kivu since the end of the 18th century.

The Mexican Congress approves a package of legislation that seeks to counter the U.S.’s Helms-Burton law, which attempts to force foreign companies to comply with the U.S.’s trade embargo of communist Cuba.

A court in Beijing, China, sentences prominent dissident Wang Dan to 11 years in jail. The sentencing is seen as a final blow to the Chinese dissident movement, whose key members are now all imprisoned or in exile.

The UN General Assembly, in a secret ballot, elects candidates from France and New Zealand to the two vacant seats on a key UN budget committee. In an unprecedented move, the US loses its seat on the committee.

Belgrade’s First District Court annuls the results of 33 Belgrade city council seats won by candidates from the Zajedno (Together) coalition, which opposes the party affiliated with Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic. The nullification prompts a series of rallies and protests.

An estimated 500,000 Hutu refugees return to Rwanda after spending more than two years in camps in eastern Zaire. The exodus averts a human catastrophe in Zaire’s North Kivu province.

Pope John Paul II holds his first meeting with Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz, leader of the last communist country in the West.

At least 1,000 people are killed when the deadliest cyclone to hit India since 1977 strikes the state of Andhra Pradesh. The cyclone destroys at least 500,000 homes and strands an estimated 500,000 people.

The UN Security Council extends the mandate of the UN’s peacekeeping mission to Angola until February 1997 and approves a plan to withdraw the 7,000-strong UN contingent by mid-1997.

Unknown gunmen kill six Red Cross workers in Chechnya. The slaying is reported to be the worst premeditated attack in the history of the Red Cross, and it prompts the UNHCR and the Doctors of the World to join the Red Cross and pull out of Chechnya.

At least 300 fighters and civilians die in less than a week during renewed factional fighting in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia.

Some 25 members of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, a Marxist guerrilla group, storm the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima, Peru’s capital, taking more than 600 hostages.

Muslim fundamentalist Taliban forces solidify their buffer zone around Kabul, the Afghanistan capital, retaking the strategic air base of Bagram, 30 miles (50 km) to the north, from the ousted government’s coalition forces.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September–December 1996—823

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

California governor Pete Wilson (R) signs into law a bill requiring any adult convicted of two sexual assaults on minors to be injected with a drug that reduces their sex drive, unless they agree to voluntarily undergo surgical castration. California thereby becomes the first state in the nation to require “chemical castration” for repeat child molesters.

In the face of recent court decisions, the governing board of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) votes to begin admitting women. VMI is the only remaining single-sex college in the U.S. that receives state funding.

Pres. Clinton signs an order that designates 1.7 million acres (690,000 hectares) of land in southern Utah as the Canyons of the Escalante National Monument.

The FDA declares that the abortion drug RU-486, also known as mifepristone, is safe and effective.

John F. Kennedy Jr. marries Carolyn Bessette in a secret ceremony on Cumberland Island, Georgia.

Pres. Clinton signs a bill setting a 20-year sentence for using any illegal drug, including the date-rape drug Rohypnol, with intent to commit rape or other violent crimes.

The Defense Department notifies 20,000 U.S. soldiers that they may have been exposed to fallout from deadly chemical weapons in March 1991 after U.S. troops blew up an Iraqi munitions dump following the end of the Persian Gulf war. The announced total represents a sharp increase over the Pentagon’s previous exposure estimates.

The Dow Jones industrial average of U.S. blue-chip securities closes above the 6000 level for the first time in its history. This marks the third time in some 20 months that the benchmark stock average broke through a so-called millennium level.

Researchers in Bangkok, Thailand, report they have discovered the world’s largest known deposit of emeralds. A deposit in Madagascar is worth an estimated $54 million.

Christies auctions 8,000 pieces of art that German Nazis plundered from Jews during the Holocaust. The sale’s proceeds of $14.5 million are to be donated to both Jewish and non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

William J. Clinton is reelected president of the U.S., the first Democrat since Roosevelt to win a second presidential term. Clinton, 50, is also the youngest president to be reelected. Republicans maintain control of both chambers of Congress.

The army investigates allegations of sexual assault and harassment at the Aberdeen training center in Maryland.

Texaco agrees to a the largest-ever settlement—$176 million—in a race-discrimination suit brought in 1994 by black Texaco employees.

The FDA approves a new drug called Aricept to treat Alzheimer’s disease.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, California, rules, 2-1, that the federal government cannot force the NEA to use standards of decency when giving grants to artists, arguing that such stipulations are an unconstitutional curb on freedom of speech.

Pres. Clinton chooses Madeleine K. Albright as secretary of state. Albright will become the first woman to fill that post and the highest-ranking woman ever in the federal government.

Two freshman female cadets at the Citadel, a military academy in Charleston, South Carolina, allege that they were sprayed with nail-polish remover and set on fire by fellow students on three separate occasions.

The Dow Jones industrial average closes the year at 6448.27, up 1331.15 points, or 26.01%, from the 1995 year-end level of 5117.12.

Mars Pathfinder, an unmanned U.S. space vessel set to land on Mars on July 4, 1997, is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

A panel composed of TV-industry representatives announce a planned system for rating TV programs based on their level of violent and sexual content, scheduled to take effect in January 1997.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

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824—January 1–6, 1996

World Affairs

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Two buses collide near Sonoita, a town in the state of Sonora, Mexico, killing 26 people and injuring 22 others. . . . The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) rebel group, on the two-year anniversary of its armed uprising in the southern state of Chiapas, Mexico, announces it will form a civilian political organization, the Zapatista National Liberation Front (FZLN).

Some 1,500 government troops seize the stronghold of drug lord Khun Sa in eastern Myanmar. . . . Nineteen workers are killed and 37 are injured while trying to escape from a fire at a Christmas tree ornament factory in the Shenzhen freetrade zone, China.

The Mexican stock market, the Bolsa, closes at a record high of 2929.43, up 150.96 points, or 5.4%.

India’s tax commissioner, Somnath Pal, imposes a 7.99 billion rupee ($228 million) tax-evasion fine against the country’s largest tobacco company, ITC. The commissioner also levies separate fines amounting to 32 million rupees against six ITC executives.

In Bosnia-Herzegovina officials in the Serb-controlled Sarajevo suburbs of Ilidza and Lukavica release 18 civilian men and one woman imprisoned in late December 1995. . . . The British government orders the deportation of Mohammed al-Masaari, a leading Saudi Arabian dissident whose London-based Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights has castigated the Saudi monarchy as corrupt and autocratic and urged that it be replaced by an Islamic government.

The Mexican stock market, the Bolsa, reaches 3004.78, the first time ever that the market has risen above 3000.

At least six people are killed and another 31 are injured when a bomb explodes in a marketplace in New Delhi, the capital of India. The Jammu-Kashmir Islamic Front, a militant separatist group, claims responsibility for the bombing.

Corporal Elio Sbordoni, an Italian soldier in the NATO force, is shot and wounded by a sniper in Serbheld territory near Vogosca, north of Sarajevo. The Vogosca clash is the first exchange of gunfire between NATO peacekeeping troops and Bosnian combatants, and Sbordoni is the first NATO casualty due to hostile fire, although several NATO troops were injured in December 1995 by land mines. In Mostar, shots from the Croat sector wound two Muslim policemen.

Sixty-eight Canadians are named recipients of the Order of Canada in the 1996 list.

A tenuous peace in the republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina is shaken when sporadic clashes begin in Mostar after Croat police shoot and kill a teenaged Muslim motorist.

Jan. 1

Africa & the Middle East Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd issues a royal decree in which he temporarily cedes power to his legal successor, Crown Prince Abdullah. The move signals that the stroke suffered by Fahd in November 1995 was probably more serious than initially indicated.

Jan. 2

Jan. 3

Jan. 4

Scientists tracking the Earth’s temperature report that 1995 was the warmest year on record since researchers began keeping such records in 1866. The average temperature in 1995 was 58.72°F (14.84°C), according to the British data and 59.7°F in the U.S. figures. The previous record was in 1990. The data reinforces assertions that human activities—particularly the burning of fossil fuels—have contributed to a gradual warming of the Earth’s climate.

Jan. 5

Jan. 6

UN speakers confirm that two unidentified Pakistani members of the UN peacekeeping force were arrested in Haiti for allegedly raping a Haitian woman and later beating up a witness to the rape.

The upper house of Russia’s parliament, the Federation Council, gives final approval to the deployment of Russian troops as part of the NATOled peacekeeping effort in the republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Yahya Ayyash, a Hamas operative who topped Israel’s most-wanted list, is killed in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip when his boobytrapped cellular phone explodes.

In the republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, a Croat officer is shot dead, and the two sides begin exchanging small-arms fire and launching grenades at each other across the sector border.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians, many vowing revenge against Israel, attend the funeral and burial of Yahya Ayyash, a Hamas operative killed on Jan. 5 in Gaza City.

As U.S. troops, which number around 2,200, begin a gradual withdrawal from Haiti, President-elect René Préval formally requests that the UN extend the mandate of its troops in Haiti for six additional months, in light of a recent wave of violence in the country.

Japanese premier Tomiichi Murayama resigns abruptly after 18 months in office, citing the need to “inject fresh blood into the leadership.”. . . Human Rights Watch charges that thousands of children have died in China’s state-run orphanages due to deliberate medical neglect and starvation. China’s State Council dismisses the allegations as “completely groundless.”

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 1–6, 1996—825

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Lee Brown officially tenders his resignation, effective Jan. 14, as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Admiral Arleigh A(lbert) Burke, 94, highly decorated chief of U.S. naval operations, 1955–61, who became the first living person to have a ship named after him when the navy launched the Arleigh Burke in 1991, dies in Bethesda, Maryland, of pneumonia.

James Watt, in an agreement with prosecutors, pleads guilty to a misdemeanor charge of attempting to mislead a federal grand jury. By pleading guilty, Watt avoids a trial on 18 felony counts of perjury and influence peddling and brings an end to a nearly six-year-old, $20 million probe of the HUD scandal. Watt, who served as interior secretary from 1981 until 1983, is the highest-ranking member of the Reagan administration to be charged in the HUD scandal.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Arthur Rudolph, 89, German rocket scientist who joined the U.S. effort to develop a space program before he was accused in 1982 of having supervised concentration camp prisoners in forced labor during World War II, dies in Hamburg, Germany, after suffering from a heart condition.

Jan. 1

The Nature Conservancy reports that about one-third of some 20,000 native U.S. plant and animal species that it recently examined are rare or imperiled. The group’s survey is reportedly the most comprehensive study on the state of U.S. plant and animal species ever conducted. According to the group, habitat degradation is the primary threat to the species studied. . . . AT&T announces plans to eliminate 40,000 of its 300,000 jobs, in what will be the largest downsizing ever in the U.S. telecommunications industry.

Jan. 2

Jan. 3

Doris Meissner, the INS commissioner, announces that new applications for political asylum fell 57% in 1995. The figures do not include 14,700 illegal aliens who filed asylum claims to avoid deportation, or 250,000 applications filed by Guatemalan and Salvadoran immigrants as a result of a 1990 federal court decision allowing them to file political asylum claims. . . . The National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine concludes there is no evidence of a “previously unknown, serious illness among Persian Gulf veterans.”

More than 30,000 maintenance workers walk off their jobs at some 1,000 office buildings in New York City. The action is the first work stoppage at commercial buildings in New York since 1948.

A car belonging to Jose Pertierra, a lawyer for U.S. attorney Jennifer Harbury, is firebombed in Washington, D.C. No one is injured in the attack. Harbury is the widow of a Guatemalan guerrilla leader, Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, whose death was linked to a Guatemalan colonel on the CIA’s payroll.

The House, by voice vote, and the Senate, by unanimous consent, approve a stopgap spending measure that authorizes the federal government to resume full operations. In addition, Congress passes two other bills that will provide funding for certain federal agencies and programs through Sept. 30. . . . The White House releases records detailing First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s work for the Rose Law Firm in the mid-1980s to investigators studying the Whitewater affair.

Richard Versalle, 63, a tenor with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, collapses on stage and is rushed to the hospital, where he is pronounced dead. . . . Lincoln Kirstein, 88, ballet promoter who won a 1984 Presidential Medal of Freedom and a 1985 National Medal of Arts, dies in New York City of unreported causes.

Pres. Clinton signs a stopgap spending measure that authorizes the federal government to resume full operations, ending the longest shutdown in U.S. history. The president also signs two other bills to provide funding for certain federal agencies and programs through Sept. 30.

Duane Hanson,70, sculptor whose hyperrealistic depictions of people were often mistaken for real human beings, dies in Boca Raton, Florida, after suffering from lymphatic cancer.

A team of physicists in Geneva, Switzerland, announce that for the first time ever they have created atoms of antimatter. Antimatter has the same mass as regular matter but an opposite electric charge.

A U.S. federal grand jury in Sherman, Texas, indicts three people in connection with the attempted sale of medieval objects that disappeared from Germany during World War II.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

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826—January 7–12, 1996

World Affairs

Jan. 9

Africa & the Middle East

In Bosnia-Herzegovina, to quell the small-arms fire started Jan. 5, Spanish troops under NATO command begin to patrol the factions. Reports indicate that Bosnian Serbs are exhuming and destroying bodies from mass graves. Observers contend the Serbs are trying to eradicate evidence of atrocities committed during ethnic-cleansing campaigns. . . . Karoly Grosz, 65, Hungary’s communist premier, 1987–88, dies of kidney cancer in Hungary.

Jan. 7

Jan. 8

Europe

The UN Security Council issues a statement condemning “violations of international humanitarian law” by Croatia in the Krajina region, which Croatian forces recaptured from Croatian Serb rebels in 1995.

François Maurice Mitterrand, 79, French president for two terms from 1981 to 1995 who was among the most influential post-World War II leaders, dies in Paris of prostate cancer.

In Bosnia-Herzegovina, a French cargo plane lands at Sarajevo’s airport with a shipment of wheat, marking the formal end of the international airlift of humanitarian supplies to the formerly besieged city. The airlift, which began July 3, 1992, has been the longest such operation in history. . . . China severs diplomatic ties with Senegal in retaliation for the African nation’s earlier announcement that it is establishing official links with Taiwan.

A force of 250 Chechen commandos slip across the DagestanChechnya border and stage a decoy attack on a regional airport in Kizlyar. As Russian soldiers respond, the Chechens seize the hospital, taking a total of 2,000 hostages. The attacks kill about 20 people. . . . A grenade attack in Sarajevo, BosniaHerzegovina, kills a civilian and wounds several others. The grenade is launched from Grbavica, a Serbheld suburb, and is the first in the capital since NATO troops began patrolling the area. The Chechen rebels who took over a hospital Jan. 9 release most of the hostages and return toward Chechnya with 150 captives in a convoy of buses. Russian troops abruptly stop the convoy at the village of Pervomayskoye, 6 miles (10 km) from Kizlyar. Army helicopters fire at the convoy, and the Chechens in response take over Pervomayskoye, occupying houses and taking more hostages, including a detachment of local militiamen.

Jan. 10

Asia & the Pacific

In Guatemala, Alvaro Arzu Irigoyen of the center-right National Advancement Party (PAN) party, wins in a presidential runoff vote. Arzu will succeed Pres. Ramiro de Leon Carpio.

A cargo plane crashes into an openair market in Kinshasa, Zaire’s capital, killing hundreds of people. A crowd of angry residents attack four of the Russian crew members at the hospital, and police take the crew into protective custody to prevent them from being lynched. . . . Algerian authorities reveal that they have killed 36 militants over the prior four days.

The death toll from the crash of a cargo plane into an open-air market in Kinshasa, Zaire, on Jan. 8, is at least 350, with 470 injured. All the casualties were on the ground. Reports claim the plane took off without authorization and was hundreds of pounds overweight. Officials reveal the four crew members were arrested. . . . Israel frees 812 Palestinians from Israeli-administered jails. . . . Reports from Algeria indicate that the GIA has declared war on the AIS, the armed wing of the FIS.

Italian premier Lamberto Dini tenders his resignation for the second time in two weeks in order to avoid defeat in a parliamentary confidence motion. Pres. Oscar Luigi Scalfaro accepts the resignation “with reserve,” allowing Dini to govern the country until elections are held or another government is established. . . . Greece’s parliament defeats a motion to replace ailing premier Andreas Papandreou, who has been in the hospital for almost two months.

Jan. 11

The Americas

Leftist guerrillas wage two separate dynamite attacks on a main oil pipeline in the northeastern state of Arauca, Colombia.

The government of India’s Maharashtra state approves a deal to restart development of an electrical power plant under construction by a U.S. business consortium led by Enron Corp.

Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso signs a presidential decree that revokes a 1991 order barring non-Indians from appealing land allocations to indigenous peoples made by the government’s Indian-protection agency, known as Funai.

South Korean president Kim Young Sam admits to wrongdoing in accepting political funds from businesses. However, he states he only did so before becoming president in 1993 and that the funds were not bribes. Kim’s remarks are meant to rebut allegations that he received illicit money.

Seventeen police officers and four state government officials in the western Mexican state of Guerrero are arrested in connection with a June 1995 massacre of 17 peasants who were on their way to a leftist antigovernment political rally.

Lori Helene Berenson, 28, a U.S. woman who has been living in Peru since 1994, is convicted of treason by a military court in Peru and sentenced to life in prison. The secret trial is criticized by many observers. . . . Jose Santacruz Londoño, one of the three top leaders of the Cali drug cartel, escapes from the maximumsecurity La Picota prison in Bogota, Colombia’s capital. . . . The U.S. releases $2.5 million in funds allocated to train Haiti’s new civilian police force.

The Japanese Diet elects Ryutaro Hashimoto to succeed Japanese premier Tomiichi Murayama, who resigned Jan. 5.

Jan. 12

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 7–12, 1996—827

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

In Kurtz v. North Miami, the Supreme Court rejects an appeal challenging the constitutionality of a Florida law that allows the city of North Miami to require job applicants to sign affidavits stating that they have not used tobacco products in the 12 months preceding their application.

The Inner City Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, is set on fire in a high-profile attack. The racially integrated church’s sanctuary is destroyed by firebombing, and racist graffiti is found elsewhere on the building.

Pres. Clinton vetoes a Republicansponsored plan to reform the nation’s system of welfare distribution. . . . A three-judge panel of the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis, Missouri, overturns a lower court decision when it rules, 2-1, that a sexual harassment suit brought by Paula Corbin Jones against Pres. Clinton may proceed. . . . Mike Synar, 45, (D, Okla.), who served eight terms in the House after first being elected in 1978, dies in Arlington, Virginia, of brain cancer.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A powerful snowstorm, dubbed the “Blizzard of ’96,” hits the U.S. Northeast.

Keiko, a killer whale featured in the 1993 movie Free Willy, is moved to the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, Oregon. The popularity of the film brought attention to Keiko’s overly warn living conditions in a park in Mexico, prompting a campaign to transfer him to a more suitable site.

Washington, D.C., receives a record 17 inches of snow, and the federal government and schools close. There is no postal service. Due to the blizzard in the Northeast, the New York Mercantile and Commodity exchanges are closed, and the New York Stock Exchange opens late.

Robert Dewey Hoskins, a homeless man accused of stalking pop singer Madonna, is found guilty by a Los Angeles jury of felony charges of stalking and making terrorist threats, and of a misdemeanor assault charge.

The Border Patrol begins constructing a 10-foot-high, 1.3-milelong steel fence along the U.S.Mexico border near the small town of Sunland Park, New Mexico.

Data suggests that the “Blizzard of ’96,” which hit the Northeast on Jan. 7, caused at least 100 deaths across the region and an estimated $1 billion worth of damage.

The U.S. Air Force discloses that a flock of Canadian geese caused the September 1995 crash of an AWACS surveillance airplane at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska, which killed 24 people. . . . Reports confirm that Judge Thomas Aquilino Jr. of the U.S. Court of International Trade has ruled that the U.S. Commerce Department must block shrimp imports from countries that fail to comply with regulations to safeguard sea turtles. Aquilino found that the Commerce Department had not complied fully with the Endangered Species Act, because it exempted some 70 countries that export shrimp to the U.S. from regulations intended to protect sea turtles.

A former postal worker, Bruce William Clark, pleads guilty to fatally shooting James Whooper III, his supervisor at a mail processing center in City of Industry, California, in July 1995. In an arrangement with prosecutors, Clark will serve a 22-year sentence.

Attorney General Janet Reno and INS commissioner Doris Meissner announce that the U.S. is increasing enforcement efforts along its border with Mexico.

Jan. 8

Jan. 9

The Senate, by voice vote, approves legislation that will pass financial and managerial responsibilities for various public-housing programs to the states from the federal government. The measure is part of Republicans’ ongoing campaign to cut federal spending and to give states increased authority over the administration of social welfare programs.

Gov. Mike Foster (R, La.) signs an executive order to end affirmative-action programs in the Louisiana state government. At the same time, he proclaims that Jan. 15 will be a state holiday in honor of slain black civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who Foster argues would have opposed affirmative action. . . . The CDC reports that the suicide rate among the elderly in the U.S. increased 9% from 1980 to 1992, after a drop in the rate over the previous four decades. There were 74,675 suicides reported among people age 65 and older in the study period. The rise was steepest among those in their early 80s.

Jan. 7

The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour lifts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, after a 20-minute delay caused by a communications problem. . . . Pres. Clinton promises federal disaster assistance to Washington, D.C., and Maryland in the wake of blizzards that hit the region on Jan. 7.

Jan. 10

Eric Hebborn, 61, forger of Old Master works of art, dies in Rome, Italy, of undetermined causes. . . . Cigar wins horse-racing’s Eclipse Award. . . . The doctrine commission of the Church of England urges the church to revise its concept of hell, asserting that its harsh descriptions of hell have left psychological scars on many churchgoers. The report suggests that the church describe hell as a “state of total nonbeing” rather than as a place of physical torment.

Pop singer Janet Jackson signs a record contract worth an estimated $80 million with her current label Virgin Records. The four-album deal is reportedly the most lucrative in the history of the music industry.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 11

Jan. 12

828—January 13–18, 1996

World Affairs

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Mexican federal agents arrest Juan García Abrego, allegedly one of the Western Hemisphere’s most powerful and violent drug traffickers, in a restaurant in the northern city of Monterrey.

China’s religious authorities order all places of worship to register with the government.

Israeli president Ezer Weizman becomes only the second Israeli head of state ever to visit Germany.

Jan. 13

Jorge Sampaio is elected Portugal’s president. With Sampaio’s victory, Portugal will have a president and a premier who are both from the Socialist Party for the first time since democracy was restored in 1974. . . . Bosnian Serb and Croat militias and the predominantly Muslim Bosnian government army begins to withdraw from their positions along the cease-fire line. At the same time, NATO troops reinforced by heavy armored vehicles continue their deployment in the zone of separation.

Jan. 14

Jan. 15

Europe

The UN Security Council votes to authorize a 5,000-member peacekeeping force to monitor the return of power in the region of Eastern Slavonia to the Croatian government from rebel Croatian Serbs. . . Delegates at a UN-backed conference in Bangkok, Thailand, announce a plan to expedite the repatriation to Vietnam of 38,000 Vietnamese boat people currently living in refugee camps in Southeast Asia.

Jan. 16

Jan. 17

Russian troops launch an all-out assault on separatist guerrillas from the breakaway republic of Chechnya who seized hundreds of hostages and occupied the village of Pervomayskoye in Russia’s Dagestan region on Jan.10. . . . Ailing premier Andreas Papandreou resigns under pressure from officials who maintain that he is too sick to govern Greece.

Lesotho’s King Moshoeshoe II, 57, dies when his car plunges off a cliff near Maseru, the capital. His chauffeur is also killed.

After the flyovers of Havana, the Cuban government reveals that it will take “all necessary measures” to halt future violations of its airspace.

Paul Keating becomes the first Australian prime minister to make an official visit to Malaysia since 1984.

A group of Chechen gunmen led by Mohammed Tokcan seize a ferry with 209 passengers and crew, order the ship’s pilot to sail toward Istanbul, and warn they will blow up the vessel unless fighters at Pervomayskoye are allowed to go free. . . . Anatoly Chubais, the architect of Russia’s current economic policy and the last senior liberal in the cabinet, resigns under pressure from Pres. Boris Yeltsin. He is one of several Russian politicians to resign in January.

The leader of the military government in Sierra Leone, Captain Valentine E. M. Strasser, is overthrown by a group of army officers. Strasser, who seized power in a 1992 coup, is allowed safe passage to Guinea, and he is replaced as ruler by Brigadier Julius Maada Bio, previously the junta’s second in command.

Nicaraguan national police chief Fernando Caldera announces that authorities have arrested 14 people suspected of involvement in a series of church bombings. Eighteen Roman Catholic Churches in four cities have been bombed since May 1995, causing minor damage and no injuries.

Indian police charge seven top political officials and seek the prosecution of three cabinet ministers for allegedly accepting bribes and participating in illegal foreign currency dealings. . . . The Chinese government announces that it will place limits on the flow of financial news into China from international news agencies. . . . The government of the Australian state of New South Wales removes many of the regal trappings that for 208 years have accompanied the office of state governor.

Drawing condemnation, Russia launches a massive artillery and rocket bombardment against Pervomayskoye to crush the rebels. Reports suggest a group of Chechens broke out of Pervomayskoye and launched a counterattack in Sovetskoye. Data reveals that at least 26 Russian soldiers died and 93 others were wounded, while 135 Chechens died and 28 were captured. . . . A court in Oslo, Norway, convicts and sentences four men in connection with the theft of Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream (1893).

Palestinian gunmen kill two Israeli soldiers in a drive-by shooting near Hebron in the West Bank. . . . The ousted leader of the military government in Sierra Leone, Captain Valentine E. M. Strasser, insists that he agreed to step down and that his Jan. 16 departure should not be termed a coup.

The Supreme Court of Honduras upholds the legality of a future civilian trial for eight military officers and two soldiers charged with the 1982 kidnapping and torture of six leftist students. . . . Colombian officials disclose that seven prison guards have been arrested on charges of aiding the Jan. 11 escape of Jose Santacruz Londoño, one of the three top leaders of the Cali drug cartel, from a maximum-security prison.

Seventeen boat people are injured when a riot breaks out at a refugee camp in Malaysia. . . . Dr. Zhang Shuyun, who accused a Shanghai orphanage of deliberately neglecting and starving children, reveals that Chinese officials have arrested her brother and charged him with subversion. . . . N(andamuri) T(araka) Rama Rao, 72, Indian movie actor and politician, dies in Hyderabad, India, after suffering a heart attack.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin announces that the Chechen separatists have been overcome and many of the hostages freed. Many of the Chechen rebels in Pervomayskoye reportedly escape under cover of darkness. . . . A fire that German police argue is likely an act of arson destroys a hostel in the northern port city of Luebeck, killing 10 foreigners seeking asylum in Germany. . . . Costas Simitis is selected as the new premier of Greece.

Jan. 18

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 13–18, 1996—829

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

U.S. president Clinton travels to Bosnia to visit U.S. troops who will patrol the cease-fire zone as part of a 60,000-member NATO peacekeeping force. He calls the U.S. troops “warriors for peace” and tells them, “Your country is proud of you.”

William P. Tavoulareas, 75, former president and chief operating officer of Mobil Corp., dies in Boca Raton, Florida, of complications from a stroke he suffered in 1995.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Jan. 13

Graduate students who serve as teaching assistants at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, agree to submit undergraduate grades for the fall 1995 semester, ending a “grade strike” that began in December 1995. The students engaged in the strike action in an effort to persuade the university to recognize the Graduate Employees and Students Organization as an industrial union with collective-bargaining rights.

Pres. Clinton speaks at the official Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, using the same pulpit from which King preached.

Juan Garcia Abrego, allegedly one of the Western Hemisphere’s most powerful and violent drug traffickers, who was arrested in Mexico on Jan. 14, is sent to the U.S., where he is on the FBI’s list of the 10 most wanted criminals.

Illinois governor Jim Edgar (R) commutes the death sentence of Guinevere Garcia, convicted for the 1991 fatal shooting of her estranged husband, to life in prison without parole just hours before she is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection. Edgar denies that gender played a role in his decision to spare the inmate, who would have been the second woman to be executed in the U.S. since the Supreme Court allowed states to resume capital punishment in 1976.

In Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines Co., the Supreme Court rules unanimously that survivors of victims of international air crashes cannot sue for compensation for the loss of companionship of their loved ones.

Barbara Charline Jordan, (D, Tex.), 59, who in 1966 became the first black elected state senator in Texas and, in 1972, the first black and the first woman elected to Congress from Texas, dies in Austin, Texas, of pneumonia and complications from leukemia after suffering from multiple sclerosis for many years.

In New York City, U.S. District Court judge Michael Mukasey sentences 10 militant Muslims to terms ranging from 25 years to life in prison for their part in on a failed plot to bomb the UN headquarters building and to assassinate political leaders. Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, whom the government accused of plotting “a war of urban terrorism” against the U.S., is sentenced to life in prison. The sentencing is the culmination of the biggest terrorism trial in U.S. history.

In Chicago, federal judge George Marovich sentences a prominent equestrian, George Lindemann Jr., to 33 months in prison for three federal counts of wire fraud. The charges are part of a series of indictments against 23 people tied to the equestrian industry.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

In professional football, the Dallas Cowboys win the NFC’s championship with a 38-27 victory over the Green Bay Packers. The Pittsburgh Steelers win the AFC’s championship over the Indianapolis Colts with a dramatic 20-16 victory in a game that comes down to the last play.

A corporate plane crashes 10 miles (16 km) northwest of Malad City, Idaho, killing all eight people on board. . . . Astronomers at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society report images from the Hubble Space Telescope indicate that the estimated number of galaxies in the universe is 50 billion, up from earlier estimates of 10 billion. . . . Astronauts Leroy Chiao and Daniel Barry leave the Endeavour to walk in space.

Leaders of five of the largest black churches in the U.S. announce that they are establishing a for-profit company to boost the buying power of black consumers.

The Commerce Department reports that housing starts in November 1995 rose 5.7% from October, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.42 million units. This marks the indicator’s first ascent after three straight monthly declines.

Astronomers report finding a halo of previously undetected objects around the Milky Way, which, if confirmed, will provide an explanation for half of the unexplained mass thought to make up the universe. . . . . In Lotus Development Corp. v. Borland International Inc., the Supreme Court deadlocks, leaving intact the lower court’s opinion that Lotus’s operating menu commands constitute a “method of operation,” which is explicitly excluded from copyrightprotection laws. John Paul Stevens, for undisclosed reasons, does not participate in the case.

Kaye Webb, 81, British editor of children’s books, dies of unreported causes. . . . Cincinnati Bengals defensive lineman Dan Wilkinson is found guilty of domestic violence, a misdemeanor, for punching his pregnant girlfriend, Shawnda Lamarr, in the stomach. He is handed a six-month suspended sentence.

In Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Lundy, the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that the IRS is justified in denying a tax refund to a Virginia man, Robert Lundy, because he waited too long to file his tax return.

Astronomers announce finding two planets outside the solar system, providing further evidence that extrasolar planet-like objects are not rare. . . . Astronauts Leroy Chiao and Koichi Wakata, the first Japanese astronaut to work full-time in the U.S. shuttle program, perform a space walk.

On a tour of the U.S., author Salman Rushdie, who is under a death threat by Muslim militants, gives a lecture in Washington, D.C. . . . Inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame include David Bowie, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Pink Floyd, and the Shirelles.

The former president of Perry County Bank in Perryville, Arkansas, Neal Ainley, is sentenced by federal judge Susan Webber Wright to two years’ probation for failing to report to the IRS two large cash withdrawals that Pres. Clinton’s campaign made from the bank in 1990.

Four people die when a fire breaks out in a federally subsidized apartment building in Chicago. At least 47 people are injured in the fire. . . . Two large studies indicate that the vitamin beta carotene is not effective at preventing cancer or heart disease when taken as a dietary supplement. . . . Reports confirm that studies for the first time have shown that mutation of the BRCA1 gene is often the cause of breast cancer among young women, especially Jewish women.

Minnesota Fats (born Rudolf Wanderone Jr.), 87 or 95, famous billiards player, dies in Nashville, Tennessee, of congestive heart failure. . . . Lisa Marie PresleyJackson files for divorce from pop singer Michael Jackson. . . . Jenni Meno and Todd Sand successfully defend their pairs title at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 14

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Jan. 16

Jan. 17

Jan. 18

830—January 19–24, 1996

Jan. 19

World Affairs

Europe

The World Bank approves a $280 million loan to help support Romania’s efforts to privatize its state industries.

The nine gunmen who hijacked a ferry in the Black Sea on Jan. 16 surrender peacefully to Turkish authorities. Thousands of Muslims of Caucasian descent demonstrate in Istanbul and elsewhere in Turkey in support of the hijackers. . . . Armies of the opposing factions in Bosnia-Herzegovina comply with a deadline to withdraw their heavy weapons and most of their troops from a 2.5-mile-wide “zone of separation.”

Jan. 20

Jan. 21

A party of international war-crimes investigators led by U.S. assistant secretary of state John Shattuck inspect dozens of sites near Srebrenica, Bosnia, believed to be linked to a 1995 massacre of Muslims by Bosnian Serbs. Shattuck tells reporters after the tour that he believes he saw “overwhelming evidence” of “horrible crimes against humanity” at the sites.

Jan. 22

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Israeli soldiers shoot dead three alleged Hamas members at a roadblock outside Jenin, in the northern West Bank. . . . Violence erupts in several Shi’ite Muslim villages in Bahrain.

Newly inaugurated Guatemalan president Alvaro Arzu Irigoyen discharges many military leaders linked to human-rights abuses and criminal enterprises.

A ferry carrying 210 people sinks off the northwestern tip of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. At least 54 people die, and more than 100 are missing.

Yasser Arafat, the head of the PLO, easily wins the Palestinian presidency as Arab voters turn out in the Gaza Strip and West Bank to select a new self-rule Palestinian National Authority (PNA) government that includes a legislative council. In election violence, a suspected Hamas member wounds a young Israeli girl in a knife attack, sparking a brief round of clashes between settlers and Palestinians. . . . A car bomb explodes at a national guard base in Djebahia, east of Algiers, killing two people and injuring five others.

Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide marries Mildred Trouillot, a U.S.-born Haitian-American lawyer, in Port-au-Prince.

Mufti Fatkhulla Sharipov, Tajikistan’s highest-ranking Islamic cleric, is shot to death along with his wife, his son, and two other people by unknown assailants at his home near Dushanbe. . . . Bosnian premier Haris Silajdzic unexpectedly announces that he will leave his post before Bosnia’s new central government is formed.

Reports suggest that Algerian authorities killed at least 33 Muslim militants in conflicts during the previous weekend.

The government of Greek premier Costas Simitis is sworn into office.

The Bahrain government reveals it has arrested nearly 200 protesters, including eight leading Shi’ite activists, who will face trial as part of “a subversive organization” due to the violence that started Jan. 19. . . . Israel Eldad (born Israel Scheib), 86, right-wing Israeli writer and former leader of the Jewish underground in Palestine, dies in Jerusalem, Israel, of unreported causes.

Argentine president Carlos Saul Menem announces that former Chilean secret police agent Enrique Arancibia Clavel was arrested in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in connection with the 1974 car bomb assassinations. The arrest sparks renewed tensions over the issue of human-rights abuses perpetrated by the former military dictatorship. . . . Former Colombian defense minister Fernando Botero Zea reveals from jail that Pres. Ernesto Samper Pizano solicited and knowingly accepted contributions for his 1994 campaign from the Cali drug cartel, renewing allegations against Samper. In response to the Jan. 22 allegations made by Fernando Botero Zea, politicians from both the Liberal and the Conservative parties call for Pres. Samper’s resignation. Thousands of students protest outside the presidential palace in Bogota, Colombia’s capital, also demanding that Samper resign.

Jan. 23

Prosecutors indict former South Korean president Chun Doo Hwan for sedition for his role in a May 1980 massacre of prodemocracy supporters in the southern city of Kwangju. Roh Tae Woo, a military general in charge of troops at the time of the Kwangju incident, is indicted for insurrection, although he is not accused of involvement in the massacre. Six former army generals are also indicted for treason.

The Chechen rebels release 46 hostages taken when they escaped Jan. 18, but they hold on to 14 Russian policemen. . . . Poland’s military prosecutor’s office announces it will open a formal investigation into espionage allegations against Polish premier Jozef Oleksy, prompting Oleksy to resign in order to clear his name. . . . Spain’s Supreme Court indicts Jose Barrionuevo, who is the highest-ranking former official charged for his alleged ties to antiterrorist death squads from the 1980s. . . . Three soldiers die in an accidental explosion at a NATO headquarters building in Bosnia.

Jan. 24

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 19–24, 1996—831

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

North Korea discloses that it is disbanding a team that had sought to recover the remains of American soldiers who had died in the Korean War, citing a disagreement over payments for remains already found.

Tens of thousands of abortion opponents protest in Washington, D.C. . . . Data shows that the percentage of student borrowers who default on their federal loans fell to 11.6% in the 1993 fiscal year That figure is the lowest student loan default rate reported by the department since it began keeping track in 1988. . . .The Supreme Court rejects without comment a challenge, brought by Gov. Pete Wilson (R, Calif.), of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which requires states to offer voter registration forms at state motor vehicle offices and welfare agency offices.

The U.S. Army for the first time reveals the size and location of its chemical weapons arsenal and states that it is slowly destroying the 60-million-pound (27.12 million kg) stockpile. The army discloses that its largest stockpiles of chemical weapons are maintained at Tooele Army Depot in Utah, Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas, and Hermiston Depot in Oregon. The existence of arsenals in five other states and on Johnston Atoll, a U.S. territory in the Pacific Ocean, are also revealed.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A barge strikes a sand bar off Point Judith, Rhode Island, and spills more than 828,000 gallons of oil into Block Island Sound. It is reportedly the worst spill in Rhode Island’s history. . . . Figures show that the U.S. gross domestic product grew at a revised seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.2% in the third quarter of 1995. It is the first time the number has been calculated with a new “chain-weighted” procedure for measuring the GDP.

Rain storms hit northeastern states. . . . Reports confirm that chemists have developed a process for breaking down freons and other gases containing chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), ozone-damaging chemicals, into nonhazardous compounds.

Don Simpson, 52, who, with Jerry Bruckheimer, produced several blockbuster films, is found dead in Los Angeles; he reportedly died of natural causes. . . . Elizabeth Punsalan and Jerod Swallow win the ice-dancing medal at the U.S. National Skating Championships.

Sidney R. Korshak, 88, labor lawyer and reputed fixer for organizedcrime groups in Chicago who was subjected to investigations but was never indicted for any crime, dies in Beverly Hills, California, of unreported causes.

The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour touches down on the airstrip at Cape Canaveral after carrying out a mission during which members of its crew retrieved a Japanese satellite, deployed and retrieved a U.S. space probe, and twice walked in space. Endeavour traveled 3.7 million miles (6 million km) on its mission, circling the Earth completely 142 times.

Michelle Kwan wins the women’s title at the U.S. National Skating Championships. Rudy Galindo captures the men’s title. . . . Comedian and actor George Burns turns 100 years old. . . . Gerry Mulligan, 68, jazz saxophonist and composer, dies in Darien, Connecticut, from complications after knee surgery; he was suffering from liver cancer.

Pres. Clinton grants a request from Rhode Island governor Lincoln Almond (R) to make federal funds available to help clean up the Jan. 19 oil spill.

Northeastern states are hit by flooding caused by heavy rain that started Jan. 19 and by melting snow left over from a blizzard. At least 35 weatherrelated deaths are reported. The Potomac River rises to nearly 14 feet (4.3 m)—twice its usual level—causing flooding in some parts of Washington D.C. Pres. Clinton declares Pennsylvania, the hardest-hit state, a federal disaster area.

Golden Globe Awards for films are presented to Sense and Sensibility as the Best Drama and Babe as the Best Musical or Comedy. In television awards, Party of Five wins for Best Drama Series and Cybill wins the Best Comedy Series prize.

Cleanup crews are able to drain and stabilize the vessel that struck a sand bar off Point Judith, Rhode Island, and spilled more than 828,000 gallons of oil into Block Island Sound on Jan. 19. . . . A White House official announces that a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., has subpoenaed First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton to testify about the handling of documents related to the Whitewater affair.

Scientists confirm that data relayed to Earth from a probe that in December 1995 plunged into the atmosphere of Jupiter has revealed less water on that planet than expected. . . . Officials in Pennsylvania estimate that statewide flood losses have reached $700 million.

The Newbery Medal for the best children’s book published in the U.S. in 1995 goes to Karen Cushman. The Caldecott Medal for the best illustrated children’s book in 1995 is given to Peggy Rathmann.

Pres. Clinton delivers his State of the Union address in which he declares an end to the “era of big government.” Senate majority leader Robert J. Dole (R, Kans.) delivers the Republican Party’s response. . . . The board of education in Hartford, Connecticut, votes to cancel an October 1994 contract that granted a private firm, Educational Alternatives Inc., control over Hartford’s 32 public schools.

The Whitbread Book of the Year Award is given to first-time British novelist Kate Atkinson for Behind the Scenes at the Museum.

The House passes, 287-129, a $265 billion defense-authorization bill. Apart from the removal of three provisions, the bill is identical to one vetoed by Pres. Clinton in December 1995. . . . A military court at a U.S. Army base in Wurzburg, Germany, convicts U.S. soldier Michael New of disobedience for refusing to wear UN insignia on his uniform while serving on a UNmandated peacekeeping mission in Macedonia.

The SEC charges financially troubled Orange County, California, with fraud connected to the issuance of $2.1 billion in bonds. Hours later, the SEC arrives at a settlement with county officials. The filing of civil charges by the SEC marks the first official action ever taken by the commission accusing a major municipality of financial wrongdoing. . . . Wells Fargo and Co. and First Interstate Bancorp. announce a merger valued at $10.9, the largest bank merger in U.S. history.

The FDA approves the use of the fat substitute olestra, despite protests from some scientists who express concern over its potentially harmful health effects.

Ellen F. Cooke, the former treasurer of the Episcopal Church, pleads guilty to embezzling more than $1.5 million of the church’s assets. Cooke, who was national treasurer of the denomination from 1986 until 1995, also admits that she did not pay income tax on more than $300,000.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 19

Jan. 20

Jan. 21

Jan. 22

Jan. 23

Jan. 24

832—January 25–30, 1996

Jan. 25

World Affairs

Europe

Delegates to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France, vote to admit Russia as the body’s 39th member.

About 700 known prisoners of war from the fighting in the former Yugoslav republic remain in detention.

Bosnian Croats, Muslims, and Serbs accelerate the release of prisoners of war.

Jan. 26

Jan. 27

Jan. 28

Jan. 29

France conducts the last of six controversial nuclear tests under the Fangataufa Atoll in the South Pacific.

Africa & the Middle East

Asia & the Pacific

In an assassination attempt against rightist Nicaraguan presidential candidate Arnoldo Aleman, gunmen miss the politician but kill one of his bodyguards Three other people are injured. . . . Guatemalan officials announce that 118 police officers were dismissed because of involvement in criminal activities. . . . Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien reorganizes his government in the first cabinet shuffle since 1993.

Police find seven people shot to death at a house in Brisbane, Australia, in what is believed to be a murder-suicide.

Muslim militants break into several homes and cut the throats of six women and a girl in the eastern town of Ouagena, Algeria. The attacks reportedly are the first by fundamentalists on women who are not related to security personnel. . . . Tens of thousands of people climb the Thaba Bosiu plateau in a rainstorm to witness the ceremonial burial of King Moshoeshoe of Lesotho.

Niger’s first-ever democratically elected president, Mahamane Ousmane, is overthrown in a military coup and placed under house arrest. Col. Ibrahim Mainassara Bare declares himself chair of a temporary national council. Coup leaders outlaw political parties and suspend the constitution. Premier Hama Amadou is also arrested. Five people are reportedly killed.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, an international advocacy group, finds that 51 journalists were killed in 1995. The total number of journalist deaths in 1995 represents a significant decline from the previous year’s total of 73.

A group of Turkish journalists take down a Greek flag on an island known as Imia in Greece and Kardak in Turkey, and they replace it with a Turkish one, exacerbating an ongoing conflict over the island’s ruler. . . . Three British soldiers are killed when their armored personnel carrier strikes a field mine near Mrkonjic Grad, Bosnia-Herzegovina. . . . J(ohn) Terence Reese, 82, who led Britain’s bridge team to European championships five times and to a world title in 1955, dies in Hove, England, of unreported causes.

France suspends aid to Niger, its former colony, in the wake of the Jan. 27 coup there.

French president Jacques Chirac announces “the definitive end” of France’s nuclear-testing program in the South Pacific. The six tests were vigorously opposed by Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and most of France’s fellow EU nations. The most violent protests were held in Tahiti, where demonstrators rioted in 1995, destroying an airport terminal and causing some $40 million in damage.

In response to the Jan. 28 Turkish flag-raising on Imia, Greece sends 12 commandos to plant the Greek flag on one side of the island and to guard it. . . . The renowned 204year-old opera house, La Fenice, considered to be one of Venice’s most beautiful monuments, is destroyed by a fire that rages for nine hours. . . . Swanee Hunt, U.S. ambassador to Austria, discloses the whereabouts of 79 weapons caches that the U.S. secretly planted in Austria in the 1950s.

Gunmen shoot and kill eight people and wound more than 20 others waiting in line for work at a factory in Alberton, a suburb southeast of Johannesburg, South Africa.

Gino Gallagher, leader of the militant Irish National Liberation Army, is shot and killed in Belfast, Northern Ireland, allegedly by feuding members within his group. . . . Turkey plants a flag on the other side of the disputed island known as Imia in Greece and Kardak in Turkey. . . . Bosnia’s ruling SDA party elects Hasan Muratovic as the Bosnian premier. Separately, two senior Serb officers, Gen. Djordje Djukic and Col. Aleksa Krsmanovic, are arrested by Muslim authorities, posing a new threat to the republic’s fragile peace.

Jan. 30

The Americas

Two Russian-made rockets are fired into the village of Forward Kahuta, a Pakistani-controlled area of the disputed Kashmir region. The rockets hit a mosque and kill at least 19 worshipers. Pakistan officials blame India for the attack, although India denies responsibility. . . . Members of the Preparatory Committee, which will oversee Hong Kong’s mid-1997 reversion to Chinese sovereignty, are installed in a ceremony attended by Chinese president Jiang Zemin at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, the capital of China. In La Saline, a slum area of Portau-Prince, Haiti, the body of activist Guy Jean-Pierre is discovered. Slum residents blame his death on robbers and go on a rampage against suspected thieves. At least nine people are killed, and more than 100 homes are destroyed by arson during mob violence.

India test-fires a ballistic missile, the Prithvi II, off its eastern coast into the Bay of Bengal. . . . A Vietnamese court sentences a U.S. man, Everett Sennholz, to five years in prison and fines him $12,700 for taking weapons and banned literature and videos into the country with him. Sennholz becomes the 12th U.S. citizen currently jailed in Vietnam. Clashes between Indian and Pakistani gunmen are reported at various points along the border. . . . Sonam Wangdu Lama, a four-yearold boy from Seattle, Washington, arrives in Nepal, where he is to become head of a Buddhist monastery outside Katmandu, the capital. Tibetan Buddhists call the boy Trulku-la, and in 1993 he was formally enthroned as the next head of the monastery, but he subsequently returned to Seattle with his mother. . . . San Yu, 78, president of Burma (now Myanmar), 1981–88, dies in Yangon, Myanmar, after reportedly suffering a heart ailment.

François Denis Gbetie of Benin becomes the first member of the UN contingent to be killed in a hostile attack in Haiti when gunmen fire at his motor vehicle in a Port-auPrince suburb.

Some 300 student protesters storm the foreign ministry building in Managua, Nicaragua’s capital, demanding increased government funding for their universities. The students, most of whom are unarmed, hold more than 200 civil servants and foreign ambassadors captive, but they later release more than 100 of the hostages.

Chinese premier Li Peng states that the reunification of Taiwan, which China considers a renegade Chinese province, can no longer be delayed indefinitely.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 25–30, 1996—833

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Billy Bailey, 49, convicted for the shotgun slayings of an elderly couple in Delaware in 1979, is executed by hanging in Smyrna, Delaware. He is the third inmate to be hanged since 1965 and the first in Delaware in 50 years. It is first time in the state’s history that victims’ family members are allowed to witness an execution. Bailey is the 316th person put to death in the U.S. and the sixth in Delaware since 1976. John Albert Taylor, 36, convicted of the 1989 rape and strangulation death of an 11-year-old girl, is executed by a firing squad in Point of the Mountain, Utah. He is the second inmate put to death by a firing squad since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976. Taylor is the fifth inmate executed in Utah and the 317th in the U.S. since 1976.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The House passes, 371-42, a continuing resolution, or stopgap measure, that will fund government programs and agencies through Mar. 15.

The U.S. Senate votes, 86-4, to ratify the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II), which commits the U.S. and Russia to reducing their long-range nuclear arsenals to about one-third of their 1993 levels. START II will not take effect unless it is ratified by both houses of Russia’s parliament. . . . The Senate approves, 56-34, a $265 billion defense-authorization bill.

Jan. 25

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton testifies before a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., concerning documents related to the investigation of the Whitewater affair. It is first time in U.S. history that a first lady testifies under oath before a grand jury. . . . The Senate approves, 82-8, a continuing resolution, or stopgap measure, that will fund government programs and agencies through Mar. 15. Pres. Clinton signs the measure.

Henry Jay Lewis, 63, who in 1968 became the first black conductor and musical director of a major U.S. orchestra, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, dies in New York City of a heart attack. . . . Harold Brodkey (born Aaron Roy Weintraub), 65, author who published in The New Yorker and American Poetry Review, dies in New York City of an AIDS-related illness.

Police arrest Mark Berchard in the midst of a violent rampage at a convent in Waterville, Maine. Before being subdued, Berchard kills two nuns and wounds two others. . . . Ralph W(ebster) Yarborough, 92, (D, Tex.), 1957–71, the only senator from a state in the Deep South to vote for the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, dies in Austin, Texas, after suffering a series of illnesses.

At the Sundance Film Festival, in Utah, Welcome to the Dollhouse, written and directed by Todd Solondz, wins the Grand Jury Prize for the best dramatic film. . . . Monica Seles wins the women’s tennis trophy at the Australian Open.

After a 48-hour standoff at his Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, mansion, police capture John E. du Pont, an heir to the du Pont chemical fortune, for allegedly shooting and killing David Schultz, 36, a former Olympic wrestling champion.

In Chicago, Illinois, Juvenile Court judge Carol Kelly sentences two unidentified boys, ages 12 and 13, to state juvenile prison for dropping five-year-old Eric Morse to his death for refusing to steal candy for them. The 12-year-old will become the U.S.’s youngest inmate in a high-security prison.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A U.S. Navy F-14A Tomcat fighter jet crashes January 29 in Luna Heights, a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee, killing the two crewmen and three bystanders. . . . Russian premier Viktor Chernomyrdin meets with U.S. president Bill Clinton and vice president Al Gore in Washington, D.C.

A survey suggests that the cost of employee health-care benefits paid for by employers in the U.S. increased 2.1% in 1995, after a drop in 1994 that followed a decade of increases.

Ron Wyden (D, Oreg.) wins a special election held to fill the Senate seat vacated by Sen. Bob Packwood, (R), who resigned due to sexual misconduct. Wyden is the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Oregon since 1962. It is the first congressional election to be conducted entirely by mail. . . . William Henry Flamer, 40, convicted of murder in 1979, is executed by lethal injection in Smyrna, Delaware. Flamer is the 318th person executed in the U.S. and only the seventh in Delaware since 1976.

Julian W(erner) Hill, 91, chemist who discovered nylon, dies in Hockessin, Delaware, of unreported causes.

Football’s Dallas Cowboys win, 2717, Super Bowl XXX over the Pittsburgh Steelers. . . . Boris Becker wins the men’s tennis title at the Australian Open. . . . Jerry Siegel, 81, cocreator of the Superman character, dies in Los Angeles of heart ailments. . . . Joseph Aleksandrovich Brodsky, 55, Soviet-born Nobel Prize–winning poet and the 1991 U.S. poet laureate, dies in New York City of a heart attack.

Research shows that a combination of indinavir, AZT, and ddI, a drug marketed by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. as Videx, reduced HIV to undetectable levels in 13 of 22 patients after five months.

The Horse Whisperer, by Nicholas Evans, tops the bestseller list. . . . Data reveals a record 138.5 million people in the U.S. watched Super Bowl XXX, the largest total ever for a TV program. . . . Jamie Uys, 74, South African film director, dies in South Africa after suffering a heart attack.

Scientist Francis Novembre reports that for the first time a chimpanzee developed AIDS, more than 10 years after it was injected with HIV1, the strain that causes most AIDS cases.

Basketball star Earvin (Magic) Johnson plays in his first regularseason NBA game since announcing his retirement in 1991. . . . Rupert Murdoch announces that his company will begin broadcasting a 24-hour all-news TV channel by the end of 1996 with its U.S. television subsidiary, Fox Broadcasting Co.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 26

Jan. 27

Jan. 28

Jan. 29

Jan. 30

834—January 31–February 5, 1996

World Affairs

Jan. 31

Feb. 1

Feb. 2

Feb. 3

Feb. 4

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Tajikistan, two military commanders, Makhmud Khudoberdyev and Ibodullo Boimatov, lead their troops in a bloodless mutiny when they seize the industrial city of TursunZade and march toward Dushanbe, the capital. . . . Greece and Turkey withdraw warships dispatched to an uninhabited island known as Imia in Greece and Kardak in Turkey in response to diplomatic efforts made by the UN, NATO and the U.S.

Police retake the foreign ministry building in Managua, Nicaragua’s capital, and arrest 107 of the protesters who seized the area Jan. 30.

A suicide bomber rams a truck filled with explosives into the gates of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka in the financial district of Colombo, the capital, killing 86 people and injuring more than 1,400 others. . . . More than 11 tons (10 metric tons) of illegally stored dynamite explode in an apartment building in the city of Shaoyang in China, killing more than 100 people and injuring 400. . . . The U.S. warship Fort McHenry becomes the first such vessel to dock in Shanghai since 1989.

French troops kill a sniper near Sarajevo in the first fatal exchange of fire between NATO troops and Bosnian combatants during a mission to transfer Serb suburbs to the MuslimCroat federation. . . . More than 1 million coal miners in Russia and Ukraine strike, demanding that their respective governments pay them their overdue wages. . . . Italian president Oscar Luigi Scalfaro appoints Antonio Maccanico to form and head a new government, Italy’s 55th since the end of World War II.

The Toronto Stock Exchange’s TSE composite index surges 42.65 points to close at 5011.08. It is the first time that the Toronto index has ever topped the 5,000 mark.

A car belonging to Paddy Ashdown, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, is destroyed in a suspected arson attack near the city of Yeovil, in southern England. Separately, a gunman fires 57 shots from an assault rifle at the home of a parttime member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary police force. No one is injured. . . . Albania’s last communist president, Ramiz Alia, is arrested on charges of crimes against humanity.

In Guinea, mutinous soldiers surround and shell the palace of Pres. Lansana Conte after a dispute over pay. . . . Bahraini officials announce the arrests of 41 people on charges of rioting and acts of sabotage since the resurgence of Shi’ite-led opposition protests in January.

Bosnian Serbs, Croats, and Muslims comply with a deadline to withdraw their armed forces from 1,500 square miles (3,900 sq km) of land in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The action effectively ends the Serb siege of Sarajevo. Separately, U.S. Army sergeant Donald Allen Dugan, 38, is killed in an explosion in northeastern Bosnia. Dugan is the ninth soldier slain during the NATO mission. . . . Coal miners in Russia suspend the strike started Feb. 1. . . . Turkish pres. Suleyman Demirel asks Mesut Yilmaz, leader of the conservative Motherland Party, to try to form a government.

In Guinea, the dispute that started Feb. 2 ends. Medical sources report that up to 50 people were killed in clashes between the mutinous soldiers and troops loyal to Pres. Lansana Conte and that Conte’s residence was set ablaze before loyalist troops regained control.

More than 1,000 Chechen civilians begin a week-long rally outside the presidential palace in Grozny, the Chechen capital, to demand that Russian troops leave the republic. . . . Tajikistan pres. Imamali Rakhmanov dismisses several senior officials at the demand of Makhmud Khudoberdyev and Ibodullo Boimatov, who led a late-January mutiny.

Bahrain prevents eight members of the Kuwaiti parliament from entering Bahrain.

The Canadian Senate passes and Governor General Romeo Le Blanc approves legislation that will give five provinces and regions of Canada a veto over proposed changes to the Canadian constitution.

In China, an earthquake measuring 7.0 on Richter scale strikes the sparsely populated southwestern province of Yunnan. The quake, centered near the town of Lijiang on the province’s border with Tibet, kills at least 240 people and injures at least 14,000.

An unidentified man apparently attempts to assassinate Guatemalan president Alvaro Arzu Irigoyen by running him over with a car in the town of Antigua three times before being shot by Arzu’s bodyguards. One of Arzu’s bodyguards is injured in the attack.

Pope John Paul II starts his first tour of Central America since 1983.

Feb. 5

A Supreme Court judge from the Australian state of New South Wales rules that a woman has to pay her lesbian former partner to help support the two children they raised together. The decision represents the first time that a judge in Australia recognizes a same-sex couple as a family for the purpose of ruling on child support.

In China, Yunnan officials report that more than 186,000, or around 80%, of the homes in Lijiang and surrounding areas were destroyed by the Feb. 3 earthquake. The effects of the quake are exacerbated by an aftershock measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale, and record low temperatures of around 10°F (–12°C).

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 31–February 5, 1996—835

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The Justice Department finds that the White House engaged in “illadvised and erroneous actions” when in 1993 it ordered the dismissal of seven White House travel-office employees. However, its report does not conclude that aides to Pres. Clinton improperly pressured the FBI to investigate the travel office.

All the remaining Cuban refugees housed at a refugee camp at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, leave the base. Some 125 Cubans, many of whom have been living in the camp for over a year, are flown to South Florida. The U.S. then officially closes the Guantanamo refugee camps.

The Dow closes at a record high of 5395.30, marking a fourth consecutive record high for the Dow and the sixth record high registered in 1996. . . . The Federal Reserve Board announces that it will lower the federal funds rate to 5.25%, down from 5.5%, and the discount rate to 5%, down from 5.25%.

Astronomers announced the discovery of a galaxy that is 14 billion light years from Earth in the constellation Virgo, making it the most distant galaxy yet detected. . . . Officials at the London Zoo announce that the Polynesian tree snail has become extinct.

The House, 414-16, and Senate, 91-5, approve the broadest overhaul of the nation’s communications laws in 62 years. The reforms will eliminate many rules limiting competition in the radio, TV, and telephone-service markets, and will also impose criminal penalties for the distribution of pornographic materials to minors through the Internet computer network.

French president Jacques Chirac addresses a joint session of Congress.

The House, 396-0, and the Senate, by voice vote, pass a bill that permits the Treasury to borrow $29 billion to pay for Social Security checks to be sent out Mar. 1.

A cloud of toxic smoke fills the sky after a train carrying hazardous chemicals derails and bursts into flames at Cajon Summit, a mountain pass 15 miles (24 km) north of San Bernardino, California. Two crew members are killed, and 21 people are injured. . . . Scientists close the Third Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Washington, D.C.

A misprinted commemorative stamp featuring the late President Richard Nixon sells for $16,675 at Christie’s auction house.

Ray McIntire, 77, former chemical engineer who invented Styrofoam, dies in Midland, Michigan, after suffering from interstitial fibrosis.

Gene Curran Kelly, 83, who was awarded a special Academy Award in 1951 and the National Medal of Arts in 1994, dies in Beverly Hills, California, after suffering strokes earlier. . . . Shamus Culhane, 87, pioneering film animator, dies in New York City of unreported causes.

Thousands of feminists attend the opening of the “Feminist Expo ’96 for Women’s Empowerment” in Washington, D.C. The first-ever Feminist Expo is organized by the nonprofit Feminist Majority Foundation and cosponsored by 299 other organizations.

The Los Angeles Times prints portions of the 1,534-page transcript of a sworn deposition in a civil lawsuit brought by the victims’ families against O. J. Simpson, who in October 1995 was acquitted of killing his former wife and a male friend of hers.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Jan. 31

Audrey Meadows, 69, actress best known for her role as Alice Kramden on the 1950s television series The Honeymooners, dies in Los Angeles of lung cancer.

Jack Meador, Jane Meador Cook, and John Torigian are indicted in Sherman, Texas, in connection with the attempted sale of medieval objects that disappeared from Germany during World War II. . . . The National Football Conference defeats the American Football Conference, 20-13, in the all-star game.

The U.S. Navy announces that Commander Fred Kilian has been relieved of his command of Navy Fighter Squadron 213. Three accidents have occurred in Squadron 213 in the past 10 months under Kilian’s command, including a January accident in which five people died in Tennessee.

A Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, jury convicts Nicholas Pinero, 18, Thomas Crook, 19, and Anthony Rienzi, 18, of third-degree murder in the November 1994 beating death of Edward Polec, 16, on the steps of a church in a Fox Chase neighborhood. The case gained widespread attention because of accusations that 911 operators mishandled calls regarding Polec’s beating. Three other youths are convicted on other charges related to the crime.

Nancy Lieberman-Cline, George Gervin, David Thompson, Gail Goodrich, George Yardley, and the late Kresimir Cosic are elected into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts. . . . Actress Elizabeth Taylor files for divorce from her seventh husband, former construction worker Larry Fortensky, citing “irreconcilable differences.”

Judge George Howard Jr. of U.S. District Court in Little Rock, Arkansas, orders Pres. Clinton to testify in the fraud trial of Susan McDougal. . . . An FEC report finds that Malcolm S. (Steve) Forbes Jr. has spent over $14 million, which is more than any other GOP hopeful, in the last quarter of 1995. Senate majority leader Robert Dole (R, Kans.) spent $8.2 million in that period, and Sen. Phil Gramm (R, Tex.) spent $5.3 million. . . . Data shows that the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund lost money in 1995 for the first time since 1972, indicating that Medicare is in worse financial condition than expected.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 1

Feb. 2

Feb. 3

Feb. 4

Feb. 5

836—February 6–11, 1996

World Affairs

Africa & the Middle East

Serb military leaders break off contact with the Muslims to protest the January arrests of Gen. Djordje Djukic and Col. Aleksa Krsmanovic. . . . Fernando Mugica Herzog, 62, the regional leader of the Socialist Party, is shot dead by two gunmen in San Sebastian. The radical Basque terrorist group ETA claims responsibility.

Feb. 6

Feb. 7

Feb. 8

Europe

The UN Security Council renews the UN peacekeeping mission in Angola for three months. . . . The IMF announces that it will release the final $1.05 billion installment of a $6.8 billion loan it approved for Russia in 1995 to help advance reforms there.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

A Boeing 757 jetliner plunges into the Atlantic Ocean soon after taking off from Puerto Plata, on the northern coast of the Dominican Republic. All 176 passengers and 13 crew members die in the accident. . . . Pres. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in his final official act as president, announces that Haiti has restored diplomatic relations with Cuba.

Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz is sworn in as Poland’s new premier. . . . Thousands of Basques in San Sebastian demonstrate against violence after the funeral of Fernando Mugica Herzog, killed Feb. 6. . . . The Swiss Bankers’ Association announces it has uncovered $32.2 million in dormant bank accounts that could have belonged to victims of the Nazi Holocaust. The figure was estimated at $34 million in a preliminary report in 1995. . . . Lidiya Chukovskaya, 88, Russian writer who openly criticized oppressive policies of Joseph Stalin, dies in Moscow of unreported causes.

Crown Prince Letsie David Mohato assumes Lesotho’s throne as King Letsie III, replacing his father, King Moshoeshoe II, who died in January in an automobile accident. He was king once before, when his father was exiled. . . . In the rural community of Potgietersrus, about 160 miles (260 km) north of Johannesburg, South Africa, 6,000 blacks stage a march, calling for a school to admit black students.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin appoints Premier Viktor Chernomyrdin to head a commission to resolve the conflict in Chechnya. . . . The Serbs break off contact with NATO to protest the January arrests of senior officers. . . . In response to the Feb. 4 dismissals of senior officials, the premier of Tajikistan, Jamshed Karimov, resigns. . . . In the wake of a bank scandal, Lithuania’s parliament ratifies a decree to dismiss Premier Adolfas Slezevicius.

The Bahraini government arrests Ahmad al-Shamlan, a well-known lawyer and writer, on charges of inciting sabotage. He is the first prominent Sunni Muslim detained by Bahraini authorities in connection with Shi’ite-led disturbances. . . . A Christian fundamentalist rebel group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) invades northern Uganda from neighboring Sudan.

René Préval is sworn in as president of Haiti, succeeding Pres. Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Préval’s assumption of the presidency is the first peaceful transfer of power from one democratically elected president to another since Haiti gained independence from France in 1804. . . . The Mexican army and riot police use tear gas and clubs in an unsuccessful attempt to dislodge protesters blocking stateowned oil wells in the southern state of Tabasco. The protesters have been blockading some 60 oil wells since late January. Reports indicate that at least 100 protesters have been arrested.

A bomb explodes near a London office complex, killing two people and injuring about 100. . . . Reports indicate that Islamic rebels took advantage of the warlords’ mutiny in Tajikistan to seize part of Tavil Dara, a strategically valuable town in the mountains about 90 miles east of Dushanbe. . . . General Adolf Joseph Ferdinand Galland, 83, who was regarded as one of the most successful German aviators of World War II, having shot down 104 airplanes, dies in Oberwinter, Germany, after suffering from a heart ailment.

Feb. 9

Soldiers fire tear gas and bullets into a crowd of 1,000 Chechen civilians who started a protest Feb. 4 to demand that Russian troops leave the republic. . . . The Provisional IRA claims responsibility for the Feb. 9 explosion in London, ending an 18-month cease-fire.

Feb. 10

The independent Russian television network reports that six protesters were killed and 15 injured in the melees following the Feb. 10 police action against protesting Chechen civilians.

Feb. 11

A huge boulder breaks off from the side of a mountain and falls onto the Toyohama Tunnel, near the Japanese town of Furubira on the northern island of Hokkaido. One passenger car and a bus carrying 19 passengers are in the tunnel when the boulder falls. In Algeria, a bomb explodes in the busy Algiers quarter of Bab el Oued, an area known for Islamic fundamentalism, injuring 41 people. Another bomb, which kills 17 people and wounds 52, explodes in front of a building containing the offices of many independent journalists and photographers. . . . A bomb blast injures at least four people in the lobby of a luxury seaside hotel in Manama, Bahrain. The Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain claims responsibility.

More than 1 million people attend an open-air mass conducted by Pope John Paul II at an airbase in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 6–11, 1996—837

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The nation’s governors endorse bipartisan policy statements for revamping federal Medicaid and welfare programs.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Energy Secretary Hazel R. O’Leary discloses that the U.S. inventory of plutonium, which includes amounts contained in nuclear weapons, totals some 99.5 metric tons. The plutonium is dispersed among 10 facilities in nine states.

Pres. Clinton signs the broadest overhaul of the nation’s communications laws in 62 years. Civil-liberties and abortion-rights groups launch legal attacks against the measures that restrict on-line communications. . . . Attorney General Janet Reno announces that the Justice Department has undertaken a civil-rights investigation of a series of fires at predominantly black churches in Alabama and Tennessee.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Data from a study show that 57% of TV programs examined depict violence. . . . Guy Madison (born Robert Mos.), 74, actor from the TV series The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, dies in Palm Springs, California, of emphysema.

The Senate approves, 64-32, an agriculture bill that will sharply scale back the distribution of federal subsidies to farmers and save the government $13 billion over seven years. The overhaul is considered the most sweeping reform of U.S. farm policy in 60 years. . . . The Commerce Department reports that in November 1995 the U.S. recorded a seasonally adjusted $7.06 billion deficit in trade in goods and services. The November figure, the lowest since March 1994, marks the fifth consecutive monthly decline.

Preliminary tests indicate that baboon bone marrow cells transferred in December 1995 into the circulatory system of a patient with AIDS have largely failed to grow and function.

Pres. Clinton signs a bill that permits the Treasury to borrow $29 billion to pay for Social Security checks to be sent out on Mar 1. . . . Felice N. Schwartz, 71, activist who in 1962 founded Catalyst, a group that helps women with their careers and pushes for increased participation by women in upper corporate management, dies in New York City of a heart ailment.

An analysis of seven prior studies finds no conclusive evidence that consumption of large amounts of fat raises a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer.

Mercer Ellington, 76, trumpet player, composer and band leader who was presented with a Grammy Award in 1988, dies in Copenhagen, Denmark, of heart failure.

Three people die and 162 others are injured when two commuter trains collide in Jersey City, New Jersey, due to either an error by the engineer or a signal malfunction.

The NFL approves the Cleveland Browns’ proposed move to Baltimore, Maryland, after a compromise was reached among the league, team owner Art Modell, and the city of Cleveland, Ohio, which vigorously opposed the move. . . . Cigar is named 1995 horse of the year.

Leo Jenkins Jr., 38, convicted of the 1988 fatal shootings of a brother and sister, is executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas. Jenkins’s execution marks the first time that victims’ families are allowed to witness an execution in Texas. He is the 105th convict put to death in Texas and the 319th in the U.S. since the Supreme Court allowed states to resume executions in 1976.

Feb. 6

Feb. 7

Pres. Clinton signs a $265 billion defense-authorization bill. The most controversial provision in the bill requires all service members who test positive for HIV to be discharged.

Feb. 8

Feb. 9

Feb. 10

The Eastern Conference wins the NBA’s All-Star Game, 129-118, over the Western Conference in San Antonio, Texas.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 11

838—February 12–17, 1996

World Affairs

Europe Representatives from Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia agree that they will not arrest for war crimes any individuals who have not first been indicted by the tribunal in The Hague. As part of the compromise, Gen. Djordje Djukic and Col. Aleksa Krsmanovic, two senior Bosnian Serb military officers, fly to The Hague to face questioning. . . . In the wake of the Feb. 9 bombing in London, British prime minister John Major states his government has broken off all contact with Sinn Fein, the IRA’s political wing.

Feb. 12

Africa & the Middle East

Asia & the Pacific

Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), is sworn in as president of the selfrule Palestine National Authority (PNA).

In Guatemala, a full-scale excavation of a suspected mass grave begins in the town of Rabinal, a military base from 1980 to 1987.

Feb. 13

Feb. 14

The Americas

The European Parliament, the legislative branch of the EU, votes in favor of limiting the number of foreign-made productions broadcast on European television.

Feb. 15

Francisco Tomas y Valiente, 63, a former president of Spain’s highest court, is shot and killed by a single assailant in Madrid, the Spanish capital. The radical Basque terrorist group ETA claims responsibility.

Colombian prosecutors file formal charges against President Ernesto Samper Pizano that could eventually lead to his impeachment. The charges stem from allegations that Samper accepted money from the Cali drug cartel for his election campaign.

In Grozny, Chechnya, Russian troops destroy the presidential palace, which has been a symbol of Chechen independence since Russia invaded the republic. . . . The supertanker Sea Empress runs aground just off the southwest coast of Wales, slowly spilling more than 18 million gallons (70 million liters) of oil into the Celtic Sea. . . . French NATO troops capture three Iranian men and eight other Muslims in a raid in central Bosnia. . . . The parliament of Lithuania approves Mindaugas Stankevicius as the new premier.

Canadian federal and provincial officials in Vancouver, British Columbia, initial an agreement that settles land claims by the Nisga’a nation, an indigenous people whose native lands are in the northwestern corner of the province. The pact is the first of its kind between British Columbia and a native group.

Bangladeshi prime minister Khaleda Zia and her ruling Bangladesh National Party (BNP) wins an overwhelming victory in parliamentary elections that are marred by widespread violence, low voter turnout, and allegations of vote rigging. . . . A Chinese-made rocket carrying a U.S. telecommunications satellite crashes shortly after liftoff in China’s Sichuan province.

Representatives of the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), the Mexican federal government, and the state government of Chiapas sign the first of six formal peace accords designed to resolve a two-year-old uprising. Separately, about 1,000 protesters end their blockades of state-owned oil wells in the southern Gulf Coast state of Tabasco. The protesters have been blockading some 60 oil wells since late January.

Sir William Deane, a former justice in Australia’s High Court, is sworn in as the 22nd governor general of Australia, replacing Bill Hayden.

Leaders of Ukraine’s coal-mining unions agree to suspend a strike they began Feb. 1. . . . Fighting in Chechnya spreads as Russian forces attack suspected guerrilla strongholds. . . . Italian president Oscar Luigi Scalfaro dissolves Italy’s parliament, clearing the way for general elections in April.

Feb. 16

South African Supreme Court judge Tjibbe Spoelstra orders an all-white school in the rural community of Potgietersrus, about 160 miles (260 km) north of Johannesburg, to admit black students who were turned away. Spoelstra’s ruling is the first court decision on the racial integration of South African schools since majority rule began in 1994.

In Bosnia-Herzegovina, reports indicate that at least three people have been injured, two of them seriously, in four separate attacks on buses linking Sarajevo with the suburb of Ilidza. . . . Herve Bazin (born Jean-Pierre Herve-Bazin), 84, French novelist who sharply criticized the institutions of his country’s bourgeois society, dies in Angers, France, after suffering a stroke.

Feb. 17

Rescuers in Japan recover the bodies of 20 people who were killed in the Feb. 10 accident in the Toyohama Tunnel, near the town of Furubira on the northern island of Hokkaido.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 12–17, 1996—839

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

A Michigan appeals court clears the way for Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who has acknowledged attending the suicides of 26 people since June 1990, to stand trial for the 1993 deaths of Ali Khalili and Merian Frederick under an expired Michigan law banning assisted suicide.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Gary Dockery, a Tennessee police officer who has been largely incommunicative since being shot in the forehead in 1988, becomes alert and speaks for the first time since being shot. His partial recovery calls attention to misperceptions commonly held by medical professionals and the public about comas and “vegetative states.” . . . The FDA approves the nonprescription sale of the hair-growth drug minoxidil, which is made and marketed as Rogaine.

French Roman Catholic bishops for the first time approve the use of condoms to prevent individuals from contracting HIV. The move defies the doctrine of Pope John Paul II, who advocates abstinence. . . . Officials confirm that heavyweight boxer Tommy Morrison has tested positive for HIV.

Pres. Clinton signs an executive order barring companies that knowingly hire illegal aliens from competing for new federal contracts for one year.

CompuServe Inc., an on-line computer service, states that it will reverse a decision made in December 1995 in response to German pornography laws. The company announces it will remove most restrictions set in place in 1995 on the distribution of sex-related materials over the Internet.

Martin Henry Balsam, 76, actor who won the 1965 Academy Award for best supporting actor and a 1967 Tony Award, is found dead in a Rome, Italy, hotel after suffering a stroke. . . . Charlie Conerly, 74, football quarterback who led the New York Giants to the NFL title, dies in Memphis, Tennessee, of heart failure.

Deputy Interior Secretary John Garamendi states that a plan to build a dump site for low-level nuclear waste on federal land in the Mojave Desert will be delayed, pending further tests to determine the safety of the plan. The action temporarily blocks a May 1995 decision by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt. . . . A jury in Detroit, Michigan, finds that insurers of Dow Corning Corp. are liable for a total of $400 million in coverage pertaining to silicone breastimplant lawsuits.

A runaway freight train crashes into a railyard office building in St. Paul, Minnesota, injuring nine people.

The New York State Athletic Commission announces that it will implement mandatory annual HIV tests for boxers.

In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. district judge Ronald Buckwalter grants a restraining order that will temporarily block enforcement of the Communications Decency Act, a provision of the recent telecommunications bill. The provision would outlaw the transmission of “indecent” material to minors over on-line computer networks, and Buckwalter rules that the legislation does not adequately define “indecent.”. . . Contenders for the Republican presidential nomination participate in a televised debate held in Manchester, New Hampshire.

McLean Stevenson, 66, actor best known for his role as Lt. Col. Henry Blake in the TV series M*A*S*H, dies in Tarzana, California, of a heart attack.

Three terminally ill patients in Florida are joined by Dr. Cecil McIver, the ACLU, and the Hemlock Society to file a suit to overturn the state’s ban on doctor-assisted suicide. . . . Edmund G(erald) (Pat) Brown, 90, Democratic governor of California, 1959–67, who was largely credited with an economic boom in California during the 1960s, dies in Beverly Hills, Califronia, of a heart attack.

The Federal Reserve Board reports that its industrial-production index, which measures output at U.S. factories, mines, and utilities, plunged 0.6% in January, the sharpest decline since March 1991.

Jason Anthony Harloff, 22, a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy, is sentenced by a military court to four months in prison for possession, use and intent to distribute the drug LSD.

Eleven people are killed and 26 injured when an Amtrak passenger train collides with a Maryland Area Rail Commuter system train in Silver Spring, Maryland, less than 10 miles (16 km) outside of Washington, D.C.

Brownie (Walter Brown) McGhee, 80, black American blues vocalist and guitarist known for his smooth finger-picking style, dies in Oakland, California, of stomach cancer.

NASA launches a low-cost spacecraft on a four-year mission to study the asteroid 433 Eros. The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) craft is the first to orbit an asteroid.

Garry Kasparov of Russia defeats the Deep Blue chess computer, designed by IBM, in the first multigame regulation match between a world champion and a computer.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 12

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Feb. 14

Feb. 15

Feb. 16

Feb. 17

840—February 18–23, 1996

World Affairs

Iraqi and UN officials end talks on terms under which Iraq would be allowed to resume limited oil sales for revenue to ameliorate a shortage of food and medical supplies that has reached crisis proportions among vast numbers of Iraqis. If enacted, the plan—Security Council Resolution 986—would permit Iraq to sell up to $2 billion of oil over a six-month period.

Feb. 20

Feb. 21

Feb. 22

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Pres. Alija Izetbegovic of BosniaHerzegovina, Croatian president Franjo Tudjman, and Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic reassert their commitment to fulfilling all the provisions of a December 1995 peace treaty. . . . A concealed bomb destroys a double-decker bus in London, killing one person and injuring at least eight others.

Feb. 18

Feb. 19

Europe

In the Philippines, a ferry carrying more than 200 passengers capsizes at the entrance to the port at Cadiz, a city some 300 miles (480 km) southeast of Manila, killing at least 50 people.

The Provisional IRA claims responsibility for the Feb. 18 blast on a double-decker bus in London.

WHO officials confirm that 13 people have died from the Ebola virus in Mayibout, a remote village in northeastern Gabon. WHO also confirms a total of 20 infections. . . . A group of black secondaryschool students in Trompsburg in South Africa’s Orange Free State are barred from attending an allwhite school.

Russian military officers claim the army captured Novogroznensky, Chechnya, about 40 miles (65 km) east of Grozny. . . . A joint MuslimCroat police unit patrols in Mostar for the first time, amid exchanges of gunfire and incidents of rockthrowing.

A group of 400 black secondary students loot and protest in Trompsburg in Orange Free State in response to being barred Feb. 19 from attending an all-white school. . . . Two sons-in-law of President Saddam Hussein who had defected to Jordan in August 1995, Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel Hassan al-Majid and Lt. Col. Saddam Kamel Hassan alMajid, return home to Iraq after receiving a pardon from the government. . . . Qatar foils an antigovernment plot headed by supporters of the nation’s deposed and exiled emir, Khalifa bin Hamad al-Thani, who was ousted in a June 1995 bloodless coup. Some 100 people are reported arrested.

The European Court of Human Rights rules that the British government’s power to detain juvenile offenders indefinitely violates their rights.

A flotilla of 12 British, French, and Dutch tugboats frees the Sea Empress, which ran aground Feb 15 off the southwest coast of Wales. The boats move it to a local inlet.

Michel Camdessus, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, announces that the IMF will provide a package of $10.2 billion in loans over three years to help Russia implement free-market economic reforms.

Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic is hospitalized in Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, with an unspecified heart ailment.

Asia & the Pacific

Japan and South Korea in separate moves announce plans to declare so-called exclusive economic zones that encompass disputed islets located in waters off their shores.

Government prosecutors charge 14 high-ranking Indian politicians with accepting illegal payments. The charges are the latest to stem from a massive bribery probe based on information culled from the diaries of Surendra K. Jain, a former steel industrialist arrested on corruption charges in 1995. The scandal has caused a number of Indian politicians to resign in the past several weeks.

Two sons-in-law of Pres. Saddam Hussein who defected to Jordan in August 1995 and returned to Iraq on Feb. 20 are slain, apparently by enraged family members. The two, Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel Hassan alMajid and Lt. Colonel Saddam Kamel Hassan al-Majid, die in a shoot-out along with a third brother and their father when members of the Majid clan, or extended family, storm their residence in a Baghdad suburb. . . . WHO officials declare that no new Ebola infections have been seen and that the Feb. 19 outbreak in northeastern Gabon is apparently under control.

Feb. 23

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 18–23, 1996—841

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Sugar farmers and industry officials stage demonstrations in Miami, Florida, to protest potential increases in sugar taxes.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Picabo Street captures the downhill gold medal at the world skiing championships, becoming the first American woman ever to win an event there. . . . Dale Jarrett wins the Daytona 500 automobile race in Daytona Beach, Florida.

Grant Sawyer, 77, Democratic governor of Nevada, 1959–67, who was known for his tough stance against organized crime, dies in Las Vegas, Nevada, of complications from a stroke.

Charles O(scar) Finley, 77, owner of the Athletics baseball team, 1960–80, dies in Chicago, Illinois, of heart and vascular ailments.

Former representative Kweisi Mfume (D, Md.) is sworn in as the top officer of the NAACP in a ceremony at the Great Hall of the Justice Department in Washington, D.C. . . . Former TV commentator Patrick Buchanan edges out Senate majority leader Robert J. Dole (Kans.) to win the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary.

Kenneth W. Starr, the independent counsel investigating the Whitewater affair, indicts Robert M. Hill and Herby Branscum Jr. on fraud and conspiracy charges related to the handling of money donated to the 1990 reelection campaign of thenArkansas governor Bill Clinton. Starr’s indictment does not accuse Pres. Clinton of criminal wrongdoing. . . . FEC reports show that Sen. Robert Dole (R, Kans.) is in the best financial shape of the GOP candidates.

Pres. Clinton renominates Alan Greenspan for a third four-year term as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Clinton also picks Alice Rivlin to assume the Fed vice chairmanship and economic consultant Laurence Meyer to fill a vacated governor’s seat on the seven-member board.

William G. Bonin, 49, known as the “Freeway Killer” for his serial slayings of boys and young men in 1979 and 1980, is put to death in San Quentin, California. Bonin is the first convict in California executed by lethal injection. He is also the third person to be executed in California and the 322nd in the U.S. since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.

Mir marks the 10th anniversary of its 1986 launch. The Russian space station has been manned continuously since September 1989. . . . Solomon E. Asch, 88, Polish-born psychologist who served as director of the Institute for Cognitive Studies at Rutgers University, 1966–72, and as professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, 1972–79, dies in Haverford, Pennsylvania, of unreported causes.

Rap singer Snoop Doggy Dogg (Calvin Broadus) and his former bodyguard are acquitted of first degree murder in connection with the 1993 shooting of Philip Woldemariam. . . . Toru Takemitsu, 65, who was the first Japanese composer to gain recognition in the West, dies in Tokyo of cancer.

A freight train carrying sulfuric acid derails while descending a snowcovered pass in the Rocky Mountains south of Red Cliff, Colorado, killing two crew members. Thousands of gallons of acid spill down a mountainside and across a main highway. The derailment is the fifth major U.S. train accident in the month of February.

Morton Gould, 82, composer and conductor who received a Kennedy Center Honors Award in 1994 and the Pulitzer Prize in 1995, dies in Orlando, Florida, of undetermined causes.

The U.S. space shuttle Columbia blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

A jury in Richmond, Texas, finds Warren Moon, a quarterback in the NFL, not guilty of beating his wife, Felicia Moon, during a July 1995 argument at their home in Missouri City, Texas.

Data indicate that the U.S. gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 2.1% in 1995. That is the lowest calendar-year growth rate since 1991, when the economy contracted just 1%. . . . The Dow closes at a record high of 5630.49, marking a 10th record high for the Dow in February and the 16th record high registered in 1996.

Feb. 18

Feb. 19

Feb. 20

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

842—February 24–29, 1996

World Affairs

Feb. 26

Feb. 27

The U.S. calls an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council in response to the Feb. 24 attack on civilian planes by Cuba.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Two unarmed private planes belonging to a U.S.-based Cuban exile pilots organization called Brothers to the Rescue are shot down over waters between Cuba and the U.S. by Cuban MiG fighter jets, killing four airmen. The incident prompts international criticism of Cuba and moves by the U.S. toward tightening its economic embargo against the Caribbean island nation. Two suicide bombers kill 27 people and injure scores of others in apparently coordinated attacks in West Jerusalem and the Israeli coastal town of Ashkelon. The military wing of the Islamic resistance organization Hamas cites revenge for the slaying of Yahya Ayyash, a former engineering student killed in January, when claiming responsibility. The attacks end a six-month lull in Palestinian bombings against Israeli targets and draw widespread condemnation.

Mexico’s largest television network airs a videotape of a June 1995 massacre of 17 peasants by police in Guerrero. The tape shows police firing at unarmed peasants and confirms that guns were planted on the peasants after they were slain.

NATO certifies that the Serbs have withdrawn all their military forces from a “separation zone” between Serb and Muslim-Croat territory, in accordance with the 1995 treaty that halted the Bosnian civil war.

Russian forces withdraw from Ingushetia, a Russian republic that borders Chechnya.

In Jerusalem, Israel, armed Jewish civilians shoot to death an ArabAmerican motorist they suspect of being a terrorist after the rented car he is driving strikes and kills a Jewish woman waiting at a bus stop. More than 20 other people at the bus stop are injured in the incident. . . . Sierra Leone holds its first multiparty presidential election since 1967. Gunfire and rocket attacks disrupt the vote and cause voting to be extended for one day.

In Canada, more than 55,000 members of the Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union (OPSEU) walk off their civil-service jobs in an effort to strengthen contract clauses related to their job security.

In response to the Feb. 26 certification by NATO, the UN Security Council suspends its long-standing economic sanctions against BosniaHerzegovina’s ethnic Serbs. The rump federation of Yugoslavia, whose government is dominated by Serbs, lifts its own sanctions against the Bosnian Serbs as well.

George Iain Murray, 64, the 10th Duke of Atholl and one of the wealthiest landowners in Scotland, dies in Perth, Scotland, after suffering a stroke.

In Israel, the PNA police announce that some 140 suspected members of Hamas have been arrested in a crackdown following the Feb. 25 bombings. . . . Sierra Leone’s first multiparty presidential election since 1967 results in no clear winner, and a second round of voting is scheduled for March.

Mario Polanco of the Guatemalan National Human Rights Coordinating Committee reveals that anthropologists have exhumed the burned remains of 167 people in the village of Agua Fria. Polanco asserts that the victims were killed during the army’s hunt for suspected leftists and sympathizers in April 1982, under the rule of General Efrain Rios Montt. . . . Haiti’s parliament ratifies the appointment of Rosny Smarth as premier.

Diana, the Princess of Wales, announces she has agreed to divorce her husband of 15 years, Charles, the Prince of Wales.

Feb. 28

Feb. 29

Africa & the Middle East

Russian artillery and warplanes shell villages where the army believes Chechen rebels are hiding in Ingushetia, a Russian republic that borders Chechnya. The attack sparks protests by officials in Ingushetia.

Feb. 24

Feb. 25

Europe

The UN Security Council unanimously approve a resolution extending the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti.

Ilijas, a Serb suburb in Bosnia, passes into Muslim-Croat hands.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 24–29, 1996—843

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Feb. 24

Secretary of State Warren Christopher embarks on a largely symbolic nine-day tour of five countries in Latin America and the Caribbean region.

Astronauts aboard the space shuttle Columbia deploy 12.23 miles of a 12.8-mile-long cable attached to a satellite when the U.S.-made tether snaps, hurtling the satellite into space at about 100 miles per hour.

Dr. Haing S. Ngor, 45, a Cambodian refugee activist who won a best supporting actor Academy Award for his debut role in the 1984 film The Killing Fields, is found shot dead outside his home in Los Angeles. Ngor, a Cambodian-born physician, survived torture while a captive of his native country’s Khmer Rouge government in the 1970s.

Primary Colors, by Anonymous, tops the bestseller list. . . . Fox Broadcasting Co. Chair Rupert Murdoch announces that the Fox TV network will offer the leading presidential candidates free airtime in the fall.

Defense Secretary William Perry and CIA director John Deutch announce they have asked National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) director Jeffrey Harris and deputy director Jimmie Hill to resign following allegations of fiscal mismanagement. Keith Hall is named the NRO’s acting director. . . . In response to the Feb. 24 downing of private planes by Cuba, Pres. Clinton announces that all charter flights between the U.S. and Cuba will be suspended.

Kevin Convey, 19, who pled guilty to third-degree murder in an agreement with prosecutors, is sentenced to 5–20 years in prison for the November 1994 beating death of Edward Polec, 16, on the steps of a church in the Fox Chase neighborhood of Philadelphia.

The independent Export-Import Bank, the U.S.’s chief export credit agency, states it will honor a request by Secretary of State Warren Christopher to defer for at least one month any new financing for American companies seeking to do business in China. The move, which heightens Sino-U.S. tensions, is prompted by CIA allegations of sales of nuclear technology to Pakistan by China.

Census Bureau officials state that for the first time the bureau will use sampling techniques in an official tabulation of the U.S. population when it conducts Census 2000.

A federal judge in Newark, New Jersey, throws out the deportation case against former Mexican deputy attorney general Mario Ruiz, who has been in U.S. custody since March 1995 and is wanted in Mexico on charges of embezzlement and conspiracy to commit murder. . . . Daiwa Bank Lth., a major Japanese commercial bank, pleads guilty to 16 counts of fraud and conspiracy and agrees to pay $340 million in fines in exchange for the U.S. government’s agreement not to prosecute the bank or any of its affiliates.

The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. recorded a $111.04 billion deficit in trade in goods and services in 1995. That is up 4.5% from the 1994 deficit of $106.21 billion and is the largest calendar-year gap since 1988. . . . The FDIC informs Congress that it will not sue the Rose Law Firm, where First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was formerly a partner, for fraud or misconduct related to the collapse of the Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan thrift institution. The agency does not exonerate anyone.

At the Grammy Awards, Canadian singer Alanis Morissette, 21, is a big winner, picking up four Grammys, including best album of the year. Hootie and the Blowfish and Seal also win high-profile awards.

The Senate by unanimous voice vote confirms a four-star army general, Barry R. McCaffrey, to serve as the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

The Commission on Roles and Capabilities of the U.S. Intelligence Community, an expert advisory committee created in December 1994, releases the findings of its 16-month investigation into the government’s intelligence agencies. The report suggests ways to make the intelligence community operate more efficiently, but it does not recommend any radical changes.

The House approves, 270-155, a bill that will eliminate many government subsidies paid to farmers and reduce federal spending by about $13 billion over seven years. . . . In Washington, D.C., U.S. district judge Louis Oberdorfer rules that GOPAC, a Republican political action committee headed by House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.) from 1986 to 1995, did not make illegal campaign contributions to Gingrich and other Republicans prior to registering with the FEC in 1991.

Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) chairman James A. Johnson is named to head the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. . . . The heads of large cableTV companies and of the four major networks pledge to develop a system for rating programs based on their level of violent and sexual content.

AT&T Corp., the leading U.S. provider of long-distance telephone services, announces that it will offer its customers free access to the Internet global computer network through its new on-line service, known as WorldNet.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 28

Feb. 29

844—March 1–6, 1996

World Affairs

March 1

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Leaders of 25 European and Asian nations hold a trade summit in Bangkok, Thailand, to lay out plans for strengthening Euro-Asian trade and investment ties. Participants avoid any substantive talks on Asia’s human-rights record, drawing criticism from activists. . . . The UN International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague charges Bosnian Serb general Djordje Djukic with war crimes related to his role in the civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The Americas In the waters off the South Georgia Islands, a British colony located some 800 miles (1,300 km) southeast of the Falkland Islands, a fishing vessel registered in Argentina is allegedly forced by a British warship to pay a $110,000 fee to fish in those waters. The incident renews tensions between Great Britain and Argentina.

The Liberal Party-National Party coalition, led by John Howard, wins a decisive victory in Australian national elections, ending 13 years of political rule by the Australian Labor Party. Howard is expected to replace Paul Keating as Australia’s prime minister.

March 2

Police in the republic of Serbia arrest Drazen Erdemovic, a former officer in the Bosnian Serb army, after he confesses that he took part in a mass execution near Srebrenica on July 20, 1995. Police also arrest another officer, Radoslav Kremenovic. . . . The Popular Party (PP) wins the most votes in general elections in Spain. . . . Turkey’s two rival conservative parties agree to form a coalition government that excludes the Islamic Welfare (Refah) Party, which won a plurality in 1995 elections. . . . Marguerite Duras, 81, popular French writer, dies in Paris of unreported causes.

March 3

March 4

March 5

March 6

Asia & the Pacific

In response to the U.S. Senate’s vote regarding Cuba, 14 Caribbean nations, along with Canada, release a joint statement condemning the bill as an unacceptable extension of American law beyond U.S. territory.

The International Civil Aviation Organization, a UN aviation agency, agrees to investigate the February downing of unarmed civilian planes by Cuba.

A suicide bomber carries out an attack on a bus in downtown West Jerusalem, The blast kills 19 people, including the bomber, and injures another 10. A communiqué that claims to represent the leadership of Hamas’s military wing asserts that the attack is the last act of retaliation for the January slaying of Yahya Ayyash. . . . Pres. Nicephore Soglo and former president Mathieu Kerekou are the top two vote-getters in the first round of Benin’s multiparty presidential elections.

Reports reveal that the rocket that crashed Feb. 15 in China’s Sichuan province destroyed 80 homes, killing a family of six people and injuring 57.

A suicide attack at a busy intersection in Tel Aviv, Israel, outside the Dizengoff Center, the city’s largest shopping mall, kills 14 people, including the bomber, who is affiliated with Hamas. About 130 are wounded. When combined the Mar. 3 assault, 33 people have died in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, sending the Israeli-Palestinian peace process into disarray.

In Hong Kong, British prime minister John Major vows to ensure that the rights and freedoms of Hong Kong citizens will be protected after the territory reverts to Chinese sovereignty from British rule on June 30, 1997.

Israel Radio reports that four Israeli soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon after coming under fire from Hezbollah fighters. The South Lebanon Army, an Israeli proxy militia, states that two guerrillas were killed in the ambush.

Russian troops clash with rebels in Grozny, the Russian-held capital of Chechnya. Russian news agencies report that Chechen guerrilla leader Salman Raduyev, who led a January raid on the Russian republic of Dagestan, has died of head wounds. . . . Hadzici, a suburb of Sarajevo, passes into Muslim-Croat hands. . . . Lord Douglas Patrick Thomas Jay, 88, prominent Labour Party member of Britain’s Parliament, 1946–83, and trade minister under P.M. Harold Wilson, 1964–67, dies in Oxfordshire, England, of unreported causes.

Fugitive Colombian drug trafficker Jose Santacruz Londoño is killed in a shoot-out with police near Medellin, Colombia. . . . In Haiti, Pierre Denize is confirmed by the Senate as chief of the civilian police force. Denize is the first civilian to hold that position since Haiti gained independence in 1804. . . . Argentina lodges a complaint with Great Britain in response to the Mar. 1 incident off the South Georgia Islands.

In the West Bank city of Nablus, thousands of supporters of the AlFatah movement hold a rally supporting the Palestinian-Israeli peace process and denouncing terrorism. Israeli and PNA police conduct joint raids against suspected Islamic militants. PNA security forces reveal that they detained, found guilty, and sentenced Mohammed Abu Wardeh, 21, for recruiting three Hamas suicide bombers, one of whom allegedly detonated one of the recent blasts. Security officials state that Yasser Arafat approved a life prison term with hard labor for the Palestinian.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 1–6, 1996—845

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The Clinton administration issues its annual report on the efforts of countries to combat the production and distribution of narcotics. Among those countries that the U.S. “decertified,” or deemed uncooperative in the drug war, is Colombia, which the U.S. State Department claims is the world’s leading producer and supplier of cocaine and a major supplier of heroin and marijuana. The decision will disqualify Colombia from receiving most U.S. economic aid. . . . An AH-1 Cobra helicopter crashes near Columbus, Georgia, killing both crewmen on board.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The FDA approves the AIDS drug ritonavir.

March 1

Supporters of Brothers to the Rescue, the Cuban exile aviators’ group to which the four pilots shot down by Cuba in late February belonged, organize a memorial. After civilian planes drop wreaths over the spot where the planes were downed, they fly over the Orange Bowl stadium in Miami, Florida, where some 60,000 people have gathered to commemorate the pilots.

March 2

Alan Keyes, a former State Department official and radio talk-show host who is running for the Republican Party presidential nomination, is arrested in Atlanta, Georgia, for attempting to enter a debate from which he had been excluded. Keyes is not among four candidates in the Georgia primary.

Lyle Talbot (born Lyle Henderson), 94, prolific actor, dies in San Francisco, California, of unreported causes. . . . Cardinal John Krol, 85, Roman Catholic archbishop of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1961–88, dies in Philadelphia after suffering from various ailments. . . . Meyer Schapiro, 91, a preeminent art scholar, dies in New York City of unreported causes.

In Bennis v. Michigan, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that the government may seize property used for criminal activity even if the property owner does not participate in the illegal activity.

In Hercules Inc. v. U.S., the Supreme Court rules, 6-2, that manufacturers of Agent Orange, a defoliating chemical used by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War, are not entitled to reimbursement from the federal government to recover costs incurred in settling lawsuits brought against them by veterans.

A survey that assesses some 35 industrial and service companies with average revenues of $21 billion finds that the average compensation received by chief executives jumped 23% in 1995, to $4.37 million. . . . The Commerce Department reports that personal pretax income increased 6.1% in 1995, the largest gain in five years. That compares with a revised 4.9% increase in 1994, and it outpaces 1995’s inflation rate of 2.5%.

California governor Pete Wilson (R) files a lawsuit against the federal government, demanding that the government reimburse his state for the cost of imprisoning nearly 20,000 illegal aliens convicted of felonies. . . . The federal government bans the importation of the sedative Rohypnol, a sedative 10 times more powerful than Valium that has been linked to cases of date rape.

The Senate passes, 74-22, a bill that strengthens the U.S.’s economic embargo of Cuba by penalizing foreigners who invest in Cuba. The legislation is prompted by Cuba’s downing of two civilian planes in late February. . . . The House passes, 416-0, a bill that will grant federal income-tax exemptions to troops taking part in peacekeeping missions in the former Yugoslavia.

Some 3,200 members of the United Automobile Workers union walk off their jobs at two General Motors parts plants in Dayton, Ohio.

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California, strikes down a Washington State law that bars doctors from helping terminally ill patients to kill themselves, ruling that such patients have a constitutional right to a “dignified and humane death.” The ruling is the first on doctor-assisted suicide by a full federal appeals court.

The State Department releases its annual report on human rights. It singles out China for “widespread and well-documented human-rights abuses,” and it criticizes many nations that maintain friendly relations with the U.S. for human-rights abuses while combating regional insurgencies or extremist groups. . . . The House approves, 336-86, a bill that penalizes foreigners who invest in Cuba. . . . The Senate passes, by unanimous voice vote, a bill to grant federal income-tax exemptions to troops in peacekeeping missions in the former Yugoslavia.

The Labor Department announces a six-month amnesty for companies that illegally diverted deposits for employees’ 401(k) retirementsavings plans for the companies’ own use. Labor Department officials estimate that as many as 1,000 employers will file for amnesty.

All 1,700 residents of the town of Weyauwega, Wisconsin, are evacuated after a train carrying liquid propane derails and the leaking fuel catches fire.

Minnie Pearl (born Sarah Ophelia Colley), 83, country comedian and storyteller who was among the most famous performers in “The Grand Ole Opry,” dies in Nashville, Tennessee, of complications from a stroke.

The Baseball Hall of Fame selects Earl Weaver, Jim Bunning, the late Ned Hanlon, and the late Bill Foster for induction.

March 3

March 4

March 5

March 6

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

846—March 7–13, 1996

World Affairs

March 7

March 8

Europe

The Americas

Yasser Arafat, president of the selfrule Palestine National Authority, convenes the inaugural session of the PNA’s new 88-member Palestine Legislative Council.

A court in Naha, Okinawa, convicts three U.S. servicemen in the September 1995 rape of a 12-year-old Japanese girl in Okinawa. The court sentences two of the servicemen, Marine Pfc. Rodrico Harp and Navy Seaman Marcus D. Gill, to seven years in a Japanese prison. The third officer, Marine Pfc. Kendrick M. Ledet, is sentenced to 6 years. The case heightened tension between Japan and the U.S.

An unidentified gunman sympathetic with the Chechen rebels hijacks a North Cyprus Turkish Airlines jet with 101 passengers and eight crew members aboard. The hijacker takes control of the Boeing 727 after it leaves Cyprus for Istanbul, Turkey. . . . A representative for Ukraine’s nuclear regulatory agency reveals that a minor accident had occurred at Chernobyl’s No. 1 reactor in November 1995.

In the single most deadly reported raid by the Christian fundamentalist rebel group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda, about 40 LRA rebels attack a military-escorted convoy of vehicles near Karuma Falls, northwest of Kampala, the capital. At least 130 people are killed in the ambush.

China fires unarmed surface-tosurface missiles at targets in the waters off the coasts of two Taiwanese ports in the first round of military exercises.

A “noncooperation” campaign is launched by opposition parties that boycotted February elections in Bangladesh with the goal of ousting Premier Khaleda Zia.

Hezbollah strikes Israeli troops in Lebanon with bomb and rocket attacks, killing at least one soldier. Israel responds by lobbing artillery shells at presumed Hezbollah positions in villages along the rim of the Israeli-occupied zone.

March 10

In the midst of controversy regarding a June 1995 massacre of 17 peasants by police in Guerrero, Mexico, Ruben Figueroa Alcocer, governor of the state of Guerrero, organizes several rallies on his own behalf.

Russian interior minister Anatoly Kulikov reports that 170 Russian troops, about 300 rebels, and 100 civilians have been killed in the fighting that started Mar. 6 in Grozny, the Russian-held capital of Chechnya.

March 11

John Howard is sworn in as prime minister of Australia by Governor General Sir William Deane.

Renato Squillante, the chief examining magistrate in Rome, is arrested on corruption charges. Squillante is one of the most prominent officials to be implicated in Italy’s sweeping anticorruption investigations. . . . Ilidza, a suburb of Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, passes into Muslim-Croat hands. . . . Premier Mesut Yilmaz’s government wins a vote of confidence in Turkey’s parliament.

March 12

Leaders of 27 nations and the Palestinians gather in Egypt to affirm support for the Arab-Israeli peace process, recently buffeted by a series of Palestinian suicide-bombings in Israel. . . . Canada discloses that it has lodged a formal protest against the bill signed by U.S. president Clinton on Mar. 12, arguing that it violates terms of NAFTA, which governs trade between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

Asia & the Pacific

Two giant Swiss pharmaceutical firms, Sandoz AG and Ciba-Geigy AG, announce that they will merge, creating one of the largest drug companies in the world. By some accounts, the deal is the largest merger ever. . . . A Turkish court hands Yasar Kemal, considered Turkey’s most famous living author, a 20-month suspended prison sentence for “fomenting enmity between peoples” by criticizing Turkey’s restrictions on freedom of expression.

The gunman who hijacked a North Cyprus Turkish Airlines jet on Mar. 8 surrenders to German authorities in Munich. All the plane’s occupants are released unharmed. . . . A small bomb explodes in West London, England, causing property damage but no injuries.

March 9

March 13

Africa & the Middle East

Ruben Figueroa Alcocer, governor of the Mexican state of Guerrero, steps down while Mexico’s Supreme Court investigates a June 1995 massacre of 17 peasants by police in Guerrero. . . . The city council in Vancouver, British Columbia, passes a bylaw that bars smoking in most public restaurants. The ruling makes Vancouver the first major Canadian municipality to enact such a law.

China begins a series of liveammunition tests off the coast of Taiwan.

In what is described as one of the worst mass murders in modern Britain, gunman Thomas Hamilton opens fire on a kindergarten class in Dunblane, Scotland, killing 16 children, the students’ teacher, and then himself. . . . The IRA claims responsibility for the bomb that exploded in London on Mar. 9.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 7–13, 1996—847

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole (Kans.) emerges as the front-runner in the Republican presidential nomination race after winning decisive victories in a total of 11 primaries. . . . In Wilmington, Delaware, U.S. district judge Joseph Farnan grants a restraining order blocking a recently enacted law that orders cable-TV providers to block some sexually explicit channels.

Jennifer Harbury, a U.S. lawyer and the widow of slain Guatemalan rebel leader Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, files a $25 million lawsuit against various U.S. government officials. Bamaca was captured in Guatemala in March 1992 and was allegedly tortured and killed under the orders of a Guatemalan colonel, Julio Roberto Alpirez, who at the time was a paid informant for the CIA. . . . Two marines die when their F/A-18 jet crashes off the coast of Beaufort, South Carolina.

The House passes, 209-206, its version of the Fiscal 1996 Omnibus Appropriations bill, which will fund a host of federal departments and programs for the remainder of fiscal year 1996. The omnibus bill will authorize funding through Sept.30 for departments whose 1996 appropriations measures have yet to pass. . . . The House, 362-51, and the Senate, by voice vote, pass a bill increasing the federal debt limit through Mar. 29.

Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who advocates physician-assisted suicide, is acquitted by a Michigan jury of violating that state’s since-expired ban on doctor-assisted suicide in two 1993 deaths. . . . Sen. Strom Thurmond (R, S.C.) becomes the oldest person ever to serve in the U.S. Senate. Thurmond, aged 93 years and 94 days, breaks the record achieved by Sen. Theodore F. Green (D, R.I.), who retired in 1961.

More than 100 garment workers, many of whom are illegal immigrants from Thailand and were discovered working under slave-like conditions for Thai supervisors in Los Angeles-area sweatshops in August 1995, receive $1.1 million in back wages.

The Dow closes at 5470.45, down 171.24 points, or 3.04%. That is the third-largest point loss in the index’s history and the Dow’s largest percentage decline since Nov. 15, 1991. . . . A Labor Department report indicates that more jobs were created in February than during any other month since September 1983.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

March 7

March 8

The U.S. space shuttle Columbia lands at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. During its mission, an Italian-made satellite attached to the shuttle by a tether broke free and was lost in space.

George Burns (born Nathan Birnbaum), 100, actor and comedian famous for his ever-present cigar and his self-deprecating wit who won an Academy Award and a Kennedy Center Award for lifetime achievement, dies in Beverly Hills, California. He had been in failing health since he suffered a fall in 1994.

Responding to China’s planned live-ammunition exercises, Secretary of State Warren Christopher discloses that the will move an aircraft-carrier battle group closer to Taiwan to monitor the impending military training.

Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole (R, Kans.) sweeps primaries in seven states, capturing 349 of the 362 delegates at stake in the “Super Tuesday” contests, which raises his total to 710, more than two-thirds the number needed to clinch the Republican presidential nomination. . . . As part of a plea bargain, U.S. district judge Royce Lamberth fines former interior secretary James Watt $5,000 and orders him to perform 500 hours of community service for withholding documents from a grand jury investigating a housing scandal.

March 10

The U.S. government files a complaint before the World Trade Organization, alleging that a Canadian excise tax unfairly bars American magazines from publishing Canadian editions. . . . The U.S.-based mining firm Battle Mountain Gold Co. reveals that it will purchase Canadian rival Hemlo Gold Mines Inc. The merged company, which will retain the Battle Mountain name, will become one of North America’s largest gold-mining concerns.

The Dow soars 110.55 points, or 2%, to close at 5581.00 from the previous trading day’s close of 5470.45. The gain is the Dow’s third-largest single-day increase in its history.

America Online Inc., a company that provides access to the Internet, announces plans to distribute Netscape’s Navigator software, a Web browser, to America Online users. In a separate deal, Microsoft Corp., the world’s leading computer-software producer, announces it will collaborate with the DirecTV broadcasting service to transmit entertainment and information services over computers.

Vince Edwards (born Vincenzo Eduardo Zoino), 69, actor who starred in the TV series Ben Casey, dies in Los Angeles of pancreatic cancer.

Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill that strengthens the U.S.’s economic embargo of Cuba by penalizing foreigners who invest in Cuba. The legislation, prompted by Cuba’s downing of two unarmed U.S. civilian planes in late February, has drawn protests from U.S. allies as an unacceptable extension of American law beyond U.S. territory.

President Clinton signs a bill increasing the federal debt limit through March 29. . . . The House passes, 226-172, a $13 billion State Department authorization bill.

After having agreed to offer Netscape’s Navigator Web browser on its Internet service, America Online shocks many analysts when it announces that Internet Explorer, a similar program produced by Microsoft, will be America Online’s primary Web-browsing software.

Denver Nuggets basketball guard Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, a converted Muslim who refuses to stand during the playing of the U.S. and Canadian national anthems before games, is suspended without pay indefinitely. . . . In Alaska, Jeff King wins the 1,150-mile (1,850-km) Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race with a time of nine days, five hours, and 43 minutes.

A large tire dump catches fire, causing more than $6 million in damage to the surrounding area and forcing the closure of a stretch of Interstate 95 in the Philadelphia area.

A government-appointed panel calls for major changes in AIDS research and the management of the annual federal research budget of about $1.4 billion. The panel urges the strengthening of the NIH’s Office of AIDS Research and rejects the idea of establishing a government institute dealing only with AIDS.

Krzysztof Kieslowski, 54, Polish film director best known for his Three Colors trilogy—Blue, Red, and White—dies in Warsaw, Poland, of a heart ailment.

The Liggett Group Inc., the fifthlargest U.S. tobacco company, announces it has agreed to settle its part of the largest class-action suit pending against the tobacco industry. The settlement breaks the unified front that the tobacco industry has presented against decades of litigation as well as FDA efforts to regulate tobacco. It is the first time that a tobacco company has agreed to settle a smoking-related claim or pay money to a plaintiff.

March 9

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 11

March 12

March 13

848—March 14–19, 1996

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Japanese health and welfare minister Naoto Kan and five drug companies agree to a proposed settlement with hemophiliacs who in the 1980s were infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, through contaminated blood-clotting products.

March 14

The State Duma, the communistdominated lower house of Russia’s parliament, votes to annul the 1991 treaties that formally disbanded the Soviet Union. The Duma’s action is not expected to have any immediate practical impact, but the vote draws condemnation from leaders in former Soviet states who fear that the resurgent communists may seek to reunite the USSR by force if their leader, Gennadi Zyuganov, wins Russia’s presidential elections in June.

March 15

Sheik Gad al-Haq Ali Gad al-Haq, 78, Egyptian leader of the Al Azhar Muslim organization who was regarded as one of the world’s leading authorities on conservative Islam, dies in Cairo, Egypt, of a heart attack.

Reports confirm that the Argentine has congress granted Pres. Carlos Saul Menem emergency economic powers.

In Dortmund, Germany, 10,000 police attempt to prevent Kurds from attending a rally to celebrate the Kurdish new year. Some 2,000 demonstrators are able to enter the city, and 1,300 protesters are temporarily detained by police, sparking hundreds of Turkish Kurds to riot in several German cities, injuring 22 policemen.

March 16

Italian NATO forces arrest some suspected arsonists in Grbavica, as many fleeing Serbs are setting their houses and apartments on fire. Separately, reports confirm that the Bosnian government has named a new Sarajevo city council from which Bosnian Serbs and Croats are virtually excluded. . . . René Clement, 82, award-winning French film director, dies in southern France of unreported causes.

March 17

March 18

Asia & the Pacific

At a U.S.-sponsored summit in Geneva, leaders of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, and Croatia agree to step up their compliance with the 1995 accord that halted the Bosnian civil war. Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic agrees to hand over Drazen Erdemovic and Radoslav Kremenovic, arrested Mar. 3, to the UN-run tribunal investigating Bosnian war atrocities. Croatian president Franjo Tudjman agrees to arrange for Gen. Tihomir Blaskic, a Bosnian Croat indicted for his alleged connection to the killings of Muslims in 1993 near Vitez, to “submit himself” to the tribunal.

Sierra Leone’s electoral commission announces that Ahmad Tejan Kabbah has won a runoff presidential election, sparking celebrations in Freetown, the capital. . . . Final returns show that Sudan’s Pres. Omar Hassan al-Bashir and his supporters dominated presidential and legislative elections. . . . Zimbabwe’s Pres. Robert Mugabe is reelected to another six-year term in a one-man presidential election. Mugabe, 72, has ruled Zimbabwe since 1980.

Zdravko Mucic, a Croat commander of the Celebici camp, is arrested in Vienna, Austria; and Zejnil Delalic, a Muslim officer who commanded the Bosnian army unit that oversaw the camp, is arrested in Munich, Germany. Police near Nuremberg, Germany, arrest Goran Lajic, a Bosnian Serb indicted in 1995 for war crimes against Muslims.

The Muslim-dominated government of Bosnia-Herzegovina takes control of Grbavica, the last of five suburbs of Sarajevo transferred by Bosnian Serbs. With the hand-over, Sarajevo and its environs are united under one government for the first time since Serbs began besieging the city in 1992. But data shows that 90% of the area’s Serb population fled their homes in a mass exodus before the transfer.

March 19

In Taipei, Taiwan, 20,000 people take part in a rally for independence sponsored by the Democratic Progressive Party.

In Bolivia, state-employed teachers walk out in protest of low wages and the planned privatization of state companies. . . . At least four Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union (OPSEU) demonstrators are injured when provincial police scuffle with union members blocking legislators from entering the Toronto Parliament building. The OPSEU has been striking since late February.

Judge Frikkie Eloff grants South African president Nelson Mandela a divorce from his estranged wife, Winnie Mandela, after a public trial that has transfixed the nation.

In the Philippines, more than 150 people are killed when a fire breaks out in an overcrowded nightclub in Quezon City, a suburb of Manila. Officials assert that it is the deadliest fire in the country’s history.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 14–19, 1996—849

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

The Liggett Group Inc., the fifthlargest U.S. tobacco company, announces it has reached a settlement with five states—Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, and West Virginia—that have filed suit against the tobacco industry to recoup money spent through Medicaid to care for victims of smoking-related illnesses.

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The House passes, 229-191, its version of an antiterrorism bill. The measure is diluted form the one passed by the Senate in June 1995 and draws controversy. . . . A study conducted at the University of Houston estimates that 3,200 undocumented aliens drowned from 1985 to 1994 while attempting to enter the U.S. by crossing the Rio Grande, which runs along the border of Mexico. The figure is significantly higher than the one reported by Texas state officials.

The House, 238-179, and the Senate, by voice cote, pass a bill that extends a temporary spending measure for one week. . . . Data shows that the strike begun Mar. 5 in Dayton has forced the total or partial closure of 22 of GM’s 29 car and truck assembly plants and 44 of its parts plants, idling at least 83,000 workers.

The FDA approves the AIDS drug indinavir and a new diagnostic test for HIV that detects a part of the virus called an antigen. . . . Scientists at the National Center for Human Genome Research in Bethesda, Maryland, reveal that they have finished the first phase of a project whose ultimate goal is to create a complete map of human DNA.

The NBA lifts the Mar. 12 indefinite suspension against Denver Nuggets guard Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, who refused to stand during the national anthem before games. Abdul-Rauf states that he will stand for the national anthem but will use those moments to pray “for those who are suffering.”

Roswell L(eavitt) Gilpatric, 89, U.S. deputy secretary of defense, 1961–64, and a pivotal figure during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, dies in New York City of prostate cancer. . . . Ray S(teiner) Cline, 77, who served as chief analyst for the CIA, 1962–66, and who was a leading decision maker during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. dies in Arlington, Virginia, after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

Pres. Clinton averts a shutdown of the federal government by signing a bill that extends a temporary spending measure for one week.

March 14

March 15

Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Provisional IRA, attends New York City’s St. Patrick’s Day parade, the oldest and largest celebration of its kind in the U.S.

Mike Tyson knocks out Frank Bruno of Great Britain to capture the World Boxing Council heavyweight crown. The title is Tyson’s first since his 1995 release from prison after being convicted of rape.

Thomas O(strom) Enders, 64, former U.S. assistant secretary of state as the official in charge of economic and business affairs, 1974–76, and as the head of interAmerican affairs, 1981–83, dies in New York City of melanoma.

March 16

March 17

In Dalton v. Little Rock Family Planning, the Supreme Court issues an unsigned opinion asserting that Arkansas Medicaid plans are required to provide funding for abortions in cases of rape and incest. . . . A superior court jury in Dedham, Mass., convicts John Salvi, 24, of murder and armed assault for a 1994 shooting spree at two abortion clinics in Brookline, Mass. Judge Barbara DortchOkara sentences Salvi to two consecutive life terms without parole and 18–20 years for the assault charges. The shootings were the worst violence ever at U.S. abortion clinics.

The INS launches a crackdown on illegal aliens in several different states.

The Dow closes at a record high of 5683.60, marking a second record high for the Dow in March and the 18th record high registered in 1996.

Odysseus Elytis (born Odysseus Alepoudelis), 84, Nobel Prize–winning Greek poet whose Axion Esti (Worthy It Is), has been often regarded as one of the greatest poems of the 20th century, dies in Athens, Greece, of a heart attack.

In New Orleans, Louisiana, Judge Jerry Smith strikes down a racebased admission policy at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, Texas. In the ruling, the court suggests that race-based school admissions cannot be justified solely by an institution’s intention to foster improved racial diversity. . . . Senate majority leader Robert Dole (R, Kans.) easily wins four primary contests in the Midwest.

The House approves, 369-14, a nonbinding measure saying that the U.S. should aid in the defense of Taiwan against Chinese aggression. . . . Haitian president Rene Preval makes his first trip to the U.S. since taking office in February. . . . A Marine CH-46 helicopter catches fire and burns at the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, Arizona. No one is seriously injured.

In Varity Corp. v. Howe, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 permits workers to file lawsuits on their own behalf to gain direct compensation for lost benefits. . . . The Senate votes, 7921, to pass its version of the Fiscal 1996 Omnibus Appropriations bill since only eight of the 13 regular appropriations bill for fiscal year 1996, which began Oct. 1, 1995, have been enacted.

Pop singer Michael Jackson and Saudi businessman Prince Walid bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud launch Kingdom Entertainment, a joint entertainment venture that will promote “family values” worldwide.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 18

March 19

850—March 20–25, 1996

World Affairs

March 22

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The British government unveils a scientific study reporting a link between bovine spongiform encephalopathy, (BSE), commonly known as madcow disease, and a similar ailment found in humans. Some observers suggest that the findings may completely devastate Britain’s meat industry.

March 20

March 21

Europe

In response to regarding BSE, Great Britain’s Mar. 20 admission regarding BSE, France, Belgium, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Portugal ban the importation of British meat. Germany urges the EU to impose a complete ban on British beef products.

Press accounts suggest that Russian artillery and military aircraft have launched assaults on dozens of Chechen towns and villages suspected of harboring rebels.

The tribunal prosecuting war crimes related to the civil war in BosniaHerzegovina indicts Zdravko Mucic, Hazim Delic, and Esad Landzo for committing atrocities at a Bosnian prison camp in 1992. It also indicts Zejnil Delalic for failing to prevent atrocities by his subordinates. The four suspects are the first Muslims to be charged by the tribunal for alleged crimes against Serbs. Separately, UN and U.S. diplomats release satellite photos indicating that Bosnian Serbs used a field on a farm near Pilice, Bosnia, as a mass grave for as many as 1,000 Muslims executed by Serbs. . . . South Africa, New Zealand, and Singapore join several EU nations in banning British beef after the Mar. 20 statement.

Pfc. Floyd Bright, 19, is killed and a second U.S. soldier is injured in a truck accident near Gornje Babine, south of Tuzla. Bright is the second U.S. soldier to be killed in Bosnia since the beginning of the NATO mission in December 1995.

In Canada, federal and provincial officials and leaders of the Nisga’a nation sign a groundbreaking landclaim agreement that will give the Nisga’a, a Native American people, control over resources and the right to limited self-government in part of their traditional homeland in British Columbia.

Officials from Belarus and Russia announce plans for a union pact with each other’s countries. . . . The Bosnian government releases 109 Bosnian Serbs who have been held in a jail in Tuzla since before the end of the war in late 1995.

March 23

As many as 30,000 people rally against the pact announced Mar. 23 in Minsk, the Belarussian capital, protesting that Russia will seek to suppress Belarussian independence and culture. Belarussian police disperse the crowd and beat several demonstrators.

March 24

Taiwanese incumbent president Lee Teng-hui wins a resounding victory in Taiwan’s first democratic presidential election. Lee’s win is seen as a blow to mainland China, which regards Taiwan as a renegade Chinese province. . . . Chang Hak Ro, a top aide to South Korean president Kim Young Sam, is arrested for alleged influence peddling. Benin’s constitutional court announces that the West African country’s former Marxist military ruler, Mathieu Kerekou, is the winner of a runoff presidential election. Kerekou defeats Pres. Nicephore D. Soglo in the first time that a subSaharan country has voted out a democratically elected leader.

The Chinese-appointed Preparatory Committee votes to dissolve Hong Kong’s democratically elected Legislative Council (LegCo) and install an appointed provisional body when the territory reverts to Chinese sovereignty from British rule in mid1997.

In La Paz, Bolivia, police accidentally kill a worker watching the demonstrations that have escalated since a general strike started Mar. 18.

March 25

In Japan, the opposition New Frontier Party (NFP) ends a three-week sit-in during which party members physically blocked the doors to a budget committee room in the Diet building to protest the government’s plan to use public funds to bail out seven housing-loan companies.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 20–25, 1996—851

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

A superior court jury in Van Nuys, California, finds brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez guilty of first-degree murder in the siblings’ retrial on charges that they murdered their parents at their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989. . . . In Wisconsin v. City of New York, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that the federal government is not required to adjust its 1990 census figures to correct an undercount of some 4 million people, many of whom are believed to be minorities in urban areas.

Pres. Clinton signs legislation that will grant federal income-tax exemptions to U.S. troops taking part in peacekeeping missions in the former Yugoslavia.

The Senate votes, 59-40, to adopt a compromise version of a bill that will for the first time impose nationwide limits on the awarding of punitive damages to consumers in product-liability lawsuits.

The House votes, 333-87, to approve legislation that increases efforts to prevent illegal immigration. . . . The Senate passes, 97-0, a resolution deploring China’s military exercises near Taiwan.

The House, 244-180, and the Senate, by voice vote, pass the latest temporary spending bill, which provides funding through Mar. 29 for most of the agencies and programs that have yet to receive appropriations through the regular budgetary process.

The House votes, 239-173, to repeal 1994 legislation that bans the manufacture, sale, or possession of 19 types of semiautomatic assault weapons. The ban was passed as part of a broad 1994 anticrime package. . . . The judicial panel that oversees the appointment of independent counsels gives Kenneth Starr, the counsel probing the Whitewater affair, formal authority to look into allegations of perjury surrounding the dismissal of aides at the White House travel office in 1993.

Colonel Robert Franklyn Overmyer, 59, astronaut who flew in the Apollo program and worked on the Skylab space station during the 1970s, dies near Duluth, Minnesota, in an airplane crash while conducting a test flight.

Members of United Auto Workers Local 696 vote overwhelmingly to end their strike against General Motors and return to their jobs at two brake-manufacturing plants in Dayton, Ohio. . . . Pres. Clinton signs the latest temporary spending bill, which provides funding through Mar. 29 for most of the agencies and programs that have yet to receive appropriations through the regular budgetary process.

An AV-8B from the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, Arizona, crashes after its engine catches fire. The pilot ejects to safety.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Marina Eltsova and Andrei Bushkov of Russia win the pairs competition at the World Figure Skating Championships, Edmonton, Canada.

The National Book Critics Circle presents awards to Robert Darnton, Robert Polito, Jonathan Harr, and the late Stanley Elkin. . . . At the World Figure Skating Championships, Todd Eldredge captures the men’s title.

The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis lifts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, to dock with the Russian space station Mir. . . . The last of the 1,700 residents of the town of Weyauwega, Wisconsin, who were evacuated Mar. 4, after a train carrying liquid propane derailed, return to their homes.

Oksana Gritschuk and Yevgeny Platov of Russia win their third straight ice-dancing title at the World Figure Skating Championships.

The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis docks with the Russian space station, Mir.

Michelle Kwan captures the women’s title at the World Figure Skating Championships. With Todd Eldredge’s Mar. 21 win, it is the first singles sweep for the U.S. since 1986.

NASA mission controllers announce that Shannon Lucid, 53, a biochemist who has flown on the shuttle four times before, has joined the Mir crew. According to plan, Lucid will be the first of five U.S. astronauts to occupy Mir continuously through 1998. She is the second U.S. astronaut and the first U.S. woman to live on Mir.

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton pays a visit to U.S. troops in Germany and Bosnia-Herzegovina involved with the NATO peacekeeping mission in Bosnia.

Federal agents arrest the leaders of an antitax group known as the Freemen—LeRoy Schweitzer, 57, and Daniel Petersen, 53—on charges of fraud and of making death threats. Their arrests prompt a standoff between armed members of the group and the FBI in eastern Montana. . . . About 175 homosexual and lesbian couples are unofficially wed in a mass “domestic partnership ceremony” in San Francisco, California. Such same-sex unions have no legal weight because California does not recognize them.

Science, Technology, & Nature

March 21

March 22

March 23

March 24

Reports confirm that Fabian Bruskewitz, Roman Catholic bishop of the Lincoln, Nebraska, diocese, has threatened to excommunicate members of his diocese who belong to organizations he considers incompatible with the Catholic faith. . . . At the Oscars, Braveheart wins for Best Picture.

The Federal Reserve Board begins phasing new $100 bills into circulation, marking the first time in 68 years that the U.S. has issued a redesigned $100 bill. . . . .The AFLCIO labor federation endorses Pres. Clinton for reelection. . . . David Hale, who pled guilty to arranging fraudulent loans and is cooperating with federal independent counsels investigating the Whitewater affair, is sentenced to 28 months in prison for using his lending company to defraud the federal government out of more than $2 million.

March 20

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 25

852—March 26–31, 1996

World Affairs

Europe

The government of Bahrain carries out its first official execution since 1977 when a firing squad executes Isa Ahmed Hassan Qambar, 29, a dissident convicted of killing a police officer. Qambar’s execution sparks riots.

March 26

March 27

Despite objections from Britain, the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, announces a worldwide ban on the export of British beef products amid fears that they pose a serious health risk.

March 28

March 29

Africa & the Middle East

Leaders of the EU’s 15 member states attend the launch of a yearlong intergovernmental conference (IGC) in Turin, Italy. . . . Representatives from Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan sign a pact that commits them to increased economic cooperation. . . . The OECD admits Hungary as its 27th member and its second former communist state.

The Americas At least 40,000 people march in La Paz, Bolivia, in response to the Mar. 25 accidental death of a worker watching the demonstrations that have escalated since a general strike started Mar. 18.

A three-judge panel in Tel Aviv District Court finds Yigal Amir guilty of the premeditated murder of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995. In announcing a mandatory life sentence for Amir, presiding judge Edmond Levy decries the 25-year-old former law student as someone who has “lost all semblance of humanity.”

Bangladesh premier Khaleda Zia steps down from office and agrees to transfer power to a caretaker administration. Zia’s action comes in response to unrelenting political violence throughout the country and a “noncooperation” campaign launched Mar. 9 by opposition parties that boycotted the February elections.

Allan Ford, Justin Fowler, and Geoffrey Pernell, three British soldiers stationed in Cyprus, are found guilty of kidnapping and killing Louise Jensen, a female Danish tour guide, in 1994.

Mohammed Sidqi Suleiman, 77, Egyptian prime minister under Pres. Gamal Abdel Nasser, 1966–67, dies in Cairo, Egypt, of unreported causes.

More than 100 people die when a ferry capsizes off the southwestern coast of Haiti.

A court in Brescia, Italy, dismisses the third and final criminal charge against Antonio Di Pietro, who is considered one of Italy’s most popular anticorruption magistrates. . . . The three British soldiers stationed in Cyprus who were found guilty on Mar. 28 of kidnapping and killing a female Danish tour guide are sentenced to life in prison for the murder, with additional sentences for abduction and conspiracy to rape.

The leaders of Sierra Leone’s previous military government hand over power to Ahmad Tejan Kabbah who won a presidential runoff vote earlier in March. Tens of thousands of people crowd the streets of Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital, to celebrate Kabbah’s swearing in.

The government and the Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union (OPSEU) reach an agreement to end a five-week-old OPSEU strike.

Israel’s shelling of villages in south Lebanon kills two civilians, and Hezbollah retaliates with artillery attacks on northern Israel.

In Argentina, after a failed prison escape, some 1,000 inmates at the Sierra Chica maximum-security prison in the Buenos Aires province riot. They take a judge, Maria Malere, and her secretary hostage during negotiations mediated by the Malere.

March 30

Asia & the Pacific

A fire sweeps through a shopping mall in the city of Bogor, some 40 miles from Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital city. The fire kills at least 78 people. . . . Shin Kanemaru, 81, deputy premier of Japan, 1986–87, and member of the Japanese Diet, 1958–92, dies in Shiranecho, Japan, of a stroke.

In Bangladesh, Muhammad Habibur Rahman, a former chief justice, is sworn in as head of the interim government. . . . Police in Beijing disrupt a fund-raiser for Chinese orphans, barring best-selling ChineseAmerican author Amy Tan from giving a keynote speech. Police explain that the fund-raiser requires a permit. However, observers speculate the disruption is intended to quash potential public discussion of alleged abuses at China’s staterun orphanages.

In a televised address, Russian president Boris Yeltsin unveils a plan to end the fighting in the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya. He orders Russian troops stationed there to observe a unilateral cease-fire beginning at midnight local time.

March 31

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 26–31, 1996—853

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Senate majority leader Robert Dole (R, Kans.) clinches the Republican presidential nomination after winning primaries in Washington, Nevada, and California. . . . Business leaders, governors, and education experts discuss strategies for improving the nation’s school system at the second educational summit held in the U.S. . . . Edmund S(ixtus) Muskie, 81, governor of Maine, 1955–59, U.S. senator, 1959–80, and U.S. secretary of state, 1980–81, dies in Washington, D.C., after suffering a heart attack.

Marine Corps major general Carol Mutter is nominated for promotion to lieutenant general, a three-star general rank. No woman has ever attained that rank or its equivalent in the navy, vice admiral. . . . The INS states that immigrants abused by their spouses or parents may apply for legal residency without the sponsorship of their abusers. . . . A Navy T-44 plunges into the Gulf of Mexico, killing the entire crew comprised of a Marine Corps flight instructor, a marine trainee, and a navy trainee.

The Interior Department partially opens the Glen Canyon Dam and begins a weeklong flooding of the Grand Canyon to stir up sediment and restore depleted beach areas in the canyon, which has not flooded since 1963, when the Glen Canyon Dam was built. . . . In Barnett Bank v. Nelson, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that federal law permits nationally chartered banks to sell insurance from branch offices in small towns, despite state laws that seek to prohibit them from doing so.

David Packard, 83, cofounder of the Hewlett-Packard Co. electronics and computer company, dies in Palo Alto, California, of pneumonia.

In Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act violates states’ sovereignty rights granted under the Constitution’s 11th Amendment. . . . The House votes, 286-129, to give final congressional approval to a bill that will ban a particular abortion method used to end pregnancies in their late stages. It is the first attempt by Congress to ban an abortion procedure since 1973.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

March 26

In the Senate, 19 Democrats join all but three Republicans to pass a socalled line-item veto bill that will give the president authority to veto certain parts of a spending bill without invalidating the entire measure.

The Tennessee Senate rejects legislation that would have allowed school boards to fire teachers who teach evolution as a scientific fact.

The DEA announces stricter controls on the export to Colombia of chemicals that can be used to process cocaine.

The House passes, 267-151, a health-insurance reform bill that will guarantee a right to continued coverage for people who lose, quit, or change their jobs. . . . The House, 328-91, and the Senate by unanimous consent pass a bill that raises the federal debt limit. . . . The Senate clears, 52-44, a $13 billion State Department authorization bill. . . . The House clears, 232-177, a socalled line-item veto bill. . . . . The Senate passes, 74-26, a bill that will curtail many federal subsidies and price supports that benefit farmers.

The House Ethics Committee rules that Speaker Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.) violated House rules by allowing a telecommunications entrepreneur to work as a volunteer in his office. The panel imposes no punishment on Gingrich and does not advocate further investigation. . . . The House approves, 259-159, a bill that will for the first time impose nationwide limits on punitive damages in product-liability suits.

U.S. district judge Emmet Sullivan prevents the navy from discharging Amy Barnes, a female sailor, for allegedly being homosexual. . . . In a separate case, U.S. judge Saundra Armstrong overturns the discharge of First Lieutenant Andrew Holmes for being homosexual and orders Holmes reinstated into the California Army National Guard.

The House passes, 318-89, a bill that will curtail many federal subsidies and price supports that benefit farmers. . . . Congress clears and Pres. Clinton signs the latest in a string of temporary spending bills to keep the federal government running. It is the 12th continuing resolution enacted for the current fiscal year. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a bill that raises the federal debt limit, narrowly avoiding a government loan default.

March 27

The Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) passes a resolution that endorses civil marriages for homosexuals. The CCAR represents some 1,750 rabbis from the Reform movement, the most liberal of the three main branches of Judaism.

March 29

Richard Clark, a member of the Freemen organization involved in a standoff with FBI agents in Montana, surrenders peacefully to police about 100 miles (160 km) away from the farm, where other members of the group are holed up.

Rough Quest wins the Grand National steeplechase at Aintree racecourse in Liverpool, England.

The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis touches down at Edwards Air Force Base, California, after docking with the Russian space station Mir and for the first time dropping off a U.S. astronaut for an extended stay on Mir. . . . Hoiyan Wan, a 19-year-old U.S. college student, dies while participating in a medical experiment at the University of Rochester medical school.

Sister Dianna Ortiz, a U.S. nun who was kidnapped, raped, and tortured in Guatemala in 1989, begins a silent vigil in Lafayette Park outside the White House in Washington, D.C. The vigil is intended to pressure the government to respond to her requests to release its files on the alleged involvement of U.S. intelligence agencies in her attack.

March 28

March 30

March 31

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

854—April 1–5, 1996

April 1

April 2

World Affairs

Europe

Gen. Tihomir Blaskic, the only Bosnian Croat officer under indictment for war crimes has surrendered to the UN-sponsored tribunal investigating war crimes in Bosnia.

At least 28 Russian soldiers are killed, just after the cease-fire announced Mar. 31 takes effect, when their convoy is ambushed in the mountains of southern Chechnya, near the village of Vedeno.

Africa & the Middle East

Russian president Boris Yeltsin and Pres. Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus sign a treaty that joins their respective former Soviet republics in a political and economic union called the Community of Sovereign Republics. Under the accord, the nations will continue to be independent, sovereign states, but they commit themselves to unspecified steps toward reintegration over the next several years.

April 3

April 4

Asia & the Pacific

At least 50,000 strikers riot in La Paz, Bolivia, throwing dynamite sticks at police and looting stores. . . . In Argentina, 30 prominent business and economic officials, including executives of IBM Argentina, a division of the U.S.based IBM Corp., and former officials at Banco de la Nacion Argentina, a commercial bank owned by the government, are charged with fraud. . . . Peruvian premier Dante Cordova Blanco resigns amid disputes over the economic program. Despite Pres. Yeltsin’s Mar. 31 call for a cease-fire, Russian troops continue to attack villages and suspected guerrilla strongholds throughout Chechnya. . . . A plane crashes in Croatia, killing 35 people. Among the dead is U.S. commerce secretary Ronald H. Brown. . . . Britain’s parliament gives final approval to emergency legislation that will give police greater powers to search citizens under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

U.S. defense secretary William Perry, in Cairo, states the U.S. will not permit Libya to complete an underground facility that the U.S. contends will be a chemical weapons factory. Libya maintains that the construction site is part of a water-irrigation system. . . . A South African judge sentences five white extremists to 26-year prison terms each for three bombings in 1994 that killed 21 people. The men are members of the right-wing AWB. Four suspects are acquitted, and five others are sentenced to terms ranging from three to six years.

Alberto Pandolfi is sworn in as Peru’s premier.

The Royal Viking Sun, a British luxury cruise liner with more than 500 passengers, hits a coral reef in the Red Sea. . . . Erich Priebke, a former Nazi special forces officer, is indicted in Rome for his alleged role in a massacre that took place in Italy during World War II. The forthcoming trial is widely expected to be the last in Italy involving Nazi war crimes.

The Constitutional Court, South Africa’s highest judicial body, rules that schools cannot discriminate on the basis of language or religion, which are often cited as reasons for the exclusion of black students.

Reports reveal that the Bolivian government has ordered in troops to prevent more riots, which erupted Apr. 2 in La Paz. . . . Reports confirm that Vaughan Lewis has been sworn in as St. Lucia’s new prime minister. . . Argentina’s justice ministry states that there have been riots in 18 prisons in four provinces and that inmates have taken control of five prisons since the Mar. 30 start of the ongoing Sierra Chica revolt.

North Korea declares that it will no longer maintain the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea. The DMZ was agreed to under the armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953.

Mark Vijay Chahal, 30, shoots and kills his estranged wife and eight members of her family at the wife’s parents’ home in Vernon, British Columbia. The gunman kills himself minutes later in a nearby hotel. The shooting is the second-worst multiple slaying in Canadian history.

North Korea violates the 1953 armistice when hundreds of North Korean troops stage military exercises in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. For several hours, some 130 armed North Korean troops enter the zone at the village of Panmunjom, where the armistice was signed. In response, South Korea raises its intelligence monitoring to its highest level in 14 years. . . . Reports state that Tibet is banning displays of photos of the Dalai Lama, the exiled leader of Tibetan Buddhists, in monasteries and in public areas.

Turkish soldiers renew an army offensive, reportedly after locating an army of up to 250 members of the separatist guerrilla group known as the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). . . . The Royal Viking Sun, a cruise liner that crashed Apr. 4, is towed to Sharm El-Sheikh, an Egyptian port on the southern tip of the Sinai peninsula. The 560 passengers, none of whom are injured, are evacuated.

April 5

The Americas

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 1–5, 1996—855

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

In O’Connor v. Consolidated Coin Caterers Corp., the Supreme Court rules unanimously that workers can sue for age discrimination even if they are replaced by individuals who are older than 40, the age at which workers are provided protection under the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967. . . . Aetna Life and Casualty Co. reveals that it will purchase U.S. Healthcare Inc., which will make Aetna the U.S.’s largest company specializing in health insurance, with a total of 23 million policyholders, or one out of every 12 Americans.

A TV news camera tapes two white Riverside County, California, sheriff’s deputies beating two suspected Mexican illegal immigrants after an 80-mile (128-km) high-speed chase. The incident sparks protests from Hispanic and civil-rights groups, who argue that anti-immigrant rhetoric in the U.S. prompted the level of violence used against the two Mexicans, Enrique Funes Flores and Alicia Sotero Vasquez. . . . In New York City, Judge Harold Baer Jr. reverses his highly publicized decision to suppress evidence in a drug case because police did not have “probable cause” to conduct a search. Baer’s initial ruling came under fire from members of Congress and from the White House.

Primary Colors, by Anonymous, is at the top of the bestseller list. . . . NFL star wide receiver Michael Irvin is indicted on two charges of possession of cocaine and marijuana.

A Marine Corps F-18 fighter jet crashes in a desert region of southern California. The pilot ejects and suffers only minor cuts and bruises. . . . A Department of Defense study of 18,598 Persian Gulf war veterans finds no evidence of gulf war syndrome. . . . In response to the Apr. 1 taped attack on two Hispanics by the police, the Mexican government expresses its “indignation” at the “flagrant violation of human rights.”

Police take into custody a former university professor, Theodore Kaczynski, who is suspected of being the Unabomber, a serial bomber linked to a series of bombing incidents spanning 17 years in which three men have been killed and 23 other people wounded. . . . Carl Burton Stokes, 68, mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, 1967–71, who was the first black American to become mayor of a major city and, in 1962, became the first black Democrat ever elected to the Ohio House of Representatives, dies in Cleveland of esophageal cancer.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Data suggest that that the average salary for MLB players in 1996 was $1,176,967 per year, a 9.9% increase over 1995.

The New York Times prints a letter signed by 15 retired U.S. generals and admirals from the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation to Pres. Clinton that urges a ban on all land mines as militarily responsible.

The Dow closes at a record high of 5689.74, marking the 19th record high registered in 1996.

Masahiro Tsuda, a former manager of Daiwa Bank Ltd., a Japanese commercial bank, pleads guilty to a U.S. federal charge that he helped cover up $1.1 billion in losses by a trader at the bank’s New York offices. . . . Fugitive Venezuelan banker Orlando Castro Llanes is indicted in New York City on one count of conspiring to defraud more than $55 million from depositors in Banco Progreso Internacional de Puerto Rico.

In New York City, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturns a lower court’s ruling when it finds that TV journalists and producers are “artistic professionals” and are therefore not entitled to earn overtime wages.

The U.S. Fourth District Court of Appeals, 9-4, refuses to overturn the navy’s dismissal of Lt. Paul G. Thomasson, a homosexual navy officer. In doing so, the court upholds the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which bars the military from asking service members about their sexual orientation but permits it to discharge personnel based on their behavior or statements.

The EPA announces that Uniroyal Chemical Co. Inc. has agreed to stop selling the pesticide propargite for use on 10 different types of crops.

April 1

April 2

April 3

Barney Ewell (born Norwood H. Ewell), 78, record-breaking Olympic sprinter, dies in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, of complications from the partial amputation of his legs.

April 4

April 5

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

856—April 6–11, 1996

World Affairs

Europe

The Americas

The Liberian Council of State orders that faction leader D. Roosevelt Johnson, who was recently fired as minister of rural development, be arrested on murder charges. The order sparks riots, which erupt into factional fighting. The violence, which observers call the worst in at least three years, breaks out despite the August 1995 peace plan to end the civil war.

April 6

Doku Zavgayev, the head of Chechnya’s Russian-backed government, makes an unusual plea urging his Russian allies to ease their attacks, as shelling is killing or injuring scores of civilians.

April 7

The fighting that broke out Apr. 6 in Liberia spreads to Monrovia, the capital, where forces loyal to D. Roosevelt Johnson seize an army barracks and hold hostage members of a West African peacekeeping force and others, including Lebanese women and children.

Several hundred pro-unionist Protestant demonstrators clash with police in Northern Ireland, or Ulster, causing injuries to at least five people. The demonstration is part of Ulster’s “marching season,” during which sectarian groups hold a series of parades. . . . Turkish officials announce that 27 soldiers and 90 Kurdish rebels were killed in the Apr. 5 army offensive in the southeastern section of the country.

April 8

Asia & the Pacific Reports confirm that, in Bangladesh, Khaleda Zia and her main political rival, Awami League leader Sheik Hasina Wazed have separately appealed for an end to the political violence which has continued despite Zea’s resignation.

An uprising started Mar. 30 by some 1,000 inmates at the Sierra Chica maximum-security prison in Buenos Aires province ends, and 17 hostages are released. Some 5,000 inmates at other jails across Argentina who revolted in sympathy with the Sierra Chica inmates surrender, releasing 10 more hostages. Officials call the revolts the worst in Argentina’s history. Twelve people die as a result of violence during a strike called for by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and two other leftist rebel groups. . . . Argentine officials reveal that seven prisoners at Sierra Chica, the site of the prison revolt that ended Apr. 7, are missing and believed dead.

An explosion in the southern Lebanese village of Brashit kills a teenager and injures three other civilians, two of them children. Hezbollah, holding Israel responsible, fires rockets into Israel, wounding some 26 civilians. . . . U.S. forces begin evacuating the estimated 470 Americans and hundreds of other foreign nationals in Liberia.

April 9

The UN arranges the release of 211 Bosnian Muslims who have been held in detention camps in Serbia since the siege of Zepa in July 1995.

April 10

April 11

Africa & the Middle East

Representatives of 43 African countries sign a treaty that bans nuclear arms from the continent. Similar nuclear-free zones have previously been established in other regions, including Latin America and the South Pacific.

A member of Spain’s Civil Guard police force is killed when his helicopter crashes while in pursuit of alleged drug smugglers. . . . The Netherlands launches a program to slaughter 64,000 British cows imported into the country before the mad-cow disease scare. . . . Turkish officials state that 172 guerrillas and 33 soldiers have been killed in the fighting that started Apr. 5. . . . A fire at the Dusseldorf International Airport kills 16 people and injures more than 100 others.

Israel opens a large-scale military response against the Iranian-backed Shi’ite militants’ shelling of Israel’s northern settlements, dubbing it “Operation Grapes of Wrath.”

A protester is shot to death during a clash between townspeople and armed police during a rally against the development of a golf course in Tepoztlan, a small town 30 miles (50 km) south of Mexico City, Mexico’s capital. . . . In Para state, Brazil, 2,500 landless farmers begin a series of demonstrations.

The government of Australia’s Northern Territory announces that voluntary euthanasia will be legal there as of July 1. . . . More than 3,000 Japanese who live near the U.S.’s Yokota air base file a lawsuit against the governments of the U.S. and Japan. The suit demands $30 million in damages stemming from noise from American jets and calls for a ban on their nighttime military flights. The suit is thought to be the first of its kind in Japan against the U.S. government.

Reports confirm that Susana Decibe has been appointed education minister, thereby becoming Argentina’s first-ever female cabinet member.

A Singapore high court judge orders an American man, Christopher Lingle, to pay S$100,000 (US$71,000) in libel damages to former Singapore prime minister Lee Kuan Yew for 1994 articles that were critical of unidentified Asian governments and their judicial systems.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 6–11, 1996—857

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Seven suspected Mexican illegal immigrants are killed and 18 others are injured when their bus overturns and crashes near Temecula, California. The truck crashes while it is being followed by U.S. Border Patrol agents, who claim they did not chase the truck when it suddenly accelerated.

Greer Garson, 92, actress who received seven Academy Award nominations and won an Oscar in 1942, dies in Dallas, Texas, after suffering from a heart ailment.

Some 6,000 people gather in Los Angeles to protest the Apr. 1 beatings of two suspected Mexican illegal immigrants by two white sheriff’s deputies.

In Scottsdale, Arizona, Jack Nicklaus wins his 100th professional event, the Tradition Tournament on the senior circuit.

Georgia attorney general Michael Bowers asks the state’s 34 government-sponsored colleges and universities to alter admissions policies that give preference to racial minorities. . . . A study shows that gunfire was the second leading cause of death in 1993 among Americans between the ages of 10 and 19.

Ben Johnson (born Francis Benjamin Johnson), 77, Academy Award-winning actor who appeared in several of director John Ford’s westerns, dies in Mesa, Arizona, of an apparent heart attack.

Former representative Dan Rostenkowski (D, Ill.) pleads guilty to two counts of mail fraud as part of an agreement with federal prosecutors. In accordance with the plea-bargain deal, U.S. district judge Norma Johnson sentences Rostenkowski to 17 months in prison and fines him $100,000. . . . James W(ilson) Rouse, 81, developer who pioneered planned cities, urban marketplaces, and early shopping malls, dies in Columbia, Maryland, of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease).

The U.S. government expels Ahmed Yousif Mohamed, a diplomat from Sudan’s UN mission in New York City, arguing that he was linked to terrorist plots.

Pres. Clinton vetoes a bill that would have banned a particular abortion method used to end pregnancies in their later stages because it does not allow the procedure even in cases where the mother’s health would otherwise be at risk. The bill would have been the first ban of an abortion procedure since 1973. . . . The California Supreme Court rules that landlords cannot refuse to rent to unmarried couples on the basis that such living arrangements violate their religious beliefs. Seven-year-old Jessica Dubroff, while attempting to set a record for being the youngest person to pilot a plane across the U.S., crashes during a thunderstorm in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Also killed are Dubroff’s flight instructor, Joe Reid, 52, and her father, Lloyd Dubroff, 57. The incident sparks debate on whether the girl should have been allowed to fly. . . . In the middle of the standoff that started Mar. 25 between the Freemen group and the FBI, two members, Agnes Stanton and her son, Ebert Stanton, surrender to the authorities.

Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill giving himself and future presidents a line-item veto, which permits presidents to invalidate particular spending items contained in appropriations bills. . . . The EEOC files a lawsuit accusing Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of allowing widespread sexual harassment of female workers at a factory in Normal, Illinois.

Reports indicate that more than 1,100 of the 1,700 graduate students attending the University of Michigan have walked off their jobs as teaching assistants as a result of a dispute with the university over wages and international students’ pay.

Richard Thomas Condon, 81, bestselling novelist and political satirist, dies in Dallas, Texas, after suffering from heart and kidney ailments. . . . Columbia University announces the Pulitzer Prize winners, who include Jonathan Larson, Tina Rosenberg, George Walker, Jack Miles, and Richard Ford.

The FDA warns consumers not to use products that contain the stimulant ephedrine and are often marketed as a “safe and natural” alternative to illegal drugs. . . . A study finds that alcoholics who smoke are more likely to die from the effects of cigarettes than from those of alcohol.

April 6

April 7

April 8

April 9

April 10

A federal grand jury in Baltimore, Maryland, indicts two current and three former U.S. Naval Academy midshipmen on charges of orchestrating an elaborate scheme to steal automobiles.

April 11

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

858—April 12–17, 1996

World Affairs

April 12

Europe

An international pledging conference to aid the reconstruction of Bosnia-Herzegovina is held without the presence of representatives from the Bosnian Serb community, who refuse to join Muslims and Croats in a joint Bosnian delegation.

Widespread looting in Liberia prompts the withdrawal of most remaining international aid workers, including those with the Red Cross, the UN, and other groups. . . . Witnesses suggest that three Israeli helicopters conducted a rocket attack against a Syrian antiaircraft fortification near Beirut’s international airport.

George Mackay Brown, 74, Scottish poet and novelist whose writing centers around the culture of Scotland’s Orkney Islands, dies in Kirkwall, Scotland, after suffering from cancer.

April 13

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas Lt. Col. Joseph Michel François, one of the three main leaders of the 1991 coup that ousted Pres. JeanBertrand Aristide, is arrested in the Dominican Republic. . . . After the Apr. 10 death of a protester, Mexico’s Grupo KS cancels its plans to build a golf course in Tepoztlan, a small town 30 miles (50 km) south of Mexico City. In September 1995, the government suspended the project amid protests from residents that the golf course would damage the town’s environment.

Israeli warships off the coast of Lebanon impose a virtual blockade on the country. Rockets from an Israeli helicopter gunship strike a Lebanese ambulance fleeing northward some 5 miles (8 km) south of the port city of Tyre. Six Lebanese civilians, including four children, are killed in the attack, and six others are injured. . . . Syria confirms that one of its soldiers was killed in the Apr. 12 incident.

Ukrainian police capture a suspected serial killer, Anatoli Onoprienko, after a 31⁄2 month manhunt.

April 14

April 15

April 16

A bomb explodes in the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Center in the city of Lahore, Pakistan, killing six people and wounding at least 25 others. More than 150 patients and relatives are in the center, Pakistan’s only cancer hospital, at the time of the explosion. . . . Reports disclose that the Ministry of Public Security is requiring all Chinese users of the Internet and other international computer networks to register with the police.

About 6,000 Russian soldiers withdraw from northeastern Chechnya, in partial fulfillment of Pres. Yeltsin’s March promise that forces will depart from “peaceful” areas of Chechnya. . . . Stavros Spyros Niarchos, 86, Greek tycoon best known for his rivalry with Aristotle Onassis in the shipping industry, dies in Zurich, Switzerland, after suffering a stroke.

In East London, South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission opens its probe of human-rights abuses with its first public hearing, despite a bomb threat and legal challenges.

In one of the most damaging strikes against Russian forces in the 16month-old war in Chechnya, more than 70 troops are killed when guerrillas ambush their convoy near the village of Yarysh-Mardy in the southern mountains. . . . Ukrainian police announced that Anatoli Onoprienko, captured on Apr. 14, has confessed to killing 52 people, including 10 children, during a six-year crime spree throughout Ukraine.

The Lebanese government states that at least 31 people have been killed since the Apr. 11 offensive started. They also assert that none of the dead were members of Hezbollah.

A bomb is detonated in West London, England. No one is injured in the blast, which causes minor property damage.

April 17

Asia & the Pacific

Leftist rebels ambush an army convoy near Colombia’s border with Ecuador, killing 31 soldiers and injuring 18 others. The ambush is considered the worst rebel attack in at least three years.

The International Campaign for Tibet, a U.S.-based human-rights group, reports that the government of China has launched a crackdown on Buddhism in Tibet, which China considers a renegade province. . . . Representatives from the U.S. and Japan sign an agreement in Tokyo under which the whole or parts of 11 U.S. military installations in Okinawa will be returned to Japan within about seven years. U.S. president Bill Clinton launches a visit to South Korea and Japan.

In Brazil, 100 Para state police arrive to disband 2,500 landless farmers blocking a highway near the town of Eldorado do Carajas as part of a series of demonstrations that started Apr. 10. Police open fire on the protesters, killing at least 19 people and injuring at least 50 others. . . . The last 82 U.S. soldiers in Haiti who are part of the UN peacekeeping force leave the country.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 12–17, 1996—859

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

In a letter, Raul Yzaguirre, head of the National Council of La Raza, resigns from his post as chair of the President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans. He argues that the 25-member group, created by then-President George Bush, is stymied by partisan politics.

Joseph H. Casey III, a senior midshipman at the Naval Academy, is sentenced to 20 months in prison for the possession, use, and distribution of illegal drugs.

Pres. Clinton names Trade Representative Mickey Kantor as the new head of the Commerce Department, succeeding Ronald H. Brown, who died Apr. 3 in a plane crash in Croatia. Clinton selects Charlene Barshefsky to replace Kantor on an acting basis. . . . Pres. Clinton vetoes a $13 billion State Department authorization bill.

The FDA approves the use of ultrasound equipment to determine whether lumps found in women’s breasts are cancerous or benign. The new High-Definition Imaging equipment is the first ultrasound device powerful enough to show a clear picture of breast lumps. . . . Researchers report they have discovered a gene responsible for Werner’s syndrome, a disorder that causes premature aging.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

April 12

April 13

Hundreds of people gather in Cheyenne, Wyoming, to commemorate the victims of the Apr. 11 crash of the plane piloted by seven-year-old Jessica Dubroff.

Data reveal that Pres. Clinton and his wife, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, earned $316,074 and paid $75,437 in federal income taxes in 1995.

Three crewmen are killed and a fourth is injured when two army helicopters crash at a training site in New Mexico.

In Cooper v. Oklahoma, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that criminal defendants are not required to meet the exacting judicial standard of presenting “clear and convincing evidence” to prove their own mental incompetence or retardation. . . . Prosecutors charge Kathy Bush with child abuse for aggravating a digestive ailment that led her daughter, Jennifer Bush, eight, to be hospitalized 200 times and to undergo surgery 40 times, alleging that Kathy Bush suffers from Munchausen syndrome.

The superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, orders a week-long cancellation of off-campus privileges for midshipmen in response to a spate of criminal charges against academy members.

A panel of three federal judges rules that Florida’s black-majority Third District is unconstitutional on the grounds that the Florida legislature improperly used race as the chief criterion for determining the district’s boundaries, and it orders that the district be redrawn.

The Justice Department reports that federal agents have arrested 1,176 foreign workers at more than 100 businesses in a campaign initiated Mar. 18 to halt employment of illegal aliens. . . . Two Marines who refused to supply DNA samples for a genetic registry—Lance Corporal John Mayfield III and Corporal Joseph Vlacovsky—are found guilty of disobeying a lawful order and sentenced to one week’s confinement. . . . The Senate passes, 91-8, a weakened version of a compromise antiterrorism bill.

Due to fears of BSE, or mad-cow disease, 21 states begin ordering the destruction of 113 British cows.

Nick Faldo of Great Britain wins the 60th Masters tournament at the Augusta (Georgia) National Golf Club in a stunning come-frombehind win over Greg Norman of Australia.

The FDA approves a two-drug combination of the antacid omeprazole with the antibiotic clarithromycin for use in curing and preventing the recurrence of duodenal ulcers. Clarithromycin is the first antibiotic backed for ulcer treatment.

Uta Pippig of Germany wins her record third straight women’s title in the Boston Marathon, with a time of two hours, 27 minutes, and 12 seconds.

The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded to author Richard Ford for Independence Day. Ford therefore becomes the first person to win both the PEN and the Pulitzer awards for the same novel.

Baylor University in Waco, Texas, the largest university in the world affiliated with the Baptist church, holds an on-campus dance for the first time in its 151-year history.

The Senate votes to reactivate the panel investigating the Whitewater affair, ending a seven-week standoff over extending the committee’s authority. . . . Arnold Neustadter, 85, inventor of the popular Rolodex card file who sold his Zephyr American Corp. to Insilco Corp. in 1961, dies in New York City, after suffering several strokes.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 14

April 15

April 16

April 17

860—April 18–23, 1996

World Affairs

Boleslavs Maikovskis, 92, Latvian police officer during World War II who was later accused of war crimes in connection with the execution of 200 Latvian civilians dies in Munster, Germany, of a heart attack.

April 18

April 19

Europe

Leaders of the Group of Seven (G-7) nations meet in Moscow in a special summit hosted by Russian president Boris Yeltsin.

April 22

April 23

The EU confirms that an international ban on the sale of British beef will remain in place until Britain takes concrete measures to assure the safety of its beef products. . . . When discussing the Palestine Liberation Front’s 1985 hijacking of the Italian ship Achille Lauro, Mohammed Abul Abbas, known as Abu Abbas, describes events surrounding his faction’s violence as “a mistake.” The incident, in which Leon Klinghoffer, an elderly wheelchair-bound U.S. Jew, was killed sparked international outrage.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The Israeli army fires artillery shells at a UN camp housing hundreds of Lebanese refugees near Tyre, killing at least 107 civilians and wounding more than 100. The attacks bring the death toll to date to about 150. . . . Factional strife in Liberia ebbs with the announcement of a cease-fire. . . . Gunmen spray bullets into a crowd of Greek tourists in Cairo, Egypt, killing 18 people and wounding at least 15 others. The attack is the deadliest in the four years. . . . In the Central African Republic city of Bangui, about 400 mutinous soldiers rebel to demand back pay.

A videotape of the Apr. 17 killings in Brazil suggest that police began shooting at the protestors on arrival at the scene, sparking outrage across the nation.

Bill Clinton becomes the second U.S. president to address the Japanese Diet.

The Gamaa al-Islamiya (Islamic Group), claims responsibility for the Apr. 18 shooting in suburban Cairo, Egypt. Reports suggest that 1,500 people have been arrested since the attack during a sweep of three shantytown districts of Cairo for Muslim fundamentalist suspects. . . . U.S. ships carrying some 1,500 marines arrive off the coast of Monrovia, the capital of Liberia.

The Bolivian Workers Confederation, an umbrella labor organization that represents most of Bolivia’s public-sector employees, signs an agreement with the government ending the general strike that began Mar. 18.

General Tran Van Tra, 77, Vietnamese army general who was instrumental in launching the Tet offensive during the Vietnam War, dies in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, after suffering from a long illness.

A judge in the Australian state of Tasmania rules that a child developed from a frozen embryo has the right to inherit his father’s estate, even if the embryo was implanted in the mother’s womb after the father died. Based on the ruling, Tasmania will become one of the few places in the world where the legal inheritance rights of frozen embryos are acknowledged.

A speaker for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees states that 90% of requests made by Bosnians to cross from areas of Bosnia that are controlled by one ethnic group to another area have been denied.

April 20

April 21

Africa & the Middle East

Although it is not immediately confirmed, Chechnya’s Pres. Dzhokhar Dudayev is slain in a rocket attack by Russian troops near the village of Gekhi-Chu. . . . A center-left alliance known as the Olive Tree coalition emerges as the largest bloc in Italy’s upper and lower parliamentary houses in general elections. . . . Robert Hersant, 76, politician and publisher who controlled France’s largest media company, the Hersant Group, dies in Saint-Cloud, France, after suffering from a long illness.

In the Central African Republic city of Bangui, the 400 mutinous soldiers who rebelled on Apr. 18 are offered amnesty and agree to return to their barracks. About a dozen people, half of them civilians, are reported killed in the fighting between the mutinous soldiers and the loyalist presidential guard. . . . A West African peacekeeping force, ECOMOG, begins to reassert control around Monrovia, the capital of Liberia.

A Polish military prosecutor finds “no direct proof” that former Polish premier Jozef Oleksy was a Russian spy. . . . Eurotunnel PLC, the company that runs the Channel Tunnel between France and Britain, announces losses of £925 million ($1.4 billion) in 1995. Those losses during the Channel Tunnel’s first full year of operation are much worse than predicted and are among the highest ever recorded in British corporate history.

Saudi authorities announce the arrest of four Saudi men in connection with the November 1995 bombings.

In Paraguay, Gen. Lino Cesar Oviedo refuses a presidential order to resign as army chief, threatening the possibility of a military coup. . . . Lt. Col. Joseph Michel François, who was arrested Apr. 12, is ordered to leave the Dominican Republic and finds political asylum in Honduras. Franck Romain, who was mayor of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, in the 1980s under President Jean-Claude Duvalier, also is granted political asylum in Honduras.

A forest fire destroys the deserted village of Tovstiy Lis, Ukraine, 14 miles (22 km) west of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Sierra Leone’s government and rebel forces agree to a cease-fire and peace negotiations aimed at ending the country’s five-year-old civil war. . . . Hundreds of Egyptian policemen stage a dawn raid on a village in southern Egypt in an effort to apprehend militants who they believe were involved in the Apr. 18 shooting. In an exchange of gunfire during the raid, two Muslim militants and four police officers are killed.

Mexico’s Supreme Court finds that Ruben Figueroa Alcocer, the former governor of the state of Guerrero, and seven state officials took part in a cover-up of a June 1995 massacre by police of 17 peasants on their way to an antigovernment rally. The court also finds that Figueroa violated the peasants’ civil rights by ordering the police to prevent them from attending the rally. . . . In Paraguay, Pres. Wasmosy announces that Gen. Lino Cesar Oviedo, who refused to step down Apr. 22, will be named defense minister, in return for Oviedo’s resignation, prompting protests in Asuncion.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 18–23, 1996—861

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

A federal judge in Los Angeles, California, sentences former representative Walter Tucker III (D, Calif.) to 27 months in prison for extortion and income-tax evasion. . . . Ronald Norwood Davies, 91, federal judge who issued a landmark decision ordering public schools in Little Rock, Arkansas, to integrate their white and black students, dies in Fargo, North Dakota, of unreported causes.

The House passes, 293-133, a weakened compromise version of an antiterrorism bill. . . . The U.S. administration dismisses Timothy Connolly, a Pentagon official who publicly questioned the military’s opposition to banning land mines.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

April 18

Thousands of mourners participate in a memorial service at the site of a 1995 bombing attack on a federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on the anniversary of the explosion. . . . A federal appeals court in New Orleans, Louisiana, grants a stay blocking enforcement of a ruling that orders the Texas state university system to end race-based admissions policies.

April 19

A study finds that the regular use of child care provided by someone other than the child’s mother does not harm the emotional bond between mother and child. Nonmaternal child care may further undermine the maternal attachment if the mother has been insensitive to the child’s needs, however.

Florida becomes the first state to ban products containing ephedrine.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts names Sense and Sensibility as best film and The Madness of King George as best British film. . . . Jimmy (the Greek) Snyder (born Demetrios Georgios Synodinos), 76, sports commentator who was fired in 1988 after making racist remarks, dies in Las Vegas, Nevada, of heart failure.

Senate majority leader Robert J. Dole (R, Kans.), asks the FEC to investigate allegations that AquaLeisure Industries, a sporting goods company, made illegal contributions to his campaign fund.

The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) announces it has reached a settlement with Hispanic groups in a discrimination suit filed when the CHA did not provide Spanish-language instructions on forms. . . . Citing new evidence, Rep. George Miller (D, Calif.) files a new ethics complaint against House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.) regarding allegations that a volunteer in Gingrich’s office improperly advised the speaker on telecommunications legislation.

The FBI arrests Kurt G. Lessenthien, a U.S. Navy machinist, in Orlando, Florida, on charges of military espionage.

U.S. district judge Joseph Tauro announces that the city of Boston, Massachusetts, has agreed to a $1 million settlement with the widow of Rev. Accelyne Williams, a black minister who died of heart failure after a 1994 mistaken drug raid on his apartment. . . . A jury in New York City orders Bernhard Goetz, the “subway vigilante,” to pay $43 million in damages to Darrell Cabey, one of four black men he shot in 1984. . . . In Markman v. Westview Instruments Inc., the Supreme Court rules unanimously that a judge’s definition of what constitutes a patent takes precedence over that offered by a jury.

NYNEX Corp. and Bell Atlantic Corp., two of the seven “Baby Bell” telephone companies, announce that they will merge in a deal valued at $23 billion, based on the value of NYNEX stock. The deal will be the largest merger ever in the telecommunications industry and one of the largest corporate mergers in history.

Christopher Robin Milne, 75, who inspired the Christopher Robin character in the Winnie the Pooh books written by his father, A. A. Milne, dies of unreported causes.

A notorious computer hacker accused of stealing thousands of data files and credit-card numbers from computer systems, Kevin Mitnick, reaches a plea agreement with federal prosecutors in which 23 federal counts of computer fraud are dropped in exchange for Mitnick’s admission to possession of stolen cellular telephone devices and violation of his probation, which stems from an earlier computer break-in conviction.

Erma Louise Bombeck, 69, humorist and writer whose column was published in as many as 600 newspapers, dies in San Francisco, California, of complications after kidney surgery.

P(amela) L(yndon) Travers (born Helen Lyndon Goff), 96, British writer who created the popular children’s book character Mary Poppins, dies in London, England, of unreported causes.

The Senate votes, 100-0, to pass a health-insurance reform bill that will guarantee continued health insurance coverage to people who lose, quit, or change their jobs. . . . Government data shows that Medicare’s Hospital Insurance Trust Fund lost $4.2 billion in the first half of fiscal 1996. . . . The Commerce Department reports that in February the U.S. recorded a seasonally adjusted $8.19 billion deficit in trade in goods and services. That figure is down substantially from the revised deficit of $9.88 billion in January.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 20

April 21

April 22

April 23

862—April 24–29, 1996

April 24

April 25

April 26

World Affairs

Europe

Bosnian Serb general Djordje Djukic is released for medical reasons from the custody of the international tribunal investigating war crimes in Bosnia on the condition that he return to The Hague to face charges if his health improves. . . . In response to the Apr. 23 EU announcement, British officials approve a selective slaughter plan intended to rid the country of socalled mad-cow disease.

Chechen vice president Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev reveals that he has succeeded Dzhokhar Dudayev as the rebels’ leader. . . . The detonators on two bombs under London’s Hammersmith Bridge explode, but the bombs themselves do not ignite. . . . Three trade unions representing French doctors strike to protest the government’s plan on health-care reform. . . . Turkey’s parliament approves the creation of a panel to investigate corruption charges against former premier Tansu Ciller.

Africa & the Middle East The Palestine National Council (PNC), overwhelmingly rescinds clauses in its charter calling for the destruction of Israel and the waging of guerrilla warfare against the Jewish state. The vote fulfils a pledge that Yasser Arafat made in September 1995 on behalf of the PLO in a second-stage peace accord with Israel.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin and Chinese president Jiang Zemin sign a number of agreements as part of what the two sides term a “strategic partnership.”

Leaders from Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan sign a nonaggression pact.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Thousands of protestors take to the streets of Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay, to protest Pres. Wasmosy’s Apr. 23 decision regarding Oviedo. . . . Waterhen chief Harvey Nepinak and his supporters, accused of corruption and the embezzlement of more than C$1 million (US$730,000) from the tribe’s accounts, flee the Waterhen Indian reservation, 300 miles (500 km) northwest of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

Paraguay’s president Juan Carlos Wasmosy announces he has reversed his decision to appoint former army commander Gen. Lino Cesar Oviedo as defense minister, thereby ending what is considered to be the country’s worst constitutional crisis since a democratic government replaced a military dictatorship in 1989. . . . Prisoners at Headingley Correctional Institution, a prison in the province of Manitoba, Canada, begin to riot.

Commercial bank creditors of the former Yugoslavia reach an agreement under which Croatia will be assigned 29.5% of the total $4.4 billion debt of the former Yugoslavia. . . . The 10th anniversary of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster is marked by a candlelight vigil in Slavutych, Ukraine, 42 miles northeast of the plant. . . . The IRA takes responsibility for the two bombs placed under London’s Hammersmith Bridge on Apr. 24. . . . Kidnapped German millionaire Jan Philipp Reemtsma is freed by his captors in exchange for $20 million, the largest ransom ever paid in Germany.

Israel and Lebanon agree to a cease-fire pact ending the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon that started Apr. 11 and the series of rocket volleys that Hezbollah guerrillas directed against northern Israel. Data indicates that during the violence, more than 150 Lebanese, almost all of them civilians, were killed. . . . The value of South Africa’s currency, the rand, reaches an all-time low of 4.58 to the U.S. dollar.

The riot started Apr. 25 at the Headingley Correctional Institution in Manitoba ends. Seven guards and 30 inmates were injured in the clashes.

April 27

A gunman opens fire in Port Arthur, a town in Australia’s island state of Tasmania, touching off a murderous rampage that results in 35 deaths. The incident, characterized as the worst massacre in Australia’s history, also leaves 18 people injured.

April 28

Strife in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, renews, marking the failure of a cease-fire reached on Apr. 18.

April 29

In Canada, one woman is slightly injured when a parcel bomb mailed to the Calgary Jewish Centre shortcircuits and fails to explode with full force.

Police apprehend Martin Bryant, suspected of committing the Apr. 28 murders in Port Arthur, a town in Australia’s island state of Tasmania.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 24–29, 1996—863

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Pres. Clinton signs an antiterrorism bill, despite the fact that it excludes or weakens several provisions that he proposed to combat terrorism.

Congress approves and Pres. Clinton signs a one-day stopgap measure. The stopgap bill is the 13th enacted since October 1995. . . . The management of the Detroit Free Press declares an impasse in a 10-month-old strike by its editorial employees.

A major fire is ignited near Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico.

The House, 399-25, and the Senate, 88-11, approve a $159.4 billion Omnibus Spending bill to provide funding for nine departments and dozens of federal agencies. The bill’s passage ends a struggle over discretionary spending for fiscal 1996 that started Oct. 1, 1995. . . . Ford Motor Co. announces it will recall 8.7 million cars and trucks to replace ignition switches that may cause the vehicles to catch fire. The recall is the largest ever initiated by a single automobile maker.

Data show that the offspring of families living in areas affected by the Chernobyl disaster, including children born after the accident, have inherited genetic damage from their parents. . . . A study finds that women who eat diets rich in vitamin E are 62% less likely to die of heart disease.

Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson (R) signs a bill that will end the distribution of welfare payments in that state starting in 1997. The bill, called Wisconsin Works, will replace the payments with work programs, child-care assistance, and subsidies. Observers characterize the legislation as the most dramatic overhaul of welfare policy approved in the U.S. in several decades.

Pres. Clinton signs the omnibus spending bill that authorizes funding for nine cabinet-level departments and 38 agencies. The Congressional Budget Office indicates that non-defense-related discretionary spending in fiscal 1996 will decrease to $223.8 billion from $246.1 billion in the previous year.

Stewart Douglas Waterhouse, a sympathizer with the members of an antitax group known as the Freemen who have been engaged in a siege with FBI agents since March outside of Jordan, Montana, surrenders.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

April 24

April 25

Sotheby’s closes its auction of items owned by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The sale earns a total of $34.5 million, well above Sotheby’s preliminary estimate. . . . . Stirling Dale Silliphant, 78, Academy Awardwinning screenwriter, dies in Bangkok, Thailand, of prostate cancer. . . . Olympic gold medalists Nadia Comaneci and Bart Conner get married in Bucharest, Romania.

William Egan Colby, 76, CIA director, 1973–76, who was in charge of Operation Phoenix, a Vietnam War program under which 20,000 Vietnamese people were killed, apparently including many innocent civilians, disappears, sparking a highly publicized search.

April 27

Pres. Clinton delivers three and a half hours of testimony in the fraud trial of his former Whitewater business partners, James McDougal and Susan McDougal, and Arkansas governor Jim Guy Tucker (D). . . . Pres. Clinton gives final approval to lifting a ban on the export of oil from Alaska’s North Slope. In Janklow v. Planned Parenthood, the Supreme Court refuses to hear an appeal from the state of South Dakota challenging a nullification of its law that requires teenage girls seeking abortions to notify their parents at least 48 hours before undergoing the procedure. In refusing the case, the justices let stand a decision by the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis, Missouri, that declared the South Dakota law unconstitutional. . . . In Carlisle v. U.S., the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that a federal district court in Michigan exceeded its authority when it set aside a jury’s conviction in a criminal case.

April 26

Pres. Clinton announces he has approved the sale of some 12 million barrels of oil from the government’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to curb rising gasoline prices.

April 28

The FDA approves a new drug, called dexfenfluramine, used in the treatment of obesity. The FDA approval is the first for an antiobesity drug in 22 years.

Reports confirm that José Rafael Moneo is the first Spaniard to receive the annual Pritzker Architecture Prize for lifetime achievement.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 29

864—April 30–May 5, 1996

April 30

World Affairs

Europe

Trade representatives from 53 nations agree to extend, until early 1997, talks aimed at easing restrictions on the global telecommunications market.

Justice Eduardo Moner of the Spanish Supreme Court rules that there is no firm evidence linking outgoing premier Felipe González to the killings of 27 supposed Basque nationalists by government “death squads” during the 1980s.

Africa & the Middle East U.S. Marines open fire on Liberian fighters near the U.S. embassy compound, killing three and injuring at least one, after the embassy comes under fire. . . . U.S. president Bill Clinton and Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres sign an antiterrorism agreement that formally commits the U.S. and Israel to cooperate in enhancing their bilateral security.

Asia & the Pacific

Marcos Vinicius Borges Emmanuel, a former state police officer, is convicted of murder and sentenced to 309 years in prison for his part in a July 1993 massacre of eight homeless youths in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s capital. The trial and harsh sentence are seen as a victory by human-rights advocates.

Some 200,000 union members march in a May Day parade in Mexico City, Mexico’s capital, despite the official cancellation of the annual event by Fidel Velazquez Sanchez, the leader of the government-allied Confederation of Mexican Workers. . . . Canadian deputy prime minister Sheila Copps resigns in the face of public pressure to abide by her 1993 campaign promise to quit if the Liberal Party did not repeal Canada’s 7% goods and services tax.

May 1

Swiss banking officials and Jewish leaders sign an agreement to search for funds deposited in Swiss banks during World War II by victims of the Nazi Holocaust. . . . Albania’s first stock market open in Tirana, the capital.

May 2

May 3

The Americas

Delegates from 55 UN member states approve a treaty revision that extends existing limits on the use of land mines.

Reports confirm that Hazim Delic, and Esad Landzo, two Bosnian Muslim officials at the Celebici camp who have been charged by the war crimes tribunal at The Hague, are being detained by the Bosnian government.

Orlando Vasquez Velasquez, Colombia’s attorney general, surrenders to authorities in Bogota, Colombia’s capital, to face charges that he accepted money from the Cali drug cartel.

The Spanish parliament approves Jose Maria Aznar, the leader of the center-right Popular Party (PP), as Spain’s new premier. . . . General Jean Crepin, 87, commander of NATO forces in central Europe, 1963–66, dies in Seine-et-Marne, France, of unreported causes.

May 4

Reports confirm that Kazakhstan authorities have detained two men for possession of more than 220 pounds (100 kg) of uranium-235, which could have been used as fuel for nuclear reactors or atomic bombs. . . . Voters in the central German state of Brandenburg reject a plan to unite with the neighboring city of Berlin. The vote is viewed as a victory for the former East German Communist Party, which had strongly opposed the proposal. . . . King Juan Carlos of Spain swears in Jose Maria Aznar to succeed Felipe Gonzalez, who has been premier since 1982.

May 5

In Bahrain, suspected Shi’ite activists set off nine bombs simultaneously in Manama, the capital, in homage to Isa Ahmed Hassan Qambar, a dissident who was executed Mar. 26. . . . Heavy fighting continues in Liberia.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 30–May 5, 1996—865

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The State Department finds that the number of international terrorist attacks increased in 1995 from the previous year, although the number of casualties caused by those attacks decreased. There were 440 international terrorism attacks in 1995, up from 322 in 1994. Of those attacks, 99 were against U.S. interests, up from 66 in 1994. (The report does not include U.S. domestic attacks.) The report names the same seven countries as it had in 1995 to be sponsors of international terrorism: Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria.

The Conference Board reports that its index of consumer confidence rose to 105.3 in April, from a revised level of 98.4 in March. The April figure marks the index’s highest reading in almost six years. . . . The House fails to override Pres. Clinton’s veto of a $13 billion State Department authorization bill. The vote is 234 to 188, 48 votes short of the two-thirds needed.

The House passes, 402-4, legislation that renews the federal program that provides money for state and local governments to care for people with AIDS or infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. . . . Herbert Brownell Jr., 92, U.S. attorney general under Pres. Dwight Eisenhower, 1953–57, who was credited with engineering Eisenhower’s victory in 1952, dies in New York City of cancer.

Atty. Gen. Janet Reno announces the dismantling of a cocaine ring that resulted in the arrests of at least 130 people across the U.S. . . . The Senate, by voice vote, gives final congressional approval to legislation that renews the federal program that provides money to care for people with AIDS or infected with HIV. . . . Pres. Clinton vetoes a bill that would have set limits on the awarding of punitive damages in product-liability lawsuits.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

April 30

More than 5,000 truckers who service the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, begin a work stoppage that causes portrelated trucking activity to plummet by between 50% and 90%.

The Board of Immigration Appeals holds a hearing to determine whether a Togolese woman, Fauziya Kasinga, 19, who fled her country because of the threat of forcible genital mutilation, should be granted political asylum in the U.S. Kasinga’s story of her ordeal while in detention at Esmor and in prison has received much attention. . . . The Senate votes, 97-3, in favor of a bill that will impose tighter restrictions on illegal immigration to the U.S.

May 1

A grand jury in Washington, D.C., indicts Joseph P. Waldholtz, the estranged husband of Rep. Enid Greene (R, Utah), on 27 counts of bank fraud for a check-kiting scheme that generated $2.9 million in worthless checks.

May 2

The White House confirms that prominent Chinese dissident Liu Gang has been admitted to the U.S. after escaping from China.

Timothy Edward Gullikson, 44, tennis player and coach who, with his identical twin brother Tom, won 10 titles as doubles partners during the 1970s and 1980s, dies in Wheaton, Illinois, of brain cancer.

Pres. Clinton announces that he will require states to deny welfare benefits to teenage mothers who do not attend school. . . . Reports confirm that former employees and patrons have filed a racial discrimination suit against Motel 6, one of the largest motel chains in the U.S.

A fire that has scorched 61,000 acres of the Tonto National Forest in central Arizona is brought under control.

Grindstone wins the 122nd running of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky.

The FBI reveals that overall serious crimes reported to the police decreased by 2% in 1995, compared with 1994. It is the fourth consecutive year that serious crimes have dropped in the U.S.

A wildfire starts from a trash fire in San Cristobal, New Mexico, which forces 2,000 residents of the villages of La Lama, Red River, and Questa to evacuate their homes.

Marge Schott, owner of baseball’s Cincinnati Reds, causes an uproar when she says of Adolf Hitler, “Everybody knows he was good at the beginning but he just went too far,” during an interview with ESPN.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 3

May 4

May 5

866—May 6–12, 1996

World Affairs

May 6

May 7

A UN-sponsored report contends that an Israeli artillery barrage that killed more than 100 civilians at a UN base in southern Lebanon on Apr. 18 did not appear to be accidental. . . . The trial of Dusan Tadic, a Bosnian Serb accused of torturing, raping, and killing Bosnian Muslims at three prison camps in Bosnia-Herzegovina, opens at the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague, the Netherlands. The trial is the first to be held by the tribunal, which was set up in 1993.

May 8

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Officials of Russia’s domestic intelligence service, the Federal Security Service (FSB), disclose they have arrested a Russian citizen on charges of spying for Great Britain. . . . Cardinal Leo Jozef Suenens, 91, archbishop of Malines-Brussels, Belgium, 1962–79, who was an influential participant in the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, dies in Brussels of unreported causes.

Charles Taylor, leader of one of the fighting factions in Liberia, announces a unilateral cease-fire to take effect, but fighting continues as U.S. troops and Liberian faction fighters exchange fire.

Representatives of the Guatemalan government and the rebel Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union (UNRG) sign a peace accord that brings the two sides closer to ending the country’s 35-year-old civil war. The last Guatemalan peace accord was signed in March 1995. . . . A U.S. delegation attends the 13th annual meeting of the U.S.Mexico Binational Commission, held in Mexico City, Mexico’s capital.

The highway between Zagreb and Belgrade reopens to international traffic only. The 360-mile-long oil pipeline between the Croatian port of Rijeka on the Adriatic Sea and Pancevo also reopens. . . . Officials of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) link nine unidentified British diplomats to the spy arrested May 6 and threaten to expel them. Separately, the FSB reveals that a nuclear scientist was arrested for smuggling out of Russia materials that could be used to make nuclear weapons components.

Representatives from ECOWAS nations convene in Accra, Ghana’s capital, for a meeting aimed at establishing peace in Liberia.

Representatives of Mexico and the U.S. sign 11 new agreements on issues such as the rights of immigrants, money laundering, and the environment.

Thousands of antinuclear activists clash with German police to protest the storage of radioactive waste at a plant in Gorleben, south of Hamburg. Some 30 demonstrators are hurt, and another 30 are arrested. . . . Dominguin (born Luis Miguel Gonzales Lucas), 69, Spanish bullfighter during the 1940s and 1950s, dies in Sotogrande, Spain, of heart failure.

South Africa’s Constitutional Assembly votes overwhelmingly to approve a new democratic constitution. The new majority-rule charter, agreed upon after almost two years of negotiations, provides for broad civil rights and officially completes the transition to democracy from whiteminority rule. . . . Fighting in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, spreads to Mamba Point as peace talks close in Ghana.

Gary Rex Lauck, an American neoNazi, goes on trial in Germany on charges of disseminating Nazi material and inciting racial hatred.

May 9

May 10

Europe

Asia & the Pacific

In India, election polls close, with the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), winning an electoral plurality.

Canada’s House of Commons approves an amendment to the federal Human Rights Act that prohibits discrimination against homosexuals. The law’s protections will apply only to the 10% of the Canadian workforce who work for the federal government or in government-regulated industries.

The IMF approves a loan of $867 million to the Ukrainian government.

Vietnamese refugees riot at a detention center in Hong Kong’s rural New Territories, setting ablaze 26 buildings and 53 cars. Dozens of police, wardens, and Vietnamese are injured in the disturbance. Detainees for a brief period take at least 15 prison wardens hostage. . . . Eight mountain climbers are believed dead when they are caught in a sudden blizzard near the summit of Nepal’s Mount Everest. It is one of the worst-ever accidents on Mount Everest. Electoral officials declare Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni the winner of a no-party presidential election. . . . Nnamdi Azikiwe, 91, first president of the republic of Nigeria, 1963–66, dies in Nigeria after suffering from a long illness.

May 11

Officials reveal that in the May 10 riot by Vietnamese refugees at a detention center in Hong Kong, 120 refugees escaped, and about 80 of them were subsequently caught.

The Bulgarian cabinet, after lengthy debate, adopts several privatization measures long sought by the international lending community.

May 12

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 6–12, 1996—867

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The State Department releases to the public several documents relating to alleged human-rights abuses perpetrated against U.S. citizens since 1984 by the Guatemalan military. . . . William Egan Colby, 76, CIA director, 1973–76, who was in charge of Operation Phoenix, a Vietnam War program under which 20,000 Vietnamese people were killed, is found dead in the Wicomico River, Maryland, ending a highly publicized search that started with his Apr. 27 disappearance. The House approves, 418-0, legislation that will require state authorities to notify communities of the presence of convicted sex offenders in their areas. . . . A report indicates that the death rate from breast cancer among U.S. women continued to decline in 1993, but the breastcancer death rate among black women increased in the same time period.

U.S. Circuit Court judge Robert Krupansky lifts a desegregation order that compelled the school district in Cleveland, Ohio, to integrate its public schools through the busing of students. The ruling ends 17 years of enforced busing in the Cleveland school system.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Apple Computer reveals it has reached an agreement with IBM that will allow IBM to license Apple’s Macintosh computer operating-system software. . . . The fire that started Apr. 24 near Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico is brought under control after charring more than 16,000 acres and damaging 800-year-old Anasazi Indian ruins. . . . The FDA approves the first nonsurgical treatment for enlarged prostates. The device uses microwaves.

Moonlight Becomes You, by Mary Higgins Clark, is at the top of the bestseller list. . . . The CBS network announces that it will offer free TV airtime to presidential candidates in the fall. Fox made a similar offer in February, and other networks are following suit.

A wildfire that started May 5 in San Cristobal, New Mexico, is controlled after razing more than 7,500 acres in nearby Carson National Forest. Data shows that more than 142,000 acres (57,500 hectares) have been burned in New Mexico and Arizona in late April and early May.

Donald McNeill, 88, radio personality who hosted “Don McNeill’s Breakfast Club,” 1933–68, dies in Evanston, Illinois, of a respiratory ailment.

Julie Andrews announces she will not accept a Tony Award nomination for best actress since her musical, Victor/Victoria, was not nominated in any other category. . . . Garth Montgomery Williams, 84, illustrator of children’s books, dies in Guanajuato, Mexico, of unreported causes.

The Natural Resources Defense Council finds that the inhalation of fine airborne particles discharged primarily from smokestacks and automobiles causes or worsens heart and lung ailments and leads to more than 64,000 premature deaths a year in the U.S.

The House approves, 315-107, a measure that will overhaul many of the policies and programs of the nation’s public-housing system and will give state and local housing officials more power to decide how to allocate funds for housing programs managed by HUD. . . . The Senate by voice vote passes a bill that will require state authorities to notify communities of the presence of convicted sex offenders.

A CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter crashes at the Sikorsky Aircraft airfield in Stratford, Connecticut. The four crew members, all of them Sikorsky employees, are killed. . . . Lt. Gen. Calvin Agustine Hoffman Waller, 58, deputy commander of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf war and one of the highest-ranking blacks in the U.S. Army when he retired in 1991, dies in Washington, D.C., of a heart attack.

In New Haven, Connecticut, Yale University announces that millionaire investor Robert Bass, a Yale graduate, has donated $20 million to the school.

Fourteen marines are killed when two helicopters collide during joint training exercises with British troops at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Two other marines on board the aircraft are injured in the mishap, one critically.

The auction houses of Sotheby’s and Christie’s close their major spring NYC auctions. Revenues from the sales are down from the 1995 spring auctions. . . . Helen Kreis Wallenda, 85, last surviving member of the original Great Wallendas high-wire troupe, dies in Sarasota, Florida, of unreported causes.

The House approves, 393-15, legislation granting a tax credit worth up to $5,000 to families that have adopted children.

Scientists report they have identified a protein that plays a crucial role in allowing the most common strain of HIV to infect human cells.

Designer Giorgio Armani announces that he has accepted a plea bargain in a sweeping corruption case aimed at Italy’s fashion industry. He is ordered to pay a 101 million lire ($65,000) fine, the amount of his alleged 1990 bribes, and handed a nine-month suspended jail term.

A ValuJet Airlines DC-9 jet crashes into the Everglades marsh region about 20 miles (32 km) west of Miami International Airport in Florida. The accident kills all 105 passengers and five crew members on board.

May 6

May 7

May 8

May 9

May 10

May 11

A fire destroys part of a building in Atlanta, Georgia, where Margaret Mitchell wrote most of the 1936 novel Gone With the Wind. . . . Lance Armstrong successfully defends his title in the Tour DuPont cycling race in Blacksburg, Virginia.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 12

868—May 13–17, 1996

World Affairs

May 13

May 14

The Council of Europe, a 39-nation intergovernmental body established in 1949 to promote democracy and human rights, postpones Croatia’s admission to the council indefinitely. It is the first time in the history of the council that it overrules a vote by its parliamentary assembly in favor of membership.

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

In Norway, 37,000 mechanicalengineering workers go on strike over pay. . . . Germany’s mail workers and garbage collectors hold a warning strike to protest proposed wage freezes and spending cuts.

Ghana turns away the Bulk Challenge, a leaking freighter carrying some 2,000 Liberian refugees. The move draws criticism, particularly since 200 passengers jump ship to board a medical-aid barge trailing the freighter.

Germany’s Constitutional Court, the country’s highest tribunal, upholds controversial regulations restricting the number of foreigners allowed into the country. . . . Jacques Chirac becomes the first French president in more than 10 years to pay a state visit to Great Britain.

Authorities in Ghana, under pressure from foreign governments and aid groups, allows the Bulk Challenge, a leaking freighter carrying some 2,000 Liberian refugees, to dock in Takoradi. The authorities send the refugees to a nearby camp. . . . Heavy fighting in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, renews.

The Americas

A tornado hits Bangladesh, killing 600 people and injuring more than 34,000 others. The worst damage is in the Tangail district, 45 miles (70 km) north of Dhaka. . . . Reports confirm that rescuers have recovered the bodies of eight climbers caught in the May 10 blizzard on Mount Everest. U.S. climber Seaborn Beck Weathers and Makalu Gau of Taiwan are rescued by the Nepalese army at 19,000 feet (5,790 m) in the world’s highestever helicopter rescue mission. . . . Reports reveal that Phoolan Devi, known as the Bandit Queen for allegedly robbing upper-caste villagers, has won a seat representing the town of Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh state in India.

Radovan Karadzic, the hard-line leader of the Bosnian Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina, fires Rajko Kasagic, the moderate premier of the self-styled Serb Republic, Republika Srpska.

May 15

Indian president Shankar Dayal Sharma, facing general election results that has left India with the most fragmented parliament in its history, asks the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to attempt to form a coalition government. . . . In Bangladesh, the government sends troops and medical teams to help with rescue and cleanup efforts in the wake of the May 13 tornado.

The Dominican Republic votes in the first round of presidential elections. Since no candidate garners more than 50% of the vote, the two leading candidates, José Francisco Peña Gómez and Leonel Fernández, will face each other in a runoff election. The elections mark the first time in 30 years that the incumbent president, Joaquín Balaguer, is not a candidate.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin announces a decree to abolish conscription into the Russian army. . . . Italian president Oscar Luigi Scalfaro appoints Romano Prodi as premier.

May 16

Peter Caruana is elected leader of the British colony of Gibraltar. . . . Russian foreign ministry officials expel four British diplomats in the largest spy dispute since the end of the cold war in 1989. Britain retaliates by asking that four Russian embassy officials be withdrawn. . . . Italian premier-elect Romano Prodi unveils Italy’s 55th government since the end of World War II.

May 17

Asia & the Pacific

Indian president Shankar Dayal Sharma swears in BJP president Atal Bihari Vajpayee as prime minister, succeeding Congress (I) party leader P. V. Narasimha Rao.

Bob Bellear, a lawyer from Sydney, Australia, is sworn in as Australia’s first aboriginal judge.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 13–17, 1996—869

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

In U.S. v. Armstrong, the Supreme Court rules, 8-1, that a group of black defendants have insufficient evidence to support their claim that the federal government is unfairly targeting blacks for prosecution under stiff federal crack-cocaine penalties. . . . In 44 Liquormart v. Rhode Island, the Supreme Court rules unanimously to strike down a Rhode Island statute that prohibits liquor retailers from including liquor prices in their advertisements.

In United Food Workers v. Brown Group, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that unions may seek back wages and other benefits on behalf of union members from companies that violate the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act of 1988, which requires employers to give workers 60 days’ notice before shutting down a facility and laying off staff.

Dr. Jack Kevorkian, a retired pathologist who has acknowledged attending more than two dozen suicides since 1990, is acquitted by a Michigan jury of violating that state’s common-law ban on assisted suicide in the two 1991 deaths of Marjorie Wantz and Sherry Miller. . . . Edward J(ohn) Gurney, 82, (R, Fla.), member of the U.S. House, 1963–69, and Senate, 1969–75, dies in Winter Park, Florida, of undisclosed causes.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

May 13

The FDA approves the first home screening test for infection with HIV, the AIDS-causing virus.

Senate Majority Leader Robert J. Dole (R, Kans.), the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, announces that he will resign from the Senate by June 11 in order to devote all his energies to his struggling campaign.

Reports suggest that the National Reconnaissance Office has accumulated nearly $4 billion in unspent congressional appropriations, up from a previous estimate of $2 billion. . . . The House passes, 272153, a $266.7 billion defense authorization bill for the 1997 fiscal year. . . . The U.S. and China each list potential trade sanctions they will impose on each other as a result of a long-running dispute over what the U.S. sees as the Chinese government’s inadequate steps to halt the widespread production of pirated goods in China.

Federal judge John Ryan accepts a plan designed to guide Orange County, California, out of the bankruptcy it declared in December 1994.

The Freemen, who have been staging a standoff with the FBI since Mar. 25 at a remote farm complex outside of Jordan, Montana, meet face-to-face with FBI agents for the first time.

Admiral Jeremy M. (Mike) Boorda, 56, the highest-ranking officer in the navy, dies of a self-inflicted gunshot wound outside of his home at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. His suicide comes after reporters sought to question him about two combat decorations he received for service in Vietnam despite having never seen combat there. . . . Pres. Clinton states that his administration will curtail U.S. use of certain land mines.

The House, after rejecting Pres. Clinton’s budget plan, 117-304, votes 226-195 to approve the Republican budget. The Senate rejects the president’s budget, 4553, in a straight party-line vote.

The president of the United Way of America, Elaine L. Chao, announces that she will step down by Sept. 1. . . . George Delury, 62, who acknowledges assisting in the 1995 death of his wife, Myrna Lebov, 52, who was crippled by multiple sclerosis, is sentenced to six months in prison after pleading guilty to attempted manslaughter. . . . Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill that requires state authorities to notify communities of the presence of convicted sex offenders.

The FDA approves the drug Taxotere for use in treating breast cancer cases that do not respond to treatment with the drug doxorubicin, the standard initial chemotherapy treatment.

May 14

Richard M(ichael) Clurman, 72, journalist who served as a leading editor at Time magazine. 1949–55, 1959–72, dies in Quogue, New York, of a heart attack.

May 15

May 16

Scott Brayton, 37, race-car driver, dies in a car accident at the Indianapolis (Indiana) speedway. . . . Johnny (Guitar) Watson, 61, rhythmand-blues musician, dies in Yokohama, Japan, after suffering a heart attack during a performance. . . . Willis Conover, 75, disk jockey who broadcast over the Voice of America signal, 1955–96, dies in Alexandria, Virginia, of lung cancer.

The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. in March recorded a seasonally adjusted $8.92 billion deficit in trade in goods and services. That figure marks a sharp increase over the revised deficit of $7.04 billion registered in February.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 17

870—May 18–23, 1996

World Affairs

May 18

May 19

May 20

Iraq and the UN sign an accord that allows Iraq to export oil on a limited basis so as to ease a shortage of food and medical supplies in Iraq. The deal marks the first easing of the broad trade sanctions imposed on Iraq following Iraq’s 1990 invasion and subsequent occupation of Kuwait.

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

The parliament in Bosnia-Herzegovina replaces Rajko Kasagic, fired May 15, with Gojko Klickovic, an economist and ally of Radovan Karadzic. . . . In the town of Izmit, 50 miles (80 km) east of Istanbul, Ibrahim Gumrukcuoglu points a gun at Turkish president Suleyman Demirel but is tackled before he can fire the weapon. . . . Gen. Djordje Djukic, 62, Bosnian Serb army officer charged by the UN war crimes tribunal for alleged atrocities during the war in Bosnia, dies in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, of pancreatic cancer.

A mutiny begins in the Central African Republic when soldiers demanding back pay surround the presidential palace in Bangui and take control of the city center, spurring riotous civilian protests and widespread looting.

Radovan Karadzic, the hard-line leader of the Bosnian Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina, names Biljana Plavsic vice president and gives her responsibility for negotiations with the international community. . . . Reports confirm that that the government of Croatian president Franjo Tudjman will create a “memorial for all victims of war” at the Jasenovac concentration camp, the largest World War II-era concentration camp built in Yugoslavia.

French troops move into the downtown area to protect the 2,500 French citizens in Bangui, a city in the Central African Republic.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) end a 31⁄2 week armed standoff at the Waterhen Indian reservation, 300 miles (500 km) northwest of Winnipeg, Manitoba. A dissident faction of the tribe took control of the 4,500-acre (1,800-hectare) reserve and blockaded the road into the community after Waterhen chief Harvey Nepinak, accused of corruption and embezzlement, fled the reservation Apr. 24.

Giovanni Brusca, believed to be the top military figure in the Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mafia, is arrested by Italian police after spending six years avoiding arrest. . . . German public-sector workers launch a series of “warning” strikes to protest proposed wage freezes and spending cuts.

In the Central African Republic, French troops clash with rebels in Bangui, with a small number of casualties reported on both sides. . . . In response to the UN accord with Iraq, Iraqis in Baghdad, the capital, embrace each other and dance in the streets as fireworks explode overhead and as security officials fire AK-47 assault rifles into the air.

Reports confirm that one person has died in a clash between supporters of the Revolutionary and Liberation parties near the city of Santiago in the Dominican Republic.

Asia & the Pacific

Lee Teng-hui is sworn as Taiwan’s president in Taipei, the capital.

More than 500 people die when an overcrowded Tanzanian ferry capsizes on Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest lake. At least 114 people survive the accident, which is called the worst peacetime maritime disaster in Africa’s history.

May 21

May 22

May 23

In Norway, 37,000 mechanicalengineering workers end a crippling strike that started May 13. . . . Russian reports indicate that 40 Russian soldiers and 120 rebels have been killed in the battle to seize control of the hills around a former Soviet missile base near Bamut, 35 miles (56 km) southwest of Grozny in Chechnya.

Thousands of mourners, including Tanzanian president Benjamin Mkapa, gather in a soccer stadium in Mwanza for a memorial service for those who died May 21 in a ferry accident.

A Russian army commander announces that his troops have taken control of a former Soviet missile base near Bamut, 35 miles (56 km) southwest of Grozny. . . . A report by the UNHCR describes the population movements after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union as “the largest, most complex and potentially most destabilizing” in Europe since the end of World War II in 1945. . . . (Edward Sydney) Patrick Cargill, 77, British actor known for TV comedies, dies in England of cancer.

In the Central African Republic, as fighting between rebels and French troops in Bangui escalates, several thousand protesters shouting antiFrench slogans burn a French cultural center after being turned away from the French embassy. In response, French troops are reinforced, and France announces that it will evacuate all of its citizens.

A North Korean air force pilot, Captain Lee Chul Soo, defects to South Korea by plane. It is the first defection by a North Korean pilot in a plane since 1983.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 18–23, 1996—871

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle In record-tying time, Louis Quatorze, a colt, wins the 121st running of the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore, Maryland. . . . Chet Forte, 60, born Fulvio Chester Fork Jr., sports broadcasting innovator who directed Monday Night Football, dies in San Diego, California, of a heart attack.

The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, to conduct experiments regarding an inflatable antenna and a selfstabilizing satellite.

In Romer v. Evans, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, to strike down an amendment to the Colorado constitution that prohibits any government body in the state from implementing policies that bar discrimination against homosexuals. The ruling is viewed as a major victory in homosexuals’ ongoing battle to secure legal recourse against discrimination. . . . In BMW of North America v. Gore, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, to overturn a $2 million punitive-damages award. It is the first time the Supreme Court invalidates a punitive-damages award. The assistant attorney general for civil rights, Deval Patrick, testifies before a congressional committee that there is no evidence linking a recent spate of suspected arson at predominantly black Southern churches to a regional or national conspiracy.

Government officials project that the federal deficit for fiscal 1996 will be lowered to between $125 billion and $130 billion, down from the original estimate of $144 billion made by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

Pres. Clinton eulogizes Admiral Jeremy M. (Mike) Boorda, who committed suicide May 16, at funeral services held at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., that are attended by 3,900 people, including several members of the cabinet and Congress as well as numerous representatives from the military.

The Treasury Department reveals that it took in about $25 billion more in tax revenue in April than anticipated.

Authorities in Atlanta, Georgia, find 34 suspected illegal Mexican immigrants locked inside a horse trailer in a motel parking lot. INS agents arrest the truck’s driver, Kenneth Carnduff, for immigrant smuggling. Agents report that the immigrants had been denied food and water. . . . The House passes by voice vote a bill authorizing funds for the intelligence community for fiscal year 1997, which begins Oct. 1 The exact amount of the intelligence budget is classified, but estimates place it at more than $30 billion.

The Dow closes at a record high of 5778.00, marking the 21st record high registered in 1996.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, Louisiana, invalidates the largest class-action lawsuit pending against the tobacco industry. The ruling overturns a February 1995 decision that would have entitled virtually all smokers to join the lawsuit, which would have made it the largest class-action suit of any kind in U.S. history. . . . The CDC finds that an increasing proportion of U.S. high-school students, particularly among black males, smoke cigarettes.

Russian cosmonauts carry out a five-hour space walk outside the Russian Mir space station. In a paid advertisement for PepsiCo Inc., the cosmonauts film a TV commercial during the space walk, posing with a four-foot-tall can of PepsiCo’s Pepsi brand soda.

May 18

May 19

Jon (John Devon Roland Pertwee) Pertwee, 76, British actor best known for the TV series Dr. Who, dies of unreported causes. . . .At the Cannes (France) film festival, the Palme d’Or goes to Secrets and Lies, a film by British director Mike Leigh.

Lash (Alfred) LaRue, 78, star of more than 20 low-budget western movies in the 1940s and 1950s, dies in Burbank, California after suffering from heart disease and emphysema.

May 20

May 21

May 22

The Senate passes its budget resolution for the 1997 fiscal year, 5346, in a straight party-line vote. The measure proposes to balance the federal budget by reducing federal spending by some $700 billion over the next six years. . . . The House votes, 281-144, to approve a bill that will increase the federal minimum wage to $5.15, from $4.25.

May 23

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

872—May 24–29, 1996

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Russian army sources report that 2,483 Russian soldiers and 16,843 Chechen rebels have been killed in the fighting in Chechnya since December 1994. Independent sources have estimated that between 30,000 and 40,000 people, most of them Chechen civilians, have died in the civil war.

More French troops arrive in Bangui in the Central Africa Republic, raising their number to about 3,000. Most of the 2,500 French citizens are evacuated, and two U.S. Marine Corps planes have evacuated 161 civilians to date, including 84 of the estimated 254 U.S. citizens in the country.

Reports confirm that military rulers in Myanmar, formerly Burma, have arrested more than 200 members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) in an attempt to block a major NLD party conference scheduled for May 26–28 at the home of NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

In Albania, the Socialist Party pulls out of parliamentary elections before polls close, accusing Pres. Sali Berisha’s party of ballot rigging and intimidation. . . . The Greek Cypriot ruling coalition led by Pres. Glafcos Clerides wins a slim majority of parliamentary seats. . . . Reports confirm that thousands of Muslim refugees attempting to return to their homes in Bosnian Serb-controlled territory have been blocked. At least five refugees have been killed and 40 injured.

In the Central African Republic, mutinous soldiers release four senior civilian hostages, and Pres. Ange-Felix Patasse later agrees to offer them amnesty.

In Myanmar, because of the arrests reported May 24, only 18 NLD delegates are able to attend the party’s conference, but the government allows some 10,000 NLD supporters to gather outside leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s home.

Russian premier Viktor Chernomyrdin and Chechen rebel leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev sign a peace agreement establishing a cease-fire in the 17-month-long secessionist conflict. . . . Ukrainian Pres. Leonid Kuchma fires Yevhen Marchuk as premier. . . . Albanian Pres. Sali Berisha claims victory for his Democratic Party over his main opposition, the Socialist Party, in the May 26 elections.

At the request of the Central African Republic, French troops quell an uprising that began May 18 by mutinous soldiers demanding back pay. . . . Factional fighters complete a withdrawal from central Monrovia, the capital of Liberia.

China releases Bao Tong, the highest-ranking Chinese official imprisoned for offenses connected to June 1989 prodemocracy protests, after Bao served a seven-year jail term. A petition, signed by seven dissidents from Zhejiang province, demands that the government apologize for the 1989 massacre and release political prisoners. . . . In Myanmar, the State Law and Order Restoration Council stages rallies in Yangon, the capital, to denounce the NLD and Aung San Suu Kyi, who was released from house arrest in 1995.

In retaliation for the EU’s refusal to ease the ban on British beef, Britain expands its noncooperation policy and blocks 12 EU measures that require unanimous approval. . . . The IMF, after prolonged negotiations, approves a $400 million standby loan to help support a new economic reform plan backed by Bulgarian premier Zhan Videnov.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin travels to Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, to address Russian soldiers and to sign a decree abolishing military conscription and limiting combat service to volunteer soldiers. . . . Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma names Pavlo Lazarenko as premier. . . . At a rally in Tirana, the capital of Albania, police and paramilitary troops in riot gear beat protesters and arrest several leaders of the Socialist opposition.

Members of a West African peacekeeping force, ECOMOG, move into the eastern Sinkor district of Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, for the first time since strife had erupted in April.

Thai premier Banharn Silpa-archa shuffles his cabinet in the wake of a scandal involving mismanagement and fraud allegations against the Bangkok Bank of Commerce. . . . Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) resign moments before facing defeat in a confidence vote. . . . The Chinese government detains one of the dissidents, Wang Donghai, who signed the May 27 petition.

The UN Population Fund estimates that, by the year 2005, half of the world’s population will live in cities for the first time in history. The world’s urban population is projected to rise to 3.3 billion from the current 2.6 billion, while the overall population will rise to 6.59 billion. More than 90% of urban population growth will occur in developing nations, mainly in Asia and Africa.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) confirms that ballots were altered and that armed men entered polling stations during the election in Albania. Socialist Party leaders continue their protests, holding rallies in five towns.

In what is widely regarded as Israeli’s most momentous election, Benjamin Netanyahu of the rightist Likud bloc wins as prime minister over the incumbent, prime minister Shimon Peres. The Netanyahu win signals the electorate’s concern for personal security over the program for regional peace that Peres and his Labor Party have championed.

World Affairs

May 24

May 26

May 27

May 29

Asia & the Pacific

Half a million Bulgarians gather in Sofia, the capital, to welcome the return of King Simeon II to Bulgaria, who last lived in Bulgaria in 1946. . . . Lord Margadale (born John Glanville Morrison), 89, British Conservative Party politician who was elevated to the peerage in 1964, dies of unreported causes.

May 25

May 28

The Americas

Officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in Halifax, Nova Scotia, board the Maersk Dubai, a container ship registered in Taiwan and arrest its captain and six officers, all Taiwanese citizens, on three charges of murder of stowaways during its voyage.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 24–29, 1996—873

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Kansas govenor Bill Graves (R) discloses that he will appoint Kansas lieutenant governor Sheila Frahm (R) to fill the Senate seat about to be vacated by Senate majority leader Robert Dole (R, Kans.).

San Diego County Superior Court judge William Howatt issues a ban on an anti-immigrant group called the U.S. Citizens Patrol, which has been patrolling San Diego’s Lindbergh Field airport while wearing shirts similar to those worn by government agents. . . . The Treasury Department agrees to release more than 300 computers bound for Cuba that had been seized in February on the grounds that they violate the U.S. embargo against Cuba.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Joseph Mitchell, 87, staff writer for New Yorker magazine, 1938–64, who was known for his poetic stories about New York City, dies in New York of cancer.

In response to the Treasury Department’s May 24 release of more than 300 computers bound for Cuba that it had seized in February, three protesters from the religious group Pastors for Peace end a 94-day hunger strike.

Searchers recover the cockpit voice recorder from ValuJet Airlines Flight 592, which crashed May 11. Evidence suggests that a fire in the jet’s cargo hold contributed to the crash, although investigators state that they will not reach a final conclusion for several months.

Auto racer Buddy Lazier wins the 80th Indianapolis 500 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indiana.

May 24

May 25

May 26

May 27

In Ornelas v. U.S., the Supreme Court rules, 8-1, that defendants challenging convictions on the ground that they were victims of improper police searches are entitled to have appellate court judges conduct new reviews of their cases.

Pres. Clinton announces that he has ordered the Veterans Administration to provide benefits for Vietnam veterans who develop prostate cancer or peripheral neuropathy, a rare nerve disorder.

A federal jury in Little Rock, Arkansas, convicts James McDougal, Susan McDougal, and Gov. Jim Guy Tucker (D, Ark.) on fraud and conspiracy charges. Because they were Pres. Clinton’s associates, the verdict is interpreted as politically damaging to the president. Reports indicate that the Clintons voluntarily paid $3,400 in back taxes and interest due to mistakes made when estimating the taxes on the Whitewater real-estate investment.

Texas Instruments Inc. announces it has developed new manufacturing technology that will facilitate the production of a computer chip with 20 times the processing power currently available in personal computers. . . . Pacific Telesis Group (PacTel) becomes the first Baby Bell telephone-service company to offer its customers access to the Internet global computer network.

Jimmy Rowles (born James George Hunter), 77, pianist renowned as a jazz accompanist and composer, dies in Burbank, California, of cardiac arrest.

The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour touches down at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, after conducting experiments that included the deployment of an inflatable antenna and a self-stabilizing satellite. . . . Jerry R. Junkins, 58, chairman and chief executive officer of Texas Instruments Inc., a computer-technology giant, dies of a heart attack while on a business trip in Stuttgart, Germany.

Tamara Toumanova, 77, Russianborn dancer considered one of the dominant ballerinas of the 1930s, dies in Santa Monica, California, after a brief illness.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 28

May 29

874—May 30–June 4, 1996

May 30

World Affairs

Europe

Representatives of more than 80 countries attend an international conference on forced migration within the Commonwealth of Independent States. The meeting addresses problems related to the nearly 9 million people who have moved within the region since 1989.

Bulgarian premier Zhan Videnov announces new taxes and price increases, sparking protests in Sofia and in other towns. . . . In special elections to select negotiators for a round of peace talks, the Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Provisional IRA comes in fourth with 15.5% of the vote, which represents Sinn Fein’s best showing ever in a province-wide election in Northern Ireland. . . . The divorce of Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, and Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, is finalized. The center-left majority coalition led by Italian premier Romano Prodi wins a confidence vote. . . . In light of the May 30 election returns, the governments of Britain and Ireland reiterate that representatives of Sinn Fein may participate in the peace talks only if the IRA restores a previous cease-fire. Final results show that the Ulster Unionist Party led the voting, garnering 24.2% of all ballots cast.

May 31

June 1

June 2

June 3

June 4

At a summit in Geneva, Switzerland, U.S. secretary of state Warren Christopher meets with the presidents of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia and with high-level officials from Western Europe to renew efforts to bring Bosnian Serb leaders and indicted war criminals Pres. Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic to justice. Christopher threatens Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic with renewed economic sanctions and asks NATO troops stationed in Bosnia to begin hunting for war criminals.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Former president Carlos Andres Perez is convicted by Venezuela’s Supreme Court of mismanaging government funds and is sentenced to 28 months in prison. . . . In Canada, a Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, jury convicts John Martin Crawford of three counts of murder in the 1992 deaths of three Indian women discovered near a Saskatoon-area golf course in October 1994.

In public beheadings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, authorities execute four men—Abdul-Aziz Fahd Nasser, Riyadh Hajri, Muslih Shamrani, and Khalid Ahmed Said—in connection with the November 1995 bombings.

In Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, serial killer John Martin Crawford, convicted May 30, is sentenced to three concurrent terms of 25 years with no chance of parole.

The ruling junta in Myanmar, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), yields to international pressure and releases 81 of the recently arrested NLD members. . . . Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, 83, president of India, 1977–82, dies in Bangalore, India, of lung cancer.

Pres. Leonid Kuchma announces that Ukraine has transferred the last of its nuclear warheads to Russia. Under the terms of the 1994 agreement, Russia will destroy the weapons. . . . Russian reports indicate that Chechen rebels have attacked a roadblock near Shilani, capturing 26 soldiers and destroying an antiaircraft system. . . . Czech voters narrowly reject a new mandate for Premier Vaclav Klaus’s Civic Democratic Party (ODS) and its center-right coalition partners.

H. D. Deve Gowda is sworn in as prime minister of India. . . . In the face of stricter gun legislation prompted by the Apr. 28 killings, the worst mass murder in Australia’s history, more than 70,000 supporters of gun ownership take to the streets in Melbourne. An unidentified gunman opens fire on police officers near the town of Palmerston, wounding five people before he is shot and subdued. The incident draws wide attention in the Australian media.

Reports suggest that two mine explosions in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, have killed six Russian soldiers and wounded 11 others. . . . Albania holds a second round of voting in 10 districts. The election is boycotted by the opposition.

In Australia, 7,000 gun supporters march in Adelaide. At the same time, a total of 25,000 backers of the gun ban march in Melbourne and Sydney. Relatives of victims of the Apr. 28 Port Arthur shooting speak at the Melbourne rally.

Foreign ministers of the 16 NATO countries agree on a proposal to strengthen the role of European armies in the alliance. . . . The World Bank estimates that, by 2010, some 1.4 billion people will be living without safe water and sanitation and that, currently, 220 million people lack access to safe water and 420 million lack adequate sanitation. . . . Representatives from more than 170 nations convene in Istanbul for the second UN Conference on Human Settlements, or Habitat II.

The government of Bahrain announces the arrest of 29 Bahraini suspects in connection with a purported Iranian-backed plot to overthrow Bahrain’s ruling al-Khalifa family. . . . General Tito Okello, 82, military officer who was briefly Uganda’s president after a July 1985 coup, dies near Kampala, Uganda.

A Japanese destroyer accidentally shoots down a U.S. Navy warplane during joint military maneuvers in the Pacific Ocean. The two crew members on the U.S. plane are not seriously injured. . . .Reports disclose that Chen Longde, a signatory of a May petition demanding that the Chinese government apologize for the 1989 massacre in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and release political prisoners, has been detained.

In a ceremony at the Pervomaisk missile base in Ukraine, Defense Minister Valery Shmarov, U.S. defense secretary William Perry, and Russian defense minister Gen. Pavel Grachev plant sunflowers on the site of a former Soviet missile silo to mark Ukraine’s complete nuclear disarmament. . . . A new European satellite-delivery rocket is exploded by ground control officials when it veers from its course on its maiden voyage shortly after liftoff from Kourou, French Guiana.

Bahrain’s interior minister, Mohammed bin Khalifa al-Khalifa, reveals that in addition to the June 3 arrests, 15 more suspects have been seized, bringing the coup-related arrest toll to 44 in connection with a purported Iranian-backed plot to overthrow Bahrain’s ruling al-Khalifa family. . . . Three Swiss workers from the Red Cross are killed in an ambush in northern Cibitoke province in Burundi.

In response an apology by Japan’s government regarding the June 3 incident, U.S. White House spokesman Michael McCurry explains that Pres. Clinton has accepted the “gracious expression of regret.” . . . On the seventh anniversary of the massacre in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, an estimated 15,000–20,000 people gather in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park for a candlelight vigil in memory of those who were killed.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 30–June 4, 1996—875

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The independent Export-Import Bank, the U.S.’s chief export-credit agency, refuses to finance U.S. companies seeking to work on China’s Three Gorges Dam project.

Wendy Guey, 12, from West Palm Beach, Florida, wins the 69th National Spelling Bee by correctly spelling “vivisepulture.”

Pres. Clinton officially authorizes renewal of China’s MFN status for an additional year.

South Korea and Japan are chosen as joint hosts for the 2002 World Cup soccer tournament. The U.S. will host the 1999 women’s World Cup soccer tournament. . . . Timothy Leary, 75, clinical psychologist who became the world’s bestknown advocate of the use of hallucinogenic and psychedelic drugs, dies in Beverly Hills, California, of cancer.

Jesse Hill Ford, 66, white novelist and screenwriter who depicted racial conflict in the American South, dies in Nashville, Tennessee, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. . . . In horse-racing, Cigar takes his 15th straight victory in the Massachusetts Handicap at Suffolk Downs in Boston, Massachusetts.

Amos Tversky, 59, cognitive psychologist whose findings became influential in the disciplines of economics, medicine and public policy, dies in Stanford, California, of complications from skin cancer.

The Rising Star Baptist Church in Greensboro, Alabama, is destroyed by fire.

In Loving v. U.S., the Supreme Court rules unanimously to uphold rules governing the implementation of capital punishment in the armed services. . . . U.S. officials arrest Julian Salazar Calero, who is wanted in Peru for his alleged involvement in a 1991 terrorist attack by the Shining Path guerrilla group.

In Smiley v. Citibank, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that nationally chartered banks may charge credit-card holders late-payment fees, regardless of whether card holders live in states that prohibit such fines.

At the Tony Awards, Master Class wins for best play, and Rent becomes the first musical since A Chorus Line in 1976 to capture both a Tony and a Pulitzer, which it received in April. . . . Ray Combs, 40, TV game-show host and standup comedian, is found dead at a hospital in Glendale, California, where he apparently hanged himself.

Tommy Collins, 67, boxer whose severe beating in a 1953 fight prompted reforms in U.S. boxing, dies in Boston, Massachusetts. . . . Peter Glenville, 82, English-born theater and film director, dies in New York City of unreported causes. . . . The Runaway Jury, by John Grisham, tops the bestseller list.

A 32-year-old piano teacher is beaten almost to death in broad daylight in Central Park. The attack triggers an outpouring of concern, in which hundreds of New Yorkers send cards and gifts to the young woman’s hospital room.

May 30

May 31

June 1

June 2

June 3

June 4

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

876—June 5–10, 1996

June 5

World Affairs

Europe

The Organization of American States (OAS) approves a measure condemning U.S. legislation known as the Helms-Burton law, which was passed in March to strengthen the economic embargo against Cuba, as a violation of international law.

In Bosnia-Herzegovina, a test trench is dug at Nova Kasaba and reveals six corpses, and the entire site is believed to contain the bodies of as many as 2,700 Muslims slaughtered while escaping from Srebrenica.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

In the wake of the June 4 murders, the Red Cross suspends its operations in Burundi.

Asia & the Pacific Hartono Reksono Dharsono, 70, Indonesian military officer who became a prominent dissident and was jailed for subversion, 1986–90, after he challenged the government’s official account of a fatal 1984 riot, dies in Bandung, Indonesia, of lung cancer.

Turkish premier Mesut Yilmaz resigns from his post, effectively ending the rule of a conservative coalition plagued by bitter infighting since its rise to power in March. . . . Reports confirm that investigators have exhumed the remains of 20 Muslims in Jesovo, a town in central Bosnia. At least 63 bodies have been discovered in a mass grave in Jajce.

June 6

Turkish president Suleyman Demirel asks the Islamic Welfare (Refah) Party, which holds the largest number of seats in Turkey’s parliament based on December 1995 elections, to form a government. Opposition by Turkey’s secular establishment has prevented Muslim parties from ever ruling the republic during its 73-year history. . . . One million Bulgarians protest the government’s economic and social policies. . . . The running mate of Moscow’s Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, Valery Shantsev, and two others are injured when a bomb goes off under Shantsev’s car.

June 7

In response to the June 4 deaths in Burundi’s Cibitoke province, 28 aid agencies start a one-week suspension of aid to Burundi.

Canadian immigration authorities order the deportation of Yelena Olshevskaya and Dmitry Olshevsky, two alleged Russian spies.

Croatia arrests Zlatko Aleksovski, a Bosnian Croat, on charges of murder and mistreatment of Muslim prisoners in Bosnia’s Lasva valley in 1993. Aleksovski’s capture marks the first time Croatia arrests a suspect on war-crimes charges. . . . Human-rights advocates state that Turkish police are arresting hundreds of people at protests near the UN Conference on Human Settlements in Istanbul.

June 8

Zhang Xianliang, a Chinese dissident writer, is released from a labor camp after serving a three-year sentence for attempting to commemorate the 1989 prodemocracy crackdown in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

China announces that it has exploded a nuclear bomb in an underground test. It also reveals that the country will conduct only one more nuclear test before September, when it and 37 other nations will sign the nuclear test ban if an agreement is reached.

June 9

June 10

Slovenia signs an association agreement with the EU and becomes the 10th country from Eastern and Central Europe to become an associate member of the group.

Russian nationalities minister Vyacheslav Mikhailov and Aslan Maskhadov, the chief of staff of the rebel forces in Chechnya, reach agreement on accords to withdraw Russian soldiers from Chechnya and end the conflict. . . . Amid a flurry of protests, historic negotiations aimed at bringing peace to Northern Ireland, or Ulster, begin in Belfast. . . . After hearing his appeal, an Italian court sentences tycoon Carlo De Benedetti to four years and six months in prison in connection with the 1982 collapse of Banco Ambrosiano, which was then Italy’s largest private bank.

Hezbollah guerrillas kill five Israeli soldiers and wound eight others in an ambush in Israel’s self-declared security zone in southern Lebanon. The attack is the deadliest since April, when Israel and Lebanon accepted U.S.-brokered terms for a cease-fire. Israel’s armed forces respond by launching an artillery attack against the outskirts of the Lebanese town of Nabatiye. One Lebanese soldier is reportedly killed and one civilian wounded in the shelling.

In China, dissident Ren Wanding is released after serving a seven-year prison term for accusing the government of human-rights abuses, for urging that political prisoners be freed, and for his role in the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 5–10, 1996—877

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

A form letter revealing that White House staff sought confidential FBI files on Billy Dale, the former head of the White House travel office, seven months after he was fired, is made public.

Pres. Clinton nominates Admiral Jay Johnson to replace Admiral Jeremy (Mike) Boorda, who died in May, as director of naval operations. . . . The House passes, 268153, a proposal to restrict aid to Turkey unless that country agrees to end its blockade against Armenia and to admit that the Turkish government participated in genocide against Armenians between 1915 and 1923.

The trustees of the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund confirm that the fund will be bankrupt by 2001, barring changes. . . . Joseph Waldholtz, pleads guilty in Washington, D.C., to bank, election and tax fraud. At the same time, a judge in Salt Lake City, Utah, grants Wadholtz and Rep. Enid Greene (R, Utah), a divorce. . . . More than 6,000 members of the International Association of Machinists at the St. Louis, Missouri, plant of McDonnell Douglas Corp. walk off their jobs.

The House votes, 289-136, to grant the state of Wisconsin waivers of some federal regulations, allowing the state to enact a welfare overhaul plan that will replace cash entitlements with work programs. . . . A family of four voluntarily leaves the Freemen compound outside of Jordan, Montana, the site of an ongoing standoff with the FBI that started in March. . . . A blaze destroys a building on the grounds of the Matthews-Murkland Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Jerry Plotkin, 62, who was the only nongovernment employee among the 52 Americans held hostage by Iranian militants from Nov. 4, 1979, to Jan. 20, 1981, at the U.S. embassy in Teheran, dies in Los Angeles after a long illness.

The Senate rejects, 64-35, a proposed amendment to the Constitution that would require Congress to balance the federal budget. Proponents of the measure fall three votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to send the proposal to state legislatures for approval.

In response to the form letter revealed on June 4, White House officials admit that the FBI files on Billy Dale, the former head of the White House travel office, along with 329 others, were improperly obtained as the result of a bureaucratic mix-up.

The Air Force’s official report on the April crash of an Air Force jet near Dubrovnik, Croatia, that killed Commerce Secretary Ronald Brown and all 34 other people on board blames the accident on a combination of factors, including pilot error and the failure of air force commanders to carry out a mandated safety evaluation at the airport near Dubrovnik.

Statistics suggest that only 27% of Republicans favor keeping the plank in the GOP platform that calls for a constitutional amendment banning abortion. Sixty-six percent state that the plank should be removed from the platform.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Data reveal that ticket sales in New York City’s Broadway district reached a record $436 million for the 1995–96 season. The ticket sales total is up 7.3% from the 1994–95 season, which set the previous record of $406 million.

George Davis Snell, 92, Nobel Prize-winning geneticist and biologist who identified groups of genes that control the body’s rejection or acceptance of foreign tissues, dies in Bar Harbor, Maine.

June 6

Max Factor (Francis Factor Jr.) 91, motion-picture makeup artist, cosmetics entrepreneur, and son of Max Factor, dies in Los Angeles after a heart attack.

Steffi Graf of Germany retains her French Open women’s tennis title by defeating Arantxa Sanchez Vicario of Spain. . . . In horse racing, Editor’s Note wins the 128th running of the Belmont Stakes in Elmont, New York.

C(onrad) Arnholt Smith, 97, banker, businessman, and baseball-team owner who had a controlling interest in U.S. National Bank, which collapsed in 1973 with $400 million in debt—at the time the largest bank failure in U.S. history—dies in Del Mar, California, of unreported causes.

Black church leaders and civilrights lawyers meet with Attorney General Janet Reno and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin to discuss federal reaction to a spate of blazes of predominantly black churches.

Australian long-distance swimmer Susie Maroney, 21, claims a world record after swimming 88.5 miles (142 km) across the Florida Straits. . . . Yevgeny Kafelnikov of Russia beats Germany’s Michael Stich to win the French Open men’s tennis title. In Lockheed v. Spin, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that federal law does not prohibit companies from requiring employees to forfeit their rights to bring future lawsuits against them in exchange for special benefits linked to earlyretirement packages.

Senate majority leader Robert J. Dole (R, Kans.) backs the inclusion of language supporting tolerance for abortion-rights supporters in a Republican Party platform plank that calls for a constitutional amendment outlawing abortion. . . . In Whren v. U.S., the Supreme Court rules unanimously that police officers may stop motorists for minor traffic violations, even if the officers’ primary intent in stopping drivers is to search their vehicles for drugs. . . . A fire burns a church with a predominantly black congregation in Greenville, Texas.

June 5

June 7

June 8

June 9

June 10

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

878—June 11–16, 1996

World Affairs

In Russia, in explosion on a Moscow subway train kills four people and injures 12. . . . After peace talks regarding Chechnya conclude, mediators from the Chechen rebels and the OSCE are fired upon as they return to Grozny, the Chechen capital. Eight people are injured. . . . Slovenia issues new bonds, worth $812.5 million, for the first time since its secession from Yugoslavia in 1991.

June 11

June 14

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In response to the June 4 killings, of three of its workers, the Red Cross removes its aid workers from Burundi.

An explosion in a shopping mall in Osasco, a suburb of Sao Paulo, Brazil, kills 39 people and injures some 470 others.

Reports reveal that 16 people have been killed in political violence in weeks leading up to elections in Bangladesh.

Colombia’s House of Representatives, the lower chamber of Congress, votes 111-43 to drop charges that Pres. Ernesto Samper Pizano accepted $6 million from the Cali drug cartel to finance his 1994 presidential election campaign. Juan Carlos Gaviria, brother of former Colombian president and current OAS president Cesar Gaviria, is freed by police from kidnappers who threatened to kill him if Congress cleared Samper.

The liberal Awami League, Bangladesh’s main opposition party, wins in general elections. Seven people are killed during polling. . . . Two Australian army helicopters collide in midair, explode, and crash during a training mission in Queensland state. The accident kills 18 people and wounds 10 others in the country’s worst peacetime military incident in 32 years. . . . India’s United Front coalition survives a confidence vote in the wake of May elections that left no party with a parliamentary majority. . . . Le Mai, 56, Vietnamese diplomat, dies after suffering a heart attack.

The Turkish government reports that renewed fighting in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish provinces has led to the deaths of 72 Kurdish rebels and six Turkish soldiers.

June 12

June 13

Europe

Esad Landzo and Hazim Delic, two Bosnian Muslims charges of multiple murders and rape at a camp in Celebici, are extradited by the Muslim-led Bosnian government to stand trial at the international war crimes tribunal regarding the war in Bosnia.

Delegates at the second UN Conference on Human Settlements, or Habitat II, approve by consensus a final conference declaration intended to serve as a blueprint for dealing with urban problems through the 21st century, when for the first time more than half of the world population is expected to live in urban areas.

Foreign aid workers report that army troops have killed at least 70 civilians in northwestern Gitega province in Burundi.

An arms-control agreement that limits the weaponry to be possessed by each part of the former Yugoslavia is signed by Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia.

Sumitomo Corp., Japan’s largest trading company, reveals that its former head of copper trading may have caused the company losses of $1.8 billion over a 10-year period.

Judicial authorities in Guerrero, Mexico, clear Guerrero’s former governor, Ruben Figueroa Alcocer, who resigned in March, of involvement in the fatal shooting of 17 peasants in a politically motivated incident.

A bomb explodes in Manchester, England, injuring more than 200 people. . . . Some 350,000 workers in Bonn, Germany’s capital, hold a massive rally protesting austerity measures planned by the federal government. The demonstration is the largest protest rally in the nation since the end of World War II. . . . Haris Silajdzic, who has resigned as the premier of Bosnia, is attacked with a pipe at a rally in Cazin, Bosnia.

June 15

Russian president Boris Yeltsin finishes first in a field of 10 candidates in the first round of presidential elections. He will face Communist Party leader Gennadi Zyuganov, who places second. . . . Albania’s ruling Democratic Party wins all 17 districts contested in a partial rerun of nationwide parliamentary elections. The Socialist Party-led opposition boycotts the vote.

June 16

Reports reveal that UN and Somali leaders estimate some 9,000 people have been displaced over a six-week period due to food shortages and fighting in the Juba River valley.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 11–16, 1996—879

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Majority Leader Robert Dole (R, Kans.) resigns from the Senate, ending his 11-year tenure as the GOP leader in the chamber and his 35-year career as a legislator, to focus on his presidential campaign. . . . Wilson Watkins Wyatt, 90, (D, Ky.), who served as mayor of Louisville, 1941–45, and as lieutenant governor of Kentucky, 1959–63, dies in Louisville, Kentucky, of unreported causes.

A court-martial jury in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, finds an Army sergeant, William Kreutzer, 27, guilty of premeditated murder when he opened fire on members of his own division, the 82nd Airborne Division, in an October 1995 sniper attack.

A panel of three federal judges in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, rules that the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which was partly designed to regulate the distribution of indecent material over the Internet global computer network, violates the First Amendment to the Constitution. . . . Pres. Clinton, speaking in Greeleyville, South Carolina, decries a recent rash of suspected arson at predominantly black southern churches. Data reveal that 33 possible arsons have occurred at southern black churches in the last 18 months.

A court-martial jury in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, sentences Army sergeant William Kreutzer, 27, convicted June 11, to the death penalty for killing an officer in an October 1995 sniper attack.

The House passes, 216-211, the final version of the fiscal 1997 budget resolution that is designed to keep federal spending on a track toward a balanced budget.

NYC police disclose that they have arrested John Royster, who confessed to a string of attacks on women, including the June 4 nearfatal beating of a music teacher. . . . The last 16 members of the Freemen peacefully surrender from their complex near Jordan, Montana, after a standoff that started Mar. 25, one of the longest armed sieges in U.S. history. . . . In two separate cases involving race-based redistricting plans, the Supreme Court strikes down majority black and Hispanic congressional districts in Texas and North Carolina, asserting the districts are racial gerrymanders that violate the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection.

The Board of Immigration Appeals, the highest immigration court in the U.S., grants political asylum to Fauziya Kasinga, 19, who fled her native country, Togo, to avoid forcible genital mutilation. The ruling sets a precedent for the 179 immigration judges in the U.S., imposing a uniform standard for future cases of women fleeing the rite, which is practiced in many African cultures.

A federal grand jury in Phoenix, Arizona, indicts state governor Fife Symington III (R) on 23 counts of fraud and extortion stemming from his business ventures and his filing for personal bankruptcy.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle In hockey, the Colorado Avalanche wins their first NHL Stanley Cup title, over the Florida Panthers. . . . Lonne Elder III, 69, who was one of the first black American playwrights to enjoy major commercial success, dies in Woodland Hills, California, after a long illness.

Marge Schott, owner of baseball’s Cincinnati Reds, agrees to give up control of day-to-day operations of the team for two and a half years because of her recent inflammatory remarks. . . . The Southern Baptist Convention votes to censure Walt Disney Co. for offering health insurance benefits to the domestic partners of its employees.

British and French researchers studying Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) report they have uncovered the first empirical evidence of a connection between the human ailment and mad-cow disease.

June 11

June 12

June 13

The Senate passes, 53-46, the Republican-backed budget resolution, which is designed to keep federal spending on a track toward a balanced budget.

June 14

Ella Fitzgerald, 79, known as “the First Lady of Song,” whose smooth voice and versatile improvising made her one of the most celebrated musicians of her era and who won at least 13 Grammy Awards, dies in Beverly Hills, California, of unreported causes.

Basketball’s Chicago Bulls win the NBA title, defeating the Seattle SuperSonics 87-75. . . . Mel (Melvin Allen Israel) Allen, 83, sports announcer, dies in Greenwich, Connecticut, after a long illness. . . . Steve Jones wins the U.S. Open golf tournament. . . . Mexico’s soccer team wins the U.S. Cup title over the U.S., which places third in the round-robin event.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 15

June 16

880—June 17–23, 1996

June 17

June 18

World Affairs

Europe

The international war crimes tribunal investigating the war in Bosnia frees Goran Lajic, a Bosnian Serb, who was mistakenly identified as a guard at the Keraterm concentration camp in northwestern Bosnia who has the same name.

Britain’s Parliament approves, by a wide margin, a package of reforms to the nation’s divorce laws. The overhaul legislation is regarded as the most significant divorce-reform bill to pass through Parliament since 1969.

Following the June 14 signing of the arms accord by representatives from Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia, the UN Security Council formally agrees to lift its 1991 heavy weapons embargo on the former Yugoslav republics.

In secret balloting, Latvia’s parliament reelects Pres. Guntis Ulmanis for a new three-year term.

Africa & the Middle East

Statscan estimates that Canada’s population will be 29,955,000 on July 1, 1996.

Walter Guevara Arce, 84, Bolivian revolutionary leader and politician who, in 1979, was appointed interim president of Bolivia but was ousted by a military coup after only 85 days in office, dies in La Paz, Bolivia, after a heart attack.

June 20

June 21

June 22

Leaders of the 15 EU countries agree to a plan that will phase out the multinational ban on British beef, enacted to prevent the spread of BSE, or mad-cow disease. As part of the deal, British officials agree to institute a series of measures designed to gain control over the disease in British cattle and vow to end its month-long policy of refusing to cooperate with EU business.

In Somalia, fighting between clans loyal to Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid and those supporting Usman Hasan Ali Ato erupts in a battle for control of a key Mogadishu road.

One person dies and at least 80 others are injured in street riots in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, as Pres. Suharto begins taking action to destabilize the PDI, one of two opposition groups officially sanctioned by the government. . . In Bangladesh, the Awami League secures its victory in a second poll in 27 districts in which election voting irregularities were alleged.

In Panama, Pres. Ernesto Perez Balladares admits that he inadvertently accepted $51,000 for his 1994 presidential campaign from a company allegedly owned by accused drug trafficker Jose Castrillon Henao. . . . During an investigation of 16 children who have been diagnosed with kidney failure over the last three weeks in Haiti, the CDC from the U.S. identifies a contaminant in a over-the-counter anti-fever medication as diethylene glycol, which is commonly used in antifreeze and lacquer.

All Arab League members except Iraq, which is not invited, attend an emergency summit convened for the purpose of forging a broadbased Arab response to the Israeli electorate’s selection of Benjamin Netanyahu, of the rightist Likud party, as prime minister.

James Leander Nichols, who served as an economic envoy in Myanmar for several European countries and was a close political ally of Aung San Suu Kyi, dies in a Myanmar prison while serving a three-year jail term for operating an unlicensed fax machine. His death causes controversy and angers many EU nations. Andreas George Papandreou, 77, leftist premier of Greece, 1981–89, 1993–96, dies in Athens, Greece, of a heart attack.

June 23

Asia & the Pacific

At a funeral in Perth, Western Australia, Australian prime minister John Howard, defense minister Ian McLachlan, and other dignitaries join 2,000 mourners to honor the victims of the June 12 crash of two army helicopters, that killed 18 people. Simultaneous services take place at other sites nationwide.

The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) claims responsibility for the June 15 bombing in Manchester, England. Separately, Irish police raid a major explosives factory operated by IRA the near Clonaslee, Ireland.

June 19

The Americas

In Brazil, Paulo Cesar Farias, the alleged mastermind of a massive influence-peddling scheme that brought about the resignation of Pres. Fernando Collor de Mello in 1992, is found shot to death in a beach house in Maceio, a town in Alagoas state.

Bangladesh’s Sheik Hasina is sworn in as premier.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 17–23, 1996—881

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The Supreme Court orders the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Ohio, to reconsider a 1995 ruling to uphold an amendment prohibiting the city from adopting any measure to protect the civil right s of homosexuals. . . . In Leavitt v. Jane L., the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, Colorado, overreached its authority by striking down a 1991 Utah law that prohibits abortions from being performed after the 20th week of pregnancy in most cases.

The U.S. and China reach an agreement in a long-running dispute over what the U.S. sees as the Chinese government’s failure to take adequate steps to halt the widespread production in China of so-called pirated goods. The agreement averts a trade war between the countries.

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton responds in writing to a new set of questions presented to her by the Senate panel investigating the socalled Whitewater affair.

The FAA shuts down ValuJet Airlines for an indefinite period after an intensive evaluation uncovers “serious deficiencies” in the airline’s maintenance operations. The acts are prompted by the May crash of ValuJet Flight that killed all 110 people on board. . . . Thomas Samuel Kuhn, 73, professor and scientific historian whose theory of “paradigm shifts” was vastly influential, dies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, after suffering from cancer.

A federal grand jury in Sacramento, California, charges former university professor Theodore J. Kaczynski with 10 felony counts, stemming from two deaths and two injuries that authorities link to the so-called Unabomber . . . A superior court jury in San Jose, California, finds Richard Allen Davis, 42, guilty of kidnapping and murdering 12-yearold Polly Klaas in 1993 after abducting her from a slumber party.

Two army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters collide in the air at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, killing six soldiers and injuring 30 people, including two civilians. It is the second helicopter crash at Fort Campbell in 1996.

The Republican majority and the Democratic minority on the Senate Whitewater Committee both issue their final reports. The Republican report concludes that White House officials, including First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, abused their power by monitoring and at times obstructing a federal probe into the Clintons’ relation to Whitewater. The Democrats’ report indicates the panel found no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Pres. Clinton, his wife, or any senior White House officials.

Reports reveal that a new species of monkey, the Satere marmoset (Callithrix saterei), has been discovered in the Amazon rain forest in Brazil. It is the sixth new monkey species to be discovered in Brazil since 1990.

G(erard) David Schine, 68, an investigative aide for Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy (R, Wis.) in the 1950s, dies in an airplane crash near Burbank, California.

The House votes, 415-0, to approve a bill that will impose economic sanctions against foreign companies that invest in Iran and Libya. The measure sparks debate. . . . A navy F/A-18 jet crashes in Bethalto, Illinois, killing the pilot, an employee of McDonnell Douglas Corp.

In Lane v. Pena, the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that under some circumstances, individuals may not sue federal government agencies for damages for failing to comply with a law that bars discrimination against disabled people. . . . The California Supreme Court rules unanimously that judges who consider the tough prison sentences mandated under the state’s “three strikes and you’re out” law to be too severe in a case may hand down lighter sentences. A federal appeals court panel in Washington, D.C., grants independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr authority to investigate the White House’s improper request for hundreds of confidential FBI files. . . . NYC police charge Heriberto Seda, 28, with murder and attempted murder in the so-called Zodiac killings, a double crime wave in 1990 and 1992–93 that terrorized the city.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

June 17

June 18

June 19

Prosecutors from the Whitewater independent counsel’s office charge that Bruce R. Lindsey, one of Pres. Clinton’s closest advisers, conspired to conceal a $30,000 bank withdrawal from federal regulators in 1990. . . . The Senate confirms, 91-7, Alan Greenspan for a third four-year term as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. The Senate also approves Alice M. Rivlin and Laurence H. Meyer to vacant seats on the Fed board.

The U.S. space shuttle Columbia blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, to carry out a medical and science mission.

Joseph Green (born Joseph Greenberg), 96, Polish-born director, dies in Great Neck, New York, after suffering from emphysema. . . . In Brown v. Pro Football Inc., the Supreme Court rules, 8-1, that the NFL did not violate antitrust laws when it forced players to accept a salary cap after contract talks with the players’ union reached an impasse in 1989.

A federal appeals panel dismisses all fraud charges against Thereza Imanishi-Kari, a former researcher at MIT who was found guilty of scientific misconduct in connection with a study published in 1986. The paper, coauthored by Nobel Prizewinning scientist David Baltimore, stirred controversy over the issue of scientific integrity.

The Department of Defense announces that a bunker at the Kamishiyah weapons storage site in Iraq contained chemical agents when it was blown up by U.S. troops in March 1991 after the end of the Persian Gulf war. Between 300 and 400 U.S. soldiers were nearby at the time of the detonation, which Pentagon officials theorize may have released deadly nerve gases.

June 20

June 21

Bill (William) Emerson, 58, Republican congressman from Missouri since 1981, dies in Bethesda, Maryland, of lung cancer. . . . Terrel H. Bell, 74, who served as a top U.S. education official under three Republican presidents, 1970–76, 1981–85, dies in Salt Lake City, Utah, of pulmonary fibrosis.

June 22

Elbert Parr Tuttle, 98, federal judge who played a pivotal role in the civilrights struggle of the 1950s and 1960s in the South and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Pres. Jimmy Carter in 1980, dies in Atlanta, Georgia, of unreported causes.

June 23

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

882—June 24–28, 1996

World Affairs

June 24

June 25

June 28

Africa & the Middle East

Irish police report they have found 130 pounds (60 kg) of Semtex—an explosive that the IRA has used for numerous bombings—in a factory and a nearby bunker.

Data show that the fighting that erupted June 21 in Mogadishu, Somalia, has left 11 people dead in a battle for control of a key Mogadishu road.

Chile signs an agreement to become an associate member of South America’s Southern Common Market (Mercosur), a customs union founded in January 1995. . . . At a summit, Burundian premier Antoine Nduwayo and Pres. Sylvestre Ntibantunganya appeal for assistance to help end their country’s ethnic strife. The heads of state from six African countries agree to set up a committee to study an official request for “security assistance.”

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

An estimated 2,000 people riot in Quebec City, Canada, breaking windows, looting shops, and damaging the National Assembly building. Police deploy 240 officers who use tear gas and a water cannon. Five officers are injured, and police make almost 100 arrests.

A powerful truck bomb explodes on the perimeter of a military complex near the eastern Saudi Arabian city of Dhahran, killing 19 U.S. servicemen and wounding several hundred people. It is called the most deadly guerrilla attack on Americans in the Middle East since 1983. . . . Mzawandile MacPherson Piliso, 73, South African activist in the ANC and long-time member of its national executive committee, dies of unreported causes.

Rioting erupts in London and other English cities after England’s football games loss to Germany. Some 200 people are arrested and 66 injured in rioting centered at London’s Trafalgar Square. . . . Veronica Guerin, one of Ireland’s leading crime reporters, is shot dead in her car near Clondalkin, a suburb of the Irish capital, Dublin.

June 26

June 27

Europe

The UN International Criminal Tribunal announces the indictment of eight Bosnian Serbs on charges of rape. It is the first time rape is treated as a war crime. . . . G-7 leaders hold an annual summit. . . . The International Civil Aviation Organization concludes that the U.S. planes downed by Cuba in February were over international waters, not Cuban airspace.

The three political parties that comprised the Czech Republic’s previous government form a ruling coalition. . . . Italy’s constitutional court overturns a 1995 decision and rules unanimously against allowing the extradition of Pietro Venezia, a suspect in the 1993 murder of a U.S. state tax official, to the U.S. . . . Iceland’s parliament approves a bill allowing homosexuals to marry in civil ceremonies.

The UN Security Council votes to extend the presence of an international peacekeeping force in Haiti through Nov. 30.

Turkish president Suleyman Demirel appoints Necmettin Erbakan to assume the role of premier. Separately, nine Turkish soldiers are killed and 20 others are wounded in Tunceli when a bomb carried by a Kurdish rebel explodes during a military parade. . . . Some 300 illegal immigrants from Africa occupy a Roman Catholic Church in Paris in an effort to avoid expulsion from France. . . . Ukraine’s parliament votes to approve a new constitution. . . . A bomb explodes at a British military installation in Osnabrueck, Germany.

FBI personnel from the U.S. arrive in Saudi Arabia to assist Saudi investigators in determining the identity of the assailants of the June 25 attack near Dhahran. . . . Three Israeli soldiers are killed an ambush near the West Bank city of Jericho.

Reports indicate that Chinese judges have convicted 1,725 people nationwide of drug charges, marking the UN-declared World AntiDrugs Day. Of those convicted, 769 are sentenced to death or to life in prison, and at least 230 are executed.

Final returns for all of the 300 parliamentary seats in Bangladesh show that the Awami League, led by Sheik Hasina Wazed, has won a majority with 147 seats.

In Canada’s Ontario Court, Provincial Division, Judge Paul Belanger finds Andre Dallaire, 34, who broke into the prime minister’s Ottawa residence in November 1995, guilty of the attempted murder of P.M. Jean Chrétien. . . . Some 50 armed guerrillas, identifying themselves as members of the previously unknown Popular Revolutionary Army, interrupt a memorial ceremony for 17 slain peasants a year earlier in the southern state of Guerrero. The guerrillas clash with police near Chilpancingo, Guerrero’s capital, injuring three police officers.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 24–28, 1996—883

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A federal jury rules that the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, used excessive force against the radical group MOVE in 1985. In that incident, police dropped a bomb on the group’s headquarters, starting a blaze that killed 11 people, including five children. . . . . In U.S. v. Ursery, the Supreme Court rules, 8-1, that the government can both prosecute individuals for criminal activities and seize their property through civil forfeiture proceedings without violating the Constitution’s double-jeopardy clause. . . . In Lewis v. U.S., the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that defendants who face a single trial for numerous petty criminal offenses are not entitled to a jury trial, even if they face a possible prison sentence that is longer than six months.

June 24

June 25

Craig Livingstone resigns as head of the White House’s personnel security office and accepts responsibility for the wrongful acquisition of FBI files but denies any malicious motives. . . . In Medtronic v. Lohr, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that a federal law regulating the manufacture of medical devices does not exempt manufacturers from suits in state courts brought by individuals. . . . J(ames) Lee Rankin, 88, lawyer who argued in Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, a case which resulted in outlawing school segregation, dies in Santa Cruz, California, after a series of strokes.

In U.S. v. Virginia, the Supreme Court rules, 7-1, that Virginia Military Institute (VMI), a state-funded all-male military academy in Lexington, Virginia, violates women’s 14th Amendment right to equal protection. The high court’s ruling will affect The Citadel, the nation’s only other state-funded all-male academy. . . . Pres. Clinton certifies that the Muslim-led government of Bosnia-Herzegovina has “ended its military and intelligence relationship” with Iran and expelled all Iranian military units from its territory. The certification allows the U.S. to send $70 million to Bosnia.

In Felker v. Turpin, the Supreme Court rules unanimously to uphold portions of recently passed federal legislation, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, that impose new curbs on the rights of death-row inmates in state prisons to seek federal reviews of their convictions. The case is the first challenge of the new laws.

In Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee v. FEC, the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that spending limits set out by federal campaign-financing laws do not apply to political parties if the parties are acting independently of their candidates in funding campaign advertisements.

Nearly 500 guests attend a New York City gala in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Adolph S. Ochs’s purchase of The New York Times newspaper.

Mollie H. Beattie, 49, the first woman to head the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, dies in Townsend, Vermont, of brain cancer.

Peter Adair, 53, documentary film director whose work examines social issues surrounding homosexuality, dies in San Francisco, California, of complications from AIDS. . . . Albert Romolo (Cubby) Broccoli, 87, producer of 16 of the 17 movies featuring James Bond, dies in Beverly Hills, California, after suffering from heart disease.

The Supreme Court rules, 7-2, in two separate cases involving free speech and political-patronage issues, that independent government contractors cannot be fired for publicly criticizing the government bodies that hired them or for backing political candidates. The cases are Board of County Commissioners, Wabaunsee County v. Umbehr and O’Hare Truck Service Inc. v. City of Northlake.

The FDA reproductive health advisory panel unanimously rules that high doses of currently available birth-control pills are safe and effective when used soon after intercourse to prevent pregnancy.

In Denver Area Educational Telecommunications Consortium Inc. v. FCC, the Supreme Court, in a fragmented decision, rules that cable-TV operators may restrict access to indecent programs on certain commercial channels but not on public-access channels. The regulation at issue is known as the Helms Amendment.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 26

June 27

June 28

884—June 29–July 5, 1996

World Affairs

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Leonel Fernandez Reyna wins a runoff election to become the new president of the Dominican Republic. Fernandez will replace Pres. Joaquin Balaguer, 89, who has served seven nonconsecutive terms as president in the past 30 years. . . . Fernando De la Rua of the opposition Radical Civic Union (UCR) wins the first-ever mayoral election in Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital. The mayor of Buenos Aires was in the past appointed by the president.

Mongolia’s democratic opposition coalition wins a surprise landslide victory over the ruling formerly communist Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP) in parliamentary elections.

Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, one of Iceland’s leading left-wing politicians, is elected president of Iceland.

June 29

The Muslim-dominated List of Citizens for a United Mostar comes in first in elections to establish a unified government for the southern Bosnian city, which has been split between Muslims and Croats since the two factions’ 1993 war. . . . The IRA claims responsibility for the June 28 bombing at a British military installation in Osnabrueck, Germany. The bombing reportedly is the first IRA attack on the British military in mainland Europe since 1990. No casualties resulted from the assault.

June 30

A new law takes effect in Australia’s Northern Territory, making the Northern Territory’s government the world’s first to sanction voluntary euthanasia.

A car bomb explodes in Bastia, a city on the French island of Corsica, killing a Corsican separatist and wounding two other nationalists and several bystanders. . . . Alfred Edward Marks (born Alfred Touchinsky), 75, actor, and singer who appeared on one of the first comedy sketch shows ever to run on British television, dies after suffering from cancer.

July 1

Israeli jets attack a base of the Fatah Uprising guerrilla organization in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa valley. Israel describes the attack as a retaliatory gesture for the June 26 ambush near the West Bank city of Jericho in which three Israeli soldiers were killed.

July 2

In a runoff presidential election, Russian president Boris Yeltsin defeats the Communist Party’s Gennadi Zyuganov by garnering 54% of the vote. . . . Hungary’s cabinet and leaders of the country’s Jewish community agree to set up a foundation to make restitution to Jews for property seized by the government during World War II. . . . . British prime minister John Major announces that the Stone of Scone, a symbol of Scottish nationalism that was removed from Scotland in 1296, will be returned to Scotland.

July 3

About 80 people are killed in an attack on a tea factory in Teza, just hours before Burundian government and army officials meet to discuss the proposed intervention in its civil strife.

Mexican authorities arrest Hilario Mesino Acosta, leader of the radical Southern Sierra Peasant Organization (OCSS), on charges of sedition for alleged ties to the Popular Revolutionary Army.

The United Nations AIDS program estimates that at least 1.3 million people died from AIDS or AIDSrelated illnesses in 1995 and that HIV is expected to cause more than 3.1 million new infections in 1996.

Amnesty International reports that China has executed at least 1,000 people since the nation began a crackdown on crime Apr. 28. According to Amnesty, the number of people executed in China since late April is the highest since 1983.

Reports confirm that Mongolia’s democratic opposition coalition, which won a surprise landslide victory on June 30, has nominated its leader, Radnaasumberel Gonchigdorj, as the country’s next premier.

Ethnic Hungarians from throughout Central and Eastern Europe hold a meeting in Budapest, the Hungarian capital. . . . Ten of the 300 illegal immigrants from Africa occupying a Roman Catholic Church in Paris, France, since June 28 launch a hunger strike.

July 4

July 5

Africa & the Middle East

In Bosnia, Finnish investigators recover 30 bodies from a hillside near Srebrenica where they have been lying exposed since July 1995. . . . After a conference of ethnic Hungarians from throughout Central and Eastern Europe, delegates call for “autonomy” for ethnic Hungarians, or Magyars, living outside of Hungary.

Jorge Luis Ochoa Vasquez, the reputed second-in-command in the Medellin drug cartel, is released from prison after serving less than 51⁄2 years of an 81⁄2-year sentence.

A court in Hobart, the capital of the Australian state of Tasmania, indicts Martin Bryant on 34 counts of murder stemming from a shooting spree that killed 35 people and wounded 18 in April. The shooting incident was the worst mass killing in modern Australian history.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 29–July 5, 1996—885

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Steve Geppi, owner of Diamond Comics Distribution, pays $61,900 for a partly restored 10-cent comic book in which the character Superman made his 1938 debut.

Captain David McCampbell, 86, U.S. Navy fighter pilot and officer who won the Medal of Honor for his exploits against Japanese forces during World War II and was credited with downing a total of 34 planes during the war, dies in Riviera Beach, Florida, of unreported causes.

In Texas v. Hopwood, the Supreme Court lets stand a ruling issued in March by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that struck down a racebased admissions policy at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, Texas. . . . Federal authorities arrest 12 members of an Arizona paramilitary group known as the Viper Militia and charge them with conspiring to blow up several buildings. . . . William T. Cahill, 84, Republican governor of New Jersey (1970–74), dies in Haddonfield, New Jersey, of a circulatory ailment. In Van Nuys, California, Superior Court judge Stanley Weisberg sentences the Menendez brothers— Lyle, 28, and Erik, 26—each to two consecutive life terms in prison without parole for the 1989 murders of their parents. . . . A Chicago judge dismisses rape and murder charges against Dennis Williams, William Rainge, and Kenneth Adams, who have spent 18 years in prison, when new genetic evidence shows that they did not commit those crimes.

Germany defeats the Czech Republic to win soccer’s European Championship.

In U.S. v. Winstar Corp., the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that the federal government knowingly breached its contracts with savings and loan institutions when Congress revised several accounting laws in 1989. . . . Data show that the purchasing managers’ index registered 54.3% in June, up from May’s revised figure of 49.3%. The June level marks a 16-month high.

Margaux Hemingway, 41, granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway and a fashion model in the 1970s, is found dead in Santa Monica, California, in an apparent suicide. . . . Steve (Stoyan) Tesich, 53, who won an Oscar for screenwriting, dies of a heart attack while on vacation in Canada. . . . The Runaway Jury, by John Grisham, tops the bestseller list.

The Department of Defense indicates that 55% of women in the U.S. military have reported some form of sexual harassment in the previous 12 months, including rape, assault, groping, and pressure for sexual favors. The figure is down from the 64% recorded in 1988. . . . An independent study of the hightech aircraft and missiles used by the U.S. during the 1991 Persian Gulf war with Iraq finds that the claims made of the effectiveness of those weapons were overstated.

June 29

June 30

July 1

July 2

At least eight people die when fire sweeps through a busy fireworks store in Scottown, Ohio.

The FDA approves the sale of the first nonprescription nicotine patch designed to help smokers quit the habit.

July 3

July 4

Clyde E. Wiegand, 81, physicist who was a member of a team that discovered the antiproton in 1955, by using a high-energy accelerator, dies in Oakland, California, of prostate cancer.

Robert Ellis Dunn, 67, choreographer whose classes laid the foundations of postmodern dance and who received a Bessie (New York Dance and Performance Award) in 1985 an American Dance Guild conference award in 1988, dies in New Carrollton, Maryland, after a heart attack.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 5

886—July 6–11, 1996

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

More than 15,000 people from about 125 countries convene in Vancouver, Canada, for the 11th International Conference on AIDS.

Police and military officials bar the Orange Order, a pro-British Protestant group, from leading a parade through a Catholic area of Drumcree, Northern Ireland. The action sparks protests. . . . Polish premier Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz marks the 50th anniversary of the Kielce pogrom, in which at least 42 Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust were beaten and killed.

Abdala Bucaram Ortiz of the center-left Roldosista Party defeats the center-right Social Christian Party’s candidate Jaime Nebot Saadi in Ecuador’s runoff presidential election.

The International Court of Justice, the UN body that adjudicates international law, unanimously advises that the use of nuclear arms will be deemed unlawful in instances where their employment contravenes UN Charter provisions on territorial integrity and political independence. The judges also call on world leaders to pursue negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament.

In response to the parade halted July 7 in Northern Ireland, thousands of Protestant loyalists blockade roads and burn cars in several Ulster cities. . . . In Chechnya, rebels ignore an ultimatum to free an estimated 1,000 Russian prisoners of war. . . . A series of scuffles among legislators breaks out in Turkey’s parliament chambers before the National Assembly confirms the recently formed ruling coalition. . . . Prince Luipold Ferdinand Michael Albrecht, Duke of Bavaria, 91, heir to the Bavarian throne, dies at the family’s castle on Starnberg Lake.

Hurricane Bertha hits the eastern Caribbean Islands with winds gusting as high as 100 miles per hour (160 kmph).

In South Korea, opposition parties drop their boycott of the National Assembly’s opening, and Parliament holds its inaugural session. . . . Kim Jong Il, the presumed leader of North Korea, appears at a memorial rally in Pyongyang, the capital, marking the second anniversary of the death of his father, North Korea’s long-time leader Kim Il Sung. The ceremony is attended by tens of thousands of troops and civilians.

The Australian federal cabinet approves a package of measures designed to restrict public access to TV programs, films, videotapes, and videogames that depict extreme violence.

July 6

July 7

July 8

Because rebels ignored a July 8 deadline, Russian troops ignore a cease-fire and attack the village of Gekhi, 20 miles (32 km) southwest of Grozny, the Chechen capital. . . . Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski presents a plan to ban commercial activity from the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Oswiecim. . . . Nelson Mandela becomes the first South African president to make a state visit to Britain.

Clashes between the factions supporting Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid and those loyal to Ali Mahdi Mohammed erupt in Mogadishu, Somalia.

Hurricane Bertha strikes the Bahamas and Britain’s Turks and Caicos Islands.

African heads of state close an annual summit of the OAU in Yaounde, Cameroon’s capital, and strongly endorse a plan for a regional intervention force for Burundi.

Dalenergo, the state-run power company that serves Russia’s Primorski region, halts regular distribution of electricity to its customers because of a shortage of funds. . . . A team of 15 forensic scientists report they have found the remains of more than 40 people during an excavation of a mass grave in Cerska, Bosnia. . . . Russian forces bomb Makhkety, where Chechen rebel leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev reportedly maintains his headquarters. Rebel sources assert that the bombing and shelling has killed up to 370 Chechen civilians and wounded 170 others.

Palestinian youths clash with Israeli soldiers in the West Bank city of Hebron in protest over delays in a scheduled Israeli troop pullback from the city.

Data suggests that six people have died in the Caribbean since Hurricane Bertha struck the region July 8. . . . Argentine justice minister Rodolfo Carlos Barra resigns amid charges that he once belonged to a 1960s rightist group that allegedly perpetrated attacks on Jews in Argentina. The charges caused an uproar, particularly since Barra was responsible for investigating the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires and the 1994 car bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 87 people.

The UN International Criminal Tribunal issues international arrest warrants for Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic, the political and military leaders, respectively, of the self-styled Bosnian Serb republic. The tribunal calls for an investigation of Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic. . . . The OECD admits Poland as its 28th member and its third former communist state.

In an effort to stave off continuing violence from Protestant demonstrators, officials in Northern Ireland rescind the July 7 ban, against the Orange Order, prompting a wave of demonstrations by Catholic protesters. In Londonderry, Catholic protesters attack police, and more than 50 people are injured in what is described as the city’s worst riots ever. . . . A bomb explodes near the end of the trolley line at Pushkin Square in Moscow, Russia, and injures five people.

July 9

July 10

July 11

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 6–11, 1996—887

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The NAACP opens its convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. . . . Libertarian Party members nominate Harry Browne as their candidate for president.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Pres. Clinton reveals what is called the most sweeping reform of U.S. meat-safety guidelines since the Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1907. The new rules mandate, for the first time ever, that meat and poultry production facilities conduct scientific tests that detect disease-causing bacteria and allow the government to establish minimum quality standards for meat and poultry.

Two passengers are killed and five others are injured when the engine of a Delta Air Lines MD-88 plane explodes during takeoff from Pensacola, Florida.

At the All England Tennis Championship, Germany’s Steffi Graf wins her seventh Wimbledon women’s singles title.

The U.S. space shuttle Columbia lands at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, after carrying out a successful medical and science mission in the longest flight ever for a shuttle. . . . Alexander G. Shulman, 81, Canadian surgeon who pioneered the treatment of burns with ice water and served as the chief of surgery at Los Angeles’s Midway Hospital and director of the Lichtenstein Hernia Institute, dies in Los Angeles, California, of cancer.

Richard Krajicek of the Netherlands wins the men’s singles title at the All England Tennis Championship at Wimbledon, in London. . . . Dave Stockton wins the U.S. Senior Open at the Canterbury Golf Club in Beachwood, Ohio.

An officer in Cuba’s national police force, Lt. Col. Jose Fernandez Pupo, hijacks a Cuban passenger jet and orders the pilot to fly to the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he is detained by INS officials. . . . Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski travels to the U.S. in his first visit to the U.S. since his inauguration in 1995.

Mary Fackler Schiavo, the Transportation Department’s inspector general, tenders a letter of resignation to Pres. Clinton.

Two of Georgia’s black House members—Cynthia McKinney and Sanford Bishop Jr.—win Democratic primaries in congressional districts redrawn in 1995. . . . In Sheff v. O’Neill, the Connecticut Supreme Court rules, 4-3, that racial segregation in public schools in and around Hartford violates the state constitution. . . . Melvin Mouron Belli, 88, lawyer whose clients included Jack Ruby and Lenny Bruce, dies in San Francisco, California.

July 6

July 7

July 8

Israel’s P.M. Benjamin Netanyahu makes his first visit to U.S. president Bill Clinton since winning the Israeli premiership in late May.

The leading pitcher for Cuba’s Olympic baseball team, Rolando Arrojo, defects while the team is in Albany, Georgia. . . . The National League wins MLB’s annual All-Star Game over the American League, 60, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The Senate votes, 74-24, to raise the federal minimum wage by 90 cents, to $5.15, from $4.25, by July 1997. The increase, the first in six years, will affect 10 million workers. . . . Prudential Insurance Co. reveals it has agreed to pay $35.3 million in fines and reimbursements to customers. The statement is issued shortly after a task force from 30 states and the District of Columbia conclude a 14-month probe of the company. The Senate passes, 53-46, the Teamwork for Employees and Management Act, which will allow employers greater flexibility in creating worker-management teams. . . . The Commerce Department reports that the number of Hispanic-owned businesses in the U.S. increased by 76% between 1987 and 1992. . . . Federal prosecutors announce that Simon Fireman, a former official in Robert Dole’s presidential campaign, has agreed to plead guilty to charges involving campaign finance laws.

The U.S. government announces it has revoked Colombian president Ernesto Samper Pizano’s visa, citing evidence that Samper accepted $6 million from the Cali drug cartel for his 1994 presidential campaign. It is the first time that the U.S. denies entry to a democratically elected foreign leader since 1987. . . . An air force F-16 fighter jet crashes into a Pensacola, Florida, house, setting it on fire and killing a four-year-old boy.

In anticipation of Hurricane Bertha, 500,000 coastal residents of Florida are evacuated.

A statue of tennis player Arthur Ashe, the first black man to win the prestigious U.S. Open, Australian Open and Wimbledon tennis tournaments, is unveiled in his hometown of Richmond, Virginia.

In response to the coming of Hurricane Bertha, 350,000 people in South Carolina and North Carolina are evacuated.

Riddick Bowe is declared the victor in a heavyweight boxing match against Andrew Golota of Poland at Madison Square Garden, after Golota is disqualified for delivering his fourth low blow of the fight. The disqualification sparks a brawl among fans, handlers, and managers.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 9

July 10

July 11

888—July 12–17, 1996

July 12

World Affairs

Europe

Thirty-one countries, including the U.S. and Russia, agree to a new treaty intended to control sales of weapons and military technology. . . . The European Court of Justice, the EU’s highest court, rules that the EU was justified in instituting a worldwide ban on British beef. . . . The UN Security Council votes unanimously to extend the mandate of the UN Observer Mission in Georgia until January 1997.

In Chechnya, Russian forces shell a rebel base near Shatoi, some 27 miles south of Grozny. Russian authorities claim that the attack kills 60 rebels. . . . A bomb injures 30 people when it explodes on one of Moscow’s busiest streets. . . . Violence continues in Londonderry when a Catholic nationalist is struck and killed by a police security vehicle. In two separate incidents in Belfast, three police officers are wounded by gunfire. . . . In England, Charles and Diana, the Prince and Princess of Wales, reveal that they have agreed to the terms of their planned divorce.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

A court rules that a main street in an Orthodox neighborhood of northern Jerusalem should remain open to traffic during the Jewish Sabbath. The ruling sparks clashes with police.

The EU announces the official results in the June election of the divided city of Mostar in southwestern Bosnia-Herzegovina. The returns, disputed by the Croats, show that a Muslim-led party has taken the majority. . . . The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the group responsible for organizing the Bosnian elections, penalizes the ruling party in Bosnia, the Party for Democratic Action (SDA), for the June attack on Haris Silajdzic by removing the top seven names from the list of SDA candidates for municipal elections in Cazin.

July 13

A car bomb explodes in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, injuring 17 people and virtually destroying a hotel. The blast is the first terrorist bombing in Northern Ireland, or Ulster, in 22 months. . . . South African president Nelson Mandela is French president Jacques Chirac’s guest of honor at the Bastille Day military parade in Paris.

July 14

A military airplane crashes and catches fire while attempting to land in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Of the 41 people aboard, 32 are killed and the other nine suffer serious injuries. . . . According to Ulster police, the July 7–14 riots resulted in 291 arrests, 149 injuries to police officers, 192 injuries to civilians, and two civilian deaths. . . . Some 10,000 coal miners in the Primorski region of Russia strike to demand back pay.

July 15

July 16

July 17

Canada’s federal government agrees to extend medical and dental benefits to domestic partners of homosexual government employees.

A remote-control bomb explodes in Kiev, Ukraine, slightly injuring Premier Pavlo Lazarenko and two guards. . . . Representatives of the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Muslim-Croat federation in Bosnia, and the U.S. sign an agreement that will allow up to $360 million worth of military aid to be given to the Muslim-Croat federation’s joint army. . . . Sir Geoffrey Alan Jellicoe, 95, British landscape architect who was one of the 20th century’s leading practitioners in the field, dies in Devon, England, of unreported causes.

Reports suggest that some 40 people have died subsequently in clashes that started July 9 between two factions in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia.

An army truck carrying 10 soldiers near the town of Tixtla in the Mexican state of Guerrero is ambushed. One civilian in a nearby delivery truck is killed in the attack.

Chinese major general Liu Zhenwu visits Hong Kong, marking the firstever visit to the British colony by a Communist Chinese military general.

Paul Touvier, 81, the first Frenchman to be convicted of World War II-related crimes against humanity who, in 1994, was sentenced to life imprisonment for ordering the 1944 execution of seven Jews at Rillieux-la-Pape near Lyons, dies of prostate cancer at a prison hospital near Paris.

More than 400,000 Israeli workers take part in a 10-hour general strike that the Histadrut trade-union federation calls to protest sweeping budget-cut proposals approved by the rightist Likud party-led government of P.M. Benjamin Netanyahu.

Canadian lieutenant general Maurice Baril announces that disciplinary action will be taken against 34 Canadian soldiers, who were part of the UN peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, for their behavior while stationed at a mental hospital in Bakovici between October 1993 and April 1994.

More than 5,400 workers at the Australian Broadcasting Corp. stage a one-day protest strike. It is the first nationwide industrial action in 10 years.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 12–17, 1996—889

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The House passes, 342-67, the Defense of Marriage Act, a bill that will let states choose to deny recognition to same-sex marriages performed in other states. It will also bar federal recognition of such unions. . . . John William Chancellor, 68, television news reporter and anchor, 1970–82, who, in 1975, hosted a joint appearance by Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Egyptian president Anwar el-Sadat in their first-ever televised meeting, dies in Princeton, New Jersey, of stomach cancer.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Hurricane Bertha hits North Carolina’s coast in full force, bringing heavy rain and 115 mph winds and causing four deaths and major damage.

Jonathan Melvoin, 34, a keyboardist for the popular rock group Smashing Pumpkins on their current world tour, is found dead in New York City of an apparent heroin overdose. . . . Gottfried von Einem, 78, prolific Austrian composer, dies near Vienna, Austria, of unreported causes.

Carl M. Shoffler, 51, one of three Washington, D.C., policemen whose arrest of five burglars at the Watergate complex in 1972 led to a scandal that forced the resignation of Pres. Richard M. Nixon, dies in Baltimore, Maryland, of pancreatitis.

Pandro Samuel Berman, 91, film producer who won the Irving G. Thalberg Award in 1977, dies in Beverly Hills, California, of undisclosed causes. . . . Cigar captures his 16th straight victory, tying a North American record for consecutive wins set by the racehorse Citation in 1950.

Thomas Edwin Sandefur Jr., 56, chief executive of Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corp., 1993–95, who testified before Congress in 1994 that he did not believe nicotine is addictive, dies in Louisville, Kentucky, of aplastic anemia.

According to Forbes magazine, William H. Gates of the U.S. computer company Microsoft Corp. is the richest individual in the world, estimated at $18.0 billion.

Arkansas governor Jim Guy Tucker (D), convicted in May on fraud and conspiracy charges, resigns. . . . The White House admits that it has set up a special random drug-testing program to monitor 21 employees who have a history of drug use.

The International Commission of Jurists finds that the death penalty as applied in the U.S. is arbitrary and weighted against blacks and Hispanics. The commission’s report describes application of the death penalty as “wanton and freakish” and “arbitrary and racially discriminatory.”. . . Pres. Clinton states that he will direct the federal Department of HHS to institute new work requirements for people receiving welfare benefits. Under the new regulations, people on welfare will lose their benefits if they fail to find employment within two years.

U.S. president Clinton delays by six months the implementation of a controversial provision of the Helms-Burton law that would have allowed U.S. citizens whose property was expropriated after Cuba’s 1959 communist revolution to sue users of those properties in U.S. courts. The Helms-Burton law passed in March and has drawn international criticism.

The Senate passes, by voice vote, legislation that will establish a ninemember commission to examine the economic and social effects of gambling. . . . John J. Joubert, 33, a former U.S. airman condemned to die for murdering two boys in Bellevue, Nebraska, in 1983, is executed in the electric chair. He is the 332nd person executed in the U.S. and only the second in Nebraska since 1976.

The Eastern Conference team defeats the Western Conference squad, 3-2, in the inaugural Major League Soccer All-Star Game at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. . . . Ray Floyd wins the Senior Players Championship in Dearborn, Michigan.

U.S. astronaut Shannon W. Lucid, who has been on Mir since March, breaks the record for the longest stay in space by a U.S. astronaut, set by Norman E. Thagard in 1995. . . . The Insurance Information Institute sets preliminary losses due to Hurricane Bertha at $194 million.

The House approves, by voice vote, the Federal Oil and Gas Royalty Simplification and Fairness Act of 1996, which revises the government’s procedures for collecting royalty payments from companies that extract oil and gas from federal lands. . . . The Dow volume of shares traded reaches 683 million, the heaviest in the 204-year history of the New York Stock Exchange.

A study questions assertions made by the EPA which claim that exposure to radon gas is responsible for up to 10% of lung cancer cases in the U.S.

Entertainment giant Walt Disney Co. announces plans to build a second theme park, Disney’s California Adventure, in Anaheim, California, adjacent to Disneyland.

Judge Manny Alvarez accepts a plea bargain under which Michael Irvin, star wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys, pleads no contest to second-degree felony cocaine possession charges in exchange for four years’ probation.

A Trans World Airlines (TWA) 747 jetliner bound for Paris crashes into the Atlantic Ocean about a half hour after taking off from Kennedy International Airport in New York City. All 230 people on board are killed in the crash.

Chas (Bryan James) Chandler, 57, British rock musician and manager, dies in Newcastle, England, of a heart attack. . . . Joe Klein, a journalist, admits he is the author of Primary Colors, a bestselling novel loosely based on Pres. Clinton’s 1992 election campaign.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 12

July 13

July 14

July 15

July 16

July 17

890—July 18–23, 1996

July 18

Europe

Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) gather in Jakarta, Indonesia, for their 29th annual conference and conduct meetings on regional trade and security issues.

A Chechen rebel officer claiming to be Salman Raduyev, a field commander reported slain in March, gives a news conference in Gudermes, Chechnya. He claims responsibility for two Moscow bus bombs earlier in July. . . .The German government agrees to provide the estimated 320,000 Bosnian refugees in Germany with plane, bus, or train fares in order to return to their homes.

Israel’s president, Ezer Weizman, announces he has issued pardons for two Palestinian women imprisoned in Israel on murder charges. The move appears to clear the way for the release of several dozen other Palestinian females, whose release from Israeli jails was stipulated in a second-stage accord signed by Israel and the PLO in September 1995.

Radovan Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian Serbs signs an agreement pledging to step down.

Burundian forces begin to forcibly repatriate 85,000 Rwandan refugees. . . . Palestinians in Karyut, in the north-central West Bank, fight with Jewish settlers whom they accuse of illegally seizing Palestinian land in the area. . . . . Mervyn Hugh Cowie, 87, British Kenyan who helped create national parks to protect East Africa’s wildlife from extinction, dies in England of unreported causes.

The Popular Revolutionary Army, known by its Spanish initials EPR, claims responsibility for the July 16 ambush of an army truck carrying 10 soldiers near the town of Tixtla in the Mexican state of Guerrero. . . . Flooding and torrential rains strike the region around the Saguenay River in eastern Quebec, Canada.

A bomb attributed to ETA terrorists explodes at an airport in Reus, Spain, injuring 35 people. Two other bombs explode in the Spanish resort towns of Cambrils and Salou, but no one is injured since warning calls prompted evacuations of those areas. . . . A U.S. Navy F/A-18 jet practicing bombing runs near Brcko, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, accidentally drops a bomb on the edge of a U.S. military base. No one is wounded. . . . Colin Mitchell, 70, British Army officer who served as a Conservative member of Parliament, 1970–74, dies in London.

More than 300 people, most of them women and children, are slain in an attack on a camp for displaced Tutsis in central Burundi. . . . Some 10,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews protest a July 12 court ruling that keeps a main street in an Orthodox neighborhood of northern Jerusalem open to traffic during the Jewish Sabbath.

Reports reveal that as many as 11 people have been arrested as EPR suspects since the group first appeared in Mexico, on charges ranging from illegal weapons possession to rebellion and conspiracy.

Ministers of the seven member nations of ASEAN accept applications from Laos and Cambodia to become full ASEAN members in 1997. The ASEAN members also extend observer status to Myanmar, formerly Burma, despite protests from European Union (EU) countries and the U.S.

A bomb is found in a hotel in Salou, Spain, prompting authorities to evacuate about 500 tourists visiting from the Netherlands before the explosive is successfully defused. . . . Gerald McArthur, 80, British police investigator who helped solve the Great Train Robbery of 1963, one of the most notorious crimes in British history, dies of unreported causes.

Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah (Party of God) guerrilla organization exchange several dozen prisoners and the bodies of fallen fighters in the largest such swap to date in their 13-year-old conflict in Lebanon.

Franz Fischler, the EU agriculture commissioner, reveals laboratory research showing that mad-cow disease can be passed from cows to sheep, leading to widespread panic in the world’s livestock markets.

Georgian and Abkhazi negotiators agree to grant police powers to Russian peacekeepers in the Gali district of Abkhazia.

July 19

July 20

July 21

July 22

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

French police arrest Julian Achurra Egurrola, a leading member of ETA, a Basque separatist group blamed for numerous terrorist attacks in Spain. . . . A team of business leaders and politicians from the MuslimCroat federation in Bosnia-Herzegovina visit Belgrade, Serbia’s capital. It is the first visit to Serbia by an official Bosnian delegation since the beginning of the Bosnian civil war in 1992.

July 23

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Workers of the Australian Broadcasting Corp. hold demonstrations across the country.

Mongolia’s parliament, the Great Hural, elects M. Enkhsaikhan as the nation’s premier.

Amid an epidemic of food poisoning, Japan’s health ministry warns the public not to eat raw meat, a staple of the Japanese diet.

Reports show that flooding and torrential rains that started July 19 in the region around the Saguenay River in eastern Quebec, Canada, have killed 10 people and left 2,000 others homeless. . . . A container loaded with 54 tons of Canadian two-dollar coins, worth a total of C$3 million (US$2.18 million), is stolen from a railroad yard in Canada. The theft is the most valuable shipment of Canadian coins to be stolen.

Israel’s new foreign minister, David Levy, meets with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. The meeting represents the two sides’ first formal highlevel talks since Israel’s rightist Likud party, long a foe of Palestinian political aspirations, defeated the Labor Party-led government in Israeli elections in late May. . . . Burundian president Sylvestre Ntibantunganya takes refuge in the home of Morris Hughes, the U.S. ambassador in Bujumbura, Burundi’s capital.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 18–23, 1996—891

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The House approves, 256-170, a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s system of welfare distribution. The reforms will save an estimated $60 billion over six years, and states will gain unprecedented authority over the use of the funding for poverty relief. The bill also includes new work requirements for people on welfare. . . . Tommie J. Smith, 42, convicted of the 1980 slaying of an Indianapolis, Indiana, police officer, is executed by lethal injection. Smith is the 334th person put to death in the U.S. and only the fourth in Indiana since 1976. Fred Kornahrens, 47, convicted of three 1985 murders, is executed by injection in Columbia, South Carolina. He is the 335th convict executed in the U.S. and only the seventh in South Carolina since 1976.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The House passes by voice vote the Teamwork for Employees and Management Act, or Team Act, which will give employers broader discretion to set up worker-management teams to address workplace issues. . . . Videotaped testimony by Pres. Clinton is played during a Whitewater-related fraud and conspiracy trial.

The Senate approves, 72-27, a $244.7 billion fiscal 1997 Defense Department appropriations bill.

July 18

A panel of advisers to the FDA recommends that the agency approve the abortion drug RU-486.

The U.S. hands Seaman First Class Terrence Michael Swanson, 20, who is accused of murder, over to Japan, making him the first U.S. military member surrendered to Japan under an October 1995 rule change on the custody of American servicemen suspected of serious crimes.

The 26th Summer Olympic Games opens in Atlanta, Georgia. The competition, marking the 100th anniversary of the games, draws more than 10,000 athletes from a record 197 countries.

Markswoman Lida Fariman becomes the first woman ever to compete for Iran, an Islamic country, in the Olympic games when she takes part in the air rifle event.

Claudia Cassidy, 96, arts critic for the Chicago Tribune newspaper, dies in Chicago, Illinois, of unreported causes. . . . Bjarne Riis becomes the first Dane to win the Tour de France cycling race. . . . Tom Lehman wins the 125th British Open Golf Title.

The House by voice vote gives final congressional approval to legislation that will establish a nine-member commission to examine the economic and social effects of gambling. . . . Former Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D, Ill.) begins serving a 17-month sentence for mail fraud in a federal hospital prison in Rochester, Minnesota. . . . Leon Shenandoah, 81, leader of the Onondaga Indians of New York State and head of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, dies on the Onondaga reservation just south of Syracuse, New York, of unreported causes. The Senate passes, 74-24, a sweeping overhaul of the welfare system that will give states unprecedented authority over the use of the funding for poverty relief. . . . Robert Nathan Wilentz, 69, chief justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, 1979–96, dies in New York City of cancer. . . . Hamilton Fish Jr., 70, moderate Republican congressman from New York who served 13 terms from 1969 to 1994 and supported liberal social causes, dies in Washington, D.C., of cancer.

Hundreds of relatives and friends of the 230 victims of the July 17 crash of a TWA plane attend an emotional oceanside memorial service on Fire Island, Long Island.

The U.S. House by voice vote approves a bill that will impose economic sanctions on foreign companies that make large new investments in the energy sectors of Iran or Libya.

Vermont Connecticut Royster, 82, a reporter, 1936–58, and editor, 1958–71, of The Wall Street Journal and the winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, dies in Raleigh, North Carolina, of unreported causes.

Jean Muir, 85, actress who was blacklisted in the 1950s, dies in Mesa, Arizona. . . . At the Olympics, U.S. gymnast Kerri Strug lands a vault despite a dislocated ankle. . . . Jessica Mitford, 78, writer known for her irreverence, dies in Oakland, California, of cancer. . . . Senators Arlen Specter (R, Pa.) and Barbara Boxer (D, Calif.) present a $1 million federal grant to Steven Spielberg for his Holocaust documentation project.

The House passes. 417-0, the Food Quality Protection Act, a measure that overhauls regulations covering the use of pesticides on foods.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 19

July 20

July 21

July 22

July 23

892—July 24–29, 1996

World Affairs

July 26

The Americas

General Mohammed Farah Aidid, a Somali clan leader suffers gunshot wounds in faction fighting. . . . In Burundi, the main Tutsi party in the coalition government, the Union for National Progress (UPRONA), rejects Pres. Ntibantunganya and the 1994 accord that established the coalition government.

A military coup in Burundi is widely criticized, drawing denouncements from the UN, the U.S., the EU, South Africa, and the Organization of African Unity.

The Czech parliament votes to approve the new coalition government headed by Premier Vaclav Klaus. . . . Unidentified arsonists burn a mosque in the town of Prozor, in central Bosnia-Herzegovina. . . . Reports confirm that Russian president Boris Yeltsin has signed a decree creating a defense council with 18 high-level members.

Burundi’s Tutsi-dominated military announces that it has seized power in a coup. The army names Major Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi regarded as a moderate, as president. It also dissolves Parliament, declares political parties and demonstrations illegal, closes off the country’s borders and airport, and institutes a curfew.

After 19 months of negotiations, Mexico’s four major political parties sign a political and electoral reform pact.

Germany, Italy, and the European Union urge the Turkish government to meet some of the demands made by prisoners who have been staging hunger strikes since May. . . . The UN Security Council adopts a resolution that mildly criticizes Cuba for shooting down two unarmed U.S. civilian planes in February.

Thousands of veterans of the fouryear-long war in Bosnia-Herzegovina rally to demand that the government pay their pensions and those of fellow soldiers killed in the war. Separately, a bomb explosion in Bugojno damages the 120-yearold Church of St. Anton, the biggest Roman Catholic church in Bosnia. . . . Workers at Dalenergo, the state-run power company for Russia’s far eastern Primorski region, launch a hunger strike to protest that their wages have not been paid since March. . . . Arthur William Bryant McDonald, 93, air marshal in Britain’s Royal Air Force during World War II, dies of unreported causes.

Israel closes the border after suspected Palestinian militants kill two Israelis in a drive-by shooting in the village of Tirosh, southwest of Jerusalem.

A car bomb explodes outside a police station in Lima, Peru’s capital, killing one person and injuring at least seven others. . . . In Buenos Aires, 30,000 protestors rally against proposed cutbacks. . . . Reports confirm that Bishop Hubert Patrick O’Connor was convicted of two sex-crime charges. He is the highest-ranking Roman Catholic official in Canada to be charged with sex crimes. . . . An explosion at one of state-owned oil facilities, near the town of Reforma in Chiapas Mexico state, kills at least six people and injures 39 others. . . . Tropical storm Cesar kills three people in Venezuela.

Reports confirm that a panel of judges in Scotland has ruled that a homosexual man will be permitted to adopt a five-year-old disabled boy. The decision allows Britain’s first known adoption by a gay man to take place. . . . Michael Penrose and Frederic Malardeau, two relief workers for International Action Against Hunger, are kidnapped in Grozny.

An estimated 50 civilians are killed in the Gitega province in central Burundi, as the Tutsi-dominated army retaliates against Hutu rebels thought to have set fire to a coffee farm in the town of Giheta. . . . Gen. Aidid’s forces regain control of their main airbase, in Bale Dogle, 55 miles southwest of Mogadishu, Somalia.

July 27

July 28

July 29

Africa & the Middle East

The newspaper Pravda, once the official organ of the Soviet Union’s Communist Party, suspends publication. . . . British agriculture minister Douglas Hogg announces stricter rules designed as a precaution against the remote possibility of mad-cow disease (BSE) in sheep and goats. . . . Reports state that Saudi Arabia will fund a $250,000 operation to return 1,000 Bosnian refugees to their homes.

July 24

July 25

Europe

The UN Security Council votes to condemn the July 25 coup in Burundi.

Asia & the Pacific

Riots erupt in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, when thousands of demonstrators protest a raid by military police on the headquarters of the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI). At least three people are killed and hundreds are injured in the riots. . . . Ivan Milat is convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the murders of seven backpackers, ending the biggest criminal inquiry in Australian history.

Left-wing inmates at prisons throughout Turkey end a 69-day hunger strike after reaching a settlement with the Turkish government. The strike, which resulted in the deaths of 12 prisoners and left dozens more critically ill, began in May after the Turkish government moved several leftist prisoners from the Bayrampasa prison in Istanbul to the Eskisehir prison in the central Anatolia region. Some 2,900 leftist prisoners, including about 900 inmates at Bayrampasa, supported or engaged in hunger strikes.

At least 30,000 farmers participate in protests in Putumayo, southern Colombia, opposing a government program to eradicate their coca plants, which are used to make cocaine, and their poppy plants, which can be used to make heroin. . . . Tropical storm Cesar, upgraded to a hurricane, continues to batter northern Colombia, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and El Salvador, causing flooding and mudslides that kill at least 50 people.

Sporadic outbursts of violence continue in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, and military troops are stationed in the streets to deter further violence.

A failed assassination attempt on Chechen rebel Gen. Aslan Maskhadov leaves one wouldbe assassin dead and one of Maskhadov’s bodyguards injured near the village of Nozhay Yurt in southeast Chechnya.

A car bomb attack in Lima, the capital of Peru, targeting Gen. Manuel Valera Gamarra, head of the armed forces in the Huallaga region, kills one person and injures five others.

China declares a moratorium on future nuclear testing shortly after it conducts what it claims will be its final underground nuclear test. . . . Japanese premier Ryutaro Hashimoto visits a shrine for Japan’s World War II dead in Tokyo, the nation’s capital. The visit arouses controversy because among the dead honored at the shrine are wartime leader Hideki Tojo and six other executed war criminals.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 24–29, 1996—893

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee votes to change date that the Vietnam War began to Feb. 28, 1961, from Aug. 5, 1964, thereby allowing some 16,500 veterans to gain benefits for wartime service they were previously denied.

The Senate by voice vote passes the Food Quality Protection Act, which will overhaul regulations covering the use of pesticides on foods.

The House passes, 391-23, a $19.8 billion fiscal 1997 energy and water spending bill. . . . The House rejects, 259-162, legislation that would have placed various restrictions on House candidates’ ability to raise campaign funds.

Hector Perez Garcia, 82, physician who founded one of the nation’s leading Mexican-American civilrights organizations, the American GI Forum, and who, in 1968, was the first Mexican-American to serve on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, dies in Corpus Christi, Texas, of pneumonia and congestive heart failure after suffering from cancer.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

July 24

Investigators report that they have not uncovered the reason for the July 17 crash of a TWA jetliner into the Atlantic Ocean. Data shows that 126 bodies have been recovered from the crash site, and 111 have been identified.

July 25

Swimmer Amy Van Dyken of the U.S. becomes the first U.S. woman to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.

The Senate passes, 93-7, its version of a $12.2 billion fiscal 1997 foreign operations bill. The measure includes a curb on U.S. investment in Myanmar and increases funding for an energy development program in North Korea.

A homemade pipe bomb goes off at an Olympic Games site in Atlanta, Georgia, killing one person and injuring 111 others. The park bombing is the first terrorist attack at the Olympics since the 1972 games in Munich, Germany.

Roger Tory Peterson, 87, ornithologist who wrote A Field Guide to the Birds and who was given awards by the New York Zoological Society, the National Audubon Society, the World Wildlife Fund, and other organizations, dies in Old Lyme, Connecticut.

A panel of three federal judges in New York City rules unanimously that the Communications Decency Act of 1996, designed to censor indecent material on the Internet computer network, violates freespeech rights protected by the Constitution’s First Amendment. The federal panel is the second to rule against the act.

Harold C. Fox, 86, who popularized the zoot suit of the 1940s, dies in Siesta Key, Florida, of unreported causes. . . . Karch Kiraly and Kent Steffes of the U.S. win the first-ever men’s Olympic beach volleyball competition. Ethiopian long-distance runner Fatuma Roba becomes the first African woman to win an Olympic or world championship marathon.

Pres. Clinton announces an agreement that will require TV stations to broadcast a minimum of three hours of children’s educational programming each week. Cable-TV stations, which are not federally licensed, will not be affected by the new rules.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 26

July 27

July 28

July 29

894—July 30–August 4, 1996

World Affairs

July 30

July 31

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Senior representatives of the Group of Seven (G-7) leading industrialized nations and Russia agree to step up measures aimed at stemming terrorism and prosecuting its practitioners.

At a summit organized by the Organization of African Unity, African leaders agree to impose sanctions on Burundi that will create an economic blockade as a response to the July 25 coup.

Aug. 1

Aug. 2

The leaders of Liberia’s rival factions announce they have agreed to cease fighting and to begin disarming their soldiers by the end of September. . . . At least 15 people are killed in a stampede at a railway station in Tembisa, a black township northeast of Johannesburg, South Africa, when guards block nonpaying passengers with electric-shock batons. . . . Major Pierre Buyoya names a Hutu, Pascal Firmin Ndimira, as Burundi’s new premier. As a result of technical circumstances in the case, an Italian court orders the release from prison of Erich Priebke, 83, an officer in Nazi Germany’s SS charged in connection with a World War II massacre. . . . Fertility clinics throughout Britain begin destroying 3,300 frozen embryos in compliance with a 1990 British law that limits storage time for frozen embryos to a maximum of five years.

Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid, a Somali clan leader who fueled Somalia’s civil war despite UN peacekeeping efforts, dies from gunshot wounds suffered in faction fighting on July 24. His age is variously reported to be between 59 and 61.

German officials confirm that they are extraditing Erich Priebke, 83, they who was charged in connection with a World War II massacre and released on a technicality in Italy Aug. 1. . . . Michel Debre, 84, French premier who served under Pres. Charles de Gaulle and who played a central role in drafting France’s 1958 constitution, dies in Montlouis-sur-Loire.

Reports confirm that Burundi has formed a new 25-member government. Tanzania closes its border with Burundi to enforce the economic embargo enacted in response to the July coup. The UN Center for Human Rights reports that in attacks between April and July, the army killed 2,100–3,000 Hutus. . . . Thousands of mourners attend a funeral service in Mogadishu for Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid, a Somali clan leader who died Aug. 1.

A Royal Danish Air Force airplane crashes into a cliff as it approaches an airstrip in Denmark’s Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic Ocean. All nine people aboard, including Admiral Hans Jorgen Garde, 57, the leader of Denmark’s armed forces, are killed.

Aug. 3

Workers of Dalenergo, the staterun power company which serves Russia’s far eastern Primorski region, end a hunger strike that started July 26.

Aug. 4

Four police officers are indicted on charges of homicide for allegedly supplying the perpetrators with the van used in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, that killed 87 people.

Two people are killed and 22 others wounded when 8,000 farmers in the Colombian town of Puerto Asis, in Putumayo, clash with government troops when they attempt to take over the airport. . . . In Peru, 200 guerrillas disguised as army soldiers occupy Aucayacu, a town in the Huallaga region, overwhelming the local police and killing at least one person.

A convention of at least 2,000 foreign intellectuals and representatives of leftist organizations in Chiapas, Mexico, for the EZLN- sponsored “Conference for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism,” closes.

An anticrime vigilante movement in Capetown, South Africa, called People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD) shoots and burns to death reputed gang leader Rashaad Staggie in front of TV cameras and police. . . . The United Somali Congress-Somali National Alliance selects Hussein Mohamed Aidid to succeed his father, Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid, as leader of the clan.

Japanese voters in the town of Maki, in the nation’s first-ever referendum, oppose a federally backed proposal to build a nuclear power plant in their town. . . . Kiyoshi Atsumi (born Yasuo Tadokoro), 68, Japanese actor who played the character of Tora-san in a series of 48 films since 1969, dies of lung cancer.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 30–August 4, 1996—895

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Pres. Clinton reveals he will sign a measure that will radically alter the welfare system, sparking controversy. . . . The House passes, 328101, a bill that will end the 61-yearold federal guarantee of cash assistance to poor families with children by eliminating Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and by distributing welfare funds to the states in lump-sum payments known as “block grants.”

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Pres. Clinton vetoes the Teamwork for Employees and Management Act, or Team Act, a bill that would have given employers broader discretion to set up worker-management teams. . . . Conrail Inc. and the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees reach a contract settlement that averts a national rail strike and ends a nearly two-yearlong negotiating battle. . . . Data show that the Conference Board’s index surged to 107.2 in July, from a revised level of 100.1 in June. July’s reading is the highest since May 1990.

The FEC files suit against the Christian Coalition, charging that the organization’s distribution of millions of voter guides during the 1990, 1992, and 1994 elections amounted to illegal campaign contributions. . . . Claudette Colbert, 92, Paris-born American actress in films of the 1930s and 1940s, dies in Barbados. . . . In the first Olympic softball competition, the U.S. wins the gold medal.

The Senate votes, 63-37, to approve legislation that will require the federal government to set up an interim storage site for thousands of tons of civilian nuclear waste. . . . Former Rep. Joseph P. Kolter (D, Pa.) is sentenced to six months in prison for conspiracy to defraud taxpayers in connection with the 1992 House Post Office scandal.

British punk rock band the Sex Pistols perform in Denver, Colorado, in their first U.S. concert since 1978. . . . Iraqi weightlifter Raed Ahmed, who carried his country’s flag at the Olympics’ opening ceremonies, asks for political asylum in the U.S.

The Senate approves, 78-21, a bill to radically reform the welfare system. . . A U.S. District Court jury in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, acquits Rep. Joseph M. McDade (R, Pa.) of bribery, racketeering, and conspiracy. . . . The House passes, 259169, a bill that will make English the official language of the federal government. The measure sparks a heated debate on the House floor over the importance of the English language in defining U.S. citizenship and culture.

The House adopts, 285-132, the conference report on the $265.6 billion fiscal 1997 defense-authorization bill.

The House, 379-42, and the Senate, by unanimous consent, approve a $53.3 billion fiscal 1997 agriculture appropriations bill. . . . The House passes, 397-22, a $2.17 billion fiscal 1997 legislative branch appropriations bill. . . . The House approves, 421-2, a bill that will make health insurance more portable from job to job. . . . A jury in Little Rock, Arkansas, acquits Robert M. Hill and Herby Branscum Jr. on four felony counts in a Whitewaterrelated fraud and conspiracy trial.

Rep. Jim Kolbe (R, Ariz.) publicly announces that he is a homosexual, becoming the fourth openly gay current member of the House.

The House passes, 389-22, a bill that will tighten airport security and impose other measures designed to fight terrorism. . . . Reports reveal that Mongolia has signed a security agreement with the U.S. . . . The Senate approves the appointment of Admiral Jay L. Johnson as chief of naval operations, succeeding Admiral Jeremy M. Boorda. . . . After two weeks of negotiations, trade representatives from the U.S. and Japan agree to an accord covering trade in computer chips.

The Senate passes, by unanimous consent, the Federal Oil and Gas Royalty Simplification and Fairness Act of 1996, which revises procedures for collecting payments from companies that extract oil and gas from federal lands. . . . The Senate, 76-22, and the House, 354-72, clear legislation that will raise the minimum hourly wage 90 cents, to $5.15 from $4.25. . . . The Senate approves, 980, a bill that will make health insurance more portable from job to job and limit insurance companies’ ability to withhold coverage because of preexisting medical conditions. . . . The House, 392-30, and the Senate, 98-0, reauthorize the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974.

Tadeus Reichstein, 99, Swiss chemist who shared the 1950 Nobel Prize in medicine for research on the anti-inflammatory agent cortisone, which is used in the treatment of arthritis, dies in Basel, Switzerland, of unreported causes.

In an Olympic debut, the U.S. women’s soccer team wins the gold medal with a 2-1 victory over China.

July 30

July 31

Aug. 1

Aug. 2

Pres. Clinton signs legislation that will establish a nine-member commission to examine the economic and social effects of gambling.

Nigeria wins the Olympic gold medal in soccer, 3-2, over Argentina, making Nigeria the first African nation to win a major international soccer competition.

Josia Thugwane becomes South Africa’s first black Olympic gold medalist, coming in three seconds ahead of South Korea’s Lee Bongju, the closest finish in Olympic marathon history. The 26th Summer Olympics close, and athletes from the U.S. won the most medals, 101. Germany came in second with 65, and Russia placed third with 63.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 3

Aug. 4

896—August 5–10, 1996

World Affairs

Aug. 5

Aug. 6

Aug. 7

Aug. 8

The European Union files a protest with the U.S. State Department in response to the U.S. law that imposes economic sanctions on foreign companies that make large new investments in the energy sectors of Iran or Libya. The law was signed on Aug. 5 by U.S. president Clinton.

Aug. 9

Aug. 10

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Reports disclose that Italian NATO troops discovered an unregistered Bosnian Serb arms depot in the village of Markovici. . . . Reports confirm that an unidentified pregnant British woman and her physician agreed that one of the woman’s twin fetuses would be aborted, causing controversy. The procedure is reportedly Britain’s first known abortion of a healthy fetus in a multiple pregnancy conceived without the use of fertility drugs.

In response to the July coup in Burundi, Kenya cuts off travel and suspends trade with the country.

Mexico’s Congress gives final approval to a political and electoral reform pact hailed as one of the most significant measures of its kind ever enacted in Mexico. The legislation may eventually end the dominant standing that the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) has enjoyed in Mexican politics for 67 years.

Separatist rebels in the Russian republic of Chechnya launch a new attack on the region’s capital, Grozny, and the two nearby towns of Gudermes and Argun. . . . Bosnian Muslims and Croats reach an agreement on the joint administration of the divided city of Mostar in southwestern Bosnia-Herzegovina, ending a boycott by Bosnian Croats of the unified city council, elected in June in an internationally monitored vote.

Imam Mohammed al-Badr, 67, last of the Zaydi dynasty in Yemen, which ruled the Arabian nation for 28 generations, dies in Kent, England, of unreported causes.

Catherine Callbeck, the first woman elected as a Canadian provincial premier, resigns as premier of Canada’s smallest province, Prince Edward Island. . . . Hernan Siles Zuazo, 83, Bolivian president, 1956–60 and 1982–85, and a leader of the 1952 revolution that changed Bolivian society, dies in Montevideo, Uruguay, of unreported causes.

In Athens, Croatian president Franjo Tudjman and Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic hold their first meeting since March 1991, before the onset of Croatia’s secessionist war with Yugoslavia, and establish diplomatic ties. . . . A Russian armored convoy reaches Grozny in the Chechen republic and begins to attack rebel positions. . . . At least 83 campers are killed and about 150 injured when flash floods and mudslides in the Pyrenees mountains sweeps away the Virgen de las Nieves campsite near the town of Biescas, Spain.

In Guerrero, Mexico, one soldier is killed and two others are wounded in an ambush attributed to the EPR. . . . In Canada, Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard discloses the July 19–22 floods caused at least C$600 million (US$436 million) in damage, and that the Quebec government will provide C$400 million in disaster relief.

Reports indicate that the offensive begun Aug. 6 in Chechnya has taken the lives of more than 70 Russian soldiers and has wounded 300 others.

Peru extends a state of emergency in 11 provinces, after several terrorist attacks in previous weeks killed nine people and injured 22 others. The attacks are attributed to the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrillas. . . . Orlando Vasquez Velasquez, Colombia’s attorney general imprisoned on charges of accepting money from the Cali cartel, is freed from prison on a legal technicality.

Pres. Boris Yeltsin is inaugurated as the first democratically elected Russian head of state. . . . Chechen rebel forces capture the main government building in Grozny. Russian officials evacuate civilians stationed at bases at the two airports near Grozny.

Zaire becomes the last of Burundi’s neighboring countries to impose stringent economic sanctions on the central African nation in response to the July overthrow of Burundi’s coalition government by its Tutsi-led army.

In Guatemala, about 200 militia members lay down their arms in Colotenango, the site of a bloody massacre of suspected rebel supporters in 1993.

In a special session, Russia’s Parliament votes to reappoint Viktor S. Chernomyrdin as premier. . . . A national day of mourning for the victims of the fighting that was renewed Aug. 6 in Grozny, Bosnia, is marked. . . . Protestant unionist groups hold an annual march, which commemorates a 1689 victory by Protestant forces against the Catholic army of King James II.

At least 13 people are killed in a clash between Hussein Aidid’s and Ali Mahdi’s forces in the town of Warmohan, 28 miles (45 km) southwest of Mogadishu, Somalia.

Reports confirm that Colombia’s former defense minister, Fernando Botero Zea, was sentenced to more than five years in jail and fined $1 million for his role in a drugrelated scandal currently plaguing the government.

Asia & the Pacific

The Japanese government officially declares that a nationwide outbreak of food poisoning that has left more than 9,000 people ill and caused the deaths of seven people constitutes an epidemic caused by the rare bacterium E. coli O157:H7.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 5–10, 1996—897

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Cause of Death, by Patricia Cornwell, tops the bestseller list. . . . Frank Marcus, 68, British playwright and critic who penned The Killing of Sister George, dies in London, England, of a pulmonary embolism.

Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill that will impose economic sanctions on foreign companies that make large new investments in the energy sectors of Iran or Libya, which Clinton calls “two of the most dangerous supporters of terrorism in the world.” The measure is opposed by U.S. trading partners in Europe, whose companies may be subject to the sanctions.

A panel of three federal judges redraws 13 of the 30 congressional districts in Texas, in response to a June Supreme Court ruling that the districts were drawn mainly on the basis of race and therefore unconstitutional.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The U.S. Air Force announces that 16 officers, including two generals, were reprimanded in connection with the Apr. 3 crash of a transport plane near Dubrovnik, Croatia, that had killed Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and 34 other passengers. . . . Loret Miller Ruppe, 60, the longest-serving director of the U.S. Peace Corps since its 1961 founding with her 1981–89 tenure, dies in Bethesda, Maryland, of ovarian cancer.

Pres. Clinton signs the $53.3 billion fiscal 1997 agriculture appropriations bill that will provide funding for the Department of Agriculture, the FDA, and other related agencies. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a bill reauthorizing the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974. The new bill provides $7.6 billion over seven years to help states and municipalities make improvements to their water systems.

NASA administrator Daniel Goldin reveals that “NASA has made a startling discovery that points to the possibility that a primitive form of microscopic life may have existed on Mars more than three billion years ago.” He adds that the evidence is “exciting, even compelling, but not conclusive.”

Data shows that TV coverage of the Olympics by NBC drew an average rating of 21.6 for its nighttime telecasts. The numbers of viewers reportedly increased 25% over the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona.

An air force U-2 reconnaissance jet crashes in Oroville, California, killing the pilot and one civilian on the ground and injuring two other bystanders.

Pres. Clinton signs into law the Food Quality Protection Act, a measure that overhauls regulations covering the use of pesticides on foods.

America Online Inc. (AOL), which has 6 million subscribers and is the leading U.S. provider of on-line computer network access, experiences a 19-hour “blackout” that renders its services unavailable to customers. The blackout is described as the largest outage in the history of computer network services.

Ossie Clark (born Raymond Clark), 54, British fashion designer who invented the midi-skirt and designed clothes for Mick Jagger and Twiggy, is found stabbed to death at his home in London, England.

Nevill Francis Mott, 90, British theoretical physicist who shared the 1977 Nobel Prize in physics for work in solid-state electronics that paved the way for the mass production of computers, dies of unreported causes. . . . Frank Whittle, 89, British inventor of the jet engine, which revolutionized military and civil aviation, dies in Columbia, Maryland, of lung cancer.

The FCC approves new regulations, including one that requires TV stations to air three hours of children’s educational programming each week. . . . Herbert Huncke, 80, who inspired the writers of the Beat Generation, dies in New York City of congestive heart failure

Data reveal that 22,140 U.S. Army soldiers are taking part in the Bosnia mission, 16,175 of whom are based in Bosnia.

A federal appeals court in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, rules that a New Jersey school district should not have laid off a white teacher, Sharon Taxman, in 1989 merely to promote racial diversity. . . . A jury in Jacksonville, Florida, orders Brown & Williamson Tobacco to pay $750,000 to Grady M. Carter. It is the only the second such order against a tobacco company; the first one was overturned on appeal. . . . John William King, 79, Democratic governor of New Hampshire, 1963–69, and chief justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court, 1980–86, dies in Manchester of heart trouble.

Aug. 5

Aug. 6

Aug. 7

Aug. 8

Aug. 9

The racehorse Cigar fails in his bid to win a record 17 consecutive races when he places second to Dare and Go in the Pacific Classic in Del Mar, California.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 10

898—August 11–16, 1996

World Affairs

Aug. 11

Aug. 12

Aug. 13

The European Commission, the EU’s executive body, approves a $5.3 million humanitarian aid package for the breakaway republic of Chechnya.

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Some 7,000 Greek Cypriot bikers rally, along with 200 motorcycle riders from Europe and North America, to protest Turkey’s occupation of the northern one-third of Cyprus. When Greek Cypriot motorcycle gangs cross into the buffer zone separating the Greek and Turkish sections of the island nation, a violent clash erupts, leaving one dead and injuring more than 60. . . . Catholics who favor Ulster’s unification with Ireland march in Belfast, Northern Ireland’s capital.

In Cape Town, South Africa, the Hard Livings gang stages a rally attended by some 1,000 people. The group was led by Rashaad Staggie, who was killed Aug. 4 by a Muslim-led vigilante organization, People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD). Rioting erupts in Cape Town when police clash with 5,000 people marching in support of the Muslim vigilante group.

French police storm the Roman Catholic Church of St. Bernard de la Chapelle in Paris, which has been occupied by 300 illegal immigrants from Africa since June 28. The police forcibly transport the immigrants, who have been on hunger strikes since July 4, to area hospitals for treatment. . . . Sir Anthony Parsons, 73, British diplomat who was ambassador to the UN during the 1982 Falklands War with Argentina, dies in Ashburton, England, of unreported causes.

Because of violence between vigilante groups in Cape Town, South Africa, Western Cape provincial ANC leader Chris Nissen calls for a state of emergency to be declared in the region.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Peruvian justice minister Carlos Hermoza Moya admits that some 400 people may have been wrongly imprisoned under Peru’s antiterrorism laws.

A series of illegal protests are launched by students at Yonsei University in Seoul, the capital of South Korea. The students are calling for South Korea’s reunification with communist North Korea.

NATO troops finish an inspection of a Bosnian Serb-held bunker that was the headquarters of Gen. Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb military commander, throughout the fouryear-long war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. . . . Several gunmen stage an airplane robbery as the plane taxis on a runway in Perpignan, a town in southern France. . . . Antonio Sebastiao Ribeiro de Spinola, 86, Portuguese general who served briefly as the country’s president after a coup in 1974, dies in Lisbon, Portugal, while receiving treatment for respiratory problems.

In Japan, 35,000 fans attend a farewell service for Kiyoshi Atsumi (born Yasuo Tadokoro), 68, the Japanese actor who died Aug. 4.

At the funeral of Tassos Isaac, a protestor killed Aug. 11 on Cyprus, violence breaks out, leading to the death of another Greek Cypriot protester, Solomos Solomou, 26. The fighting leaves 11 others wounded. . . . Reports indicate that Georgia and Abkhazia have agreed to extend the mandate of CIS peacekeeping troops in Abkhazia. . . . Sergiu Celibidache, 84, Romanian conductor and composer, dies in Paris, France, after suffering from heart ailments.

Aug. 14

The international airport in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, reopens for commercial traffic for the first time since 1992.

Aug. 15

Riots erupt in Jordan when Muslim protestors in Kerak throw stones and set fires after police tear-gas the marchers during their peaceful protest. Reports indicate that 40 people were injured—some by police gunshots—in clashes.

Aug. 16

Andre Dallaire, a schizophrenic found guilty in June of attempted murder of Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien, is granted a conditional discharge. . . . Mexican attorney general Antonio Lozano Gracia discloses that he fired 17% of Mexico’s 4,400-member federal judicial police force after an internal investigation revealed rampant corruption in the organization.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 11–16, 1996—899

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Mark Brooks wins the PGA’s Championship tournament at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky. . . . (Jeronym) Rafael Kubelik, 82, Czech-born conductor known for his grand, personalized interpretations, dies in Lucerne, Switzerland, of unreported causes.

The Republican Party opens its convention in San Diego, California. . . . Richard F. Upton, 81, New Hampshire lawyer and politician who turned the state’s primary into a make-or-break test for presidential candidates, dies of unreported causes.

Pres. Clinton announces that representatives from Crown Butte Mines Inc. have agreed to halt their plans to construct a gold mine near Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming in exchange for $65 million worth of federal land. Activists charged that the mine could pollute rivers and streams in the national park.

Aug. 12

Pres. Clinton signs into law the Federal Oil and Gas Royalty Simplification and Fairness Act of 1996. The measure revises the government’s procedures for collecting royalty payments from companies that extract oil and gas from federal lands.

David Eugene Tudor, 70, composer and performer of avant-garde electronic music, dies in Tomkins Cove, New York, after a series of strokes.

Svetlana Masterkova of Russia sets a new world record in the women’s mile, completing the distance in four minutes, 12.56 seconds in Zurich, Switzerland.

In San Diego, California, Robert J. Dole accepts the Republican Party nomination for president. Jack F. Kemp accepts the vice-presidential nomination. . . . Frederick Martin Davidson, a graduate student at San Diego State University in California, is arrested after allegedly opening fire with a handgun while defending his engineering thesis, killing three professors—Chen Liang, 32; D. Preston Lowrey III, 44; and Constantinos Lyrintzis, 36.

Aug. 11

Investigators report they have not found conclusive evidence supporting their suspicion that an explosive device caused the crash of TWA Flight 800 into the Atlantic Ocean in July. Divers have retrieved 201 of the 203 bodies from the crash site and have identified all but one of them.

Pres. Clinton names Commerce Undersecretary Stuart E. Eizenstat as a special envoy to the EU, Canada, and Mexico to work with those countries on promoting democracy in Cuba.

Joe Seneca, theater, TV, and film actor who made a mystery of his age and was thought to have been in his late 70s or early 80s, dies in New York City after an asthma attack.

The first-ever MLB regular-season game in Mexico is held in Monterrey between the San Diego Padres and the New York Mets.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 13

Aug. 14

Aug. 15

Aug. 16

900—August 17–22, 1996

World Affairs

Aug. 17

Aug. 18

Europe

Aug. 21

Asia & the Pacific

West African leaders announce that they and Liberia’s faction leaders have agreed on a peace plan under which Liberian senator Ruth Perry will serve as head of an interim government that will oversee a transition to democracy. . . . The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the dominant force in Erbil prior to Iraq’s intervention, launches a new offensive in its ongoing conflict with the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) led by Massoud Barzani, a long-time enemy of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. . . . In response to the Aug. 16 violence, Jordan’s King Hussein suspends Parliament and inspects security emplacements in the city of Kerak.

South Korean police raid university campuses nationwide to search the offices of a radical student group, the Federation of Student Councils (Hanchongnyon), which has been blamed for encouraging the ongoing protests that started Aug. 12.

Hugo Gabriel Gryn, 66, Eastern European rabbi and Holocaust survivor who was a leader of Britain’s Reform Jews, dies in London, England, of brain cancer.

Jordanian security forces impose a curfew in several cities as riots over government-imposed price hikes for bread and other foodstuffs continue.

Tsutakiyokomatsu Asaji (born Haru Kato), 102, one of the last traditional Japanese geishas who went into service in 1910, dies of kidney failure in Tokyo.

India formally vetoes a draft of the multinational Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which would forbid its signatories to test nuclear weapons. . . . The U.S. Congressional Research Service reports that Russian arms sales to the developing world grew by 62% in 1995, to $6 billion from $3.7 billion in 1994. The 1995 figure shows that Russia has surpassed France and the U.S. as the leading arms exporter to developing countries.

Hamid Hamidov, the finance minister of Dagestan, a Caucasian republic of Russia, is killed when a car bomb explodes in the city of Makhachkala, the republic’s capital. Three other people are killed, and several dozen are injured.

IMF officials vote to release the July payout of a three-year, $10.2 billion loan the fund made to Russia.

Reports confirm that two aid workers who were kidnapped in Chechnya in July, Michael Penrose of Britain and Frederic Malardeau of France, have been released.

Gen. Aleksandr Lebed, Russia’s security council secretary, signs a cease-fire agreement with Gen. Aslan Maskhadov, chief of staff of secessionist rebels in the breakaway republic of Chechnya. . . . In Moscow, Russia, a bomb explodes in front of the Marina Roscha synagogue, causing $15,000 worth of damage. . . . A German court convicts U.S. citizen Gary Rex Lauck for distributing neo-Nazi paraphernalia in Germany and sentences him to four years in prison.

Aug. 22

The Americas

General Witold Urbanowicz, 88, pilot who was Poland’s most successful World War II fighter ace, dies in New York City of unreported causes.

Aug. 19

Aug. 20

Africa & the Middle East

Burundi’s army forces some 8,000 Rwandan refugees to return home.

At least one civilian is killed and a police officer is wounded in a driveby shooting attack on the police headquarters in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital.

Thousands of protesters attend rallies in Australian cities, including Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide, to express their opposition to proposed government spending cuts. Protesters in Canberra use sledgehammers and a makeshift battering ram to force their way into Parliament. Sixty police and demonstrators are injured in the clashes.

In Liberia, a cease-fire takes effect.

In Haiti, Antoine Leroy, a leader of the rightist Mobilization for National Development (MDN) party, and Jacques Florival, also a member of the MDN, are assassinated.

Police quell protests by students at Yonsei University in Seoul, the capital of South Korea. The illegal protests, in which more than 1,000 students and police have been injured since they started Aug. 12, called for the South’s reunification with communist North Korea. . . . Aboriginal protesters clash with police in Canberra, Australia. . . . In Calcutta, India, Mother Teresa is admitted to the intensive care unit at the Woodlands Nursing Home, suffering from malaria.

Amnesty International reveals that 6,000 people were reported killed in the three weeks after the July coup in Burundi.

At least 239 Hindus on a pilgrimage to a remote mountain cave die in a sudden snowstorm during their 30mile-long trek to the Amarnath Cave, located in the Himalaya mountains.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 17–22, 1996—901

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Lester Cruzan, 62, who with his wife in 1990 won a legal battle to end the life of their daughter Nancy Beth Cruzan after she was left in a vegetative state following a 1983 road accident, is found dead in Carterville, Missouri, where he apparently hanged himself.

An air force cargo plane carrying a communications van used in Pres. Clinton’s motorcades crashes in remote mountains in the BridgerTeton National Forest, near Jackson, Wyoming. All those on board—eight air force crew members and a Secret Service agent— are killed in the crash.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Computer hackers illegally enter the Department of Justice’s site on the World Wide Web and post obscenities, sexually explicit pictures, and harsh criticisms of the Communications Decency Act. . . . Russia’s space agency launches a Soyuz-U rocket from Kazakhstan to replace the cosmonaut crew aboard Mir. . . . A memorial service is held at Montoursville (Pennsylvania) High School in honor of 16 students and their five chaperons killed in the July 17 crash of the Paris-bound TWA Flight 800. The service is attended by NYC mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R), Governor Tom Ridge (R, Pa.), and French dignitaries.

E(dward) Digby Baltzell, 80, sociologist who popularized the acronym WASP for white Anglo-Saxon Protestants in his 1964 book, dies in Boston, Massachusetts, of a heart attack.

Texas billionaire Ross Perot accepts the Reform Party nomination for president at the party’s national convention in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. . . . Pres. Clinton celebrates his 50th birthday with a fund-raising gala in NYC expected to raise $10 million for the Democratic presidential campaign. . . . HUD secretary Henry Cisneros reveals that the national home ownership rate in 1995 was 65.4%, the highest in 15 years.

Geoffrey Dearmer, 103, British poet of World War I whose work was largely forgotten until the 1993 publication of an anthology of his work, dies in Birchington-on-Sea, England.

Ralph Nader accepts the Green Party’s nomination as its candidate for president in 1996 at the party’s convention at the University of California at Los Angeles. . . . On Pres. Clinton’s birthday, he and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton join Vice Pres. Al Gore and his wife, Mary (Tipper) Gore, to help churchgoers in rural Tennessee rebuild the Salem Missionary Baptist Church, which was destroyed by fire in 1995.

In Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S. district judge George Howard Jr. sentences former Arkansas governor Jim Guy Tucker (D) to four years’ probation for fraud and conspiracy convictions. . . . Statistics reveal that the number of mortgage loans approved for blacks and Hispanics between 1993 and 1995 increased by 48% and 37%, respectively.

An annual federal survey shows that drug use among U.S. teenagers more than doubled from 1992 through 1995, while overall drug usage among Americans remained flat during the same period. The survey reveals that 10.9% of 12through 17-year-olds surveyed in 1995 reported using drugs in the preceding month, up from 1992’s figure of 5.3%.

The Commerce Department reports that in June the U.S. recorded a seasonally adjusted $8.11 billion deficit in trade in goods and services. The June figure marks a significant decline from May’s revised deficit of $10.55 billion. . . . Pres. Clinton signs legislation that will raise the minimum hourly wage 90 cents, to $5.15 from $4.25. . . . Judge George Howard Jr. sentences Susan McDougal, a former Whitewater partner, to two years in federal prison.

The Supreme Court refuses, without comment, to force North Carolina to redraw its 12th Congressional District for the November general election, despite the fact that the court had ruled in June that the district was the product of an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. . . . In Alhambra, California, Rodney King, the victim of a widely publicized videotaped beating by the Los Angeles police in 1991, is sentenced to 90 days in jail and two years’ probation for knocking down his wife, Crystal King, with his car in July 1995.

Pres. Clinton signs into law legislation that will allow workers who change or lose their jobs to retain their health-insurance coverage. The law will also limit insurance companies’ ability to withhold coverage because of preexisting medical conditions.

Pres. Clinton signs a welfare reform bill that will end the federal guarantee of cash assistance to poor families with children and will instead distribute block grants to states. . . . The College Board reveals that scores on the mathematical portion of the SATs in 1996 were the highest in 24 years, with an average of 508, two points up from 1995. The average on the verbal section was 505, up one point.

Aug. 17

Aug. 18

Aug. 19

Aug. 20

The FCC approves a plan by several TV networks to grant free airtime to the major presidential candidates.

The U.S. Army begins destroying its chemical weapons arsenal at Tooele Army Depot, a military installation 50 miles (80 km) southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah, that stores 44% of the U.S.’s chemical stockpile.

Aug. 21

Aug. 22

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Includes elections, federal-state relations, civil rights and liberties, crime, the judiciary, education, health care, poverty, urban affairs, and population.

Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

902—August 23–28, 1996

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

French police officers in riot gear storm St. Bernard de la Chapelle, a Roman Catholic church in Paris, and forcibly remove 300 illegal immigrants from Africa who were occupying the church in an effort to avoid expulsion from France. . . . Italian officials confirm that Giovanni Brusca, allegedly one of Italy’s leading organized-crime figures, has agreed to provide information about people connected to the Sicilian Mafia, or “Cosa Nostra.”

Aug. 23

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Reports confirm that at least three farmers protesting a government program to eradicate their coca plants, which were used to make cocaine, and poppy plants, used to make heroin, have died in clashes since Aug. 19 in Florencia, the provincial capital in southern Colombia. . . . Hurricane Dolly hits the port city of Tampico, Mexico, with 80-mph winds and heavy rains. Two people are killed.

Russian troops begin pulling out of southern Chechnya and Grozny. . . . Four immigrants who, in July, occupied the St. Bernard de la Chapelle, a Roman Catholic church in Paris, are deported to Africa. . . . Emile Noel, 73, French international civil servant who was regarded as one of the founding fathers of the European Union, dies in Viareggio, Italy, of unreported causes.

Aug. 24

General Aleksandr Lebed, Russia’s security council secretary, breaks off negotiations on a political agreement with separatist rebels in the Russian republic of Chechnya.

Aug. 25

Officials begin a mass rescue operation for the survivors of the Aug. 22 snowstorm in India, taking tens of thousands of pilgrims to Pahalgam, a town at the base of the mountain.

Seven unidentified Iraqi men hijack a Sudanese jet with 199 people on board and order the pilot to take the plane to London, England, reportedly to seek political asylum.

Aug. 26

Data reveal that more than 17,000 refugees from Chechnya have fled to the neighboring Russian republic of Ingushetia. . . . After eight hours of negotiations, police in Great Britain arrest the seven unidentified Iraqi men who hijacked a Sudanese jet on Aug. 26. All 199 people passengers and crew are released unharmed.

Aug. 27

The Seoul District Criminal Court in South Korea convicts and sentences to death former South Korean president Chun Doo Hwan for his role in the 1979 coup that brought him to power and the subsequent massacre of prodemocracy demonstrators in the southern city of Kwangju, as well as for accepting bribes. The three-judge panel also sentences Chun’s successor, Roh Tae Woo, to 22 years and six months in prison for his support of the coup and for accepting bribes.

Israel’s Likud party-led government approves plans to expand a Jewish settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, lifting the freeze on Jewish settlement construction in the Palestinian territories imposed in 1992. . . . In South Africa, a highranking police official, Eugene de Kock, is convicted of a total of 89 of 121 criminal counts, including six counts of murder. He is the highest-ranking police official convicted to date for apartheid-era abuses.

Russian official sources report that 506 Russian soldiers were killed and 1,400 others injured in the offensive that began in early August in Chechnya. . . . The divorce of Charles, the Prince of Wales, and his wife, Princess Diana, is finalized in a decree absolute issued in London’s High Court. . . . Phyllis Isobel Pearsall, 89, creator of the famous “A to Z” street guides of London, England, dies of unreported causes.

Aug. 28

A tribunal in Havana, Cuba’s capital, convicts fugitive U.S. financier Robert Vesco of illicit economic activity and fraud and sentences him to 13 years in prison. Vesco has been wanted in the U.S. for more than 20 years. . . . Gen. Alejandro Agustin Lanusse, 77, military ruler of Argentina, 1971–73, who oversaw a transition to civilian rule, dies in Buenos Aires after surgery to remove a blood clot near his brain.

In Mexico, 50 masked rebels from the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) storm the town of Tlaxiaco in Oaxaca, killing two police officers.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 23–28, 1996—903

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Pres. Clinton announces the final approval of FDA regulations intended to curb the marketing and sale of tobacco products to young people. By approving the rules, Clinton establishes that the government classifies nicotine as an addictive drug and that, as such, it is for the first time subject to FDA rules. . . . Alberto Gonzalez, 33, the first person in the U.S. convicted of attempted murder for having unprotected sex while infected with HIV, dies in Salem, Oregon, of an AIDS-related illness.

The INS grants asylum to two leading opposition figures from Belarus, Zenon Poznyak and Sergei Naumchik, both of the Belarussian Popular Front (BPF). . . . A Marine Corps EA-6B Prowler radar-jamming jet crashes near Yuma, Arizona, killing all four crew members.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The FBI reports that chemists at an FBI crime laboratory in Washington, D.C., have found microscopic traces of a chemical explosive, pentaerythritol tetra nitrate (PETN), on a piece of wreckage from TWA Flight 800, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean July 17. The discovery of PETN bolsters theories that the crash was caused by a bomb or a surface-to-air missile, while casting further doubt on the possibility that the incident was caused by a mechanical failure.

Four women—Petra Lovetinska, Nancy Mace, Jeanie Mentavlos, and Kim Messer—are admitted to The Citadel, a previously all-male state-supported military academy in Charleston, South Carolina.

Aug. 23

Taiwan successfully defends its Little League World Series baseball title, 13-3 over a team from Cranston, Rhode Island, in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

Eldrick (Tiger) Woods wins the U.S. Amateur Golf Tournament in Cornelius, Oregon, becoming the first player to win the stroke-and match-play tournament three times in a row. . . . Russian Olympic swimmer Aleksandr Popov is seriously wounded when he is stabbed in the stomach in Moscow.

Aug. 24

Aug. 25

Aug. 26

California governor Pete Wilson (R) signs an executive order that bars state agencies and state-funded colleges and universities from providing benefits to illegal immigrants, effectively implementing part of Proposition 187, approved by California voters in 1994 but not enforced because of legal challenges. . . In front of about 50 witnesses, off-duty officers in Indianapolis, Indiana, emerge from a downtown bar and beat a black motorist and a white man who goes to his aid. The episode prompts a grand jury investigation. A federal judge in Martinsburg, West Virginia, sentences Kirtanananda Swami Bhaktipada, the former leader of a Hare Krishna religious community, to 20 years in prison for racketeering.

Greg Morris, 61, one of the first black actors to star in a hit TV series, dies in Las Vegas, Nevada, after suffering from lung and brain cancer. . . . Bernard B. Jacobs, 80, president of Shubert Organization Inc., the largest owner of theaters in the U.S., dies in Roslyn, New York, of complications after heartbypass surgery.

The U.S. Treasury Department bars Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan from accepting a $250,000 award from a Libyan organization and from accepting $1 billion in aid promised to the Nation of Islam by Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gadhafi. . . . Reports confirm that 5,000 U.S. troops are training in Germany to assist in the withdrawal of NATO’s peacekeeping troops in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The National Interagency Fire Center reports that more than 18,000 firefighters are battling blazes across the West.

Aug. 27

Aug. 28

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Includes elections, federal-state relations, civil rights and liberties, crime, the judiciary, education, health care, poverty, urban affairs, and population.

Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

904—August 29–September 3, 1996

World Affairs

Europe A Russian jet crashes into a mountain on the remote Spitsbergen Island in the Arctic Circle, killing all 141 passengers in the worst air disaster in Norway’s history. . . . The Russian-Belarussian union treaty takes effect. . . . Some 60 Bosnian Serbs assault a group of Muslim refugees in Mahala, 8 miles (13 km) west of Zvornik. The Serbian gang is detained, which prompts a mob of Bosnian Serbs to hold several members of the UN International Police Task Force hostage for six hours until the Serbian group is released.

Aug. 29

Africa & the Middle East Palestinians stage a general strike across the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip to protest the plan approved Aug. 27 to expand a Jewish settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Gen. Aleksandr Lebed, Russian security council secretary, and Gen. Aslan Maskhadov, the commander of secessionist troops in the Russian republic of Chechnya, sign an agreement to end the 21month conflict in the war-torn Russian region. Under the terms of the new agreement, the Chechen rebels will put aside their demands for independence from Russia for five years.

Aug. 31

Sept. 2

Sept. 3

Asia & the Pacific

In Mexico, squads of gunmen from the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) launch apparently coordinated attacks on government, police, and military buildings in several towns and cities, killing at least 11 people. Army troops are sent in and pursue the rebels into adjacent mountains.

At least 96 soldiers, policemen, rebels, and civilians are killed in what Colombian officials call one of the deadliest series of attacks by left-wing rebels in decades. The rebels, including factions from FARC and ELN, attack police and army installations in at least 13 regions. . . . José Toribio Merino Castro, 80, Chilean admiral who was a member of his nation’s ruling military junta, 1973–90, dies in Valparaíso, Chile, of lymphatic cancer.

Aug. 30

Sept. 1

The Americas

The Iraqis seize Erbil after a request for aid from the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) led by Massoud Barzani, a long-time enemy of Iraqi Pres. Saddam Hussein. The KDP has been locked in ongoing conflict that was renewed Aug. 17 when the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), a rival faction, launched a new attack against the KDP.

In response to Iraq’s Aug. 31 foray into the Kurdish sector, UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali freezes an agreement under which Iraq had been allowed to sell $2 billion in oil during a renewable, six-month period to ease a shortage of food and medical supplies in Iraq.

Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic agrees to allow ethnic Albanian children in the Serbian province of Kosovo to return to school.

Helmer Herrera Buitrago, a reputed leader of Colombia’s Cali drug cartel, surrenders to authorities in Yumbo, a town near Cali.

British deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine and Defense Secretary Michael Portillo announce that Britain is prepared to proceed with production of the Eurofighter, an advanced combat jet that Britain, Germany, Italy, and Spain have agreed to develop jointly.

Scientists in Scotland uncover a small casket thought to hold the mummified heart of Robert the Bruce, the 14th-century Scottish king under whom Scotland gained independence from England. . . . Russian defense minister Igor Rodionov reveals that at least 2,837 Russian soldiers were killed throughout the fighting in Chechnya, and 13,270 were wounded. . . . Ukraine introduces the hryvna, a new currency, to replace the karbovanets. One hryvna is worth 100,000 karbovanets, or 57 U.S. cents.

In response to the Aug. 30 assaults, the Colombian government deploys more than 50,000 troops to pursue the rebels. FARC tells the International Committee of the Red Cross that they are holding 59 soldiers captive and that they will not release the hostages until the government agrees to negotiations.

The 22-member Arab League condemns the U.S. attack against Iraq.

Officials estimate that between 70,000 and 90,000 people lost their lives in the 21-month-long Chechen conflict. . . . Statistics indicate that Russia’s inflation rate was close to zero in August, the lowest recorded monthly level of inflation since the onset of economic reforms in 1991. . . . French police defuse a bomb in the basilica of St. Laurentsur-Sevre church in La Roche-surYon, planted in what is considered a protest to the pope’s upcoming visit.

Two U.S. Air Force bombers and two U.S. warships in the northern Persian Gulf direct the first of 27 cruise missiles toward Iraqi targets, prompting Iraqi troops to withdraw from the Kurdish city of Erbil, seized Aug. 31. The Iraqi regime states that five people have been killed and 19 others wounded. . . . Ruth Perry, a former Liberian senator, is inaugurated as the country’s first female head of state.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 29–September 3, 1996—905

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Pres. Bill Clinton accepts the Democratic nomination for president at the party’s convention in Chicago. Vice president Al Gore accepts the vice-presidential nomination. . . . President Clinton’s top campaign strategist, Dick Morris, resigns in the face of allegations of personal indiscretions with Sherry Rowlands, a prostitute in the Washington, D.C., area.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Nielsen Media Research records 20.2 million viewers watching the final night of the Democratic convention on ABC, CBS, and NBC combined.

NationsBank Corp. agrees to acquire Boatmen’s Bancshares Inc. for about $9.5 billion in a deal that analysts claim is the third-biggest U.S. banking merger ever. . . . The Commerce Department reports that personal pretax income rose 0.1% in July from June, to a seasonally adjusted annual figure of $6.47 trillion. The July figure is the 14th consecutive monthly income increase.

Aug. 29

Aug. 30

Seven people drown when a truck rolls into John D. Long Lake near Union, South Carolina, the site where Susan Smith killed her two young sons in 1994 by allowing the car they were in to roll into the lake.

Aug. 31

The daughter of former president Jimmy Carter, Amy Carter, 28, marries James Wentzel, 27, near Plains, Georgia.

Charles Hughes Kirbo, 79, lawyer known as Pres. Jimmy Carter’s “one-man kitchen cabinet,” dies in Atlanta, Georgia, of complications from gall bladder surgery.

Russian cosmonauts Yuri I. Onufrienko and Yuri V. Usachev depart from Mir space station and land at Akmola, Kazakhstan.

Executive Orders by Tom Clancy, tops the bestseller list. . . . Ljuba Welitsch (born Velitchkova), 83, Bulgarian-born soprano known for her 1949 performance of Salome at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, dies in Vienna, Austria. . . . Otto Clarence Luening, 96, composer, conductor, flutist, and teacher who was a tireless advocate for contemporary music, dies in New York City of unreported causes.

The Senate, by voice vote, approves the conference report for a $2.17 billion appropriations bill for fiscal 1997 to fund Congress’s daily expenses; the Library of Congress; and the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress.

Sept. 1

Sept. 2

Sept. 3

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Includes elections, federal-state relations, civil rights and liberties, crime, the judiciary, education, health care, poverty, urban affairs, and population.

Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

906—September 4–9, 1996

World Affairs

Sept. 4

Sept. 5

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

British troops that are part of the NATO peacekeeping force in Bosnia are challenged by a crowd of Bosnian Serb civilians as the soldiers attempt to halt the unauthorized movement of armored vehicles and heavy weapons through the Serb-controlled town of Banja Luka. . . . Reports confirm that Russian authorities have expelled two Swedes for alleged espionage.

The U.S. launches cruise-missile attack against Iraq as a follow-up to the Sept. 3 firing, bringing the two-day total to 44. . . . Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian National Authority leader. The meeting marks the formal reopening of long-stalled peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel.

Russian Security Council secretary Aleksandr Lebed becomes the first Russian politician to speak at a rally in Chechnya since December 1994. . . . Breaking with centuries of the Russian tradition of censoring news about the leader’s health, Russian president Boris Yeltsin announces that he will undergo heart surgery at the end of September. . . . The largest synagogue in Europe, the Great Synagogue of Budapest, reopens after a fiveyear, $9 million reconstruction.

In response to parliamentary impeachment proceedings against him, Albert Zafy, the president of the African island nation of Madagascar, announces that he will resign from office, effective Oct. 10. The constitutional court appoints Premier Norbert Ratsirahonana to serve as interim president until elections can be held to replace Zafy.

The Americas

Jules Wijdenbosch of the National Democratic Party (NDP), is elected Suriname’s president, defeating incumbent Ronald Venetiaan of the New Front coalition.

In Colombia, FARC rebels attack a military base, killing 19 soldiers and injuring 13 others. The ELN blows up a section of the Cano LimonCovenas oil pipeline in northeastern Colombia.

Sept. 6

Asia & the Pacific

The Nobel Prize–winning Roman Catholic nun Mother Teresa is released from the Woodlands Nursing Home in Calcutta, India, after being admitted on Aug. 20 with malaria.

Sept. 7

Sept. 8

Sept. 9

In Chechnya, several hundred Russian army troops and tanks leave Grozny under the terms of the August settlement. . . . Unidentified gunmen kill a Turkish Cypriot soldier and severely wound another near the UN-patrolled buffer zone separating Cyprus’s Greek and Turkish sections. . . . Police in the Belgian city of Liege arrest Alain Van der Biest, a former pensions minister in Belgium’s cabinet, and charge him in connection with the July 1991 murder of Socialist Party leader and former deputy premier Andre Cools.

UN officials report that aid workers have found hundreds of women, children and elderly people starving in the town of Tubmanburg, Liberia.

Yugoslavia—which consists of Serbia and Montenegro—and the ex-Yugoslav republic of Croatia formally establish diplomatic relations. . . . Reports indicate that a Ukrainian soldier serving with NATO troops was shot and killed by an unidentified gunman in BosniaHerzegovina.

With the support of Iraqi military vehicles and troops, the KDP captures the town of Sulaymaniyah, considered the Kurdish cultural capital.

Residents of the Japanese island of Okinawa, in a nonbinding resolution, register overwhelming support for a reduction in the U.S. military presence.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 4–9, 1996—907

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Sept. 4

The Census Bureau reports that the high-school graduation rate for black Americans for the first time ever is roughly equal to the graduation rate for whites. However, the bureau also finds that graduation rates for Hispanic Americans continue to lag far behind the nation’s overall graduation rate.

A federal jury in New York City convicts Abdul Hakim Murad, Wali Khan Amin Shah, and Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the alleged mastermind of the 1993 bombing of World Trade Center, of all the charges against them stemming from a foiled plot to bomb 12 U.S. airliners in retaliation for the U.S.’s support of Israel. . . . The Senate passes, 92-6, an appropriations bill allocating $9.982 billion for military construction spending in the 1997 fiscal year.

The Senate approves, 83-15, a $5.156 billion fiscal 1997 appropriations bill for the District of Columbia.

Hurricane Fran goes ashore at Cape Fear, North Carolina, bringing 1 inch (2.5 cm) of rain per hour and 115-mph (185-kmph) winds.

The Labor Department reports that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the U.S. dropped sharply in August to 5.1%, from 5.4% in July. The August unemployment rate is the lowest since March 1989 and marks only the second time since 1974 that the rate has dropped so low.

Hurricane Fran moves up the Atlantic coast, bringing heavy rain to Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York.

Arthur Sherwood Flemming, 91, U.S. secretary of health, education, and welfare, 1958–61, and chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1974–81, dies in Alexandria, Virginia, of acute renal failure.

U.S. astronaut Shannon W. Lucid completes her 169th full day in space, setting the world record for the longest space sojourn by a woman. . . . Flooding and widespread power outages are reported in Virginia due to Hurricane Fran. Flooding is also reported in West Virginia and Maryland. At least 22 people have died in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Leonard Katzman, 69, TV producer, writer, and director who produced 356 episodes of the series Dallas, dies in Malibu, California, of an apparent heart attack.

Sept. 6

Boxer Mike Tyson knocks out WBA heavyweight champion Bruce Seldon to capture the WBA title. . . . Rap artist and actor Tupac Shakur, while driving with his entourage to a Las Vegas nightclub in a convoy of 10 cars, is shot four times in the chest.

Pete Sampras wins his second consecutive U.S. Open tennis title with a victory over Michael Chang. Germany’s Steffi Graf wins her fifth career U.S. Open title with a victory over Monica Seles. . . . At the Emmys, E.R. wins for best drama while Frasier wins for best comedy.

A Houston, Texas, judge sentences Wanda Webb Holloway, whose 1991 conviction for plotting a murder to secure a cheerleading squad spot for her daughter was overturned on a technicality, to 10 years in prison. . . . Pres. Clinton awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, to 11 people. . . . A study finds that the “three-strikes” laws enacted by the federal government and more than 20 states since 1993 is rarely used, except in California.

Pres. Clinton proposes to Congress a set of antiterrorism and aviation security measures, at a cost of $1.1 billion.

Robert A. Nisbet, 82, sociologist who specialized in the history of ideas, dies in Washington, D.C., of prostate cancer. . . . Bill Monroe (William Smith), 84, singer and mandolin player called the father of bluegrass, dies in Springfield, Tennessee, after suffering a stroke earlier in the year.

Pres. Clinton signs a $5.156 billion fiscal 1997 appropriations bill for the District of Columbia. . . . Susan McDougal, a partner in the Whitewater Development Corp. realestate venture, is sent to jail after refusing to answer prosecutors’ questions about Pres. Clinton before a grand jury in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Sept. 5

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 7

Sept. 8

Sept. 9

908—September 10–15, 1996

Sept. 10

Sept. 11

World Affairs

Europe

The UN General Assembly approves a draft version of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which will forbid all testing of nuclear weapons.

A court in Berlin sentences six former East German generals for ordering guards to shoot people attempting to escape the communist state and enter West Germany. . . . The British government claims that Nazi Germany funneled some $550 million in gold into Swiss bank accounts, increasing the pressure on Swiss banks to release information on their holdings. . . . Due to health problems, Russian president Boris Yeltsin temporarily delegates most of his authority to Premier Viktor S. Chernomyrdin.

Reports indicate that nearly every Arab state with friendly ties to the U.S. has refused to allow the U.S. to base in their territory any military aircraft to be used against Iraq.

James Gerald Gulliver, 66, founder and chair of the Argyll Group PLC, whose 1985 bid to purchase drinks giant Distillers Co. led to one of the most hotly contested and controversial bidding wars of the 1980s, dies of a heart attack.

Sept. 12

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Since Iran claims that the number of Kurdish refugees along its border exceeds 200,000 and that it cannot provide them with the necessary humanitarian aid, tens of thousands of the Kurds begin to return to Sulamaniyah.

Colombian vice president Humberto de la Calle Lombana submits his resignation, claiming that the government of Pres. Ernesto Samper Pizano has lost credibility after allegations that the president accepted a $6 million donation from the Cali drug cartel for his 1994 presidential campaign emerged. . . . Hurricane Hortense hits Puerto Rico, with winds of up to 80 mph and 18 inches (45 cm) of rain. The storm kills 20 people. In the Dominican Republic, at least eight people died in flooding brought by Hurricane Hortense.

Japanese premier Ryutaro Hashimoto offers Okinawa a 5 billion yen ($45.4 million) economic development grant to garner support for the continuation of the U.S. military presence on the island. . . . In Australia, independent member of Parliament Pauline Hanson touches off a heated nationwide debate over the issue of race when she warns that if measures for a stricter immigration policy and for cutting social spending on the nation’s aboriginal population are not passed, Australia is “in danger of being swamped by Asians.”

Iraq fires a missile at two U.S. jets surveying the so-called no-fly zone in northern Iraq, prompting the U.S. to step up its military presence in the Persian Gulf region. U.S. officials confirm the U.S. will airlift out of Iraq some 2,000 Iraqi dissidents employed by the U.S. in its Operation Provide Comfort project and other covert initiatives aimed at countering Pres. Hussein’s control of the region.

Hurricane Hortense hits Grand Turk, in Britain’s Turks and Caicos Islands, causing minor damage.

The Taliban, a militia group largely composed of former theology students, captures the city of Jalalabad, Afghanistan. At least 70 people are reportedly killed in fighting. . . . The Dalai Lama visits New Zealand, where he meets P.M. James Bolger.

Iraq indiscriminately fires three missiles into the southern no-fly zone. No U.S. jets are endangered by the missiles.

Haitian president Rene Preval begins a purge of the Presidential Security Unit due to their suspected involvement in the Aug. 20 assassinations of Antoine Leroy and Jacques Florival, both members of the rightist Mobilization for National Development (MDN) party. . . . General Ernesto Geisel, 89, Brazilian president, 1974–79, and army general who paved the way for Brazil’s return to democracy in 1985, dies in Rio de Janeiro of cancer. At least two dozen U.S. State Department security agents arrive in Haiti to protect Pres. Rene Preval during a purge of Preval’s Presidential Security Unit, which began Sept. 12. . . . Gen. Cesar Mendoza, 78, one of four commanders in the 1973 coup that installed Gen. Augusto Pinochet as a military leader in Chile, dies in Santiago, Chile, of pancreatic cancer.

Sept. 13

Voters in Bosnia-Herzegovina take part in the ethnically divided country’s first nationwide elections since the end of its four-year-long civil war in 1995. Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic, a Muslim, is elected the chair of a three-member collective presidency. He will be joined on the presidential panel by Momcilo Krajisnik, a Bosnian Serb, and Kresimir Zubak, a Bosnian Croat. . . . The Russian government warns separatist rebels from the republic of Chechnya that it is not prepared to grant them independence.

Sept. 14

Jules Wijdenbosch of the National Democratic Party (NDP) is sworn in as Suriname’s president.

In Venice, Italy, the Northern League political party stages a rally in which its leader, Umberto Bossi, declares the formation of an independent nation composed of many of Italy’s northern provinces. Premier Romano Prodi calls the Venice rally “a ridiculous and artificial event.”

Sept. 15

The governor of the Japanese island of Okinawa, Masahide Ota, agrees to renew leases on land used by the U.S. military. . . . Data shows that Japan’s gross domestic product shrunk at an annualized rate of 2.9% in the second quarter. The quarterly GDP figure marks the nation’s first contraction in output since the 1994 fourth quarter.

Afghanistan government forces launch an aerial assault on Jalalabad in an effort to slow the advance of Taliban rebel troops toward Kabul. Afghan military jets drop bombs on the city, killing six people and prompting thousands to flee toward the Pakistan border 45 miles away.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 10–15, 1996—909

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The Senate clears, 85-14, the Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal marriage benefits to same-sex couples and allows states to deny recognition to samesex marriages performed in other states. . . . Reform Party presidential nominee Ross Perot announces that he has selected Pat Choate, an economist best known for his opposition to free trade, as his running mate.

The Senate clears, 73-26, a $265.6 billion fiscal 1997 defense authorization bill.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Wal-Mart, the U.S.’s biggest retailer, states it will not sell singer Sheryl Crow’s eponymous album because one of its songs suggests that the chain sells guns to children. . . . Joanne Dru (born Joanne LaCock), 73, film actress who specialized in westerns, dies in Beverly Hills, California, of a respiratory illness.

Two assistant secretaries at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Peter Edelman and Mary Jo Bane, resign, citing their opposition to the welfare overhaul bill signed in August by Pres. Clinton.

Machinists at the St. Louis, Missouri, plant of McDonnell Douglas Corp. overwhelmingly approve a four-year contract and end their 99-day-long strike against the military aircraft manufacturer.

Indianapolis, Indiana, police chief Donald Christ resigns in the wake of allegations that 16 of his officers made lewd remarks to women and beat up two men during a drunken spree in August.

The House passes, 383-29, a $20.4 billion appropriations bill to fund energy, water-development, and nuclear-weapons programs in fiscal 1997.

Election officials report that native Hawaiians participating in a mail-in referendum voted nearly 3 to 1 in favor of creating an indigenous government.

Sept. 10

Sept. 11

Sept. 12

Officials reveal that divers have recovered two more bodies, bringing to 213 the total recovered from the July crash of TWA Flight 800 that killed 230 people.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) declines to endorse Republican presidential candidate Robert Dole and states it will not back a candidate in the current presidential race.

Reform Party candidate Ross Perot addresses a convention of the Christian Coalition, the country’s most powerful organization of politically active conservative Christians. . . . Rap artist and actor Tupac Shakur, 25, dies of wounds from the Sept. 7 drive-by shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Republican presidential nominee Robert Dole addresses the Christian Coalition at their annual convention. . . . In Montreal, the U.S. defeats the Canadian team, 5-2, to win the first-ever World Cup of Hockey. . . Juliet Prowse, 59, dancer whose scantily clad performance in 1959 offended Nikita Khrushchev, dies in Los Angeles of pancreatic cancer.

The defending champion U.S. team wins the second biennial Presidents Cup in Gainesville, Virginia, defeating a team of top non-European international golfers 16 points to 15 points.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 13

Sept. 14

Sept. 15

910—September 16–18, 1996

World Affairs

Sept. 18

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Hungarian premier Gyula Horn and his Romanian counterpart, Nicolae Vacaroiu, sign a bilateral treaty that demarcates the two countries’ common border and guarantees the rights of ethnic minority groups. . . . The Agency for International Development shuts down its Estonia operations, asserting that Estonia’s economy is robust enough to “graduate” from U.S. development-assistance programs. . . . An Albanian court sentences four men arrested in connection with a car bombing in Tirana to prison terms ranging from 12 to 18 months for founding a communist party and trying to overthrow the government through violent means.

Sept. 16

Sept. 17

Europe

Asia & the Pacific Australia’s minister for primary industries, John Anderson, announces that all of Australia’s states and territories have agreed to a controlled nationwide release of a deadly rabbit virus to reduce the more than 200 million wild rabbit population.

Delegates from the 185 member nations of the UN formally open the 51st General Assembly and elect Razali Ismail, Malaysia’s ambassador to the UN, to the largely ceremonial office of assembly president.

China for the fourth consecutive year uses its power on the UN General Assembly agenda committee to block a bid by assembly members to vote on admitting Taiwan to the UN.

An appeals court in Bordeaux, France, orders Maurice Papon, a former minister in the French cabinet, to stand trial for his alleged role in the deportation and death of French Jews sent to concentration camps during World War II. Papon will be second Frenchman to stand trial in connection with the mass execution of Jews by Nazi Germany.

The Soufriere Hills volcano, also called Chances Peak, on the Caribbean island of Montserrat, erupts.

An abandoned North Korean submarine is found off the eastern coastal city of Kangnung, South Korea, 60 miles (100 km) across the border between the enemy nations. Searchers also find 11 North Koreans dead on a mountain-top clearing.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 16–18, 1996—911

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Pres. Clinton receives an endorsement from the Fraternal Order of Police, a 270,000-member police union.

Pres. Clinton signs an appropriations bill allocating $9.982 billion for military construction spending in the 1997 fiscal year. . . . McGeorge Bundy, 77, foreign-policy adviser to Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson who advocated expanding U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, dies in Boston, Massachusetts, of a heart attack.

Pres. Clinton signs a $2.17 billion appropriations bill for Congress’s daily expenses; the Library of Congress; and the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, for fiscal 1997.

The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis takes off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to link up with the Russian space station Mir and bring home U.S. astronaut Shannon W. Lucid, stationed on Mir since March.

California governor Pete Wilson (R) signs into law a bill requiring any adult convicted of two sexual assaults on minors to be injected with a drug that reduces their sex drive, unless they agree to voluntarily undergo surgical castration. California thereby becomes the first state in the nation to require “chemical castration” for repeat child molesters. . . . The Commission on Presidential Debates unanimously recommends that Reform Party candidate Ross Perot be excluded from a planned series of presidential debates since he has no “realistic chance to win the election.”. . . The Justice Department reports that violent crime in 1995 fell more than 9% compared with the preceding year. . . . Judge Hiroshi Fujisaki of Los Angeles County Superior Court opens the civil trial of O. J. Simpson, who was acquitted of criminal charges in the 1994 fatal stabbing of Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman. . . . The Senate clears a bill increasing penalties for possession and trafficking of methamphetamine, a drug known as speed or “crank.”. . . Spiro Theodore Agnew, 77, 39th vice president of the U.S.,1969–73, who resigned in disgrace in 1973 when he pled no contest to an income-tax evasion charge, dies in Berlin, Maryland, of acute leukemia, which was undiagnosed until his death.

The Senate approves, 92-8, a $20.4 billion appropriations bill to fund energy, water-development, and nuclear-weapons programs in fiscal 1997.

The House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight releases its final report on the firing of seven employees of the White House travel office, concluding that the firings were motivated by “political cronyism.”. . . Congress clears a bill clarifying that the 1994 anticrime law includes stiffer penalties for sexual assault during a carjacking.

Pres. Clinton signs an order that designates 1.7 million acres (690,000 hectares) of land in southern Utah as the Canyons of the Escalante National Monument. . . . The Senate Ethics Committee clears Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato (R, N.Y.) on charges that he violated Senate ethics rules when he profited $37,125 in a one-day stock trade in 1993. . . . The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. in July recorded a seasonally adjusted $11.68 billion deficit in trade in goods and services. The July figure, which represents a 42.7% increase over June’s revised deficit of $8.19 billion, marks the highest deficit level since the government introduced its current system of measurement in January 1992. . . . The House, 39519, and the Senate, 85-14, approve a $12.6 billion fiscal 1997 transportation appropriations bill.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Sept. 16

Sept. 17

The FDA declares that the abortion drug RU-486, also known as mifepristone, is safe and effective. . . . The U.S. shuttle Atlantis reaches Mir at the space station’s orbital position 240 miles (385 km) above Earth.

Sept. 18

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

912—September 19–24, 1996

World Affairs

Sept. 19

Sept. 20

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Russian president Boris Yeltsin signs a decree giving Premier Viktor Chernomyrdin his full powers, including control of the launching codes for Russia’s nuclear weapons, during Yeltsin’s upcoming heart operation. . . . The British government announces it has called off a plan to slaughter 147,000 cows thought to be at risk of contracting bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad-cow disease. The move is widely seen as an act of defiance against the EU, which has banned British beef.

The government and the leftist Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union (UNRG), an umbrella organization representing the country’s main rebel groups, sign an accord hailed by both sides as a major breakthrough in efforts to end Guatemala’s 35-year-long civil war.

South Korean troops shoot to death seven North Korean infiltrators in an incident of heightened tensions between North and South Korea. The countries never signed a peace treaty in the 1950–53 Korean War and are technically still at war with each other.

Max Manus, 81, Norwegian World War II resistance leader who during the war destroyed several German targets, including more than 100 planes, dies of unreported causes.

More than 8 pounds (3.6 kg) of heroin are discovered on Colombian president Ernesto Samper Pizano’s official jet, just 12 hours before Samper is scheduled to fly to New York City.

The estranged brother of Pakistan’s P.M. Benazir Bhutto, Mir Murtaza Bhutto, is killed in a gun battle with police in Karachi. Six of his followers in his Shaheed Bhutto faction of the Pakistan People’s Party, the party of Benazir Bhutto, are also killed in the exchange.

Sept. 21

Armenian voters reelect incumbent president Levon Ter-Petrossian in the first round of balloting. Ter-Petrossian’s reelection is marred by allegations of fraud. . . . Greece’s ruling party, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), narrowly wins national parliamentary elections. As a result, PASOK chairman Costas Simitis will continue to serve as Greece’s premier. . . . Voters in the Georgian autonomous republic of Ajaria return the ruling coalition to power in Parliament.

Sept. 22

London police raid several suspected Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) hideouts, seizing 10 tons of homemade explosives. One suspected IRA member is killed by police, and five others are arrested. . . . In Armenia, protesters launch demonstrations outside the election commission building, alleging vote fraud and demanding that Pres. Ter-Petrossian resign.

Sept. 23

Sept. 24

South Korean troops fatally shoot the captain and another infiltrator from the North Korean submarine detected Sept. 18. One other person is mistakenly killed. . . . A cancer patient, Bob Dent, becomes the first man to die legally under a new euthanasia law in Australia’s Northern Territory. . . . Residents of Macao cast their votes in the territory’s last direct elections under Portuguese rule.

U.S. president Bill Clinton and foreign ministers of the world’s four other declared nuclear powers— Great Britain, China, France, and Russia—sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which will forbid all testing of nuclear weapons. Officials of more than 50 other countries also sign the pact, but the treaty will not become enforceable under international law until all 44 nations with nuclear potential sign it.

Chechen rebel representatives meet with the human-rights committee of the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly. . . . Lt. Gen. Pavel Anatolievich Sudoplatov, 89, Soviet spymaster who claimed in his memoirs that American scientists leaked atomic secrets to the Soviet Union at the end of World War II, dies in Moscow, Russia, after suffering a stroke.

In Canada, British Columbia premier Glen Clark names Cynthia Morton as the province’s first independent children’s commissioner.

Israeli authorities open a second entrance to an archaeological tunnel at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, a site sacred to both Muslims and Jews and the scene of a bloody incident in 1990 when Israeli police killed 19 Palestinian protesters. Palestinian youths gather at the new entrance and throw stones at Jews worshiping at the Wailing Wall, forcing a temporary evacuation until Israeli troops, using rubber bullets, disperse the crowd. Palestinians burn a car and a truck in East Jerusalem.

Taliban troops move into Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, and begin to consolidate power.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 19–24, 1996—913

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona, puts the nation’s first female chain gang to work in Phoenix. . . . The House votes, 285137, to override Pres. Clinton’s April veto of a ban on a rarely used method of late-term abortion called intact dilation and evacuation. . . . The House ethics committee reprimands Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.) for allowing Donald Jones, a telecommunications executive, to work as a volunteer in his office.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The Senate passes, 100-0, a bill that seeks to curb the rapid depletion of U.S. fish stocks by preventing an overharvesting of U.S. fisheries. . . . IBM, the sixth largest corporation in the U.S., announces that beginning in January 1997 it will provide health-care coverage and other benefits to the partners of its U.S.-based homosexual and lesbian employees. It thereby becomes the largest company in the nation to offer benefits to same-sex partners.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Media conglomerate Time Warner, the nation’s leading provider of cable TV announces that half of its cable systems will carry MSNBC, a new 24-hour news channel run by Microsoft and NBC. It also states that it has broken off negotiations with News Corp. to carry Fox News.

A federal prosecutor reveals that Theodore Kaczynski kept detailed journals in his Montana cabin in which he admits to each of the bombings attributed to the Unabomber.

The State Department releases excerpts from manuals used by the School of the Americas—a U.S. Army-run training school for Latin American military and police officers in Fort Benning, Georgia—in which torture, blackmail, bribery, and other threats are recommended for use against suspected rebels. The manuals were used from 1982 to 1991 at the school, which was located in Panama from 1946 to 1984. The U.S. government claims that the controversial passages were mistakenly left over from the 1960s manuals.

Paul Erdos, 83, itinerant Hungarian-born mathematician who was regarded by his peers as one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century and who founded the field of discrete mathematics, which is the basis of computer science, dies of a heart attack while attending a conference in Warsaw, Poland.

Paul Draper, 86, tap dancer of the 1930s and 1940s known for his musicality and broad range, dies in Woodstock, New York, of emphysema.

Pres. Clinton signs into law the Defense of Marriage Act, a bill that will deny federal recognition to same-sex marriages and deny federal benefits to partners in such marriages. The bill will also allow states to deny recognition to samesex marriages performed in other states.

The governing board of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), a statefunded, all-male military college in Lexington, Virginia, votes to begin admitting women. VMI is the only remaining single-sex college in the U.S. that receives state funding.

A team of Australian scientists announce they have discovered rock art that they believe to be between 50,000 and 75,000 years old, the oldest in the world. Previously, the oldest reliably dated human art was set at 32,000 years old. The scientists also uncovered artifacts suggesting that human beings lived in Australia far longer than previously thought.

John F. Kennedy Jr., 35, marries Carolyn Bessette, 30, in a secret ceremony on Cumberland Island, Georgia. . . . A 1910 Honus Wagner baseball card, considered the world’s most prized baseball card, is sold at an auction for $640,500. . . . Metropolitan Spyridon is installed as the archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Church of America. A team of U.S. women professional golfers defeats a European team to win the Solheim Cup in Chepstow, Wales. . . . Dorothy Lamour (Mary Leta Dorothy Slaton), 81, film actress who costarred with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, dies in Los Angeles of unreported causes.

A panel of three federal judges in Columbia, South Carolina, rule that nine of South Carolina’s 170 legislative districts violate the Constitution because they were drawn solely on the basis of race. . . . Ross Perot, the Reform Party candidate, files a lawsuit in Washington, D.C., seeking to gain inclusion in presidential debates. . . . The Justice Department reveals it has reached a settlement with the owners of an apartment complex in Detroit, Michigan, charged with discriminating against blacks and families with children.

Pres. Clinton signs the $265.6 billion fiscal 1997 defense authorization bill.

The Dow closes at 5894.74, the 24th record high in 1996. . . . Federal financial regulators report that a legal document drafted by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in 1986 in relation to Whitewater would “deceive federal bank examiners” about potentially fraudulent transactions. The report does not specifically accuse the first lady of wrongdoing, however.

Robert C. Kim, a civilian intelligence analyst for the U.S. Navy, is arrested by the FBI on spying charges in Fort Meyer, Virginia. Kim is charged with passing classified documents to South Korea, one of the U.S.’s closest allies.

The Senate, by unanimous consent, and the House, 388-25, pass a $84.8 billion fiscal 1997 appropriations bill for veterans affairs, housing, space, environmental agencies, and other departments. . . . The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, the largest big-city police union in the country, endorses the Republican candidates Robert Dole and Jack Kemp in upcoming presidential elections.

Forbes magazine lists Oprah Winfrey, a TV host and producer, as the world’s highest-paid entertainer with estimated earnings for 1995 and 1996 of $171 million.

Sept. 19

Sept. 20

Sept. 21

Sept. 22

Sept. 23

Sept. 24

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

914—September 25–29, 1996

World Affairs

Sept. 25

Sept. 26

Reports indicate that the NATO base in Gibraltar, at the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea, will close. . . . Russian defense minister Igor Rodionov and his U.S. and Norwegian counterparts, William Perry and Jorgen Kosmo, sign an agreement that will use $2 million in pledges from Norway and the U.S. to clean up radioactive waste around Russia’s Kola peninsula left by the Soviet and Russian nuclear submarine fleet. An estimated two-thirds of all radioactive waste in the world’s oceans is in Arctic Ocean waters.

Europe Soldiers in Yerevan, the Armenian capital, beat several dozen protesters and arrest many more in an effort to stem protests over alleged vote fraud.

In response to the Sept. 24 opening of an entrance to a Temple Mount tunnel, armed Palestinian police and rock-throwing demonstrators battle Israeli soldiers in Palestinian self-rule zones in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the worst outbreak of violence since the two sides agreed in 1993 to decide their future in peaceful talks.

Two journalists, Viktor Ivancic and Marinko Culic, are acquitted of charges of slander against Pres. Franjo Tudjman in a case that many international observers see as a test of media freedom in Croatia. . . . Nicu Ceausescu, 45, playboy son of Romania’s communist president Nicolae Ceausescu, dies in Vienna, Austria, of cirrhosis of the liver.

Palestinian security forces join protesters in conflicts that started Sept. 24. The Israeli military orders tanks and attack helicopters into the West Bank for the first time since the 1967 Six-Day War. At least 35 Palestinians and 11 Israelis are killed, and the total slain since Sept. 24 comes to at least 40 Palestinians and 11 Israelis. . . . Head of state Yahya Jammeh, who came to power in a 1994 military coup, is elected president of Gambia in a poll whose validity is questioned by foreign observers.

The Americas

The UN Security Council votes to urge Israel to close the new entrance to the controversial Old City tunnel that was opened Sept. 24 and to resume peace negotiations.

Argentina’s largest labor federation, the Confederacion General del Trabajo (CGT), calls a 36-hour general strike, to protest Pres. Carlos Saul Menem’s austere economic policies. Some 70,000 protesters gather outside Menem’s office in Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital. . . . Police in the Mexican town of San Augustin Loxicha arrest at least 11 people suspected of belonging to the EPR, including the mayor and other local officials.

Australian prime minister John Howard defies Chinese warnings by receiving the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, in Sydney. China regards the Dalai Lama as a political activist trying to split the country by seeking Tibet’s independence from China. . . . Statistics reveal that 20 North Korean infiltrators have either been killed by South Korean troops or found dead since their ship ran aground on Sept. 18.

Muslim fundamentalist Taliban forces take control of Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, after a siege that resulted in hundreds of deaths. The rebels announce that Islamic law will begin to apply nationwide, and they capture and execute former president Najibullah, 49, who ruled the country from 1987 to 1992. Mohammed Rabbani is the Taliban rebel named to serve as Kabul’s provisional leader.

Judge Mehdi Bici sentences nine communist-era Albanian officials to prison terms ranging from 15 to 20 years for crimes against humanity. . . . Reports indicate that Radio Free Europe, the U.S.-run broadcaster, falsely promised Hungarians that the West would support them in their fight against Soviet rule at the time of the Hungarian uprising of 1956. Radio Free Europe officials continue to deny any encouragement of the anticommunist uprising.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), certifies the results of Bosnia’s elections, despite evidence of widespread fraud.

Sept. 29

Asia & the Pacific Reports confirm that a Singapore court has fined Lai Chee Chuan S$61,500 for downloading sexual material from the Internet global computer network. Lai is the first person convicted of such an offense since Singapore announced Internet restrictions earlier in the year.

Israeli border guards and police storm the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City to battle stone-throwing Palestinian demonstrators. Three Palestinians are shot to death in the incident.

Sept. 27

Sept. 28

Africa & the Middle East

In the first local polls held since 1990, Farooq Abdullah is reinstalled as the chief minister of Kashmir state when his pro-India National Conference party wins 52 seats in the 87-member state assembly. . . . Shusako Paul Endo, 73, Japanese novelist, dies in Tokyo of respiratory complications caused by hepatitis.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 25–29, 1996—915

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, squares off against civilrights activist Joe Hicks in a debate at California State University at Northridge. Some 250 protesters on both sides of the issue clash briefly with police outside the debate hall. . . . Reports state that Johnathan Prevette, a six-year-old boy from Lexington, North Carolina, was suspended for a day from the first grade for kissing a female classmate on the cheek.

The House and Senate approve by voice votes the conference report on the fiscal 1997 intelligence authorization bill to provide funding for the CIA, the NRO, the NSA, and the DIA. The exact amount that Congress authorized is classified, but news reports estimate the amount to be some $30 billion.

The House passes a $221 million fiscal 1997 federal spending bill for child-abuse and treatment programs.

The House passes by voice vote a bill to create a nationwide database on sex offenders. . . . The Senate fails to override Pres. Clinton’s April veto of a ban on a method of late-term abortion called intact dilation and evacuation. . . . California judge Thomas Hastings imposes a death sentence on Richard Allen Davis, convicted in June of kidnapping and murdering Polly Klaas, 12, in 1993. . . . Walter Ridley, 86, educator who, in 1953, became the first black to earn a doctorate degree from a state-supported university in the South, dies in West Chester, Pennsylvania, of unreported causes.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Sept. 25

Pres. Clinton signs an $84.8 billion fiscal 1997 appropriations bill for veterans affairs, housing, space, environmental, and other agencies. . . . The Senate passes by unanimous consent legislation that revises federal safety regulations for pipelines that carry oil, gas, and hazardous liquids. . . . The House clears by voice vote the Water Resources Development Act, legislation that provides $3.8 billion in funding for federal water projects.

The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis lands at Cape Canaveral, Florida, after carrying out a successful mission during which it linked up with the Russian space station Mir and brought home U.S. astronaut Shannon W. Lucid, who had been stationed on Mir since March. Lucid spent a total of 188 days in space, setting records for the longest stay in space by a woman and the longest stay by a U.S. astronaut. . . . Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson, 75, British inorganic chemist who shared a Nobel Prize in 1973 for his work on organometallic compounds, dies of unreported causes.

Researchers at the National Cancer Institute report they have discovered a genetic mutation common among Caucasians that slows the progress of AIDS and in rare cases even provides immunity from infection by HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and the Million Man March organizers open the first National Political Convention in St. Louis, Missouri. . . . Guards fire live ammunition to disperse a prison riot at a maximum-security facility in Represa, California. One inmate is killed and 13 others are injured, five critically. . . . Reports confirm that federal agencies have punished 28 agents for attending “Good Ol’ Boys Roundups” where racist activity occurred.

The Senate Armed Services Committee informs the Defense Department that it has decided to relax curbs on the promotion process for officers implicated in the 1991 Tailhook scandal, in which dozens of women were sexually assaulted by naval aviators.

The House clears, 276-125, legislation that revises federal safety regulations covering pipelines that carry oil, gas, and hazardous liquids. . . . The Senate passes by unanimous consent the Water Resources Development Act, which provides $3.8 billion in funding for federal water projects. . . . The House passes, 384-30, a bill that seeks to curb the rapid depletion of U.S. fish stocks. . . . The House clears, 218198, a bill to reauthorize $19.5 billion over two years for the FAA.

The House ethics subcommittee investigating Speaker Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.) dismisses three charges against Gingrich and one against Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D, Mo.). . . . The House gives congressional approval to a bill increasing penalties for possession and trafficking of methamphetamine, a drug commonly known as speed or “crank.”

Congress clears the Veterans Benefits Improvements Act. . . . The House approves legislation that will make it a federal crime to steal proprietary trade secrets with the intent to benefit a foreign or U.S. entity.

The House passes, 370-37, a massive omnibus bill that provides $380 billion for discretionary spending and $230 billion for mandatory spending. The bill includes controversial new curbs on illegal immigration. . . . The House, by voice vote, passes the National Securities Markets Improvement Act, which will largely end state regulators’ oversight of the mutual fund industry. . . . The House passes, 404-4, a major package of legislation covering the nation’s public lands and national parks.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Sept. 26

Sept. 27

Sept. 28

In the first televised debate among congressional leaders, House speaker Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.), Senate majority leader Trent Lott (R, Miss.), House minority leader Richard A. Gephardt (D, Mo.) and Senate minority leader Thomas A. Daschle (D, S.Dak.) are among those who discuss tax cuts, Medicare, education, and campaign-finance reform.

The U.S. wins the Fed Cup, a women’s team tennis tournament, with a 5-0 sweep over defending champion Spain in Atlantic City, New Jersey. It is the U.S.’s first Fed Cup title since 1990.

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Includes elections, federal-state relations, civil rights and liberties, crime, the judiciary, education, health care, poverty, urban affairs, and population.

Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 29

916—September 30–October 5, 1996

Sept. 30

Oct. 1

Oct. 2

Oct. 3

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

Succeeding South African judge Richard Goldstone, Canadian judge Louise Arbour becomes the new chief prosecutor for the UN International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague, the Netherlands. Arbour calls on the international community to give the international troops in BosniaHerzegovina a new mandate to seek out and detain indicted war criminals.

Bosnia-Herzegovina’s three presidents—Alija Izetbegovic, Kresimir Zubak, and Momcilo Krajisnik— meet for the first time since their election.

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank hold the annual joint plenary session of their boards of governors in Washington, D.C. . . . The UN Security Council votes unanimously to lift the sanctions imposed on the federation of Yugoslavia, which consists of Serbia and Montenegro, that were enacted in 1992 in an attempt to punish Serbia for its support of Bosnian Serbs in the civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Some 125 miles (200 km) east of Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital, a volcano begins erupting underneath the Vatnajokull glacier. The eruption causes the glacier to begin to melt, threatening severe flooding. . . . Data show that more than 80 Albanians have been infected with polio since April and that 11 of them have died. . . . As many as 140,000 workers at automobile plants in Germany hold strikes and demonstrations to protest planned cuts.

Yasser Arafat, president of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu conclude a summit meeting in Washington, D.C., that sought to defuse an outbreak of IsraeliPalestinian clashes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and to restart substantive negotiations.

An unidentified gunman shoots and kills Bulgaria’s first premier of its postcommunist era, Andrei Lukanov, 58, in Sofia, the Bulgarian capital. . . . Reports disclose that, in an effort to combat tough economic times in Ukraine, 92 people died and more than 1,000 became sick from eating wild mushrooms. . . . Statistics reveal that the annual rate of drug-related crimes in Kyrgyzstan leapt 190% between 1990 and 1995, to 2,623 incidents from 904.

Israeli soldiers shoot dead a fouryear-old Palestinian boy and wound at least two protesters during Palestinian demonstrations in a suburb of Hebron.

The World Bank acknowledges that it funded projects that were harmful to the environment and that it needs to revise its environmental-impact methodology.

Presidents Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia meet in Paris to establish full diplomatic relations between Bosnia and Yugoslavia, the federation of Serbia and Montenegro. . . . The Romanian parliament ratifies a basic treaty with Yugoslavia. . . . Workers at Yugoslavia’s Zastava arms factory in Kragujevac, Serbia, return to work after a 34-day strike.

Thousands of Somalis in Mogadishu celebrate the third anniversary of a battle in which 18 U.S. troops were killed.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin fires six top generals, including Gen. Yevgeni Podkolzin, the paratroop commander, and Gen. Vladimir Ivanov, chief of rocket forces. Defense Minister Igor N. Rodionov announces plans to reduce the size of the armed forces by some 300,000 servicemen before the end of 1997. . . . Princess Stephanie of Monaco is granted a divorce from her husband of 14 months, Daniel Ducruet.

In a goodwill gesture, the Israeli army pulls back tanks positioned on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Oct. 4

Bahrain’s state security court sentences 15 men to prison sentences ranging from six months to five years as part of its crackdown on a two-year campaign of antigovernment unrest. . . . The National Electoral Commission of Nigeria announces the registration of five political parties for participation in elections slated for 1998. Other political groups—including all those opposed to Gen. Sani Abacha—are automatically dissolved on denial of registration.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Haiti, police officials claim that they foiled a plot by former members of the pro-junta Haitian army, which was disbanded in April 1995. The plot was to create disorder by assassinating top government officials and launching attacks on Haiti’s slum areas. The attacks allegedly were planned for the fifth anniversary of the 1991 military coup that ousted Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

In Afghanistan, Taliban rebels capture the key northern towns of Charikar and Jabal us Saraj, and other Taliban troops reach the southern end of the strategic Salang tunnel in the Hindu Kush mountains. Reports reveal that Pres. Burhanuddin Rabbani has fled and has been sentenced to death by the Taliban. . . . Chinese dissidents Liu Xiaobo and Wang Xizhe write a letter calling for China to stand by a 1945 promise to honor freedoms of speech and assembly. It also criticizes Pres. Jiang Zemin and insists he be impeached for violating the constitution. . . . The premier of Vanuatu, Maxine Korman-Carlot, is ousted by a vote of no confidence in Parliament.

The Mexican Congress approves a package of legislation that seeks to counter the U.S.’s Helms-Burton law, which attempts to force foreign companies to comply with the U.S.’s trade embargo of communist Cuba.

A South Korean diplomat, Choi Duck Keun, is slain in Vladivostok, Russia, leading to speculation that the killing was an assassination orchestrated by North Korea, as tensions between the two countries since the September discovery of a grounded submarine continue to rise.

All 70 people on board a Peruvian jetliner die when the jet crashes into the Pacific Ocean. . . . A series of strikes is launched by the 26,000member Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) labor union against General Motors. . . . Robert Bourassa, 63, premier of the Canadian province of Quebec, 1970–76, 1985–94, dies in Montreal of skin cancer.

The New Zealand government agrees to settle a land claim made by members of the country’s indigenous Maori population. The claimants will receive NZ$170 million (US$117 million) and some traditional fishing rights recognized by the government. The government will also recognize the Maori names of 78 localities currently known by their European names. . . . South Korea goes on a terrorist alert in response to North Korea’s threats of retaliation for deaths of its commandos from the submarine that ran aground in September.

A bomb explodes in the city hall of Bordeaux, France. The blast causes some damage to the building but does not lead to any casualties.

Oct. 5

The Taliban initiates a major assault on the heavily defended Panjshir Gorge leading to the military stronghold of Gen. Ahmed Shah Massoud, the leader of the Tajik army, in the Panjshir Valley.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 30–October 5, 1996—917

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Gun-control advocates line up an estimated 39,000 pairs of shoes, many of which belonged to victims of fatal shootings, outside the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., in a “Silent March” against firearmrelated violence. . . . The Chicago school board places 109—or nearly one-fifth—of the city’s 557 public elementary and high schools on academic probation. The official censure of Chicago schools is considered one of the nation’s most aggressive recent actions to improve public education.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The Deep End of the Ocean, by Jacquelyn Mitchard, tops the bestseller list. . . . Moneta Sleet Jr., 70, civil rights–era photographer who was the first black journalist to win a Pulitzer Prize, dies in New York City of cancer. . . . Frances Lear, 73, self-described Hollywood wife who founded Lear’s, a magazine aimed at women over 40, dies in New York City of breast cancer.

The Senate passes, 84-15, and Pres. Clinton signs a massive omnibus spending bill that provides $380 billion for discretionary spending and $230 billion for mandatory spending for fiscal 1997. It is the fourth time since 1974 that all regular appropriations have been completed before the start of the new fiscal year. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a $12.6 billion fiscal 1997 transportation bill and a $20.4 billion bill to fund energy, water-development, and nuclear-weapons programs in fiscal 1997.

Pres. Clinton signs a bill clarifying that the 1994 anticrime law includes stiffer penalties for sexual assault during a carjacking. . . . A San Francisco, California, jury awards Tianna Ugarte, 14, an award of $500,000 after finding that officials at Antioch Unified School District ignored her sexualharassment claim. . . . As per the welfare system’s overhaul, the federal government begins to provide states with lump-sum payments to pay for cash benefits.

Defense Department officials reveal that senior commanders at the Pentagon plan to vaccinate all U.S. troops against the infectious disease anthrax due to fears of biological weapons.

The Senate, in a voice vote, clears the National Securities Markets Improvement Act, which will largely end state regulators’ oversight of the mutual-fund industry and will direct the SEC to set up a database of investment advisers’ disciplinary histories.

Francis Collins, head of the U.S. government’s gene research project, retracts findings he published in 1995 on the genetics of leukemia. Collins says he learned that a student researcher who worked under him had fabricated the data on which his conclusions had been based.

Detective Mark Fuhrman, who became notorious during the trial of O. J. Simpson, pleads no contest in State Superior Court in Los Angeles to one count of perjury for lying about his use of a racial epithet. Fuhrman is given three years’ probation and ordered to pay a $200 fine.

The Senate gives final approval to legislation that will make it a federal crime to steal proprietary trade secrets with the intent to benefit a foreign or U.S. entity.

Peter Joseph Brennan, 78, New York City labor leader who was U.S. secretary of labor, 1973–75, under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, dies in Massapequa, New York, of lymphatic cancer.

Researchers in Bangkok, Thailand, report they have discovered the world’s largest known deposit of emeralds. The researchers extracted a 167-pound (75-kg), or 380,000carat, deposit of green emeralds from a rock found in Madagascar. The cluster is worth an estimated $54 million.

Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill to create a nationwide database on sex offenders. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a bill increasing penalties for possession and trafficking of methamphetamine. . . . The Senate passes a bill to increase penalties for possession of flunitrazepam, a sedative linked to date rapes. Under the bill, using the drug in an attempt to commit rape will be punishable by up to 20 years in prison and fines of up to $2 million.

A $20 billion class-action lawsuit is filed in federal court in New York City on behalf of victims and survivors of the Nazi Holocaust accusing Union Bank of Switzerland and Swiss Bank Corp. of refusing to return assets deposited by Holocaust victims.

Pres. Clinton signs a bill setting fiscal 1997 federal spending for childabuse and treatment programs at $221 million. . . . The Senate passes by unanimous consent a major package of legislation covering the nation’s public lands and national parks. . . . The Senate passes, 92-2, legislation that reauthorizes $19.5 billion in funding over two years for the FAA.

The House clears by voice vote a bill to increase the penalty for possessing flunitrazepam,. Under the bill, using the drug in an attempt to commit date rape will be punishable by up to 20 years in prison and fines of up to $2 million. . . . Data reveals that the rate of births to unmarried women dropped in 1995 for the first time in nearly 20 years. . . . . Larry Gene Bell, 47, convicted of killing two girls in separate incidents in 1985, is executed in Columbia, S.C. He is the ninth person in South Carolina and the 346th person executed in the U.S. since 1976.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Oct. 1

Oct. 2

The Swedish Academy of Letters awards the Nobel Prize in literature to Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska, the ninth woman to win the literature prize since it was created in 1901 and the fifth Polish-born writer to do so.

The Social Security Administration reveals that it distributed insufficient benefits to some 300,000 people due to a computer fault. Officials declare that all underpaid benefit recipients will be compensated.

Reports suggest that Pres. Clinton has decided to sign the conference report on the fiscal 1997 intelligence authorization bill despite strong objections from Director of Central Intelligence John M. Deutch. The bill will fund the CIA, the NRO, the NSA, and the DIA. The exact amount that Congress authorized is classified, but reports estimate the amount to be $30 billion.

Sept. 30

Oct. 3

Oct. 4

Seymour R. Cray, 71, who created the world’s first supercomputers— the CDC 6600 (1963), CDC 7600 (1968), and Cray 1 (1976), each of which was the fastest computer of its day—dies in Colorado Springs, Colorado, of head injuries sustained in a Sept. 22 road accident.

Skip Away wins the Jockey Club Gold Cup horse race in Belmont, New York.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 5

918—October 6–10, 1996

World Affairs

Oct. 6

Oct. 7

Oct. 8

Oct. 9

Oct. 10

NATO officials reveal that the Bosnian Serbs possess far more heavy weaponry than a June arms-control agreement among Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Yugoslavia allows. . . . Joseph Connor, the UN’s undersecretary general for management and administration, states that he has had no funds since July for the UN’s dayto-day costs, and he was forced to borrow money from the UN’s peacekeeping account, resulting in a delayed reimbursement to a group of 90 countries owed money for peace-keeping operations.

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

An antitank grenade explodes at the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang’s headquarters in the Danish capital, Copenhagen, killing two people and wounding 19 others. . . . Hungarian premier Gyula Horn dismisses Industry and Trade Minister Tamas Suchman in connection with a scandal at the Hungarian privatization board.

Gunmen from the Banyamulenge, a 400,000-strong Tutsi community that has lived in the area south of Lake Kivu in Zaire since the end of the 18th century, attack a Swedish missionary hospital at Lemera, north of Uvira, killing four staff members and 38 patients. Twelve people die in an attack on a nearby Roman Catholic mission. . . . Israeli and Palestinian representatives resume negotiations.

Two car bombs explode at a British army base in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, injuring 21 soldiers and 10 civilians. . . . The largest Corsican terrorist group, the “historic” wing of the Corsican National Liberation Front (FLNC), claims responsibility for the Oct. 5 blast in the French city of Bordeaux.

In Laghouat, Algeria, 200 miles (320 km) south of Algiers, rebels force 20 passengers off a public bus and cut their throats, then kill 14 other people. . . . The number of Muslim fundamentalists holding seats in Kuwait’s National Assembly declines as voters strengthen the progovernment bloc.

Reports confirm that Kyrgyzstan’s first oil refinery has opened. . . . Poland approves an $88 million plan to develop the town of Oswiecim, site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. . . . Reports state that UN investigators have exhumed 200 bodies from a mass grave in Ovcara, Croatia. . . . Four Newfoundland fishermen caught on a 1995 videotape are convicted for inhumane killing of seals. . . . The IRA takes responsibility for the Oct. 7 bombings in Lisburn. It is the first attack in Northern Ireland that the IRA admits to staging since the 1994 cease-fire.

In response to the Oct. 6 violence, Lwasi Ngabo Lwabanji, deputy governor of South Kivu province, orders the Banyamulenge Tutsis to leave Zaire within one week or face expulsion by the Zairian military. . . . Renewed talks between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) stall over terms for Israel’s long-delayed military redeployment from the West Bank city of Hebron.

A small pipe bomb explodes near the Great Synagogue of Budapest, Hungary’s capital, but it does not damage the building or cause any injuries.

Under new guidelines, the first of 10,000 Palestinians are allowed to exit Gaza for day employment in Israel.

Farooq Abdullah is reinstalled as the chief minister of Kashmir state in India. . . . Chinese authorities sentence, without trial, prodemocracy activist Liu Xiaobo, to three years in a labor camp for a protest letter he coauthored Sept. 30.

Magda Trocme, 93, member of the French resistance during World War II who helped thousands of Jews escape persecution by the Nazis, dies in Paris after suffering a stroke.

An outbreak of fighting erupts between units of the Zairian army and the Banyamulenge, a 400,000strong Tutsi community that has lived in the area south of Lake Kivu since the end of the 18th century. . . . Jan Hugo of Durban’s Supreme Court in South Africa acquits six members of the Inkatha Freedom Party accused of carrying out a 1987 hit-squad attack that left 13 people dead.

In Afghanistan, opposition armies join forces when Uzbek commander Gen. Abdul Rashid Doestam signs a military alliance with his rival, Gen. Ahmed Shah Massoud, the leader of the Tajik army. Also joining their alliance is the small but powerful Hizb-i-Wahdat group, comprised mostly of members of the predominantly Shi’ite Hazara tribe of the central province of Bamiyan and led by Abdul Karim Khalili.

Yao Wenyuan, 65, possibly the last surviving member of the “Gang of Four,” which promoted revolution and class struggle under Chairman Mao Zedong during the 1966–76 Cultural Revolution, is freed from prison after 20 years. Separately, reports indicate that dissident and former student leader Guo Haifeng was sentenced to seven years in prison for hooliganism. . . . North Korea announces that it has charged Evan C. Hunziker, 26, an American and self-proclaimed missionary partly of South Korean ancestry, with espionage and illegal entry.

Gen. Jean Boyle, the head of Canada’s armed forces, retires from the military.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 6–10, 1996—919

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Pres. Clinton and Republican presidential nominee Robert Dole square off in the first of two presidential debates scheduled for the 1996 campaign. In a poll conducted by CBS News immediately following the forum, 50% of respondents assert that Clinton won the debate, while 28% argue that Dole was the victor. Ninety-two percent maintain the debate did not change their minds about the candidates.

Kimberly Smartt, 14, files a suit against the school district in Fairborn, Ohio, alleging that racial bias affected her punishment for taking two Midol tablets from the school’s clinic, ingesting one of the pills and giving the other to a white classmate Erica Taylor, 13, who did not swallow the pill. Smartt, who is black, was suspended for months, while Taylor’s nine-day suspension was lifted when she agreed to attend drug counseling.

Golfer Eldrick (Tiger) Woods earns a spot on the 1997 PGA Tour when he wins the Las Vegas Invitational in Las Vegas, Nevada. . . . Ted Bessel, 57, TV actor best known for his role in the 1970s series That Girl, dies in Los Angeles of an aortic aneurysm.

In Washington, D.C., U.S. District Court judge Royce C. Lamberth sentences Omar Mohammed Ali Rezaq to life in prison for the 1985 hijacking of an Egypt Air jetliner in which 60 of the 98 people aboard the jet were killed. Judge Lamberth also orders Rezaq to pay $264,000 in restitution to the survivors of the hijacking, one of the deadliest in history.

Henry Cisneros, the outgoing secretary of HUD, authorizes the distribution of $716 million in grants for the demolition and reconstruction of dilapidated public-housing complexes in 74 communities, and for rental assistance programs for some 15,000 families who will be displaced by the demolition projects. . . . Antoine Jamar Dean, a 21year-old black man, is sentenced in federal district court in Portland, Oregon, to five years in prison for the burning of a predominantly black church in June.

Vice president Al Gore and Republican vice-presidential nominee Jack Kemp meet in a nationally televised debate. . . . Federal civilrights officials conclude that a recent wave of suspicious church fires reflect underlying racial tensions in the South.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Pres. Clinton signs into law the Veterans Benefits Improvements Act. . . . The Institute of Medicine, a branch of the federal National Academy of Sciences, reiterates its conclusion that there is no single cause for Gulf War syndrome, but it adds that its findings are affected in part by a lack of detailed research into the medical effects of low-level exposure to nerve gases.

The Karolinska Institute for Medicine in Stockholm awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Peter C. Doherty of Australia and Rolf M. Zinkernagel of Switzerland for discovering how the immune system identifies cells that are infected with viruses.

Oct. 7

The Energy Department’s inspector general who examined Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary’s travel expenditures concludes that poor planning and inefficient management led to the exorbitant expenses associated with foreign trade trips taken by O’Leary and other Energy Department officials. However, no individual is held responsible for the misuse of tax dollars.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science to Canadian-born William S. Vickrey of Columbia University and Britain’s James A. Mirrlees of Cambridge University for their separate contributions “to the economic theory of incentives under asymmetric information.”

Pope John Paul II undergoes an appendectomy at the Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome, Italy.

Pres. Clinton signs legislation that reauthorizes $19.5 billion in funding over two years for the FAA. . . . Common Cause, a government watchdog group, alleges that both the Democratic and Republican parties committed “massive, knowing and willing” violations of campaign-finance laws by spending millions of dollars on TV advertisements for Clinton and Dole.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Nobel Prize in Physics to three U.S. scientists, David M. Lee, Robert C. Richardson, and Douglas D. Osheroff, for their 1972 discovery of superfluidity in helium-3., a rare form of helium. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to Americans Richard E. Smalley and Robert F. Curl Jr. and Briton Sir Harold W. Kroto for their 1985 discovery of a previously unknown class of carbon molecule.

Walter F. Kerr, 83, theater critic and author awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1978 for his criticism, dies in Dobbs Ferry, New York, of congestive heart failure.

Coya Knutson (born Coya Gjesdal), 82, member of Congress from Minnesota, 1955–59, who lost a reelection bid after her husband, whom she later divorced, publicly begged her to quit Congress, dies in Edina, Minnesota, of kidney failure.

Oct. 6

William S. Vickrey, 82, economist who worked at Columbia University in New York City and received a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science on Oct. 8, is found dead at the wheel of his car near Harrison, New York, apparently of a heart attack.

Oct. 8

Oct. 9

Oct. 10

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

920—October 11–16, 1996

Oct. 11

World Affairs

Europe

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awards the Nobel Peace Prize to Bishop Carlos Filepe Ximenes Belo and Jose Ramos Horta for their efforts to end abuses by Indonesian forces in East Timor, a former Portuguese colony annexed by Indonesia in 1976. Ramos Horta states that the award should rightfully have been presented to Jose Alexandre (Xanana) Gusmåo, a military leader imprisoned since his 1992 capture by the Indonesian army.

In response to the Oct,. 6 attack in Copenhagen, the justice ministers of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland agree to work together to reduce the threat of motorcyclegang violence.

Jan Hugo of Durban’s Supreme Court in South Africa acquits former defense minister Magnus Malan and nine others of murder and conspiracy to murder in a 1987 hitsquad attack that killed 13 people. The acquittals end the seven-month trial that was South Africa’s first attempt to bring senior apartheidera officials to justice for atrocities committed against blacks.

The Americas

Oct. 13

Oct. 14

Oct. 15

The EU asks the WTO to rule on whether the U.S.’s Helms-Burton Act, which seeks to force foreign companies to comply with the U.S.’s trade embargo of communist Cuba, violates international trade rules. The U.S. attempts to block the EU’s request, delaying the scheduled hearing on the issue until late November. . . . Croatia is admitted as the 40th member of the Council of Europe, a humanrights organization.

Asia & the Pacific

A gravely ill leader of the leftist rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), Comandante Ramona, addresses an audience of 20,000 people at an international conference on Indian rights in Mexico City.

The government of Finland agrees to link its currency, the markka, to the European Union’s exchange rate mechanism.

Oct. 12

Oct. 16

Africa & the Middle East

Neither New Zealand’s ruling center-right National Party nor the main opposition Labour Party wins a majority in Parliament in general elections, which places the balance of political power in the hands of the third-place finisher, the nationalist New Zealand First (NZF) party.

The right-wing Freedom Party registers significant gains in elections to determine Austria’s representation in the European Parliament, the EU’s legislative branch. . . Beryl Reid, 76, British actress, dies of unreported causes. . . . Henri Nannen, 82, cofounder and longtime editor of the German magazine Stern, dies in Hamburg after suffering from cancer.

Armed men believed to be Banyamulenge guerrillas open fire on Hutu camps in Zaire, killing at least one person. The attack causes some 20,000 Hutus to abandon the Runingo camp.

An article in a state-owned newspaper presents a Yugoslav army reservist’s account of the 1991 beating and execution of more than 200 civilians in Croatia by the Serbian militia. . . . Turkish soldiers shoot and kill Petros Kakouli, a retired Greek Cypriot firefighter crossing the border separating Cyprus’s Greek and Turkish sections. . . . Belgium’s Supreme Court removes Judge Jean-Marc Connerotte as the chief magistrate investigating Marc Dutroux and a child pornography case linked to kidnappings and murders. The dismissal sparks widespread public protests.

Police in Niger arrest opposition leader Bello Tiousso Garba. Garba’s Union for Democracy and Progress (UDP) is one of eight parties that formed the Front for the Restoration of Democracy to challenge a disputed presidential election won in July by coup leader Gen. Ibrahim Mainassara Bare.

Reports state that Wang Xizhe, who coauthored a letter critical of the Chinese government on Sept. 30, has escaped to Hong Kong, apparently fearing arrest. . . . McDonald’s Corp., the world’s largest fast-food and hamburger chain, opens its first franchise in India.

Hungary’s parliament passes a measure to establish a foundation to compensate Jewish groups for property that belonged to Jews who perished in the Nazi Holocaust. . . . People in Belgium stage a series of rallys to protest Judge Jean-Marc Connerotte’s Oct. 14 dismissal. . . . Italy’s highest appellate court orders a new trial for Erich Priebke, a former officer in Nazi Germany’s SS who was released from his sentence in August on a technicality.

Jordan’s King Hussein visits PNA head Yasser Arafat in Jericho, a West Bank city under Palestinian self-rule. The king’s visit is his first to the West Bank since Israel seized the territory from Jordan in 1967. . . . In Somalia, Hussein Aidid, Ali Mahdi Mohammed, and Osman Hassan Ali (known as Ato) declare an end to hostilities and pledge to allow free movement of people in Mogadishu.

Australian researchers report that 130-million-year-old fossil footprints left during the Jurassic Age by a stegosaurus were stolen from a site north of Broome in Western Australia.

Figures suggest that 1,400 U.S. soldiers have left Bosnia to return to their bases in Germany.

Reports confirm that Mokrane Amouri, director of an independent Arabic-language weekly newspaper, was shot and killed while driving in Algiers. Nearly 70 Algerian journalists have been killed by militants since 1991.

At least 84 people die and 147 people are injured in a stampede before a qualifying game for the 1998 World Cup soccer tournament between Guatemala and Costa Rica at Mateo Flores National Stadium in Guatemala City, Guatemala.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 11–16, 1996—921

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Pres. Clinton signs an intelligenceauthorization bill, which provides funding for fiscal 1997 for the CIA and intelligence-related agencies in the Defense Department. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a bill that makes it a federal crime to steal proprietary trade secrets with the intent to benefit a U.S. or foreign entity.

Pres. Clinton signs the National Securities Markets Improvement Act, which will largely end state regulators’ oversight of the mutual fund industry and will require the SEC to set up a database of investment advisers’ disciplinary histories. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a bill that reauthorizes the 1976 Magnuson Fishery and Conservation Management Act, the primary law that regulates the management of U.S. fisheries.

Reports state that organizations representing black Americans have criticized the Christian Coalition for a brochure that suggests a fictitious black man opposes views espoused by the group. Christian Coalition officials state that they have stopped distribution of the pamphlets.

Pres. Clinton signs legislation that revises federal safety regulations covering pipelines that carry oil, gas, and hazardous liquids. . . . Pres. Clinton signs the Water Resources Development Act, legislation that provides $3.8 billion in funding for federal water projects.

(Jean) René Lacoste, 92, French tennis player who was one of the Four Musketeers, a group that dominated tennis in the 1920s, and who developed a clothing line with an alligator logo, considered a status symbol in the 1970s and 1980s, dies in St. Jean-de-Luz, France after recent surgery on a broken leg and after suffering from prostate cancer for years.

General Motors announces that it has laid off more than 1,300 workers at its Cadillac assembly plant outside Detroit, Michigan, because of a series of strikes launched Oct. 2 at GM’s Canadian plants, which manufacture many parts needed by GM’s U.S. assembly plants.

Damon Hill of Great Britain captures the Formula One world championship motor racing title with a victory in the Japanese Grand Prix. . . . The U.S. golf team defeats New Zealand to win the Alfred Dunhill Cup.

The Dow Jones industrial average of U.S. blue-chip securities closes above the 6000 level for the first time in its history, rising 40.62 points to 6010. This marks the third time in some 20 months that the benchmark stock average broke through a so-called millennium level.

Pop singer Madonna, 38, gives birth to her first child, a girl named Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon, in Los Angeles, California.

Pres. Clinton signs a bill setting a 20-year sentence for using any illegal drug, including the date-rape drug Rohypnol, with intent to commit rape or other violent crimes. . . . Steve Stout and Patricia Stout of Fort Worth, Texas, end their threemonth battle with doctors who want surgery performed on their daughter, Rachel Stout, 10, who has been hospitalized since July for an ulcerated colon.

Science, Technology, & Nature

The New York State Court of Appeals rules that doctors and dentists in that state cannot refuse to treat patients infected with HIV. . . . Robert F. Williams, 71, controversial black civil-rights leader who fled the U.S. after he was accused of kidnapping a white couple during an outbreak of racial violence in Monroe, North Carolina, dies in Grand Rapids, Michigan, of Hodgkin’s disease.

Pres. Clinton and Robert Dole, the Republican presidential nominee, meet for the second and final presidential debate of the 1996 campaign, and they field questions from audience members in San Diego, California. . . . Tens of thousands of people gather outside UN headquarters in New York City for a “Day of Atonement” and to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the “Million Man March.”

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Data suggests that the major TV networks showed fewer violent programs in the 1995–96 season than in the previous season. . . . Pierre Franey, 75, chef who popularized and simplified French cooking, dies in Southampton, England, after a stroke.

Accused Mexican drug cartel leader Juan Garcia Abrego is convicted by a jury in Houston, Texas, of 22 counts of drug trafficking and money laundering. Garcia Abrego, captured by Mexican authorities and expelled from Mexico to the U.S. in January, is the reputed leader of Mexico’s Gulf cocaine cartel. . . . U.S. Sen. Alfonse D’Amato (R, N.Y.), claims that, in 1949, Switzerland made a deal with Poland under which it used assets stolen from Polish Jews to compensate Swiss citizens whose property had been seized.

Social Security Administrator Shirley Chater announces that beneficiaries receiving Social Security checks in 1997 will obtain a cost-of-living increase of 2.9%. That means that the average benefit paid will amount to $745 per month, up from $724 per month in 1996.

ABC News announces that veteran journalist David Brinkley will leave his job as host of This Week With David Brinkley, a show he has anchored since its creation in 1981, on Nov. 10.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 11

Oct. 12

Oct. 13

Oct. 14

Oct. 15

Oct. 16

922—October 17–22, 1996

World Affairs

The UN inaugurates the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, an international maritime court that will hand down judgments in disputes over a wide range of maritime issues.

Oct. 19

The coalition government of secessionist rebels in the Russian republic of Chechnya name Gen. Aslan Maskhadov Chechnya’s interim premier and defense minister. . . . Russian president Boris Yeltsin appoints Gen. Viktor Samsonov to the post of armed forces chief of staff.

Mauritania’s ruling Republican Democratic and Social Party (PRDS) wins a total 70 of 79 parliamentary seats. . . . Armed men believed to be Banyamulenge guerrillas open fire on Hutu camps in Zaire. When combined with the Oct. 14 attack, the offensive has killed seven people.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin names Ivan P. Rybkin as his new Security Council secretary. . . . The Bosnian Serb parliament, known as the National Assembly of the Republika Srpska, holds its first meeting. . . . The body of Jakub Fiszmann, 40, one of Germany’s wealthiest businessmen, is found in the Taunus forest near Frankfurt after being kidnapped.

Attacks on Hutu camps continue in Zaire, and fighting breaks out between the Banyamulenge and the Hutu-allied Zairian military north of Uvira.

In Brussels, Belgium, 300,000 demonstrators attend a rally to protest the Oct. 14 removal of Judge Jean Marc Connerotte from a case involving Marc Dutroux and a child pornography and prostitution ring that has been linked to recent kidnappings and murders.

Oct. 20

Oct. 21

Africa & the Middle East

Russian president Boris Yeltsin dismisses Gen. Aleksandr I. Lebed, Russian Security Council secretary and national security adviser, after Lebed was involved in several public feuds. . . . More than 1.5 million public-sector workers in France strike to protest the government’s austere budget proposals. . . . In a highly publicized trial in Britain, a jury finds Learco Chindamo, 16, guilty of the 1995 murder of Philip Lawrence. . . . Berthold Goldschmidt, 93, British composer and conductor, dies in London, England.

Oct. 17

Oct. 18

Europe

The UN General Assembly, in a secret ballot to fill the five rotating seats on the 15-member Security Council, elects Costa Rica, Japan, Kenya, Portugal, and Sweden for two-year terms.

Oct. 22

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

At least eight people are killed by Hurricane Lili in coastal areas of Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Honduras.

India’s national government extends for six months its central rule over Uttar Pradesh state since local elections have failed to resolve a deadlock in the state assembly.

Hurricane Lili hits Cuba, bringing winds of up to 114 mph and between 6 and 12 inches of rain. Some 4,300 homes are destroyed, and 430,000 others are damaged by winds and rain.

Hundreds of protesters riot outside the Taiwanese parliament in Taipei when a parliamentary vote restores funding for the construction of what will be the country’s fourth nuclear power plant. The rioting antinuclear protesters are dispersed by 4,000 riot police. The unrest is considered the worst rioting to occur in Taiwan since it began its conversion to democracy in 1987.

The combined forces of Uzbek commander Gen. Abdul Rashid Doestam and Gen. Ahmed Shah Massoud, the leader of the Tajik army, recapture the air base at Bagram and then move southward to Kalakan, some 20 miles (35 km) from Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.

Outside Buenos Aires, Argentina, 60 tombs in a Jewish cemetery are desecrated.

Japanese premier Ryutaro Hashimoto’s conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) falls just short of winning a majority in elections for the lower house of the Diet (parliament).

In Zaire, data show that heavy fighting between the Banyamulenge and the Zairian military north of Uvira has resulted in the deaths of at least 70 people. A UN official estimates that more than 220,000 Hutu refugees have fled their camps. . . . Former South African commissioner of police Johan van der Merwe becomes the highestlevel official to admit he had a role in the covert campaign of violence against the antiapartheid movement. . . . The mayor of Algiers, Ali Boucetta, is shot and killed.

Rightist Liberal Alliance party candidate José Arnoldo Alemán Lacayo declares himself the winner of Nicaragua’s presidential election. Alemán will replace current president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro. . . . Figures reveal that at least 51 members of the Toronto-based environmental group Earthroots have been arrested since Sept. 2 for leading antilogging protests in the Owain Lake forest near Lake Temagami, Canada.

Wang Li, 75, Chinese activist during the Cultural Revolution who helped Chinese leader Mao Zedong overthrow his rivals in the Communist Party, was jailed by Mao in 1967, and released from prison in 1982, dies in Beijing of heart failure.

Burundian army soldiers kill between 258 and 435 returning Hutu refugees in a church in the village of Murambi in Cibitoke province.

At least 25 inmates at La Planta jail in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, die when a fire starts in their cell.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 17–22, 1996—923

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

James Irons, 19, is convicted of a 1995 arson attack that fatally burned a NYC subway token clerk. . . . The City of New York sues the nation’s major tobacco companies in New York State Supreme Court to recover the estimated $300 million a year that the city government spends treating people with smoking-related illnesses.

Florida circuit judge Harold J. Cohen rules that the 860,000 Florida Medicaid patients will remain anonymous in a $1 billion lawsuit that the state of Florida has filed against tobacco companies to recover the cost of treating the patients for smoking-related illnesses. . . . The Democratic National Committee reveals it has suspended John Huang, its vice chairman for finance operations, amid controversy over donations from associates of Indonesia’s influential Riady family.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A study projects that spending for the 1996 presidential campaign will reach $800 million. That amount is three times greater than spending for the 1992 race. . . . The Dow closes at 6059.20, the 30th record high registered by the Dow in 1996.

Ruth Farkas, 89, U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg, 1973–76, dies in New York after being treated for a heart problem at New York University Medical Center.

The Dow closes at a record high of 6094.23, marking the seventh record high of the month for the Dow and the 31st record high in 1996. . . . The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. in August recorded a seasonally adjusted $10.83 billion deficit in trade in goods and services. The August figure represents a 6.9% decline from July’s revised record deficit of $11.60 billion.

Oct. 17

A study uncovers evidence for the first time of a causal link between inhalation of a toxin found in tobacco smoke and the development of cancerous cells.

Authorities in Spain learn that artist Victor Ruiz Roizo mounted one of his own modern paintings amid a display of works by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn at the Prado Museum in Madrid. . . . The American Basketball League (ABL), a women’s professional league, debuts with three games.

Oct. 18

Oct. 19

J(oseph) Bracken Lee, 97, twoterm Republican governor of Utah, 1949–57, and mayor of Salt Lake City, 1960–72, dies in Salt Lake City, Utah, of unreported causes. . . . Michael H. Cardozo, 86, a prominent lawyer who founded the Association of American Law Schools in 1963, dies in Washington, D.C., of chronic lung disease.

D.C. United wins the inaugural Major League Soccer (MLS) championship, defeating the Los Angeles Galaxy, 3-2, in Foxboro, Massachusetts. . . . Ernie Els of South Africa wins his third consecutive World Match Play Championship in Virginia Water, England. . . . Annika Sorenstam of Sweden wins her second straight World Championship of Women’s Golf in Seoul, South Korea.

In Reno, Nevada, federal judge Howard D. McKibben sentences Joseph Martin Bailie, 41, to 36 years in prison for a failed attempt to blow up an IRS office in Reno.

In U.S. Department of State v. Legal Assistance for Vietnamese Asylum Seekers, the Supreme Court vacates a lower court’s 1995 ruling that the State Department violated federal immigration law by refusing to process the visa applications of Vietnamese immigrants housed at detention centers in Hong Kong.

A study finds that 31% of Americans either have no health insurance or have trouble getting medical care. . . . Pete Halat Jr., mayor of Biloxi, Mississippi, 1989–93, is indicted on federal charges of ordering the 1987 contract killing of Biloxi judge Vincent Sherry and his wife, Margaret Sherry, a former city councilwoman.

The Defense Department announces that it will notify 20,000 U.S. soldiers that they may have been exposed to fallout from deadly chemical weapons in March 1991 after U.S. troops blew up an Iraqi munitions dump following the end of the Persian Gulf war. The announced total represents a sharp increase over the Pentagon’s previous exposure estimates.

Rap music entrepreneur Marion (Suge) Knight, 30, is arrested and jailed for violating his probation.

Six firefighters are injured and some 100 houses are destroyed when wildfires, fanned by the Santa Ana winds, hit southern California.

Star cyclist Lance Armstrong, 25, who won the Tour DuPont in 1995 and 1996, reveals that he has testicular cancer that has spread to his abdomen and lungs.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 20

Oct. 21

Oct. 22

924—October 23–28, 1996

World Affairs

Gro Harlem Brundtland announces she will resign as Norway’s premier. . . . The Sejm votes not to charge Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, Poland’s former leader, and other former communist officials with constitutional violations in connection with the declaration of martial law in 1981. . . . Czech authorities charge 25 people—among them former policemen, soldiers, and prison officers—with having fraudulently obtained unsecured loans from 10 banks.

Oct. 23

Oct. 24

The Convention on Nuclear Safety, a UN treaty on the safety of nuclear power plants, goes into effect.

Oct. 25

Oct. 26

Oct. 27

Oct. 28

Europe

The EU votes to allow Europeans sued under the U.S.’s Helms-Burton law, which seeks to tighten the U.S. economic embargo of Cuba by allowing Americans to sue foreign companies that were using property seized from them in Cuba’s 1959 communist revolution, to countersue in European courts.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Pres. Nelson Mandela appoints Judge Ismail Mohomed, deputy president of the Constitutional Court, as South Africa’s first black chief justice.

Poland’s Sejm (parliament) passes a law liberalizing the country’s abortion laws, which are among the most restrictive in Europe. . . . More than 400,000 automobile engineers stage strikes in Germany. . . . Artur Axmann, 83, leader of Hitler Youth who claimed to have been the last person to see Adolf Hitler alive, dies at an undisclosed location of unreported causes. . . . Lord Gladwyn (born Hubert Miles Gladwyn Jebb), 96, British diplomat who played a key role in drafting the founding UN Charter, dies in Halesworth, England, of unreported causes.

Students in Quebec, Canada, launch a series of strikes to protest tuition costs.

Reports reveal that 30 bodies found in a mass grave near Ovcara have been identified as men executed in a 1991 massacre of hospital patients from the Croatian city of Vukovar. . . . Thorbjoern Jagland, the leader of Brundtland’s Labor Party, is sworn in by King Harald V as premier of Norway.

In Zaire, members of the Banyamulenge capture Uvira, 60 miles south of Bukavu. . . . A U.S. helicopter on a training mission crashes into the Persian Gulf. One of the aircraft’s 12 crew members is killed, and two are reported missing.

Protesters against the Progressive Conservative (Tory) government of Ontario disrupt routine activity in Toronto, Canada’s largest city and the capital of Ontario.

Reports reveal that Taliban warplanes have killed 40 civilians in Kalakan, Afghanistan.

An antitank rocket strikes a police barracks in Corsica, causing minor injuries to two police officers. The Corsican National Liberation Front (FLNC) claims responsibility for the attack. . . . Malta’s socialist Labor Party wins a narrow majority over the ruling Nationalist Party in parliamentary elections.

In Zaire, unidentified gunmen fire machine guns on the Kibumba refugee camp north of Goma, killing at least six people. The incident causes the refugees to flee the camp.

In Canada, at least 75,000 people march to Queen’s Park, site of the Ontario provincial legislature, to protest the Ontario government’s recent cuts to social service programs.

Coalition warplanes launch a bomb campaign against the Taliban offensive in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.

Unidentified gunmen in northern Corsica spray a police station with machine-gun fire. The attack causes no injuries. In a separate incident. a bomb explodes outside a prison in Casapianda, Corsica. . . . In Nazran, Russia, Security Council secretary Ivan P. Rybkin meets with leaders of the secessionist republic of Chechnya.

Reports confirm that the government of Zaire has declared a state of emergency in the country’s eastern provinces of North and South Kivu as attacks on refugee camps continue.

In Russia, RAO Gazprom, the world’s largest natural-gas company, raises $429.3 million in an international share offering underwritten by investment banks Morgan Stanley Group Inc. of the U.S. and Kleinwort Benson, a unit of Germany’s Dresdner Bank AG. . . . Alfred Sant, leader of Malta’s socialist Labor Party, is sworn in as premier.

Carol Bellamy, the executive director of UNICEF, reports that 4,500 children under age five are dying per month of hunger and disease in Iraq because of a lack of humanitarian supplies . . . The UNHCR evacuates all aid workers from camps around Uvira and Bukavu, in Zaire near the border with Rwanda and Burundi, which held 500,000 Hutu refugees. The Tutsi-led army of Burundi admits that its soldiers killed around 50 Hutu civilians accused of buying supplies for rebels. Aid workers claim that soldiers killed at least 100 people, mostly women and children, in the Oct. 13 shooting.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 23–28, 1996—925

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

District judge Paul Brown dismisses charges against Jack Meador and Jane Meador Cook, the brother and sister of a U.S. soldier who stole medieval artifacts from Germany during World War II. . . . Harold E(verett) Hughes, 74, U.S. senator (D, Iowa), 1969–75, and governor, 1963-69, dies in Glendale, Arizona, of emphysema, pneumonia, and heart ailments. . . . Former state senator Chet Blaylock, 71, the Democratic candidate for governor in Montana, dies in Deer Lodge, Montana, after apparently suffering a heart attack.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence opens a hearing on allegations that the CIA had links with supporters of Nicaraguan contra rebels who sold cocaine in U.S. cities such as Los Angeles in the 1980s.

Simon Fireman, a former vice chairman of Robert Dole’s campaign finance committee, pleads guilty in federal court in Boston, Massachusetts, to making illegal campaign donations. U.S. district judge William Young sentences Fireman to six months under house arrest and orders him to pay fines of $1 million; his company AquaLeisure is fined $5 million. The combined sentence is the most severe ever handed out for a campaign-finance violation.

A study in the American Journal of Public Health reports that the experience of racial discrimination may contribute to the high incidence of high blood pressure among black Americans. . . . The NHTSA confirms for the first time that a child who was properly belted into a car’s front passenger seat was killed by the inflation force of an air bag. . . . Hugh James Davis, 69, gynecologist who in 1968 invented the Dalkon Shield birth-control device, dies in Gibson Island, Maryland, of pancreatic cancer.

Pope John Paul II states that “fresh knowledge leads to recognition of the theory of evolution as more than just a hypothesis.”. . . . Cyclist Wayne Ross, 30, in his attempt to ride from one end of the globe to the other, is paralyzed after crashing into a bus in Guatemala City. . . . Diana Trilling (born Diana Rubin), 91, essayist, editor, and literary critic, dies in New York City of unreported causes.

In St. Petersburg, Florida, two white police officers stop a speeding car in a predominantly black part of the city, and when the driver, Tyron Lewis, 18, refuses to get out of the car, they fatally shoot him through the windshield. The incident sparks riots, and a crowd of more than 200 people throw bricks and bottles and burn at least 26 buildings. Police reveal at least 11 people—including a police officer—are injured, none of them seriously.

A House Government Reform and Oversight subcommittee subpoenas the FBI files of more than 50,000 of the 986,000 immigrants naturalized between Aug. 31, 1995, and Sept. 30, 1996. The INS passes new regulations that allow the agency to immediately revoke the citizenship of anyone whose application was improperly approved. These measures come amid Republican allegations that the Clinton administration has allowed 100,000 criminal aliens to become citizens so they could register to vote in the Nov. 5 elections.

Reports confirm that British scientists have uncovered the strongest evidence yet connecting bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad-cow disease, to the fatal human brain ailment CreutzfeldtJakob disease (CJD), bolstering the theory that people with CJD may have contracted the disease by eating contaminated beef. . . . Data reveal that wildfires burned some 6 million acres (2.4 million hectares) in states in the western U.S. in 1996. Western states reportedly suffered the worst wildfire season since 1952.

Star cyclist Lance Armstrong, 25, who Oct. 8 revealed he had testicular cancer that had spread to his abdomen and lungs, undergoes surgery to remove cancerous lesions on his brain. Armstrong was a twotime stage winner of cycling’s Tour de France and had won the Tour DuPont in 1995 and 1996.

A federal appeals court panel agrees to expand the investigative mandate of Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel looking into the Whitewater affair.

A survey of 400 nonprofit organizations finds that charitable contributions in the U.S. increased by 5% in 1995 from 1994.

The Federal Security Service hands over to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum copies of 15,000 pages of documents from the archives of the Soviet Union’s secret police, the KGB, describing Nazi German atrocities during World War II.

Oct. 24

Oct. 25

Baseball’s New York Yankees win the 92nd World Series, 3-2, over the defending champion Atlanta Braves at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees are the first team in World Series history to lose the first two games at home and then win four consecutive games for the championship. . . . Alphabet Soup wins the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto, Canada.

In a ruling considered the first of its kind, a jury in Laporte, Pennsylvania, convicts Rosa Marie Hartford, who drove an unidentified teen impregnated by Hartford’s stepson from Pennsylvania to an abortion clinic in Binghamtom, New York, without the knowledge of the girl’s mother, of interfering with the custody of a minor. . . . Data reveal that the birth rate for girls ages 15–19 dropped in 46 states from 62.1 per 100,000 in 1991 to 56.9 in 1995.

Oct. 23

Oct. 26

Oct. 27

The Treasury Department reveals the government’s Medicare trust fund has a $4.2 billion shortfall for fiscal year 1996. In fiscal 1995, the shortfall was $35.7 million.

Morey Amsterdam, 81, a comedian whose career spanned the vaudeville era through the age of television, dies in Los Angeles after suffering a heart attack. . . . Golfer Tom Lehman wins the PGA Tour Championship in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 28

926—October 29–November 3, 1996

World Affairs

Europe

Ruth Marshall of the UNHCR describes the plight of 1.2 million Hutu refugees in eastern Zaire as “desperate,” estimating that all but 400,000 of the refugees are cut off from UNHCR assistance, the region’s only significant source of food and medicine.

Oct. 29

Oct. 30

Oct. 31

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Canada, the 500 members of the Mushuau Innu Indian band vote overwhelmingly to relocate their community from Davis Inlet, Newfoundland, to a new site at Little Sango Pond, 5 miles (8 km) west of Davis Inlet.

A court in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, sentences 110 students for their roles in violent protests calling for reunification with communist North Korea at Seoul’s Yonsei University in August.

The Swiss government announces that it will join the Partnership for Peace initiative, a NATO program originally created to involve Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in NATO.

Russian nuclear scientist Vladimir Nechai 70, who headed the Chelyabinsk-70, one of Russia’s top-secret nuclear research centers, commits suicide.

Hundreds of thousands of Rwandan Hutu refugees are stranded without aid in eastern Zaire as the Zairian army fights Tutsi rebels and trades mortar fire with Rwandan forces across the border. . . . . Eugene de Kock, a former South African commander who acknowledged serving as an assassin in the security forces’ campaign against antiapartheid activists, is sentenced to life in prison. Separately, the South African rand reaches an all-time low, hitting 4.74 to the U.S. dollar.

Reports reveal that Hungary is the 65th country to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention, allowing the treaty to go into effect.

The French government discloses that the jobless rate has reached a record high of 12.6%. . . . Marcel Carne, 90, French film director best known for his 1945 classic Les Enfants du Paradis, dies in Paris of unreported causes.

Tutsi forces besiege Zairian army units at the southern and northern ends of Lake Kivu. Members of the Banyamulenge are on the verge of capturing Bukavu, capital of South Kivu. A UNHCR relief center in North Kivu swells to twice its normal capacity. . . . Charles Taylor, leader of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, escapes an assassination attempt in Monrovia. At least three people are killed.

A Danish court opens a hearing regarding allegations that Denmark’s membership in the European Union violates the country’s constitution.

In Sudan, three aid workers—John Early of the U.S., Moshen Raza of Kenya, and Mary Worthington of Australia—are taken prisoner while transporting wounded fighters loyal to John Garang, the enemy of rebel leader Kerubino Kwanyin Bol.

Junius R. Jayewardene, 90, former president of Sri Lanka, 1978–89, dies in Colombo of unreported causes.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees and other agencies evacuate the last foreign aid workers from the Goma region, ending all direct contact with more than 1 million refugees in eastern Zaire.

Thousands of Khmer Rouge rebels stationed along Cambodia’s border with Thailand disclose their defection to the Cambodian government.

Jean-Bedel Bokassa, 75, former ruler of the Central African Republic, 1964–79, known for brutality and greed during his reign, dies in Bangui of a heart attack.

Leaders of an estimated 4,000 Khmer Rouge rebel soldiers announce that their troops will unite with the government’s Royal Cambodian Armed Forces beginning Nov. 6.

Nov. 1

Nov. 2

Ukrainian member of Parliament Yevhen Shcherban is shot dead in an attack at Donetsk Airport that also kills two other people. . . . Voters in Montenegro and Serbia give the leftist coalition of Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic 64 seats in the federation’s 138-seat parliament. . . . An unidentified gunman in Moscow kills U.S. hotelier Paul Tatum in the first killing of an American during a recent wave of gangland-style contract killings in Russia. . . . Voters in Romania elect a center-right parliament. . . . Bulgarians choose Petar Stoyanov of the opposition SDS party as their next president. . . . In Tajikistan, opposition troops move toward the Afghan border, capturing the villages of Sagirdasht and Kalai-Hussein.

Nov. 3

In Afghanistan, Taliban planes drop cluster bombs onto positions of Gen. Massoud’s forces in the Panjshir Valley. . . . A court in Beijing, China, finds prominent dissident Wang Dan, who served four years in jail for his role as one of the top student leaders of 1989 prodemocracy demonstrations in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, guilty of plotting to subvert the government and sentences him to 11 years in jail. The sentencing is seen as a final blow to the Chinese dissident movement, whose key members are now all imprisoned or in exile.

The Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), a leftist rebel group based in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, carries out attacks in two Mexican states that result in the deaths of six police officers. . . . A Fokker 100 passenger jet crashes into a crowded Sao Paulo neighborhood, killing all 96 people on board and two people on the ground.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 29–November 3, 1996—927

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

U.S. District Court judge Emmet Sullivan declares a Washington, D.C., youth curfew violates the constitutional rights of minors and parents. . . . Reports disclose that police have arrested George Kobayashi, the head of a test-preparation school, for allegedly helping people cheat on standardized tests used to determine admission to graduate schools by taking advantage of time-zone differences.

The FBI arrests retired Russian spy Vladimir Galkin on charges of attempting to gather classified information on SDI, or “Star Wars.” . . . INS commissioner Doris Meissner reports that a review has found “no evidence that significant numbers of unqualified individuals have been or are being granted citizenship,” discrediting Republican allegations that 100,000 criminal aliens were allowed to become citizens in a push to register them as voters.

GM workers in Indianapolis, Indiana, and in Janesville, Wisconsin, walk off their jobs.

The Booker Prize is awarded to novelist Graham Smith for Last Orders. . . . Ewell Blackwell, 74, professional baseball pitcher in the 1940s and early 1950s, dies in Hendersonville, North Carolina, of cancer. . . . An estimated 3.5 million people attend a ticker-tape parade for the Yankees, winners of the World Series, in New York City.

In Leland, Mississippi, around 400 marchers protest the death of Aaron White, 29, a black motorist who was shot and killed after he crashed his truck into a tree and then allegedly fled the scene. His death was later ruled a suicide. A riot breaks out after the mayor and the police chief state that they will speak only to the protesters’ leaders. . . . FBI senior official Michael Kahoe admits to having destroyed an internal report critical of the FBI’s performance in a 1992 siege in Idaho’s remote Ruby Ridge area when he pleads guilty to one count of obstruction of justice in U.S. District Court.

Eleanor Lansing Dulles, 101, diplomat who founded the U.S. State Department’s Berlin desk in 1952 and played a major role in the rehabilitation of West Berlin after World War II, dies in Washington, D.C., of complications from a stroke.

The Commerce Department reports that the GDP grew at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 2.2% in the third quarter of 1996. That rate marks a sharp decline from the April-June quarter’s heated economic expansion, when the total output of goods and services produced within U.S. borders grew at a robust rate of 4.7%.

Christie’s closes a charitable auction in Vienna, Austria, featuring 8,000 pieces of art that German Nazis plundered from Jews who died during the World War II Holocaust. The sale’s proceeds of $14.5 million are to be donated to both Jewish and non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

Authorities declare a state of emergency in Leland, Mississippi, due to the riot that erupted Oct. 30. . . . Richard Thompson, the Oakland County, Michigan prosecutor, files charges against Dr. Jack Kevorkian in connection with 10 suicides that took place in that jurisdiction between June 20 and Sep. 7.

Frank Kurtz, 85, World War II pilot and Olympic high diver whose plane, the Swoose, was installed at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., in 1960, dies in Toluca Lake, California, of complications from a head injury suffered in 1995.

The Commerce Department reports that personal pretax income increased by 0.6% in September from August, to a seasonally adjusted annual figure of $6.54 trillion. The September figure marks the 16th consecutive monthly income increase.

Notable racing horse Cigar is officially retired by his owner, Allen Paulson.

A jury in Torrance, California, convicts freelance photographer Charles Rathbun of murder in the slaying of a model and former Los Angeles Raiders cheerleader, Linda Sobek, in November 1995.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Irving Gordon, 81, comedy writer and lyricist best known for the song “Unforgettable” and the sketch “Who’s on First?” made famous by the comedy team of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, dies of cancer.

Marcenia Lyle (Toni) Stone, 75, black baseball player who was the first woman to play as a regular on a bigleague professional team, dies in Alameda, California, of heart failure.

General Motors Corp. announces that it has reached a three-year national labor contract with the United Auto Workers.

GM reaches a deal with the 2,750 workers who struck Oct. 29 at a metal-stamping parts plant in Indianapolis, Indiana.

British Telecommunications PLC and U.S. long-distance carrier MCI Communications Corp. announce plans to merge in a deal that will create the world’s first transatlantic telephone carrier.

Ffyone Campbell, who in 1994 was named the first woman to walk around the world, admits that she did not actually accomplish the feat since she rode in trucks during a 1,000-mile stretch while she was pregnant. . . . Giacomo Leone of Italy wins the men’s race in the 27th New York City Marathon. Anuta Catuna of Romania wins the women’s title.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 29

Oct. 30

Oct. 31

Nov. 1

Nov. 2

Nov. 3

928—November 4–8, 1996

World Affairs

Nov. 4

Nov. 5

The leaders of Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Cameroon and the officers the Organization of African Unity (OAU) ask the UN Security Council to deploy a “neutral force” to set up temporary sanctuaries for the refugees and safe corridors for their repatriation to Rwanda and Burundi. . . . Croatian foreign minister Mate Granic agrees to an extension of the UN’s authority in the Serb-held region of Eastern Slavonia until July 1997.

Nov. 6

Europe

The UN General Assembly, in a secret ballot, elects candidates from France and New Zealand to the two vacant seats on a key UN budget committee. The U.S. loses its seat on the committee, and U.S. officials attribute the unprecedented move to resentment over U.S. arrears to the UN.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Armenian premier Hrant Bagratian resigns and is succeeded by Armen Sarkisyan.

Disenfranchised Zairian Tutsis led by two veteran Marxist guerrilla leaders capture three key towns from Zairian government troops, and they unilaterally declare a cease-fire.

Spain’s Supreme Court votes to clear former premier Felipe Gonzalez of involvement in the “deathsquad” killings of Basque separatists in the 1980s. . . . A volcano under the Vatnajokull glacier in Iceland erupts, causing the Grimsvotn lake underneath the glacier to flood. . . . Russian president Boris Yeltsin undergoes multiple-bypass heart surgery in Moscow. . . . A German court convicts Birgit Hogefeld and sentences him to life in prison for killing two U.S. soldiers and one U.S. civilian and of attempting to murder a high-level official in the German government in the 1985 bombing of the U.S. Rhein-Main Air Base near Frankfurt.

Thousands of students commandeer dozens of vehicles in Kinshasa, Zaire, and call for Premier Leon Kengo wa Dondo, to step down as premier. The students denounce Kengo for not declaring war on Rwanda and Burundi, which, they maintain, are backing the rebels in eastern Zaire. . . . In Algeria, Muslim fundamentalist rebels kill 31 people in an attack on Sid el Kebir, a village south of Algiers. At least 228 Algerian civilians have been reported killed in bombings and massacres by rebels since July, mostly in the area south of Algiers.

South Korean troops kill two infiltrators from the submarine that ran aground off the South Korean coast in September in a gun battle. Four South Korean troops die in the attack. . . . Pakistani president Farooq Leghari dismisses prime minister Benazir Bhutto amid charges of corruption and economic mismanagement. He also dissolves the National Assembly and swears in Malik Meraj Khalid as interim prime minister.

Tommy Lawton, 77, considered one of the all-time greats of English soccer, dies of unreported causes.

South African president Nelson Mandela signs a law guaranteeing equal school funding and a single syllabus for white and black children.

At least 1,000 people are killed when the deadliest cyclone to hit India since 1977 strikes the state of Andhra Pradesh. Local papers place the death toll at more than 2,000. The cyclone destroys at least 500,000 homes, and an estimated 500,000 people are stranded by floods. . . . Chinese dissident Chen Ziming, serving a 13-year sentence for his involvement in the 1989 Tiananmen Square prodemocracy protests, is released on medical parole from a jail in Beijing, China’s capital.

A Nigerian passenger jet crashes into a lagoon some 40 miles (65 km) southeast of Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, killing all 143 people on board.

The South Korean defense ministry calls off a massive manhunt for North Korean infiltrators from a submarine that ran aground off the South Korean coast in September. . . . Japanese premier Ryutaro Hashimoto is formally reelected by the Diet.

Nov. 7

Nov. 8

Africa & the Middle East

Russian president Boris Yeltsin undergoes a quintuple-bypass operation. . . . A boycott by stockbrokers halts all operations at Greece’s Athens Stock Exchange. The brokers start the boycott after learning that members of Delta Securities were charged with criminal fraud. . . . Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic states that he favors an extension of the UN authority in the Serb-held region of Eastern Slavonia until January 1998.

Jordan orders the release from prison of Islamic militant Laith Shubailat, arrested in late 1995 and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment in March for “violating the king’s dignity.”

Employees of the Ontario Medical Association go on strike to protest February cuts to the province’s health-care budget that involve turning away new patients seeking routine care.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 4–8, 1996—929

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The FBI reports that it received notification of nearly 8,000 hatecrime incidents in 1995. . . . An audiotape on which Texaco executives allegedly make racial slurs and discuss the destruction or alteration of documents pertinent to a lawsuit brought against the company in 1994 is made public.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Some 15 major fires that started over the summer in parts of western states are still burning.

The Deep End of the Ocean, by Jacquelyn Mitchard, tops the bestseller list.

William J. Clinton is reelected president of the U.S., the first Democrat since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second presidential term. Clinton, 50, is also the youngest president to be reelected. Republicans maintain control of both chambers of Congress. The partisan balance of governorships remains at 32 Republicans and 17 Democrats. Preliminary data estimates that 48.8% of eligible voters cast ballots, the lowest turnout since 1924. Voters in California pass Proposition 209, which bars the state from using race- or gender-based preferences in public hiring and educational admissions. Nine states pass a measure that requires ballot forms to identify whether candidates favor or oppose term limits.

In San Francisco, California, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rules, 2-1, that the federal government cannot force the NEA to use standards of decency when giving grants to artists, arguing that such stipulations are an unconstitutional curb on freedom of speech. The case stems from decency standards that Congress adopted for the endowment in 1990.

A coalition of labor and civil-rights groups led by the ACLU file a lawsuit challenging California’s Proposition 209 as unconstitutional. . . . A federal jury in Macon, Georgia, convicts three militia members— Robert Starr III, James McCranie Jr., and Troy Spain (also known as Troy Allen Kyser)—who are accused of planning to stockpile bombs for use in a war with the government. . . . Mario Savio, 53, student protest leader at UC Berkeley in the 1960s, dies in Sebastopol, California, of a heart attack. Dr. Jack Kevorkian, a retired pathologist and leading advocate for physician-assisted suicide, and his associate, Janet Good, are arrested in Ionia, Michigan, and charged with participating in the Aug. 30 suicide of Loretta Peabody, 54, who suffered from multiple sclerosis. Peabody’s death was the 46th suicide Kevorkian has acknowledged attending. . . . The CDC predicts that 16.6 million young people now under age 18 will become smokers in the future.

Reports confirm that GM has reached a pact with 4,800 workers striking since Oct. 29 at its plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, its most profitable facility.

The U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence finds that the Clinton administration broke no laws in refusing to stop Iranian weapons shipments to Bosnia in 1994. . . . U.S. Army officials disclose that the army is conducting a wide-ranging investigation into allegations of sexual assault and harassment at one of its training facilities in Maryland. . . . Pres. Clinton officially accepts the resignation of Secretary of State Warren Christopher.

Former representative Mel Reynolds (D, Ill.) and his wife, Marisol Reynolds, are indicted by a federal grand jury in Chicago on charges of bank fraud, illegal use of campaign funds, and making false statements to federal campaign regulators. . . . A U.S. District Court judge in Washington, D.C., sentences Joseph Waldholtz, the exhusband of Rep. Enid Greene (R, Utah), to 37 months in prison for bank, election and tax fraud involving the source of $1.8 million that was funneled to Greene’s 1994 reelection campaign.

The National Book Foundation presents awards to Andrea Barrett, Victor Martinez, James Carroll, and Hayden Carruth. The Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters is awarded to novelist Toni Morrison.

A team of scientists report they have found material in sedimentary rock on Akilia Island in West Greenland that suggests life developed on earth more than 3.85 billion years ago. Scientists had previously argued, based on fossil evidence, that life originated 3.5 billion years ago. . . . As part of Mars 96, a $180-million cooperative effort among Russia and 20 other nations aimed at determining whether life has ever existed on Mars, the U.S. successfully sends the Global Surveyor into earth orbit.

Pres. Clinton names Erskine B. Bowles to replace White House chief of staff Leon Panetta. . . . A federal grand jury in Wheeling, West Virginia, indicts seven men who are part of a group known as the West Virginia Mountaineer Militia in an alleged plot to blow up a FBI computer complex.

The Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S. reveals that it will drop its voluntary ban on TV and radio commercials that advertise spirits. The nation’s four primary TV networks— ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox—state they will not begin airing national advertisements of hard-liquor products.

An anonymous buyer purchases a 141-year-old rare Swedish stamp known as the Treskilling Yellow at an auction in Zurich, Switzerland, for a record 2.87 million Swiss francs ($2.3 million).

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 4

Nov. 5

Nov. 6

Nov. 7

Nov. 8

930—November 9–13, 1996

World Affairs

Bosnian Serb Republic president Biljana Plavsic fires Gen. Ratko Mladic, the leader of the Bosnian Serb armed forces during the fouryear-long civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. . . . Lord Sherfield (born Roger Mellor Makins), 92, British ambassador to the U.S., 1953–56, who was knighted in 1949, dies in Basingstoke, England, of unreported causes.

Nov. 9

Nov. 10

Heads of state of most Latin American countries and the leaders of Spain and Portugal meet for the sixth annual Ibero-American Summit, held in Vina del Mar, Chile.

Nov. 13

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Mexico, a fuel-tank explosion at a storage plant in San Juan Ixhuatepec that belongs to the state oil monopoly results in the deaths of four people and the injury of at least 15 others. The explosion ignites two other tanks and sends a cloud of smoke over nearby Mexico City, the capital, forcing the evacuation of more than 3,000 people.

Some 300 of a group of 1,300 fishermen who were on an expedition in the Bay of Bengal when a cyclone hit on Nov. 6 return safely. The rest are presumed dead.

Two airplanes collide in midair some 60 miles (100 km) west of the airport in New Delhi, India, killing all 349 people aboard. The accident is the worst midair collision in aviation history, and the fourth-deadliest air crash ever.

Hutu militants start shelling rebelheld Goma, Zaire, from the Mugunga camp, killing at least two people.

A bomb explodes in Moscow, Russia, killing 13 people at a memorial service for Afghan Veterans Invalids Fund head Mikhail Likhodei, who was killed, by a bomb in 1994. . . . A coalition of center-right parties wins 45.1% of the vote in Slovenian parliamentary elections. . . . Voters in Georgia’s former autonomous region of South Ossetia elect Lyudvig Chibirov as president. . . . Marjorie Proops, British journalist known for her advice columns, dies of unreported causes. Bosnian Serbs and Muslims battle in the town of Gajevi in northeast Bosnia-Herzegovina, in the separation zone between the MuslimCroat federation and the Bosnian Serb Republic. Two Muslims are killed, and several other people are wounded. It is the worst ethnic fighting in Bosnia since a deployment of NATO forces in 1995 ended a four-year-long civil war. . . . The center-right Homeland Union party gains control of Lithuania’s Seimas in a second round of parliamentary elections.

Nov. 11

Nov. 12

Europe

In Zaire, Kinshasa’s shop owners and public transportation workers honor a strike called by students who denounce Premier Leon Kengo wa Dondo for not declaring war on Rwanda and Burundi, which they think are backing the rebels in eastern Zaire. The students block roads into the capital with burning tires.

In Cairo, Egypt, 4,000 people from some 70 countries attend the third annual Middle East-North Africa Economic Conference. . . . The UN General Assembly, for the fifth consecutive year, condemns the U.S. economic embargo of Cuba. For the first time all 15 EU countries condemn the act. . . . The European Court of Justice orders Britain to enforce an EU policy mandating a maximum 48-hour workweek and enacting other workplace rules.

Fighting continues between Bosnian Serbs and Muslims in the town of Gajevi. . . . French insurance company Groupe Axa announces that it will purchase Union des Assurances de Paris. The merger will create the world’s largest insurance company in terms of the value of assets under management. . . . Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic sends Deputy Premier Nikola Sainovic to Pale to demand the ouster of Gen. Ratko Mladic, who has refused to step down.

At least 11 people are killed and some 560 others injured when a powerful earthquake hits southern Peru. The quake, measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale, also traps workers in remote gold mines in the Andes mountain range.

Some 10,000 delegates from 194 nations attend the World Food Summit, hosted by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and the delegates adopt a declaration enshrining “the right of everyone to have access to safe and nutritious food” and pledging to halve the number of the world’s hungry— currently 840 million—by the year 2015.

Greece’s stock exchange reopens after a boycott that started Nov. 8.

In Mexico, firefighters bring the blaze from the Nov. 11 explosion at a storage plant in San Juan Ixhuatepec under control. Another explosion at a Pemex plant in Dos Bocas in the southern state of Tabasco kills at least two workers.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 9–13, 1996—931

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

David R. Hinson resigns as chief of the FAA.

Documents detailing the army’s probe of sexual harassment charges reveal that Captain Derrick Robertson was charged with rape, forcible sodomy, conduct unbecoming an officer, adultery, obstruction of justice, and an improper relationship with a recruit. Staff Sergeant Delmar Simpson was charged with rape, forcible sodomy, adultery, and obstruction of justice. Sixteen other drill sergeants and instructors stationed at Aberdeen, Maryland, have been suspended as a result of the probe.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Evander Holyfield defeats Mike Tyson with a technical knockout in the 11th round to win the WBA heavyweight title in Las Vegas, Nevada. Holyfield becomes the second boxer to win three heavyweight championships in his career.

Auto racer Terry Labonte wins the NASCAR title, the Winston Cup, when he places fifth in the NAPA 500 in Hampton, Georgia.

Police in New York City take 35 people into custody after a raid on three adjacent apartment buildings uncovers an arsenal of guns and explosives, including 26 rifles and two working replicas of machine guns.

Lloyd A. Free, 88, pioneer in international public-opinion polling who, during World War II, was director of the Foreign Broadcast Listening Service, which monitored Nazi German propaganda and who was head of what is now the U.S. Information Agency, dies in Bethesda, Maryland, of prostate cancer.

The Supreme Court sets aside a lower-court ruling issued in March that upheld the constitutionality of Illinois’s Fourth Congressional District, a majority-Hispanic district in the Chicago area. The justices, without comment, order the lower court to review its opinion in the context of two Supreme Court rulings issued in June that struck down race-based congressional districts in Texas and North Carolina.

Army officials at Fort Leonard Wood, a training installation in Missouri, reveal that three male sergeants stationed there—Staff Sergeant Anthony S. Fore, Sergeant George W. Blackley Jr., and Staff Sergeant Loren B. Taylor—have been charged with crimes ranging from improper consensual sex to assault and battery.

A grand jury in St. Petersburg, Florida, clears James Knight, a white policeman, in the fatal shooting of Tyron Lewis, 18, a black motorist whose October death sparked riots. The ruling sets off more unrest. . . . An all-white jury in an Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, court acquits John Vojtas, a white police officer, of involuntary manslaughter in the October 1995 death of a black motorist, Jonny E. Gammage, 31, in Brentwood, Pennsylvania.

Nov. 9

Nov. 10

Nov. 11

A Pontiac, Michigan, jury convicts Jonathan T. Schmitz, 26, for the fatal shooting of Scott Amedure, 32, who revealed his homosexual attraction to Schmitz on the Jenny Jones Show.

Pres. Clinton signs legislation that provides funds to create or preserve some 120 parks, rivers, and other historical sites in 41 states.

In New York City, U.S. District Court judge Jack Weinstein fines Susan Frank and Jane Frank Kresch $10,000 each for dumping toxic sludge into New York Harbor. Frank is sentenced to eight months’ home confinement. Kresch is sentenced to one year and one day in prison.

A report in the Journal of the American Medical Association ties heavy smoking to the incidence of breast cancer among women.

Data show the Republican and Democratic parties broadcast 1,397 hours’ worth of ads in the U.S.’s 75 top media markets between Apr. 1 and Nov. 4. The figure includes ads from the presidential campaigns. . . . Alma Kitchell, 103, who was a pioneer in radio and TV and a talkshow host in the 1940s, dies in Sarasota, Florida, of unreported causes.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 12

Nov. 13

932—November 14–17, 1996

World Affairs

Nov. 14

Nov. 15

The UN Security Council votes unanimously to authorize a Canadian-led force to take aid to the refugees in eastern Zaire and to help in their “voluntary, orderly repatriation.” The council sets Mar. 31, 1997 as a deadline for completion of the mission.

Nov. 16

Nov. 17

As the World Food Summit draws to a close, protesters denounce the declaration adopted Nov. 13, enshrining “the right of everyone to have access to safe and nutritious food” and pledging to halve the number of the world’s hungry— currently 840 million—by the year 2015, as a “farce” since the document is not legally binding and contains no financial commitments.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Spain’s parliament votes overwhelmingly in favor of the country’s full participation in the military structure of NATO. . . . A crowd of Bosnian Muslims attack a 50-vehicle column of U.S. troops near the town of Brnjik. No U.S. soldiers are seriously injured.

Israel’s Supreme Court grants permission to the nation’s internal security service to employ methods that human-rights organizations characterize as “torture.”. . . Zairian Tutsi rebels known as the Banyamulenge fire rockets into the camp at Mugunga, where Hutu militants take refuge behind a human shield of refugees.

In Canada, Quebec officials declare that French is the common language of communication in the province’s public sector. . . . The Mexican Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Congress, passes a watered-down version of a politicalreform package approved by Mexico’s four main political parties in July.

Four coal miners die in a mining accident at the Gretley Colliery in Wallsend, New South Wales. It is the state’s worst mining disaster in 17 years. . . . Suresh Kumar, a member of the youth wing of the Communist Party of India, commits suicide by self-immolation to protest the planned Miss World beauty contest, which has been denounced as demeaning to Indian women and culture.

In Tajikistan, opposition forces capture the town of Komsomolabad, 65 miles (100 km) east of Dushanbe. . . . The Stone of Scone, a sandstone used in the coronation of Scottish kings, is returned to Scotland after spending 700 years in England.

An estimated 500,000 Hutu refugees embark on a four-day trip to return to Rwanda after spending more than two years in camps in eastern Zaire. The exodus averts a human catastrophe in Zaire’s North Kivu province, where fighting put the refugees at risk of death from starvation and disease. The refugees’ departure from Mugunga is marred by the massacre of about 30 men, women, and children, allegedly by soldiers of the Rwandan army. . . . Units of the Central African Republic’s army take up arms against the government of Pres. Ange-Felix Patasse for the third time in eight months.

Voters in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest city, elect Celso Pitta of the conservative Partido Progressista Brasileiro (PPB) as the city’s first black mayor. . . . In Canada, Michael Hopfner, a former provincial assemblyman, is convicted of fraud in Saskatchewan’s largest-ever political scandal.

Doku Zavgayev, the head of the Russian government-aligned Chechen leadership, announces that the government of pro-Russian premier Nikolai Koshman has resigned. . . . A bomb blast in the Caspian Sea town of Kaspiysk, Dagestan, kills 68 people.

At least 25 cases of cholera are reported as refugees travel from the Mugunga camp in Zaire toward the Rwandan border.

Europe

Vietnamese president Le Duc Anh is hospitalized after reportedly suffering a stroke.

Romanians in a runoff election choose Emil Constantinescu, 56, of the reform-minded center-right Democratic Convention of Romania (CDR) party as president, ending the seven-year rule of former Communist Party official Ion Iliescu. . . . Between 5,000 and 10,000 demonstrators assemble in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, to protest Pres. Aleksandr Lukashenko’s proposals on a new constitution. Police arrest 10 marchers, and a total of 20 are injured in clashes with police.

The Chart Thai (Thai Nation) party of incumbent premier Banharn Silpa-archa suffers a resounding defeat in parliamentary elections when the New Aspiration Party (NAP), led by Gen. Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, emerges with a narrow parliamentary plurality.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 14–17, 1996—933

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Gerald Atkins, 29, allegedly opens fire on a cafeteria at the Ford Motor plant in Wixom, Michigan, killing a plant foreman and seriously injuring two people. . . . A report declares that Washington, D.C.’s public school system is unacceptable “by every important educational and management measure.” . . . . Statistics suggest that cancer deaths in the U.S. have been declining at an average of 0.6% per year since 1990.

Officials at the Fort Jackson Army training center in South Carolina reveal that during the past year soldiers at the base were charged with 27 incidents of sexual misconduct. The air force discloses that, since 1994, eight male instructors have been punished for sexual harassment at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. . . . Vladimir Galkin, a retired Russian spy arrested Oct. 29, is freed by CIA director John Deutch in a move criticized by FBI Persian agents. . . . Two studies find that Persian Gulf War veterans are no more likely to die from disease or to suffer from serious illness than are military personnel who did not serve in the war.

California passes legislation that requires companies with more than 10 employees to provide training and to redesign workstations for employees who sustain repetitivestress injuries. The California law is the first in the nation to address the issue.

CIA director John Deutch visits the Watts section of Los Angeles to answer questions from leaders in the predominantly black, inner-city community about allegations that the CIA was involved in drug trafficking in the neighborhood in the 1980s. . . . Ellis Wayne Felker, 48, convicted of murdering a college student in 1981, is executed in the electric chair in Jackson, Georgia, becoming the 350th person executed in the U.S. and the 22nd in Georgia since 1976. . . . In response to a lawsuit, the public-school system in Boston, Massachusetts, states it will end its use of racial preferences in the admission of students to its three top high schools. . . . Prompted by the Nov. 14 report, the federally appointed Washington, D.C., financial control board takes over the district’s school system. . . . Alger Hiss, 92, diplomat in the State Department who in 1950 was convicted of perjury in what became a notorious communist espionage case that helped give validity to the anticommunist crusade launched by Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy (R, Wis.), dies in New York City of emphysema.

Four noncommissioned army officers assigned to Fort Leonard Wood, a training installation in Missouri, are charged with engaging in improper personal relationships with trainees.

Texaco agrees to a the largest-ever settlement—$176 million— in a racediscrimination suit brought in 1994 by black Texaco employees. . . . Amid allegations of illegal fund-raising by the Democratic Party, Clinton administration officials reveal that John Huang, while working for the Commerce Department, told the president that he would better serve him as a fund-raiser for the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The White House’s disclosure provides the first evidence that both Clinton and Riady were involved in Huang’s appointment to the DNC, which has since late September returned more than $1.5 million in contributions primarily solicited by Huang from foreign donors. . . . B(ob) J(ohn) Magness, 72, cable-TV company owner who has been ranked annually since 1985 by Forbes magazine as among the U.S.’s wealthiest people, dies in Charlottesville, Virginia, of lymphoma.

Pres. Clinton signs an executive order to ease restrictions on the export of data-scrambling technology. The plan is designed to improve U.S. companies’ ability to compete in the lucrative market for encryption software, while continuing to allow law-enforcement officials to unscramble computer codes in the course of criminal investigations. . . . An international team of researchers report they have mapped the location of a gene they suspect of causing Parkinson’s disease, a degenerative nerve condition.

Delaware prosecutors charge Amy Grossberg, 18, and Brian C. Peterson Jr., 18, from Bergen County, New Jersey, with first-degree murder in the death of their newborn child. Peterson admitted to putting their baby into a plastic bag in a dumpster in freezing weather shortly after Grossman delivered their child in a motel. An autopsy, however, shows that the baby died of skull fractures.

Harold James Nicholson, a career CIA officer, is arrested for allegedly being involved in a conspiracy to commit espionage for Russia. . . . Mother Teresa is awarded honorary U.S. citizenship by the U.S. ambassador to India, Frank Wisner, in recognition of her lifelong dedication to helping the poor.

Although it is not immediately reported, a truck transporting two nuclear bombs to Ellsworth Air Force Base in Rapid City, South Dakota, slides off Interstate Highway 83 in western Nebraska during an ice storm. The incident is the first accident involving the transportation of “sensitive nuclear materials” in 13 years.

A 6-ton spaceship, Mars 96, is launched from Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan to study the atmosphere on the planet Mars.

At least four people among a group of 10 trying to enter the U.S. from Mexico by wading across the Rio Grande near the city of Brownsville, Texas, drown.

The Democratic National Committee announces that it has dismissed John Huang, a former senior DNC official at the center of the fundraising controversy, from his post as part of normal, postelection cutbacks.

The Russian spacecraft bound for Mars that was launched Nov. 16 crashes into the Pacific Ocean 1,000 miles (1,600 km) east of Easter Island and 2,000 miles west of Santiago, Chile, damaging the credibility of the Russian space program.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, 68, Roman Catholic archbishop of Chicago who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Pres. Clinton in September, dies in Chicago of pancreatic cancer.

Nov. 14

Nov. 15

Nov. 16

Australian David Dicks, 18, becomes the youngest person to sail nonstop around the world.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 17

934—November 18–22, 1996

Nov. 18

Nov. 19

Nov. 20

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

NATO plans to deploy a 30,000strong force in Bosnia for at least 12 months.

Belarus president Aleksandr Lukashenko accepts the resignation of Premier Mikhail Chigir, who quits when Lukashenko insists on holding a referendum regarding constitutional reforms that will give him more power. He is replaced by Sergei Ling. . . . Truckers, backed by several French labor unions, walk off their jobs. . . . Service on the English Channel rail tunnel connecting Britain and France is interrupted by a fire that breaks out, injuring 34 people.

Zambian president Frederick J. T. Chiluba and his ruling party win victory in general elections.

The U.S. formally vetoes the reelection of UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali to a second five-year term, setting the stage for a leadership crisis. . . . The International Federation of Airline Pilots’ Associations reveals that air-traffic control and radar facilities are inadequate over three-quarters of the African continent. . . . Reports disclose that the U.S.’s National Rifle Association (NRA) gun-rights organization has been accredited with the UN as a nongovernmental organization.

A court in Hamburg, Germany, sentences Suhaila Sayeh Andrawes to 12 years in prison for her role in the 1977 hijacking of a Lufthansa airliner and the slaying of the jet’s pilot. . . . Kresimir Zubak, who represents the Croat community in Bosnia-Herzegovina’s three-man presidency, orders the removal of Deputy Defense Minister Hasan Cengic from his post to fulfill a U.S. condition for delivery of an arms shipment. . . . In Romania, Emil Constantinescu names Victor Ciorbea to be premier.

Two Israeli border policemen are arrested after having been identified in an amateur videotape that shows them beating six Palestinians at a checkpoint near Jerusalem. . . . The Nigerian government releases three opposition figures—Gani Fawehinmi, Femi Falana, and Femi Aborishade—who have been jailed since the beginning of the year.

The WTO agrees to set up a threemember dispute panel to study whether the U.S.’s Helms-Burton law, which seeks to tighten the U.S. economic embargo of Cuba, violates international trade rules. . . . A U.S. study on science and math education in 41 nations finds that Singapore scores highest in both categories, while South Africa places last. On the science portion, the U.S. ranks 17th out of 41, and it comes in 28th out of 41 in math.

Poland’s Pres. Aleksander Kwasniewski signs into law a bill that will liberalize the country’s abortion laws, which are among the most restrictive in Europe. The new law allows women to have an abortion up to the 12th week of a pregnancy if they face financial or personalhealth problems.

Estonia’s coalition government collapses when the Reform Party, one of the junior parties in the government, announces that it will leave the coalition.

Nov. 21

The Americas

In respect to the Nov. 17 Thai elections, PollWatch, an election-monitoring group, reports that it has received more than 5,000 complaints of voting irregularities.

Pope John Paul II, who is credited with playing a key role in bringing down communism in Eastern Europe, holds his first meeting with Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz, leader of the last communist country in the West. The pope accepts an invitation to visit Cuba in 1997, which will be the first visit to that country by any pope.

Bill Clinton becomes the third U.S. president to visit Australia. . . . China sentences without trial two prodemocracy campaigners, Fu Guoyong and Chen Ping, who authored articles demanding political reform, to labor camps for three years and one year, respectively.

South Korean president Kim Young Sam becomes the first South Korean president to visit Vietnam since the two nations normalized diplomatic relations in 1992. . . . A fire in a 16-story commercial building kills 39 people and injures at least 80 others in a shopping district on the Kowloon Peninsula in Hong Kong.

Frederick J. T. Chiluba is sworn in for a second term as Zambian president.

At least 29 people are killed and more than 80 others are injured when an explosion rips through a six-story building in a residential and shopping district in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Premier Vaclav Klaus’s Civic Democratic Party (ODS) wins a plurality in parliamentary elections in the Czech Republic. . . . Maria Casares, 74, Spanish-born actress known for her legendary relationship with French writer Albert Camus, dies in France of unreported causes.

Nov. 22

Asia & the Pacific

Masked assassins methodically shoot and kill a Taoyuan County magistrate, Liu Pang-yu, and seven others, in a suburb of Taipei. It is the worst criminal massacre ever in Taiwan. . . . The UN High Commissioner for Refugees shuts down operations in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, since the safety of its staff cannot be assured. . . . In Tasmanian Supreme Court, Australian chief justice William Cox in Tasmanian Supreme Court sentences Martin Bryant to 35 life prison terms for killing 35 people in a deadly shooting spree in April. In Bangalore, India, protestors launch demonstrations against the Miss World beauty contest, denouncing the pageant as demeaning to Indian women and culture. . . . Nobel Peace Prize winner Mother Teresa undergoes heart surgery at a hospital in Calcutta, India, to clear two blocked arteries.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 18–22, 1996—935

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

In Ohio v. Robinette, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that police officers who stop drivers for traffic violations may secure permission to search cars for narcotics without telling motorists that they are free to go. . . . Judge Francis Egitto of Kings County Supreme Court sentences James Irons, 19, to 25 years to life in prison for a 1995 arson attack that fatally burned a subway token clerk. . . . Evelyn Hooker, 89, psychologist whose research shows that homosexuality is not a mental illness, dies in Santa Monica, California.

Eleven female House members meet with four U.S. Army generals in a closed-door session to discuss the revelations of sexual abuse at army installations. Reports confirm that officials at the Aberdeen training center received nearly 4,500 calls on a hotline established Nov. 7 to register complaints. Army officials report that about 580 of those complaints have been deemed credible. . . . U.S. administration officials announce a $140 million aid package for Rwanda.

The Institute of Medicine reports that the U.S. has the highest rate of sexually transmitted diseases in the developed world. The report estimates that there are 12 million new cases of sexually transmitted diseases in the U.S. each year, including 3 million among teenagers.

Officials of the U.S. Department of Defense state that no more than 800 U.S. military personnel will participate in the UN mission. Pres. Clinton has pledged to send up to 4,000 U.S. troops to the Rwanda-Zaire region.

Jamie Nabozny, a homosexual man who, as a middle-school and high-school student in the Ashland School District in northern Wisconsin, was beaten and mocked by classmates, wins a $900,000 outof-court settlement, ending the first federal trial in which a school district is sued for not protecting a gay student.

The CDC reports that the number of babies born with the AIDS virus decreased steadily between 1992 and 1995. The number of newborn infants who contracted the disease fell by 27% to 663 in 1995, from 905 in 1992. . . . Walter Edward Hoffman, 89, U.S. district judge who presided over the trial that ended the political career of Vice Pres. Spiro Agnew, dies in Norfolk, Virginia, of unreported causes.

Harold James Nicholson, a career CIA officer, is indicted by a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, on one count of conspiracy to commit espionage for Russia. Nicholson is the highest-ranking CIA official ever to be charged with espionage.

In a civil “wrongful-death” suit, O. J. Simpson, a former football star accused of stabbing his former wife and her friend to death in 1994, testifies in open court for the first time. . . . Ray Blanton, 66, governor of Tennessee, 1975–79, who was forced out of office in 1979 due to his suspected involvement in a “cash-for-clemency” scandal, dies in Jackson, Tennessee, of complications from liver disease.

Army Secretary Togo West Jr. announces that the army’s inspector general will take over the investigation of charges of widespread sexual abuse at army training installations. . . . An air force searchand-rescue plane crashes into ocean waters 40 miles (65 km) off Cape Mendocino in northern California.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Computer and electronics firm Hewlett-Packard Co. reveals that it has government approval to export new data-scrambling technology, known as the International Cryptography Framework, which incorporates several different encryption techniques.

Judge J. Stephen Czuleger of California Superior Court sentences former Orange County treasurer Robert Citron, whose investment strategy lost $1.6 billion, pushing the county into one of the largest ever municipal bankruptcies, to one year in prison and fines him $100,000. . . . Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary announces that the federal government will pay $4.8 million to the victims or their families to settle claims of 12 unwitting subjects in government-sponsored radiation experiments conducted during the cold war.

The U.S. space shuttle Columbia lifts off on a mission to launch two satellites that will conduct two experiments in space.

Comptroller of the Currency Eugene A. Ludwig announces a newly adopted rule that will allow banks to pursue financial-service activities in areas from which they have been virtually barred since the 1930s.

Russia successfully launches a supply vehicle en route to astronauts on the Mir space station.

Nov. 18

Nov. 19

The auction houses of Sotheby’s Holdings Inc. and Christie’s International PLC close their NYC fall auctions with a combined sale total of $269 million, a slight increase over 1995’s fall auction sales.

Abdus Salam, 70, Pakistani physicist whose research on the unity of nature’s fundamental forces helped him become, in 1979, the first Muslim to win a Nobel Prize, dies in Oxford, England, of a long-term neurological disorder.

Amid allegations of illegal fundraising, the Democratic National Committee reveals that it has returned a $450,000 contribution, its largest refund to date. . . . Marisol Reynolds, the wife of former Rep. Mel Reynolds (D, Ill.), pleads guilty to falsifying loan applications, filing false reports to the FEC, and cashing campaign checks for the couple’s personal use.

The crew of the spacecraft Columbia launches a satellite called the Wake Shield that is designed to grow semiconductor film.

Nov. 20

Nov. 21

Mark Lenard, 68, actor best known for his role as Dr. Spock’s father on the TV series Star Trek, dies in New York City of multiple myeloma.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 22

936—November 23–28, 1996

World Affairs

Russian president Boris Yeltsin signs a decree ordering the withdrawal of the last two remaining military brigades in Chechnya.

Nov. 23

Nov. 24

Nov. 25

Nov. 26

Nov. 27

Europe

Africa & the Middle East An Ethiopian Boeing 767 passenger jet is hijacked while en route from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to Nairobi, Kenya, and then to Abidjan, Ivory Coast. The jet runs out of fuel and crashes into the Indian Ocean near the Comoros, a small archipelago off the east coast of Africa, killing 123 of the 175 passengers and crew aboard in what is reportedly the second deadliest hijacking in history. . . . In Niger, the National Union of Independents for Democratic Renewal (UNIRD) and its allies wins 69 of 83 seats in the National Assembly.

EU officials, after meeting with several of Europe’s leading finance and bank officials, announce that Italy’s currency, the lira, will be permitted to reenter the European exchange rate mechanism.

Despite rallies in Belgrade, the Serbian and Yugoslav capital, Belgrade’s First District Court annuls the results of 33 Belgrade city council seats won by candidates from the Zajedno (Together) coalition which opposes the party affiliated with Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic. . . . Robert Kocharyan is reelected president of the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, with more than 85% of the vote.

Leaders of the 18 member nations of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum endorse a declaration under which the countries will eliminate almost all tariffs on computers and hightechnology products by the year 2000. . . . The EU extends sanctions imposed on Nigeria by six months after the execution of nine minority-rights activists in November 1995.

In a Belarus referendum, voters approve a new constitution that increases presidential control over every branch of government. Opponents of Pres. Lukashenko claim that the vote was falsified and accuse the president of establishing a dictatorship. . . . In response to the Nov. 24 ruling on election results, more than 100,000 demonstrators peacefully march in Belgrade.

The UN’s International Labor Organization reports that the number of unemployed and underemployed people worldwide rose to 1 billion in 1995, from 820 million in 1993 and 1994. . . . Canadian prime minister Jean Chretien and Chinese premier Li Peng sign a C$4 billion (US$3 billion) deal for the sale of two Canada Deuterium Uranium nuclear reactors by Atomic Energy Canada Ltd. to China.

Azerbaijan’s president, Heydar A. Aliyev, confirms Artur Rasizade as premier. Azerbaijan also condemns the Nov. 24 elections in the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh. . . . Michael Bentine, 72, British comedian who worked in radio and TV, dies in London of prostate cancer. . . . Secretary for Scotland Michael Forsyth announces that public health officials will investigate a food-poisoning epidemic in central Scotland.

The WHO reports that there were three million new AIDS cases worldwide in 1996. . . . The UN Security Council votes to extend the mission of a 23-member military observer group working with the ECOWAS peacekeepers in Liberia until Mar. 31, 1997. . . . The UN Security Council approves a six-month extension, to expire in May 1997, of the mandate of the UN Preventive Deployment Force in Macedonia.

Gen. Ratko Mladic formally resigns his leadership of the Bosnian Serb army.

Opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi wa Mulumba returns to Zaire from a meeting with Pres. Mobutu Sese Seko in France and is greeted at the airport by more than 50,000 supporters. . . . The South African government announces that in December 1997 it will sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

Greek farmers erect barricades throughout Greece to block major roads in an act of protest against the government’s austere budget proposals. Public-sector workers stage a one-day strike. . . . In Belarus, Pres. Aleksandr Lukashenko signs a new constitution that increases his control over every branch of government.

In Lebanon, Premier Rafik al-Hariri deploys tanks and soldiers to curb nationwide demonstrations called by the Confederation of Trade Unions to protest the government’s economic policies. . . . The United Arab Emirates and Britain sign a defense cooperation accord. . . . Algerians vote in a referendum to approve a new constitution extending the power of the presidency and effectively banning Islamicbased parties.

Nov. 28

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Reports confirm that three lawsuits have been filed against Joaquin Balaguer, the former president of the Dominican Republic.

Police arrest more than 1,500 people staging violent street demonstrations to protest the Miss World beauty contest in Bangalore, India. The demonstrators denounce the pageant as demeaning to Indian women and culture.

Pres. Alberto Fujimori confirms that Peru has purchased Soviet-built MiG-29 fighter jets, a disclosure that heightens tensions with neighboring Ecuador.

The death toll from the crash of the jet hijacked Nov. 23 rises to 125, as two more passengers die of injuries sustained in the crash.

King Bhumibol Adulyadej installs Gen. Chavalit Yongchaiyudh as Thailand’s new premier.

The National Assembly approves South Korea’s membership in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). . . . North Korea releases Evan C. Hunziker, 26, an American detained in August and accused of spying for South Korea. . . . Dame Joan Hammond, 84, New Zealand-born opera singer, dies in New South Wales, Australia, of long-term ailments.

Japan’s Tokyo District Court decides in a landmark ruling that Shiba Shinkin Bank illegally denied promotions to 12 women employees due to their gender. The lawsuit marks the first time in Japan that a company is found guilty of gender discrimination in promotions. The court orders the bank to pay about 100 million yen ($890,000) in compensation to 12 women and to immediately promote 11 of them to management positions. One plaintiff had retired since the suit was filed in 1987. A former Rio de Janeiro state trooper, Nelson Oliveira dos Santos Cunha, is found guilty by a jury in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, of eight counts of murder in connection with the massacre of eight homeless youths in July 1993. He is sentenced to 261 years in prison. . . . Naval officer Dean Marsaw ends a 29-day hunger strike when the Canadian navy restores him to his former rank of lieutenant commander. The military justice system will hear his appeal on his previous demotion in 1997.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 23–28, 1996—937

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Coast Guard rescuers find two bodies and one survivor, Tech. Sergeant Robert Vogel, from the Nov. 22 crash off the coast of California. The other eight crew members are listed as missing and are presumed dead.

Nov. 23

Golfer Karrie Webb of Australia wins the LPGA Tour Championship. . . . In football, the Toronto Argonauts win, 43-37, the Grey Cup over the Edmonton Eskimos. . . . Steffi Graf of Germany and Pete Sampras win the season-ending events on the women’s and men’s professional tennis tours.

Dr. David A. Kessler, commissioner of the FDA, announces that he will quit his post, which he has held for six years, in 1997.

The Dow closes at a record high of 6547.79, marking the 12th record high of the month for the Dow and the 43rd record high in 1996.

Vincent Ellerbe, 18, is found guilty of a 1995 arson attack that fatally burned a subway token clerk. . . . Almost 500 violent criminals and sexual offenders are freed from Florida prisons for good behavior because of an October court ruling regarding mandatory prison terms and time off for good behavior. . . . South Carolina governor David Beasley (R) calls for the removal of the Confederate States of America flag from the state capitol building in Columbia.

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt announces that the government is more than doubling the entrance fees at several of the country’s most popular national parks, such as the Grand Canyon, Yosemite and Yellowstone. Fees in some areas will increase from $15 to $40 by May 23, 1997.

In San Francisco, California, chief U.S. district judge Thelton Henderson temporarily blocks Proposition 209, a measure that will bar the California state government from relying on race or gender-based preferences in educational admissions, public hiring, and contracting, from going into effect. . . . Thomas Malik, 19, is found guilty of a 1995 arson attack that fatally burned a subway token clerk.

The Social Security Administration notifies the parents of 260,000 children that they may stop receiving disability payments covered by the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program due to new federal welfare laws. . . . Carol Browner, administrator of the EPA, announces the agency’s plans to impose stricter national air-quality standards.

The broadcasting, electronics, and computer industries reach an agreement setting national standards for the production of digital televisions, ending years of debate. . . . The FDA approves a new drug called Aricept to treat Alzheimer’s disease.

Nov. 24

Nov. 25

Major League Baseball team owners ratify a new five-year collectivebargaining agreement.

Nov. 26

Nov. 27

Nov. 28

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

938—November 29–December 4, 1996

Nov. 29

Nov. 30

Europe

Judge Claude Jorda of the UN international war crimes tribunal in The Hague, the Netherlands, sentences Drazen Erdemovic, 25, to a 10-year prison term. Erdemovic, a low-ranking soldier, pled guilty in May to participating in a massacre of Muslim civilians near the town of Srebrenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina, in 1995. His sentence is the first to be handed down by an international tribunal in the post-World War II era.

Reports confirm that the Lithuanian parliament has selected Gediminas Vagnorius to be premier of Lithuania. . . . French truck drivers end a national strike begun Nov. 18 that crippled several sectors of France’s economy. . . . Reports reveal that marchers burned American flags in front of the U.S. embassy in Belgrade to protest alleged U.S. support of Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic.

Statistics show that at the close of the Atlantic hurricane season, 13 tropical storms, including nine hurricanes killed at least 135 people in the U.S., Central America, and the Caribbean.

Workers at the Sosnovyi Bor nuclear power station near St. Petersburg, Russia, begin a hunger strike to urge the government to pay 27 billion rubles worth of back wages.

Heavy fighting between the rebels and government forces breaks out in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic. . . . The government of Sierra Leone and rebel forces sign a peace agreement ending a five-year-long civil war.

In Tajikistan, opposition forces capture the town of Garm, 91 miles east of Dushanbe, as part of a intensified offensive. . . . As per the Nov. 23 decree, the last Russian military brigades in Chechnya begin their withdrawal. . . . Public-health workers begin vaccinating students at the University of Wales in an effort to stem a meningitis outbreak. . . . Moldova’s voters choose Petru Lucinschi as their new president.

The UN World Food Program reports that the number of people being fed by aid agencies in Burundi has doubled in recent weeks, to 80,000.

Dec. 1

Dec. 2

The EU issues a policy statement that links trade and aid to Cuba to improvement in Cuba’s humanrights record and progress toward democracy.

A court in Athens, Greece, releases Mohammed Rashid, a Palestinian convicted of murder in the 1982 bombing of a Pan American World Airways jet over Hawaii that killed one person, from prison for good behavior. The U.S. criticizes the early release of Rashid, who in 1992 was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Chinese president Jiang Zemin and Indian Prime Minister H. D. Deve Gowda sign several accords aimed at reducing tensions in Sino-Indian relations.

Czech Republic president Václav Havel undergoes surgery for lung cancer in a Prague hospital.

A bomb explodes on a crowded commuter train in Paris, France, killing two people and injuring 88. . . . Serbian authorities shut down Radio B-92, which has reported extensively on the ongoing protests against Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic. . . . More than Russian 400,000 coal miners walk off their jobs at 180 mines nationwide to protest a delay in payment of their wages. . . . Reports suggest that Bosnia’s military manufactured and used chlorine gas-filled mortar shells during the Bosnian civil war. Chlorine gas was banned by a 1925 treaty.

Dec. 3

Dec. 4

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Koji Kobayashi, 89, former chairman of Japan’s NEC Corp., a computer and communications company, dies in Tokyo of unreported causes.

Peter Bronfman, 67, Canadian businessman who, with his brother, Edward, headed what was once one of North America’s largest corporate enterprises, Edper Investments Inc., dies in Toronto, Canada, of cancer.

The Chinese currency, the yuan, becomes fully convertible for purposes of international trade.

Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon fires Attorney General Antonio Lozano Gracia, the only opposition party member of his cabinet.

A committee made up of Japanese and American officials issue a finalized agreement between Japan and the U.S. under which the amount of land on the Japanese island of Okinawa used by the U.S. military will be reduced by 20%.

Burundi government soldiers allegedly kill more than 500 Hutu civilians in a massacre in the Butaganza commune.

Reports confirm that the British government has appointed Sir Richard Luce to serve as the first-ever civilian governor of Gibraltar. . . . In Belarus, three judges resign to protest Pres. Aleksandr Lukashenko’s new constitution. . . . Eurotunnel PLC restarts limited passenger service after a November fire. . . . In Bulgaria, 1,000,000 people take part in a one-day strike to pressure the government to resign.

Reports from India confirm that the Bombay High Court has rejected a suit aimed at blocking continued construction in Maharashtra state of a $2.5 billion power project by Enron Corp. of the U.S., a project that has been stalled since August 1995. . . . Babrak Karmal, 67, who was installed as head of state in Afghanistan after the 1979 Soviet invasion and replaced in 1986 by opposition guerillas supported by Iran and the West, dies in Moscow of liver cancer.

The Guatemalan government and leaders of the leftist Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union (UNRG) sign a definitive cease-fire.

A Japanese court sentences the U.S. Navy’s Seaman First Class Terrence Michael Swanson, 20, to 13 years in prison for robbery and attempted murder of a Japanese woman. The U.S. handed Swanson over to Japan in July, making him the first American military member surrendered to Japan under an October 1995 rule change regarding custody of American servicemen suspected of serious crimes.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 29–December 4, 1996—939

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

John Salvi III, convicted of murdering two abortion clinic workers in a 1994 shooting spree in Brookline, Massachusetts, is found dead in his jail cell, an apparent suicide. . . Reports indicate that the Minnesota Supreme Court has upheld a lower-court ruling ordering tobacco companies that are being sued by the state and by the private firms of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota to turn over to the court their secret formulas for making cigarettes.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The Justice Department rejects Republican lawmakers’ request that an independent prosecutor be appointed to examine allegations of illegal fund-raising by the Democratic Party, arguing that the department found no credible evidence that Pres. Clinton, Vice Pres. Gore, or members of the president’s cabinet engaged in illicit activity related to questionable donations to the party’s national committee.

A study reports that scientists from the University of Wurzburg in Germany and from the U.S. National Institutes of Health have identified a gene that appears to influence the general level of anxiety a person experiences.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Nov. 29

John Williamson, 44, basketball star who helped lead the New York Nets to two championships, in 1974 and 1976, dies in New Haven, Conn., of kidney problems. . . . Tiny Tim (born Herbert Khaury), 64, quirky singer who gained fame in the 1960s, dies in Minneapolis, Minn., of an apparent cardiac arrest. France wins tennis’s Davis Cup with a 3-2 victory over the Swedish team in Malmo, Sweden.

A navy training plane crashes near a runway at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, killing both crew members.

In Los Angeles, U.S. district judge Mariana Pfaelzer throws out Charles Keating Jr.’s 1993 conviction on racketeering and securities fraud charges after ruling that several members of the 1993 jury became predisposed against Keating when they discussed details of Keating’s related 1991 conviction. The decision leaves Keating at least temporarily free of all government cases brought against him in connection with the collapse of S&Ls in the 1980s and early 1990s.

In Honolulu, Hawaii, in a landmark ruling, Judge Kevin S. C. Chang rules that an existing state ban on same-sex marriages is unconstitutional and orders that the state grant marriage licenses to samesex couples.

The U.S. Justice Department bars 16 Japanese World War II war crimes suspects from ever entering the U.S. The 16, who are not publicly identified, are the first Japanese put on the U.S. government’s 60,000-name “watch list,” which was established in 1979 to block U.S. entry by suspected war criminals from Nazi Germany or from Nazi-allied nations. The 16 are accused of forcing prisoners of war to undergo medical experiments or of making foreign women, known as “comfort women,” provide sex for Japanese troops.

Florida governor Lawton Chiles (D) declares a fiscal emergency in Miami due to a budget crisis discovered in September after three officials resigned in a corruption scandal. He states that he will appoint a state oversight committee to help Miami authorities restore the city to financial health.

In Hawaii, Judge Kevin S. C. Chang awards a stay pending an appeal of his Dec. 3 decision so his ruling on same-sex marriages will not go into effect immediately.

The INS announces that it will tighten background checks on applicants for citizenship. Under the new rules, an applicant will not be granted citizenship until the fingerprint check is complete.

Officials state that they will permanently shut down the Connecticut Yankee nuclear power plant in Haddam Neck, Connecticut. . . . A Senate-appointed commission of economists reports that the nation’s main gauge of inflation, the consumer price index (CPI), overestimates inflation by 1.1 percentage points annually. The commission argues that the correct figure for current inflation is about 1.9% per year, not the 3% reported by the CPI.

U.S. astronaut Shannon W. Lucid, who spent a record 188 days in space, is awarded a Congressional Space Medal of Honor by Pres. Clinton.

Silent Honor, by Danielle Steel tops the bestseller list. . . . Heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson tops Forbes magazine’s list of the 40 highestpaid athletes, earning $75 million in 1996, more than any athlete in history.

Canadian art student Jubal Brown, 22, admits that in November he intentionally vomited on modernist Piet Mondrian’s Composition in White, Red and Black (1939) at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art. Brown claims that he was making an artistic statement about what he calls “oppressively trite” and “banal” art.

Mars Pathfinder, an unmanned U.S. space vessel set to land on Mars on July 4, 1997, is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

In Oakland County, Michigan, Judge Francis O’Brien, sentences Jonathan Schmitz to 25–50 years in prison for the fatal shooting of a gay admirer, Scott Amedure, after a taping of the Jenny Jones Show.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 30

Dec. 1

Dec. 2

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Dec. 4

940—December 5–10, 1996

Dec. 5

World Affairs

Europe

The UN Security Council votes to extend its peacekeeping mission in Haiti through May 31, 1997. . . . The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) names the A-Bomb Dome building in Hiroshima, Japan, a structure that survived the atomic bomb dropped on the city by the U.S. in 1945, as a World Heritage site. The only other World War II-related place named a World Heritage site is a former Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz in Poland.

Thousands of people continue to protest in Belgrade, and they call for Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic to step down. The government relents and allows Radio B-92 to start broadcasting again. . . . One man dies from injuries sustained in the Dec. 3 bombing in Paris, France, bringing the death toll to three.

Asia & the Pacific

Bolivia sells Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB), the state oil and gas company, to three groups of private investors in deals worth a combined $835 million. YPFB has been under government control for 59 years.

In response to the Nov. 27 declaration by South Africa that it is severing diplomatic ties, Taiwan announces that it is ending its aid to South Africa, suspending most of the treaties it has with that country, and recalling its ambassador.

Vietnam receives pledges totaling $2.4 billion in aid for 1997, which is an increase of $100 million from 1996. . . . Japanese officials confirm that Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (NTT), the world’s largest telephone company, will break up into three separate groups owned by a single holding company. . . . Crown Princess Masako of Japan speaks to the Japanese press for the first time without her husband, Crown Prince Naruhito, at her side. Pres. Jerry Rawlings, who has ruled Ghana since seizing power in 1981, is reelected in general elections that are declared free and fair by international observers.

Dec. 7

Thirteen workers at the Sosnovyi Bor nuclear power station near St. Petersburg, Russia, end the hunger strike that started Nov. 30 when the government promises to pay 27 billion rubles worth of back wages. Separately, voters in Kostroma province reject a referendum proposal to complete a nuclear power station. . . . The death toll from the bomb that exploded in Paris Dec. 3 rises to four when an injured man dies.

Dec. 8

Dec. 10

The Tanzanian government, in a joint statement with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), orders the refugees in its country to return to Rwanda by year’s end. The Rwandan government begins an 80day national campaign to build housing for an estimated 1 million returning refugees.

The Americas

Daily protests continue in Belgrade, Serbia. . . . Nine oil companies and Kazakhstan, Russia, and Oman sign a $2 billion deal to build a pipeline stretching 900 miles (1,500 km) from western Kazakhstan to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. . . . Sir John Gorst, a member of the British Parliament representing the ruling Conservative Party, withdraws his support for the party in an act of protest, causing the Tories to lose their one-seat majority in the House of Commons.

Dec. 6

Dec. 9

Africa & the Middle East

UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali gives final approval to a deal that allows Iraq to resume its exports of oil. . . . Statistics reveal that more passengers—1,187— died in commercial airliner accidents in 1996 than in any other year. Airlines carried more than 1.5 billion passengers in 1996. . . . The WTO’s annual report suggests that world trade slowed in 1996 because of reduced consumer demand in Western countries. The report predicts that 1996 will show a gain of 5% in merchandise exports, compared with an 8% increase in 1995 and a 10% gain in 1994.

Authorities in Tamil Nadu state in India arrest Jayalalitha Jayaram, former chief minister of the state, on charges of corruption. The arrest of Jayaram, a former film star who enjoys broad popular support, prompts massive street protests.

Rebels in southern Sudan free three International Red Cross workers in a deal negotiated by U.S. representative Bill Richardson (D, N.Mex.) and Mahdi I. Mohamed, Sudan’s ambassador to the U.S. The workers—John Early of the U.S., Moshen Raza of Kenya, and Mary Worthington of Australia—were taken prisoner Nov. 1.

The trial of 34 French Muslims linked to terrorist acts against the Moroccan government opens in Paris. Those on trial are allegedly part of the outlawed Moroccan Islamic Youth Movement, and only 21 of the accused are present in the courtroom. The remaining 13, who were imprisoned or are at large, are tried in absentia. . . . Alain Poher, 92, president of the French Senate for 24 years who also served as interim president of France in 1969 after the resignation of Charles de Gaulle and again in 1974 after the death of Pres. Georges Pompidou, dies in Paris of unreported causes.

Reports confirm that Britain will to pull out of the UN Industrial Development Organization at the end of 1997. . . . NATO ministers in Brussels agree to send between 25,000 and 30,000 troops to BosniaHerzegovina as part of the Stabilization Force (SFOR), which will replace the current 60,000-strong international contingent in the wartorn country on Dec. 20.

In Nagaland state, near the IndiaMyanmar border, 34 people are killed and 24 wounded when separatist Naga tribesmen armed with guns and grenades attack a bus. . . . In Australia, parliament passes legislation that will nullify the Northern Territory’s recently enacted euthanasia law, which is the first of its kind in the world. . . . Reports confirm that seven ministers in the government of Nepal’s P.M. Sher Bahadur Deuba have resigned. . . . A North Korean family of 17 flies into Seoul, South Korea, in what is thought to be the largest single group defection from North Korea since the 1950–53 Korean War. South African president Nelson Mandela signs into law a new democratic constitution. Separately, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission grants amnesty to Brian Mitchell, sentenced to death in 1992 for a 1988 police massacre of 11 people. . . . Reports indicate that government troops have abandoned the last major city they held in northeastern Zaire, Bunia. . . . Iraqi president Saddam Hussein turns on an oil pump to mark Iraq’s reentry into the international oil market.

Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies approves a measure that allows dual nationality for Mexicans living abroad.

The National Party and the New Zealand First Party agree to form a government together.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 5–10, 1996—941

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Pres. Clinton announces that he has chosen Madeleine K. Albright as secretary of state. Albright will become the first woman to fill that post and the highest-ranking woman ever in the federal government. . . . Rosa Marie Hartford, convicted in October for driving a 13year-old girl impregnated by Hartford’s stepson into New York State for an abortion without the knowledge of the girl’s mother, is sentenced to a year’s probation.

CIA director John Deutch upholds the CIA’s decision to revoke the security clearance of Richard Nuccio, a State Department official who in 1995 revealed to Rep. Robert Torricelli (D, N.J.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, that Col. Julio Roberto Alpirez, a paid CIA informant, was allegedly involved in the murders in Guatemala of a U.S. citizen and a leftist Guatemalan rebel leader. The revelation caused a major scandal and led to the dismissal of two top CIA officials.

In a landmark New Hampshire decision, Judge George Manias rules that the state did not violate the state constitution by relying primarily on property taxes to finance public education. The suit was brought by five relatively impoverished school districts that claim that the school-funding system deprives poorer districts of adequate funding.

U.S. authorities arrest Anwar Haddam, a speaker for Algeria’s banned Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), after the INS denies his request for political asylum. Haddam is arrested a day after his “parole” period of legal residence in the U.S. expires, and he is wanted in Algeria on charges of involvement with the GIA.

U.S. Economy & Environment

The Virginia Military Institute, a statefunded college in Lexington, Virginia, announces that it has admitted four female applicants, who are the first women accepted into the traditionally all-male institution. . . . Evan C. Hunziker, who in November was released by North Korea after being detained and accused of espionage, is found dead in Tacoma, Wash., of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Dec. 5

The Labor Department finds that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the U.S. rose to 5.4% in November.

Joseph Quinlan, 71, a pioneer of the patients’ right-to-die movement after his daughter, Karen Ann Quinlan, lapsed into a drug-induced coma and he and his wife, Julia, objected to doctors’ refusal to take their daughter off life support, dies in Wantage, New Jersey, of unreported causes. Joseph Chagra, 50, Texas lawyer known for his involvement in the 1979 assassination of U.S. judge John H. Wood, dies in El Paso, Texas, of injuries sustained in a car accident.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Researchers report they have isolated the brain chemical that influences weight gain in experiments on mice. Removal of the chemical, called neuropeptide Y, is found to reverse the effects of a gene defect that causes obesity.

Pete Rozelle, 70, former NFL commissioner, 1960–89, dies in California of brain cancer. . . . Jules Davids, 75, professor at Georgetown University who helped Pres. John Kennedy research his Pulitzer-prize winning book Profiles in Courage (1956), dies in Rockville, Maryland, of Alzheimer’s disease.

The space shuttle Columbia touches down at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, after carrying out the longest-ever shuttle flight.

The body of Eugene Izzi, 43, Chicago-based crime novelist, is found hanging from the window of his 14th-floor office wearing a bulletproof vest. . . . Retiring senator Nancy Kassebaum (R, Kans.) marries former senator Howard Baker (R, Tenn.) in Washington, D.C.

Howard Rollins, 46, film and TV actor in “In the Heat of the Night,” 1988–94, dies in New York City of a bacterial infection caused by the cancer lymphoma.

John Langeloth Loeb Sr., 94, head of the Wall Street investment firm Loeb, Rhoades & Co., whose lifelong contributions to cultural, educational, and other charitable institutions are estimated to total $200 million, dies in his sleep in New York City.

A jury in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, convicts Daniel Carr and Gerald Laarz of violating the Solid Waste Management Act through their mismanagement of a large tire dump that caught fire on Mar. 13, causing more than $6 million in damage to the surrounding area and forcing the closure of a stretch of Interstate 95.

Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary announces a dual plan for disposing more than 52 tons of excess plutonium from the nation’s nuclear arsenal. . . . Reports confirm that a jury in New York City awarded almost $6 million in compensatory and punitive damages to three women who developed repetitivestress injuries through use of computer keyboards manufactured by Digital Equipment Corp. It is the first time that a computer keyboard manufacturer has been found liable for such injuries. . . . The NASDAQ index reaches a record high, closing at 1316.27.

Pres. Clinton urges the Senate to approve a 1979 UN treaty guaranteeing women’s rights, which has been approved by 130 other nations. . . . A Marion County, Oregon, grand jury indicts Rep. Wes Cooley (R, Oreg.) on charges that he lied about his military service on voter guides during his 1994 campaign. . . . In Charleston, South Carolina, Arthur Haley and Hubert Rowell, formerly of the Ku Klux Klan, plead guilty to four counts related to the burning of a black church and a migrant labor camp.

The Commerce Department reports that the nation’s current-account deficit expanded to a record $47.96 billion in the third quarter, up 10.3% over the revised second-quarter figure of $40.21 billion. . . . In O’Gilvie v. U.S., the Supreme Court rules, 63, that punitive damages awarded to individuals in personal-injury cases are subject to federal income tax.

Mary Leakey, 83, archaeologist best known for her discovery of prehistoric bones in East Africa that helped establish the earliest evidence of human existence, dies in Nairobi, Kenya, of unreported causes.

For the first time, the FBI plays publicly a tape recording of a 911 emergency phone call that warned of a bomb at Centennial Olympic Park, an Olympic Games site in Atlanta, Georgia. The agency requests for help from the public in investigating the July pipe-bomb explosion.

Faron Young, 64, country singer who enjoyed a string of hits from the 1950s to the 1970s, dies in Nashville, Tennessee, of a selfinflicted gunshot wound.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 6

Dec. 7

Dec. 8

Dec. 9

Dec. 10

942—December 11–16, 1996

Dec. 11

Europe

The UN Security Council extends the mandate of the UN’s peacekeeping mission to Angola until February 1997 and approves a plan to withdraw the 7,000-strong UN contingent by mid-1997. . . . Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov accepts an offer to negotiate a new Russia-NATO charter for the post–cold war era.

Switzerland’s parliament grants final approval to the creation of a panel to search Swiss banks for funds that belonged to Nazi Holocaust victims. . . . Jawad Botmeh and Samar Alami are convicted of orchestrating two 1994 bombings of Jewish buildings in London. A third suspect, Mahmoud Abu Wardeh, is acquitted. . . . The Russian Coal Industry Workers’ Union ends a strike that began Dec. 3. . . . William Rushton, 59, British humorist, dies in London of complications after heart surgery.

A 12-year-old Jewish boy and his mother are killed in a drive-by shooting near the Beit El settlement, 15 miles (25 km) north of Jerusalem. . . . A UN human-rights observer mission reports that at least 1,000 civilians were massacred by Burundi’s Tutsi-led military from late October to November. . . . South African president Nelson Mandela signs a liberal abortion law. . . . Former premier Sadiq al-Mahdi reveals that he fled Sudan so that the government of Pres. Omar Hassan al-Bashir could not take him hostage.

Four UN aid workers arrested by Taliban authorities are released, prompting the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to resume its operations, suspended Nov. 21, in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. . . . The Indian Supreme Court issues a directive to the Indian government to implement measures to end child labor in the country. . . . Tung Cheehwa is elected to the post of chief executive of Hong Kong, to succeed Christopher Patten when China takes over ruling the colony from Great Britain on June 30, 1997.

Bosnia’s presidents name Boro Bosic, a Serb, and Haris Silajdzic, a Muslim as joint premiers. . . . Data reveal that food poisoning caused by the rare bacterium E. coli 0157:H7 has left more than 300 people ill and 11 people dead in Scotland. It is Britain’s worst E. coli epidemic on record.

In South Africa, Adriaan Vlok, a former minister of law and order, becomes the first apartheid-era cabinet minister to apply to the truth commission for amnesty. . . . Iraqi officials disclose that Pres. Saddam Hussein’s eldest son, Uday Hussein, was wounded when his car was ambushed in Baghdad. . . . The Syrian-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) claims responsibility for the Dec. 11 killings outside Jerusalem.

Indian prime minister H. D. Deve Gowda and Bangladeshi Premier Sheik Hasina Wazed sign a 30-year treaty under which the two countries will share water from the Ganges River. . . . An unidentified Tokyo police official states that the force recovered a bottle containing enough liquid VX nerve gas to kill 15,000 people.

In Italy, 7 million workers in the manufacturing and transportation industries walk off their jobs for up to eight hours to show solidarity with 1.6 million metal workers involved in a labor dispute with employers. . . . Germany’s parliament approves the deployment of 3,000 German peacekeepers to Bosnia. It will be the first time Germany deploys combat-ready ground troops beyond the borders of NATO countries since World War II.

Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) holds a mass rally in Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip and threatens suicide attacks against Israeli targets in retaliation for expanded Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

A group of Chechen fighters take hostages in an attack on a Russian border post on the ChechnyaDagestan border.

Tanzanian soldiers and police start emptying camps in the Ngara area of northwestern Tanzania and order the refugees to march toward Rwanda. More than 460,000 Rwandan refugees begin a mass exodus as they depart for Rwanda.

In Tajikistan, government soldiers force two UN observer teams to participate in a mock execution, in which the observers are lined up and the soldiers shoot over their heads. . . . Sir Laurens Van Der Post, 90, South African writer, linguist, and anthropologist who was knighted in 1981, dies in London, England, of unreported causes.

In Somalia, at least 42 people are killed when three mortar rounds land on a market in an area controlled by Gen. Aidid.

After protests that started Nov. 8, the government of Ontario and the 20,000-member Ontario Medical Association reach an agreement intended to improve medical service in small towns and to boost doctors’ incomes.

François Santoni, a leader of the militant separatist movement in Corsica, surrenders to police in the Corsican town of Bastia. . . . Jawad Botmeh and Samar Alami, convicted Dec. 11, are sentenced to 20 years each in prison for two 1994 bombings in London. . . . British agriculture minister Douglas Hogg states that the government will slaughter up to 100,000 cows at risk of contracting mad-cow disease (BSE). The planned cull is in addition to Britain’s ongoing slaughter of 1.2 million cows.

Col. Muhammed Marwa, administrator of Lagos province and a close ally of military ruler Gen. Sani Abacha, escapes a bomb attack on his convoy in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital.

A car bomb explodes in Medellin, Colombia, outside the home of Juan Gomez Martinez, a prominent journalist and former politician who supports the antidrug legislation. The bomb kills one person and injures 48 others.

Dec. 12

Dec. 13

The UN Security Council votes to extend the UN Mission of Observers in Tajikistan for a further threemonth period ending Mar. 15, 1997. . . . The EU agrees to a “stability pact” designed to promote budgetary discipline among countries that join the EU’s planned single currency, the euro. . . . The WTO concludes its inaugural ministerial meeting with more than 30 countries signaling their intention to sign a trade pact whose implementation will reduce tariffs on informationtechnology items.

Dec. 14

Dec. 15

Dec. 16

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

The U.S., European Union, and several other countries pledge $3.2 billion to Lebanon to accelerate reconstruction of the country’s war-ravaged infrastructure and strengthen the government of Premier Rafik al-Hariri. . . . The presidents of South Africa, Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe and the premier of Ethiopia hold a summit to discuss the conflicts in eastern Zaire and in Burundi. Zaire declines to attend.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

An appeals court in Seoul reduces the sentences of former South Korean presidents Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo, both of whom were convicted in August of mutiny, sedition and corruption. Chun has his death sentence reduced to life imprisonment, while Roh has his 221⁄2 year jail term reduced to 17 years. The appeals court suspends the sentences of or acquits 12 other defendants.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 11–16, 1996—943

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The State University of New York at Stony Brook reports it has received a $25 million donation from businessman Charles B. Wang. The gift, which will be used to construct an Asian-American cultural center, is the most generous in the history of New York State school system.

VA officials disclose that they delayed an investigation into Persian Gulf war veterans’ potential exposure to low levels of poisonous gases because the Defense Department had wrongly assured them that U.S. troops had not been exposed to chemical weapons during the 1991 war.

A study suggests that for the first time women hold more than 10% of directors’ seats in the 500 largest companies in the U.S. As of March 31, women held 626 of 6,123 board seats, up 3% from 404 seats in 1995.

The NIH recommends the continuation of its $2.4 million study of needle-exchange programs designed to help curb the spread of HIV. . . . Lem Tuggle, 44, one of six inmates who escaped in 1984 in the largest death-row breakout in U.S. history, is put to death by lethal injection in Jarratt, Virginia. Tuggle is the last escapee from the breakout to be executed, the 357th person put to death in the U.S., and the 36th in Virginia since 1976.

Staff Sergeant Anthony S. Fore, a drill instructor at Fort Leonard Wood, pleads guilty to charges of indecent assault, assault and battery, and failure to obey a general regulation.

Pres. Clinton announces his choice for key members of his economic team, including his selection of William Daley as secretary of commerce, Charlene Barshefsky as the new U.S. trade representative, and Gene Sperling as the head of the White House’s National Economic Council. He also states that he has reappointed Robert Rubin as secretary of the treasury, Franklin Raines as the director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Janet Reno as attorney general.

Staff Sergeant Anthony S. Fore, a drill instructor at Fort Leonard Wood convicted on a number of sexual harassment charges Dec. 12, is sentenced to 18 months in prison and a dishonorable discharge. . . . Reports reveal that Kim Messer and Jeanie Mentavlos, two freshman female cadets at the Citadel, a military academy in Charleston, S.C., were allegedly sprayed with nail-polish remover and set on fire by fellow students on three separate occasions. The victims of the alleged crimes were not hurt in the incidents.

A federal magistrate in Washington, D.C., sentences one current USDA employee and three former employees to two years’ probation and fines them up to $2,500 each for pressuring other agency employees into contributing to a Democratic political action committee (PAC) during the 1992 presidential campaign.

The NTSB states that the explosion that caused the July crash of TWA Flight 800 into the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 230 people on board, may have resulted from a leak in a pipe connecting the plane’s five main fuel tanks. . . . An FDA panel recommends the approval of a smokeless nicotine inhaler to help people quit smoking. . . . A Chilean official reveals that Mars 96, the Russian spacecraft that plunged out of orbit in November, crashed on Bolivian soil, not in the Pacific Ocean as originally reported.

Eulace Peacock, 82, track and field athlete who was the chief rival of 1936 Olympic gold medalist Jesse Owens, dies in Yonkers, New York, of Alzheimer’s disease.

The Citadel suspends an unidentified sophomore cadet in connection with the allegations made by two freshman female cadets that were revealed Dec. 13.

Ron Carey declares that he has won reelection as president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters labor union, over James P. Hoffa.

A 763-foot-long freighter carrying 64,000 tons of grain crashes into the Riverwalk, a mall on the bank of the Mississippi River in New Orleans, Louisiana, injuring 116 people. The crash destroys a 200foot section of the Riverwalk, including many shops and a section of the Hilton Hotel.

University of Florida quarterback Danny Wuerffel is awarded the 62nd Heisman Trophy.

Dec. 11

Vance Oakley Packard, 82, sociologist and writer known for his works criticizing 20th-century American advertising, business practices, psychology, and social mobility, dies in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, after suffering a heart attack.

St. John’s University’s men’s soccer team wins its first-ever NCAA Division I title when it defeats Florida International University, 4-1, in Richmond, Virginia. . . . Harry Kemelman, 88, mystery novelist who wrote a series of 11 books about a rabbi turned sleuth, dies in Marblehead, Massachusetts, of renal failure.

Members of Local 639 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters strike against Giant Food Inc., the largest supermarket chain in the U.S.’s mid-Atlantic region.

In M.L.B. v. S.L.J., the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that the state of Mississippi cannot deny an appeal to a woman seeking to retain her parental rights because she cannot afford to pay legal fees associated with her appeal. . . . Ronald Lee Hoke Sr., 39, convicted of rape and murder, is put to death in Jarratt, Virginia. Hoke is the 358th person put to death in the U.S. and the 37th in Virginia since 1976. His death brings 1996’s total number of executions to 45, the second most in a single year since 1976.

Judge Lewis Kaplan sentences Toshihide Iguchi, a former bond trader at the New York offices of Daiwa Bank Ltd. of Japan, to four years in prison for concealing from U.S. regulators $1.1 billion in losses over a period of more than a decade. . . . . Staff Sergeant George Blackley Jr., a drill instructor at Fort Leonard Wood, is acquitted of sexual misconduct charges. . . . The Citadel suspends an unidentified junior cadet in connection with the allegations revealed Dec. 13.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Reports confirm that the USW has approved a contract deal with tire manufacturer Bridgestone/Firestone Inc., ending 27 months of bitter contract talks. . . . Trustees for Pres. Clinton’s legal defense fund report they have returned $639,000 in donations from Yah Lin (Charlie) Trie, an Arkansas businessman and Democratic fund-raiser, amid a controversy involving legally questionable donations to the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

Computer-chip producer Intel Corp. reports that it has developed the world’s fastest computer, capable of performing 1 trillion operations per second. . . . Researchers report that depression sufferers are four times as likely as others to have heart attacks.

Quentin Bell, 86, British critic who was the son of Vanessa Bell, author and Virginia Woolf’s older sister, dies in East Sussex, England, of a heart attack.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

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Dec. 16

944—December 17–22, 1996

Dec. 17

Dec. 18

Dec. 19

Dec. 20

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The United Nations General Assembly elects Kofi Annan of Ghana to become the seventh secretary general of the United Nations He will be the first sub-Saharan African to hold the top UN post. . . . South America’s Southern Common Market (Mercosur) votes to admit Bolivia as an associate member. . . . NATO approves a mission in which the 31,000-strong Stabilization Force (SFOR), will replace the current 60,000-strong Implementation Force (IFOR) in Bosnia since 1995.

Unknown gunmen kill six Red Cross workers at a hospital in Novye Atagi, a village in Chechnya. The slaying is reported to be the worst premeditated attack in the history of the Red Cross. . . . Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic meets with a delegation of 17 student leaders who marched 148 miles (240 km) from Nis to Belgrade to ask Milosevic to restore the November municipal election results. . . . Stanko Todorov, 76, former communist premier of Bulgaria, 1971–90, dies of unreported causes.

The European Commission, the executive branch of the EU, grants formal approval to the sale of genetically modified corn on EU markets.

Chechen field commander Salman Raduyev releases 21 Russian soldiers who have been held as hostages since Dec. 14. Separately, in response to the Dec. 17 attack, the UNHCR and the Doctors of the World join the Red Cross and pull out of Chechnya. . . . Two elderly people in Scotland die of food poisoning caused by the rare bacterium E. coli 0157:H7. The deaths raise to 15 the total death toll from the food-poisoning outbreak, one of the world’s deadliest E. coli epidemics ever.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) predicts that average growth in its member countries in 1996 will be 2.4%, up from the 2.1% it forecast in its June report. At the same time, it lowers its 1997 growth prediction to 2.4%, from 2.5% and forecasts a 2.7% rate for 1998.

Figures suggest that a total of 73 Muslims have been evicted from the Croat-held west side of the Croat-Muslim divided town of Mostar since the start of 1996. . . . French police arrested 20 suspected Islamic terrorists. . . . Yuli B. Khariton, 92, Russian physicist who directed the building of the first Soviet atomic bomb, dies in Sarov, Russia, of unreported causes.

Delegates from 160 nations reach two landmark treaties designed to extend international copyright protections to material distributed by way of electronic media, such as the Internet global computer network. . . . Gen. George A. Joulwan, NATO’s supreme commander in Europe, launches the 31,000-strong Stabilization Force (SFOR), which will replace the current 60,000strong Implementation Force (IFOR) deployed in Bosnia since 1995.

The governments of Germany and the Czech Republic approve a declaration of mutual reconciliation in which Germany apologizes for the 1939 invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the Czechs apologize for the expulsion of 2.5 million Germans in 1945 and 1946. . . . Two unidentified gunmen enter the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children and fire at two police officers guarding Nigel Dodds, a loyalist visiting his ill son. One officer suffers a minor injury.

Israeli and Palestinian demonstrators in Jerusalem protest a plan to build 132 housing units in the Ras al-Amud neighborhood of Arab East Jerusalem.

Bulgarian premier Zhan Videnov resigns as premier and leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP). . . . Officials from Iran and Turkey sign several trade pacts that will double their current $1 billion in mutual trade.

Ethiopian troops advance on a border town in southeastern Somalia held by rebels of the fundamentalist Islamic Union. . . . A car bombing in Algiers, the capital of Algeria, kills at least one person and wounds dozens of others.

Dec. 21

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Pres. Mobutu Sese Seko returns to Zaire after a four-month absence to undergo cancer treatment in Europe and is greeted by thousands of supportive Zairians at the airport outside the capital, Kinshasa.

Some 25 members of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, a Marxist guerrilla group, storm the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima, Peru’s capital, taking more than 600 hostages. The group, known by its Spanish initials MRTA, threatens to kill hostages one by one unless the government releases the several hundred MRTA members imprisoned under Peru’s harsh antiterrorism laws.

A Seoul court sentences recently dismissed South Korean defense minister Lee Yang Ho to four years in jail on charges of accepting bribes and leaking military secrets. . . . Employees of Sanyo Universal Electric PCL set fire to the company’s Bangkok headquarters and a separate warehouse to protest the company’s decision to reduce their yearend pay bonuses. . . . Sun Yaoting, 94, China’s last surviving official eunuch, is found dead at the Guanghua temple where he was once the caretaker.

UN officials report that at least 300 fighters and civilians died in less than a week during renewed factional fighting in the Mogadishu, the capital of Somali. . . . A bomb explodes on a military bus outside the office of Col. Muhammed Marwa, a close ally of Gen. Sani Abacha. The blast seriously injures 12 soldiers. . . . The PNA reveals its security court has convicted three 20-year-old Palestinians for the Dec. 11 murders, sentencing two of them to life imprisonment and the third to a 15-year prison term.

In Peru, the MRTA releases nine of the hostages taken Dec. 17 and begins to negotiate with the Peruvian government. . . . In Guatemala, the National Assembly passes a law of national reconciliation, which exempts from prosecution soldiers and guerrillas who took part in atrocities committed for political ends during the war. The law does not apply to genocide, torture, or forced disappearances.

Prosecutors charge Asif Ali Zardari, the husband of deposed Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, with the murder of Mir Murtaza Bhutto, Bhutto’s younger brother and political rival.

The death toll of a November building explosion in San Juan, Puerto Rico, is raised to 31 after two more bodies are discovered. . . . Reports confirm that the Ontario Court of Appeal has ruled that partners in same-sex couples have the same right to spousal support as heterosexuals. . . . Gabriel Galindo Lewis, 68, Panamanian diplomat recognized for his crucial role in the negotiation of the Panama Canal treaties, dies in Denver, Colo., of fibrosis of the lungs.

Former Indian prime minister P. V. Narasimha Rao, who is embroiled in three separate legal battles stemming from corruption charges, steps down as the parliamentary representative of the Congress (I) party at the urging of senior party members. . . . Nobel-prize-winning Roman Catholic nun Mother Teresa, 86, is released from a Calcutta hospital after spending a month there recovering from a severe heart attack.

Leftist rebels who are holding about 400 foreign and Peruvian dignitaries hostage at the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima, Peru, release 38 captives.

Amata Kabua, 68, first and only president of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, dies in Honolulu, Hawaii.

A remote-controlled land mine explodes in the village of BerkatYurt, Chechnya, killing five boys aged 10 to 12 years. . . . Greek farmers lift the barricades they erected Nov. 28 to protest the government’s austere budget proposals. The blockades, which cut off entire regions of Greece, caused an estimated 25 billion drachmas ($100 million) in damage to the country’s economy. . . . A car bomb explodes in Belfast, Northern Ireland, injuring Eddie Copeland, a prominent IRA supporter.

Dec. 22

A China-backed special election committee selects the 60 members of a provisional legislature that will replace Hong Kong’s Legislative Council (LegCo), a democratically elected body, when China resumes sovereignty over the colony from Great Britain at midnight on June 30, 1997.

Leftist rebels holding about 400 foreign and Peruvian dignitaries hostage at the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima, Peru, release 225 captives, most of whom have no ties to the government. The rebels, members of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), call the release, the largest since the siege began, “a gesture of ours for Christmas.”

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 17–22, 1996—945

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Judge Francis X. Egitto of Kings County Supreme Court in New York sentences Vincent Ellerbe and Thomas Malik to 25 years to life each, in prison for their role in a 1995 arson attack that fatally burned a subway token clerk.

The local school board in Oakland, California, decides in a unanimous vote that the school district will be the first in the nation to recognize “black English,” a form of English spoken by some black Americans, as a distinct language rather than a dialect or a type of slang. . . . In Portland, Oregon, U.S. district judge Robert Jones bars plaintiffs from claiming that silicone breast implants caused impairment of their immune systems, on the grounds that scientific evidence offers no proof of such claims.

FBI agent Earl Edwin Pitts is arrested on charges of spying for Russia. Pitts is only the second agent to be arrested on espionage charges in the FBI’s 88-year history.

The Department of Health and Human Services reports an increase in the use of illegal drugs by schoolage children. The study finds that 40% of high-school seniors surveyed have used illegal drugs over the prior year, up from 39% in 1995.

Family court judge Nancy Wieben Stock of Orange County, California, awards O. J. Simpson full custody of his two young children. Simpson, who was acquitted of the murders of their mother and her friend in 1995, is currently on trial in a civil wrongful-death suit. . . . The Clinton administration announces it will join the legal challenge to California’s Proposition 209, an antiaffirmative-action law. . . . Pres. Clinton announces four nominations as members of his cabinet.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Two large pieces of the wing of the space shuttle Challenger are discovered on a Florida beach, nearly 11 years after the Challenger exploded in flight, killing all seven people on board.

Irving Caesar, 101, lyricist who, with George Gershwin, published more than 1,000 songs, dies in New York of unreported causes. . . . Director Stephen Spielberg donates his recently purchased Oscar statue, awarded to Clark Gable in 1934, to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science.

In San Francisco, California, U.S. district judge Marilyn Hall Patel strikes down federal restrictions on the export of computer-encryption software by U.S. companies.

Reports confirm that philanthropist Brooke Astor, 94, plans to close the Vincent Astor Foundation by the end of 1997. The organization, named for her third husband, has donated $175 million to NYC cultural institutions and small nonprofit service programs since she became the administrator in 1959.

Reports state that Arthur A. Coia was reelected as president of the Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA). . . . The Dow gains 126.87 points, its second-largest point increase ever, to close at 6473.64.

Major Susan Gibson, deputy staff judge advocate at Aberdeen, reveals that Staff Sergeant Delmar Simpson, a drill instructor, has been charged with crimes involving 26 women. The army discloses that its hotline set up in November to help uncover abuse has received 942 calls that investigators consider worthy of further inquiry.

The Commerce Department reports that after-tax profits of U.S. corporations declined 1.4% in the 1996 third quarter from the previous quarter, to an annual rate of $402.2 billion. That marks an advance of 5.1% over after-tax profits in the 1995 third quarter.

Pres. Clinton announces that 20 college presidents have promised to assign half of their AmeriCorps participants to the tutoring of eightyear-old children in basic reading skills.

A House ethics subcommittee concludes that House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.) violated House ethics rules by using tax-exempt donations for political purposes. The subcommittee also finds that Gingrich provided the House Ethics Committee with “inaccurate, incomplete and unreliable information” about the relationship between a college course that he had taught and GOPAC, a political action committee that Gingrich headed 1986–95.

Reports reveal that a state district court judge in New Orleans, Louisiana, has ruled that 4,000 women who accused Dow Corning Corp. of selling faulty breast implants in a class-action suit will be allowed only to ask for compensatory, not punitive, damages.

An explosion at a metal-fabricating plant in Cypress, Texas, kills eight workers.

A panel composed of TV-industry representatives announce a planned system for rating TV programs based on their level of violent and sexual content, scheduled to take effect in January 1997.

Carl Sagan, 62, astronomer, physicist, and Pulitzer Prize–winning author known for his television series Cosmos, which appeared on public television in 1980 and was watched by 400 million people in 60 countries, dies in Seattle, Washington, of complications from the bone marrow disease myelodysplasia.

Dec. 17

Dec. 18

Dec. 19

Dec. 20

Margaret Rey, 90, creator, with her husband, H. A. Rey, of the worldfamous Curious George monkey character, dies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, of complications from a heart attack.

Dec. 21

Dec. 22

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

946—December 23–29, 1996

Dec. 23

Dec. 24

Europe

Officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reveal that the organization faces a financial crisis because governments failed to pay about $41 million of funds they promised for the fiscal 1996 year.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin returns to work after his heart surgery in November. . . . Tajik president Imamali Rakhmanov and United Tajik Opposition leader Said Abdullo Nuri sign a cease-fire to end the country’s four-year-old civil war. . . . Ronnie Scott, 69, whose music club, Ronnie Scott’s, is regarded as the birthplace of British jazz, dies in London of unreported causes.

The main Hutu rebel group in Burundi, the National Council for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD), announces an 11-day unilateral cease-fire in a Christmas and New Year message.

Cuba’s National Assembly approves a measure that counters the U.S.’s Helms-Burton law by declaring invalid any claim made under the U.S. law. The Helms-Burton law has drawn international condemnation.

A woman detonates two grenades in a Protestant church in the Sindlingen section of Frankfurt, Germany, killing herself and two others and injuring 13 people. . . . One man dies and 58 people are wounded as supporters of Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic stage a rally near another demonstration held by the opposition rally. . . . France discloses that it has received a letter from the Algeria-based Armed Islamic Group (GIA) that threatens to “destroy” France.

In South Africa, two bombs explode in a shopping area in Worcester, 60 miles (95 km) northeast of Cape Town, killing one adult and two children and injuring more than 50 other people. . . . UN officials report that Rwandan officials have arrested at least 2,350 Hutu refugees recently returned from Zaire and Tanzania, accusing them of involvement in the Tutsi massacres.

The Americas

The Turkish parliament approves a six-month mandate for U.S. and British aircraft to keep flying patrols from Turkey to enforce a no-fly zone over northern Iraq.

Dec. 27

Dec. 28

Dec. 29

Asia & the Pacific Philippine president Fidel V. Ramos undergoes surgery to clear a severe blockage in his carotid artery. . . . Reports disclose that six people were killed and hundreds were injured when 4,000 paramilitaries and police officers raided a prison in Jessore, in western Bangladesh, to bring an end to a week-long siege in which 2,000 inmates wrested control of the prison.

The government of Uruguay, in a move that draws criticism, releases two MRTA members, Sonia Silvia Gora Rivera and Luis Alberto Miguel Samaniego, who have been imprisoned since December 1995. The rebels holding hostages in Peru release the Uruguayan ambassador, Tabare Bocalandro Yapeyu. Despite Uruguay’s denial that the two releases are connected, Peru recalls its chief of mission at the Peruvian embassy in Montevideo, Uruguay’s capital.

Serbian authorities ban protest rallies in the centers of cities.

Dec. 25

Dec. 26

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Nguyen Huu Tho, 86, leader of the political arm of Vietnam’s Vietcong guerrilla movement that fought for the unification, under communist rule, of North and South Vietnam, dies in Ho Chi Minh City of a heart ailment.

A remote-controlled bomb explodes outside government offices in Lhasa, the capital of the Chinese territory of Tibet, reportedly wounding five people.

In response to the Serbian government’s Dec. 25 ban on protest rallies, 60,000 opposition protesters march through Belgrade’s side streets, in a rally limited by the deployment of thousands of police in riot gear in central Belgrade. A march by 15,000 Serbian students earlier in the day is not hindered by police. . . . An avalanche in Georgia traps some 150 people in a 21⁄2-mile-long tunnel under the Caucasus Mountains.

In Israel, protests against P.M. Benjamin Netanyahu to trim $1.87 billion from the budget begin. Separately, Israeli soldiers clash in Hebron with settlers protesting the government’s slated redeployment from 85% of the city. . . . Michael Bruno, 64, governor of Israel’s central bank, 1986–91, and chief economist at the World Bank, dies in Jerusalem, Israel, of cancer.

A fact-finding mission from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) announces that opposition candidates won November municipal elections in 13 Serbian cities and towns as well as in the capital, Belgrade. . . . Czech Republic president Václav Havel, 60, is released from a Prague hospital after undergoing surgery for lung cancer.

The trials of Egide Gatanazi and Deo Bizimana, two Hutu men accused of participating in the 1994 massacres of ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus, opens in the city of Kibungo.

Some 10,000 protesters rally to mark the funeral of Predrag Starcevic, who died earlier in December after being beaten by Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic’s supporters.

Reports indicate that Pres. Hafez alAssad of Syria has exiled his younger brother, Jamil al-Assad, for unspecified illegal business activities.

MRTA rebels holding Peruvian and foreign dignitaries captive at the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima, Peru, release 20 hostages, including the ambassadors of the Dominican Republic and Malaysia.

Riot police use tear gas on demonstrators protesting the labor legislation passed Dec. 26 in Seoul, the capital of South Korea.

Mireille (born Mireille Hartuch), 90, French actress, composer, and singer who first earned recognition in 1932, dies in Paris of unreported causes.

The Algerian government passes a new weapons law that gives the defense ministry control over the manufacture, import, and export of all weapons and tightens restrictions on who may carry arms. Anyone violating the law will be subject to life imprisonment. Second-time offenders may face the death penalty. The legislation is aimed at curbing attacks by Islamic militants.

The Guatemalan government and leaders of the leftist Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union (UNRG) sign an accord ending the country’s 36-year-long civil war, during which more than 100,000 people were killed, 40,000 others went missing, and an estimated 1 million civilians were driven from their homes or forced into exile.

North Korea, in an unprecedented sign of contrition, expresses its “deep regret” for a September incident in which a North Korean submarine filled with armed commandos ran aground off South Korea’s coast. . . . About 20,000 strikers held a peaceful march on Seoul, the capital of South Korea.

Reports confirm that leftist rebels at the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima, Peru, are still holding more than 100 high-ranking officials hostage.

South Korea’s ruling New Korea Party (NKP) clandestinely passes legislation that makes it easier for companies to lay off workers and replace striking employees. The move prompts hundreds of thousands of South Korean workers to launch a general strike.

Muslim fundamentalist Taliban forces solidify their buffer zone around Kabul, the Afghanistan capital, retaking the strategic air base of Bagram, 30 miles (50 km) to the north, from the ousted government’s coalition forces. . . . China announces that a court in Xigaze, Tibet, has sentenced Ngawang Choephel, a Tibetan music scholar, to 18 years in prison for spying.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 23–29, 1996—947

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

In San Francisco, California, chief U.S. district judge Thelton Henderson blocks the anti-affirmative-action Proposition 209 from going into effect until the courts decide on a lawsuit filed by a coalition of labor and civil-rights groups. . . . In New Haven, Connecticut, U.S. district judge Peter Dorsey dismisses a lawsuit filed by tobacco companies that would have blocked Connecticut’s ability to proceed with a $1 billion lawsuit against them. The U.S. government announces that it has adopted stricter guidelines for health maintenance organizations (HMOs) that award bonuses to doctors who successfully control costs. The new policy will go into effect January 1, 1997.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Commerce Department reports that personal pretax income rose 0.5% in November from October, to a seasonally adjusted annual figure of $6.57 trillion. The November figure marks the 18th consecutive monthly income increase.

The FDA approves glatiramer acetate, a new drug for the treatment of a relapsing, remitting form of multiple sclerosis.

The Roman Catholic archdiocese of Los Angeles, California, announces plans to build a $45 million cathedral in downtown Los Angeles.

Leonard K. Firestone, 89, U.S. ambassador to Belgium, 1974–76, dies in Pebble Beach, California, of unreported causes.

Dec. 23

Dec. 24

Lee Alexander, 69, mayor of Syracuse, New York, 1970–85, who gained national attention as a champion of U.S. cities, dies in Syracuse of unreported causes.

Dec. 25

In a case that draws national attention, JonBenet Ramsey, a six-yearold girl who was named Little Miss Colorado 1995, is found dead in the basement of her home in Boulder, Colorado. . . . James Earl Ray, 68, convicted for the 1968 assassination of civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., emerges from a coma caused by liver and kidney damage.

Reports confirm that Brigadier General Robert T. Newell was demoted to colonel after being accused of inappropriate contact with a female subordinate.

Reports confirm that the National Labor Relations Board has ordered Peoria, Illinois-based Caterpillar Inc. to compensate some 10,000 workers for perquisites they were denied during a nearly 18-monthlong strike.

The FCC unanimously approves a proposed set of national standards for the production of digital television sets.

The Dow closes at a record high of 6560.91, marking the 44th record high in 1996.

William B(ertalan) Walsh, 76, medical doctor who, in 1958, founded Project HOPE, a worldwide medical assistance program and whose many awards include the U.S.’s Presidential Medal of Freedom and France’s National Order of Merit, dies in Bethesda, Maryland, of prostate cancer.

Dec. 26

Dec. 27

Dec. 28

A study reveals that the gap in achievement between white and minority students has widened in recent years. The results are considered a major setback after years of improved achievement by black and Hispanic students. . . . Robert J. Morris, 82, counsel to a U.S Senate subcommittee that investigated communist activities in the U.S. during the 1950s, dies in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, of congestive heart failure related to a degenerative brain disease.

Computer hackers illegally alter the U.S. Air Force’s official site on the World Wide Web, replacing much of the site’s usual information with sexually explicit animation and antigovernment statements.

Dec. 29

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

948—December 30–31, 1996

Dec. 30

Dec. 31

World Affairs

Europe

The U.S. reveals that North Korea has agreed for the first time to meet with the U.S. and South Korea to discuss engaging in talks to bring a permanent peace agreement in the 1950–53 Korean War.

The Turkish government sends 5,000 troops into Iraq to battle Kurdish rebels there in retaliation for a recent attack that the guerrillas launched against a military outpost in Turkey. More than 70 Kurds are reportedly killed in the action. . . . The British government releases the New Year’s Honors List, which names the recipients of 1,035 knighthoods, peerages, and other honors.

Data show that European stocks rose 20% on the average in 1996. The highest performers were the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, which surged 33.6%, and Germany’s DAX index, which jumped 28.2% from the end of 1995. The London Stock Exchange 100 index climbed only 11.6%. The Tokyo Stock Exchange declined 2.6% from the previous year. Results in other Asian and South American markets indicate more fluctuations in emerging markets during 1996.

Protesters in Belgrade mark the 44th consecutive day of protests against the government’s annulment of November municipal elections in 13 Serbian cities and towns. . . . A court in Sicily sentences 38 members of the Mafia to a combined 328 years in prison for a variety of crimes, ending a decade-long trial that examined several Mafia-related cases.

Africa & the Middle East In Israel, some 250,000 striking workers of the Histadrut tradeunion federation shut down vital services across Israel as protests that began Dec. 26 continue against proposals by P.M. Benjamin Netanyahu to trim $1.87 billion from the budget. . . . Sporadic fighting breaks out in the Central African Republic.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Four leftist guerrillas break out of a maximum-security prison in Santiago, Chile’s capital.

At least 26 people are killed and dozens are seriously injured when a passenger train is bombed in India’s eastern state of Assam, some 130 miles (210 km) from Gauhati, the state capital. . . . South Korea returns to North Korea the remains of the 24 North Korean commandos killed after landing in South Korea in September. . . . India’s Supreme Court orders the closure of 292 coalindustries located near the Taj Mahal in Agra as part of a conservation plan to restore the 17th-century palace.

Leftist rebels holding Peruvian and foreign dignitaries hostage at the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima, Peru, allow TV journalists and still photographers into the residence for the first time since the attack. The MRTA rebels free the Honduran ambassador, Jose Eduardo Martell, and the Argentine consul general, Juan Antonio Ibañez, leaving 81 captives in the building.

Indian officials report that the death toll from the Dec. 30 train bombing in Assam has climbed to 59 and that 63 people remain hospitalized. . . . Reports indicate that dissident and former student leader Li Hai was sentenced to nine years in jail for “prying into state secrets” in China.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 30–31, 1996—949

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Prompted by the November passage of referendums in California and Arizona that legalize the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, U.S. officials disclose the federal government will prosecute physicians who prescribe marijuana and other illegal drugs.

The Justice Department files papers to strip Michael Kolnhofer, a 79year-old resident of Kansas City, Kansas, of his U.S. citizenship, alleging that he concealed his past as a Nazi concentration camp guard while applying for a U.S. visa in 1952. Federal officials, citing Nazi documents, claim that Kolnhofer was a guard at the Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald camps. He is shot in the leg by police after brandishing a pistol from his front porch.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Dr. David Ho is named 1996’s “Man of the Year” by Time magazine. Ho, a virologist and AIDS researcher, discovered a treatment that nearly eliminates the AIDS virus in infected patients.

Airframe by Michael Crichton tops the bestseller list. . . . Lew Ayres, 88, movie actor best known for his role in the 1930 film All Quiet on the Western Front, dies in Los Angeles of unreported causes. . . . Jack Nance (born Marvin John Nance), 53, actor known for his roles in director David Lynch’s work, is found dead of a head injury.

The U.S. dollar closes at 1.5400 marks, up from the 1995 year-end rate of 1.4366 marks, and at 115.85 yen, up from the previous year’s final rate of 103.40 yen. The Dow Jones industrial average closes at 6448.27, up 1331.15 points, or 26.01%, from the 1995 year-end level of 5117.12. The NASDAQ index closes at 1291.03, rising 22.71% during the year. The American Stock Exchange closes at 583.28, up 6.39%. The S&P 500 closes at 740.74, rising 20.26% during 1995.

Dec. 30

Dec. 31

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1997 U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright shakes hands with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat prior to holding talks aimed at restarting the Middle East peace process.

952—January–August 1997

Jan.

Feb.

March

April

May

June

July

Aug.

World Affairs

Europe

In the UN Security Council, China exercises its veto power for the first time since 1972 when it refuses to pass a resolution to send 155 military observers to monitor a 1996 peace accord signed in Guatemala. China reverses its veto when Guatemala agrees not to support Taiwan’s bid for UN membership in 1997.

Angered by failed pyramid schemes, 35,000 people riot in Tirana, Albania’s capital. Parliament gives Pres. Sali Berisha emergency powers to deploy the military.

The World Trade Organization sets up a panel to rule on a dispute between the EU and the U.S. over the U.S.’s Helms-Burton Act, which seeks to strengthen the U.S.’s economic embargo of Cuba by punishing foreign companies that invest in Cuba.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

A Rwandan court sentences two Hutu men to death for their involvement in the massacres of half a million ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus during the country’s 1994 civil war. The verdict is the first handed down in the Rwandan government’s efforts to punish the organizers of the massacres.

Colombian antinarcotics police shut down a huge cocaine processing plant in the southeastern department of Guaviare. The plant, reported to be the largest ever seized by the Colombian government, is capable of processing 1.5 tons of raw cocaine per day.

Pakistan establishes a Council for Defense and National Security that expands the power of the country’s military, giving it a formal role in setting national policy. It is the first time since 1988 that the military will be officially involved in government policy.

After staging three months of daily protests, the opposition Zajedno (Together) coalition takes control of the city council of Belgrade, the Serbian and Yugoslav capital.

Two Israeli military helicopters collide in midair just south of the IsraelLebanon border, killing all 65 soldiers and eight crew members aboard. It is one of the worst air disaster in Israeli’s history.

Ecuador’s Congress votes to remove Pres. Abdala Bucaram Ortiz on the grounds of “mental incapacity.” Fabian Alarcon, the president of Congress, is named interim president of Ecuador.

Deng Xiaoping, 92, China’s paramount leader, dies in Beijing, China’s capital, from respiratory failure.

The 22-member Arab League announces its decision to freeze relations with Israel in light of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s settlement policies.

Despite ongoing violent protests in Albania, Parliament reelects Pres. Sali Berisha to a second five-year term.

More than 450 Palestinians are wounded in street clashes.

Pamela Gordon becomes Bermuda’s first female prime minister, as well as its youngest.

On Comoros, a three-island nation in the Indian Ocean, a strike turns into an open rebellion, and government troops move in.

The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), a multilateral treaty mandating disarmament of poison gas weapons, goes into effect.

Presidents Boris Yeltsin of Russia and Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus sign a treaty on closer integration between the two former Soviet states.

A group armed with hatchets and knives kill 93 villagers, including 43 women and girls, in Haouch Mokhfi, 12 miles (20 km) south of Algiers, Algeria. The attack, attributed to Islamic fundamentalists, is the biggest massacre of civilians reported since the strife began in 1992.

Peruvian commandos storm the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima, the capital, freeing 72 hostages held by leftist rebels since December. The raid ends the longest guerrilla siege in Latin American history.

Pakistan’s parliament votes unanimously to repeal a 12-year-old constitutional amendment that gives the president unilateral power to dismiss the prime minister, dissolve Parliament, and appoint armed forces chiefs.

Western and African nations condemn a coup in Sierra Leone that ousts Pres. Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, Sierra Leone’s first freely elected ruler in three decades. The overthrow is also denounced by UN secretary general Kofi Annan and OAU leader Salim Ahmed Salim.

Turkish forces launch an offensive in northern Iraq against Kurdish rebels seeking autonomy for Turkey’s Kurds.

Zairian president Mobutu Sese Seko relinquishes power, ending nearly 32 years of dictatorial rule over Africa’s third-largest country. The Mobutu government crumbles as high-level officials flee across the Congo River to Brazzaville. Laurent Kabila declares himself head of state and changes the country’s name to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Colombia’s Constitutional Court votes to legalize euthanasia but imposes strict guidelines on the practice. The ruling makes Colombia the only country in the world to allow euthanasia.

Indian prime minister Inder Kumar Gujral and Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif hold a landmark meeting in the Maldives on the disputed Kashmir region, over which the two countries have fought two wars since they were partitioned in 1947.

The territory of Hong Kong reverts to Chinese sovereignty at midnight on June 30, ending 156 years of British colonial rule. After a SinoBritish handover ceremony, the territory becomes known as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China.

Caoimhghin O’Caolain, a candidate from Sinn Fein, the political arm of the Provisional IRA, wins a seat in the Dail for the first time in 16 years. He will be the first Sinn Fein member to join the Dail since the 1922 founding of the Republic of Ireland.

Rebellious soldiers in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, come under attack from Nigerian warships.

The Popocatepetl volcano near Mexico City, erupts, spewing lava and covering parts of the city with ash. Tens of thousands of people are placed on alert for evacuation during the eruption, which officials call the volcano’s biggest in 72 years.

Pol Pot, allegedly responsible for more than 1 million deaths during the Khmer Rouge’s rule of Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, is captured by forces loyal to Ta Mok, a popular leader among Khmer Rouge troops.

The U.S., Russia, and 28 European countries agree on revisions to the 1990 treaty governing Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE). The new accord will set country-bycountry limits on nonnuclear arms and materiel deployed in Europe.

In Spain, the murder of councilman Miguel Angel Blanco by the separatist ETA sparks a series of both violent and peaceful protests.

After three months of political violence, the Kenyan government allows an opposition coalition to hold a rally in the port city of Mombasa.

In elections, Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) loses its near-absolute control over the government for the first time since the party’s formation in 1929.

Fighting breaks out in Cambodia between the copremiers’ forces, and First Premier Prince Norodom Ranariddh, is ousted by Hun Sen in a bloody coup.

The UN Security Council votes to pass a resolution imposing air and travel sanctions against the National Union for the Total Liberation of Angola (UNITA), an armed rebel group in the southeast African nation of Angola.

Britain’s Diana, Princess of Wales, 36, dies after suffering grave injuries in a car accident in an underpass in Paris, France. Emad Mohamed (Dodi) al-Fayed, 41, an Egyptianborn film producer to whom Diana was recently romantically linked, dies in the crash, along with driver Henri Paul, 41.

Former warlord Charles Taylor is sworn in as president of Liberia for a six-year term. Taylor is Liberia’s first freely elected leader after seven years of civil war.

The Soufriere Hills volcano on the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat erupts, forcing hundreds of people to evacuate areas previously declared safe.

In India, 15,000 people parade through the streets of New Delhi to mark the country’s 50th year of independence in a “March of the Nation.”

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

January–August 1997—953

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The House, votes, 395-28, to formally reprimand Speaker Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.) and fines him $300,000. The House’s punishment of Gingrich is the first sanction imposed on a speaker in the House’s 208-year history.

Videotapes depicting hazing rituals, in which medals are pounded into the chests of Marine paratroopers at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, are broadcast on television.

The Dow volume of shares traded, 683.8 million, is the heaviest in the 204-year history of the New York Stock Exchange.

At a meeting of the American Astronomical Society, a team of U.S. scientists report they have found the first direct evidence of an event horizon, a defining characteristic of a black hole.

Boerge Ousland of Norway completes a 64-day-long trek across Antarctica, becoming the first person ever to cross the continent alone and unaided.

In Los Angeles, California, two heavily armed bank robbers are shot and killed in a gun battle with police that is filmed by news helicopters and broadcast live on six Los Angeles TV stations.

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California, 2-1, upholds the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on homosexuals, rejecting arguments that the policy is unconstitutional because it treats homosexuals and heterosexuals differently.

Six labor unions end a bitter 19month-long strike against the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News, stopping the longest newspaper strike in U.S. history.

Researchers in Scotland create the first genetic clone of an adult animal, a Finn Dorset lamb named Dolly, which has a genetic makeup identical to that of her mother. The major scientific breakthrough prompts a flood of media reports and public speculation worldwide about the dangers of human cloning.

French sailor Christophe Auguin, 38, breaks the solo around-the-world sailing record with a time of 105 days, 20 hours, and 31 minutes.

In California, 39 members of Heaven’s Gate, a religious cult, are found dead. It is one of the largest mass suicides in U.S. history.

Former CIA officer Harold James Nicholson pleads guilty to selling top-secret information to Russia. Nicholson is the highest-ranking CIA officer ever to be convicted of espionage.

John G. Bennett Jr., the founder of the failed Foundation for New Era Philanthropy, pleads no contest to federal charges that he defrauded universities, churches, charities, and philanthropists of $135 million. The scheme is said to have been the largest charity fraud in U.S. history.

The Hale-Bopp comet, one of the largest and brightest comets to enter the solar system in centuries, reaches its closest proximity to Earth when it passes an estimated 122 million miles from the Earth’s surface.

Sixteen-year-old Martina Hingis of Switzerland becomes the youngest women’s tennis player ever to be ranked number one.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California, unanimously upholds California’s antiaffirmative-action Proposition 209.

Pres. Clinton imposes a ban prohibiting new U.S. investment in Myanmar, in response to reports of continued human-rights abuses.

Vice President Al Gore and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright issue the State Department’s first annual “Environmental Diplomacy” report.

The Social Security Administration shuts down an information service operated on the Internet global computer network, citing concerns over the possibility of privacy violations.

In the TV series Ellen, the character played by Ellen DeGeneres reveals that she is a lesbian, becoming the first lead character in a TV series to openly acknowledge her homosexuality.

In Clinton v. Jones, the Supreme Court unanimously rejects Pres. Clinton’s request to delay proceedings in a sexual-harassment suit until he leaves office. It is the first time that the high court rules that sitting presidents may be sued for actions outside the realm of their official duties.

The Senate unanimously agrees to ratify changes to the 1990 treaty governing Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE).

The White House and Republican congressional leaders reach an agreement to balance the federal budget by 2002. The historic deal includes tax cuts and reductions in discretionary spending favored by Republicans and funding increases for education, welfare, and health insurance for children backed by Pres. Clinton.

A team of Spanish paleontologists report the discovery in Spain of 800,000-year-old human fossils, the oldest human remains found in Europe.

Mattel introduces Share a Smile Becky, a Barbie doll that depicts a handicapped girl.

Timothy J. McVeigh, a decorated veteran of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, is convicted on all 11 charges before him by a U.S. federal jury in Denver, Colorado, of the Apr. 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma The bombing, which killed 168 people, was the deadliest act of terrorism ever committed on U.S. soil.

In New York City, Judge Jack B. Weinstein rules that the INS cannot retroactively apply an April 1996 antiterrorism law to automatically deport legal immigrants convicted of minor offenses.

Pres. Clinton approves new airquality standards that tighten previous limits on soot and ground-level ozone, an element of smog.

A government-convened panel issues the first official guidelines on how doctors should administer newly developed drug treatments to effectively combat HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. A total of 11 socalled antiretroviral drugs that may be used in 320 different combinations are currently on the market.

The inaugural game of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), a new U.S. women’s professional league, is played, with the Los Angeles Sparks hosting the New York Liberty. The Liberty wins the game, 67-57.

The Senate unanimously approves Pres. Clinton’s nomination of Eric H. Holder Jr. as deputy attorney general. Holder becomes the highest-ranking black law-enforcement official in U.S. history.

In a case that attracts intense media attention, police arrest seven alleged members of a nationwide ring that allegedly smuggled deaf people from Mexico into the U.S. and forced them to work selling trinkets.

The Dow Jones crosses the psychologically important 8000 mark for the first time ever.

After a 310 million-mile (500 millionkm), seven-month-long journey, Mars Pathfinder, an unmanned spacecraft launched by NASA, lands on Mars. Pathfinder and Sojourner, a roving robotic explorer vehicle, explore the geology of the planet. Pathfinder is the first spacecraft to reach Mars since 1976.

Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace, 50, is shot and killed in Miami Beach, Florida. Andrew P. Cunanan, the suspect in the slaying of Versace and four other men, commits suicide, ending a manhunt that involved more than 1,000 law enforcement agents nationwide.

In response to the alleged beating and sodomizing of Abner Louima by NYC police, more than 2,000 demonstrators march through the precinct to the station house to protest what they denounce as a pattern of police brutality.

Female students enroll at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia, for the first time, ending 158 years of male-only education at the college.

OMB figures indicate that the federal budget deficit for fiscal 1997 will be $37 billion, the lowest in 23 years. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the 1997 deficit will be just $34 billion.

In New York City, Judge Sonia Sotomayor rules that publishers may transfer articles authored by freelance writers into electronic media, such as CD-ROM storage devices, without first obtaining the writers’ permission. The decision is considered a landmark ruling in the evolving field of electronic publishing rights.

The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, steps up its boycott of Walt Disney Co. to protest what it views as the company’s shift to a “Christian-bashing, family-bashing, pro-homosexual agenda.”

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

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954—September–December 1997

Sept.

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World Affairs

Europe

A haze caused by hundreds of raging forest fires blots out much of the sunlight in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Brunei, and southern Thailand. The U.S. and Canada authorize partial evacuations of their embassies in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital. The haze is widely called the worst ecological disaster on record in Southeast Asia.

Voters in Scotland, in a referendum, overwhelmingly approve plans to form a 129-member Scottish parliament with control over most local and regional affairs. The vote is regarded as a major landmark in the history of Scotland, which has been under British control for centuries.

Pres. Jiang Zemin of China meets with U.S. president Bill Clinton in Washington, D.C., in the first U.S.China summit meeting since 1989.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

An Israeli soldier is killed in southern Lebanon, raising to 865 the number of Israeli troops killed in Lebanon since Israel built a buffer zone abutting its northern border in 1982.

More than 400 Guatemalans who fled to Mexico during the civil war return to their country.

Mother Teresa (born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu), 87, Roman Catholic nun who devoted her life to caring for the destitute and the sick in India and who won the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize for her work, dies in Calcutta, India, of a heart attack.

Mary McAleese is declared the winner of the Republic of Ireland’s presidential election. McAleese will be the country’s first-ever president from Northern Ireland.

In the Congo Republic’s capital, Brazzaville, Gen. Denis SassouNguesso declares victory in his four-month-old civil war against Pres. Pascal Lissouba.

Paraguayan president Juan Carlos Wasmosy orders the arrest of Lino Cesar Oviedo, the ruling Colorado Party’s candidate who is considered Wasmosy’s likely successor.

Residents of Anjouan Island vote overwhelmingly to secede from the Comoros, a three-island nation in the Indian Ocean. The vote comes in the wake of an armed independence rebellion.

Data indicates that more than a month of flooding has claimed at least 1,300 lives in Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya. UN officials state that East Africa has not experienced flooding as severe as current conditions since 1961.

In what is described as Germany’s largest protest in at least 20 years, an estimated 40,000 university students march through Bonn, Germany’s capital, in a demonstration of their discontent with the university system.

Iraq’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) launches an all-out offensive against the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) from Degala, east of the city of Irbil, to the town of Shaqlawah, some 30 miles (50 km) to the north.

The Peruvian government frees 83 people unjustly jailed on terrorism charges.

The State Law and Order Council (SLORC), Myanmar’s ruling military junta, announces that it has dissolved itself and formed a new leadership council called the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).

The U.S. joins 101 other countries in signing the Global Financial Services Agreement, which essentially replaces a 1995 interim WTO pact.

A court in Milan, Italy, convicts former premier Silvio Berlusconi of fraud. He is given a 16-month suspended prison sentence.

Leaders of rival factions in Somalia’s six-year-old civil war sign a landmark peace plan.

Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz declares that Christmas (Dec. 25) will be a national holiday. Cuba, officially a communist, atheistic state, has not celebrated Christmas since 1969.

Jenny Shipley is sworn in as New Zealand’s first woman prime minister.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

September–December 1997—955

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The CDC reports that the number of new AIDS cases in the U.S. dropped for the first time in the epidemic’s 16-year history when they fell by 6%.

The largest-ever investigation of sexual misconduct within Army ranks reveals evidence of widespread sexual harassment and discrimination.

The Forest Service imposes a ban on future oil and gas leasing along the Rocky Mountain Front in Montana, protecting a 100-mile-long stretch of land that runs along the eastern edge of the Lewis and Clark National Forest and borders the southern tip of Glacier National Park.

Officials at a marine-life observatory in the San Francisco, California, area report that the water surface there has warmed to 67ºF (19.4ºC), the highest temperature that the observatory has measured since it began keeping records in 1958.

The U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops’ committee on marriage and family attempts to provide spiritual guidance to the parents of homosexual children and urges parents not to reject their children on the basis of sexual orientation.

The Supreme Court refuses to hear an appeal of a lower-court ruling that upholds an Oregon law permitting doctors in the state to prescribe lethal doses of medication to terminally ill patients. The court’s action eliminates the last legal barrier to the implementation of the statute.

Tens of thousands of people turn out at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia for the dedication of the Women in Military Service for America Memorial, a monument and exhibit hall commemorating the nearly 2 million women who have served in the U.S. armed forces during the past two centuries.

Reports confirm that a Pennsylvania landfill company has agreed to pay an $8 million fine for making illegal campaign contributions to 10 candidates. The fine is the largest penalty ever imposed for campaign-finance violations.

A jet-powered SuperSonic Car called Thrust becomes the first vehicle to break the sound barrier on land.

Jane Alexander states she will resign as head of the NEA, citing the hostility of conservative members of Congress as one of her reasons.

Pres. Clinton becomes the first U.S. president to address a gay and lesbian organization when he speaks to the Human Rights Campaign, a leading gay-rights group, in Washington, D.C.

Pres. Clinton signs an executive order imposing new economic sanctions on Sudan for its alleged human rights abuses and sponsorship of terrorism.

For the first time in its history, the FERC orders the dismantling of a hydroelectric dam whose owner seeks its relicensing.

Two teams of astronomers report to a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Estes Park, Colorado, that they have confirmed the prediction of Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity that very large rotating astronomical objects will warp the surrounding fabric of space-time in an effect called “frame dragging.”

Four of the five living U.S. presidents—Bill Clinton, George Bush, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter— attend the dedication of the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum at Texas A&M University.

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upholds a California law established in a 1990 referendum that sets term limits for California state legislators.

Reports confirm that Pres. Clinton has issued new, classified nuclearstrike guidelines to top military officials, marking the first adjustment in U.S. nuclear defense strategy since 1981.

A survey of state governments’ finances projects that the 50 states will have aggregate budget surpluses totaling $24 billion at the end of the current fiscal year. The states had a record surplus of $29.2 billion in the fiscal year that ended in 1997.

Astronomers present images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope showing the dying phases of stars in unprecedented detail.

A federal judge in Eugene, Oregon, orders the PGA to allow Casey Martin, who has Klippel-Trenaunay-Weber Syndrome, to use a golf cart in competitions.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

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956—January 1–6, 1997

World Affairs

Europe Rescuers in Georgia free some 150 people trapped since Dec. 26, 1996, in a 21⁄2-mile-long tunnel under the Caucasus Mountains. . . . Bomb-disposal officers in Belfast, Northern Ireland, conduct a controlled explosion of a suspected IRA land mine found in a van near Belfast Castle.

Jan. 1

Jan. 2

Jan. 3

Jan. 4

Africa & the Middle East

The MRTA leftist rebels holding Peruvian and foreign dignitaries hostage inside the Japanese ambassador’s residence free seven hostages before talks break down. The remaining 74 hostages include top Peruvian government officials, Pres. Fujimori’s brother, the ambassadors of Japan and Bolivia, and several Japanese businessmen.

Libya executes the six senior military officers and two civilians who were sentenced Jan. 1. Foreign diplomats and area experts suspect that the men were not connected to espionage activities but to a failed 1993 military coup. . . . In Zaire, rebels claim they have captured the gold-mining region of Kilo-moto in northeastern Zaire, which is privately owned by Pres. Mobutu Sese Seko.

Some 200 inmates of Alberta’s Drumheller Institution stage a prison riot, injuring 13 prisoners. . . . In a case that shocked many Canadians who revere hockey as a national pastime, Graham James, a junior hockey coach in western Canada, pleads guilty in Alberta Provincial Court to two counts of sexually assaulting two teenage former players and is sentenced to 31⁄2 years in jail.

A Russian tanker carrying more than 19,000 tons of heavy fuel oil capsizes and sinks in the Sea of Japan, spilling at least 4,500 tons of its cargo. The spill, Japan’s worst in more than 20 years, fouls some of the country’s richest fishing grounds and large stretches of fragile beach areas. . . . Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) capture all but two seats in Parliament. . . . Police in Karachi, Pakistan, arrest Hakim Ali Zardari, the father-in-law of Benazir Bhutto, on charges of income-tax evasion and bank fraud.

Odín Gutiérrez Rico, a senior antidrug official, is killed in the northern city of Tijuana, Mexico, the eighth such killing in 11 months.

A raging bush fire breaks out in the barren countryside surrounding the city of Perth in Western Australia. The fire destroys 12 homes, kills livestock, and ruins 10,500 hectares (26,000 acres) of grazing land. . . . In South Korea, the Confederation of Trade Unions resumes strikes that started Dec. 26, 1996, in protest of new labor laws.

Thousands of Bulgarians launch a series of protests in Sofia to call for immediate new elections. . . . Russia reports that the number of new infections of HIV jumped to 1,031 in 1996, which surpasses the total number of HIV infections reported in Russia in the 10 years since the virus was first discovered there. . . . Bosnia-Herzegovina’s parliament meets for the first time. Separately, a letter by Yugoslav foreign minister Milan Milutinovic disputes most of the findings of a December 1996 OSCE report that reaffirmed the opposition’s claims of wins in November municipal elections.

A Rwandan court sentences Deo Bizimana and Egide Gatanazi, two Hutu men, to death for their involvement in the massacres of half a million ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus during the country’s 1994 civil war. The verdict is the first handed down in the Rwandan government’s efforts to punish the organizers of the massacres. . . . A previously unknown group, the Boer Attack Force, claims responsibility for the Dec. 24, 1996, fatal Worcester bombing.

The Greek Cypriot government signs an agreement to buy sophisticated S-300 surface-to-air missiles from Russia, drawing sharp criticism from Turkey, the U.S., Great Britain, and the United Nations.

Czech president Vaclav Havel marries actress Dagmar Veskrnova. . . . Reports confirm that an 11-day period of severely cold weather in Western Europe has resulted in 228 deaths.

Two unarmed French soldiers are shot and killed in a rebel-held suburb of Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, while escorting a mediation team led by officers from Chad and Burkina Faso. . . . A letter bomb is found at the headquarters of the Saudiowned, Arabic-language Al Hayat newspaper in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.

Officials state that the Russian troop withdrawal from the separatist republic of Chechnya is complete. . . In Serbia, opposition supporters drive several thousand vehicles through Belgrade at a creeping pace, and many feign breakdowns in order to get around the December 1996 ban on street marches. . . . Prince Bertil Gustaf Oscar Carl Eugene, 84, third son born to King Gustaf VI of Sweden and Princess Margaret of Connaught, dies of unreported causes.

Three bombs explode in Rustenburg, South Africa, injuring two people and damaging a mosque. The Boer Attack Force claims responsibility. . . . In retaliation for the Jan 4 killings, French soldiers, backed by armored vehicles and helicopter gunships, attack positions held by mutineers in Bangui, Central African Republic. France’s defense ministry reports that 10 rebel soldiers are killed and 30 others captured. Mutineers put their death toll at 21, and say 11 civilians also died.

A live grenade is thrown from an automobile and strikes a security building on the grounds of the Northern Ireland High Court in Belfast. The explosion slightly wounds a police officer and a female pedestrian. The IRA claims responsibility . . . Data show that Poland’s population in 1996 increased by 34,000, to 38.6 million. . . . Sandor Vegh, 91, violinist and conductor best known as the leader of the Vegh Quartet, dies in Freilassing, Germany, of unreported causes.

Jan. 6

Asia & the Pacific

In Libya, eight suspected spies are sentenced to death for allegedly passing defense secrets to foreign governments. . . . Despite protests, Israel’s Knesset passes a controversial budget package. . . . Reports confirm that a court in Tizi-Ouzou, Algeria, has sentenced 12 Islamic militants to death for “belonging to armed terrorist groups.” . . . An Israeli soldier, Private Noam Friedman, opens fire on Palestinian civilians in a Hebron marketplace, wounding seven people, one of them critically.

U.S. president Bill Clinton suspends for six months a provision of the Helms-Burton law that allows U.S. citizens whose properties were confiscated in Cuba’s 1959 communist revolution to sue, in U.S. courts, foreign companies that use those properties. The law has angered many U.S. allies, and the EU, Canada, and Mexico have adopted retaliatory measures.

Jan. 5

The Americas

The bush fire that ignited Jan. 3 in Western Australia. Is brought under control by 500 firefighters. More than 1,000 residents have evacuated their homes in Wooroloo, Wundowie, and Bakers Hill, on the outskirts of Perth.

In Mexico, federal officials arrest at least 25 people linked to the Juarez drug cartel in a raid of a ranch near the town of Navolato in Sinaloa state. . . . Health officials in Honduras predict that 65,000 of the 300,000 Hondurans currently suffering from Chagas disease, a deadly parasitic illness transmitted by insects, will die in the next two years.

Reports reveal that the 31-member crew of the Nakhodka, the Russian tanker that spilled at least 4,500 tons fuel oil in the Sea of Japan on Jan. 2, were rescued from waters near the vessel, but the ship’s captain is missing and presumed dead.

Justice Ross Wimmer of Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s Bench sentences former Saskatchewan legislator Michael Hopfner to 18 months in jail for fraud. Hopfner is the sixth former Saskatchewan legislator to be convicted in connection with a fraud ring run by several deputies to the provincial legislature between 1986 and 1991.

Pakistan’s senior political officials establish a Council for Defense and National Security that expands the power of the country’s military, giving it a formal role in setting national policy. It is the first time since the 1988 death of Gen. Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, Pakistan’s last military ruler, that the military will be officially involved in government policy. . . . In South Korea, protests against labor laws passed in December 1996 are significantly stepped up.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

January 1–6, 1997—957

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Data show that 117 federal, state, and local law-enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty in 1996. The number of police officers slain in 1996 is down 30% from 1995, when 162 were killed, and is the lowest since 1960. . . . Two containers of flammable liquid are thrown at an abortion clinic in Tulsa, Oklahoma, causing minor damage.

Six lawmakers file a suit in federal court challenging the constitutionality of a new law known as the line-item veto that gives the president power to eliminate spending for specific items in an appropriations bill within five days after Congress passes the legislation. . . . The CDC reports that the rate of legal abortions in the U.S. fell 5% to 1.27 million in 1994, from 1.32 million in 1993. The 1994 rate is the lowest in 20 years.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Reports confirm that workers for the expansion of the Los Angeles subway system have unearthed more than 2,000 fossils of prehistoric animals. Among the fossils found are those of 60 species of fish, as well as bones of a mastodon, a camel, and an extinct type of horse. Scientists estimate that the mammal bones are between 10,000 and 280,000 years old and that some of the fish fossils date back as many as 15 million years.

Townes Van Zandt, 52, country music singer-songwriter who influenced such singers as Roseanne Cash, Emmylou Harris, and Neil Young, dies of an apparent heart attack while recovering from hip surgery in Smyrna, Texas.

Officials discover five letter bombs addressed to the Saudi newspaper Al Hayat bureau in Washington, D.C., and postmarked in Alexandria, Egypt.

Officials discover three letter bombs mailed to a federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas. Like the bombs discovered on Jan. 2, they are postmarked in Alexandria, Egypt.

The Roman Catholic Church formally excommunicates Rev. Tissa Balasuriya, a Sri Lankan priest under criticism for his books, which challenge such core tenets of the Roman Catholic faith as original sin and the immaculate conception.

Statistics show that the value of domestic mergers and acquisitions announced in 1996 reached an alltime high of $659 billion. The number of deals involving U.S. companies was 10,257, also a record. This figures compare to the total of 9,152 mergers announced in 1995, with a combined value of $519 billion.

Some 900 tourists are evacuated after being stranded in northern California’s Yosemite National Park due to floods caused by heavy rains and melting snow from the Sierra Nevada mountains. . . . Wallace Broecker, a biochemist, reveals that he has resigned from his job as research coordinator of Biosphere 2, a six-year-old selfcontained ecosystem experiment.

Harry Helmsley, 87, billionaire realestate mogul who, with his second wife, Leona Helmsley, was charged in 1988 with state and federal tax evasion, dies in Scottsdale, Arizona, of pneumonia.

Jeffrey St. John, 66, TV and print journalist, dies in Randolph, Virginia, of lung cancer. . . . Marie Torre, 72, columnist who served 10 days in jail in 1959 for protecting a source, dies in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, of lung cancer. . . . The New Bedford (Massachusetts) Whaling Museum opens its first annual “Moby Dick: The Marathon,” during which more than 150 volunteers read Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (1851) over a 24-hour period.

Henk Angenent wins the Elfstedentocht, a 125-mile (200-km) skating race over a network of frozen waterways in the province of Friesland, the Netherlands. It is only the 15th time in the 20th century that the temperature has been cold enough for the race.

Burton Lane (born Burton Levy), 84, composer for Broadway musicals and Hollywood films, dies in New York City of a stroke.

In the combined cases of U.S. v. Watts and U.S. v. Putra, the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that federal judges may consider related criminal conduct of which a defendant has been found innocent in setting a sentence for crimes of which that defendant has been found guilty.

Chrysler Corp. unveils the Chrysler LHX, a new electric car design that runs on hydrogen fuel extracted from gasoline. . . . A federal advisory committee recommends that the nation’s financially strained Social Security system invest some proportion of its assets in the stock market.

The Baseball Writers’ Association of America elects pitcher Phil Niekro to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 1

Jan. 2

Jan. 3

Jan. 4

Jan. 5

Jan. 6

958—January 7–12, 1997

World Affairs

Jan. 7

Jan. 8

Jan. 9

Jan. 10

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

A bomb explodes in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, as an armored police vehicle passes by. . . . The ruling Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) nominates Interior Minister Nikolai Dobrev as its candidate for premier.

Governor General Romeo LeBlanc appoints 73 Canadians to the Order of Canada.

An unidentified woman shoots and kills Spanish officer Lt. Col. Jesus Agustin Cuesta Abril in Madrid. . . . The IRA claims responsibility for the Jan. 7 attack, in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. . . . The Serbian government concedes that the Zajedno opposition coalition won November 1996 municipal elections in Nis, the second-largest city in Serbia. . . . Makhmud Khudoberdyev of the Tajik government attacks rebels in Tursunzade, a city on Tajikistan’s border with Uzbekistan. No casualties are reported.

Strikes and protests begin in Ecuador, prompted by the government’s announcement of large increases in the prices of basic utilities.

Asia & the Pacific

Prosecutors at the UN’s Rwandan war-crimes tribunal open their case against Jean-Paul Akayesu, a former Hutu mayor accused of ordering the killings of 2,000 Tutsis during the 1994 civil war. . . . The UNbacked Pan American Health Organization reports that 16–18 million people living in Latin America have contracted Chagas disease, a deadly parasitic illness transmitted by insects.

Maliq Sheholli, an ethnic Albanian member of the ruling Socialist Party, is slain. . . . The Bulgarian Statistics Institute estimates 1996 inflation at 310.8%. . . . Police in the Kazakh capital, Almaty, discover the dead body of U.S. journalist Chris Gehring, 28. . . . Slovenia’s parliament reelects Janez Drnovsek as premier. . . . Serbia’s Supreme Court approves the opposition victory in November municipal elections in the town of Vrsac.

Two pipe bombs laden with nails explode in trash containers in Tel Aviv, Israel, wounding 13 people. . . . Zaire’s Pres. Mobutu Sese Seko flies back to Europe just three weeks after returning to face a rebel uprising and political turmoil in his country.

Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien, seven provincial premiers, the leaders of Canada’s two territories, and some 400 business executives embark on a visit to South Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand on the Canadian government’s largest-ever trade mission.

Ongoing protests that started in December in Seoul, South Korea, turn violent. . . . Tamil rebels attack the Elephant Pass and Paranthan military bases in Sri Lanka. . . . Tony Bullimore and Thierry Dubois, whose yachts capsized, are rescued by the Australian military after being exposed to four days of high winds, freezing temperatures, and wave swells of 50 feet (15 m). . . . The Bangladesh Supreme Court frees from prison Hossein Mohammed Ershad, the country’s former military ruler.

In the UN Security Council, China exercises its veto power for the first time since 1972 when it refuses to pass a resolution to send 155 military observers to monitor a peace accord signed in Guatemala in December 1996, ending a 36-yearlong civil war.

Under pressure from the U.S., Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze reveals that he will waive diplomatic immunity for Gueorgui Makharadze, a senior diplomat at Georgia’s U.S. embassy alleged to have caused a car crash in Washington, D.C., which a teenage girl died. . . . In Bulgaria, protesters, angry because Parliament has avoided new elections, break into the parliament building, cause $1.1 million worth of damage, and blockade more than 100 legislators, many from the BSP, in the building.

Army soldiers kill 126 Hutu refugees trying to escape from a detention center. The refugees had been forcibly expelled from Tanzania, where an estimated 200,000 Burundians are still living in camps after fleeing the turmoil in their country.

Arnoldo Aleman Lacayo is sworn in as president of Nicaragua in Managua, the nation’s capital.

Sri Lankan government officials and Tamil rebels give conflicting reports of losses suffered in the Jan. 9 clashes. Between 300 and 700 combatants are said to have been killed in the fighting. . . . In Seoul, a Hyundai Motor worker, Chung Jae Sung, is hospitalized after setting himself ablaze in protest of new labor laws. Hyundai Motor Co., South Korea’s largest car manufacturer, shuts its assembly plant, saying it incurred $465 million in production losses linked to the strikes.

In Bulgaria, police break through crowds of protestors to free the deputies trapped inside the parliament building Jan. 10. Some 100 demonstrators and police officers are injured. . . . Jill Summers, 89, British TV actress recognized for her comedic talents, dies in Selford, England, of kidney failure.

A letter bomb is found at the headquarters of the Al Hayat newspaper in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

Some 100,000 people hold protests in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, and other towns. . . . A highspeed train derails after rounding a sharp curve near the Italian town of Piacenza, killing eight people and injuring at least 29 others. . . . JeanEdern Hallier, 60, controversial French writer known for his outspoken opinions, dies of a brain hemorrhage caused by a bicycle accident.

Britain’s Diana, Princess of Wales, visits Angola to draw attention to the dangers of land mines.

Jan. 11

Jan. 12

The Russian government contributes 1.5 billion rubles ($270,000) to help pay for the cleanup from the Jan. 2 oil spill in the Sea of Japan.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

January 7–12, 1997—959

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The 105th Congress convenes with the Republican Party retaining majorities in the House and Senate for the first time in 68 years. Rep. Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.), battling ethics charges, is narrowly reelected speaker of the House. . . . In Old Chief v. U.S., the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that in certain criminal cases prosecutors cannot disclose to juries details of a defendant’s prior convictions, if that defendant agrees to acknowledge his past conviction in court.

A presidential panel examining the illnesses of Persian Gulf war veterans concludes that stress probably contributes to the veterans’ health problems but states that there is little evidence that exposure to chemical weapons or pollutants does.

Reports confirm that the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago have agreed to turn Meigs Field, an airfield on a strip of landfill in Lake Michigan, into a park.

Reports indicate that Nevada governor Bob Miller (D) predicts that damage from flooding in that state could reach $500 million.

Judge Consuelo Marshall of U.S. District Court in Los Angeles sentences Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss, who in 1995 was sentenced to three years in prison on state charges of procuring prostitutes, to 37 months in federal prison for tax evasion and money laundering.

The State of Arkansas executes three convicted murderers—Earl Van Denton, 47; Paul Ruiz, 49; and Kirt Wainwright, 30—in one night at the state prison in Varner. It is the second time since 1976 that a state executes three prisoners in one day. . . . Residents of an impoverished section of Miami, Florida, pick up some $500,000 in cash and $149,000 in food stamps when a crashed Brink’s Inc. armored truck spills money onto an interstate and a city street below.

A group of scientists report they have identified six separate clusters of ailments, or syndromes, from which Persian Gulf War veterans are suffering and found that exposure to certain combinations of chemicals encountered during the war appears linked to some of the syndromes. . . . Officials at The Citadel military academy reveal that 11 cadets have been disciplined for allegedly harassing Kim Messer and Jeanie Mentavlos, two female students who made sexual harassment allegations public in December.

Reports confirm that the U.S.based computer-network access provider America Online Inc. (AOL) has cut off Russian subscribers’ access to the company’s service because of widespread credit card fraud. It is the first time that AOL has blocked off access to an entire country. . . . Melvin Calvin, 85, biochemist who won the 1961 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research on the phases of photosynthesis, dies in Alta Bates, California, of unreported causes.

The estate of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Time Warner Inc. plan to publish a series of books and other media products related to King’s work. . . . Christies International PLC posts a 9% increase in its sales, to $1.602 billion in 1996 from $1.47 billion in 1995.

Pres. Clinton discloses that the nation’s college-loan default rate dropped to 10.7% in the 1994 fiscal year, from 11.6% the previous year. The 1994 rate represents a sharp decline in loan defaults from fiscal 1990, when the rate peaked at 22.4%. . . . Vice Pres. Al Gore, as president of the Senate, officially declares Pres. Clinton and himself the winners of the 1996 presidential election after Congress tallies the votes of the Electoral College.

Albert Wohlstetter, 83, adviser on nuclear-arms policy to several U.S. presidents who was awarded the Medal of Freedom in 1985, dies in Los Angeles, California, of unreported causes.

Comair Flight 3272 crashes in a snowstorm in Raisinville Township, Michigan, killing all 29 people on board. . . . In the largest study of its kind, research shows that women who had abortions in the first 18 weeks of pregnancy did not increase their risk of developing breast cancer. . . . Data confirms that 42 of California’s 58 counties have been declared disaster areas due to floods. At least 29 deaths have been attributed to the floods.

Pres. Clinton confers National Medals of Arts and Charles Frankel Prizes for humanities on 16 American cultural figures and one arts organization. . . . Jesse White, 78, actor best known for his role as the lonely Maytag repairman in TV ads, dies in Los Angeles, California, of unreported causes.

A study finds that resveratrol, a natural ingredient in grapes, wine, peanuts, and mulberries, successfully inhibits the formation of cancer tumors in mice. . . . Lord Todd (born Alexander Robertus Todd), 89, British chemist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1957 for his advancements in the understanding of the constitution of genes, dies in Cambridge, England, of unreported causes.

Sheldon Leonard (born Sheldon Leonard Bershad), 89, actor and TV producer credited with giving actor Bill Cosby the first leading role for a black man in a U.S. television series, dies in Beverly Hills, California, of unreported causes.

Federal authorities arrest 15 people for allegedly smuggling into the U.S. nearly 900 tons of illegal refrigerants that contain chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs. That is the most arrests of such kind made by the federal government. . . . The Labor Department reports that the index of prices charged by manufacturers and farmers for finished goods rose 2.8% in 1996. That marks the largest annual gain since 1990 and compares with a 2.3% increase in 1995.

Mary Bancroft, 93, U.S. spy during World War II, dies in New York City of unreported causes.

Reports confirm that 12,800 homes in California have been damaged or destroyed as a result of ruptured levees.

Kim Messer and Jeanie Mentavlos, two of the four women attending The Citadel, a state-run military academy in Charleston, South Carolina, announce that they have dropped out of the formerly all-male institution after revealing allegations of harassment. Mentavlos’s brother, Citadel senior Michael Mentavlos, states that he will leave the school as well and complete his course work at a different institution.

The space shuttle Atlantis blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission to pick up a U.S. astronaut from the Russian Mir space station and deliver his replacement. . . . Charles Huggins, 95, surgeon who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1966 for research that led to the use of drug therapy as a successful treatment for cancer, dies in Chicago, Illinois, of unreported causes.

Jan. 7

Jan. 8

Jan. 9

Jan. 10

Jan. 11

Football’s New England Patriots defeat the Jacksonville Jaguars, 206, to win the AFC title. The Green Bay Packers beat the Carolina Panthers, 30-13, to become the NFC champions. . . . Figure skater Oksana Baiul, a gold medalist in the 1994 Olympic Games, is hospitalized with a concussion after a car accident in Bloomfield, Connecticut.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 12

960—January 13–18, 1997

Jan. 13

World Affairs

Europe

The Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly suspends Belarus’s special guest status in the organization, arguing that Belarus’s new constitution does not respect human rights.

Four letter bombs are discovered in the London mail room of Al Hayat, a Saudi-owned Arabic-language newspaper, one of which explodes and seriously injures a mail clerk. . . . In Serbia, more than 300,000 protesters jam Belgrade’s streets on the occasion of Orthodox New Year’s Eve in the largest rally held to date in the capital. Separately, Fazli Hasani, who worked with the Serbian police near the town of Mitrovica, is slain.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific A court in Shanghai, China, sentences a Chinese-American businessman, William Ping Chen, for smuggling garbage and medical waste into China. Chen is fined $60,000 and ordered expelled from China. He is also sentenced to 10 years in prison, although it appears that the expulsion order will effectively negate that sentence.

The Belgrade election commission issues a preliminary ruling that the Zajedno coalition has won control of Belgrade’s city assembly and that of Nis and 12 other cities and towns. . . . A Russian service association estimates that 4,379 Russian troops died in the 21-monthlong Chechen war. More than 1,000 soldiers are still listed as missing.

Jan. 14

Petru Lucinschi is sworn in as Moldova’s second president since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. . . . Thousands of people across Albania begin a series of rallies urging the government to step in to protect their investments in failed pyramid schemes.

Jan. 15

Jan. 16

Africa & the Middle East

A World Trade Organization panel issues an interim ruling that a Canadian excise tax on “split-run” publications, which pair U.S.-produced editorial content with Canadian advertisements, violates international trade rules.

Jan. 17

Jan. 18

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yasser Arafat, leader of the self-rule Palestinian National Authority (PNA), conclude a long-delayed agreement on terms for Israel’s withdrawal from most of the West Bank city of Hebron.

A bomb attack in Pristina, the Kosovar capital, wounds Radivoje Papovic, dean of Pristina University and a stalwart of Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic. His driver is also wounded. . . . In Azerbaijan, some 30 former members of the OPON elite police are sentenced to prison terms of up to 13 years in connection with a separate 1995 coup attempt. The High Court in Dublin, the Irish capital, grants the first divorce in the history of the Republic of Ireland. . . . Hundreds of disgruntled workers at Credit Foncier de France, a state-owned bank, occupy the company’s Paris headquarters and prevent Jerome Meyssonnier, the bank’s federally appointed governor, from leaving the premises. . . . A jury in London’s Old Bailey courthouse decides that Szymon Serafinowicz, 86, the first person charged with World War IIera Nazi crimes under Britain’s War Crimes Act, is unfit to stand trial due to his failing health.

Israel’s military begins to withdraw from 80% of the West Bank city of Hebron. . . . A Rwandan court in southern Butare sentences three Hutus to death for helping to organize the 1994 massacres. . . . Retired South African Anglican archbishop and 1984 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu announces that he has prostate cancer. . . . Crown Prince Asfa Wossen, 80, Ethiopian prince and son of the late Emperor Haile Selassie, dies in Oakton, Virginia.

Austrian chancellor Franz Vranitzky announces that he is stepping down from his post, effective immediately. . . . Danish police in Copenhagen, the capital, arrest seven suspected neo-Nazis who allegedly planned to deliver package bombs to targets in Britain.

Attackers kill 36 residents of BeniSlimane, a village 45 miles (75 km) south of Algiers, Algeria, reportedly decapitating some of the victims. . . . Hutu militiamen shoot and kill three Spanish aid workers and seriously wound an American in an attack on their compound in Ruhengeri, northwestern Rwanda. The attack is apparently coordinated with three other raids, in which three Rwandan soldiers die.

Leftist rebels holding 74 Peruvian and foreign dignitaries hostage inside the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima, Peru, accept a government proposal for the creation of a guarantor commission to mediate a resolution to the standoff. It is the first significant progress in efforts to end the crisis since Jan. 1.

Riot police seal off the Myongdong Roman Catholic cathedral in Seoul, South Korea, where seven union leaders—including Confederation of Trade Unions head Kwon Young Kil—have camped out to avoid arrest.

A general strike is called in Haiti to protest austerity measures. . . . In Colombia, 10 marines are taken hostage by FARC rebels during a raid on a military base.

North Korea launches an official site on the World Wide Web. The launch of the Web site is considered remarkable because the communist country is one of the world’s most reclusive and secretive nations.

Canadian army commander Lt. Gen. Maurice Baril reveals that 57 Canadian soldiers engaged in sexual misconduct, abuse, and drunkenness while guarding a mental hospital in Bakovici, Bosnia-Herze govina during peacekeeping duty in 1993 and 1994. . . . A judge in Cali, Colombia, sentences the two reputed leaders of the Cali drug cartel, Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela and his brother Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela, to 101⁄2 years and nine years in prison, respectively.

Twenty-five people, including Ziaur Rehman Farooqi, leader of a Sunni Muslim militant group, are killed and dozens of people are wounded when a bomb explodes near a courthouse in Lahore, Pakistan.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

January 13–18, 1997—961

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Judge John E. Sprizzo of U.S. District Court in New York City acquits retired bishop George E. Lynch and Franciscan friar Christopher Moscinski, two protesters who blocked access to an abortion clinic, because of what he calls their sincere religious beliefs.

Pres. Clinton awards seven black soldiers the Medal of Honor—the nation’s highest award for bravery—for their heroism in World War II. Six of the awards are posthumous. . . . Four letter bombs are discovered at UN headquarters in NYC, addressed to the office of the Al Hayat, a Saudi-owned Arabiclanguage newspaper. Officials note that the bombs are similar to eight bombs discovered Jan. 2 and Jan. 3 in the U.S. and to the four discovered in London this same day.

A group of physicians and patients file a class-action lawsuit against the federal government alleging that its plans to prosecute physicians who prescribe or discuss marijuana use as a treatment for their patients violates the Constitution’s freedom-of-speech protections. California and Arizona passed referendums legalizing marijuana use for medicinal purposes in 1996.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Three years ahead of schedule, Mexico repays the remaining $3.5 billion of the $12.5 billion it borrowed from the U.S. in February 1995 in the wake of an economic crisis precipitated by a devaluation of Mexico’s currency, the peso, in December 1994.

Two bombs explode at a building in Atlanta, Georgia, that houses an abortion clinic, injuring at least six people.

Data suggests that the following defense companies are the largest in the U.S.: Boeing Co., Lockheed Martin Corp., Raytheon Co., Northrop Grumman Corp., and General Dynamics Corp.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

At a meeting of the American Astronomical Society, a team of U.S. scientists report that they have found the first direct evidence of an event horizon, a defining characteristic of a black hole. A second group of U.S. scientists tells the conference they have found evidence of three new black holes within 50 million light years of Earth. . . . The FDA proposes a ban on the antihistamine drug Seldane due to the emergence of evidence that the drug may have fatal side effects. The Labor Department reports that the government’s index of consumer prices in 1996 rose 3.3%, up from the 2.5% rate registered in 1995. The 1996 inflation figure is the first in six years to surpass the 3.0% level.

The American Civil Rights Institute, a national anti-affirmative-action group, is launched by Ward Connerly, a black California businessman. . . . In Wisconsin, Judge Paul Higginbotham issues a ruling blocking a state plan to use public money to send some students to religious schools. The plan would have allowed impoverished children in Milwaukee to attend such schools for free. . . . Darnell McGee, who is accused of knowingly exposing women to HIV, is shot at point-blank range and killed in Missouri.

Science, Technology, & Nature

U.S. astronomers report that, using the Hubble telescope, they have discovered an estimated 600 stars that are not part of any galaxy. . . . The U.S. spacecraft Atlantis successfully docks at the Mir space station.

Jan. 13

Robert Irsay, 73, owner of the Indianapolis Colts football team since 1972, dies in Indianapolis, Indiana, of congestive heart failure related to a stroke suffered in November 1995. . . . Figure skater Oksana Baiul is charged with reckless and drunken driving for her Jan. 12 accident in Bloomfield, Connecticut.

Oscar Auerbach, 92, pathologist who, in the 1960s, was the first researcher to demonstrate a physical link between smoking and lung cancer, dies in Livingston, New Jersey, of unreported causes.

The Congressional Budget Office reports that it has reduced its projected estimate of the costs of Medicaid by $86 billion for the years 1997 through 2002.

Reports confirm that antitobacco lawyers have filed a class-action lawsuit in a state court in Natchitoches, Louisiana, against the state’s smokeless tobacco industry. It is the first to target makers of smokeless tobacco. . . . Data show that seven abortion clinics were bombed in 1996 and that at least 15 were bombed every year from 1993 to 1995. . . . Pres. Clinton presents former Sen. Robert J. Dole (R, Kans.) with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

Jan. 15

The youngest person ever to receive a heart transplant dies in Miami, Florida, of complications from the procedure. The child, Cheyenne Pyle, was 67 days old when she died.

Ennis W. Cosby, the only son of TV comedian Bill Cosby, is shot to death on a freeway ramp in Los Angeles, California, while changing a flat tire.

A single-engine Piper Dakota plane crashes near Alton, New Hampshire, killing the pilot, 46-year-old David Riach, and his mother, Dorothy Riach, 71. . . . Figures reveal that AOL customers spent a total of 102 million hours using the service in December 1996, up sharply from 45 million hours in September 1996. . . . Clyde William Tombaugh, 90, astronomer best known for his discovery of the planet Pluto in 1930, dies in Las Cruces, New Mexico, of unreported causes.

Chicago Bulls forward Dennis Rodman is suspended for at least 11 games and fined $25,000 by the NBA for kicking a cameraman during a Jan. 15 basketball game in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the second-harshest suspension in NBA history, and it costs Rodman more than $1 million in salary and incentives.

Martin Luther King III, the oldest son of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., announces he is forming a new national coalition to fight for affirmative action called Americans United for Affirmative Action. . . . Paul Efthemios Tsongas, 55, former Democratic senator from Massachusetts who made an unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 1992, dies in Boston of pneumonia caused by complications from his cancer treatments.

Jan. 14

Boerge Ousland of Norway completes a 64-day-long trek across Antarctica, becoming the first person ever to cross the continent alone and unaided. . . . The Eastern Conference defeats the Western Conference, 11-7, in the National Hockey League’s All-Star Game in San Jose, California.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 16

Jan. 17

Jan. 18

962—January 19–24, 1997

World Affairs

Jan. 19

Jan. 20

China reverses its Jan. 10 veto of a UN resolution to send 155 military observers to monitor a peace accord signed in Guatemala in December 1996, ending a 36-yearlong civil war. Diplomats reveal that the Chinese reversal comes after Guatemala agreed not to support Taiwan’s bid for UN membership in 1997.

Jan. 23

Africa & the Middle East

Envoys of the Tajik government and the United Tajik Opposition sign a pact approving mutual amnesties and an election commission for the war-torn country. . . . Bulgaria’s new president, Petar Stoyanov, takes the oath of office, replacing Zhelyu Zhelev. . . . Reports confirm that Austrian chancellor Franz Vranitzky has named Viktor Klima to replace him as chancellor and as head of the Social Democratic Party.

Reports confirm that a Rwandan court in Butare has sentenced the three Hutus convicted Jan. 17 to death for helping to organize the 1994 massacres. . . . Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) president, returns to Hebron for the first time in more than 30 years. Armed Jewish settlers in Hebron march in protest. . . . At least 20 people are killed when a car bomb explodes in downtown Algiers, the capital of Algeria.

In response to the Jan. 18 bombing in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunni mourners set an Iranian cultural center ablaze.

Reports confirm that the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) has claimed responsibility for several violent incidents in January, including the Jan. 16 bomb attack that wounded two people. . . . Premier Andris Skele resigns, forcing the dissolution of Latvia’s government. . . . The Serbian Supreme Court rules that the SPS won the city assembly of Sabac. Police with riot gear in Belgrade attack student demonstrators, injuring at least 12.

The Zairian military launches a counteroffensive, using Kisangani as a base. Reports confirm that Andre Ngandu Kissasse, the rebel alliance’s military chief, was killed over a week ago. . . . News accounts indicate that nearly 100 Rwandans have been killed by Hutu militants in the past month, mostly in western Rwanda.

Japan launches a unified intelligence body, the Defense Intelligence Headquarters, which joins together five separate defense intelligence groups. The DIH has a 1,660-member staff, which far outnumbers that of Japan’s nextlargest intelligence agency, the 300-member Cabinet Research Information Bureau. . . . A study finds that 20% of Australian women revealed that they suffered sexual abuse before age 16.

The Americas

Reports confirm that a total of 31 mass graves, containing 1,462 bodies, and 466 single graves were discovered and exhumed in Bosnia in 1996. . . . Authorities free Todor Zhivkov, a former Bulgarian head of state under house arrest since 1992. . . . Serbia’s Supreme Court rules that the SPS won municipal elections in the city of Smederevska. . . . Svend Truelsen, 81, leader of the Danish resistance during World War II, dies in Copenhagen.

Jan. 21

Jan. 22

Europe

Asia & the Pacific

South Korean president Kim Young Sam, in an effort to end nearly a month of strikes and protests, agrees to send controversial labor laws back to the National Assembly for reconsideration.

Reports confirm that multinational banks and foreign countries have promised Guatemala $1.9 billion to help the country rebuild after the devastation of the civil war.

The disgruntled workers who, on Jan. 17, took over Credit Foncier de France, a state-owned mortgage bank, release Jerome Meyssonnier, the bank’s governor, but they continue to occupy the building. . . . Prompted by a confirmation that a cow died from BSE, or mad-cow disease, in December 1996, the German government announces a plan to kill 5,200 cows. . . . The lower house of the Duma approves a nonbinding resolution to oust Russian president Boris Yeltsin because of his poor health.

Pilar Barbosa de Rosario, 99, Puerto Rican historian and politician, dies in San Juan, Puerto Rico, of unreported causes.

The UN’s Rwandan war-crimes tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, gains custody of four former high-ranking officials suspected of organizing and inciting Rwanda’s 1994 genocidal massacres of Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

As thousands of people in Albania continue to hold rallies, Parliament bans pyramid schemes and sets 20-year minimum prison sentences for those found guilty of operating them. . . . In response to claims that Swiss banks hold assets that rightly belong to Holocaust victims, Switzerland’s government reaches an agreement with Swiss banks and businesses to create a fund to pay victims of the Nazi Holocaust.

A panel of the OAS condemns Mexico for the imprisonment of Gen. Jose Francisco Gallardo Rodriguez, detained since November 1993 for criticizing the armed forces’ human-rights record. . . . Reports from Canada confirm that a vandal cut down a 300-year-old tree, known as the Golden Spruce, that is a cultural symbol of the Haida Indians and a tourist attraction near the village of Port Clement, British Columbia.

Due to financial woes stemmed from construction of a steel mill in Tangkin, Hanbo Steel Industry Co. files for court protection from its creditors in what is reported to be the largest bankruptcy case ever in South Korea.

Moldova’s legislature approves a new government led by Premier Ion Ciubuc. . . . Azerbaijani authorities reveal that 40 people were arrested in connection with a coup attempt planned for the fall of 1996.

In Canada, Ontario Attorney General Charles Harnick issues an apology and C$1.25 million (US$930,000) to Guy Paul Morin for Morin’s 1992 wrongful murder conviction. The monetary award is the largest compensation ever awarded to a wrongfully convicted person in Canada. . . . Reports confirm that six more people were charged in connection with a fraud ring in Saskatchewan’s Progressive Conservative (Tory) caucus.

In Seoul, South Korea, seven strike leaders staying on the grounds of the Myongdong cathedral since Jan. 15 leave the grounds when police drop charges against them and release four unionists arrested earlier in the month.

Jan. 24

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

January 19–24, 1997—963

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Two bombs explode behind an abortion clinic in Tulsa, Oklahoma, slightly damaging the building but causing no injuries.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle James Dickey, 73, poet and author who won the 1966 National Book Award, dies in Columbia, South Carolina, of complications from lung disease.

In a ceremony administered by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, William Jefferson Clinton is inaugurated to a second term as president of the United States. Addressing a crowd of more than 200,000 gathered at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., Clinton declares that the time has come to set aside racial animosity and partisan bickering and “to move on with America’s mission.”

Reports disclose that a coalition of 40 Native American tribes has joined with the National Wildlife Federation to lobby for a halt to a planned slaughter of bison to prevent the spread of brucellosis, a disease that caused spontaneous abortions in cattle. The tribes petition the government to allow the bison—even those that carry brucellosis—to roam freely on the tribes’ reservation lands.

Archaeologists remove a 2,000year-old Roman sculpture that was discovered in November 1996 from the bed of the River Almond near Edinburgh, Scotland.

Edith Haisman, 100, oldest survivor of the 1912 Titanic tragedy, dies in London. . . . Curt Flood, 59, All-Star baseball player, dies in Los Angeles of pneumonia after suffering from throat cancer. . . . In a failed bid to become the first person to sail around the world nonstop in a balloon, Steve Fossett lands in India after setting world records for endurance and distance.

The House, 395-28 votes to formally reprimand House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.) and fines him $300,000. The House’s punishment of Gingrich is the first sanction imposed on a speaker in the House’s 208-year history. . . . In Babbitt v. Youpee, the Supreme Court rules, 8-1, that a 1984 federal law that bars Native American from passing on to their heirs small parcels of reservation land that they own is unconstitutional.

The Dow Jones closes at a record high of 6883.90. . . . In response to accusations that the Democratic Party skirted fund-raising laws in collecting more than a million dollars from Asian businesses and Asian foreign nationals, Don Fowler, the outgoing national chairman of the DNC, announces that the committee will no longer accept donations from foreign nationals or from American subsidiaries of foreign companies.

The FDA approves the first home drug-testing kit.

The Whitbread Book of the Year Award is given to Irish poet Seamus Heaney. . . . Colonel Tom Parker (born Andreas Cornelius van Kuijk), 87, who represented rock singer Elvis Presley, 1955–77, dies in Las Vegas, Nevada, of complications from a stroke.

The space shuttle Atlantis touches down at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, after carrying out a mission to pick up John Blaha, who has been on Mir since September 1996, and replace him with U.S. Navy captain Jerry L. Linenger. . . . The U.S. Fourth Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, overturns a lower court’s ruling against four scientists accused of stealing a colleague’s work. In the first case, the plaintiff, Pamela Berge, was awarded $1.9 million in damages in May 1995.

Mollie Panter-Downes, 90, the London correspondent for The New Yorker magazine, 1939–87, dies of unreported causes.

An NIH-sponsored panel does not recommend mammograms for women between the ages of 40 and 49 as an effective means of reducing deaths from breast cancer. . . . Scientists report they have discovered the skeleton of a previously unknown species of flesh-eating dinosaur. . . . Reports reveal that between 1992 and 1994 archaeologists discovered 2.5 million-yearold stone tools in Ethiopia. The tools are 200,000 years older than previously believed and predate fossils of genus Homo, an ancestor of the modern human being.

Richard Berry, 61, singer and songwriter, dies in Los Angeles, California, of possible complications from an aneurysm. . . . Stuntwoman Laura (Dinky) Patterson, 43, dies as she practices a bungee jump for what was to be the finale of the Super Bowl halftime show.

The Senate confirms, 99-0, Madeleine K. Albright as secretary of state. . . . First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton affirms her support for abortion rights at a NARAL luncheon to mark the 24th anniversary of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Tens of thousands of abortion opponents march on Washington in protest. . . . A study of 14 issues debated in Congress between 1995 and 1996 finds a strong correlation between the voting records of legislators and the amount of money they received from industries with an interest in those issues.

William S. Cohen, the nominee for defense secretary, is confirmed by the Senate in a 99-0 vote. . . . In New York City, U.S. district judge Shira Scheindlin rules that a 1996 law banning the sale or rental of sexually explicit magazines and videotapes at U.S. military bases is unconstitutional.

Madeleine K. Albright is sworn in as the 64th secretary of state, thereby becoming the first woman to fill the post and the highest-ranking woman ever in the U.S. government. . . . Randy Greenawalt, 47, convicted of murder after escaping from prison, is executed by lethal injection in Florence, Arizona. Greenawalt is only the seventh person executed in Arizona and the 363rd in the U.S. since 1976.

The Dow volume of shares traded, 683.8 million, is the heaviest in the 204-year history of the New York Stock Exchange.

At an AIDS conference, New York City health officials tell attendees that AIDS death rates in the city fell in 1996, down 30% from the previous year. Dr. Paul Denning of the CDC reports that the number of AIDS cases nationwide among people between the ages of 13 and 25 rose between 1990 and 1995. AIDS rates in that age group increased 18%, to 2,800 cases in 1995, from 2,300 cases in 1990.

Dr. Mark R. Hughes, a geneticist at Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown University, resigns as head of the university’s Institute for Molecular and Human Genetics in response to a controversy over his acknowledgement that he conducted unauthorized research on human embryos. . . . Reports state that wheat seeds planted in December 1996 on board the Russian space station Mir have produced sterile offspring.

Jan. 19

Jan. 20

Jan. 21

Jan. 22

Jan. 23

Jan. 24

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

964—January 25–30, 1997

World Affairs

Jan. 25

Jan. 26

Africa & the Middle East

During ongoing rallies in Albania that urge the government to step in to protect their investments in failed pyramid schemes, protesters in the southern town of Lushnja beat Deputy Premier Tritan Shehu. . . . Former Bosnian Serb vice president Nikolai Koljevic, 60, dies after having shot himself in the head on Jan. 16.

Pres. Ange-Felix Patasse of the Central African Republic, his political opponents, and a group of army mutineers sign a peace agreement aimed at ending the mutineers’ 10week-long uprising and the tribal violence that accompanied it. . . . Hutu militants reportedly massacre at least 20 Tutsi civilians in the village of Kinigi in Ruhengeri.

Angered by failed pyramid schemes, 35,000 rioters in Tirana, Albania’s capital, throw rocks at police, injuring 84 officers. Mobs set fire to government buildings in the towns of Lushnja Berat, Vlora, Fier, and Korca. Parliament gives Pres. Sali Berisha emergency powers to deploy the military, and Premier Aleksandr Meksi announces the government will repay investors . . . Serbian police arrest Avni Klinaku, who allegedly heads the UCK, as they launch a crackdown in Kosovo.

Government soldiers reportedly kill at least 100 people while searching for militants in the village of Kinigi in Ruhengeri.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific The Chinese-appointed Preparatory Committee, which will replace Hong Kong’s current, democratically elected Legislative Council (LegCo), holds its first session.

More than 100,000 people join a St. Sava’s Day parade in what is reported as the largest religious procession in Serbia since World War II. . . . Inmates of the Barwhor prison in Albania end a riot, during which two convicts die. . . . In Chechnya, voters elect Gen. Aslan Maskhadov, the republic’s premier, as president. . . . Cecil Lewis, 98, British fighter pilot, author, and film director, dies in London.

Jan. 27

A Socialist-dominated city council holds its first meeting in the town of Smederevska Palanka, where the Zajedno party claims a victory. At least 15 demonstrators are injured when police break up an opposition rally protesting the meeting. . . . Lord Rippon (of Hexam) (born Aubrey Geoffrey Frederick Rippon), 72, politician from Britain’s Conservative Party, dies near Bridgewater, England, after a long illness. . . . Cardinal Mikel Koliqi, 94, Albanian priest who in 1994 became the firstever cardinal from his nation, dies in Shkoder of unreported causes.

Jan. 28

Algeria’s top labor union leader, Abdelhak Benhamouda, is shot and killed by gunmen in Algiers. . . . South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission reveals that former policemen admitted killing Steve Biko, a black antiapartheid activist whose death while in police custody in 1977 sparked international outrage, particularly since an official inquest at the time ruled that Biko’s death from a massive brain hemorrhage was an accident.

In Bulgaria, the country’s three main trade unions call warning strikes. Road and rail traffic to Greece is halted for several days. . . . Reports confirm that Azerbaijan’s Supreme Court has sentenced three high-level police officials to prison terms for treason in connection with a 1994 coup attempt.

Jan. 29

Jan. 30

Europe

The Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly votes to end its monitoring of Estonia, which signals that human rights are well established there.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court rules to uphold Pres. Farooq Leghari’s November 1996 decision to dissolve the government of Benazir Bhutto and call new elections for Feb. 3.

Three Israeli soldiers are killed in occupied southern Lebanon by a booby-trapped roadside bomb set by the Shi’ite Muslim Hezbollah militia. . . . Thousands of Algerians attend a state funeral for labor leader Abdelhak Benhamouda, slain Jan. 28. Separately, reports confirm that Habib Khelil, a retired army general, was killed by Islamic militants in Oran, western Algeria.

Colombian officials disclose that antinarcotics police have shut down a huge cocaine processing plant in the southeastern department of Guaviare. The plant, reported to be the largest ever seized by the Colombian government, is capable of processing 1.5 tons of raw cocaine per day.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

January 25–30, 1997—965

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Noel Keane, 58, attorney best known for brokering a 1986 adoption agreement that led to the “Baby M” case, dies in Dearborn, Michigan.

Reports confirm that Col. David C. Rauhecker, a high-ranking Air Force officer stationed at Hurlburt Field in Florida, has been charged with fondling and kissing a female captain against her will. . . . John Mohr, high-level official of the FBI under the leadership of J. Edgar Hoover, dies in Arlington, Virginia, of renal failure.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Werner Aspenstrom, 78, Swedish poet who served on the committee that chooses the Nobel Prize for Literature, is reported dead. . . . At the Australian Open, Martina Hingis of Switzerland win the women’s tennis title . . . . Jeane Dixon, 79, popular astrologer, dies in Washington, D.C., after a heart attack.

More than 4,000 workers go on strike at a General Motors Corp. assembly plant in Moraine, Ohio.

New York becomes the 19th state in the U.S. to sue the tobacco industry to recover public health-care costs for smoking-related illnesses. . . . Louis E. Martin, 84, black political activist who was an adviser to Presidents John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Jimmy Carter, dies in Orange, California, of pneumonia.

Janet Pasaye, 35, gives birth to the second of a pair of twins 92 days after the first child was born. Doctors at the Chicago hospital where the child is delivered claim that the birth sets a world record for the number of days between the birth of twins.

The Green Bay Packers defeat the New England Patriots, 35-21, in New Orleans, Louisiana, to capture Super Bowl XXXI. The victory gives the Packers their first NFL title since 1968. . . . Pete Sampras wins the men’s tennis title at the Australian Open.

A team of MIT scientists announce they have created the first atom laser.

Frank Tejeda, 51, a decorated veteran and Democratic congressman from Texas who was elected to a third term in November 1996, in San Antonio, Texas, of pneumonia brought on by treatment for a brain tumor.

CNN broadcasts a 1991 videotape depicting a hazing ritual, in which medals are pounded into the chests of U.S. Marine paratroopers at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. . . . Officials confirm that 28 soldiers at Fort Leonard Wood, in Missouri, are under investigation for alleged sexual abuses. . . . The State Department releases its annual report on human rights around the world. Critics note that the U.S. is involved in trade with countries cited for human rights violations, such as China. The report singles out the Islamic government of the Taliban in Afghanistan as particularly oppressive toward women.

Jan. 26

Jan. 27

Data shows that U.S. stock mutual funds attracted a record $222.08 billion during the 1996 calendar year, easily surpassing the previous inflow record of $128.22 billion, set in 1993.

The Senate confirms, 99-0, Andrew M. Cuomo as secretary of housing and urban development. . . . In Charlotte, North Carolina, Judge Robert Johnston sentences Henry Louis Wallace, 31, to death for killing and raping nine women between June 1992 and March 1994. The case drew publicity when critics charged that police did not give it their full attention because the victims were black and female.

Jan. 25

Jan. 28

The Treasury Department auctions inflation-indexed securities for the first time in its history. Investors brave uncertainties over the new instrument, a 10-year note, and responded enthusiastically to the offering, oversubscribing by better than a five-to-one ratio.

The FAA announces that it will release information on the safety records of U.S. airlines, making the data public on the Internet global computer network. Such information previously was made public only upon filing a Freedom of Information Act request with the federal government.

The Senate confirms, 95-2, William M. Daley as commerce secretary. . . . Federal officials declare that they will curb a program to trap and send to slaughterhouses bison that stray outside Yellowstone National Park. The program was launched to prevent the spread of brucellosis, a disease that causes spontaneous abortions in cattle.

The FDA gives final approval to the drug company Parke-Davis Co. Inc. to market Rezulin, a new drug treatment for victims of adult onset, or Type II, diabetes. The generic name for the new diabetes drug is troglitazone.

Jan. 29

Jan. 30

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

966—January 31–February 5, 1997

Jan. 31

Feb. 1

World Affairs

Europe

The European Investment Bank (EIB), the EU’s lending institution, launches its first sale of bonds denominated in the euro, the common European currency that the EU is scheduled to launch in 1999.

The crackdown that began Jan. 26 in Kosovo culminates in a shootout near the town of Vucitrn in which three UCK members, including top official Zahir Pajaziti, are killed. Three Serbian policemen are injured.

Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori meets with Japanese prime minister Ryutaro Hashimoto in Toronto, Canada, to discuss an ongoing siege in which leftist rebels took 72 hostages at the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima, Peru, in December 1996.

Militant separatists in Corsica explode 60 bombs in a rural section of the island. The FLNC’s historic wing claims responsibility. . . . Protesters calling for parliamentary elections set up roadblocks in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. . . . Serbian police, armed with batons, tear gas, and a water cannon, attack political protesters at Belgrade’s Brankov Bridge. Some 100 protesters are injured.

Feb. 2

Feb. 3

U.S. officials declare that the U.S. government, along with those of Britain and France, will freeze the distribution of $68 million in gold bars to countries looted by Nazi Germany in World War II. The move is prompted by claims by Jewish advocacy groups, led by the World Jewish Congress (WJC), that much of the gold rightly belongs to individual victims of the Nazi Holocaust and their heirs.

Feb. 4

Feb. 5

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific In Vietnam’s biggest corruption case ever, a court in Ho Chi Minh City sentences four people to death for their roles in a bribery and extortion scandal that caused at least $27 million in losses at Tamexco, a state-run import-export firm. . . . An independent panel rules against a Japanese government proposal to outlaw the Aum Shinrikyo cult, the group held responsible for a fatal 1995 nerve-gas attack on Tokyo’s subway system.

Official returns show that Didier Ratsiraka has won the presidential election in Madagascar. . . . Humanrights monitors report that Hutu militias are killing Tutsis in an apparent attempt to stop them from testifying at genocide trials. . . . South African president Nelson Mandela names his long-time political rival, Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, as acting president for one day in February when he and Deputy President Thabo Mbeki will be out of the country. Algerians observe a day of mourning for Algeria’s top labor union leader, Abdelhak Benhamouda, slain on Jan. 28. An Islamic group, the Algerian Jihad Islamic Front, claims responsibility for the shooting. . . . Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi is sworn in as acting president of South Africa. He is to hold the post from 12:01 A.M. Feb. 2 until Deputy president Thabo Mbeki’s return on Feb. 3.

Clashes between leftist guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the government erupt after troops inadvertently happen upon what is believed to be FARC’s headquarters near San Juanito, some 30 miles (50 km) outside Bogota, the capital of Colombia.

The AP reports that some 310 people have died in Algeria in attacks attributed to Islamic extremists since the Muslim holy month of Ramadan began Jan. 10. . . . Rev. Guy Pinard, a Canadian missionary said to have witnessed atrocities committed by Hutu extremists during the 1994 civil war, is shot and killed while he celebrates mass in a Roman Catholic church in Ruhengeri district in northwestern Rwanda.

Chico Science (born Fernando de Assis Franca), 30, Brazilian songwriter and band leader, dies near Recife, Brazil, of injuries sustained in a car accident.

Sofia’s public-transit workers go on strike in Bulgaria. . . . A bomb explosion damages the automobile of Russian first deputy finance Minister Andrei Vavilov. . . . Bohumil Hrabal, 82, Czech writer whose work was severely restricted during the 21-year Soviet occupation of his country, dies after falling from a window in a Prague hospital while trying to feed pigeons on the sill; he was under treatment for arthritis at the hospital.

The Chinese-appointed Preparatory Committee, the body overseeing China’s resumption of sovereignty over the colony from Great Britain, votes to repeal or amend laws protecting civil liberties in Hong Kong.

The Pakistan Muslim League party, led by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, secures a landslide victory in parliamentary elections. . . . North Korea, in an unusual statement, reveals that due to severe floods, farms have only produced 2.5 million tons of grain, half of that needed by the nation.

In Bulgaria, an agreement is reached on holding fresh parliamentary elections, prompting 100,000 protesters to end 32 days of protests as well as strikes. . . . Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic calls for legislation to seat opposition-led city councils.. . . . Tajik renegades loyal to mercenaries Bakhran Sadirov and his brother Rizvon Sadirov take hostage four UN military observers and a Tajik interpreter.

Two Israeli military helicopters collide in midair just south of the Israel-Lebanon border, killing all 65 soldiers and eight crew members aboard. It is one of the worst air disaster in Israeli’s history. . . . Four UN human-rights monitors are killed when unidentified gunmen ambush their unarmed convoy in southwestern Rwanda. A fifth member of the UN team is critically wounded.

Tajik renegades and Bakhran Sadirov and his brother Rizvon Sadirov seize two Red Cross workers and four Russian reporters. . . . A thousand opposition protesters rally to hold the Serbian president to promises made Feb. 4 about the municipal elections. . . . Tens of thousands of Albanians launch a series of daily protests in Vlora to demand that the government repay lost investments. . . . Switzerland’s three largest banks announce that they have established a compensation fund for Holocaust victims.

UN officials state that they will evacuate all UN personnel from western Rwanda in the wake of recent attacks.

Benjamin de Jesus, the Roman Catholic bishop in Jolo, on the Philippine island of Sulu, is shot and killed near his cathedral on the predominantly Muslim island. The bishop’s murder prompts army officials to impose a ban on firearms on the island.

Ecuador’s labor unions, business leaders, and opposition parties call a general strike that brings the country to a standstill. Some 2 million workers protest the economic program and corruption and nepotism in Pres. Bucaram’s government and call for the president’s ouster. In response, Bucaram mobilizes army troops to patrol the capital, Quito. . . . Clashes that started Feb. 1 between leftist guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and government troops begin to cease. The fighting has left at least 28 people dead.

Muslim separatists riot in Yining, a city in China’s remote northwestern Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. The rioting is considered some of the worst antigovernment violence to hit the tense region in decades.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

January 31–February 5, 1997—967

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

Statistics reveal that the number of people receiving welfare through AFDC payments stood at 11,864,000 in October 1996, down nearly 18% from the March 1994 peak of 14,398,286. . . . A jury in State District Court in Kerrville, Texas, convicts Darlie Routier, 27, for the June 1996 stabbing death of her five-year-old son, Damon Routier. She also faces murder charges in the death of an older son, Devon, aged six.

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Army spokesmen confirm that an army sexual-harassment hotline set up in November 1996 has received nearly 7,000 calls. Of that number, 1,025 involve allegations of criminal sexual conduct. . . . NBC broadcasts the 1991 tape aired by CNN on Jan. 30, and another tape depicting a similar hazing incident in 1993 at the same camp.

A coalition of state agencies and nuclear-power companies file suit against the Department of Energy, asking the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to order the federal government to begin accepting spent fuel rods and nuclear waste from the states by Jan. 31, 1998.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Reports confirm that cosmetics tycoon Ronald Lauder bought a Paul Cezanne painting in Paris for $50 million. The painting, Nature Morte: Rideau a Fleur et Fruits, drew the fifth-highest price ever for a work of art.

Data shows that 52 U.S. Marines have been court-martialed for their role in hazing incidents since 1994, and 34 were given nonjudicial punishments.

Herb Caen, 80, San Francisco journalist well known for his long-running column on the city, dies in San Francisco, California, of lung cancer. . . . Marjorie Reynolds (born Marjorie Goodspeed), 79, actress who began her career as a child in silent films, dies in Manhattan Beach, California, of unreported causes.

An intruder breaks into an abortion clinic in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and fires shots at medical equipment.

The AFC defeats the NFC, 26-23, in overtime to win the Pro Bowl, the National Football League’s all-star game. . . . Sanford Meisner, 91, director of the Neighborhood Playhouse School in New York City, 1935–94, dies in Sherman Oaks, California.

The policy-making body of the American Bar Association (ABA) votes to seek a moratorium on executions until the federal government and the 38 states with the death penalty can ensure greater fairness and due process for defendants.

The Commerce Department reports that personal income rose 0.8% in December 1996 from the previous month, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $6.639 trillion. The percent increase, the largest in six months, marks the 19th consecutive month that incomes have grown.

Pres. Clinton delivers his State of the Union address. Rep. J. C. Watts (R, Okla.), issues the GOP’s response. . . . A civil jury in Santa Monica, Calif., finds O. J. Simpson liable in the 1994 stabbing deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson Ronald Goldman. . . . A jury in Kerrville, Texas, sentences Darlie Routier to death for killing her five-year-old son in June 1996. Routier is one of only five women in the U.S. on death row for murdering their children.

In the midst of sexual harassment scandals in the army, reports reveal that Sergeant Major Gene C. McKinney, a member of a panel examining the Army’s sexual-harassment policies, was accused of sexual assault by his former assistant. Staff Sergeant Vernell Robinson Jr. becomes the seventh drill instructor at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland to be charged with sexual misconduct.

Pamela Harriman, (born Pamela Beryl Digby), 76, Democratic Party activist, fund-raiser, and socialite, dies in Paris, France, of complications from a stroke.

Officials reveal that a navy antisubmarine aircraft crashed during a training mission about 90 miles (145 km) off the coast of Haifa, Israel. All four crewmen were killed. . . . The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals votes to censure Elliott Abrams, a former assistant secretary of state, for unlawfully withholding information from Congress in 1986 about the Reagan administration’s plan to arm Nicaraguan contras. . . . Dorothy Fosdick, 83, foreign policy expert who was instrumental in the formation of the U.S. Marshall Plan, the UN, and NATO, dies in Washington, D.C., of cardiac arrest.

The World Alpine Ski Championships open in Sestiere, Italy. . . . Seven people—Don Haskins, Pete Carril, Alex English, Bailey Howell, Denise Curry, Joan Crawford, and Antonio Diaz-Miguel—are elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts. . . . Hornet’s Nest, by Patricia Cornwell, tops the bestseller list.

Cigar wins the Eclipse Award as the 1996 horse of the year. . . . The American Bowling Congress confirms that Jeremy Sonnenfeld, 20, is the first bowler ever to roll a 900 series, or three consecutive perfect games, in competition.

Morgan Stanley Group Inc., one of Wall Street’s elite investment banks, announces plans to merge with retail broker Dean Witter, Discover & Co., in a stock swap valued at $10.2 billion. The merger—the biggest in Wall Street history—will create a securities giant that will displace Merrill Lynch & Co. as the U.S.’s biggest securities firm in terms of market capitalization and assets under management.

Jan. 31

Feb. 1

Feb. 2

Feb. 3

Feb. 4

Feb. 5

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

968—–February 6–11, 1997

World Affairs

Europe Tajik mercenaries Bakhran Sadirov and his brother Rizvon Sadirov abduct four employees of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. . . . Truck drivers demanding improved benefits and access to cheaper fuel begin a work stoppage and block major highways in Spain.

Feb. 6

Africa & the Middle East Residents of mixed-race suburbs of Johannesburg block roads with burning tires and fight running battles with police in some of the worst racial violence since South African president Nelson Mandela took office in 1994. At least four people, including a seven-year-old boy, are reported to have been killed in exchanges of gunfire between police and the rioters.

Tajik interior minister Saidamir Zukhurov is taken hostage when he meets with mercenaries Bakhran Sadirov and his brother Rizvon Sadirov to bargain for the release of other captives. The Sadirovs free two Red Cross workers.

Feb. 7

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Ecuador’s Congress votes to remove Pres. Abdala Bucaram Ortiz on the grounds of “mental incapacity.” . . . Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo is forced to resign as head of the National Institute to Combat Drugs, Mexico’s top antidrug agency, amid allegations of bribery. Gutierrez’s removal indicates that corruption has reached the highest levels of Mexico’s government.

In Pakistan, some 20,000 Muslims riot in the Christian-dominated villages of Khaniwal and Shantinagar in Punjab state. Thousands of Pakistani Christians are driven from their homes in the riots, which are prompted by false rumors that Christians desecrated a copy of the Koran and threw it into a mosque.

In Mexico, prosecutors drop murder charges against Claudia Rodriguez Ferrando, who has spent a year in jail after being charged with murder for shooting a man who she claims was trying to rape her. The case received attention when prosecutors and judges criticized Rodriguez for being out late at night without her husband and asserted that she was responsible for the attack because she was sober while her attacker was drunk. The comments prompted a public outcry and rallying from feminist groups, which, in turn, led prosecutors to drop the murder charges.

Police in Tirana, the capital of Albania, detain and beat several opposition figures, including Socialist Party leaders Rexhep Mejdani and Kastriot Islami.

Feb. 8

In Albania, one man dies of a heart attack and more than 40 others are injured in clashes with police in the southern port town of Vlora during protests sparked by the bankruptcy of the Gjallica pyramid scheme. Authorities arrest Fitim Gerxhalliu, the director of the Gjallica fund, and 11 of the fund’s managers. In Tirana, Albania’s capital, a uniformed gang beats several prominent members of Albania’s opposition Democratic Alliance party, including its leader, Neritan Ceka.

Feb. 9

A gunman goes on a shooting spree at a ski resort in the village of Raurimu, New Zealand. He fires his weapon indiscriminately, leaving six people dead and five others wounded.

Seven Israeli soldiers are wounded in the western sector of the security zone when Hezbollah guerrillas ambush their patrol. Israeli warplanes launch two attacks against presumed guerrilla targets near the Lebanese village of Zibqine, just north of the zone. No casualties are reported. . . . Didier Ratsiraka, a former longtime president of the African island republic of Madagascar, takes office.

Some 700 Bosnian Croats in the town of Mostar attack 500 Muslim pilgrims visiting family graves, killing one man and injuring 22. The incident is one of the most violent in Bosnia-Herzegovina since the end of the civil war in 1995 . . . In Vlora, Albania, two people die and 81 people are injured when protests turn violent. . . . In Madrid, Spain, Supreme Court judge Rafael Martinez Emperador is shot and killed. A car bomb is detonated in Granada, killing one person and wounding at least seven others. Both attacks are attributed to the ETA.

Feb. 10

Serbia’s parliament votes to pass a law approving the opposition’s victories in the 1996 municipal elections in Belgrade and 13 other cities. . . . Tajik mercenaries Bakhran Sadirov and Rizvon Sadirov release one of the four UN military observers taken hostage on Feb. 4. . . . Croat police set up roadblocks to prevent Muslims from returning to west Mostar, a violation of freedom-of-movement guarantees in the 1995 peace agreement.

Feb. 11

Reports of the violence from the Feb. 5 riots in Yining, a city in China’s remote northwestern Xinjiang Uighur, surface in the West, and details are sketchy. The reported death toll in the rioting varies from four to almost 300. . . . The U.S. military acknowledges that U.S. jets inadvertently fired uranium bullets during military exercises near the Japanese island of Okinawa in late 1995 and early 1996, and then authorities waited a year to inform Japan of the incident.

Israel frees 31 Palestinian women prisoners, originally slated for release under the September 1995 accord. The release was delayed since 28 of the women refused to accept their freedom in a gesture of solidarity with two of the women prisoners—convicted of murdering Israeli Jews—who were not granted pardons. . . . Data show that South African gold mines produced 16 million ounces (494 metric tons) of gold in 1996, the lowest output since 1956.

After much political maneuvering since the Feb. 6 ouster of Pres. Abdala Bucaram Ortiz, Fabian Alarcon, the president of Congress, is named interim president of Ecuador until August 1998. . . . Colombia’s public-sector workers launch the largest Colombian strike in 20 years. . . . Reports confirm that a Cuban court has handed out prison sentences ranging from eight to 20 years to six Cubans for attempting to flee to the U.S. in a hijacked tugboat in April 1996.

Police arrest two prominent parliament members from the ruling New Korea Party (NKP), Hong In Kil and Chung Jae Chul, for taking a total of 900 million won in bribes in a political corruption scandal.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

February 6–11, 1997—969

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The CDC reports that the U.S. has the highest rates of childhood homicide and suicide out of the world’s 26 richest countries. The U.S. accounts for 73% of children 14 and younger murdered in the industrialized countries surveyed.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Pres. Clinton presents a $1.69 trillion budget proposal to Congress for the 1998 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. The amount is a 3% increase over the current year. . . . The Senate confirms, 98-0, Rodney E. Slater as transportation secretary.

The U.S. Air Force suspends flight training operations on the East Coast following two incidents in which F-16 fighter jets flew too close to civilian airliners. . . . The INS estimates that the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. rose to 5 million in October 1996, from 3.9 million in October 1992.

Sotheby’s announces it earned $1.599 billion in sales in 1996, a 5% decrease from 1995. . . . Data suggest that the three leading TV networks devoted a total of 2,768 minutes of their weeknight newscasts to the O. J. Simpson case between June 17, 1994, and Jan. 31, 1997.

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt announces government plans to spend $32.8 million on the controlled burning of forest lands in fiscal year 1998.

Congressional Quarterly report that Rep. Sidney R. Yates (D, Ill.), the longest-serving current member of the House, will not seek a 25th term. At 87, Yates is the oldest House member. He was first elected in 1948 and has served in every Congress since then, except the 88th, which was in session from 1963 to 1965.

Rap artist Snoop Doggy Dogg (Calvin Broadus) pleads guilty to weapons charges in a Los Angeles court. As part of a plea-bargain deal, Broadus agrees to perform on a series of antiviolence radio messages. . . . Lennox Lewis of Great Britain becomes the WBC’s heavyweight champion after a technical knockout of Oliver McCall for the vacant title.

Pres. Clinton and Vice Pres. Gore announce that the Education Department has released $14.3 million in grants to help public schools connect to the Internet computer network. Clinton notes that 65% of U.S. schools have Internet connections, up from 35% in 1994.

A Marine Corps F/A-18 fighterattack jet crashes in the Yellow Sea between South Korea and China. The plane’s two crewmen, Captain Mark R. Nickles and Major Dany A. D’Eredita, are reported missing and presumed dead.

A civil jury orders O. J. Simpson to pay $25 million in punitive damages to the families of Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald L. Goldman, bringing the total damages against Simpson to $33.5 million . . . A federal jury in NYC convicts two black men, Lemrick Nelson Jr. and Charles Price, of violating the civil rights of Yankel Rosenbaum, a Hasidic Jew killed during racial rioting in 1991 . . . Alabama judge William Rhea sentences Walter Leroy Moody Jr. to death for the 1989 mail-bomb killing of a federal judge, Robert S. Vance.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Feb. 6

Feb. 7

Feb. 8

In basketball, the Eastern Conference defeats the Western Conference, 132-120, to win the NBA’s 47th annual All-Star Game, in Cleveland, Ohio. In celebration of the NBA’s 50th anniversary, the league’s 50 greatest players of all time are honored at halftime.

Gen. Dennis J. Reimer, the U.S. Army chief of staff, announces that Sergeant Major Gene C. McKinney, the highest-ranking enlisted person in the army, has been suspended after another woman alleged that he sexually harassed her. . . . Three air force F-16s come close to civilian passenger planes over New Mexico and Texas.

In New York City, U.S. district judge Milton Pollack approves a final settlement of civil lawsuits against former financier Ivan Boesky, Martin Siegel, and Robert Freeman and others implicated in insider-trading frauds in the 1980s. . . . In Newark, New Jersey, Judge Harold Ackerman sentences Eddie Antar to 82 months in prison for defrauding shareholders of more than $74 million in a stock-manipulation scheme.

An international team of scientists agree that early human remains discovered in Chile provide conclusive evidence that human ancestors lived in the Americas 1,300 years prior to previous estimates. . . . The Russian space capsule Soyuz blasts off from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan. . . . Conrad Arensberg, 86, anthropologist who pioneered the study of modern cultures in his field in 1937, dies in Hazlet, New Jersey, of respiratory failure brought on by a long illness.

Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss pleads guilty in Los Angeles Superior Court to one count of attempted pandering and is sentenced to 18 months in prison.

The Senate, 100-0, confirms Rep. Bill Richardson (D, N.Mex.) as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

The air force resumes training operations suspended Feb. 7 due to incidents in which F-16 fighter jets flew too close to civilian airliners.

The space shuttle Discovery blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission to repair and service the Hubble Space Telescope, deployed by NASA in 1990.

At the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, held in NYC and considered the premier competition for dog breeders, a five-year-old standard schnauzer, Ch. Parsifal Di Casa Netzer, is judged best in show.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 9

Feb. 10

Feb. 11

970—February 12–17, 1997

Feb. 12

Asia & the Pacific

A British soldier is shot and killed by an unidentified gunman at a military base in Bessbrook, Northern Ireland. . . . A policeman is shot dead in Vlora, Albania, as clashes over pyramid schemes continue. . . . Gen. Aslan Maskhadov is sworn in as Chechnya’s president. . . . Stefan Sofiyanskiis sworn in as a caretaker premier of Bulgaria. . . . Nora Beloff, 78, who, in 1964, became the first female political correspondent at Britain’s Observer, dies in London

In Egypt, nine young Coptic Christians are killed and four are wounded when gunmen burst into a church near the town of Abu Qurqas, located about midway between Cairo and Ezbet Dawoud.

In an apparent assassination attempt, a bomb explodes on a runway in the city of Barranquilla as the plane of Colombian president Ernesto Samper Pizano is preparing to land.

Reports confirm that a prominent North Korean official, Hwang Jang Yop, entered the South Korean consulate in Beijing, China, and asked for asylum in South Korea. The reported move represents the highest-level defection ever from North Korea.

During the strike started Feb. 6 by Spanish truck drivers, a protestor is killed in Villaquiran de los Infantes when an angry French driver steers his vehicle into a crowd of strikers. . . . Latvia’s parliament approves a new government led by Premier Andris Skele. . . . Brigadier Dame Mary Joan Caroline Tyrwhitt, 93, founder of Britain’s Women’s Royal Army Corps (WRAC), dies of unreported causes.

Alphonse-Marie Nkubito, 42, justice minister of Rwanda, 1994–95, known for his advocacy of human rights and his moderate stance on the ethnic divisions between Rwanda’s Hutu and Tutsi tribes, dies in Kigali, Rwanda, of unspecified natural causes after suffering from diabetes and hypertension.

Data confirms that the MRTA leftist rebels who took over the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima, the capital of Peru, in December still have 72 hostages.

Reports from Pakistan reveal that 25 Christian girls are missing and 13 churches were destroyed in the Feb. 6 riots, which were among the most violent attacks on Christians since Pakistan declared itself an Islamic republic in 1956. . . . Three prominent politicians are arrested in the scandal involving the case of the Hanbo Steel Industry Co., which is said to be the largest bankruptcy case ever in South Korea.

Tajik mercenaries Bakhran Sadirov and Rizvon Sadirov release the last two of four UN military observers taken hostage Feb. 4. The brothers continue to hold other captives.

Three Hutu militants suspected of the Feb. 4 killings are slain in a clash with Rwandan security forces trying to arrest them in Karengera. Separately, a Kigali court sentences a former politician, Froduald Karamira, to death for helping lead the 1994 massacres and orders him to pay $380,000 in compensation to the victims’ families. UN officials estimate that more than 200 people died in January in massacres by Hutu militants and reprisals by Rwandan security forces.

Two of Canada’s top paper makers, Abitibi-Price Inc. and StoneConsolidated Corp., announce a C$2.3 billion (US$1.7 billion) merger that will create the world’s biggest newsprint producer, to be known as Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. . . . Clashes between rival drug gangs erupt in Cité Soleil, a slum section of Haiti’s capital, Port-auPrince.

The Tajik government flies in from Afghanistan some of the forces loyal to mercenaries Bakhran Sadirov and his brother Rizvon Sadirov, who are holding about a dozen hostages. . . . In Bulgaria, the Zajedno party holds its 89th and last daily protest rally in the streets of Belgrade. . . . More than 8,000 people, mostly women, march in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, to protest the government’s recent efforts to enact laws based on the teachings of Islam.

Guyana’s Pres. Cheddi B. Jagan, 78, suffers a serious heart attack and is flown to Washington, D.C., for treatment. . . . Rwandan Supreme Court justice Vincent Nkezabaganwa is killed when three gunmen open fire on his car in the driveway of his house in Kigali. Nkezabaganwa’s driver and a neighbor are also killed in the attack.

Reports indicate that the U.S., Britain, and Spain are withholding their 1997 contributions to the UN Environment Program because the troubled agency failed to adopt long-delayed reforms. . . . Officials reveal that the strategic town of Brcko in Bosnia-Herzegovina will remain under international supervision until 1998.

Feb. 14

More than 65 countries have agreed to a breakthrough global telecommunications accord negotiated under the auspices of the World Trade Organization by which they consent to open their telephone markets to foreign as well as domestic competition.

A prominent North Korean defector, Lee Han Yong, formerly known as Li Il Nam, is shot by apparent assassins in South Korea. The incident is the first shooting of a North Korean defector in the South.

Tajik mercenaries Bakhran Sadirov and Rizvon Sadirov free their remaining hostages in response to the government’s Feb. 15 act. . . . The Liberal Union (UL) party wins national parliamentary elections in Andorra, a small country located between France and Spain in the Pyrenees Mountains.

Feb. 16

Feb. 17

The Americas

Europe

Feb. 13

Feb. 15

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

The U.S. and South Korea announce that they will resume emergency food aid to the North in response to a new U.N. appeal for $41.6 million in famine relief.

A car bomb explodes in Bilbao, the largest city in Spain’s Basque region, killing an officer in the national police force. The slaying is the year’s sixth in which authorities suspected the ETA terrorist group, whereas only five terrorist killings were attributed to ETA in all of 1996. . . . Several thousand teachers rally in Belgrade, the Yugoslav and Serbian capital, to protest a new collective-bargaining agreement. . . . Tajik mercenaries Bakhran Sadirov and Rizvon Sadirov declare their loyalty to the government of Tajik president Imamali Rakhmanov.

Data show that South Korea’s current account deficit nearly tripled in 1996 to a record $23.72 billion. The nation’s current account deficit is second in size only to that of the U.S. . . . North Korea celebrates Kim Jong Il’s 55th birthday.

An army court convicts two Tutsi soldiers who are sentenced to eight years and five months in prison for killing 78 civilians at Kizuka in southern Bururi province in Dec. 1996. Three other soldiers are sentenced to between eight and 10 years for the Oct. 1996 killings of 50 people in a southern village. Separately, rebels attack Mugara, near the shore of Lake Tanganyika 45 miles (70 km) south of the capital, Bujumbura. . . . The Zairian military bombs three rebel-held towns in eastern Zaire. At least six people are reported killed and more than 20 others wounded in one of the towns, Bukavu.

Nawaz Sharif is sworn in as Pakistan’s new prime minister.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

February 12–17, 1997—971

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Population Council announces that it has settled a legal dispute that was delaying its plans to market mifepristone, a drug that induces abortion known as RU-486, once it receives final FDA approval. . . . Thomas B. Stoddard, 48, homosexual-rights advocate who directed the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, 1986-1992, dies in New York City of complications from AIDS.

The Clinton administration states it will allow U.S. news organizations to set up bureaus in Cuba. . . . Reports disclose that three male instructors at an Army installation near Frankfurt, Germany, were suspended after 11 women accused them of sexual harassment. . . . A commission to improve aviation security causes controversy when it recommends that airlines single out travelers whose profiles match those of potential terrorists for more rigorous security checks.

An NIH panel endorses needleexchange programs and safe-sex education as effective means of combating the spread of the AIDS virus. . . . The lower house of the Mississippi state legislature passes a bill that would impose a jail term on doctors who perform certain kinds of late-term abortions. The law would also enable the fetuses’ fathers to sue those doctors for “psychological and physical damages.” The bill is similar to one passed by the Mississippi state Senate.

The House approves, 220-209, a request by Pres. Clinton for the early release of foreign aid for U.S. family-planning programs overseas.

A Senate committee votes to issue 52 subpoenas in fund-raising controversies surrounding Democrats and Republicans. . . . A U.S. District Court jury acquits two former executives of making illegal campaign donations to Henry Espy, the brother of former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy. The acquittal is the first significant legal defeat for Donald Smaltz, who has won seven convictions or pleas of guilty or no contest in the case. . . . The Dow closes above 7000 for the first time.

Montana’s State Senate votes to reject a numerical speed limit for daytime driving on the state’s interstate highways. Montana thereby maintains its status as the only state in the U.S. that has no set daytime speed limit. Instead of setting legal limits, Montana requires daytime motorists to drive in a “reasonable and prudent” manner.

The Clinton administration orders the release of 53 illegal Chinese immigrants who have been detained since 1993 when an immigrant smuggling ship, the Golden Venture, ran aground in June 1993 near NYC. . . . The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, Calif., 2-1, upholds the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on homosexuals, rejecting arguments that the policy is unconstitutional because it treats homosexuals and heterosexuals differently.

The IRS rules that it will not allow residents of California and Arizona to deduct the costs of marijuana purchased for medicinal use from their federal taxes.

At the U.S. National Figure Skating Championships, Kyoko Ina and Jason Dungjen win the pairs’ title, upsetting two-time defending champions Jenni Meno and Todd Sand. In the ice-dancing competition, defending champions Elizabeth Punsalan and Jerod Swallow place first.

Oscar Adams, 72, former justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who, in 1982, became the first black person ever elected to statewide office in Alabama and pioneered the way as the first black member of other associations, dies in Birmingham, Alabama, of cancer.

Madeleine K. Albright embarks on her first world tour as U.S. secretary of state.

Pres. Clinton invokes emergency powers granted to the office of the president under the Railway Labor Act of 1926 and blocks a strike called by pilots employed by American Airlines Inc. Clinton’s move marks the first time since 1966 that a president takes action to block an airline strike. . . . Reports confirm that the Treasury Department has paid about $500,000 in legal fees to seven former employees of the White House travel office who were fired in 1993.

Tara Lipinski upsets defending champion Michelle Kwan to win the women’s title at the U.S. National Figure Skating Championships in Nashville, Tennessee. Lipinski, 14, is the U.S.’s youngest-ever figureskating champion. Todd Eldredge wins his fourth men’s title, followed by Michael Weiss.

Pres. Clinton states that he has chosen the Little Rock campus of the University of Arkansas as the site for his presidential library. . . . At the U.S. National Figure Skating Championships in Nashville, Tennessee, Elizabeth Punsalan and Jerod Swallow become the first U.S. ice-dance team win two perfect 6.0 scores.

California governor Pete Wilson (R) estimates that damage from the December 1996 and January 1997 floods caused in California by heavy rains and melting snow from the Sierra Nevada mountains will top $1.8 billion. . . . R(obert) K(lark) Graham, 90, optometrist who invented the first shatterproof eyeglass lens, dies in a hotel in Seattle, Washington, after falling down in the bathtub.

Chien-Hsiung Wu, 84, physicist who was best known for a 1957 experiment in which she was able to defy physics’ law of symmetry and who won the National Medal of Science, dies in New York City from a stroke.

A federal court jury in Jackson, Mississippi acquits Norris Faust Jr., the former state executive director of the federal Farm Service Agency, of lying to a federal grand jury examining farm-subsidy fraud.

Reports confirm that Omus Hirshbein, program director of music, opera, and presentation at the NEA, plans to leave his post.

Actress Elizabeth Taylor attends a gala to celebrate her 65th birthday at the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles. . . . Jeff Gordon wins the 39th annual Daytona 500 automobile race at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida.

French sailor Christophe Auguin, 38, breaks the solo around-theworld sailing record with a time of 105 days, 20 hours, and 31 minutes.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 12

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Feb. 14

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Feb. 16

Feb. 17

972—February 18–23, 1997

World Affairs

Feb. 18

The UN Security Council passes a resolution proposing a five-point peace plan for Zaire.

Africa & the Middle East A tribunal in Gikongoro in Rwanda acquits Israel Nemeyimana. It is reportedly the first acquittal since Rwanda’s genocide trials started in December 1996. More than 90,000 genocide suspects are awaiting trial. . . . Reports confirm that Israel has forcibly evicted the Jahalin, a seminomadic Bedouin tribe, from their long-term encampment near the West Bank town of Al Eizariya, ending a years-long dispute between the tribe and Israeli legal authorities.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

At least 250 people are killed when a mudslide in Peru buries two villages, Ccocha and Pumaranra. . . . A strike started Feb. 11 by Colombia’s public-sector workers ends when government and union negotiators reach an agreement. The job action was supported by some 800,000 workers, making it the largest Colombian strike in 20 years.

The Indonesian government formally approves a joint venture to develop the Busang gold lode in East Kalimantan province.

Truck drivers end a strike started Feb. 6 that had blocked major highways in Spain.

Feb. 19

Feb. 20

Europe

The World Trade Organization sets up a panel to rule on a dispute between the EU and the U.S. over the U.S.’s Helms-Burton Act, which seeks to strengthen the U.S.’s economic embargo of Cuba by punishing foreign companies that invest in Cuba.

Feb. 21

Deng Xiaoping, 92, China’s paramount leader, dies in Beijing, China’s capital, from respiratory failure. Deng, a founder of communist China, was credited with bringing about China’s current economic boom but was condemned for ordering the use of force in a 1989 crackdown on prodemocracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. A six-day period of mourning is declared. . . . Prosecutors indict 10 senior politicians and businessmen in a loans scandal involving Hanbo Steel Industry Co. in South Korea.

In downtown Tirana, the capital of Albania, police scuffle with a crowd of 1,000 people protesting pyramid schemes. Four people are injured. A peaceful demonstration of 7,000 people is staged in a Tirana suburb. Several dozen students in Vlora, Albania, begin hunger strikes to call for the resignation of the government. . . . Poland’s parliament approves a bill that will allow the country’s small Jewish community to attempt to recover assets stolen by the Nazi regime during World War II.

Data suggests that 5,000 Palestinian males remain imprisoned in Israel.

After staging three months of daily protests when the ruling Socialist coalition nullified November 1996 municipal election returns, the opposition Zajedno (Together) coalition takes control of the city council of Belgrade, the Serbian and Yugoslav capital. The Belgrade council is the last of the 14 cities where Zajedno won to come under opposition control. . . . Britain’s High Court frees three men who were in prison for more than 17 years for a murder they claim not to have committed.

Foreign aid workers in Burundi report that the army has killed more than 100 civilians in retaliation for the Feb. 17 rebel attack in Mugara, near the shore of Lake Tanganyika, 45 miles (70 km) south of the capital, Bujumbura. The aid workers also reveal that the army had killed 51 people in reprisal for a rebel attack at Burambi in northwestern Burundi. The government contests those reports, arguing that troops killed no civilians in reprisal and that the rebels killed 13 people and destroyed a health center.

At least 20,000 demonstrators march in Paris to protest proposed new immigration laws in France.

Feb. 22

In El Salvador, two FMLN campaign workers are killed and three others are injured in a machine-gun attack by masked men in the town of Nejapa.

North Korea announces the replacement of Premier Kang Song San with his deputy, Hong Song Nam, who will serve as acting premier. North Korean defense minister Choe Kwang, 78, dies of a heart attack.

A judge in Bogota, Colombia’s capital, extends convicted drug lord Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela’s prison sentence from a relatively lenient term of nine years to 23 years. The earlier sentence for Rodriguez, one of the reputed leaders of the Cali cartel, had prompted an angry reaction from the U.S.

Oscar Lewenstein, 80, British theatrical and film producer best known for the 1956 stage production of John Osborne’s play Look Back in Anger, dies of unreported causes.

Feb. 23

A vessel carrying Sri Lankan Tamils sinks as it heads to India. Officials reveal that 165 people aboard are presumed dead. . . . Seven people are killed in an attack on an Iranian cultural center in Multan, in Punjab state, Pakistan. . . . Hong Kong’s designated chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, reveals that he will retain Hong Kong’s current top civil servants after the colony reverts to Chinese sovereignty.

Reports confirm that members of the Warriors of Jhangvi, a militant Sunni Muslim group, have claimed responsibility for the Feb. 20 attack in Multan, in Punjab state.

Pakistan’s prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, announces the adoption of a Monday-through-Friday work week. Since 1977, businesses and government offices have shut down on Fridays so that devout Muslims in the largely Islamic country could attend religious services.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

February 18–23, 1997—973

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

In Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, to uphold a court-ordered imposition of buffer zones that ban antiabortion protesters from staging demonstrations within 15 feet (4.6 m) of abortion clinic entrances in upstate New York. . . . In Maryland v. Wilson, the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that police officers may order all occupants of an automobile to get out of the car during a routine traffic stop.

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

In U.S. v. Brockamp, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that a time limit for claiming IRS refunds should not be extended to account for a taxpayer’s mental incompetence. . . . In Robinson v. Shell Oil Co., the Supreme Court rules unanimously that a federal law that prohibits employers from retaliating against employees. who bring discrimination claims against them so extends to former employees. . . . The Dow closes at 7067.46, marking the 13th record high in 1997.

Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, a winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Medicine, pleads guilty to sexually abusing one of dozens of boys he brought back from Micronesia to live with him in the U.S. Under the plea agreement, he will serve between nine months and one year in prison and spend five years on probation.

Actor Al Pacino is named a member of the artistic directorate of London’s Globe Theatre. . . . Emily Hahn, 92, author who published 54 books and more than 200 articles, dies in New York City of unreported causes.

The U.S. Army drops criminal charges of sexual misconduct against Staff Sergeant Nathanael C. Beach, a drill instructor at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.

The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. recorded a $114.23 billion deficit in trade in goods and services in 1996. That is up 8.7% from the revised 1995 deficit of $105.06 billion and the largest calendar-year gap since 1988. . . . Six labor unions end a bitter 19-monthlong strike against the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News, the two major daily newspapers in Detroit, Michigan The agreement ends the longest newspaper strike in U.S. history.

Reports reveal that users of on-line services on the Internet were bilked out of thousands of dollars through a scam that reroutes connections to overseas telephone numbers. The connections reportedly were transferred to the Eastern European nation of Moldova after the Internet sites, at the request of users, began to download pornographic pictures.

Leo Rosten, 88, writer and language expert best known for his book The Joys of Yiddish (1968), dies in New York City of unreported causes.

Justin C. Elzie, an openly homosexual Marine Corps sergeant, is given an honorable discharge and a $30,000 early retirement bonus as part of a lawsuit settlement filed after the Marine Corps in March 1993 attempted to discharge Elzie without benefits.

U.S. District Court judge Norma Holloway Johnson sentences Robert V. Rota, the former postmaster of the House Post Office, to four months in prison for permitting former Reps. Dan Rostenkowski (D, Ill.) and Joseph P. Kolter (D, Pa.) to exchange stamps for cash.

The National Transportation Safety Board announces that the Boeing 737 jet is less safe than other planes. Unlike other jets, the 737’s rudder is controlled by a single valve. . . . A panel of experts called together by the NIH recommends further study into marijuana’s medicinal benefits.

Ruth Clark, 80, pollster best known for her 1979 survey that sparked the emergence of what was dubbed the “news you can use” format, dies in New York City of lung cancer.

Army officials confirm that 10 more women have come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against the instructors in Frankfurt, Germany.

The USDA reports that it found traces of bone, bone marrow, and spinal cord in ground beef produced by a newly adopted mechanized deboning system, known as advanced meat recovery (AMR), which uses hydraulic pressure to separate meat from the bone. The USDA states it will tighten the regulations for AMR processing.

The space shuttle Discovery lands at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, after carrying out its mission to repair and service the Hubble Space Telescope, deployed by NASA in 1990. . . . The NTSB reveals that a total of 380 people died in large-carrier air accidents in 1996, the greatest number of such air deaths since 1985. A total of 1,070 people were killed in 2,040 civil aviation accidents in 1996, an 11% increase in deaths from the 962 reported in 1995.

A fire destroys the Oak Grove Christian Methodist Episcopal Church in rural Elko, Georgia. . . . In Jacksonville, Florida, children attending a bar mitzvah find a bomb behind a wall in a synagogue where former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres gave a speech a week earlier. Federal and local law-enforcement teams and Israeli security personnel had searched the synagogue after a threat had been phoned in, but had failed to find the bomb. The former head of the NAACP, Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., announces that he is converting to Islam and joining the controversial Nation of Islam group.

Albert Shanker, 68, president of the American Federation of Teachers, 1974–97, a labor organization that represents 900,000 teachers, dies in New York City of bladder cancer.

A gunman identified as Ali Abu Kamal opens fire with a semiautomatic handgun on the 86th-floor observation deck of the Empire State Building, killing a tourist from Denmark and injuring six others before committing suicide.

Feb. 19

Feb. 20

Feb. 21

Robert William Sarnoff, 78, former president of RCA Corp., 1965–75, and former president of NBC, 1956–65, dies in New York City of cancer.

Researchers in Scotland report they have created the first genetic clone of an adult animal, a Finn Dorset lamb named Dolly, which has a genetic makeup identical to that of her mother. The major scientific breakthrough prompts a flood of media reports and public speculation worldwide about the dangers of human cloning.

Feb. 18

Tony Williams, 51, jazz drummer known for helping to pioneer jazzrock fusion, dies in Daly City, California, while recovering from a gall bladder operation. . . . Frank Launder, 89, screenwriter and film director who directed the St. Trinian’s movie series, dies in Monaco of unreported causes.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 22

Feb. 23

974—February 24–March 1, 1997

World Affairs

Europe

The Americas

Estonian premier Tiit Vahi, who has been linked to a privatization scandal, resigns. . . . The British government announces plans to sell London’s subway system, the London Underground, to private investors. . . . Nenad Dusan Popovic, 87, economist who in 1961 became one of the highest-ranking Yugoslav officials to defect to the West, dies in New York City of bone cancer. . . . Andrei Sinyavsky, 71, Russian author and dissident, dies in Paris, France, of cancer.

Feb. 25

A UN spokesman reveals that Secretary General Kofi Annan has dismissed two top officials at the war crimes tribunal after an internal investigation found widespread mismanagement, incompetence and financial abuses.

Feb. 27

Feb. 28

March 1

Giuseppe (Nuccio) Bertone, 82, Italian sports car designer, dies in Turin, Italy, of unreported causes.

The cabinet of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu approves the development of a large Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem despite Palestinian warnings that any such construction in the traditionally Arab sector of the city may prove fatal to the peace process. The decision sparks international condemnation.

After weeks of debate and protests, France’s National Assembly approves a bill that will increase the government’s power to deport immigrants. . . . Estonian president Lennart Meri names Mart Siiman premier. . . . An amendment ending the Irish constitution’s divorce ban goes into effect, making divorce universally available for the first time in the history of the Irish Republic. . . . Restrictions on the ownership of handguns in Britain goes into effect.

In response to the Israeli government’s Feb, 26 decision to develop a Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem, hundreds of Palestinians, many carrying Palestinian flags and olive branches, march toward the slated site, known to Israelis as Har Homa. When Israeli soldiers prevent them from reaching the location, the protesters hold a peaceful demonstration nearby.

In Albania, residents of Vlora, Fier, Gjirokaster, and Sarande take up arms. In Vlora, members of the Shik secret police attempt to storm the building where hunger strikers are housed. In response, townspeople surround the Shik headquarters begin a gun battle that results in 10 dead, most of them police. . . . In Belgium, Renault workers protest plans to close a factory, and they block finished cars from leaving the plant.

The province of Ardabil in northwest Iran is struck by a powerful earthquake. The official death toll is set at close to 1,000. The quake is reported to measure between 5.5 and 6.1 on the Richter scale An estimated 2,600 people are injured and 40,000 others left homeless by the quake.

In Albania, Pres. Sali Berisha asks the government of Premier Aleksandr Meksi to resign, in an effort to mollify protesters. . . . Neo-Nazis and rightist politicians hold a rally in Munich, Germany, to protest an exhibition depicting German soldiers’ participation in World War IIera atrocities. The groups opposing the exhibit include the Christian Social Union (CSU), a junior partner of the Christian Democratic Party in Germany’s ruling coalition.

Rwandan Hutu refugees flee the Tingi Tingi camps on the Zaire River when they are overrun by the rebels.

Asia & the Pacific Chinese officials pay final respects to Deng Xiaoping, China’s late paramount leader, in a ceremony in Beijing attended by 10,000 Communist Party members. In accordance with tradition, no foreign dignitaries are invited to the service. . . . The Taliban breaks a military stalemate when their forces north of Kabul displace Hizb-i-Wahdat fighters from the strategic Shibar Pass, which is considered a gateway to northern Afghanistan.

Reports suggest that Burundi’s Tutsi-dominated military has set up more than a dozen “protection zones” for Hutu civilians while soldiers battle Hutu rebels.

Feb. 24

Feb. 26

Africa & the Middle East

Mexico announces that 36 officers who served at the National Institute to Combat Drugs have been fired and states that more dismissals are imminent.

Three bus bombs explode simultaneously in Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, killing nine people and wounding 74. A fourth bomb does not explode. Some reports speculate that the bombs were timed to coincide with president Jiang Zemin eulogy for Deng Xiaoping, China’s late paramount leader. . . . South Korean president Kim apologizes for the Hanbo Steel bankruptcy scandal, although he has not been directly linked to the controversy . . . . Lee Han Yong, a prominent North Korean defector shot Feb. 15, dies of his wounds in South Korea.

In clashes between rival druge gangs that started Feb. 14 in Cité Soleil, a slum section of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, at least 70 shacks are destroyed in fires.

In the midst of the the Hanbo steel scandal in South Korea, which has included the arrest of three prominent politicians on Feb. 13, the entire cabinet tenders resignations.

Soldiers from Myanmar, formerly Burma, cross into Thailand and attempt to attack an encampment that houses ethnic Karens from Myanmar. The Thai military prevents the Myanmar troops from reaching the refugee camp. . . . Kim Kwang Jin, 69, North Korea’s first vice minister of the armed forces, dies of an “incurable disease.”

Reports confirm that at least 18 people have been killed in clashes between rival drug gangs that began Feb. 14 in Cité Soleil, a slum section of Haiti’s capital, Port-auPrince.

A powerful earthquake hits western Pakistan, killing at least 100 people. The quake, centered in Baluchistan province, measures 7.3 on the Richter scale.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

February 24–March 1, 1997—975

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

New York City police commissioner Howard Safir says police believe the Feb, 23 attack atop the Empire State Building was the work of a “deranged individual” with no links to terrorist groups. . . . Reps. Lamar S. Smith (R, Tex.) and J. Dennis Hastert (R, Ill.) disclose that 180,000 applicants were granted U.S. citizenship from August 1995 to September 1996 before required fingerprint checks for criminal records were completed by the FBI.

Justice Department officials disclose that SmithKline Beecham PLC has agreed to pay $325 million to settle allegations that one of its subsidiaries overbilled governmentfunded health-care programs. It is the largest civil health-care settlement in U.S. history.

Reports reveal that the CIA warned the army about the possible presence of chemical weapons at an Iraqi ammunition depot days before U.S. troops demolished the site. Since Pentagon officials had previously maintained that the army learned that poisonous gases may have been present at the depot only after its destruction, the report causes controversy. . . . Statistics reveal that the number of servicemen and women discharged from the military for homosexual conduct has increased since the Defense Department adopted its “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in 1994.

Internal White House documents reveal that in 1995 Pres. Clinton enthusiastically endorsed plans to reward big contributors to the Democratic Party by offering them various perquisites, including golf games and morning outings with the president and overnight stays in the White House’s Lincoln Bedroom. The report sparks controversy.

In response to the Feb. 25 report regarding knowledge of poison gases in Iraq, Pres. Clinton orders his Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf Veterans’ Illnesses to investigate the matter and to report its findings within 60 days.

FDIC officials announce that the Rose Law Firm, where First Lady Hillary Clinton once worked, has agreed to pay more than $250,000 to the government as part of billing dispute settlement. . . . The House votes, 347-73, to reinstate a package of aviation taxes through Sept. 30.

A federal jury convicts a plastic surgeon, Jose Castillo, for performing surgery on a fugitive drug dealer to help him elude police. . . . The CDC reports that AIDS deaths nationwide have declined for the first time since 1981. Deaths from AIDS fell 12% in the first six months of 1996. . . . A jury in Rochester, N.Y., convicts John Horace, a nurse’s aide, of raping an unidentified woman who was in a coma-like state in 1995. The woman became pregnant and gave birth while still in a vegetative state before dying.

A Fayetteville, North Carolina, jury convicts James N. Burmeister, a white former army soldier, of murder in the slaying of a black couple, Jackie Burden, 27, and Michael James, 36, in 1995. Prosecutors argued that the soldier is a neoNazi skinhead who targeted the couple because of their race in a case that prompted the army to investigate the activity of extremist groups in its ranks.

The Senate approves by voice vote a bill that renews a package of aviation taxes through Sept. 30.

In Los Angeles, California, two heavily armed bank robbers are shot and killed in a gun battle with police that is filmed by news helicopters and broadcast live on six Los Angeles TV stations. The men fire hundreds of rounds at police and bystanders. Eleven police officers and six civilians are injured. . . . Charles Dederich, 83, founder of a successful drug-rehabilitation program, Synanon, which was later criticized for allegedly violent tactics, dies of cardiorespiratory failure.

Former FBI agent Earl Edwin Pitts pleads guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage and attempted espionage in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. Pitts is only the second FBI agent ever to be convicted of espionage. . . . The Clinton administration issues its annual report on antidrug efforts of countries receiving U.S. aid. A notable point is that the U.S. “certifies” Mexico. The U.S. decertifies Colombia for the second straight year.

President Clinton signs a bill that renews a package of aviation taxes through Sept. 30. . . . In Oxford, Mississippi, Judge L. T. Senter acquits Henry Espy, the brother of former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy, on five counts of making false statements in connection with his 1993 election campaign. . . . DNC officials plan to return an additional $1.5 million in contributions, bringing the total amount returned by the committee since October 1996 to more than $3 million.

Police in Jacksonville, Florida, have charged an Orthodox Jewish man, Harry Shapiro, 31, with planting the pipe bomb found in a synagogue on Feb. 22.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Feb. 24

John E. du Pont, an heir to the du Pont chemical fortune, is convicted by a Media, Pennsylvania, jury of fatally shooting Olympic wrestler David Schultz in January 1996. The jury also rules that he is mentally ill. . . . Cal Abrams, 72, baseball player for the Brooklyn Dodgers and other teams in the 1950s, dies in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, after suffering a heart attack.

The Vatican appeals for a global ban on human cloning.

David Doyle, 67, popular TV actor, dies in Los Angeles of a heart attack. . . . At the Grammys, LeAnn Rimes, 14, becomes the first country artist ever to win the best new artist award. The Record of the Year award goes to “Change the World,” by Eric Clapton.

Feb. 25

Feb. 26

Feb. 27

The federal Office of Research Integrity (ORI) clears Bernard Fisher, a prominent research physician, of 1994 charges of misconduct related to a major study of breast-cancer treatments that he led.

Los Angeles Superior Court judge Stephen Czuleger sentences rap music entrepreneur Marion (Suge) Knight to nine years in prison for violating his probation.

Scientists in Beaverton, Oregon, announce that they have created two monkey clones from embryo cells. The team’s success marks the first time that close relatives of humans has been cloned. . . . Tornadoes hit Arkansas.

Feb. 28

March 1

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

976—March 2–7, 1997

World Affairs

March 2

March 3

March 4

A new international economic group known as the Six Market Group, or the Group of Six (G-6), holds its inaugural meeting in Tokyo, Japan. The G-6 nations are Japan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, and the U.S.

March 5

March 6

Justice Michael MacDonald of Nova Scotia Supreme Court rules that he has no authority to extradite to Romania six Taiwanese sailors accused in the 1996 deaths of three Romanian stowaways on the high seas. Stephen Hsia, a Taiwanese government attaché in Canada, declares that the six will be arrested upon their return to Taiwan.

March 7

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Violence continues in Albania as gangs loot Pres. Sali Berisha’s summer home near Vlora. Townspeople in Sarande ransack security forces’ headquarters, and armed civilians in Gjirokaster burn down the police station. The Albanian parliament decrees a nationwide state of emergency.

The province of Ardabil in northwest Iran is hit by strong aftershocks from the Feb. 28 earthquake, some measuring as high as 5.1, causing further damage to the region.

Students in Vlora, Albania, end hunger strikes that started Feb. 20. Despite the violent protests, Parliament reelects Pres. Sali to a second five-year term. . . . Several thousand environmental protesters hold a demonstration, erect blockades, and sabotage rail lines in an effort to block a massive delivery of nuclear waste to a facility in the town of Gorleben in Germany. . . . More than 4,000 Renault employees hold a protest march in Brussels, Belgium. . . . Stanislav S. Shatalin, 62, Soviet economist who, during the perestroika era, advocated the breakup of the Soviet Union, dies in Moscow of unreported causes.

Palestinians stage a five-hour general strike in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip to protest the settlement plan announced in late February.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

At least 125 people are killed and another 175 people are injured when a 17-car passenger train derails while en route to Karachi, Pakistan, from Peshawar. . . . Cambodia’s opposition leader Sam Rainsy holds a rally in which at least 16 of Sam’s supporters are killed and another 100, including Sam, are wounded in a grenade attack on the protest.

Some 10,000 demonstrators gather in Dannenberg, Germany, to protest the transfer of nuclear material. Some protestors erect blockades and throw firebombs at police officers. . . . Albanian army tanks enter the town of Gjirokaster. . . . A bomb damages a Sarajevo church.

In an effort to distance the government from a loans scandal involving Hanbo Steel Industry Co., South Korean president Kim Young Sam appoints Koh Kun, as the new premier, succeeding Lee Soo Sung. . . . Data reveals that more than 1,500 people have died in railway accidents in Pakistan in recent years.

Belarussian president Aleksandr Lukashenko decrees a ban on public demonstrations against the 1996 constitution. . . . A massive delivery of nuclear waste arrives in the northern German town of Gorleben after several protests, during which the government deployed 30,000 police officers in the country’s biggest security operation in over 50 years. . . . The Swiss government announces plans to create a fund that will provide financial compensation to victims of the Nazi Holocaust and of other catastrophes and human-rights violations. . . . Reports suggest that Albanian government jets attacked the village of Delvina, near Sarande.

South Korean president Kim Young Sam implements a major shuffle of his cabinet in a move aimed at distancing the government from a loans scandal involving Hanbo Steel Industry Co.

Reports suggest that at least 25 people have died since Feb. 28, when residents of towns across southern Albania took up arms and confronted authorities. . . . Armenia’s premier, Armen Sarkisyan, resigns in poor health. . . . Data confirm an outbreak of E. coli has resulted in 20 deaths since November 1996, making it Britain’s worst epidemic ever.

Cheddi B. Jagan, 78, the president of Guyana, dies in Washington D.C., of a heart attack suffered Feb. 15. Samuel Hinds is sworn in as Guyana’s interim president. . . . Michael Norman Manley, 72, threeterm prime minister of Jamaica, 1972–80, 1989–92, dies near Kingston, Jamaica, of prostate cancer.

Nepal’s Premier Sher Bahadur Deuba resigns after his government loses a confidence vote. . . . Although it is not immediately reported, a car bomb explodes in Beijing, China. No one is injured.

Coal miners in Germany launch a series of strikes and demonstrations to protest the government’s plan to reduce subsidies on the price of coal.

Ecuador’s Supreme Court charges former president Abdala Bucaram Ortiz, who was ousted by Congress in February, and four of his former aides with corruption.

A home-made bomb explodes on a public bus in a busy shopping area of Beijing, the Chinese capital, wounding 11 people.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

March 2–7, 1997—977

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Leanne Katz, 65, free-speech advocate who served as the executive director of the National Coalition against Censorship since its founding in 1974, dies in New York City of cancer.

In U.S. v. Gonzales, the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that individuals sentenced to a mandatory five-year federal prison sentence for using a gun in the commission of a narcotics crime should serve that sentence after they complete their state prison terms. . . . In Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona, the Supreme Court rules unanimously to set aside a lower court’s decision that struck down an amendment to the Arizona state constitution requiring all government employees in that state to speak only English while at work. . . . U.S. district judge Simeon T. Lake declares a mistrial in the case of Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski, who is charged with dispensing a cancer drug not yet approved by the FDA.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Judi Bari, 47, environmental activist who gained recognition in the 1990s for her protests against the destruction of California’s redwood trees, dies in Willits, California, of cancer.

A spate of tornadoes kill a total of at least 25 people in Arkansas. . . . J. Carson Mark, 83, Canadian-born mathematician who played a key role in the development of the hydrogen bomb, dies in Los Alamos, New Mexico, after a yearlong battle with nerve paralysis.

Former CIA officer Harold James Nicholson pleads guilty to selling top-secret information to Russia. Nicholson is the highest-ranking CIA officer ever to be convicted of espionage. . . . A study by the U.S.based American Association for World Health finds that the U.S. economic embargo of Cuba is having a negative effect on the health of the Cuban people. Since 1992, when the embargo was tightened under the Cuban Democracy Act, doctors have been forced to work without adequate equipment, and patients often are unable to obtain necessary drugs.

For the third time in three years, the Senate rejects a proposed amendment to the Constitution requiring the federal government to balance its budget. The 66-34 vote is one vote short of the two-thirds needed.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

March 2

In Warner-Jenkinson Co. Inc. v. Hilton Davis Chemical Co., the Supreme Court rules unanimously to uphold the “doctrine of equivalents,” a principle of patent law that the high court established in 1950. Under the principle, patented products, as well as the processes by which they are created, are provided patent protection from products that are not only identical but also those that are deemed substantially equivalent to them.

Sole Survivor by Dean Koontz tops the bestseller list.

Pres. Clinton imposes a ban on the federal funding of human cloning research. . . . Robert Henry Dicke, 80, physicist who earned recognition for his challenges to physicist Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, dies in Princeton, New Jersey, of complications from Parkinson’s disease.

Roger William Brown, 54, professional basketball player for the Indiana Pacers in the late 1960s and early 1970s, dies in Indianapolis, Indiana, of liver cancer.

The two heavily armed bank robbers who were shot and killed Feb. 28 during a televised gun battle with police are identified as Larry Eugene Phillips Jr., 26, and Emil Dechebal Matasareanu, 30.

Pres. Clinton orders the ATF to tighten a regulation requiring legal immigrants to prove they resided in a state for at least 90 days before buying a firearm. . . . The Senate votes, 99-1, to approve Pres. Clinton’s appointment of Charlene Barshefsky as U.S. trade representative.

Arthur A. Gross, the IRS’s chief information officer, admits that the agency has wasted about $400 million over the past 10 years in attempts to modernize its computer systems.

Reports confirm that the 1997 John M. Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion will be awarded to Pandurang Shastri Athavale, an Indian spiritual leader who espouses the belief that God is present in everyone, regardless of one’s class or caste. . . . The Baseball Hall of Fame selects Tommy Lasorda, Nelson (Nellie) Fox, and Willie Wells Sr. for induction.

A Washington, D.C., Superior Court jury awards $1.7 million in damages to Martha Dixon Martinez, whose husband, a FBI agent, was killed in 1994 when Bennie Lee Lawson Jr. opened fire with an assault pistol at the D.C. police headquarters.

Presiding judge Coy Brewer Jr. of Cumberland County Superior Court sentences former soldier James Burmeister, convicted Feb. 27 on two counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy in the deaths of Jackie Burden, 27, and Michael James, 36, to two consecutive life terms in prison without parole.

In Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S. district judge Robert Potter awards $601 million in damages to franchisees of Meineke Discount Muffler Shops Inc., whose parent company is alleged to have skimmed $31 million over a 10-year period from an advertising fund set up by the chain’s 2,500 U.S. franchises.

Long Island (New York) University announces the 11 winners of the annual George Polk Memorial Award for excellence in journalism in 1996.

In Honduras, U.S. drug-enforcement agents arrest Joseph Michel François, the former police chief of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, on charges of drug smuggling.

Judge Robert W. Sweet of U.S. District Court in New York City sentences Steven Hoffenberg, the former chairman of Towers Financial Corp., to 20 years in prison for defrauding thousands of investors in one of the largest Ponzi schemes in U.S. history. The sentence is reportedly one of the longest ever imposed for securities fraud. . . . UPS flies its first charter passenger flight, carrying 115 passengers from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Orlando, Florida.

Floods are affecting tens of thousands of residents of the Ohio River Valley in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia. The city of Louisville, Kentucky, is saved from heavy damage by flood walls when the river crests at 16 feet (5 m) above flood level. . . . Edward Mills Purcell, 84, scientist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1952 for his discovery of a method to detect the magnetic waves emanating from the nuclei of atoms, dies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, of respiratory failure.

Chuck Green, 78, one of the most acclaimed tap dancers of the 20th century, dies in Oakland, California, after a long illness. . . . Pernilla Wiberg of Sweden clinches the women’s overall title for the alpine skiing World Cup when she places third in the super giant slalom at Mammoth Mountain, California. . . . Roman Catholic cardinals in seven U.S. cities send a letter to Pres. Bill Clinton urging him to outlaw a method of late-term abortion.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 3

March 4

March 5

March 6

March 7

978—March 8–13, 1997

World Affairs

March 9

The war-crimes trial of three Muslims and a Serb opens in The Hague. The four—Hazim Delic, Esad Landzo, and Zejnil Delalic, all Muslims, and Zdravko Mucic, a Croat— are the first people to be tried at the tribunal for atrocities against Serbs.

The Americas

March 12

The UN General Assembly approves a nonbinding resolution that urges Israel to refrain from implementing its East Jerusalem housing plans.

Asia & the Pacific In South Korea, the ruling and opposition parties reach an agreement on a labor bill to replace the legislation passed earlier that led to a month of protests and strikes.

In Albania, looters break into a Kalashnikov assault-rifle factory in Polican, 89 miles (140 km) south of Tirana, and make off with up to 40,000 firearms. . . . Jean-Dominique Bauby, 44, French journalist best known for his recently published book about his experience of being paralyzed, dies near Paris of unreported causes. . . . Dame C(icely) V(eronica) Wedgwood, 86, British historian and author who, in 1968, received the Order of Merit, dies in London of unreported causes.

King Hussein of Jordan tells Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that planned construction of a new Jewish settlement in Arab East Jerusalem will lead to an “inevitable violent (Palestinian) resistance” and may trigger a bloody Israeli crackdown that could “bury the peace process for all time.”

In Albania, gangs capture an air base in Kucove, 37 miles south of Tirana, where 19 MiG fighter aircraft are based. . . . Thousands of coal miners protest in Bonn and Berlin.

Ibrahim Maqadmeh, regarded by Israel as a leader of a secret Hamas military cell, is reportedly released from jail by PLO authorities. . . . The Vatican establishes full diplomatic relations with Libya.

Taiwan’s state-funded Central News Agency reports that ethnic Uighur separatists have claimed responsibility for the Mar. 7 Beijing bus attack.

The Mexican government appoints Mariano Herran Salvatti as the new head of the National Institute to Combat Drugs, the nation’s top antidrug agency.

Reports confirm that Serb gangs have destroyed and burned 15 prefabricated houses built by Muslim returnees in the village of Gajevi, which is in the zone of separation between Muslim-Croat and Serb territory. . . . Russian president Boris Yeltsin dismisses most of his cabinet and asks Premier Viktor Chernomyrdin to restructure the cabinet. . . . In Albania, Parliament passes an amnesty. Pres. Sali Berisha names Bashkim Fino as premier and forms a new government.

March 11

March 13

Africa & the Middle East

Violence in Albania continues, and Gjirokaster, site of the country’s largest military base in the south, falls to the rebels.

March 8

March 10

Europe

King Birendra of Nepal names Lokendra Bahadur Chand as the new premier. . . . South Korea’s National Assembly approves a new labor bill that replaces a controversial law, passed clandestinely in December 1996, that set off nearly a month of strikes and protests. . . . A Lahore, Pakistan, court rules to uphold the marriage of an Islamic couple who wed in February 1996 without first receiving permission from the woman’s parents. Although it is not immediately reported, the PNC nuclear-waste reprocessing center in Tokaimura experiences what is considered Japan’s worst-ever nuclear accident when a fire breaks, followed by an explosion 10 hours later. The accident exposes at least 37 workers to low-level radiation—although none are immediately harmed—and releases radioactivity into the atmosphere.

In Russia, the Duma passes a bill granting an amnesty for Chechen. . . . The Albanian government loses control of Ballsh, 50 miles south of Tirana. . . . Russian coast guard ships fire on nine Turkish fishing boats in the Black Sea that are allegedly poaching in Georgian waters. One fisherman is killed. . . . In Poland, 2,000 shipyard workers block roads to protest the impending closing of a shipbuilding company.

Nigeria’s military government charges 1986 Nobel literature laureate Wole Soyinka and 11 other dissidents with treason in connection with a recent series of bombings around the country.

Desperate to flee the violence, thousands of Albanians mass at Durres for passage to Italy, while U.S. and European troops begin to airlift foreigners to safety. Guards at the central prison in Tirana free hundreds of prisoners, including former premier Fatos Nano and Ramiz Alia, Albania’s last communist president.

In Egypt, masked gunmen shoot to death 13 men in the predominantly Coptic Christian hamlet of Ezbet Dawoud, 300 miles (480 km) south of Cairo, the capital. Nine of those killed are Copts. Bullets are fired into a station in Nag Hammadi. One woman dies, and seven other people are wounded . . . A lone Jordanian soldier armed with an automatic rifle, Ahmed Daqamseh, 23, fires on a group of 80 seventh- and eighthgrade Israeli schoolgirls at a border site in the northern Jordan Valley, killing seven of the girls and wounding six other group members, including a teacher.

The Constitutional Court, Colombia’s highest court, rules that a state of economic emergency declared by Pres. Ernesto Samper Pizano in January was unconstitutional. . . . Talks between the Peruvian government and leftist rebels holding 72 hostages inside the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima, Peru, collapse.

On Comoros, a three-island nation in the Indian Ocean, a general strike is launched on the island of Anjouan.

Fighting between Taliban forces and troops loyal to the displaced government continue north of Kabul. Afghanistan, as a consequence, currently has no functioning government. . . . A group of 130 senior nuns from the Missionaries of Charity elect Sister Nirmala Joshi to succeed Mother Teresa as head of their order. . . . President Kim Young Sam names former premier Lee Hoi Chang as chairman of the ruling New Korea Party. Kim’s choice of Lee is a surprise, because the two men are considered political rivals.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

March 8–13, 1997—979

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Pres. Clinton announces that he has ordered all departments of the federal government to begin training and hiring welfare recipients.

March 8

Michael Kolnhofer, 79, a Kansas City, Kansas, man accused of being a Nazi death camp guard, dies 10 weeks after being wounded in a shoot-out with police.

The Notorious B.I.G., who performed rap songs about his past as a drug dealer, is shot and killed in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles Police Commission announces that it will not reappoint the city’s police chief, Willie L. Williams, to a second five-year term.

The Citadel, a state-run military academy in Charleston, South Carolina, announces that 10 cadets have been disciplined for harassing female students. The school reveals that one of the students has been suspended for at least one year.

Police in Detroit, Michigan, shoot and kill a gunman, Allen Lane Griffin Jr., 21, after he kills three people and wounds at least two others in a shooting spree at a bank.

Five women who were recruits at the Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland indicate that military investigators tried to coerce them into making accusations of rape against their superiors. The five women speak at press conference organized by the NAACP, which notes that all of the men facing criminal charges are black.

LaVern Baker (born Delores Williams), 67, rhythm-and-blues singer best known for her 1954 hit song “Tweedlee Dee,” dies in New York City of heart complications.

The Senate votes, 99-0, to widen its probe of fund-raising practices to include improper as well as illegal activities during the 1996 election campaigns. The Senate also approves, 99-0, a resolution setting a $4.35 million budget for the investigation and a Dec. 31 deadline for the probe’s completion. . . . A grand jury in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, Georgia, indicts James Wardlaw and Eric Turpin, executives of Atlanta Coca-Cola Bottling Co., on corruption charges related to their alleged efforts to quash a union-organizing effort.

Estimates suggest that the March 1–2 tornadoes in Arkansas caused damage in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Federico F. Pena is confirmed as energy secretary by the Senate, 99-1. . . . The National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) announces that $5.6 million in refunds are due to more than 15,700 investors who were charged commissions for redeeming mutualfunds shares by Smith Barney Shearson Inc. and Lehman Brothers Inc.

Cleve McDowell, 56, a civil-rights lawyer, is found shot to death in Drew, Mississippi.

The House votes, 251-175, to “decertify” Mexico as an ally in the drug war unless Pres. Clinton demonstrates within 90 days that Mexico has made significant progress in fighting drug trafficking,

Figures suggest that the percentage of credit card accounts that are more than 30 days past due increased to 3.72% in the fourth quarter of 1996. The delinquency rate is the highest recorded since 1973, when the association began keeping track. The rate for the corresponding period in 1995 was 3.34%.

Reports confirm that the family of Victor Hugo have called the 1996 Walt Disney film The Hunchback of Notre Dame a “commercial pillage of heritage.”. . . Hugo Weisgall, 84, composer, dies in Manhassett, New York, after a fall. . . . The Columbus Quest captures the first championship of the ABL, a women’s professional league . . . Martin Buser wins the Iditarod dog-sledding race in Alaska.

Reports confirm that Charles S. Olton has been named president and chief executive officer of the American Symphony Orchestra League.

Reports reveal that floods brought on by the overflowing of the Ohio River caused the deaths of at least 30 people in late February and early March.

Robert Saudek, 85, producer remembered for his cultural contributions to television, dies in Baltimore, Maryland, of unreported causes.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 9

March 10

March 11

March 12

March 13

980—March 14–19, 1997

World Affairs

March 14

March 15

March 16

March 17

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Four peasants die and several others are injured in a clash between state police officers and supporters of the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) in the village of San Pedro Nixtalucum in Chiapas state, Mexico. . . . The ruling Free National Movement (FNM) captures 34 seats in the legislature in parliamentary elections in the Bahamas.

China’s congress approves legislation that will revise the nation’s criminal code. The revisions are the first major changes to the code since 1979.

Armed gangs aiming to depose Pres. Sali Berisha for his role in the collapse of investment schemes take control of Tirana, the capital of Albania. For the first time since World War II, German troops open fire in “hostile conditions” during an airlift of 120 people, including 20 Germans, from Albania.

In Kisangani, Zaire, fleeing government soldiers riot, stripping shops of their goods and destroying them with hand grenades.

In Albania, Tirana’s main hospital reports that gunshot wounds have killed 27 people and injured more than 200 since Mar. 12. . . . An estimated 10,000 people rally in Minsk to mark the anniversary of the adoption of Belarus’s now superseded 1994 constitution.

Rebels in Zaire capture Kisangani, the country’s third-largest city and the headquarters for the army’s counteroffensive. The rebels immediately start cracking down on looting by residents and army stragglers. Some of Kisangani’s residents cheer the rebel soldiers as they enter the city. . . . Algerian security troops kill 43 GIA fighters in Relizane, 180 miles south of Algiers. Three policemen are slain, allegedly by a group of militants in the Casbah district of Algiers.

Thousands of workers from several European countries hold a march in Brussels, the Belgian capital, to protest a wave of job cuts throughout the continent. Estimates of the march’s total number of participants range from 40,000 to 120,000. . . . Albanian government militia restore some order to Tirana, and several thousand people rally in the capital for peace.

Jordan’s King Hussein, in a gesture considered unprecedented in modern Arab-Israeli relations, travels to Israel to offer condolences to the grieving families of the seven girls slain Mar. 13. . . . Reports suggest there are 70,000 Rwandan Hutu refugees in Ubundu, a town 80 miles south of Kisangani on the Zaire River. . . . Zaire’s Pres. Mobutu Sese Seko Mobutu is admitted to a hospital in Monaco to undergo cancer treatment. . . . At least 10 militants are killed in a shoot-out with security forces in the Casbah district of Algiers, Algeria.

Venezuela demolishes the notorious Catia prison that has been criticized by human-rights organizations for its inhumane conditions and rampant corruption. . . . Colombian defense minister Guillermo Alberto Gonzalez resigns amid charges that he accepted a contribution from a drug trafficker for his 1989 Senate election campaign.

Reports from Zaire suggest that more than 500 soldiers have emerged from the forests around Kisangani and turned themselves in to the rebels.

Janet Jagan, the widow of the late Pres. Cheddi Jagan, is sworn in as Guyana’s new prime minister.

Despite international pleas, Israeli bulldozers, protected by some 1,000 troops, begin clearing ground for construction of the controversial Har Homa settlement on land known to Arabs as Jabal Abu Ghneim, in East Jerusalem. . . . Zaire’s parliament votes to dismiss Premier Leon Kengo wa Dondo and to hold talks with the rebels.

In Canada, a bomb blast outside a Montreal-area bar linked to the Hells Angels kills two men. These deaths raise the death toll from a three-year-old conflict between Hells Angels and Rock Machine, rival biker gangs in Quebec, to 32.

King Hussein dismisses Abdul Karim al-Kabariti as Jordanian prime minister and replaces him with Abdel Salem al-Majali. . . . Retired South African archbishop Desmond Tutu reveals that his prostate cancer has spread.

David Saul, the prime minister of Bermuda, a British colony, unexpectedly announces his resignation, effective Mar. 27.

UN secretary general Kofi Annan outlines a detailed reform package that involves cutting 1,000 staff jobs and reducing the UN’s budget for the first time ever.

March 18

Shipyard workers in Poland continue to protest the yard’s closing, and 70 workers occupy several government buildings in Warsaw, the capital, before they are removed by police. . . . Reports state that more than 10,000 Albanian refugees have reached Italy, which calls a state of emergency in order to deal with the refugee flow. . . . Jacques Foccart, 83, diplomat who served as France’s secretary general for African affairs, 1959–74, dies in Luzarches, France, after suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

March 19

Africa & the Middle East

On Comoros, a three-island nation in the Indian Ocean, the strike that started Mar. 12 turns into an open rebellion, and government troops move in, killing four demonstrators and arresting 200 others.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

March 14–19, 1997—981

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

A jury in State Supreme Court in NYC awards $37 million in damages to Felix Rivera, a mentally retarded man shot by police in 1983 after he brandished a toy gun at them. . . . Pres. Clinton suffers major damage to his right knee and has to have torn quadriceps tendon reattached to his kneecap in surgery. . . . Cyril Francis Brickfield, 78, lawyer and former executive director of the AARP, 1967–87, dies in Bethesda, Maryland, of cancer.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) ruled that automobile makers may reduce the force at which air bags inflate.

Researcher in Melbourne, Australia, report that they have created 470 identical cattle embryos. The specimens, however, have not yet resulted in pregnancies.

An unidentified man strikes the America’s Cup yachting trophy repeatedly with a sledgehammer in Auckland, New Zealand. . . . Fred Zinnemann, 89, film director who won Oscars in 1938, 1953, and 1966, dies in London of unreported causes. . . . Joey Mullen scores his 500th career goal, becoming the first U.S.-born hockey player to do so.

A U.S. jury in Houston, Texas, rules that $7.9 million of a total of $9 million held in a bank account belonging to former top Mexican official Mario Ruiz Massieu came from bribes paid by drug traffickers. The jury’s decision allows the U.S. government to seize the $7.9 million.

Victor Vasarely (born Gyozo Vasarhelyi), 88, who pioneered the Op Art movement in the 1960s, dies in Paris, France, of prostate cancer. . . . Gail Davis, (born Betty Jeanne Grayson) 71, actress known for the TV series Annie Oakley (1955–58), the first western to star a woman, dies in Burbank, California, of cancer.

The World Cup alpine ski season concludes, and Luc Alphand of France clinches the men’s overall title.

In St. Louis, Missouri, two men rob a bank and open fire with assault rifles, killing a guard. One suspect is arrested, but the other escapes. . . . Reports state that a woman, identified only as Kathy, who gave birth after being raped while in a coma-like state, died a few days before her son’s first birthday at the age of 30 without regaining consciousness.

Anthony Lake withdraws his nomination to be the director of central intelligence, asserting that he has “lost patience” with the nomination process, which he calls “nasty and brutish without being short.” . . . The U.S.-based Cable News Network (CNN) airs its first broadcast from Cuba.

The House passes, 418-9, the Victims’ Rights Clarification Act, which bars federal courts from excluding victims from a courtroom on the basis that they intend to testify in the penalty phase.. . . . Former representative Wes S. Cooley (R, Oreg.) is convicted by Salem, Oregon, circuit court judge Albin Norblad for lying about his military service in a 1994 voters’ pamphlet. He is sentenced to two years’ probation, 100 hours of community service, and a $7,110 fine. The Senate passes, by voice vote, and Pres. Clinton signs the Victims’ Rights Clarification Act, which bars federal courts from excluding victims from a courtroom on the grounds that they intend to testify in the penalty phase . . . Earl Carroll of U.S. District Court in Phoenix, Arizona, sentences six defendants to prison terms ranging from 12 to 37 months. The defendants are members of a paramilitary group known as the Viper Militia and have pled guilty to charges of conspiracy to make and possess unregistered destructive devices in a bombing plot.

Pres. Clinton names George J. Tenet as his new nominee for the post of director of central intelligence.

Statistics show that the number of U.S. households filing for personal bankruptcy rose to 1.125 million in 1996, a record high.

Ford Motor Co. announces that in 1997 it will end production of its Thunderbird sports coupe, an American icon since it first went on sale in 1954.

The Senate rejects, 61-38, a proposed constitutional amendment that would have set spending and contribution limits on federal election campaigns. The vote falls well short of the two-thirds majority needed.

The National Book Critics Circle presents its awards to Robert Hass, Frank McCourt, Gina Berriault, William Gass, and Jonathan Raban.

In Bennett v. Spear, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that people whose economic interests are affected by the enforcement of the Endangered Species Act have a right to legally challenge the federal government’s enforcement of the law.

Jessie Lee Brown Foveaux, 98 sells her memoir to Warner Books for reportedly more than $1 million. . . . Willem De Kooning, 92, a preeminent 20th-century American artist, dies in East Hampton, New York, after a long illness. . . . At the World Figure Skating Championships in Lausanne, Switzerland, Mandy Wotzel and Ingo Steuer of Germany win the pairs’ title.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 14

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March 19

982—March 20–25, 1997

March 20

March 21

March 22

March 23

World Affairs

Europe

Russian president Boris Yeltsin and U.S. president Bill Clinton meet in Helsinki, the capital of Finland, for their first summit together in 11 months. The two leaders discuss the expansion of NATO to include former Soviet-bloc countries in Eastern Europe, as well as nuclear disarmament and economic aid to Russia.

Authorities in the Croat section of the ethnically split city of Mostar hand out suspended sentences to three police officers accused of shooting at unarmed civilians in a February incident in which one person died and 34 were wounded. . . . Pres. Levon Ter-Petrossian names Robert Kocharyan Armenia’s new premier. . . . Sir V(ictor) S(awdon) Pritchett, 96, acclaimed British writer who was knighted in 1975, dies in London of unreported causes.

U.S. president Clinton and Russian president Yeltsin come to an agreement on the future of the START pact, under which Yeltsin promises to submit START II, signed in 1993 and ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1996, to the Duma for ratification. In exchange, the U.S. agrees to postpone a deadline for dismantling nuclear warheads by one year, to the end of the year 2003, and to postpone from that year until the year 2007 the new deadline for the destruction of nuclear missile silos and bombers. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service reveals that Canadian immigration officials have arrested a Saudi man, Hani Abdel Rahim alSayegh, on suspicion of involvement in a June 1996 truck bombing of a U.S. military complex near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The blast killed 19 U.S. servicemen and injured 384 people.

Spain’s Supreme Court orders the government to declassify secret documents related to the so-called Dirty War, in which 27 suspected Basque terrorists were killed under mysterious circumstances in the 1980s.

The 54-member Organization of the Islamic Conference closes a summit in Islamabad, Pakistan, by approving a declaration in support of Palestinian claims to Jerusalem.

Some 70 protesters, including two opposition leaders, are arrested at an antigovernment rally that draws 10,000 people in Minsk to commemorate of the 69th anniversary of the Belarussian People’s Republic. One of those arrested is U.S. diplomat Serge Alexandrov.

March 24

March 25

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Palestinian protests swell, and Israeli troops fire tear-gas canisters in street battles with stone-throwing Palestinian students on the outskirts of Bethlehem, in the West Bank.

Gerardo Bedoya Borrero, the chief editorial writer at a conservative daily newspaper, is gunned down in the city of Cali, Colombia.

A Palestinian belonging to the military wing of Hamas ends a 12month lull in Palestinian suicide attacks by detonating an explosive on the patio of a crowded cafe in Tel Aviv, Israel’s largest city. The bomber and three Israeli women die in the blast, which injures some 40 other people. Ensuing street clashes spread to Hebron. . . . After virtually ignoring Zaire’s troubles for months, Zairian president Mobutu Sese Seko returns from Europe and starts asserting control.

An ammonia leak in a Montreal meat-packing plant kills one man and injures 24 others. Six firefighters are also injured.

Villagers in Nigeria’s southern Delta State seize 127 employees of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group oil conglomerate in a protest over local government policies.

Reports disclose that a wave of violence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, killed more than 50 people in February and March. . . . Five members of the Order of the Solar Temple sect are found dead in Canada. The incident is apparently the third mass suicide carried out by the cult since 1994. . . . An estimated 8,000 people rally to protest the closing of Hopital Montfort, an Ottawa hospital that serves the French-speaking community.

Reports reveal that the ancient ruins at Butrint, considered to be Albania’s most important archeological site, were pillaged in the recent unrest. . . . Belarussian authorities expel U.S. diplomat Serge Alexandrov, accusing him of spying and of fomenting antigovernment sentiment. Alexandrov, the first secretary at the U.S. embassy in Minsk, the Belarussian capital, was arrested for taking part in the Mar. 23 rally against Belarussian president Aleksandr Lukashenko.

The Palestine National Authority (PNA) formally suspends security ties with Israel. . . . A speaker for Shell states that the Mar. 22 dispute in Nigeria has nothing to do with Shell and that the villagers are using the company to raise the profile of their protest. . . . Zairian president Mobutu Sese Seko accepts the resignation of his unpopular premier, Leon Kengo wa Dondo.

A judge in Spain, Baltasar Garzon, issues an international arrest warrant for Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri, who led the military junta that ruled Argentina from December 1981 to July 1982. Garzon orders Galtieri’s arrest in connection with the general’s alleged involvement in the murders of three Spaniards during Argentina’s “dirty war” against suspected leftists from 1976 to 1983. . . . Reports confirm that the coalition government of Czech premier Vaclav Klaus has obtained a parliamentary majority.

Algerian government forces kill Abdelkadur Seddouki, the suspected leader of the Jihad Armed Islamic Front, a group said to have carried out bombing attacks on prominent government figures.

Asia & the Pacific

Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, pays his first-ever visit to Taiwan.

The Tokyo High Court overturns a lower court’s ruling when it convicts Takao Fujinami, a former chief of Japan’s cabinet, for bribery. The court sentences Fujinami to a three-year suspended prison sentence and fines him 42.7 million yen.

Election returns show that the FMLN has won 27 seats in El Salvador’s 84-seat National Assembly, up from the 21 seats it won in the previous election. . . . The United Bermuda Party (UBP) elects Pamela Gordon as the new prime minister. . . . Roberto Sanchez Vilella, 84, former governor of Puerto Rico elected governor in 1964 whose 1967 plan to divorce his wife of 30 years and marry his young assistant, kept him from winning reelection, dies in San Juan, Puerto Rico, of cancer.

Taiwan launches an emergency assistance package for the nation’s pig industry, hit by an outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease. The government orders farmers to slaughter all of their pigs even if only one animal in a herd is found to have the virus.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

March 20–25, 1997—983

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The House passes, 295-136, a measure that will outlaw a method of late-term abortion. . . . Liggett Group agrees to settle lawsuits brought by 22 states seeking to recover the cost of treating smoking-related illnesses. Liggett agrees to admit that smoking cigarettes is addictive and causes cancer— which the industry has never before conceded. . . . In Phoenix, Arizona, Judge Earl Carroll sentences Gary Bauer, an alleged leader of the Viper Militia, to nine years in prison.

Army captain Derrick Robertson, a company commander at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, is sentenced to four months in prison after pleading guilty to having consensual sex with a private. . . . The Senate approves, 945, a resolution that gives Pres. Clinton until Sept. 1 to report to Congress that Mexico has made progress in fighting drugs. Unlike the House bill, the measure does not threaten to decertify Mexico.

A federal jury in Houston, Texas, awards damages totaling $222.7 million in a libel case against The Wall Street Journal. MMAR had accused the newspaper of contributing to its collapse through a 1993 article that criticized the firm’s business practices. The libel award is the largest in U.S. history.

An independent group of computer scientists announce that new digital cellular telephones may be nearly as susceptible to electronic eavesdropping as the analog wireless phones, in use for some 15 years.

At the World Figure Skating Championships in Lausanne, Switzerland, Elvis Stojko of Canada wins the men’s title for the third time in his career. . . . Tony Zale (born Anthony Florian Zaleski), 83, the world middleweight champion, 1940–48, dies in Portage, Indiana, after suffering from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

Liggett Group, in accordance with its Mar. 20 agreement, issues a statement declaring that its executives “know and acknowledge” that “nicotine is addictive” and that smoking cigarettes “causes health problems, including lung cancer, heart and vascular disease and emphysema.” . . . A federal judge in White Plains, New York, approves Texaco’s $176.1 million settlement of a 1994 federal discrimination lawsuit brought by black Texaco employees. It is the largest ever in a race-discrimination suit.

The U.S. suspends its annual foreign aid to Belarus, which totals $40 million, on account of Belarus’s poor human-rights record.

Reports indicate that a U.S. District Court in Uniondale, New York, has awarded $2.1 million to the family of Alice Ephraimson-Abt, who was killed in the 1983 downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 by a Soviet military jet. It is the largest amount so far awarded to a Flight 007 victim’s family.

In Lausanne, Switzerland, at the World Figure Skating Championships, Oksana Gritschuk and Yevgeny Platov of Russia win the ice-dancing title. . . . Rev. W(ilbert) (Vere) Awdry, 85, British Anglican minister and children’s author, dies in Gloucestershire, England, after a long illness.

Data suggests that Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport remained the world’s busiest airport in 1996, serving 69.1 million passengers, 2.8% more than in the previous year. Hartsfield airport in Atlanta, Georgia, is in second place, with 63.3 million passengers, followed by Los Angeles, with 57.9 million passengers.

The Hale-Bopp comet, one of the largest and brightest comets to enter the solar system in centuries, reaches its closest proximity to the Earth when it passes an estimated 122 million miles from the Earth’s surface. Astronomers estimate that Hale-Bopp is 25 miles (16 km) in diameter, making it four times as large as the well-known Halley’s comet, and that it is traveling at a speed of nearly 100,000 mph (160,000 kmph).

U(ral) Alexis Johnson, 88, U.S. diplomat best known for helping to broker the first strategic-arms limitation treaty between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, dies in Raleigh, North Carolina, of unreported causes.

A malfunction in Florida’s 74-yearold electric chair causes flames to burst from the leather face mask of convicted murderer Pedro L. Medina, seconds after the lethal current is turned on. The accident prompts Florida governor Lawton Chiles to state that Florida will consider using other methods of execution. Of the 38 states with the death penalty, only four, including Florida, still use the electric chair exclusively.

Army officials announce that criminal sexual-misconduct charges were brought against two more instructors—Staff Sergeant Wayne Gamble and Sergeant First Class Ronald Moffett—at the Aberdeen Proving Ground. . . . Pres. Clinton nominates Major General Claudia J. Kennedy to become the army’s first female lieutenant general, a three-star rank.

At the Academy Awards, The English Patient wins nine of the 12 honors for which it is nominated, including best picture and best director. . . . Harold Melvin, 57, singer who headed the Blue Notes, a 1950s rhythm-and-blues group, dies in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, after suffering a stroke.

The Federal Reserve Board announces that it will increase the federal-funds rate, the interest rate banks charge on overnight loans made to one another, to 5.5%, from 5.25%.

March 21

March 22

Tara Lipinski wins the women’s title at the World Figure Skating Championships in Lausanne, Switzerland. Lipinski, 14, is the youngest person ever to win the title.

Michigan health officials contact the federal CDC when hepatitis A cases begin to proliferate in the towns of Marshall and Battle Creek.

March 20

Former president George Bush safely completes a 12,500-foot (3,800-meter) parachute jump at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona. Bush, who made a similar jump in 1944 as a World War II Navy pilot, reportedly is the only U.S. president ever to have parachuted from an airplane.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 23

March 24

March 25

984—March 26–31, 1997

March 26

Europe

The heads of state of 15 African nations hold a summit in Lome, the capital of Togo, aimed at finding a way to end the Zairian conflict.

Two bombs explode near a train station in Wilmslow, a city south of Manchester, England. Later, an unidentified attacker shoots an explosive device at a police station in Coalisland, a town in Northern Ireland. Police fire at the attacker and wound him. . . . Otto John, 88, German official who played an important role in the Nazi resistance during World War II and was later at the center of a cold war–era espionage controversy, dies in Innsbruck, Austria, of unreported causes.

Street clashes spread in Ramallah, Israel, just north of Jerusalem. . . . Three Ijaw tribesmen are killed in rioting related to the dispute that started Mar. 22 when rebels took over a Shell station in Nigeria.

Workers at the 79 Alberta stores of Canada Safeway Ltd. launch a strike. . . . The Canadian government charges Fahad Sheheri, 21, a Saudi citizen currently under detention in Canada, with being a member of a terrorist group.

In Russia, 1.8 million workers hold a strike, joining in some 1,000 demonstrations across the country to protest unpaid wages and pensions. . . . In the central Albanian village of Levan, 16 members of a gang assassinate the chair of the local council of elders. Villagers attack the gang in response, killing them all. It is the most violent single incident of the recent unrest. . . . Ella Maillart, 94, Swiss travel writer, dies in Chandolin, Switzerland, of unreported causes.

In Nigeria, protesters begin to free the hostages taken Mar. 22 at a Shell station.

Pamela Gordon becomes Bermuda’s first female prime minister, as well as its youngest.

The IRA claims responsibility for the Mar. 26 bombings but does not mention the Ulster attack. . . . The Italian navy warship Sibilla, on patrol in the Adriatic Sea, rams an Albanian vessel filled with refugees from the southern port of Vlore. Italian searchers rescue 34 survivors and pick up four dead bodies from the sinking ship.

Abdullah Khalil Abdullah, 20, a Palestinian college student, is killed by Israeli soldiers in clashes at a roadblock near Ramallah.

March 27

March 28

The UN Security Council agrees to an Italian plan to approve the deployment of a multinational force to oversee relief efforts in Albania.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Japan’s Sapporo District Court rules that the regional government of Hokkaido island acted illegally in constructing a dam on land held sacred by the Ainu ethnic minority. The ruling marks the first official recognition of an aboriginal minority in Japan. . . . Australian governor general William Deane signs a bill that will strike down a law in the Northern Territory legalizing euthanasia, the world’s only law of its kind.

Some 40,000 demonstrators hold a rally in Strasbourg, France, to protest proposals of the National Front party regarding immigration laws. The protests are staged during a convention of France’s right-wing National Front party in Strasbourg. . . . Reports confirm that Muslim and Croat leaders in Sarajevo have reached a power-sharing deal under which the city will be allowed to elect a new mayor. Sarajevo’s last mayor, Tarik Kupusovic, quit a year earlier when the Bosnian government named 45 Muslims to the 47-member city council.

March 29

While holding a family hostage, a suspected IRA gunman shoots and wounds a police officer in Forkhill, Northern Ireland. . . . The Albanian ambassador to Italy, Pandeli Pasko, reveals that 83 people aboard the Albanian vessel that crashed Mar. 28 are missing and presumed dead. . . . During demonstrations in Strasbourg, France, several protestors clash with riot police.

March 30

March 31

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

The 22-member Arab League announces its decision to freeze relations with Israel in light of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s settlement policies. The league’s resolution, which is nonbinding, also reinstitutes the Arab states’ economic boycott of Israel. . . . U.S. president Clinton nominates U.S. Army general Wesley K. Clark to be the next commander of NATO and the supreme allied commander in Europe.

Palestinian officials report that the number of Palestinians wounded since street clashes that began Mar. 20 is at 460.

Albanian president Sali Berisha declares a national day of mourning for the Mar. 28 boat accident. Pope John Paul II calls for all Roman Catholics to pray for the victims. . . . Eighteen people are killed and 50 others are injured when a train derails while entering the station at Huarte Arakil in northern Spain.

A videotape that shows military police officers in Sao Paulo brutalizing drivers at a roadblock set up to catch drug traffickers is broadcast on TV Globo. The highly publicized tape causes an outcry in Brazil.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

March 26–31, 1997—985

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

In California, 39 members of Heaven’s Gate, a religious cult, are found dead. It is one of the largest mass suicides in U.S. history. The cult’s leader, Marshall Herff Applewhite, 66, is among the dead.

In response to the Mar. 24 expulsion of Serge Alexandrov, the State Department orders Vladimir Gramyka, the first secretary at the Belarussian embassy in Washington, to leave the U.S. . . . Reports reveal that Staff Sergeant Nathanael Beach, a drill sergeant at Aberdeen, was acquitted of sexual misconduct charges. . . . NYC mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (R) files suit against the federal government, charging that provisions in the 1996 welfare-reform bill violate immigrants’ rights.

John G. Bennett Jr., the founder of the failed Foundation for New Era Philanthropy, pleads no contest to federal charges that he defrauded universities, churches, charities, and philanthropists of $135 million. The foundation was revealed as a huge pyramid scheme after it declared bankruptcy in 1995. The scheme is said to have been the largest charity fraud in U.S. history.

Judge Donald Mark sentences John Horace, 53, to a minimum of eight years and four months and a maximum of 25 years in prison for raping and sexually abusing a woman who was in a coma-like state in August 1995. . . . San Diego County medical examiner Brian Blackbourne reveals that many of the Heaven’s Gate cultists found dead on March 26 carried out their suicides in three shifts over several days.

U.S. House speaker Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.) leads a bipartisan delegation of 11 other Congress members on a tour of Hong Kong, China, Japan, and Taiwan. . . . The ACLU files suit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., seeking to delay the implementation of the new welfare rules regarding immigrants for 30 days. A group representing some of the 40,000 Nicaraguan refugees living in the Miami, Florida, area files suit in U.S. District Court in Miami.

A Justice Department report concludes that Howard M. Shapiro, the general counsel for the FBI, did not violate professional standards in his dealings with the White House at a time when the White House was being investigated for improperly acquiring confidential FBI files. However, the report states that Shapiro exercised “very poor judgment” in the incident.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Researchers conducting a study commissioned by the National Cable Television Association find that the new national television-ratings system often attracts children to adult-oriented programs.

The National Cancer Institute announces that it has changed its position and now recommends that women between the ages of 40 and 49 who are at average risk of contracting breast cancer undergo mammogram screenings every one to two years.

March 27

The Commerce Department reports that after-tax profits of U.S. corporations rose 7% in 1996 to $406.8 billion, from the revised 1995 level of $380.2 billion.

March 28

The University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux defeats the Boston University Terriers, 6-4, to win the NCAA Division I hockey title.

Jon Stone, 65, one of the creators of the children’s public TV program Sesame Street, dies in New York City of complications from Lou Gehrig’s disease. . . . Golfer Betsy King wins the Nabisco Dinah Shore tournament, the first major event on the LPGA Tour.

In Lambert v. Wicklund, the Supreme Court rules unanimously to reinstate a 1995 Montana law requiring teenage girls to notify at least one parent before having an abortion. . . . An autopsy concludes that Pedro Medina, executed in Florida Mar. 25, died painlessly before the fire in his face mask broke out. . . . In U.S. v. Lanier, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that a case against David Lanier, a former Tennessee judge charged with sexually assaulting five women in his courtroom chambers, should be reinstated. . . . Marvin Liebman, 73, noted conservative who shocked his colleagues in 1990 when he revealed that he was homosexual, dies in Washington, D.C., of heart disease.

Eugenie M. Anderson (born Helen Eugenie Moore), 87, who was the first female U.S. ambassador when she was named ambassador to Denmark in 1949 by Pres. Harry Truman, dies in Red Wing, Minnesota, of unreported causes.

March 26

When combined with points dropped on the last trading day, Mar. 27, the Dow closes down a total of 297.22 points, the biggest two-session point decline since the 1987 crash. On a percentage basis, however, the 4.3% decline is only the 20th-largest two-session drop during that 10-year period. . . . The Commerce Department reports that personal pretax income rose 0.9% in February from January, to a seasonally adjusted annual figure of $6.71 trillion. The February increase, the largest since June 1996, marks the 21st consecutive month that incomes have grown.

In TBS v. FCC, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, to uphold the “mustcarry” law, a provision in a 1992 package of cable-TV legislation that requires operators of cable-TV systems to carry the signals of local broadcast-TV stations. . . . Sixteenyear-old Martina Hingis of Switzerland becomes the youngest women’s tennis player ever to be ranked number one.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 29

March 30

March 31

986—April 1–6, 1997

World Affairs

April 1

April 2

April 3

The UN Security Council announces that its multinational peacekeeping force will remain in Haiti until July 31.

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

German authorities repatriate some 30 orphans aged between five and nine on a flight to Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, from Berlin, Germany, claiming that their guardians repeatedly sought their return.

Two Palestinians are killed in separate exchanges with Israeli troops in the West Bank cities of Hebron and Nablus. . . . Zaire’s parliament chooses Etienne Tshisekedi as premier.

Presidents Boris Yeltsin of Russia and Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus sign a treaty on closer integration between the two former Soviet states. Police in Minsk, the Belarussian capital, beat dozens of protesters rallying to preserve their country’s independence in the face of the treaty. Around 4,000 people are estimated to have taken part in the rally, and more than 100 are arrested.

An Israeli military bus transporting 12 soldiers to guard Jewish settlements in the West Bank comes under attack near the Jalazoun refugee camp, located some 12 miles (20 km) north of Jerusalem. No one is injured or killed. Palestinian police round up about 30 presumed Islamic militants, most of whom are reportedly tied to Islamic Jihad. . . . in Zaire, Pres. Mobutu Sese Seko approves Etienne Tshisekedi as premier.

Amnesty International reports that Russian police routinely torture, abuse, and asphyxiate suspects and prisoners. . . . In England, a jury at London’s central courthouse convicts shipping magnate Abbas Gokal of defrauding customers of the failed BCCI of £750 million ($1.2 billion). . . . Eight players and a trainer from Albania’s national soccer team ask for political asylum in Madrid, Spain. . . . British police find two bombs under a highway near Birmingham.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Paramilitary groups raid the Panamanian village of La Bonga, killing four peasants in their pursuit of rebels and refugees.

Pakistan’s parliament votes unanimously to repeal a 12-year-old constitutional amendment that gives the president unilateral power to dismiss the prime minister, dissolve Parliament, and appoint armed forces chiefs. The amendment had been invoked four times in the past decade, during which none of Pakistan’s civilian prime ministers have completed a full five-year term. China confirms that a prominent Chinese journalist, Wei Guoqiang, committed suicide in Beijing, the Chinese capital, after his plans to defect were foiled.

Brazil’s Senate unanimously passes a bill that makes torture a crime, punishable by four to 16 years in prison. Separately, reports disclose that 10 Sao Paulo officers have been arrested in connection with the beatings shown on a videotape that was broadcast Mar. 31. . . . After a failed escape attempt, 10 heavily armed inmates kill three guards and a police officer, and they take 13 people hostage at a prison in Valledupar, a town in northern Colombia. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu states that, despite international pressure, his government will proceed with settlement construction in historically Arab East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. . . . In Zaire, the rebel alliance captures Zaire’s principal diamond-trading city, Mbuji-Mayi, in East Kasai province, 600 miles east of Kinshasa. The government troops loot the city and terrorize residents before fleeing ahead of the rebel advance.

April 4

Albanian premier Bashkim Fino is barred from traveling to the northern town of Shkoder from Tirana by a group of 15 armed men, who set off two grenades to force the premier to turn back. . . . In Kraljeva Sutjeska, a Roman Catholic monastery is struck by three rifle grenades. . . . The 150th running of Great Britain’s Grand National Steeplechase is postponed due to two bomb threats from the Provisional IRA.

April 5

April 6

In Zaire, the leader of the rebel ADFL group, Laurent Kabila, approves a plan by the UN to airlift some 80,000 Rwandan Hutu refugees to safety. . . . Jordan’s King Hussein undergoes prostate surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

Heberto Castillo Martinez, 68, Mexican political leader who was an outspoken opponent of the longruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), dies in Mexico City of heart failure.

Delegates from the Zairian government and the ADFL hold talks in the South African capital, Pretoria.

In the first-round voting for nine Senate seats and two seats in the Chamber of Deputies in Haiti, the Lavalas Family party wins outright two Senate seats and one seat in the Chamber of Deputies. The other seats will be decided in runoff elections.

A bomb explodes at the home of Lt. Gen. Tin Oo, who is the second secretary and army chief of staff of Myanmar’s ruling military junta, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). The bomb kills his eldest daughter, Cho Lei Oo.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

April 1–6, 1997—987

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

New restrictions on the distribution of food stamps, as mandated by the 1996 welfare bill, go into effect. . . . In Sacramento, California, U.S. district judge Lawrence Karlton issues a temporary injunction to block a provision of California’s new welfare law restricting benefit payments to newcomers to the state.

Many rules contained in a law passed in September 1996 that impose new restrictions on legal and illegal immigrants, called the Illegal Immigrant Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, take effect. The implementation of the rules has elicited legal challenges from civil-rights groups. . . . The Air Force’s radar-evading B-2 Stealth bomber becomes operational.

Nancy J. Woodhull, 52, journalist who was the first managing editor for news at USA Today, dies in Pittsford, New York, of cancer. . . . Jolie Gabor, 97, socialite best known as the mother of Eva and Zsa Zsa Gabor, dies in Rancho Mirage, California, of unreported causes.

Dean Pleasant, a member of the paramilitary group involved in a bomb-making plot, is ordered to serve 71 months in prison. . . . Tennessee becomes the last state in the union to ratify the 15th Amendment, which guarantees citizens of the U.S. the right to vote regardless of “race, color or previous condition of servitude.” . . . A federal jury in Spokane, Washington, deadlocks in the case of Verne Jay Merrell, Charles H. Barbee, and Robert S. Berry, white separatists accused of three bombings and two bank robberies in 1996. The jury convicts them on lesser charges, including conspiracy, and possession of hand grenades

A U.S. Air Force A-10 attack jet disappears in the mountains of Colorado when its pilot, Captain Craig Button, mysteriously breaks away from formation during a training mission.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright throws out the first pitch at the Baltimore Orioles’ home opener baseball game against the Kansas City Royals. . . . Tomoyuki Tanaka, 86, Japanese film producer who created the Godzilla monster featured in a series of internationally popular movies, dies in Tokyo of a stroke.

Six handcuffed, shackled prisoners burn to death when the van they are riding in burst into flames on a Tennessee highway.

April 1

April 2

April 3

FBI data suggests that bank robberies in 1996 increased nearly 10% over the previous year. The FBI recorded 7,562 bank heists in 1996, compared with 6,915 in 1995. Both years’ totals are well below the 1991 record of 9,388 bank robberies. . . . Reports estimate that 185 people in Saginaw and Calhoun counties in Michigan are exhibiting symptoms of hepatitis A, as the virus spreads among school employees and students due to tainted frozen strawberries served in school lunches.

The space shuttle Columbia blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, to study the effects of the absence of gravity on combustion.

Henry Baldwin Hyde, 81, spymaster for the U.S. Office of Strategic Services during World War II who was awarded two Bronze Stars, dies in New York City after a long illness.

April 4

Allen Ginsberg, 70, poet who helped define the Beat Generation with his poem “The Howl,” and who won numerous literary honors, including the 1974 National Book Award, dies in New York City of liver cancer.

NASA officials order the crew of the space shuttle Columbia to return to Earth 12 days ahead of schedule after one of the shuttle’s fuel cells shows signs of malfunctioning.

Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan marries NBC News reporter Andrea Mitchell in Washington, Virginia. . . . Jack Kent Cooke, 84, businessman who owned the Washington Redskins football team and pioneered the practice of pay-per-view sporting events, dies in Washington, D.C., of congestive heart failure.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 5

April 6

988—April 7–12, 1997

World Affairs

April 7

April 8

April 9

April 10

April 11

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Chinese president Jiang Zemin announces that China will sign the UN International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights by the end of 1997.

Supporters of Zaire’s Premier Etienne Tshisekedi clash with police in Kinshasa and attack the houses and vehicles of members of Parliament who oppose Tshisekedi’s appointment as premier. In Lubumbashi, several hundred troops reportedly lay down their arms and don white headbands as a symbol of solidarity with the rebels.

In Brazil, TV Globo broadcasts a tape that shows six police officers forcing 11 residents of a slum area of Rio de Janeiro to line up against a wall and then beating them for an hour. The tape prompts outrage.

Ronald Freeman, a U.S. investment banker, states he will resign as first vice president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

Zairian president Mobutu Sese Seko declares a nationwide state of emergency and appoints military governors for the provinces still under government control.

The six Rio de Janeiro officers depicted on the tape aired in Brazil Apr. 7 are arrested.

The Mexican government announces that more than 100 children in that country contracted hepatitis A one month prior to the outbreak in Michigan. Reports confirm that Mexican strawberry farmers have suspended their harvests in the wake of the U.S. hepatitis cases.

An Iraqi aircraft flies more than 100 passengers to Saudi Arabia for a Muslim religious pilgrimage. The U.S. immediately condemns the flight as a violation of the UN air embargo imposed on Iraq shortly after its invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

Striking miners block the tracks of the trans-Siberian railroad in a 16hour protest in Russia. . . . Chechen separatist rebel Salman Raduyev is reportedly injured when a bomb explodes beneath his car. . . . A court in Turin, Italy, convicts Cesare Romiti, chair of automaker Fiat SpA, making him one of the most prominent Italians to face a criminal conviction since the 1992 crackdown on corruption in politics and business.

Zairian president Mobutu Sese Seko orders army chief of staff General Likulia Bolongo to form a military government. The move effectively ousts Premier Etienne Tshisekedi. In Kinshasa, tens of thousands of Tshisekedi’s supporters clash with troops loyal to Mobutu. . . . . In Angola, 70 UNITA legislators—elected in 1992 during the earlier peace effort—are sworn in as members of Angola’s 220seat parliament.

A court in Berlin, Germany, concludes that a committee of top government officials in Iran orchestrated the 1992 killing of four Iranian Kurds in a Berlin restaurant. The court sentences four of the accused—three from Lebanon, one from Iran—to prison terms ranging from life to five years. Germany suspends its policy of critical dialogue with Iran. Iranian militants launch a series of demonstrations to protest the German court decision.

An unidentified gunman in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, shoots and wounds Alice Collins, an officer of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) police force. The Provisional IRA claims responsibility.

Israeli and PNA security forces cooperate to uncover a West Bank cell of the military wing of the Islamic militant group Hamas. Israel arrests two suspected members of the cell in Surif, a town under direct Israeli jurisdiction. Palestinian police in Hebron take three other cell members into custody.

Negotiators from the EU and the U.S. reach a tentative agreement that delays a likely confrontation over the U.S.’s Helms-Burton Act, which seeks to strengthen the U.S.’s economic embargo of Cuba by punishing foreign companies that invest in Cuba. . . . The IMF approves a new $658 million loan to Bulgaria.

Royal Ulster Constabulary officers raid a farmhouse in Crossmaglen, Northern Ireland, and seize a cache of weapons believed to belong to the IRA. Police arrest seven suspected terrorists. . . . In Italy, a fire damages Turin’s San Giovanni Cathedral and its Guarini Chapel, which houses the Shroud of Turin, believed to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. The shroud, kept inside a silver urn, is not damaged.

The two sides in Angola’s long-running civil war inaugurate a nationalunity government after 19 years of fighting and two and a half years of uneasy peace. Members of the rebel UNITA are sworn in as ministers along with Pres. Jose Eduardo dos Santos’s ruling MPLA.

Hong Kong’s designated future leader, Tung Chee-hwa, reveals specific proposals that will place restrictions on political groups and public protests when China assumes control of the colony from Britain after midnight on June 30. The document, entitled Civil Liberties and Social Order, provides the first details regarding rights limits after the handover.

The 10-month-old government of Indian prime minister H. D. Deve Gowda collapses after losing a confidence vote. . . . The last operating British naval base in Asia, a ship located off Stonecutter’s Island in Hong Kong Harbor, is closed in advance of the colony’s handover from Britain to China.

A London (England) rally organized by dockworkers and environmentalists erupts into a riot as protesters hurl bottles, sticks, and smoke bombs at police officers. Some 200 riot police are deployed to control the crowd. Eight demonstrators are arrested, and four police officers suffer injuries. . . . In Bosnia-Herzegovina, authorities discover a cache of 23 recently planted mines along the planned route for Pope John Paul II’s upcoming visit.

April 12

Asia & the Pacific

Hong Kong’s provisional legislature, a Chinese-appointed body, begins the lawmaking process for the first time. . . . Some 3,000 people gather at a demonstration in Sydney, Australia, to protest the recent formation of a political group, One Nation, founded by Pauline Hanson, a member of Parliament known for her right-wing views on race and immigration.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

April 7–12, 1997—989

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Judge Stanley Sporkin of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., rules that the military violated the free speech and religious rights of its chaplains by barring them from asking members of their congregations to support antiabortion legislation.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California, unanimously upholds the state’s antiaffirmative-action Proposition 209. The voter-approved proposition will bar the state government from relying on race- or gender-based preferences in school admissions, public hiring, and contracting. . . . An Illinois man, John E. Ewing, 37, allegedly throws a Molotov cocktail at Judge George Miller, who dismissed his 1988 lawsuit against a grocery-store chain. The bomb explodes and sets fire to the judge’s courtroom in Urbana, Illinois, injuring four people.

Army officials reveal that two sergeants stationed in Germany— Sergeant First Class Julius Davis and Sergeant Paul Fuller—will face courts-martial on charges of rape and sodomy against 18 female recruits at the Darmstadt military training center near Frankfurt, Germany.

A congressional study finds that many of the guns used in crimes in states with tough gun-control laws are acquired in other states with comparatively lax controls, especially four southern states: Florida, Texas, South Carolina, and Georgia.

Four drill sergeants at the Army’s Fort Jackson basic training post in Columbia, South Carolina, are suspended from duties pending investigation of alleged sexual misconduct.

Judge Thomas P. Jackson of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., strikes down a law that gave the president authority to cancel portions of spending bills after they were passed by Congress, ruling that the line-item veto violates the law-making procedure established by the Constitution. . . . Pres. Clinton announces that the government plans to hire at least 10,000 welfare recipients over the next four years.

Judge David Coar of U.S. District Court in Chicago, Illinois, rules that Bronislaw Hajda, a Polish-born resident of Chicago, participated in the killings of hundreds of Jews as a guard at a Nazi labor camp during World War II. The judge strips Hajda of his U.S. citizenship, clearing the way for federal authorities to begin deportation proceedings.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Pulitzer Prizes are awarded to novelist Steven Millhauser and nonfiction writer Richard Kluger. . . . At the 150th running of Great Britain’s Grand National Steeplechase, longshot Lord Gyllene wins. . . . The Partner, by John Grisham, tops the bestseller list.

The Justice Department and the FTC announce revised merger guidelines that outline how the agencies will weigh mergers’ potential cost savings against antitrust concerns. . . . Reports by the IRS and GAO show that efforts by the IRS to stop its employees from browsing through taxpayers’ income-tax returns have been largely unsuccessful.

The space shuttle Columbia touches down at Cape Canaveral, Florida, curtailing its slated 16-day mission due to equipment problems. . . . Due to concerns over U.S. antiabortion groups’ threats to boycott Hoechst products, French pharmaceutical company Roussel Uclaf S.A. announces that it has donated the non-U.S. patent rights to the drug RU-486, or mifepristone, to Edouard Sakiz, a scientist who helped create the drug. Sakiz states that any profits earned will be invested in medical research.

Pope John Paul II names Francis E. George as the new leader of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago. . . . Laura Nyro (born Laura Nigro), 49, singer and songwriter, dies in Danbury, Connecticut, of ovarian cancer.

Shell Oil Co. unveils a robotic gas pump in Sacramento, California, that allows automobile drivers to fill their gas tanks without leaving their vehicle. . . . The Social Security Administration shuts down an information service operated on the Internet global computer network, citing concerns over the possibility of privacy violations.

James (Yank) Rachell, 87, one of the few blues musicians who specialized in playing the mandolin, dies in Indianapolis, Indiana, of unreported causes. . . . Helene Hanff, 80, writer best known for her 1970 book 84 Charing Cross Road, dies in New York City.

The dollar reaches a 55-month high against the Japanese yen, closing at 127.14 yen. . . . The AFL-CIO establishes a site on the Internet that lets computer users compare their salary with the compensation packages of 100 top CEOs. . . . The House Government Reform and Oversight Committee approves a set of procedural rules granting Rep. Dan Burton (R, Ind.), the committee chairman, virtually unchecked authority to determine the direction of the panel’s inquiry into campaign finance abuses.

April 7

April 8

April 9

April 10

Army officials disclose that Sergeant First Class Tony Cross faces 13 criminal charges of sexual misconduct, including adultery and sodomy, against four women.

April 11

George Wald, 90, biologist whose discoveries first explained the process of human vision and who won the Nobel Prize in 1967, dies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, of unreported causes.

The Hollywood Women’s Political Committee, a fund-raising group whose members are involved in the entertainment industry, votes to disband in protest against the growing influence of money in politics.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 12

990—April 13–18, 1997

April 13

April 14

April 15

April 16

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

In response to the Apr. 10 decision by a German court that Iranian officials had arranged a killing, more than 100,000 Iranian militants rally outside the German embassy in Teheran, the Iranian capital. The protesters shout, “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”

Pope John Paul II holds an outdoor mass in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, appealing to a crowd of some 35,000 to reconcile with their neighbors and to repudiate the religious hatreds that ignited the civil war that ravaged Bosnia from 1992 through 1995. . . . Candidates of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) win election to 41 of the 63 seats in Croatia’s upper house of Parliament, up from the 37 they had previously.

The World Health Organization reveals that a proposed UN airlift of Rwandan Hutu refugees from Zaire will be delayed because 120 cases of cholera, five of them fatal, were recorded at one site, which houses about half of the 100,000 refugees. . . . Mustafa Amin, 83, Egyptian journalist and outspoken critic of Pres. Gamal Abdel Nasser, dies in Cairo of unreported causes.

Eleven hostages who were taken captive Apr. 3 during a prison riot are released from the prison in Valledupar, a town in northern Colombia.

The World Bank pledges to make $6 billion in loans available to Russia over a two-year period in order to smooth the transition to a freemarket economy.

A military tribunal convening in Rome’s Rebibbia prison begins a second trial against accused Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke.

Zairian president Mobutu Sese Seko’s political opposition shuts down Zaire’s capital, Kinshasa, in a general strike called by supporters of Etienne Tshisekedi, a popular pro-democracy politician who served as premier for nearly a week in April. Rebel leader Laurent Kabila claims that his forces have taken Kananga, the capital of West Kasai province.

Ten heavily armed inmates at a prison in Valledupar, a town in northern Colombia, lay down their weapons, ending a standoff that began April 3 with a failed escape attempt.

Chinese diplomats, for the seventh consecutive year, succeed in blocking a draft resolution by the UN Human Rights Commission expressing concern over China’s human-rights record.

Bosnia-Herzegovina’s joint presidency agrees on terms for a new currency to be used in both the Bosnian Serb Republic and the Muslim-Croat federation. . . . Some 1,200 Italian, Spanish, and French peacekeeping troops land at the Albanian port of Durres and at the airport in Albania’s capital, Tirana.

A fire and an ensuing stampede in a crowded tent city at Mina, seven miles (11 km) outside Mecca, the Muslim holy city, kills more than 300 pilgrims. At least 1,300 people are injured in the fire, and the death toll is expected to rise as the more seriously injured pilgrims die. . . . In Zaire, supporters of Etienne Tshisekedi shut down the capital, Kinshasa, in a general strike.

The UN Security Council, after vigorous behind-the-scenes diplomacy, issues a unanimous statement that refrains from either condemning the flight taken by Iraqi aircraft on Apr. 9 or categorizing it as a clear-cut violation of UN sanctions.

Prosecutors in Bavaria announce they have filed a criminal indictment against Felix Somm, the top executive at CompuServe Corp.’s German unit, for distributing pornography and racist propaganda. The indictment against Somm is considered a landmark in Bavaria’s long-running effort to control the distribution of information over the Internet.

Asia & the Pacific

Officials report that radioactive tritium, or heavy water, leaked from a nuclear facility on the Fugen grounds in Japan. The facility is shut down. The corporation did not report the incident until 30 hours after it occurred. . . . In a highly publicized case, Miyuki Monobe, an eight-year-old Japanese girl, dies while awaiting a heart transplant in the U.S. since such surgeries are forbidden in Japan. The only heart transplant operation known to have been carried out in Japan occurred in 1968.

Emilio Azcarraga Milmo, 66, Mexican billionaire who owned Grupo Televisa SA, the world’s largest producer of Spanish-language television programs, dies in Miami, Florida, of cancer.

Chaim Herzog, 78, president of Israel, 1983–93, dies in Tel Aviv, Israel, of heart failure.

April 17

The Americas

A two-month-long march by landless workers ends when the marchers reach Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. The march and a subsequent demonstration, organized by the Landless Movement (MST), is the largest protest against Pres. Fernando Henrique Cardoso since he took office in 1995.

Japan’s state-run PNC admits to having failed to report 11 radiation leaks over the past three years at the Fugen plant, located in the town of Tsuruga. . . . Reports confirm that the South Pacific island of Tokelau, a territory of New Zealand with a population of 1,500, has become the last locale in the world to acquire telephone service. . . . Biju Patnaik, 81, Indian politician and daredevil pilot who was a key participant in India’s struggle for independence from Great Britain, dies in New Delhi of unreported causes.

A Swiss military court acquits Goran Grabez, 32, of charges of war crimes committed at the Serbian Omarska camp. The court orders that Grabez, arrested in 1995 upon seeking asylum in Switzerland, be paid $68,000 in compensation.

April 18

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

April 13–18, 1997—991

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The Justice Department indicates that in 1995 violent crime—not including murder—fell more than 12% from the previous year.

Dorothy Frooks, political activist who became the highest-ranking woman in the U.S. military during World War I and who was a persistent advocate for the poor, dies in New York City.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Golfer Eldrick (Tiger) Woods wins the 61st Masters tournament in Augusta, Georgia, with a score of 270, the lowest in the tournament’s history. He is the first black to win the Masters. . . . Michael Dorris, 52, writer best known for his 1989 book The Broken Cord, dies in Concord, New Hampshire, after apparently suffocating himself with a plastic bag.

Pres. Clinton orders the Justice Department to establish procedures to extend the reach of the 1989 Whistleblower Protection Act to FBI employees. . . . In Edwards v. U.S., the Supreme Court rejects an appeal asserting that the equalprotection rights of blacks are violated by the stiffer federal sentencing guidelines set for crimes involving crack cocaine, versus those set for powder cocaine offenses.

Statistics suggest that the chief executive officers of large U.S. companies earned record gains in pay in 1996. The average of the chiefs’ total compensation in 1996 was $5.78 million, an unprecedented 54% leap over year-earlier levels. . . . In Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S. district judge George Howard Jr. sentences James B. McDougal, a former partner of Pres. Clinton in Whitewater Development Corp., to three years in prison for his role in obtaining some $3 million in fraudulent loans during the mid-1980s.

In Chandler v. Miller, the Supreme Court rules, 8-1, to strike down a Georgia statute that requires political candidates to undergo drug tests before their names appear on ballots. It is the first time that the high court strikes down a government-backed drug-testing program. . . . The Justice Department finds that FBI scientists performed sloppy analytical work and gave “tilted” testimony in a number of high-profile cases. . . . Reports confirm that health officials in St. Louis, Missouri, have identified 62 women and girls between the ages of 12 and 22 who were exposed to HIV by Darnell McGee, who was killed in January.

The Senate approves, 65-34, a bill that will require the federal government to build in Nevada an interim storage facility for thousands of tons of nuclear waste currently held at 80 nuclear facilities across the country. . . . The House, 412-0, and Senate, 97-0, pass bills making unauthorized browsing through confidential taxpayer returns a crime. . . . The dollar climbs to 1.7374 marks, registering a 38month high against the German currency. . . . The House rejects, 233-190, a proposed constitutional amendment that would have mandated a two-thirds majority vote by Congress to raise taxes.

The Connecticut Senate and House of Representatives approve a measure transferring control over the school system in Hartford, the capital, from local authorities to the state government. The takeover of Hartford schools represents the first time the state has taken control of a local school system.

A U.S. District Court jury in Chicago finds former Rep. Mel Reynolds (D, Ill.) guilty on 15 of 16 counts of bank and mortgage fraud. He is also convicted of violating FEC campaign finance laws.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.), in an announcement that surprises Republicans and Democrats alike, reveals that he will pay his $300,000 fine for violating House rules with a loan from former Senate majority leader Robert J. Dole (R, Kans.).

Science, Technology, & Nature

The NHL reports that attendance in the 1996-97 season averaged 16,548 people per game, a 3.5% increase over the previous season. NHL games drew a record total of 17,640,529 fans.

April 13

April 14

April 15

April 16

Pres. Clinton approves a plan to merge two independent foreign policy agencies—the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) and the U.S. Information Agency (USIA)—with the U.S. State Department over two years.

April 17

The North Carolina vacation home of Andrew J. Schindler, president of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., is destroyed by a fire that officials suspect was caused by a cigarette butt.

April 18

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

992—April 19–24, 1997

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

The anticommunist United Democratic Forces (ODS) wins a decisive victory in elections to Bulgaria’s National Assembly.

April 19

In response to planned restrictions on freedom in Hong Kong when the colony reverts to Chinese authority on June 30, hundreds of activists hold a street march in protest.

April 20

April 21

Iraq announces that it will fly helicopters to the Saudi border to pick up “sick and exhausted” pilgrims returning from their hajj, even though the flights violate a U.S.backed ban on airborne Iraqi aircraft in southern Iraq.

April 24

The 750 residents of Emerson, a Canadian town that borders the U.S. along the Red River, are ordered to evacuate in anticipation of flooding. . . . General Andres Rodriguez Pedotti, 72, politician who led a 1989 coup that ended 35 years of military rule in Paraguay, dies in New York City of complications from liver cancer.

Inder Kumar Gujral is sworn in as prime minister by Indian president Shankar Dayal Sharma. . . . A small advance contingent of China’s People’s Liberation Army arrives in Hong Kong, marking the first time in 150 years that Chinese troops have taken up position in the colony. . . . Diosdado P. Macapagal, 86, president of the Philippines, 1961–65, dies in Manila after suffering a heart attack. A nine-year-old illegal immigrant girl, Chung Yeuk-lam, is handcuffed and taken from her Hong Kong home in a televised raid before being deported to China along with her mother. The raid apparently is meant to warn parents seeking to smuggle their Chinese children into Hong Kong before the colony reverts to Chinese sovereignty, from British rule, after midnight on June 30.

Ante Klaric, a Croatian government ombudsman, acknowledges that many Serb refugees have been blocked from going home or have found ethnic Croats living in their homes. It is the first time a Croatian government official admits that rights abuses are taking place in the recaptured areas.

In Algeria, a group armed with hatchets and knives kill 93 villagers, including 43 women and girls in Haouch Mokhfi, 12 miles (20 km) south of Algiers. The attack, attributed to Islamic fundamentalists, is the biggest massacre of civilians reported since the strife began in 1992. . . . Rebel soldiers and local villagers armed with machetes reportedly attack the camps for Rwandan Hutu refugees, sending them fleeing to a deep forest along the Congo River south of Kisangani, a city in the northeast.

Peruvian commandos storm the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima, the capital, freeing 72 hostages held by leftist rebels since December. The raid ends the longest guerrilla siege in Latin American history. All 14 rebels, members of the MRTA, are killed in the raid. One hostage, Peruvian Supreme Court justice Carlos Giusti Acuna, is struck by a stray bullet during the raid and dies after suffering a heart attack on the way to the hospital. Two Peruvian soldiers, Lt. Col. Juan Valer Sandoval and Lt. Raul Jimenez Chavez, are also killed in the raid.

Chinese president Jiang Zemin and Russian president Boris Yeltsin sign a declaration pledging to promote a new world order in which no single country will monopolize international affairs. . . . The European Commission forecasts that, of the EU’s 15 members, only Italy and Greece will have deficits above 3% of GDP in 1997. The IMF, though, predicts six EU countries will have deficits above 3% of GDP for 1997. The IMF projects that Canada’s economy will lead the G-7 countries in growth in 1997 and that Italy will trail the group. IMF statistics place world growth at 4.0% in 1996, and it predicts 4.4% for 1997 and 1998.

A bomb explodes on southern Russia’s rail network in the town of Armavir, killing two people and wounding eight. . . . Denis Charles Scott Compton, 78, widely considered one of the best British cricket players ever, dies in Windsor, England, of complications after hip surgery. . . . Iris Margaret Elsie Lemare, 94, the first professional female conductor in Britain, dies of unreported causes.

Some 10,000 supporters of the Shas movement, comprised predominantly of Jews from North Africa and Arab countries of the Middle East, rally in Jerusalem in defense of the head of the fundamentalist Shas party, Arye Deri, who faces fraud and bribery charges in a scandal involving the appointment of an attorney general.

The Toronto Stock Exchange closes its 145-year-old trading floor. The bourse, Canada’s largest, will henceforth use an automated trading system that links brokers’ computer terminals. . . . All residents of the Red River Valley south of Winnipeg, some 17,000 people, are ordered to evacuate due to flooding.

The presidents of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan sign an agreement to reduce military forces on the former SovietChinese border, which stretches some 5,000 miles (8,000 km).

Ivan Kostov is sworn in as premier of Bulgaria. . . . A court in the Bosnian Serb town of Zvornik sentences three Muslims to 20-year prison terms on charges of murdering four Serbs. Four other Muslims charged with illegal possession of firearms receive one-year sentences. A UN official asserts that the trial presented no conclusive evidence against the accused.

The South African health ministry reports that, at the end of 1996, an estimated 2.4 million people, or 6% of the population, were infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The infection rate is up onethird from 1995 year-end figures, which indicated that 1.8 million South Africans, or 4.6% of the population, were HIV-positive.

April 22

April 23

Asia & the Pacific

In China, at least three people are executed and 27 others are sentenced to prison terms for participating in February riots in the remote Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. . . . Prompted by the Apr. 15 death of Miyuki Monobe, the lower house of Japan’s Diet passes a bill that will make heart transplants possible in Japan.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

April 19–24, 1997—993

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Reports confirm that Denver, Colorado, will be the first of 26 cities to receive antiterrorism training from the U.S. Army. The city, which has the largest concentration of federal workers outside Washington, D.C., was reportedly chosen because of an upcoming summit of the heads of eight leading industrialized nations.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Red River of the North floods Grand Forks, North Dakota, and East Grand Forks, Minnesota, the two worst-hit towns along the swelled river. All 50,000 residents of Grand Forks are ordered to evacuate. A fire destroys at least six buildings and damages at least 11 others in downtown Grand Forks.

April 19

Jean Louis (born Jean Louis Berthault), 89, Hollywood costume designer whose gowns include the one worn by Marilyn Monroe when she sang her famous rendition of “Happy Birthday” to Pres. John F. Kennedy in 1962, dies in Palm Springs, California, of unreported causes.

Henry A. Mucci, 88, World War II U.S. Army colonel, dies in Melbourne, Florida, of unreported causes.

In Blessing v. Freestone, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that a group of women from Arizona cannot sue that state for its ineffective enforcement of federal childsupport laws. . . . Police in rural Sussex County, New Jersey, arrest two teenagers in what appears to be a thrill-seeking slaying of two pizza delivery men in a carefully planned ambush near a deserted house in the hamlet of Franklin, New Jersey.

The ashes of 24 people, including the creator of the TV series Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry, and 1960s drug guru Timothy Leary, are launched into space. . . . Lameck Aguta of Kenya wins the men’s title at the Boston Marathon. In the women’s race, Fatuma Roba of Ethiopia wins.

In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Judge David R. Cashman dismisses involuntary manslaughter charges against Milton Mulholland and Michael Albert, two white police officers accused of killing a black motorist during a 1995 traffic stop. . . . FBI agents in Fort Worth, Texas, arrest four people in an alleged plot to blow up a natural-gas plant and rob an armored car to fund further terrorist activities.

The INS announces that legal immigration rose 27% in 1996. . . . Pres. Clinton imposes a ban prohibiting new U.S. investment in Myanmar, in response to reports of continued human-rights abuses. . . . In a report by Justice Department inspector general Michael Bromwich regarding the Aldrich H. Ames spy case, Bromwich criticizes the FBI and CIA for not cooperating in investigations into the deaths of Russian agents working for both agencies in 1985 and 1986. Ames, sentenced to life in prison in 1994, is believed to have caused the deaths of at least 10 agents spying on Russia for the U.S.

The third-highest-ranking member of the New York City-based Genovese crime family, James (Little Jimmy) Ida, is convicted on racketeering and murder conspiracy charges in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

U.S. Air Force officials confirm that they found wreckage from a missing air force A-10 attack jet that disappeared in the mountains of Colorado Apr. 2.

Opening statements are heard in the trial of Timothy J. McVeigh, the federal government’s chief suspect in the Apr. 19, 1995, bombing of a federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in which a total of 168 people were killed, including 19 children, and more than 500 people were wounded.

The U.S. Senate votes, 74-26, to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), a multilateral treaty mandating disarmament of poisongas weapons. The ratification makes the U.S. a charter member of the treaty.

Vice Pres. Al Gore and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright issue the State Department’s first annual “Environmental Diplomacy” report to mark Earth Day. . . . The Dow closes at 6833, up 173.38 points, which, in terms of single-session point gains, is surpassed only by a rise on Oct. 21, 1987. On a percentage basis, the 2.60% gain is the largest since Dec. 23, 1991. . . . Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr gains a six-month extension of a grand jury investigation after claiming that the panel uncovered “extensive evidence” of possible obstruction of justice.

The Red River crests in Grand Forks, North Dakota, at 54.1 feet (16.5 m).

A jury in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, convicts Dennis and Lorie Nixon, a couple who belong to a Christian faith-healing sect, for allowing their 16-year-old daughter, Shannon Nixon, to die of treatable diabetes. The ruling marks the second such conviction for the couple.

April 20

April 21

April 22

April 23

The campaign committee for Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D, N.J.) admits that it improperly accepted $20,895 from the Mercer County Democratic Committee during a 1994 reelection bid and states that it will pay the same amount to the FEC in restitution.

Doctors at a fertility clinic at UCLA reveal that they ignore successfully performed in vitro fertilization on a 63-year-old woman, who became the oldest-known mother when she gave birth to a healthy baby girl in November 1996. . . . A House committee approves a bill providing $5.5 billion in disaster relief for 22 regions in states affected by flooding.

Pat (Layton) Paulsen, 69, comedian best known for his farcical campaigns for the U.S. presidency that began in 1968, dies in Tijuana, Mexico, while reportedly undergoing treatment for cancer of the brain and colon.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 24

994—April 25–30, 1997

April 25

World Affairs

Europe

The UN General Assembly, convening in an emergency session, votes to condemn Israeli plans to construct the Har Homa settlement in Arab East Jerusalem.

Pope John Paul II visits the Czech Republic on a trip marking the 1,000th anniversary of the martyrdom of St. Adalbert, a missionary who introduced Christianity to Bohemia. . . . Nikolai D. Yegorov, 45, a former Russian nationalities minister who was a proponent of the ultimately unsuccessful strategy to use military force to crush the Chechen uprising, dies after a long illness.

In Algeria, a bomb explodes under a train 10 miles (16 km) south of Algiers, killing 21 passengers.

A bomb explodes on Southern Russia’s rail network in Pyatigorsk, killing two people and wounding 20 others. . . . Business and laborunion leaders formally sign an agreement on national labor reforms in Spain. . . . Peter Murray Taylor (Lord of Gosforth), 66, chief justice of Britain’s second-highest court, the Court of Appeals, 1992–96, dies in Guildford, England, reportedly of cancer.

April 28

The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), a multilateral treaty mandating disarmament of poison gas weapons, goes into effect. A total of 165 countries have signed the CWC since it was opened for signing in 1993.

The U.S. finds that domestic terrorism is “probably a more widespread phenomenon than international terrorism today.” The report cites civil strife in Sri Lanka, Algeria, India, and Pakistan, as well as in the U.S. The report notes that 296 international terrorist attacks were recorded in 1996, the lowest in 24 years. However, 311 people were killed in the 1996 attacks, nearly twice as many as in 1995. The Tamil Tigers and Hamas are the groups that killed the most people in 1996.

Italy’s cabinet approves a plan to end the forced exile of heirs to the Italian throne. The government in 1946 barred heirs to the House of Savoy from entering Italy.

Asia & the Pacific China ratifies the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), a multilateral treaty mandating disarmament of poison-gas weapons.

Peng Zhen, 95, hard-line elder of China’s Communist Party who was one of the last surviving “eight immortals,” leaders of the 1949 communist revolution, dies in Beijing of an unspecified illness. The government reports that 410,000 Algerians have fled the country since 1992. . . . Yemen’s ruling General People’s Congress (GPC) party of Pres. Ali Abdullah Saleh retains solid control of Parliament in elections. A soldier guarding a ballot station in the town of Mukayras, 150 miles (240 km) southeast of Sanaa, the capital, indiscriminately opens fire just prior to the opening of polls, killing five other guards and three civilians.

April 27

April 30

The Americas

Turkish premier Necmettin Erbakan agrees to enact 18 measures to preserve secularism in Turkey.

April 26

April 29

Africa & the Middle East

In Yemen, a journalist is shot to death and four other people are wounded outside a vote-counting location. . . . Samir Mutawe, Jordan’s information minister, reveals that King Hussein will provide haven for Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, the leader of the political wing of Hamas. . . . The UN begins an airlift aimed at repatriating 80,000 Rwandan Hutu refugees stranded in deep forest along the Congo River south of Kisangani, a city in the northeast of Zaire.

Gabriel Figueroa Mateos, 89, Mexican cinematographer who established a definitive style for Mexican films and made some 200 films during his career, dies in Mexico City after suffering a stroke.

Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher presides over a ceremony opening a suspension bridge leading to Hong Kong’s new airport. The 1.3-mile-long, US$900 million structure, the Tsing-Ma Bridge, is the world’s longest road and rail link.

The Panamanian government announces that it has granted political asylum to former Ecuadoran president Abdala Bucaram Ortiz.

A court in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, convicts Budiman Sudjatmiko, leader of the small leftist Indonesian Democratic Party, which is not recognized by the government, of subversion and sentences him to 13 years in prison.

In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, more than 1,000 protesters demonstrate against the sale of Companhia Vale do Rio Doce SA, the state-owned mining company. At least 25 people are injured when protesters clash with police. . . . The Canadian town of Ste. Agathe, which has a population of 500, is flooded when water enters overland as floods along the U.S.-Canadian border continue.

At least 60 people are killed and more than 260 others are injured when a crowded passenger train crashes into another train stopped at a station in Rongjiawan, in China’s central Hunan province. . . . Reports confirm that Chinese police opened fire on a crowd of Muslim protesters trying to block buses that were carrying the rioters who were convicted Apr. 24. Police reportedly killed two Muslims in the incident.

Mexico abolishes the National Institute to Combat Drugs, the government’s main antidrug agency, amid allegations that it is corrupt and inefficient.

Reports from China confirm that the highest-ranking official imprisoned for offenses related to 1989 prodemocracy protests in the capital city of Beijing, Bao Tong, has been released and allowed to go home.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

April 25–30, 1997—995

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Judge William Osteen Sr. rules that the FDA has authority to regulate the distribution, sale, and use of tobacco products. The ruling deals a severe blow to the tobacco industry in its four-decade-long battle to avoid closer government scrutiny of its practices. However, the court rejects the FDA’s assertion that it has jurisdiction over tobacco advertising.

The army discloses that three officers at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas— Second Lieutenant Trevor Gordon, Major Eddie Brenham, and Captain Ivan Brown—were discharged and sentenced to prison terms for sexual misconduct. . . . The U.S. indicates it will provide the same treatment to Hong Kong residents who hold the colony’s post-handover passports as it does for those who hold the current British passports.

According to the Justice Department, the federal government spent nearly $60,000 to reimburse lawyers hired by White House employees who testified before Congress in 1996 concerning the firing of seven travel office employees and its improper requisition of confidential FBI files.

Time magazine settles a $3.5 million lawsuit against on-line service provider CompuServe Corp., filed when the computer service dropped its Time Online magazine service. . . . An FCC auction for wirelessservice licenses closes after raising only $13.6 million. FCC officials characterize the event as the most disappointing auction held in recent years.

Nancy Claster, 82, best known as Miss Nancy from the long-running children’s TV program Romper Room, 1953–64, dies in Baltimore, Maryland, of unreported causes.

Joey Faye (born Joseph Palladino), 87, comedian and actor known for his part in vaudeville duos, dies in Englewood, New Jersey, of unreported causes.

Three members of the Republic of Texas, a group that claims Texas was illegally annexed by the U.S. in 1845, begin a standoff by taking Joe and Margaret Ann Rowe hostage. . . . In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the President’s Summit for America’s Future, a series to promote volunteerism nationwide, opens. Several thousand people protest the summit, arguing that, although volunteerism is noble, it cannot make up for federal cutbacks.

Scientists at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, D.C., confirm that human remains found at the crash site of an A-10 attack jet are those of Captain Craig Button, who broke formation during a training exercise on Apr. 2.

The Republic of Texas group releases the Rowes, taken hostage Apr. 27, when negotiators agree to hand over Robert Scheidt, a member arrested on trespassing and weapons charges. . . . In Timmons v. Twin Cities Area New Party, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that the state of Minnesota may bar individuals from running for political office as candidates on more than one party ticket. . . . In Bryan County Board of Commissioners v. Brown, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that a county in Oklahoma is not liable to pay damages to a woman who was a victim of police brutality there.

Arceli Keh, a resident of Highland, California, identifies herself as the 63-year-old woman who became the oldest-known mother ever in November 1996.

Pres. Clinton names three people to a nine-member commission that will examine the economic and social effects of gambling. . . . The U.S. Sentencing Commission recommends narrowing the discrepancy between federal sentences for crack cocaine offenses and those for crimes involving powdered cocaine, which is a retreat from its 1995 position.

An army court-martial jury convicts a former drill instructor, Staff Sergeant Delmar G. Simpson, of raping six women trainees under his command in 1995 and 1996. The rape convictions are the first in an investigation into alleged widespread sexual misconduct by instructors at the army’s Ordnance Center and School at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.

Judge Jack B. Weinstein of U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York, throws out a verdict against Digital Equipment Corp. that awarded $5.3 million to Patricia Geressy, who suffers from repetitive-stress injury, and orders a new trial in the case. He also throws out a $302,000 award to a third coplaintiff, Jill Jackson, because the statute of limitations has expired. . . . The Dow closes at 6962.03 up 179.01 points, the second-highest gain on record.

Judge Barrington D. Parker Jr. of U.S. District Court in White Plains, New York, sentences Rita Gluzman to life imprisonment without parole on federal spousal-abuse charges for the 1996 axe slaying of her husband, Yakov Gluzman. Rita Gluzman is the first woman tried under the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, designed primarily to prosecute abusive husbands who travel across state lines. She is the first defendant of either sex tried under the law in a homicide case.

The U.S. State Department’s report on terrorism lists seven countries that it alleges support terrorism and are therefore not eligible for U.S. military or economic aid. The countries are Iran, Iraq, Cuba, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria.

The Senate votes, 85-13, to confirm Alexis Herman as secretary of labor. . . . The Treasury Department, after tallying 1996 tax-return revenues, predicts that the federal deficit for fiscal 1997 will fall to $75 billion—the lowest budget deficit relative to the size of the economy since 1974. . . . The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. gross domestic product grew at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.6% in the first quarter of 1997.

Judge Jim Dwyer of Frederick County Court in Maryland sentences Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, a Nobel Prize–winning scientist, to 18 months in prison for sexually abusing a teenage boy he brought from Micronesia to live with him in the U.S.

April 26

April 27

An NCAA study finds that funding for women’s collegiate athletic programs increased over the last five years but has not gained full equity with men’s programs. . . . Pretend You Don’t See Her by Mary Higgins Clark tops the bestseller list.

Data from Fortune 500 suggests that the 500 largest U.S. companies in 1996 recorded their fourth straight year in which earnings grew faster than revenues, 23.3% and 8.3%, respectively, Aggregate profits for the 500 top companies came to $300.911 billion, while aggregate revenues were $5.077 trillion.

April 25

Mike Royko, 64, Chicago-based journalist known for championing the causes of working people and the poor, dies in Chicago Illinois, after suffering a brain aneurysm.

In the TV series Ellen, the character played by Ellen DeGeneres reveals that she is a lesbian, becoming the first lead character in a TV series to openly acknowledge her homosexuality. . . . Residents of Concord, Massachusetts, vote to contribute $160,000 toward the purchase of the birthplace of Henry David Thoreau from a private owner.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 28

April 29

April 30

996—May 1–6, 1997

World Affairs

May 1

May 2

May 3

Europe

The Americas

Britain’s opposition Labour Party routs the ruling Conservative (Tory) Party, winning a 179-seat majority in the House of Commons. Labour Party leader Tony Blair will replace P.M. John Major, ending 18 years of Tory rule. . . . Miners in the eastern Russian city of Vladivostok strike to protest their growing wage arrears. . . . Bo Widerberg, 66, Swedish film director, dies in Angelholm, Sweden, after a long illness.

In Canada, the Red River crests in Winnipeg, the provincial capital, but the city is saved from major damage due to a floodway built in 1968 and the recently constructed Brunkild dike.

In Turkey, about 50 unidentified gunmen enter the Istanbul studios of a television station and fire dozens of shots while berating employees for broadcasting an interview critical of Deputy Premier Tansu Ciller. No injuries are reported.

Reports confirm that Peru has charged five generals and 14 other police officials with negligence and disobedience for intelligence and security lapses that led to the rebels’ successful takeover of the ambassador’s residence. . . . Some 200 leftist rebels of the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union (UNRG) in the Sacol disarmament camp turn in their weapons, as agreed in a December 1996 peace agreement. The weapons turnover ends a two-month-long rebel disarmament program.

Prince Napoleon (Louis Jerome Victor-Emmanuel Leopold Marie Bonaparte), 83, great-great nephew of Emperor Napoleon I, dies in Switzerland of unreported causes . . . . Sir John Junor, 78, renowned British newspaper editor and columnist, dies in London of unreported causes. . . . Narciso Garcia Yepes, 69, Spanish guitarist, dies in Murcia, Spain, of cancer. . . . Hugh Hughes (Hughie) Green, 77, British entertainer and child star, dies in London, England, of cancer.

The village of Grande Pointe, near Winnipeg, Canada, floods.

Chechen separatist rebel Salman Raduyev, who states he was injured in a Apr. 9 bomb, claims responsibility for the Apr. 23 and Apr. 28 bombings in Russia. . . . A presidential commission finds that Russia faces a demographic crisis caused by a decline in the number of births and a rise in the death rate. Only 1.4 million Russians were born in 1995, while 2.2 million died. Russia’s death rate is the highest in Europe and surpasses that of many Asian and African countries.

May 4

Africa & the Middle East

May 5

May 6

Ninety-one Rwandan refugees suffocate or are crushed to death on an overcrowded train to Kisangani, Zaire.

Asia & the Pacific

Reports indicate that more than 700,000 of Taiwan’s pigs have died of hoof-and-mouth disease. . . . Statistics reveal that Japan’s average monthly unemployment rate in the 1996–97 fiscal year marked a post– World War II high.

An official from Calgary, Canadabased Bre-X Minerals Ltd. reveals that an independent report shows that the highly touted Busang gold lode in Indonesia’s East Kalimantan province is a hoax. . . . More than 50,000 demonstrators lay down on the boulevard in front of the presidential office in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, to protest what they call the government’s failure to protect its citizens from crime. The protesters demand Premier Lien Chan’s resignation.

PNA justice minister Freih Abu Medein reveals that Palestinians convicted of land sales to Jews will be sentenced to death. . . . World Food Program officials report that some 50,000 Hutu refugees emerged near the Congo River town of Mbandaka, close to the western border with the Republic of the Congo. The previously unknown group traversed the breadth of Zaire on foot, a distance of more than 800 miles (1,300 km).

U.S. president Bill Clinton makes his first visit as president to Mexico, Costa Rica, and the Caribbean island nation of Barbados.

In response to the May 4 disclosure in Indonesia, Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold Inc. of the U.S. and Indonesia’s PT Nusantara Ampera Bakti (Nusamba), partners with Bre-X in the development of the alleged Busang lode, withdraw from the joint venture. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and BreX announce separate probes into the Busang hoax.

At the town of Kenge, 120 miles (190 km) east of Kinshasa, Zaire, government troops and UNITA fighters battle ADFL forces in some of the fiercest fighting of the rebellion.

Despite protests, Brazil sells a controlling stake in Companhia Vale do Rio Doce SA, the state-owned mining company, to a consortium led by Brazilian steelmaker Companhia Siderurgica Nacional SA. The privatization is the largest ever in Latin America. . . . U.S. president Bill Clinton, in an unprecedented move, meets with leaders of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) and the left-wing Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), Mexico’s two main opposition parties.

Former Indian prime minister P. V. Narasimha Rao is charged with criminal conspiracy and bribery in a four-year-old vote-buying scandal. The ruling makes Rao the first Indian prime minister ever to be indicted on criminal charges. . . . Wijayananda Dahanayake, 94, prime minister from September 1959 to March 1960 of what was then Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), dies of unreported causes.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

May 1–6, 1997—997

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The Ohio District Court of Appeals rules that a program of distributing vouchers that poor families may use to send children to private religious schools is unconstitutional. . . . John Ramsey and Patricia Ramsey strongly deny any involvement in the 1996 death of their daughter, JonBenet Ramsey. The murder of JonBenet Ramsey, who was named Little Miss Colorado in 1995, has received much media attention. Robert Allen Stillman, a 25-yearold white man, becomes the first person convicted under a 1996 federal law targeting racially motivated church arson when he pleads guilty in U.S. District Court in Dallas, Texas. His codefendant, Randall Elliott Moore, 22, pleads guilty to charges of arson and conspiracy to violate civil rights. . . . Hundreds of youths in Boulder, Colorado, clash with police after firefighters arrive to put out a bonfire reportedly set by University of Colorado students. . . . Audley Eloise (Queen Mother) Moore, 98, civil-rights activist, dies in New York City of unreported causes.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Abraham J. Hirschfeld, a NYC millionaire, is charged with numerous counts of tax fraud for failing to pay more than $2.2 million in state income taxes between 1988 and 1995. . . . The House approves, 262-157, a bill authorizing $149.9 million to fund 18 of the chamber’s 20 committees. . . . The CBO estimates that spending shortfalls will be about $225 billion less over the next five years than predicted. A former army soldier and alleged neo-Nazi, Malcolm Wright Jr., is convicted of two counts of firstdegree murder in the deaths of a black couple, Jackie Burden and Michael James, in Fayetteville. North Carolina, in 1995.

The White House and Republican congressional leaders announce that they have reached an agreement to balance the federal budget by 2002. The historic deal includes tax cuts and reductions in discretionary spending favored by Republicans and funding increases for education, welfare, and health insurance for children backed by Pres. Clinton. . . . The Labor Department reports that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the U.S. plunged to 4.9% in April, from the previous month’s 5.2% rate. The April figure is the nation’s lowest unemployment rate since December 1973.

May 1

Sir John Carew Eccles, 94, Australian neurophysiologist who shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1963 for research that explained how electrical currents stimulate human nerve cells, dies in Contra, Switzerland.

The Republic of Texas, an armed separatist group founded on the belief that Texas was illegally annexed by the U.S. in 1845, ends the standoff started Apr, 27 in the remote Davis Mountains of southwestern Texas. A total of six members of the group, including its leader, Richard L. McLaren, surrender to police. Two group members flee into the mountains.

May 2

Silver Charm wins the 123rd running of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky.

The confrontation that started May 2 between hundreds of youths in Boulder, Colorado, and police calms. During the incident, 11 people were arrested and 20 were injured.

FBI director Louis J. Freeh reveals that the evidence uncovered so far in the 1996 downing of TWA Flight 800 off Long Island, New York, points to “catastrophic mechanical failure.”

May 3

May 4

A state circuit court jury in Jacksonville, Florida, finds that R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. does not owe punitive and compensatory damages to the family of Jean Connor, a woman who smoked for 34 years and died in 1995 at the age of 49 of lung cancer.

The Virginia Military Institute announces that at least 24 women offered places at the school will attend. They will be the first female cadets in the military academy’s 157-year history. . . . Responding to Jordan’s Apr. 30 decision to provide haven, the U.S. deports Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, the leader of the political wing of Hamas, to Jordan, after having held him for more than 21 months in a federal prison in New York City.

Statistics suggest that the net incomes of large U.S. companies rose 17.6% in the first quarter of 1997, compared with results from the corresponding period a year earlier. Net income in the January–March period for the 707 firms surveyed totaled $86.262 billion.

Murray Kempton, 79, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist best known for his socially conscious commentary, dies in New York City of a heart attack; he also suffered from pancreatic cancer.

Mike Matson, 48, who fled when the Republic of Texas, an armed group, ended its standoff with police May 3, is killed in a shoot-out with police. . . . A jury in WinstonSalem, North Carolina, spares Thomas R. Jones from the death penalty in what is believed to be the first case in which prosecutors sought a death sentence for homicides caused by impaired driving. Judge William H. Freeman sentences him to two concurrent life terms without parole for the September 1996 deaths of Maia Witzl and Julie Hansen, both aged 19.

A military jury sentences Staff Sergeant Delmar G. Simpson to 25 years in prison for raping six trainees under his charge at the army’s Ordnance Center and School at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the nation’s largest teachers’ union after the National Education Association, elects Sandra Feldman to succeed the late Albert Shanker as president.

Inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame include the Bee Gees, Buffalo Springfield, the Jackson Five, Joni Mitchell, the Rascals, and Crosby, Stills and Nash. . . . Sydney J(oseph) Freedberg, 82, who, in 1988, became the first and, to date, the only art historian to receive a National Medal of Arts, dies of cardiac arrest and renal failure in Washington, D.C.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 5

May 6

998—May 7–12, 1997

World Affairs

May 7

May 8

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia convicts Dusan Tadic, a Bosnian Serb, of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the slaying of two Muslim policemen. It is the tribunal’s first contested conviction, and Tadic is the first person to be tried on war-crimes charges since Drazen Erdemovic, a Croat, pled guilty in November 1996 to atrocity charges.

The heads of state of the U.S., Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, and the Dominican Republic hold a summit.

May 9

Asia & the Pacific Two 18-year-old twins, Sarah Ingham and Joanne Ingham, who stowed away on a container ship and later jumped overboard to avoid arrest on an array of charges, are discovered alive by police in the Australian town of Coen after reportedly surviving for 18 hours in shark-infested waters and 17 days in the wilderness.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin lays the foundation for the reconstruction of the chapel of St. Boris and St. Gleb, which, in 1930, was torn down under the rule of Joseph Stalin . . . . The eastern Russian city of Vladivostok declares a state of emergency amid power cuts and a lack of fuel after miners struck on May 1. . . . Pakistani shipping magnate Abbas Gokal is sentenced to 14 years in prison for defrauding BCCI customers of £750 million ($1.2 billion). It is the largest prison sentence ever handed down by a British court in a corporate fraud case.

Jordanian and Israeli leaders, meeting in the Jordanian Red Sea coastal city of Aqaba, overcome a dispute that erupted between the two countries over water-sharing agreements.

Officials reveal that Russian president Boris Yeltsin has approved a new Russian nuclear policy that allows Russia to respond with nuclear weapons in case of an attack by conventional forces. . . . Armed separatist rebels advocating political independence for Venice, in northern Italy, occupy a bell tower in the city’s St. Mark’s Square for seven hours. . . . Marco Ferreri, 68, Italian film director known for his bizarre sense of humor, dies in Paris France, of a heart attack.

Lebanon’s Judicial Council, the country’s highest court, sentences Samir Geagea, who commanded the Christian Lebanese Forces during the civil war, to death. The court immediately commutes Geagea’s sentence to life imprisonment. Geagea, who is already serving two life sentences, is the only militia leader from the war to be prosecuted. . . . In the West Bank city of Ramallah, land dealer Farid Bashiti, 70, is found dead by a roadside with his skull crushed and his hands tied behind his back.

More than 200 Mexico City police officers riot in the streets of that city, protesting impending transfers and a recent increase in the use of the military in police functions. The officers throw rocks and bottles at a force of some 1,000 fellow officers, who respond with clubs and tear gas. At least 17 people are arrested, and dozens of others are injured in the riots.

A China Southern Airlines Boeing 737 crash-lands on a runway at Huangtian Airport in the southern city of Shenzhen, killing at least 30 people and injuring more than 20 others. . . . In Japan, the lower house of the Diet unanimously adopts legislation that will protect and promote the culture and traditions of the Ainu ethnic minority.

In Haiti, the closing of a school prompts teachers to go on strike. The teachers, who are employed by the government, also protest that they have not been paid in some 14 months.

Indian prime minister Inder Kumar Gujral and Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif hold a landmark meeting in the Maldives on the disputed Kashmir region, over which the two countries have fought two wars since they were partitioned in 1947.

A powerful earthquake kills an estimated 2,400 people and injures at least 6,000 others in northeastern Iran. The quake measures 7.1 on the Richter scale and is centered near the town of Qayen in Khorasan Province, a remote mountainous farming region near the border with Afghanistan. . . . Pope John Paul II visits Lebanon, marking his first trip to the Middle East as pope and the first to the region by any pope since Pope Paul VI visited Israel and Jordan in 1964.

May 10

An estimated 300,000 people gather in Sultanahmet Square in Istanbul, Turkey’s capital, to rally in defense of Islamic fundamentalism.

May 11

Pope John Paul II holds an outdoor mass near Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, on a landfill of rubble from war-ravaged buildings. The service draws the largest gathering in Lebanon’s history as more than 300,000 people reportedly attend.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin and Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov sign a peace treaty that sidesteps the question of independence for the secessionist-minded Chechen republic. . . . Ethnic Croat mobs in central Croatia begin beating and forcing Serbs out of their homes. . . . The Switzerland-based Bank for International Settlements (BIS) confirms that it had held at least 13.5 tons (12.2 metric tons) of gold that Nazi Germany looted from the central banks of European countries. The BIS claims it gave the looted gold to allied nations responsible for returning stolen World War II-era gold.

May 12

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

May 7–12, 1997—999

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

In McAlester, Oklahoma, Scott Dawn Carpenter, 22, becomes the youngest person executed in the U.S. since 1976. He is the 379th pers on executed in the U.S. and the ninth in Oklahoma since 1976. . . . The U.S. House votes, 286-132, to pass a bill allocating $1.5 billion over three years as an incentive for states to try violent juvenile offenders as adults. . . . Arthur J. Hanes Sr., 80, attorney known for representing whites accused of committing racially motivated crimes, dies in Birmingham, Alabama, of unreported causes.

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Robert C. Kim, a former civilian intelligence analyst for the U.S. Navy, pleads guilty in U.S. District Court in Arlington, Virginia, to a charge of conspiracy to commit espionage. . . . Sergeant Major Gene McKinney, the army’s highestranking enlisted soldier, is formally charged with sexual misconduct and indecent assault involving three enlisted women in the army and one in the navy.

The Labor Department reports that the nation’s overall productivity in nonfarm business sectors jumped by a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 2% in the first quarter of 1997 from the fourth quarter of 1996. The first-quarter growth marks the highest productivity rate in three years. . . . The AMEX begins quoting share prices in increments of onesixteenth of a dollar, or 6.25 cents, rather than in one-eighths of a dollar, or 12.5 cents.

A military judge at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri sentences Staff Sergeant Steve A. Holloway, 32, to a bad-conduct discharge, reduction in rank to private, and four months’ confinement for forcing a kiss on a female trainee, engaging in consensual sex with another, and making sexual comments.

The Senate approves, 78-22, an $8.4 billion emergency spending bill that includes $5.5 billion for disaster relief and $2 billion for international peace-keeping efforts. . . . Reports confirm that the late millionaire Jack Kent Cooke left the bulk of his estimated $825 million fortune to be used to create the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, which will reward youths “for unusual intelligence, application, deportment and character.”

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Former Detroit Tigers pitcher Denny McLain, who won the Cy Young award in 1968 and 1969, is sentenced to eight years in jail for stealing $3 million from the pension plan of a company he owned.

A study links the high incidence of asthma among inner-city children to their allergies to proteins found in cockroach excretions.

Eugene K. H. Lum and his wife, Nora T. Lum sign a plea bargain under which they plead guilty to charges that they participated in a scheme to funnel some $50,000 to Democratic candidates in 1994 and 1995.

May 8

Robert Simon Devaney, 82, football coach who built the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers into a powerhouse, dies in Lincoln, Nebraska, of cardiac arrest. He had suffered a stroke in March 1995.

Joanie Weston, 62, famed star of the popular Roller Derby roller skating competitions in the 1950s and 1960s, dies in Hayward, California, of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rare brain disorder.

Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov is defeated in a rematch with IBM's Deep Blue chess computer in New York City. It is the first time that a chess champion is beaten by a computer in a traditional match. A jury in Wilmington, North Carolina, sentences a white former army soldier and alleged neo-Nazi, Malcolm Wright Jr., to life in prison without parole for his part in the slaying of a black couple, Jackie Burden and Michael James, in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 1995.

In Inter-Modal Rail Employees Association v. Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Co., the Supreme Court rules unanimously that employers cannot discharge staff and contract out their jobs in order to cut down on the costs of health insurance and other employee benefits.

The FAA announces that it will require ice-detection equipment to be installed on all 220 Embraer EMB-120 turboprop aircraft flying in the U.S. It is the first time the FAA mandates ice-detection equipment for any aircraft model.

May 7

Australian long-distance swimmer Susie Maroney completes a swim across the Florida Straits, from Cuba to Fort Zachary Taylor Beach on the U.S.’s Key West. Maroney, 22, claims to be the first person to accomplish the 110-mile (180-km) swim unassisted.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 9

May 10

May 11

May 12

1000—May 13–18, 1997

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

A bomb explodes in Beijing, the Chinese capital, in a park located near top leaders’ offices. The blast kills one person. Police contend that the bombing was a suicide by the person killed, a migrant worker.

May 13

May 14

May 15

Russian foreign minister Yevgeny M. Primakov and Javier Solana Madariaga, secretary general of NATO, agree on terms of a new treaty between the alliance and Russia. The pact will permit NATO to add Central and Eastern European states to its current roster of 16 members. In a concession, Solana promises not to deploy nuclear weapons on new members’ soil. . . . Trade ministers of 34 countries hold the Americas Business Forum to discuss the future of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), first proposed in 1994.

Turkish forces launch an offensive in northern Iraq against Kurdish rebels seeking autonomy for Turkey’s Kurds. . . . Reports confirm that that more than 100 Serbs have been beaten by ethnic Croat mobs in central Croatia and forced out of their homes since May 12.

Reports confirm that the World Bank has lent $93 million to Croatia in order to help the country’s banks restructure.

The Soros Foundation, an international group that supports educational, medical, and ecological programs, announces that it will cease operating in Belarus after a series of tax disputes.

The remains of Juvenal Habyarimana, the former Hutu president of Rwanda who died in 1994, are cremated in Kinshasa, Zaire, on orders from Zairian president Mobutu Sese Seko—reportedly to stop rebels from desecrating the body. . . . Saadallah Wannous, 56, Syrian playwright whose work often includes commentary on the ArabIsraeli conflict, dies in Damascus, Syria, of cancer.

The U.S. drug company G. D. Searle and Co. launches the first pharmaceutical factory in Russia to be built to international standards. The $30 million factory, in Izvarino outside Moscow, will open in 1999.

Zairian president Mobutu Sese Seko, facing a final rebel assault on the capital, Kinshasa, relinquishes power, ending nearly 32 years of dictatorial rule over Africa’s thirdlargest country. Mobutu, 66, who is stricken by cancer, quietly leaves Kinshasa after three senior generals tell him they can no longer defend the city. The Mobutu government crumbles as high-level officials flee across the Congo River to Brazzaville, capital of the neighboring Republic of the Congo.

Reports disclose that a court in Moscow has convicted Moisei Finkel of treason for spying for the U.S. and sentenced him to a 12year prison term.

Laurent Kabila, a veteran guerrilla fighter who led the rebels’ sevenmonth offensive in Zaire, declares himself head of state and changes the country’s name to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The first columns of rebel troops, numbering up to 1,500 men, enter Kinshasa, where some residents express jubilation at Mobutu’s overthrow. . . . The body of Harbi Abu Sara, a Palestinian purportedly involved in land deals, is found dead in Ramallah in the West Bank after being shot in the head.

May 16

May 17

May 18

Asia & the Pacific

Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui implements a partial reshuffle of his cabinet in response to a public uproar over crime in the nation. . . . In New Zealand, Parliament’s select privileges committee finds Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters guilty of assaulting MP John Banks during a dispute in March. The committee report calls on Peters to apologize to Parliament for his actions but does not conclude that Peters is in contempt of Parliament.

In Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, riots break out between students and police. More than 300 students, protesting a teachers’ strike that began on May 12, occupy the school, and rioters vandalize cars and set fires, forcing the closure of businesses. Five people are seriously injured in the riots.

Hong Kong’s chief executive designate, Tung Chee-hwa, announces revisions that ease his future government’s planned restrictions on political groups and public protests when China assumes control of the colony from Britain after midnight on June 30.

Reports indicate that a court in Dalian, China, has sentenced four people for their roles in a gunsmuggling operation in which some 2,000 fully automatic AK-47 rifles were shipped illegally to the U.S. The court gave Qi Feng, accused of being the ringleader, a 14-year jail sentence. The other three defendants, all Norinco employees, received jail sentences ranging from three to four years.

The Organization of African Unity (OAU) acknowledges Laurent Kabila’s May 17 victory in Zaire. UN secretary general Kofi Annan urges Kabila to respect the “choice and voice” of the people.

Natsagiin Bagabandi, chair of the opposition Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP), ousts the incumbent, Punsalmaagiyn Ochirbat, in presidential elections.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

May 13–18, 1997—1001

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The Indiana Court of Appeals rules unanimously that incarcerating juveniles with adults violates the state’s constitution and orders prison authorities to transfer a 16year-old girl, Donna Ratliff, to a facility for juveniles. . . . The House passes, 420-3, a bill designed to improve the teaching of disabled students and to increase schools’ power to discipline such students.

Randy Lee Meadows Jr., who served at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, with Malcolm Wright Jr. and James N. Burmeister, is sentenced to three years’ probation as part of a plea bargain for his part in the killing of Jackie Burden and Michael James, a black couple, in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 1995.

In Washington, D.C., U.S. district judge Ricardo M. Urbina fines California-based Sun Diamond Growers, the nation’s largest food cooperative, $1.5 million for giving illegal gifts to former agriculture secretary Mike Espy and making illegal campaign donations to his brother, Henry Espy.

In Media, Pennsylvania, Judge Patricia Jenkins sentences chemicals-fortune heir John E. du Pont to 13–30 years in prison for the January 1996 slaying of Olympic wrestler Dave Schultz. Du Pont, 58, will serve some of the sentence in prison and some in a mental hospital.

The House votes, 293-132, to approve a measure that will overhaul the nation’s public housing system.

The U.S. Senate unanimously agrees to ratify changes to the 1990 treaty governing Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE). The new changes will allow Russia to shift more of its forces to its northern and southern flanks.

The FTC rejects a proposed merger between Northern States Power Co. of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Wisconsin Energy Corp. of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, citing concern that they will dominate the upper midwestern power market. It is the first time the commission rejects a utilities merger for such a reason. . . . The Labor Department reports that the federal government’s index of prices charged by manufacturers and farmers for finished goods dropped a seasonally adjusted 0.6% in April from March. It is the largest onemonth drop in nearly four years.

Canada wins the world hockey championship, defeating Sweden, 2-1, in the final game of a best-twoof-three-games series in Helsinki, Finland. . . . Harry Blackstone Jr., 62, magician who followed in the footsteps of his father, the “Great Blackstone,” dies in Loma Linda, California, of pancreatic cancer.

The House Ethics Committee announces that House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.) will pay with his own money half of a $300,000 fine levied against him for violating ethics rules. The remaining amount may be paid with a loan from former senator Robert J. Dole (R, Kans.). Gingrich’s April plan of allowing Dole to pay the entire fine came under criticism from both parties.

Pres. Clinton makes an official apology to survivors and family members of the 399 black men from Tuskegee, Alabama, whose syphilis went untreated for decades as part of a federally funded study. Clinton states that the government will attempt to compensate by providing a $200,000 grant to Tuskegee University to establish a bioethics research center. . . . Harry Charles Moore, 56, condemned for two 1992 murders, is put to death by lethal injection in Salem, Oregon. He is only the second person in Oregon and the 381st person in the U.S. to be executed since 1976.

The House passes, 244-178, an $8.4 billion emergency spending bill that includes $5.5 billion for disaster relief and $2 billion for international peace-keeping efforts. . . . The Clinton administration announces that federal minimum-wage laws will apply to welfare recipients participating in work programs.

Elbridge C. Durbrow, 93, diplomat whose 38-year career was distinguished by service in hostile communist regions, dies in Walnut Creek, California, after suffering a stroke.

Science, Technology, & Nature

The space shuttle Atlantis blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission to deliver essential supplies and equipment to the Russian Mir space station.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Thelma Carpenter, 77, singer who fronted jazz bands in the 1930s and 1940s, dies in New York City of unreported causes. . . . Laurie Lee, 82, British poet and novelist, dies in Gloucestershire, England, of unreported causes.

Atlantis successfully docks at the Mir space station.

May 14

May 15

May 16

The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded to Gina Berriault, author of Women in Their Beds, who, in March, won the National Book Critics Circle fiction award. . . . Silver Charm wins the 122nd running of the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland.

A second-floor balcony collapses at a graduation ceremony at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, killing one spectator and injuring 18 others.

May 13

Golfer Chris Johnson wins the LPGA Championship at the Dupont Country Club in Rockland, Delaware. . . . In France, the 50th annual Cannes Film Festival awards the Palme d’Or to two films: Taste of Cherries, by Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami; and Unagi (The Eel), by Japanese director Shohei Imamura.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 17

May 18

1002—May 19–24, 1997

World Affairs

China declares that countries that do not have diplomatic relations with the mainland government will not be allowed to keep consulates in Hong Kong after the sovereignty shift. The move is directed at the approximately 30 countries that recognize Taiwan, which China considers a renegade Chinese province.

May 21

May 22

May 23

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Statistics show that 28,000 residents of the Red River Valley in Manitoba, Canada, were evacuated in late April due to the region’s worst floods of the century. Three people died and more than 800 properties suffered damage. . . . Canada’s federal government partly reopens commercial cod fisheries off Newfoundland’s south coast and in the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence for the first time in five years.

A powerful cyclone with winds reaching 125 miles per hour (200 kmph) hits the southern coast of Bangladesh. . . . A court in Thailand orders that Li Yung Chung be extradited to the U.S., where he faces drug-smuggling charges. . . . Jerry Wolf Stuchiner. who held the topranking U.S. immigration post in Hong Kong until 1994, is sentenced in Hong Kong to three months in jail for possessing material to make false passports.

A Turkish military report claims that 1,300 rebels and only 14 government troops have been killed to date in the fighting that started May 14.

Colombia’s Constitutional Court votes to legalize euthanasia but imposes strict guidelines on the practice. The ruling makes Colombia the only country in the world to allow euthanasia. . . . In Argentina, thousands of laid-off sugar workers block a major highway, demanding jobs and government aid. Some 100 protesters are injured when police fire rubber bullets and tear gas into the crowd. . . . Virgilio Barco Vargas, 75, former president of Colombia, 1986–90, dies in Bogota of stomach cancer.

The death toll from the May 19 cyclone on the southern coast of Bangladesh reaches 108 people, with some 1,500 fishermen reported missing. More than 8,000 people were injured in the cyclone, and an estimated 400,000 homes were destroyed.

Representatives of the British government meet with leaders of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Provisional IRA, for the first time since February 1996.

In Mexico, thousands of dissident members of the teachers’ union protest in the streets of Mexico City against a wage agreement between union leadership and the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). . . . The Brazilian Senate gives preliminary approval to a constitutional amendment that will allow presidents, state governors, and mayors to run for second consecutive terms.

Reports suggest that Australia’s Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission condemned the government for instituting policies from 1910 to 1970 that resulted in the forced removal of as many 100,000 aborigine children from their families.

Reports suggest that, in the offensive launched May 14 by Turkish forces against Kurdish rebels, the KDP seized PKK offices in the southern town of Irbid and executed a number of the separatists that they initially detained there. . . . The Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party takes control of the city council of Zagreb, the Croatian capital, when two members of the Peasants Party defect to the HDZ, giving it 26 of the 50 council seats.

May 19

May 20

Europe

The local Red Cross reveals that 222 people, mostly soldiers loyal to former Zairian president Mobutu Sese Seko, were killed during the May 17–18 rebel takeover of Zaire.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin fires Defense Minister Igor Rodionov and Viktor N. Samsonov, the chief of the Russian army’s general staff. He names First Deputy Premiers Anatoly B. Chubais and Boris Y. Nemtsov to his Security Council.

Laurent Kabila, self-appointed president of the newly named Democratic Republic of the Congo, names 13 ministers to a new transitional government.

The Colombian Senate passes a watered-down version of a bill that will amend the constitution to allow for the extradition of citizens to face trial in foreign countries. . . . The Venezuelan Supreme Court decides to extradite fugitive Colombian drug lord Justo Pastor Perafan to the U.S. after the U.S. stipulated that he will not face sentences of the death penalty or life imprisonment, in accordance with Venezuelan law.

Gen. Igor Sergeyev is named the head of Russia’s strategic rocket forces.

Mohammed Khatami, a moderate cleric, is elected president in Iran by a surprising landslide margin. . . . In the newly named Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1,000 supporters of Etienne Tshisekedi march in Kinshasa to protest Laurent Kabila’s May 22 cabinet appointments. . . . Daoud Kuttab, a noted Palestinian print and broadcast journalist, begins a hunger strike to protest being detained by Palestinian police in the West Bank on unspecified charges.

The opposition St. Lucia Labor Party (SLP) wins16 of the 17 seats in St. Lucia’s Parliament, ousting the United Workers’ Party (UWP), which has been in power since 1982, and its leader, P.M. Vaughan Lewis. It is the biggest electoral landslide in the history of the tiny eastern Caribbean island. Kenny Anthony, leader of the SLP, will be the island’s new prime minister. . . . The Haitian government and teachers reach an agreement to end the strike that started May 12.

Amid one of the most violent campaigns for parliamentary elections in Indonesia’s recent history, members of the Golkar party clash with PPP supporters in Banjarmasin, southern Borneo.

In Congo, 200 opposition supporters demonstrate, but the protest is broken up by troops and 70 people rallying in support of Laurent Kabila’s government. . . . Mohammed Fadhil al-Jamali, 94, Iraqi statesman who was the country’s foreign minister in the 1940s and 1950s, dies in Tunis, Tunisia, while being treated for a heart condition.

In Mexico, suspected leftist rebels in the southern state of Guerrero skirmish with government troops.

The Taliban seizes the major northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and stands poised to complete their goal of controlling the entire country of Afghanistan.

May 24

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

May 19–24, 1997—1003

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Data reveals that the University of California and University of Texas—both of which abandoned admissions policies that consider the race of applicants—have seen dramatic declines in the admission of minority students. . . . Aaron E. Henry, 74, civil rights leader who was president of the Mississippi branch of the NAACP, 1960–93, dies in Clarksdale of congestive heart failure.

The Senate passes, 64-36, a measure that will outlaw a method of lateterm abortion known as intact dilation and extraction (IDE). . . . A Trenton, New Jersey, appellate court throws out part of the 1993 convictions of three former high school football players, Christopher Archer and twins Kevin and Kyle Scherzer, found guilty of sexually assaulting a retarded girl in 1989. The court overturns the men’s convictions of firstdegree sexual assault by force, but it upholds the other charges and orders their resentencing.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Sportscaster Marv Albert is indicted by a grand jury in Arlington, Virginia, on charges of sodomy and assault. . . . Millie, the English springer spaniel of former president George Bush and former first lady Barbara Bush, dies in Kennebunkport, Maine.

The Senate confirms Major General Claudia J. Kennedy as the U.S. Army’s first female lieutenant general, a three-star rank. . . . Ezequiel Hernandez Jr., 18, is shot by a member of a Marine Corps antidrug patrol in Texas. Hernandez is the first U.S. civilian killed by military antidrug patrols on the Mexico-U.S. border since their inception in 1989.

The White House agrees to hand over thousands of pages of documents subpoenaed by the House committee investigating campaign finance abuses.

Paleontologists announce the discovery in Argentina’s Patagonia region of a fossil of a dinosaur that they believe is more closely related to birds than any previously known dinosaur species. The creature, named Unenlagia comahuensis, could not fly, but its shoulder bones are oriented in a bird-like way. The fossil, which at 90 million years old is from a later date than the earliest known birds, is not itself a bird ancestor but a surviving intermediate species.

The House adopts, 333-99, a resolution to balance the federal budget by the year 2002. . . . The SEC and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants set up the Independence Standards Board, a new group to set standards for company auditors.

May 20

Mattel introduces Share a Smile Becky, a Barbie doll that depicts a handicapped girl. . . . Lorenzo (Piper) Davis, 79, baseball player in the U.S. Negro leagues who, in 1950, was the first black player to be signed by the Boston Red Sox, dies in Birmingham, Alabama, of a heart attack.

First Lieutenant Kelly Flinn, the air force’s first female B-52 pilot, discloses that she will accept a general discharge from the military rather than face a court martial for adultery, disobeying an order, and lying to investigators.

Democratic senators accuse the Republican majority on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee of leading a partisan investigation into campaign finances despite recent allegations regarding campaign funds to the RNC.

Alfred D. Hershey, 88, chemist who shared the 1969 Nobel prize for his work in molecular biology and the study of viruses, dies in Syosset, New York, of unreported causes.

Robert Stephen Lipka, 51, pleads guilty in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to conspiracy to commit espionage while working for the NSA in the 1960s. . . . The INS states that it will seek to strip U.S. citizenship from 4,946 people wrongly naturalized since late 1995. In the past, the INS never issued more than two dozen revocations in a year. . . . The CIA releases 1,400 pages of recently declassified documents that reveal the agency’s plan to assassinate 58 Guatemalan political leaders as part of a June 1954 coup that toppled the leftist Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz Guzman.

The Senate passes, 78-22, a resolution to balance the federal budget by the year 2002. . . . In Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S. district judge Robert Potter cuts the damages awarded to franchisees of Meineke Discount Muffler Shops Inc. by 34%, to $390 million from $591 million.

In a race that started May 19, an electric car sets a new distance record for production models by traveling 249 miles (400 km) without a recharge. The winner is a Geo Metro that uses a newly developed nickel metal-hydride battery to win the race, the American Tour de Sol.

The space shuttle Atlantis lands at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, after completing a mission to deliver essential supplies and equipment to the Russian Mir space station and to pick up U.S. astronaut Jerry L. Linenger, who has been on board Mir since January, and deliver his replacement, C. Michael Foale.

May 19

May 21

May 22

May 23

Edward Mulhare, 74, television, film, and stage actor, dies in Van Nuys, California, of lung cancer.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 24

1004—May 25–30, 1997

World Affairs

May 25

May 26

May 27

May 28

Western and African nations condemn the May 25 coup in Sierra Leone. UN secretary general Kofi Annan and OAU leader Salim Ahmed Salim also denounce Ahmad Tejan Kabbah’s overthrow.

Europe

Asia & the Pacific

Ecuador’s interim president, Fabian Alarcon, appointed by Congress in February, wins an endorsement from 65% of voters in a referendum on his presidency.

In Banjarmasin, in southern Borneo in Indonesia, officials report that they have recovered 130 bodies from a shopping mall that the rioters looted and then set ablaze on May 23. They also state that several other shopping centers, more than 100 houses, and at least seven churches were torched during the unrest. Police report that four other people were killed in election-related violence in other parts of the city. . . . Pakistan becomes the first nation to formally recognize the Taliban government of Afghanistan.

Palestinian police in the West Bank city of Ramallah release Daoud Kuttab, who has been on a hunger strike since May 23, after having held him a week for unspecified reasons. . . . In Sierra Leone, fighters from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), who since 1991 have waged a civil war that has cost tens of thousands of lives, begin streaming into Freetown to back up the rebellious troops who seized power May 25.

Suspected leftist rebels in the southern state of Guerrero skirmish with Mexican government troops. . . . The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) arrest 31 people allegedly involved in a hashish smuggling ring.

The severed head and the body of Jun Hase, an 11-year-old retarded boy, is discovered in Kobe, Japan, in a crime that police suspect was perpetrated by an at-large serial killer. The boy’s murder causes alarm and increased vigilance in Japan, where violent crime is rare. . . . Abdul Malik’s Uzbek troops and Hizb-i-Wahdat militiamen reverse their allegiances and take up arms against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The PNA announces that application of the May 5 policy of sentencing Palestinians convicted of land sales to Jews to death will extended to Israel’s 1 million Arab citizens. . . . In Sierra Leone, tribal militias known as the Kamajors declare that they will fight to restore the government of Pres. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. Nigeria lands a total of 900 troops in Freetown’s port to reinforce the 600 troops already in the capital of Sierra Leone. . . . In Congo, an opposition march of about 800 people is dispersed by soldiers.

Mexican officials aver that in the May 24 and May 27 skirmishes, five soldiers and four rebels died. The rebel Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) claims that the clashes were instigated by the troops and that the army suffered more than 30 casualties, many of whom died. The clashes are considered the most significant involving the rebels since November 1996.

Malik’s Uzbek troops and Hizb-iWahdat militiamen drive the Taliban from Mazar-i-Sharif and kill a number of senior Taliban officials.

Rebel leader Laurent Kabila is sworn in as president of the newly renamed Congo.

The Peruvian Congress votes to dismiss three Constitutional Court judges who in December 1996 ruled that Pres. Alberto Fujimori’s bid for a third consecutive term was unconstitutional.

Indonesia’s ruling Golkar Party routs opposition parties in parliamentary elections. Data shows more than 200 people were killed during campaigning. . . . China executes eight Muslim separatists convicted of crimes that left 18 people dead, including the February bombings in Urumqi. . . . A Singapore High Court judge awards a record S$8.08 million (US$5.6 million) in libel damages to P.M. Goh Chok Tong and 10 other members of the ruling People’s Action Party. . . . In Afghanistan, forces loyal to Ahmed Shah Massoud capture the towns of Golbahar and Sherqat, about 60 miles (100 km) north of Kabul.

In Sierra Leone, junior officers in the army stage a coup, toppling Pres. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, Sierra Leone’s first freely elected ruler in three decades. Kabbah flees to Guinea. The rebels free 600 inmates, including soldiers imprisoned for previous coup attempts. After clashing with Nigerian peacekeepers, the rebels capture the parliament building and burn the national treasury. Johnny Paul Koromah, 33, a major who was jailed for earlier coup attempts, announces on state radio that he has taken control of the country.

In response to the first round of parliamentary election returns, which show that France’s two main leftist parties collectively outpolled the right-of-center ruling coalition, Premier Alain Juppe, in an effort to boost his coalition’s chances in runoff voting, vows to step down if his party maintains control of Parliament.

The independent Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group suggests that security forces of the self-rule Palestine National Authority (PNA) have tortured or otherwise abused numerous prisoners in their custody. . . . The new government in Congo bans public demonstrations and suspends all political party activity.

Poland’s Constitutional Court strikes down major provisions of an abortion-rights law that President Aleksander Kwasniewski endorsed in October 1996. . . . Ukrainian premier Pavlo Lazarenko and Russian premier Viktor Chernomyrdin reach agreement on the future status of Sevastopol and the Black Sea fleet.

May 29

The Bosnia Peace Implementation Council names former Spanish foreign minister Carlos Westendorp to replace Carl Bildt as the international community’s representative in Bosnia. Westendorp’s job will be to ensure that Bosnia’s civilian authorities fulfill the 1995 peace accords.

May 30

The Americas

Polish voters in a referendum approve a new constitution that will codify Poland’s adoption of a democratic system. . . . At a spa in Jesenik, Czech Republic, an explosion injures 20 people. The blast is a result of the apparent suicide of Bohumil Sole, 63, a Czech scientist who, as a member of a team of researchers, helped develop the plastic explosive known as Semtex.

Leaders of the 16 member countries of NATO and Pres. Boris Yeltsin of Russia sign the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security, a mutual cooperation agreement that will create a permanent NATO-Russia council in which Russia can bring up issues of concern with the Atlantic alliance. It also eases Russian objections to enlargement of NATO to include former Soviet bloc states.

At a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the proposal of the Marshall Plan, the American economic assistance program that helped European nations recover from World War II, held in The Hague, the Netherlands, U.S. president Bill Clinton states that the West “must complete the noble journey that Marshall’s generation began” and integrate former communist Eastern European nations with the rest of Europe.

Africa & the Middle East

U.S. Marines, defying an order by the coup leaders closing Sierra Leone’s borders, land helicopters at a Freetown hotel to evacuate about 900 people, including 330 American citizens, to the USS Kearsarge warship, anchored 12 miles (19 km) offshore. Britain, Sierra Leone’s former colonial ruler, evacuates 400 Westerners, including 200 Britons, aboard a passenger jet.

In Indonesia, thousands of opposition supporters, largely in areas favoring the opposition PPP, hold demonstrations to protest the Golkar Party’s May 29 victory. Protestors in Madura, an island off the coast of Java, attack government buildings. . . . South Korean president Kim Young Sam, whose administration is embroiled in a number of corruption scandals, refuses to reveal how much he spent on his 1992 election campaign.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

May 25–30, 1997—1005

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Sen. Strom Thurmond (R, S.C.), elected in 1954, becomes the longest-serving senator in U.S. history, with a tenure of 41 years, nine months, and 31 days, which breaks the 1969 record set by Sen. Carl Hayden (D, Ariz.). Thurmond, 94, is also the oldest person to have served in the Senate.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Some 3,500 General Motors Corp. workers end the strike that started Apr. at the company’s Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, plant.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Former White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers and New York Times reporter Todd Purdum marry at a church ceremony in Chicago, Illinois.

Reports confirm that a military jury at Fairchild Air Force Base in Washington State has sentenced Master Sergeant Napolean Bailey, 39, to 30 years in prison after finding him guilty of sexually assaulting three women and convicting him of 15 of the 17 charges against him, which include one charge of rape and two of forcible sodomy. In Clinton v. Jones, the Supreme Court unanimously rejects Pres. Clinton’s request to delay proceedings in a sexual-harassment suit until he leaves office. It is the first time that the high court rules that sitting presidents may be sued for actions outside the realm of their official duties. . . . Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski is cleared of the last criminal charge against him regarding his use of cancer-treatment drugs not approved by the FDA.

May 26

The Conference Board states its index of consumer confidence leaped to 127.1 in May, the highest level in 27 years. . . . In Suitum v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that a Nevada landowner whose residential property was declared unfit for future development due to environmental concerns may sue a state planning agency . . . . The Dow closes at 7383.41, the 20th record high in 1997.

At least six tornadoes sweep through central Texas, killing 30 people and causing widespread damage. It is the most destructive series of tornadoes in the state since 1987. Twenty-seven of the deaths occur in Jarrell, Texas, a small town of about 1,000 residents.

The CIA admits that most of its records on the 1953 CIA-backed coup in Iran were destroyed in the 1960s.

A NYC transit police officer, Paolo Colecchia, is convicted of committing homicide while on duty in the shooting of an unarmed man, Nathaniel Levi Gaines Jr., 25, on a subway platform in July 1996. Colecchia is only the second NYC police officer convicted of homicide since 1977. . . . Judge Everett Dickey grants Elmer (Geronimo) Pratt, a former leader of the Black Panthers, a new trial after ruling that prosecutors withheld crucial evidence in his 1972 trial.

A military jury convicts Staff Sergeant Vernell Robinson Jr., a drill instructor at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, on 19 criminal counts involving adultery, improper relations with female trainees, sodomy, obstruction of justice, and disobeying orders. He is found guilty of having improper consensual sex with five female trainees and of interfering with an investigation into his conduct.

The NTSB announces that it will set up a privately funded national airline disaster response center by the end of 1997.

Staff Sergeant Vernell Robinson Jr., convicted on 19 counts May 29, is sentenced to six months in prison and a dishonorable discharge from the Army.

May 25

Arie Luyendyk wins the 81st Indianapolis 500 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indiana.

Sydney Guilaroff, 89, the first hair stylist ever credited on the screen who worked on 1,000 films, dies in Beverly Hills, California, of pneumonia. . . . John Herman Henry Sengstacke, 84, black newspaper publisher who owned the Chicago Defender, at one time the U.S.’s largest black daily newspaper, dies in Chicago, Illinois, of complications from a stroke.

The price of coffee rises to its highest level since April 1977 amid concerns that subpar global supplies will further dwindle before the end of the year. In U.S. trading on the Coffee, Sugar and Cocoa Exchange in New York City, coffee slated for July delivery closes at $3.15 a pound, up 19.25 cents, after selling for as high as $3.18 earlier in the day.

The National Weather Service attests the May 27 twister that hit Jarrell, Texas, was an F-5 tornado, the most severe on the five-level tornado-power scale. The tornado’s winds blew up to 260 miles per hour (420 kmph).

Jeff Buckley, 30, folk-rock musician who cultivated a loyal following in the early 1990s, drowns in Memphis, Tennessee, while swimming in the Mississippi River. . . . George Fenneman, 77, entertainer best known as the serious sidekick to comedian Groucho Marx, dies in Los Angeles of emphysema.

A team of Spanish paleontologists report the discovery in Spain of 800,000-year-old human fossils, the oldest human remains found in Europe.

May 27

May 28

May 29

May 30

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1006—May 31–June 5, 1997

World Affairs

May 31

June 1

June 2

June 3

Pope John Paul II addresses a meeting of six Central European presidents: Poland’s Aleksander Kwasniewski, Hungary’s Arpad Goncz, Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic, Slovakia’s Michal Kovac, Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine, and Algirdas Brazauskas of Lithuania. German president Roman Herzog also attends the meeting.

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Some 10,000 students riot in Seoul, South Korea, protesting Pres. Kim Young Sam’s May 30 refusal to reveal how much he spent on his 1992 election campaign. . . . East Timorese separatists attack a police vehicle with grenades, killing 17 officers. It is the latest in a string of attacks that have claimed 41 lives in a week. . . . Massoud’s forces drive five miles southward and capture the town of Jabal Siraj, a strategic point in Afghanistan.

P.M. Tony Blair expresses regret for Britain’s role in Ireland’s cataclysmic potato famine in the 1840s. The statement is considered the strongest admission ever by a British prime minister that the British government was partially responsible for the tragedy. . . . Russian president Boris Yeltsin and Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma sign a friendship treaty.

The body of Ali Mohammed Jumhour, 34, is found near Ramallah, a PNA-administered West Bank town. Jumhour’s death marks the third apparent assassination in May of Palestinians suspected in the sale of land to Israelis. . . . At an opposition rally in the capital of Kenya, Nairobi, hundreds of riot police use tear gas, rubber bullets, and clubs to disperse the crowd of more than 1,000 demonstrators.

Reports reveal that protests involving thousands of activists broke out across Argentina in May in response to the government’s austere economic policies. . . . The Confederation Bridge, which links Prince Edward Island to Canada’s mainland, opens.

The French left, led by the Socialist Party, wins a decisive victory over the center-right ruling coalition in legislative elections. . . . Premier Necmettin Erbakan, Turkey’s first Islamist leader, states he will resign by the end of the month in response to a recent collapse of the ruling coalition. . . . An off-duty officer of the Royal Ulster Constabulary police is beaten to death by at least seven men in County Antrim. . . . Nikolai Alexandrovich Tikhonov, 92, Soviet premier, 1980–85, dies in Moscow, Russia, of pneumonia.

Four opposition legislators who helped organize the May 31 rally in Kenya are detained for several hours.

Retired general Hugo Banzer Suarez, who ruled Bolivia from 1971 to 1978 after seizing power in a military coup, leads a field of presidential candidates in a popular vote. Juan Carlos Duran of the governing Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (MNR) places second. In the second round of the presidential voting, Bolivia’s Congress will choose between the two front-runners.

Presidents Emil Constantinescu of Romania and Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine sign a treaty to normalize the two countries’ relations. . . . Two separate bomb blasts in Tirana, the capital of Albania, injure 28 people.

Rebellious soldiers in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, come under attack from Nigerian warships. The Nigerian bombardment sets off fighting between the rebels and Nigerian peacekeeping troops stationed in Freetown since 1994 under the auspices of ECOMOG. Several hundred Sierra Leoneans attend a demonstration organized by the rebels to protest the Nigerian offensive.

Canada’s voters elect a new Parliament, giving the ruling Liberal Party, led by P.M. Jean Chrétien, 155 seats in the House of Commons, down from 174 before the vote.

In France, Socialist Party leader Lionel Jospin takes office as premier, replacing the unpopular incumbent, Alain Juppe.

U.S. troops fly 1,200 foreigners, including around 30 Americans, from Freetown, Sierra Leone, to a U.S. warship off the coast.

Albanian president Sali Berisha escapes injury in an attempt on his life at a rally in the town of Shkallnuer. . . . A clubhouse of the Bandidos motorcycle gang in Drammen, Norway, is destroyed by a bomb. The attack kills one person, Irene Astrid Bekkevold, 51. Four others are wounded. Bekkevold is the first innocent bystander killed in the Scandinavian motorcycle-gang war between the Bandidos and the Hells Angels.

June 4

A captain in Croatian president Franjo Tudjman’s presidential guard attacks a presidential candidate, Vlado Gotovac of the Liberals, during a campaign rally, striking him several times with a belt buckle. Gotovac is forced to suspend his campaign to recuperate.

June 5

As riots that began May 31 in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, continue, police officer Yoo Ji Woong is killed amid a clash. Separately, South Korean judge Son Yi Jol convicts and sentences the founder of the Hanbo Group conglomerate, Chung Tae Soo, and 10 others in a loans scandal involving the group’s Hanbo Steel Industry Co. subsidiary to jail sentences ranging from a suspended term to 15 years.

In Seoul, protests that started May 31 lead to the death of a factory worker, Lee Seok. The student group suspends the protests after admitting that demonstrators beat Lee to death after wrongly suspected him of being a police informer. . . . More than 50,000 people gather in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park for an annual candlelight vigil in memory of those killed in a June 4, 1989, government crackdown on prodemocracy protesters in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. Fighting breaks out in Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of the Congo, between soldiers loyal to Pres. Pascal Lissouba and militia forces supporting his predecessor, Gen. Denis Sassou-Nguesso. . . . In Algeria’s first legislative elections since January 1992, parties supporting Algeria’s military-backed government win a majority in a new lower house of Parliament.

A rally described as the largest march in years takes place in Lima, the capital of Peru, in protest of Pres. Fujimori’s increasingly authoritarian style of governing.

China appoints Ma Yuzhen, a former Chinese ambassador to Britain, to be foreign ministry commissioner in Hong Kong after the colony reverts to Chinese sovereignty, from British rule, at midnight June 30. Ma’s ascension to the new post will make him China’s top civilian official in the colony. . . . Ships from North Korea and South Korea exchange fire after North Korean fishing boats, accompanied by a military vessel, enter South Korean waters. Neither side’s vessels are hit.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

May 31–June 5, 1997—1007

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle The IAAF suspends runner Mary Decker Slaney from competition, due to suspicious results of a drug test taken at the trials for the 1996 Olympics. . . . Rose Will Monroe, 77, who portrayed “Rosie the Riveter,” dies in Clarkesville, Indiana, of complications related to kidney failure.

Robert Serber, 88, physicist who played a key role in the birth of the atomic bomb and who won the 1972 J. Robert Oppenheimer Prize for physics, dies in New York City of complications after surgery for brain cancer.

Timothy J. McVeigh, a decorated veteran of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, is convicted on all 11 charges before him by a U.S. federal jury in Denver, Colorado, of the Apr. 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Okla. The bombing, which killed 168 people, was the deadliest act of terrorism ever committed on U.S. soil. . . . The body of Jonathan M. Levin, 31, a high school teacher and the son of prominent corporate chief executives, Gerald Levin of Time Warner Inc., is found in his New York apartment.

Pentagon officials reveal that Major Gen. John E. Longhouser, commander of the U.S. Army’s Aberdeen Provings Ground in Maryland, decides to retire after admitting that he had an adulterous affair five years earlier while he was separated from his wife.

Harvey Johnson is elected as the first black mayor of Jackson, Mississippi.

Two convicts—Dorsie JohnsonBey and Davis Losada—are executed in Huntsville, Texas. With their deaths, Texas has executed 20 prisoners in 1997, more than any state has put to death in a single year since 1976, when the Supreme Court reintroduced the death penalty. Texas set the record in 1995, executing 19 inmates. Johnson and Losada are the 390th and 391st in the U.S. and the 126th and 127th in Texas to be put to death since 1976, respectively.

The U.S. Army confirms that Sergeant Major Gene C. McKinney, charged with sexual assault and indecent assault involving four women, has asked for early retirement.

A U.S. District Court jury in Buffalo, New York, awards $4 million in damages to Frank Smith, a former inmate tortured by prison guards in the aftermath of a 1971 prison uprising in Attica, New York. Smith is the first of 1,281 former inmates to win damages in a $2.8 billion suit filed in 1974. . . . The F. W. Olin Foundation announces that it will contribute $200 million to the building of a new engineering college, the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Needham, Massachusetts. The donation is the largest gift ever to a U.S. college or university.

In Alexandria, Virginia, Judge James C. Cacheris sentences former CIA officer Harold Nicholson to 23 years and seven months in prison for selling top-secret information to Russia. . . . Sergeant First Class Julius Davis, an army instructor in Darmstadt, Germany, is convicted of 11 counts of sexual misconduct. He is sentenced to two years in prison, reduction in rank, and a bad-conduct dismissal. Davis is the first army soldier stationed in Europe to be convicted of sexual misconduct since a wideranging investigation into sex abuse began in November 1996.

Canadian Donovan Bailey beats Michael Johnson in a one-on-one, 150-meter (164-yard) race to claim the unofficial title of “world’s fastest man.” . . . At the Tony Awards, the musicals Titanic and Chicago dominate the major award categories. For Best Play, The Last Night of Ballyhoo wins, and A Doll’s House wins for Best Play Revival.

In Boggs v. Boggs, the Supreme Court rules that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (Erisa), a federal law that protects workers’ pension benefits, takes precedence over states’ community property laws that protect married couples’ property interests.

Helen Hull Jacobs, 88, top tennis player in the 1930s, dies in East Hampton, New York, of heart failure. . . . Adolphus Anthony (Doc) Cheatham, 91, jazz trumpeter whose career spanned more than 70 years, dies in Washington, D.C., after suffering a stroke. . . . The Partner, by John Grisham, tops the bestseller list.

David E. Kendall, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s personal attorney, accuses Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr of employing a “leak-and-smear” campaign against the White House.

Dennis James, 79, TV host of variety and game shows, dies in in Palm Springs, California, of lung cancer.

Ronnie Lane, 51, British guitarist and songwriter, dies in Colorado of multiple sclerosis.

Congress gives final approval to a plan to balance the federal budget by the year 2002. . . . In U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Boston, Massachusetts, retailer Sears, Roebuck & Co. presents a settlement to the attorneys general of 39 states as part of its accord with the FTC regarding refunds to bankrupt credit card customers from whom Sears improperly collected debts. Sears will pay out at least $138 million, the largest FTC refund settlement ever. . . . The New York City Council approves a $33.4 billion budget for the fiscal 1997–98 year, which begins July 1.

J(ay) Anthony Lukas, 64, journalist and author who won a Pulitzer in 1968, the National Book Award in 1985, and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1986, dies in New York, an apparent suicide.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 31

June 1

June 2

June 3

June 4

June 5

1008—June 6–11, 1997

June 6

World Affairs

Europe

The 138-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) opens in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe.

Ireland’s ruling political coalition, headed by P.M. John Bruton, loses its parliamentary majority in elections. Caoimhghin O’Caolain, a candidate from Sinn Fein, the political arm of the Provisional IRA, wins a seat in the Dail for the first time in 16 years. He will be the first Sinn Fein member to join the Dail since the 1922 founding of the Republic of Ireland.

Protestant rioters break into a Catholic church in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, prompting a clash with police that leaves 27 officers injured. Six people are arrested in the fighting. . . . Voters in a referendum in Switzerland reject a measure that would have outlawed Swiss arms exports.

The Cobras, a 5,000-strong militia maintained by Gen. Denis SassouNguesso, seize the center of Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of the Congo. . . . Amos Tutuola, 76 or 77, Nigerian novelist of Yoruban descent whose first novel was the first widely disseminated Englishlanguage publication by an African author, dies in Ibadan, Nigeria.

Workers at the 79 Alberta stores of Canada Safeway Ltd., a unit of U.S.-based Safeway Inc., end a strike that started March 26 and involved 10,000 workers.

Two Turkish men surrender to authorities in Cologne, Germany, after hijacking an Air Malta jet en route to Istanbul, Turkey, from Valetta, Malta. None of the passengers or crew on board are injured.

France, Congo’s former colonial ruler, sends 550 troops to Brazzaville, the capital, to reinforce a 450-strong force already there. French troops evacuate 2,000 foreigners.

Haitian premier Rosny Smarth resigns, alleging that supporters of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide rigged April 6 legislative elections in a bid to force the premier’s ouster. . . . Stanley Howard Knowles, 88, left-wing member of Canada’s Parliament for four decades, dies in Ottawa, Canada, of complications related to pneumonia.

The U.S. Department of Education releases the results of an international survey designed to measure the mathematics and science performance of primary-school students. Singapore registers the strongest overall performance on the math test, followed by South Korea and Japan. Kuwait receives the lowest score. South Korea receives the highest mark on the science exam, followed by Japan. The U.S. ranks third, tying Austria. Kuwait has lowest mark.

Presidents Boris Yeltsin of Russia and Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus sign a union treaty into law. . . . Reports indicate that Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov has imposed Islamic law, or sharia, in the breakaway republic in a bid to restore order.

A U.S. Air Force transport plane flies 30 Americans and 24 other foreigners from Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of the Congo.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies urge the adoption of universal quality standards for aid agencies, noting that, of 170 aid agencies registered during the 1994 Rwandan crisis, nearly one-third had disappeared by 1997. The Red Cross estimates that $120 million of the $1.4 billion in aid sent to the region remains unaccounted for, largely due to substandard accounting procedures.

An unidentified gunman in Belfast, Northern Ireland, shoots and kills Robert Bates, a prominent former member of a pro-British Protestant death squad who was freed in 1996 after spending 19 years in prison. . . . Officials confirm that Swiss banks found far more accounts belonging to potential Holocaust victims than previously revealed, up from 37.8 million Swiss francs ($26 million) to 49.4 million francs. . . . Jill Neville, 65, a popular member of the London literary elite in the post-World War II era, dies in London, England, of lymphoma.

June 8

June 9

June 11

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Reports confirm that four Russian journalists captured in March were released from captivity in the republic of Chechnya. . . . Automatic-weapon fire from a car in Liseleje, Denmark, kills a member of the Bandidos motorcycle gang and wounds three others. The death toll from the gang war in Scandanavia is 10 since early 1996.

June 7

June 10

Africa & the Middle East

In a scandal that alleges that DaiIchi Kangyo Bank Ltd. (DKB), one of Japan’s largest banks, has links to racketeers, 21 DKB directors— just over half the board—resigns. That is the largest mass board resignation ever in Japan. . . . Reports state that Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge guerrillas in Cambodia, caused dissension when he ordered the killing of the Khmer Rouge’s defense chief, Son Sen, and his family.

The Taliban loses control of Pul-eKhumri, 90 miles north of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. The town is recaptured by alliance forces in a three-pronged attack, with Ahmed Shah Massoud’s troops moving in from the south, Hizb-i-Wahdat fighters attacking from the east and Abdul Malik’s Uzbek forces closing in from the north. The defeat marks the loss of the Taliban’s last remaining stronghold in northern Afghanistan.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

June 6–11, 1997—1009

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Henry Francis Hays, 42, formerly of the Ku Klux Klan, is executed in Atmore, Alabama, for killing a black teenager, Michael Donald, in a 1981 lynching. The slaying led to a 1987 civil suit that bankrupted the United Klans of America, the largest of several rival Klan groups. Hays is the first white man executed in Alabama for killing a black person since 1913. Hays is the 392nd person in the U.S. and the 16th in Alabama executed since 1976.

Reports indicate that Rear Admiral R. M. Mitchell Jr. was relieved as commander of the Navy Supply Systems Command in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, for allegedly making repeated advances toward a female subordinate. Mitchell asks the navy for permission to retire.

The Dow Jones industrial average goes up 130.49 points, to close at a record 7435.78. . . . Federal authorities in New York City arrest political consultant Martin Davis on charges of mail fraud for allegedly embezzling from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union to fund the 1996 reelection campaign of Teamsters president Ron Carey.

New Hampshire governor Jeanne Shaheen (D) signs legislation making the state the 11th to give legal protection against discrimination to homosexuals. The law, effective Jan. 1, 1998, will give gay men and lesbians protection in employment and housing.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Pres. Clinton speaks to the graduating class, which includes his daughter Chelsea, at Sidwell Friends school in Washington, D.C. . . . Magda Gabor, 78, Hollywood actress and socialite, dies in Rancho Mirage, California, of kidney failure. . . . Reports from Ontario, Canada, state that Roman Catholic bishop Anthony Tonnos denied a church funeral service to slain mobster John Papalia.

The National Bioethics Advisory Commission writes to Pres. Clinton, calling for the government to impose a short-term legal ban on the cloning of human beings. . . . A report notes that some 14,000 medical emergencies occur each year on the nine major U.S. airlines and calls for more aircraft to carry heart defibrillators. Pres. Clinton vetoes an emergency spending bill that would provide funds for disaster aid and for U.S. peacekeeping missions overseas because he opposes amendments in the bill that seek to avoid government shutdowns such as those that occurred in late 1995 and early 1996.

U.S. Air Force general Joseph W. Ralston withdraws his name from consideration to become the nation’s military chief after concluding that controversy over an admitted adulterous affair will make his confirmation process too contentious and will compromise his ability to lead the military.

After a late May ruling that ordered a new trial by Judge Everett W. Dickey of Orange County Superior Court, Elmer (Geronimo) Pratt, a former leader of the militant Black Panther Party, is freed on bail after serving 27 years for a murder he always maintained he did not commit. Pratt in 1972 was convicted of killing a Los Angeles woman during a 1968 robbery attempt in Santa Monica, California.

Hockey’s Detroit Red Wings defeat the Philadelphia Flyers, 2-1, to win the NHL’s Stanley Cup championship. . . . Ninth-seeded Iva Majoli of Croatia wins the women’s tennis title at the French Open. . . . In horse racing, Touch Gold wins the 129th running of the Belmont Stakes.

Reid Shelton, 72, stage and TV actor who played Daddy Warbucks in the original three-year Broadway run of the musical Annie, dies in Portland, Oregon, after undergoing a heart bypass operation. . . . At the French Open, unseeded Gustavo Kuerten of Brazil wins the men’s tennis title.

In Gilbert v. Homar, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that public institutions are not required to hold hearings before they suspend an employee without pay.

In Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, Judge Norman Callan sentences Dennis and Lorie Nixon, who belong to a Christian faith-healing sect, to at least 21⁄2 years in prison for allowing their daughter, Shannon Nixon, 16, to die of treatable diabetes.

Thomas J. Donohue Jr. is named the next president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, replacing Richard L. Lesher.

June 6

June 7

June 8

June 9

The U.S. House of Representatives reaffirms Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital and calls for relocating the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv by May 1999.

A state parole board in Alabama pardons former Alabama governor Guy Hunt (R), declaring he is innocent of the ethics violations that he was convicted of in 1993. The unanimous decision effectively exonerates Hunt of all charges and restores all of his civil rights. . . . The Mashantucket Pequot Indians of Connecticut launch the Sassacus, the first ferryboat built at the Pequot River Shipworks in New London, Connecticut. . . . Pres. Clinton names Jane Garvey as the new administrator of the FAA, succeeding Linda Hall Daschle.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The FDA sends letters to thousands of U.S. doctors warning them that the newly developed protease-inhibitor drugs may cause diabetic symptoms in AIDS patients.

The Christian Coalition announces that Pat Robertson, will be the association’s new board chairman. Donald P. Hodel, will be the new president, and Randy Tate will be executive director. . . . Thalassa Cruso, 88, amateur horticulturalist, author and columnist, dies of Alzheimer’s disease in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 10

June 11

1010—June 12–17, 1997

June 12

June 13

World Affairs

Europe

Pres. Bill Clinton states that the U.S. will back only Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic as new NATO members. As NATO decisions are made by consensus, Clinton’s statement effectively vetoes offers of membership to any other nation. . . . The UN’s 1997 Human Development Report asserts that extreme poverty can feasibly be eradicated by the first or second decade of the 21st century, claiming that a lack of “political commitment, not financial resources” is the real obstacle to reducing poverty.

Bulat Okudzhava, 73, Russian poet, songwriter, and singer who was a voice of political dissent in post-World War II Russia, dies in Paris, France, of complications from pneumonia and kidney failure. . . . Vittorio Mussolini, 81, son of the Fascist ruler of Italy, 1922–43, Benito Mussolini, dies in Rome after a long illness.

The UN General Assembly votes to urge Israel to pay $1.7 million in damages for its artillery attack on a UN camp near Tyre, Lebanon, that killed more than 100 people in April 1996.

Officials announce the closing of Russia’s main Antarctic base, Molodyozhnaya, by the year 2000 due to budget cuts. . . . Police in southwestern France arrest Ira Einhorn, a former New Age guru convicted in absentia in the U.S. in 1993 for the 1977 beating death of his girlfriend, Holly Maddux.

Queen Elizabeth II marks the official celebration of her 71st birthday by awarding several hundred peerages, knighthoods, and other honors. . . . The Italian government creates an independent committee to probe claims that Italian soldiers tortured Somali civilians during a peacekeeping mission in 1993. Army generals Bruno Loi and Carmine Flore, who commanded Italian troops in Somalia, resign over the abuse allegations.

June 14

June 17

Firefights, looting, and summary killings continue in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of the Congo.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Colombia, at least five inmates are killed and 30 others are injured in riots at the Modelo prison in Bogota, the capital, and the Picalena prison in Ibague in the province of Tolima.

Members of India’s embattled Congress Party (I) reelect Sitaram Kesri as the party’s president. It is only the third election held by the party in its 112-year history.

Sixty people are killed and 200 others injured when a fire sweeps through a crowded movie theater in New Delhi, India’s capital.

Palestinians demonstrate against a resolution passed June 10 by the U.S. House of Representatives that reaffirmed Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital and called for relocating the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv by May 1999. The demonstration will lead to a series of nearly daily conflicts.

Croatians reelect Pres. Franjo Tudjman to a third term with 61.41% of the vote.

June 15

June 16

Africa & the Middle East

Hong Kong’s provisional legislature, a Chinese-appointed body, passes controversial legislation that will place restrictions on political groups and public protests when China assumes control of the colony from Britain at midnight on June 30. . . . In Japan, the Diet approves legislation that will bar discrimination against women in the workplace and relax rules governing which hours women are permitted to work. Colombia’s main leftist rebel group, FARC, frees 70 soldiers and marines being held in remote jungle locations in Caqueta department in southern Colombia. The rebels agree to release the soldiers after the government temporarily withdraws its troops from a part of the area. FARC captured 60 of the 70 soldiers in August 1996, and the other 10 hostages, who are marines, were taken in January.

French and German leaders at an EU summit meeting in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, reach a compromise plan to allow the projected European currency union to go forward. Prototypes of eight coins designed by Luc Luycx of the Belgian Royal Mint for the new currency, known as the euro, are unveiled.

Unidentified gunmen in Lurgan, Northern Ireland, shoot and kill two officers of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) police force. The Provisional IRA claims responsibility. British prime minister Tony Blair halts indefinitely all contact between his government and the IRA’s political wing, Sinn Fein. The attack represents the first IRA murders of RUC officers since 1994. . . . International monitors criticize the June 15 voting in Croatia as “fundamentally flawed.”

The benchmark Hang Seng index to track “red chips,” or mainland Chinese-backed companies, begins operating in Hong Kong.

Hani Abdel Rahim al-Sayegh, a Saudi dissident accused of involvement in a deadly 1996 truck bombing of a U.S. military complex near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, is deported to the U.S. from Canada. Officials reveal that he will tell the U.S. what he knows about the attack in exchange for reduced charges and a guarantee that he will not be extradited to Saudi Arabia, where he may face execution. . . . The UN General Assembly approves the appointment of Irish president Mary Robinson as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Federal police officers throughout France conduct a series of raids in which they arrest more than 600 people suspected of possessing or selling child pornography. The discovery of an intricate child-sex network contradicts a long-standing misconception within France that child pornography is virtually nonexistent in the country.

Both houses of the Japanese Diet pass a compromise bill that will make heart transplants possible in Japan. . . . In Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, a gun battle between bodyguards loyal to Hun Sen and Prince Ranariddh kills two of the prince’s guards.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

June 12–17, 1997—1011

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Michigan circuit court judge Charles Miel declares a mistrial in the prosecution of Dr. Jack Kevorkian on charges of helping Loretta Peabody, a terminally ill woman, commit suicide in August 1996. It is Kevorkian’s fourth trial on charges related to his alleged participation in the death of a terminally ill person. . . . Pres. Clinton names seven people to a presidential advisory board on race relations. . . . Alex Kelly, who spent eight years as a fugitive in European resorts, is convicted by a Stamford, Connecticut, jury of raping a 16-year-old girl in 1986.

Sergeant First Class Paul Fuller, 25, is found guilty of violations involving five women, including one count of rape, one count of kidnapping, three counts of forcible sodomy, and three counts of cruelty. A military court sentences Fuller to five years in prison, a dishonorable discharge, reduction in rank to private, and forfeiture of all pay.

The Senate, 78-21, and the House, 348-74, approve an $8.6 billion emergency spending bill that provides $5.6 billion in disaster aid to 35 states, including flood-stricken states in the Upper Midwest. The measure also includes $1.9 billion for U.S. peacekeeping missions overseas. Since the bill is stripped of amendments the president objected to in his June 8 veto, Clinton signs the bill.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle The National Basketball Association fines Dennis Rodman $50,000 for derogatory remarks he made about Mormons, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The fine is the largest ever handed out to a player by the NBA and Rodman’s third NBA fine in the 1996-97 season. . . . . In the first-ever interleague baseball game between the National League and American League, the San Francisco Giants defeat the Texas Rangers, 4-3.

A federal jury in Denver, Colo., unanimously recommends that Timothy J. McVeigh, a 29-year-old former soldier, be sentenced to death for the Apr. 19, 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Okla., that killed 168 people and injured 850 others. . . . Thomas Coleman, 86, who in 1965 was acquitted, on grounds of selfdefense, of manslaughter in the shotgun slaying of civil-rights activist Jonathan Daniels, dies in Alabama of unreported causes.

Basketball’s Chicago Bulls defeat the Utah Jazz, 90-86, in the sixth game of a best-of-seven series to win their fifth NBA championship in seven years. . . . Two players from hockey’s Detroit Red Wings, Vladimir Konstantinov and Slava Fetisov, and the team’s masseur are injured in a car accident in Royal Oak, Michigan.

In a high-profile commencement address at the University of California at San Diego, Pres. Clinton calls for racial reconciliation, defends affirmative action, and launches a planned yearlong effort to spur a “great and unprecedented conversation about race.”

Richard Jaeckel, 70, film and TV actor best known for his role in The Dirty Dozen (1967), dies in Woodland Hills, California, of cancer. . . . Oscar De La Hoya successfully defends his WBC welterweight title with a second-round knockout of David Kamau of Kenya.

Ernie Els of South Africa wins the U.S. Open Golf Tournament in Bethesda, Maryland. . . . Kim Casali, 55, cartoonist whose work appeared in newspapers in 60 countries during the 1960s and 1970s, dies in Surrey, England, of unreported causes.

New York governor George Pataki (R) announces that state legislators have reached an agreement to extend the state’s system of rent restrictions, which will leave intact the bulk of the current regulations for another six years. . . . The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation of Chicago awards its annual MacArthur Fellowships, honoring 23 individuals in a wide range of fields.

The U.S. Senate expresses its support for adding Romania, Bulgaria, and the three Baltic republics— Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia—to NATO.

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rules that the White House has to hand over all documents subpoenaed by independent counsel Donald Smaltz that “might reasonably be relevant” to his investigation of former agriculture secretary Mike Espy. However, the appeals court’s ruling also extends the president’s constitutional right to confidential communication with his staff.

The FBI announces that the agency has captured Mir Aimal Kansi, a Pakistani native suspected of opening fire outside the Langley, Virginia, headquarters of the CIA in 1993, killing two CIA employees. . . . The U.S. Senate votes, 90-5, to approve a State Department authorization bill that includes a plan to pay a total of $819 million in delinquent UN dues over three years.

Actor Tim Allen, known for the ABC comedy Home Improvement, pleads guilty in a Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, court to a charge of driving while impaired and is sentenced to one year of probation and a $500 fine.

June 12

June 13

June 14

June 15

June 16

June 17

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1012—June 18–23, 1997

June 18

June 19

June 20

June 21

World Affairs

Europe

The 15 EU leaders agree on a treaty to update the 1992 Maastricht pact. . . . At the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), delegates vote to restrict trade in sturgeon and to maintain existing controls on the trade of rhinoceros horn. Reports confirm that CITES also rejected a request by Norway and Japan to lift curbs on commercial whaling.

Premier Necmettin Erbakan, Turkey’s first-ever leader from a fundamentalist Muslim party, resigns under military pressure. . . . Multinational troops in Albania kill a man who opens fire on Greek soldiers in the town of Elbasan. He is the first person killed by the multinational force since its April deployment. . . . Lev Z. Kopelev, 85, Russian writer and dissident during the Soviet era, dies in Cologne, Germany, of heart disease.

At the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), delegates grant approval for three southern African countries—Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe—to sell a limited amount of stockpiled ivory to Japan. The transaction would be the first legal sale of ivory since January 1990, when CITES’s worldwide ban on ivory trading went into effect.

Ukraine president Leonid Kuchma issues a decree removing Premier Pavlo Lazarenko from office, ostensibly due to a “severe cold.” . . . In the longest trial in British history, McDonald’s is awarded £60,000 ($98,000) in damages. In the threeyear-long libel case known as the “McLibel” trial, the judge rules that British environmentalists David Morris and Helen Steel defamed the company. . . . Julia Smith, 87, producer of a popular British soap opera, dies in London, England, of unreported causes.

At a summit in Denver, Colorado, Russia’s entry into what has been the Group of Seven (G-7) leading industrial democracies is formalized, prompting commentators to dub the new assemblage the Group of Eight (G-8). Other items on the summit’s agenda include discussions on pollution, implications of the handover of Hong Kong to China, aid to Africa, and the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe.

Alexander Zakharov, an arms researcher, dies less than a week after being exposed to neutron rays at the Arzamas-16 nuclear center. Zakharov is reported to be the first Russian seriously injured in an atomic energy accident since the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Traditionally neutral Switzerland becomes the 28th country to join the NATO Partnership for Peace program.

Three people are injured when a car bomb explodes in Belfast, Northern Ireland. . . . Russian television broadcasts a videotape of Justice Minister Valentin Kovalev, nude with two naked young women at a sauna reportedly controlled by Russian organized crime.

The Americas

In Kenya, police use violence to prevent Nairobi University students from marching on Parliament. The march is reportedly sparked by state broadcasters’ decision to halt live TV and radio coverage of Finance Minister Musalia Mudavadi’s budget speech after a disruption led to scuffles on the parliament floor between opposition figures and members of Pres. Daniel T. arap Moi’s KANU party.

Asia & the Pacific

British governor Chris Patten holds his last monthly question-and-answer session before the Legislative Council, the democratically elected body that will be dissolved when control of the colony changes hands. Francis Cornish is named Britain’s first consul-general in post-handover Hong Kong. . . . Pol Pot, allegedly responsible for more than 1 million deaths during the Khmer Rouge’s rule of Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, is captured by forces loyal to Ta Mok, a popular leader among Khmer Rouge troops.

Fidel Velazquez Sanchez, 97, Mexican labor leader known as Don Fidel who ran the country’s largest union alliance, the Confederation of Mexican Workers, for more than 50 years, dies in Mexico City of cardiac arrest and respiratory failure.

In response to the video aired June 21, Russian premier Viktor Chernomyrdin states that he has suspended Justice Minister Valentin Kovalev. . . . In separate incidents, police in two Northern Ireland towns prevent a Protestant organization from marching through predominantly Catholic neighborhoods.

June 22

June 23

Africa & the Middle East

In Cambodia, Prince Ranariddh and Hun Sen jointly announce the capture of Pol Pot. Ranariddh reveals that Pol Pot is being held by the Khmer Rouge rebels in Anlong Veng, a jungle stronghold near the Thai border.

Taiwan begins to conduct live-fire military exercises, which are interpreted as a signal to China that it will resist reunification planned for June 30.

High-level delegates from nearly 180 countries, including about 60 heads of state, attend a special session of the UN General Assembly to assess the state of the global environment five years after the landmark 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development, or Earth Summit, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The British Commonwealth’s sovereign, Queen Elizabeth II, and her husband, Prince Philip, make a visit to Canada. It is the queen’s first visit to Canada, a member of the Commonwealth, since 1992.

Indian foreign secretary Salman Haider and Pakistani foreign secretary Shamshad Ahmed conclude talks in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, on the disputed Kashmir region. The ministers reveal that their governments are committed to launching continuing negotiations on the region, over which the two countries have fought two wars since they were partitioned in 1947. . . . Great Britain agrees to allow some 500 more Chinese soldiers into Hong Kong ahead of the colony’s handover to China from Britain at midnight on June 30.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

June 18–23, 1997—1013

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Irineo Tristan Montoya, a 30-year-old Mexican citizen who confessed to murdering U.S. motorist John Kilheffer in 1985, is executed in Huntsville, Tex. His death sentence provoked protests from Mexico. Montoya is the 397th person executed in the U.S. and the 131st in Texas since 1976. . . . In Hammond, Ind., Judge James Moody orders that U.S. citizenship be stripped from Kazys Ciurinskas, 79, who is accused of World War II–era atrocities.

The Labor Department reports that the nation’s overall productivity in nonfarm sectors rose by a revised seasonally adjusted 2.6% annual rate in the first quarter of 1997. That marks the indicator’s most robust showing since the final quarter of 1993.

In Abrams v. Johnson, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, to uphold an electoral districting map for the state of Georgia that leaves the state with just one black-majority congressional district. The state’s previous districting plan was struck down by the Supreme Court’s 1995 decision in Miller v. Johnson.

The Mexican foreign ministry delivers a diplomatic protest to the U.S. embassy in Mexico City calling the June 18 execution of Irineo Tristan Montoya “cruel and inhuman.” Mexican officials argue that Montoya’s arrest violated the Vienna Convention because Texas police failed to inform him of his right to contact Mexican authorities for legal help. Mexico has no civilian death penalty.

In U.S. v. Alaska, the Supreme Court rules that the federal government has complete rights to a tract of oilrich seabed off the northeast coast of Alaska. . . . Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. announces that it has agreed to pay $30 million to settle a criminal investigation into the firm’s role in underwriting bond issues for Orange County, California, before the county’s 1994 bankruptcy. Merrill Lynch still faces a civil suit filed by the county and a probe by the SEC.

The tobacco industry and their legal opponents reach an unprecedented $368.5 billion settlement that, if implemented, will require tobacco companies to pay billions of dollars in damages, impose strict rules on the marketing of cigarettes, and assure the FDA regulatory authority over tobacco products. In exchange, cigarette makers will win immunity from many of the legal claims against them, including actions by attorneys general in 39 states and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico as well as several suits filed by smokers.

Reports confirm that that Amnesty International sent a letter to Texas Gov. George W. Bush (R) contending that Irineo Tristan Montoya, a Mexican citizen who was executed June 18, was not allowed a lawyer during his police interrogation and that the confession he signed was in English, a language he did not understand.

The Dow closes at a record high of 7796.51, marking the seventh record high in June and the 27th registered in 1997. . . . Judge Thomas Wilks rules that the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press engaged in unfair labor practices that forced a 19-month-long strike, the longest newspaper walkout in U.S. history. Since many workers were not rehired after the strike ended in February, the court orders the Detroit papers to rehire those employees, even if that requires laying off replacement workers.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Some 12,000 delegates at the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant group, vote overwhelmingly to boycott Disney to protest what it views as the company’s shift to a “Christianbashing, family-bashing, prohomosexual agenda.”

A government-convened panel issues the first official guidelines on how doctors should administer newly developed drug treatments to effectively combat HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. A total of 11 socalled antiretroviral drugs that may used in 320 different combinations are currently on the market.

June 19

June 20

The inaugural game of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), a new U.S. women’s professional league, is played, with the Los Angeles Sparks hosting the New York Liberty. The Liberty wins the game, 67-57.

Data shows that the state and federal prison population increased by nearly 56,000 inmates in 1996, reaching a record high of 1.18 million at the end of the year, up 5% from year-end 1995. The prison population has more than doubled since year-end 1985, when just 502,500 inmates were held in federal and state penitentiaries. In Agostini v. Felton, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, to overturn a 12year-old Supreme Court precedent that bars public school teachers in New York City from providing remedial tutoring to students at religious schools. . . . In Kansas v. Hendricks, the Supreme Court upholds, 5-4, a Kansas statute that allows the state to commit violent sex offenders to mental institutions, even after the offenders served prison terms for their crimes. . . . In Idaho v. Coeur d’Alene Tribe, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that the Coeur d’Alene tribe can not bring a federal lawsuit against the state of Idaho to claim ownership of a portion of a lake bed located partially on the tribe’s reservation.

Two trains collide head-on in Devine, Texas, killing two Union Pacific workers and two trespassing riders and injuring two other people.

Former FBI agent Earl Edwin Pitts is sentenced by a federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia, to 27 years in prison for spying for the former Soviet Union and Russia. . . . In Lindh v. Murphy, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 does not apply retroactively to writs of habeas corpus pending in federal courts when the law took effect.

June 18

The Dow closes down 192.25 points, or 2.47%, which, in terms of single session point declines, is surpassed only by the drop of 508.32 points recorded on Oct. 19, 1987. . . . In Metro-North v. Buckley, the Supreme Court rejects claims brought by a group of rail workers exposed to high levels of asbestos while employed by New York’s Metro-North commuter railroad. . . . In Richardson v. McKnight, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that guards working for privately run prisons are not entitled to the same protection against inmates’ lawsuits as prison guards employed by a state or the federal government.

June 21

June 22

Betty Shabazz (born Betty Sanders), 61, college administrator and widow of slain black nationalist leader Malcolm X, dies in New York City after suffering extensive burns in a fire allegedly set by her 12-year-old grandson, Malcolm Shabazz.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 23

1014—June 24–29, 1997

World Affairs

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Egypt, a lower court temporarily lifts the ban on the genital cutting of girls and women.

In Canada, some 140 revelers are arrested in Quebec City and Montreal when celebrations of St. Jean Baptiste Day, Quebec’s national holiday, turn violent. One police officer and three youths are injured. It is the fourth straight year that violence mars the festivities. . . . Reports from Chile state floods and mudslides over the past three weeks have caused 17 deaths and $200 million in infrastructure damage.

Jerry Wolf Stuchiner, a former top U.S. immigration official in Hong Kong sentenced to three months in jail for possessing material to make false passports, gains early release from a colony jail. . . . Justice Murray Wilcox of Australia’s Federal Court finds that pesticide maker ICI Australia, a unit of Britain’s Imperial Chemical Industries PLC, manufactured and distributed contaminated cattle feed.

Swiss banks agree to waive Swiss bank secrecy laws and to publish the names on unclaimed accounts that dated back to the Nazi Holocaust era. . . . . Christies International PLC auctions 79 gowns that belonged to Diana, Princess of Wales. The proceeds, which total some $3.25 million, will go to two British charities, the Royal Marsden Hospital Cancer Fund, and the AIDS Crisis Trust.

Algerian premier Ahmed Ouyahia, in an apparent effort to attract Islamic support to Liamine Zéroual’s government, names seven Islamic moderates to the cabinet he is forming.

A special government commission frees 116 prisoners after finding that they were wrongly convicted under Peru’s strict terrorism laws. . . . At least 19 people are dead or missing after the Soufriere Hills volcano on the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat erupts, spewing streams of hot rock and ash over surrounding villages. The deaths are the first caused by the volcano, which began erupting in July 1995.

East Timor resistance leader David Alex dies after being wounded in a battle with Indonesian troops in Baucau. The military states Alex died from the wounds suffered during the clash, but resistance leaders claim that he died under torture by military interrogators.

The Dail, the 166-seat lower chamber of Ireland’s parliament, elects Bertie Ahern as the country’s new taoiseach, or prime minister. defeating incumbent John Bruton. . . . Albanian president Berisha’s campaign entourage is attacked in the southern town of Lushnja. Eight people are wounded. . . . Turkey ends a six-week offensive against Iraq-based PKK fighters, which reportedly resulted in the deaths of more than 3,000 guerrillas and 113 Turks. . . . Cecil Victor (Charlie) Chester, 83, British comedian, dies of unreported causes.

Congolese opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi is arrested and held overnight after he addresses a rally of students at the University of Kinshasa.

June 24

June 25

The first-ever report from the UN International Drug Control Program estimates that the global drug trade generates $400 billion a year in revenue, equivalent to 8% of all international trade, and that about 140 million people worldwide smoke marijuana or hashish, 30 million take amphetamines and other stimulants, and 8 million use heroin. At least 13 million are said to use the various forms of cocaine.

June 26

June 27

Investigators from the international criminal tribunal in The Hague and UN peacekeepers arrest a Croatian Serb, Slavko Dokmanovic, on war crimes related to a massacre of 61 civilians near the town of Ovcara, Croatia. . . . Delegates to the conference on the global environment that started June 23 are unable to agree on concrete measures or even a political statement to combat environmental problems as the summit closes.

Africa & the Middle East

A bomb blast on a Russian train near Torbino station kills three people and injures seven others. . . . Tajik president Imamali Rakhmanov and United Tajik Opposition (UTO) leader Said Abdullo Nuri sign a peace pact ending a five-year-long civil war. Since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union, 20,000–40,000 people have died in civil strife in Tajikistan.

The family of prominent Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng, who was sentenced in 1995 to 14 years in prison for plotting to subvert the government, report that Wei was severely beaten by other inmates at a prison camp in China. . . . Statistics reveal the number of Japanese senior citizens exceeds the number of children in the nation for the first time.

Angry residents of El Cayo, a remote village on the Usumacinta River in the Mexican state of Chiapas, attack archaeologists who try to remove an ancient Mayan altar to take to a museum in the town of Palenque, some 80 miles (130 km) away. Around 100 villagers rob and beat the archaeologists, who flee into the Mexican jungle.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng stock index closes at a record high 15,196.79, up 68.77 points, on the last day of trading under British rule. Hong Kong’s government-inwaiting announces plans to send in 4,000 soldiers, many in armored personnel carriers.

In Hong Kong, the Legislative Council ends its final session, marked by the passage of a number of measures, including public housing and communications privacy legislation and amendments to the bill of rights. It is anticipated that most of those laws will be rolled back by the provisional legislature. An estimated 70,000 people attend a “Say No to China” antireunification rally in Taiwan. . . . Japanese police state they have arrested a 14-year-old boy for the May decapitation murder of an 11-year-old boy in Kobe, a murder which caused alarm and increased vigilance in Japan, where violent crime is rare.

June 28

Albania’s Socialist Party, led by communist-era premier Fatos Nano, wins a sizeable majority in the first round elections for Parliament. In a parallel ballot, voters turn down a referendum proposal on restoring the monarchy. A Democratic Party official is shot dead in election-related violence.

June 29

Hundreds of thousands of people head to Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, for a spontaneous celebration of the June 30 handover of Hong Kong to China from Britain. Prince Charles knights industrialist Gordon Wu, Financial Secretary Donald Tsang, and Executive Council member Jimmy McGregor in the last such ceremony in the colony.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

June 24–29, 1997—1015

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Judge Ralph Nimmons Jr. of U.S. District Court in Jacksonville, Florida, sentences Harry Shapiro, a 31-year-old Orthodox Jew, to 10 years’ imprisonment for planting a pipe bomb at a synagogue in Jacksonville before an appearance by former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres in February. The bomb did not explode.

In New York City, Judge Jack B. Weinstein rules that the INS cannot retroactively apply an April 1996 antiterrorism law to automatically deport legal immigrants convicted of minor offenses. . . . In Miami, Florida, Judge James Lawrence King issues an injunction against the deportation of tens of thousands of refugees from Nicaragua and other Central American countries living in three southern states.

The Conference Board reports that its index of consumer confidence ascended to 129.6 in June, marking the index’s fourth-consecutive monthly gain and its highest level in 28 years. . . . The Financial Accounting Foundation announces its choice of Edmund L. Jenkins as chair of the seven-member Financial Accounting Standards Board.

The U.S. Air Force issues a report debunking claims that an alien spacecraft landed near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.

(Robert) Brian Keith Jr., 75, TV actor known for his role on Family Affair (1966–71), is found dead in Malibu, California, of an apparent suicide; he reportedly was suffering from cancer.

In Amchem Products v. Windsor, the Supreme Court rules, 6-2, to affirm a 1996 lower-court ruling that overturned a $1.3 billion settlement in a massive class-action suit brought against 20 asbestos manufacturers. . . . William Woratzeck, 51, convicted of a 1981 murder, is put to death by lethal injection in Florence, Arizona. He is the 398th person in the U.S. and only the eighth in Arizona to be executed since 1976.

The House votes, 304-120, to approve a $268.2 billion defense authorization bill for fiscal 1998. . . . The U.S. House votes, 278-148, to cut off funding for the Bosnia mission by June 30, 1998, as scheduled.

In U.S. v. O’Hagan, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that federal restrictions against insider trading may be applied to individuals who profit from confidential securities information, even if they are not directly affiliated with the companies whose shares are being traded. . . . Pres. Clinton approves new air-quality standards that tighten previous limits on soot and ground-level ozone, an element of smog. . . . The House, 270-162, and the Senate, 73-27, approve their versions of spending bills to balance the federal budget by the year 2002.

The Russian space station Mir loses between 40% and 50% of its power supply in a crash with an unmanned cargo craft during a practice docking maneuver. It is the worst collision ever involving a manned spacecraft and the second accident to involve the 11-year-old Mir in 1997. . . . Jacques-Yves Cousteau, 87, renowned French marine explorer who wrote or cowrote more than 80 books, produced 100 films, and hosted a popular TV series, (1968–77), dies in Paris of a heart attack, after a long hospitalization for a respiratory ailment.

In Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, to overturn the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, asserting that Congress exceeded its authority when it attempted to define the level of protection that the Constitution affords to religious expression.

In Raines v. Byrd, the Supreme Court rejects, 7-2, a challenge of the 1996 Line-Item Veto Act.. . . . In Washington v. Glucksberg and in Vacco v. Quill, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that the 14th Amendment’s due process guarantee does not endow terminally ill individuals with a right to physicianassisted suicide. . . . In Reno v. ACLU, the Supreme Court overturns the Communications Decency Act, a bill that made it a crime to display or distribute “indecent” or “patently offensive” material to minors over on-line computer networks.

FBI agent Jerome R. Sullivan is indicted in Miami, Florida, on charges of stealing more than $400,000, including some $100,000 of cash confiscated from a loansharking ring allegedly run by reputed crime boss Nicholas Corozzo. Sullivan, a 25-year veteran of the FBI, headed an investigation that led to Corozzo’s arrest in December 1996.

The House votes, 253-179, to pass its version of a tax bill that seeks to balance the federal budget by the year 2002.

In Printz v. U.S., the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, to strike down a central provision of the 1993 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. The court argues that the requirement that local law-enforcement officials conduct background checks on potential gun purchasers is an unconstitutional incursion on states’ sovereignty rights.

Federal agents in Miami, Florida, arrest two immigrants from the former Soviet Union—Aleksandr Progrebovsky, 28, and Aleksandr Darichev, 36, both of Lithuania—on charges of conspiring to sell nuclear warheads and other weapons to undercover federal agents posing as drug traffickers.

The Senate passes, 80-18, its version of a tax bill that seeks to balance the federal budget by the year 2002. . . . The Democratic National Committee states that it has returned an additional $1.4 million in questionable donations.

Don (Donald Montgomery) Hutson, 84, who was a charter member of both the College Football Hall of Fame (1951) and the Pro Football Hall of Fame (1963), dies in Rancho Mirage, California, of unreported causes.

June 24

June 25

June 26

June 27

Evander Holyfield retains his WBA heavyweight title in a bout with former champion Mike Tyson after Tyson is disqualified in the third round for biting Holyfield on both ears. Tyson’s actions are widely condemned in the boxing community.

Golfer Graham Marsh of Australia wins the U.S. Senior Open in Olympia Fields, Illinois . . . William Hickey, actor who was nominated for an Oscar in 1986, dies in New York City of complications of emphysema and bronchitis.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 28

June 29

1016—June 30–July 5, 1997

June 30

July 1

July 2

July 3

World Affairs

Europe

The territory of Hong Kong reverts to Chinese sovereignty at midnight, ending 156 years of British colonial rule. After a Sino-British handover ceremony, the territory becomes known as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China. . . . Officials at the international criminal tribunal in The Hague states it will no longer make its indictments public. . . . At the annual summit of CARICOM, members agrees to admit Haiti as its 15th member.

Turkish president Suleyman Demirel grants formal approval to a new government headed by three of the country’s secular parties.

Romania becomes the sixth member of the Central European Free Trade Agreement. . . . Britain rejoins the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 12 years after following the U.S.’s lead by quitting the body in protest of its alleged mismanagement and antiWestern bias.

In Spain, two hostages held by ETA are freed in unrelated circumstances. . . . In Sandormokh, 143 miles (230 km) north of St. Petersburg, a group finds a mass grave dating from 1937 that holds the bodies of at least 1,111 people executed in purges led by Joseph Stalin. . . . Annie Fratellini, 64, French founder of the National Circus School, dies in Paris of cancer. . . . Sir Joshua Abraham (Salvador) Hassan, 81, mayor, 1964–69, and chief minister. 1972–87, of the British colony of Gibraltar, dies in Gibraltar.

Roberto Garreton reports to the UN Security Council that he has evidence of 134 alleged massacres of Hutu refugees by troops loyal to Congolese president Laurent Kabila during the rebellion in the former Zaire. Garreton recommends that the UN probe should focus on “whether a genocide was planned and executed” and whether those guilty should be tried before an international tribunal.

In Russia, a defense ministry official, Valeri Sintsov, is sentenced to 10 years in a labor camp for passing secrets to Britain.

Iraqi and UN negotiators reach revised terms for distributing food, medical, and other humanitarian supplies to Iraqis in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 986, the so-called oil-for-food agreement originally put into effect in December 1996.

One person reportedly dies and five others are wounded by gunfire at a monarchist rally in Tirana, Albania’s capital, led by pretender King Leka I, the son of King Zog, who ruled Albania from 1928 to 1939. . . . Two British aid workers—CamillalCarr and Jon James—are taken hostage in Dzhokhar-Ghala (formerly Grozny), the capital of Chechnya.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Nasser al-Abed Radwan, a 28year-old devout Muslim who was arrested by the PNA on June 23, dies from complications of a fractured skull. He is the 14th Palestinian to die while in PNA custody.

The Popocatepetl volcano near Mexico City, erupts, spewing lava and covering parts of the city with ash. Tens of thousands of people are placed on alert for evacuation during the eruption, which officials call the volcano’s biggest in 72 years. . . . A team of archaeologists reaches safety after being attacked June 27 by angry residents of El Cayo, a remote village on the Usumacinta River in the southern state of Chiapas, Mexico.

In Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, 70,000–100,000 people celebrate and watch a clock count down to the handover of Hong Kong to China from Britain. In Hong Kong, Chinese authorities do not attempt to suppress the peaceful rallies that take place outside the Legislative Council building as LegCo is officially dissolved at midnight.

Thousands of Palestinian demonstrators in Gaza City protest the June 30 death of Nasser al-Abed Radwan, who was allegedly beaten to death by members of Force 17, an elite Palestinian security service.

At least 10 people are injured during a series of strikes when protesters clash with security forces in the northeastern Dominican Republic. The strikers demand improvements to the mainly agricultural region’s infrastructure.

Tung Chee-hwa, a shipping magnate, is sworn in as Hong Kong’s first chief executive, succeeding British governor Chris Patten. The China-backed provisional legislature is also sworn in. About 2,500 protesters march in a peaceful demonstration organized by the prodemocracy Hong Kong Alliance. In what is considered a show of military force, an advance unit of 4,000 additional armed Chinese troops enter the colony by land, sea, and air.

Officials report that a team of Cuban, Argentine, and Bolivian forensic scientists have found seven sets of remains in Vallegrande, Bolivia. . . . The Commission of Inquiry into the Deployment of Canadian Forces to Somalia accuses the Canadian military of poor leadership and cover-ups in the Canadian armed forces’ Somalia humanitarian mission in 1992 and 1993.

Fighting breaks out in Cambodia between the copremiers’ forces. . . . Thailand devalues its currency, the baht, which, in offshore trading, closes at a record low of 29.55 per U.S. dollar, down 16.4% from the previous day’s close of 24.70 baht.

In Afghanistan, Taliban jets bomb Maimana, the capital of Fariab province. . . . Cambodia’s First Premier Prince Norodom Ranariddh departs for an unannounced visit to France.

July 4

In Afghanistan, opposition jets retaliate for the July 4 Taliban attack by bombing Kabul’s airport. At least three Taliban rebels are reported killed in the attack. . . . Fighting breaks out between forces loyal to rival Cambodian premiers, Hun Sen, and Prince Norodom Ranariddh.

July 5

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

June 30–July 5, 1997—1017

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Pres. Clinton releases his own taxcutting plan, setting the stage for a final round of negotiations over spending and tax bills designed to balance the federal budget by 2002.

The state of Kentucky carries out its first execution in 35 years when it puts convicted murderer Harold McQueen to death in the electric chair at the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville. McQueen, 44, is the 399th person executed in the U.S. since 1976. . . . A new welfare bill that ends the federal guarantee of assistance for the poor and shifts most poverty-relief responsibilities to the states goes into effect.

The Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations files deportation papers in Philadelphia, Pennsylvanla, against alleged war criminal Jonas Stelmokas, an 80year-old retired architect who served in a Lithuanian police unit that helped Nazi German forces brutalize and kill Jews during World War II. . . . Jesse Brown resigns as secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA).

The Postal Service’s board of governors proposes a one-cent increase in the price of first-class postage, a move that will raise the cost of mailing a domestic letter to 33 cents.

Flint Gregory Hunt, 38, convicted of killing a Baltimore, Maryland, police officer in 1985, is executed by lethal injection in Baltimore. Hunt is the 400th person executed in the U.S. and the second in Maryland since 1976.

Mississippi attorney general Michael Moore announces an agreement with the nation’s four major tobacco companies that will settle the state’s liability lawsuit against the industry. The cigarette makers will pay Mississippi more than $3 billion over 25 years to compensate for the public costs of treating smoking-related illnesses.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Harry A. McQuillen III, 51, media mogul and magazine publisher, is found dead in Darien, Connecticut, of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

The space shuttle Columbia blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, to study the effects of the absence of gravity on combustion.

Many provisions of the 1996 Professional Boxing Safety Act go into effect. . . . Robert (Charles) Mitchum, 79, actor whose Hollywood career stretched from the 1940s to the 1990s and included appearances in more than 100 films, dies in Santa Barbara, California, after suffering from emphysema and lung cancer.

In Kenefick, Kansas, a Union Pacific train rams the side of a passing train, killing one crew member. A leak of hazardous materials from one of the trains prompts local authorities to evacuate hundreds of nearby residents.

Jimmy (James Maitland) Stewart, 89, one of the U.S.’s most beloved actors who, in 1984, received an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement, dies in Beverly Hills, California, of heart failure associated with a pulmonary blood clot.

Data reveals that the cost of an average car dipped below 50% of the average U.S. family’s annual pretax income for the first time since 1981. . . . The Dow closes at a record 7895.81, up 100.43 points, or 1.29%, from the previous day’s close.

The National Organization for Women (NOW) elects Patricia Ireland to her second term as president at the group’s annual convention in Memphis, Tennessee. Ireland launches NOW’s Victory 2000 campaign, the goal of which is to elect 2,000 feminist women to political office by the year 2000.

June 30

July 1

July 2

July 3

After a 310 million-mile (500 million-km), seven-month-long journey, Mars Pathfinder, an unmanned spacecraft launched by the NASA, lands on Mars. Pathfinder and Sojourner, a roving robotic explorer vehicle, will explore the geology of a region of the planet known as Ares Vallis. Pathfinder is the first spacecraft to reach Mars since two NASA Viking missions landed there in 1976.

Miguel Najdorf (born Moishe Najdorf), 87, Polish-born international chess grandmaster, dies in Malaga, Spain, after a long illness. . . . Charles Bishop Kuralt, 62, prizewinning journalist and author who won three Peabody Awards and 12 Emmy Awards, dies in New York City of heart failure; he was recently diagnosed with lupus.

The Mars Pathfinder sends to Earth the first close-up images of Mars’s landscape seen by space observers in 21 years. Scientists assert that the pictures support the theory that the landing region was flooded by water over a distance of hundreds of miles 1–3 billion years ago. NASA officials announce that the Pathfinder lander has been renamed the Carl Sagan Memorial Station, after the well-known astronomer who died in December 1996.

Martina Hingis of Switzerland wins the women’s singles title at the All England Tennis Championship at Wimbledon, in London. Hingis, 16, is the youngest Wimbledon champion since 1887.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 4

July 5

1018—July 6–10, 1997

World Affairs

July 10

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In elections, Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) loses its majority in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Congress, and the mayoralty of Mexico City, the capital. The elections mark the first time since the party’s formation in 1929 that the PRI loses its near-absolute control over the government. Violence is reported at polling places in the southern state of Chiapas, the site of the EZLN uprising in 1994.

Cambodian second premier Hun Sen ousts First Premier Prince Norodom Ranariddh from power after the fighting that erupted July 5 in Phnom Penh, the capital, between army factions loyal to the rival premiers.

Catholics continue to protest the Orange Order’s July 6 parade in Northern Ireland. Police report that 80 Orange Order’s people, including 46 RUC officers, are wounded. Other observers report more than 100 injuries. Rioters clash with police in several cities and set fire to cars, trucks, buses, and trains. . . . Mate Boban, 57, Croatian nationalist who in 1992 helped form an independent enclave and was believed to have ordered mass killings in central Bosnia in 1993, dies in Mostar, BosniaHerzegovina, after suffering a stroke.

Nine people die as police break up pro-reform rallies across Kenya. In Nairobi, several coalition leaders are beaten by police.

The Chilean government grants permission to a wealthy U.S. conservationist, Douglas Tompkins, to create a nature park on a 677,000acre (274,000-hectare) swath of land that he owns in southern Chile.

Mumeo Oku, 101, Japanese activist who founded the Housewives’ Association, a consumerrights group, during World War II, dies in Tokyo of unreported causes.

At a summit meeting in Madrid, Spain, leaders of the 16 NATO member states formally invite Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic to join the military alliance in 1999. Inclusion of the three countries will mark the largest expansion of NATO since its founding in 1949 and the first since the admission of Spain in 1982. The trio will be the first former members of the Warsaw Pact, NATO’s cold war adversary, to join the Atlantic alliance.

A bomb blast in Dagestan kills nine Russian border police traveling by truck. Three other bombs are found on the same road.

In Kenya, opposition leaders call for more protests.

Allan Kupcis, the CEO of Ontario Hydro, North America’s largest electric utility, admits that Hydro released almost 2,000 tons of the common metals arsenic, copper, iron, lead, tin, and zinc into the Great Lakes as part of the effluent at six Canadian power stations.

Reports suggest the fighting that started July 5 in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, has left 32 people dead and at least 75 wounded. Hun Sen’s forces begin arresting Prince Norodom Ranariddh’s political opponents . . . . The North Korean government declares an end to the three-year mourning period for North Korea’s longtime leader, Kim Il Sung.

Pres. Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine and NATO leaders sign a charter of cooperation, similar to a RussiaNATO accord reached in May. Separately, 16 NATO leaders and representatives of 28 other European and former Soviet countries meet for the first session of the EuroAtlantic Partnership Council. The new council, which includes members of the NATO Partnership for Peace program, replaces the North Atlantic Cooperation Council.

An experimental bomb explodes at a military airfield in Craiova, Romania, killing 16 workers. . . . A court in Italy sentences eight Venetian separatists to prison terms of up to six years for illegally occupying a bell tower in May. . . . Greek Cypriot president Glafcos Clerides and Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash meet for the first time in three years. . . . A dispute started by Rufi Osmani, an ethnic Albanian and the mayor of Gostivar, leads to a violent protest in which three people die and 40 are wounded.

After Nairobi University students clash with police in Kenya, officials order the closure of the university’s four campuses and of Jomo Kenyatta University, north of the capital.

An earthquake strikes Sucre province on Venezuela’s northeastern coast, killing at least 82 people and injuring more than 500 others. The quake measures 6.9 on the Richter scale and is the country’s worst earthquake in 30 years. . . . A bomb explodes on a TAM Airlines jet, blowing a hole in the side of the airliner and killing one man who is sucked out of the cabin. The plane later lands safely in the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil. . . . A fire ignites in a plastics-recycling plant in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

Hong Kong’s provisional legislature, in its first formal meeting, votes to tighten controls on child immigrants from mainland China. Prodemocracy forces hold a noisy rally outside the provisional legislature building to protest the dissolution of the LegCo. . . . An aide to Prince Ranariddh, Chau Sambath, is found dead in Cambodia.

In response to the July 6 takeover in Cambodia, ASEAN members vote to indefinitely postpone the country’s entrance, which was approved in May, into their powerful trade group. . . . British troops under NATO command in Bosnia-Herzegovina kill Simo Drljaca, a Bosnian Serb accused of committing war crimes and wanted by the international tribunal. One soldier is injured in the raid. In a separate incident, they arrest Milan Kovacevic, accused of war crimes.

Miguel Angel Blanco, a member of Spanish premier Jose Maria Aznar’s ruling Popular Party, is kidnapped. The ETA states he will be executed on July 12 unless the government transfers 500 imprisoned ETA rebels to prisons in the Basque region. Protests are held in Barcelona and Madrid. . . . In London, 100,000 British hunters hold a rally to protest a planned ban on hunting with hounds. . . . Due to the July 6 violence in Portadown, Northern Ireland, the Orange Order states it will reroute or cancel four parades scheduled for July 12.

Mexican officials confirm that billionaire drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes died nearly a week earlier. Carrillo reportedly suffered a heart attack after undergoing liposuction and extensive facial reconstructive surgery.

Several opposition members and at least 10 members of Cambodia’s royal family reportedly flee the country.

July 7

July 9

Africa & the Middle East

Some 2,000 members of the Orange Order, a pro-British Protestant group, conducts its traditional parade in Portadown, Northern Ireland. Police remove 200 Catholic protestors. Some of the demonstrators launch gasoline bombs at police, who retaliate with night sticks and plastic bullets, resulting in 19 injuries. A gunman in Coalisland shoots and seriously wounds a police officer. The IRA claims responsibility. . . . In a second round of elections, Albania’s Socialist Party solidifies its parliamentary majority. Three people are killed in election violence.

July 6

July 8

Europe

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

July 6–10, 1997—1019

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Pete Sampras wins his fourth Wimbledon men’s title. . . . Dorothy Buffum Chandler, 96, philanthropist who used her family’s newspaper-publishing fortune to promote arts programs in Los Angeles, dies in Hollywood, California, of unreported causes.

Figures show that merger and acquisition activity reached a new high in the first half of 1997. Merger volume in the U.S. was $366 billion in deals announced, up 16% from 1996’s first-half total of $314 billion. At least 74 of those transactions were valued at $1 billion or more, compared with 49 in the first half of 1996.

Jeffrey Locke, the Norfolk County, Massachusetts, district attorney, ends the agency’s criminal investigation of Michael Kennedy, suspected of committing statutory rape when he allegedly had sexual relations with his family baby-sitter beginning when she was 14. Locke is terminating the investigation because the former baby-sitter refuses to assist authorities.

The House passes, 395-14, a $9.183 billion for military construction spending in fiscal year 1998.

Christine Varney, one of five members of the FTC, announces that she will leave her post for private law practice. . . . The U.S. Senate Governmental Affairs Committee opens hearings on campaignfinance practices in the 1996 election.

Reports confirm that Yale University has rejected homosexual playwright Larry Kramer’s offer to donate several million dollars to fund a gay-studies professorship at the school. Alison Richard, Yale’s provost, states that only the university’s faculty has the power to determine curriculum and establish tenured teaching positions. Richard adds that the field of gay studies is too limited in scope to justify devoting a permanent professorship to it.

The FBI reveals that it is reinvestigating the 1963 bombing of a church in which four black girls were killed in Birmingham, Alabama. Only one man—Robert Chambliss, who was convicted in 1977 and died in 1985—had been charged in the crime, despite evidence implicating at least three others. . . . R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. announces that it will eliminate the Joe Camel character from its ads. . . . The CDC reports the first known case of a person who contracted HIV through kissing.

Plum Island, by Nelson DeMille, tops the bestseller list.

NASA reveals that the first-ever chemical analysis of a rock on Mars shows it is similar to andesite, a volcanic rock found on Earth that contains large amounts of quartz, feldspar, and orthopyroxene. Soil samples contain large amounts of iron. NASA officials estimate that 15 million people have visited their website since July 4. . . . Doctors at the Mayo Clinic reveal that in 24 cases, women taking the diet drug fen/phen developed heart-valve disease.

The American League beats the National League, 3-1, in MLB’s AllStar Game in Cleveland, Ohio.

NASA releases images of Mars’s hilly terrain, including a close-up view of a shallow channel and a cluster of tilted rocks.

The Eastern Conference wins the Major League Soccer (MLS) All-Star Game, 5-4, over the Western Conference. . . . The Nevada State Athletic Commission revokes heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson’s license to fight in that state for one year and fines him $3 million for twice biting Evander Holyfield’s ears on June 28.

The Senate confirms by voice vote the appointment of George J. Tenet as director of central intelligence.

July 6

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July 9

July 10

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1020—July 11–16, 1997

July 11

World Affairs

Europe

The British Commonwealth, a grouping of Britain and its former colonies, suspends Sierra Leone pending the restoration of the government of ousted president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah.

July 12

July 13

July 14

July 15

July 16

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Unidentified gunmen in a Catholic section of Belfast, Northern Ireland, shoot and wound two police officers and three British soldiers. The attackers also throw a homemade bomb at the patrol.

All 39 passengers and five crew members die when a plane crashes in the Caribbean Sea off the southern city of Santiago de Cuba. . . . Reports reveal that the Panamanian government has sent a force of more than 1,200 armed police officers to the Darien region, on Panama’s border with Colombia, to repel recent incursions by leftist Colombian rebels, right-wing paramilitary groups and refugees.

In Pattaya, a coastal resort town in Thailand, 90 people die in a fire in that rages through a hotel. . . . In a poor area in Mumbai, formerly Bombay, India, a riot breaks out when Dalits—who were once referred to as “untouchables”— discover that a statue of Bhimrao Ambedkar, a Dalit politician who became the chief architect of India’s constitution in 1950, was vandalized. Ten Dalits are shot to death by police called in to quell the violence.

A march is held in the Basque city of Bilbao, Spain. Hours later, Miguel Angel Blanco, who was kidnapped July 10, is found gravely wounded by gunshots near the northern coastal city of San Sebastian. . . . Bill Clinton becomes the first U.S. president to visit Denmark while in office. . . . Reports confirm that the last independent national Russian newspaper lost its editorial control when it was sold.

Bombs explode almost simultaneously in two popular tourist hotels in Havana, Cuba’s capital. Cuba’s official news agency reveals that three people were slightly injured in the blasts . . . The Bolivian government confirms that the remains of leftist guerrilla leader Ernesto (Che) Guevara, executed by the Bolivian army in October 1967, are in the mass grave near an airstrip in Vallegrande discovered on July 2.

In India, as the riots that erupted July 11 in an impoverished neighborhood in Mumbai, formerly Bombay, continue, two Dalits die.

Miguel Angel Blanco, 29, a Spanish council member kidnapped July 10, dies from gunshot wounds. In Pamplona, a town in Spain’s Basque region, officials cancel the annual running of the bulls festivities in recognition of Blanco’s murder. Protests in Pamplona turn violent, leaving both ETA opponents and sympathizers injured. . . . In the town of Banja Luka, Bosnia-Herzegovina, 3,000 people attend the funeral of Simo Drljaca, killed July 10 by NATO soldiers trying to arrest him. Separately, an OSCE truck is destroyed by a bomb in the town of Zvornik.

A TV station airs an exposé charging that Peru’s intelligence services secretly wiretapped telephone conversations of prominent Peruvians. Hours later, the Peruvian government revokes the citizenship of Baruch Ivcher Bronstein, the Israeli-born majority owner of the TV station. . . . . The fire that started July 9 in a plastics-recycling plant in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, is extinguished after forcing 650 of the plant’s neighbors to leave their homes. Some 200 tons of polyvinyl chloride from recycled car bumpers burned in the blaze, spreading toxic chemicals.

In Hong Kong, hundreds of demonstrators protest the proposed suspension of social welfare laws.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia sentences Dusan Tadic, a Bosnian Serb convicted in May of crimes against humanity, to a 20-year prison term. Tadic is sentenced on 11 counts to a total of 97 years in prison; the sentences will run concurrently. . . . Reports confirm that the African state of Sao Tome and Principe has established diplomatic relations with Taiwan, prompting China to sever its Sao Tome ties.

Nearly 1 million people participate in marches in Spain in response to Miguel Angel Blanco’s July 13 death. . . . Waters begin to recede from Wroclaw, Poland’s fourthlargest city, one of the more than 1,000 areas in Poland that are flooded. . . . Czech president Vaclav Havel bestows the Order of the White Lion, the Czech Republic’s highest state honor, on U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright.

Israeli and PNA security officials in the West Bank city of Hebron forge an agreement to end month-long clashes between Palestinian youths and Israeli troops. . . . Students at the Kenya Polytechnic University in Nairobi riot in protest over government repression.

The July 13 revelations of wiretapping and action against Baruch Ivcher Bronstein prompts thousands of people to take to the streets in protests that continue throughout the week in Peru.

State and federal legislators elect Kocheril Raman Narayanan as India’s 11th president. Narayanan is the first member of Hinduism’s lowest caste—the Dalits, or “oppressed,” who were once referred to as “untouchables”—to become president of the country.

The UN General Assembly condemns Israel’s construction of settlements on occupied Palestinian land.

The Yugoslav parliament elects Slobodan Milosevic president of Yugoslavia, a federation of Serbia and Montenegro. Opposition legislators boycott the session. . . . Reports confirm that Gerda Christian (born Gerda Daranowski), 83, personal secretary to Nazi German leader Adolf Hitler during World War II, has died of cancer of the lungs, stomach and intestines.

In Algeria, FIS leader Abassi Madani is paroled after serving five years of a 12-year sentence for undermining state security.

Benjamin Flores Gonzalez, a newspaper editor who led a crusade against drug traffickers, is shot to death in broad daylight in San Luis Rio Colorado, a Mexican town in Sonora state across the border from the U.S. state of Arizona.

Japan’s securities industry watchdog completes its investigation of Nomura Securities Co., recommending that the brokerage firm be penalized for its alleged links to corporate racketeers. . . . An unidentified UN official states that, in Cambodia, such high-ranking officials as Interior Minister Ho Sok and Chau Sambath were shot dead by Hun Sen’s troops. Krouch Yoeum and Sam Norin, generals in the royalist forces, also were executed.

UN secretary general Kofi Annan announces a plan to restructure the organization’s numerous agencies into a cabinet-style administration. . . . For the third time, U.S. president Bill Clinton suspends for six months Title III of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which seeks to tighten the U.S.’s embargo on Cuba. . . . The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, names six nations that will have the opportunity to negotiate for EU membership.

Four hand grenades are thrown at a British army compound in Banja Luka, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Roberto Ducato, a U.S. Army officer liaison with the Bosnian Serb military near Vlasenica, is wounded by an unknown assailant. . . . Ukraine’s parliament approves Pres. Leonid Kuchma’s nomination of Valery Pustovoitenko as premier. . . . Reports confirm that Dora Maar (born Henriette Theodora Markovitch), 89, French-born artist’s model and painter, has died in Paris, France.

Physicians for Human Rights reports that “widespread atrocities” are continuing against civilians in eastern Congo and estimates that more than 2,000 civilians have died at the hands of marauding Rwandan soldiers in recent months.

Hong Kong’s provisional legislature suspends a series of social welfare laws passed by LegCo before the handover. The debate is interrupted when a small group of protesters bursts into the legislative gallery. . . . North and South Korean troops exchange mortar and machine-gun fire along the DMZ. North Korea claims some of its soldiers are wounded by the exchange. . . . In an effort to mollify critics, Hun Sen names Ung Huot as first premier of Cambodia.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

July 11–16, 1997—1021

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

In Los Angeles, California, Judge Alan Buckner issues an order barring 18 members of a street gang from gathering in public in groups of three or more, arguing that there is sufficient evidence that the defendants are involve, in crimes such as robbery, drug dealing, and urinating in public. The order is the fourth such injunction granted to Los Angeles authorities against gangs.

In Alexandria, Virginia, U.S. district judge Leonie Brinkema sentences Robert C. Kim, a former civilian intelligence analyst for the U.S. Navy who in May pled guilty to a charge of passing classified information to South Korea, to nine years in prison for conspiracy to commit espionage.

The Labor Department reports that the federal government’s index of prices charged by manufacturers and farmers for finished goods dropped a seasonally adjusted 0.1% in June from May. That is the sixth straight month in which wholesale prices declined, marking the longest monthly string since the government began compiling the figure some 50 years earlier.

Doctors in Florida perform the firstever transplant of nerve tissue from a fetus into the damaged spinal cord of a 43-year-old patient suffering from syringomyelia, a degenerative disease. . . . A study reports some of the most conclusive DNA evidence ever that modern humans and Neanderthals did not interbreed and that the evolutionary split between the two species occurred much earlier than previously believed.

Joseph John Hauser, 98, the only person in the history of professional baseball to twice hit more than 60 home runs in one season, dies in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, of unreported causes. . . . John Spano cedes control of the NHL’s New York Islanders to former owner John O. Pickett.

Lennox Lewis of Great Britain retains his WBC heavyweight title when Britain’s Henry Akinwande is disqualified for repeatedly holding his opponent. . . . Andrew Schiff marries Karenna Gore, daughter of Vice Pres. Al Gore Jr. and his wife Mary (Tipper) Gore.

Cuban exiles based in South Florida lead a flotilla near the edge of Cuban territorial waters to mark the third anniversary of the deaths of 41 Cuban refugees in the sinking by the Cuban navy of a tugboat on its way to the U.S.

Golfer Larry Gilbert wins the Senior Players Championship. . . . Stuart Jewell, 84, cinematographer known for nature films made for Walt Disney, his dies in Costa Mesa, California, of cancer. . . . Alexandra Danilova, 93, Russian-born ballet dancer and teacher, dies in New York City after suffering from a heart ailment.

The CDC reports new evidence of the first-ever overall decline in AIDS death rates since the epidemic began. According to the new CDC figures, there were 19% fewer AIDS fatalities in the first nine months of 1996 than during the same period in 1995.

July 11

July 12

July 13

July 14

Judge Charles R. Norgle of U.S. District Court in Chicago, Illinois, sentences former Rep. Mel Reynolds (D, Ill.) to 61⁄2 years in prison for bank and mortgage fraud and campaign finance violations. Reynolds, who is already in jail serving a five-year state term for having sex with a minor, was convicted of the federal fraud charges in April.

Federal authorities conclude that the Medicare health-insurance program paid an estimated $23 billion in unnecessary benefits in fiscal 1996. The inspector general’s revelations mark the third consecutive year that investigators have raised concerns about Medicare’s accounting and record-keeping procedures. . . . The Dow Jones crosses the psychologically important 8000 mark for the first time ever.

Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace, 50, is shot and killed in the South Beach section of Miami Beach, Florida. Police identify Andrew Phillip Cunanan, a reputed homosexual gigolo wanted in connection with four other killings in three states, as the chief suspect in Versace’s murder.

Pres. Clinton, after meeting with legislators and industry representatives, reveals that his administration will work with the computer industry to help parents shield their children from on-line material that may be considered inappropriate for them. Clinton’s plan relies on voluntary self-regulation by the industry, rather than forced restrictions imposed by Congress.

William Henry Reynolds, 87, film editor whose career spanned some six decades during which he won Academy Awards in 1966 and in 1973, dies in South Pasadena, California, of cancer.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 15

July 16

1022—July 17–22, 1997

World Affairs

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Ukraine, Valery Pustovoitenko is sworn in as premier.

July 17

In Bosnia, an unidentified U.S. soldier is slightly injured when a bomb explodes outside his house in the town of Doboj. He is the fourth U.S. soldier injured in hostile action since the deployment of U.S. troops in Bosnia in December 1995. . . . Sir James Michael Goldsmith 64, French-born financier known as a staunch opponent of further European integration, dies in Torre de Tamores, Spain, of a heart attack; he was also suffering from pancreatic cancer.

July 18

The outlawed Provisional IRA declares a cease-fire in its 28-yearold armed campaign to end British rule in Northern Ireland, or Ulster.

July 19

The Hong Kong government issues guidelines for police that will allow them to crack down on demonstrations that either threaten peace or back independence for Taiwan or Tibet.

Former warlord Charles Taylor is elected president of Liberia in a peaceful and democratic vote that follows seven years of a bloody civil war in which than 150,000 of Liberia’s 2.4 million people died and the country was in ruins. Taylor, 49, started the war in 1989 by leading an armed incursion against then-president Samuel Doe.

Cambodia’s de facto leader, Hun Sen, rejects a plan proffered by ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to mediate negotiations between himself and former first premier Prince Norodom Ranariddh, whom Hun Sen ousted in a bloody coup July 6.

The Serb Democratic Party (SDS) ousts the president of BosniaHerzegovina’s Serb-ruled entity, Biljana Plavsic, from its ranks and urges her to step down as president.

July 20

In the wake of Hun Sen’s July 19 rejection of the ASEAN plan, fighting reportedly resumes in earnest around Samrong, near the Thai border. UN officials report that some 30 soldiers loyal to Prince Ranariddh were tortured by government authorities earlier in July.

Two of Germany’s largest banks, Bayerische Vereinsbank AG and Bayerische Hypotheken-undWechsel-Bank AG (Hypobank), announce that they will merge to form Bayerische Hypo-und-Vereinsbank AG, which, with 743 billion German marks ($415 billion) in assets, will be Europe’s second largest bank behind Germany’s Deutsche Bank AG, in terms of assets held.

July 21

July 22

Europe

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that more than half of the world’s population does not have access to sanitary toilet facilities, which leads to the deaths of 2.2 million children each year. . . . The UN Security Council creates the Dag Hammarskjold Medal in honor of the 1,500 people killed in UN peacekeeping operations since 1948, when the first mission was established in the Middle East.

Reports confirm that more than 30 people were killed in a massacre allegedly perpetrated by a rightwing paramilitary group in a remote village in eastern Colombia. In response, the military evacuates hundreds of residents of the village of Mapiripan in Meta province.

Human-rights workers reveal they documented 40 cases of couprelated executions in Cambodia.

An Italian military court in Rome convicts Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke, along with a codefendant, Karl Hass, for their participation in a World War II massacre of 335 civilians in the Ardeatine Caves near Rome. Priebke, 83, is given a 15-year sentence, but the prison term is reduced to five years in accordance with a long-standing amnesty law. Hass is sentenced to 10 years and eight months in prison, but his entire sentence is suspended under the amnesty law.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

July 17–22, 1997—1023

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Senate unanimously approves Pres. Clinton’s nomination of Eric H. Holder Jr. as deputy attorney general. Holder becomes the highest-ranking black law-enforcement official in U.S. history. . . . Robert C. Weaver, 89, who in 1966 was the first-ever black U.S. cabinet member, dies in New York City of unreported causes. . . . Arthur L. Liman, 64, attorney known for his roles in the investigations of the 1971 Attica prison uprising and the Irancontra arms scandal in the 1980s, dies in NYC of bladder cancer.

Pres. Clinton nominates army general Henry (Hugh) Shelton, commander of U.S. Special Operations, to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The nonpartisan CBO reports that the budget deficit for the first nine months of fiscal 1997 was just $11 billion, compared with $74 billion for the first nine months of fiscal 1996. Analysts estimate that the full-year deficit for fiscal 1997 (which ends Sept. 31) may be as low as $30 billion.

An employee error at Network Solutions Inc. results in hours of disrupted Internet service in the U.S. and overseas. It is considered one of the most serious disruptions of Internet service ever. . . . The space shuttle Columbia lands at Kennedy Space, Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, after completing a study on the effects of the absence of gravity on combustion. . . . Due to a mishap aboard Mir, the vessel’s batteries do not recharge, forcing astronauts to temporarily retreat into the Soyuz capsule.

The 200-member board of the National Baptist Convention U.S.A. Inc., one of the nation’s largest black denominations, votes unanimously to retain the Rev. Henry J. Lyons as president. The confidence vote is taken in the midst of a scandal involving criminal charges against Lyons’s wife, Deborah Lyons.

The U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis, Missouri, strikes down several key rules that the FCC had formulated to control prices as long-distance telephone markets open to competition, arguing that the proposed regulations violate provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Eugene Merle Shoemaker, 69, planetary geologist and astronomer who, with his wife Carolyn, held the world record for discovering the most comets, dies from injuries he suffered in a car accident near Alice Springs, Australia.

Frederick Martin Davidson, 37, a former graduate student at San Diego State University in California, is sentenced to three consecutive life terms without parole for shooting to death three professors at an August 1996 meeting to defend his master’s thesis in engineering.

July 18

Police in New York City discover some 60 Mexican immigrants, most of whom are deaf and speech-impaired, living in two apartments in Queens. The immigrants were smuggled into the U.S. illegally and forced to work in slave-like conditions. . . . A group of 190 Canadian fishing boats, angered by the overfishing of sockeye salmon as the fish migrate through U.S. waters, block a ferry owned by Alaska in the harbor of Prince Rupert, British Columbia.

John E. Hines, 86, former presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, 1965–74, dies after suffering a stroke earlier in July.

In a case that attracts intense media attention in Mexico and the U.S., police arrest seven members of a nationwide ring uncovered July 19 that allegedly smuggled deaf people from Mexico into the U.S. and forced them to work selling trinkets. Authorities believe that the ring is run by members of the Mexican-based Paoletti family, some of whom are deaf themselves.

Justin Leonard wins the 126th British Open golf championship in Troon, Scotland.

The blockade of Alaskan vessels started July 19 by a group of 190 Canadian fishing boats is lifted after representatives of the fishermen on the blockade meet with Canadian fisheries minister David Anderson.

In response to a the July 19 blockade by 190 Canadian fishing boats, Alaska suspends ferry service to Prince Rupert in British Columbia. . . . The Justice Department files a complaint seeking to revoke the citizenship of Walter Berezowskyj, 73, of Guilford, Connecticut. The department claims Berezowski is a former Nazi labor-camp guard who concealed his role in the persecution of civilians during World War II on applications for a visa in 1949 and for citizenship in 1981.

July 17

The Russian space agency announces that repairs to the beleaguered space station Mir will be undertaken by a new crew and not by the station’s current occupants, who have been confronted with a series of problems following the crash of an unmanned cargo vehicle in June.

July 19

July 20

July 21

An automated highway stretching 7.6 miles (12 km) opens to test vehicles near San Diego, California The roadway, which uses magnets, video cameras, and radar to guide specially equipped vehicles along its course without human intervention, easing congestion, is set up along Interstate Highway 15. . . . The Dow Jones industrial average closes at a record high of 8061.65 points.

July 22

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1024—July 23–28, 1997

July 23

World Affairs

Europe

The U.S., Russia, and 28 European countries agree on revisions to the 1990 treaty governing Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE). The new accord will set country-bycountry limits on nonnuclear arms and materiel deployed in Europe.

Slobodan Milosevic is sworn in as president of Yugoslavia, a federation of Serbia and Montenegro. Some 1,000 demonstrators rally across the street from the parliament building and throw shoes at the new president’s departing car. . .. The British government announces a plan to begin charging university students tuition for the first time. . . . As part of an effort to return Holocaust victims’ assets, the Swiss Bankers’ Association publishes a list of nearly 2,000 names that appear on dormant Swiss bank accounts opened during or before World War II.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Albania’s Socialist Party-dominated Parliament elects Rexhep Mejdani as the country’s new president succeeding Sali Berisha. Mejdani picks Fatos Nano, the Socialist leader, to succeed caretaker Bashkim Fino as premier. . . . Brian Glover, 63, British stage, screen, and television actor, dies in London of a brain tumor.

July 24

July 25

July 26

Asia & the Pacific

Saw Maung, 68, Burmese general who became leader of the country’s military junta after orchestrating a coup, 1988–92, dies in Yangon, Myanmar (formerly Burma), of a heart attack.

Despite the July 24 political changeover in Albania, bombings and gun battles continue, and a total of 20 people die in violent incidents. . . . In Ireland, Judge Cyril Kelly sentences a Roman Catholic priest, Rev. Brendan Smyth, to 12 years in prison for sexually abusing children 74 times over a 36-year period. Smyth, who pled guilty to the charges, recently completed a four-year prison term in Northern Ireland for similar crimes.

Congolese government soldiers open fire on an opposition demonstration in Kinshasa, killing at least three people.

Ricardo Cesareo Vazquez Tafolla, a key government witness against Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, former head of Mexico’s antidrug agency, is attacked.

Lt. Gen. Jaime Milans del Bosch, 82, Spanish general who supported dictator Gen. Francisco Franco in 1930s and who, in 1981, helped lead a failed military coup, dies of unreported causes.

After three months of political violence, the Kenyan government allows an opposition coalition to hold a rally in the port city of Mombasa demanding that constitutional reforms be instituted prior to upcoming elections.

Hector Ixtlahuac Gaspar, a retired military officer in Guadalajara and a witness in the case against Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, former head of Mexico’s antidrug agency, is murdered. . . . Colombian officials reveal that Werner Mauss, a German intelligence operative jailed since November 1996, and his wife, Michaela, were released.

Kocheril Raman Narayanan takes the oath of office as India’s president. . . . Pol Pot, the deposed leader of what is widely acknowledged to be the 20th-century’s deadliest guerrilla group, Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge, and was sentenced to death in absentia by the Cambodian government in 1979, is condemned to “life imprisonment” at a carefully staged tribunal held by his former comrades at the group’s jungle stronghold in Anlong Veng.

Some 20,000 Basque separatists march in the Basque town of San Sebastian, Spain, in a show of support for the region’s militant rebels known as the ETA. . . . Isabel Dean, 79, British stage, screen, and television actress, dies of unreported causes. . . . Raymond Allen Jackson, 70, British cartoonist best known as “Jak,” dies in London of complications from heart-bypass surgery.

July 27

Latvian president Guntis Ulmanis designates Guntars Krasts as premier, succeeding Andris Skele. . . . Officials of the British government meet with members of Sinn Fein, the political arm of the IRA. . . . Reports state that the government of Czech premier Vaclav Klaus has promised a 12 billion koruna ($350 million) relief package for areas hit by intense flooding. . . . An appeals court in Lyons rules that the controversial Church of Scientology has the legal right to regard itself as a religion in France.

July 28

The Mexican defense ministry confirms that 34 current and former military officers are under arrest for alleged involvement in drug trafficking.

Seni Pramoj, 92, three-time Thai premier and diplomat who, as ambassador to the U.S. during World War II, refused to follow the orders of the Japanese occupation government to declare war on the U.S. and Great Britain. dies in Bangkok, Thailand, of kidney failure and complications from heart disease.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

July 23–28, 1997—1025

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Joseph Roger O’Dell III, 55, is put to death by lethal injection in Richmond, Virginia, for the 1985 rape and murder of a Virginia Beach, Virginia, woman. His execution receives wide publicity particularly since he was the subject of Dead Man Walking, a book by Sister Helen Prejean. . . . In a highly publicized case, John B. Ramsey, the father of JonBenet Ramsey, a sixyear-old girl killed in 1996, vows to intensify the family’s to independent investigation into the slaying.

In Spokane, Washington, a jury convicts three white separatists—Verne Jay Merrell, Charles Barbee, and Robert Berry—of a series of bombings and bank robberies in 1996. . . . Judge Kevin Tierney sentences former fugitive Alex Kelly to 16 years in prison for raping a 16-year-old girl in 1986. . . . William J. Brennan Jr., 91, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1956–90, who was a strong advocate of individual rights and profoundly impacted U.S. public policy, dies in Arlington, Virginia, after being in poor health for several years.

The Department of Defense and the CIA announce that a new study indicates nearly 100,000 U.S. troops may have been exposed to nerve-gas fallout from an Iraqi ammunition depot destroyed by U.S. forces in March 1991, shortly after the Persian Gulf war ended. That figure represents a substantial increase over past estimates of troops’ exposure to chemical toxins in the Persian Gulf, which placed the number of affected soldiers at around 20,000.

A federal jury in New York City convicts organized-crime boss Vincent (The Chin) Gigante of racketeering and conspiracy to commit murder but acquits him of three murder charges. The trial of Gigante, described by prosecutors as head of the Genovese crime family, is the biggest U.S. Mafia trial since that of John Gotti in 1992.

Police arrest 250 people during a monthly protest by bicyclists that clogs traffic in San Francisco, California. Some riders jump on cars and spit on drivers in a protest known as “Critical Mass,” which is held regularly to rally for better bicycling conditions on the nation’s roads.

Massachusetts governor William F. Weld (R) announces that he is resigning, effective July 29, in order to focus his attention on gaining the ambassadorship to Mexico. . . . Gen. Ronald R. Fogleman, 56, the air force chief of staff, resigns in protest over the anticipated government sanctioning of Brigadier General Terryl J. Schwalier, a senior air force officer who allegedly provided inadequate protection for U.S. troops killed in a June 1996 terrorist bombing in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The California Department of Transportation reopens the highway that collapsed in the 1989 earthquake that hit the San Francisco Bay area. The new, singledecked road, part of Interstate Highway 880, cost more than $1 billion to construct, making it the most expensive thoroughfare on a per-mile basis in the U.S.

Andrew P. Cunanan, a 27-year-old fugitive accused of killing fashion designer Gianni Versace and four other men, commits suicide as a police investigation closes in on the houseboat where he is holed up in Miami Beach, Florida. Cunanan’s suicide ends a manhunt that had involved more than 1,000 law enforcement agents nationwide.

Scottish scientists reveal that they have produced the first cloned animal whose cells contain human genes. The animal is called Polly, a Poll Dorset sheep created through the fusing of human genes with the skin cells of sheep embryos. The breakthrough is considered a major advance in geneticists’ quest to produce animals whose biological products may be used to treat human diseases.

A jury in Dallas, Texas, orders the Roman Catholic diocese of Dallas and Rev. Rudolph Kos to pay $120 million in compensatory and punitive damages to 10 former altar boys who were sexually abused by Kos, a former priest in the diocese. It is the largest fine ever levied against the Roman Catholic Church in a child-abuse case.

John A. McLachlan, a researcher from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, retracts the results of a June 1996 study linking pesticides to large increases in the hormone estrogen in humans.

Ben W. Hogan, 84, one of only five golfers ever to win all four major tournaments, dies in Fort Worth, Texas, after suffering from colon cancer. . . . Elvis Presley’s Memphis, a theme nightclub, opens in Memphis, Tennessee. . . . A federal jury in New York City convicts Autumn Jackson, 22, of trying to extort $40 million from Bill Cosby.

Pres. Clinton announces that the federal government will double between 1997 and 1999 the amount of funding allocated to preserve Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

Boxer Steve Johnson retains his WBC lightweight title, winning a split decision over Hiroyuki Sakamoto in Yokohama, Japan.

A new terminal designed to resemble Les Halles food market in Paris, which cost $450 million, opens at Washington, D.C.’s National Airport.

Jan Ullrich of Germany wins the Tour de France cycling race, which ends in Paris. Ullrich is the first German to win the Tour de France.

The White House and congressional Republicans agree on a final version of legislation to balance the federal budget by the year 2002. . . . The House, passes, 214-203, a $2.2 billion 1998 fiscal-year appropriations bill for legislative branch spending. . . . Forbes magazine lists William H. Gates, of Microsoft Corp., as the world’s richest person, with assets totaling $36.4 billion.

July 23

July 24

July 25

July 26

July 27

July 28

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1026—July 29–August 3, 1997

World Affairs

July 31

Africa & the Middle East

About 15,000 Islamic fundamentalists hold a rally in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, to protest a government plan to reduce access to religious schooling. The protest, which was not officially authorized, turns violent, and at least 13 people are injured.

July 29

July 30

Europe

The UN Security Council votes to extend its peacekeeping mission in Haiti for four months. . . . . The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, formally accepts the $14 billion merger of U.S. aerospace firms Boeing Co. and McDonnell Douglas Corp.

The IMF suspends its three-year, $216 million loan package to Kenya after the Kenyan government fails to satisfy IMF concerns over official corruption.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Reports confirm that the Mexican city of Juarez has been wracked by drugrelated violence since the death of drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes. Separately, Irma Lizzete Ibarra Navejat, a former beauty queen who allegedly had ties to General Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, the former head of Mexico’s antidrug agency, is gunned down in her car in the city of Guadalajara in Jalisco state. Her murder marks the third attack on individuals preparing to testify or talk to the media about the military’s alleged links to drug traffickers.

The Hong Kong Court of Appeals rules unanimously that the Chinabacked provisional legislature is legal. . . . In Cambodia, Hun Sen dismisses the July 25 trial of Pol Pot as a farce.

Two suicide bombers working in tandem detonate powerful explosives in a crowded West Jerusalem outdoor market, killing at least 13 bystanders as well as themselves and injuring more than 150 others. Hamas, a militant Palestinian Islamic organization, claims responsibility.

Twenty people are trapped when a landslide buries two lodges at a popular ski resort in the town of Thredbo in New South Wales, Australia. . . . Four members of a Cambodian government helicopter crew report that Khmer Rouge soldiers have executed a team of 11 negotiators whom they flew to Khmer Rouge territory in February. The crew claims they had been held hostage since February.

Greek Cypriot president Glafcos Clerides and Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash reach a landmark agreement to exchange information on 2,000 Turkish and Greek Cypriots reported missing as a result of their conflict. . . . Security officers discover and defuse a bomb in an automobile abandoned near a hotel in Lisbellaw, a Northern Ireland town near the border with the Irish Republic.

Bao Dai (born Nguyen Vinh Thuy), 83, the last emperor of Vietnam, 1926–45, dies in Paris, France, of unreported causes.

The Canadian Red Cross Society, a charitable organization that came under fire because of its role in a tainted-blood scandal in the 1980s, decides to withdraw entirely from participation in Canada’s bloodcollection system, which it has managed since 1939.

Aug. 1

Aug. 2

Aug. 3

Croat mobs drive away some 500 Bosnian Muslims who returned to their prewar homes in villages near the town of Jajce, Bosnia-Herzegovina. One man dies when his house is burned down. . . . Chechen hostage takers seize four Frenchmen in the Russian republic of Dagestan. . . . British prime minister Tony Blair appoints 47 prominent figures in politics, business, and the arts as life peers, or eligible members of the House of Lords, the nonelected upper house of Parliament.

Former warlord Charles Taylor, whose National Patriotic Party won an overwhelming victory in July elections, is sworn in as president of Liberia for a six-year term. Taylor, 49, is Liberia’s first freely elected leader after seven years of civil war. . . . Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (born Fela Ransome-Kuti), 58, Nigerian singer, saxophonist and political dissident, dies in Lagos, Nigeria, of complications related to AIDS.

Reports confirm that the overflowing Oder River in central Europe has caused more than 100 deaths in Poland and the Czech Republic since early July. The flooding is called the worst in the region in 200 years.

Mohammed Khatami, a who scored a surprising landslide win in May, is confirmed as Iran’s president. . . . Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists that he will not honor agreements that Israel’s previous, Labor Party government negotiated with the Palestinians unless the self-rule PNA takes stern measures to control Islamic militants. The Israeli cabinet votes to halt payment of the taxes and customs fees it collects for the PNA.

Some 6,000 civilians flee into Thailand to escape fighting that flared between Hun Sen’s troops and forces loyal to Prince Ranariddh in northwestern Cambodia.

In Australia, rescuers save ski instructor Stuart Diver, 27, who is the apparent lone survivor of the July 30 landslide in the town of Thredbo in New South Wales. He survives after being buried under some 35 feet (10 m) of rubble.

The Soufriere Hills volcano on the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat erupts, forcing hundreds of people to evacuate areas previously declared safe. . . . Peruvian television reveals that the telephone of former UN secretary general Javier Perez de Cuellar was tapped while he was running for president in 1995. The revelation widens a scandal that hit the government in July. . . . Two gunmen open fire in a restaurant in Juarez, Mexico, killing six people and wounding three others.

On Comoros, a three-island nation in the Indian Ocean, more than 7,000 Anjouan islanders march in Mutsamudu, to demand independence and a return to French rule. Soldiers and police—whose recent clashes with prosecessionist demonstrators left four people dead—do not attempt to break up the protest. . . . Maha Ghosananda, Cambodia’s Buddhist patriarch, leads more than 1,000 people on a peace march in Phnom Penh, the capital.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

July 29–August 3, 1997—1027

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Department of Defense announces that all military antidrug activity along the Mexico-U.S. border will be suspended indefinitely while the practice is reviewed. The suspension is prompted by the May death of Ezequiel Hernandez Jr., a Texas teenager shot by a member of a Marine Corps antidrug patrol.

Financial services firm Smith Barney Inc. agrees to pay the government $1.05 million to settle a lawsuit in connection with an alleged donation to former agriculture secretary Mike Espy.

A study finds that the addition of ammonia compounds to cigarette tobacco may dramatically increase the amount of nicotine inhaled by smokers.

Thomas K. Welch, the chief organizer of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, resigns after being charged with domestic abuse. . . . Chuck Wayne (born Charles Jagelka), 74, jazz guitarist who helped to pioneer the genre’s bebop style in the 1940s, dies in Jackson, New Jersey, of emphysema.

The Chicago City Council passes an ethics ordinance that for the first time sets out a code of conduct for its 50 members.

Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright discloses that the U.S. will lift its 10-year-old ban on travel by Americans to Lebanon.

The House votes, 346-85, to pass the balanced-budget bill unveiled July 28. . . . The Dow closes at a record high of 8254.89, marking the tenth record high in July and the 37th registered in 1997.

Reports confirm that Gladys Holm, a retired secretary who died in 1996, left a will donating $18 million to the Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Holm’s gift is the largest single donation to the hospital in its 115-year history.

NYC police raid an apartment where they find two powerful pipe bombs and a note threatening violence against U.S. and Jewish targets. Two Palestinians who live in the apartment—Ghazi Ibrahim Abu Maizar and Lafi Khalil—are taken into custody after being wounded by police fire. . . . Defense Secretary William Cohen voids the Senateapproved promotion of Brigadier General Terryl Schwalier, who allegedly provided inadequate protection for U.S. troops killed in a June 1996 terrorist bombing in Dhahran. Schwalier states that he has requested retirement.

The House votes, 389-43, to pass the tax bill to achieve a balanced budget by 2002. The Senate clears both bills, voting 85-15 to approve the budget bill and 92-8 for the tax bill. . . . The Senate confirms Robert Stanton as director of the Interior Department’s National Park Service.

The U.S. ends a 20-year-old ban on the sale of most advanced weapons to Latin America. . . . Colombia and the U.S. sign an agreement on U.S. assistance in fighting drug trafficking, under which the U.S. agrees to send $70 million worth of military equipment for the Colombian military’s antidrug operations, in return for assurances that steps will be taken to improve the military’s human-rights record.

The Commerce Department reports that personal pretax income rose 0.6% in June from May, to a seasonally adjusted figure of $6.866 trillion. The June increase marks the 25th consecutive month that incomes have grown. . . . Data suggests that between 10,000 and 75,000 people are at risk of contracting thyroid cancer as a result of 90 nuclear bomb tests conducted in Nevada between 1951 and 1962. Residents of 23 counties in Colorado, Montana, Idaho, South Dakota, and Utah are particularly at risk.

July 29

July 30

July 31

Syatoslav Teofilovich Richter, 82, Russian classical pianist considered one of the greatest musicians of his era, dies in Moscow of a heart attack. . . . The World Track & Field Championships open in Athens, Greece.

The U.S. Postal Service unveils a stamp in honor of the actor Humphrey Bogart. . . . William S(eward) Burroughs, 83, writer who, along with Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, came to define the Beat Generation cultural movement, dies in Lawrence, Kansas, after suffering a heart attack.

Manager Tommy Lasorda and players Phil Niekro, Nelson (Nellie) Fox, and Willie Wells Sr. are inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 1

Aug. 2

Aug. 3

1028—August 4–9, 1997

World Affairs

Europe Water levels drop in areas of eastern Germany for the first time after three weeks of serious floods. . . . Using an OSCE formula, Chechen authorities report that the region’s 21-month-long civil war with Russian troops, which ended in 1996, caused some $258 billion in damage, of which more than half is “moral damage.” . . . Jeanne Louise Calment, 122, native of France who was recognized as the world’s oldest person and had held that distinction since 1986, dies in Arles of unreported causes.

Aug. 4

Africa & the Middle East Israel commandos set off a series of bombs in Hezbollah-controlled territory in Lebanon just north of Israel’s self-declared security enclave, killing five guerrillas, including at least two field commanders. Lebanese officials claim that three of the dead are civilians.

The Panamanian labor ministry decides not to renew the work permit of prize-winning Peruvian journalist Gustavo. Media members throughout Panama allege that Gorriti’s expulsion amounts to an attack on freedom of expression.

On Comoros, a three-island nation in the Indian Ocean, demonstrators on Moheli island stage a protest and state that they want to join Anjouan island in seceding from the Comoros republic.

Five peacekeepers of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon die when their helicopter crashes in Israel’s southern occupation zone.

Hugo Banzer Suarez is sworn in as Bolivia’s new president in La Paz, the capital.

A Korean Air jet carrying 254 people crashes on its approach to Guam’s Agana International Airport, killing at least 225 people. . . . In Cambodia, Hun Sen successfully consolidates his rule as the Cambodian parliament in Phnom Penh, the capital, approves his appointment of Foreign Minister Ung Huot to succeed Prince Ranariddh as first premier.

Romanian premier Victor Ciorbea announces the immediate closing of 17 factories that operate at a loss. . . . Latvia’s parliament votes to approve a new government headed by Premier Guntars Krasts. . . . The managers of Britain’s last active tin mine, the South Crofty mine in the county of Cornwall, announce that the mine will close permanently, ending Britain’s 2,500-year-old tin-mining industry.

A roadside explosive planted by unidentified assailants kills a woman and her two children in southern Lebanon. An SLA militiaman dies in a Hezbollah car bombing. Retaliatory Israeli artillery shelling kills a Lebanese farmer. The violence brings the death toll to 13 people, at least seven of whom were civilians, in the Israeli-Hezbollah clashes that started Aug. 4.

A surprise snowstorm hits the Andes mountain range, trapping hundreds of motorists on a mountain highway some 10,000 feet (3,000 m) above sea level.

King Norodom Sihanouk, who is undergoing cancer treatments in Beijing, China, permits Hun Sen’s Aug. 6 appointment, and Ung Huot is formally seated as Cambodia’s new first premier. . . . There are 29 survivors of the Aug. 6 plane crash in Korea, but the death toll is expected to rise as many are critically wounded.

Workers across Romania demonstrate to protest the factory closures announced on Aug. 7. Some 5,000 people rally in the oil-refining town of Ploiesti, and two policemen are injured. . . . The Italian government confirms that Italian soldiers tortured Somali civilians during a UN mission in Somalia. Their report suggests that nonmilitary observers should accompany soldiers on future peacekeeping missions and claims that the attacks were isolated incidents.

Opposition demonstrators beat two policemen to death in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, and in a nearby village. . . . Hezbollah responds to the Aug. 7 attack by launching rockets against Qiryat Shemona, marking the first time that the Upper Galilee town has been hit by rockets since the signing of the April 1996 pact. Israel retaliates by dispatching two warplanes, which fire rockets at guerrilla positions nine miles (15 km) south of Beirut, Lebanon, where the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine maintains bases.

Colombian senator Jorge Cristo, a prominent political ally of Pres. Samper, is shot and killed in the city of Cucuta, near Colombia’s northern border with Venezuela. . . . In a highly publicized murder case, a judge in Kingstown, the capital of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, acquits a wealthy U.S. couple, James and Penella (Penny) Fletcher, who were criticized by residents for their ostentatious lifestyle, of murdering Jerome (Jolly) Joseph, a black water-taxi driver.

The executive director of UNICEF, Carol Bellamy, estimates that 80,000 children in North Korea are in immediate danger of dying and another 800,000 are suffering from severe malnutrition.

Aug. 6

Aug. 8

Asia & the Pacific

Bolivia’s Congress elects former military ruler Hugo Banzer Suarez as the country’s new president. . . . Two people die from asphyxiation and 107 others are injured during an overcrowded outdoor concert at the Home Show park in Lima, Peru’s capital.

Aug. 5

Aug. 7

The Americas

In Tajikistan, Makhmud Khudoberdyev, a renegade government colonel who opposes the terms of the June peace deal, launches a military campaign against government forces and rival warlords. . . . Protestant unionists in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, march in the annual Apprentice Boys parade. The event ends the summer parade season, which in recent years has been marred by terrorism and rioting. A few scuffles break out after the parade is finished.

Aug. 9

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

August 4–9, 1997—1029

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A federal advisory panel, the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, recommends that the INS be shut down, citing “mission overload.”

Figures suggest that net incomes of large U.S. companies grew by 4.9% in the second quarter of 1997, compared with the corresponding term in the previous year. . . . The International Brotherhood of Teamsters union launches a strike against UPS, the nation’s largest shipping company. . . . Robert Stanton is sworn in, becoming the National Park Service’s first black director.

Reports state that wildfires have charred some 2,800 acres (1,100 hectares) in southern California in the summer months.

Unnatural Exposure by Patricia Cornwell tops the bestseller list. . . . Horace Bristol, 88, photojournalist known for his stark images of poverty and war, dies in Ojai, California, of unreported causes. . . . Luise King Rey, 83, big-band singer and television entertainer, dies in Sandy, Utah, of unreported causes.

Pres. Clinton signs a measure that restores some welfare benefits to legal immigrants. . . . Clarence M(arion) Kelley, 85, head of the FBI, 1973–78, dies emphysema in Kansas City, Kansas.

Pres. Clinton signs twin bills enacting a plan to balance the federal budget by the year 2002. The bill includes provisions for a federal rescue plan for the nation’s financially troubled capital, and the District of Columbia’s federally appointed control board replaces four of the district’s department heads. . . . In Albany, New York, U.S. district judge Lawrence Kahn upholds a state rule mandating that electric vehicles account for 2% of all vehicles sold in New York State in the 12 months beginning Oct. 1.

In West Palm Beach, Florida, circuit court judge Harold Cohen orders the release of internal tobacco industry files containing new evidence that cigarette makers over the previous 30 years had used legal advisers to deliberately mislead the public about the health risks of smoking.

Aug. 5

Pres. Clinton cites new figures from the OMB indicating that the federal budget deficit for fiscal 1997 will be $37 billion, the lowest in 23 years. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the 1997 deficit will be just $34 billion. . . . The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee announces it has issued 39 subpoenas in an effort to determine whether major Democratic donors received favorable treatment from Pres. Clinton’s administration.

School officials in Washington, D.C., announce that the start of the 1997–98 school year, scheduled for Sept. 2, will be delayed until Sept. 22 to make repairs on dozens of school buildings. It is the third delay of the school year in that area in four years.

Aug. 4

Aug. 6

Five people die when a DC-8 cargo plane crashes into a heavily trafficked commercial area of Miami, Florida, after taking off from Miami International Airport. . . . The space shuttle Discovery blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission to gather environmental data and test new equipment designed for use on the planned international space station.

Popular country music singer Garth Brooks gives a free concert in New York City’s Central Park that is attended by approximately 250,000 people.

The FDA relaxes restrictions on radio and TV advertising of prescription drugs. . . . A bomb blast destroys sections of the Olympic Stadium in Stockholm, Sweden, a finalist for the host of the 2004 games. . . . Paul Rudolph, 78, architect and former chairman of the School for Architecture at Yale University, 1957–65, dies in New York City of mesothelioma, or asbestos cancer.

Malcolm Shabazz, 12, is sentenced to 18 months in a psychiatric home after admitting that he set a fire in June that led to the death of his grandmother, Betty Shabazz, the widow of the slain black nationalist leader Malcolm X.

The INS grants a stay of deportation to Emmanuel (Toto) Constant, a former leader of the right-wing paramilitary group in Haiti accused of numerous human-rights atrocities.

NASA officials reveal that in its first 30 days on Mars, Pathfinder has transmitted 10,000 pictures of the planet to Earth, while the roving vehicle Sojourner has taken 384 pictures and followed 114 commands from mission control since its arrival on Mars. Officials note that the vehicles have outlasted their expected life spans and are continuing to gather new data about the geography and atmosphere of Mars, and they proclaim the mission a complete success.

Pres. Clinton issues an executive order banning smoking in federal office buildings, including visitor’s centers at national parks.

U.S. civil-rights groups and Haitian Americans protest the Aug. 8 ruling in New York City, where Emmanuel (Toto) Constant lives, that has granted him a stay of deportation.

An Amtrak train carrying 309 people partially derails near Kingman, Arizona, injuring more than 100 people, 16 of whom are hospitalized, with one in serious condition.

Aug. 7

Aug. 8

Aug. 9

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1030—August 10–15, 1997

World Affairs

British government officials announce that recently proposed university tuition fees will be waived for students eligible to enter a university in the coming fall but who have chosen to take a year off.

Aug. 10

Aug. 11

Aug. 12

Europe

Mohammed Mahdi al-Jawahri, 97, Iraqi poet and journalist, dies in Damascus, Syria, of unreported causes.

The Americas

The last 60 soldiers from a multinational force in Albania depart. . . . The international SFOR in BosniaHerzegovina bans the deployment of paramilitary forces. . . . Credit Suisse Group, Switzerland’s second-largest bank, announces that it will purchase a Swiss insurance company to create one of the world’s largest financial-services companies. . . . Reports state that 46 people have been diagnosed with typhoid in Dagestan.

Some 700 inmates escape from two prisons in northern Honduras after rioting and setting fire to the facilities in Santa Barbara and Trujillo. One prisoner is killed in the Santa Barbara riot.

Taiwan announces that it has established diplomatic relations with Chad, which previously recognized the government of China. The Chad ties bring the number of countries officially recognizing Taiwan to 31.

Reports reveal that Turkish president Suleyman Demirel has signed legislation banning gambling at casinos. . . . Reports confirm that Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral, originally demolished by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in the 1930s, has been rebuilt.

In Brasilia, Brazil’s capital, federal judge Sandra Mello clears four youths of the murder of Galdino Jesus dos Santos, chief of the Pataxo tribe, who they burned to death in April. The judge rules that the youths did not intend to kill dos Santos and reduces the charges to committing bodily harm. . . . Ontario Hydro, North America’s largest electric utility, announces it will shut down the seven oldest of its 19 nuclear reactors, as recommended. The state-owned company’s chief executive, Allan Kupcis, resigns. More than 100 men, armed with machetes and firearms, storm two police stations in the port city of Mombasa, Kenya. Seven police officers, three civilians, and five attackers are killed. . . . A panel that includes a U.S. representative from the CIA as well as Israeli and Palestinian security officials is established to facilitate security cooperation between Israel and the PNA and to enable the U.S. to monitor goodwill efforts of Israeli and Palestinian participants.

Jose Bustani, director general of the UN Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, reveals that more than six nations—most of which will not disclose their names—have acknowledged to his organization that they possess chemical weapons or the technology to produce them.

Albanian interior minister Neritan Ceka announces that the army and police have retaken control of Vlore, southern Albania’s most important port, which has been under the control of gangs since February. . . . Turkey’s parliament approves and president Suleyman Demirel signs an amnesty for editors jailed under the country’s harsh press restrictions.

In the continuation of fighting in Tajikistan that erupted Aug. 9, government troops drive Makhmud Khudoberdyev from his main base, some 60 miles (100 km) south of Dushanbe.

Aug. 15

Popular film producer and businessman Gulshan Kumar, 41, is shot to death while leaving a Hindu temple just north of Bombay, India. Kumar’s murder is the latest in a series of attacks on leading figures in India’s film industry.

The majority of the inmates who escaped from two prisons in northern Honduras on Aug. 11 surrender or are recaptured.

Two prisoners are killed during a riot in a prison in Santa Rosa de Copan, Honduras. . . . Officials from the Guinness Book of World Records rule that Marie-Louise Meilleur, 116, of Corbeil, Canada, is the world’s oldest living person.

Kenyan police, security troops, and navy sailors exchange fire with the rioters from the Aug. 13 violence as they pursue them south of Mombasa.

Asia & the Pacific

The snowstorm that began Aug. 7 in the Andes mountain range starts to abate, allowing rescue workers to plow the roadway and free many of the motorists. In Peru, the storm killed six people trapped in their cars. . . . Conlon Nancarrow, 84, an eccentric yet innovative composer, dies in Mexico City, Mexico, of unreported causes,

Asian nations and the IMF pledge $16 billion in loans to Thailand to help the country stabilize its economy, which has been in upheaval since the Thai currency, the baht, was devalued in July.

Aug. 13

Aug. 14

Africa & the Middle East

Fifteen thousand people parade through the streets of New Delhi, India’s capital, to rally at midnight, marking the country’s 50th year of independence in a “March of the Nation.” Crowds gather in the streets and listen to recordings of India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Mohandas K. Gandhi, who led a nonviolent campaign for India’s independence.

Leftist guerrillas take 29 oil workers hostage in a remote jungle area of central Peru.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

August 10–15, 1997—1031

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Judge Lenore Nesbitt of U.S. District Court in Miami, Florida, sentences a Palestinian hijacker, Saad’o Mohammed Ibrahim Intissar, to 20 years in prison, the maximum term for air piracy, for diverting an Iberia Airlines DC-10 to Miami on July 26, 1996.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Data shows that the value of U.S. orders for machine tools leaped 38.9% in June to $894 million, from the revised May figure of $644 million.

A flash flood hits an area southwest of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, prompting the evacuation of some 300 tourists and more than 350 residents of the Havasupai Indian Reservation.

In Athens, Greece, the World Track & Field Championships close, with the U.S. topping the medals standings by winning a total of 18. Germany places second with 10 medals, and Russia is third with eight. Ukrainian pole vaulter Sergei Bubka becomes the first person to win a gold medal in each of the six world championships.

Pres. Clinton becomes the first U.S. chief executive to exercise the presidential right to veto items in spending bills after their passage by Congress when he strikes three special-interest provisions from balanced-budget legislation cleared in July. . . . Rep. Jay C. Kim (R, Calif.) and his wife, June Kim, plead guilty in Los Angeles to charges stemming from more than $250,000 in illegal campaign contributions between 1992 and 1997.

Sweden’s national news agency receives a letter claiming responsibility for the Aug. 8 bombing of the Olympic Stadium in Stockholm, Sweden, from an extremist group that opposes the city’s Olympic bid.

A local newspaper in Angleton, Texas, publishes a detailed account of a videotape which depicts prison guards kicking inmates and prodding them with stun guns at the Brazoria County Detention Center. . . . Bernard Parks is sworn in as the new chief of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Lava from the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii destroys the 700-year-old Wahaula Heiau temple. . . . Officials reach an agreement that will allow St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church to enlarge its parish in Boerne, Texas, ending a four-year dispute that prompted the Supreme Court to strike down the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 in June.

NYC police officer Justin A. Volpe is arrested and charged with aggravated sexual abuse and firstdegree assault for allegedly beating and sodomizing Abner Louima, 30, a Haitian immigrant who arrested earlier in the week. . . . Robert Louis Leggett, 71, California congressman, 1963–78, who was a target of the 1976 “Koreagate” investigation, dies in Orange, California, of a heart attack.

The Labor Department reports that the federal government’s index of prices charged by manufacturers and farmers for finished goods dropped a seasonally adjusted 0.1% in July from June, the seventh consecutive month in which wholesale prices declined.

Twelve hikers are swept away by a flash flood in Arizona with an 11foot-high wall of water. One person survives by clinging to a ledge. . . . In NYC, Judge Sonia Sotomayor rules that publishers may transfer articles authored by freelance writers into electronic media, such as CD-ROM storage devices, without first obtaining the writers’ permission. The decision is considered a landmark ruling in the evolving field of electronic publishing rights.

An official from the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, states the group will step up its boycott of Walt Disney Co., launched in June to protest what it views as the company’s shift to a “Christian-bashing, family-bashing, pro-homosexual agenda.”

U.S. district judge Richard P. Matsch formally sentences Timothy J. McVeigh to death for the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Okla., that killed 168 people and injured hundreds of others. . . . Officials confirm that the government will stop distributing Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits to 95,180 disabled children due to provisions in the 1996 welfare law.

The FCC formally approves a $23.7 billion merger between so-called Baby Bell telecommunications companies Bell Atlantic Corp. and NYNEX Corp. The merged firm, to take Bell Atlantic’s name, will provide local telephone service to 40 million customers along the East Coast between Maine and Virginia.

Scientists report the discovery of the oldest footprint ever found of an anatomically modern human. The two prints, measuring 8.5 inches (21.6 cm) long, are 117,000 years old and probably belonged to a woman about 5 feet, 4 inches (1.63 m) tall.

Hugo Boss AG, an upscale men’s clothing manufacturer, confirms that it made uniforms for Nazi police and soldiers during the Third Reich. . . . Pres. Clinton announces new federal guidelines aimed at protecting the rights of government employees to express their religious views in the workplace.

The Dow closes down 247.37 points, or 3.1%, which, in terms of single-session point declines, is surpassed only by a drop of 508.32 points recorded on Oct. 19, 1987.

The Suffolk County, New York, medical examiner completes the genetic identification of the last two bodies of the 230 victims of the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800 off Long Island, New York.

John F. Kennedy Jr. refers to his cousins Joseph Kennedy and Michael Kennedy as “poster boys for bad behavior” in an “Editor’s Letter” prefacing an issue of his political magazine George, causing a ruckus.

NYC police officer Charles Schwarz, 31, is charged, reportedly for holding Abner Louima, a 30year-old Haitian immigrant, while officer Justin A. Volpe allegedly assaulted him. . . . A Louisiana law authorizing carjacking victims to use deadly force against attackers goes into effect. The legislation is apparently the first of its kind in the nation.

Pres. Clinton signs a bill that seeks to protect dolphins from fishing nets used to catch tuna, revising the system for labeling packaged tuna cans as “dolphin safe” and lifting an embargo on tuna imports from Latin America.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 10

Aug. 11

Aug. 12

Aug. 13

Aug. 14

Aug. 15

1032—August 16–21, 1997

World Affairs

Aug. 16

Aug. 17

Aug. 18

Aug. 19

Aug. 20

Aug. 21

Reports suggest that St. Lucia’s cabinet has decided to establish relations with China instead of Taiwan.

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

German police arrest about 200 neo-Nazis who assemble in various parts of the country to mark the 10th anniversary of the death of Rudolf Hess, a deputy to Adolf Hitler. . . . Turkey’s parliament approves legislation that will curb access to Islambased education. In the run-up to the parliamentary vote, fundamentalist activists opposing the education reform held several demonstrations throughout the country, during which more than 100 people were arrested.

In Kenya, armed gangs attack two villages in the Mombasa area, killing at least eight people and burning dozens of houses and hundreds of roadside stalls.

Chechen rebels begin to release some of the Russian journalists being held hostage.

The PNA formally announces its phased boycott of Israeli products imported into the West Bank and Gaza.

Reports confirm that the leftist National Liberation Army (ELN), the smaller of Colombia’s two main guerrilla groups, has kidnapped at least 12 town council members in Bolivar province in northern Colombia in apparent attempt to sabotage municipal elections.

Burnum Burnum (born Harry Penrith), 61, Australian aboriginal rights activist, dies in Woronora, Australia, of a heart attack.

The reform-minded deputy governor of St. Petersburg, Mikhail Manevich, is killed by a sniper. His wife is also injured by the gunfire. . . . More Russian journalists being held hostage in the separatist republic of Chechnya are released, bringing the total freed to five. . . . In Tajkistan, 50 of Mukhmud Khudoberdyev’s men are killed by government troops in fighting for control of a bridge over the Vakhsh River, 95 miles south of Dushanbe.

SLA militiamen shell Sidon, Lebanon, a stronghold of Muslim militancy, killing at least 10 civilians and wounding dozens of others. Three youths, die in a roadside bomb blast outside Jezzine, a predominantly Christian town just north of the so-called security zone in southern Lebanon. . . . Israel announces a partial release of frozen PNA funds as a response to the PNA’s timely arrest and conviction of three Palestinians for the slaying of an Israeli taxi driver and its “partial cooperation” in the July bombing investigation. . . . In Sierra Leone, the National Union of Students protest against the rebel regime is forcibly dispersed by fighters from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF).

Reports from Peru confirm that the leftist guerrillas who took 29 oil workers hostage Aug. 15 were released after CGG agreed to give food, medicine and clothing to the rebels. . . . Konrad Kalejs, an alleged World War II-era war criminal, is deported to Australia from Canada.

High winds and torrential rains from Typhoon Winnie hit the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang, killing 242 people. Before striking the mainland, typhoon Winnie killed at least 24 people in neighboring Taiwan, and more than 28 inches (70 cm) of rain has fallen on northern Taiwan since Aug. 16.

Reports indicate that Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov has declared Chechen as the republic’s official language . . . St. Petersburg’s Church of the Savior of Spilt Blood, built on the site of the 1881 assassination of Czar Alexander II, opens for services for the first time in 60 years. . . . Tajik government sources reveal that Makhmud Khudoberdiyev and 40 of his troops have fled to Uzbekistan.

Hezbollah guerrillas fire dozens of rockets into northern Israel in response to the Aug. 18 shelling that SLA militiamen carried out against Sidon in Lebanon. . . . Two people die in an attack in Malindi, a tourist resort in Kenya, 75 miles (120 km) north of Mombasa.

In Jamaica, prison guards go on strike after being angered by a plan to combat the spread of AIDS in Jamaica’s jails by distributing condoms to prisoners and guards. The guards reportedly take offense, believing it implies that they engage in homosexual relations with prisoners. . . . Clare Short, an official from Great Britain, announces a voluntary evacuation plan for residents of the Caribbean island of Montserrat, a British dependency, to help them flee an erupting volcano.

A ground-breaking ceremony is held in the remote town of Kumho, on North Korea’s east coast, to mark the official launch of an internationally funded project to construct two light-water nuclear power plants nearby.

The international Stabilization Force (SFOR) seizes control of six police buildings in Banja Luka, the largest city in the Serb part of BosniaHerzegovina, from secret-police forces loyal to former Bosnian Serb Pres. Radovan Karadzic. The troops confiscate thousands of grenades, rocket launchers, booby traps, and rifles from the premises.

Israeli warplanes launch strikes against targets in Lebanon, hitting Hezbollah bases in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa valley near Syria, injuring two children. The raids are Israel’s largest since April 1996. . . . Reports state that, in Kenya, the police have arrested more than 300 people in connection with recent violence. Those arrested include two local KANU leaders, Karisa Maitha and Omar Masumbuko.

In Jamaica, at the General Penitentiary in Kingston and the St. Catherine District Prison in Spanish Town, prisoners riot, prompted by a prison guard strike started Aug. 19.

Croatia apologizes to Jews for the anti-Semitic actions of its World War II-era Ustashe regime, which sided with the Nazis and killed tens of thousands of Jews. . . . Pope John Paul II visits France to help celebrate the 12th World Youth Days festival, an event which draws as many as 500,000 young people. . . . Yuri Vladimirovich Nikulin, 75, Russian clown and actor, dies in Moscow, Russia, while undergoing emergency heart surgery.

A truck driver in southern Lebanon is killed by a roadside bomb apparently planted by Hezbollah, whose fighters also exchange artillery fire in the region with Israeli soldiers and militiamen of the South Lebanon Army (SLA), Israel’s Lebanese proxy army.

In Jamaica, prison guards who went on strike August 19 return to work, but the violence in the penitentiaries continues. . . . Bertrand Osbourne, the chief minister of the Caribbean island of Montserrat, resigns amid protests over his handling of the volcanic eruptions. . . . Misael Pastrana Borrero, 73, Colombian president, 1970–74, dies in Bogota, Colombia, of stomach cancer.

Premier Lien Chan resigns in the face of criticism over a surge in Taiwan’s crime rate. Vincent Siew will replace Lien. . . . A plane crash in central Afghanistan kills everyone on board, including seven senior officials of the anti-Taliban opposition. Among the dead is Abdul Rahim Ghafurzai, the coalition’s new premier.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

August 16–21, 1997—1033

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

In response to the alleged beating and sodomizing of Abner Louima by NYC police, more than 2,000 demonstrators, including neighborhood residents and Caribbean immigrants, march through the precinct to the station house to protest what they denounce as a pattern of police brutality. The Rev. Al Sharpton, a Democratic candidate for mayor, addresses a smaller rally that is later joined by the marchers.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, 48, Pakistani singer who won worldwide acclaim for his renditions of qawwali, traditional Islamic music adapted from Sufi devotional poetry, dies in London, England, of a heart attack.

Reports reveal that financier and philanthropist George Soros plans to donate $1 million to needleexchange programs throughout the U.S. in an attempt to curb the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Golfer Davis Love III wins the PGA Championship in Mamaroneck, New York. . . . Karrie Webb of Australia wins the Women’s British Open golf championship in Sunningdale, England.

In the first-ever class-action suit against breast implant makers to go to trial, a New Orleans, Louisiana, jury finds Dow Chemical Co., a coowner of Dow Corning, guilty of deliberately misleading women about the health risks of silicone breast implants. . . . Jean Westwood, 73, who, in 1972, became the first woman ever to head a major U.S. political party when she chaired the Democratic National Committee, dies in American Fork, Utah, of complications from a pituitary tumor.

Female students enroll at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia, for the first time, ending 158 years of male-only education at the college. . . . An army jury sentences Sergeant Herman Gunter to a reprimand and tworank demotion for sexually abusing a female subordinate. Gunter, who is the eighth of 12 soldiers at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland to be disciplined for sexual misconduct, was convicted earlier of only three of the score of charges originally leveled against him.

A gunman involved in a zoning dispute, Carl C. Drega, goes on a shooting spree in the town of Colebrook, New Hampshire, killing four people and wounding four others before being shot to death by police officers near Bloomfield, Vermont. . . . Former Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D, Ill.), who pled guilty to two counts of mail fraud in 1996, is released from a federal prison in Oxford, Wisconsin, after serving 13 months of a 17-month prison term.

The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, upholds the constitutionality of New Jersey’s 1994 sex-offender notification law, known as “Megan’s Law.” The measure requires local police departments to inform residents when a convicted sex offender begins living in a community.

Reports confirm that nine bodies have been recovered from the Aug. 13 flash flood in Arizona.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters union reaches a tentative five-year contract agreement with the United Parcel Service of America Inc. (UPS), ending a strike begun Aug. 4 by some 185,000 unionized workers. The strike was the largest walkout in the U.S. in more than a decade and nearly shut down UPS, the world’s largest package-delivery company.

A federal grand jury in NYC hands down an 11-count indictment against 20 people who allegedly led a ring that smuggled deaf Mexican immigrants into the U.S. and forced them to work selling trinkets. . . . A state prosecutor in Charleston, S.C., David Schwacke, states he will not pursue criminal charges against male cadets at The Citadel, a military academy in Charleston, accused of harassing and abusing two female cadets in 1996.

Judge Fredric Block rules that former New York mayor David N. Dinkins and former police commissioner Lee P. Brown cannot be held personally liable for their handling of 1991 riots in the city’s Crown Heights neighborhood. . . . Department of Education officials estimate that the total enrollment at U.S. schools will increase to a record 52.2 million students for the 1997–98 school year, up 800,000 from the previous year.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination, votes to forge closer ties with three other Protestant denominations—the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Church of Christ, and the Reformed Church in America.

Reports confirm that Dutch scientist Marc Van Roosmalen has identified a previously unknown species of monkey living in the rain forests of Brazil. The animal, which is the size of a mouse and has a greenish-gray coat with a black tail and crown, is called the black-headed Saguinus dwarf. . . . The space shuttle Discovery lands in Cape Canaveral, Florida, after carrying out a mission to gather environmental data and test new equipment.

In Fort Worth, Texas, two engineers are killed when four unmanned locomotives roll 10 miles (16 km) off a siding and into the path of an oncoming train, igniting a fire.

Aug. 16

Aug. 17

Aug. 18

Aug. 19

Leo Jaffe, 88, chair of Columbia Pictures, 1973–81, and philanthropist, dies in New York City after a long illness.

Hudson Foods, a meat-processing company based in Rogers, Arkansas, announces a nationwide recall of 25 million pounds (11 million kg) of beef after state health officials in Colorado link an outbreak of E. coli bacteria poisoning to hamburgers produced by the company. It is the largest meat recall in U.S. history. . . . Barbara Zack Quindel invalidates the December 1996 International Brotherhood of Teamsters election in which Ronald Carey had won a second term as the powerful labor union’s president and orders a new election.

Aug. 20

Aug. 21

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1034—August 22–27, 1997

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Aug. 22

The Swedish government admits to conducting a program from 1935 to 1976 of coerced sterilizations for women deemed mentally inferior or ethnically impure.

Aug. 23

Aug. 24

Aug. 26

The UN-affiliated World Climate Research Program (WCRP) opens an international conference, and weather experts predict that “El Nino,” a periodic warming of ocean waters off the west coast of South America, may cause disastrous weather conditions in the U.S., Africa and Asia during the first half of 1998.

Aug. 27

Asia & the Pacific

David Brandt, a member of Montserrat’s parliament, is sworn in as the chief minister of Montserrat, a tiny island in the Caribbean.

Reports confirm that 242 people in China died in Typhoon Winnie Aug. 18. The typhoon, which flooded some 2 million acres (800,000 hectares) of farmland and forced the evacuation of 1.3 million people, is described as the worst in China in more than a decade.

Former Zambian president Kenneth D. Kaunda is shot and slightly wounded by police after trying to address an opposition rally in the central Zambian town of Kabwe. . . . Scheduled commercial flights between Saudi Arabia and Iran resume for the first time since Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979.

Data confirm that 16 inmates died in two prisons during riots at the General Penitentiary in Kingston and the St. Catherine District Prison in Spanish Town that were prompted by the Aug. 19 walkout by guards. . . . Reports disclose that residents of Montserrat are protesting daily in the streets, criticizing the British and Montserratian governments’ response to the crisis and demanding greater compensation from Britain . . . . Sir Eric M. Gairy, 75, first prime minister of Grenada, 1974–79, dies in Grand Anse, Grenada, of unreported causes.

Israeli security forces prevent tour buses carrying 600 Christian pilgrims from Italy from entering Bethlehem.

The riots that started Aug. 20 at the General Penitentiary in Kingston and the St. Catherine District Prison in Spanish Town are quieted after the Jamaican government sends army troops to help guards subdue the prisoners.

A court in Berlin sentences Egon Krenz, the former East Germany’s last hard-line communist leader, to six years and six months in prison for his role in the deaths of people shot by border guards. . . . Robert Pinget, 78, innovative Swiss-born novelist and playwright considered part of the late-1950s Nouveau Roman literary movement in France, dies in Tours, France, after a stroke.

Aug. 25

The Americas

Banco Industrial Colombiano announces it will acquire Banco de Colombia to form a bank with assets of $5.3 billion, making it Colombia’s largest bank. . . . Reports confirm that the ELN and the FARC abducted 50 local officials in the previous week in Colombia. . . . Clodomiro Almeyda Medina, 74, Chilean statesman and Socialist Party official, dies in Santiago, Chile, of colon cancer.

Italian police in Rome arrest Musbah Abulgasem Eter, a Libyan man suspected of involvement in a 1986 bombing that killed three people in Berlin, Germany. He is the last of five suspected participants in the attack to be apprehended.

Former president F. W. de Klerk, South Africa’s last apartheid-era ruler, announces that he is resigning as head of the National Party and retiring from politics.

Reports confirm that the Norwegian government has admitted its participation in the program of coerced sterilizations for women who were deemed mentally inferior or ethnically impure, which the Swedish government disclosed on Aug. 23.

Israel lifts its 28-day siege of Bethlehem, making the city the last on the West Bank to be freed from an Israeli blockade imposed following a suicide bombing in late July.

The Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Haiti’s parliament, votes to reject Pres. Rene Preval’s nominee for premier, Ericq Pierre. . . . Mauricio Guzman Cuevas, the mayor of Cali, Colombia’s second-largest city and home base of the powerful Cali drug cartel, is arrested on charges of accepting money from the cartel for his 1994 election campaign. . . . Reports state that guerrillas in Colombia have destroyed campaign headquarters and local offices of the electoral authority in several towns.

Amnesty International attests that in 1996 Chinese authorities imposed 6,100 death sentences and executed 4,367 prisoners. Many of the executions were for minor crimes, including indecency, drug possession, and cattle rustling.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

August 22–27, 1997—1035

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Prospective Republican candidates for the 2000 presidential election address a GOP conference in Indianapolis, Indiana. . . . NYC police officers Thomas Wiese and Thomas Bruder are charged with participating in the alleged beating of Abner Louima, a 30-year-old Haitian immigrant. . . . Mary Louise Smith, 82, who was the first woman ever to serve as Republican National Committee chair, 1974–77, dies in Des Moines, Iowa, of lung cancer.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A revitalized crew carries out the first phase of repairs on Mir to mend damage caused in June when a cargo vessel crashed into the space station.

Sir John Cowdery Kendrew, 80, British biochemist who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in chemistry for research on the molecular structure of myoglobin and hemoglobin, dies in Cambridge, England, of unreported causes.

Aug. 22

A team from Guadalupe, Mexico, defeats Mission Viejo, CA, 5-4, to win the Little League World Series title in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

Aug. 23

Aug. 24

The state of Florida and five major tobacco companies reach an agreement that will settle the state’s lawsuit to recover the costs of treating smoking-related illnesses. The companies agree to pay the state $11.3 billion over 25 years.

In a case that draws attention, Benjamin Wynne, a student at LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, dies of alcohol poisoning and three other students are hospitalized after a drinking binge celebrating pledge week with fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon. . . . The College Board releases the 1997 results for the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT). The average score on the math section of the test improved to 511, from 508 the previous year, while the average verbal score was unchanged at 505. The average math score is the highest recorded in 26 years.

A state jury in New Orleans, Louisiana, awards 20 plaintiffs compensatory damages of some $2 million in their claim against CSX Transportation, a unit of CSX Corp., and four other companies for a 1987 fire in a railroad car containing a hazardous chemical.

NASA officials and the Texas election board announce the creation of a computer program that will enable astronauts to vote in U.S. elections while traveling in outer space.

The U.S. announces that it will grant political asylum to Chang Sung Gil, North Korea’s ambassador to Egypt who defected to the U.S., and his brother, also a diplomat. Chang is the only North Korean at the ambassador level ever to defect and is the highestranking North Korean ever to seek political asylum in the U.S. North Korea, in protest, pulls out of talks with the U.S. on missile proliferation scheduled to commence Aug. 27.

A bomb explodes in the New Ullevi Stadium in Goteborg, Sweden. The stadium, Sweden’s largest, was included in Stockholm’s proposal for the 2004 Olympics as the site of soccer matches.

U.S. track star Carl Lewis, 36, runs in what he states is his last competitive race, ending a 15-year career highlighted by nine Olympic gold medals. . . . The organizing committee of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah, elects Frank Joklik as its new president. . . . Allen Iverson, a basketball guard for the Philadelphia 76ers, is sentenced to three years’ probation for carrying a concealed weapon.

A federal grand jury indicts former agriculture secretary Mike Espy on charges that he accepted more than $35,000 in gifts from companies that he was in charge of regulating, and that he later tried to deceive investigators about his activities.

NASA scientists note that an analysis of four different Martian rocks yielded confusing results, indicating that Mars’s geology is “more complicated” than previously believed. . . . The FDA states it will require drug makers to print labels on the diet medication fen/phen, warning users that the product may damage heart valves.

A group claims responsibility for the bombings at Olympic venues in Sweden and threatens to launch further attacks if Stockholm’s bid to host the games is approved. . . . Brandon Tartikoff, 48, president of the NBC entertainment division, 1980–91, dies in Los Angeles, California, of complications from treatment for Hodgkin’s disease.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 25

Aug. 26

Aug. 27

1036—August 28–September 2, 1997

Aug. 28

Aug. 29

Aug. 30

Aug. 31

Sept. 1

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The UN Security Council votes to pass a resolution imposing air and travel sanctions against the National Union for the Total Liberation of Angola (UNITA), an armed rebel group in the southeast African nation of Angola. UN speakers claim that UNITA has ignored UN demands that the movement demobilize and disarm its troops and has not disclosed information about the size of its armed forces.

U.S. soldiers monitoring an attempt by pro-Plavsic forces to take control of the police station in Brcko are menaced by mobs of Bosnian Serbs loyal to former president Radovan Karadzic. Two soldiers are injured in the melee, the most violent confrontation between Bosnian Serbs and SFOR peacekeepers since 1995. Separately, U.S. troops surround a TV broadcast tower in Udrigovo while NATO peacekeeping officials decide which faction of Bosnian Serbs should legitimately control it.

Israeli warplanes strike a suspected Hezbollah target just north of the security zone. Five Israeli soldiers are killed by Muslim guerrillas who attack their patrol in Israel’s self-declared security zone in southern Lebanon.

In response to the Aug. 21 report that the Caribbean island nation of St. Lucia is establishing diplomatic relations with China, Taiwan announces that it has severed relations with St. Lucia.

The offices of a newspaper in the Bosnian town of Doboj are destroyed by a bomb.

Hundreds of civilians are slain by unknown assailants in a predawn attack on Rais, a village 15 miles (25 km) south of the Algerian capital, Algiers. The attack was the bloodiest yet in a 51⁄2-year-long insurgency by Islamic fundamentalists against the military-backed government of Pres. Liamine Zeroual. More than 1,500 people are estimated to have been killed since legislative elections were held in June.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) formally imposes a trade embargo on Sierra Leone to put pressure on the leaders of the May military coup to restore power to the civilian government of Pres. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. . . . In response to the Aug. 29 attack in Algeria, UN secretary general Kofi Annan argues that the situation in Algeria has reached the point at which the international community should no longer “leave the Algerian people to their lot.”

About 100 people riot in the predominantly Roman Catholic neighborhood of Ballymurphy, in West Belfast, Northern Ireland. The rioters attack the New Barnsley police station and throw gasoline bombs at officers who respond with plastic bullets. No injuries are reported

People around the world are shocked by the death of Britain’s Princess Diana, and reports of mourning come from every region of the globe.

Britain’s Diana, Princess of Wales, 36, dies after suffering grave injuries in a car accident in an underpass in Paris. Emad Mohamed (Dodi) al-Fayed, 41, an Egyptian-born film producer to whom Diana was recently romantically linked, dies in the crash, along with driver Henri Paul, 41. The Fayed family bodyguard is seriously injured. British prime minister Tony Blair calls Diana “the people’s princess,” and says, “We are today a nation in a state of shock.”

Delegates from 89 countries meet at a conference in Oslo, Norway, to discuss a treaty to ban the use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of antipersonnel land mines.

Reports confirm that Miro Bajramovic confessed to killing 72 civilians and to running a concentration camp during Croatia’s 1991 war. Bajramovic is arrested. . . . A mob of 300 Serbs attack the U.S. soldiers blockading the broadcasting tower in the Serb town of Udrigovo in northeast BosniaHerzegovina since Aug. 28. . . . . Officials reveal that Henri Paul, Diana’s driver in the fatal Aug. 31 crash, was legally drunk at the time of the accident. The paparazzi are widely accused of causing the accident by pursuing Diana relentlessly.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

After protests that the planned expulsion from Panama of prizewinning Peruvian journalist Gustavo Gorriti amounts to an attack on freedom of expression, the Panamanian government relents, stating that Gorriti may stay in Panama until the Supreme Court rules on his case.

In Mexico, a coalition of four opposition parties in a special session of the Chamber of Deputies elects Porfirio Muñoz Ledo of the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) as speaker of the house. It is the first time in 68 years that the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) does not lead the chamber. PRI legislators boycott the special session.

Iran’s official news agency discloses that Iran has hanged an Iranian man, Siavash Bayani, for spying for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). . . . Israel begins to ease its closure of its borders, allowing entry to 4,000 of the 80,000 Palestinian laborers who hold jobs in Israel.

In an unprecedented move in Mexico, Porfirio Muñoz Ledo delivers a response to PRI president Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon’s annual State of the Nation speech, which traditionally has been looked upon as a demonstration of the nearimperial power of the president. Muñoz’s speech marks the first time that a member of the opposition publicly responds to the address.

Three accomplices of Miro Bajramovic, who confessed to running a concentration camp in Croatia in 1991, are arrested. . . . Officials in the town of Udrigovo in BosniaHerzegovina return a TV broadcast tower surrounded by troops since Aug. 28 to Serbs led by former president Radovan Karadzic, who agree to moderate their propaganda. . . . A jury in Copenhagen, Denmark, finds three neo-Nazis guilty of attempting to send package bombs to targets in Britain.

Sept. 2

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

August 28–September 2, 1997—1037

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

California’s Proposition 209, a controversial anti-affirmative-action measure approved by state voters in 1996, officially goes into effect. Civilrights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson and San Francisco mayor Willie L. Brown Jr. (D) lead thousands of antiProposition 209 protesters in a march across San Francisco’s landmark Golden Gate Bridge.

Michael Brown, son of the late commerce secretary Ronald Brown, pleads guilty to a misdemeanor charge that he used “straw donors” to funnel $4,000 from an Oklahoma company to the 1994 reelection campaign of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.).

A coalition of the ACLU and other groups file emergency requests with the Supreme Court to block enforcement of Proposition 209, a controversial anti-affirmative-action measure that went into effect on Aug. 28.

NationsBank Corp. of North Carolina announces that it will buy Florida’s largest bank, Barnett Banks Inc., in a deal initially worth $15.5 billion. The stock-only transaction will be the largest banking merger in U.S. history and will boost NationsBank’s assets to some $290 billion, making it the third-largest bank in the U.S., behind Chase Manhattan Corp. and Citicorp.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle British writer Salman Rushdie weds a British-born editor identified only as Elizabeth. Rushdie has been under police protection since 1989, when Iran’s leader at the time, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a public call for the writer’s death.

Because thousands of dead fish are being discovered in the Pocomoke River, Maryland governor Parris Glendening (D) orders the Pocomoke River closed.

Aug. 29

The Houston Comets win the inaugural Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) title over the New York Liberty, 65-51. . . . Controversial film director Leni Riefenstahl, who made propaganda films for Nazi German leader Adolf Hitler during the 1930s, accepts a film achievement award in Los Angeles from Cinecon.

A bomb explodes outside the office of the Greek Olympic Committee in Athens, damaging the building’s entrance.

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier tops the bestseller list. . . . A leftist group that opposes Athens’s bid to host the Olympics claims responsibility for the Aug. 31 attack. . . . Data shows that the average attendance of the inaugural WNBA season, which was projected to be 4,000 fans per game, turned out to be 9,669 fans per game, making the debut of women’s professional basketball a success.

A Miami Beach, Florida, postal worker, Jesus Antonio Tamayo, shoots his ex-wife and another woman and then kills himself while on duty at the local post office. The two women are wounded and hospitalized.

The Dow closes at 7879.78, up 257.36 points, setting a record single-session point increase. The day’s 3.4% gain is the Dow’s highest percentage rise since early 1991. . . . Figures reveal that the purchasing managers’ index declined to 56.8 in August, from July’s figure of 58.6. The August index marks the 15th consecutive month that the indicator surpasses the 50 level indicative of expansion in the manufacturing sector.

Viktor Emil Frankl, 92, Austrian psychiatrist who founded logotherapy, the study of how individuals find meaning within a particular set of life circumstances, dies in Vienna, Austria, of heart failure.

Aug. 28

Sir Rudolf Bing, 95, general manager of the New York Metropolitan Opera, 1950–72, who brought the world’s finest directors, designers, and performers to the organization, dies in Yonkers, New York, of respiratory ailments.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 30

Aug. 31

Sept. 1

Sept. 2

1038—September 3–8, 1997

World Affairs

Sept. 4

Mother Teresa (born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu), 87, Roman Catholic nun of Albanian parentage who devoted her life to caring for the destitute and the sick in India and whose work was internationally recognized and earned her the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize, dies in Calcutta, India, of a heart attack.

Asia & the Pacific

In Canada, one person dies and 65 others are injured when a Via Rail passenger train derails near Biggar, Saskatchewan. Some 193 passengers and 29 crew members are on the train when it derails.

Officials in the Comoran capital, Moroni, on the biggest island of the chain in the Indian Ocean, Grande Comore, sends a force of 300 heavily armed soldiers to reestablish government control on Anjouan, where secessionist protests in August turned into revolt. . . . At least 65 people die when a Vietnam Airlines plane crashes in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital. Two children survive, and locals loot the site while rescuers search for bodies. In Malaysia, High Court judge Low Hop Bing sentences correspondent Murray Hiebert to a three-month jail term for contempt of the judiciary. The sentence stems from an article Hiebert wrote that Judge Low considers offensive. It is the first time that a Malaysian court sentences a journalist to prison for contempt of court. . . . The government of the Comoros, a three-island nation in the Indian Ocean, finds significant resistance to the troops deployed Sept. 3 on Anjouan.

Three suicide bombers kill four Israeli civilians in a coordinated attack in West Jerusalem. An estimated 190 people are injured. Hamas claims responsibility. Israel immediately reinstates its border closure with the West Bank and Gaza Strip. . . . ECOWAS troops fire on ships unloading rice at the Freetown harbor in Sierra Leone, reportedly killing more than 30 civilians. . . . Congolese troops forcibly remove hundreds of refugees from a camp and return them to Rwanda.

Three tourist hotels and a restaurant in Havana, Cuba’s capital, are hit by explosions. One person is killed in the blasts. The explosions mark the third time since April that hotels in Havana have been bombed.

Daniel Villar Enciso, a member of Spain’s police force, is killed by a car bomb in Basauri, near Bilbao. . . . In Russia, the city of Moscow launches a three-day celebration of the 850th anniversary of its founding.

As violence continues in Algeria, four people die in a bomb attack on a bus near Blida, 30 miles south of Algiers, and 20 others are murdered in the region. At least 80 people are killed in a raid on Beni Messous, a suburb 12 miles west of Algiers. . . . Lebanese Shi’ite Muslims ambush Israeli commandos, and 12 Israelis and two Lebanese civilians die near Insariye, nine miles south of Sidon. The Israeli death toll is the highest Israel has sustained in an armed clash in Lebanon since its protracted 1982 invasion of the country.

At least 36 people die when a powerful storm causes a stadium to collapse during a political rally in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, located along the Parana River in Alto Parana state. More than 100 people are injured.

Hundreds of foreign diplomats and businesspeople gather in Panama for a conference on the future of the Panama Canal. The canal, currently controlled by the U.S., is scheduled to come under Panamanian control on Dec. 31, 1999.

More than 400 Guatemalans who fled to Mexico during the civil war return to their country in a convoy of buses escorted by the UN High Commission for Refugees and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The government of Comoros, a threeisland nation in the Indian Ocean, admits its troops have failed to recapture Anjouan from separatists fighting for reunion with France. . . . To acknowledge the late Mother Teresa, the Indian government breaks with tradition by calling for the honor of state rites. She is the first person in a nongovernmental role to be given the honor since Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in 1948.

A ferry sinks some 50 yards (45 m) offshore from Montrouis, on Haiti’s western coast. At least 200 people die in the accident. Between 30 and 60 people survive. . . . A forest fire threatens to destroy the Machu Picchu ruins, known as the Lost City of the Incas, in the Andes mountains in southern Peru. The area is closed to tourists when the fire comes within 1,000 feet (300 m) of the ruins. . . . About 1,100 unarmed EZLN fighters in Chiapas, Mexico, launch a trek to Mexico City for a rally.

Reports indicate that 40 government soldiers have been killed and 100 have been captured by members of an Anjouan island secessionist group during fighting in Comoros, a three-island nation in the Indian Ocean.

An Israeli soldier is killed in southern Lebanon, raising to 865 the number of Israeli troops killed in Lebanon since 1982, when Israel created a buffer zone abutting its northern border. . . . Mobutu Sese Seko (born Joseph Desire Mobutu), 66, Zairian president, 1965–97, who was the last of Africa’s cold war–era dictators and was ousted in May by Laurent Kabila, dies in Rabat, Morocco, of prostate cancer. . . . Abdullah Ibn Hamoud al-Tariki, 80, Saudi Arabia’s first oil minister and a founder of OPEC, dies in Cairo, Egypt, of a heart attack. Reports reveal that the Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, set up Sept. 2 by Princess Diana’s lawyers, has received about £100 million ($160 million) in donations so far.

Sept. 8

The Americas

Three unidentified photographers who took pictures of the crash that killed Princess Diana in Paris on Aug. 31 turn themselves in to police, as, under French law, failure to provide assistance at an accident scene is a crime punishable by fines and up to five years in prison. They join seven other members of the paparazzi, who were charged earlier. . . . Jeffrey Bernard, 65, British journalist and author, dies of kidney failure.

Britain’s Princess Diana is memorialized at London’s Westminster Abbey. The funeral is attended by 2,000 guests, while more than 1 million mourners gather near the abbey and listen to the service on loudspeakers. In an unprecedented move, Britain’s national flag, the Union Jack, flies at half-mast atop Buckingham Palace, which traditionally displays only the monarch’s royal standard.

Sept. 6

Sept. 7

Africa & the Middle East

The Soros Foundation, once Belarus’s largest nongovernmental organization, announces that it will shut down its operations in the country, claiming it was hounded out of Belarus by tax officials. . . . Data shows that 95 people died while climbing in the French Alps over the summer. Of that number, 36 were killed on Mont Blanc, Europe’s highest peak.

Sept. 3

Sept. 5

Europe

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

September 3–8, 1997—1039

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

The Supreme Court refuses to hear an emergency appeal of Proposition 209, the controversial antiaffirmative-action measure that officially went into effect Aug. 28.

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The House passes, 375-49, a $12.3 billion appropriations bill for fiscal 1998 for foreign operations. It includes a controversial antiabortion provision.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

A federal jury in Phoenix, Arizona’s capital, convicts the state’s Republican governor, J. Fife Symington III, of seven felony counts for defrauding lenders who provided millions of dollars to his ailing real-estate empire. Under Arizona law, a governor convicted of any felony is required to step down. Symington is the third governor in the 1990s forced to resign because of a criminal conviction. The other two are Guy Hunt (R, Ala.) and Jim Guy Tucker (D, Ark.).

Officials at a marine-life observatory in the San Francisco, California, area report that the water surface there has warmed to 67ºF (19.4ºC), the highest temperature the observatory has measured since it began keeping records in 1958. The water’s normal temperature is 50ºF.

Poultry producer Tyson Foods Inc. announces the acquisition of Hudson Foods Inc., which in August was forced to recall 25 million pounds (11 million kg) of ground beef in the largest meat recall in U.S. history, for $681.75 million in cash and Tyson stock.

Meteorological experts confirm that temperatures are warmer than normal in the Pacific Ocean. . . . Hans Jurgen Eysenck, 81, German-born behavioral psychologist known for his controversial theories of intelligence, dies in London, England, after suffering from a brain tumor.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Sept. 3

MTV presents British funk band Jamiroquai with the award for best video of the year for “Virtual Insanity.” . . . Aldo Rossi, 66, Italian architect who, in 1990, received the Pritzker Architecture Prize, dies in Milan, Italy, of injuries sustained in an car accident the previous week.

The International Olympic Committee picks Athens, Greece, as the host for the 2004 Olympics. . . . Sir Georg Solti (born Gyorgy Stern), 84, Hungarian-born conductor of the Chicago Symphony, 1969–91, dies in Antibes, France, after suffering a heart attack earlier. . . . Leon (Joseph) Edel, 89, literary critic and Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer, dies in Honolulu, Hawaii, of a heart attack.

Astronomers at California’s Mount Palomar observatory discover two tiny moons orbiting the planet Uranus. The discovery brings to 17 the number of known moons of Uranus. The newly found moons have diameters of 50 miles and 100 miles (80 km and 160 km), respectively. . . . Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Solovyev and U.S. astronaut Mike Foale conduct a six-hour space walk to inspect damage done to Mir by the June collision. George William Crockett Jr., 88, Democratic U.S. congressman from Michigan, judge and attorney known for his outspoken stands on civil rights, dies in Washington, D.C., of cancer.

The memorial service for Princess Diana is one of the most widely viewed broadcasts in TV history, with an estimated 2 billion viewers worldwide.

In tennis, Martina Hingis of Switzerland wins the women’s title at the U.S. Open, and Australia’s Patrick Rafter wins the men’s title. . . . Edgar Kaplan, 72, champion bridge player, dies in New York City of cancer. . . . Derek Wyn Taylor, 65, publicist for several 1960s rock groups, most notably the Beatles, dies in Suffolk, England, of esophagus cancer.

The Justice Department announces that it will drop federal criminal charges against Hani Abdel Rahim al-Sayegh, a Saudi Arabian man, in connection to the fatal 1996 truck bombing of a U.S. military complex near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, because investigators cannot obtain sufficient evidence to prove Sayegh’s guilt in a U.S. court of law

A jury in New Orleans, Louisiana, orders CSX Transportation and four other companies to pay $3.4 billion in punitive damages for a 1987 fire in a railroad car containing a hazardous chemical. It is the largest award ever against a railroad company. . . . The Clinton administration approves a bid to begin exploratory oil and gas drilling at a site in the Red Rock region of Utah, where Clinton established the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 1996.

James R. Phelan, 85, investigative journalist and author, dies in Temecula, California, of lung cancer.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 4

Sept. 5

Sept. 6

Sept. 7

Sept. 8

1040—September 9–14, 1997

Sept. 9

World Affairs

Europe

The World Bank predicts that China, Russia, India, Brazil, and Indonesia, spurred by their size and potential for market integration, will emerge as economic powerhouses. It forecasts that, by the year 2020, those so-called Big Five nations’ combined share of world output will grow to 16.1%, from 7.8% in 1992.

Russia and the separatist republic of Chechnya agree on terms to reopen an oil pipeline that stretches 93 miles (150 km) through the wardamaged region.

Africa & the Middle East Sadako Ogata, the UN high commissioner for refugees, discloses that the agency is suspending its aid operations for the Rwandan refugees dispersed across Africa’s Great Lakes region because of the host governments’ failure to observe “the principles and standards of law.”

Asia & the Pacific Forty-nine of India’s leading Hindu politicians are charged with inciting massive riots in Uttar Pradesh in 1992 in which hundreds of people died and a 16th-century Muslim mosque was destroyed. . . . The Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee announces that it has revoked the party membership of Chen Xitong, a long-time rival of Communist Party general secretary and Chinese president Jiang Zemin, and handed him over to prosecutors.

Some 1,000 survivors of those killed in the Sept. 8 ferry disaster block Haiti’s main highway to protest the delay in the recovery of the bodies, which are trapped in the hull of the sunken ship.

Sept. 10

United Tajik Opposition (UTO) leader Said Abdullo Nuri returns to Dushan from Iran after five years in exile. . . . Voters in a referendum in Scotland overwhelmingly approve plans to form a 129-member Scottish parliament with control over most local and regional affairs. The vote is regarded as a major landmark in the history of Scotland, which has been under British control for centuries. . . . In Ploiesti, Romania, four officers are injured in rallies protesting the closing of 17 factories announced Aug. 7.

Sept. 11

An unexpected rainstorm helps firefighters extinguish the blaze in Peru, which has burned some 1,500 acres (600 hectares) of forest around the. Machu Picchu ruins, known as the Lost City of the Incas, in the Andes mountains.

Japanese premier Ryutaro Hashimoto names a new cabinet that includes Takayuki (Koko) Sato, 69, a convicted felon. . . . Fighting between Taliban forces and troops loyal to the displaced Afghanistan government continue north of Kabul.

The leftist rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) holds a rally that draws tens of thousands of people in Mexico City, the capital of Mexico. The rally is the culmination of a journey that started Sept. 8 in the southern state of Chiapas, the rebels’ stronghold.

Sept. 12

Sept. 13

The Americas

Mother Teresa, a Nobel Peace Prize–winning Roman Catholic nun who spent nearly 70 years tending to thousands of the impoverished and ill in Calcutta, India, is given a state funeral and laid to rest in the courtyard of the convent she founded in 1952. Eulogies are delivered by representatives of seven faiths—Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, Sikhism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Zoroastrianism. In attendance are dignitaries from 24 nations, including former Canadian p.m. Jean Chrétien, British deputy p.m. John Prescott, and Bangladeshi p.m. Sheikh Hasina Wazed.

Bosnia-Herzegovina holds internationally monitored municipal elections for 142 local councils. . . . Roger Frey, 84, French politician who served as minister of the interior under Pres. Charles de Gaulle, dies in Paris, France, of unreported causes.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announces that he will release half the remaining PNA tax funds frozen by Israel after a suicide bombing in West Jerusalem in late July. As a further goodwill gesture, Israeli will ease restrictions placed on the movement of West Bank Palestinians.

Sept. 14

At least 77 people die when a train derails while crossing a bridge in Madhya Pradesh state and several cars plunge into a river bed in central India. It is the 27th disaster on India’s heavily traveled railway system since 1985.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

September 9–14, 1997—1041

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

An Oklahoma couple, Eugene K.H. Lum and Nora T. Lum, are sentenced to 10-month federal prison terms and a $30,000 fine each for using “straw donors” to funnel $50,000 to Democratic candidates in 1994 and 1995.

U.S. Economy & Environment A coalition of trade and industry groups launch a $13 million advertising campaign aimed at deterring the Clinton administration from supporting a UN-sponsored globalwarming treaty that will be discussed at a December conference in Kyoto, Japan.

William S. Hussey, a Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp. executive who supervised three managers indicted in July for Medicare fraud, resigns, although he has not been charged in the ongoing investigation of the firm. In Miami, Florida, Judge Stanley Marcus rules that American Airlines Inc., a division of AMR Corp., is guilty of “willful misconduct” in a December 1995 crash near Cali, Colombia, that killed 159 people. It is the first time that such a ruling has been made before an airline has had a chance to present its case to a jury, and observers note that it sets a precedent that is potentially damaging for the airline industry. . . . The CDC releases new figures showing that the number of AIDS deaths in the U.S. has continued to decline. The AIDS mortality rate dropped 26%, to 11.6 per 100,000 people in 1996, from 15.6 per 100,000 in 1995.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Army officials at a Pentagon news conference release the findings of the largest-ever investigation of sexual misconduct within army ranks. The report, based on a survey of 30,000 army soldiers stationed worldwide, finds evidence of widespread sexual harassment and discrimination. It also faults the military’s leadership and complaint procedure for allowing sexual improprieties to go on unacknowledged. The strongly worded document, compiled by a panel of nine senior officers, recommends 128 ways to improve gender relations within the U.S. Army.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Mario Lemieux is elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame. . . . Richie (Don Richard) Ashburn, 70, broadcaster and Hall of Fame baseball player, dies in New York City of a heart attack. . . . Burgess (Oliver) Meredith, 89, stage, film, and TV actor whose career spanned the 1930s to the 1990s, dies in Malibu, California, of unreported causes.

Maryland governor Parris Glendening (D) orders the closure of King’s Creek, a tributary to the Manokin River, after sick and dead fish are observed there.

George Louis Schaefer, 76, director and producer whose awards include a Tony, Pulitzer, Emmy, and four Directors Guild Awards, dies in Los Angeles after a long illness.

The Mars Global Surveyor enters Mars’s orbit to begin a two-year mission to study the planet’s geology and atmosphere.

Pres. Clinton nominates Dr. David Satcher, director of the federal CDC, to fill the post of surgeon general, which has been vacant for nearly three years. . . . Roger O(laf) Egeberg, 93, senior health official under Pres. Richard Nixon, dies in Washington, D.C., of pneumonia.

Maryland state environmental officials report that they have discovered in the Chicamacomico River thousands of fish afflicted with lesions typical of poisoning associated with exposure to the Pfiesteria piscicida microorganism. Virginia officials also disclose that they have discovered fish in the Rappahannock River that appear to be sickened by Pfiesteria. An air force C-141 cargo plane carrying nine passengers disappears off the coast of Africa, near Namibia. The plane is believed to have crashed into a German military transport that disappeared at nearly the same time and place.

In response to the Sept. 12 reports, Maryland governor Parris Glendening (D) orders the closure of a sixmile-long stretch of the Chicamacomico River.

Sept. 10

Sept. 11

Judith Merril, (born Juliet Grossman) 74, science fiction writer who was one of the first women to achieve popularity in the genre, dies in Toronto, Canada, of unreported causes.

Elton John’s recorded single “Candle in the Wind 1997,” a version to commemorate Princess Diana, goes on sale in Britain. Some 250,000 copies sell within four hours, and a record 600,000 within a day. . . . Oscar De La Hoya wins a unanimous decision over Hector (Macho) Camacho to retain his WBC welterweight boxing title.

A U.S. Navy fighter plane crashes near Raysut, Oman, during a routine training exercise, killing the lone pilot. . . . An air force fighter loses part of its wing while performing at the Chesapeake Air Show. The plane crash injures four civilians; the pilot ejects unharmed. . . . Wiliam Itoh, the U.S. ambassador in Thailand, dedicates a memorial to the 365 U.S. troops from World War II who died when their Japanese captors forced them to rebuild a railway bridge, an event made famous in the film The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957).

Sept. 9

At the Emmys, Law and Order wins for best drama while Frasier wins for best comedy. The President’s Award goes to Miss Evers’ Boys.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 12

Sept. 13

Sept. 14

1042—September 15–20, 1997

World Affairs

Sept. 17

Sept. 18

Africa & the Middle East

Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), takes part for the first time ever in broad-based, multiparty peace talks aimed at achieving peace in Northern Ireland. . . . Norway’s right-wing parties register significant gains in elections for members of the Storting, the country’s parliament. . . . U.S. paratroopers begin a weeklong peacekeeping exercise in Kazakhstan.

Sept. 15

Sept. 16

Europe

Asia & the Pacific

In Peru, separate courts reaffirm the revocation of Baruch Ivcher Bronstein’s citizenship and strip him of control of a TV station that had aired reports critical of the government.

The UN opens its 52nd General Assembly. The delegates elect Hennady Udovenko, Ukraine’s foreign minister, to the office of president of the General Assembly. . . . Due to a haze caused by hundreds of raging forest fires in Indonesia that blots out much of the sunlight in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Brunei, and southern Thailand, Indonesian president Suharto apologizes to those countries for the crisis.

A large bomb explodes in a parked van in Markethill, a predominantly Protestant town southwest of Belfast in County Armagh, Northern Ireland.

Delegates from 89 countries approve a treaty to ban the use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of antipersonnel land mines. Some nations do not sign, including the U.S., Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq. . . . Russia joins the Paris Club of 18 creditor nations. . . . The IMF, in its semiannual World Economic Outlook, projects that Canada, followed by the U.S. and Britain, will lead the G-7 countries in growth in 1997. The IMF reports that world growth in 1996 was 4.1% and projects that will be 4.2% in 1997 and 4.3% in 1998.

A helicopter crash near the town of Bugojno in central Bosnia claims the lives of 12 passengers, including Gerd Wagner, a deputy to Carlos Westendorp, the international community’s representative in Bosnia. The four Ukrainians who crew the Russian-made aircraft escape alive. . . . A Macedonian court sentences Rufi Osmani, mayor of Gostivar, to almost 14 years in jail for inciting protests on July 9 that caused a riot in which three people died.

Settlers in the 17 Ras al-Amud neighborhood of Arab East Jerusalem refuse to leave the premises, prompting some 300 Palestinian protesters to demonstrate at the site.

Delegates from 89 countries formally adopt a treaty to ban the use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of antipersonnel land mines.

Two convicted murderers are publicly executed by firing squad in the separatist republic of Chechnya. . . . Fifty people are injured when a car bomb explodes in Croat-controlled West Mostar. It is believed to be the largest explosion in BosniaHerzegovina since 1995. . . . In a referendum, Welsh voters narrowly approve plans to create a 60-member Welsh assembly that will control some decisions concerning government spending in Wales.

At least two men attack a tourist bus with gunfire and gasoline bombs in downtown Cairo, the Egyptian capital, killing nine German passengers and the bus’s Egyptian driver. The assault is the first deadly attack on foreign tourists in Egypt since April 1996. Some 20 other people are wounded. Egyptian officials identify the assailants and state that the attack was not politically motivated. . . . A crisis that threatened to erupt in violence is defused when an agreement is reached with Israeli officials and Jewish settlers in disputed residence in two homes in the Ras al-Amud neighborhood of Arab East Jerusalem.

A crowded passenger train collides with a freight train in West London, killing six people and injuring more than 170 others. It is the worst rail crash in Britain since 1988.

A policeman is killed and three others are wounded in separate shooting attacks in southern Egypt.

Sept. 19

The Americas

Vietnam’s Communist Party Central Committee closes a conference during which they named Tran Duc Luong to replace 77-year-old Le Duc Anh, who is in failing health, as president. The party selected Phan Van Khai to succeed Vo Van Kiet, 74, as premier.

Prosecutors in Tokyo, Japan’s capital, and officials of the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission (SESC) raid the offices of Daiwa, Japan’s secondlargest brokerage house, and homes of Daiwa executives. . . . Ganesh Man Singh, 81, leader of Nepal’s 1990 prodemocracy movement, dies in Katmandu, Nepal, of a heart attack.

Progovernment minority shareholders of the Frecuencia Latina television station in Lima, the capital of Peru, seize control of the station. The government in July revoked the citizenship of the Israeli-born majority owner, Baruch Ivcher Bronstein, in a move that observers call a retaliation for reports critical of the government.

Reports confirm that Russian president Boris Yeltsin plans to export part of Russia’s 1997 grain harvest. It will be the first grain exported from Russia in 50 years. . . . The Continuity Army Council, an extremist republican group that split off from the IRA, claims responsibility for two bombing attacks that have threatened to derail the Northern Ireland peace process. The first bomb was discovered and defused in July; the second exploded Sept. 16 in Markethill.

Sept. 20

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

September 15–20, 1997—1043

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Former Massachusetts governor William F. Weld (R) abandons his bid to become ambassador to Mexico, ending a five-month-long showdown with Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Jesse Helms (R, N.C.), who refused to hold a confirmation hearing for Weld’s appointment. . . . A Marine Corps F/A-18 fighter crashes off the coast of North Carolina, killing its two-man crew.

Pres. Clinton announces plans to impose new federal regulations designed to curb Medicare fraud.

A 370-pound (170-kg) U.S. military satellite comes within 500 to 1,000 feet (150 to 300 m) of crashing into Mir. . . . Two pharmaceutical companies announce that they will remove the appetite suppressants fenfluramine and dexfenfluramine from the market due to evidence that the drugs can cause serious heart ailments. . . . Scientists in two studies report they have observed the parthenogenesis, or birth without mating, of male offspring to snakes.

Raymond L. Flynn announces his resignation as ambassador to the Vatican, a post he has held since 1993. Pres. Clinton nominates Lindy (Corinne C.) Boggs as his successor.

The Senate, by voice vote, confirms Gen. Henry (Hugh) Shelton as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is the first commander of U.S. Special Operations ever to head the joint chiefs. . . . The House, approves, 413-12, a $9.183 billion appropriations bill for military construction in the 1998 fiscal year. . . . Two Air National Guard fighter jets collide in midair off the coast of Atlantic City, New Jersey, during a night training exercise.

The Dow closes at 7895.92, up 174.78 points, or 2.3%, the fifthhighest single-session point gain in the history of the Dow.

A team of researchers reports evidence that young broccoli seedlings contain high concentrations of chemicals known to stimulate the body’s resistance to cancer.

William N. Oatis, 83, Associated Press (AP) reporter who was imprisoned in Czechoslovakia during the cold war, dies in New York City after a long illness.

The Department of Defense, responding to a series of recent accidents involving military aircraft, orders all branches of the armed services to suspend their training flights for 24 hours and review aviation safety methods. It is the first time that each branch of the armed forces is simultaneously ordered to halt their flights. . . . The Senate clears, 97-3, a $9.183 billion fiscal 1998 spending bill for military construction.

The Interior Department reports that nearly 1.2 million acres (500,000 hectares) of wetlands were lost between 1985 and 1995, despite legislative efforts to protect the vulnerable ecosystems. The report notes, however, that the loss is just over a third of the wetlands loss suffered in the previous decade.

Comedian Martin Lawrence is sentenced to community service and two years’ probation on a battery charge. . . . Red (Richard Bernard) Skelton, 84, comedian and actor who hosted popular radio and TV comedy programs and was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame in 1989, dies in Rancho Mirage, California.

Three people who worked as campaign officials for the December election of Ronald Carey as president of the International Brotherhood of the Teamsters plead guilty in federal court in New York City to conspiracy charges for their involvement in the illegal fund-raising scheme. . . . Accounting firms Coopers & Lybrand and Price Waterhouse & Co. announce that they will merge to form the world’s largest accounting and consulting firm. The merged firm will have 8,600 partners and some $12 billion in global revenue annually.

Governors George Allen (R, Va.) and Parris Glendening (D, Md.) state that they will coordinate efforts to fight the outbreaks of the Pfiesteria piscicida microorganism that has infected fish in rivers.

Jimmy Witherspoon, 74, blues and jazz singer known for his deep voice and shouting vocal delivery, dies in Los Angeles.

The Senate confirms Pres. Clinton’s nomination of Kenneth S. Apfel, a White House adviser on social security issues, as social security commissioner.

Scientists reveal they have found a ring of 11 earthen mounds in Louisiana to be the oldest such complex in the Americas. Construction of the mounds, at a site called Watson Brake near Monroe, is determined to have begun about 5,400 years ago, predating by 1,900 years the mounds previously known as the oldest, at Poverty Point, Louisiana.

The daughter of Pres. Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, arrives with her parents at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, to begin her college orientation.

The CDC reports that the number of new AIDS cases in the U.S. dropped for the first time in the epidemic’s 16-year history when they fell by 6% . . . The House votes, 258-154, to adopt new ethics rules in the wake of an inquiry involving Speaker Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.). . . . The FBI reports that agents recovered most of the $18.8 million stolen in March from a vault at Loomis, Fargo and Co. The heist was the largest of its kind in U.S. history.

An air force B-1 bomber on a training mission crashes in southeast Montana, killing its four-person crew.

Sept. 15

Sept. 16

Sept. 17

Amid Senate hearings regarding campaign finances, the Justice Department announces that it has begun an initial inquiry into Pres. Clinton’s efforts to solicit contributions for his 1996 reelection campaign and for the Democratic National Committee.

Sept. 18

Sept. 19

Sept. 20

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1044—September 21–26, 1997

World Affairs

Reports confirm that Polish prosecutors have cleared Col. Ryszard Kuklinski, who served as spy for the CIA until November 1981, was convicted in 1984 in absentia, and sentenced to death.. . . . Viscount Tonypandy, (born Thomas George Thomas) 88, Welsh-born parliamentarian who served as speaker of the British House of Commons, 1976–83, dies in Cardiff, Wales, of unreported causes.

Sept. 22

Sept. 24

Sept. 25

Sept. 26

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

In parliamentary elections for Serbia, which is part of Yugoslavia, along with Montenegro, the Socialist Party and its left-wing allies, led by Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, takes 110 seats, not enough for a majority in the 250seat body. . . . Poland’s voters give the 36-party anticommunist Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS) coalition a victory in elections to the Sejm, Poland’s parliament.

Sept. 21

Sept. 23

Europe

Asia & the Pacific Hundreds of thousands of Filipinos gather in Luneta Park in Manila, the Philippine capital, to voice their opposition to Pres. Fidel Ramos’s recent moves to seek reelection to the presidency after his current term ends in May 1998.

In Algeria, a band of armed men slaughter as many 200 people and wound as many as 100 others in the Bentalha neighborhood of Baraki, a suburb of Algiers, the capital. . . . Two Israeli embassy security guards suffer gunfire wounds in a drive-by attack in the Jordanian capital, Amman. Abdul Aziz al-Rantisi, a Gaza Strip-based political leader of Hamas, insists that “this attack was not carried out by our movement.”

The IMF and the World Bank, its sister organization, hold the annual joint plenary session of their boards of governors.

More than 10,000 Turkish troops supported by 100 tanks and numerous war planes cross into northern Iraq to renew Turkey’s military offensive against PKK guerrillas seeking to establish a separate Kurdish entity in Turkey. . . . Irish rock group U2 performs a benefit concert in front of some 45,000 Bosnians at the newly rebuilt Kosevo Stadium in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The concert is the city’s most widely attended entertainment event since the 1984 Winter Olympic Games.

Due to a haze caused by hundreds of raging forest fires in Indonesia that blots out much sunlight in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, the Philippines, and southern Thailand, the U.S. and Canada authorize partial evacuations of their embassies in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital. The haze, which has forced the closure of schools and caused respiratory ailments in tens of thousands of people, is widely called the worst ecological disaster on record in Southeast Asia.

Two Basque separatist guerrillas— Salvador Gaztelumendi Gil and Jose-Miguel Bustinza—are killed in a gun battle with police in downtown Bilbao, a city in Spain’s northcentral Basque region. The rebels are members of ETA, the main Basque guerrilla group.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu declares that his government will build 300 new homes at the West Bank settlement of Efrat, just south of the Palestinian town of Bethlehem. . . . In Algeria, Madani Mezerag, the commander of the Army of Islamic Salvation, the military wing of the FIS, declares a cease-fire as of Oct. 1.

The International Court of Justice rules that both Slovakia and Hungary have violated a 1977 treaty in which they agreed to build two hydroelectric dams using water from the Danube River, which divides the countries, but only one dam was ever built, at Gabcikovo, Slovakia. . . . The OAS amends its charter to condemn governments that come to power through a coup.

The Press Complaints Commission releases guidelines designed to prevent paparazzi, or free-lance photographers, from aggressively and intrusively pursuing public figures. The move is prompted largely by Princess Diana’s Aug. 31 car accident in France.

Two operatives of Israel’s foreign spy agency Mossad attempt to assassinate Khaled Meshal, the Jordanian-based political leader of Hamas. The act draws international condemnation, and Jordan’s King Hussein is reportedly outraged that the incident is perpetrated on Jordanian soil.

Foreign ministers from NATO’s 16 member countries and Russia hold the first meeting of the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council. . . . The U.S. and Russia agree to delay implementation of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II) for four years. Representatives of the U.S., Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine sign an accord to modify the 1972 Antiballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. . . . French president Jacques Chirac confirms that France, like Russia, the U.S., and Britain, no longer keeps its nuclear missiles aimed at specific targets.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin signs a bill that will restrict religious practice in Russia. . . . At least 11 people are killed and more than 120 injured when two earthquakes strike Italy. Separately, a sevenjudge panel in Italy convicts and sentences 24 leading figures in the Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian mafia. . . . A court in Dusseldorf, Germany, convicts Nikola Jorgic of war crimes offenses in Bosnia and sentences him to life in prison. The UN international war crimes tribunal, citing a heavy case load, asked Germany to try Jorgic.

The government of Bolivia declares a formal state of emergency after the manifestations of the El Nino weather system caused three deaths across the country. . . . Former army chief Gen. Lino César Oviedo, who in 1996 caused a constitutional crisis by defying Pres. Juan Carlos Wasmosy’s order to step down, is named the winner of the ruling Colorado Party’s primary for Paragay’s May 1998 presidential elections.

Shoichi Yokoi, 82, Japanese soldier who, rather than surrender to U.S. forces during World War II, hid in the jungles of Guam for 27 years, dies in Nagoya, Japan, of a heart attack.

Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien announces four appointments to fill vacancies in the Senate, the upper house of Canada’s Parliament, which will increase the Liberals’ standing in the unelected chamber to 52 members.

Officials from Japan and the U.S. announce that they have approved a new cooperative regional security agreement. . . . Ne Win, a hard-line military leader who had ruled Myanmar from 1962 until 1988 and still exercises significant influence over the junta leaders, visits Indonesia in his first public appearance since 1989.

Indonesian officials state that, in addition to the deaths related to the haze caused by hundreds of fires, some 271 people in the Irian Jaya region have died from famine and disease. . . . Australian prime minister John Howard announces the resignations of Transportation Minister John Sharp and Administrative Services Minister David Jull for alleged travel expense improprieties amid one of the most devastating scandals faced by an Australian prime minister in 20 years. A judge in the northern city of Tijuana, Mexico, frees former federal police agent Ricardo Cordero Ontiveros, who was jailed in 1996 after exposing drug corruption in Mexican law enforcement.

Former Indian prime minister P. V. Narasimha Rao is formally charged with corruption and bribery in connection with an alleged 1993 votebuying scheme. Rao is India’s first former head of state to face trial on criminal charges. . . . Due to the ecological crisis over Indonesia, Malaysia sends more than 1,000 firefighters to help fight the forest fires, and the World Bank and several Southeast Asian nations offer various forms of assistance. A jet crash in Indonesia kills 234 people. The crash is the most deadly air disaster in Indonesia’s history. Separately, a supertanker collides with an Indian cargo vessel in the Strait of Malacca, killing 29 people. The accidents may be caused by the haze over Indonesia due to fires. . . . Hong Kong announces that schools using English as their teaching language will be required to switch to Cantonese in 1998. . . . Hundreds of workers take to the streets of Bangkok, Thailand’s capital, in support of the proposed constitution.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

September 21–26, 1997—1045

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Timothy Wadsworth Stanley, 69, who, from the 1950s to the 1970s, held key defense posts under a succession of U.S. presidents, dies in Washington, D.C., of pancreatic cancer.

The Federal Highway Administration finds that the number of cars on U.S. roads between 1969 and 1995 grew six times faster than the U.S. population. The report notes that there were 176 million vehicles in the U.S. in 1995, up 144% from 1969 levels. Just 7.9% of all households had no vehicle, down from 20.1% in 1969.

In Roby, Illinois, Shirley Allen starts a standoff with authorities when she refuses to go with sheriff’s deputies and her brother, Byron Dugger, for a court-ordered mental evaluation. . . . In Chicago, Illinois, U.S. district judge Ruben Castillo announces that families of 27 victims of a 1994 Indiana air crash settled with the carrier and manufacturer to receive a total of $110 million.

In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. district judge Edmund Ludwig sentences John Bennett Jr. to 12 years in prison for defrauding charity organizations of millions of dollars. . . . The FEC shows that the Republicans raised $21.7 million in the first six months of 1997, while Democrats raised $13.7 million. By comparison, the GOP raised $16.6 million, while the Democrats raised $10.8 million over the same period in 1995.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Sept. 21

The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation presents its Medical Research Awards to Dr. Alfred Sommer and Dr. Mark S. Ptashne. Dr. Victor A. McKusick receives a special achievement award for his role in the NIH’s Human Genome Project. . . . Mir’s aging computer breaks down for the fifth time in two months. NASA officials announce that the spacecraft Atlantis will deliver a new computer to Mir.

The Senate opens hearings into alleged abuses by tax collectors and mismanagement at the IRS. . . . Smith Barney Inc. agrees to pay $5.1 million to settle an SEC charge tied to a Dade County, Florida, municipal bond issue. . . . The Forest Service imposes a ban on future oil and gas leasing along the Rocky Mountain Front in Montana, protecting a 100-mile-long stretch of land that runs along the eastern edge of the Lewis and Clark National Forest and borders the southern tip of Glacier National Park. The College Board reports that tuition at public and private fouryear universities for the 1997–98 academic year rose by 5% over the previous year. That increase compares with a 2.5% rise in inflation in 1996. The average yearly tuition at a four-year private university is currently $13,664; at four-year public schools, the annual cost is $3,111.

Robert Lipka, 51, a former Army clerk at the NSA who pled guilty in May to selling secrets to the Soviet Union in the 1960s, is sentenced in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to 18 years in prison for conspiracy to commit espionage.

President Clinton attends a ceremony in Little Rock, Arkansas, marking the 40th anniversary of the integration of public schools when nine black students entered Little Rock’s Central High School under a military escort amid threats and taunts from white citizens. The state and local chapters of the NAACP boycott the ceremony, asserting that little progress has been made in race relations in the 40 years since then.

The House, 356-65, and the Senate, 93-5, vote to approve a $247.7 billion defense spending bill for fiscal 1998. . . . The U.S. military’s Southern Command, which coordinates U.S. military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, closes its headquarters in Panama after 80 years in the country. The Southern Command will move to Miami, Florida.

The House, 309-107, and the Senate, 90-10, approve a fiscal 1998 spending bill allocating $2.25 billion for the legislative branch, a 2% increase over fiscal 1997 spending levels.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Forbes magazine places Steven Spielberg at the top of its annual list of the world’s highest-paid entertainers, with an estimated earning of $313 million for 1996 and 1997.

A speaker for IBM announces that the Deep Blue chess computer, which made headlines in May when it defeated chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, has been retired. . . . Shirley Clarke, 72, Academy Awardwinning filmmaker, dies in Boston, Massachusetts, after suffering a stroke two weeks earlier.

The Senate votes, 98-2, to pass legislation that will allow the FDA to approve new drugs and medical devices more quickly.

Data shows that “Candle in the Wind 1997,” a song that British singer Elton John adapted as a tribute to Princess Diana, has sold a record 8 million copies in its initial U.S. shipment.

The space shuttle Atlantis lifts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, to deliver essential supplies to the Russian Mir space station and to assist with repairs to the beleaguered craft.

Reports state that the FBI has released all but 10 pages of its 300page surveillance file on deceased rock singer John Lennon. . . . In the middle of a highly publicized criminal trial, sportscaster Marv Albert pleads guilty in Arlington, Virginia, to assaulting a woman in February during a sexual encounter.

The U.S. Senate, prompted by an ongoing scandal over Democratic fund-raising activities during the 1996 election cycle, opens debate on legislation to revamp the nation’s campaign-finance laws.

Sept. 22

Sept. 23

Sept. 24

Sept. 25

Sept. 26

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1046—September 27–October 2, 1997

World Affairs

Europe

Sept. 28

Sept. 29

Oct. 1

Oct. 2

The Americas

In Algeria, eight armed men shoot and slash to death 11 female schoolteachers and one male instructor at the Ain Adden School in Sfisef, a village located 260 miles (420 km) south of Algiers. . . . Bantu Holomisa and Roelf Meyer, former political rivals, announce the formation of a new multiracial political party, the United Democratic Movement, in South Africa.

Sept. 27

Sept. 30

Africa & the Middle East

Asia & the Pacific The Thai parliament approves a new constitution aimed at reforming Thailand’s political system and electoral process. . . . Reports confirm that at least 35,000 Indonesians and 16,000 Malaysians have been treated for smoke inhalation and respiratory ailments due to the haze caused by forest fires. The smoke is also cited as the cause of five deaths in Indonesia.

Voters in a referendum in Switzerland overwhelmingly reject a curtailment of the government’s liberal drug policies, including a program that distributes heroin to addicts at state-run clinics.

Israel’s Histadrut labor federation stages a one-day strike involving about 500,000 workers to protest economic policies.

An estimated 600,000 Protestants gather for an outdoor religious rally in Sao Paulo, prompting the Catholic clergy in Brazil to express concern over the increasing popularity of Protestant faiths in Brazil.

Reports reveal that Indonesian president Suharto has ordered some 50,000 soldiers to assist the firefighting efforts. . . . Hong Kong’s provisional legislature passes a law severely limiting the number of people eligible to vote for two-thirds of the seats in a new legislative council.

Turkey carries out air raids against Kurdish rebels inside northern Iraq as part of a continuing Turkish air and ground operation against Iraqbased guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which seeks to establish Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Turkey.

Iranian war planes cross into Iraqi air space and strike two outposts of an Iraq-based Iranian opposition group.

A fire in a Colima, Chile, home for the mentally handicapped kills 30 residents.

In Singapore, a High Court judge awards damages of S$20,000 (US$13,150) to P.M. Goh Chok Tong in a libel suit against J. B. Jeyaretnam, leader of the opposition Workers Party. The suit is one of eight brought by members of Goh’s People’s Action Party (PAP) against Jeyaretnam.

Reports reveal that the effects of the El Nino weather system are impacting Latin America, South America, and the Caribbean. The weather patterns range from heavy rains and floods in Peru, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, and Bolivia to droughts in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Floods have caused the declaration of a state of emergency in 14 departments in Peru.

A coalition of the Socialist Party and the Serbian Renewal Movement forces Zoran Djindjic from his post as mayor of Belgrade, which he took in February. Police loyal to Pres. Slobodan Milosevic break up a demonstration of 20,000 protesters in Belgrade who are denouncing Djindjic’s ouster. . . . In what is considered its most forthright and unequivocal acknowledgment of remorse, the Roman Catholic Church in France issues a formal apology to Jews for the church’s silence during the holocaust.

NATO defense ministers agree that the alliance should maintain some military presence in BosniaHerzegovina beyond the scheduled pullout of peacekeeping troops in June 1998.

SFOR troops, led by NATO, seize four TV transmitters located in the Serb part of Bosnia-Herzegovina to halt broadcasts that NATO leaders describe as inflammatory. . . . Serb police in Pristina, the capital of the Kosovo region, spray tear gas and beat protesters with clubs to break up a rally of 20,000 ethnic Albanian students calling for Albanian-language education at Pristina University.

EU nations sign the Treaty of Amsterdam, an updated version of the 1992 Maastricht pact, which introduced greater economic unity to the EU and contained provisions for the admittance of new members.

At least 15 people are killed and more than 30 others are wounded by artillery fire in Kashmir when a hospital and mosque are hit by fire that Indian officials allege comes from Pakistani troops stationed in the disputed area. The attack is the most deadly on a civilian target in India in recent years.

Israel frees Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin from a life sentence.

In Kharrouba, a village more than 200 miles west of Algiers, 20 people are killed when armed men storm a wedding ceremony.

The government announces presidential pardons for seven conglomerate executives found guilty in 1996 of bribing former president Roh Tae Woo. The executives are given suspended sentences.

Gen. Manuel Jose Bonett, the head of Colombia’s armed forces, emerges unharmed from a bomb attack on the car he was riding in near the city of Santa Marta. One civilian dies in the incident. . . . Pope John Paul II begins a tour of Brazil to preside over the Second Annual Conference on Families.

A bomb explodes during a Hindu religious procession in New Delhi, India, wounding 27 people. . . . South Korea suspends the import of beef from the U.S. state of Nebraska after detecting a strain of E. coli bacteria in a shipment of frozen beef from U.S. meatpacker IBP Inc.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

September 27–October 2, 1997—1047

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

Scott Krueger, an 18-year-old pledge at Phi Gamma Delta fraternity at MIT, dies of alcohol poisoning following a drinking binge three days earlier. He reportedly had a blood alcohol level of 0.41%— more than five times Massachusetts’s legal limit for driving. The case sparks attention about drinking and fraternity hazing at universities and colleges.

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The House passes, 355-57, a bill that effectively issues a three-week reprieve of a strict new policy on illegal immigration contained in a September 1996 immigration law. The reprieve, which lasts until Oct. 23, is part of a larger measure providing funding for federal agencies for the start of fiscal 1998, which begins Oct. 1.

The House, 355-57, passes a stopgap measure to maintain federal spending at fiscal 1997 levels for all programs and agencies until Congress finishes its work on the budget. . . . The Census Bureau reports that the median household income in the U.S. rose for the second consecutive year in 1996, while the number of people living in poverty remained about the same.

Pres. Clinton signs a $9.183 billion appropriations bill for military construction in the 1998 fiscal year. . . . The Senate, 99-0, passes a bill that effectively issues a three-week reprieve of a strict new policy on illegal immigration when it clears a measure providing funding for federal agencies for the start of fiscal 1998, which begins Oct. 1.

The CBO reveals that the four main independent counsel investigations launched against Pres. Clinton and members of his administration cost a total of more than $44 million as of Mar. 31. . . . The Senate passes, 99-0, and Pres. Clinton signs a stopgap measure. . . . The House, 404-17, and the Senate, 99-0, clear the final version of the fiscal 1998 energy and water appropriations bill. . . The House, 220-207, passes a fiscal 1998 spending bill allocating $25.6 billion to fund the Treasury Department, the U.S. Postal Service, the White House, and other government costs.

The Senate Rules and Administration Committee votes to end an inquiry into the November 1996 election of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D, La.), reporting that it found no evidence of systematic vote fraud that may have affected the outcome of the race. . . . Luke Woodham, 16, kills his mother at home and two other people at Pearl High School in Pearl, Mississippi Seven other students are wounded, and police take Woodham into custody.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The spacecraft Atlantis successfully docks at the Mir space station.

Singer Bob Dylan perform for an estimated 250,000 spectators, including Pope John Paul II, at the World Eucharistic Congress in Bologna, Italy.

Wildfires in the area near the Sierra Nevada mountains in northern California force the evacuation of some 1,000 residents.

Veteran TV news commentator David Brinkley retires from broadcasting after 54 years when he gives his final commentary on ABC’s This Week. . . . A European team of golfers in Spain defeats a U.S. team to retain the Ryder Cup.

Pres. Clinton, confers the National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal on 20 cultural figures and one arts organization. . . . Roy Lichtenstein, 73, American painter who was a seminal figure in the 1960s Pop Art movement, dies in New York City of complications from pneumonia.

Fire officials disclose that 83 homes and 65 barn and storage buildings were destroyed in the fires reported Sept. 28. . . . A statement signed by 1,500 scientists, 102 of whom are Nobel laureates, urges governments to support an upcoming UN conference on environmental issues to be held in December in Kyoto, Japan. . . . British scientists unveil the most compelling evidence yet that madcow disease (BSE) can be transferred to humans, and that it is related to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

The Senate clears, 55-45, a fiscal 1998 spending bill allocating $25.6 billion to fund the Treasury Department, the U.S. Postal Service, the White House, and other government costs. For the first time in five years, the annual spending bill does not contain a provision blocking congressional pay raises. . . . Union Pacific Railroad Co. announces plans to ease unprecedented congestion on the 36,700 miles (60,000 km) of railroad operated by the company.

The U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops’ committee on marriage and family attempt to provide spiritual guidance to the parents of homosexual children and urge parents not to reject their sons or daughters on the basis of their sexual orientation.

Gul Mohammed, 40, the world’s shortest man with a height of 22.5 inches (57 cm), dies in New Delhi, India, of a heart attack.

Attorney General Janet Reno reveals that the annual juvenile arrest rate for violent crime declined for the second consecutive year in 1996. Juvenile arrests fell 9.2% in 1996 to 464.7 per 100,000 youths from 511.9 per 100,000 in 1995.

Figures show that that “Candle in the Wind 1997,” a song that British singer Elton John adapted as a tribute to Princess Diana, sold 3.45 million copies in the U.S. in six days, shattering the previous record of 632,000 copies in the same period set in 1992.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 27

Sept. 28

Sept. 29

Sept. 30

Oct. 1

Oct. 2

1048—October 3–8, 1997

World Affairs

Europe An earthquake hits central Italy, injuring at least 20 people. The tremor, which measures 5.1 on the Richter scale, damages the renowned Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, which was badly damaged by two earthquakes in late September. . . . A(lfred) L(eslie) Rowse, 93, controversial British scholar of Shakespeare and Elizabethan history, dies in St. Austell. . . . George Urban, 76, Hungarian-born scholar who served as director of both Radio Free Europe (RFE) and Britain’s Centre for Policy Studies, dies of unreported causes.

Oct. 3

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Algeria, several schools and apartment buildings in Blida, 30 miles south of Algiers, are bombed with explosives. According to hospital estimates, five people are killed and 30 others are injured. Assailants murder 26 adults and 12 children in Mahelma, a village near Blida. Attackers take the lives of 37 people, many of them children, in a massacre in the village of Ouled Benaissa, 30 miles south of Blida.

Paraguayan president Juan Carlos Wasmosy orders the arrest of Lino Cesar Oviedo, the ruling Colorado Party’s candidate in the May 1998 presidential election who is considered Wasmosy’s likely successor. . . . In Mexico City, Mexico, 19 members of an elite police force known as the Jaguares, or Jaguars, are arraigned in connection with the September murders of six youths after their arrests.

The Indian government bans the Bodoland Liberation Tigers Front, a militant separatist group in the northern state of Assam.

Around 700 passengers and crew members are rescued from a cruise ship that has caught fire in the Mediterranean Sea some 60 miles (95 km) from Cyprus. No fatalities or injuries are reported. . . . Princess Cristina of Spain marries Inaki Urdangarin, a professional athlete from the nation’s Basque region, in an internationally televised ceremony. The wedding service, which employs three languages—Spanish, Basque, and Catalan—is seen as a symbolic unification of the nation’s often antagonistic regions.

Oct. 4

Oct. 5

Oct. 6

Oct. 7

Oct. 8

Nepalese prime minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand resigns after his coalition government loses a confidence motion in the House of Representatives, the lower house of Nepal’s Parliament.

Just 48.97% of Serbia’s 3.2 million voters turn out at the polls for the second round of presidential elections, invalidating the vote and leaving the republic without a president until new elections can be held.

Iran criticizes the U.S. administration’s Oct. 3 deployment of the Nimitz to the Persian Gulf, saying that the U.S.’s presence in the area is “illegitimate.”

A group of 10 Bosnian Croats in the town of Split, Croatia, surrender to a representative of the UN war crimes tribunal. The 10 are accused of having massacred Muslim civilians in April 1993 in the Lasva Valley of central Bosnia-Herzegovina. Their surrender raises the number of suspects in the tribunal’s custody from 10 to 20.

Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin returns to his Gaza City home and is greeted by a cheering throng of some 20,000 supporters. Jordan flies the two Mossad agents who attempted to assassinate a Hamas leader in Jordan in September to Israel, where they are released. Twenty-two other Palestinian and Jordanian prisoners are also freed.

Orlando Agosti, 72, Argentine air force commander who helped overthrow the democratically elected government of Isabel Peron in 1976 and who, from 1976 to 1983, participated in a violent campaign against leftist guerrillas and sympathizers, in which an estimated 30,000 people died or disappeared, dies in Buenos Aires of cancer.

Turkish military officials state that more than 500 guerrillas have been killed to date in the clashes that started in September against the PKK. . . . Belarussian authorities free Pavel Sheremet, a reporter for Russia’s ORT television network imprisoned since July. He is the last of seven ORT employees arrested in July and August to be freed.

Former navy captain Adolfo Francisco Scilingo is arrested in Spain after voluntarily testifying in a Madrid court about his actions in Argentina’s “dirty war” against suspected leftists in the 1970s.

A court in the Palace of Justice in Bordeaux, France, begins proceedings in the trial against Maurice Papon, a former government minister accused of delivering more than 1,500 Jews to Nazi death camps during World War II.

Hurricane Pauline hits Puerto Angel in Oaxaca state, a town on Mexico’s Pacific coast some 310 miles (500 km) southeast of Mexico City, the capital. Pauline brings winds of 115 miles per hour (185 kmph), as well as heavy rains and tidal waves reaching as high as 30 feet (9 m).

In Nepal, King Birendra names Surya Bahadur Thapa to succeed Chand as prime minister.

Kim Jong Il, who is the son of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung and who has been North Korea’s presumed leader since the 1994 death of his father, formally takes over the country’s top political post, that of general secretary of the ruling communist Korean Workers’ Party. Some 20,000 people reportedly gather in the streets of Pyongyang, the capital, to celebrate.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

October 3–8, 1997—1049

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Thai officials extradite to the U.S. Lee Peng Fei, 47, the Taiwanese man alleged to be the mastermind of a failed 1993 attempt to smuggle nearly 300 Chinese immigrants into the U.S. aboard the Golden Venture cargo vessel, which had run aground off the coast of New York City. . . . In response to the Sept. 29 incident involving Iraq and Iran, U.S. Defense Department officials announced that the U.S. has ordered the immediate deployment of aircraft carrier USS Nimitz to the Persian Gulf.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Reports state that the National Organization for Women and Equal Partners in Faith, a coalition of 60 religious groups, has criticized the all-male, evangelical Promise Keepers for its exclusion of women and for its conservative political agenda. . . . Millard Lampell, 78, songwriter, screenwriter, and novelist known for his dedication to social causes, dies in Ashburn, Virginia, of lung cancer.

The FBI reveals that serious crimes reported to the police decreased by 3% in 1996 from the 1995 level. It is the fifth consecutive decline in the annual crime rate.

Several hundred demonstrators rally at Cape Canaveral to protest the planned launch of the Cassini, an unmanned spacecraft powered by plutonium, arguing that the plutonium will be hazardous if the rocket explodes upon launch or reentry. . . . The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago acquires the largest fossil of a Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaur ever discovered for a bid of $8.36 million, which is believed to be the highest price ever paid for a fossil, at a Sotheby’s auction.

Hundreds of thousands of members of Promise Keepers, an allmale, evangelical Christian group, converge on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to pray for spiritual renewal, pledge their faith in Jesus Christ, and repent for their failure to uphold their personal commitments to their families and communities.

Mary Jane Gold, 88, Chicago heiress who helped Jewish and antiNazi intellectuals and artists flee Europe during World War II, dies near St. Tropez, France, after suffering from pancreatic cancer. . . . David Francis Marr, 63, golfer and sportscaster, dies in Houston, Texas, of cancer. Pres. Clinton uses his line-item veto power to eliminate 38 proposed spending items from a military construction appropriations bill he signed earlier. The vetoed items total $287 million of the $9.183 billion fiscal 1998 bill and include projects from both Republican and Democratic districts nationwide. The president’s choice of projects to cut draws criticism.

Unsealed portions of an FBI affidavit allege that Columbia/HCA executives and managers took part in a scheme to defraud several of the federal government’s healthcare programs, including Medicare and Medicaid. . . . The House passes, 399-18, a $49.7 billion agriculture appropriations bill for fiscal 1998 to provide funding for the Department of Agriculture, the FDA, and related agencies.

The Nobel Prize in Physiology for Medicine is awarded to Dr. Stanley B. Prusiner for his controversial research concerning disease-causing proteins called prions. . . . The space shuttle Atlantis lands at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, after helping to repair Mir and picking up U.S. astronaut C. Michael Foale, who was replaced by David A. Wolf.

Robert Hector O’Brien, 93, president of MGM, 1963–69, dies in Seattle, Washington. . . . John Samuel (Johnny) Vander Meer, 82, Major League Baseball player, 1937–43, 1946–51, dies in Tampa, Florida, of an abdominal aneurysm. . . . Flood Tide, by Clive Cussler, tops the bestseller list.

A panel of three federal judges from the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California, strike down a State law setting term limits for state legislators. The judges rule that the 1990 referendum on which the law was based did not clearly state that the limits will apply throughout a legislator’s lifetime.

The INS announces plans to extend the range of “Operation Gatekeeper,” an effort geared at halting the flow of illegal aliens from Mexico into Southern California.

Pres. Clinton signs a $2.25 billion fiscal 1998 spending bill for the legislative branch. . . . The House passes, 229-197, a measure to limit a president’s authority to protect environmentally threatened lands by designating them as national monuments. . . . Reports confirm that a Pennsylvania landfill company agreed to pay an $8 million fine for making illegal campaign contributions to 10 candidates. The fine is the largest penalty ever imposed for campaign-finance violations. . . . The Senate, by voice vote, approves a $13.1 billion fiscal 1998 transportation bill.

The Space Telescope Science Institute and the University of California at Los Angeles announce the Hubble Space Telescope’s detection of the brightest star ever observed, called the Pistol Star, which burns with energy 10 million times greater than the Sun’s and is located some 25,000 light years from Earth, near the center of the Milky Way. Astronomers believe that it formed 1–3 million years ago.

Yevgeny Khaldei, 80, Russian photographer known for the images he captured of the finale of World War II, dies in Moscow of unreported causes.

The House clears, 296-132, a measure banning a controversial abortion procedure. . . . William Belser Spong 77, U.S. Democratic senator from Virginia, 1967–73, dies in Portsmouth, Va., of a ruptured aneurysm. . . . A South Carolina jury finds Chrysler Corp. liable in the death of Sergio Jimenez II, a six-year-old boy, in a 1994 accident and fines the company $12.5 million in compensatory damages and $250 million punitive damages.

Pres. Clinton signs the $247.7 billion defense-spending bill for fiscal 1998. . . . The U.S. Army announces that Sergeant Major of the Army Gene McKinney, that military branch’s highest-ranking enlisted person, will face a court-martial on charges of sexual harassment. . . . Secretary of State Madeleine Albright designates 30 foreign organizations as terrorist groups.

The House clears, 405-21, a $90.7 fiscal 1998 appropriations bill for veterans affairs, housing, space, environmental protection, and other independent agencies. . . . The House passes, 401-21, a $13.1 billion fiscal 1998 appropriations bill for transportation. . . . A U.S. District Court jury in Alexandria, Virginia, rules that Anthony Cerullo, a male employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency, was sexually harassed by a female coworker and awards him $850,000.

A plane crashes in a densely wooded area of southwestern Colorado, killing eight employees of the federal Bureau of Reclamation, the part of the Interior Department that oversees federal dams and other water projects.

Jane Alexander states she will resign as head of the NEA, citing the hostility toward the agency displayed by conservative members of Congress as one of her reasons . . . Bertrand Goldberg, 84, Chicago architect known for designing Marina City, consisting of two towers in downtown Chicago, dies in Chicago, Illinois, of complications from a stroke.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 3

Oct. 4

Oct. 5

Oct. 6

Oct. 7

Oct. 8

1050—October 9–14, 1997

World Affairs

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awards the Nobel Peace Prize to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and its coordinator, Jody Williams, for efforts to eradicate the use of land mines worldwide. Some 110 million land mines are currently deployed in several dozen countries around the world, killing an estimated 9,600 civilians and injuring 14,000 others each year. . . . Reports reveal that Liberia has moved to recognize Taiwan as well as China.

Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev appoints Nurlan Balgimbayev as premier, replacing Akezhan Kazhegeldin. . . . The Swedish government officially rules out pursuing membership in the European Union’s economic and monetary union (EMU) in time for the launch of the unified European currency, scheduled for January 1, 1999. . . . Reports confirm that a French court of appeals has fined actress Brigitte Bardot $1,600 for inciting racial hatred in comments made about Muslims in 1996.

In a secret ballot to fill five rotating seats on the UN Security Council, Bahrain, Brazil, Gabon, Gambia, and Slovenia are elected to twoyear terms, beginning in January 1998. Slovenia, which defeats Macedonia for the Eastern European seat, is the first former Yugoslav republic elected to the Security Council.

Asia & the Pacific

Angolan jets start flying bombing missions against government positions in Brazzaville. Angolan troops clash with Congo government forces on Congo’s southern border with the Angolan enclave of Cabinda.

An Argentine jetliner crashes in neighboring Uruguay, killing all 74 people on board.

Three bomb blasts in New Delhi, the capital of India, wound 16 people and kill one child.

Cubans launch a weeklong celebration to mark the 30th anniversary of the death of Ernesto (Che) Guevara, an Argentine revolutionary who fought alongside Pres. Fidel Castro Ruz in Cuba’s 1959 communist revolution. An estimated 250,000 Cubans begin to flock to Havana to pay tribute. In Cameroon, local and foreign journalists note that polling stations are virtually deserted on election day due to a boycott by the country’s three major opposition parties since Pres. Paul Biya refused to create an independent commission to oversee the voting process.

U.S. president Bill Clinton launches a tour of South America.

After leaving Pakistan, where she marked the country’s 50th anniversary of its independence, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, visit India in a tour that is part of a year-long celebration of the 50th anniversary of India’s independence.

In Spain, a policeman is wounded by gunfire when he and his partner interrupt two ETA guerrillas planting bombs at the new Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. . . . Turkey winds down a three-week incursion against the Kurdish group, the PKK. . . . Merita Ltd., the largest bank in Finland, announces that it will merge with Nordbanken AB, Sweden’s fourth-largest bank. The merged Scandinavian bank will be the largest such institution in the Nordic region, with a total market value of about 80 billion Swedish krona ($10.6 billion). . . . Adil Carcani, 75, who from 1982 to 1991, was the last of Albania’s communist-era premiers, dies in Tirana, Albania, of a brain hemorrhage.

Suspected Islamic gunmen kill nine police officers and two Coptic Christians in two separate incidents in southern Egypt. . . . Israel frees nine Arab prisoners to Jordan as part of the Oct. 6 Israeli-Jordanian prisoner exchange.

A chartered bus crashes into a ravine near Saint-Joseph-de-laRive, Quebec, killing 43 people. Five people survive the accident, the worst road crash in Canada’s history.

Kim Hyun Chul, the second son of South Korean president Kim Young Sam, is sentenced to three years in prison on charges of bribery and tax evasion.

In Spain, Jose Maria Aguirre, the policeman wounded Oct. 13 in a gunfight with ETA members, dies. . . . The dome of a 15th-century bell tower in Foligno collapses due to damages sustained recent earthquakes throughout central Italy.

The Congo Republic’s Pres. Pascal Lissouba flees the presidential palace, and his government troops withdraw from the capital, Brazzaville.

An earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale strikes north-central Chile, killing at least eight people and injuring 100 others. . . . Lawmakers in Nevis, the smaller of the two islands that comprise St. Christopher (St. Kitts) and Nevis, vote to secede from the federation. The succession still has to be ratified by voters. . . . Officials in Brazil reveal that hundreds of people have been left homeless by floods.

In India, British queen Elizabeth II pays a silent, 30-second tribute to those slain at Amritsar, where a 1919 massacre of unarmed Indians ordered by British brigadier Reginald Dyer resulted in as many as 2,000 deaths. . . . In Tokyo, Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp. introduces a gasoline-electric hybrid car, the first of its kind on the market.

Oct. 12

Oct. 13

The Americas Hurricane Pauline strikes the Mexican resort town of Acapulco, in Guerrero state, Mexico, with 115 mph winds. Sixteen inches (40 cm) of rain falls on Acapulco in a period of three hours. After hitting Acapulco, Pauline continues to travel up the coast, hitting resorts at Zihuatanejo and Ixtapa with winds that decrease to 70 mph. At least 230 people have been killed, hundreds of others injured, and some 20,000 people left homeless since Oct. 8.

During World Cup qualifying match between England and Italy in Rome, spectators turn violent, and numerous British fans are jailed.

Oct. 11

Oct. 14

Africa & the Middle East

The OSCE finds that the Muslim Party for Democratic Action (SDA) won a slim majority in municipal elections in Srebrenica, a town inhabited exclusively by Serbs since 1995 after they executed many of their 40,000 Muslim neighbors in one of the Bosnian civil war’s worst episodes of genocide. Observers believe that Muslims voted mostly by absentee ballot.

Oct. 9

Oct. 10

Europe

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

October 9–14, 1997—1051

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The White House announces that Pres. Clinton has chosen Kevin Gover, a 42-year-old Pawnee Indian, as the new head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, succeeding Ada Deer. . . . A U.S. District Court jury in Greenbelt, Maryland, orders apparel retailer Eddie Bauer Inc. to pay a total of $1 million in damages to three young black men who in 1995 were falsely accused of shoplifting at a Bauer store in Fort Washington, Maryland.

The U.S. Army strips Sergeant Major of the Army Gene McKinney, that military branch’s highest-ranking enlisted person, of his title due to charges of sexual harassment. . . . A study indicates that illegal immigrants from Mexico make up 40% of the current farm workforce in California, compared with 10% in 1990. The study finds that a greater percentage of illegal immigrants are staying in the U.S. rather than returning to Mexico because of wariness of increased Border Patrol security.

The Senate clears, by voice vote, a $90.7 billion fiscal 1998 appropriations bill for veterans affairs, housing, space, environmental protection, and other independent agencies. . . . The National Association of Securities Dealers names the 27 members of the new board of governors to take office in 1998. . . . NASDAQ reaches a record high of. . . . Reports confirm that the NHTSA will allow drivers to deactivate air bags in their own cars without the NHTSA’s express approval.

A scientist in Hong Kong identifies an influenza virus that killed a three-year-old boy in May as the first instance of the strain in humans. The virus, H5N1, is common in waterfowl and chickens.

The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to Dario Fo, an Italian playwright-performer. The choice sparks protest as Fo’s work frequently ridicules the authority of such institutions as the Italian government and the Roman Catholic Church. . . . The Senate confirms Lindy (Corinne C.) Boggs as ambassador to the Vatican.

Pres. Clinton signs a fiscal 1998 spending bill allocating $25.6 billion to fund the Treasury Department, the U.S. Postal Service, the White House, and other general government costs. For the first time in five years, the spending bill does not contain a provision blocking congressional pay raises. . . . Whitewater counsel Kenneth Starr reaffirms that the 1993 death of White House deputy counsel Vincent Foster Jr. was a suicide that was not linked to the Whitewater scandal. Four previous probes had reached the same conclusion. . . . Data show that highway death rates have increased an average of 12% in 12 states that have raised speed limits.

Data suggests that organic molecules, another precondition for life, are present on two small moons of Jupiter, Callisto and Ganymede.

Pres. Clinton vetoes a bill that would have banned a controversial late-term abortion method. . . . Judge Ricardo Urbina sentences E. Michael Kahoe to 18 months in federal prison for concealing information about the 1992 standoff in Ruby Ridge, Idaho. . . . Four major tobacco companies announce they have reached a $349 million settlement with flight attendants exposed to secondhand smoke. It is the first class-action suit against the tobacco industry to reach trial and the first linking liability to secondhand smoke. . . . In the high profile investigation of JonBenet Ramsey’s 1996 death in Boulder, Colorado, Commander Mark Beckner is named the new lead investigator.

Oct. 9

Oct. 10

James Wesley (Wes) Gallagher, 86, chief executive of the Associated Press (AP), 1962–76, dies in Santa Barbara, California, of congestive heart failure.

In a ceremony at the Vatican, Pope John Paul II beatifies five people who served the Roman Catholic Church. Beatification is the final rite in the process toward canonization, or sainthood.

Gary Lee Davis, 53, is put to death by lethal injection in Canon City, Colorado, for the 1986 murder of 33-year-old Virginia May. Davis and his wife, Rebecca Fincham, kidnapped May in front of her young children before raping and killing her. Davis’s execution is the first in Colorado in 30 years, although it has been legal in that state since 1978. He is the 417th person executed in the U.S. since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

Robert Hall, command sergeant major at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, is named to succeed Sergeant Major of the Army Gene McKinney, who was that military branch’s highest-ranking enlisted person before being stripped of the title Oct. 9.

President Clinton signs a fiscal 1998 energy and water-development appropriations bill.

A jet-powered supersonic car called Thrust becomes the first vehicle to break the sound barrier on land. The Thrust team’s achievement nearly coincides with the 50th anniversary of U.S. test pilot Chuck Yeager’s first-ever supersonic flight.

John Denver (born Henry John Deutschendorf Jr.), 53, singer and songwriter whose sincere, acoustic guitar-based recordings include 14 gold and eight platinum albums that sold more than 100 million copies, dies off Monterey, California, when the single-passenger plane he was piloting crashes into Monterey Bay.

The Supreme Court refuses to hear an appeal of a lower-court ruling that upholds an Oregon law permitting doctors in the state to prescribe lethal doses of medication to terminally ill patients. The court’s action eliminates the last legal barrier to the implementation of the statute.

Pres. Clinton uses his line-item veto power to eliminate 13 proposed projects from a defense appropriations bill signed Oct. 8. The vetoed items comprise $144 million of the $247.7 billion bill.

Attorney General Janet Reno extends an investigation into allegations that Pres. Clinton made improper fund-raising calls from his White House office during the 1996 election campaign.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science to Robert C. Merton and Myron S. Scholes for their groundbreaking work in creating a formula for measuring the worth of stock options.

The Booker Prize is awarded to an Indian first-time novelist, Arundhati Roy, for The God of Small Things. . . . Harold Robbins, 81, bestselling author whose novels typically feature a cast of cosmopolitan characters, dies in Palm Springs, California, of pulmonary arrest.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 11

Oct. 12

Oct. 13

Oct. 14

1052—October 15–20, 1997

World Affairs

Oct. 15

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, approves the planned £23.8 billion ($38 billion) merger of British food-and-drinks companies Guinness PLC and Grand Metropolitan PLC (Grand Met).

Dozens of masked gunmen raid the headquarters of the presidential guard in Dushanbe, the Tajikistan capital, killing 14 guard members, Three members of the marauders are reported killed. . . . An estimated 300,000 people led by Basque political leaders march silently through the streets of Bilbao, Spain, to protest recent acts of violence attributed to ETA.

Oct. 16

Oct. 17

Europe

China makes public an agreement in principle to discontinue aiding Iran’s nuclear energy program and to halt sales of antiship cruise missiles to Iran. . . . The UN and the Organization of African Unity (OAU) calls for the withdrawal of foreign forces from the Congo Republic in apparent condemnations of Angola’s role in the Oct. 16 takeover.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Militia fighters loyal to Congo’s former president, Gen. Denis SassouNguesso, gain control of the Congo Republic’s capital, Brazzaville, and, with the help of Angolan troops, of the second-largest city, PointeNoire. . . . In Egypt, a military court sentences three Jihad militants, including Adel Ali Bayoomi Sudani, the leader of Jihad’s military wing, to death and another 53 to prison terms for their roles in planned subversive acts.

The Panamanian government allows Peruvian journalist Gustavo Gorriti to remain in Panama, despite previous attempts to have him deported. Those attempts were criticized by international media and humanrights groups as an attack on freedom of the press. . . . Peru abolishes the system of so-called faceless judges for trials of suspected terrorists. Under that system, judges’ identities are concealed.

A truck bomb explodes in the central business district of Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. The bomb and ensuing gunfights between government security forces and rebels in the streets of the capital kill 18 people and wound more than 100 others. The blast is the first major bomb attack in the capital since January 1996. Despite the substantial power of the blast, which reportedly leaves a 10-feetdeep crater in the street, the death toll is relatively low as many Sri Lankan businesses are closed for a Buddhist holiday.

In the Congo Republic’s capital, Brazzaville, Gen. Denis SassouNguesso declares victory in his four-month-old civil war against Pres. Pascal Lissouba. The rebel victory is the third violent overthrow of an African government since May. France, Congo’s former colonial ruler and an ally of SassouNguesso, immediately recognizes his victory.

Health officials note that eight cases of cholera, caused by contaminated drinking water due to Hurricane Pauline’s heavy rains, have been reported in Acapulco in Guerrero state, Mexico.

Pol Pot, the deposed leader of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge guerrilla army whose actions are said to have led to the deaths of the deaths of as many as 2 million Cambodians during the period of Khmer Rouge rule between 1975 and 1979, gives his first interview in 18 years, in which he denies that the death toll was in the millions and asserts that his “ conscience is clear.”

The chief of police in Mexico City, the capital of Mexico, disbands an elite police force known as the Jaguares, or Jaguars, after several members of the force were linked to murders of six youths following their arrests in a September raid.

In a case that received publicity in Japan, an unidentified teenage boy charged with the decapitation murder of a boy and the fatal beating of a girl is convicted of those murders and three other assaults and sentenced to a juvenile correctional institution with psychiatric treatment facilities until he turns 26.

Three antidrug police officers are killed and another is wounded in an ambush by gunmen in the Amazon jungle in Peru.

Jun-ichi Ueno, 87, co-owner of Japan’s second-largest newspaper, dies in Tokyo, Japan, of pneumonia.

Scores of Gypsy immigrants from the Czech Republic and Slovakia begin to arrive in Dover, a port in southern England. . . . Poland’s parliament, the Sejm, names Jerzy Buzek as the country’s new premier.

Despite the Oct. 13 gunfire incident, King Juan Carlos I of Spain inaugurates the new Guggenheim Museum. . . . Gyorgy von Habsburg, 32, the grandson of the last of Hungary’s kings, marries Princess Eilika von Oldenburg, 24, at a ceremony in Budapest, Hungary. The Habsburgs were one of Europe’s most powerful families, ruling the Holy Roman Empire for nearly 400 years. The wedding is the first between members of the Roman Catholic Habsburg and the Lutheran Oldenburg royal families.

Oct. 18

Voters in Montenegro, which with its much larger neighbor Serbia makes up the Yugoslav federation, elects Milo Djukanovic as president of their republic in a runoff against incumbent president Momir Bulatovic. . . . The United Tajik Opposition (UTO) frees 80 government troops held as prisoners of war.

Oct. 19

Albania’s Supreme Court drops charges of genocide against Ramiz Alia, the country’s last communistera president, and similar charges against former justice officials. . . . Hungarian-born U.S. financier and philanthropist George Soros announces that he will donate between $300 million and $500 million to Russia over the next three years. . . . Harold Albert (born Harold Kemp), 88, biographer who, under the pseudonym of Helen Cathcart, chronicled Britain’s royal family, dies in Midhurst, England, of unreported causes.

Oct. 20

Fourteen environmental activists are arrested after staging a threehour demonstration on the roof of Australian prime minister John Howard’s home in Sydney.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

October 15–20, 1997—1053

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Former representative Dan Rostenkowski (D, Ill.) is released from federal custody after serving 15 months of a 17-month sentence for mail fraud. . . . The CDC reports that in the period 1988–94, 5.6% of people between the ages of 12 and 19 were infected with the sexually transmitted disease herpes, compared with 1.6% in the period 1976–80.

As a result of a lawsuit filed under the Freedom of Information Act, the director of central intelligence, George Tenet, makes the amount of the fiscal 1997 intelligence budget public for the first time ever when he reveals that the budget for that fiscal year was $26.6 billion.

The second anniversary of the “Million Man March,” a rally of black men in Washington, D.C., is marked with rallies around the country, most of which are sparsely attended. . . . The National Archives releases 154 hours of recordings pertaining to abuses of governmental power in the Watergate scandal.

Six Marine Corps members and seven civilians are arrested in connection with the theft and attempted sale of weapons and explosives from Camp Lejeune military base in North Carolina.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Cassini, an unmanned spacecraft, is launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to orbit the planet Saturn. . . . The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded to John E. Walker, Paul D. Boyer, and Jens C. Skou for advances in the study of how living cells store and release energy. The Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Steven Chu, William D. Phillips, and Claude Cohen-Tannoudji for developing a method to trap atoms. . . . The jet-powered Thrust, a supersonic car, measures an average speed of 763.035 mph to set the official record.

A New York State Supreme Court jury finds boxer Mike Tyson liable for injuries sustained by former boxer Mitch Green in a 1988 brawl in New York City and awards Green $45,000.

Pres. Clinton uses his line-item veto power to eliminate a provision from a bill signed Oct, 10 that would have allowed 1.1 million federal employees and postal workers to switch to a stock-based retirement plan. In response, the National Treasury Employees Union files a lawsuit. Officials in NYC file a separate suit . . . Kenneth Apfel, SSA commissioner, reveals that Social Security checks in 1998 will increase for cost-of-living by 2.1%, raising the average benefit to $765 per month from $749 per month in 1997.

A study finds that excessive doses of acetaminophen may cause liver damage, including acute liver failure, especially in heavy drinkers.

Folk rock musician Bob Dylan is awarded the fourth annual Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize. . . . James Albert Michener, 90, best-selling author known for his lengthy, heavily researched historical novels and for his generous support of literature and the arts, dies in Austin, Texas, of kidney failure.

Although it is not immediately reported, a powerful army laser from a military base in New Mexico strikes an air force satellite orbiting the Earth at an altitude of 260 miles (420 km).

Pres. Clinton, exercising his lineitem veto, eliminates eight projects from the fiscal 1998 energy and water-development appropriations bill signed Oct. 13. The vetoed items, which total $19.3 million, include five water projects, two Department of Energy research programs, and one Bureau of Reclamation science project.

Reports confirm that an unidentified 39-year-old Georgia woman gave birth in August to twin boys in the first birth in the U.S. resulting from the fertilization of eggs that had been frozen. Separately, scientists reveal the birth of a girl to an Italian woman whose eggs were frozen.

Judge Lawrence Mira revokes the probation of actor Robert Downey Jr., 32, after receiving evidence that Downey had slipped back into drug use. She allows the actor to finish a film he is shooting, however.

Tens of thousands of people turn out at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia for the dedication of the Women in Military Service for America Memorial, a monument and exhibit hall commemorating the nearly 2 million women who have served in the U.S. armed forces during the past two centuries.

Roberto Crispulo Goizueta, 65, chair and CEO, 1981–97, of the Coca-Cola Co., dies in Atlanta, Georgia, of complications from lung cancer treatment.

Nancy Hanschman Dickerson, 70, TV news reporter and producer who, in 1960, became the first woman correspondent for CBS, dies in New York City of complications from a stroke suffered in 1996.

Pope John Paul II declares Saint Terese of Lisieux, a 19th-century Carmelite nun from Siena, Italy, a doctor of the church. . . . Ecumenical patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of Orthodox Christianity, makes his first visit to the U.S. since his 1991 enthronement.

In Richmond, Virginia, the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals denies a request to temporarily stay a Virginia law that requires parental notification before a teenage girl may obtain an abortion, which went into effect July 1. . . . The Florida Supreme Court votes to reject a claim that use of the electric chair for the death penalty in the state constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

A federal panel recommends changes to the Bankruptcy Code, as personal bankruptcy filings are expected to hit a record 1.3 million in 1997, seven times as many as in 1978, when the code was enacted. . . . The Energy Department reveals that the U.S.’s emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases rose by 3.4% in 1996. . . . The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (Calpers), the biggest public pension fund in the U.S., joins a shareholder suit against Columbia/HCA led by New York comptroller H. Carl McCall.

The Justice Department files a petition in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., accusing Microsoft Corp., the world’s leading computer software company, of illegally coercing computer manufacturers to equip computers with a Microsoft “browser,” which is used to retrieve data from the Internet. The petition filing is the latest chapter in a longrunning Justice Department probe into alleged anticompetitive behavior by Microsoft.

In an address to a Jewish community, ecumenical patriarch Bartholomew I condemns the Nazi Holocaust as “the singular icon of our century’s evils.” He is reportedly the first ecumenical patriarch to denounce the Holocaust, in which some 6 million Jews died.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 15

Oct. 16

Oct. 17

Oct. 18

Oct. 19

Oct. 20

1054—October 21–26, 1997

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

In the Uttar Pradesh state assembly during their debate on a confidence vote, members from centrist and leftist opposition parties brawl with and hurl chairs at members of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) party. The incident prompts the cabinet of Indian prime minister Inder Kumar Gujral to ask Pres. Kocheril Raman Narayanan to dismiss the state government of Uttar Pradesh and to place it under direct federal rule.

Oct. 21

Oct. 22

Oct. 23

Oct. 24

Four health agencies warn that drug-resistant strains of the infectious disease tuberculosis (TB) are spreading in many countries. Onethird of the countries surveyed have significant levels of TB strains that are resistant to the two main drugs used to treat the disease. Latvia, Estonia, Argentina, the Dominican Republic, Russia, and Ivory Coast are identified as “hot spot” countries with levels of drugresistant TB that threaten to overwhelm their TB control programs. The ELN draws international attention by kidnapping two election observers from the Organization of American States (OAS) in northwestern Colombia.

A Greek naval ship and a Turkish warship collide in international waters in the Aegean Sea. Each country blames the other for the collision, which causes no injuries.

The British Commonwealth, a 54nation association of Britain and its former colonies, holds its biennial summit in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Unidentified gunmen shoot dead Zoran Todorovic, a high-level adviser to Slobodan Milosevic’s wife, Mirjana Markovic, who leads the hard-line Yugoslav United Left party. Todorovic, the general secretary of Markovic’s party, is the third member of Milosevic’s circle to die violently in 1997.

A pipeline stretching 870 miles (1,400 km) between Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, and Novorossiysk, a Russian Black Sea port, opens. . . . A bomb explodes under a car in the Northern Ireland town of Bangor, County Down, killing the car’s driver, Glen Greer.

Oct. 25

Oct. 26

Asia & the Pacific

Four members of the Islamic Group are hanged in a prison in Cairo for attacks on security or tourist targets in 1993 and 1994. . . . South African president Nelson Mandela arrives in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, for talks with Col. Muammar Gadhafi, the Libyan leader. Diplomats consider Mandela’s visit significant because Libya has become increasingly isolated from the international community in recent years.

The South Korean government announces that it will take over Kia Motors Corp., the country’s thirdlargest automobile maker and the core of the debt-ridden Kia Group conglomerate. . . . Indian president Kocheril Raman Narayanan denies the Oct. 21 request to dismiss the state government of Uttar Pradesh. . . . Statistics show that a quarterly drop in Australia’s CPI brought national inflation below zero for the first time since 1962.

A military junta that seized power in a May coup in Sierra Leone agrees to a peace plan that will return Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, the ousted president, to power by April 1998. . . . The Supreme Court of Cameroon declares Pres. Paul Biya the winner of the country’s Oct. 12 presidential election. Opposition leaders accuse the government of fabricating the results. . . . Parties supporting Algeria’s military-backed government dominate the country’s first local elections since 1990.

The opposition coalition’s leaders choose Gen. Abdul Rashid Doestam, an Uzbek warlord, as leader of the anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan.

Reports reveal that at least 20,000 people have been left homeless due to flooding caused by two weeks of storms and torrential rains in southern Brazil. . . . Luis Aguilar Manzo, 79, Mexican actor who appeared in more than 150 Spanish-language films over a span of five decades, dies in Mexico City of a heart attack. General Denis Sassou-Nguesso is sworn in as president of the Congo Republic.

Italy formally joins the Schengen group, an open-border zone in the EU that now includes eight EU nations.

Rebels fail in an apparent attempt to assassinate Alvaro Uribe Velez, governor of the state of Antioquia, in Colombia, instead killing Rev. Antonio Bedoya, a Roman Catholic priest.

Residents of Anjouan island vote overwhelmingly to secede from Comoros, a three-island nation in the Indian Ocean. The vote is prompted by an armed independence rebellion staged in August that called for Anjouan to reunite with France, the former colonial ruler of Comoros. . . . King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia leaves his country after failing to reconcile the country’s two feuding rulers, de facto leader Hun Sen and Prince Norodom Ranariddh, whom Hun Sen ousted in a July coup.

Argentina’s ruling Justicialist (Peronist) Party loses its majority in the Chamber of Deputies. The defeat of the Peronists by a center-left coalition of opposition parties, is the party’s first since 1983. It is also the first time in the party’s 51year history that it has been defeated in a nationwide vote while in power. . . . Suriname president Jules Wijdenbosch states that government security forces have foiled a coup plot in Paramaribo.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

October 21–26, 1997—1055

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Results of a nationwide exam show that about two in three U.S. students have a basic understanding of science.

Louis Freeh, director of the FBI, names Donald Kerr Jr., a nuclear physicist, to head the bureau’s crime laboratory. . . . Pres. Clinton nominates Daryl Jones as secretary of the U.S. Air Force. Jones will replace Sheila Widnall and will be both the first black man and the first ex-pilot to head the air force.

Figures suggest that large U.S. firms created an average of 110 new jobs in the 12 months ending in June and cut only 57 jobs.

Scientists present detailed images sent by the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope of a collision of two galaxies and the resulting formation of hundreds of millions of new stars. . . . Researchers announce a breakthrough in producing electricity from gasoline. The new system turns gasoline into hydrogen gas, which is then used to power an electricity-generating fuel cell.

In New Jersey, Bergen County Superior Court judge Sybil R. Moses rules that gay parents Michael Galluccio and Jon Holden may jointly adopt their two-yearold foster son. New Jersey becomes the first state to explicitly expand its adoption policy to gay and unmarried parents.

USDA officials announce that inspectors in Montana have discovered E. coli bacteria in a nearly 35,000-pound shipment of Canadian beef, marking the first time that that bacterium has been found in imported beef.

President Clinton announces a proposal to fight global warming. . . . In Washington, D.C., Judge Royce C. Lamberth approves a $58.5 million settlement in a 1994 age-discrimination case against First Union, a North Carolina bank. Lawyers for the plaintiffs, who include job applicants, state that it is the largest the age-discrimination settlement ever. . . . The House passes by voice vote a stopgap bill, extending the deadline for enacting fiscal 1998 spending bills until Nov. 7.

The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a 1993 resolution by voters in Cincinnati, Ohio, that bars the city from protecting homosexuals’ civil rights. . . . A survey shows that graduating students have an average of $18,800 each in college debts. That compares to a 1991 study, which found an average debt load of $8,200 per student.

The U.S. Army announces that it is raising the physical fitness standards for women, marking the first change in the branch’s conditioning requirements since 1984. . . . The Defense Department reports that the powerful army laser fired from a military base Oct. 17 that struck an air force satellite was designed to assess the vulnerability of U.S. satellites to laser weapons, but it did not provide enough data to assess the weapon’s destructive power in space.

The Senate confirms Ellen Seidman as director of the Treasury Department’s Office of Thrift Supervision. The office has not had a permanent director in five years. . . . The Senate clears, 100-0, and Pres. Clinton signs a stopgap measure extending the deadline for enacting fiscal 1998 spending bills until Nov. 7. Congress has cleared only seven of the 13 annual spending bills.

Oct. 21

Oct. 22

A study finds that the antidepressant prescription drug bupropion may help people quit smoking.

The House approves, 233-171, a fiscal 1998 appropriations bill that allocates $13.8 billion for the Department of the Interior and related agencies.

Black women from across the U.S. gather in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for the “Million Woman March,” a rally encouraging unity among women of African descent. Unofficial estimates suggest that between 300,000 and 500,000 people hear from speakers that include Winnie Madikizela-Mandela—the ex-wife of South African president Nelson Mandela—and California representative Maxine Waters (D).

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Oct. 23

Arlington County, Virginia, circuit court judge Benjamin Kendrick places sportscaster Marv Albert on probation and defers for one year Albert’s sentencing for misdemeanor assault.

Four employees of Union Pacific Railroad are injured in a head-on collision in Houston, Texas, that destroys four locomotives.

Oct. 24

Oct. 25

Baseball’s Florida Marlins defeat the Cleveland Indians, 3-2, to win the 93rd World Series. . . . D.C. United wins, 2-1, their second MLS championship, over the Colorado Rapids. . . . Jacques Villeneuve of Canada captures the Formula One world auto-racing title.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 26

1056—October 27–November 1, 1997

World Affairs

Europe Thousands of Scientologists stage a march in Berlin, protesting the German government’s treatment of the church. . . . Reports confirm that some 300 Gypsy immigrants from the Czech Republic and Slovakia have arrived in Dover, a port in southern England, since Oct. 17, touching off a refugee crisis.

Oct. 27

Nov. 1

Reports confirm that the overflow of the Uruguay River, which borders Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, has caused flooding in Argentina and Uruguay.

Pres. Jiang Zemin of China meets with U.S. president Clinton in Washington, D.C., in the first U.S.-China summit meeting since 1989. . . . Iraq orders all U.S. members of a UN arms inspection team to leave the country within seven days and demands that the UN bar flights of U.S. U-2 spy planes, which are monitoring Iraqi weapons programs. . . . The UN Security Council votes to impose air and travel sanctions on UNITA, a rebel group in Angola.

Asia & the Pacific

Naoharu Yamashina, 79, founder of Bandai Co., Japan’s largest toy manufacturer, dies of respiratory ailments after a long illness.

In Pakistan, the Supreme Court strikes down the Sharif-sponsored constitutional amendment that mandates party loyalty sponsored by P.M. Nawaz Sharif. That ruling is extraordinary because Pakistani law bars courts from striking down constitutional amendments. . . . Herbert Cole (Nugget) Coombs, 91, head of Australia’s central bank, 1949–68, dies in Sydney, Australia, of unreported causes.

A bomb explodes in an office of the British government in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. No one is injured. . . . The Republic of Ireland holds presidential elections.

A military court sentences to death Sabir Abu al-Ila and Mahmoud Abu al-Ila, brothers who attacked a tourist bus in Cairo, Egypt’s capital, in September, killing nine Germans and the bus’s Egyptian driver. . . . Yemeni tribesmen take Steve Carpenter, a U.S. oil executive, hostage near Sanaa, the capital.

The IMF announces a three-year, $33 billion loan package to stabilize Indonesia’s economy.

Mary McAleese is declared the winner of the Republic of Ireland’s presidential election. McAleese, 46, will be the country’s first-ever president from Northern Ireland. . . . A series of severe mudslides leave at least 26 people dead in the Portuguese Azores, an archipelago off the Iberian Peninsula in the central Atlantic Ocean.

King Letsie III is formally coronated as the monarch of Lesotho before some 25,000 spectators at a stadium in the capital, Maseru. King Letsie assumed the throne in 1996 after his father, King Moshoeshoe II, died in a car accident.

The ELN releases the two election observers from the Organization of American States (OAS) kidnapped Oct. 23 in northwestern Colombia.

Italian premier Romano Prodi discloses that his government has reached an agreement with tradeunion leaders over pension reforms.

Oct. 30

Oct. 31

The Americas In Canada, five unions representing Ontario’s 126,000 elementary and high school teachers stage a walkout.

The Zambian army quells a coup attempt led by Captain Steven Lungu against the government of Pres. Frederick Chiluba. One officer is killed, and at least 15 others, including Lungu, are arrested.

Oct. 28

Oct. 29

Africa & the Middle East

The Supreme Court of Canada rules that authorities cannot force a pregnant woman addicted to solvent-sniffing into treatment in order to save her fetus.

The Japanese government announces that it has reached an agreement to liberalize the country’s port practices. . . . Reports reveal that Ta Mok, the Khmer Rouge’s military leader, has admitted that “hundreds of thousands” of Cambodians died during the group’s rule in the 1970s. Ta Mok is the first Khmer Rouge leader to make such specific comments about the scale of the movement’s atrocities.

A Panamanian jury acquits three men charged with the 1992 murder of U.S. Army sergeant Zak A. Hernandez, who was gunned down while driving near Panama City, the capital. Since one of the defendants, Pedro Miguel Gonzalez, is the son of the anti-American president of the country’s congress and ruling party, Gerardo Gonzalez, the U.S. criticizes the verdict as politically motivated.

The government of Indonesian president Suharto closes 16 ailing banks.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

October 27–November 1, 1997—1057

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The South Carolina Supreme Court upholds the criminal prosecution of Cornelia Whitner, who was convicted of child neglect in 1992 for using cocaine while pregnant. . . . Health officials in Chautauqua County, New York, have identified Nushawn J. Williams as the man they believe infected at least 10 people with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

The U.S. Coast Guard arrests four Cuban Americans on a boat in waters near the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder and illegal possession of firearms. . . . Three Japanese shipping companies reach a settlement with the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) over fines imposed in September, ending a dispute in which the U.S. had threatened to ban Japanese ships from its ports in retaliation against restrictive Japanese harbor practices.

The Dow Jones plunges 554.26 points, to 7161.15, down 7.18% from the previous day’s close. It is the largest one-day point decline in the Dow’s history, though it is only the index’s 12th-largest drop in percentage terms. . . . Pres. Clinton reveals that the federal government’s budget deficit for fiscal 1997 was $22.6 billion, the lowest annual deficit since 1974. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a $13.1 billion transportation appropriations bill for fiscal 1998. He also signs $90.7 billion fiscal 1998 appropriations bill for veterans affairs, housing, space, environmental protection, and other independent agencies.

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton celebrates her 50th birthday with a visit to her hometown, Park Ridge, Illinois.

The Senate confirms Pres. Clinton’s three other nominees fill vacancies on the FCC. They are Michael Powell, Harold Furchtgott-Roth, and Gloria Tristani. . . . Walter Holden Capps, 63, Democratic U.S. congressman from California (1997) whose 1996 victory over Republican representative Andrea Seastrand marked the first time that a Democrat had won control of the seat since World War II, dies in Washington, D.C., of a heart attack.

The House votes, 286-123, to pass a $268.2 billion fiscal 1998 defenseauthorization bill. . . . Sergeant Marvin Kelley is sentenced to a suspended three-month jail term and a dishonorable discharge for sexual misconduct. Army officials report that they will not pursue criminal charges against Sergeant First Class William Jones but will discharge him from the army. Kelley and Jones are the final 11th and 12th, respectively, Aberdeen soldiers facing sexual misconduct charges.

The Dow rebounds from its Oct, 27 fall, climbing 337.17 points to 7498.32, a record single-session gain in point terms. It is 70th best on the basis of percentage, at 4.7%. . . . The Senate clears, 84-14, the final version of the fiscal 1998 interior appropriations bill that allocates $13.8 billion for the Department of the Interior and related agencies.

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra states that Yuri Temirkanov will be its new music director. . . . The National Basketball Association hires the first female referees in any of the U.S.’s four major all-male sports league: Dee Kantner and Violet Palmer. . . . Paul Jarrico, 82, screenwriter who was blacklisted in 1951, dies in Ojai, California, in a car accident.

The Senate confirms William Kennard as the new chair of the FCC.

Science, Technology, & Nature

The Senate clears, by voice vote, a $49.7 billion agriculture appropriations bill for fiscal 1998.

A Union Pacific train carrying toxic chemicals along with other freight rams the rear of another train and bursts into flames in Navasota, Texas.

The CDC reports that the incidence of diabetes in the U.S. is at an alltime high as 10 million residents have been diagnosed with diabetes, compared with 1.6 million in 1958. . . . . A standoff that started Sept. 22 in Roby, Illinois, ends when police apprehend Shirley Allen, 51, by pelting her with rubber bullets and take her to a hospital where she will undergo psychiatric testing.

Louise Woodward, a 19-year-old British au pair, is found guilty by a jury in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, of second-degree murder in the death of Matthew Eappen, her eight-month-old ward. Hundreds of her supporters stage protests in her hometown of Elton, England, and in Middlesex. . . . Data shows the U.S. deported a record 112,000 illegal immigrants in the 1997 fiscal year. The previous record of 69,000 was set in fiscal 1996.

The House, 242-182, passes a bill to revise federal livestock grazing policy. . . . The House votes, 307120, to approve a bill that will require the Department of Energy to fund the construction of an interim storage site for high-level nuclear waste by the year 2002. . . . The Senate, by voice vote, confirms two nominees—Roger Ferguson and Edward Gramlich—to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

The European Space Agency (ESA) successfully test-launches its new unmanned Ariane-5 satellite-delivery rocket, which failed in its debut launch in 1996.

A Texas District Court jury convicts Richard McLaren and Robert Otto—members of a group known as the Republic of Texas, which argues that Texas, was illegally annexed by the U.S. in 1845—of organized criminal activity for the August abduction of Joe and Margaret Ann Rowe. . . . A state circuit court jury in Jacksonville, Florida, finds that R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. does not owe damages to JoAnn Karbiwnyk, 59, who developed lung cancer.

Louise Woodward, a 19-year-old British au pair convicted of seconddegree murder on Oct. 30, is sentenced to life in prison, causing controversy. . . . The House passes by voice vote a bill that will bar veterans convicted of federal capital crimes from being buried in national veterans’ cemeteries. . . . The House by voice vote passes a bill extending the annual cost-of-living increase to veterans’ benefits.

Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Fred Thompson (R, Tenn.) suspends the panel’s public hearings into campaignfinance abuses that allegedly occurred during the 1996 elections, unless new evidence becomes available. The probe has cost $2.6 million. . . . The Surface Transportation Board, a federal agency, declares that persistent delays on the Union Pacific Railroad’s tracks constitutes “a transportation emergency” in the Houston, Texas, area.

Two teams of scientists report that they have genetically engineered mice to mimic the human blood disease sickle cell anemia. The mice, the first animal models of the disease, will greatly assist research by enabling animal testing of drug treatments and gene therapies.

In Kansas City, Missouri, Texas billionaire and two-time presidential candidate Ross Perot appears as the featured speaker before 800 delegates at the inaugural convention of the Reform Party, which he founded in 1995.

President Jiang Zemin of China gives a speech at Harvard University, where around 1,500 protesters rally while 1,200 Jiang’s supporters stage counterdemonstrations. The closest Jiang comes to acknowledging human-rights violations is in response to a question about Tiananmen Square, when he admits, “We may have shortcomings and even make some mistakes in our work.”

President Clinton invokes his lineitem veto authority to eliminate seven projects from a $90.7 billion fiscal 1998 appropriations bill signed Oct. 27 for veterans affairs, housing, space, environmental protection, and other independent agencies. He also cuts three projects from a $13.1 billion fiscal 1998 transportation bill. . . . Judge Susan Webber Wright grants Kenneth Starr’s request to extend the grand jury investigating the Whitewater affair to May 7, 1998, two years after it first convened.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Oct. 27

Oct. 28

Oct. 29

Samuel Michael Fuller, 85, motion picture director, producer, and screenwriter, dies in Hollywood Hills, California, of unreported causes.

Oct. 30

Oct. 31

Southern Christian Leadership Conference delegates unanimously approve the selection of Martin Luther King III, the eldest son of slain civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., as the group’s president. He will replace the retiring president, Rev. Joseph E. Lowery Jr., who took the post in 1977.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 1

1058—November 2–7, 1997

Nov. 2

Nov. 3

World Affairs

Europe

At the close of a summit meeting in Siberia, Japanese premier Ryutaro Hashimoto and Russian president Boris Yeltsin pledge to sign a peace treaty by the year 2000, ending a diplomatic freeze that has lasted since the end of World War II.

Some 250,000 French truck drivers launch a massive strike, blockading major roads and ports as part of an effort to secure pay raises and a reduction in working hours. . . . Baron Edmond Adolphe Maurice Jules Jacques de Rothschild, 71, believed to be the wealthiest member of the renowned French Rothschild banking dynasty, dies in Geneva, Switzerland, of emphysema.

The UN’s International Labor Organization (ILO) finds that union membership fell in most industrialized countries between 1985 and 1995. Union membership declined most rapidly during the 10-year period in Central and Eastern Europe. However, union membership increased dramatically in South Africa (127%), Spain (92%) and Chile (90%), during the same period. About 164 million of the world’s 1.3 billion workers are unionized.

Nearly 1,000 refugees, mostly Turkish Kurds, arrive in southern Italy from Albania, reportedly fleeing persecution by the Turkish government. . . . Greek premier Costas Simitis and Turkish premier Mesut Yilmaz agree to work toward improving relations between their countries. . . . Reports confirm that five people are still missing from the Oct. 31 mudslides in the Portuguese Azores that have left at least 26 people dead.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Police in Guerrero state, Mexico, discover the mutilated bodies of at least two doctors believed to have participated in ultimately fatal cosmetic surgery on Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who allegedly headed the powerful Juarez drug cartel, in July.

Typhoon Linda, with winds of more than 80 miles per hour (130 kmph), batters Vietnam’s coast, killing more than 100 people and devastating several villages in Ca Mau province. It is the worst storm to hit Vietnam in nearly a century. . . . Thai premier Chavalit Yongchaiyudh states that he will resign. . . . New Zealand prime minister Jim Bolger, under pressure from the ruling National Party, reveals he will resign. Progovernment independents emerge as the dominant force in Jordan’s parliament in elections boycotted by the Islamic bloc and eight smaller, mainly leftist political parties.

Nov. 4

Gunmen allegedly belonging to a right-wing paramilitary group in Chiapas, Mexico, open fire on the car of Roman Catholic bishop Samuel Ruiz, a chief mediator between the EZLN and the government. Ruiz is unharmed. . . . George Michael Chambers, 69, prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, 1981–86, dies in Port of Spain, Trinidad, of a heart attack.

Although only 120 deaths have been confirmed, more than 1,000 other people are presumed to have perished aboard some 1,300 fishing vessels that sank Nov. 3 due to Typhoon Linda. . . . Five violent offenders escape from their cells at the high-security Sir David Longland Correctional Centre in Brisbane, Australia.

Russia’s parliament ratifies a global treaty banning chemical weapons. Russia has the world’s largest poison gas arsenal. . . . The Spanish city of Badajoz reportedly receives as much as 5.5 inches (14 cm) of rain during the night.

Nov. 5

At least 21 people drown in and near Badajoz, Spain, where rain since Nov. 5 has caused several rivers to overflow. Also hard hit by the floods are the Algarve and Alentejo regions of Portugal, where 10 other victims drown. . . . Yugoslav authorities arrest Slobodan Misic, a former paramilitary who has confessed to torture and killing. . . . Paul Ricard, 88, French liquor manufacturer, dies in Signes, France.

Nov. 6

Nov. 7

Africa & the Middle East

In Cuba, 56 people are killed and six others are injured when a passenger train collides with an overcrowded bus near the town of San German in Holguin province.

The seventh annual Ibero-American Summit opens on Venezuela’s Margarita Island.

Colombia’s Constitutional Court rules that armed citizens’ groups, which formed to combat leftist rebels, are legal. . . . In Canada, five unions representing Ontario’s 126,000 elementary and high school teachers end a walkout started Oct. 27. Although the strike was the largest teachers’ walkout ever in North America, it did not force the province to delay or rework draft legislation to alter the Ontario educational system.

In Thailand, former premier Chuan Leekpai, leader of the opposition Democrat Party, emerges the successor to Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, who announced his resignation as premier on Nov. 3.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

November 2–7, 1997—1059

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle David Duval wins the PGA Tour Championship in Houston, Texas. . . . Franziska Rochat-Moser of Switzerland wins the women’s race in the 28th New York City Marathon, becoming the first Swiss runner ever to win a major marathon. John Kagwe of Kenya wins the men’s race.

The Supreme Court refuses without comment to hear a challenge to Proposition 209, a California law that bars the state government from relying on race- or gender-based preferences in school admissions, public hiring, and public contracting decisions. . . . Opening statements are delivered in the trial of Terry Nichols, accused of collaborating with Timothy McVeigh in the Apr. 19, 1995, bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Pres. Clinton signs an executive order imposing new economic sanctions on Sudan for its alleged human-rights abuses and sponsorship of terrorism.

The Senate votes, 92-0, to confirm the appointment of Charles O. Rossotti as commissioner of the IRS. . . . Data shows that the purchasing managers’ index rose to 56 in October, from September’s figure of 54.2. The October index marks the 17th consecutive month that the indicator has surpassed the 50 level indicative of expansion in the manufacturing sector.

Warner-Lambert Co., the U.S. maker of troglitazone, a diabetes drug marketed as Rezulin, issues a warning to doctors that in rare cases the popular drug may cause serious liver damage.

Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier, tops the bestseller list. . . . Wallace C. (Wally) Bruner, 66, television host, dies near Indianapolis, Indiana, of liver cancer.

In elections, Republicans maintain their lead over Democrats in Congress and among the nation’s governors. Residents of Houston, Texas, reject a measure that would have barred city agencies from using affirmative-action targets in hiring and contracting. Voters in Washington defeat a bill that would have required all handguns sold in the state to be equipped with a trigger guard. Oregon voters decide to keep the nation’s only law that allows physician-assisted suicide. . . . Texas separatists Richard McLaren and Robert Otto, convicted Oct. 31, are sentenced to 99 years and 50 years in prison, respectively.

Immigration officials disclose that they deported Pedro Antonio Andrade, a former Salvadoran guerrilla suspected of involvement in the killing of six Americans in El Salvador in 1985. The U.S. in 1990 granted Andrade and his family a visa despite its apparent knowledge of his role in the murders, and Andrade agreed to work as a CIA informant in return. . . . Amanda Kaufman quits the VMI, a military academy in Lexington, Virginia, that has started enrolling female students. Four of the 30 female firstyear students have quit to date, as have 42 of the 430 male freshmen.

In State Oil Co. v. Khan, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that manufacturers and wholesalers may set ceilings on the prices that retailers may charge for their products. The ruling, which is considered a landmark decision in U.S. antitrust law, overturns a 1968 Supreme Court precedent.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists officially announce the end of the Mars lander’s mission. Scientists believe that Pathfinder has frozen in Mars’s cold atmosphere and that the craft’s batteries have died. . . . The FTC reveals that it has reached two settlements with companies that illegally rerouted the on-line connections of Internet computer network users to Moldova, causing the users to accumulate large longdistance phone charges. Under the agreement, several firms and individuals will pay a total of $2.74 million in refunds to about 38,000 consumers.

Ralph Burton Rogers, 87, founder of PBS and philanthropist, dies in Dallas, Texas. . . . Samantha Geimer, 33, makes her identity public for the first time in 20 years when she discusses her underage sexual relationship with film director Roman Polanski, which started when she was 13 years old.

The Senate clears, by voice vote, a bill extending the annual cost-of-living increase to veterans’ benefits. . . . The House begins passing a series of measures, largely considered symbolic, that penalize China for human-rights violations.

The House passes, 426-4, an extensive overhaul of the IRS. . . . Roger Ferguson Jr. and Edward Gramlich are sworn in as new members of the Federal Reserve Board. . . . Edgar Swaab resigns as managing director of FTC in the midst of an investigation of a scandal involving the Dutch brokerage firm Leemhuis & Van Loon. He denies wrongdoing.

Scientists reveal that the use of milder, filtered cigarettes since the 1950s has increased the incidence of adenocarcinoma, a type of lung cancer. . . . A 12-member panel convened by the NIH concludes that the ancient Chinese practice of acupuncture is effective in treating some forms of pain and nausea and recommends that appropriate uses of acupuncture be covered by medical insurers.

Sir Isaiah Berlin, 88, Russian-born scholar of intellectual history and political thought, dies in Oxford, England, of a heart attack.

U.S. district judge James Ware withdraws his nomination to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals after confessing that he fabricated a story that he was the brother of Virgil Lamar Ware, a teenager murdered in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. Ware, who is black, often recounted how the racially motivated murder of his brother inspired him to become a lawyer. . . . The Massachusetts state assembly defeats, 80-80, a bill to legalize the death penalty. Under the state’s parliamentary rules, a tie effectively defeats the legislation. Massachusetts is one of 12 states in which the death penalty is barred.

The Senate confirms 23 U.S. ambassadors. . . . The Senate clears, 9010, a $268.2 billion defense authorization bill for fiscal 1998. . . . The Senate passes by a voice vote the fiscal 1998 intelligence authorization bill. Although the exact funding level is technically classified, the amount is reported to be nearly $27 billion.

A federally mandated overseer in charge of investigating corruption within the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) files charges against union president Arthur Coia, accusing him of having ties to organized crime and improperly accepting gifts from a union service provider. . . . Data suggests that in 1996 U.S. companies increased spending on research for the second straight year. Spending grew to $118.65 billion, up 9% from 1995 levels. Federal research subsidies fell slightly, to $20.9 billion.

Two teams of astronomers report to a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Estes Park, Colorado, that they have confirmed the prediction of Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity that very large rotating astronomical objects will warp the surrounding fabric of space-time in an effect called “frame dragging.”

Four of the five living U.S. presidents—Bill Clinton, George Bush, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter— attend the dedication of the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum at Texas A&M University. . . . Lillian Adele Rogers Parks, 100, White House seamstress and maid whose memoir became a bestseller, dies in Washington, D.C., of a heart attack.

The House approves, 367-57, a bill that will increase federal funding for “charter schools,” publicly funded schools that operate independently of school district supervision and that are encouraged to experiment with teaching strategies.

The House votes, 385-36, to adopt the fiscal 1998 intelligence authorization bill. The bill authorizes funding for the CIA and other intelligence-related agencies. Although the exact funding level is classified, the amount is estimated to be nearly $27 billion.

The House votes, 352-65, to pass a fiscal 1998 measure that allocates $80.4 billion in discretionary spending for ffor the Departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services (HHS). . . . The Labor Department reports that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the U.S. fell to 4.7% in October from September’s revised rate of 4.9% the lowest since October 1973.

Nov. 2

Nov. 3

Nov. 4

Nov. 5

Nov. 6

Nov. 7

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1060—November 8–12, 1997

World Affairs

After reaching an agreement, some 250,000 French truck drivers end a massive strike that started Nov. 2, during which major roads and ports were blockaded.

Nov. 8

Nov. 9

Nov. 10

Nov. 11

Nov. 12

Europe

Russian president Boris Yeltsin visits China to hold a summit with Chinese president Jiang Zemin.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Iraq’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) launches an all-out offensive against the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) from Degala, which is east of the city of Irbil, to the town of Shaqlawah, some 30 miles (50 km) to the north. Both Iraqi Kurdish factions are vying for supremacy in U.N.-protected northern Iraq.

Nine people are killed and more than 3,000 people are left homeless in southern Ecuador because heavy rains have caused a number of rivers to overflow. Some 20,000 acres (8,000 hectares) of crops are also destroyed in the floods.

Fifteen Japanese-born women who live in North Korea with their Korean husbands are permitted to make their first visit to Japan since moving to North Korea in the late 1950s and early 1960s. . . . Chinese workers complete the diversion of the Yangtze River into a side channel, clearing the site of the Three Gorges Dam, an enormous hydroelectric power project to be completed in 2009.

Iran ratifies the Chemical Weapons Convention, which bans the manufacture and storage of nerve-gas weapons.

Hurricane Rick hits Mexico’s southern coast. Winds and rains from the hurricane destroy buildings, power lines, and roads but cause no deaths.

King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand formally appoints Chuan Leekpai as premier.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin and Chinese president Jiang Zemin sign a pact codifying the 2,800mile-long border between their countries from Mongolia to North Korea. A 1991 deal between China and the Soviet Union established much of the border, but geographical complexities have kept some territory in dispute.

In Bosnia-Herzegovina, Danish troops from the NATO force seize the headquarters of the branch of the Serb special paramilitary police in the town of Doboj, which is under the control of former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic.

Israel and the Vatican sign an agreement that defines the Roman Catholic Church’s legal status in Israel. Under terms of the pact, church institutions are accorded internal autonomy, while their outside activities fall under the purview of Israeli law.

The EU’s European Court of Justice rules in favor of a law in Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia state under which women are given preference for public-sector jobs. The decision effectively upholds the practice of affirmative action in hiring in EU nations. . . . Members of the UNESCO adopt by unanimous consent a declaration outlining ethical standards for human genetic research, including cloning.

Mary McAleese is sworn in as president of the Republic of Ireland. McAleese, 46, is the country’s first president to hail from Northern Ireland, a British-controlled province, and succeeds Mary Robinson, who resigned to become the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. . . . The lower house of the Czech parliament approves the creation of a securities and exchange commission.

Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak announces Egypt’s boycott of the Middle East-North Africa Economic Conference (MENA) in a speech to members of his ruling National Democratic Party.

The UN Security Council imposes a travel ban on Iraqi officials who do not cooperate with UN arms inspections.

Reports confirm that Belgian authorities have detained Eli Ndayambaje and Joseph Kanyabashi, former mayors of two Rwandan villages, at the request of the Rwandan warcrimes tribunal. . . . The regional parliament of Saratov, in the Volga River region, passes the first formal Russian law to legalize the buying and selling of land. The right to buy and sell property was guaranteed in the 1993 Russian constitution, but no regulations have existed outlining the legal structure of such deals.

One person is reported killed during clashes that break out between government troops and protesters in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, during a strike. . . . An international team of police arrest alleged Australian sex offender Robert (Dolly) Dunn in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa. Dunn, 56, is one of the most wanted alleged criminals in Australia, where he faces 85 charges. More than 2,000 leftist demonstrators take to the streets of Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, to voice their opposition to economic austerity measures.

Gunmen shoot to death four U.S. businessmen and their Pakistani driver in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and business hub. . . . Officials state that Malaysian prime minister Mahathir bin Mohamad will face a vote of confidence in response to international condemnation of his comments made in October. Mahathir said, “We are Muslims, and the Jews are not happy to see the Muslims progress. The Jews robbed the Palestinians of everything, but in Malaysia they could not do so, hence they do this, depress the ringgit.”

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

November 8–12, 1997—1061

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Pres. Clinton becomes the first U.S. president to address a gay and lesbian organization when he speaks to the Human Rights Campaign, a leading gay rights group, in Washington, D.C. . . . The House approves, by voice vote, a bill designed to improve literacy among children.

A report on Gulf War Syndrome criticizes the Department of Defense for failing to adequately address the health problems suffered by veterans of the 1991 conflict. In response, Pres. Clinton announces that his administration will spend $13.2 million and appoint an independent panel to oversee government investigations into the syndrome. . . . The House passes, 352-64, legislation that would have overturned Pres. Clinton’s recent use of the presidential line-item veto power to strike 38 items from a military construction spending bill for fiscal 1998.

The Senate confirms Nancy-Ann Min DeParle as head of the Health Care Financing Administration, which operates the Medicare and Medicaid programs. . . . The Senate approves by voice vote a bill reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank through Sept. 30, 2001. . . . The Senate approves, 91-4, a fiscal 1998 bill appropriating $80.4 billion in discretionary spending for the Departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services (HHS).

The Senate confirms Kevin Gover as head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The Senate, by voice vote, clears legislation that will overturn Pres. Clinton’s recent use of the presidential line-item veto power to strike 38 items from a military construction spending bill for fiscal 1998. . . . The House passes a bill intended to punish China for its human-rights practices, arms sales, and policy toward Taiwan. It is the ninth such measure passed by the House since Nov. 5.

The House approves, by voice vote, a bill reauthorizing the ExportImport Bank through Sept. 30, 2001. . . . The Senate passes, by voice vote, a bill to create a goldcolored dollar coin and a series of quarters commemorating the 50 states.

The House and Senate both pass, by voice vote, legislation that reforms the approval process for drugs and other medical products by the FDA. . . . Researchers report that genes injected into the legs of patients with blocked leg arteries stimulated the growth of new blood vessels. The results are seen as a major advance in the medical use of gene therapies.

Pope John Paul II beatifies Vilmos Apor, a Hungarian bishop who resisted Nazi and Soviet forces; Giovanni Battista Scalabrini, an Italian bishop who died in 1905; and Dorotea Chavez, a Mexican nun who died in 1949.

Pres. Clinton opens a daylong conference on hate crimes at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. . . . A three-judge panel of the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, rules that a book that provides instructions for carrying out contract murders is not protected by the Constitution’s First Amendment.

The Senate clears a bill barring veterans convicted of federal or state capital crimes from being buried in national veterans’ cemeteries. . . . Judge Hiller Zobel reduces the conviction of Louise Woodward, the British au pair found guilty Oct. 30, to manslaughter and sentences her to 279 days in jail, which she has already served. . . . A Virginia jury convicts Mir Aimal Kasi of 10 charges, including one count of capital murder, in connection with the January 1993 shooting deaths of CIA employees Frank Darling and Lansing Bennett outside CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

The Senate passes, by voice vote, a six-month stopgap bill authorizing $9.8 billion in funding for the nation’s mass-transit systems and highways.

The Senate passes legislation to criminalize the “cloning” of cellular telephones, in which the electronic serial number of a cellular phone is transferred to other phones for illegitimate use. . . . The House passes, by voice vote, legislation exempting the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) from openness rules of the 1972 Federal Advisory Committee Act. The NAS is a body chartered by Congress to provide scientific advice to the government.

French author Patrick Rambaud is awarded the Goncourt Prize, France’s most coveted literary award, for his novel La Bataille (The Battle). . . . Pop artist Peter Max, 60, pleads guilty to single counts of conspiracy and tax evasion in U.S. District Court in New York City.

Reports state that Pres. Clinton has selected a site in the new River Market district of Little Rock, Arkansas, for his presidential library. . . . Skip Away wins the Breeders’ Cup Classic in Inglewood, California. . . . WBA heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield defeats Michael Moorer, the IBF heavyweight champion, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Rod(ney) Milburn Jr., 47, track star who won a gold at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, is found dead in Port Hudson, Louisiana, after an apparent workplace accident in which he fell into a bleach-filled rail car.

Data suggest that the nation’s college-loan default rate fell to 10.4% for the 1995 fiscal year, from 10.7% the previous year. The latest drop continues a decline in the rate that began after 1990, when it reached a peak of 22.4%. . . . A Delaware political operative, Thomas J. Capano, is arrested and charged with the murder of Anne Marie Fahey, an aide to Gov. Thomas Carper (D, Del.) with whom Capano had a secret affair.

A federal jury in New York City convicts Muslim fundamentalist Ramzi Ahmed Yousef and his codefendant, Eyad Ismoil, of conspiracy and explosives-related charges for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Four other Islamic militants have also been convicted of charges related to the bombing. . . . A measure in the District of Columbia appropriations bill that the House passes grants permanent resident status to some 150,000 Nicaraguans and 5,000 Cubans who arrived in the U.S. before Dec. 1, 1995.

The House passes, by voice vote, a package of technical changes to the bankruptcy code. . . . The House clears, by voice vote, a six-month stopgap bill authorizing $9.8 billion in funding for the nation’s masstransit systems and highways. . . . The House passes, by voice vote, a fiscal 1998 appropriations bill allocating $855 million for the District of Columbia. The House had passed the bill by voice vote on November 12, and the Senate cleared it the following day, also by acclamation

Lindy (Corinne C.) Boggs is sworn in as ambassador to the Vatican. . . . James Laughlin, 83, publisher and poet who founded New Directions Publishing Corp., dies in Norfolk, Connecticut, after a stroke.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 8

Nov. 9

Nov. 10

Nov. 11

Nov. 12

1062—November 13–18, 1997

Nov. 13

Nov. 14

World Affairs

Europe

Iraq expels six U.S. arms inspectors who are member of the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM), prompting other inspectors to leave and sparking a dispute over the future of seven-year-old UN economic sanctions on Iraq.

The German Bundestag, the lower house of Parliament, passes legislation rescinding a 1950 law that allowed Nazi war criminals to receive war-victim pension payments.

Mexican president Zedillo and U.S. president Clinton, along with representatives of 26 other member nations of the Organization of American States (OAS), sign an accord to fight trafficking in illegal weapons. . . . La Francophonie, a loose alliance of 49 French-speaking nations, holds its seventh summit in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Nov. 15

Nov. 18

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Progovernment and opposition parties win nearly equal numbers of seats in legislative elections in Morocco. The vote is the first since 1996 constitutional reforms that provided for the direct election of all members of the lower house of the federal parliament.

Indonesian police clash with student protesters outside the University of East Timor in Dili, the provincial capital. The protesters claim that two students were killed when police fired shots into the air to disperse the activists. A military spokesman counters that police fired only warning shots and that no students were killed.

The UN World Food Program estimates that 148,200 acres of Somalian cropland are waterlogged. CARE International in Somalia suggests that the death toll there is at least 2,000 due to torrential rains and floods.

The State Law and Order Council (SLORC), Myanmar’s ruling military junta, announces that it has dissolved itself and formed a new leadership council called the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). . . . Chinese authorities grant medical parole to Wei Jingsheng, a prominent political dissident imprisoned in China for most of the previous 18 years. He will leave for the U.S., and if he returns to China, he will be arrested.

A majority of Hungarian voters approve an offer to join NATO. . . . Italy’s ruling center-left Olive Tree coalition registers several major victories in local elections. . . . Georges René-Louis Marchais, 77, leader of the French Communist Party, 1972–94, dies in Paris after suffering with heart and lung ailments.

Nov. 16

Nov. 17

Africa & the Middle East

Five new judges are sworn in at the international war crimes tribunal at The Hague, starting its second four-year term.

The annual Middle East-North Africa Economic Conference (MENA), boycotted for the first time by Egypt and other key pro-U.S. Arab nations, closes with a declaration calling on Israel to exchange occupied Arab land for peace.

More than 300 people die in clashes between Hutu guerrillas and the Rwandan army when rebels try to free Hutu prisoners jailed on genocide charges northwest of Kigali, the capital. . . . The Juba and Shabelle rivers merge, covering almost 60 square miles (155 sq km) with water in Somalia. . . . . Six gunmen ambush visitors at an Egyptian tourist site in Luxor, killing some 65 foreign tourists and wounding 24 others. The Swiss Fund for Needy Victims of the Holocaust distributes its first payments to 80 Jewish Holocaust survivors in Riga, Latvia. . . . An employee of the UN Commissioner for Refugees, Karine Mane, and a male friend, Franck Janier-Dubry of the EU, are kidnapped by forces loyal to mercenary Tajik commander Rizvon Sadirov.

Egypt’s largest and most violent militant Islamic organization, Gamaa al Islamiya (Islamic Group), claims responsibility for the Nov, 17 shootings, which were by far the deadliest in a five-year-old insurgency campaign launched against foreign tourists and Egyptian government officials in an attempt to topple the government of Pres. Hosni Mubarak.

The Canadian federal Parliament’s lower house, the House of Commons, votes to amend Canada’s 1982 constitution in order to allow Quebec to replace its religiousbased school board system with one drawn along linguistic lines.

At least 29 schoolchildren are killed when their school bus plunges into the Yamuna River near New Delhi, the capital of India. More than 60 other children are injured, and another 20 are missing and presumed dead. . . . Chen Chin-hsing, a man wanted for the murder of a teenager in April, takes a South African military attaché, Edward Alexander, and his family hostage. Over the next 24 hours, he releases two of them, both wounded, before setting them all free.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

November 13–18, 1997—1063

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The House, 406-7, and the Senate, by voice vote, pass a bipartisan bill aimed at speeding up and increasing the permanent adoption of the 500,000 abused and neglected children in the nation’s foster care system. . . . In the Justice Department’s first annual survey of stalking, figures show that more than 1 million women and some 370,000 men are stalked each year in the U.S.

By passing the appropriations for the District of Columbia and the Commerce-Justice-State departments, Congress approves measures in those bills that reform the 1996 immigration law. . . . Pres. Clinton vetoes legislation that would have overturned his recent use of the presidential line-item veto power to strike 38 items from a military construction spending bill for fiscal 1998. . . . The House, 33376, and the Senate, by voice vote, clear a $13.1 billion fiscal 1998 foreign operations appropriations bill.

The Senate passes, by voice vote, a $855 million fiscal 1998 bill for the District of Columbia. . . . The House passes, by voice vote, a bill to create a gold-colored dollar coin and a series of quarters honoring the 50 states. . . . Congress clears a bill authorizing funds for Amtrak through 2002. . . . Congress clears a $31.8 billion bill for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State and related agencies in fiscal 1998. . . . Pres. Clinton signs an $80.4 billion fiscal 1998 bill for the Departments of Labor, Education, and HHS.

The FDA, NIH, and CDC recommend medical examinations for heart or lung disease for all people who took either of two popular diet medications withdrawn from the market in September, fenfluramine and dexfenfluramine. . . . The Senate clears legislation exempting the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) from openness rules of the 1972 Federal Advisory Committee Act. The NAS is a body chartered by Congress to provide scientific advice to the government.

Judge Sandra Silver orders Nathaniel Jamal Abraham, 11, to stand trial as an adult for the sniper shooting of Ronnie Green Jr. He will be the youngest person ever tried as an adult for murder in Michigan. . . . Judge Mariana Pfaelzer rules that major sections of California’s controversial Proposition 187 are both unconstitutional and in violation of 1996’s federal welfare-reform law. The measure seeks to deny education, health, and welfare benefits to illegal immigrants.

A Fairfax County (Virginia) Circuit Court jury recommends the death penalty for Mir Aimal Kasi, who was convicted Nov. 10 for the shooting deaths of two CIA employees in 1993. . . . Sara Lister, the army’s top personnel official, resigns amid a furor over comments that she made about the Marine Corps in October.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., rules that utility companies may seek financial compensation from the government if the government does not make good on its legal obligation, beginning Jan. 31, 1998, to ship and store the companies’ nuclear waste. . . . Pres. Clinton signs the $13.8 billion fiscal 1998 appropriations bill for the Department of the Interior and related agencies.

Reports confirm that three separate studies have located HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, resting dormant in infected patients whose blood levels of the virus have become undetectably low with a widely used combination of drugs. The studies showed, however, that the surviving viruses, which hide inside resting immune-system cells, do not develop resistance to the drugs, which prevent the virus from replicating.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Nov. 13

George Edward (Eddie) Arcaro, 81, preeminent jockey who was the only rider to twice win thoroughbred racing’s Triple Crown, dies in Miami, Florida, after a long bout with liver cancer.

The Justice Department finds that violent crime fell by 10% and property crimes by 8%. The figures on violent crime do not include homicide.

Nov. 15

In tennis, Pete Sampras wins the ATP Championship, over Russia’s Yevgeny Kafelnikov in Germany. . . . In football, the Toronto Argonauts win the Grey Cup championship, 47-23, over the Saskatchewan Roughriders. . . . Jamaica qualifies for soccer’s World Cup with a 0-0 tie against Mexico. Jamaica is only the third Caribbean nation ever to qualify and the first since 1974.

Nathan Thill, 19, a self-proclaimed racist skinhead, shoots and kills Oumar Dia, 38, an African immigrant, in Denver, Colorado. He also wounds Jeannie VanVelkinburgh, a 36-year-old white woman. This follows other violent incidents linked to racism in the area . . . The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Ohio, strikes down an Ohio law banning IDE, a late-term abortion method. A total of 17 states have passed laws banning the method. The Ohio law is the first to be tested at the appeals level.

Nov. 14

Nebraska state Agriculture Director Larry Sitzman reveals South Korea will lift the ban instituted Oct. 2 against from U.S. beef from Nebraska after finding an illnesscausing strain of E. coli bacteria in a shipment.

A federally appointed overseer disqualifies Ronald Carey, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, from participating in a 1998 rerun election against rival James P Hoffa. . . . Thomas Frist Jr., chair of Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp., which is under investigation for possible Medicare fraud, unveils a restructuring plan that will lead to the sale of 108 of the company’s 340 hospitals.

Pres. Clinton signs a $268.2 billion defense authorization bill for fiscal 1998.

Pres. Clinton signs a $49.7 billion agriculture appropriations bill for fiscal 1998.

Because of Jamaica’s Nov. 16 qualification for soccer’s World Cup, the government declares a national holiday.

The FBI announces that it is ending its 16-month-long investigation of the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800 off Long Island, New York, and asserts that the crash was not caused by a criminal act of sabotage. . . . Norman H. Topping, 89, viral researcher and university president credited with turning USC into a major national research institution, dies in Los Angeles, California, of pneumonia.

National Book Awards are presented to Charles Frazier, Joseph Ellis William Meredith, and Han Nolan. Historian Studs Terkel receives the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. . . . Joyce Wethered, 96, who was considered one of the greatest women golfers of all time, dies of unreported causes.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 16

Nov. 17

Nov. 18

1064—November 19–24, 1997

World Affairs

Nov. 19

Nov. 20

Nov. 21

Europe

Heavy monsoon rains begin dousing lingering forest fires in Indonesia, clearing a thick haze that has blanketed much of Southeast Asia since July. The monsoon rains fell on the islands of Sumatra, Borneo, and Irian Jaya, where fires have consumed thousands of acres of forest lands. The fires, many of which were set deliberately to clear land for farming, have been blamed for creating severe air pollution throughout Southeast Asia.

Africa & the Middle East Protestors opposed to Ayatollah Ali Montazeri, who has openly challenged the legitimacy of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s reign, demonstrate against him in the city of Qom, Iran.

In a joint statement, Iraq and Russia announce that UN arms inspectors are free to return to Iraq. Most of the inspectors, members of UNSCOM, left the country Nov. 14, the day after Iraq expelled six of their U.S. colleagues. . . . Reports confirm that Judge Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, a native of the U.S. state of Texas, has been elected president of the UN international criminal tribunal in The Hague, the Netherlands.

England’s monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, and her husband, Prince Philip, celebrate their golden wedding anniversary at Westminster Abbey in London, where they were married 50 years earlier.

Palestinian militants in the Muslim quarter of the walled Old City of Jerusalem shoot to death an Israeli studying at a nearby yeshiva. . . . Officials estimate that 20,000 people in northern Kenya have been affected by floods. Other relief groups claim that at least 200 people in Ethiopia have died due to flooding.

Data indicates that more than a month of flooding has claimed at least 1,300 lives in Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya. Torrential rains have destroyed crops and left thousands homeless, prompting fears of famine in the region. Weather experts blame the current flooding on the periodic warming of coastal waters near Chile known as El Nino, which is causing abnormal weather patterns around the world.

A court in the Polish city of Katowice acquits 22 former riot policemen of charges of killing nine miners at a 1981 protest rally.

Armed men in northern Somalia kidnap five aid workers who represent UN agencies and the European Union.

Asia & the Pacific

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), goes on strike.

A car bomb explodes near a movie studio on the outskirts of the city of Hyderabad, killing 23 people and wounding at least 20 others. . . . Malaysian prime minister Mahathir bin Mohamad survives a confidence vote called in response to remarks he made about currency speculators perceived as anti-Semitic.

South Korea’s intelligence agency announces that it has uncovered a ring of North Korean spies in Seoul, the capital. . . . The composite index of Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange plunges 11% to 536.62, its lowest level since 1991.

Statistics reveal that seven journalists were killed in Colombia in 1997.

Nov. 22

Nov. 23

Nov. 24

The Americas

Leaders of the 18-member AsiaPacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) trade group convenes in Vancouver, Canada, for their annual meeting.

Voters in the Serb part of BosniaHerzegovina vote for a parliament split between supporters of former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic and current president Biljana Plavsic. . . . Slovenes reelect Pres. Milan Kucan for a second five-year term.

The UN reports that Somalis trapped by flooding received longawaited aid when two boats carrying medical and food supplies reached Buaale and Jamame in southern Somalia after traveling 120 miles (195 km) down the Juba River.

A Paris court begins a trial of 38 Islamic fundamentalists charged with helping Algerian terrorists carry out a wave of bombings in 1995.

The hostages from the UN and EU taken Nov. 21 in Somalia arrive unharmed at a UN office in Bossasso after being released by their captors. . . . South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission opens hearings on allegations linking Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the former wife of Pres. Nelson Mandela, to killings and other human-rights abuses during the 1980s.

UN and Taliban officials agree on a five-year plan aimed at virtually eradicating the cultivation and production of opium poppies, the plant from which heroin is made, in Afghanistan.

John Sopinka, 64, justice of the Supreme Court of Canada appointed in 1988, dies in Ottawa, Ontario, of a blood disease.

In Sri Lanka, P.M. Inder Kumar Gujral refuses to expel the Dravida Munnetra Kazagham (DMK) from the coalition. The DMK, a Tamil party based in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, has been linked to a Tamil separatist group in Sri Lanka blamed for the assassination of India’s Rajiv Gandhi. . . . Yamaichi Securities Co., the smallest of Japan’s “Big Four” securities firms, announces that it will shut down after weeks of rumors about its financial health.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

November 19–24, 1997—1065

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Pres. Clinton signs a bill aimed at speeding up and increasing the permanent adoption of the 500,000 abused and neglected children in the nation’s foster-care system. . . . In Joilet, Illinois, both Walter Stewart, 42, convicted of killing two people during an armed robbery, and Durlyn Eddmonds, 45, convicted of raping and murdering a nine-year-old boy, are put to death by lethal injection. They are the 424th and 425th inmates executed in the U.S. and the 9th and 10th in Illinois since 1976.

Pres. Clinton signs a bill extending the annual cost-of-living increase to veterans’ benefits.

Pres. Clinton signs a fiscal 1998 appropriations bill allocating $855 million for the District of Columbia. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a bill to create a gold-colored dollar coin and a series of quarters commemorating the 50 states.

The space shuttle Columbia lifts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, to carry out a mission to conduct materials science experiments in microgravity and to test equipment. . . . Bobbi McCaughey, 29, who underwent treatment with fertility drugs, gives birth to septuplets in Des Moines, Iowa. McCaughey is the first American woman to deliver seven live children and the second known woman in the world to do so.

The CDC reports that the number of children in the U.S. who contracted AIDS from their mothers at birth declined by 43% between 1992 and 1996. . . . A Piscataway, New Jersey, school board settles an affirmative-action lawsuit brought by Sharon Taxman, a white teacher fired in 1989, ending the case weeks before it is scheduled for argument in the Supreme Court. . . . Gary Burris, 40, convicted of murder, is put to death in Michigan City, Indiana. He is the 427th person executed in the U.S. and only the fifth in Indiana since 1976.

Pres. Clinton signs a bill authorizing intelligence spending for fiscal 1998. . . . The U.S. Coast Guard seizes a boat carrying 417 Haitians attempting to flee to the U.S. All of the passengers are sent back to Haiti. It is the largest contingent of so-called boat people—refugees from political and economic turmoil in Haiti—since 1995.

Pres. Clinton uses his line-veto authority to strike five projects totaling $1.9 million from the agriculture spending bill. . . . Pres. Clinton uses his line-veto authority to strike two projects totaling $6.2 million from the interior spending bill.

The U.S. Second Circuit Court in New York City rules, 2-1, that the Defense Department may enforce a law prohibiting the sale of sexually explicit material on U.S. military bases. The ruling overturns a January lower court decision. . . . Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill barring veterans convicted of federal or state capital crimes from being buried in national veterans’ cemeteries.

Harold S. Geneen, 87, president and CEO of International Telephone and Telegraph Corp. (ITT), 1959–77, dies in New York City of a heart attack.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Nov. 19

The auction houses of Sotheby’s Holdings Inc. and Christie’s Inc. close their major fall New York City sales. Overall combined sales for the two houses total $535.4 million, nearly double the amount taken in during the fall auctions in the previous year.

Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill reforming the FDA’s approval process for new medications.

A Justice Department survey finds that an estimated 500,000 people either were threatened or had force used against them by law-enforcement officers in 1996. The 500,000 people are only 1% of the 45 million people over age 12 who, the survey estimates, had face-to-face contact annually with the police. Hispanics and blacks—only onefifth of the population covered by the survey—were 70% more likely to have contact with the police than whites.

Robert Wilfred Levick Simpson, 76, British composer, dies of unreported causes. . . . Grayson Louis Kirk, 94, president of Columbia University in New York City, 1953–68, dies in Bronxville, New York, of unreported causes.

Michael Hutchence, 37, lead singer of the Australian rock group INXS who was considered Australia’s best-known popular musical personality, is found dead in a Sydney, Australia, hotel room after apparently hanging himself. . . . A sale of famed baseball player Mickey Mantle memorabilia brings in $541,880.

Jorge Mas Canosa, 58, Cuban exile who, as the founder and chair of the Cuban-American National Foundation, was one of the most influential individuals in shaping U.S. policy toward Cuba, dies in Miami, Florida, of lung cancer.

Robert Lewis, 88, actor, director, and teacher who helped found the prestigious Actors Studio in New York City, dies in New York of a heart attack. . . . Annika Sorenstam of Sweden wins the Ladies PGA Tour Championship, the final event of the golf season, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics reports that the 1996 election campaigns were the most expensive ever, with overall spending at $2.2 billion. The largest overall political donor in the 1996 elections was tobacco giant Philip Morris. Republicans received 79% of the company’s $4.2 million in contributions, and Democrats received the rest. . . . The International Brotherhood of Teamsters agrees to a Justice Department request that an independent financial auditor monitor closely the union’s day-to-day expenditures for any possible improprieties.

Nov. 20

Nov. 21

Nov. 22

Nov. 23

Nov. 24

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1066—November 25–30, 1997

World Affairs

Nov. 25

Europe

The UN Program on HIV/AIDS estimates that 30.6 million people have HIV, compared with 22.6 million estimated in 1996. The UN suggests that about 16,000 new infections occur every day, compared with 8,200 estimated in 1996. It approximates that 11.7 million people have died of AIDS since the epidemic’s beginning, including some 2.3 million people in 1997.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

UN officials state that East Africa has not experienced flooding as severe as current conditions since 1961. . . . Hastings Kamuzu Banda, first president of the African nation of Malawi, 1966–94, who was either 101 or 99 years old at the time of his death, dies in Johannesburg, South Africa, of respiratory failure.

Sixteen inmates die in a fire in the Sabaneta prison near Maracaibo in northwest Venezuela. . . . The House of Representatives gives final approval to a constitutional amendment lifting a six-year-old ban on extradition. The amendment will not apply to imprisoned leaders of the Cali drug cartel wanted for trial in the U.S.

Nov. 26

Nov. 27

Nov. 28

Asia & the Pacific

Nicaragua’s National Assembly passes a law resolving how to manage more than 2,470,000 acres (1 million hectares ) of property seized and redistributed during the 1980s. . . . Reports confirm that a court in Havana, Cuba, has sentenced Walter K. Van der Veer, a U.S. citizen, to 15 years in prison for plotting to overthrow the communist government of Pres. Fidel Castro Ruz. . . . A commission investigating the 1908s distribution of blood tainted with the viruses that cause AIDS and hepatitis C, calls for the Canadian government to compensate all past and future victims of infection from blood transfusions.

Chinese president Jiang Zemin makes a state visit to Canada. He is the most powerful Chinese leader ever to visit Canada.

The IMF releases $100 million to the Ukrainian government.

An estimated 40,000 university students march through Bonn, Germany’s capital, in a demonstration of their discontent with the university system. The student protest is described as the country’s largest in at least 20 years.

Yemeni tribesmen release Steve Carpenter, a U.S. oil executive they kidnapped Oct. 30 near Sanaa, the capital. . . . Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, an ideological conservative, calls for treason charges to be brought against Ayatollah Ali Montazeri, one of his fiercest critics.

Gunmen in the northern Mexican city of Tijuana attack newspaper editor Jesus Blancornelas, who has written numerous articles about drug traffickers and related official corruption in Mexico. Blancornelas is seriously wounded in the attack, in which one of his bodyguards and a gunman are killed.

Cambodia’s opposition leader Sam Rainsy returns to Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital, after spending several months of self-imposed exile in Thailand.

The UN approves a mandate for a multinational force of 300 civilian police to remain in Haiti for one year in order to train and assist the new police force.

British prime minister Tony Blair makes his first visit to BosniaHerzegovina. . . . Turkey’s State Security Court in Ankara, the capital, sentences 33 Islamic fundamentalists to death for staging a 1993 attack in which 37 secular activists were killed. The executions, if carried out, will be the country’s first since the early 1980s.

The government of Pres. Robert Mugabe publishes a list of commercial farms that it plans to appropriate from private owners as part of a land-reform initiative. . . . Witnesses reveal that at least 11 people are killed when gunfire erupts between two rival factions of forces loyal to Pres. Laurent Kabila in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Peruvian government frees 83 people unjustly jailed on terrorism charges. . . . In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Judge Jose Geraldo Antonio sentences former police officer Arlindo Maginario Filho to 441 years and four months in jail for participating in the massacre of 21 people in Rio’s Vigario Geral shantytown in 1993.

India’s seven-month-old United Front government collapses when the Congress Party (I) withdraws from the coalition after one of the coalition’s parties is implicated in the 1991 assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. P.M. Inder Kumar Gujral tenders his resignation to Pres. K.R. Narayanan at midnight, but the president asks Gujral to retain his post in a caretaker capacity. Gujral’s coalition is the third government to collapse in 18 months. . . . The United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) bombs portions of an oil pipeline to mark the seventh anniversary of the day that the ULFA was banned by the Indian government. Taiwan’s Nationalist Party suffers set backs in municipal elections.

Nov. 29

Karine Mane, a UN employee abducted Nov. 18, and five of her captors are killed during a botched hostage rescue in Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe. The other hostage, Franck Janier-Dubry, was freed earlier. . . . British cattle farmers dump 40 metric tons of hamburger meat imported from Ireland into the harbor in Holyhead, a port in northwestern Wales, to protest the importation of cheap Irish beef.

Nov. 30

Carlos Roberto Flores Facusse, the candidate for the ruling Liberal Party, wins presidential elections in Honduras. . . . Voters in Ecuador elect 70 members to a temporary National Assembly that will reform the 1978 constitution.

Two bombs explode in a marketplace in New Delhi, the capital of India, killing three people and wounding 62 others.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

November 25–30, 1997—1067

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Larry D. Soulsby, the Washington, D.C., chief of police, resigns amid allegations of impropriety.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The FERC, for the first time in its history, orders the dismantling of a hydroelectric dam whose owner was seeking its relicensing. The commission, in a 2-1 decision, orders Edwards Manufacturing Co. to submit a plan for removing the dam on the Kennebec River in Augusta, Maine, in order to clear the way for the passage of migratory fish.

Pres. Clinton signs into law an appropriations measure for foreign operations in fiscal 1998.

Nov. 25

Pres. Clinton signs into law a fiscal 1998 appropriations bill to fund the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State. . . . Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank for four years. . . . The Commerce Department reports that U.S. gross domestic product grew at a revised, seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.3% in the third quarter. That is equal to the rate registered in the April-June quarter. . . . The Florida Supreme Court rules that all polluters of the Everglades should share in the cost of restoring the region, not merely the sugar growers.

Army sergeant Robert McLean, a former drill instructor at Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina, is sentenced to eight years in prison and a bad-conduct discharge for having engaged in sexual improprieties with female trainees.

Nov. 26

Four spectators at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City are injured when a balloon knocks over a lamppost.

Walter Fenner (Buck) Leonard, 90, Hall of Fame Negro league baseball player, 1933–50, who was considered the best first baseman in the history of the Negro Leagues, dies in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, of unreported causes.

Nov. 27

Nov. 28

Coleman Alexander Young, 79, first black mayor of Detroit, Michigan, 1974–93, dies in Detroit of respiratory failure.

Iran qualifies for the World Cup for the second time ever, prompting a celebration in Teheran that is reportedly the largest since before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. . . . Some 15,000 couples who are members of Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church gather for a mass wedding ceremony in Washington, D.C. Sweden wins tennis’s Davis Cup over the U.S., 5-0, in Goteborg, Sweden.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 29

Nov. 30

1068—December 1–6, 1997

Dec. 1

Dec. 2

Dec. 3

Dec. 4

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

A UN summit on global warming, the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, convenes in Kyoto, Japan, drawing delegates from more than 150 nations. . . . Representatives of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) and Cuban officials meet in Havana, Cuba’s capital, to discuss strengthening economic ties between the trade group and Cuba.

Spain’s Supreme Court jails the 23 leading members of Herri Batasuna, the political wing of ETA, the Basque region’s main separatist guerrilla group. The politicians, who make up the party’s entire governing body, are sentenced to seven years in prison for collaborating with ETA terrorists. . . . Stephane Grappelli, 89, French violinist known for his masterful jazz improvisations, dies in Paris of complications from hernia surgery.

An apartment in West Jerusalem inhabited by two Israeli-Arab women is fire-bombed for the second time in six weeks. No one is injured in either of the incidents. . . . In South Africa, Matthews Phosa, a legal adviser to the ruling African National Congress, reveals that investigators working for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission have discovered mass graves containing the bodies of more than 100 antiapartheid activists who disappeared during the 1980s.

The NATO defense ministery orders the alliance’s military commanders to prepare a set of options for extending the ongoing military deployment in Bosnia-Herzegovina. . . . Delegates from 41 nations participate in the first international conference focusing on the theft of gold from Holocaust victims and on Holocaust survivors’ efforts to recover funds hidden in Swiss banks during World War II.

In Dushanbe, Tajikistan’s capital, forces kill mercenary commander Rizvon Sadirov in a shoot-out. . . . A methane gas explosion in a Siberian coal mine kills 68 miners. Six other miners are injured. It is one of the deadliest Russian mine accidents ever. . . . In the southwestern Welsh port of Fishguard, hundreds of farmers gather to block the unloading of six trucks carrying Irish beef and lamb.

Diplomats from 121 countries worldwide gather in Ottawa, Canada, to sign a treaty banning the use and manufacture of antipersonnel land mines. Russia, China, and the U.S. send observers to the signing ceremony but do not agree to the treaty. . . . The South Korean government formally agrees to terms for a $57 billion financial bailout coordinated by the IMF in response to the country’s severe debt crisis.

A court in Milan, Italy, convicts former premier Silvio Berlusconi, leader of Italy’s center-right opposition coalition, of fraud. Judge Edoardo D’Avossa hands Berlusconi a 16-month suspended prison sentence. . . . The German defense ministry reveals that it will discipline six soldiers who in 1993 held a party in a room decorated with Nazi symbols and pictures of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

The UN Security Council unanimously approves a six-month extension to a program that allows Iraq to sell $2 billion of oil during a six-month period so as to ease its domestic shortage of food, medical supplies, and other essential items.

The latest available figures show that a total of 22 people in Britain have died of the Creutzfeldt-Jakob strain linked to BSE, or mad-cow disease.

In the wake of the Dec. 3 legislation, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), ends the strike that started Nov. 19. . . . According to incomplete results form the Nov. 30 election in Ecuador, the right-wing Social Christian Party (PSC) will hold a plurality in the assembly that will reform the 1978 constitution.

Turkey launches an attack against the PKK, sending 10,000 soldiers backed by warplanes and heavy artillery across the border into northern Iraq. . . . In response to the Dec. 1 sentences, gunmen in the Basque town of San Sebastian shoot and wound a bodyguard for Elena Aspiroz, a member of the ruling Popular Party. . . . Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) charges Richard L. Bliss, a U.S. telecommunications engineer, with spying on military facilities near the town of Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia.

Data reveals that massacres by right-wing paramilitary groups in Colombia killed at least 57 people in November. More than 41,000 people have fled their homes as a result of the attacks. . . . Cuauhtemoc Cardenas Solorzano of the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) is sworn in for a threeyear term as mayor of Mexico City, the capital. Cardenas, elected in July, is the first democratically elected mayor of the city.

Dec. 5

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Hutu rebels free 103 inmates from a prison in Rwerere, near Rwanda’s border with Congo.

In Jamaica, 12 people are injured in a gunfight between rival parties in the August Town area of Kingston, the capital.

Pakistan president Farooq Leghari resigns, and the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Sajjad Ali Shah, is demoted, capping an ongoing power struggle with P.M. Nawaz Sharif. . . . In Japan, Ryuichi Koike, a sokaiya racketeer, pleads guilty to receiving 12 billion yen ($93 million) in loans from DKB and 700 million yen ($5.4 million) in payoffs from securities firms. . . . The Bangladeshi government signs a peace pact with Chakma rebels waging a 22-yearlong separatist campaign in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.

Hutu rebels storm a prison in Bulinga, 30 miles (50 km) northwest of Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, freeing 507 Hutu inmates there. . . . Israel’s Histadrut labor federation launches a nationwide strike, involving some 700,000 predominantly public-sector workers, over pension rights and privatization.

The 1,400 Canadian and Pakistani troops of a UN force in Haiti begin leaving the island, turning control over to Haiti’s newly trained police force. . . . The Canadian Parliament passes legislation ordering the 45,000 CUPW members, who form the post office’s largest union, to return to work. . . . The federal cabinet and the National Energy Board approve plans to construct Canada’s first offshore natural-gas project, known as Sable Island.

Ajmal Mian is sworn in as Sajjad Ali Shah’s successor as Pakistan’s chief justice of the Supreme Court.

An Antonov AN-124 military cargo jet crashes into an apartment complex in the Siberian city of Irkutsk 20 seconds after takeoff, killing all crew members and passengers and scores of others on the ground.

Dec. 6

Reports confirm that police have rounded up four of five dangerous convicts who escaped from a Brisbane, Australia, prison in November.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

December 1–6, 1997—1069

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Michael Carneal, 14, opens fire on classmates in West Paducah, Kentucky, killing three girls and injuring five others. He is arrested. . . . The U.S. Conference of Mayors releases a survey in which 276 of 347 responding cities said they have night curfews for youth. That is up from 1995, when 270 of 387 cities in a similar survey claimed to have night curfews. About 90% of the respondents believe that enforcement of youth curfews is a worthwhile use of police power. Robert E. Williams, 61, convicted of killing two women in 1977, is put to death by electrocution in Lincoln, Nebraska. Williams is the 429th person in the U.S. and only the third in Nebraska to be executed since 1976. . . . Judge Yada Magee rules that a lawsuit brought against Dow Chemical Co. for allegedly misleading women about the dangers of silicone breast implants cannot proceed as a class action. . . . Endicott Peabody, 77, Democratic governor of Massachusetts, 1963–65, dies in Hollis, New Hampshire, of leukemia.

Pres. Clinton nominates Army Secretary Togo D. West Jr. as secretary of Veterans Affairs.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A federal jury in Washington, D.C., convicts Ronald Blackley, the former chief of staff to former agriculture secretary Mike Espy, of concealing $22,025 he received from two associates seeking farm subsidies in 1993. . . . Pres. Clinton signs into a law a measure providing for a six-month stopgap bill to fund the nation’s highways and mass-transit systems. . . . Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill that will create a goldcolored dollar coin and quarters to commemorate the 50 states.

Government officials meet with executives from the computer and media industries at a Washington, D.C., conference focused on forming strategies to prevent children from viewing excessively sexual and violent material on the Internet computer network.

A federal judge in Eugene, Oregon, orders the PGA to allow Casey Martin, who has Klippel-TrenaunayWeber Syndrome, to use a golf cart in competitions. . . . Edwin Rosario (Chapo), 34, boxer who won three world championships, dies in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico, of pulmonary edema. . . . Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier, tops the bestseller list.

Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill authorizing funding for Amtrak through 2002. . . . Pres. Clinton uses his newly won line-item veto power to eliminate one item from the Commerce-Justice-State bill. Overall, he has vetoed 79 items from nine of the 13 spending bills for fiscal 1998.

The FDA approves the use of radiation to kill illness-causing microorganisms in red meat.

A study reveals wide disparities in life expectancies based on locality and ethnicity. The longest male life expectancy for all races, 77.5 years, is found in Utah’s Cache and Rich counties, and the longest for women of all races, 83.5, in Stearns County, Minnesota. However, Native American men living in South Dakota have a life expectancy of 56.5 years, and black men in Washington, D.C., have an expectancy of 57.9 years. Asian men living in wealthier counties in Massachusetts and New York have a life expectancy of 89.5 years.

The IRA and Columbia/HCA agree to a $71 million settlement in a dispute over stock options.

The CDC reports that 1.21 million legal abortions were recorded in 1995, continuing a steady decline from 1.43 million in 1990. . . . P. John Seward, executive vice president of the American Medical Association (AMA), resigns from the organization, citing his responsibility for a controversial August announcement that the AMA would endorse a line of home health-care products made by Sunbeam Corp.

FEC staff members recommend that the Republican Party reimburse $3.7 million to the U.S. Treasury after a regular FEC audit uncovers irregularities in the funding of the GOP’s 1996 national convention in San Diego, California. . . . The Surface Transportation Board extends for three months a rail “transportation emergency” declared on Union Pacific’s Texas tracks.

Three scientists dispute the hypothesis that formations observed on a Martian meteorite might be fossils of microscopic life.

Four tobacco manufacturers hand over to the House Commerce Committee 864 internal documents relating to their research on cigarette health hazards and to their alleged efforts to market tobacco to minors. . . . John Emerson Moss, 82, Democratic U.S. congressman from California, 1953–78, dies in San Francisco, California, of complications from pneumonia and asthma.

Derivatives based on the Dow Jones industrial average of blue-chip stocks begin being traded for the first time in the average’s 101-year history. . . . The Labor Department reports that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the U.S. fell to 4.6% in November, from October’s revised rate of 4.7%. The November jobless figure is the lowest rate registered since October 1973.

The space shuttle Columbia lands at Cape Canaveral, Florida, after carrying out a mission during which the crew manually retrieved a satellite intended to gather information about the sun’s atmosphere that had failed to deploy properly.

Voters in Houston, Texas, elect Lee Brown (D), a veteran law-enforcement official and former national “drug czar,” as the city’s first black mayor.

The U.S. administration and the state of Florida, in an effort to protect Florida’s Everglades National Park from further pollution, agree to buy more than 50,000 acres (20,000 hectares) of sugar-cane fields near the park.

Dec. 1

Dec. 2

Dec. 3

Dec. 4

Critics of the Church of Scientology hold a candlelight vigil in Clearwater, Florida, to mark the second anniversary of the death of Lisa McPherson, a Scientologist who died while in the care of church members.

Three skydivers die during a jump over the South Pole after their parachutes fail to open properly. . . . ABC News anchor Peter Jennings, marries Kayce Freed. . . . Willie Pastrano, 62, light-heavyweight boxer, dies in New Orleans, Louisiana of liver cancer.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 5

Dec. 6

1070—December 7–12, 1997

World Affairs

Dec. 9

Dec. 10

Dec. 11

Dec. 12

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Police officials disclose that youths firebombed and damaged three bank branches in San Sebastian and Azpeitia, Spain, in an apparent response to the Dec. 1 sentences. . . . Woodrow Wyatt (Lord Wyatt of Weeford), 79, British political figure, newspaper columnist, and television personality, dies in London of unreported causes.

Israel’s Histadrut labor federation signs a compromise agreement with the Treasury, ending a nationwide strike begun Dec. 3 over pension rights and privatization that had paralyzed the country.

Mexico signs an agreement for greater political and economic cooperation with the EU. . . . The U.S. formally agrees to provide $531 million in materials and services to aid in the construction of what will be the world’s most powerful atom smasher. The particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), is being built in Geneva, Switzerland at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN). Other non-European nations participating in the accelerator project are Japan, Canada, Russia, and India.

German defense minister Volker Ruehe announces that he has suspended Lt. Gen. Hartmut Olboeter and ordered disciplinary proceedings for Col. Norbert Schwarzer for their roles in allowing Manfred Roeder, a prominent neo-Nazi, to speak at a military academy in Hamburg in 1995. . . . Union Bank of Switzerland and Swiss Bank Corp., Switzerland’s second- and thirdlargest banks, respectively, confirm that they plan to merge. The combined company will replace Credit Suisse Group as the country’s biggest bank and will be the world’s second-largest financial institution, with some $590 billion in total assets.

A team of UN human-rights investigators begin their long-awaited inquiry into allegations that rebel forces under the command of Pres. Laurent Kabila massacred thousands of Rwandan Hutu refugees during the seven-month rebellion that had brought Kabila to power. . . . Shehu Musa Yaradua, 54, Nigerian dissident who once was a general in the armed forces and served as vice president, dies in prison. . . . Cardinal Laurean Rugambwa, 85, Tanzanian Roman Catholic churchman who became Africa’s first cardinal in 1960, dies in Dar-es-Salaam.

Peru authorizes representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross to resume visits to people jailed on terrorism charges. . . . Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, 84, Cuban communist intellectual who held a number of top posts in Pres. Fidel Castro’s government, dies in Havana, Cuba, after suffering from Parkinson’s disease and a heart condition.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) opens a summit in Tehran, Iran, attended by some 28 heads of state, premiers, and crown princes. . . . North and South Korean diplomats meet in Geneva, Switzerland, for the first session of talks intended to reach a formal end to the 1950–53 Korean War.

Reports confirm that Chechen war hero Shamil Basayev was named Chechnya’s premier by Pres. Aslan Maskhadov.

U.S. secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright embarks on a tour of seven African nations: Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Congo, Angola, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.

Four homeless people are killed by a gunman while they are sleeping on a street in Rio. . . . In protest of increased fuel prices, thousands of workers take to the streets of La Paz, the capital of Bolivia.

The Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland rules that Swiss banks should return to the Philippine government some $100 million in assets linked to late Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos, capping an 11-year-long legal battle. . . . U.S. attorney general Janet Reno and high-level ministers from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Russia sign an agreement to combat crime committed over computer networks.

Kazakhstan’s parliament votes formally to move the capital to Akmola, a city of 300,000 that is 750 miles (1,200 km) north of the old capital, Almaty. . . . Officials reveal that the death toll from the Dec. 6 plane crash in the Siberian city of Irkutsk is 67 people, 23 of whom were on board the jet.

Jordan orders the expulsion of seven Iraqi diplomats in protest over Iraq’s recent hanging of four Jordanians accused of smuggling some $850 worth of automotive parts.

A UN summit on global warming closes with the adoption of the first international treaty that sets binding limits on nations’ emissions of carbon dioxide and five other socalled greenhouse gases. . . . The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) concludes with a joint declaration condemning terrorism as incompatible with Islam and denouncing Israeli settlement activities in East Jerusalem and other Arab territories occupied since 1967.

British prime minister Tony Blair holds a historic meeting in London with Gerry Adams, head of Sinn Fein, the IRA’s political wing. It is the first time in 76 years that a leader of Northern Ireland’s republican movement has visited Britain’s official prime ministerial residence at 10 Downing Street in London. . . . Eddie (Arnold Edward) Chapman, 83, British double agent during World War II, dies in Brickett Wood, near London.

Hutus wielding guns and machetes kill at least 231 people and wound some 200 others in Rwanda.

An international team of legal experts completes preliminary negotiations on the creation of an international criminal court that will adjudicate cases of genocide and other crimes against humanity.

In an apparent response to the Dec. 1 sentences in Spain, Jose Luis Caso, a Popular Party councilor, is shot to death in Renteria, Spain.

Dec. 7

Dec. 8

Europe

Asia & the Pacific Cambodia’s opposition leader Sam Rainsy holds a peace march in Phnom Penh, the capital, that draws an estimated 3,000 supporters.

The Thai government announces that it will close 56 of 58 suspended nonbank finance companies, which loan money to private firms. It is the first time Thailand allows licensed lenders to fail. The closing is applauded by international observers, including the IMF which approves a second payment, of $810 million. . . . Jenny Shipley is sworn in as New Zealand’s first woman prime minister. . . . A Chinese-appointed committee selects 36 delegates to represent Hong Kong in China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress, in 1998.

The Chinese government announces that it has cleared Australia as an “approved destination” for Chinese tourists, making Australia the first non-Asian nation to receive that status.

Chile’s ruling center-left Concertacion coalition takes a majority in midterm legislative elections.

In Paraguay, the former armed forces head and the ruling Colorado Party’s candidate in presidential elections, retired general Lino Cesar Oviedo, surrenders to authorities after spending more than a month as a fugitive.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

December 7–12, 1997—1071

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Reports confirm that Pres. Clinton has issued new, classified nuclear strike guidelines to top military officials, marking the first adjustment in U.S. nuclear defense strategy since 1981. The guidelines reportedly recommend diminishing military attention on Russia and focusing on threats posed by smaller, nonnuclear nations. A survey that asked political figures to rank the most influential groups shows that the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) tops a list of the nation’s most powerful interest groups. The AARP is followed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the AFL-CIO labor federation, the National Federation of Independent Business, and the Association of Trial Lawyers of America.

Dec. 7

New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art holds a gala tribute to murdered fashion designer Gianni Versace. . . . In Malibu, California, Judge Lawrence Mira sentences actor Robert Downey Jr., 32, to 180 days in jail for violating his 1996 probation by using drugs. . . . MOMA announces that Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi has won a competition for designs of an extension for the museum.

June Gibbs Brown, the inspector general of the Department of HHS, concludes that the Medicare program’s method of reimbursement for prescription drugs resulted in overpayments of $447 million for 22 major drugs in 1996. The study estimates that total Medicare overspending for all drugs in 1996 amounted to $667 million. . . . Michael H. Sutton, the chief accountant at the SEC, announces his resignation, effective in January 1998.

Bright flashes illuminate the night sky around the southern tip of Greenland in what scientists believe is an enormous meteor impact. Three boat crews scattered around southern Greenland observe the bright light at 5:11 A.M. local time, and seismic tremors are detected shortly thereafter at observation stations in Europe. In Hudson v. U.S., the Supreme Court rules, 9-0, that the Constitution’s protection against double jeopardy does not prohibit the government from imposing both criminal and civil fines for the same offense. . . . A federal jury in Kansas City, Kansas, awards $1.56 million in damages to Paula Hampton, a black woman who claims that she was stopped and searched at a Dillard’s department store because of her race. . . . U.S. District Court judge George O’Toole issues an injunction against enforcement of a 1996 Massachusetts law requiring tobacco makers to disclose the ingredients of cigarette brands.

Actor Christian Slater, 28, enters a no-contest plea on battery and substance-abuse charges and is sentenced to three months in jail, followed by three months in a residential drug-treatment facility.

Singer Elton John donates £20 million to the Princess of Wales Memorial Fund as the first installment of proceeds from his single that pays homage to Diana.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission fines Northeast Utilities $2.1 million, the largest penalty ever assessed by the agency, for safety flaws at the company’s Millstone nuclear power plant in Waterford, Connecticut. . . . Data reveals that the Postal Service recorded profits of $1.26 billion during fiscal year 1997, marking the third consecutive year that the historically cashstrapped institution’s profits have exceeded the billion-dollar mark. The 1997 revenues help reduce the Postal Service’s overall debt to $2.7 billion.

Thomas H. Beavers, 26, convicted of rape and murder, is put to death in Jarratt, Virginia. He is the 432nd person in the U.S. and the 46th in Virginia executed since 1976. He is also the 74th and final inmate executed in 1997, the largest number of executions since 1976. . . . A grand jury hands down an indictment against Henry Cisneros, former HUD secretary, charging that he lied in his 1993 confirmation hearings about payments to his former mistress, Linda Medlar.

The remains of M. Larry Lawrence, the former U.S. ambassador to Switzerland, are removed from Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia and transferred to a cemetery in San Diego, California, following discoveries that Lawrence lied about having served in the military.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for the first time allows a national bank to underwrite municipal bonds through an existing subsidiary, rather than requiring it to create a separate holding company. . . . William W. Winpisinger, 73, U.S. labor leader, Democratic Party official, and self-described “seat-of-the-pants socialist,” dies of cancer in Columbia, Maryland.

In Washington, D.C., Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issues a preliminary injunction ordering Microsoft to stop requiring computer manufacturers who ship their machines with Microsoft’s Windows operating systems to install Microsoft’s Internet browsing software. . . . A team of biologists report that they have fully decoded the genetic sequence of Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease.

Federal prosecutors in Little Rock, Arkansas, indict three white separatists—Chevie Kehoe, Daniel Lewis, Lee and Faron Lovelace— on murder and racketeering charges in connection with a plot to revolt against the U.S. government.

The U.S. government enacts a ban on cattle and sheep imports from Europe out of concern for the possible spread of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or madcow disease.

A survey finds that the percentage of female corporate officers at the U.S.’s largest 500 companies in 1997 grew to 10.6% from 10% in 1996. The number with no female officers grew to 120 from 105. . . . The Labor Department states that two NYC factories that make clothes for nationwide chains—MSL Sportswear and Laura and Sarah Sportswear—have flagrantly violated federal minimumwage and overtime laws. . . . Judge William Downes rules that a 1995 wolf reintroduction program in Yellowstone Park is illegal.

Reports reveal that thousands of seals and sea lions have died off the coast of the U.S. state of California because unusually warm weather has driven away fish and squid that the animals feed upon.

Dec. 8

Dec. 9

Dec. 10

Dec. 11

A federal judge sentences Autumn Jackson, 23, to 26 months in prison for trying to extort $40 million from entertainer Bill Cosby. . . . Roman Catholic bishops from the Western Hemisphere conclude a conference at the Vatican that had focused on the social and political challenges facing the church in North and South America.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 12

1072—December 13–18, 1997

World Affairs

Dec. 13

Dec. 14

Dec. 15

Dec. 16

Dec. 17

Dec. 18

Europe

The U.S. joins 101 other countries in signing the Global Financial Services Agreement, which essentially replaces an interim WTO pact that was concluded in July 1995. . . . The EU lays the groundwork for inviting six nations—including five former members of the Soviet bloc—to join the 15-nation body. EU leaders specifically exclude Turkey from the candidates, creating a major diplomatic rift.

Africa & the Middle East South African authorities arrest three Congolese men who were highranking officials in the government of the late Mobutu Sese Seko, Congo’s former ruler. . . . The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), using Iraqi government sources for much of its relevant statistics, claims that one-third of Iraqi children are malnourished and that the infant mortality rate in Iraq has doubled to 117 per thousand between 1991 and 1997.

Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) convene in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for their annual trade summit and to mark the 30th anniversary of the group.

In response to the EU’s Dec. 13 decision, Turkish premier Mesut Yilmaz states that his government will sever all political contacts with the EU, telling reporters in Ankara, the capital, “We will have no political dialogue with the [European] Union anymore.”

The UN General Assembly adopts a resolution that pledges international cooperation in the prosecution of terrorists.

In Moscow, Russia, temperatures of –26°F (–35°C) cause the death of five people with hypothermia and send another 138 to the hospital. It is the capital city’s coldest December 15 since 1882.

Foreign ministers from NATO countries agree to back an extension of NATO’s mission to Bosnia. Foreign ministers of the three Central and Eastern European countries invited to join NATO—Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary—sign documents to amend the 1949 Treaty of Washington, which created the Atlantic alliance. . . . The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reveals that malnutrition is related to more than half of child deaths worldwide. Six million children under the age of five die each year due to malnutrition.

A court in the Albanian-majority province of Kosovo hands 15 ethnic Albanians jail sentences of between four and 20 years for terrorism offenses. Two others are found not guilty. . . . Czech president Vaclav Havel names Josef Tosovsky as interim premier, replacing Vaclav Klaus, who has led the government since 1992.

Thirty-four countries sign a convention in Paris designed to combat bribery in international business.

Czech president Vaclav Havel swears in Josef Tosovsky as interim premier. . . . A Russian-built Yakovlev-42 airliner with 62 passengers en route to Odessa loses contact with air-traffic controllers. . . . Poland’s legislature votes to reimpose a strict abortion ban, in accordance with a May Constitutional Court ruling.

The IMF releases $3.5 billion in loan aid under its bailout agreement with South Korea, following a favorable review of South Korea’s performance under the agreement so far.

A squad of elite Dutch soldiers in central Bosnia-Herzegovina capture two Croats alleged to be war criminals. Both men—Vlatko Kupreskic and Anto Furundzija—have been linked to the massacres of dozens of Muslim civilians in the Lasva Valley in 1993.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Colombia, FARC kidnaps four journalists in the northwest Antioquia province. . . . Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz declares that Christmas (Dec. 25) will be a national holiday. The move is made at the request of Pope John Paul II, who is scheduled to visit Cuba in January 1998. Cuba, officially a communist, atheistic state, has not celebrated Christmas since 1969.

Reports indicate that violence concentrated in Rwanda’s northwest region has claimed an estimated 6,000 lives since April.

Guyana holds presidential elections.

The African National Congress (ANC), South Africa’s ruling party, holds its 50th annual conference in Mafeking.

A UN team investigating reports that some 2,000 Taliban fighters held captive in 1996 were killed reveals it has found hundreds of bodies in shallow graves about 90 miles (140 km) east of Mazar-iSharif. . . . In Japan, some 729 people, mostly children, are taken to hospitals after suffering violent reactions to a flashing explosion scene in a popular animated TV series, Pocket Monsters, or “Pokemon” for short. Some neurologists claim the seizures and other health problems are likely to be optically stimulated epilepsy.

In Guyana, hundreds of people demonstrate in Georgetown, the capital, in support of allegations of fraud in the Dec, 15 elections made by the People’s National Congress (PNC). . . . In Jamaica, the ruling People’s National Party (PNP), led by P.M. Percival Patterson, wins 49 of the 60 seats in Jamaica’s Parliament. The PNP will control the government for an unprecedented third consecutive term.

South Koreans end five decades of one-party rule by electing veteran opposition leader Kim Dae Jung president. He succeeds Pres. Kim Young Sam, who is prohibited by law from seeking another term. . . . Japan’s finance ministry announces penalties against Daiwa Securities Co. and Nikko Securities Co. for making illegal payments to racketeers.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

December 13–18, 1997—1073

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle In response to the suggestion that Vice Pres. Al Gore and his wife, Mary (Tipper) Gore were the models for the young lovers in Erich Segal’s 1970 novel Love Story, Segal explains that Gore was one of two real-life models for the book’s hero, but its heroine was not based on Tipper Gore at all. The other model for the hero was actor Tommy Lee Jones, Gore’s roommate at Harvard College.

Edna Kelly, 91, longtime Democratic member of Congress, 1949–69, and the first woman elected to Congress from Brooklyn, dies in Alexandria, Virginia, of undisclosed causes.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors reports that the demand for emergency food and housing is rising in spite of the strong economy and low jobless rates. According to a survey of 29 cities, demand for emergency food jumped 16% over the past year. That is the largest increase reported since 1992.

The New Jersey senate narrowly overrules Gov. Christine Todd Whitman’s (R) June veto of a bill to ban partial-birth abortion. . . . Pres. Clinton defies Senate Republicans by appointing Bill Lann Lee as assistant attorney general for civil rights in an acting capacity. Lee was nominated in June, but Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, unhappy with his support for affirmative action, blocked his confirmation.

The Department of Defense announces that it will vaccinate all U.S. soldiers against anthrax bacteria, one of the deadliest biological agents known, over the next six years.

The Clinton administration announces that employers will have to comply with a new law mandating parity for mental health-care coverage for at least six months before applying for an exemption.

In response to the Dec. 15 vote in New Jersey, U.S. district judge Anne Thompson issues a temporary restraining order barring enforcement of the ban on the lateterm abortion method known by its critics as partial-birth abortion.

A panel commissioned by Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, after conducting a six-month study of military training procedures, recommends that male and female recruits be separated during a significant portion of their basic training.

A survey of state governments’ finances indicates that states’ revenues are rising and allowing modest tax cuts. The report projects that the 50 states will have aggregate budget surpluses totaling $24 billion at the end of the current fiscal year. The states had a record surplus of $29.2 billion in the fiscal year that ended in 1997. . . . In Helena, Montana, Judge Charles C. Lovell refuses to block government officials from slaughtering bison that stray outside the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park, as per a plan adopted in 1996.

State child welfare officials in New Jersey agree to allow homosexual couples to jointly adopt children in the same way as heterosexual married couples. . . . The City Council of New York votes in favor of the nation’s tightest restrictions on outdoor cigarette advertising. . . . Anthony T. Ulasewicz, 79, key witness at the U.S. Senate’s Watergate hearings, which led to the resignation of U.S. president Richard Nixon, dies in Glens Falls, New York.

In Laredo, Texas, Judge Marcel C. Notzon releases from prison Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, a Rwandan man charged with genocide, because the U.S. and the tribunal do not have an extradition treaty with one another. . . . A judge in Miami, Florida, orders Cuba to pay $187.6 million in punitive and compensatory damages to the families of three of the four U.S. pilots shot down in February 1996 by Cuban fighter jets in international waters. The suit is the first to be tried under the U.S.’s Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.

In Washington, D.C., Judge Royce C. Lamberth fines the government $285,864 for misrepresenting the nature of the federal task force that developed Pres. Clinton’s failed health care reform proposals during his first term. . . . A federal judge in New York City sentences organized-crime boss Vincent (The Chin) Gigante, convicted in July, to 12 years in prison.

Pres. Clinton announces that U.S. troops will remain in Bosnia after the withdrawal of the current Stabilization Force (SFOR), led by NATO.

Stubby Kaye, 79, actor known for his role in the classic Broadway musical Guys and Dolls, dies of lung cancer in Rancho Mirage, California.

Officials of the CDC and WHO state that scientists with both institutions are working to develop a vaccine for a strain of influenza virus that has infected six people in Hong Kong since May, killing two of them. The virus, H5N1, was not previously been found in humans but is common in waterfowl and chickens.

Forbes magazine’s list of the 40 highest-paid athletes puts basketball star Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls at the top, with $78.3 million in earnings in 1997, $31.3 million of which comes from his salary and the rest is mainly from endorsements.

Thanking the public for submitting hundreds of names for his new dog, Pres. Clinton states that he will call the Labrador retriever puppy Buddy. . . . Lillian B. Disney (born Lillian Bounds) , 98, widow of Walt Disney and a philanthropist who helped found the California Institute of the Arts, dies in Los Angeles after suffering a stroke.

Pres. Clinton signs a bill exempting the National Academy of Sciences from openness rules of the 1972 Federal Advisory Committee Act. . . . Astronomers present images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope showing the dying phases of stars in unprecedented detail. . . . R(eginald) V(ictor) Jones, 86, British physicist who, during World War II, came up with various ways to thwart Nazi military technology, dies of a heart attack in Aberdeen, Scotland.

In New York City, Judge David Edelstein orders the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union to pay for the 1998 rerun of its 1996 presidential election with its own funds, arguing that the Teamsters are “merely being called upon to pay the price for undoing the harm they caused.” The order removes the federal government, which has financed the union’s elections since 1989, from financial responsibility for the upcoming race.

Dec. 13

Dec. 14

Dec. 15

Dec. 16

Dec. 17

Chris Farley, 33, portly comedian and actor known for playing likable, buffoonish characters, is found dead in his Chicago, Illinois, apartment. . . . Pres. Clinton makes public his nomination of William Ivey to head the NEA.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 18

1074—December 19–24, 1997

Dec. 19

Dec. 20

World Affairs

Europe

The UN General Assembly approves the establishment of a new deputy secretary general post.

Judges of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia agree to free three suspected war criminals—Marinko Katava, Pero Skopljak, and Ivan Santic—on the recommendation of the tribunal’s chief prosecutor, Louise Arbour, who cites insufficient evidence against the three men.

The Gulf Cooperation Council of six oil-rich Persian Gulf states holds its annual summit in Kuwait City, the capital of Kuwait.

Rescue teams searching mountainous terrain near Salonika, Greece, uncover the wreckage of a Russian-built Yakovlev-42 airliner that had lost contact with air-traffic controllers Dec. 17. All 62 passengers and eight crew members are found dead at the crash site. . . . A Greek C-130 military plane crashes near Athens, the Greek capital, in foggy conditions, killing all five officers on board.

Dec. 21

Dec. 22

The UN General Assembly approves a UN budget that calls for $2.53 billion in spending over two years.

Dec. 23

Dec. 24

The IMF, the U.S., Japan, and 11 other countries agree to the early release to South Korea of $10 billion of the $57 billion IMF-led rescue package set earlier in the month. . . . Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, a Venezuelan-born terrorist better known as “Carlos” and “the Jackal,” is convicted by a Paris court of the 1975 slaying of two French intelligence agents and a Lebanese informant. A 12-member panel sentences the self-styled “professional revolutionary” to life in prison. The murders constitute one of several terrorist acts in the 1970s and 1980s to which Carlos has been linked.

Africa & the Middle East Hutu rebels attack a Tutsi refugee camp and an army barracks in Gisenyi, a town near Rwanda’s border with Congo. At least 52 people die. In the another incident, Hutu rebels kill about 30 civilians in the village of Bugogwe, near Gisenyi. . . . South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission files criminal charges against former president P. W. Botha for ignoring an order that he testify before the panel. . . . WHO reveals that a cholera epidemic in East Africa has affected 61,534 people and killed 2,687.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Interim prime minister Janet Jagan, the widow of late Pres. Cheddi Jagan, is declared the winner of presidential elections held Dec. 15 in Guyana. She is sworn in amid charges of election fraud by her main opponent, former president Desmond Hoyte. Jagan is the first white president of Guyana, a small nation in northern South America populated mainly by people of East Indian and African descent.

A Boeing jet crashes on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, killing all 104 passengers and crew aboard. . . . Masaru Ibuka, 89, Japanese engineer who, with Akio Morita, cofounded Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corp. in 1946, which was renamed Sony Corp. in 1958, dies in Tokyo, Japan, of congestive heart failure.

South Korean president Kim Young Sam and President-elect Kim Dae Jung agree on granting pardons to Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo, two of the former military presidents who persecuted Presidentelect Kim Dae Young in the past. . . . Juzo Itami (born Yoshihiro Ikeuchi), 64, Japanese film director known for his satirical comedies, leaps to his death from a Tokyo rooftop amid allegations that he is having an affair.

Lithuanians give Arturas Paulauskas the largest number of votes in the Baltic state’s second presidential election since independence in 1991. Paulauskas will face a runoff with Valdas Adamkus. . . . Voters in Serbia, which along with Montenegro makes up the Yugoslav federation, in a runoff vote elect the ruling Socialist Party’s Milan Milutinovic as president.

Nigeria’s military government discloses that 11 senior army officers have been arrested after a failed coup attempt.

Leftist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) attack a remote military base atop Mount Patascoy in the southwest province of Narino.

Laos holds parliamentary elections in which 159 candidates are running for spots in the 99-member National Assembly. All but four of the candidates are members of the ruling communist People’s Revolutionary Party. . . . Citizens of the town of Nago on the island of Okinawa vote in a referendum against the opening of an offshore U.S. helicopter base near the town.

The Turkish government discloses that it is expelling Greek diplomat Efstratios Haralambous, accused of spying. . . . Bruce Woodcock, 76, British heavyweight boxing champion, 1945–50, dies in Doncaster, England.

Leaders of rival factions in Somalia’s six-year-old civil war sign a landmark peace plan after more than a month of negotiations.

Gunmen raid the Tzotzil Indian village of Acteal in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, killing 45 men, women, and children and wounding at least 25 others. It is the worst violence in Chiapas since January 1994. The victims of the Acteal attack reportedly sympathize with, but are not members of, the EZLN. . . . At least seven people, mainly soldiers and police, are killed across Colombia in attacks by the FARC and the National Liberation Army rebel group.

Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo, two of the former South Korean military presidents who persecuted President-elect Kim Dae Young in the past, are released from prison after being pardoned by current president Kim Young Sam in an agreement reached Dec. 20. . . . The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) finds that there has been an “escalation of repression” in Tibet in the past two years and describes the actions as China’s “total war” on Tibet’s exiled leader, the Dalai Lama.

In retaliation for Turkey’s Dec. 22 expulsion of a Greak diplomat, Greece expels a Turkish diplomat. . . . Juergen Schneider, a wellknown German property developer, is sentenced by Judge Heinrich Gehrke to six years and nine months in prison for bilking some of the country’s largest banks out of millions of German marks. The verdict ends a 31⁄2-year effort by German prosecutors.

In Guyana, reports confirm that continued protests by opposition supporters have led to incidents of sporadic violence. Police defuse two bombs found near President-elect Janet Jagan’s official residence. Jagan names Samuel Hinds, who was acting president, as prime minister.

A violent storm carrying winds of up to 80 miles per hour (130 kmph) strikes southern Britain, killing 13 people and cutting off power to thousands of homes.

Data shows that heavy rains and flooding linked to the El Nino weather system has killed nine people and destroyed 6,820 acres (2,763 hectares) of crops in north and central Peru in December. . . . Reports confirm that Celso Pitta, the mayor of the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo, and 16 other defendants were convicted of fraud for an illegal bond issue while Pitta was Sao Paulo’s finance secretary. . . . Pierre Peladeau, 72, Canadian newspaper publisher, dies in Montreal three weeks after lapsing into a coma induced by a heart attack.

Toshiro Mifune, 77, Japanese film actor who embodied the heroic qualities of the samurai warrior in numerous films, dies of organ failure in Mitaka, Japan.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

December 19–24, 1997—1075

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upholds a California law established in a 1990 referendum that sets term limits for California state legislators. The 9-2 ruling overturns two earlier rulings.

Gueorgui Makharadze, a diplomat from the former Soviet republic of Georgia, receives a prison sentence of seven to 21 years in connection with the January death of teenager Joviane Waltrick in a District of Columbia car crash. Makharadze was drinking before the crash.

The USDA agrees to open a sixmonth mediation process to settle a backlog of nearly 1,000 discrimination complaints brought by black farmers, some dating back to the early 1980s. The agreement heads off a $2 billion class-action lawsuit brought in August by more than 200 of those farmers. . . . Data shows that the IRS withheld a record $1.1 billion in delinquent child support from deadbeat parents in 1996. In each case, the money was returned to the parent supporting children or, if a family was receiving welfare, to the state.

A study shows that nearly half of graduating seniors have reported that they smoked marijuana, up from 45% in 1996. Among eighth graders, 29.4% report use of illegal drugs, down from 31.2% the previous year.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Dec. 19

The White House announces the reversal of Pres. Clinton’s Oct. 16 line-item veto of a plan to allow 1.1 million federal workers to switch to a stock-based pension plan. . . . Esther Peterson, 91, labor movement and women’s rights lobbyist, dies in Washington, D.C., after a stroke.

Dawn Steel, 51, the first woman to head a major Hollywood studio when she was appointed president of Columbia Pictures in 1987, dies of brain cancer in Los Angeles. . . . Denise Levertov, 74, British-born poet, essayist, and political activist, dies of complications of lymphoma in Seattle, Washington.

Brazil wins the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Confederations Cup, beating Australia, 6-0, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Federal archivists release a 1963 memorandum supporting the theory that Pres. John F. Kennedy intended to end the U.S.’s military involvement in Vietnam during his second term. . . . The Mississippi Supreme Court upholds the conviction of Byron De La Beckwith, who was found guilty in 1994 of the slaying of civil-rights leader Medgar Evers in 1963.

The Department of Energy releases hundreds of thousands of declassified documents as well as numerous films, including 1960s footage of a pair of groundbreaking, portable nuclear weapons—eventually discontinued—that were capable of being transported and operated by individual soldiers. . . . The Defense Department admits that botulinum toxoid, a vaccine with unknown side effects, was given to 8,000 Persian Gulf War soldiers. The vaccine, intended to protect soldiers against chemical and biological weapons, is being investigated as a possible cause of veterans’ health problems.

A federal jury in Denver, Colorado, convicts Terry L. Nichols of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter for his role in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, that killed 168 people. . . . Pres. Clinton grants Christmas-week pardons to 21 people convicted of federal crimes ranging from petty theft to bank robbing to bootlegging to cocaine dealing.

Pres. Clinton signs an executive order that allows thousands of illegal immigrants from Haiti who are seeking political asylum to remain in the U.S. for at least one year.

The FDA approves the sale of Propecia, a prescription pill treatment for male pattern baldness made by Merck & Co. Inc. . . . Time magazine names Andrew Steven Grove as 1997’s “Man of the Year.” Grove, the 61-year-old chairman and chief executive officer of Intel Corp., is described as “the person most responsible for the amazing growth in the power and innovative potential of microchips.”

The insurance department of New York State fines Connecticutbased Oxford Health Plans Inc., one of the largest health maintenance organizations in the New York City area, $3 million, for violating state regulations. . . . The probation of Michael Milken, a convicted former junk bond financier, is extended to Jan. 23, 1998.

Thirty brokerage firms agree to pay $910 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that investors brought against them in July 1994.

A Los Angeles jury awards actress Hunter Tylo, 34, nearly $5 million in a pregnancy-discrimination lawsuit against the producers of the TV show Melrose Place. Tylo was fired in 1996 after revealing that she was pregnant. . . . Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier, remains at the top of the bestseller list.

Filmmaker and actor Woody Allen, 62, marries Soon-Yi Previn, 27, in Venice, Italy. Previn was the adopted daughter of actress Mia Farrow, Allen’s former companion, and composer-conductor Andre Previn, Farrow’s second husband.

FEMA notes that it spent $1.38 billion in aid for relief from natural disasters in 1997. . . . EarthWatch Inc. of the U.S. launches EarlyBird 1, the world’s first commercial spy satellite, from a site in eastern Russia.

Dec. 20

Dec. 21

Dec. 22

Dec. 23

Dec. 24

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1076—December 25–30, 1997

World Affairs

Europe Giorgio Strehler, 76, Italian theater director who, with Paolo Grassi in 1947, founded one of Europe’s most important theaters, the Piccolo Teatro in Milan, Italy, dies of a heart attack in Lugano, Switzerland.

Dec. 25

Government security forces arrest Kenneth Kaunda, Zambia’s former president. . . . .The members of newly elected municipal councils in Algeria choose representatives to the upper house of Parliament. Mustapha Benmansour, the interior minister, announces that the ruling National Democratic Rally won 80 of the 96 seats up for election.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the National Front, a right-wing, antiimmigrant political party, is convicted by a French court of denying Nazi crimes against humanity, a criminal offense under French law. The court fines him 300,000 francs ($50,000).

Dec. 26

The Population Institute warns that, although worldwide birth rates are declining, they remain high in countries “least able to support their growing millions.” The report projects that 74 countries, including Nigeria, Iran, and Pakistan, will double their populations in 30 years. . . . South Africa and China establish formal diplomatic relations. With the recognition of China, South Africa severs its official relations with Taiwan.

Asia & the Pacific

A group of mourners from Acteal, Mexico, the village that was the site of the Dec. 22 massacre, and from neighboring villages stop a truck filled with some 24 men, charging that they were responsible for the killings.

Mexican attorney general Jorge Madrazo Cuellar announces that 16 people have been charged with first-degree murder in connection with the Dec. 22 massacre in Acteal, Chiapas. . . . Simone Duvalier, 73, 83 or 84, widow of François (Papa Doc) Duvalier, who ruled Haiti, 1957–71, dies in the Parisian suburb of St.-Cloud, France. Mexican authorities arrest Jacinto Arias Cruz, the PRI mayor of Chenalho, the municipality where the Dec. 22 attack occurred. Twenty-three others are also charged, almost all of whom are Tzotzil Indians. An estimated 3,000 Tzotzil Indians begin to flee to a refugee center in Polho, near Acteal.

An estimated 97 people are killed in a series of raids on villages and at fake roadblocks in Algeria. In one such attack, assailants slit the throats of 34 civilians, including 11 children, in a village in the Medea region, south of Algiers, the capital. . . . The supreme administrative court, Egypt’s highest court, upholds a health ministry ban on the genital cutting of girls and women, a ban that was temporarily lifted in June.

At the maximum-security Sorocaba prison, 50 miles (80 km) west of the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil, inmates take some 650 guards and visiting relatives hostage after a failed escape attempt. Two people—an inmate and a female visitor—are killed during the takeover.

Turkey reveals that its military forces have completed their most recent offensive against guerrillas of the Iraq-based Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a separatist group that seeks to establish self-rule in southeastern Turkey. . . . Members of the Loyalist Volunteer Force claim that the Dec. 27 attack on Seamus Dillon was in reprisal for Billy Wright’s Dec. 27 death. . . . In France, jobless protesters occupy nine employment offices and demand bonus payments of $500 to supplement their benefits.

Palestine National Authority (PNA) leader Yasser Arafat agrees to accept the resignation of his cabinet in the face of a looming no-confidence vote by the elected Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC).

Argentina and Chile sign an accord on mining along the countries’ shared border.

The British government releases its list of New Year’s honors, which names 976 recipients of knighthoods, life peerages, and other honors. . . . The Antwerp Bourse, which has been operating since 1531, shuts down permanently. . . . Danilo Dolci, 73, Italian social activist, labor organizer, and literary figure twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, dies of heart failure in Sicily.

Armed assailants kill 21 civilians in the village of Ouled Kherarba, Algeria. . . . Police shoot and kill three demonstrators outside a location where votes are being counted in Kenya.

The Venezuelan government states that 282 inmates were killed and 1,294 others injured in prison violence in 1997. Venezuela’s total prison population is 24,262 at the end of 1997, but the prison system is designed to hold 15,361 inmates. . . . Colombian army commander Mario Hugo Galan reports that some 4,000 troops were sent to a remote military base atop Mount Patascoy that was attacked by FARC guerillas Dec. 21.

Dec. 28

Dec. 29

The Americas

In Egypt, a pro-tenant organization claims that six farmers were killed and 50 others injured in confrontations with law-enforcement officials in the month of November.

Billy Wright, one of the most notorious leaders of Northern Ireland’s Protestant militants, is shot and killed by Roman Catholic extremist inmates inside the high-security Maze Prison near Lisburn, Northern Ireland. Police claim that the killers belong to the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), a Catholic guerrilla group that broke off from the Provisional IRA. Later, Seamus Dillon, a Catholic and former IRA member, is shot and killed at the Dungannon Hotel in County Tyrone. . . . A boatload of 825 refugees, also mostly Kurds, arrived in Italy.

Dec. 27

Dec. 30

Africa & the Middle East

Lt. Gen. La Kha Phieu is appointed secretary general of Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party, the country’s most powerful post. . . . Hong Kong authorities and poultry vendors begin the destruction of the territory’s 1.2 million chickens in an effort to prevent the further spread to humans of a fowl-borne strain of influenza virus.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

December 25–30, 1997—1077

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Denver Pyle, 77, television character actor, dies in Burbank, California, of lung cancer. . . . Pope John Paul II delivers his “Urbi et Orbi” (“To the City and the World”) annual Christmas message from St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. His address is televised live in some 70 countries.

Dec. 25

Dec. 26

James M. Nabrit Jr., 97, lawyer in civil-rights cases and educator who served as president of Howard University, 1960–69, dies in Washington, D.C.

Brendan Gill, 83, author whose association with the New Yorker magazine dated back to 1936, dies in New York City.

Dec. 27

Dec. 28

Arkansas-based poultry processor Tyson Foods Inc. pleads guilty to making more than $12,000 in illegal gifts to former agriculture secretary Mike Espy in 1993. As part of a plea agreement obtained by independent counsel Donald Smaltz, the company agrees to pay $4 million in fines and $2 million toward the cost of the investigation. . . . Pres. Clinton authorizes pay raises that range between 2.3% and 2.8% for all federal workers except himself.

A total of 83 passengers and crew are injured and one passenger dies when United Airlines Flight 826 hits severe air turbulence midway between Tokyo’s Narita airport and Honolulu, Hawaii.

The Conference Board reports that its index of consumer confidence leaped in December to 134.5, from a revised November reading of 128.1. The December figure marks the confidence index’s highest level in 28 years.

Dec. 29

Reports confirm that the Church of Scientology paid $12.5 million to the IRS in October 1993 as part of a deal under which the IRS grants the church tax-exempt status. . . . Warren Mehrtens, 77, jockey made famous during races in 1946, dies in Sarasota, Florida.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 30

1078—December 31, 1997

Dec. 31

World Affairs

Europe

Year-end data shows that stock markets worldwide rose 12.3%. Analysts note that strong market performances in the Americas and Europe enabled the global index to record double-digit returns despite a financial crisis that affected much of Southeast Asia during the last half of 1997. The London Stock Exchange 100 in Britain climbed 24.7% in 1997. Japan’s market plunged in 1997, as the Nikkei average on the Tokyo Stock Exchange fell 30.2% from the previous year.

Turkey reports that 86 Kurd separatists and four KDP troops were killed in the most recent offensive against guerrillas of the Iraq-based Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a separatist group that sought to establish self-rule in southeastern Turkey. . . . Unidentified masked gunmen fire on New Years revelers at a pub in Belfast frequented largely by Catholics, killing one person and wounding five others. . . . France’s New Year’s Eve celebrations in Strasbourg and in the suburbs of Paris erupt into violence due to frustration over joblessness. Revelers in Strasbourg throw firebombs, set more than 50 cars on fire, and destroy telephone booths and bus shelters. In Yvelines and Seine-Saint-Denis, near Paris, cars are set ablaze, and responding firefighters are pelted with stones.

Africa & the Middle East Although counting continues, Kenyan president Daniel T. arap Moi appears poised to win national elections. The police reveal that rioters beat and burned to death five suspected Moi supporters during the election period. . . . The Algerian government discloses that 78 people were killed and 68 others wounded in three separate massacres during the first 24 hours of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. In the village of Ouled Selma, 29 people are killed, and, in the village of Ouled Taieb, 28 people die.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Some 250 riot troops storm the maximum-security Sorocaba prison, 50 miles (80 km) west of the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil, freeing some 650 people held hostage by 20 inmates. The troops reclaim control of the prison without firing a shot.

Pakistan’s electoral college elects Mohammad Rafiq Tarar as the country’s new president by an overwhelming majority.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

December 31, 1997—1079

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Judge Joe Kendall of U.S. District Court in Wichita Falls, Texas, strikes down a central provision of the 1996 Telecommunications Act when he rules unconstitutional a provision of the act that prohibits regional “Baby Bell” phone companies from entering the long-distance market until they convince the FCC that their markets are open to competition. . . . The dollar closes at 1.7980 marks, up from the 1996 year-end rate of 1.5400 marks. The dollar closes at 130.57 yen, up from the previous year’s final rate of 115.85 yen. The Dow Jones closes at 7908.25, up 1459.98 points, or 22.64%, from the 1996 year-end level of 6448.27. The NASDAQ rose 21.64% during the year to close at 1570.37. The Nasdaq closed at 1291.03 in 1996. The AMEX closes at 684.61, up 19.62% from its close of 583.28 in 1996. The Dow global index shows the U.S. market up 31.7%, while the more inclusive Dow Jones industrial average shows a 22.6% rise for U.S. blue-chip stocks.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Michael LeMoyne Kennedy, 39, sixth of the 11 children of the late Sen. Robert Kennedy (D, N.Y.) who served as campaign manager for his uncle, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.) and his brother Rep. Joseph Kennedy II (D, Mass.), and whose career was marred by allegations that he had an affair with an underage baby-sitter, dies in Aspen, Colorado, of head and neck injuries sustained from crashing into a tree while skiing and simultaneously playing a makeshift game of football with members of his family. . . . Dominique De Menil, 89, art collector and philanthropist, dies in Houston, Texas.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 31

1998 The Taliban gather in the streets of Kandahar to protest against U.S. air strikes, Afghanistan, 1998.

1082—January–August 1998

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May

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July

Aug.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Turkey’s highest court, the Constitutional Court, imposes a ban on the Welfare (Refah) Party, the country’s largest party. The court finds that the party, which supports adherence to Islamic teachings in the formation of laws, violates provisions in the Turkish constitution mandating a secular political system.

The Algerian government’s firstever official count of 26,536 deaths in the civil war contrasts with reports by the media and humanrights organizations, which place the death toll at more than 75,000.

Pope John Paul II makes an unprecedented tour of Cuba. The tour is the pope’s first visit to Cuba—the only major Latin American country he has not previously visited.

A court in Poonamallee, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, India, condemns 26 people to death by hanging for their roles in the 1991 assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. The sentencing of the defendants ends the longest assassination trial in India’s history.

Iraq and the UN sign an accord that affirms the right of UN arms inspectors to immediate and unconditional access to suspected Iraqi weapons sites. The deal averts an imminent U.S.-led campaign of retaliatory air strikes against Iraq.

The Albanian separatist Kosovo Liberation Army launches attacks across Kosovo, raising fears of a new ethnic conflict in the Balkans.

Nigerian-led peacekeeping troops under the banner of an alliance of West African nations known as ECOMOG oust Sierra Leone’s military government from power.

A team of more than 200 humanrights observers alleges that the Mexican government is targeting foreigners as “a way of distracting from the conflict” in Chiapas and finds that the standoff between the EZLN and government supporters in the state is growing more dangerous.

Kim Dae Jung of the National Congress for New Politics party is inaugurated as South Korea’s president. Kim’s inauguration marks the first transfer of power from the ruling party to an opposition in South Korea’s history.

Floods and mudslides from El Niño storms in Peru have resulted in 200 fatalities, left 80,000 people homeless, and caused at least $700 million in damage. In Bolivia, 130 people have died and 70,000 others have been left homeless as a result of El Niño. In Ecuador, at least 135 people have died, and 30,000 others have been left homeless by El Niño.

As violence continues, Serbian police launch a large-scale assault against the Albanian separatist Kosovo Liberation Army in Kosovo.

King Hassan of Morocco appoints Morocco’s first opposition-led government since the country gained independence in 1956.

Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, Chile’s former president, is sworn in as a senator for life. In response, a fistfight breaks out on the Senate floor between legislators who oppose and support Pinochet. Thousands of people protest Pinochet in the streets of Santiago and Valparaiso.

Reports confirm that fighting has erupted for control of the major northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan.

Britain and France ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), becoming the first nations with nuclear-weapons capabilities to do so.

Political leaders tentatively agree to a groundbreaking settlement aimed at ending the long-running sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland. The settlement proposes fundamental changes in the way Northern Ireland was governed and requires approval by the Irish people and the British and Irish Parliaments.

Iran and Iraq begin a prisoner of war (POW) exchange of captives taken during the two nations’ 1980–88 war.

Roman Catholic bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera, who heads the human rights office of the Guatemala City archdiocese, presents a harsh critique of the Guatemalan army’s human-rights record during the country’s 36-year-long civil war. When he is found dead soon after, thousands of mourners gather in Guatemala City for a march and a candlelight vigil.

Pol Pot (born Saloth Sar), leader of the Khmer Rouge whose age is reportedly between 73 and 76, dies of heart failure at a jungle outpost near the Dangrek mountains in Cambodia. Pol Pot was charged with overseeing the deaths of as many as 2 million people from 1975 to 1979 and evaded international efforts to capture him and try him for genocide.

India detonates five underground nuclear devices, and Pakistan conducts six underground nuclear tests. The actions draw international condemnation and raise concerns about an escalating nuclear arms race in South Asia.

Tajikistan’s secular government and Islamist opposition forces agree to withdraw their troops from Dushanbe, the capital, and its surrounding areas.

Clashes erupt between Ethiopia and Eritrea in a disputed region, touching off an intense armed conflict.

Hundreds of thousands of people across Colombia stop work to protest the recent upsurge in political violence.

Amid widespread protests and rioting, Indonesian president Suharto resigns, ending his 32 years of nearly autocratic rule over Indonesia. Vice Pres. Bacharuddin Jusuf (B.J.) Habibie, is sworn in as his successor.

About 80 military aircraft from NATO countries conduct airborne exercises near the Yugoslav border over Albania and Macedonia in an effort to pressure the Yugoslav republic of Serbia to stop using military force against ethnic Albanian separatists in the province of Kosovo.

Voters in Northern Ireland cast ballots in the first election for the British-controlled province’s new 108-seat local legislature. Candidates who favor the peace plan capture a large majority of seats in the new Northern Ireland Assembly.

Brigadier General Ansumane Mane, Guinea-Bissau’s former army chief of staff, leads a mutiny against the government, launching waves of violence.

Reports reveal that Brazil’s Federal Indian Bureau has discovered a previously unknown Indian tribe living in a remote region of the Amazon rain forest, near the border with Peru. Little is known about the customs, language, or name of the tribe, which is believed to comprise about 200 people who rely on fishing and hunting for sustenance.

A powerful cyclone, packing winds of up to 95 miles per hour (150 km per hour), lashes India’s western coastal state of Gujarat. Officials state that the cyclone is the most severe storm to hit the state since 1973.

UN member states vote in favor of a treaty authorizing the creation of a permanent international court for the adjudication of war crimes.

Spain’s Supreme Court sentence 12 government officials for illegal acts connected to the government’s effort to silence the Basque separatist movement. The ruling rekindles the long-running controversy over the “Dirty War,” in which the government allegedly sponsored death squads in the 1980s.

Moshood K. O. Abiola, 60, who claimed to be Nigeria’s rightful head of state since his apparent victory in 1993 presidential elections, dies suddenly, reportedly of a heart attack, while imprisoned in Abuja, the capital. His death, which comes as Nigeria’s military government appears poised to announce his release from prison, sets off violent ethnic rioting in several major cities.

To mark the 100th anniversary of the landing of U.S. troops on the island of Puerto Rico, the Puerto Rican Independence Party holds a pro-independence rally in Guanica. At the same time, the pro-commonwealth Popular Democratic Party holds a rally in the capital, San Juan, marking the 46th anniversary of the creation of Puerto Rico’s commonwealth.

Chen Xitong is convicted and sentenced to 16 years in prison on charges of corruption and dereliction of duty. Chen, a former member of the party’s Politburo, is the highest-ranking Chinese leader to be imprisoned since 1978.

The Iraqi government of Pres. Saddam Hussein states that it is freezing cooperation with UN weapons inspectors to underscore its insistence that crippling UN sanctions imposed against Iraq since 1991 must end.

A car bomb explodes in the town of Omagh, in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, killing 28 people and wounding 220 others. The blast is widely regarded as the worst act of violence yet in the long-running conflict between the British-controlled province’s Roman Catholic and Protestant residents.

Two bombs explode within minutes of each other near the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing more than 250 people. U.S., Kenyan, and Tanzanian officials assert that the bombings are most likely aimed at the U.S.

Colombia’s two main rebel groups— FARC and the ELN—launch a fierce nationwide offensive that is widely seen as an intended reminder of the guerrillas’ strength in advance of planned peace talks.

Hun Sen wins in Cambodia’s national election, but thousands of demonstrators march through the streets of Phnom Penh soon after, calling for his ouster. The demonstrators argue that the election was tainted by fraud and voter intimidation.

World Affairs

Europe

The UN World Food Program launches an appeal for $378 million to provide emergency food aid to North Korea in the largest such effort in the program’s history.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

January–August 1998—1083

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Allegations that Pres. Clinton had a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a 21-year-old White House intern, almost instantaneously balloon into what is called the greatest crisis the Clinton White House has ever faced.

In Washington, D.C., Judge Stanley Sporkin orders the U.S. Navy to cease its efforts to discharge Senior Chief Petty Officer Timothy R. McVeigh, who had listed himself as homosexual in a personal profile on the America Online (AOL) computer service.

The first-ever public disclosure detailing the Senate’s spending on oversight activities reveals that Senate committees spent nearly $190 million on investigations and regular operating costs, such as staff salaries and office expenses, since Republicans took control of Congress in January 1995.

A team of scientists reports that it discovered seven 92-million-yearold ant fossils preserved in amber in Cliffwood Beach, New Jersey.

The Times of London begins serializing previously unpublished poems by British poet laureate Ted Hughes about his late wife, American poet Sylvia Plath. It is the first time he has written at length about Plath since her 1963 suicide.

Dr. David Satcher is sworn in as U.S. surgeon general, filling a post vacant for more than three years.

The U.S. ends a 35-year ban on the sale of weapons and weapons technology to South Africa.

The Standard & Poor’s index of 500 stocks closes above the 1000point mark.

A total solar eclipse is visible in parts of South America and the Caribbean The event is to be the last total solar eclipse appearing in the Western Hemisphere until the year 2017.

Tara Lipinski of the U.S. wins the gold medal in the women’s figure skating competition at the Winter Olympics. Lipinski, 15, is the youngest person ever to win an Olympic gold medal in figure skating.

Data shows that the number of organized hate groups in the U.S. rose in 1997 to 474. The report notes that 163 hate-group websites have appeared on the Internet since the first such site was posted in 1995.

In a ceremony at the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial in Washington, D.C., the army honors Hugh Thompson, Lawrence Colburn, and Glenn Andreotta, three former servicemen who 30 years earlier risked their lives to halt a massacre in My Lai, Vietnam, in which U.S. troops killed hundreds of unarmed civilians.

Democratic fund-raiser Johnny Chung pleads guilty to using “conduit” donors to funnel $20,000 in illegal contributions to the 1996 reelection campaign of Pres. Clinton and Vice Pres. Al Gore. He is the first person charged in a Justice Department investigation of fund-raising abuses in the 1996 election cycle who agrees to cooperate with prosecutors.

Astronomers reveal that they have observed a complete “Einstein ring” created by gravitational lensing. It is the first time the image of a complete Einstein ring has been captured in the infrared or visible light wavelengths. Einstein rings are named after physicist Albert Einstein, whose general theory of relativity predicted their existence.

In a long-awaited statement on the actions of the Roman Catholic Church during the Holocaust of World War II, the Vatican apologizes to Jews for the Roman Catholic Church’s failure to take decisive action to prevent Nazi Germany’s extermination of more than 6 million Jews.

The Arizona Supreme Court strikes down Arizona’s English-only law, which required state and local governments to use only English in all official business.

Jose Villafuerte, 45, a Honduran convicted of murder, is executed by lethal injection in Florence, Arizona, despite Honduran pleas for clemency since Villafuerte was denied his right, under the Vienna Convention, to contact the Honduran consulate after his arrest.

The Dow closes above the 9000 mark for the first time.

Two teams of astronomers announce they have independently observed evidence of the early formation of a group of planets around a young star.

Rudolph Kos, a former Roman Catholic priest in Dallas, Texas, is sentenced to life in prison for sexually assaulting altar boys an estimated 1,350 times over five years.

Federal judge Norma Holloway Johnson orders members of the Secret Service to testify before a grand jury investigating whether Pres. Clinton illegally tried to cover up an affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Military representatives exhume the unidentified Vietnam War soldier buried in the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. The remains are to undergo previously unavailable genetic tests in an effort to determine the soldier’s identity and thus address the hopes of those who believe that the remains might belong to a member of their family.

The Clinton administration forecasts a $39 billion budget surplus in the current fiscal year. The surplus, if achieved, will be the federal government’s first surplus since 1969. The OMB forecasts an aggregate surplus of $495 billion over the next five years and $1.477 trillion over 10 years.

Astronomers announce that a picture taken by the Hubble Space Telescope appears to include the first image ever of a planet outside the Earth’s solar system.

Frank (Francis Albert) Sinatra, 82, American icon and one of the most popular entertainers of the 20th century, dies of a heart attack in Los Angeles, California.

In Clinton v. City of New York, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that the Line Item Veto Act is unconstitutional.

Congress passes and Pres. Clinton signs a bill that will create a 21member panel to look for assets of Holocaust victims in the coffers of government agencies.

Pres. Clinton extends by 10 years an existing ban on offshore oil drilling along most of the U.S. coastline. Clinton also places an indefinite moratorium on oil exploration in several marine sanctuaries, including California’s Monterey Bay and the Florida Keys.

Researchers report they have captured the first-ever images of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, in the process of attacking a human cell.

In National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley, the Supreme Court rules, 8-1, that the federal government is allowed to consider standards of decency when awarding federal arts grants.

In a shoot-out, Russell E. Weston Jr., 41, allegedly kills two Capitol police officers. The attack is the deadliest at the Capitol since Congress first met there in 1800 and the first shooting at the building since 1954.

The House votes, 264-166, to defeat a resolution that would have rejected Pres. Clinton’s decision to renew China’s so-called mostfavored nation (MFN) trading status.

Pres. Clinton signs a bill enacting a major overhaul of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Reports confirm that that scientists at the University of Hawaii have created more than 50 clones of adult mice.

Pope John Paul II issues an apostolic letter urging Catholics to attend Sunday Mass each week. About one-third of the U.S.’s 60 million Catholics currently do so.

Pres. Clinton testifies to a federal grand jury about his relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

In the wake of bombings in Africa, the U.S. orders nonessential diplomatic personnel and dependents in Pakistan and Albania to return to the U.S. for fear of other strikes.

Some 6,170 pilots employed by Northwest Airlines go on strike, stranding thousands of passengers worldwide. The pilots’ strike is the first at Northwest since 1978.

An unmanned Delta 3 rocket carrying a private communications satellite blows up about 80 seconds after launch at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The launch is the first flight of the newest version of the Delta rocket.

American Steve Fossett is the first person to cross the South Atlantic Ocean in a balloon.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

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April

May

June

July

Aug.

1084—September–December 1998

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.

Dec.

World Affairs

Europe

Saudi Arabia suspends diplomatic ties to protest the Taliban’s harboring of Osama bin Laden, a Saudi dissident accused in August terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. That moves leaves Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates as the only countries that recognize Taliban rule in Afghanistan.

The State Duma confirms former foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov as Russia’s new premier, ending a period of political paralysis in the face of a collapsing economy.

Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, the former military leader of Chile, is arrested in London after Spain requests his extradition on charges of ordering the murder of hundreds of Spanish citizens during his rule. The arrest sparks protests and a string of court decisions.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In the face of a military mutiny in Lesotho, South Africa sends in troops and meets unexpectedly fierce resistance.

Gunmen suspected of being affiliated with the Tijuana drug cartel drag 20 members of three families from their homes and shoot them, killing 18. The massacre is described as the most violent drug-related incident in Mexico’s history.

In Malaysia, an estimated 40,000 people attend the largest antigovernment protest ever staged during the 17-year tenure of prime minister Mahathir bin Mohamad.

Serbian police and army troops begin to withdraw en masse from Kosovo, as per a NATO deadline.

The U.S. holds its first bilateral military exercise with Algeria since that country gained its independence in 1962.

Hurricane Mitch, the deadliest hurricane to strike Central America since 1988, causes more than 9,000 deaths and leaves another 1 million people homeless.

The Supreme Court of the Philippines overturns a 1993 corruption conviction against Imelda Marcos. The ruling overturns the only conviction won against Marcos in several corruption suits brought against her.

The UN AIDS Program reveals that in 1998 the number of people infected with HIV rose to 33.4 million, from 27.6 million in 1997. Some 95% of the new infections in 1998 occurred in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe.

Amid allegations of corruption and links to organized crime, the government of Premier Mesut Yilmaz collapses when it loses a vote of confidence in Turkey’s parliament. It is the first time a government in Turkey has been brought down over allegations of corruption.

According to the final results of the Palestine National Authority’s first official census, Palestinians in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip number 2,895,683.

The Cuban foreign ministry gives the Associated Press permission to open a permanent bureau in Havana, the capital of Cuba.

In Indonesia, police open fire on demonstrators in an effort to stop a mass march on the Parliament building.

Prompted by Iraq’s failure to cooperate with UN weapons inspectors, the U.S. and Great Britain launch a campaign of air strikes against Iraq.

Violence continues to besiege Kosovo.

Nigeria holds local elections, marking a major step in its transition to democracy.

Reports confirm that three former progovernment fighters in Guatemala have been sentenced to death for their role in a March 1982 massacre. The convictions are the first war-crimes convictions since Guatemala’s civil war.

Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, senior leaders of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge guerrillas, surrender to the government after negotiating an amnesty deal. The two leaders were among the chief architects of the Khmer Rouge’s radical communist regime, responsible for the deaths of more than 1 million Cambodians when it ruled the country from 1975 to 1979.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

September–December 1998—1085

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Independent counsel Kenneth Starr delivers to the House of Representatives a report on his investigation of Pres. Clinton’s relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Many newspapers publish the full text of the report after the House votes to release it to the public.

The Defense Department orders that sensitive information that may compromise national security or place personnel at risk be pulled from its roughly 1,000 Pentagon Internet computer network sites accessible by the public.

Pres. Clinton announces that the 1998 fiscal year resulted in the first federal budget surplus since 1969. Clinton reports the surplus to amount to about $70 billion.

The FDA approves Herceptin, a drug for the treatment of some forms of metastatic breast cancer. Herceptin is the first genetically engineered drug to be approved for the treatment of breast cancer.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announces that comedian Richard Pryor will be the first-ever recipient of its Mark Twain Prize, an annual award to honor humor in the U.S.

The Senate confirms the appointments of 17 federal judges nominated by Pres. Clinton. The confirmations bring the number of new federal judges the Senate confirmed in 1998 to 65. That number compares with 36 in 1997.

The Department of Defense merges three cold war defense agencies— the Defense Special Weapons Agency, the On-Site Inspection Agency, and the Defense Technology Security Administration—into one, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, that will respond to threats posed by nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.

The world’s seven biggest manufacturers of diesel engines for heavy trucks agree to pay $83 million in fines and $1 billion in corrective actions to avoid a federal civil lawsuit on environmental charges. The settlement is the largest financial penalty imposed in an environmental-enforcement action in U.S. history.

The Discovery lifts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, with a crew that includes retiring senator John Glenn (D, Ohio), who, at 77, is the oldest space traveler ever.

A 10th-century manuscript of a work by the mathematician Archimedes is sold at Christies for $2 million. The text is the oldest surviving copy of a work by Archimedes.

Michigan prosecutors charge Dr. Jack Kevorkian with first-degree murder for the videotaped euthanasia of Thomas Youk, 52, who was suffering from ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. While Kevorkian has assisted in more than 120 suicides since 1990, this marks the first time in which he directly killed his patient.

A grand jury issues an indictment against Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden, charging him and five members of his alleged terrorist group, al-Qaeda, in the August bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The State Department offers a reward of $5 million—the largest ever offered by the U.S. for the capture of a terrorist—for information leading to his conviction or arrest.

A General Accounting Office (GAO) report finds that the U.S. Postal Service has lost $84.7 million on new products it developed to compete with electronic bill-payment systems.

Reports indicate that U.S. scientists succeeded for the first time in isolating and cultivating human embryonic stem cells.

Pope John Paul II states that Roman Catholics may earn “indulgences.” The granting of indulgences prompted Martin Luther to rebel against the papacy, which led to the Protestant Reformation.

In near-party-line votes, the House votes to impeach Pres. Clinton for his conduct in the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

U.S. secretary of defense William Cohen and Colombian defense minister Rodrigo Lloredo sign an agreement that establishes a permanent committee for consultation on issues of defense and security in the two countries.

The FEC finds that both the Democrats and the Republicans violated federal campaign finance rules in 1996.

Two teams of scientists report that they have completed a map of the entire genome, or genetic code, of a microscopic worm. It is the first time that scientists have deciphered the entire genetic map of a multicellular animal.

Allegations that International Olympic Committee (IOC) officials accepted bribes in exchange for their votes on which cities will host the Olympic Games touches off the biggest ethics scandal in the century-old organization’s history.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

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Dec.

1086—January 1–6, 1998

World Affairs

Jan. 1

Jan. 2

Jan. 3

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Russia redenominates the ruble to make 1,000 old rubles equal to one new ruble. Russia also reintroduces the kopeck coin, of which 100 are worth one ruble.

A band of Hutu rebels in Burundi kill at least 150 civilians in a predawn attack on a military camp near Bujumbura, the capital. It is called one of the largest assaults since 1993. The attack leads to more clashes, in which at least 300 people are killed. . . . An Israeli woman sustains critical head and neck wounds during a drive-by shooting northwest of the West Bank city of Ramallah.

EZLN supporters mark the threeyear anniversary of the uprising in Chiapas, Mexico.

In the Czech Republic, a new caretaker government headed by Premier Josef Tosovsky takes office. . . . Frank Muir, 77, British comedy writer and broadcasting personality, dies in Egham, England, of unreported causes.

A rocket-propelled grenade crashes through the window of UNSCOM headquarters in Baghdad, Iraq, causing minor damage to the interior of the facility. No injuries are reported. . . . Authorities in Niger arrest Hama Amadou, the former premier, for his alleged involvement in a plot to assassinate Pres. Ibrahim Mainassara Bare.

Judge Maria Claudia Campuzano releases without trial five men charged with the kidnapping and murder of U.S. businessman Peter Zarate in Mexico City in December 1997. Campuzano’s ruling prompts objections from Mexico City prosecutors and the U.S. It also sparks a public outcry in Mexico City.

Police in Sweden arrest 314 youths at a rock concert outside Stockholm that focuses on neo-Nazi themes after a worker at the venue is hit by a thrown bottle. . . . Britain and Ireland are struck by severe storms that are blamed in at least two deaths.

Algerian newspapers report that more than 400 people died in a group of massacres on the night of Dec. 30, 1997, the first day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The Algerian government stands by its original death toll of 78. Separately, 117 people are slashed to death in the Relizane village of Remka.

In the wake of a December 1997 massacre of 45 Tzotzil Indians in Acteal in Chiapas, Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon replaces Emilio Chuayffet, the interior minister responsible for overseeing peace talks with the EZLN. He is succeeded by Francisco Labastida Ochoa. It is widely believed that Chuayffet is forced out because he allowed peace talks with the EZLN to stall and allegedly ignored evidence of mounting violence in the state. The Mexican army begins operations near the town of La Realidad, an EZLN stronghold in Chiapas. . . . Reports confirm that Rafael Caldera, the president of Venezuela, has signed a law reforming the electoral system.

In a Lithuanian runoff election, voters select Valdas Adamkus, a Lithuanian American, as president. . . . Storms sweep through western and northern Britain, bringing winds of up to 100 miles per hour (160 kmph). . . . Two police stations are bombed in Kumanovo and Prilep in Macedonia.

Jan. 4

Data suggests that crime in Moscow fell by about 20% in 1997. . . . Tickets to visit the grave site of Diana, Princess of Wales, go on sale to the public.

Jan. 5

Jan. 6

Europe

The UN World Food Program launches an appeal for $378 million to provide emergency food aid to North Korea beginning Apr. 1, in the largest such effort in the program’s history.

Asia & the Pacific

In Hong Kong, some 700 poultry workers hold a protest march to demand compensation after the chicken slaughter prompted by an outbreak of a bird-borne strain of influenza.

Pres. Daniel T. arap Moi is sworn in for a fifth five-year term as Kenya’s ruler after December 1997 national elections. . . . Algerian newspapers report that “several hundred” people were burned alive in Had Chekala, a village in Relizane.

A severe winter storm rages across Eastern Canada, lashing Ontario, New Brunswick, and Quebec.

According to Algerian press reports, which had estimated that hundreds of people had died during the previous several days, the death toll is raised to more than 1,000 since the beginning of Ramadan.

The Roman Catholic Church in Australia releases a preliminary draft of a professional conduct code aimed at curbing the sexual abuse of parishioners by members of the clergy.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 1–6, 1998—1087

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

A California ban on smoking in bars, casinos, and nightclubs goes into effect.

Former elementary school teacher Mary Kay Letourneau, 35, is released from prison on parole with the condition that she will not contact the 14-year-old boy with whom she had sexual relations in 1996. In the highly publicized case, Letourneau gave birth to a daughter fathered by her former pupil, and she pled guilty to rape charges in August 1997.

Data suggests that U.S. firms announced a record 10,700 mergers and acquisitions worth $919 billion in 1997. That figure is up 47% from the $626 billion in deals announced in 1996.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The largest study ever of the health consequences of obesity finds that obesity moderately increases the risk of premature death. The risk declines with age, disappearing by age 74. The study shows obesity to be less dangerous than many thought, and possibly less dangerous than some attempts to treat it.

Peter Treseder, Keith Williams, and Ian Brown become the first Australians to reach the South Pole unassisted. . . . Helen Wills Moody (Rourke), 92, preeminent female tennis player of the 1920s and 1930s, dies in Carmel, California.

Scientists report they discovered a powerful new kind of painkiller when isolating a painkilling but toxic chemical from the poison of a South American frog, Epipedobates tricolor. The painkiller is called ABT-594.

Jan. 2

William Russell Kelly, 92, who was credited with founding the temporary work—or “temp”—profession when, in 1946, he opened Kelly Services Inc., dies in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, of unreported causes.

A prison inmate, Teshome Abate, dies in Arizona after a five-month hunger strike launched to protest his prison diet that he claimed conflicted with the food restrictions prescribed by his Ethiopian Orthodox faith.

Jan. 3

Thomas F. Frist Sr., 87, founder of the for-profit system of hospital administration who cofounded Hospital Corp. of America in the 1960s, dies in Nashville, Tennessee, of pneumonia.

Sonny (Salvatore) Bono, 62, (R, Calif.) congressman since 1995 after a career as a popular singer and television host, dies in South Lake Tahoe, California, in a skiing accident.

Jan. 4

The Baseball Writers Association of America elects pitcher Don Sutton to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

In Washington, D.C., Judge Thomas F. Hogan approves an agreement in one of three lawsuits challenging Pres. Clinton’s use of the line-item veto in 1997. The pact, between the Justice Department and the National Treasury Employees Union, invalidates Clinton’s October 1997 veto of a pension-switching plan for 1.1 million federal employees. . . . The 10th annual North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan, closes after U.S. automobile makers introduce several new cars with advanced fuel-efficient technology. . . . Data suggests that U.S. filings for personal bankruptcy increased 19.5% in 1997, to a record annual high of 1.3 million.

Jan. 1

NASA launches the Lunar Prospector, an unmanned spacecraft that will orbit the Moon, on an Athena-2 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The year-long mission to search for concentrations of hydrogen on the Moon, which may indicate the presence of frozen water there, and to complete a geographical survey of the entire Moon is NASA’s first lunar venture since the Apollo 17 mission of 1972. At a cost of $63 million, it is reportedly the cheapest-ever mission to another body in space.

R. Alan Eagleson, a former agent and head of the National Hockey League Players Association (NHLPA), pleads guilty in U.S. District Court in Boston, Massachusetts, to three counts of felony mail fraud. He is sentenced to one year of probation and fined $697,810.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 5

Jan. 6

1088—January 7–11, 1998

World Affairs

Jan. 7

Jan. 8

Jan. 9

Jan. 10

Jan. 11

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Data shows that within 24 hours following the Jan. 5 announcement, 40,000 of the 152,500 tickets available to visit the grave site of Diana, Princess of Wales, were sold.

Following the December 1997 massacre of 45 Tzotzil Indians in Acteal, the governor of Chiapas, Julio Cesar Ruiz Ferro, resigns amid an effort by Pres. Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon to avoid any hint of a cover-up in the massacre. . . . The Canadian federal government apologizes to native Indian peoples for its support of programs that have harmed them and allocates C$600 million (US$420 million) to native “healing” and to economic development of native communities.

Reports reveal that an ethnic Albanian separatist group, the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK), has claimed responsibility for the Jan. 4 police-station bombings in Macedonia. The attacks, as well as a bomb planted outside a courthouse in Gostivar in December 1997, are the first operations on Macedonian soil claimed by the UCK. . . . The governments of Italy and Turkey agree to coordinate efforts to stem the flow of Kurdish refugees into Western Europe. . . . Sir Michael Kemp Tippett, 93, British composer, dies in London.

Hutu rebels allegedly kill nine Roman Catholic nuns in the Rwandan village of Rwerere near the border with Congo (formerly Zaire).

In Spain, a car bomb explodes in Zarauz, killing Jose Ignacio Iruretagoyena, a town councilor and member of Premier Jose Maria Aznar’s ruling Popular Party. . . . In response to several weeks of demonstrations throughout France, Premier Lionel Jospin announces plans to create an emergency relief fund of 1 billion French francs ($166 million) for the most impoverished of France’s unemployed citizens.

Eight prisoners are killed in a riot among inmates at a facility in southeastern Brazil. . . . At least 25 deaths across Eastern Canada are attributed to the winter storm that started Jan. 5. The storm has caused an estimated C$2 billion (US$1.4 billion) in damage along a corridor that stretches from Ottawa to Montreal, prompting officials to call it the most costly natural disaster on record in Canada.

A letter bomb explodes in Vitoria, a town in Spain’s Basque region, wounding two women. . . . Police in eight French cities remove jobless protesters who have been occupying 21 unemployment offices for as long as a month. Five such buildings remain occupied. . . . Polish police beat a 13-year-old basketball fan to death in connection with allegations of hooliganism.

The government of Zambia formally charges ex-president Kenneth Kaunda with plotting to overthrow Pres. Frederick T. J. Chiluba.

A Roman Catholic doorman, Terry Enright, 28, is shot and killed in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Members of the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF), a militant Protestant group, claim responsibility for the attack, which is the latest killing in apparent retaliation for the 1997 death of Billy Wright, a Protestant leader murdered in prison. . . . John Campbell Wells, 61, British comic writer, actor, and stage director, dies in London, England, of lymphoma.

A bomb reportedly explodes in the Algerian village of Sidi Hamed. Armed men attack people with spades and axes when they flee the explosion. In a separate incident, people leaving a mosque in the Algerian village of Haouche Sahraoui are ambushed and killed. Reports estimate that at least 100 are killed in the two attacks.

Asia & the Pacific

Hong Kong’s legislature approves $97 million in compensation for losses incurred by the territory’s poultry industry during the chicken slaughter prompted by a birdborne strain of influenza. . . . Record-breaking rains begin to cause severe flooding along parts of Australia’s northeast coast.

An earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale strikes the Chinese province of Hebei. The quake, centered between the rural counties of Shangyi and Zhangbei, kills 50 people and injures some 11,400 others. . . . Reports confirm that, in the midst of a currency crisis in Indonesia, military troops are stationed in Bandung in West Java to stem rioting among local merchants. . . . The Australian city of Townsville is hit with 21.45 inches (55 cm) of rain, and one man dies in the flooding. Hundreds of women gather in the Mexican town of Altamirano, demanding that troops cease conducting raids of their homes in search of illegal weapons. . . . At the San Isidro prison in Popayan, Colombia, more than 300 inmates take control of the institution. They are joined by some 450 female visitors in a protest of conditions in the prison.

Unidentified gunmen open fire on Shi’ite Muslim mourners at the Mominpura cemetery in Lahore, the capital of Punjab state in Pakistan, killing at least 24 Shi’ites and seriously wounding 40 others. It is one of the worst incidents of sectarian violence in the region. . . . Sonia Gandhi, widow of slain former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, launches a campaign to support the Congress (I) party with an emotional tribute to her husband at the site of his 1991 assassination.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 7–11, 1998—1089

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Terry Nichols, convicted in December 1997 for his role in the 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, escapes the death penalty when the federal jury in Denver, Colorado, charged with his sentencing declare they cannot reach consensus. . . . Data suggests that students attending urban public schools performed far more poorly on standardized tests than nonurban public-school students in 1994.

Nathan Hill, a U.S. native who was indicted in Chicago, Illinois, on charges of murder and cocaine dealing and placed on the U.S. Marshals Service’s “15 Most Wanted List” in 1996, is arrested by authorities in the West African nation of Guinea.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the 1998 deficit will be just $5 billion, a figure seen as practically insignificant in a $1.7 trillion budget.

A research team announces it has found evidence that it is possible to escape the powerful gravitational pull of a black hole. . . . Vladimir Prelog, 91, Swiss chemist who shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in chemistry for insights into the designs of various complex molecules, dies in Zurich, Switzerland, of unreported causes.

Owen Bradley, 82, record producer who was instrumental in transforming Nashville, Tennessee, into the center of the country music industry, dies in Nashville where he was receiving treatment for influenza symptoms.

A study finds that 80% of adults in U.S. prisons are incarcerated due to offenses related to drug and alcohol abuse.

In New York City, U.S. district judge Kevin Thomas Duffy sentences Ramzi Ahmed Yousef to life in prison for playing a central role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center that killed six people and injured at least 1,000 others. . . . Clyde Lee Conrad, 50, former U.S. Army sergeant convicted of treason and sentenced to life in prison in 1990, dies in a prison in Koblenz, Germany, apparently of a heart attack.

Statistics reveal that the government’s index of prices charged by manufacturers and farmers for finished goods fell 1.2% in 1997, the largest yearly decline since 1986. The index recorded a 2.8% increase for 1996.

An ice storm batters the Northeast, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of people in Maine, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont. Seven deaths in New York and another four in Maine are attributed to the storm. . . . Several teams of astronomers present research showing that the universe is about 15 billion years old—much older than many scientists estimated—and that it will continue to expand forever. . . . Astronomer David Gray states he cannot reproduce his 1997 observations that disproved the discovery of a planet orbiting the star 51 Pegasi.

Walter E. Diemer, 93, inventor of bubble gum, dies in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. . . . At the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Todd Eldredge, 26, wins his fifth men’s U.S. title.

Marlene Corrigan is convicted of misdemeanor child abuse after the death of her 13-year-old daughter from heart failure caused by obesity. The daughter, Christina Corrigan, reportedly weighed 680 pounds (310 kg) at the time of her death in 1996.

The INS plans to raise 30 of the 40 fees it charges for processing applications for various services.

Scientists announce they have used data collected by an infrareddetecting satellite to quantify for the first time the total amount of light energy emitted by almost all of the stars that have ever existed in the universe. . . . Kenichi Fukui, 79, Japanese chemist who shared the 1981 Nobel Prize for his work in helping uncover the complex rules that determine when and why chemical reactions take place, dies in Kyoto, Japan, of an intestinal ailment.

At the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Kyoko Ina and Jason Dungjen win their second straight pairs’ title. . . . Russia’s Anatoly Karpov successfully defends his World Chess Federation title, over India’s Viswanathan Anand in Switzerland.

Due to the ice storm that hit the eastern United States on Jan. 8, Pres. Clinton declares five counties in upstate New York a federal disaster area. Disaster areas are also declared in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont.

Michelle Kwan wins the women’s title at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Elizabeth Punsalan and Jerod Swallow successfully defend their ice-dancing title and win their fifth U.S. championship. . . . Mona May Karff, 86, Russian-born U.S. women’s chess champion, dies in New York City of a heart attack.

The Washington Post reveals that Senate committees have spent nearly $190 million on investigations and regular operating costs, such as staff salaries and office expenses, since Republicans took control of Congress in January 1995. The data comes from a report by the secretary of the Senate in compliance with new reporting rules adopted in 1995. It is the first-ever public disclosure detailing the body’s spending on oversight activities.

Football’s Green Bay Packers defeat the San Francisco 49ers, 23-10, to win the NFC title. The Denver Broncos beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, 24-21, to win the AFC title. . . . Klaus Tennstedt, 71, German conductor known for his intense style, dies in Kiel, Germany, of throat cancer.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 7

Jan. 8

Jan. 9

Jan. 10

Jan. 11

1090—January 12–17, 1998

Jan. 12

Jan. 13

World Affairs

Europe

UN secretary general Kofi Annan announces the appointment of Canadian Louise Frechette to the newly established post of deputy secretary general. . . . Nineteen member nations of the 40-member Council of Europe sign an agreement to prohibit human cloning.

Iraq, for the second time in two months, prevents a U.S.-led team of UN inspectors from continuing their search for Iraqi chemical- and biological-weapons depots. The move prompts renewed U.S. warnings of an armed response.

Jan. 16

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Some 1,000 teenagers in the Polish city of Slupsk riot to protest a Jan. 10 incident of alleged police brutality. During the violence, 20 police officers are injured and 42 protesters arrested. . . . Data suggests that Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 0.4% in 1997. The rise is the first since 1989, before the collapse of the USSR.

In Mexico, some 100,000 people rally in the streets of Mexico City to show support for the people of Chiapas. During a demonstration in the town of Ocosingo in Chiapas, a Tzeltal Indian woman is killed and two others are injured when police open fire. The new governor of Chiapas, Roberto Albores Guillen, calls in army troops to arrest at least 26 police officers allegedly involved in the shooting. . . . The prison standoff that started Jan. 11 in Colombia ends after an agreement is reached on improving conditions at the prison.

In response to the Jan. 11 killings, thousands of Shi’ite Muslims riot in Lahore, Pakistan, setting fire to buildings, smashing cars, and vowing revenge. . . . An unidentified Chinese official discloses that 16 people were executed in late Dec. 1997. The executions are said to be connected to the Feb. 1997 separatist riots. . . . Japanese premier Ryutaro Hashimoto, in a meeting in Tokyo with British prime minister Tony Blair, offers the government’s official expression of “deep remorse” for Japan’s treatment of British prisoners of war during World War II.

Demonstrations against the government’s employment policies and against its Jan. 10 eviction of protesters breaks out throughout France. Hundreds of people occupy the chamber of commerce in Paris. Riot police use tear gas to remove the protesters and to break up a sitin at Paris’s commodities exchange building. . . . The lower house of the Czech parliament overrules the Senate to create a securities markets oversight agency.

Following weeks of protests by opposition supporters who allege that U.S.-born president Janet Jagan used fraud to win December 1997 presidential elections, the government of Guyana bans street demonstrations in Georgetown, the capital. Some 10,000 supporters of Desmond Hoyte, Jagan’s opponent in the election, ignore the ban and take to the streets of Georgetown, prompted by a high court’s dismissal of a challenge to the legality of Jagan’s inauguration.

An Afghan aircraft crashes in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, which borders Afghanistan, killing at least 51 passengers. . . . Reports confirm that Warriors of Jhangvi, a militant Sunni Muslim organization, has claimed responsibility for the Jan. 11 massacre in Lahore, Pakistan, and threatened additional attacks. . . . Records show that there have been nearly 350 aftershocks, 10 of which have measured higher than 4.0 on the Richter scale, since the Jan. 10 earthquake in China.

The Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, ratifies a Ukrainian-Russian friendship treaty. . . . British agriculture minister Jack Cunningham announces the government’s plan for the creation of the Food Standards Agency, an independent body that will monitor food safety. . . . Some 8,000 supporters of former president Momir Bulatovic hold a violent rally in Podgorica, the present-day capital of Montenegro. Around 40 police officers are injured in the violence.

A 40-year-old Saudi Arabian woman, Hasna Mohammed Humair, gives birth to seven babies, four boys and three girls, in the southern city of Abha. Humair’s caesarean section operation is the third known delivery of live septuplets and the second in Saudi Arabia.

The UN returns control of Eastern Slavonia, an enclave on Croatia’s border with Yugoslavia, to Croatia.

Montenegro’s new president, Milo Djukanovic, takes office in the former capital, Cetinje. . . . Reports emerge that Elizabeth Buttle, 60, in November 1997 had a baby, making her Britain’s oldest woman to give birth without using fertility drugs. . . . EMI Records chairman Sir Colin Southgate is confirmed as the new chair of the Royal Opera House in London.

Israeli and Palestinian troops engage in an armed standoff in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis after some 400 Palestinian protesters block traffic on a main road, leaving several Israeli drivers stranded.

The presidents of the three Baltic republics and the U.S. sign a “Charter of Partnership” between their nations. . . . U.S. president Clinton delays for six months the implementation of Title III of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, a law to which U.S. allies in Europe, Canada, and Latin America strongly object. . . . The European Commission, the executive branch of the EU, states the EU should “participate alongside the U.S.” in all Middle East peace talks and should act as “key coordinator” of global economic-assistance programs in the peace process.

A cargo ship sinks 50 miles (80 km) off the French islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon. The bodies of 15 crew members are recovered; six others are missing and presumed dead. Four sailors are rescued from the waters. . . . Turkey’s highest court, the Constitutional Court, imposes a ban on the Welfare (Refah) Party, the country’s largest party. The court finds that the party, which supports adherence to Islamic teachings in the formation of laws, violates provisions in the Turkish constitution mandating a secular political system.

Jan. 14

Jan. 15

Africa & the Middle East

The International Red Cross reports that about 450 people in Kenya and western Somalia have died from an epidemic of Rift Valley fever. . . . Police in Kenya reveal that at least 86 people have died in flooding that has washed out major roads and bridges and left hundreds of people homeless.

Jan. 17

A veteran Chinese dissident, Qin Yongmin, sends an open letter to the state security ministry refusing its offer to allow him to leave China. Qin, 45, a member of the 1978–79 Democracy Wall movement who has been imprisoned several times since 1970, states that he will risk his security and his life to work for “a legal opposition party and free workers’ unions.”

The Argentine navy arrests retired captain Alfredo Astiz after the publication of an interview in which he boasts about his actions as a member of a death squad in Argentina’s “dirty war” against suspected leftists during the rule of a military regime from 1976 to 1983.

Indonesian president Suharto signs a pact with the IMF under which he pledges to implement sweeping economic reforms aimed at stabilizing the country’s faltering economy. . . . A cargo ship sinks off the South Korean coast. The bodies of two Philippine sailors and two empty lifeboats are found ashore. Eighteen others are missing.

Although it is not immediately reported, five students from St. Mary’s College in the U.S. are raped after gunmen stop the bus they are traveling in near the southwestern town of Santa Lucia Cotzumalguapa in Guatemala.

Four former executives of Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank Ltd. (DKB), including former chair Tadashi Okuda, plead guilty in Tokyo District Court to making illegal payments to Ryuichi Koike, a so-called sokaiya racketeer.

Janet Jagan, the president of Guyana, and opposition leader Desmond Hoyte reach an agreement on ending protests by Hoyte’s supporters of alleged fraud in the December 1997 elections that brought Jagan to power.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 12–17, 1998—1091

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Pres. Clinton signs a federal directive that requires states to track and report statistics on drug use by prison inmates. . . . Martha Farnsworth Riche, the director of the Census Bureau, announces that she is resigning, effective Jan. 30.

The Department of Health and Human Services reports that U.S. spending on health care grew in 1996 at the lowest rate since 1960, 4.4%, to $1.04 trillion from $991.4 billion in 1995. After adjustment for inflation, the rate was 1.9%. Retail spending on prescription drugs grew by 9.2% to $62 billion. . . . Robert Townsend, 77, president and chair of car-rental company Avis Inc., 1962–65, whose books on business were bestsellers, dies of a heart attack while vacationing on the island of Anguilla in the Caribbean.

Louisiana state judge Yada Magee rules that a 1996 jury verdict of negligence against Dow Chemical Co. will be binding on individual lawsuits filed by 1,800 women with complaints of injury from breast implants.

The Labor Department reports that the government’s index of consumer prices in 1997 rose 1.7%, about half the 3.3% increase registered in 1996. The 1997 rate, which is the lowest yearly rate since 1986, indicates that inflation remains in check. . . . The Department of Energy awards contracts to six private companies to help the government cut energy costs and decrease greenhouse gas emissions at federal buildings in the southeastern U.S. and U.S. islands in the Caribbean.

Scientists report they have genetically altered adult human cells to bypass a natural limit on their lifetimes.

For the first time, Pres. Clinton’s advisory board on race relations addresses the economic gap between whites and most racial minorities, especially blacks. Several experts state that minority applicants still face discrimination in hiring. . . . A conference designed to promote greater diversity in the financial-services industry on Wall Street opens at the World Trade Center in New York City.

A study reveals that smoking and breathing secondhand smoke speeds up atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. . . . The FDA approves the sale of the over-the-counter painkiller extrastrength Excedrin as the first nonprescription treatment for migraine headaches.

Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), the nation’s largest AIDS advocacy group, reverses a policy and recommends that doctors in New York State report cases of people infected with HIV to the health department. . . . NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R) signs a bill restricting outdoor tobacco advertising. . . . Internal documents from the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Corp. that provide evidence of efforts to market cigarettes to minors as young as 12 years old are made public.

Five people plead guilty in U.S. District Court in Lubbock, Texas, to charges related to visa fraud and alien smuggling in connection with a ring that smuggled some 500 nurses from the Philippines and South Korea into the U.S. beginning in 1993. Federal prosecutors allege that the nurses, after entering the U.S. with fraudulent visas, worked for substandard wages in hospitals and nursing homes in Texas and several other states.

Democrats and Republicans in the Virginia House of Delegates announce a power-sharing agreement that ends more than 100 years of Democratic control over the state legislature. Under the agreement, which will last for four years, Republicans will have equal representation on all but one of the House’s 21 committees.

Pres. Clinton is deposed by lawyers for Paula Corbin Jones in a six-hour session in the sexual-harassment suit brought by Jones.

The American Library Association announces that Karen Hesse and Paul O. Zelinsky have won the Newbery Medal and the Caldecott Medal, respectively. . . . The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Santana, and the Mamas and the Papas are among the inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Commonwealth Edison, the nation’s largest private operator of nuclear power, announces that it will permanently close its Zion, Illinois, nuclear plant, stating it is prohibitively expensive to run and can no longer compete with lower-priced energy brought about by increasing deregulation.

The Maryland Senate votes, 36-10, to expel state senator Larry Young (D) for misusing his office for private gain. . . . Pres. Clinton, Senate majority leader Trent Lott (R, Miss.) and House speaker Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.) name Sen. John Breaux (D, La.) chair of the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare. . . . The tobacco industry agrees to a $15.3 billion settlement of a lawsuit brought by the state of Texas. The settlement, to be paid over 25 years, is larger than the total of two previous ones the industry reached with the states of Florida and Mississippi.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Jan. 13

NBC agrees to pay $13 million per episode for the next three years to continue broadcasting ER. It is the highest per-episode price ever paid for a TV series. . . . FINA bans Chinese swimmer Yuan Yuan from national and international competition for four years after she tests positive in drug tests.

Rev. Tissa Balasuriya, a priest who was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church in 1997, signs a statement of reconciliation with the Vatican. . . . Junior Wells (born Amos Blakemore), 63, blues harmonica player, dies in Chicago, Illinois, after being in a coma since a 1997.

NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin announces that Sen. John Glenn (D, Ohio), the first American to orbit the Earth, will return to space aboard the space shuttle Discovery. . . . Two studies report that much of the organic material found on a Martian meteorite in 1996 is of terrestrial origin and not evidence of possible past life on Mars. . . . Researchers report that they shifted the internal “body clock” of human subjects by shining light onto the backs of knees. It is the first indication that light may affect the body’s 24-hour cycle through parts of the body other than the eyes. Secretary of Defense William Cohen embarks on a tour of several Asian countries.

Jan. 12

Jan. 14

Jan. 15

Jan. 16

The Times of London begins serializing previously unpublished poems by British poet laureate Ted Hughes about his late wife, American poet Sylvia Plath. It is the first time he has written at length about Plath since her 1963 suicide.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 17

1092—January 18–21, 1998

World Affairs

The European Union’s finance council endorses Italy’s ongoing efforts at reforming government finances.

Jan. 20

Jan. 21

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The Bosnian Serb Republic’s parliament, meeting in the city of Bijeljina, elect Milorad Dodik, a moderate, as the region’s new premier . . . . The body of a Catholic man, Fergal McCusker, who was shot to death, is found in Maghera, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. The Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF), a Protestant militant group, claims responsibility.

Jan. 18

Jan. 19

Europe

Iraq freezes all weapons inspections, heightening tensions.

Jim Guiney, a hard-line Protestant who supported British rule in Northern Ireland, is shot dead in South Belfast. The Irish National Liberation Army, a militant republican guerrilla group, claims responsibility. Later, Catholic taxi driver Larry Brennan is shot and killed in Belfast, in apparent retaliation. . . . Russian president Boris Yeltsin returns to the Kremlin, Russia’s seat of government, for the first time in more than a month after illnesses and vacations.

A European Union (EU) delegation arrives in Algeria to emphasize the international community’s concern over the escalating violence in the country. . . . A PNA military court sentences two bomb makers of Hamas’s military wing—Jasser Samaru and Nassim Abu al-Rous— to 15 years’ imprisonment with hard labor for their involvement with suicide attacks in West Jerusalem in July and September 1997.

The Czech parliament elects Pres. Vaclav Havel to a second five-year term.

Reports disclose that Hutu rebels killed 34 people and injured 25 others when they doused a bus with gasoline and set it on fire outside the town of Gisenyi, Rwanda.

A judge in Lima, Peru’s capital, orders Aeroperu airline to pay $29 million to the families of 58 of the 70 victims of an October 1996 jet crash. Families of the 12 other victims are pursuing separate legal action.

Benedict Hughes, a Catholic, is killed by unidentified gunmen in Belfast.

Algerian premier Ahmed Ouyahia issues the government’s first-ever official death toll for the civil war. He estimates that 26,536 people died and an additional 21,137 were injured in the conflict. His data contrasts with reports by the media and human-rights organizations, which place the death toll at more than 75,000.

Pope John Paul II makes an unprecedented tour of Cuba. The tour is Pope John Paul’s first visit to Cuba—the only major Latin American country he has not previously visited.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 18–21, 1998—1093

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Data from the Justice Department reveals that the number of inmates incarcerated in city and county jails increased by 9.4%, or 48,587, during the period of July 1, 1996, to June 30, 1997. The increase amounts to nearly twice the average annual rise in county and city inmates since 1990.

The world swimming championships, held in New Zealand, close. The U.S. collected the most gold medals—14—while Australia finished second with seven, and China won three gold medals. . . . At the Golden Globe Awards for films, Titanic wins for Best Drama, and As Good as It Gets wins as Best Musical or Comedy. . . . In basketball, the Western Conference routs the Eastern Conference, 102-73, to win the women’s ABL All-Star Game. After nearly a week of negotiations presided over by the National Mediation Board, United Parcel Service of America Inc. (UPS) and officials of the company’s Independent Pilots Union reach a tentative agreement on a six-year contract for the package-delivery company’s 2,100 pilots.

Allegations that Pres. Clinton had a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a 21-year-old White House intern, are leaked to news agencies in the late evening. . . . In Phoenix, Arizona, Judge Roger Strand orders an acquittal on one of the seven fraud counts of which former Arizona governor J. Fife Symington III (R) was convicted. Pres. Clinton denies allegations that he had a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, 21, a White House intern, and that he asked her to lie under oath about the affair. The allegations came to light after Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr learned of audio-tapes on which Lewinsky allegedly describes the affair and cover-up to her confidante, Linda Tripp. The story almost instantaneously balloons into what is called the greatest crisis the Clinton White House has ever faced. . . . The Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that the Constitution does not require a judge to advise a jury during the sentencing phase of a capital trial to consider mitigating evidence that may persuade the jury to impose on the defendant a life-imprisonment sentence rather than a death sentence. With their ruling, the justices uphold the death sentence imposed on Virginia inmate Douglas Buchanan. . . . Federal authorities arrest 44 police and corrections officers in northern Ohio for selling protection to suspected cocaine traffickers in one of the largest sting operations in U.S. history. . . . Jose Jesus Ceja, 42, convicted of the 1974 murder of a couple in Phoenix, Arizona, is put to death by lethal injection in Florence, Arizona. Ceja is the 434th person to be executed in the U.S. and only the ninth in Arizona since 1976. . . . Mary Ingraham Bunting-Smith, 87, president of Radcliffe College, 1959–72, dies in Hanover, New Hampshire, of unreported causes.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The INS orders Saudi Arabian dissident Hani Abdel Rahim al-Sayegh deported from the U.S. In 1997, Sayegh reneged on a pledge to plead guilty to involvement in aborted terrorist plots against the U.S. in 1994 and 1995. He also withdrew a promise to provide U.S. authorities with information about the 1996 truck bombing of Khobar Towers, a U.S. military complex in Dharan, Saudi Arabia.

Acting FDA commissioner Michael Friedman asserts that the FDA has the authority under law to regulate human cloning and that its approval will be required for anyone who wishes to try to clone a person.

In Washington, D.C., Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses 500 evangelical Christians, including Jerry Falwell, who calls Netanyahu “the Ronald Reagan of Israel” and vows to crusade against the return of Israeli-held territory to Palestinians. . . . Carl Lee Perkins, 65, songwriter and one of the first practitioners of rockabilly music, dies in Jackson, Tennessee, of complications from a stroke.

James Robl and Steven Stice of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst report that they have created three Holstein calves that are the first cows cloned from a genetically altered cell.

Sir Anthony Glyn (born Geoffrey Leo Simon Davson), 75, British biographer and novelist known for his 1955 biography of his grandmother, 19th-century novelist Elinor Glyn, dies in the south of France of congestive heart failure.

Former representative Mary Rose Oakar (D, Ohio) is fined $32,000 and sentenced to two years’ probation for using false contributor names to funnel funds from her House bank account to her unsuccessful 1992 reelection campaign. . . . In Lunding v. New York Tax Appeals Tribunal, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, to strike down a provision in a New York State tax law that bars nonresidents from deducting alimony payments from their New York income tax, a deduction that the state allows. . . . In LaChance v. Erickson, the Supreme Court rules unanimously to overturn a lower-court ruling that protected federal workers under investigation for job-related misconduct from facing additional charges for lying about that alleged misconduct.

Jack Lord (born John Joseph Patrick Ryan), 77, actor best known for his role in the TV series Hawaii Five-O, 1968–80, dies in Honolulu, Hawaii, of congestive heart failure.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 18

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Jan. 20

Jan. 21

1094—January 22–26, 1998

Jan. 22

World Affairs

Europe

The newly approved commander of the Russian air force, Gen. Anatoly Kornukov, publicly acknowledges that he gave the 1983 order to shoot down a South Korean commercial airplane that had entered Soviet airspace. All of the plane’s 269 passengers were killed in the incident, and Russian authorities claimed that the jet was on a U.S.sponsored mission to spy on Sakhalin Island in the Sea of Japan.

A group of U.S.-led troops from the NATO force in Bosnia-Herzegovina arrests alleged Bosnian Serb war criminal Goran Jelisic in the northeastern town of Bijeljina. It is the first time that U.S. troops on the NATO force have arrested a war crimes suspect.

An avalanche strikes the French Alps near Les Orres ski resort, killing 11 hikers and injuring about 20 others. . . . The Albanian separatist Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) assassinates a local Serbian official, Desimir Vasic. . . . The Ulster Freedom Fighters disclose they have broken a cease-fire enacted in October 1994 and that they have murdered three Catholics since Dec. 31, 1997. Hours later, an unidentified gunman shoots and kills Liam Conway, a Catholic, in Belfast, but no group claims responsibility.

Jan. 23

Jan. 24

Jan. 25

Jan. 26

In a 20-year campaign with the World Health Organization (WHO), British pharmaceutical manufacturer SmithKline Beecham PLC announces that it will donate antiparasite drugs to treat about 1 billion people in Africa, Asia, the Pacific and Central and South America at risk of being infected by a mosquito-borne disease, lymphatic filariasis, or elephantiasis. Some 120 million people currently suffer from elephantiasis, an infection by parasitic worms of the lymphatic system. . . . A UN human-rights mission begins a visit of five highsecurity jails in Peru that house some 4,000 people detained on terrorism charges.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Mwai Kibaki, who finished second to Pres. Daniel T. arap Moi in the December 1997 presidential election, files a petition before the High Court of Kenya in Nairobi, the capital, requesting the nullification of the poll’s results.

Sixty-eight Canadians are named recipients of the Order of Canada. Separately, Thousands of homes in Canada remain without power due to the severe winter storm started Jan. 5.

Health authorities report that 111 patients in a Hong Kong hospital were given medical tests that could have infected them with CreutzfeldtJakob disease, the human counterpart to bovine spongiform encephalopathy, (BSE), or madcow disease, and that seven of those patients died. . . . Chinese news media report that the Jan. 10 earthquake in Hebei province left cracks in the nearby Great Wall. . . . The Australian government bans Japanese fishing boats from the nation’s waters after Japan refuses to limit its fishing of southern bluefin tuna, a possibly endangered species.

Hilla Limann, 64, president of the African nation of Ghana, 1979–81, dies in Accra, Ghana, of a heart ailment.

Pres. Carlos Saul Menem expels retired captain Alfredo Astiz from the Argentine navy for “provoking.a grave situation” with his Jan. 15 remarks about Argentina’s “dirty war” against suspected leftists. . . . Royal Bank of Canada and Bank of Montreal, Canada’s largest and third-largest banks, respectively, announce plans to merge. The deal, valued at more than C$40 billion (US$28 billion), will create the largest bank in Canada and the second-largest bank in North America in terms of assets.

Japan unilaterally withdraws from a 1965 treaty with South Korea governing fishing rights in the waters between the two countries. . . . The Hong Kong government declares that an outbreak of a bird-borne strain of influenza that killed six people is over since no new cases of the disease have been reported since Dec. 28, 1997.

Neo-Nazis hold demonstrations in Dresden, Germany, to protest an exhibit displaying atrocities committed during World War II by the Wehrmacht, Nazi Germany’s regular army. Leftist activists stage a rival protest against neo-Nazism. . . . A Catholic taxi driver is shot dead in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

The governor of the Mexican state of Chiapas, Roberto Albores Guillen, orders the release of some 300 Indians, in an effort to ease tensions in the state and to revive stalled peace talks with the EZLN. . . . Pope John Paul II holds a coronation ceremony to honor a statue of Our Lady of Charity, declared Cuba’s patron saint in 1916, in Santiago de Cuba. The coronation ceremony is an emotional gesture for Cubans, who revere the statue as a cherished symbol of spiritual and national identity.

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, fractures her left hip in a fall at the royal family’s estate in Sandringham, England.

At the Plaza of the Revolution in Havana, Cuba, an enthusiastic crowd of at least 250,000, including Pres. Fidel Castro and senior government officials, attend a 21⁄2-hour mass held by Pope John Paul II.

Severe rains from Cyclone Les hit the Northern Territory town of Katherine, Australia.

Reports from Northern Ireland confirm that the LVF has claimed responsibility for the Jan. 24 attack in Belfast. . . . Some 300 picketing former dockworkers in Liverpool, England, accept a cash settlement to end a two-year-long protest against Mersey Docks and Harbour Co. . . . A separatist group seeking greater autonomy from France, the outlawed “historic wing” of the Corsican National Liberation Front, declares an end to a seven-monthlong truce. . . . A comprehensive ban on the possession of handguns goes into effect in Britain.

Brazil’s government reports that deforestation in the Amazon rain forest in the 1994–95 burning season was the worst ever recorded. During that period some 11,196 square miles (29,000 sq km) of rain forest were destroyed. . . . TransCanada Pipelines Ltd. and Nova Corp., two of Canada’s largest energy firms, announce plans to merge. The deal, valued at some C$14 billion (US$9.7 billion), will be the largest ever in Canada’s energy sector and the secondlargest merger ever in Canada.

A judge rules that a law denying Hong Kong residency to children born to a Hong Kong parent in China but outside of the territory is unconstitutional. The law was passed by the China-appointed legislature that took office when Hong Kong reverted to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 22–26, 1998—1095

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Theodore J. Kaczynski, the alleged Unabomber, pleads guilty in a federal court in Sacramento, California, to charges linking him to a series of bombings that killed three people and injured two others. The California case covers 10 of 13 federal counts against him. Under the deal, Kaczynski will not face the death penalty. . . . The office of Kenneth Starr begins serving subpoenas on several White House employees, including Clinton’s personal secretary, Betty Currie, and former interns who worked with Monica Lewinsky and Vernon Jordan.

DNA Plant Technology Corp. pleads guilty in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to one misdemeanor count of conspiracy to illegally export specially bred highnicotine tobacco seeds. . . . A jury in Brownsville, Texas, overturns the 1988 conviction of Susie Mowbray, accused of killing her husband, Bill Mowbray. Mowbray, who served nine years of a life sentence, won the right to a new trial in 1996 after an appeals court ruled that prosecutors had suppressed a forensic report.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Michael P. Dombeck, head of the U.S. Forest Service, announces that the Clinton administration is imposing a ban on the building of new logging roads into some 33 million acres (13 million hectares) of pristine forest lands in 130 federal forests.

A study finds that premenstrual syndrome (PMS), widely regarded as an emotional disorder, has a physiological cause in the effect on the brain of fluctuating hormone levels. . . . Microsoft Corp. reaches a partial out-of-court settlement in an antitrust suit brought by the Justice Department, agreeing to modify its Windows 95 operating system in compliance with a federal judge’s December 1997 order. . . . Some 2,000 Maine residents remain without power due to the Jan. 8 ice storm. . . . The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour lifts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission to deliver U.S. astronaut Dr. Andrew S.W. Thomas to the Russian space station Mir and to collect from it another U.S. astronaut, Dr. David A. Wolf.

Fairfax County circuit court judge J. Howe Brown Jr. formally sentences Pakistani immigrant Mir Aimal Kasi to death for murdering two CIA employees in 1993. . . . In response to the scandal involving Pres. Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, foreign commentators note the seriousness of the obstruction of justice allegations, but the overwhelming tone—especially in Europe and Latin America—is that Clinton is a victim of what they see as Americans’ puritanical attitude toward sex. Reports confirm that ASARCO Inc., one of the largest mining companies in the U.S., has settled charges that it illegally discharged toxic waste at its copper mine near Kelvin, Arizona, and at its lead smelting site in East Helena, Montana. Under the terms of the settlement, ASARCO agrees to spend $50 million to clean up the sites and to establish pollution-monitoring programs at its 38 facilities in seven states. ASARCO also agrees to pay $6 million for violating environmental statutes.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Jan. 22

Researchers find that high levels of the hormone insulinlike growth factor-1 (IGF-1) increases men’s risk of cancer of the prostate gland.

The Alabama Supreme Court dismisses a lawsuit that sought to allow Judge Roy Moore to continue to hold prayer sessions and display the Ten Commandments in his courtroom. . . . Victor (Edward John) Pasmore, 89, British painter who in 1937 cofounded the Euston Road School, dies on the island of Malta.

The U.S. spacecraft Endeavour successfully docks with the Russian space station Mir.

Five former players—Mike Singletary, Anthony Munoz, Dwight Stephenson, Tommy McDonald, and Paul Krause—are named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

The Denver Broncos upset the Green Bay Packers, 31-24, to win football’s Super Bowl XXXII in San Diego, California. It is the first AFC victory in 13 years. Denver police use tear gas to disperse a near-riot by 10,000 Broncos fans. In his strongest remarks to date on the sex scandal that broke Jan. 21, Pres. Clinton states, “I want you to listen to me. I’m going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time—never. These allegations are false. And I need to go back to work for the American people.”. . . In Brogan v. United States, the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that individuals who falsely claim their innocence while under questioning by a federal investigator may be prosecuted under the federal falsestatements statute.

Judge Stanley Sporkin of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., orders the U.S. Navy to cease its efforts to discharge Senior Chief Petty Officer Timothy R. McVeigh, who listed himself as homosexual in a personal profile on the America Online (AOL) computer service. Navy administrators in November 1997 recommended that McVeigh— no relation to the man convicted of the bombing in Oklahoma City— be dismissed due to his sexual orientation.

Environmental officials release three Mexican wolves into the Apache National Forest, which straddles the New Mexico-Arizona border. It is the first step in a reintroduction program. . . . Data shows that sales of existing homes in 1997 totaled 4.21 million units, a new record that surpasses the previous high of 4.09 million homes resold in 1996. . . . Officials of the nation’s two largest teachers’ unions, the NEA and the AFT, release plans for a proposed merger. If approved, the merger will create the largest labor union in U.S. history, with some 3.2 million members nationwide.

Statistics reveal that the Super Bowl’s Nielsen rating was 44.5, which means it drew an audience of 133.4 million people in the U.S., tying it for the third-most watched program in TV history. . . . Shinichi Suzuki, 99, Japanese violinist who developed the internationally used “Suzuki Method” of childhood music instruction, dies in Matsumoto, Japan, of a heart attack.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 23

Jan. 24

Jan. 25

Jan. 26

1096—January 27–February 1, 1998

Jan. 27

World Affairs

Europe

The executive board of the World Health Organization (WHO) nominates former Norwegian premier Gro Harlem Brundtland to be the next director general of the WHO.

A letter is made public, in which Pope John Paul II asks Germany’s Catholic bishops to end the church’s role in issuing certificates showing that women have undergone counseling before undergoing an abortion. Women in Germany are required to obtain proof that they had counseling before they can legally have an abortion. In response to the letter, bishops of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany announce that church-sponsored counseling centers will stop issuing such certificates. The Turkish government releases a report confirming widespread suspicions that government officials were partially responsible for several assassinations and kidnappings in the mid-1990s, frequently targeting Kurdish separatists.

Jan. 28

Jan. 29

The Central African Republic establishes diplomatic ties with China, severing its relations with Taiwan. It is the Central African Republic’s third resumption of relations with China since 1964.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Military firing squads in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, publicly execute 21 people convicted of murder and armed robbery.

Reports confirm that the government of Guatemala has restored diplomatic relations with Cuba and plans to open an embassy in Havana, Cuba’s capital, in 1998. . . . Carlos Flores Facusse is sworn in as the president of Honduras in Tegucigalpa, the capital.

The severe rains from Cyclone Les that hit the Northern Territory town of Katherine, Australia, on Jan. 25 have killed at least three people and forced the evacuation of most of the town’s 9,000 residents. During the three-day deluge, about 17 inches (42 cm) of rain fell on the town. The resultant flooding temporarily shuts down power and causes tens of millions of dollars in damage to homes and businesses.

A helicopter crash kills Lt. Col. Firmin Sinzoyiheba, the defense minister of Burundi, as well as the pilot, a bodyguard, a military commander, and the personal secretary to Burundian president Pierre Buyoya. The officials were en route to peace talks with Hutu rebels.

In Mexico, Rubicel Ruiz Gamboa, a peasant leader and supporter of the leftist opposition Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), is shot dead outside his home in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the capital of the southern state of Chiapas. The killing is the latest in a wave of violence that began with the massacre of 45 Tzotzil Indians in December 1997. . . . Brazil’s Congress passes a bill giving Brazil’s federal environmental agency power to impose fines for environmental damage.

A court in Poonamallee, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, India, condemns 26 people to death by hanging for their roles in the 1991 assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. The defendants are among 41 people charged with orchestrating the assassination plot; 12 other suspects have committed suicide or died in gun battles with police. The sentencing of the defendants ends the longest assassination trial in India’s history.

British prime minister Tony Blair announces that the government will launch a new investigation into “Bloody Sunday,” a 1972 incident in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, in which British troops shot and killed 14 unarmed Roman Catholic protesters. The announcement, which comes a day before the 26th anniversary of the killings, is seen as a potential boost for peace talks under way in London and in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Thousands of people throughout Northern Ireland participate in peace rallies to mark the 26th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday massacre.

Jan. 30

Africa & the Middle East

Eight people are killed and some 40 are wounded in the eastern Bekaa Valley city of Baalbek when the Lebanese army tries to take control of a Hezbollah (Party of God) religious school seized by supporters of Sheik Sobhi al-Tufaili’s Hunger Revolution movement.

The finance ministry shuts down 10 of South Korea’s 30 merchant banks, saying that they have insufficient capital and excessive borrowing.

Milorad Dodik is sworn in as the Bosnian Serb Republic’s new premier in Banja Luka, the republic’s new capital.

Jan. 31

Miguel Angel Rodriguez of the conservative opposition Social Christian Unity Party is elected Costa Rica’s new president. The Social Christian Unity Party wins a slim majority in the Legislative Assembly, the country’s single-chamber legislative body.

Feb. 1

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 27–February 1, 1998—1097

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

In his State of the union address, Pres. Clinton proclaims that the closing years of the 20th century are “a time to build” for the future. Clinton states that expected budget surpluses should be utilized to ensure that the Social Security system will meet Americans’ needs. Senate majority leader Trent Lott (R, Miss.) delivers the Republican response. . . . Jerome R. Sullivan, a former FBI agent, pleads guilty to 10 counts of embezzlement for stealing more than $400,000 from the FBI from 1992 to 1997.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Reports find that federal wildlife officials have observed that a deadly toxin plaguing American bald eagles and American coots has migrated to three lakes in central Arkansas. . . . The Conference Board reports that its index of consumer confidence plunged in January to 127.3, from a revised December 1997 reading of 136.2. The January drop is the largest in eight years.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle The Whitbread Book of the Year Award, considered one of Britain’s most prestigious literary prizes, is given to British poet Ted Hughes. . . . Some 400,000 fans turn out for a parade to celebrate the Broncos’ Jan. 25 win in the Super Bowl in Denver, Colorado.

Dr. Barbara A. DeBuono, the New York State health commissioner, discloses that two women thought to have contracted HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, from Nushawn J. Williams gave birth to HIV-positive babies. Williams is accused of knowingly infecting as many as 13 women in the Chautauqua County region. . . . A CBS News poll puts Pres. Clinton’s approval rating at 73%, the highest of his presidency and up from 58% earlier in the week. A bomb explodes outside an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, killing Robert Sanderson, 35, an off-duty police officer working as a security guard, and seriously injuring a nurse. It is the first time ever that the bombing of an abortion clinic results in a fatality. . . . Robert Smith, 47, convicted of the 1995 murder of an Indiana prison inmate, is put to death by lethal injection in Michigan City, Indiana. He is the 435th person to be executed in the U.S. and only the sixth in Indiana since 1976.

Jan. 27

Jan. 28

CIA inspector general Frederick Hitz releases the first volume of a report on his 15-month-long investigation into the 1996 allegations that the CIA condoned the cocaine sales in the U.S. in the 1980s that raised funds for U.S.-backed Nicaraguan contra rebels. Hitz’s report finds that the CIA had no knowledge of such activities.

The State Department issues its annual report on the status of human rights around the world. The report tones down the criticisms of China made in 1997. Human-rights groups disagree with that assessment. Women in both Algeria and Afghanistan are found to have suffered serious abuses. Other countries cited for abuses include Cambodia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sudan, and Vietnam. The report names U.S. allies such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Mexico, for human-rights violations as well.

A team of scientists report that it discovered seven 92-million-yearold ant fossils preserved in amber in Cliffwood Beach, New Jersey. The discovery confirms the existence of socially organized, varied ant species some 40 million years before their populations suddenly began to flourish.

Judge Ricardo Urbina fines Republican lobbyist James Lake $150,000 for his part in an illegal scheme to pay off the campaign debts incurred by Henry Espy in an unsuccessful run for Congress in 1993. . . . Data reveal that the total membership of U.S. unions in 1997 was 12.9 million individuals, about the same number as the previous year.

Singer Bobby Brown is convicted on two counts of driving while under the influence of alcohol, a misdemeanor, and is sentenced to five days in jail, 30 days in a residential substance-abuse treatment facility, and 100 hours of community service.

A study identifies the gene responsible for a severe form of hair loss. . . . Two scientists—Vittorio Sgaramella of the University of Calabria, Italy, and Norton D. Zinder of New York City’s Rockefeller University—express skepticism over the “lack of any confirmation” of the cloning of an adult sheep by Scottish scientists, reported in 1997.

The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour touches down at the Kennedy Space Center after delivering U.S. astronaut Dr. Andrew S.W. Thomas to the Russian space station Mir and collecting from it another U.S. astronaut, Dr. David A. Wolf. Thomas is the seventh and expected to be the final U.S. astronaut to stay on Mir. Hundreds of employees of the Frontier Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, end a more than six-yearlong strike against the resort, with a pledge from the new owner to restore most of their jobs and compensate their lost pay.

Jan. 29

Jan. 30

Top-seeded Martina Hingis of Switzerland for the second straight year wins the women’s tennis title at the Australian Open in Melbourne, defeating Spain’s Conchita Martinez.

Judge Robert Altman finds that Giles Harrison and Andrew O’Brien, two British paparazzi, trapped actor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, journalist Maria Shriver, while trying to obtain pictures in May 1997. . . . The AFC defeats the NFC, 29-24, to win the National Football League’s all-star game. . . . At the Australian Open, Petr Korda of the Czech Republic beats Chile’s Marcelo Rios to win the men’s tennis title.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 31

Feb. 1

1098—February 2–6, 1998

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific A plane crashes near Mt. Sumagaya on the Philippine island of Mindanao, killing all 99 passengers and five crew members. . . . Three rockets are fired into a cargo section of the Narita International Airport near Tokyo, Japan, injuring one worker. . . . Australia’s Industrial Relations Commission rules that nearly 300 miners fired in 1997 are entitled to as much as A$8 million (US$5.2 million) in compensation from their former employer, Gordonstone Coal Management. It is the nation’s largest-ever unfairdismissal case.

Feb. 2

Armenian president Levon Ter-Petrossian resigns after disagreements with Premier Kocharyan over policy toward the region of NagornoKarabakh in Azerbaijan. . . . In the Dolomite Mountains in Italy, a U.S. military aircraft severs a cable carrying ski-lift cars, causing one car to plummet 300 feet (90 m). All 20 people on board the car are killed. . . . Berlin’s landmark preservation office confirms the discovery of the bunker used by Josef Goebbels, the now-deceased former Nazi propaganda chief.

Feb. 3

Kenya’s political opposition stages a protest at the opening of the first session of Parliament since Daniel T. arap Moi was reelected president.

South Korea’s defense ministry states that Byun Yong Kwan, a North Korean army captain, defected to South Korea through the neutral village of Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone between the two countries.

Six inmates die and 37 others are injured in a riot at the overcrowded Modelo prison in the city of Cucuta in northeastern Colombia.

Feb. 4

Feb. 5

Feb. 6

The German government announces that the national unemployment rate, not adjusted for seasonal variations, rose to 12.6% in January, from 11.8% in December 1997. The release of the figures prompts tens of thousands of unemployed workers to stage massive demonstrations in more than 100 cities.

ECOMOG peacekeeping troops launch an offensive against Sierra Leone’s military junta after it failed to meet a December 1997 deadline for disarming its troops. . . . Kenyan Pres. Daniel T. arap Moi imposes a curfew in the Rift Valley region after weeks of ethnic violence that has led to at least 100 deaths. . . . Iraq’s Pres. Hussein orders the release of all non-Iraqi Arab prisoners in Iraqi jails or awaiting trial. . . . Authorities in Lagos, Nigeria, rename the street where the U.S. embassy is located after Louis Farrakhan.

Claude Erignac, the prefect of the Mediterranean island of Corsica, a French possession, is killed by two gunmen on a street in Ajaccio, the capital. Erignac, 60, was the French government’s top official on the island. . . . Germany’s parliamentary upper chamber, the Bundesrat, passes by a one-vote margin a bill to amend the constitution to allow electronic surveillance of homes and businesses by police in many circumstances.

Nazem el-Kodsi, 91, president of Syria, 1961–63, who was ousted in a bloodless coup by Col. Ziad Hariri in 1963, dies in Jordan of unreported causes.

An earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale strikes Afghanistan, killing an estimated 4,500 people and leaving thousands of others injured or homeless. The quake is centered in the vicinity of Rostaq, 200 miles (320 km) north of Kabul. . . . Kim Dong Su, a North Korean delegate to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization based in Rome, Italy, seeks political asylum at South Korea’s Rome embassy.

Sonia Gandhi, the widow of slain former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, draws a crowd of some 120,000 supporters at a rally in Calcutta, India. . . . A radical leftist group, the Revolutionary Workers Association, claims responsibility for the Feb. 2 rocket attack on Narita International Airport near Tokyo, Japan’s capital.

Myles Neuts, a 10-year-old Ontario, Canada, student, is found hanging in a school washroom at St. Agnes Roman Catholic school in Chatham.

South Korea’s labor unions reach agreement with business leaders and the government on legislation that will legalize layoffs by troubled companies and companies involved in mergers and acquisitions. Reform of South Korea’s labor laws is a condition of the 1997 bailout agreement with the IMF. . . . Gov. Masahide Ota of Japan’s Okinawa prefecture rejects a plan agreed to in 1996 to build an offshore helicopter base for the U.S. military near the town of Nago, Okinawa.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 2–6, 1998—1099

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The CDC notes that U.S. AIDS deaths decreased in the first half of 1997 by 44% from the same period in 1996. It also reports that 12,040 people in the U.S. died of AIDS in the first half of 1997, down from 21,460 the previous year. . . . Reports state that a group called the Army of God has taken responsibility for the Jan. 29 bombing of an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama. . . . Judge Roger Strand sentences former Arizona governor J. Fife Symington III (R) to two and half years in prison and five years’ probation on federal fraud charges.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Pres. Clinton presents to Congress the first balanced federal budget in nearly 30 years. Clinton’s $1.73 trillion proposal for the fiscal 1999 year, which begins Oct. 1, represents a 3.9% increase over the current year. . . . The Standard & Poor’s index of 500 stocks for the first time ends a trading day above the 1000-point mark, closing up 20.99, or 2.14%, at 1001.27.

The FDA issues new regulations requiring doctors who conduct tests of new drugs and medical devices to disclose financial links to the products’ makers. . . . South Florida is hit by tornadoes, bringing high winds and heavy rains.

Roger L(acey) Stevens, 87, Broadway producer and founding chair of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, dies in Washington, D.C., of pneumonia; he had suffered a stroke in 1993. . . . Paradise, by Toni Morrison, tops the bestseller list.

A panel of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rules that the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory may have violated the constitutional privacy rights of its employees by conducting genetic tests without their permission on the blood and urine obtained in employment physical examinations. . . . Yah Lin (Charlie) Trie, a friend of Pres. Clinton wanted in connection with alleged political fund-raising offenses, surrenders to federal agents at Dulles International Airport.

David Ho and Tuofu Zhu of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center report the discovery of the oldest known case of HIV infection in a human being. The researchers found the virus in a blood sample taken in 1959 from a Bantu man in what was then the Belgian Congo, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Comparisons of the 1959 virus with more recent samples indicate that the different subtypes of HIV share a common ancestor in the late 1940s or early 1950s.

Convicted murderer Karla Faye Tucker is put to death by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas. She is the second woman executed in the U.S. since 1976. The state of North Carolina executed convicted murderer Margie Velma Barfield in 1984. Texas last executed a woman in 1863. Tucker is the 437th person executed in the U.S. and the 145th in Texas since 1976.

Reports state that an accidental 1979 release of anthrax bacterial spores from a military facility in the Soviet Union included at least four strains of the bacteria. The finding suggests the possibility that Soviet scientists devised the strains in order to render useless the anthrax vaccine used by the U.S. military.

The Senate passes, 76-22, a bill to rename Washington National Airport in honor of former president Ronald Reagan. . . . Alan Keith Campbell, 74, architect of civil service reform who, in 1977, was named to head the Civil Service Commission, dies in Haverford, Pennsylvania, of complications from emphysema. . . . Mary Kay Letourneau, 35, is arrested for violating her Jan. 2 parole by contacting the 14-year-old boy with whom she had sexual relations.

Prime Minister Tony Blair makes his first official visit to the U.S. as head of the British government.

The House gives final congressional approval to a bill that will rename Washington National Airport in honor of former president Ronald Reagan. . . . Roderick Ferrell, 17, the professed leader of a vampire cult, pleads guilty to murdering Richard Wendorf and his wife, Naoma Ruth Queen, in their home in Eustis, Florida, in 1996. The couple’s 17-year-old daughter, Heather Wendorf, a former member of Ferrell’s cult, was cleared by a grand jury in 1997 of any involvement in the murders.

The House votes, 347-69, to override Pres. Clinton’s line-item veto of 38 items from the fiscal 1998 military construction appropriations bill.

Astra USA Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of a Swedish pharmaceuticals company, agrees to pay a record $9.9 million to settle sexual-harassment charges brought by the EEOC. In an unusual move, Astra USA publicly acknowledges it has a hostile workplace environment for its female employees. . . . The Long Island Sound Policy Committee approves a plan to reduce the release of nitrogen into the waters of Long Island Sound from sewage-treatment plants along the New York and Connecticut shoreline.

Pres. Clinton signs a bill to rename Washington National Airport in honor of former president Ronald Reagan, a move that coincides with Reagan’s 87th birthday. . . . When asked if he will resign in face of allegations involving Monica Lewinsky, Pres. Clinton answers, “Never. You know, I was elected to do a job. And I’m just going to keep showing up for work.”. . . Mary Kay Letourneau’s 71⁄2 year prison sentence for rape is reinstated after her Feb. 4 arrest. In the highly publicized case, Letourneau pled guilty to rape charges in August 1997 and was paroled on Jan. 2.

Marine Corps officials admit for the first time that the plane that cut a ski lift cable in Italy Feb. 3, causing it to plummet more than 300 feet (90 m) and kill all 20 people inside the car, was flying too low. . . . Two U.S. Marine Corps F/A-18C Hornet single-seat jet fighters collide over the Persian Gulf during a training mission about 80 miles (125 km) east of Kuwait. One of the pilots is killed and the other is rescued at sea.

The Labor Department reports that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the U.S. in January remained at the 4.7% revised level recorded for December 1997. That rate is just a step above November’s 24-year low of 4.6%.

Pres. Clinton creates, by executive order, a White House council that will coordinate the administration’s efforts to tackle computer problems related to the arrival of the year 2000. . . . An official reports that scientists have discovered the remains of a duck-billed dinosaur in Antarctica. It is the first discovery of such a creature outside the Americas and supports the theory that South America and Antarctica were connected by land.

Feb. 2

Feb. 3

Jean Blackwell Hutson, 83, curator and head of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City who helped increase the collection’s holdings to roughly 75,000 volumes, dies in New York.

A study suggests that carotid endarterectomy, a common operation intended to prevent strokes in patients with blocked carotid arteries, is not effective in many patients and may even cause strokes in others. . . . Two teams of paleontologists reveal they have discovered rich troves of well-preserved early animal and plant fossils in phosphate deposits in China’s Guizhou province. The fossils date back as far as 580 million years, about 40 million years before the Cambrian explosion.

Feb. 4

Feb. 5

Australian medical officials rule that the November 1997 death of Michael Hutchence, the former lead singer of the rock group INXS, was the result of a suicide, precipitated by severe psychological depression.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 6

1100—February 7–11, 1998

World Affairs

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

A bomb explodes at a crowded cafe in central Algiers, the capital of Algeria, killing three people and injuring eight others. A second blast occurs in the town of Blida, south of Algiers, causing two deaths and injuring 12 people. . . . A pro-Iraq rally in the Palestinian West Bank city of Bethlehem turns violent. . . . The U.S.’s Rev. Jesse Jackson launches a visit to Kenya, Congo, and Liberia on behalf of the Clinton administration.

At least 14 civilians suspected of being rebel sympathizers in and around the Colombian city of Puerto Asis are murdered by paramilitary gunmen. . . . Haiti reopens its embassy in Havana, Cuba, more than 30 years after diplomatic relations between the two Caribbean nations was cut off by then Haitian president François (Papa Doc) Duvalier.

Reports from Afghanistan confirm that Taliban leader Sheik Mohammed Omar has ordered his forces to suspend military operations in the vicinity of the Feb. 4 earthquake. . . . Chinese dissidents in the U.S. and Hong Kong claim that police in the eastern city of Bengbu have arrested Wang Bingzhang, an exiled Chinese prodemocracy activist, after a nationwide manhunt.

Enoch Powell, 85, British member of Parliament, 1950–87, known for his staunchly nationalistic, right-wing political stance, dies in London after suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

Nine members of the European Parliament embark on a peace mission to Algeria.

Historians disclose that mudslides have damaged parts of the historic Nazca Lines in Peru’s southern desert. The Nazca Lines, a major tourist attraction, are mysterious symbols and animal figures etched into the ground by Peru’s indigenous peoples more than 1,000 years ago.

In Afghanistan, despite the Feb. 7 order, clashes between the Taliban and opposition forces erupt in the region of the Feb. 4. earthquake.

Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze survives an assassination attempt in which an estimated 24 rebels open fire on his motorcade in Tbilisi, the capital. Three people are killed and four are wounded in the attack, the second attempt on Shevardnadze’s life in 30 months. . . . Brendan Campbell, a suspected drug dealer, is killed in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Although he was a Roman Catholic, the Catholic-dominated IRA is suspected in the slaying. . . . The American Jewish Committee, a U.S.-based Jewish advocacy group, opens an office in Berlin, Germany, for the first time since the fall of the Nazi regime in 1945.

ECOMOG forces bombard Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, with artillery fire.

In Canada, three teenaged girls plead guilty to assault charges in connection with the death of Reena Virk, a 14-year-old girl who was beaten by a group of teenagers and subsequently drowned in November 1997.

Tokyo prosecutors raid Industrial Bank of Japan Ltd., widening their investigation of Japanese banks’ alleged bribery of government bureaucrats. . . . Reports reveal that two prodemocracy activists, Yang Qinheng and Zhang Rujuan, were arrested in Shanghai, China.

Robert Dougan, a Protestant who supported British rule in Northern Ireland, is shot dead near Belfast. . . . Maurice Schumann, 86, French radio broadcaster, statesman, and a key member of the resistance to the Nazis during World War II, dies in Paris, France, of unreported causes.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that 7,000 Sierra Leoneans in recent weeks fled the country for neighboring Guinea in makeshift boats. . . . In response to the Feb. 7 violent rally in the Palestinian West Bank city of Bethlehem, Major General Ghazi Jabali, the head of the PNA police, bans all such demonstrations in areas under PNA jurisdiction.

Reports state that winter storms have caused 13 deaths in and around the Mexican city of Tijuana. Separately, the Mexican government expels Maria Bullitt Darlington of the U.S. because she participated in a pro-EZLN demonstration in April 1997, in violation of her tourist visa.

Turkey’s legal gambling halls, which number nearly 80, close down permanently as a national ban on casino gambling takes effect. . . . In response to the Feb. 6 assassination of prefect Claude Erignac, 40,000 people march in peace rallies throughout the Mediterranean island of Corsica, a French possession.

About 50 Sierra Leonean refugees fleeing the country for neighboring Guinea drown when a boat packed with more than 100 people capsizes.

Some 80 miners die when the Mocotoro gold mine in Bolivia is buried by a mudslide caused by heavy rains.

Feb. 7

Feb. 8

Feb. 9

Feb. 10

Australian prime minister John Howard announces that his cabinet has agreed to offer military support to a U.S.-led coalition of nations, should any conflict erupt over Iraq’s blockade of UN arms inspectors. The decision marks Australia’s first commitment of ground forces to a foreign military scenario since the Vietnam War. The Canadian government also announces that it is willing to take part in a military campaign against Iraq.

Feb. 11

Africa & the Middle East

Reports disclose that Wang Bingzhang, an exiled Chinese prodemocracy activist, was deported and flown to Los Angeles from Shanghai. . . . Thousands of Taiwanese farmers demonstrate outside the American Institute, the U.S. government’s representative office in Taipei, the capital, to protest U.S. demands for lowered tariffs on imported agricultural products and for an end to Taiwan’s ban on rice imports.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 7–11, 1998—1101

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle The XVIII Winter Olympic Games open in Nagano, Japan. The competition draws 2,450 athletes from 72 nations. . . . Carl (Dean) Wilson, 51, founding member of the rockand-roll band the Beach Boys, dies in Los Angeles, California, of complications from lung cancer.

William G. Lambert, 78, Pulitzer-prize winning investigative reporter whose articles exposed shady business dealings by Supreme Court justice Abe Fortas before he resigned from the court and contributed to a Senate investigation of the Teamsters and conviction of the union’s president, Dave Beck, dies in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, of respiratory problems after a long illness.

Reports confirm that Dr. Johan Hultin has isolated a specimen of the virus that killed some 21 million people worldwide in a 1918 influenza epidemic.

The FTC states it will require the U.S.’s five largest cigar companies to furnish detailed reports of their annual sales and their spending on advertising and promotions. The order comes amid reports that cigar sales reached 5.2 billion in 1997, up 53% from 1993. . . . A survey of HIV-infected patients at two hospitals in Boston, Massachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island, finds that some 40% of them failed to inform sex partners about their infection. Two-thirds of those who did not reveal their condition had not always used condoms during sex.

The financially troubled District of Columbia reports a budget surplus of $185.9 million for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 1997. The district—which last recorded a surplus in 1993—had projected a $74 million deficit for 1997.

The Senate votes, 63-35, to confirm Dr. David Satcher as surgeon general, filling a post vacant for over three years.

The year’s first record high is registered when the Dow closes at 8295.61. . . . The CEA notes that 1997 “saw the nation’s economy turn in its best performance in a generation.” But the CEA forecasts that the U.S.’s 1997 growth rate of 3.9% will trail off to around 2% during the years 1998 to 2000. . . . An EPA report finds that women in California who drink five or more glasses of tap water a day have a higher rate of miscarriage than women who drink less tap water.

Maine’s House of Representatives rejects, 99-42, a bill that would have allowed physicians to prescribe medications to commit suicide to terminally ill patients. . . . In a racial-discrimination suit, U.S. district judge Harvey E. Schlesinger of Jacksonville, Florida, orders a Domino’s Pizza franchise in Fernandina Beach, Florida, to start making home deliveries in a black community within the boundaries of its delivery area. The franchise did not deliver to homes in American Beach, where 71 of 75 residents were black, telling customers that that area was unsafe.

New York governor George E. Pataki (R) announces that New York State has purchased Sterling Forest, a 15,800-acre (6,400hectare) parcel of land northwest of New York City. . . . The EPA announces a policy that would require all of the 56,000 community water agencies in the U.S. to send to their customers annual reports on the safety of local drinking water.

Halldor Laxness, 95, Icelandic writer who won the 1955 Nobel Prize in literature, dies in Reykjavik. . . . The Eastern Conference wins the National Basketball Association’s All-Star Game over the Western Conference, 135-114, in New York City.

Feb. 7

Feb. 8

Feb. 9

Procter & Gamble Co. announces that it has begun shipping its synthetic fat substitute, olestra, to snack-food maker Frito-Lay Co. for use in products nationwide. . . . Reports reveal that winter storms have caused seven deaths in California.

Two-year-old racehorse Favorite Trick wins the Eclipse Award as 1997’s horse of the year.

In Eugene, Oregon, U.S. district judge Thomas Coffin rules that disabled golfer Casey Martin, who suffers from a rare circulatory disorder called Klippel-TrenaunayWeber syndrome, which restricts blood flow in his right leg, may use a cart in PGA Tour events.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 10

Feb. 11

1102—February 12–17, 1998

World Affairs

Europe

Feb. 12

Feb. 13

Feb. 14

Feb. 17

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

ECOMOG forces capture the junta’s headquarters in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, after the artillery fire campaign that began Feb. 9. . . . At least eight senior Sudanese political and military leaders and about 42 others die in a plane crash in southern Sudan. Major General al-Zubayr Muhammad Salih, 54, Sudan’s first vice president who played a key role in the 1989 coup that brought the current Islamic government to power, dies in the crash.

Colombian officials reveal that paramilitary troops killed at least 48 civilians—including those slain Feb. 7—who were suspected of being rebel sympathizers in and around the southern city of Puerto Asis in recent weeks. . . . The Cuban government announces that it will free at least 200 inmates, including some political prisoners, “on humanitarian grounds.”

Nigerian-led peacekeeping troops under the banner of an alliance of West African nations known as ECOMOG oust Sierra Leone’s military government from power, concluding the offensive launched Feb. 5. . . . Jordanian riot police arrest 80 people in Amman, the capital, when they try to hold a proIraq demonstration.

Three Canadian girls, ages 14, 15, and 16, are found guilty in a Victoria, British Columbia, court of assault causing bodily harm to Reena Virk, a 14-year-old girl beaten and drowned in November 1997. Three other teenage girls pled guilty to assault charges on Feb. 9.

As Indonesia’s currency, the rupiah, continues to plunge, hundreds of people loot and set fire to local shops in western Java, the country’s main island. Reports confirm that rioters in previous incidents set Chinese-owned stores ablaze and ransacked churches. . . . Delegates to Australia’s Constitutional Convention vote in favor of severing ties to the British monarchy and establishing a republic with an Australian head of state. P.M. John Howard promises a referendum on the issue before the year 2000.

A train collision followed by an explosion in Yaounde, Cameroon, kills at least 100 people.

In contrast with the death toll reported Feb. 12, the Cuban government claims that 26 people died in a recent crackdown against leftist sympathizers.

In Coimbatore in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, dozens are killed in a string of bombings that excplode just before Lal Krishna Advani, a hard-line Hindu nationalist of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is scheduled to hold a rally there. . . . An explosion goes off on an electric-powered bus in the Chinese city of Wuhan, in Hubei province. Official Chinese news states that 16 people have been killed and 30 others injured in the explosion. However, sources in Wuhan place the death toll at 30.

Greek Cypriot president Glafcos Clerides wins a second five-year term in the second round of a presidential election.

Feb. 15

Feb. 16

Africa & the Middle East

Iraq permits a UN survey team in Baghdad to begin mapping the eight presidential sites that Saddam Hussein previously declared off-limits to UNSCOM inspectors.

Pres. Bill Clinton warns that he is ready to order a campaign of air strikes against Iraq unless Iraq soon agrees to allow UN arms inspectors to resume their “free, full, unfettered access” to potential Iraqi storage and production facilities for weapons of mass destruction. While Britain also is ready to use “all necessary means,” the other three members of the Security Council—France, Russia, and China—have voiced opposition to a military solution to the conflict. UN secretary general Kofi Annan announces that he will travel to Baghdad in an effort to defuse the crisis through diplomatic means.

Data suggests that at least 118 people had been killed and an estimated 700 wounded in the fighting by ECOMOG forces and the military junta in Sierra Leone. Most of the injured are apparently civilians.

Ernst Junger, 102, German writer best known for works about war, dies in Wilflingen, Germany.

Officials of the Roman Catholic Church report that bands of armed men who support the ousted military government in Sierra Leone are terrorizing the northeastern region of the country and have kidnapped five European missionaries in the town of Lunsar, some 35 miles (60 km) northeast of Freetown.

A China Airlines jet crashes near Taipei, the Tawainese capital, killing all 196 passengers and crew aboard and seven people on the ground. Among the passengers killed is the governor of Taiwan’s central bank, Sheu Yuan-dong, and three other bank officials. In an emergency session, Taiwan’s cabinet names Patrick Liang Cheng-chin as acting governor, to replace Sheu. A U.S. citizen, Robert Edwin Schweitzer, is expelled from Mexico for violating his tourist visa when he allegedly met with EZLN leaders. . . . Statistics Canada (Statscan) releases the results of the first-ever direct question on race in an attempt to determine the size of Canada’s “visible minority” population. According to Statscan, 3,197,480 people, or 11.2% of Canada’s population, identified themselves as visible minorities in the 1996 census, a sharp increase from a 1986 estimate of 6.3%. . . . Nicaragua’s 3,000 governmentemployed doctors go on strike, prompting a crisis in the health-care system.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 12–17, 1998—1103

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

In Washington, D.C., Judge Thomas Hogan declares Pres. Clinton’s lineitem veto power unconstitutional, setting the stage for a definitive Supreme Court decision. . . . The House votes, 378-33, to end its investigation of the 1996 victory of Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D, Calif.) over Robert Dornan, the nine-term Republican incumbent. A House task force found evidence that 748 votes for Sanchez were cast by noncitizens, but that number is not enough to invalidate her victory.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

In Montgomery, Alabama, Circuit Court judge Sally Greenhaw adds five years’ probation to the sentence of former governor Guy Hunt (R) of Alabama, convicted of ethics charges in 1993 for stealing from his 1987 inaugural fund.

Pres. Clinton makes federal disaster aid available to three counties in Florida hit by tornadoes on Feb. 2. Those storms caused one fatality, power outages, and flooding. . . . . Scientists disclose that airborne radar surveys of the ancient city of Angkor in Cambodia revealed remains of temples older than any previously known at the site. The ruins of Angkor, the capital of the ancient Khmer empire, date from the eighth to the 13th centuries A.D.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Feb. 12

Pres. Clinton names Rita R. Colwell, president of the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute, to head the National Science Foundation. If confirmed by the Senate, Colwell, 63, will be the science foundation’s first female director.

Dr. David Satcher is sworn in as U.S. surgeon general, filling a post vacant for more than three years.

Feb. 13

Federal prosecutors name Eric Robert Rudolph a suspect in the Jan. 29 bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama, abortion clinic that killed one person and seriously injured another. The FBI offers a $100,000 reward for information leading to the capture and conviction of Rudolph, who has been missing since the bombing.

Feb. 14

Dale Earnhardt wins the Daytona 500 automobile race. . . . In soccer, Mexico defeats the U.S., 1-0, to win its third consecutive Gold Cup, the championship of the international CONCACAF. . . . Martha Ellis Gellhorn, 89, renowned war journalist who for a short time was married to writer Ernest Hemingway, dies in London, England, of cancer. Reports confirm that declassified U.S. Army intelligence reports show that the U.S. tracked the whereabouts of hundreds of its troops held in China after being taken prisoner in the 1950–53 Korean War.

A federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, indicts three former student radicals—Theresa Marie Squillacote, Kurt Alan Stand, and James M. Clark—on espionagerelated charges. . . . In a publicized case, Diane Zamora, a 20-year-old former midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, is convicted in Fort Worth, Texas, of capital murder. Prosecutors accuse Zamora of helping her boyfriend, David Graham, kill Adrianne Jones, 16, in December 1995 after Graham admitted that he had a single sexual encounter with Jones the month before.

A 44-year-old woman in Los Angeles gives birth to a boy who developed from the oldest known frozen embryo to result in a birth. The embryo had been frozen in 1989. A hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, disputes the claim, revealing that one of its patients in December 1997 delivered a baby from an embryo frozen for longer than the one in California. Statistics reveal that large companies’ net incomes were 1.3% higher in the fourth quarter of 1997 than in the year-earlier period.

At the Olympics, Russia’s Pasha Grishuk and Yevgeny Platov become the first ice-dancing duo to repeat as Olympic champions since the event was introduced in 1976.

Bob Merrill (born H. Robert Merrill Levan), 77, award-winning songwriter, dies in Los Angeles of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. . . . Ch. Fairewood Frolic, a three-yearold female Norwich terrier, wins best-in-show honors at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. . . . At the Olympics, the U.S. beats Canada, 3-1, to win the first-ever women’s Olympic ice hockey tournament.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 15

Feb. 16

Feb. 17

1104—February 18–23, 1998

World Affairs

The Americas

The UN Security Council unanimously approves a resolution that raises Iraq’s quota of oil sales under the UN’s oil-for-food program to $5.2 billion, from $2.14 billion, during any six-month period.

A U.S. citizen, Thomas Hansen of the human-rights group Pastors for Peace, is deported from Mexico. . . . Canada’s Senate votes to suspend without pay Sen. Andrew Thompson, who has attended only 12 sessions since 1990, for his poor attendance record. He is the first senator ever suspended without pay in the 130year history of the legislative chamber. . . . Cuban officials report that 299 prisoners have been released since Feb.12. One of the prisoners set free is Hector Palacios Ruiz, the leader of the outlawed Democratic Solidarity Party.

A bomb explodes in the Northern Ireland village of Moira, outside a station of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) police force, wounding 11 people. Separately, in response to the Feb. 9–10 deaths, the British and Irish governments suspend Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Provisional IRA from participating in the Northern Ireland peace talks until at least Mar. 9.

Iraq and the UN sign an accord that affirms the right of UN arms inspectors to immediate and unconditional access to suspected Iraqi weapons sites. The deal, brokered by UN secretary general Kofi Annan, defuses an explosive crisis over Iraq’s barring of the UN inspections team and averts an imminent U.S.-led campaign of retaliatory air strikes against Iraq.

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The kidnappers who attacked a UN office in western Georgia Feb. 19, release one of the UN hostages. . . . Jose Maria de Areilza, 88, Spanish statesman who fought for Gen. Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, dies in Madrid, Spain, of unreported causes.

The Turkish government formally begins dissolving the Welfare (Refah) Party, a fundamentalist Islamic party that has controlled a plurality of seats in Parliament. . . . British drug companies SmithKline Beecham PLC and Glaxo Wellcome PLC abandon plans for a widely anticipated merger. The proposed deal would have been the world’s largest corporate merger ever. . . . A car bomb explodes in Portadown, Northern Ireland, a town noted for its fervent support of British rule.

Feb. 23

The North Korean government, in a rare conciliatory gesture toward South Korea, sends letters to some 70 South Korean political and civic leaders, including President-elect Kim Dae Jung, urging dialogue between the two countries.

A power blackout hits the central business and financial district of Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city with about 1 million people, crippling commerce and effectively shutting down much of the city’s most important commercial activity. . . . Reports indicate that five people died in sporadic rioting spurred by an economic crisis in Indonesia. In response to escalating tensions, three ethnic Chinese millionaires begin to distribute food to impoverished Indonesians.

Algeria’s bombed.

Feb. 21

Asia & the Pacific Financial Secretary Donald Tsang unveils Hong Kong’s first budget since its reversion to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. The budget includes the largest package of tax cuts in Hong Kong’s history, totaling HK$100 billion (US$12.9 billion) over four years. Tsang predicts that 1998 gross domestic product growth will fall to 3.5%, from 5.2% in 1997.

An armed gang attacks a UN office in western Georgia and takes four UN observers and six civilians hostage. The group demands that the Georgian government release seven suspects held for the Feb. 9 assassination attempt on Pres. Eduard Shevardnadze. . . . The Swiss government rejects a claim by Charles Sonabend, a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust, for compensation for the deportation of his parents, who later died in a Nazi death camp. The suit is the first of its kind in Switzerland.

Feb. 19

Feb. 22

Africa & the Middle East

A court in Paris, France, convicts and sentences 36 militant Moslems for their involvement in a wave of bombings in 1995 that resulted in nine deaths and more than 200 injuries. Punishments range from suspended sentences to a 10-year jail term for Ali Touchent, considered a central figure in the bombings. Four other defendants are acquitted.

Feb. 18

Feb. 20

Europe

In Algeria, a bomb explodes under a moving train on the outskirts of Algiers, killing 18 people and wounding 25 others.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 18–23, 1998—1105

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Ocean County, New Jersey, Family Court judge Robert Fall orders Samuel Manzie, 15, to stand trial as an adult for the 1997 murder of Edward P. Werner, an 11-year-old boy. Manzie is accused of abducting, sexually assaulting, and then fatally strangling Werner. . . . . Chicago mayor Richard Daley names Terry Hillard the new superintendent of the Chicago police department.

Secretary of Defense William Cohen, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and Pres. Clinton’s national security adviser Samuel Berger face an audience of 6,000 people to discuss the crisis in Iraq at Ohio State University in a town hall meeting broadcast live worldwide by CNN.

The Labor Department reports that the government’s index of prices charged by manufacturers and farmers for finished goods fell a seasonally adjusted 0.7% in January from December 1997. That figure marks the indicator’s steepest monthly decline since August 1993.

A study suggests that a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer increases with the amount of alcohol she consumes. . . . One of a controversial series of studies shows that a shortened, relatively inexpensive regimen of the drug AZT helps prevent transmission of HIV from pregnant women to their fetuses. . . . A cardiac defibrillator is used to restart the heart of an airline passenger in what is thought to be the first time on a U.S. airplane.

Walter Reich, director of the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., tenders his resignation, effective March 31. . . . Harry Caray, baseball announcer inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1989, dies in Rancho Mirage, California, of heart failure; his age is variously reported to be in the 70s or 80s.

The Mississippi legislature becomes the last in the nation to pass a “motor-voter” law allowing people to register to vote in federal and state elections when they apply for a driver’s license or welfare benefits. . . . Lawyers for Pres. Clinton formally start negotiations on whether White House aides are protected from testifying about allegations that Clinton tried to cover up an alleged affair with Monica Lewinsky.

U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf area available for potential action against Iraq include 133 attack jets and other fighter aircraft, 15 combat vessels (including two aircraft carriers), and 13 support ships, and 5,000 army troops in Kuwait and 2,000 marines aboard four ships in the gulf.

Data reveals that concentrations of radon gas inside homes contributed to an estimated 15,400– 21,800 lung cancer deaths in the U.S. in 1995. . . . The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. recorded a $113.7 billion deficit in trade in goods and services in 1997. That amount is up 2.4% from the revised 1996 deficit of $111 billion and is the largest calendaryear trade gap since 1988.

Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Solovyev and Pavel Vinogradov and French astronaut Leopold Eyharts depart the Russian station Mir and return to Earth in the Soyuz capsule that carried the two Russians to the station in August 1997.

Leaders of the Promise Keepers, an all-male revivalist Christian group, state that the group will lay off its entire 345-member staff on Mar. 31 due to a financial crisis. . . . Grandpa Jones (Louis Marshall), 84, country music banjo player known for his longtime role on the TV show Hee Haw, dies in Nashville, Tennessee, after suffering a series of strokes.

Self-proclaimed white supremacist Chevie Kehoe pleads guilty to felonious assault, attempted murder, and carrying a concealed weapon. The charges stem from a 1997 shoot-out with Ohio police. . . . A Florida jury finds Lawrence Singleton, 70, guilty of first-degree murder in the 1997 stabbing death of Roxanne Hayes, a 31-year-old prostitute. Singleton was convicted in 1979 of raping and cutting off the forearms of a teenaged girl in California and committed the 1997 murder while on parole.

In Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. district judge Paul Matia restores U.S. citizenship to John Demjanjuk. 77, who was cleared of charges that he was a Nazi concentration camp guard known as “Ivan the Terrible.” . . . Federal authorities in New York City arrest Cheng Yong Wang and Xingqi Fu, who offered to sell organs of executed Chinese prisoners to Americans for transplants.

Researchers reveal that they have identified a hormone that plays an important role in triggering hunger in humans. The hormone is produced by nerve cells in the lateral hypothalamus, a part of the brain already known to influence the appetite.

Tara Lipinski of the U.S. wins the gold medal in the women’s figure skating competition at the Olympics. Lipinski, 15, is the youngest person ever to win an Olympic gold medal in figure skating, as Sonja Henie of Norway was two months older than Lipinski when she won the first of her three gold medals in 1928.

Julian Bond, a longtime civil-rights leader, is elected chairman of the NAACP. Bond will succeed Myrlie Evers-Williams, who resigned. Donald Stuart Russell, 92, (D, S.C.), U.S. governor, senator, and federal judge dies in Spartanburg, South Carolina, of unreported causes. . . . Abraham Alexander Ribicoff, 87, (D, Conn.) U.S. representative, senator, governor, and cabinet member, dies in New York City.

Feb. 18

Feb. 19

Feb. 20

Feb. 21 An internal report by the CIA on the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba is released to the public. The 150page report, written by then-CIA Inspector General Lyman Kirkpatrick in 1961, levels scathing criticism at the CIA, blaming the agency for the disastrous attempt by CIAtrained Cuban commandos to oust the communist government of Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz.

Thousands of employees of Caterpillar Inc. vote to reject a six-year contract their union officials recently negotiated with the company. The employees, represented by the United Auto Workers union (UAW), have been without a contract since 1991.

Several tornadoes hit central Florida, carrying winds ranging from 158 to 206 miles per hour (254–332 kmph).

The XVIII Winter Olympic Games in Nagano, Japan, conclude. German athletes won the most medals of any country, taking home a total of 29 medals. Norway is second in the medal count, with a total of 25, and Russia is third with 18. The U.S. earned 13 medals, tying its record for the most ever in the Winter Games, set in 1994.

Tornadoes continue to sweep through central Florida, killing a total of 42 people and injuring more than 260 others. The tornadoes are described as the worst ever to hit the state. . . . Major winter storms hit coastal regions of California. The severity of the California and Florida storms is attributed to the periodic weather phenomenon known as El Niño, which causes abnormal climate conditions throughout the Western Hemisphere by warming ocean currents near the Pacific coast of Peru.

William (Billy) Hallissey Sullivan Jr., 82, founder of the New England Patriots professional football team, dies in Atlantis, Florida, after a bout with colon cancer.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 22

Feb. 23

1106—February 24–March 1, 1998

Feb. 24

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), an evaluation of student achievement in mathematics and science worldwide, shows that the Netherlands registered the highest score on the 1995 test. South Africa registered the poorest performance. The highest composite score on the science portion was achieved by Sweden, and South Africa registered the lowest score.

Thousands of demonstrators launch a series of marches in Istanbul, Turkey, to protest a governmentenforced ban on religious apparel in schools.

Race riots erupt at a high school in Vryburg, a rural town in North West province in South Africa, after white parents attack black students with whips and sticks.

Feb. 25

Feb. 26

Feb. 27

The International Court of Justice, a UN body in The Hague, the Netherlands, rules that it has jurisdiction over an extradition dispute related to the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Libya has refused to release two suspects, both Libyans, to stand trial in the U.S. or Britain.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Cuba’s newly elected National Assembly reelects Fidel Castro Ruz to another five-year term as president of the ruling Council of State. Castro has ruled Cuba since 1959. . . . Canadian finance minister Paul Martin introduces the government’s first balanced budget in nearly 30 years.

The National Assembly of Laos votes to appoint Premier Khamtai Siphandon of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party to the presidency. The legislature also names Sisavat Keobounphan as premier. . . . Reports indicate that two members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult—Satoshi Matsushita and Zenji Yagisawa— were sentenced to four years in prison for a May 1995 attempted gas attack on a Tokyo subway station.

A letter bomb detonates in a mailsorting office in Belfast, Northern Ireland, wounding four employees. . . . Reports reveal more than 100 of the 150 lawmakers in the Islamic Fundamentalist Welfare (Refah) Party, which the Turkish government dissolved Feb. 23, have joined a new Islamist political group, the Virtue Party. . . . The standoff, begun Feb. 19 when an armed gang attacked a UN office in western Georgia, ends when the gunmen release the remaining hostages. Three kidnappers escape, and the remaining gunmen surrender.

Colombian authorities indict two Colombians and four former officers in the Israeli army on charges of training right-wing paramilitary terrorist units in the late 1980s.

Kim Dae Jung of the National Congress for New Politics party is inaugurated as South Korea’s president. Kim’s inauguration marks the first transfer of power from the ruling party to an opposition in South Korea’s history. . . . Perng Fai-nan is named governor of Taiwan’s central bank, the Central Bank of China.

Valdas Adamkus is sworn in as president of Lithuania.

Mexico deports Michel Henri Jean Chanteau, a French Roman Catholic priest who had worked in Chiapas for 32 years, for criticizing the government’s handling of the December 1997 massacre of 45 Tzotzil Indians. . . . Canada announces that it will admit 19 Cuban political prisoners and their families.

Lord Williams of Mostyn, a junior minister in the British Home Office, reveals that Queen Elizabeth II has endorsed plans to incorporate gender equality in the succession to the throne. The endorsement is seen as a major step toward ending royal primogeniture.

Human-rights activist Jesús María Valle Jaramillo is slain in the northeastern city of Medellín. Valle reportedly is the 11th human rights worker killed in Colombia since early 1997.

The Albanian separatist Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) attacks a Serbian police patrol near the village of Likosane, killing four policemen. Serbian police respond by killing at least 24 ethnic Albanians from Likosane. Other such attacks occur across Kosovo. The clashes spark ongoing violence in the region, raising fears of a new ethnic conflict in the Balkans.

Feb. 28

Roman Catholic Church officials disclose that rebels have released seven hostages, most of them European missionaries, held for two weeks in Sierra Leone.

Singapore’s Parliament passes a ban on political television advertisements.

A team of more than 200 human-rights observers from Europe and Canada complete a fact-finding mission in Chiapas, Mexico. The team alleges that the government is targeting foreigners as “a way of distracting from the conflict” in Chiapas and finds that the standoff between the EZLN and government supporters in the state is growing more dangerous.

At least 250,000 people from rural sections of Britain hold a massive march in London, the capital, to protest government policies that they claim disregard rural interests. The demonstration is Britain’s largest since the early 1980s.

March 1

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 24–March 1, 1998—1107

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Mississippi governor Kirk Fordice (R), vetoes a “motor-voter” law passed Feb. 19. . . . Terry Allen Langford, 31, convicted of murder, is executed by lethal injection in Deer Lodge, Montana. Langford confessed to murder nine years earlier. He is the 441st person put to death in the U.S. and only the second in Montana since 1976. . . . The results of the TIMSS show the U.S. scored below average in both the science and math portions of the test.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Conference Board businessresearch organization reports that its index of consumer confidence soared in February to 138.3, a 30year high.

The winter storms that struck California Feb. 23 continue to rage, causing at least nine deaths and some $475 million in damage.

Antonio Prohias, 77, Cuban-born cartoonist who published in Mad magazine, dies in Miami, Florida, of lung cancer. . . . Henny Youngman, 91, comedian known as the “King of the One-Liners,” dies in New York City while being treated for pneumonia.

A Florida jury recommends the death sentence for convicted murderer Lawrence Singleton, convicted Feb. 20 of first-degree murder in the 1997 stabbing death of Roxanne Hayes, a 31-year-old prostitute.

The Senate votes, 78-20, to override Pres. Clinton’s line-item veto of 38 items from the fiscal 1998 military construction appropriations bill. The House overrode the veto Feb. 5.

In Alaska v. Native Village of Venetie, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that the state of Alaska has tax and regulatory control of a remote village of Athabaskan Indians. . . . In National Credit Union Administration v. First National Bank & Trust Co., the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that individuals employed in a variety of occupations cannot be members of the same federally chartered credit union. With their ruling, the justices overturn a policy adopted in 1982 by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA).

Figures show that the cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco set 20th-century records for rainfall in the winter of 1997–98. . . . Pres. Clinton visits some of the areas of central Florida hardest hit by tornadoes. He states that he will make federal disaster aid available to 34 counties, and that the Labor Department will contribute an additional $3 million to hire cleanup workers.

Prosecutors in Tampa, Florida, charge Rev. Henry Lyons, leader of the National Baptist Convention USA, with two counts of grand theft and one count of racketeering. . . . At the Grammys, veteran folk-rock singer Bob Dylan wins three awards, including Album of the Year. “Sunny Came Home,” by Shawn Colvin, wins for Song of the Year.

Oregon’s Health Services Commission, which governs the state’s health plan for low-income residents, votes to cover lethal drug doses prescribed under the assisted-suicide law as a “medical service.” . . . Federal prosecutors indict four NYC police officers for allegedly violating the civil rights of Abner Louima and Patrick Antoine in August 1997 when they allegedly assaulted the two Haitian immigrants in their custody.

In its annual report to Congress on the antidrug efforts of countries receiving U.S. aid, the Clinton administration “certifies” Mexico. It decertifies Colombia but issues the country a “national interest” waiver that would allow it to receive U.S. aid. Pakistan, Paraguay, and Cambodia are also decertified but given national interest waivers. The report decertifies Afghanistan, Myanmar, Nigeria, and Iran. . . . FBI agents in Laredo, Texas, arrest Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, a Rwandan Seventh-day Adventist minister charged with committing genocide during Rwanda’s 1994 civil war.

Michael Milken, a convicted former junk-bond financier, agrees to pay $47 million to settle an SEC suit. . . . The FBI reaches a partial settlement with Frederic Whitehurst, a chemist who was suspended from his job at the FBI’s crime laboratory after calling attention to improper practices at the facility. The FBI agrees to give Whitehurst $1.166 million in compensation over seven years, and he, in exchange, will resign. . . . Theodore W. Schultz, 95, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 1979 for his work in agricultural economics, dies in Evanston, Ill., of pneumonia.

A total solar eclipse visible in parts of South America and the Caribbean occurs when the moon begins to occlude the sun over the Pacific Ocean southeast of Hawaii at 3:46 P.M. Greenwich mean time, or 10:46 A.M. eastern standard time. The eclipse path proceeds across northern Colombia and Venezuela and several Caribbean islands. The event is to be the last total solar eclipse appearing in the Western Hemisphere until the year 2017.

A federal jury in Amarillo, Texas, clears talk-show host Oprah Winfrey of charges that she illegally slandered U.S.-produced beef in a 1996 segment of her show when discussing bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or madcow disease.

Judge Jerry Lockett sentences Roderick Ferrell to death for the 1996 murder of a Florida couple. Ferrell, 17, a self-proclaimed vampire, confessed to the killings.

The U.S. ends a 35-year ban on the sale of weapons and weapons technology to South Africa.

George Herbert Hitchings, 92, who shared the 1988 Nobel Prize in Medicine for decades of pioneering pharmaceutical research, dies in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

In New York City, Sotheby’s concludes its auction of more than 40,000 items from the Paris home of Britain’s late Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Revenues from auctions total $23 million, well above the $6 million projection.

Arkady Nikolayevich Shevchenko, 67, top Russian diplomat who defected to the U.S., dies in Bethesda, Maryland, of a heart attack.

Todd (Robert) Duncan, 95, baritone who sang more than 2,000 recitals in 56 countries, dies in Washington, D.C., of a heart ailment.

A report finds that the 1968 prediction by a presidential commission that the U.S. is “moving toward two societies, one black, one white— separate and unequal” has largely come true 30 years later. The report notes that, while some progress has been made, racial minorities suffer disproportionately from a widening gap between the rich and the poor in the U.S. The report states that 40% of minority children attend urban schools, where more than half the students fail to achieve “basic” levels of education, and notes that one in three black American males is in prison, on parole, or on probation.

Feb. 24

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Feb. 28

March 1

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1108—March 2–6, 1998

March 2

March 3

World Affairs

Europe

The UN Security Council unanimously approves a weaponsinspection accord brokered by UN secretary general Kofi Annan with Iraqi leaders. While the council refuses to give the U.S. an automatic green light to launch a military strike against Iraq if Iraq reneges on the accord’s terms, it warns Iraq that it will face “the severest consequences” if it again obstructs UN inspectors.

Serbian riot police use clubs and tear gas to quell a protest by tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians in Pristina, Kosovo’s capital. The government reports that 16 Albanians and four Serbian policemen were killed in Feb. 28 attacks. . . . The Polish government authorizes the return of a synagogue near Auschwitz to the local Jewish community. It is the first such action under a 1997 program.

Reports from Peru show that floods and mudslides from El Niño storms have resulted in 200 fatalities, left 80,000 people homeless, and caused at least $700 million in damage. In Bolivia, 130 people have died and 70,000 others have been left homeless as a result of El Niño. In Ecuador, at least 135 people have died and 30,000 others have been left homeless by El Niño.

Thousands of ethnic Albanians attend a funeral for those killed Feb. 28 in Likosane. . . . Unidentified gunmen open fire on a bar in Poyntzpass, Northern Ireland, killing two people and wounding two others. The apparent terrorist attack is unusual since one of those killed is Protestant while the other is Roman Catholic. . . . Latvian police in Riga, the capital, use force to break up a demonstration held by thousands of elderly members of the Russian-speaking minority protesting the high cost of living and demanding that Latvia recognize their Soviet-era passports. A former Bosnian Serb paramilitary leader indicted in 1996, Dragoljub Kunarac, turns himself in to French-led NATO peacekeeping forces in the southeastern Bosnian town of Filipovici.

March 4

March 5

The UN war-crimes tribunal reduces by half the jail sentence for Drazen Erdemovic, a 26-year-old Bosnian Croat who in January was convicted of killing at least 70 unarmed Bosnian Moslems in 1995. The ruling reduces Erdemovic’s sentence to five years. The presiding judge, Florence Mumba, reveals that Erdemovic’s young age and displays of remorse were factors in the decision.

Africa & the Middle East Italian foreign minister Lamberto Dini declares in Teheran, the Iranian capital, that Iran has severed all links with terrorist groups.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Leftist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) ambush an elite army battalion in the jungle near Cartagena del Chaira in the southern Caqueta province, sparking days of fighting. At least 62 of the approximately 150 soldiers in the battalion are killed. The attack is called the worst single defeat the army has ever suffered at the hands of leftist rebels in more than 30 years of civil strife.

Reports confirm that a cargo plane operated by Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airways has made the first flight over North Korea by an airline from a noncommunist country since the 1950–53 Korean War. . . . Reports reveal that Australian federal and state ministers have decided that thousands of sacred aboriginal relics housed in museums nationwide will be returned to their traditional owners.

Zoilamerica Narvaez Murillo, the stepdaughter of former president Daniel Ortega Saavedra, publicly accuses him of sexually abusing her as a child. The charges stun Nicaragua.

Taiwan’s transport ministry announces that it will allow a Chinese shipping company to sail directly between the northern Taiwanese port of Keelung and Shanghai, China. The route will be the first economically meaningful direct shipping link between China and Taiwan since 1949.

Ezer Weizman wins reelection in the Knesset as president of Israel.

Data shows that some 50 people have been killed in clashes between Serbian police and the Albanian separatist Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) in the volatile Kosovo province since Feb. 28. The clashes are described as the worst outbreak of violence in the separatists’ nine-year-old campaign in the region, and raise fears of a new ethnic conflict in the Balkans on the scale of the recent Bosnian civil war. Serbian police launch a large-scale assault against the UCK in Kosovo. At least 20 ethnic Albanians and two policemen are killed in the fighting.

In Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, ousted first premier Prince Norodom Ranariddh is convicted, in absentia, of weapons smuggling and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. The ousted leader is charged with forging a covert alliance with Khmer Rouge guerrillas and attempting to supply them with ammunition.

Colombian air force jets bomb the site of the Mar. 2 ambush in a jungle near Cartagena del Chaira, in the southern Caqueta province, in an attempt to open up an escape route for the remainder of the battalion. The army also dispatches at least 600 reinforcements to the region.

A bomb explodes outside a department store in the Mei Foo district in Hong Kong. . . . Fighting between Taliban forces and troops loyal to the displaced government continue north of Kabul in Afghanistan.

Serbian special police forces continue a large-scale assault on the Drenica valley region of Kosovo, attacking villages with mortar rounds, armored vehicles, and helicopter gunships. The Serbian government claims that it has “destroyed the core” of the UCK.

March 6

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 2–6, 1998—1109

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

A three-judge appellate panel in New Jersey rules, 2-1, that the Boy Scouts’ expulsion of an Eagle Scout because he is a homosexual violates the state’s antidiscrimination laws. The court rules that the Boy Scouts group is a public accommodation and argues that the Boy Scouts produced “absolutely no evidence” that gay Scoutmasters are unfit to lead young Scouts.

In Bogan v. Scott-Harris, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that officials from local or municipal government bodies cannot be sued for actions related to their legislative duties. The ruling extends to local lawmakers the legal immunity provided to federal legislators by the Constitution. . . . Data shows that the number of organized hate-groups in the U.S. rose in 1997 to 474. The report notes that 163 hate-group websites have appeared on the Internet since the first such site was posted by former Ku Klux Klan member Don Black in 1995.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

NASA releases images taken by the spacecraft Galileo of Jupiter’s moon Europa. The pictures provide further evidence that a liquid water ocean existed beneath the moon’s cratered icy surface. . . . Researchers report they have found the first evidence of a physiological difference between lesbian and heterosexual women when noting a disparity in otoacoustic emissions—tiny echoes produced by the ear in response to a clicking sound.

The Street Lawyer, by John Grisham, tops the bestseller list. . . . Henry Steele Commager, 95, scholar of U.S. history known for his writings that defended the Constitution as a hallmark of political achievement, dies in Amherst, Massachusetts, of unreported causes.

The Department of Defense announces that U.S. troops stationed in the Persian Gulf area will begin receiving inoculations against anthrax bacteria within one week. The program, which represents the first time that the U.S. military has been routinely vaccinated against a germ warfare agent, was originally scheduled to begin in the summer.

A Santa Monica, California, jury convicts Jonathan Norman, 31, for an alleged plot to attack film director Steven Spielberg. . . . Outfielder Larry Doby, the first black to play in the American League, is elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. George Davis, Joe Rogan, and Lee MacPhail are also elected. . . . Fred W. Friendly 82, pioneering news producer and executive for CBS, dies in New York City of a stroke.

The House votes, 209-208, to approve a plebiscite in the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico, a U.S. commonwealth, on its political future. . . . A jury in Yreka, California, awards $95.1 million to Reba Gregory, 69, a nursing home patient who sued Beverly Enterprises, Inc., the U.S.’s largest nursing home operator. The award is a record for a suit against a nursing home.

The Supreme Court rules unanimously in Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services that same-sex harassment in the workplace is a violation of federal civil-rights law.

Federal prosecutors in NYC charge owners and managers of six overseas companies with illegally using U.S. telephone lines to take bets on sporting events from U.S. gamblers. The case is the first-ever prosecution of gambling operations on the Internet global computer network. . . . The FDA approves the use of hydroxyurea, a cancer drug, to control the symptoms of sickle-cell anemia.

A state court of appeals in Sacramento, California, strikes down provisions of a gun-control law that banned 62 kinds of assault rifles. The legislation has been in effect since 1989.

Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee issue separate reports on the panel’s year-long inquiry into alleged fund-raising abuses in the 1996 federal election campaigns. Observers note that the reports’ sharply different conclusions will undermine the impact of the committee’s findings on the debate over how to reform the nation’s campaign finance laws. . . . Johnny Chung, a central figure in the Democratic fund-raising controversy, agrees to plead guilty to two instances of campaign finance abuse.

U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel Eileen M. Collins is appointed the first female commander of a U.S. space shuttle mission when she is scheduled to command a Columbia mission in December. . . . NASA scientists announce that the unmanned spacecraft Lunar Prospector has detected the presence of frozen water mixed in with the soil of the moon.

A New York State Supreme Court jury convicts John J. Royster, 23, of 18 criminal counts, including murder, attempted rape, robbery, and assault. The charges stem from the murder of one woman and brutal attacks on two others during an eight-day spree of violence in New York City in June 1996. . . . A disgruntled employee of the Connecticut Lottery, Matthew Beck, fatally stabs and shoots four coworkers in a rampage in Newington, Connecticut. Beck, 35, commits suicide after the killings.

In a ceremony at the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial., the U.S. Army honors Hugh Thompson, Lawrence Colburn, and Glenn Andreotta, three former servicemen who 30 years earlier risked their lives to halt a massacre in My Lai, Vietnam, in which U.S. troops killed hundreds of unarmed civilians. . . . Three Union County, New Jersey, prison guards are convicted for actions related to the brutalization of immigrants seeking asylum in the U.S. who were transferred to the county facility in 1995 after a disturbance at a federal detention center.

The Labor Department reports that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the U.S. in February declined to 4.6%, from January’s revised rate of 4.7%. With the decline, the February rate matches the 24-year low registered in November 1997.

Reports confirm that the 1998 John M. Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion will be awarded to Sir Sigmund Sternberg, a British philanthropist who promotes understanding among different religious faiths.

March 2

March 3

March 4

March 5

Baseball pitcher Orlando Hernandez, who defected from Cuba in December 1997 and settled in Costa Rica in January, agrees to a four-year, $6.6 million contract with the New York Yankees.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 6

1110—March 7–12, 1998

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

March 7

March 8

March 9

Ministers from the U.S., Britain, France, Italy, and Germany announce sanctions against Yugoslavia, intended to pressure it to end a violent crackdown on ethnic Albanians in the province of Kosovo. The minister from Russia does not agree to adopt all the sanctions. . . . Former Bosnian Serb paramilitary leader Dragoljub Kunarac pleads guilty to one count of crimes against humanity. Kunarac admits he raped at least three Muslim women during the 1992–95 civil war. It is the first time that an international court treats rape as a crime against humanity. Kunarac pleads innocent to several other charges.

March 10

March 11

March 12

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Thousands of people protest against Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, Chile’s former president, in the streets of Santiago and Valparaiso. . . . Reports suggest that the leftist rebel group FARC in Colombia has kidnapped at least 15 mayors, in addition to other intimidation tactics, in the weeks leading to Mar. 8 elections.

India conducts the final poll in its four-stage national elections. The results of the election show that no party has come close to drawing a parliamentary majority. Thirty-eight parties will be represented in the country’s Parliament, the highest number ever.

Serbian authorities reveal that 26 people, whom it accused of terrorist acts, were killed during an assault on the village of Prekaz. Local leaders put the number of deaths at 38.

In Algeria, two leaders of the Armed Islamic Group, a fundamentalist rebel organization, and 22 others die in a skirmish with government forces.

Colombia’s ruling Liberal Party retains a majority in both houses of Congress in balloting held amid threats of violence from leftist rebels. Eleven soldiers and eight rebels die in clashes.

Serbian authorities take the bodies of 51 ethnic Albanians to a garage in the Kosovo town of Srbica, bringing to 77 the known number of ethnic Albanian civilians killed since fighting began Feb. 28. . . . The administration of Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski announces that it will make efforts to restore citizenship to thousands of Jews who fled the country during an anti-Semitic campaign in 1968.

Reports disclose that PNA police in the Gaza Strip have arrested 10 people in raids on seven bombmaking factories that allegedly belong to Hamas’s military wing.

In Paraguay, a five-member military tribunal sentences retired general Lino Cesar Oviedo to 10 years in prison for leading a failed coup attempt in April 1996. . . . Native Innu protesters, whose ancestral lands include the Churchill River basin, protest a new power project to be developed in the part of the Labrador peninsula in Canada.

Assembly delegates pass a decree that broadens the powers of Indonesian president Suharto. . . The Vatican announces that it has named Jean-Baptiste Pham Minh Man, 64, as the new archbishop of Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon.

Turkish military officials disclose that the army killed 32 Kurdish separatists in the southeastern part of the country. Two Turkish soldiers are reported to have been killed in the fighting. . . . Mortar shells are fired at a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) police force station in Armagh, Northern Ireland.

Pres. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah returns to office in Sierra Leone after nearly 10 months in exile. . . . Statistics show that the number of foreign tourists visiting Egypt in December 1997 was down more than 50% from the year-earlier period. It is the lowest monthly figure since February 1995 and follows a November 1997 terrorist attack that killed 58 tourists.

Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, Chile’s former president, resigns as head of the armed forces. In a ceremony in Santiago, the capital, he hands over control of Chile’s military to Gen. Ricardo Izurieta, who was named his successor in October 1997.

Six Tibetans in New Delhi, India, launch a hunger strike, vowing to fast until the UN General Assembly addresses the question of China’s rule over Tibet.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, the only outside aid group operating in Kosovo, pulls its workers out of the province , claiming that it received “repeated anonymous death threats.”. . . The Social Democratic Party, Denmark’s ruling center-left coalition, wins a slim victory in a general election. . . . A court in Manisa, Turkey, acquits 10 police officers accused of torturing and sexually abusing 14 teenagers detained in December 1995. In the controversial ruling, a three-judge panel finds that prosecutors failed to produce “definitive and convincing evidence” that the abuse took place.

An independent Algerian newspaper reports that government troops killed 146 Muslim rebels during an ongoing offensive in western Algeria.

Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, Chile’s former president, is sworn in as a senator for life, a privilege awarded to all former presidents who served more than six years under a constitution written during his presidency. In response, several legislators demonstrate on the Senate floor, holding up pictures of those allegedly killed or “disappeared” by Pinochet’s security forces. Rightist supporters of Pinochet attempt to shield him from the protesters, and a fistfight breaks out between members of the two groups. Thousands of people protest against Pinochet in the streets of Santiago and Valparaiso.

Indonesian president Suharto is sworn in for a seventh consecutive five-year term. Hitherto peaceful protests turn violent, and as many as 10,000 students burn an effigy of the president at a rally at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, on the main island of Java. More than a dozen students are injured in the town of Surabaya in a clash with troops. . . . An ongoing investigation of alleged bribery of Japanese government officials by banks and other financial institutions spreads to the Bank of Japan, the central bank, when Tokyo prosecutors arrest Yasuyuki Yoshizawa, head of its capital markets division.

Chinese foreign minister Qian Qichen announces that China will sign the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a UN treaty that guarantees citizens freedom of expression, movement, and religion, as well as participation in elections and equality under law.

Manuel Piñeiro Losada, 63, Cuban security and intelligence director who served as deputy minister of the interior, 1961–74, dies in a car crash in Havana, Cuba.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 7–12, 1998—1111

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Hermann Maier of Austria wins the men’s overall title for alpine skiing’s World Cup. . . . Leonie Rysanek, 71, operatic soprano who gave more than 2,100 performances at the world’s leading opera houses from 1949 to 1996, dies in Vienna, Austria, after suffering from bone cancer.

James B. McDougal, 57, former business partner of Pres. Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and a central figure in the fouryear-old Whitewater investigation, dies of a heart attack in Fort Worth, Tex., while serving a three-year sentence for a 1996 fraud conviction relating to illegal operations at Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan. Brian Peterson, 19, charged with first-degree murder in the death of his newborn baby who was found dead in a trash container shortly after his girlfriend Amy Grossberg, 19, gave birth, pleads guilty to manslaughter and agrees to testify against Grossberg.

The Senate passes, 93-1, a bill that will prevent intelligence agencies from punishing employees who reveal classified information to Congress if that information contains evidence of wrongdoing at the agencies. . . . In Quality King Distributors Inc. v. L’anza Research International Inc., the Supreme Court rules unanimously that U.S. companies that sell their products at a discount abroad cannot invoke federal copyright law to bar the goods’ importation back into the U.S.

Ray Nitschke, 61, professional football player voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1978, dies in Naples, Florida, of a heart attack.

In Los Angeles, California, U.S. district judge Richard A. Paez sentences Rep. Jay C. Kim (R, Calif.) to two months of home detention and a year’s probation for accepting more than $250,000 in illegal campaign contributions.

March 8

March 9

Pres. Clinton waives a trade curb that the U.S. imposed on Vietnam under a cold war–era law that limited U.S. trade with communist countries that restrict emigration.

Data shows the incidence of new cancer cases in the U.S. declined slightly between 1990 and 1995, the first drop since such statistics began to be collected in the 1930s. . . . Police in Boulder, Colorado, ask the local district attorney to convene a grand jury to investigate the highly publicized 1996 murder of JonBenet Ramsey. . . . David Bowman, a former DEA budget analyst, is indicted on charges of theft, mail fraud, and money laundering for stealing funds from the DEA.

March 7

Lloyd Vernet Bridges Jr., 85, TV actor who also had prominent roles in a number of acclaimed motion pictures, dies in Los Angeles, California, of unreported causes.

In Washington, D.C., U.S. district judge Royce Lamberth orders the government of Iran to pay $247.5 million to the family of Alisa M. Flatow, a 20-year-old Jewish exchange student from the U.S. killed in a 1995 suicide bombing near a Jewish settlement in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip. The decision is the second issued under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.

The Justice Department agrees to pay Frederic Whitehurst, a former FBI employee, $300,000 to settle claims that the government tried to discredit him publicly with false and derogatory information. Whitehurst was suspended in 1997 from his job at the crime laboratory after calling attention to shoddy practices there. The Justice Department agreed in February to pay Whitehurst $1.16 million to settle other aspects of his suit against them.

U.S. astronomer Brian Marsden announces that an asteroid is likely to pass within 30,000 miles (48,000 km) of the Earth on October 26, 2028. . . . A study finds that blacks and some Hispanics in the U.S. have a higher risk than whites of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

The House votes, 233-186, to endorse the African Growth and Opportunity Act, legislation designed to encourage trade and investment in Africa.

The Senate votes, 96-4, to pass a $214.3 billion, six-year reauthorization bill for the nation’s mass-transit systems and highways.

Astronomers at the W. M. Keck Observatory announce they have sighted a galaxy in the constellation Triangulum that is the most distant object yet seen from Earth. . . . Scientists report they have found evidence of the existence in humans of pheromones—chemicals produced by an individual of a species that affects the physiology or behavior of another. The influence of pheromones has been documented in animals and insects, but not conclusively in humans.

March 10

March 11

Beatrice Wood, 105, ceramist known for her associations with the Dadaist art movement of the 1910s and 1920s, dies in Ojai, California, of unreported causes.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 12

1112—March 13–18, 1998

March 13

World Affairs

Europe

The World Bank agrees to grant a $100 million emergency loan to Kenya.

The Greek government confirms that it has begun procedures for incorporating the country’s currency, the drachma, into the European Union’s Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM).

Reports reveal that 30 Kurdish rebels have died in separate clashes in Turkey. Those killings are reportedly retaliation for the slaying of the two army soldiers.

March 14

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Pres. Kim Dae Jung approves an amnesty freeing some 2,300 prisoners, including 74 political prisoners, and clearing millions more of their traffic violations. South Korean human-rights groups sharply criticize the amnesty for failing to include more of the inmates they consider to be prisoners of conscience. . . . A British-registered ship unloads a cargo of nuclear waste at the Japanese port of Mutsu-Ogawara after a standoff between the local governor and the central government.

King Hassan of Morocco appoints Morocco’s first opposition-led government since the country gained independence in 1956. . . . Ariel Sharon, Israel’s infrastructure minister, vows that Israel will assassinate Khaled Meshal, the Jordanbased leader of Hamas’s political wing. . . . Sheikh Abdul Rahman alIryani, 86, president of the Republic of North Yemen, 1967–74, dies in Damascus, Syria.

Grece’s entry into the European Union’s Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) is finalized.

March 15

March 16

Africa & the Middle East

Agriculture ministers from European Union member nations approve plans to allow the export of some beef from cattle herds in the British province of Northern Ireland. The move is the most significant step yet toward easing the EU’s worldwide ban on British beef exports enacted in March 1996.

March 17

March 18

Northern Ireland prison inmate David Keys, 26, an apparent member of the LVF and a suspect in the March 3 Poyntzpass killings, is found dead in his cell at the Maze Prison. . . . In Chechnya, a government soldier and a kidnapper are killed during a failed attempt by Chechen antiterrorist forces to free two British hostages being held outside of Grozny. Eight others are injured during the raid.

A Turkish appeals court rules that former premier Tansu Ciller will not be tried on charges that she misused public funds.

Zambian president Frederick Chiluba lifts a national state of emergency in effect since October 1997. . . . Reports reveal that rebels loyal to the ousted junta in Sierra Leone have executed more than 50 civilians in the mining district of Kono.

Serbian police open fire on a gathering of ethnic Albanian demonstrators in Pec, Kosovo’s secondlargest city, killing one man and injuring several others. A speaker for the province’s Serbian government denies the casualty report. . . . Chechen security officials report that two hostages, aid workers Jon James and Camilla Carr, were apparently unharmed in the Mar. 16 raid to free them. The pair had been kidnapped by unidentified assailants in July 1997.

The South African Ministry of Health estimates that 50,000 people nationwide are infected each month with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Reports confirm that fighting has erupted for control of the major northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan. Ethnic Uzbek forces loyal to Gen. Abdul Rashid Doestam challenged the Hezb-i-Wahdat militia, and an exchange of rocketpropelled grenades and mortar shells between the two sides reportedly left some 100 dead and more than 300 wounded. Doestam’s forces were joined by the Hizb-i-Islami faction headed by former premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in the battle for Mazar-i-Sharif. Workers at Venezuela Aluminum Corp. end nearly a week-long strike, after the government agrees to the union’s demand for a $961 productivity bonus for each of the company’s more than 9,000 employees.

Ousted first premier Prince Norodom Ranariddh is convicted, in absentia, of attempting to overthrow the Cambodian government. The trial is conducted by a military court in Phnom Penh, the capital. . . . A Formosa Airlines Saab 340 turboprop airplane crashes into the Taiwan Strait, killing all eight passengers and five crew members aboard. . . . The Singapore government announces it has dropped charges against Kevin Wallace, a former employee of Merrill Lynch in Singapore who was arrested in Hong Kong in July 1997.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 13–18, 1998—1113

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A military jury acquits Sergeant Major Gene McKinney of all charges that he engaged in sexual misconduct with six female accusers. The jury convicts McKinney of only one of the 19 charges brought against him, determining that he is guilty of obstructing justice for having tried to coach one of his accuser’s responses to army investigators.

A federal grand jury indicts Texas entrepreneur Nolanda Hill and her chief financial adviser, Kenneth White, on charges stemming from an independent counsel investigation of late Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown.

Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain, 86, German aeronautical engineer who built the engine for the first jetpowered flight and who, in 1947, became chief scientist at the U.S. Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, dies in Melbourne, Florida, of congestive heart failure.

Katja Seizinger of Germany wins the women’s overall title, for alpine skiing’s World Cup. . . . A jury of the United Methodist Church acquits Jimmy Creech, a Nebraska minister, of charges that he violated church law by performing a commitment ceremony for a lesbian couple in September 1997.

Geoffrey Fieger, the lawyer for physician-assisted suicide advocate Dr. Jack Kevorkian, reveals Kevorkian has assisted in a total of 100 suicides. . . . A lawyer for Mary Kay Letourneau, a former lteacher convicted of statutory rape for having a sexual relationship with a 14year-old boy, confirms that Letourneau is pregnant. She gave birth to a daughter fathered by the youth in 1997 and is currently serving a seven-year prison term for violating a court order that she refrain from contact with the teenager.

March 14

In basketball, the Columbus Quest beat the Long Beach StingRays, 86-81, to win their second consecutive women’s ABL championship. . . . Dr. Benjamin McLane Spock, 94, whose highly influential book Baby and Child Care (1946), sold 50 million copies worldwide, dies in San Diego, California, after months of failing health. The Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS passes a unanimous vote of no confidence in the Clinton administration’s efforts to stop the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. . . . New York City district judge Denny Chin imposes temporary restrictions on provisions in New York State’s sex-offender notification law when he temporarily bars the state from publishing details about a sex offender’s age, address, and criminal history.

March 13

Sergeant Major Gene McKinney, convicted March 13 on one charge of sexual harassment, is sentenced to a one-rank demotion and a reprimand. . . . In the wake of a sexual-harassment scandal at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, Defense Secretary William Cohen rejects a panel’s recommendation that male and female military recruits be housed in separate barracks during basic training.

Democratic fund-raiser Johnny Chung pleads guilty to using “conduit” donors to funnel $20,000 in illegal contributions to the 1996 reelection campaign of Pres. Clinton and Vice Pres. Al Gore. He is the first person charged in a Justice Department investigation of fund-raising abuses in the 1996 election cycle who agrees to cooperate with prosecutors.

Sir Derek Henry Richard Barton, 79, British cowinner of the 1969 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his understanding of organic molecules, dies of a heart attack in College Station, Texas.

In a long-awaited statement on the actions of the Roman Catholic Church during the Holocaust of World War II, the Vatican apologizes to Jews for the church’s failure to take decisive action to prevent Nazi Germany’s extermination of more than 6 million Jews.

The state of Mississippi releases documents relating to the work of a now-defunct state agency that used spy tactics and intimidation in an effort to preserve the state’s system of racial segregation during the civil-rights era of the 1950s and 1960s. . . . The Senate confirms Susan Graber as justice of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California, and Jeremy Fogel as a justice in San Francisco’s District Court. Despite these confirmations, 80 of the 842 federal judgeships remain vacant.

Washington Mutual Inc., the nation’s largest savings and loan company in terms of assets, announces the acquisition of the nation’s secondlargest thrift, H. F. Ahmanson & Co. of Irwindale, California, in a stock swap worth $10.03 billion. The combined company will control assets worth $149.5 billion.

Jeff King wins the 26th Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska. It is King’s third victory in the Iditarod.

Public Citizen, an advocacy group, reports that tobacco companies in 1997 spent $19.3 million on outside lobbying firms. The industry had spent $5.8 million on outside lobbyists in 1996. The increase is attributed chiefly to lobbying efforts related to the proposed 1997 settlement. . . .Gov. Zell Miller (D, Ga.) announces an agreement with federal authorities that calls for the state to make major reforms to its juvenile justice system.

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., sentences Ronald Blackley, former agriculture secretary Mike Espy’s chief of staff, to 27 months in prison for concealing $22,025 he received from farmers seeking government subsidies. The sentence is the longest yet given in independent counsel Donald Smaltz’s investigation of whether Espy and his aides accepted illegal gratuities from agricultural companies.

In New York City, Guernsey’s Auction House auctions 600 personal artifacts, documents, and other memorabilia that belonged to members of the Kennedy family. The auction goes forward despite strong objections from the late president’s children, John F. Kennedy Jr. and Caroline B. Kennedy Schlossberg.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 15

March 16

March 17

March 18

1114—March 19–24, 1998

World Affairs

Europe

Asia & the Pacific Hindu nationalist leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee is sworn in for a five-year term as India’s new prime minister. . . . A passenger jet belonging to Afghanistan’s state-run Ariana airlines crashes about 20 miles (32 km) south of Kabul, the capital, killing all 22 people on board. . . . Hideo Shima, 96, developer of Japan’s bullet train who was presented with the Order of Cultural Merit in 1994, dies of a stroke in a hospital in Tokyo.

Thousands of antinuclear power demonstrators attempt to prevent the progress of a train carrying radioactive nuclear waste to a storage facility in northern Germany. Some 450 protesters are arrested, and seven are injured.

March 20

Pope John Paul II makes his second visit to Nigeria in 16 years.

March 21

March 23

The Americas

Some 30,000 ethnic Albanians assemble in Pec, Kosovo, to mourn the demonstrator slain Mar. 18. . . . In Turkey, five police officers are sentenced for the beating death of journalist Metin Goktepe.

March 19

March 22

Africa & the Middle East

Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Mexico announce that they will cut their petroleum production in an effort to raise plunging oil prices.

The Communist Party captures more votes than any other single party, 30.1%, in Moldova’s parliamentary elections.

Iran, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Algeria, and Libya announce that they will cut their petroleum output, alongside the Mar. 22 pledge. . . . Chilean diplomat Juan Somavia is chosen as the next director general of the International Labor Organization (ILO), a United Nations agency.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin announces that he has dismissed his entire cabinet, including Premier Viktor Chernomyrdin, in an effort to revitalize the policy-making initiative within his government. . . . Government officials and ethnic Albanian leaders in Kosovo have signed an agreement that grants ethnic Albanian students readmittance to the national school system after several years of exile. The accord sparks protests and angry condemnation from the Serb population of Pristina.

Ethnic Albanian separatists ambush a Serbian police patrol in the Kosovo village of Dubrava, killing a police officer. Another police officer is seriously injured in the attack. Gunfights between police and ethnic Albanian militants go on for several hours. Heavily armed Serbian paramilitary units launch a counterattack on several small villages in the area, injuring one ethnic Albanian man and forcing many residents to flee.

March 24

At an outdoor mass that draws an estimated 1 million people in the Nigerian village of Oba, near the predominantly Roman Catholic southern city of Onitsha, Pope John Paul beatifies Michael Iwene Tansi, a Nigerian ascetic priest who died in 1964. Tansi is the first Nigerian ever beatified.

After receiving approval from Cambodian copremier Hun Sen, King Norodom Sihanouk issues a royal pardon in which he grants full amnesty to his son, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, who was convicted in absentia Mar. 4 and Mar. 18. Separately, some 3,000 troops loyal to Khmer Rouge strongman Ta Mok splinter, and two divisions take control of an area near Anlong Veng. Connie Jacobs, 37, and her son Ty, nine, are killed in a shoot-out with a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officer on the Tsuu T’ina reserve outside Calgary, Alberta, inciting anger in native communities across Canada.

Leftist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) kidnap five foreigners and at least nine Colombians at a FARC roadblock on the Via al Llano highway, some 30 miles (50 km) southeast of Bogota, the capital.

In a brief speech to more than 1,000 schoolchildren outside Kampala, the capital of Uganda, U.S. president Bill Clinton states that the U.S. was historically guilty of both neglect and ignorance in its relations with Africa. He also admits that the U.S. was wrong to participate in the slave trade. Clinton’s remarks on slavery are unscripted, taking observers by surprise since the Clinton administration in 1997 considered issuing an official apology for slavery, but ultimately decided against it.

South Korean officials announce that Pres. Kim Dae Jung has fired 24 of the 38 highest officials of the Agency for National Security Planning. . . . The UN suspends operations in Kandahar province in Afghanistan, citing physical harassment of its workers and interference by the Taliban militia. . . . In India, at least 105 people are killed and another 1,100 are injured when a tornado devastates villages in the eastern states of Orissa and West Bengal. The death toll is expected to climb, as another 500 people are reported missing.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 19–24, 1998—1115

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

A jury in Muncie, Indiana, finds that the tobacco industry was not liable for the death of Mildred Wiley, a nonsmoker who died of lung cancer after working for 17 years as a nurse in the psychiatric ward where she was exposed to second hand smoke. . . . A Detroit, Michigan, jury convicts former police officer Walter Budzyn of involuntary manslaughter in the 1992 beating death of black motorist Malice Green. Budzyn’s 1993 conviction in the case was overturned in 1997. The CDC reports that the suicide rate for black teenagers rose dramatically in the past two decades. The suicide rate for blacks ages 15–19 rose to 8.1 per 100,000 in 1995, more than double the 1980 rate of 3.6 per 100,000. The rate for young blacks was approaching the higher suicide rate found among their white peers. In 1980, the suicide rate for white teenagers ages 10–19 was two and a half times greater than for their black peers; in 1995, the rate for white teenagers was only 42% higher than for blacks.

The Clinton administration confirms reports that the U.S. will ease restrictions on cash remittances and travel to Cuba. The changes, however, do not alter the U.S.’s 36year-old economic embargo of Cuba. . . . Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet reveals that the U.S.’s intelligence budget for fiscal 1998 was $26.7 billion. It is the first voluntary disclosure of the intelligence budget to the public. The 1997 budget—$26.6 billion— was made public in October 1997 after Tenet was compelled by the Freedom of Information Act.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The Commerce Department reports that in January the U.S. recorded a seasonally adjusted $12.04 billion deficit in trade in goods and services, up from December 1997’s revised deficit of $10.90 billion. January’s trade gap is the highest level registered since late 1987.

A study finds that regular cigar smoking nearly doubles a person’s risk of death from cancer and from cardiovascular disease.

The Dow closes at a record high of 8906.43. That marks the 17th record high of 1998.

Twelve people are killed when a tornado sweeps through a rural area of northeast Georgia. At least 120 people are injured, 12,000 residents are left without power, and more than 170 homes are destroyed or damaged. Two people are killed and at least 19 others were injured when another tornado sweeps through the town of Stoneville, North Carolina.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

March 19

March 20

Galina Sergeyevna Ulanova, 88, Russian dancer known as one of the greatest ballerinas of the 20th century, dies in Moscow.

More than 13,000 Caterpillar employees at 14 plants in Illinois, Colorado, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee who are members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) labor union vote to approve a sixyear contract with Caterpillar Inc.

Several dozen Native Americans disrupt a meeting of Pres. Clinton’s advisory board on race in Denver, Colorado, protesting that the seven-member panel does not include any indigenous Americans. . . . In Voinovich v. Women’s Medical Professional Corp., the Supreme Court lets stand a lower-court ruling that struck down an Ohio statute banning a late-term abortion method known as IDE. It is the first case regarding IDE procedures to reach the high court. . . . The California Supreme Court rules that the Boy Scouts of America can bar homosexuals, agnostics, and atheists because it is a private membership organization.

March 22

An independent audit of spending on a planned international space station finds that the project’s costs could reach $24 billion, some $3 billion more than previously projected.

Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, open fire on Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas, killing four students and one teacher. Ten other people are wounded in the shooting. The incident is among the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. . . . New York State Supreme Court judge Leslie Crocker Snyder sentences convicted murderer John Royster to life in prison with no possibility of parole for a string of attacks on women in New York City in 1996.

March 21

In Cohen v. De La Cruz, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that federal bankruptcy law does not relieve a Hoboken, New Jersey, landlord of his obligation to pay punitive damages to a group of low-income tenants he overcharged.

At the Oscars, Titanic wins 11 of the 14 Oscars for which it is nominated, including best picture. The 14 nominations tie the record set by All About Eve in 1950, and the 11 wins tie the record set by BenHur in 1959.

The National Book Critics Circle present awards to Penelope Fitzgerald, Anne Fadiman, and Charles Wright. Literary critic Leslie Fiedler receives a lifetime achievement award. Writer and critic Thomas Mallon wins a special award for excellence in reviewing.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 23

March 24

1116—March 25–30, 1998

World Affairs

March 25

March 26

March 27

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

A six-nation committee monitoring internal strife in the Baltic region announces that it will postpone considering the sanctions announced Mar. 9 against Yugoslavia for one month. . . . The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, officially recommends that 11 of the EU’s 15 nations be permitted to join the European economic and monetary union (EMU). A letter from Switzerland’s three largest banks, which pledges to negotiate a global settlement with victims of the Nazi Holocaust who claim to have lost money held in Swiss bank accounts, is made public.

NATO announces that it will send a small number of advisers to Albania to help train Albanian security forces who patrol the Yugoslav border. The move is intended to protect Albania from becoming embroiled in violent conflicts that have recently flared up between the Yugoslav government and ethnic Albanian separatists in the southern Yugoslav province of Kosovo.

March 28

March 29

March 30

Europe

The European Union, at a ceremony in Brussels, Belgium, officially launches negotiations expected to lead to the largest expansion of the grouping’s membership in its 40-year history.

Bill Clinton becomes the first U.S. president ever to visit South Africa.

In Cambodia, Ta Mok executes Generals Sarouen, San, and Khon, the three aides who were tried with Pol Pot in 1997, because the troops that mutinied on Mar. 21 were loyal to them. . . . Eight illegal immigrants from Indonesia are killed in a clash with police at the Semenyih Detention Camp near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital. The immigrants were protesting their planned deportation to Indonesia.

Two masked gunmen shoot and killed Cyril Stewart, 52, a retired police officer, in Armagh, Northern Ireland. . . . Russian president Boris Yeltsin officially nominates interim premier Sergei Kiriyenko to assume the post on a permanent basis, pending the approval of Parliament. . . . Baroness Joan of Eccles Lestor, 66, British member of Parliament, 1966–83, 1987–98, dies in London after suffering from a disease of the nervous system.

Electrical power is restored to the downtown area of Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city, after the Feb. 20 blackout. . . . Aid workers report that thousands of people in Irian Jaya, Indonesia, have died from starvation and malaria since January.

The Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), a hard-line republican group that broke off from the IRA, claims responsibility for the Mar. 27 killing in Armagh, Northern Ireland.

Israeli police open fire with rubbercoated bullets on Palestinian protesters outside a Jewish settlement near the West Bank city of Nablus. Six Palestinians, including at least one member of the PLO executive committee, are wounded in the shooting.

The Communist Party wins the largest share of the vote in Ukraine’s parliamentary elections.

An unidentified man is found dead near an exploded automobile outside the Palestinian-ruled West Bank city of Ramallah.

Malaysian authorities deport more than 1,100 of the 10,000 immigrants from Indonesia in detention camps. . . . The East Kalimantan Environmental Impact Agency reports that some 3,400 people in Indonesia have become ill due to a noxious haze caused by fires, which have been burning since January, set to clear land for farming. . . . India’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) survives a vote of confidence in Parliament.

Armenian premier Robert Kocharyan defeats Karen Demirchyan in a runoff for the nation’s presidency. . . . Romanian premier Victor Ciorbea resigns under heavy pressure from junior parties in his coalition government. . . . Thousands of employees of the Polish mining company KGHM go on strike to protest a corporate restructuring plan.

Taiwanese transport minister Tsai Chao-yang resigns to accept responsibility for a recent series of aviation disasters.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 25–30, 1998—1117

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Compassion in Dying states that the U.S.’s first known legal physician-assisted suicide took place when an unidentified 80-year-old Portland woman suffering from terminal breast cancer killed herself with an overdose of barbiturates. . . . Steven Harvey Schiff, 51, Republican congressman from New Mexico, 1989–98, dies in Albuquerque, N.Mex., of squamous cell carcinoma.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Treasury Department estimates that smoking-related illnesses cost the U.S. $130 billion a year in medical expenses and lost productivity. The Treasury report argues that meeting a goal of reducing teenage smoking by 60% will produce an annual economic gain of $78 billion within 10 years.

Norway announces that it will join the U.S. in building a tracking station that will monitor orbiting space debris.

R. Alan Eagleson, former head of the NHL Players Association convicted for defrauding the union and players, resigns from the Hockey Hall of Fame. It is the first time that a member has ever resigned from a major North American professional sport’s hall of fame.

The CDC urges more widespread testing for infection by HIV and estimates that 250,000 people in the U.S. are unknowingly infected. . . . The Department of Health and Human Services orders the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) to devise a new system of assigning priority to patients waiting for transplants. It is the first move by the federal government to regulate organ distribution.

The House approves, by voice vote, a fiscal 1998–99 State Department authorization bill. The bill authorizes $819 million for the U.S. to pay its debts to the UN, merges several foreign-policy agencies, and bars family-planning organizations overseas that perform abortions from receiving U.S. funding.

The Commerce Department reports that U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) grew at a revised annual rate of 3.7% in the 1997 fourth quarter.

Italian scientists describe a fossil of a baby dinosaur containing rare fossilized internal dinosaur organs. The dinosaur’s intestines, liver, muscles, and windpipe are among the parts visible in the fossil. . . . A study conclusively shows that widely used drug combinations designed to combat HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, dramatically reduces mortality rates among AIDS patients.

A federal jury in NYC finds that a divorced Tennessee couple and the seven gun-making companies that they own are not responsible for a fatal shooting attack on a group of Hasidic Jewish students in 1994. Gun-control advocates in recent years have filed similar legal actions against gun makers nationwide. The current case marks the first time that such a lawsuit has gone to trial. . . . Tennessee authorities state that a third official inquiry into the 1968 assassination of civil-rights activist Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. concluded that James Earl Ray was guilty of King’s murder.

Rep. Tom DeLay (R, Tex.), criticizes Pres. Clinton for the comments he made Mar. 24 in Africa about slavery. . . . Army officials reveal that Major General David Hale, the former deputy inspector general of the army, was allowed to retire honorably from the service despite being under investigation for allegedly coercing a subordinate’s wife to have a sexual relationship with him. Hale, who retired in February, was the Army’s second in command for investigating personnel-related improprieties.

The Commerce Department reports that personal pretax income rose 0.6% in February from January, to a seasonally adjusted figure of $7.135 trillion. The February gain marks the 16th consecutive month in which personal income increased.

The FDA approves a prescription pill made by Pfizer Inc. to treat male impotence. Pfizer will market the drug, sildenafil citrate, under the name Viagra.

March 26

Ferdinand (Ferry) Porsche Jr., 88, car designer, dies in Zell am See, Austria.

In horse racing, Silver Charm wins the Dubai World Cup. . . . A jury convicts him Rudolph Kos, a former Roman Catholic priest in Dallas, Texas, on five counts of sexually assaulting altar boys.

Convicted murderer Judias Buenoano, 54, is put to death by execution in Starke, Florida. Buenoano is the 450th person executed in the U.S. and the 42nd in Florida since 1976. Florida last executed a woman in 1848. . . . Alfred U. McKenzie, 80, civil-rights pioneer and World War II pilot, dies in Clinton, Maryland, of complications from prostate cancer.

March 25

Israeli archaeologists reveal that they have uncovered the oldest ruins of a Jewish synagogue ever found. The synagogue, which dates from between 70 B.C. and 50 B.C., is outside the town of Jericho in the West Bank in the ruins of a Maccabean palace.

Pat Hurst wins the Dinah Shore golf tournament in Rancho Mirage, California.

Astronomers report they have observed a complete “Einstein ring” created by gravitational lensing. It is the first time the image of a complete Einstein ring has been captured in the infrared or visible light wavelengths. Einstein rings are named after physicist Albert Einstein, whose general theory of relativity predicted their existence.

Pandora, by Anne Rice, tops the bestseller list.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 27

March 28

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March 30

1118—March 31–April 4, 1998

March 31

Europe

The UN Security Council votes to impose an arms embargo on Yugoslavia, where a recent government crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in the Kosovo province has left more than 80 people dead. . . . The 11-nation OPEC agrees to reduce its total crude-oil production by 1.25 million barrels a day as part of a broad effort to stem plunging oil prices.

Jozef Krawczyk, the mayor of the southern city of Oswiecim, approves the construction of a visitors’ center for Auschwitz, the infamous World War II-era Nazi death camp. . . . Zhu Rongji, China’s newly selected premier, meets Queen Elizabeth II, becoming the first Chinese premier to do so since Zhao Ziyang in 1986.

The UNHCR states that an estimated 180 Somalis died when their boat sank off the coast of Yemen. . . . Sir Ketumile Masire voluntarily steps down as president of Botswana. Masire, 72, the second president in Botswana’s history, served for 18 years. . . . The rand, South Africa’s currency, drops to its lowest value ever in relation to the U.S. dollar, closing at 5.0375 to the dollar.

Romanian president Emil Constantinescu names Radu Vasile to replace Victor Ciorbea as premier.

At least 280 people die when a boat carrying an estimated 300 passengers overturns in stormy waters off the Nigerian coast while en route to Gabon. . . . Festus Mogae is sworn in as Botswana’s new president. . . . Arab-Israeli tensions rise when the man found dead Mar. 29 near an exploded automobile outside the Palestinianruled West Bank city of Ramallah is identified as Muhyideen al-Sharif, a suspected master bomb-maker of the Islamic militant group Hamas.

UNSCOM inspectors complete their first-ever search for weaponsrelated materials in Iraq’s eight presidential compounds.

In Bordeaux, France, a jury finds Maurice Papon, a former French budget minister, guilty of complicity in Nazi crimes against humanity and sentences him to 10 years in prison.

In the west Bank, thousands of Palestinians, many calling for revenge, march at a funeral for Muhyideen al-Sharif in Ramallah. . . . Iran and Iraq begin a prisoner of war (POW) exchange when Iran hands over 800 Iraqi prisoners and Iraq releases 62 Iranian captives. The POWs were captured during the two nations’ 1980–88 war.

UNSCOM inspectors report that they found no prohibited weaponsrelated materials in their search of the 1,058 buildings comprising Iraq’s eight presidential compounds.

The British government offers an official apology to survivors of the Nazi Holocaust who were unable to recover money deposited in British banks during World War II.

Thousands of Palestinians march in a pro-Hamas demonstration in Gaza City.

A methane gas explosion at a Ukrainian coal mine in the city of Donetsk kills 63 miners and hospitalizes at least 45 others. The accident brings the death toll from mining disasters in 1998 to more than 220, which compares with some 290 miners who died in 1997.

Gholamhossein Karbaschi, the mayor of Teheran, the capital of Iran, is placed in “temporary detention” on orders of the public prosecutor’s office.

April 1

April 2

April 3

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

April 4

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Australian prime minister John Howard appoints Judge Murray Gleeson, the chief justice of the state of New South Wales, to be the next chief justice of the Australian High Court. Gleeson will be the first person in 34 years to serve as the High Court’s chief justice without prior High Court experience.

The Supreme Court of Canada rules that the nation’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms requires the province of Alberta to extend its law banning discrimination to protect homosexuals.

Reports suggest that Chinese dissident Shen Liangqing, arrested in February, has been sentenced to two years in a labor camp.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 31–April 4, 1998—1119

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

In U.S. v. Scheffer, the Supreme Court rules, 8-1, that state and federal courts can bar evidence from polygraph tests from trials. . . . A judge in New York City sentences Lemrick Nelson Jr. to 191⁄2 years in prison for violating the civil rights of Yankel Rosenbaum, a Jewish rabbinical student killed in 1991. . . . A jury in Billings, Montana, convicts five members of the Montana Freemen on charges resulting from a 1996 standoff with federal authorities. . . . Bella Savitzky Abzug, 77, (D, N.Y.), the first Jewish woman elected to the U.S. Congress, 1970–76, and a feminist leader, dies after complications following heart surgery in New York City.

The Treasury releases the first-ever comprehensive audit of the federal government. The GAO audit finds widespread record-keeping and accounting problems that left the government unable to account for billions of dollars in property. . . . In U.S. v. U.S. Shoe Corp., the Supreme Court rules unanimously that the federal Harbor Maintenance Tax violates the Constitution’s so-called export clause, which prohibits taxes on exports.

A study suggests that short-term use of the diet medication dexfenfluramine does not cause damage to heart valves. Dexfenfluramine, sold as Redux, was withdrawn from the market in 1997 at the request of the FDA. The study does not examine the effects of the widely prescribed “fen/phen” combination of fenfluramine and another drug, phentermine.

Judge Susan Webber Wright of U.S. District Court in Little Rock, Arkansas, throws out Paula Corbin Jones’s sexual-harassment lawsuit against U.S. Pres. Clinton, ruling that the case is “without merit.” . . . Former vampire-cult member Howard Scott Anderson, 17, is sentenced to two life prison terms for his role in the 1996 murder of Richard Wendorf and Naoma Queen, who were killed during a robbery.

The House votes, 337-80, to pass a $217 billion, six-year reauthorization bill for the nation’s highways, mass-transit systems, and other transportation infrastructure The bill is the largest public works measure in U.S. history, providing for a 42% increase in spending over six years.

The FDA approves a calorie-free artificial sweetener called sucralose. . . . A woman and her infant son are killed when a tornado rips through their house in the farming community of Coatesville, Virginia. The tornado destroys or damages 35 homes and cuts off power to some 4,500 people in the town.

In Dallas, Texas, Rudolph Kos, a former Roman Catholic priest is sentenced to life in prison for sexually assaulting altar boys an estimated 1,350 times over five years. . . . At the World Figure Skating Championships, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Russia’s Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze win the pairs competition.

Reports revel that an international group of archaeologists have discovered an ancient array of stones and slabs in Egypt that appear to be constructed in alignment with astronomical events. The archaeologists state that different parts of the complex range in age from 5,000 to 7,000 years old.

The NCAA agrees to pay Fresno State basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian $2.5 million to settle the coach’s claim that it harassed him and manufactured evidence of rules violations, closing a more than five-year-old suit. . . . At the World Figure Skating Championships in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Russia’s Alexei Yagudin wins the men’s title.

The City of New York announces it has reached an out-of-court settlement with members of a Hasidic Jewish community who accused the city of failing to protect some residents during four days of racially charged rioting in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn in 1991. . . . The CDC finds that cigarette smoking among U.S. high school students rose by about a third between 1991 and 1997. Of 12,262 students surveyed in grades nine through 12 in 1997, 36.4% reported having smoked cigarettes during the previous month, up from 27.5% in 1991.

Former CIA officer Douglas F. Groat is arrested on espionage charges.

The UN Commission on Human Rights condemns the U.S. for arbitrary and racist use of the death penalty. . . . The Republican National Committee announces plans to broadcast Spanish-language responses to Pres. Clinton’s weekly radio address as part of an effort to build GOP support among Hispanic voters in the run-up to the November elections. . . . A threejudge panel of the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, rules that the 12th Congressional District in North Carolina is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

U.S. district judge Kevin Duffy sentences Eyad Ismoil to 240 years in prison for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City. Ismoil is the last of six suspects convicted on charges related to the bombing.

The Senate, by voice vote, approves the reappointment of Arthur Levitt Jr. as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

March 31

At the World Figure Skating Championships in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Russian couple of Anjelika Krylova and Oleg Ovsyannikov win the ice-dancing title. . . . John Sweeterman, 91, publisher of The Washington Post, 1961–68, dies in Chevy Chase, Maryland, of unreported causes.

Michelle Kwan wins her second career women’s title at the World Figure Skating Championships in Minneapolis, Minnesota. . . . Earth Summit wins the 151st running of Great Britain’s Grand National Steeplechase in Liverpool, England.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 1

April 2

April 3

April 4

1120—April 5–10, 1998

World Affairs

Europe

Britain and France ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), becoming the first nations with nuclear-weapons capabilities to do so. The treaty, which prohibits all nuclear weapons test explosions, has been ratified by 13 nations and requires the ratification of the 44 nations that possess either civilian or military nuclear power before it can officially take effect.

An antipersonnel mine explodes outside the Russian embassy in Riga, the capital of Latvia.

The International Committee of the Red Cross discloses that some 4,000 prisoners have been repatriated in the exchange between Iraq and Iran since April 2.

April 7

April 8

Asia & the Pacific

Pakistan successfully tests its domestically produced “Ghauri” medium-range missile, which has a range of approximately 900 miles (1,500 km) and is capable of hitting targets deep within the territory of neighboring India.

Twelve Cuban political prisoners, who were freed on the condition that they leave Cuba, arrive in Toronto, Canada.

Hong Kong’s provisional legislature passes a law exempting the territorial government and the Chinese central government from certain laws, including privacy and antidiscrimination laws. The legislation transfers the exemptions granted to “the Crown” under British colonial rule to “the State,” in what government officials describe as a routine aspect of decolonization.

Taniperlas, a farming cooperative founded by pro-EZLN Indians in Mexico, declares itself independent from the local government.

The Bank of Japan, the central bank, announces that it has disciplined 98 of its officials following an internal corruption investigation. . . . Nguyen Co Thach, 75, Vietnamese foreign minister, 1980–91, dies in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Indonesia announces that it has reached agreement with the IMF on a new financial-rescue package. The pact, the third the country has reached in six months, will allow the resumption of an earlier $43 billion loan package offered to Indonesia by the IMF in late 1997. . . . A British NATO force arrests two Bosnian Serbs wanted for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. The suspects, Miroslav Kvocka and Mladen Radic, were indicted in 1995 by the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, the Netherlands. Tens of thousands of workers across Russia hold demonstrations to protest economic conditions. . . . Thousands of employees of Polish mining company KGHM return to work after a strike that started Mar. 30. . . . Russia announces that it will reduce the amount of oil it channels through Latvia in response to the Latvian government’s mistreatment of Russianspeaking citizens there.

April 9

April 10

The Americas

Israeli troops wound six Palestinians near Jerusalem in demonstrations protesting the Mar. 29 slaying of Muhyideen al-Sharif.

April 5

April 6

Africa & the Middle East

Reports confirm that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have approved a $650 million debt-relief package for Uganda.

At least 56 Tanzanian miners die due to severe flooding in the northern Arusha province that causes a number of mine shafts to collapse. . . . Some 150 Islamic pilgrims die when they are crushed or suffocated as a rush to perform a holy ritual turns into a deadly stampede in the town of Mina in Saudi Arabia, near the holy city of Mecca.

Political leaders tentatively agree to a groundbreaking settlement aimed at ending the long-running sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland. The settlement proposes fundamental changes in the way Northern Ireland is governed and requires approval by the Irish people and the British and Irish Parliaments. . . . Torrential rains begin fall in central and eastern England.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 5–10, 1998—1121

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Reports confirm that a virulent strain of streptococcus bacteria infected 134 people in Texas and killed 33 of them between Dec. 1, 1997, and Mar. 20, 1998. . . . Pres. Clinton imposes a permanent ban on U.S. imports of certain types of assault weapons.

U.S. Economy & Environment

The Dow closes at 9033.23, above the 9000 mark for the first time. . . . Energy Secretary Federico F. Pena, citing personal and family reasons, announces that he will resign at the end of June. . . . Travelers Group Inc. and Citicorp announce that they will combine to form a new holding company, to be called Citigroup Inc. The merger is valued between $70 billion and $83 billion. If completed, the deal will be the largest merger in history and will create the world’s biggest financial services company. A Defense Department study finds that discharges for homosexuality have risen by 67% since 1994, the first full year in which the Clinton administration’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was in effect. According to the study, 997 members of the military were discharged for being homosexual in 1997, compared with 597 in 1994.

A ban on a rarely performed lateterm abortion procedure known medically as intact dilation and extraction (IDE) is signed in West Virginia. . . . The nation’s major tobacco companies state they will no longer cooperate with Congress and the Clinton administration in seeking to implement a nationwide settlement of smoking-related lawsuits.

The CDC reports that cases of tuberculosis (TB) in the U.S. declined in 1997 for the fifth straight year. There were 19,855 cases of TB in 1997, down 7% from the previous year and down 26% from 1992.

The Census Bureau reveals that 25.8 million U.S. residents, or 9.7% of the population, were born in foreign nations, the highest percentage since 1930. . . . Thousands of war veterans turn out in Andersonville, Georgia, for the dedication of the National Prisoner of War Museum. The center honors the roughly 800,000 Americans held as POWs in conflicts dating back to the American Revolution in 1776. Andersonville is the site of an infamous Civil War prison in which 13,000 of the 45,000 Union soldiers interned there died of starvation or disease.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

(Frederick) Charles Frank, 87, British physicist who was the first scientist to suggest the notion of cold nuclear fusion, dies in Bristol, England, of unreported causes.

Golfer Gil Morgan, for the second year in a row, wins the Tradition, the first major competition of the year on the Senior PGA.

Federal health officials announce that a study conclusively shows that the drug tamoxifen may prevent breast cancer in women at high risk for the disease. . . . NASA releases a new image of a rock formation on the planet Mars that in a 1976 previous photograph resembled a human face and had prompted speculation that the formation had been constructed by an ancient civilization on Mars. In the new image, which is more detailed, the formation no longer resembles a face.

Tammy Wynette (born Virginia Wynette Pugh), 55, country music singer best known for her 1968 song “Stand by Your Man,” dies in Nashville, Tennessee.

A researcher studying arthritis patients suggests that women are more sensitive to pain than men are, but that women are more likely to find ways to cope with pain. . . . The National Academy of Sciences increases the recommended intake of folic acid and vitamin B6 for all people and of vitamin B12 for many groups.

April 6

April 7

Reports suggest that two 20-yearold computer errors caused a $1.2 billion shortfall in Los Angeles County’s pension fund.

A series of storms and tornadoes sweep from Mississippi through Alabama and Georgia. . . . Scientists assert that at least one of every eight known plant species on Earth is considered threatened or nearly extinct. The scientists cite continuing habitat destruction and the introduction of nonnative species into various regions of the world as the two chief causes of species endangerment.

Vice Pres. Al Gore announces that 31 departments and agencies of the federal government, under a program launched in 1997, have hired a total of 3,688 welfare recipients. . . . Reports state that twotime presidential candidate Ross Perot has ended his computer services company’s policy of extending health-care benefits to same-sex partners of its employees. The company, Perot Systems Inc., is reportedly the first U.S. corporation to abandon such a policy after adopting it. Perot claims he ended the policy because it is unfair to unmarried heterosexual couples.

A series of storms and tornadoes sweeps through Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, killing at least 39 people since Apr. 8. Jefferson County, Alabama, is hit the hardest, when a tornado with winds reaching 250 miles per hour (400 kmph) blows through the area. Pres. Clinton declares parts of Alabama and Georgia disaster areas and makes federal aid available. . . . Researchers find that excessive doses of vitamin C may cause damage to a person’s genetic material.

John Tate, 43, heavyweight boxing champion, 1979–80, who won a bronze medal in boxing at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, Canada, dies in an automobile accident in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Reports confirm that the U.S.’s EarthWatch Inc.’s EarlyBird 1 satellite, the world’s first commercial spy satellite, has been lost.

Archbishop Seraphim (born Vissarion Tikas), 84, leader of the Greek Orthodox Church since 1974, dies in Athens, Greece, after suffering from a viral infection and a kidney ailment.

The National Cancer Institute reports that smoking cigars may be as dangerous to a person’s health as smoking cigarettes.

April 5

April 8

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 9

April 10

1122—April 11–16, 1998

World Affairs

Europe Torrential rains lead to record-setting flooding in much of central and eastern England. The floods, regarded as the regions’ worst such disaster in at least 50 years, result in at least five deaths.

April 11

Africa & the Middle East Nicholas Steyn, a white farmer, shoots and kills a black infant and wounds another child as they cross his property in the rural town of Benoni, near Johannesburg. It is the latest in a string of incidents in recent months that exposes lingering racial tensions in South Africa. . . . PNA police arrest Adel Awadallah, the top West Bank military commander of Hamas, during a sweep of suspects involved in the death of Muhyideen al-Sharif, an alleged bomb maker wanted by Israel.

In its World Economic Outlook, the IMF forecasts a global economic expansion of 3.1% in 1998—the slowest growth rate in five years— and of 3.7% in 1999.

April 14

April 15

Asia & the Pacific

More than 500 state and federal police officers raid Taniperlas, a Mexican farming cooperative founded by pro-EZLN Indians that declared itself independent from the local government on Apr. 10. . . . The Colombian military renews ground offensives against leftist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

In Beijing, the capital of China, the governments of North Korea and South Korea hold their first direct talks since 1994.

Twelve foreigners of various nationalities are accused of interfering in Mexico’s internal political affairs and of sympathizing with the leftist rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), and they are expelled from Mexico.

April 12

April 13

The Americas

The finance ministers and central bankers of the Group of Seven (G-7) wealthiest industrialized nations call on Japan to take timely steps to shore up its troubled economy.

April 16

Turkish armed forces attack Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq and capture Semdin Sakik, the former second-highest-ranking official in the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the main Kurdish separatist group. . . . Sir Ian Kinloch MacGregor, 85, chairman of British Steel PLC, 1980–83, and Britain’s National Coal Board, 1983–86, dies in Somerset, England.

Reports state that that 21 people have been rescued from the Apr. 9 flooding in mines in the Tanzanian Arusha province. Companies estimate that as many as 100 workers were trapped inside when the flooding occurred. . . . Bahi Ladgham, 85, prime minister of Tunisia, 1969–70, dies of a heart attack in Paris, France.

The Irish government releases nine members of the IRA from prison ahead of schedule. . . . Hans Hermann Groer, an Austrian cardinal accused of sexually molesting young boys, agrees to surrender all his duties in the Roman Catholic Church and go into exile, as requested by Pope John Paul II. . . . Dorothy Squires (born Edna May Squires), 83, popular British singer, dies of lung cancer near Trebanog, South Wales.

Riot police in Teheran, the capital of Iran, break up a demonstration by as many as 4,000 students calling for the release of the mayor, Gholamhossein Karbaschi.

Turkish military officials disclose that 75 people—64 PKK rebels and 11 Turkish soldiers—have been killed over the previous two days in fighting along the border between Turkey and Iraq.

In Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei orders the mayor of Teheran, Gholamhossein Karbaschi, free on bail. . . . In Somalia, ten relief workers are taken hostage by heavily armed men in Mogadishu, the capital. . . . Israel frees Ahmed Qatamesh, 46, a reputed leader of the militant Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and permits him to return to the West Bank city of Al-Bireh.

Unidentified gunmen attack a Russian military convoy in the North Ossetia section of the Caucasus region, killing a general and three other officers. Seven soldiers are wounded. . . . Sir Ronald Graeme Millar, 78, British playwright and speechwriter for Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher, dies in London, England.

A Rwanda court convicts Rev. Jean-François Kayiranga and Rev. Edouard Nkurikiye of organizing the execution of 2,000 Tutsis seeking refuge in a Catholic church in the town of Kivumu. The priests are the first church officials convicted on charges related to the massacres. . . . The Egyptian government’s Supreme Press Council initiates a widespread purge of independent-minded editors on state-owned publications, replacing them with staunch backers of the regime of Pres. Hosni Mubarak.

German Emilio Ornes, 78, publisher of a Dominican Republic newspaper and an advocate of press freedoms, dies of a heart attack in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Reports reveal that a “red tide,” a flourishing of toxic algae, appeared in the waters off Hong Kong, devastating the territory’s fishery stocks and forcing the closure of its beaches. . . . Reports confirm that India will lift import restrictions on 340 items.

Pol Pot (born Saloth Sar), leader of the Khmer Rouge whose age is reportedly between 73 and 76, dies of heart failure at a jungle outpost near the Dangrek mountains in Cambodia. Pol Pot, charged with overseeing the deaths of as many as 2 million people from 1975 to 1979 while his Khmer Rouge guerrilla army ruled Cambodia, had evaded international efforts to capture him and try him for genocide. Reports confirm that leftist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) still hold four of the 14 hostages kidnapped Mar. 23. . . . Marie-Louise Meilleur, 117, a Canadian woman listed as the oldest living person in the world, dies.

Workers at Kia Motors Corp., which was placed into court receivership, go on strike.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 11–16, 1998—1123

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

April 11

Marvin Eugene Wolfgang, 73, leading criminologist whose work was revolutionary when it focused on patterns of criminal violence that emerge from great masses of data, dies in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, of pancreatic cancer.

Mark O’Meara wins the 62nd Masters tournament at the Augusta National Golf Club. . . . James B. Conkling, 83, president of Columbia Records, 1951–56, who became the first president of Warner Bros. Records in 1958, dies in Sacramento, California, of pneumonia and diabetes.

A law banning a rarely performed late-term abortion procedure known medically as intact dilaton and extraction (IDE) is signed in Virginia. . . . Maryland’s General Assembly passes a bill allowing the state to present statistical evidence in its lawsuit seeking compensation from the tobacco industry for the cost of treating smoking-related illnesses. . . . The Supreme Court lets stand the Apr. 3 lower-court ruling that orders North Carolina to redraw its 12th Congressional District.

BankAmerica Corp. announces plans to merge with NationsBank Corp., in a stock transaction valued at $60 billion. If successful, the merger will create the nation’s largest bank in terms of deposits. . . . Banc One Corp. reveals plans to merge with First Chicago NBD Corp., in a stock swap worth an estimated $30 billion. . . . William Burwell Fitzgerald, 65, cofounder of what became the Independence Federal Savings bank, one of the U.S.’s largest black-owned businesses, dies in Washington, D.C., of complications from pneumonia.

Researchers report that the world’s first clone of an adult mammal, a sheep named Dolly, has given birth to a female lamb, Bonnie. The birth confirms that Dolly can “breed normally and produce healthy offspring.”

The director of the White House OMB, Franklin D. Raines, announces his resignation. Pres. Clinton appoints OMB deputy director Jacob J. Lew to replace Raines. . . . The New York State legislature passes a $71.5 billion budget for the 1998–99 fiscal year, which began Apr. 1. . . . Maurice Hubert Stans, 90, U.S. secretary of commerce, 1969–72, and finance chair for Pres. Richard Nixon’s reelection committee, 1972–73, dies in Pasadena, California, after suffering a heart attack.

Two teams of scientists report they have discovered a key clue to how the rhinovirus, the virus that causes colds, enters human cells.

Pres. Clinton hosts a televised discussion on the role of race in American sports. . . . Pulitzer Prizes are awarded to playwright Paula Vogel, writer Jared Diamond, and novelist Philip Roth. The late composer George Gershwin receives a special citation for his enduring contributions to music in the U.S.

The San Francisco Superior Court orders the closure of the Cannabis Cultivators Club, a medical-marijuana club. . . . A law banning a rarely performed late-term abortion procedure known as intact dilaton and extraction (IDE) is signed in Oklahoma. . . . Ordway Hilton, 84, leading authority on detecting forged documents, dies in Spartanburg, South Carolina, of unreported causes.

A New York City jury convicts Columbia University graduate student Oliver Jovanovic of kidnapping and assaulting a woman he met over the Internet. The case received national attention because it is one of the first Internet-related crimes of its kind to go to trial. . . . Researchers estimate that between 76,000 and 137,000 hospital patients in the U.S. die each year from adverse reactions to medications.

The annual George Polk Memorial Awards are presented to journalists Laurie Garrett and Keith Bradsher journalists. Pennsylvania’s Pittsburgh Courier receives a special Polk Career Award as the most influential source of news geared toward black readers.

Independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr reveals that he has withdrawn his agreement to become dean of the schools of law and of public policy at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, claiming that his latest investigation of Pres. Clinton “has expanded considerably and the end is not yet in sight.” . . . Massachusetts authorities arrest Stephen Fagan, a Florida man accused of kidnapping his two young daughters in 1979 during a weekend custody visit.

Tornadoes kill 10 people in Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky. . . . A study finds that women who undergo mammogram examinations every year for 10 years have a 50% chance of getting a result indicating the presence of breast cancer that later turns out to be false. . . . Alberto Calderon, 77, Argentine-born mathematician and a pioneer in the field of mathematical analysis who received Israel’s Wolf Prize in 1989 and won the U.S.’s National Medal of Science, in 1991, dies in Chicago, Illinois, of unreported causes.

Three separate juries in Los Angeles, California, render guilty verdicts for Tak Sun Tan, 21, Jason Chan, 20, and Indra Lim, 21, who were charged with the 1996 murder of Dr. Haing S. Ngor. Ngor, a trained gynecologist and a Cambodian refugee activist, won a best supporting actor Academy Award in 1985 for his debut role in The Killing Fields.

Eight members of the Republic of Texas separatist group are convicted in Dallas, Texas, on federal fraud charges. One member is acquitted. Richard McLaren, the group’s leader, is serving 99 years in prison on state charges related to a 1997 kidnapping and standoff. . . . A Tampa, Florida, judge formally sentences convicted murderer Lawrence Singleton, found guilty of first-degree murder in the 1997 fatal stabbing of Roxanne Hayes, to death.

Despite protests from the U.S. State Department, the government of Paraguay, and the World Court, convicted murderer Angel Francisco Breard, 32, is put to death by lethal injection in Jarratt, Virginia, after the Supreme Court votes, 6-3, to deny requests for a stay. The protests stem from the fact that Breard was denied his right to contact the Paraguayan consulate after his arrest. Breard is the 452nd person executed in the U.S. and the 50th in Virginia since 1976.

April 12

April 13

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 14

April 15

April 16

1124—April 17–22, 1998

World Affairs

April 20

April 21

Asia & the Pacific

UN secretary general Kofi Annan announces that a UN human-rights team investigating allegations that rebel forces under the command of Pres. Laurent Kabila massacred thousands of Rwandan Hutu refugees during the seven-month rebellion that brought Kabila to power in May 1997 will withdraw from the Democratic Republic of the Congo since it is facing repeated obstacles that has delayed the probe. . . . Three members of an English family are taken hostage in Yemen.

The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) and the Toronto-Dominion Bank, Canada’s largest and fifth-largest banks in terms of assets, respectively, announce plans to merge. The deal, which is a stock transaction valued at C$46.7 billion (US$32.2 billion), will create the secondlargest Canadian bank and the ninth-largest bank in North America in terms of assets.

Thousands of workers demonstrating against mass layoffs in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, clash with riot police wielding tear gas. . . . Thai military officials, in the presence of a group of journalists, confirm that Pol Pot has died. King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia, who in the past aligned himself with the Khmer Rouge states, “We have been liberated from Pol Pot Now our nation can be very peaceful.”

Rwandan radio reports that Rev. Jean-François Kayiranga and Rev. Edouard Nkurikiye, two Roman Catholic priests convicted on Apr. 16, have been sentenced to death by a Rwandan court for their roles in the 1994 massacres.

Paraguay’s electoral tribunal bars retired general Lino Cesar Oviedo, the former head of the armed forces convicted of attempting to lead a 1996 military coup, from running in May presidential elections as the ruling Colorado Party’s candidate. . . . Unidentified gunmen murder lawyer Eduardo Umana Mendoza, a leading human-rights advocate, in his office in Bogota, the capital of Columbia.

Austrian voters elect conservative president Thomas Klestil to a second six-year term. . . . Lord Denis Herbert Howell, 74, British member of Parliament, 1955–59, 1961–98, dies of a heart attack in Birmingham, England.

One Jewish settler is killed and one member of an unarmed group of Palestinian goatherds is seriously wounded in a clash over disputed farmland near the West Bank city of Hebron.

Sergio Roberto Viera da Motta, 57, Brazil’s communications minister, dies after a lengthy battle with lung disease.

Chinese authorities grant medical parole to Wang Dan, a prominent dissident imprisoned for most of the previous nine years, and place him on a flight to the U.S. Wang, 29, was a leader of the 1989 prodemocracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, the capital of China.

Germany’s Red Army Faction (RAF), a left-wing guerrilla group that waged a terror campaign in Germany during the 1970s and 1980s and is held responsible for 50 killings, announces that it has disbanded.

The Peace Corps states that it has withdrawn all of its volunteers and suspended funding for its program in Chad due to violent incidents associated with ongoing civil unrest in the central African nation. . . . Archbishop Ernest Urban Trevor Huddleston, 84, British-born opponent of apartheid who helped found the Anti-Apartheid Movement in the late 1950s, dies in England after suffering from diabetes.

A passenger jet carrying 53 people crashes into a mountain in dense fog near Bogota, the capital of Columbia, killing everyone on board. . . . In protest of the Apr. 18 killing of Eduardo Umana Mendoza, many of Colombia’s publicsector unions hold a day-long strike. At least 5,000 people gather in Bogota for his funeral.

UN-Taliban tensions are heightened when Taliban officials refuse to meet with UN aid coordinator Alfredo Witschi-Cestari of Venezuela.

A state security court in Diyarbakir, Turkey, convicts Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the mayor of Istanbul, and sentences him to 10 months in jail on charges of “inciting hatred” in a 1997 speech in which he mentioned Islam in the context of political reform.

Shi’ite cleric Sheik Morteza Ali Mohammed Ibrahim Borujerdi, an Iranian, is slain by a gunman after leading prayers at a mosque in Najaf, a Shi’ite holy city in Iran.

Luis Eduardo Magalhaes, 43, the leader of Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s party in the lower house of Congress, dies unexpectedly of a heart attack.

Leaders of 34 Western Hemisphere countries meet in Santiago, Chile, for the second Summit of the Americas. At the summit, the leaders agree to begin formal negotiations on creating the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), a free-trade zone that will stretch throughout the entire hemisphere, by the year 2005. If created, the FTAA will be the world’s largest trading bloc, containing some 800 million people.

April 19

The UN Commission on Human Rights passes a resolution condemning Nigeria for egregious human-rights abuses within the country’s justice system. Separately, it rejects a U.S. proposal to renew the UN’s mandate to monitor human rights in Cuba. The vote means that the UN will end its seven-year-old practice of retaining a human rights investigator specifically for Cuba.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

An unidentified man is shot and killed in a Catholic section of Belfast, Northern Ireland.

April 17

April 18

Europe

Yugoslav army forces kill at least 19 ethnic Albanians in clashes near the Albanian border.

April 22

The New Brunswick Court of Appeals vote unanimously to overturn a lower-court decision that granted the province’s native population the right to harvest and sell timber from state-owned land in Canada.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 17–22, 1998—1125

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

A Detroit, Michigan, judge sentences former police officer Walter Budzyn to four to 15 years in prison for involuntary manslaughter in the 1992 beating death of black motorist Malice Green. Budzyn was convicted in 1993 of seconddegree murder and sentenced to 18 years in prison for the same crime. However, in 1997 the Michigan State Supreme Court overturned the initial conviction and ordered a new trial.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Labor Department states that CoreStates Financial Corp. has agreed to pay nearly $1.5 million in back wages and salary adjustments to 142 female and minority managers. The settlement is the largest ever in a case brought by the compliance program. . . . The Commerce Department reports that in February the U.S. recorded a seasonally adjusted $12.11 billion deficit in trade in goods and services, up 4.2% from January’s revised deficit of $11.62 billion. February’s trade gap is the highest level registered in a decade.

The space shuttle Columbia lifts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission devoted entirely to experiments investigating the effects of microgravity on the brain and nervous system.

Officials from the Guinness Book of Records inform Sarah Clark Knauss, 117, of Allentown, Pennsylvania, that she is now listed as the world’s oldest living person. . . . Linda Eastman McCartney (born Linda Louise Eastman), 56, wife of Paul McCartney and an advocate of animal rights and vegetarianism, dies near Tucson, Arizona, of breast cancer that spread to her liver.

Terry Sanford, 80, Democratic governor of North Carolina, 1961–65, and U.S. senator, 1986–92, dies in Durham, North Carolina, of complications from cancer.

Data reveals that a series of severe tornadoes that swept through the southeast U.S. in late March and early April killed more than 60 people.

A 12,000-gallon (45,480-liter) shipment of napalm gel arrives for storage at California’s China Lake Naval Weapons Center, one week after Pollution Control Industries of East Chicago, Indiana, reneged on a deal to recycle the potentially dangerous substance.

A federal jury in Chicago, Illinois, finds that antiabortion activists Joseph Scheidler, Timothy Murphy, and Andrew Scholberg violated a federal racketeering law by conducting a campaign to intimidate abortion providers and patients. . . . The Clinton administration reveals that scientific studies have shown that needle-exchange programs for intravenous drug users reduces the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and that they do not promote drug use. The Dow closes at a record high of 9184.94. That marks the 23rd record high of 1998 and the sixth record high registered in April 1998.

Amy Grossberg, 19, pleads guilty in Delaware Superior Court to manslaughter in the 1996 death of her infant son, who was found dead in a trash container. Brian Peterson, 19, the baby’s father, pled guilty to manslaughter on Mar. 9. . . . In California v. Deep Sea Research, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that federal courts have authority to rule in cases stemming from disputes over property rights to ships that sunk in state waters.

In Miller v. Albright, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, to uphold a lowercourt ruling that denied U.S. citizenship to a woman whose mother is Filipino and whose father is a U.S. citizen. . . . Jose Villafuerte, 45, a Honduran convicted of murder, is executed by lethal injection in Florence, Arizona, despite pleas by Honduran foreign minister Fernando Martinez for clemency since Villafuerte was denied his right, under the Vienna Convention, to contact the Honduran consulate after his arrest. He is the 454th person executed in the U.S. and the 10th in Arizona since 1976.

April 17

April 18

Golfer Hale Irwin wins the PGA Seniors’ Championship. . . . Kenya’s Tegla Loroupe sets a world record of 2:20:47 in a marathon. . . . Italian architect Renzo Piano wins the 1998 Pritzker Architecture Prize. . . . Octavio Paz, 84, Mexican poet and essayist who won the 1990 Nobel Prize in literature, dies in Mexico City. The American Society of Clinical Oncology reports that two preliminary studies have shown that the drug raloxifene may prevent breast cancer.

Moses Tanui of Kenya wins the men’s race at the Boston Marathon. Ethiopia’s Fatuma Roba wins the women’s race.

Two teams of astronomers announce that they have independently observed evidence of the early formation of a group of planets around a young star. Using a recently developed kind of infrared camera, the astronomers saw a disk of dust and gas around the star HR 4796. HR 4796, about 10 million years old, is located 220 light years from Earth, in the constellation Centaurus.

Helen Ward, 81, jazz singer in the 1930s, dies in Arlington, Virginia, of unreported causes. . . . JeanFrançois Lyotard, 73, French philosopher of a loosely defined movement known popularly as postmodernism, or deconstructionism, dies in Paris, France, of leukemia.

The House votes, 238-186, in favor of a constitutional amendment that would make it more difficult to raise taxes. The vote is 45 votes short of the two-thirds majority required for passage. It marks the third time in three years that the measure has failed in the House.

April 19

April 20

April 21

April 22

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1126—April 23–28, 1998

World Affairs

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

A group of U.S. security agents and scientists remove several pounds of weapons-grade uranium and spent fuel from a poorly protected nuclear plant outside of Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital. The uranium is transported to a nuclear facility in Dounreay, Scotland, where it will be more safely stored. . . . Constantine Karamanlis, 91, Greek premier, 1955–63, 1974–80, and president, 1980–85, 1990–95, dies in Athens, Greece, after suffering from a respiratory infection and heart and kidney ailments.

April 23

April 24

Europe

The Geneva, Switzerland–based World Economic Forum (WEF) announces that the 1998 annual meeting of the Middle East–North Africa Economic Conference (MENA) has been suspended because of the continued impasse in ArabIsraeli peace negotiations.

April 25

The Great Hural, Mongolia’s 76member parliament, elects Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj as the country’s new premier. . . . Taiwanese and Chinese officials meet in Beijing, China’s capital, to reopen talks broken off in 1995. . . . Reports suggest that some 1,500 troops have defected from Khmer Rouge strongman Ta Mok, widely known as “the Butcher” for his role in the 1970s genocide, since Mar. 21.

The lower house of the Russian legislature, the Duma, confirms Sergei Kiriyenko as the country’s premier.

The 10 relief workers taken hostage Apr. 15 in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, are freed. . . . The Rwandan government executes by firing squad 22 people convicted of committing genocide during the nation’s 1994 civil war.

Roman Catholic bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera, who heads the human rights office of the Guatemala City archdiocese, presents a harsh critique of the Guatemalan army’s human-rights record during the country’s 36-year-long civil war that ended in December 1996.

Hundreds of people in Zhangjiajie in China’s Hunan province protest a ban against direct marketing recently enacted in China.

A dam at southern Spain’s Los Frailes zinc mine bursts, releasing some 150 million cubic feet of toxic sludge into the nearby Guadiamar River. The mine waste spreads to farmland adjoining the river, contaminating thousands of acres and imperiling local wildlife.

Fewer than 10% of registered voters turn out for legislative elections in Nigeria.

A faction of the leftist rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) releases the final two hostages whom they captured in late March.

Fighting erupts north of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.

Roman Catholic bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera, who on Apr. 24 presented a harsh critique of the Guatemalan army’s human rights record, is found dead in the garage of his house in Guatemala City, the capital. He apparently was beaten to death with a concrete block.

Police in New Delhi, India, begin to halt a 48-day hunger strike by six Tibetans appealing to the UN to take up the issue of Chinese rule over Tibet, by forcibly putting the protestors in the care of a hospital. . . . The Taliban and the Northern Alliance, comprised of ethnic Uzbek and Tajik forces and the Muslim Shi’ite group Hizb-i-Wahdat, open talks.

John White Hughes Bassett Jr., 82, Canadian newspaper publisher and broadcasting executive, dies in Toronto, Ontario, while suffering the effects of a major heart attack in 1994.

Japan’s finance ministry announces that it has disciplined 112 officials following an internal corruption investigation. . . . Thupten Ngodup, a former Tibetan monk who was not among the hunger strikers forced into hospitalized care in India, sets himself on fire in protest of the Apr. 26 breakup of the fast. . . . Nguyen Van Linh (born Nguyen Van Cuc), 82, general secretary of the Vietnamese Communist Party, 1986–91, dies in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, after suffering from liver cancer.

An attack on a Colombian village near the northern city of Urrao leaves at least 22 civilians dead.

Authorities in Hong Kong complete a seizure of US$90 million worth of pirated audio and video compact discs, along with equipment used to manufacture them, in what was reportedly the world’s largest such confiscation ever. . . . The government reports that Japan’s unemployment rate rose in March to 3.9%, from 3.6% in February. The March jobless rate was the country’s highest since the current method of calculating unemployment began in 1953.

April 26

Some 500,000 Danish workers— about 10% of the country’s population and 20% of its workforce—go on strike. . . . Yugoslav army forces kill at least three ethnic Albanians. Their deaths bring the total number killed in clashes between ethnic Albanians and Yugoslav government forces to more than 120 since February. . . . The body of an unidentified man is found in County Louth, Ireland. Security officials suspect that hardline Catholic guerrillas killed the man, and that he may have been an informer.

April 27

Asia & the Pacific

A military tribunal in the Nigerian town of Jos condemns the former deputy head of state and five other men to death for attempting to overthrow the military government of Gen. Sani Abacha.

April 28

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 23–28, 1998—1127

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The first nationwide survey seeking to determine how often physicians provide assistance to terminally ill patients who wish to commit suicide shows that some 6% of the doctors who respond to a 1996 survey provided such assistance at least once either by prescribing medication or administering a lethal injection, or both. . . . James Earl Ray, 70, convicted killer of civilrights activist Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., dies in Nashville, Tennessee, after suffering from liver disease and kidney ailments.

A federal grand jury in Fort Pierce, Florida, indicts a group of Mexicans for operating a prostitution ring in the U.S. using illegal immigrants from Mexico. The 52-count indictment charges 16 defendants with forcing at least 20 women to work as prostitutes over an 18-month period in rural Florida and South Carolina. Some of the women involved are as young as 14.

The CDC reports that homicide is the second-leading cause of U.S. job-related deaths, surpassing injuries caused by machinery. Murders account for 13.5% of such deaths between 1980 and 1994. The leading cause is motor vehicle accidents, accounting for 23.1% of work-related deaths. . . . The Senate approves, 56-43, a Republicanauthored bill that provides a tax break for families saving money to pay for primary and secondary education.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle An unidentified family donates eight 19th-century documents related to slavery to the Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The Florida State Senate passes a package of electoral reforms designed to prevent the types of voter fraud that had tarnished the 1997 Miami elections. . . . Andrew Wurst, a 14-year-old middleschool student, allegedly opens fire at a school dance near Edinboro, Pennsylvania, killing a teacher and wounding two students and a second teacher.

Mel Powell (born Melvin Epstein), 75, composer and jazz musician who, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1990, dies in Sherman Oaks, California, reportedly of liver cancer.

Wright Morris, 88, who wrote 33 books as well as short stories and essays and who won the 1957 National Book Award, dies in Mill Valley, California, of unreported causes.

Dominique Aury (born Anne Desclos), 90, French author who wrote the 1954 erotic novel The Story of O, dies in Paris, France, of unreported causes.

A federal appeals court in Cincinnati, Ohio, rules that the city cannot impose spending limits on candidates running in municipal elections.

The Arizona Supreme Court strikes down Arizona’s English-only law, which required state and local governments to use only English in all official business. . . . The Florida State House passes a package of electoral reforms designed to prevent the types of voter fraud that had tarnished the 1997 Miami elections. . . . In Edwards v. United States, the Supreme Court rules unanimously to give federal judges broader discretion in setting prison sentences in cocaine-trafficking cases.

The General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, reports that a U.S.-led international embargo against arms sales to China is not preventing the country from acquiring weapons abroad. . . . The Senate, by voice vote, confirms former army secretary Togo D. West Jr. as the secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). . . . Congress clears a bill to pay $1 billion that the U.S. owes the UN in back dues. However, the bill also contains antiabortion provisions.

Data suggests that the 500 largest U.S. companies in 1997 saw their aggregate profit growth rate fall to 7.8% from 23.3% in 1996. The median stock-market return of ranked firms in 1997 was 30.5%, up from 20.9% in 1996. . . . Michael Cherkasky, a federally appointed election overseer, rules that James P. Hoffa’s 1996 campaign for the Teamsters union presidency broke several fund-raising rules, but that the violations were not sufficient to disqualify Hoffa from participating in a rerun election.

Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, is released from a Maryland prison after serving almost one year for molesting a teenaged boy whom he had brought to the U.S. from a Micronesian island where Gajdusek conducted field research.

The Senate gives final congressional approval to the fiscal 1998–99 State Department authorization bill in a close 51-49 vote.

Scientists report that early human species may have been capable of speech much earlier than previously thought. The claim is based on studies of Neanderthal skulls, which suggest speech capability about 400,000 years ago, some 10 times earlier than previously thought.

Carlos Cesar Arana Castaneda, whose age was reported to be 67 or 73 and who wrote the best-selling book series that present the teachings of a native American shaman named Don Juan Matus whose existence was never verified, dies in Los Angeles, California, of liver cancer. . . . Black and Blue, by Anna Quindlen, tops the bestseller list.

April 23

April 24

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April 27

April 28

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1128—April 29–May 3, 1998

World Affairs

April 29

April 30

May 1

Africa & the Middle East

The six-nation “contact group” monitoring internal strife in the Balkan region declares an international freeze on all the Yugoslav government’s foreign assets in an attempt to pressure the government of Pres. Slobodan Milosevic to reach a peaceful settlement with ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo. . . . A summit meeting of leaders from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) names Boris Berezovsky as the organization’s executive secretary.

Lieutenant General Siphiwe Nyanda, a former leader in the armed struggle against apartheid, is appointed to head South Africa’s armed forces. Nyanda will be the first black to head the South African military and will replace Gen. Georg Meiring, who announced his resignation in April amid accusations that he gave the government a false report of an impending coup.

Argentine police arrest Dinko Sakic, a Croatian World War II veteran and suspected war criminal. He drew international attention in April after he admitted on Argentine television that he commanded a notorious World War II death camp in Nazi-controlled Croatia.

U.S. vice president Al Gore, during a tour of the Middle East, attends the official ceremony in West Jerusalem marking Israel’s 50th anniversary as a modern state. . . . Nizar Qabbani, 75, Syrian poet considered one of the greatest writers of verse in Arab literature, dies in London, England, of a heart attack.

Former Rwandan premier Jean Kambanda pleads guilty to six counts of genocide before the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda that is investigating charges that Rwandans participated in the massacre of some 500,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus during the central African country’s 1994 civil war. Kambanda ia the first Hutu official to acknowledge the extent of the government’s role in the 1994 massacres, and his plea marks the first conviction for the three-year-old tribunal.

In Leipzig, some 3,000 neo-Nazis attend one of Germany’s largest neo-Nazi rallies in recent years. Some 5,000 leftists hold a counterdemonstration. Police use water cannons to keep the neo-Nazis and leftists apart, and 27 people from both sides are arrested. . . . Unidentified armed assailants kidnap Valentin Vlasov, Russian president Boris Yeltsin’s personal envoy to the separatist republic of Chechnya. . . . A suspected republican activist is killed in a shootout with police in County Wicklow, Ireland.

Police in the Nigerian city of Ibadan open fire on a crowd of demonstrators after an antigovernment rally escalates into a riot. An estimated 5,000 protesters, mostly from the Yoruba ethnic group, march through the city when some set fire to cars, shops and houses. At least seven people are reportedly killed by police gunfire.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Thousands of mourners gather in Guatemala City for a march and a candlelight vigil to honor Roman Catholic bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera, who was found dead April 26.

Escalating protests by Indonesians in the city of Medan in northern Sumatra prompt the closure of the University of North Sumatra. . . . Bai Baoshan, named “Public Enemy Number One” by the, Chinese government in 1997, is executed in the northwestern province of Xinjiang.

Reports from China reveal that the Apr. 24 protests in Zhangjiajie, Hunan province, and protests in Hengyang turned into riots resulting in 10 deaths. Separately, riot police in Chengdu, in Sichuan province, clash with some 3,000 street market vendors when police attempt to shut down their stalls.

Mexican police raid an autonomous township run by EZLN supporters near Amparo Agua Tinta, a village located on the Guatemalan border, arresting 47 people.

Tajikistan’s secular government and Islamist opposition forces agree to withdraw their troops from Dushanbe, the capital, and its surrounding areas, ending an armed conflict during which some 45 people were killed and 80 others were wounded. Prior to the agreement, observers expressed fears that the violence would reignite the country’s 1992–97 civil war. . . . Four neo-Nazi skinheads attack a black U.S. Marine in Moscow, the capital of Russia, punching and kicking him unconscious.

May 2

May 3

Europe

Top EU officials formally launch plans to institute an economic and monetary union (EMU) among 11 of the EU’s 15 member nations. The long-anticipated project will center on the 1999 launch of the euro, a unified European currency to replace the respective currencies of participating nations. They appoint Wim Duisenberg as head of the European Central Bank (ECB).

Gojko Susak, 53, Croatian defense minister, 1991–98, considered the second-most-powerful person in Croatia, dies in Zagreb, Croatia, while suffering from lung cancer.

At a May Day rally in Seoul’s Chongro park, riot police in armored cars fire tear gas at demonstrators. Some protesters charge the police, wielding pipes, iron bars, and chunks of sidewalk. . . . Hundreds of thousands of workers and unemployed people march in Tokyo, Japan’s capital, to protest rising joblessness in the first May Day demonstration staged there in seven years. . . . In Dharmsala, India, 5,000 Tibetans attend the funeral of Thupten Ngodup, a former Tibetan monk who set himself on fire Apr. 27. Tens of thousands of students hold protests on university campuses across Indonesia. At least four police officers and seven students are injured in what is reportedly the most violent day of protesting in the capital since demonstrations began in January. . . . Police apprehend Australia’s most wanted fugitive, Brendan Abbott, in the Northern Territory city of Darwin. Abbott is the last of four fugitives who escaped from a Queensland prison in November 1997 to be captured.

Nigerian authorities complete their arrests of 20 people in the wake of the May 1 unrest, including opposition leaders Bola Ige and Lam Adesina.

Negotiations aimed at ending nearly two decades of civil war in Afghanistan break down after differences surfaced between the Taliban militia and the opposition Northern Alliance. . . . Reports confirm that police in Beijing, China, had detained Wang Youcai, a leader of the 1989 student protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square who came for the May 4 celebration of Beijing University’s 100th anniversary.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 29–May 3, 1998—1129

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson (R) signs a law banning a rarely performed late-term abortion procedure known medically as intact dilation and extraction (IDE). . . . Frank McFarland, 34, convicted of murder, is executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas. He is the 458th person executed in the U.S. and the 150th in Texas since 1976.

Samuel Cummings, 71, the world’s leading small-arms trader and a former CIA weapons specialist, dies in Monaco after suffering several strokes.

The House votes, 413-8, to pass a bill that will create a bipartisan commission on Social Security reform.

A jury in Hannibal, Missouri, convicts James Scott of deliberately breaking a Mississippi River levee during severe flooding in 1993, causing the destruction of some 14,000 acres (5,700 hectares) of farmland. Scott’s 1994 conviction was overturned in 1997. . . . Data shows that the proportion of teenaged girls giving birth fell by 12% between 1991 and 1996. The teenage birthrate in 1996 was 54.7 for every 1,000 females ages 15–19, down from 62.1 in 1991.

The Senate votes, 80-19, to grant NATO membership to three former Soviet bloc adversaries—Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. . . . The State Department reports that international terrorist activity in 1997 continued a general trend of decline, finding that a total of 304 terrorist incidents occurred in 1997, up eight from 1996. The 1997 figure is one of the lowest since 1971. It identifies seven countries—Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria—as sponsors of terrorism.

The Commerce Department reports that the gross domestic product (GDP) grew at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.2% in the first quarter. The rate compares with a revised economic expansion of 3.7% in the October-December 1997 quarter. . . . The House, 242163, and the Senate, 88-11, pass a $6 billion supplemental spending request from Pres. Clinton.

A published study finds that an abortion-inducing pill known as RU-486, or mifepristone, terminates pregnancies in 92% of 859 U.S. women ages 18–35 who are no more than 49 days pregnant. The study’s results are similar to those achieved in previous studies in France on the pill’s effectiveness.

Eldridge (Leroy) Cleaver, 62, black political activist who was the Black Panthers’ minister of information before he became a born-again Christian and a Republican, dies in Pomona, California; his family declines to disclose the cause of death.

Reports confirm that the CIA has determined that 13 of China’s CSS-4 long-range nuclear missiles are aimed at the U.S. Officials note, however, that China keeps its nuclear warheads in storage and not on the missiles. . . . The U.S. reveals that it will keep Hong Kong on its watch list, known as the Special 301 list, of countries producing counterfeit copyrighted materials.

Pres. Clinton signs a $6 billion supplemental spending bill. . . . The Commerce Department reports that personal pretax income rose 0.3% in March from February, to a seasonally adjusted figure of $7.158 trillion. March’s gain marks the 17th consecutive month in which income increased. Personal income in February was revised to $7.134 trillion, a gain of 0.6% from January.

Guy Altmann, 20, a student at Texas A&M University in College Station, becomes the first known person to survive a heart autotransplant operation on a heart with a malignant tumor.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

April 29

Emily Hartshorne Mudd, 99, who in 1933 cofounded the Philadelphia Marriage Council and served as the organization’s executive director, 1936–67, dies in Haverford, Pennsylvania.

April 30

Otto Ludwig Bettmann, 94, Germanborn founder of the Bettmann Archive, the world’s largest collection of photographs and illustrations, dies in Boca Raton, Florida, of unreported causes.

Real Quiet wins the 124th running of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky.

Reports disclose that a combination of two drugs discovered by Dr. Judah Folkman of Children’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, completely eliminated cancerous tumors in mice. . . . The space shuttle Columbia lands at Kennedy Space Center after carrying out experiments investigating the effects of microgravity on the brain and nervous system. The flight was the 25th for the Columbia orbiter.

May 1

May 2

May 3

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1130—May 4–8, 1998

World Affairs

Reports confirm that genetic tests have proved that remains uncovered in Berlin in 1972 are indeed those of Martin Bormann, Nazi German leader Adolf Hitler’s private secretary.

May 4

May 5

Europe

Reports confirm that the Bahamas has established diplomatic relations with China after cutting ties to Taiwan.

Severe mudslides set off by torrential rain sweep southern Italy, killing scores of people and destroying hundreds of homes. The mudslides are described as the region’s worst in decades. . . . Tomas Caballero, a town councilor in Pamplona, Spain, is shot and killed. He is the fifth local politician believed to be killed by the ETA in less than a year. . . . In the Netherlands, parliamentary elections keep the left-of-center Labor Party and Premier Wim Kok in power.

May 6

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Nigerian security forces detain Olusegun Maiyegun, a researcher for the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights.

A band of some 200 gunmen kill at least 21 people, reportedly targeting suspected leftist rebel supporters, in the remote village of Puerto Alvira in eastern Colombia.

The Indonesian government announces price increases just hours before the IMF states it will release $1 billion in aid to Indonesia. The IMF suspended disbursement of aid to Indonesia because of Pres. Suharto’s refusal to implement substantial economic reforms. Riot police reportedly take at least 94 protesters into custody during protests that escalate once the increases are announced. . . . Beijing University celebrates its 100th anniversary with ceremonies that include the opening of a new library and a speech by Pres. Jiang Zemin.

Three members of an English family held hostage in Yemen since Apr. 17 return safely to England after negotiations secured their release. . . . Nigerian authorities arrest opposition leader Ayo Opadokun at his office in Lagos.

Nicaraguan president Arnoldo Aleman Lacayo suspends seven high-ranking members of the government in the wake of revelations that Aleman and other top Nicaraguan officials unknowingly flew aboard a jet loaded with smuggled cocaine. The suspended officials include Mario Rivas, the civil aviation director; Carlos Palacios, the chief of Nicaragua’s antidrug operations; and immigration chief Carlos Garcia.

Indonesians in the city of Medan in northern Sumatra riot and loot, and students across the country hold rallies to protest steep fuel and energy price increases. The price hikes are part of a larger economic reform package that Pres. Suharto reached with the IMF in April. . . . Four naval personnel are killed in a fire on board the Australian navy tanker Westralia. Five other personnel are injured. It is Australia’s worst naval disaster since 1964.

Clashes erupt between Ethiopia and Eritrea in a disputed region, a 150-square-mile (390-sq-km) area known as Badame on Ethiopia’s northern border. The skirmish touches off an intense armed conflict. . . . South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission announces its first decision to award reparations to victims of human-rights abuses during the apartheid era. . . . A Nigerian official reveals that the government released 142 political prisoners during the previous week.

In Mexico, some members of a group of 134 Italian human-rights observers visiting Chiapas break through an immigration checkpoint in order to travel to Taniperlas. The Mecian government authorized only 10 members to enter the town. Upon entering Taniperlas, the Italians clash with progovernment Indians who took over the town in April.

Six people are reported killed and another 100 injured in Medan, Indonesia, either by gunfire from riot police or in buildings set ablaze by rioters. . . . Chatichai Choonhavan, 76, Thai premier, 1988–91, dies in London, England, after suffering from liver cancer.

The Danish parliament enacts legislation that forcibly ends the strike begun Apr. 27, the country’s largest in over a decade as it involved 20% of its workforce.

May 7

Crowds estimated at 25,000– 50,000 people gather at Honganji Temple in Tokyo, the Japanese capital, for the funeral of Japanese rock-and-roll star Hideto Matsumoto, 33, who hanged himself May 2.

The Cape High Court in Cape Town, South Africa, overturns the blanket amnesties that an arm of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission had granted to highranking officials of the ruling African National Congress (ANC). Separately, a high court judge in Johannesburg throws out apartheid-era statutes that outlawed homosexual sex on grounds that they are unconstitutional.

May 8

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 4–8, 1998—1131

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

In Sacramento, California, U.S. district judge Garland Burrell Jr. sentences Theodore J. Kaczynski to four life prison terms plus 30 years for carrying out four bombings between 1982 and 1995 that killed three people and injured two others. . . . . In a sealed ruling, Judge Norma Holloway Johnson in Washington, D.C., finds that Pres. Clinton cannot invoke executive privilege or attorney-client privilege to protect his aides from testifying in a criminal obstruction-of-justice probe against him, according to officials. It is considered a victory for Kenneth Starr.

Susan McDougal, one of the partners of Pres. Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in the failed Whitewater Development Corp. who is already serving a prison term, is indicted on charges of criminal contempt and obstruction of justice for refusing to cooperate with independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s investigation of the matter. . . . Merrill Lynch & Co. announces that it has agreed to pay eight female brokers a total of $600,000 to settle their claims of sexual discrimination.

Reports confirm that William Gates paid $30 million for Lost on the Grand Banks (1885), a seascape by Winslow Homer. It is the highest price ever paid for the work of a U.S.-born artist. . . . A jury in Kansas City, Kansas, orders the NCAA to pay nearly $67 million in damages to assistant coaches whose earnings the NCAA restricted under a 1991 rule.

Ohio voters reject, 80%-20%, a ballot proposition to add a penny to the state’s sales tax to raise funds for education. . . . Pres. Clinton and former first lady Nancy Reagan formally dedicate the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center. . . . Alan Simpson, 85, president of Vassar College, 1964–77, who oversaw the first admission of male students to the college, dies in Lake Forest, Illinois, of pneumonia.

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Reports confirm that French art collector François Pinault has purchased 29% of Christie’s, which has been under British ownership since founded in 1766. Separately, Sotheby’s and Christie’s open their spring New York City sales, and Christie’s reclassifies its art into three historic eras.

The New York State Court of Appeals unanimously rules that a divorced couple must abide by a signed contract that requires the consent of both parties before either of them may use frozen embryos placed in storage. . . . Three people linked to the white-supremacist movement—Brian Picket, Christopher Norris, and Deena Wanzie— are charged with conspiring to set off pipe bombs in busy tourist areas near Orlando, Florida, in 1997.

Delia Lemus Ruiz de Paoletti and Adriana Paoletti Lemus, leaders of a forced-labor ring exploiting deaf illegal Mexican immigrants, are sentenced to 14 years in prison. . . . In Tallahassee, Florida, Customs Service officials reveal they have arrested six people in an international fraud scheme to steal some $60 million from more than 400 people in at least 10 countries. It the largest money-laundering scheme unrelated to drugs ever investigated by the Customs Service.

The tobacco industry agrees to pay some $6.6 billion to the state of Minnesota and Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Minnesota to settle a suit. . . . Reports confirm Rep. Cynthia McKinney, (D, Ga.), who is black, has complained that White House security personnel gave her and two Pakistani Americans “disparate treatment” because of their race. . . . Jennings Randolph, 96, (D, W.Va.), representative, 1933–46, and senator, 1958–85, who wrote the amendment that lowered the legal voting age to 18, dies in St. Louis, Missouri.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecasts a surplus in 1998 of between $43 billion and $63 billion.

Astronomers from institutions in several countries announce at a news conference that they recently detected a burst of gamma rays coming from the constellation Ursa Major, energy emanating from an enormous explosion that took place some 12 billion years ago at a far edge of the universe. The scientists note that current theories cannot explain how such an intense burst of energy, which they argue outshone all of the rest of the universe for a matter of seconds, could be created.

The Labor Department reports that the nation’s overall productivity in nonfarm business sectors rose by a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 0.2% in the first quarter of 1998 from the fourth quarter of 1997. It is the weakest rate in more than a year. . . . The Senate votes, 97-0, to pass a bill proposing far-reaching reforms for the IRS in the wake of Senate hearings. . . . The Whitewater grand jury in Little Rock, Arkansas, expires after four and a half years of operation.

A series of tornadoes sweeps through South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. . . . Allan MacLeod Cormack, 74, physicist who established the mathematical basis of the computerized axial tomographic (CAT) scan and cowinner of the 1979 Nobel prize for medicine, dies in Winchester, Massachusetts, of cancer.

William Louther, 56, U.S. dancer and choreographer who helped popularize modern dance in England. dies in London of esophageal cancer.

The Labor Department reports that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in April dropped to 4.3%, its lowest level since February 1970. A survey of business payroll indicates that the economy created 262,000 new jobs during the month, more than reversing a small decline in jobs in March. . . . Charles Gregory (Bebe) Rebozo, 85, self-made multimillionaire and longtime friend of Pres. Richard Nixon who was an informal financial adviser to Nixon, dies in Miami, Florida, of a brain aneurysm.

The series of tornadoes that began sweeping through South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia on May 7, ebbs after causing the deaths of two people. At least 20 others were injured. . . . Researchers suggest that a genetic mutation that protects some people against infection by HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, may have been inherited from 14th-century survivors of bubonic plague.

Reports state that the U.S. Library of Congress plans to purchase the archives of the late dancer and choreographer Martha Graham for $500,000.

May 4

May 5

May 6

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 7

May 8

1132—May 9–14, 1998

World Affairs

Europe

May 11

UN secretary general Kofi Annan ends a tour of Africa, during which he visited Ethiopia, Rwanda, Kenya, Djibouti, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, and Eritrea.

Reports confirm that 100 died in the Italian town of Sarno in the Campania region, hit hardest by the May 6 mudslides. Some 15,000 mourners, among them Premier Romano Prodi and President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, attend a funeral mass in Sarno for the victims. . . . Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), overwhelmingly endorses a Northern Ireland peace agreement that negotiators reached in April.

India detonates three underground nuclear devices at the Pokharan test site, located near the Pakistan border. The international community condemns India’s actions.

Israel officially acknowledges that Jonathan Pollard, an American Jew jailed for life in the U.S. for spying for Israel, “acted as an Israeli agent.”

May 12

May 13

The Americas

Rwandan authorities order Jose Luis Herrero, a UN human-rights official who in April spoke out against the government’s execution of 22 people convicted of war crimes, to leave the country. . . . Reports confirm that Herrero Olisa Agbakoba, head of the opposition group United Action for Democracy, is arrested at Lagos airport as he returns to Nigeria from a humanrights conference in the U.S.

May 9

May 10

Africa & the Middle East

India detonates two underground nuclear devices near the village of Khetlai in the Thar Desert. The government states that the exercise “completes the planned series of tests.” U.S. president Bill Clinton announces that the U.S. will impose economic sanctions against India. Japan cancels $30 million in grants to India, and Germany, Sweden, and Denmark suspend some development. None of those nations agree to implement sanctions. . . . Gro Harlem Brundtland is confirmed as director general of the WHO.

Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic agrees to open talks with ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova. Violence between government forces and ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo province have claimed more than 150 lives since late February. . . . A bomb explodes at the Lubavitch Marina Roscha synagogue in Moscow, the capital of Russia, destroying the building’s outer wall and injuring construction workers at an adjacent building.

Asia & the Pacific North Korean foreign minister Kim Yong Nam announces that the government has suspended its implementation of a 1994 agreement with the U.S. under which North Korea was to halt its nuclear energy program. . . . Chinese authorities release from prison Zeng Jingmu, a bishop of the outlawed “underground” Roman Catholic Church that maintains allegiance to the pope. Zeng was sentenced without trial in 1996 to three years of “reeducation through labor.”

Raul Cubas Grau of Paraguay’s ruling Colorado Party wins presidential elections. . . . Jose Francisco Peña Gomez, 61, longtime head of the opposition Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD), dies of stomach cancer.

Reports from China surface regarding the Apr. 30 clash with riot police in Chengdu, in Sichuan province surface, and they state that four people died and 30 others were seriously injured in the incident.

The strike started Feb. 17 by doctors in Nicaragua escalates into violent street clashes between protesters and police, as students and other citizens join the doctors’ cause. Nineteen doctors are arrested for blocking roads in Managua, the capital. . . . In response to the May 6 clash, the Mexican government deports 40 Italian human-rights observers investigating alleged abuses in the southern state of Chiapas.

Voters in the Philippines cast ballots in nationwide elections for president, vice president, members of Congress, and more than 17,000 other provincial and local posts.

In Nicaragua, 25 people are arrested after seven officers are injured as clashes that started May 11 continue. . . . Retired general Fernando Landazabal Reyes, a former right-wing defense minister, is slain in Bogota, the capital of Colombia.

In Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, riot police open fire on students at Trisakti University, killing six student protesters. The killings unleash violent rioting in Jakarta.

Israeli jets bomb a training camp of the Syrian-backed Fatah Uprising in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, killing at least eight people.

Riots continue in Indonesia, and 200 people die when they are trapped in four shopping malls set ablaze.

May 14

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 9–14, 1998—1133

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rules, 6-5, that employers are liable for punitive damages for sexual discrimination only in “particularly egregious” cases in which they ignore victims’ civil rights with “reckless indifference.”

Ronald Lee Ridenhour, 52, U.S. journalist and Vietnam War veteran who brought the infamous My Lai massacre to public attention, dies in Metairie, Louisiana, of a heart attack.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Alice Faye (born Alice Jeanne Leppert), lead actress in Hollywood movie musicals of the 1930s and 1940s whose age is variously reported as 83 and 86, dies in Rancho Mirage, California, of cancer.

The FAA pulls 179 U.S.-registered Boeing 737 jetliners out of service to inspect the planes’ fuel-pump wiring. The FAA also gives U.S. airline companies two weeks to examine and service the wiring in 118 later-model 737s from the 300, 400, and 500 series with 40,000–50,000 flight hours. Its grounding order will affect about 100,000 U.S. air passengers.

May 10

Blanche Revere Long, 93, wife of three-term Louisiana government Earl K. Long who committed her husband to a Texas mental institution in 1959 after he made a rambling, incoherent speech to the Louisiana legislature, dies in Covington, Louisiana, of unreported causes.

The U.S. Postal Service’s ninemember board of governors unanimously select William J. Henderson as the nation’s 71st postmaster general. . . . The House passes, 402-16, a bill increasing penalties for parents who refuse to pay child support.

May 11

The Senate approves, 92-8, an agriculture bill that will restore food-stamp benefits to 250,000 of the 935,000 legal immigrants who lost eligibility under a welfare overhaul bill enacted in 1996. . . . A key army missile-defense system known as the Theater High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) fails its fifth consecutive flight test during a trial run at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

Dr. E. Ratcliffe Anderson is named the new executive vice president of the American Medical Association (AMA). . . . The Senate passes, by voice vote, a bill allowing churches and charities to keep contributions from donors who go bankrupt.

Doctors at abortion clinics in Wisconsin stop performing all types of abortions because they claim that the Apr. 29 law banning IDE abortions is so vaguely worded that it may apply to all abortions. . . . Pres. Clinton issues an executive order setting out nine circumstances under which federal intervention is justified. It revokes two earlier presidential orders on federalism—issued by Clinton in 1993 and by Pres. Reagan in 1987—that stress deference to state and local governments.

May 9

Military representatives exhume the unidentified Vietnam War serviceman buried in the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. The remains are to undergo previously unavailable genetic tests in an effort to determine the soldier’s identity. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen states that he felt obligated to do whatever he could to address the hopes of the families who believe that the remains might belong to one of their members.

Financial disclosure forms reveal that Pres. Clinton and his family had assets worth between $1.26 million and $5.76 million at the end of 1997. . . . In response to repeated attacks for its labor practices in Asia and Latin America, Nike Inc., an athletic shoe and apparel manufacturer, states the company will raise the minimumage requirements for its overseas workers and will adopt healthier air-quality standards at its overseas production plants.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., rules that a December 1997 ruling, in which a lower court forced Microsoft to offer a version of its Windows operating system not equipped with Internet Explorer, does not require the company to similarly separate Internet Explorer from the new Windows 98 operating system.

The Dow closes at a record high of 9211.84. That marks the 25th record high of 1998 and the second record high registered in May. . . . The House passes, 214-213, a bank-reform bill that will dismantle Depression-era barriers separating the banking, insurance, and securities industries.

A study finds that the drug raloxifene may lower blood levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL), a kind of cholesterol harmful to the heart, in postmenopausal women.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas, 108, author and environmentalist who fought to preserve the Everglades, Florida’s unique wetlands, and was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1993, in Miami, Florida, of natural causes.

May 12

May 13

Frank (Francis Albert) Sinatra, 82, American icon and one of the most popular entertainers of the 20th century, winner of the Academy Award for his supporting role in the 1953 film From Here to Eternity, and founder of his own record company, Reprise, dies of a heart attack in Los Angeles, California.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 14

1134—May 15–20, 1998

May 15

World Affairs

Europe

Leaders of the world’s seven wealthiest industrialized nations and Russia, collectively known as the Group of Eight (G-8), meet for their 24th annual summit.

Reports reveal that, after the May 6 mudslides in southern Italy near Naples, the bodies of 147 victims have been found, and another 200 people remain missing. Some 1,000 people are left homeless. . . . (Patrick Palles) Lorne (Elphinstone) Welch, 81, British Royal Air Force pilot in World War II who participated in several escape attempts from Nazi prisoner-of-war camps, dies in Farnham, England, of unreported causes.

Africa & the Middle East

Asia & the Pacific

Argentina reveals that it will expel seven of the eight officials at the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires, the capital, claiming that the government has proof that Iran was behind two previously unsolved anti-Jewish bomb attacks in the city. The attacks were the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy, which killed 29 people, and the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center, in which 87 people died.

An estimated 500 people are reported to have died since May 13 in rioting in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. In an effort to quell the unrest, Pres. Suharto restores the fuel subsidies. Despite the president’s action, students continue to call for his ouster. . . . Reports suggest that Chinese antiquities are being looted from historic sites surrounding the construction site of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River.

In the Colombian town of Barrancabermeja, 11 people die and 25 people are kidnapped during a raid by a paramilitary group.

May 16

May 17

May 18

The Americas

Amid protests, the World Trade Organization (WTO) holds a meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. . . . The UN World Food Program announces that it will reduce food aid to North Korea because the North Korean government has restricted the agency’s ability to monitor the use of the donated food. . . . The U.S. and the EU resolve a dispute over U.S. sanctions against foreign companies doing business with Cuba, Iran, and Libya.

May 19

Lord Hugh Cudlipp (born Hubert Kinsman Cudlipp), 84, British newspaperman credited with creating modern British tabloid journalism, dies in Chichester, England, while suffering from lung and prostate cancer.

In response to Argentina’s May 15 decision, the Iranian government expels the Argentine commercial attaché from Teheran, the capital, and threatens to impose trade sanctions against Argentina.

In the Dominican Republic, the opposition Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) registers an overwhelming victory in midterm legislative elections.

The British Foreign Office announces that the six-nation “contact group” monitoring civil strife in the Balkan region will cease certain economic sanctions against Yugoslavia because of Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic’s May 13 agreement to open talks with ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova. . . . The upper house of the Yugoslav parliament passes a vote of no confidence in Premier Radoje Kontic, effectively dismissing him from the position.

Ezer Weizman takes the oath for his second five-year term as president of Israel.

The Bahamas repatriate 65 Cuban refugees, including three baseball players and a coach banned from baseball in Cuba.

In Indonesia, government troops allow thousands of students to launch a massive sit-in protest in the parliament building. The students march peacefully into the government building, vowing to remain there until Pres. Suharto resigns.

Pres. Slobodan Milosevic nominates Momir Bulatovic to replace Radoje Kontic as premier of Yugoslavia. . . . Armed gunmen break into the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome, Italy, and steal three valuable paintings, valued at a total of $34 million. . . . At a rock concert organized by peace-plan advocates in Belfast, Catholic leader John Hume and David Trimble, Northern Ireland’s leading Protestant politician, appear on stage, making their first joint public appearance in the current round of peace initiatives.

Lebanon carries out its first public execution in 15 years when Wissam Nayef Issa, 25, and Hassan Abu Jabal, 24, are hanged at dawn in front of 1,200 spectators in the coastal resort of Tabarja, located 15 miles (25 km) north of Beirut, the capital. The two executed men had killed two men during a 1995 robbery attempt in Tabarja.

Hundreds of thousands of people across Colombia stop work to protest the recent upsurge in political violence.

Sosuke Uno, 75, Japanese premier who resigned after two months in office in 1989 after he was accused of having had an extramarital affair, dies in Moriyama, Japan, of lung cancer.

Reports state that at least 50 people have been killed and dozens others are missing as a result of politically motivated attacks across Colombia since late April.

As protests continue, Indonesia’s parliament announces that it will begin impeachment proceedings against Pres. Suharto.

May 20

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 15–20, 1998—1135

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A study finds that mentally ill people who do not abuse drugs or alcohol are no more likely to be violent than other people.

The Library of Congress plans to establish a permanent exhibition on Bob Hope, 95, and his decadeslong career in entertainment. . . . Earl Manigault, 53, legendary NYC playground basketball star, nicknamed “the Goat,” dies in New York City of congestive heart failure.

Christopher Sercye, a 15-year-old boy shot in the chest in Chicago, Illinois, dies after lying untreated near the door of Ravenswood Hospital for some 20 minutes. According to policy, hospital staff refused to leave the premises to treat the boy as he bled 35 feet (11 m) away from the hospital door. Ravenswood staff tell Sercye’s friends that the hospital does not possess a trauma center equipped to treat a serious gunshot wound.

Real Quiet wins the 123rd running of the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore, Maryland. . . . The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded to firsttime novelist Rafi Zabor for The Bear Comes Home.

The FBI reports that the incidence of serious crime has dropped 4% nationwide, marking the sixth consecutive annual decline. The incidence of violent crimes, including murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault, fell 5% overall. The sharpest decrease was in the murder rate, with a 9% decline nationwide.

Rookie golfer Se Ri Pak of South Korea wins the LPGA Championship in Wilmington, Delaware. . . . Pitcher David Wells of the New York Yankees pitches the 15th perfect game in MLB history in a 4-0 victory over the Minnesota Twins.

In light of criticism stemming from the May 16 death of Christopher Sercye, Ravenswood Hospital rescinds rules that prohibited treating the boy as he bled outside the hospital doors. . . . In Bousley v. United States, the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that a prisoner who in 1990 pled guilty to a federal charge of using a firearm in connection with a drug offense may reopen the gun-use case. . . . In Arkansas Educational Television Commission v. Forbes, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that an Arkansas public television station may exclude lesserknown candidates from participating in its televised political debates.

Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin and Attorney General Janet Reno announce the indictment of three Mexican banks, scores of Mexican bankers, and operatives in two international drug cartels in what officials call the largest case of drug-money laundering ever investigated by U.S. law enforcement.

The first large-scale effort to investigate whether routine screening using the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) examination cuts prostate cancer deaths, data reveals that routine screening of men for prostate cancer may cut prostate cancer deaths by some 69% annually. . . . The Justice Department and attorneys general from 20 states file two separate antitrust lawsuits in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., against Microsoft Corp., accusing Microsoft of violating antitrust laws by using its nearmonopoly in the market for personal computer (PC) operating systems to attempt to dominate other segments of the software market.

The House passes, by voice vote, a bill that will authorize $750 million in compensation for hemophiliacs infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, through blood transfusions.

The five abortion clinics in Wisconsin that stopped performing all types of abortions May 14, resume practicing certain procedures after local prosecutors assure them that they will not pursue cases against doctors performing first-trimester abortions, which have been legal since 1973.

French investor and art collector François Pinault announces that he will buy the 71% of the Londonbased Christie’s auction house that he does not already own, in a deal that values the company at £720 million ($1.2 billion).

Comedian Bob Hope state he will donate his personal papers, recordings, and an archive of some 90,000 jokes to the Library of Congress. . . . Judge J. D. Smith sentences Tak Sun Tan, Indra Lim, and Jason Chan to prison sentences ranging from 26 years to life for the 1996 murder of Academy Awardwinning actor Dr. Haing S. Ngor.

Federal authorities announce the indictment of four high-ranking Venezuelan bank officials in the same probe that ensnared the Mexicans in a drug-money laundering case revealed May 18.

The Commerce Department reports that in March the U.S. registered its second record trade deficit in three months, reaching a seasonally adjusted $13.03 billion gap in trade in goods and services. That is up from February’s revised deficit of $12.18 billion.

May 15

May 16

May 17

May 18

May 19

May 20

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1136—May 21–26, 1998

World Affairs

May 21

Europe

U.S. Pres. Clinton ratifies a resolution to expand NATO membership to include Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, making the U.S. the fifth nation to do so.

Africa & the Middle East Jacob Katz, 93, Hungarian-born scholar of Jewish history who joined the faculty at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1950, dies in Jerusalem of unreported causes.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Fighting continues in Colombia when at least 19 people are killed in clashes between the army and the leftist rebel ELN, the smaller of Colombia’s two major rebel groups. Three policemen are also killed that day in clashes with FARC.

Amid widespread protests and rioting, Indonesian president Suharto resigns, ending his 32 years of nearly autocratic rule over Indonesia, the world’s fourth-mostpopulous nation. His longtime protégé, Vice Pres. Bacharuddin Jusuf (B. J.) Habibie, is sworn in as his successor.

Serbian special police units commence a major offensive against ethnic Albanian separatists in the southern region of Kosovo province. . . . Voters in the Irish Republic and in Northern Ireland back a peace agreement reached in April by Northern Ireland’s main political parties and the British and Irish governments in two separate referenda. The plan is designed to enact the most sweeping changes in Northern Ireland’s governmental structure since 1922.

May 22

In Indonesia, several thousand Muslim students march onto the Parliament grounds to declare their support for the newly sworn-in Pres. Habibie. However, some 2,000 students remain in the parliament building where they have been protesting since May 18, until they are forcibly removed by military troops in an overnight operation. While the hundreds of soldiers are armed with tear gas and automatic weapons, no injuries are reported. In the wake of the political turmoil, the IMF postpones indefinitely the disbursement of a $1 billion installment of the loan package scheduled for release on June 4. The political opposition in the southern African nation of Lesotho wins its first-ever parliamentary seat in elections. . . . Several thousand students and other Iranians gather at Teheran University to mark the first anniversary of Mohammed Khatami’s election as president.

May 23

May 24

May 25

The center-right Fidesz-Hungarian Civic Party defeats the ruling Socialist Party in Hungary’s second and final round of parliamentary elections, capturing 148 seats in the 386-member federal legislature.

In what is viewed as a gesture to convey new openness in Indonesia, TV reporters and photographers are permitted to enter Cipinang, Jakarta’s main jail for political prisoners. It is the first time that cameras are permitted in the prison. . . . Hong Kong holds its first legislative elections since the former British colony reverted to Chinese sovereignty in July 1997. Prodemocracy parties, excluded from the provisional legislature appointed by China at the 1997 handover, make a strong showing.

Japanese emperor Akihito arrives in London amid protests by British war veterans who were imprisoned and, in many cases, tortured by the Japanese army during World War II.

Indonesia releases two well-known political dissidents—Muchtar Pakpahan and Sri Bintang Pamungkas— from Cipinang Prison, Jakarta’s main jail for political prisoners.

Ikuo Hayashi, a principal member of the Aum Shinrikyo religious cult, is sentenced to life in prison for his role in the cult’s March 1995 nervegas attack on the Tokyo subway system. Twelve people were killed in the attack, and thousands more were made ill.

May 26

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 21–26, 1998—1137

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Kipland Kinkel, a 15-year-old student in Springfield, Oregon, opens fire with a semiautomatic rifle in his high school’s crowded cafeteria, killing one student and wounding 23 others. Kinkel had fatally shot his parents before the rampage. . . . Statistics show that at least 28 states have passed laws banning a rarely performed, controversial late-term procedure, known as intact dilation and extraction (IDE). In Washington, D.C., federal judge Norma Holloway Johnson orders members of the Secret Service to testify before a grand jury investigating whether Pres. Clinton illegally tried to cover up an affair with a former White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. . . . A student shot May 21 by Kipland Kinkel, 15, in Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon dies, bringing the death toll to two.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle The Senate votes unanimously to confirm William J. Ivey as chair of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).

Pres. Clinton nominates Louis Caldera to become the next secretary of the army. . . . The Senate passes, 90-4, legislation that will mandate imposing sanctions on companies and research laboratories anywhere in the world that supply Iran with missile technology.

The House, 297-86, and the Senate, 88-5, clear the final version of a six-year surface-transportation bill that will authorize $216 billion in federal funding for the nation’s highways, mass-transit systems, and highway-safety programs. The bill, the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, is one of the largest public-works programs in U.S. history. . . . The FEC reveals that former agriculture secretary Mike Espy has paid a $50,000 fine for improperly using campaign funds from his days as a Mississippi congressman to pay legal bills stemming from his actions as a cabinet official.

Pfizer Inc., the maker of Viagra, a popular impotence drug approved by the FDA in March, discloses that six people died after taking the drug.

John Derek (born Derek Harris), 71, motion-picture actor and director who appeared in dozens of films from the 1940s to the 1960s, dies in Santa Maria, California, of a heart ailment.

Telford Taylor, 90, U.S. Army lawyer who was a leading prosecutor of Nazi officials and German industrialists at the Nuremberg war crimes trials after World War II, dies in New York City of a stroke.

At the Cannes (France) Film Festival, the Palme d’Or goes to Greek director Theo Angelopoulos for Eternity and a Day. The Grand Prix goes to Italian comic actor Roberto Benigni for Life Is Beautiful. . . . Eddie Cheever wins the 82nd running of the Indianapolis 500 auto race. . . . The Swedish yacht EF Language becomes the official winner of the Whitbread Round the World yacht race.

North Korea hands over to U.S. military officials remains believed to be those of two U.S. soldiers killed in the 1950–53 Korean War. The identities of the soldiers are not known.

In New Jersey v. New York, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that most of Ellis Island, in New York Harbor, is part of the territory of New Jersey rather than that of New York. . . . In Sacramento County v. Lewis, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that a Sacramento, California, county sheriff’s deputy cannot be held liable for a death caused by a high-speed car chase because he did not act with “a purpose to cause harm.” The justices overturn a 1996 decision by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California.

Pres. Clinton authorizes the U.S. Defense Department to reduce by half the U.S.’s military presence in the Persian Gulf region.

May 22

May 23

Samuel William Yorty, 88, Democratic mayor of Los Angeles, 1961–73, and member of the House representing California, 1951–55, dies in Los Angeles after suffering a stroke.

A bomb explodes outside a church in Danville, Illinois, injuring 33 worshipers.

May 21

A Widow for One Year by John Irving tops the bestseller list.

President Clinton announces that his administration has forecast a $39 billion budget surplus in the current fiscal year. The surplus, if achieved, will be the federal government’s first surplus since 1969. The OMB forecasts an aggregate surplus of $495 billion over the next five years and $1.477 trillion over 10 years.

May 24

May 25

May 26

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1138—May 27–June 1, 1998

World Affairs

May 27

May 28

May 29

May 30

Europe

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, authorizes the resumption of some beef exports from the British province of Northern Ireland. Since March 1996 Britain has been barred by the EU from exporting beef products because of claims that bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad-cow disease, prevalent in British herds, may be related to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. Pakistan conducts five underground nuclear tests at the Chagai Hills test site near the country’s borders with Afghanistan and Iran, provoking international condemnation and concerns about an escalating nuclear arms race in South Asia. As they did following India’s tests on May 11 and May 13, wealthy donor nations, including Japan Germany, Canada, and Australia, state they will curb their aid to Pakistan.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Reports confirm that President Laurent Kabila of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) has ordered the creation of a 300-member transitional legislative assembly.

The German parliament enacts legislation that grants a blanket pardon to Germans persecuted by the Nazi justice system before and during World War II. . . . A court in Munich convicts Felix Somm, the former head of U.S. company CompuServe Inc.’s German subsidiary CompuServe Deutschland, of disseminating illegal forms of pornography over the Internet computer network. The conviction marks the first time that the head of a German Internet-service provider is held criminally responsible for illegal material accessible through the provider.

Asia & the Pacific The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) stages a general strike to protest growing unemployment and a recently passed law legalizing mass layoffs in South Korea.

Two Israeli soldiers are killed and two others are wounded by a remote-controlled bomb while on a patrol in southern Lebanon some 50 yards (55 m) from the Israeli border. Hezbollah claims responsibility for the action, which follows intense clashes that have taken the lives of at least five Hezbollah fighters and four militiamen of the South Lebanon Army (SLA), Israel’s proxy militia in the contested zone. . . . Eritrea deploys thousands of armed troops on the border, where Ethiopian troops were already stationed, as fighting that started May 6 escalates.

UN secretary general Kofi Annan approves a food-distribution plan that Iraq has set as a precondition for renewal of the UN’s oil-for-food program. . . . The IMF agrees to release the latest installment of a three-year, $9.2 billion loan to Russia by the end of June.

The Philippine congress officially declares Joseph Estrada, a former film actor and the current vice president, the winner of the presidential election held May 11. . . . Pakistani president Mohammad Rafiq Tarar declares a state of emergency following the country’s May 28 nuclear tests.

Pakistan detonates what it states is its sixth in a series of underground nuclear tests at its Chagai Hills test site, defying international appeals for restraint following its first round of tests May 28.

A powerful earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale strikes northeastern Afghanistan, leaving an estimated 3,000–5,000 people dead and injuring an additional 2,000 others. The quake destroys dozens of remote villages, and an additional 45,000 people are reported homeless. An earthquake of comparable magnitude killed an estimated 4,500 in the same mountainous region in February. A coalition of reform parties led by Montenegrin president Milo Djukanovic defeats the Socialist People’s Party (SPP) in parliamentary elections in Montenegro, the smaller of Yugoslavia’s two republics.

May 31

Most of the 3,200 pilots employed by Air France, the country’s stateowned airline, go on strike to protest planned changes in their salary structure.

June 1

Candidates from Colombia’s two largest political parties—Serpa Uribe and Andres Pastrana Arango—register a virtual tie in a presidential election, setting the stage for a runoff vote on June 21.

In response to the May 30 earthquake, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance to Afghanistan and the UN World Food Program begin to coordinate a joint airlift of food, medical supplies and tents. Other agencies, including France’s Doctors Without Borders and the International Committee for the Red Cross, are also reportedly transporting aid to the devastated areas.

Former Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda is freed from house arrest after the government withdraws charges of treason against him.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 27–June 1, 1998—1139

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

U.S. district judge G. Thomas Van Bebber sentences Michael Fortier to 12 years in prison for withholding information from authorities about his knowledge of a plan that resulted in the April 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City, Oklahama. . . . Dana Landers and Emmett Clark, members of the Montana Freemen, plead guilty to charges stemming from an armed standoff with federal authorities in 1996.

Louisiana-Pacific Corp., a forestproducts manufacturer, pleads guilty in U.S. District Court in Denver, Colorado, to committing fraud and conspiracy and to violating the federal Clean Air Act. As part of a plea agreement with federal authorities, the company agrees to pay $37 million in fines and penalties.

A study finds that Lovastatin, a cholesterol-lowering drug, substantially lowers the risk of heart attacks in patients who have average blood levels of cholesterol.

Frank Capaci, 67, of Carol Stream, Illinois, accepts a $104.3 million prize from organizers of the multistate Powerball lottery. Officially, the prize is worth $195 million, the world’s largest-ever lottery prize that could be won by one person.

Authorities in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, arrest Samuel Bowers, Charles Noble, and Deavours Nix, three Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members on charges related to the 1966 murder of civil-rights activist Vernon F. Dahmer Sr. . . . Richard White, 39, is killed by an explosion in his home while authorities are en route to question him about the May 25 church bombing in Danville, Illinois. . . . Law enforcement officials in Miami, Florida, arrest Humberto Hernandez, a member of the Miami City Commission, on charges of fabricating evidence in a state investigation of voter fraud in the city’s 1997 municipal elections.

The Commerce Department reports that U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) grew at a revised, seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.8% in the first quarter. That compares with an annualized GDP gain of 3.7% in the October–December 1997 quarter. . . . Philip Lord Carret, 101, financial investor and founder of one of the nation’s first mutual funds, the Pioneer Fund, which he managed from 1928 to 1983, dies in Mount Vernon, New York, where he was recovering from hip surgery.

Astronomers announce that a picture taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in August 1997 appears to include the first image ever of a planet outside the Earth’s solar system. The object is believed to be a planet near a binary star system in the constellation Taurus. The apparent planet, called TMR1C, is about 450 light years from Earth. . . . A study suggests that the EPA has overestimated the lungcancer risk from breathing relatively low amounts of asbestos.

Phil Hartman, 49, popular actor and a regular on Saturday Night Live for eight seasons, dies in Encino, California; he is allegedly shot to death by his wife, Brynn Hartman, who then commits suicide. . . . Jody-Anne Maxwell, 12, wins the 71st National Spelling Bee by correctly spelling “chiaroscurist.” Maxwell, from Kingston, Jamaica, is the first foreign contestant ever to win the contest.

Barry Morris Goldwater, 89, Republican senator from Arizona, 1953–64, 1969–87, and 1964 presidential candidate considered a founder of modern conservative politics, dies in Paradise Valley, Arizona, of natural causes.

The Commerce Department reports that personal pretax income rose 0.4% in April from March, to a seasonally adjusted figure of $7.184 trillion. April’s gain marks the 18th consecutive month in which income increased. . . . Pres. Clinton states he has chosen Alice Rivlin, vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board, to head the federally appointed financial control board for the District of Columbia.

The government of the Philippines files a lawsuit against Christie’s International PLC in U.S. District Court in New York City to recover a Pablo Picasso painting, Head of a Woman (1954), that was allegedly stolen from the Philippines government.

A tornado destroys the small farming town of Spencer, South Dakota, killing six people and injuring some 150 others.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board unanimously approves an accounting proposal that will force U.S. companies to list the fair-market value of derivatives that they own on their balance sheets. . . . Maryland-based Browning-Ferris Inc. pleads guilty in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to criminal violations of the federal Clean Water Act and agrees to pay $1.5 million in fines.

Pres. Clinton declares Spencer, South Dakota, destroyed by a tornado on May 30, eligible for federal disaster assistance. . . . The FDA approves a urine-based test for infection by HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

May 28

May 29

May 30

Sixteen countries participating in the construction of a planned international space station release a new schedule that calls for the station to be completed in the year 2004.

In Federal Election Commission v. Akins, the Supreme Court rules, 63, that a group of voters have a right to sue the FEC for its refusal to impose financial disclosure requirements on a pro-Israel lobbying group. Such disclosure requirements are imposed on political action committees under federal election law. . . . The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation of Chicago awards 29 annual MacArthur Fellowships, honoring individuals in a wide range of fields.

May 27

May 31

Australian marathon swimmer Susie Maroney is the first person to swim across the Yucatan Channel between Mexico and Cuba. Maroney’s 123-mile (200-km) swim sets an unofficial record for distance swimming at sea. She completes the crossing in 38 hours and 33 minutes.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 1

1140—June 2–7, 1998

June 2

World Affairs

Europe

Directors of the World Bank disclose that they will postpone disbursement of $206.4 million in loans to India because of the nation’s recent nuclear tests.

Reports reveal that Serbian armored vehicles and helicopters are systematically assaulting ethnic Albanian enclaves by firing on villages and burning houses. The offensive that started May 22 has resulted in the deaths of least 37 ethnic Albanians as well as two Serbian police officers. At least a dozen villages have reportedly been reduced to rubble and abandoned. A high-speed passenger train crashes in northern Germany, killing scores of people and injuring at least 300 others. The accident is described as Germany’s worst railroad crash in at least 50 years and Western Europe’s worst in nearly 25 years. . . . Three Holocaust survivors file a class-action lawsuit in New York City against Germany’s two largest banks, Deutsche Bank AG and Dresdner Bank AG, accusing the banks of trafficking in gold that the Nazi German regime stole from Holocaust victims. The suit is the first seeking compensation for looted gold that specifically targeted banks outside Switzerland.

June 3

June 4

Representatives from the world’s five recognized nuclear powers— the U.S., Russia, China, France, and Britain—hold emergency talks on security issues tied to the South Asian nuclear tests. The five nations call for India and Pakistan to halt their development of nuclear weapons and to refrain from testing nuclear missiles. In exchange, the five nations pledge to assist Pakistan and India in resolving their dispute over the Kashmir region.

Africa & the Middle East

Mohammed Rashid, a Palestinian man suspected of carrying out a deadly midair bombing of a U.S. airliner in 1982, is transported to the U.S. from Egypt to face charges. The blast killed one passenger and wounded 15 others.

In the border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea that erupted May 6, Eritrean forces carry out an air raid on the northern Ethiopian town of Mekele, killing at least 40 people, many of whom are civilians. Ethiopia retaliates with air attacks on the Eritrean capital, Asmara.

June 6

June 7

Asia & the Pacific

An audit team from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) concludes that Guyana’s 1997 presidential election of Janet Jagan was fair. . . . In Canada, a Quebec court finds Progressive Conservative senator Michel Cogger guilty of influence peddling.

The official death toll from the June 3 train crash in Germany stands at 93, but many officials predict that the toll may rise above 100 as additional bodies are found in the wreckage. . . . Reports suggest that between 5,000 and 10,000 ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo have poured into Albania since May 31.

June 5

The Americas

A court in Florence, Italy, finds 24 people guilty of orchestrating a series of 1993 car bombings linked to the Mafia. Of those convicted, 14 receive life prison sentences, while the others receive prison terms ranging from 12 to 28 years. Three reputed bosses of the Sicilian Mafia, or Cosa Nostra— Leoluca Bagarella, Filippo Graviano, and Bernardo Provenzano— are among those sentenced to life.

Guinea-Bissau president João Bernardo Vieira dismisses Brigadier General Ansumane Mane in the wake of revelations that a group of senior army officers smuggled arms to separatist rebels in neighboring Senegal.

Violence in Kosovo spreads to Pristina, the provincial capital, where police officers break up an independence rally. . . . Voters in Switzerland reject a ballot measure that would have sharply restricted research involving genetically altered animals and barred the patenting of genetically engineered plants.

Brigadier General Ansumane Mane, Guinea-Bissau’s former army chief of staff, leads a mutiny against the government in Bissau, the capital. The mutiny launches weeks of fighting.

Reports confirm that Suzy CameliaRomer of the People’s National Party has been sworn in as the new premier of the Netherlands Antilles, ending a five-month-long political stalemate in the self-governing Dutch territory, which comprises five Caribbean islands.

The Colombian government announces that a right-wing paramilitary group, the United Self-Defense Group of Colombia, has claimed responsibility for the slaughter of 36 people in the oil town of Barrancabermeja. The group states that it killed 11 people during a raid on the town May 16–17 and kidnapped and later killed 25 others and burned their bodies. . . . Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori appoints Javier Valle Riestra, a liberal and longtime advocate of human rights in Peru, as premier.

Tens of thousands of people attend a candlelight vigil in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park in memory of those killed in a June 4, 1989, government crackdown on prodemocracy protesters in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. The annual vigil is held for the first time since Hong Kong reverted to Chinese sovereignty in July 1997. . . . South Koreans vote for local and regional government officials in the first elections since Pres. Kim Dae Jung was elected in December 1997.

The province of Alberta announces that it will compensate 504 people sterilized without their permission under a provincial policy intended to prevent mentally handicapped people from reproducing.

In the Philippines, more than 600 pilots launch a strike against Philippine Airlines (PAL), the nation’s most widely used airline, to protest the institution of a new early-retirement policy.

Statistics show that 2,518 people have died since a heat wave struck India in May. The eastern state of Orissa reportedly has suffered over 1,200 deaths related to the heat wave since May 12. . . . A bomb explodes on a train in southern Pakistan, killing at least 23 people and injuring at least 45 others. . . . In the Philippines, PAL fires the pilots striking since June 5 after they defy a government order to return to work.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 2–7, 1998—1141

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

California voters approve, 61%39%, a ballot proposal to eliminate the state’s bilingual education system adopted in the 1960s. Under the bilingual system, non-Englishspeaking students are taught basic subjects in their native tongue while they learn English.

Oran K. Henderson, 77, U.S. Army colonel in the Vietnam War who was the highest-ranking officer to be tried in connection with the infamous 1968 My Lai massacre, dies in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, while suffering from pancreatic cancer.

Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. agrees to pay $400 million to settle a civil lawsuit brought by Orange County, California, in connection with the county’s bankruptcy in 1994. . . . California’s voters reject, 53%47%, a “paycheck protection” measure to require labor unions to secure written permission from their members before using their dues for political contributions.

The U.S. space shuttle Discovery lifts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission to retrieve U.S. astronaut Andrew Thomas from the Russian space station Mir.

A U.S. District Court judge sentences artist Peter Max to two months in prison and 800 hours of community service for tax evasion and conspiracy. . . . Dorothy Stickney, 101, theater actress of the 1930s and 1940s, dies in New York City of unreported causes.

The House, by voice vote, passes a bill allowing churches and charities to keep contributions from donors who go bankrupt. . . . George Soros, a billionaire investor and philanthropist, announces plans to help fund a grant program for U.S. public-interest lawyers serving lowand moderate-income communities.

James M. Clark, a former student radical accused of spying for the former East Germany, pleads guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia. . . . Lucien E. Conein, 79, who began working for U.S. intelligence in the 1940s and was in charge of covert operations for the DEA, 1973–84, dies in Bethesda, Maryland, of heart ailments.

VaxGen Inc. announces that the FDA gave the company approval to conduct the first full-scale human trial of a vaccine designed to prevent infection with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. . . . The FDA approves a combination therapy of two antiviral drugs—ribavirin and injected interferon—to treat hepatitis C, a chronic viral infection of the liver.

Sara Lee Corp. announces that it will donate 40 works of art worth approximately $100 million to 20 different U.S. museums. . . . Sotheby’s and Christie’s close their major spring New York City sales. Total revenues for both auction houses fell below spring 1997 earnings. Sotheby’s took in a total of $113.5 million, a 7% drop from 1997. Christie’s sales totaled $113.2 million, down 57% from 1997.

The House votes, 224-203, for a constitutional amendment allowing prayer in schools and religious symbols in federal buildings falling 61 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed. It is the first time a school prayer bill has reached the House floor since 1971. . . . Judge Richard Matsch sentences Terry L. Nichols to life in prison with no possibility of parole for conspiring in the 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

The House approves, 364-50, an agriculture bill that will restore food-stamp benefits to 250,000 of the 935,000 legal immigrants who lost eligibility under a welfare overhaul bill enacted in 1996.

The House approves, 410-1, a bill designed to encourage some recipients of Social Security disability benefits to return to the workforce.

Reports confirm that the NIH has lowered the weight threshold at which a person will be considered overweight or obese, adding some 29 million people to the 68 million already considered overweight. The guidelines use the “body mass index” to define overweight and obesity.

Shirley Povich, 92, sports columnist for The Washington Post, dies in Washington, D.C., of a heart attack. . . . Former heavyweight boxing world champion Riddick Bowe pleads guilty in U.S. District Court in Charlotte, North Carolina, to a single felony charge of interstate domestic violence.

Members of UAW Local 659 walk off their jobs at the Flint Metal Center, a GM metal-stamping plant. . . . Attorney General Janet Reno states she has named David Vicinanzo, an assistant U.S. attorney from New Hampshire, to take over the Justice Department task force investigating the 1996 fund-raising scandals.

Scientists announce their finding that neutrinos, by far the most common kind of subatomic particles and ones that had long been assumed to have no mass, do in fact have mass. The discovery is expected to force physicists to revise what is known as the “standard model” explaining the behavior of particles and physical forces.

Alfred Kazin, 83, author, literary critic, and intellectual, dies in New york City while suffering from prostate and bone cancer.

The Senate clears, by voice vote, a bill increasing penalties for parents who refuse to pay child support. . . . Attorney General Janet Reno states that the Justice Department will not prosecute doctors for prescribing drugs for the purpose of suicide under an Oregon law permitting physician-assisted suicide. . . . Samuel William Yorty, 88, Democratic mayor of Los Angeles, 1961–73, and member of the House representing California, 1951–55, dies in Los Angeles after suffering a stroke in May. A New York City jury sentences Darrel K. Harris, a former city corrections officer, to death for the 1996 murders of three people at a social club, imposing the death penalty for the first time since New York State reenacted it in 1995.

Arantxa Sanchez Vicario of Spain wins her third French Open women’s tennis title. . . Victory Gallop wins the 130th running of the Belmont Stakes in Elmont, New York. . . . High-Rise wins the 219th Derby at Epsom Downs racetrack in England.

James Byrd Jr., a 49-year-old black man, is beaten and then dragged for 2 miles (3 km) while chained to the back of a pick-up truck in a remote area near the rural town of Jasper, Texas. Byrd dies from his injuries. The incident draws nationwide media attention, fueling public concern about the threat of racially motivated crimes.

Reports confirm that surgeons at Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, performed the world’s first successful larynx transplant operation.

South Korean president Kim Dae Jung Kim dedicates a new gallery of Korean art at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. . . . At the French Open, Spain’s Carlos Moya wins the men’s tennis title. . . . At the Tonys, the musicals The Lion King, Ragtime, and Cabaret dominate the major award categories, and Art wins for best play.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

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June 3

June 4

June 5

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June 7

1142—June 8–13, 1998

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Reports suggest that the death toll from an ongoing Serbian offensive along the province’s southwestern border reached at least 50.

Gen. Sani Abacha, 54, Nigerian military leader and president since 1993, dies in Abuja, Nigeria, reportedly of a heart attack.

Officials of the Belarus government issue a formal order for several diplomats to leave their residences, located in a wooded compound outside of the capital, Minsk, so that important repairs can be undertaken. Only the ambassador from Bulgaria agrees to leave, prompting negotiations to commence between the U.S., EU nations, and Belarus.

The final official death toll from the June 3 train accident In Germany is set at 95. . . . Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, 83, former Vatican secretary of state, 1979–90, who played a leading role in a reconciliation of the Roman Catholic Church with communist states in Eastern Europe, dies in Rome, Italy, of an infection after minor surgery.

General Abdulsalam Abubakar, the army’s chief of staff, is sworn in as Nigeria’s new military ruler.

The UN General Assembly endorses a UN International Drug Control Program (IDCP) plan to end the worldwide cultivation of coca and poppy leaves within 10 years. The plants are used in the production of cocaine and heroin, respectively.

The pilots employed by Air France, the country’s state-owned airline, who struck in June, reach a settlement. . . . Sir David English, 67, British newspaperman considered one of the most influential journalists in England, dies in London after suffering a stroke a day earlier.

The defense ministers from NATO’s 16 member nations approve plans to conduct military maneuvers near Serbia.

Unidentified European military officials report that the Yugoslav army has begun planting land mines in Kosovo along the province’s border with Albania.

In Nigeria, Colonel Muhammad Marwa, the military administrator of Lagos—the hub of political opposition to the military government— bans planned demonstrations.

The British government publishes a list of several hundred people receiving peerages, knighthoods and other honors to mark the official birthday celebration of Queen Elizabeth II.

Heavily armed police and government troops disperse antigovernment demonstrators with tear gas and warning shots in Lagos, Nigeria. The protest marks the fifth anniversary of nullified elections in which jailed political leader Moshood K. O. Abiola was the apparent victor. Fifty-five people are arrested at the gathering. . . . Thousands of Guinea-Bissau refugees begin arriving in Senegal. Some 200 refugees die when their boat capsizes off the coast of Bissau.

Reports confirm that in Guyana, 25 legislators from the People’s National Congress (PNC) were expelled from the 65-member Parliament after refusing to take their seats in protest of the 1997 election.

Serbian forces kill at least four ethnic Albanians in raids on villages.

Lucio Costa, 96, Brazilian architect and urban planner, dies in Rio de Janeiro of unreported causes.

World Affairs

June 8

June 9

June 10

June 11

June 12

June 13

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Reports reveal that in April, officials of Brazil’s Federal Indian Bureau discovered a previously unknown Indian tribe living in a remote region of the Amazon rain forest, near the border with Peru. Little is known about the customs, language, or name of the tribe, which is believed to comprise about 200 people who rely on fishing and hunting for sustenance.

A powerful cyclone, packing winds of up to 95 miles per hour (150 kph), lashes India’s western coastal state of Gujarat. Officials state that the cyclone is the most severe storm to hit the state since 1973.

An official of the Colombian Red Cross states that in recent weeks, dozens of members of leftist rebel groups and right-wing paramilitary groups have died in clashes in the northwest Uraba region.

Data shows that 36 Taiwanese children have died from an intestinal virus epidemic of the enterovirus type 71. Another 200 were hospitalized in serious condition.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 8–13, 1998—1143

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

In New Mexico v. Reed, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that states must extradite fugitives to other states upon request. . . . In Muscarello v. U.S., the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, to uphold a broad reading of a federal gun law that imposes a mandatory five-year prison sentence on individuals who carry guns while committing narcotics crimes.

Navy Secretary John Dalton resigns, ending a five-year tenure as the U.S. Navy’s civilian leader.

In U.S. v. Bestfoods, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that parent companies may be required to help pay for cleaning up pollution caused by their subsidiaries’ facilities if they were directly involved in operating the polluting facilities. . . . American Honda Motor Co. and Ford Motor Co. agree to pay millions of dollars in fines for violations of the Clean Air Act.

The FTC files a lawsuit against Intel Corp., accusing it of using its nearmonopoly in the microprocessor market to coerce three computer makers to sign patent agreements that favor Intel. . . . HoffmannLaRoche Inc. complies with an FDA request to withdraw mibefradil, a popular blood-pressure medicine, because it interacts adversely with 25 other drugs.

The NRA elects actor Charlton Heston as its new president. . . . Former Beatles Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison appear together in public for the first time in nearly three decades when they attend a memorial service for Linda McCartney.

Police charge three white men— Shawn Berry, 23; Lawrence Brewer, 31; and John King, 23— with the murder of James Byrd Jr., 49, who died June 7.

The House passes, 392-22, legislation that will mandate imposing sanctions on companies and research laboratories anywhere in the world that supply Iran with missile technology. . . . The House approves, by voice vote, a bill that will create a 21-member panel to look for assets of Holocaust victims in the coffers of government agencies. . . . . The U.S. Army unveils plans to revamp most of its basic combat units, known as divisions, in order meet the changing needs of contemporary warfare.

AMEX and the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, the nation’s oldest exchange, agree to merge. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a six-year, $216 billion surface-transportation bill passed by Congress in May.

A jury in Jacksonville, Florida, finds Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. liable in the death of Roland Maddox from lung cancer and awards $950,000 in damages to Maddox’s family. . . . The Wisconsin Supreme Court rules, 4-2, that state funds may be used to send children in Milwaukee to religious schools. The landmark decision is expected to pave the way for the U.S. Supreme Court’s first-ever consideration of the constitutionality of such voucher programs.

The Senate passes by voice vote a bill that will create a 21-member panel to look for assets of Holocaust victims in the coffers of government agencies. Hidden assets include funds looted by the Nazis and later seized by the U.S., as well as the contents of unclaimed bank accounts in which Holocaust victims may have concealed money.

The Washington State Supreme Court, 5-4, strikes down a 1984 state law barring false political advertising, arguing that the law is unconstitutional because it violates First Amendment free speech rights.

Reports confirm that the U.S. Navy and Timothy R. McVeigh, an officer whom the service tried unsuccessfully to discharge after learning that he anonymously declared himself a homosexual on the Internet global computer network, reach a settlement that will allow McVeigh to retire early with full benefits. In a separate agreement, AOL has volunteered to pay McVeigh an undisclosed amount of money for violating his privacy by revealing to naval investigators that he was the subscriber in question.

Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of America Inc. agrees to pay a record $34 million to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by the EEOC in April 1996. The $34 million award is the largest sum ever to be paid to settle a sexual harassment suit, according to the EEOC. . . . Some 5,800 GM workers at a Flint, Michigan, plant, Delphi East, walk off their jobs.

Reports reveal that astronomers have discovered a new class of small, cool stellar objects called L dwarfs, gaseous bodies that did not gather enough mass to start the nuclear fusion process that makes stars hot and bright.

Dame Catherine Ann Cookson, 91, British author of best-selling historical novels, dies in Newcastle, England, while suffering from a blood disorder and a heart ailment.

Middlesex County (Massachusetts) Superior Court judge Isaac Borenstein grants a new trial to Cheryl Amirault LeFave, convicted in 1987 of sexually abusing children at a day-care center in Malden, Massachusetts. . . . A jury in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, convicts Luke Woodham, 17, on multiple charges of murder and aggravated assault for opening fire on his classmates in October 1997. Two students were killed and seven others were wounded in the shooting. . . . Baron Manning, a 17-year-old black youth, reports being dragged alongside a vehicle driven by three white youths in Belleville, Illinois.

The Justice Department announces it has settled a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of 1,200 Latin Americans of Japanese descent forcibly placed in U.S. internment camps during World War II. The U.S. had interred 2,264 people of Japanese descent from 13 Latin American countries, along with some 120,000 Japanese Americans, during the war. The current settlement offers $5,000 to each Latin American plaintiff and an apology from the U.S. government.

Pres. Clinton announces that he has extended by 10 years an existing ban on offshore oil drilling along most of the U.S. coastline. Clinton also places an indefinite moratorium on oil exploration in several marine sanctuaries, including California’s Monterey Bay and the Florida Keys.

The U.S. space shuttle Discovery lands at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, after carrying out its mission to retrieve U.S. astronaut Andrew Thomas from the Russian space station Mir.

Eric Marcel Guy Tabarly, 66, French yachtsman, goes missing when he falls overboard while sailing off the coast of Wales.

At least 11 people are injured when they are struck by lightning while attending the Tibetan Freedom Concert at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in Washington, D.C.

Reg Smythe (Reginald Smyth), 80, British cartoonist who created the Andy Capp character, dies in Hartlepool, England, from cancer.

Delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention approve a statement declaring that wives should “submit graciously” to their husbands. . . . Lois Mailou Jones, 92, a pioneer for and a mentor to new generations of black painters, dies in Washington, D.C., of a heart attack. . . . Data reveals that a record 11.5 million people attended shows in New York City’s Broadway theater district during the 1997–98 season.

(Ralph) Hammond Innes, 84, British author of adventure and suspense novels who wrote more than 30 books and sold some 40 million copies of his works, dies in Kersey, England, of unreported causes.

A crowd of about 1,000 people attend the funeral of James Byrd, Jr., killed June 7 in Jasper, Texas, by being dragged by a car driven by white youths. . . . A jury in Fauquier County, Virginia, convicts arms heiress Susan Cummings of voluntary manslaughter in the 1997 death of her boyfriend, polo player Roberto Villegas. She is sentenced to 60 days in jail and fined $2,500.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 8

June 9

June 10

June 11

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June 13

1144—June 14–19, 1998

World Affairs

Ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo ambush Serbian police officers and Yugoslav soldiers, killing two officers and wounding seven officers and soldiers.

June 14

June 15

Europe

About 80 military aircraft from NATO countries conduct airborne exercises near the Yugoslav border over Albania and Macedonia in an effort to pressure the Yugoslav republic of Serbia to stop using military force against ethnic Albanian separatists in the province of Kosovo, the population of which is 90% ethnic Albanian. Since February, fighting in the region has led to more than 250 deaths, including several civilian casualties, and has prompted the exodus of tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians.

June 16

June 17

Africa & the Middle East

Asia & the Pacific

Voters in the Caribbean nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines reelect Prime Minister James Mitchell to a fourth five-year term.

Philippine Airlines (PAL) announces that it will lay off more than 5,000 of its 13,000 employees amid an ongoing pilots’ strike that started June 5. The layoff is the largest by a Philippine company since the 1980s. . . . The Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland rules that some $270 million in assets of the late president Ferdinand Marcos may be transferred to the Philippine government.

Lebanon concludes its first municipal elections in 35 years. No party, faction, or alliance emerges with a clear hold on overall local power.

General Abdulsalam Abubakar, Nigeria’s newly appointed military ruler, orders the release of nine prominent critics of the late General Sani Abacha’s military regime from their detention in prison.

In an apparent response to the June 15 NATO maneuvers, Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic agrees to make some concessions over the Kosovo conflict, but he categorically refuses to withdraw Serbian military personnel from the province. Separately, a shepherd, Adem Bajram Selmani, is shot to death in Albania near the border with Kosovo, in a slaying blamed on Serbian security forces.

Senegalese troops launch an artillery attack on Casamance rebel units inside Guinea-Bissau. . . . Israeli warplanes fire missiles at suspected military outposts of the Hezbollah movement near the village of Sojod, located just north of Israel’s self-declared security zone in southern Lebanon. No casualties are reported in the attack, the latest in an ongoing deadly exchange. . . . Jafar Sharif-Emami, 87, Iranian premier, 1960–61, 1978, dies in NYC of unreported causes.

The parliament of Montenegro appoints 20 members of the reformist Democratic Socialist Party (DPS) to serve as the republic’s representatives to the upper chamber of the federal Yugoslav legislature in Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia.

Sheik Mohammed Mutwali elSharawi, 87, Egyptian cleric and Islamic scholar who served as Egypt’s minister of religious endowments, 1976–78 dies near Giza, Egypt, of unreported causes.

The Taliban orders the closure of more than 100 private schools educating girls in Afghanistan. . . . Chung Ju Yung, the founder of South Korea’s Hyundai Group conglomerate, leads a convoy of 50 trucks carrying 500 cattle from South Korea to its long-time enemy North Korea. The cattle are to be used to pull plows on farmland in North Korea, which is suffering from a severe food shortage.

In Guyana, supporters of the People’s National Congress (PNC) riot in the streets of Georgetown, the capital, virtually shutting down the city.

Data reveals that the June 9 cyclone in India’s western coastal state of Gujarat resulted in 1,320 deaths. That figure is expected to climb, because officials estimate that between 10,000 and 14,000 people are missing in the wake of the storm.

On the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico, a U.S. commonwealth, telephone workers begin an island-wide strike, prompting several violent confrontations between riot police and union members. . . . A commuter plane crashes at Mirabel International Airport, some 50 km (30 miles) north of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, as it attempts an emergency landing. The nine passengers—all employees of General Electric Canada Inc.— and the plane’s two crew members are killed in the crash.

June 18

June 19

The Americas

Frustrated by the protracted discussion among the governments of the U.S., Belarus, and EU nations regarding Belarus’s June 9 order that diplomats leave their residences in a compound outside of Minsk, Belarus officials cut off the compound’s water, electricity, and telephone service without warning. Turkey recalls its ambassador.

Pope John Paul II makes his first visit to Austria since 1988. . . . Switzerland’s three largest banks offer to pay $600 million to victims of the Nazi Holocaust to settle the victims’ claims that they were unable to recover assets deposited in the banks before and during World War II. Leaders of Jewish advocacy groups attack the settlement offer as inadequate.

Ayatollah Mirza Ali al-Gharawi, a senior Iraqi Shi’ite cleric, is shot to death while traveling by car between the cities of Karbala and Najaf. . . . A car bomb explodes, killing two people in the Dawra section of east Beirut, Lebanon, a predominantly Christian area. . . . Forces loyal to Brigadier General Ansumane Mane, Guinea-Bissau’s former army chief of staff who led a mutiny against the government June 7, launch an artillery strike on Bissau, the capital.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 14–19, 1998—1145

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Some members of the Montana Freemen, a right-wing antitax group, who are charged in connection with an 81-day armed standoff with federal authorities in 1996, launch a hunger strike. . . . At a commencement address at the University of California in San Diego by House speaker Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.), some 40 of the graduates walk out in protest of his appearance and of the 1997 antiaffirmative action measure, Proposition 209.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Basketball’s Chicago Bulls win their third consecutive NBA championship, over the Utah Jazz, 8786. . . . Eric Marcel Guy Tabarly, 66, who fell overboard off the coast of Wales on June 12, is declared dead by drowning. . . . Ginette Mathiot, 91, French cooking expert whose book sold more than 5 million copies, dies in Paris.

In Richmond, Virginia, Quinshawn Booker, 15, allegedly fires an automatic handgun in his high school, injuring two people. . . . In Pennsylvania Department of Corrections v. Yeskey, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that state prisoners are protected by the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). . . . In Phillips v. Washington Legal Foundation, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that programs currently used in every state to fund legal services for poor people may be unconstitutional.

The Dow closes at 8627.93, down 207.01 points, the fifth-largest single-session point decrease on record.

Leptin, a human hormone that helps regulate appetite and metabolism, may be effective in assisting weight loss, according to research.

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, 4-3, upholds the manslaughter conviction of Louise Woodward, a British au pair accused of killing Matthew Eappen, an eight-month-old infant who died while in her care. The case sparked international attention with the 1997 decision to reduce Woodward’s second-degree murder conviction to manslaughter.

June 14

June 15

Hockey’s Detroit Red Wings defeat the Washington Capitals, 4-1, in Washington, D.C., to win their second consecutive Stanley Cup. . . . The American Film Institute (AFI) announces the winners of a poll for the 100 best U.S. films of all time, and Citizen Kane (1941) tops the list.

Dr. Nancy Dickey of College Station, Texas, takes office as the American Medical Association’s first female president. Delegates elect Dr. Thomas Reardon of Portland, Oregon, as the next president of the organization, to begin a oneyear term in June 1999. . . . The National Cancer Institute estimates that 50% fewer white men ages 18–27 were infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, in 1993 than in 1988.

June 16

June 17

The House approves, 225-197, legislation that will allow parents to save money for their children’s education costs, including privateschool tuition fees, in new tax-sheltered accounts. . . . A jury in Fort Stockton, Texas, convicts Richard Frank Keyes III, a member of the Republic of Texas, separatist group, of burglary and assault charges stemming from the group’s 1997 armed standoff with federal authorities.

Pres. Clinton names Richard C. Holbrooke as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Pres. Clinton signs a bill allowing churches and charities to keep contributions from donors who go bankrupt.

The INS announces that 49 illegal Mexican immigrants caught up in a forced-labor smuggling ring in New York City will be allowed to remain in the U.S. INS officials state that the immigrants—almost all of whom are deaf—will be released within 30 days from a hotel where they have been held in federal custody for about 11 months. Agustin Rodriguez-Torres, an accomplice, is sentenced to 10 months in prison, the amount of time he has already served.

Pres. Clinton names Bill Richardson as energy secretary. . . . The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. trade deficit expanded 9.5% in April to register its third record high in four months, logging a seasonally adjusted $14.46 billion gap in trade in goods and services. That is up from March’s revised record deficit of $13.21 billion.

Researchers report they have captured the first-ever images of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, in the process of attacking a human cell.

June 18

June 19

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1146—June 20–24, 1998

World Affairs

June 20

June 21

June 22

June 23

June 24

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The center-left Czech Social Democratic Party (CSSD) tops the balloting in parliamentary elections in the Czech Republic, capturing 32.3% of the vote.

Riots erupt in Yemen as demonstrators protest cuts in bread and fuel subsidies prompted by lost oil income.

In an apparent attempt to intimidate voters, leftist rebels, reportedly of the FARC and the ELN, seize at least 14 hostages near the town of Lejanias in northwest Colombia.

French security officials institute emergency powers allowing them to deport so-called Category C hooligans on the basis that such soccer rowdies pose a marked potential danger to public order. Daniel Nivel, 43, a French police officer, is clubbed into a coma by German hooligans in Lens. . . . Pope John Paul II beatifies three former clerics of the church, including Restituta Kafka, a nun beheaded by the Nazis during World War II. . . . Ernst Brugger, 84, Swiss president, 1974, dies in Grueningen, Switzerland, after suffering a stroke two years earlier.

Warring factions in Burundi’s fiveyear-old civil conflict agree to call a temporary truce and commit to further peace negotiations after a week of talks in Arusha, Tanzania. . . . Togo holds presidential elections. . . . Heavy exchanges of fire that started June 19 in Bissau, the capital of Guinea-Bissau, subside, giving way to isolated street skirmishes between the opposing factions. . . . Iran’s Majlis, or parliament, votes to impeach Interior Minister Abdullah Nouri, a member of Agatollah Ali Khatami’s inner leadership circle.

Colombians elect Andres Pastrana Arango of the Conservative Party as the country’s new president in a second-round runoff vote. He will succeed current president Ernesto Samper Pizano of the Liberal Party, ending 12 consecutive years of Liberal Party rule in Colombia.

A spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees projects that an outbreak of famine is imminent in GuineaBissau because fighting has prevented aid workers from transporting adequate food and medical supplies.

Reports confirm that rebels have attacked army and police stations, kidnapped three election officials, and torched 32 buses in the northern and northeastern regions of Columbia in preelection violence. . . . In Guyana, bombs and fires, apparently set by rioters who turned violent on June 17, damage buildings that house several government ministries.

A small North Korean submarine on an apparent infiltration mission to South Korea becomes entangled in a fishing net some 11 miles (20 km) off the South Korean coast.

Government officials disclose that attackers believed to belong to the leftist rebel National Liberation Army (ELN) set off six bombs along the Cano Limon-Covenas oil pipeline in northeast Colombia, forcing the its second-largest oilfield to halt production. The latest bombings were the worst of 32 such attacks to occur on the pipeline to date in 1998.

The small North Korean submarine entangled June 22 in a fishing net some 11 miles (20 km) off the South Korean coast sinks to the ocean floor after a towing cable breaks.

Ambassadors from the U.S., Japan, and five European nations return indefinitely to their native countries to protest ongoing attempts by the government of Belarus to evict them from their local diplomatic residences. Britain expels the Belarus ambassador to Britain. . . . The European Union formally approves a broad-based ban on tobacco advertising.

The UN finds that in 1997, some 5.8 million people worldwide were newly infected with HIV, and 2.3 million people died from AIDS. A total of 30.6 million people worldwide carried the virus in 1997. Twenty-one million of the world’s infected people are in Africa. Some 860,000 people infected with HIV live in North America. A total of 11.7 million people have died of AIDS since the epidemic began. . . . Data suggest that the current global oversupply of oil caused OPEC nations’ collective oil revenues to drop by nearly $50 billion during the previous 12 months.

Africa & the Middle East

Ethnic Albanian separatists have taken control of the strategic Belacevac coal mine in the embattled Kosovo province, marking the first seizure of a major industrial facility by the rebels in their conflict with the Serb government.

The 11-nation Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cartel institutes its second round of oil-production cutbacks in three months, reducing the cumulative output quotas of OPEC members by about 1.36 million barrels a day for a full year.

Togo president Gnassingbe Eyadema is declared the official winner of elections held June 21, despite widespread allegations of voter fraud.

In Puerto Rico, police report that a bomb planted at the Banco Popular de Puerto Rico exploded in an officer’s hands, tearing off one of his fingers and injuring his leg. . . . In EI Salvador, Judge Gloria Platero orders the release on parole of three of the five national guardsmen convicted of the 1980 abduction, rape, and murder of three U.S. Roman Catholic nuns and a church lay worker in El Salvador. Platero rules that the three guardsmen— Daniel Canales Ramirez, Jose Roberto Moreno Canjura, and Luis Antonio Colindres Aleman—are eligible for parole because they served two-thirds of their 30-year sentences, including time off for good behavior.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 20–24, 1998—1147

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Seven people are killed and 18 others are injured when a Greyhound Lines bus crashes into a parked tractor-trailer on the Pennsylvania Turnpike near Fulton Township, Pennsylvania.

June 20

Lee Janzen wins his second career U.S. Open golf championship. . . . Al(exander) Sebastian Campanis (born Alessandro Campani), 81, Greek-born general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers Major League Baseball team who was fired in 1987, dies in Fullerton, California, of coronary artery disease.

In U.S. v. Bajakajian, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that the government’s seizure of an individual’s property as a punishment for criminal conduct is unconstitutional if the value of the property is “grossly disproportional” to the seriousness of the crime. . . . In Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School District, the Supreme Court limits the circumstances under which students who claim to have been sexually harassed by teachers may sue school districts for monetary damages. Two Amish men—Abner Stoltzfus, 24, and Abner King Stoltzfus, 23— are charged in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with dealing cocaine.

Pres. Clinton signs into law an agriculture bill that will restore foodstamp benefits to 250,000 of the 935,000 legal immigrants who lost eligibility under a welfare overhaul bill enacted in 1996. . . . Pres. Clinton vetoes U.S. legislation that would mandate imposing sanctions on companies and research laboratories anywhere in the world that supply Iran with missile technology. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a bill that will create a panel to look for assets of Holocaust victims in the coffers of government agencies.

The SEC announces that it will stop forcing securities workers to take discrimination claims to the industry’s mandatory arbitration panels.

A jury in New York City convicts Heriberto Seda, the so-called Zodiac killer, of fatally shooting three people and wounding a fourth in a string of attacks from 1990 to 1993. . . . The House votes, 223-202, to block the FDA from testing or approving drugs to induce abortions, including a French-made pill, RU-486. The measure, sponsored by Rep. Tom Coburn (R, Okla.), is attached to the 1999 agriculture appropriations bill. . . . Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill increasing penalties for parents who refuse to pay child support. . . . The Senate passes, 5936, legislation that will allow parents to save money for their children’s education costs, including private-school tuition fees, in new tax-sheltered accounts.

Scientists report they have discovered a planet orbiting a star 15 light-years from Earth, the closest extrasolar planet yet found. The planet is believed to be a cold, gaseous body at least 1.6 times the size of Jupiter. It orbits the star Gliese 876 once every 61 days. . . . In response to four deaths and eight liver transplants among users, Wyeth-Ayerst withdraws from the market a prescription painkilling drug, Duract, approved by the FDA in July 1997. It is the second such recall in the month.

Fortune magazine suggests that NBA star Michael Jordan has had an estimated $10 billion impact on the world’s economy since he entered the league in 1984.

A three-judge panel reverses a December 1997 injunction that ordered Microsoft Corp. to sell its Windows 95 operating system separately from Internet Explorer, its “browsing” software. . . . A study suggests two recently discovered dinosaur fossils show that birds descended from dinosaurs. . . . Pres. Clinton nominates Dr. Jane E. Henney as commissioner of the FDA. . . . The House passes, by voice vote, legislation barring state and local governments from imposing new taxes on on-line commerce for three years.

Maureen O’Sullivan, 87, actress who appeared in more than 60 films, dies in Scottsdale, Arizona, of unreported causes. . . . Mark Iredell Hampton Jr., 58, interior decorator and fabric designer, dies of liver cancer in New York City.

NASA scientists lose contact with a spacecraft launched in 1995 to observe the sun. The craft, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), is a joint project of NASA and the European Space Agency.

June 21

June 22

June 23

June 24

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1148—June 25–29, 1998

World Affairs

June 25

June 26

June 27

June 28

June 29

U.S. president Bill Clinton holds a summit with Chinese president Jiang Zemin in Beijing, China’s capital, during the first visit by a U.S. president to that country since 1989. Pres. Clinton is welcomed by a military honor guard in Tiananmen Square.

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Voters in Northern Ireland cast ballots in the first election for the British-controlled province’s new 108-seat local legislature. The body was created as part of a peace agreement unveiled by political leaders in April. Candidates who favor the peace plan capture a large majority of seats in the new Northern Ireland Assembly. . . . In Spain, Manuel Zamarreno, a councilor in the Basque town of Renteria, is killed when a bomb attached to a motorcycle explodes as he walks past. The attack is blamed on the Basque separatist group ETA. Zamarreno, a member of Aznar’s ruling Popular Party, is the party’s sixth town councilor killed over the past year in an attack attributed to ETA.

Two Israeli soldiers are killed and four others injured when two roadside bombs explode in Israel’s occupation zone in South Lebanon. Separately, after 10 months of intense negotiations, Israel and Lebanon begin a major trade of prisoners and bodies of slain soldiers and guerrillas. . . . Matoub Lounes, 42, a popular singer and outspoken critic of Algeria’s civil war, is murdered in a hail of gunfire when his car, en route to his home village in eastern Algeria, is ambushed at a roadblock.

Bill Clinton makes the first visit by a U.S. president to China since 1989.

U.S. special envoy Richard C. Holbrooke calls the village of Kijevo, Kosovo, situated halfway between Pristina and the city of Pec, “the most dangerous place in Europe,” due to fears that fighting among ethnic Albanians and Serbians will spark a wider rebellion . . . . Andrew Croft, 91, British explorer of Greenland and other Arctic regions, dies of undisclosed causes. . . . Lord Derek George Rayner, 72, fomer British chair of Marks & Spencer PLC, 1984–91, dies in London of unreported causes.

Israel and Lebanon complete a major trade of prisoners and bodies of slain soldiers and guerrillas. . . . Some 2,000 youths march in the streets of Tizi-Ouzou, the principal city in the Berber Kabylia region east of Algiers, the capital of Algeria, to protest the June 25 death of singer Matoub Lounes. Rioting erupts outside Algiers in response to the murder . . . . The plane of UN diplomat Alioune Blondin Beye, 59, crashes outside Abidjan, the capital of the Ivory Coast.

South Korean forces cut open the North Korean submarine that became entangled in a fishing net on June 22 and find the bodies of nine crew members, all of whom died of gunshot wounds.

An earthquake strikes southern Turkey in and around the city of Adana, killing 144 people and injuring more than 1,000 others.

Some 13,200 people from 177 countries convene in Geneva, Switzerland, for the 12th International Conference on AIDS. It is the largest such meeting to date.

At the UN War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague, the Netherlands, indicted Serb war criminal Slavko Dokmanovic, 48, is found hanged in his prison cell. Dokmanovic was arrested in Croatia in June 1997 and charged with six counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his alleged accessory role in a 1991 siege and massacre in the town of Vukovar His verdict was expected in early July. . . . The UN AIDS Program announces that it will launch a pilot program to treat 30,000 pregnant women infected with HIV in an effort to prevent the transmission of the virus to their newborn children.

Africa & the Middle East

Authorities in the West African nation of Ivory Coast confirm that UN diplomat Alioune Blondin Beye was killed on June 26 when his plane went down outside Abidjan, the capital. Serb forces kill about 10 ethnic Albanian separatists in the battle to retake the strategic Belacevac coal mine in the embattled Kosovo province seized by rebels June 23. . . . Union Bank of Switzerland and Swiss Bank Corp., Switzerland’s second- and third-largest banks, respectively, officially merge as UBS AG and begin operations. The new bank, with more than $700 billion in total assets, is the world’s second largest, after Japan’s Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi Ltd.

The Guyanese army is called out to help police quell the riots that began June 17.

Reports confirm that China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate in 1997 published the first official statistics on the number of people killed or seriously injured by police torture. Published after the 1996 passage of a revised Criminal Procedure Law prohibiting the use of torture by police to obtain confessions, the book finds that 241 people were killed by torture under police interrogation in 1993 and 1994, and 64 others were seriously injured in the same period. . . . The South Korean government orders that five small troubled commercial banks be closed and merged with five of South Korea’s largest commercial banks. The move is an effort to stabilize the country’s banking system, struck by a debt crisis in late 1997.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 25–29, 1998—1149

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

In Clinton v. City of New York, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that the Line Item Veto Act is unconstitutional. . . . In Swidler & Berlin and Hamilton v. U.S., the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that the confidentiality privilege enjoyed by attorneys and their clients endures after a client’s death. . . . In Bragdon v. Abbott, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that people infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, are entitled to protections provided by the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The justices’ decision marks the high court’s first major review of the ADA, which bars discrimination on the basis of disability, and the first significant extension, of legal protection afforded by the high court to individuals with HIV. . . . Reports confirm that at least nine children were infected with a dangerous strain of the E. coli O157:H7 bacterium in a Marietta, Georgia, swimming pool. . . . Data shows that a food-poisoning outbreak caused by an illnesscausing strain of the E. coli O157:H7 bacterium earlier in the month in Cook County, Illinois, made some 4,500 people sick.

In U.S. v. Balsys, the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that the Constitution’s protection against selfincrimination does not extend to defendants in deportation proceedings who express concern about prosecution in foreign countries. . . . A judge in U.S. District Court in New York City sentences Felix Rolando Peterson-Coplin to 61⁄2 years in prison after the defendant pleads guilty to hijacking a plane to Cuba in 1969. PetersonCoplin was apprehended by federal agents in December 1997 when he tried to enter the U.S. from Canada, where he had been living since 1990.

In Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S. district judge George Howard Jr. orders Whitewater figure Susan McDougal freed from prison and releases her to the custody of her parents for three months of home detention. . . . In Eastern Enterprises v. Apfel, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, to strike down a provision in the 1992 Coal Industry Retiree Health Benefit Act that required companies to bear retroactive liability for the payment of health-care benefits to retired miners and their families. . . . The House approves, 402-8, a bill intended to overhaul the IRS.

In Monge v. California, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that California prosecutors may pursue a second sentencing proceeding of a convicted criminal under the state’s so-called three-strikes law. . . . Former NYC police officer, Francis Livoti, whose illegal choke hold on Anthony Baez resulted in Baez’s death in 1994, is convicted of federal charges that he violated Baez’s civil rights.

Canada and Washington State announce a one-year agreement restricting the catch of two threatened salmon species, coho and chinook.

The Supreme Court hands down decisions in two cases regarding sexual harassment in the workplace. In Burlington Industries Inc. v. Ellerth, the justices rule, 7-2, that an employee who rebuffs a supervisor’s sexual advances may pursue a sexual-harassment suit, even though the employee suffered no retaliation for rejecting the advances. In Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, the justices hold, 7-2, that an employer may be held liable for sexual harassment by supervisory staff, even if the employer does not know of its supervisors’ misconduct.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle In National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley, the Supreme Court rules, 8-1, that the federal government is allowed to consider standards of decency when awarding federal arts grants. . . . The Vatican announces that it will sign an accord with the Lutheran World Federation resolving a theological dispute between Roman Catholics and Lutherans over “justification,” or how humans achieve salvation. The accord declares that justification is achieved solely by God’s grace, from which faith and good works naturally follow.

June 25

June 26

A group of about 20 Ku Klux Klan members stage a rally outside the courthouse in the town of Jasper, Texas.

June 27

June 28

I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb is at the top of Publishers Weekly’s bestseller list.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 29

1150—June 30–July 5, 1998

June 30

Europe

In what is called an isolated incident, a U.S. fighter jet fires a missile at an Iraqi antiaircraft battery after the site’s radar focused on a British warplane involved in a routine patrol of southern Iraq’s “noflight” zone. The missile misses its target, and no injuries are reported. . . . The EU announces the implementation of new antipollution rules aimed at reducing toxic emissions from automobiles. . . . Several European governments agree to surrender most of their claims to gold looted by Nazi Germany and to donate it to Holocaust survivors.

Serb special police units recapture the strategic Belacevac coal mine in the embattled Kosovo province.

In Algeria, thousands of protesters shout antigovernment and antiIslamist slogans. At least one person is killed by police gunfire in the demonstration. . . . Reports suggest that troops loyal to Congolese president Laurent Kabila have massacred as many as 500 people at a time. Authors of the report were poorly received by Kabila’s government, and they acknowledge that their report is incomplete.

Ten Catholic churches in Northern Ireland are set on fire overnight. . . . Princess Diana’s grave, on the grounds of Althorp House, the ancestral home of her family in Northamptonshire, England, open to the public for the first time on the day that would have been Diana’s 37th birthday.

The Congolese government frees Etienne Tshisekedi, the political opposition’s most prominent leader, from internal exile.

The South Korean government states it will release political prisoners to mark the 53rd anniversary of the end of Japanese rule in Korea, which will fall on August 15. . . . Hong Kong stages a series of events marking the first anniversary of Hong Kong’s 1997 reversion to Chinese sovereignty. However, a group of anti-China protesters attempts to march to the Hong Kong Convention Center, where they are stopped by police.

The UN Security Council imposes a new set of sanctions on the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), a rebel movement, in response to the group’s lagging compliance with the terms of the 1994 peace plan.

The Loyalist Volunteer Force, a hard-line Protestant guerrilla group opposed to ongoing peace efforts, is suspected in the July 1 arson attacks on 10 Catholic churches in Northern Ireland. A Catholic primary school and three buildings linked to Protestant groups are set ablaze in possible retaliation by Catholics for the church fires.

Abd al-Aziz Shahin, a PNA cabinet minister, and other Palestinians engage in a sit-down demonstration, blocking the major access routes to the Jewish settlements of Gush Qatif and Netzarim. The move prompts a standoff between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian police in the Gaza Strip. . . . UN secretary general Kofi Annan reveals that Nigeria plans to release Moshood K. O. Abiola, who apparently won 1993 presidential elections, and numerous other political figures in the near future.

U.S. president Bill Clinton makes the first visit to Hong Kong by a sitting U.S. president, and he meets with Hong Kong chief executive Tung Chee-hwa. The flight of Air Force One, the presidential jet, is the first to land at Hong Kong’s new Chek Lap Kok airport.

The 12th International Conference on AIDS closes in Geneva, Switzerland, and, in contrast to the last such gathering, held in 1996 in Canada, reports presented at the conference offered little evidence of significant breakthroughs in the search for a cure or vaccine for AIDS.

In Kosova, Serbian forces end a siege of the village of Kijevo, situated halfway between Pristina and the city of Pec. One soldier is reported killed, and 60 rebels are wounded; no casualties are acknowledged by Yugoslav authorities.

The armed standoff that began July 2 between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian police in the Gaza Strip is defused when a deal is brokered that allows Palestinian cars to travel along the road.

Australia’s House of Representatives approves the Native Title Bill, a controversial measure that restricts aboriginal land rights. . . . Mohammad Alam Channa, 42, a Pakistani farmer recognized as the world’s tallest man with a height of 7 feet, 71⁄4 inches (2.32 m), dies in New York State while suffering from kidney disease, diabetes, and hypertension.

Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev and Chinese president Jiang Zemin sign a treaty demarcating the 1,200-mile (1,900-km) border between the two countries.

Measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale, an aftershock of the June 27 earthquake strikes southern Turkey It is the largest in a series of more than 70 aftershocks recorded since June 27.

July 1

July 2

July 3

July 4

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Data show that at least 285 people have died in El Niño’s torrential rains and floods in Ecuador. In addition, some 5,000 homes have been destroyed, and widespread damage to bridges, roads, and croplands have been reported. The government estimates that reconstruction in the region will cost $3 billion.

Joseph Estrada is sworn in as the 13th president of the Philippines . . . . In Afghanistan, aid agencies refuse an order by the Taliban to move their Kabul offices of aid organizations into one centralized location, the Kabul Polytechnic, a heavily war-damaged building without water or electricity. . . . Officials of Tibet’s government in exile reveal that seven Tibetans were shot dead and 60 others wounded in early May by Chinese authorities in Lhasa, Tibet. The victims, reportedly including a Buddhist monk and five nuns, were prisoners in a Lhasa jail peacefully demonstrating for Tibetan independence.

Reports confirm that the relatives of 45 victims of a massacre in Chiapas, Mexico in December 1997 have received $3,900 per family from the state government. The victims were supporters of the Zapatista National Liberation Army, and the suspected perpetrators were members of a paramilitary group that supports the government.

Violence erupts throughout Northern Ireland, as Protestant supporters of British rule protest the blocking of a traditional parade. The Orange Order, the province’s largest Protestant organization, conducts its annual parade in Portadown, commemorating the victory of Protestant forces over Roman Catholics in the 1690 Battle of the Boyne. Youths in Belfast, the provincial capital, throw gasoline bombs at police, who respond by firing plastic bullets at their attackers.

July 5

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 30–July 5, 1998—1151

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Linda Tripp, whose secret tapes of former White House intern Monica Lewinsky led to an obstruction-ofjustice investigation of Pres. Clinton, appears before independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. . . . The National Center for Health Statistics finds that the overall 1996 birth rate was 14.7 births per 1,000 total population, down from 14.8 in 1995. The report shows that outof-wedlock births declined to 44.8 per 1,000 unmarried women, from a peak rate of 46.9 per 1,000 in 1994.

Defense Secretary William S. Cohen announces that genetic tests ordered in May on the remains of the Vietnam War representative in the Tomb of the Unknowns indicate that they belong to U.S. Air Force lieutenant Michael J. Blassie.

The Conference Board reports that its index of consumer confidence rose to a 29-year high of 137.6 in June, from May’s revised reading of 136.3. . . . Data shows the aggregate value of U.S. mergers announced in the first six months of 1998 exceeded the total for all of 1997. U.S. companies announced 5,623 deals worth $962.1 billion from January 1 to June 30. In 1997, U.S. firms announced 10,700 deals worth $919 billion. In the first six months of 1997, the value of all announced deals was $366 billion. Both the six-month and year-end figures for 1997 are record totals.

The FDA approves the use of a new artificial sweetener, acesulfame potassium, in soft drinks. The sweetener, known also as Ace-K, is marketed as Sunett by Germany’s Hoechst AG. . . . The FDA approves a prescription drug for migraine headaches manufactured by Merck & Co. Inc. The drug, rizatriptan, is to be marketed as Maxalt.

Pope John Paul II issues an apostolic letter that codifies the Roman Catholic Church’s opposition to the ordination of women, euthanasia, and sex outside of marriage as “divinely revealed truths” that cannot be challenged.

The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, Colorado, rules that it is illegal for federal prosecutors to offer witnesses leniency in exchange for testimony. . . . The CDC reveals that AIDS-related deaths among whites fell by 54% from the first half of 1997. AIDS deaths among blacks fell 37% in the first half of 1997. Deaths also fell further among men, by 47%, than among women, by 37%

Representatives of about 800 U.S. state and local governments plan to impose economic sanctions against Swiss banks in an effort to secure a settlement more substantial than the one offered June 19 to compensate Holocaust victims who lost assets deposited in Swiss accounts before and during World War II.

James Robertson of U.S. District Court throws out independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s taxevasion case against Whitewater figure Webster Hubbell.

Doctors at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center report they have implanted human nerve cells grown in a laboratory into the brain of a stroke patient. It is the first time laboratory-grown cells have been implanted into a patient’s brain.

Martin Seymour-Smith, 70, British author of more than 40 books, dies in Bexhill-on-Sea, England, of a heart attack.

A federal jury in Billings, Montana, convicts LeRoy Schweitzer, Daniel Petersen, and Richard Clark, members of the Montana Freeman, on two counts each of threatening to kill Montana’s chief federal judge, Jack Shanstrom. The three are also convicted on various other charges.

The U.S. State Department discloses that it has asked Cuba to extradite about 90 people to the U.S.

The Texas Supreme Court rules, 63, that court-ordered buffer zones around abortion clinics violate the First Amendment free-speech rights of antiabortion protesters. . . . The Michigan state legislature passes a bill that will ban assisted suicide. A temporary ban expired in 1994.

Canada and the U.S. state of Washington announce a one-year accord that restricts the catch of a lucrative species of salmon, sockeye, that migrates between Canadian and U.S. waters.

Kay Thompson, children’s book author who created the successful Eloise book series and was reportedly between 92 and 95 years old, dies in New York City of unreported causes.

Astronomers report they have discovered the first asteroid to orbit the sun entirely within Earth’s orbit, a claim that is disputed by other researchers.

Reverend Bernhard Haering, 85, liberal Roman Catholic theologian, dies in Germany. . . . George Lloyd, 85, British composer best known for his 12 symphonies, dies in London. . . . A British powerboat breaks the 1960 around-the-world record when it makes the trip in 74 days, 20 hours, and 58 minutes.

Planet-B, an unmanned spacecraft set to orbit the planet Mars, is launched from Kagoshima on Kyushu, Japan’s southernmost island. Planet-B is Japan’s first interplanetary space mission.

Third-seeded Jana Novotna of the Czech Republic wins the women’s singles title at the All England Tennis Championship at Wimbledon, England.

National Education Association (NEA) convention delegates in New Orleans, Louisiana, vote to reject a proposed merger of the NEA and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). The merger, which required a two-thirds majority vote for approval, would have combined the two largest teachers organizations in the U.S.

At the All England Tennis Championship in Wimbledon, England, top-seeded Pete Sampras wins his fifth career men’s title, tying the record set by Sweden’s Bjorn Borg in 1980 for the most Wimbledon men’s titles. . . . Sid Luckman, 81, Hall of Fame professional football player, dies in North Miami Beach, Florida, of unreported causes.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 30

July 1

July 2

July 3

July 4

July 5

1152—July 6–11, 1998

July 6

July 7

Europe

Britain and Spain reach an agreement under which NATO may expand operations in Gibraltar. . . . The trial of Milan Kovacevic, allegedly responsible for the deaths of at least 2,000 people, opens in The Hague. . . . According to Forbes magazine, U.S. natives account for 70 of the 200 richest people or families in the world; 52 are from Europe, and 44 are from Asia. U.S. citizen William Gates, of Microsoft Corp., tops the list with $51 billion.

As protests in Ireland continue, some 3,000 members of the Orange Order surround the official residence of Britain’s Northern Ireland secretary. . . . Russian president Boris Yeltsin and Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev sign an agreement to divide the northern part of the oil-rich Caspian Sea bed. The pact is the first to address legal rights to the Caspian Sea’s resources since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.

In Angola, 16 police officers, who are reportedly the survivors of an explosion of three newly laid antitank mines, are killed in Lunda Norte, on the road between the villages of Camaxilo and Cuangula, in an ambush attributed to UNITA rebels.

The UN General Assembly votes to upgrade the observer status of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), or Palestine, to a “nonvoting” role that accords the PLO the right to participate in General Assembly debates and cosponsor resolutions.

A jury in Milan convicts Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s premier in 1994, of bribing government tax inspectors. Berlusconi is sentenced to two years and nine months in prison. . . . German automobile manufacturer Volkswagen AG states that it will create a fund to compensate workers forced to perform slave labor for the company during World War II. . . . Europe’s two largest stock exchanges, Britain’s London Stock Exchange and Germany’s Deutsche Böurse, sign an agreement to create a common electronic-trading system.

Moshood K. O. Abiola, 60, who claimed to be Nigeria’s rightful head of state since his apparent victory in 1993 presidential elections, dies suddenly, reportedly of a heart attack, while imprisoned in Abuja, the capital. His death, which comes as Nigeria’s military government appeared poised to announce his release from prison, sets off violent ethnic rioting in several major cities.

Hundreds of thousands of workers on the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico, a U.S. commonwealth, hold a 48-hour general strike to protest the pending privatization of stateowned Puerto Rico Telephone Co. The workers support more than 6,400 Puerto Rico Telephone employees who walked off their jobs on June 18.

Officials in Northern Ireland state that police and army troops have been attacked in 400 separate incidents since the July 5 parade. The attacks reportedly wounded 44 police officers. . . . Serbian forces kill at least five rebels in a raid on the town of Morina, which borders Albania. Several rebels are also injured in the fighting, in which Serbian artillery shells four other villages.

USAID announces that it will provide nearly 10,000 tons of food worth some $16 million to Sudan’s famine victims. . . . As unrest continues in Nigeria from the July 7 death of Moshood K. O. Abiola, Gen. Abdulsalam Abubakar reiterates his vow to restore democratic government. He dissolves the military-appointed cabinet, leaving a Provisional Ruling Council, also dominated by the military, with sole authority.

Under criticism from the Chinese community, the province of Alberta, Canada, renames Chinaman’s Peak, an 8,793-foot (2,680m) peak in the Rocky Mountains chain near Banff National Park, to Ha Ling Peak in honor of a railroad worker who in 1896 climbed to the peak’s summit to win a $50 bet.

July 8

July 9

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that as many as one-third of infants worldwide do not have their births registered, barring them from receiving essential social services in some countries.

The Americas

Hong Kong’s 73-year-old Kai Tak Airport ceases operating, and some 1,100 trucks, 14 barges, and 31 planes transport equipment from Kai Tak to the new Hong Kong International Airport on Chek Lap Kok island, which begins operations.

Algerian security forces reveal they have shot and killed Khalifi Athmane, a GIA leader. Authorities state that a total of 11 Muslim rebels were killed in the encounter. . . . Nigeria’s Provisional Ruling Council states it has commuted the death sentences of Lt. Gen. Oladipo Diya and several other former military officials convicted of participating in a failed coup in 1997. According to accounts, as many as 45 people have been killed in Lagos in violent clashes between unemployed Yoruba youths and Hausa merchants.

Octav Botnar, 84, British businessman who built Nissan UK into the largest Japanese car franchise in Britain, dies in Villars, Switzerland, while suffering from stomach cancer.

July 11

Australia’s Senate approves the Native Title Bill, a controversial measure that restricts aboriginal land rights.

Reports disclose that a court in Vietnam has imposed prison sentences on more than 30 people who participated in violent protests in Thai Binh province in November 1997. During the unrest, some 300 villagers raided the offices of the local party officials and took hostage more than 20 police officers.

Police in Britain and in the Irish Republic conduct coordinated raids in which they arrest 10 people allegedly plotting to detonate bombs in central London.

July 10

Asia & the Pacific

Police in China’s eastern Province of Zhejiang detain nine prodemocracy activists involved in efforts to found an opposition political party, the China Democracy Party.

An international team of medical experts attest that an autopsy on the late Nigerian opposition leader Moshood K. O. Abiola shows that he died on July 7 of complications from heart disease.

State-run Chinese Central Television conducts its first live broadcast of a trial when it airs a civil copyright case held in the Intermediate People’s Court in Beijing, the capital.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 6–11, 1998—1153

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Data shows that five abortion clinics were attacked in New Orleans, Louisiana, over the July 4 weekend and that 10 Florida clinics were attacked in May. . . . Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, and Lorillard announce that they will pay the state of Mississippi an additional $550 million under their 1997 settlement of the state’s lawsuit seeking compensation for the costs of treating smoking-related illnesses.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Scientists in Japan announce they have cloned two calves from adult cows, but their research has not yet been published in a scientific journal.

South Korea’s Se Ri Pak wins the U.S. Women’s Open in Kohler, Wisconsin. . . . Roy Rogers (born Leonard Franklin Slye), 86, motion picture and television star and an icon of the American West, dies in Apple Valley, California, of congestive heart failure.

A jury in Los Angeles, California, convicts Mikail Markhasev, 19, in the 1997 killing of Ennis Cosby, the son of TV entertainer Bill Cosby. . . . The American League defeats the National League, 13-8, to win MLB’s All-Star Game in Denver, Colorado. . . . Pope John Paul II issues an apostolic letter urging Catholics to attend Sunday Mass each week. About one-third of the U.S.’s 60 million Catholics currently do so.

A federal appeals panel in Washington, D.C., upholds a previous decision when it orders members of the Secret Service to testify about their knowledge of the relationship between Pres. Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. . . . Susan Lynn Rodriguez is the first female officer from the Border Patrol killed in the line of duty when she assists local police pursuing a suspect in murders unrelated to the U.S.-Mexico border. . . . Dow Corning and lawyers for 170,000 women who claim they were made ill by silicone breast implants agree to a tentative $3.2 billion settlement.

Pres. Clinton states that the federal government will punish insurance companies that fail to comply with the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which guarantees access to health insurance to people who lose or change employment.

Japan’s National Space Development Agency successfully docks two Earth-orbiting satellites without the aid of astronauts. The first-ever unmanned satellite docking is an experiment in preparation for the construction of a planned international space station, set to begin later in the year.

At least three Houston clinics are targeted in a series of acid attacks on abortion clinics, and three people are hospitalized with breathing difficulties. The attacks are similar to the ones in Louisiana in July and Florida in May. . . . A federal jury in Billings, Montana, convicts LeRoy Schweitzer, Daniel Petersen, Dale Jacobi, and Russell Landers—four leads of the Montana Freemen—on 11 counts of conspiring to defraud four U.S. banks.

D. Wayne Calloway, 62, chair and chief executive officer of Pepsico Inc., 1986–96, dies of prostate cancer in New York City.

Two studies find that, on average, black smokers inhaled more nicotine than white smokers.

Wilmington, Delaware, Superior Court judge Henry duPont Ridgely sentences Amy Grossberg, 19, to 30 months in prison on manslaughter charges in the 1996 death of her newborn son. Brian Peterson, 20, Grossberg’s former boyfriend and the child’s father, is sentenced to a 24-month prison term for the death of the baby. Authorities found the dead child wrapped in a plastic bag in a trash receptacle behind a Newark, Delaware, motel where Grossberg gave birth.

The Senate votes, 96-2, to give final approval to a bill intended to overhaul the IRS. . . . Harold Butler, 77, founder of the Denny’s fastfood restaurant chain, dies of a heart attack in La Paz, Mexico.

Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala names Jeffrey Koplan director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

July 6

July 7

July 8

Pitcher Ila Borders is the first woman to start for a minor-league professional baseball team, pitching five innings for the Northern League’s Duluth-Superior Dukes in a game in Duluth, Minnesota.

Lt. Gen. Peter Pace, commander of the Marine Corps’s Atlantic fleet, orders a court-martial for the pilot and navigator of a military jet that severed a ski-lift cable in a February accident in Italy. The mishap caused a cable car to plummet more than 300 feet (90 m) to the ground, killing all 20 people inside. . . . The U.S. Senate approves, 92-0, a nonbinding resolution reaffirming the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, which authorizes arms sales to Taiwan for defensive purposes and which calls for the peaceful resolution of Taiwan’s status.

July 9

July 10

July 11

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1154—July 12–16, 1998

World Affairs

Africa & the Middle East

Three Roman Catholic brothers are killed in a fire in their home in the Northern Ireland town of Ballymoney. Police blame the fire on arson by Protestant extremists.

July 12

July 13

Europe

In response to moves by the Belarussian government to evict ambassadors of some 12 foreign governments from their residences in Belarus’s Drozdy diplomatic quarter, the 15 member states of the European Union (EU) ban some 130 high-level Belarussian officials, including Pres. Aleksandr Lukashenko, from traveling to EU countries. . . . IMF officials and the Russian government agree on a plan to lend an additional $17.1 billion to Russia before the end of 1999.

Silvio Berlusconi, the leader of Italy’s center-right opposition coalition, is convicted in Milan in connection with illegal political contributions. Former premier Bettino Craxi Craxi, currently in hiding in Tunisia, is convicted in absentia, sentenced to a four-year prison term, and fined $10 million. . . . An Italian judge throws out a manslaughter case against the crew of the plane that severed a ski-lift cable in a February accident in Italy and killed all 20 people inside, explaining that Italy has no jurisdiction over the matter under a NATO pact.

A small bomb explodes in East Jerusalem near Orient House, the unofficial headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization in the Arab portion of the city. One Palestinian man is injured slightly by the blast.

July 14

July 15

July 16

U.S. president Bill Clinton for the fifth time implements a six-month waiver blocking a controversial provision of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which seeks to tighten the U.S.’s economic embargo of Cuba. The Helms-Burton Act angered the U.S.’s allies in Europe and Latin America whose firms do business in Cuba, and Clinton has waived the provision every six months since the passage of the law.

British troops and Northern Ireland police raid the encampment in Portadown where Orange Order members have been protesting the blocking of the July 5 parade. Police arrest at least 20 people and seize weaponry. . . . Spanish police close down a Basque separatist newspaper linked to the outlawed ETA. . . . Karl Schirdewan, 91, Communist Party functionary in the former East Germany who for a time during the 1950s was considered the second most powerful government official in that country, dies in Berlin, Germany.

The Sudan People’s Liberation Army, a separatist rebel group, declares a three-month cease-fire in its campaign against the government in order to allow shipments of food to reach famine victims in the country’s southwestern region. The Sudanese government responds by declaring a one-month suspension of hostilities.

Syria’s president Hafez al-Assad visits France on his first trip to a Western country in 22 years.

Members of the United Nations Human Rights Committee state that Israel’s state-sanctioned use of torture is in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Israel had signed in 1991. . . . British officials confirm that the Sudanese government has extended the truce announced on July 15 to three months.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Jamil Mahuad Witt, the mayor of Quito, Ecuador’s capital, is elected president in a second-round runoff vote.

Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) suffers losses in elections to the House of Councillors, the upper house of the Diet, but it remains in power in the more powerful lower house of the Diet. . . . In Seoul, the capital of South Korea, tens of thousands of workers protest rising unemployment. . . . A man in Donghae, on the eastern coast of South Korea, finds the dead body of a diver whom the government claims is a North Korean commando.

In Colombia, authorities state that at least 25 FARC rebels were killed recently in a military raid on a camp and drug laboratory in the Meta province. Separately, reports confirm that a group believed to be right-wing paramilitaries killed nine people and forced 250 others to flee their homes near the town of Sabanalarga in the northwest Antioquia province. . . . The aboriginal Nisga’a people sign a treaty with the Canadian government that will give the group title to an area of land in northwest British Columbia.

Japanese premier Ryutaro Hashimoto announces that he will resign as premier and as president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to take responsibility for the LDP’s losses in July 12 elections.

Jorge Rafael Videla, one of the military leaders who waged the “dirty war” against suspected leftists after seizing power in Argentina in 1976, is indicted on charges of child abduction as he is alleged to be have been involved from 1976 to 1978 in a system under which the newborn infants of female political prisoners were given up for adoption to military couples. Many of the women were then killed.

Zhu Lilan, China’s minister of science and technology, is the first Chinese government minister to visit Taiwan since the Communist Party took power in China in 1949 . . . . Labor unions stage nationwide strikes to protest layoffs in South Korea. . . . Nguyen Ngoc Loan, 67, South Vietnamese general and national police commander during the Vietnam War, dies of cancer in Burke, Virginia.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officers in Woodbridge, Ontario, arrest Alfonso Caruana, 52, allegedly the head of an organized-crime family that specializes in drug smuggling and money laundering.

A letter in which 79 Chinese dissidents from 19 provinces call on Pres. Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji to release the dissidents arrested July 10 who are still in detention is made public. Some of those arrested July 10 have been released. . . . Mahbubul Haq, 64, Pakistani economist who devised the Human Development Index, which was adopted by the UN to assess the wealth of nations, dies in New York City of pneumonia.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 12–16, 1998—1155

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

A jury in Poughkeepsie, New York, finds black activist Rev. Al Sharpton and two black former civilrights attorneys—Alton Maddox Jr. and C. Vernon Mason—liable in a civil defamation case brought by a white former county prosecutor, Steven Pagones. The three accused Pagones of participating in a gang rape of a black teenager, Tawana Brawley, 10 years earlier. . . . Watkins M. Abbitt, 90, (D, Va.), who served in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1948–73, dies in Lynchburg, Virginia, while suffering from leukemia.

The House and Senate clear, by voice vote, a measure that will waive agricultural export credits from a raft of economic sanctions that the U.S. imposed on India and Pakistan after the two countries detonated nuclear devices in May. Pres. Clinton signs the measure.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Charles J. Givens, 57, author of best-selling books who was found guilty in 1996 of defrauding thousands of Californians and ordered to repay them $14.1 million, dies of prostate cancer in Orlando, Florida.

France wins the 1998 World Cup soccer tournament, 3-0, over Brazil, in St.-Denis. . . . Jimmy Driftwood (born James Corbett Morris), 91, folk singer and songwriter, dies in Fayetteville, Arkansas, after a stroke and heart attack. . . . Golfer Gil Morgan wins the Senior Players Championship in Dearborn, Michigan.

A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., indicts Thai businesswoman Pauline Kanchanalak on charges of illegally funneling foreign contributions to the Democratic Party between 1992 and 1996. The indictment brings to 10 the number of people indicted in a Justice Department investigation of fundraising abuses in the 1996 elections.

Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. reveals it will donate $13 million to the Smithsonian Institution. . . . A coalition of 15 conservative religious groups launch an advertising campaign against homosexuality. . . . Red Badgro (Morris Hiram), 95, oldest member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, dies in Kent, Washington, after a fall.

Richard McDonald, 89, fast-food restaurant pioneer who, with his brother Maurice McDonald, laid the foundation for the McDonald’s hamburger empire, dies in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Miroslav Holub, 74, Czech poet whose Collected Poems was not published in his homeland until after the fall of communism, dies in Prague, the Czech Republic. . . . Beryl Audrey Bryden, 78, British jazz singer whose career spanned five decades, dies in London, England, of cancer.

Judge Charles Legge of U.S. District Court in San Francisco, California, refuses to block implementation of Proposition 227, a statewide ballot measure barring bilingual education in California schools. . . . The House votes, 276-150, to pass a bill that will make it a crime for an adult to transport a minor across state lines for an abortion.

A New York City cable-TV company states it has rehired sportscaster Marv Albert, who pled guilty in 1997 to a misdemeanor assault on a woman with whom he had had a decade-long sexual relationship, to anchor a nightly studio sports show.

Pres. Clinton signs a bill that allows a planned memorial to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to be sited within the Mall area in Washington, D.C. . . . Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois, also known as Health Care Service Corp. (HCSC), pleads guilty in U.S. District Court in East St. Louis, Illinois, to defrauding Medicare. The company agrees to pay $144 million in fines and civil penalties.

The NASDAQ index of over-thecounter stocks, considered the benchmark of smaller stocks’ performance, closes above the 2000 level for the first time, at 2000.56 points.

The FDA approves the use of the drug thalidomide to treat a painful symptom of leprosy. . . . Astronomers report that, by using a new kind of infrared camera, they could observe the formation of galaxies in an area of the sky some 11 billion light-years from Earth.

July 12

July 13

July 14

July 15

July 16

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1156—July 17–22, 1998

July 17

Europe

UN member states vote in favor of a treaty authorizing the creation of a permanent international court for the adjudication of war crimes.

The Russian government buries the remains of Czar Nicholas II, the last member of the imperial Romanov dynasty to rule Russia, and his family in a ceremony at the 18th-century St. Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg. The somber service is held 80 years to the day after the family was executed by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution. . . . Rebel forces launch an offensive in Orahovac, a town of 20,000 people located 30 miles (50 km) southwest of Pristina in Kosovo.

The South African government announces that it will begin releasing some 9,000 prison inmates in honor of Pres. Nelson Mandela’s July 18 birthday.

An earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale strikes southern Taiwan. The quake, centered in the mountainous area of Alishan, triggers rock slides and blocks highways and tunnels. Five people are killed, and 27 are injured. It is Taiwan’s worst earthquake since 1964. . . A series of three giant ocean waves, the first as high as 30 feet (9 m), crashes onto the northern coast of Papua New Guinea, washing away several villages. An estimated 8,000–10,000 people reside in the affected areas.

Betty Marsden, 79, British actress whose comic talents were highlighted in two popular 1960s radio shows, dies of unreported causes.

South African president Nelson Mandela celebrates his 80th birthday by marrying Graca Machel, his longtime romantic companion.

Reports confirm that some 400 aftershocks have been recorded since the July 17 earthquake in southern Taiwan.

Senior Israeli and Palestinian officials hold their first direct talks in a half-year in the latest attempt to salvage a peace process now in its 17th month of stalled negotiations. Just hours before the initial session, an apparent car bomb misfires in a van in downtown West Jerusalem, hospitalizing the driver with extensive burns but causing no other injuries. . . . Saudi Arabian warships bombard a Yemen-controlled island in the Red Sea, killing three Yemeni coast guard personnel and wounding nine others. The attack is part of a continuing border dispute between the two countries.

After aid organizations refused an ultimatum to relocate their offices into one centralized location outside the capital, Kabul, or shut down their operations and leave Afghanistan, Taliban authorities order their operations closed. . . . Supporters and opponents of Pauline Hanson, head of the farright, anti-immigrant One Nation Party, engage in a violent confrontation outside a town hall in Melbourne, Australia, where Hanson had scheduled a meeting.

General Abdulsalam Abubakar, Nigeria’s military ruler, pledges to end 15 years of military rule by May 29, 1999.

After the July 19 closures, some 200 aid workers leave Kabul, as CARE International, Doctors without Borders, and 36 other agencies suspend their activities in Afghanistan. The UN and the Red Cross are exempted from the Taliban’s directive and maintain a presence in Kabul. . . . The government announces that Hong Kong’s unemployment rate in the second quarter reached a 15-year high of 4.5%, up from 4.1% in the March-May period.

July 18

July 19

Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon imprisons eight people associated with the Basque separatist newspaper that was shut down July 15, citing the paper’s apparent links to terrorism.

July 20

July 21

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

The UN Security Council votes to add 350 troops to the 700-strong UN Preventive Deployment Force in Macedonia and to extend the force’s mandate until February 1999.

In Kosovo, Serb forces report that they have countered the July 17 rebel attack on Orahovac, 30 miles (50 km) southwest of Pristina. Serbian police acknowledge that four Serb civilians and two policemen died in the battle; Albanian refugees in Malisevo report that 37 Albanian civilians were killed. . . . Britain’s public records office releases World War II-era documents detailing plans to assassinate Adolf Hitler,.

July 22

More than 200 civilians die in a massacre by unknown assailants in Angola’s northern diamond-mining province of Lunda Norte.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Despite an ongoing strike, the Puerto Rican government accepts an enhanced bid from the GTE-led group for a controlling stake in Puerto Rico Telephone.

Chinese activist Fan Yiping is sentenced to three years in prison for helping a dissident leave the country. . . . Workers at Hyundai Motor Co. and Daewoo Motor Co. go on strike to protest plans for the first mass layoffs by South Korean conglomerates since the onset of a nationwide financial crisis in 1997. . . . At the end of a tour of Victoria, Australia, by Pauline Hanson, head of the far-right, anti-immigrant One Nation Party, some 100 protesters in the town of Echuca clash with her supporters, and a demonstration by some 2,000 protesters forces Hanson to flee the town of Bendigo.

In Colombia, the ELN and the littleknown Popular Liberation Forces rebel group claim responsibility for the simultaneous detonation of at least 12 bombs outside banks in the city of Medellin, killing one person.

Prominent Chinese dissident Zhang Shanguang is arrested after attempting to organize a group of laid-off workers. Separately, Pres. Jiang Zemin orders China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to shut down its many business operations as part of a government campaign to curb the rampant smuggling of goods into China.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 17–22, 1998—1157

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The state of Texas reaches a final settlement of its lawsuit seeking compensation from the tobacco industry for the costs of treating smoke-related illnesses. The companies agree to pay $17.6 billion instead of the $15.3 billion agreed to in their original settlement with Texas, reached in January.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The Dow closes at 9337.97, the 28th record high of 1998 and the third record high registered in July. . . . Judge William Osteen Sr. invalidates most of an influential 1993 EPA report that asserted that secondhand smoke causes cancer. . . . The White House’s OMB announces that the administration will release $197 million in federal funding for 40 projects that Pres. Clinton vetoed from spending bills in 1997. The announcement follows a June decision by the Supreme Court that lineitem veto power is unconstitutional.

Reports reveal that scientists have mapped the genome, or sequence of genetic code, of the microbe that causes syphilis.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

July 17

July 18 The fourth Goodwill Games open, in the New York City area, attracting some 1,500 athletes from more than 60 countries. . . . Golfer Mark O’Meara wins the British Open.

Senate majority leader Trent Lott (R, Miss.) states that it is “not practical” for the Senate to consider confirming the nomination of James Hormel, an openly homosexual California philanthropist, as ambassador to Luxembourg. . . . A federal jury in Miami, Florida, convicts Michael Abbell, a former Justice Department official, and Miami defense lawyer William Moran of performing criminal acts for their clients in a Colombian drug cartel. Pres. Clinton vetoes legislation that would have allowed parents to save money for their children’s education costs, including privateschool tuition fees, in new taxsheltered accounts. . . . The Senate votes down, 61-39, a Democraticsponsored proposal to require all guns sold in the U.S. to have trigger locks, designed to prevent accidents.

Senators reject, 69-31, a Democratic-backed measure that would have allowed the prosecution of adults who did not take adequate steps to secure guns taken by a child to commit a crime. The legislation would have made such negligence a misdemeanor. . . . New York State Supreme Court justice Robert Hanophy sentences Heriberto Seda, the so-called Zodiac killer, to life in prison for murder and attempted murder.

The House votes, 264-166, to defeat a resolution that would have rejected Pres. Clinton’s June decision to renew China’s so-called most-favored nation (MFN) trading status. Separately, Pres. Clinton signs a bill containing a provision changing the name of MFN status to “normal trade relations.”

At the Goodwill Games, Bill May becomes the first man to win a medal in international synchronized swimming. The Olympics and most other international competitions bar men from the sport.

An SEC administrative-law judge, Carol Fox Foelak, finds Joseph Jett not guilty of fraud in a 1994 trading scandal that ultimately caused Kidder, Peabody & Co. to cease operations. . . . Representatives from the petroleum company Unocal Corp. announce that the company has agreed to pay a $43.8 million fine for polluting a stretch of California coastline with millions of gallons of petroleum. The fine is among the largest environmental claims ever won by the state.

Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr., 74, one of the first seven U.S. astronauts, known collectively as the Mercury Seven, who, on May 5, 1961, became the first American launched into space and, in 1971, became the fifth man to walk on the moon and the first to play golf there, dies near Monterey, California. He was reportedly suffering from leukemia.

The Liverpool, England, home where British rock musician Paul McCartney lived from 1955 to 1964 opens as a museum. . . . Robert Young, 91, U.S. actor who won three Emmy Awards, dies in Westlake Village, California.

Pres. Clinton signs a bill enacting a major overhaul of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Reports confirm that a French magistrate has indicted three officials of the ministry of culture on charges of falsifying documents related to the 1994 discovery of the oldest known prehistoric cave paintings.

Don Dunphy, 90, U.S. radio and TV announcer whose career lasted from 1939 to the 1980s, dies in Roslyn, New York. . . . (John) Michael terence wellesley Denison, 82, British actor who epitomized the English gentleman in several roles, dies of cancer in Amersham, England.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 19

July 20

July 21

July 22

1158—July 23–28, 1998

July 23

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

Delegates to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) trade group convene in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, for their 31st annual series of ministerial meetings on regional economic and security issues.

Vladimir Dudintsev, 79, Russian writer, dies near Moscow after suffering a stroke several years earlier. . . . Henri Ziegler, 91, French aviation industry leader, dies in Paris. . . . Hermann Prey, 69, German baritone who excelled as an opera singer, dies near Munich, Germany, after a heart attack.

An Iranian court sentences Gholamhossein Karbaschi, the reformminded mayor of Teheran, the capital, to five years in prison on charges of embezzlement and mismanagement. Separately, an Iranian appeals court upholds a lower court’s decision ordering the immediate closure of a pro-reform daily newspaper which, since its founding in February, has openly challenged the political line of the conservative elite.

The official death toll from the July 17 tsunamis in Papua New Guinea stands at some 1,300. Thousands are still missing. . . . Chinese dissident Wang Donghai is freed from prison and placed under house arrest.

Yugoslav army units and Serbian soldiers launch an offensive intended to reopen the roads linking Pristina, the Kosovo region’s capital; Pec, its second-largest city; and Prizren, a large town in southwest Kosovo. . . . Roland W. (Tiny) Rowland (born Roland Walter Fuhrhop), 80, British businessman of the Lonrho Group, a huge international trading empire, dies of cancer in London, England.

The Angolan government reveals that 215 bodies have been recovered from the site of the July 22 massacre in the province of Lunda Nore.

In Myanmar, police stop the car of dissident Aung San Suu Kyi approximately 20 miles (32 km) west of the capital, blocking her from meeting members of her NLD party. She refuses to turn back to Yangon and remains in her car. . . . Mongolia’s Great Hural calls for the resignation of Premier Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj and his cabinet in the wake of a stalemate over a bank merger. Elbegdorj and his cabinet resign but remain in office in an acting capacity

July 24

Iranian defense minister Ali Shamkhani confirms that Iran successfully has test-fired a Shehab-3 medium-range ballistic missile capable of reaching distances of about 800 miles (1,300 km). The missile theoretically may strike U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf region, as well as targets in Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Separately, the editorial staff of a pro-reform paper shut down by the government launches a new paper with a similar format and sells 100,000 copies within an hour.

July 25

The Americas

To mark the 100th anniversary of the landing of U.S. troops on the island of Puerto Rico, the Puerto Rican Independence Party holds a pro-independence rally in Guanica. The pro-commonwealth Popular Democratic Party holds a rally in the capital, San Juan, marking the 46th anniversary of the creation of the commonwealth.

Asia & the Pacific

UN human-rights observers in Cambodia reveal they have received reports of more than 400 instances in which voters have been murdered, beaten, or threatened by security forces or local CPP officials during the election campaign. . . . In the Japanese city of Wakayama, four people die and 60 are sickened from cyanide poisoning after eating curry at a community festival. . . . Reports confirm that the Vietnamese Red Cross has established a fund for victims with ailments linked to exposure to Agent Orange. North Korea holds elections to the Supreme People’s Assembly for the first time since 1990, and Kim Jong Il is elected to an assembly seat, in what is widely seen as a sign that he will soon be elevated to the country’s supreme post. . . . Cambodia holds national elections.

July 26

Lin Ti-chuan of Kaohsiung City Council in Taiwan is kidnapped in Dalian. . . . A Supreme Court justice in Brisbane, the capital of the state of Queensland, Australia, orders a freeze on A$500,000 (US$310,000) in election reimbursement funds designated for the One Nation Party, a 15-month-old far-right political party.

July 27

Reports confirm that Serb forces have recaptured the town of Malisevo and several surrounding villages in the offensive that started July 24. . . . German automaker BMW announces that it has purchased the Rolls-Royce luxury automobile brand name, along with Rolls-Royce’s “Spirit of Ecstasy” emblem for £40 million ($66 million). . . . Zbigniew Herbert, 73, Polish poet and essayist, dies in Warsaw, Poland, while suffering from asthma and circulatory ailments.

July 28

The Congolese government announces that all Rwandan, Ugandan, and Angolan troops on Congolese soil have been withdrawn, a gesture that observers interpret as meaning that Pres. Laurent Kabila no longer trusts the foreign allies who helped install him in 1997.

Some 6,400 telephone workers on the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico, a U.S. commonwealth, vote to end a 41-day-old strike against their employer, Puerto Rico Telephone Co.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 23–28, 1998—1159

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The House votes, 296-132, to override Pres. Clinton’s 1997 veto of legislation to restrict a controversial late-term abortion procedure known as intact dilation and extraction (IDE). . . . Juice maker Odwalla Inc. pleads guilty to violating federal food safety laws in connection with a shipment of tainted apple juice that killed one child and made 70 other people ill in 1996. Odwalla also agrees to pay a $1.5 million fine, which federal officials call the largest criminal penalty ever imposed in a food-injury case.

A federal jury in New York City convicts Palestinian immigrant Ghazi Ibrahim Abu Maizar of plotting to set off a bomb in the New York City subway system in 1997. Lafi Khalil, a second defendant in the case, is acquitted on charges related to the bombing plot.

Ralph Geoffrey Newman, 86, bookseller who, in 1975, was convicted on two counts of lying about his role in helping former president Richard Nixon claim an illegal income-tax deduction, dies in Chicago, Illinois, of unreported causes.

Reports confirm that scientists at the University of Hawaii have created more than 50 clones of adult mice. The cloned mice are the first confirmed instance of the cloning of adult mammals since the creation of Dolly, a sheep cloned from an adult ewe by Scottish scientists, reported in February 1997.

In a shoot-out, Russell E. Weston Jr., 41, allegedly kills two Capitol police officers. The attack is the deadliest at the Capitol since Congress first met there in 1800 and the first shooting at the building since 1954. . . . The House passes, 216-210, a bill establishing protections for patients enrolled in managed-care health insurance plans run by HMOs. . . . In Indianapolis, Indiana, Judge Gerald Zore of issues the first dismissal of a suit filed by a state seeking compensation from five tobacco companies.

In a case that drew intense media attention, a jury in New Braunfels, Texas, convicts former Air Force Academy cadet David Graham of capital murder in the 1995 slaying of 16-year-old Adrianne Jones. Graham, 21, allegedly killed Jones with his girlfriend, Diane Zamora, after Graham told Zamora that he had had a sexual encounter with Jones.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

July 23

Tazio Secchiaroli, 73, photographer whose stalking of celebrities inspired the character of Paparazzo in a Fellini film, which became the standard term for celebrity-hounding photographers, dies in Rome, Italy, after an apparent heart attack.

Tal Farlow, 77, jazz guitarist who recorded a series of notable albums in the 1950s, dies of esophageal cancer in New York City.

Don Sutton, Larry Doby, George Davis, (Bullet) Joe Rogan, former American League president Lee MacPhail, and media workers Jaime Jarrin and Sam Lacy are inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

In an honor usually reserved for high-ranking government and military officials, the flag-draped coffins of Officer Jacob Chestnut, 58, and Special Agent John Gibson, 42, killed in the July 24 shooting at the Capitol, lie in state at the Great Rotunda of the Capitol building. They are the first Capitol police officers killed while on duty.

Reports from New York City confirm that Judge Constance Baker Motley has given final approval to a $15 million settlement of a sexual-harassment and discrimination suit against Salomon Smith Barney Inc. announced in November 1997. . . . William McChesney Martin Jr., 91, chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, 1951–70, dies in Washington, D.C.

The U.S. State Department suspends the work of Sea Launch, an international joint venture formed to launch commercial satellites from a platform floating at sea.

The Senate approves, 92-6, the Credit Union Membership Access Act, a bill that expands consumers’ access to credit unions.

NASA announces that it has determined the position of SOHO, a spacecraft launched in 1995 to observe the sun with which they had lost contact in June.

Binnie Barnes (born Gertrude Maude Barnes), 95, English actress who appeared in dozens of Hollywood films, dies in Beverly Hills, California. . . . Point of Origin, by Patricia Cornwell, tops the bestseller list.

July 24

July 25

July 26

July 27

July 28

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1160—July 29–August 3, 1998

July 29

World Affairs

Europe

Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif meet in Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital, for their first talks since the May nuclear tests.

Spain’s Supreme Court sentences 12 government officials, including former interior minister Jose Barrionuevo, for illegal acts connected to the government’s effort to silence the Basque separatist movement. Barrionuevo, Julian Sancristobal, and Rafael Vera receive 10-year sentences. The ruling rekindles the long-running controversy over the “Dirty War,” in which the government allegedly sponsored death squads that kidnapped and killed dozens of suspected Basque terrorists in the 1980s.

Aug. 1

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Brazil, 2,000 military police in riot gear battle thousands of protesters outside the venue where the auction in the privatization of Telecomunicacoes Brasileiras SA (Telebras), the national telephone company, is taking place. . . . A three-person tribunal rules that the federal government owes back wages plus interest to almost 200,000 victims of unfair pay policies. If it stands, the tribunal’s decision will be one of the largest payequity monetary awards ever in North America. Officials estimate the total amount to be as high as C$5 billion (US$3.3 billion).

Lord Bingham, chief justice of Britain’s highest court, the Court of Appeal, overturns the controversial conviction of Derek Bentley, who was hanged for murder in 1953. Bingham states that Bentley did not receive “the fair trial which is the birthright of every British citizen.”

UN officials disclose that they found mass graves in the village of Mbula, Angola, that contain the bodies of 105 of the victims of the July 22 massacre in Angola’s northern diamond-mining province of Lunda Norte.

Japan’s Diet names Keizo Obuchi as Japan’s new premier, succeeding Ryutaro Hashimoto. . . . Lin Tichuan, a local Taiwanese councilor kidnapped July 27, is found dead at a mortuary in Haicheng. . . . Officials of Myanmar’s ruling military junta state that they have forced prodemocracy dissident Aung San Suu Kyi to end her standoff with police that began July 24 near Yangon. . . . A West Australian District Court jury acquits three U.S. sailors of charges that they raped a 15-year-old girl.

The IMF and the Ukrainian government agree on a three-year, $2.2 billion loan intended to help the country improve its macroeconomic outlook.

Six inmates linked to the IRA are released from Ireland’s Portlaoise Prison under the terms of the April peace agreement.

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) condemns the Algerian government’s humanrights record, citing allegations made by Algerians of systematic torture, secret detentions, and disappearances.

Japan’s Financial Supervisory Agency imposes penalties on several banks and securities brokerages for their involvement in a widespread bribery scandal. . . . Chen Xitong, the former mayor and Communist Party secretary of Beijing, China’s capital, is convicted and sentenced to 16 years in prison on charges of corruption and dereliction of duty. Chen, a former member of the party’s Politburo, is the highest-ranking Chinese leader to be imprisoned since 1978.

Milan Kovacevic, 57, allegedly responsible for the deaths of at least 2,000 people in three concentration camps near the Bosnian town of Prijedor—Omarska, Keraterm, and Trnopolje—in 1992, dies of a heart attack while in custody during his trial for war crimes in The Hague, the Netherlands.

Four illegal immigrants from Africa, along with five activists who support their plight, occupy the residence of the papal nuncio in Paris, France, demanding legal residence papers for the immigrants and for 13 others. . . . A car bomb explodes in the predominantly Protestant town of Banbridge, wounding 35 people.

July 30

July 31

Africa & the Middle East

Aug. 2

Aug. 3

Hun Sen, the de facto ruler of Cambodia and likely winner of the July elections, announces that police captured Nuon Paet, a Khmer Rouge rebel commander wanted for the 1994 kidnapping and murder of three Western tourists. Separately, reports suggest that a growing number of villagers who voted against the CPP in July are fleeing their homes for refuge in Phnom Penh, the capital.

Fighting breaks out in the Drenica valley region between Pristina, the Kosovo region’s capital, and Pec, its second-largest city. . . . A pub and two stores in Belfast, the provincial capital of Northern Ireland, are struck by firebombs.

Rebellious soldiers of the Congolese army begin an insurrection by taking control of the eastern cities Goma and Bukavu, some 900 miles (1,500 km) east of Kinshasa. Sylvain Mbuchi, who commands the army’s 10th battalion, announces that the army “had decided to remove Pres. Kabila from power.” In Kinshasa, scattered fighting breaks out, reportedly between Rwandan troops stationed in the city and Congolese government forces loyal to Kabila.

Officials of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimate that 20,000–30,000 ethnic Albanians have fled their homes in Kosovo in the past three days alone, pushing the region’s refugee problem to the brink of a humanitarian crisis. As many as 180,000 civilians have been displaced since fighting began in February.

The government restores order in Kinshasa, the Congolese capital.

Colombia’s two main rebel groups—FARC and the ELN— launch a fierce nationwide offensive that is widely seen as an intended reminder of the guerrillas’ strength in advance of planned peace talks. Reports reveal that the ELN has kidnapped Sen. Carlos Espinosa of the opposition Liberal Party.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 29–August 3, 1998—1161

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Pres. Clinton agrees to give videotaped testimony about his relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. . . . In Poughkeepsie, New York, state supreme court justice S. Barrett Hickman orders black activist Rev. Al Sharpton, Alton Maddox Jr., and C. Vernon Mason to pay $345,000 in damages in a civil defamation lawsuit brought by Steven Pagones, a former county prosecutor.

The House passes, 417-1, an appropriations bill allocating $8.45 billion for military construction spending in fiscal 1999.

Members of United Auto Workers (UAW) Locals 659 and 651 vote to ratify a labor agreement, ending strikes at two GM auto-parts factories in Flint, Michigan, that began in early June. The work stoppages produced an immense ripple effect that extended to GM plants throughout North America. . . . The House passes, 305-317, a threestate agreement to dispose of lowlevel nuclear waste at a site in western Texas near the Mexican border. The three states represented in the bill are Texas, Vermont, and Maine

Jerome Robbins (born Jerome Rabinowitz), 79, choreographer, dies in New York City of complications from a stroke suffered July 25. . . . In Westerville, Ohio, 13 machinists win the lottery with a $295.7 million jackpot, the largest lottery prize in U.S. history. . . . New York City’s Whitney Museum of American Art names Maxwell Anderson as director.

Ruthann Aron, a onetime Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, pleads no contest to charges that she tried to hire a contract killer to murder her husband, Barry Aron, and Arthur G. Kahn, one of her political rivals.

Data suggests that net investments in equity funds totaled $126.2 billion for the first six months of 1998. That is up from the $108.3 billion recorded during the comparable period of 1997’s record year. . . . The Senate, by voice vote, passes a bill that will provide $5.5 billion in early crop-support payments to farmers hurt by bad weather and a worldwide decline in commodities prices. . . . The Senate approves, by unanimous consent, a bill consolidating many federal job-training programs.

“Buffalo Bob” Smith (born Robert Schmidt), 80, whose Howdy Doody show was a staple of U.S. children’s television, 1947–60, dies of cancer in Henderson, North Carolina. . . . The Senate passes, by voice vote, a bill that will overturn MLB’s exemption from antitrust laws in regard to labor relations.

Vice Pres. Al Gore announces that the Clinton administration will delay plans to implement a nationwide system of identification numbers for medical patients until Congress passes legislation to protect patients’ privacy rights. . . . Leroy Edgar Burney, 91, U.S. surgeon general, 1956–61, and the first federal official to implicate smoking as a cause of lung cancer, dies in Arlington Heights, Illinois.

The Senate confirms, by voice vote, Pres. Clinton’s nomination of Jacob Lew as director of the White House’s OMB. Lew will succeed Franklin Raines. . . . The Senate confirms, by voice vote, Pres. Clinton’s appointment of Bill Richardson as energy secretary, succeeding Federico Pena. . . . The House approves, by voice vote, legislation that will consolidate dozens of the 163 job-training programs run by the federal government.

ABC names Patricia Fili-Krushel, 44, as president of the ABC Television Network, making her the highest-ranking woman executive in the television industry.

White House officials agree to suspend a controversial executive order on federalism issued May 14 by Pres. Clinton. The order sets out nine circumstances under which federal intervention is justified. It revokes two earlier presidential orders on federalism—issued by Clinton in 1993 and by Pres. Reagan in 1987—that stressed deference to state and local governments.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Joel Barr, 82, U.S. electronics expert who, after his defection to Czechoslovakia in 1950, was linked to the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg spy ring, dies in Moscow, Russia, of complications related to diabetes.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Anthony Munoz is the first Hispanic player inducted into the Football Hall of Fame. Four other players are inducted as well. . . . Eva Bartok, 72, Hungarian-born actress who appeared in nearly 40 films, dies in London, England, while suffering from a heart ailment.

In an upset, the U.S. All-Stars wins, 6-1, over the World All-Stars in MLS’s third annual All-Star Game. . . . Shari Lewis, 65, who had delighted children for four decades with her puppet Lamb Chop, dies in Los Angeles, California, of pneumonia while suffering from uterine cancer. . . . Marco Pantani of Italy wins the Tour de France, which was marred by charges that several teams used performance-enhancing drugs.

Capts. Richard Ashby and Joseph Schweitzer, the pilot and navigator of a Marine Corps jet that severed a ski-lift cable at an Italian resort, killing 20 people, are indicted in a U.S. military court in Italy.

The House, by voice vote, passes a bill that will provide $5.5 billion in early crop-support payments to farmers hurt by bad weather and a worldwide decline in commodities prices.

Alfred Schnittke, 63, Russian composer whose works include eight symphonies, more than 60 film scores, and a satirical opera, dies in Hamburg, Germany of a stroke; earlier had strokes had left him severely handicapped.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 29

July 30

July 31

Aug. 1

Aug. 2

Aug. 3

1162—August 4–9, 1998

World Affairs

Aug. 4

Aug. 5

The Iraqi government of Pres. Saddam Hussein states that it is freezing cooperation with UN weapons inspectors to underscore its insistence that crippling UN sanctions imposed against Iraq since 1991 must end. Iraq reveals that it is discontinuing its relations with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which was responsible for monitoring Iraq’s nuclear weapons programs.

Aug. 6

Aug. 7

Aug. 8

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

In Kosovo, Serb forces capture the Drenica valley town of Lausa, one of the UCK’s strongholds.

Rebels use an air convoy to transport some 600 troops from Goma, in the east, to Kitona, a Congolese military base 190 miles (300 km) southwest of Kinshasa, Congo’s capital.

In Colombia, 500 FARC fighters overrun a U.S.-supported police antinarcotics base in Milaflores, Guaviare province. Out of the estimated 150–200 soldiers and police officers stationed at the base, at least 30 are killed, 50 are wounded, and the rest are taken hostage.

Todor Zhivkov, 86, Bulgarian communist who ruled his country for 35 years, 1954–89, longer than any other leader in the former Soviet bloc, dies in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Two Jewish men are shot to death near the small West Bank settlement of Yitzhar, located some 4 miles (6 km) south of Nablus.

Data shows that more than 40 rebels and government soldiers have been killed in La Uribe in Colombia’s Meta province since fighting broke out Aug. 3.

Thomas McMahon, a former IRA member convicted in the 1979 bombing death of Britain’s Lord Mountbatten, is freed from an Irish prison as part of a prisoner-release plan in the April Northern Ireland peace agreement. . . . Reports from kosovo state that Serb forces have destroyed more than a dozen villages in the Drenica region, bombarding them with artillery and then using gasoline to burn farms and fields.

Rebel troops capture the Congolese western town of Moanda, an oil depot, and the nearby city of Banana.

Slobodan Miljkovic, an accused Serb war criminal, is shot dead by a Serb policeman during a bar brawl in Kragujevac, Yugoslavia. Two others are also killed in an argument which is allegedly prompted when Miljkovic allegedly insults the officer’s girlfriend. Miljkovic was accused of murder, war crimes, and crimes against humanity that allegedly took place in Bosanski Samac, a northeastern Bosnian town, in 1992.

Two bombs explode within minutes of each other near the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The Nairobi blast kills at least 247 people—including 12 U.S. citizens— and wounds approximately 5,000 thousand others. In Dar es Salaam, 10 people are killed, and some 75 people are reported wounded. U.S., Kenyan, and Tanzanian officials asserts that the bombings are most likely unrelated to political conditions within the two African countries and are aimed at the U.S.

The four illegal immigrants from Africa, along with five activists who support their plight, end their occupancy of the residence of the papal nuncio in Paris, France, which began Aug. 1.

In the Angolan town of Kunda-DyaBase, 250 miles (400 km) east of Luanda, the capital, 150 people die in a massacre by unknown assailants. . . . Rescue and medical teams from the U.S., Israel, France, Britain, and other countries arrive in Nairobi, Kenya, in the wake of the Aug. 7 bomb. U.S. officials suspect the involvement of groups linked to Osama bin Laden, a Saudi-born multimillionaire believed to support militant Islamic followers.

Asia & the Pacific

Cambodia’s de facto leader, Hun Sen, is declared the winner of the country’s July 26 national election. . . . Foreign ministers from Indonesia and Portugal announce they have agreed on a general outline of an autonomy plan for the disputed territory of East Timor. The accord is the first major breakthrough in the two nations’ dispute over the region. Since Indonesia annexed East Timor in 1976, more than 100,000 people are thought to have been killed.

Andres Pastrana Arango is inaugurated as Colombia’s president in Bogota, the capital. The Red Cross reveals that 100 people have been killed in attacks since Aug. 3 and that some 75 police and soldiers are missing and presumed to be held captive. A FARC leader discloses that the offensive that began Aug. 3 was intended as a parting shot at the government of outgoing president Samper. . . . Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori accepts the resignation of Premier Javier Valle Riestra, a liberal who, since his June appointment, has repeatedly clashed with hard-liners. In Afghanistan, the Taliban captures the opposition’s capital, Mazar-i-Sharif, the base of operations for ousted president Burhanuddin Rabbani and ethnic Uzbek militia leader Gen. Abdul Rashid Doestam.

Police arrest 18 foreigners who are handing out leaflets commemorating the Aug. 8 anniversary of a violent crackdown on prodemocracy demonstrators in Yangon and expressing support for Myanmar’s prodemocracy movement.

Aug. 9

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 4–9, 1998—1163

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Pres. Clinton directs the Department of Health and Human Services to allow states to eliminate a rule that bars Medicaid coverage for some poor families with two working parents.

The U.S. Air Force announces that it will replace its cold war–era structure by reorganizing its staff and aircraft into 10 expeditionary units that will take turns being deployed to troubled areas worldwide.

The House by voice vote approves the Credit Union Membership Access Act, a bill that expands consumers’ access to credit unions.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Aug. 4

A Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, woman, Marie Noe, is arrested and charged with fatally smothering eight of her 10 children from 1949 to 1968.

Anglican bishops attending a worldwide church conference, overwhelmingly approve a resolution calling homosexuality “incompatible with Scripture.”

Before a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, 25, testifies that she and Pres. Clinton had a sexual affair inside the White House and that they discussed ways of keeping it secret.

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt announces that the Interior Department will open more than 4 million acres (1.62 million hectares) of the Alaska National Petroleum Reserve to oil and gas leasing. . . . The House votes, 252-179, to approve a proposal to overhaul the nation’s campaign-finance laws. . . . Dorothy Carnegie Rivkin (born Dorothy Price), 85, wife of Dale Carnegie who turned Dale Carnegie Training into a multinational operation, dies in New York City.

U.S. district judge Norma Holloway Johnson unseals a June ruling in which she ordered Kenneth Starr’s office to demonstrate that it did not leak grand jury information to the media. . . . The House attaches an antigay measure to a spending bill for the District of Columbia, which passes, 214-206. It is the third House measure seen as antigay that has been attached to other bills since July 29.

Pres. Clinton signs legislation that will consolidate dozens of the 163 job-training programs run by the federal government. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a bill expanding consumers’ access to credit unions. . . . The Labor Department reports that the economy, hindered by Southeast Asia’s financial crisis, created only 66,000 jobs in July. This marks the lowest monthly job expansion in 30 months. . . . Rose Blumkin, 104, furniture industry magnate whose 1937 store grew into one of the U.S.’s largest home-furnishings stores, dies in Omaha, Nebraska.

Andre Weil, 92, French-born mathematician who made fundamental contributions to areas of mathematics ranging from number theory to algebraic geometry, dies in Princeton, New Jersey.

Jack (John Beasley) Brickhouse, 82, baseball announcer who, between 1940 and 1981, broadcast a total of more than 5,000 regularseason games for the Chicago Cubs and the Chicago White Sox, dies in Chicago, Illinois, of cardiac arrest.

Reverend Raymond E. Brown, 70, Roman Catholic biblical scholar and author of historically oriented works on the New Testament, dies in Redwood City, California, of a heart attack.

Some 1,500 U.S. and Mexican citizens complete a 76-mile (120-km) march from El Paso, Texas, to Sierra Blanca to protest the construction of the Sierra Blanca waste-storage site. Marchers express fears that the nuclear waste stored at the site may leak into the nearby Rio Grande river and contaminate water supplies in both the U.S. and Mexico.

Aug. 5

Aug. 6

Aug. 7

Scores of demonstrators mark the 100th anniversary of the U.S. annexation of Hawaii by staging a march in Washington, D.C. The protesters aim to highlight the growing support for sovereignty among native Hawaiians, who make up a small minority of the island state’s population.

Two boys, ages seven and eight, are charged in a Chicago juvenile court with murdering an 11-yearold girl, Ryan Harris, in late July. According to crime experts, the defendants are among the youngest children in U.S. history ever to be charged with murder.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Some workers affiliated with the Communications Workers of America (CWA), a union that represents 73,000 Bell Atlantic employees, walk off their jobs at Bell Atlantic. The CWA and BellSouth Corp., a Baby Bell based in Atlanta, Georgia, agree on the terms of a tentative three-year labor contract covering 48,000 workers.

Yugoslavia wins the men’s world basketball championships for a record fourth time by edging out Russia, 64-62, in Athens, Greece.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 8

Aug. 9

1164—August 10–15, 1998

World Affairs

Aug. 10

Aug. 11

Europe

U.S. vice president Al Gore announces that the earth’s average temperature for July was 61.7°F (16.5°C), the highest ever recorded. It was 1.26°F hotter than average.

Africa & the Middle East Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah installs his 24-year-old son, Prince al-Muhtadee Billah, as Brunei’s crown prince.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Jamil Mahuad Witt is inaugurated as president of Ecuador, succeeding acting president Fabian Alarcon.

Taliban troops intensify their assault on the Panjshir Valley stronghold of Gen. Ahmed Shah Massoud’s ethnic Tajik forces. Separately, Iran demands that the Taliban leadership provide a full accounting of 11 Iranian diplomats whom Taliban troops allegedly seized upon entering Mazar-i-Sharif. . . . Ten people are hospitalized in the Japanese city of Niigata after drinking coffee and tea apparently containing an unidentified poisonous substance.

Oil industry giant British Petroleum PLC (BP) announces a planned merger with the U.S.-based Amoco Corp. in a stock transaction valued at $48.2 billion. If completed, the deal will be the largest oil-industry merger ever, the largest transnational merger, the largest combination of industrial companies, and the largest foreign takeover of a U.S. firm—displacing the May merger of Daimler-Benz AG and Chrysler Corp.

In Afghanistan, Gen. Ahmed Shah Massoud’s ethnic Tajik forces pull out of Taloqan, the capital of Takhar province, to consolidate their position in the Panjshir Valley, some 25 miles (40 km) north of Taliban-controlled Kabul, the capital.

The British government reports that the national unemployment rate, seasonally adjusted, fell to 4.7% in July, from 4.8% in June. The July figure is the lowest recorded since 1980. . . . In a landmark settlement, officials from Swiss banks and representatives of victims of the Nazi Holocaust announce they have reached an accord under which the banks will pay a total of $1.25 billion to compensate Holocaust victims who lost assets deposited in Swiss accounts before and during World War II.

Aug. 12

Eve Boswell (born Eva Keleti), 76, Hungarian-born singer who rose to the top of British pop charts in the 1950s, dies in Durban, South Africa, after suffering a heart attack.

Aug. 13

The Taliban ousts the opposition Northern Alliance from the town of Hayratan, extending Taliban rule to 90% of Afghanistan’s territory. The Taliban also seizes Pol-i-Khomri. . . . In Indonesia, a military court hands down jail terms of less than a year each to two officers whose troops opened fire on student demonstrators in May, killing four. . . . In Myanmar, police stop Aung San Suu Kyi as she attempts to meet with her NLD party. She refuses to return to Yangon. . . . A Chinese court convicts four Taiwanese men of espionage. A Tutsi-led rebel group called the Congolese Democratic Movement announces that it has captured the Inga hydroelectric dam, which supplies power to the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, in its quest to topple the government of Pres. Laurent Kabila.

Officials of Citizenship and Immigration Canada announce that four Filipino seamen will be allowed to stay in Canada on humanitarian grounds. The men told Halifax, Nova Scotia, authorities in 1996 that they witnessed six Taiwanese officers force three Romanian stowaways off the vessel and onto rafts in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Reports reveal that Israel paid some $335,000 in compensation to a Palestinian mother whose son, Abd al-Samed Harizat, purportedly a member of Hamas, was tortured to death by Shin Bet.

Aug. 14

A car bomb explodes in the town of Omagh, in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, killing 28 people and wounding 220 others. The blast is widely regarded as the worst act of violence yet in the long-running conflict between the British-controlled province’s Roman Catholic and Protestant residents.

Aug. 15

The 18 foreigners arrested Aug. 9 in Yangon, Myanmar, are convicted of attempting to incite unrest and sentenced to five years’ hard labor. However, the Home Affairs Ministry suspends the sentences and orders the activists deported.

Raul Cubas Grau is inaugurated as president of Paraguay in Asuncion, the capital. Cubas succeeds Juan Carlos Wasmosy. . . . In Colombia, FARC guerrillas attack the 17th army brigade in the northwestern Uraba region.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 10–15, 1998—1165

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

June Gibbs Brown, the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), argues that Medicare, the federal program that provides health insurance to the nation’s elderly and disabled, overpaid health maintenance organizations (HMOs) by as much as $1.9 billion in 1996. Her report claims that Medicare overpaid HMOs by as much as $1.3 billion in 1995 and $1 billion in 1994.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

CWA members set up picket lines outside Bell Atlantic offices in several cities in the Northeast, and 12 strike-related arrests are reported.

Aug. 10

A juvenile-court judge in Jonesboro, Arkansas, finds Andrew Golden, 12, and Mitchell Johnson, 14, guilty of carrying out a fatal shooting spree at their junior high school in March. Five people—four students and a teacher—were killed in the gunfire, and 10 others were wounded. . . . New England’s Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation opens its Mashantucket Museum and Research Center, located near Mashantucket, Connecticut.

The attorney for the family of Ezequiel Hernandez Jr., 18, who was fatally shot by a member of a Marine Corps antidrug patrol near the U.S.-Mexico border in 1997, reveals that the U.S. government will pay a $1.9 million settlement to the teen’s family.

Bell Atlantic reaches a tentative agreement on a two-year contract with the CWA, ending a strike that started Aug. 9. . . . The Labor Department reports that the nation’s overall productivity in nonfarm business sectors dropped by a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 0.2% in the second quarter from the January-through-March quarter. That marks the indicator’s first decline since the first quarter of 1995.

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California, upholds a lower court’s decision when it rules that Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in health maintenance organizations (HMOs) are entitled to a broader set of legal protections than currently enforced by the federal government.

Trading company Sumitomo Corp. agrees to pay $99 million to settle six class-action lawsuits filed against it in the state of New York. The lawsuits were filed on behalf on copper futures and options traders who, between 1993 and 1996, suffered losses due to illegal copper price manipulation by a Sumitomo trader, Yasuo Hamanaka.

Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill that will provide $5.5 billion in early crop-support payments to farmers hurt by bad weather and a worldwide decline in commodities prices.

An Air Force rocket carrying a U.S. spy satellite explodes just after its launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Former Democratic fund-raiser Eugene K. H. Lum, convicted of campaign finance violations in 1997, pleads guilty to unrelated tax violations. . . . A federal judge in Phoenix, Arizona, approves a $100 million settlement between the state of Arizona and three copper-mining companies regarding underground pollution threatening Pinal Creek, a major source of drinking water in east-central Arizona.

Three Russian cosmonauts bound for the Mir space station blast off in Kazakhstan. They are scheduled to be the next-to-last crew to inhabit Mir. . . . The FTC and GeoCities, a popular site on the Internet computer network, disclose they have reached an agreement settling charges that the site violated users’ right to privacy. The settlement represents the first time that the government used federal law to enforce privacy protections for Internet users.

The Oakland, California, City Council designates staff members of a local club that distributes marijuana for medical uses as officers of the city. The move is intended to shield the club, the Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative, from prosecution under federal drug laws.

An appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, rules that the FDA does not have the authority to regulate cigarettes or smokeless tobacco products. . . . A jury finds Miami Commissioner Humberto Hernandez guilty of one misdemeanor count related to election fraud . . . NYC mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R) orders five city hospitals to wean 2,000 patients in their methadone programs from the drug. . . . Chalmers Pangburn Wylie, 77, (R, Ohio) who served in the House of Representatives, 1967–93, dies in Columbus, Ohio of a heart attack.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Steve Fossett is the first person to cross the South Atlantic Ocean in a balloon. . . . Benny Waters, 96, jazz musician, dies in Columbia, Maryland, of cardiac arrest. . . . The United Methodist Church rules that ministers who perform marriage rites for homosexuals violate church law.

Pres. Clinton grants waivers allowing three of the U.S. civilians killed Aug. 7 in the Nairobi, Kenya, bombing to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

Aug. 11

Aug. 12

Julian Green, 97, French-American novelist and playwright who, as a U.S. citizen, became the first foreigner elected to the Academie Francaise in 1971 but renounced his membership in 1996 on the grounds that he felt “exclusively American.” dies in Paris, France, of unreported causes.

Jerry Loftis, a pioneer in the sport of sky surfing, falls to his death during a skydiving exhibition at an airfield near Quincy, Illinois.

Aug. 13

Aug. 14

Aug. 15

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1166—August 16–21, 1998

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Colombia, Defense Minister Rodrigo Lloreda reveals that 36 soldiers and an estimated 63 rebels have been killed since the Aug. 15 assault began. . . . Puerto Rico governor Pedro Rossello signs a bill authorizing a nonbinding referendum on whether the Caribbean island should become the 51st U.S. state.

Due to ongoing torrential summer rains, the third of three dikes protecting the Daqing oil field in northeastern China, which produces a third of the country’s petroleum output, bursts. . . . South Korea’s parliament approves the appointment of Kim Jong Pil as premier. . . . Chinese students’ and women’s groups hold events in Beijing, the capital, to protest the anti-Chinese violence in Indonesia. Groups of students visit Indonesia’s Beijing embassy to register their protest.

Aug. 16

In an effort to prevent a collapse of the Russian economy, the Russian government takes a series of drastic measures, including a de facto devaluation of the ruble, the national currency; restructuring of the domestic bond market; and a moratorium on foreign-debt repayment.

Aug. 17

An IRA splinter group calling itself the Real IRA claims responsibility for the Aug. 15 bombing in the town of Omagh, in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland.

Aug. 18

Assicurazioni Generali SpA, Italy’s largest insurance company, tentatively agrees to pay $100 million to victims of the Nazi Holocaust and victims’ heirs, who were denied access to benefits from policies they purchased from Generali before and during World War II. . . . In rare appearance together, Gerry Adams, head of Sinn Fein, the IRA’s political wing, and Northern Ireland Protestant leader David Trimble attend a funeral service in Buncrana, Ireland, for three victims of the Aug. 15 Omagh bombing.

Aug. 19

Aug. 20

Aug. 21

In Paraguay, Pres. Cubas commutes a jail sentence against retired general Lino Cesar Oviedo, the original presidential candidate of Cubas’s Colorado Party sentenced to prison in March.

Canadian justice Robert Blair approves the sale of the Canadian Red Cross’s national blood-collection and distribution services. The planned sale is part of a major reorganization of the not-for-profit humanitarian agency, which faces more than 200 lawsuits filed by people who contracted the hepatitis C virus or HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, from transfusions of tainted blood.

Two unidentified men attack and severely hurt popular Hong Kong radio talk-show host Albert Cheng with carving knives. Cheng is wellknown for his sharp criticisms of the territorial and Chinese governments and of powerful interest groups in Hong Kong society.

The U.S. fires some 75 Tomahawk cruise missiles at facilities in Afghanistan and Sudan thought to have links to terrorist activities. U.S. president Bill Clinton states the strikes are a response to an “imminent threat” to the U.S. posed by a terrorist network backed by Saudi-born multimillionaire Osama bin Laden, who currently lives in Afghanistan.

Kenyan authorities announce that the deaths of six Kenyans injured in the Aug. 7 blast in Nairobi brings the death toll in that bombing to 253. The total death toll from the twin embassy bombings now stands at 263. . . . Shlomo Raanan, 63, becomes the third Jewish settler killed in August by suspected Palestinians when he is fatally stabbed in the divided West Bank city of Hebron. The Israeli army immediately seals off Hebron and imposes a curfew on Palestinians in the Israeli-controlled part of the city.

The Supreme Court of Canada issues a ruling stating that under both Canadian and international law, the province of Quebec will not be free to secede from Canada without first negotiating terms with the other provinces and with the federal government.

In Cambodia, opposition party leader Sam Rainsy narrowly escapes a drive-by shooting and grenade blast that kills a driver for Japanese journalists. . . . The Nen River swamps parts of the Daqing oil field in northeastern China, which produces a third of the country’s petroleum output. . . . Vu Van Mau, 84, South Vietnam’s premier in the last days before the communists declared victory in the Vietnam War in 1975, dies in Paris, France.

Representatives from16 Caribbean nations open a summit meeting in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Some 50 settlers go on a rampage in Hebron and beat two Palestinian passersby, hospitalizing one of them. The attack prompts clashes between Palestinians, settlers, and Israeli soldiers. . . . A court in the South African town of George finds former president P. W. Botha guilty of contempt for refusing to testify before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and orders him to pay a fine of about $1,600 or to serve one year in prison.

Reports confirm that former president Juan Carlos Wasmosy, has taken refuge in the Argentine embassy in Asunción, Paraguay’s capital, in what is seen as a move to avoid arrest on corruption charges.

An Italian army officer who works for the UN Special Mission to Afghanistan is shot in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, in an apparent act of retaliation for the Aug. 20 U.S. missile strikes. . . . Australia’s federal court rules that the Northern Territory government has the right to grant a lease to Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) to mine uranium at Jabiluka, an area in the custody of the Mirrar aboriginal people. . . . The Indonesian government shuts down three commercial banks and takes control of four others in an effort to restructure the nation’s ailing banking system.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 16–21, 1998—1167

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The U.S. orders nonessential diplomatic personnel and dependents in Pakistan to return to the U.S. The order comes partially in response to threats of retaliation for the recent arrest in Pakistan of a suspect in the Aug. 7 African embassy bombings. The U.S. evacuates its diplomats from Tirana, the capital of Albania, in response to threats of an attack on its embassy there by Islamic militants.

Some 34,000 CWA members employed by US West Inc., a Baby Bell headquartered in Denver, Colorado, go on strike.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Dorothy West, 91, member of the Harlem Renaissance circle of black writers, dies in Boston, Massachusetts. . . . Jim (James Patrick) Murray, 78, nationally syndicated Pulitzer Prize–winning sportswriter, dies in Los Angeles of cardiac arrest. . . . D.C. United defeats Mexican soccer champion Toluca, 1-0, to become the first U.S. team to win the CONCACAF Champions’ Cup. . . . Golfer Vijay Singh of Fiji wins the PGA Championship in Redmond, Washington.

Pres. Clinton testifies to a federal grand jury about his relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. In a televised address, the president acknowledges that he and Lewinsky had had a relationship that was “not appropriate.” While he asserts that “at no time did I ask anyone to lie, to hide or destroy evidence, or to take any other unlawful action,” he admits he “misled” the public and his wife, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

CBS names Nancy Tellem the head of its entertainment division, making her the second woman to head a network’s entertainment division. . . . An estimated 10 million TV viewers tune in to coverage regarding the scandal involving Pres. Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.

The first official tally of terminally ill people who died in Oregon from lethal medications prescribed under a state law permitting physician-assisted suicide stands at eight since the law took effect in November 1997. Two other patients received state authorization to take lethal drugs but died from their illnesses before doing so.

Bill Richardson is sworn in as energy secretary. . . . The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. trade deficit contracted 8.9% in June, following a string of four record highs in five months. The department records a seasonally adjusted $14.15 billion gap in trade in goods and services for June. May’s revised record deficit stood at $15.54 billion.

In Miami, Florida, Circuit Court judge Roberto Pineiro sentences suspended Miami commissioner Humberto Hernandez to the maximum 364 days in jail for trying to cover up vote fraud in the city’s 1997 municipal elections.

A statement published in the London-based Arabic newspaper Al Hayat by a coalition of militant Islamic groups assembled by Osama bin Laden warns of more terrorist attacks against the U.S. The group, the World Islamic Front for Holy War Against Jews and Crusaders, threatens that the U.S. will “face a black fate.” The statement also attributes the Aug. 7 embassy bombings to the previously unknown Islamic Army for the Liberation of Holy Shrines in retaliation for the U.S.’s actions in Somalia in 1993.

A committee recommends that the federal government’s system of ensuring food safety be brought under the control of a single authority. . . . Monica Lewinsky testifies before a grand jury regarding her involvement with Pres. Clinton when she was an intern at the White House. . . . . Melissa Drexler, 20, pleads guilty to aggravated manslaughter in the killing of her newborn son after giving birth in the bathroom at her senior prom in 1997 when she was 18.

Pres. Clinton signs an executive order freezing any U.S. assets held by Osama bin Laden, two of his top lieutenants, or his Islamic Army group. The order also prohibits financial transactions between those entities and U.S. companies and individuals.

A jury in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, convicts former Ku Klux Klan (KKK) leader Samuel Bowers of murder for ordering and planning the 1966 killing of civil-rights activist Vernon Dahmer Sr., who died from severe burns after a group of Klansmen firebombed his home and business. Dahmer apparently was targeted because he allowed his store to be used as a voter-registration venue for fellow blacks. Judge Richard McKenzie sentences Bowers to a life prison term immediately after the verdict is announced.

U.S. lawyers file a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Newark, New Jersey, against Germany’s Degussa AG, a chemicals and metals company, on behalf of Holocaust victims, contending that Degussa willingly worked with the Nazis to produce Zyklon B, a fatal gas used in death camps during World War II.

World War II researchers in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, claim that they found five handwritten pages of Anne Frank’s diary that were previously not known to exist.

Aug. 16

Aug. 17

Aug. 18

Aug. 19

Aug. 20

Data reveals that attendance at 1998 Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) games rose by 12% a game to an average of 10,869 spectators. . . . Wanda Toscanini Horowitz, 90, daughter of classical musician Arturo Toscanini and wife of pianist Vladimir Horowitz, dies in New York City.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 21

1168—August 22–27, 1998

World Affairs

Europe In memory of the Aug. 15 bombing, at least 40,000 people gather in the town of Omagh, Northern Ireland, to observe a minute of silence, along with thousands of others at memorials throughout the country. Some 12,000 demonstrators gather for a peace rally in Dundalk. The Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), a hard-line Roman Catholic guerrilla group, announces an end to its use of violent tactics.

Aug. 22

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar appoints an interim cabinet to prepare Nigeria for transition to civilian rule by May 1999.

An official radio broadcast of the Taliban militia that controls most of Afghanistan reports that 21 people were killed by the Aug. 20 U.S. missile attack on camps in that country. Lt. Col. Carmine Calo, the Italian army officer shot Aug. 21, dies in Afghanistan.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin dismisses reformist premier Sergei Kiriyenko and reinstates Kiriyenko’s predecessor, Viktor Chernomyrdin.

Aug. 23

Officials announce that Lt. Gen. Prabowo Subianto, son-in-law of former Indonesian president Suharto, was dismissed from the military in response to his alleged role in the abduction and torture of political dissidents in 1997 and early 1998. . . . About 200 students stage a demonstration in support of the NLD in Yangon, the capital of Myanmar, in the first street protest there since 1996. The SPDC reports that prodemocracy dissident Aung San Suu Kyi voluntarily ended a standoff with police that started Aug. 12 near Yangon. . . . In Cambodia, protestors begin a round-the-clock demonstration near Parliament. . . . In South Korea, Hyundai Motor and its workers’ labor union reach an agreement, ending a strike that started in July.

Aug. 24

Aug. 25

Reports reveal that the UN international war crimes tribunal has begun to investigate war crimes committed in Kosovo.

The Russian government announces details of a bond restructuring that will cost Russian banks and foreign investors billions of dollars. In response, the ruble plummets to 7.86 to the dollar from 7.14, a 9% drop that is the Russian currency’s biggest one-day decline in four years.

A bomb explodes in a restaurant in Cape Town, South Africa, killing one person and injuring 27 others.

The New South Wales Health Department warns residents of Sydney, Australia, that the city’s tap water has been contaminated by two parasite strains, giardia and cryptosporidium. The same parasites were found in municipal tap water in July. Separately, officials state Australia will accept fewer refugee immigrants from Asia in the fiscal year that began June 30 than in the previous fiscal year. The number of refugee immigrants accepted from Europe—particularly those from nations that made up the former Yugoslavia—will increase.

Russia’s central bank suspends the trading of rubles for U.S. dollars as the Russian currency, devalued Aug. 17 by the government of Pres. Boris Yeltsin, continues to lose value.

Aug. 26

Aug. 27

Asia & the Pacific

The financial crisis in Russia unleashes investor fears worldwide, as economists and traders express alarm that Asia’s year-old economic upheaval will envelop Latin American emerging markets and bring growth among major industrialized nations to a halt. Waves of stock selling jars markets in most of Asia, Europe, and the Americas. . . . The UN Security Council passes a resolution stipulating that economic sanctions against Libya will be removed when Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, suspects in the 1988 Pan Am 103 bombing, are delivered to the international tribunal.

Russia’s central bank shuts down the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange, the nation’s main currency exchange, after 10 minutes of trading shows the ruble falling further. The Russian Trading System index of stocks plunges by 17% to close at 63.2 points, the index’s lowest level since it was created in September 1995. The Russian stock market has dropped by 84% since the beginning of 1998. . . . Bob Arnold, 87, actor on a British radio serial for several years, dies.

China announces that 3,004 people have died since June in severe floods along several Chinese rivers. The floods, an annual product of torrential summer rains, are the worst in China since 1954. China’s state-run Xinhua news agency estimates the economic losses resulting from the floods at 166.6 billion yuan ($20 billion).

A small pipe bomb crammed with nails explodes in a trash can in central Tel Aviv, Israel, injuring more than 20 people.

The government reports that Malaysia has slipped into its first recession in 13 years.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 22–27, 1998—1169

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Elena Garro, 78, Mexican novelist and playwright, dies of emphysema in Cuernavaca, Mexico. . . . Woody Stephens, 84, U.S. horse trainer, dies in Miami Lakes, Florida, of complications of emphysema.

Francisco Salveron, 88, Philippineborn aide to General Douglas MacArthur during World War II, dies of lung cancer in Bladensburg, Maryland.

Aug. 23

A special three-judge federal panel unanimously rejects the Census Bureau’s proposed use of statistical sampling in conducting the national census in the year 2000, finding that such a use of sampling is in direct violation of existing federal law. . . . Charles Coles Diggs Jr., 75, (D, Mich.), who served in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1955–80, dies in Washington D.C., of a stroke. . . . John R(ichard) Williams, 88, (R, Ariz.) who, after serving two terms as mayor of Phoenix, became governor of Arizona, 1967–75, dies in Phoenix, Arizona.

U.S. officials confirm that a federal grand jury has issued a sealed indictment against Osama bin Laden for terrorist attacks against the U.S. prior to the embassy bombings in Africa.

E. G. Marshall, stage, screen, and television actor who won two Emmy Awards, dies in Mount Kisco, New York. His age is variously reported at 88 and 84.

Pres. Clinton orders the creation of a Council on Food Safety. . . . Lewis Franklin Powell Jr., 90, associate justice of the Supreme Court, 1972–87, who generally sided with the court’s conservative bloc on business and crime issues but often provided the swing vote on social issues that allowed the court’s liberal bloc to prevail, dies of pneumonia in Richmond, Virginia. . . . Floyd K. Haskell, 82, (D, Colo.), who served one term in the Senate, 1973–79, dies of pneumonia while being transported to a Washington, D.C., hospital from Maine.

A U.S. grand jury in San Juan, Puerto Rico, indicts seven Cuban Americans on charges that they plotted to kill Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz during a visit to Venezuela’s Margarita Island in 1997.

Reports confirm that the Wortham Foundation and the Houston Endowment have each donated $3.65 million to the Houston Symphony Orchestra in one of the largest arts grants of 1998.

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of U.S. District Court orders New York City to allow a rally, billed as the “Million Youth March,” to take place. NYC mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani has refused to grant a permit for the has planned event, which he called a “hate march.”

An unmanned Delta 3 rocket carrying a private communications satellite blows up about 80 seconds after its launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The launch is the first flight of the newest version of the Delta rocket. . . . Frederick Reines, 80, U.S. physicist who received a 1995 Nobel Prize in physics for his mid1950s discovery of the subatomic particle known as the neutrino, dies in Orange, California. Mohamed Rashed Daoud alOwhali, a suspect in the Aug. 7 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, is flown from Nairobi to New York City, where he is arraigned in U.S. District Court on charges related to the bombing.

Aug. 22

Some 935 million shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange, second in volume only to the record registered in October 1997. . . . The Commerce Department reports that gross domestic product (GDP) grew at a revised, seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.6% in the second quarter. That compares with an annualized GDP expansion of 5.5% in the JanuaryMarch quarter.

Aug. 24

Aug. 25

Aug. 26

An intense five-minute wave of radiation emanating from a faraway star disturbs the Earth’s upper atmosphere.

Aug. 27

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1170—August 28–September 2, 1998

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Aug. 28

Aug. 29

Minerva Bernardino, 91, one of the four women to sign the UN Charter in 1945 and one of the feminists who helped to create the UN Commission on the Status of Women, dies in the Dominican Republic.

To mark the first anniversary of the Aug. 31 death of Diana, Princess of Wales, a service is held for the royal family at a church near Balmoral Castle, Queen Elizabeth II’s retreat in Scotland. Thousands of people gather near Kensington Palace, Diana’s residence in London, to remember her.

Aug. 30

Aug. 31

Sept. 1

Sudanese news media report that one person was killed in the Aug. 20 strike by the U.S. on the Al Shifa plant, and nine others were injured.

The Dow Jones World Stock Index, a measure of overall movement in stock markets worldwide, closes at 164.75 points. That represents a decline of 7.9% in the average weighted value of securities in global stock markets since Aug. 26, when the Dow’s world index stood at 178.91.

The communist-dominated Russian parliament overwhelmingly rejects Pres. Boris Yeltsin’s bid to reinstate his longtime premier, Viktor Chernomyrdin. Rather than consider another candidate, Yeltsin immediately renominates Chernomyrdin. . . . Sir (Leslie) Gordon Newton, 90, British journalist who was knighted in 1966, dies.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin and U.S. president Bill Clinton hold a summit, their first meeting since March 1997.

Lord Rothermere (born Vere Harold Esmond Harmsworth), 73, British newspaper magnate who turned the Daily Mail into a highly successful tabloid, dies of a heart attack in London, England.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Reports confirm that Colombia’s Supreme Court will open an investigation into a 1996 decision by Congress to clear former president Ernesto Samper of the charges that drug cartels financed his 1994 presidential campaign.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock index is pushed down to 13,915.63 points, a 12-year low. . . . Vietnam’s government announces that it will soon free more than 5,000 prisoners in a mass amnesty deal. Among the inmates to be released are Doan Viet Hoat and Nguyen Dan Que, two of the country’s most prominent political dissidents.

A Cuban airliner crashes and explodes at the international airport in Quito, Ecuador, after a failed take-off attempt. The plane skids off the end of the runway and slams through a fence into an adjacent field where several children are playing soccer. Score of people are killed.

The official death toll from the Aug. 29 crash in Ecuador stands at 79. Ten of those killed, including five children, were on the ground when the plane crashed. . . . Voters in Panama overwhelmingly reject a constitutional change that would have allowed Panamanian president Ernesto Perez Balladares to seek a second five-year term in 1999.

Thousands of demonstrators march through the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital, calling for the ouster of Hun Sen, the country’s recently elected premier. The demonstrators argue that the election was tainted by fraud and voter intimidation. The march is held as demonstrators continue a round-the-clock protest that started Aug. 24. . . . Authorities release from prison Wang Youcai, one of several founders of the China Democracy Party arrested in July, and place him under house arrest. North Korea fires a medium-range ballistic missile toward Japan. The launch prompts concern among other countries that North Korea’s introduction of a new, longer-range missile may spur new missile proliferation in Asia. . . . In Indonesia, rioters attack ethnic Chinese and burn buildings in Lhokseumawe, in the northern province of Aceh.

Iran begins conducting military exercises known as Ashura 3 about 40 miles (65 km) from the Afghanistan border.

In response to the Aug. 31 missile launch, Japan puts off a planned resumption of talks with North Korea on establishing diplomatic relations. Japan also suspends food aid to famine-stricken North Korea.

Swissair Flight 111 plunges into the Atlantic Ocean about 5 miles (8 km) off the southeastern shore of Nova Scotia, Canada. Apparently all 229 people aboard the plane are killed. . . . Pilots employed by Air Canada go on strike.

Sept. 2

Thousands of students in Yangon, the capital of Myanmar, stage protests against the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). The protests are the largest since December 1996. . . . An Australian justice refuses to extend a two-month-long freeze on A$500,000 (US$300,000) in election reimbursement funds designated for the far-right One Nation Party.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 28–September 2, 1998—1171

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reinstates a lawsuit challenging a law barring gun ownership by people convicted of domestic abuse.

Mohammed Saddiq Odeh, a suspect accused of helping plot the Aug. 7 bombing of a U.S. embassy in Kenya, is charged in U.S. District Court on charges related to the blast.

The Dow Jones falls 357.36 points, or 4.2%, to 8165.99. That marks the average’s worst trading day to date in 1998.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Aug. 28

Some 6,170 pilots employed by Northwest Airlines go on strike, grounding all 400 of Northwest’s airplanes and also the airplanes owned by the company’s commuter affiliates. Thousands of Northwest passengers are stranded worldwide. The pilots’ strike is the first at Northwest since 1978. It is also the first at any U.S. carrier since February 1997, when pilots employed by American Airlines Inc. staged a brief stoppage.

A Toms River, New Jersey, baseball team wins the Little League World Series, 12-9, over defeated a team from Kashima, Japan, in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

Aug. 29

Aug. 30

US West Inc. reaches a tentative three-year contract agreement with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) labor union, ending a strike that started Aug. 16. . . . The Dow Jones closes at 7539.07, or some 19.3% down from its record high set July 17. It is down 6.37%, or 512.61 points, the second largest single-session point decline on record. The drop is not among top-20 historic declines in percentage terms.

The College Board reports that the average score on the math section of the 1998 Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) was 512, one point higher than in the previous year, while the average verbal score was unchanged at 505. The average math score is the highest recorded in 27 years.

The Senate votes, 87-3, to clear an appropriations bill allocating $8.45 billion for military construction spending in fiscal 1999. It is the first of the 13 annual appropriations bills to clear Congress. . . . Law enforcement agents in the U.S. and 13 other countries begin raiding the property of nearly 200 people suspected of membership in a child pornography ring known as the Wonderland Club on the Internet global computer network. More than 40 people worldwide are arrested. Investigators call it the largest Internet child pornography ring ever uncovered.

Judge Daniel Eismann rejects Idaho’s lawsuit against the tobacco industry seeking compensation for state money spent on treating smoking-related illnesses. . . . Kendall Francois, 27, is arrested in Poughkeepsie, New York, after police find the bodies of three women in his house.

Reports suggest that an international team of scientists have discovered a strain of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, that is not detectable by current blood tests for the virus. . . . The ashes of late hurricane researcher Jose Fernandez Partagas, who died in 1996, are scattered from an airplane into the winds of Hurricane Danielle as the storm travels over the Atlantic Ocean. Six scientists and 11 airplane crew members attend the ash-scattering ceremony.

A record 1.205 billion shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange, surpassing the previous record set in October 1997.

The Senate votes, 78-15, to approve a three-state agreement to dispose of low-level nuclear waste at a site in western Texas near the Mexican border. The three states in the agreement are Texas, Vermont, and Maine.

Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy tops the bestseller list.

In basketball, the Houston Comets win their second straight WNBA title, defeating the Phoenix Mercury, 80-71, in Houston, Texas. . . . (Emmett) Cary Middlecoff, 77, golfer who won the U.S. Open in 1949 and 1956, dies of congestive heart failure in Memphis, Tennessee.

The FDA approves the marketing of a kit of “morning-after” contraceptive pills intended to help prevent pregnancy soon after unprotected sexual intercourse. . . . Dr. Jonathan Max Mann, 51, the founder and first director of the WHO’s Global Program on AIDS, 1986–90, dies in the crash of Swissair Flight 111 off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada.

Allen Stuart Drury, 80, U.S. writer and journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1960, dies of cardiac arrest in San Francisco, California.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 31

Sept. 1

Sept. 2

1172—September 3–7, 1998

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Sept. 3

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The Supreme Court of Canada rules that people who know they have dangerous sexually transmitted diseases will face criminal sanctions if they fail to disclose their condition to a partner before having unprotected sex. Such a failure to disclose constitutes a criminal act whether or not that partner actually contracts the disease.

Amnesty International estimates that 3,000 people were executed in China in 1997. That is down from 4,367 people thought to have been executed in 1996. . . . In Malaysia, thousands of supporters of former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, dismissed earlier by P.M. Mahathir bin Mohamad, gather around Anwar’s residence. . . . In Australia, Lindsey Robert Rose is sentenced to life in prison for a series of five murders that police have been attempting to solve for more than 15 years. . . . A speaker for the Taliban reveals that the group has no information on the 10 Iranians missing since Aug. 8, but he acknowledges that they may have been killed. North Korea reveals that a ballistic missile fired over Japan in late August has launched the country’s first satellite into orbit.

Sept. 4

In Northern Ireland, protesting the blocking by police of a traditional parade in Portadown’s Drumcree section, Protestants riot. Separately, Sean McGrath, 61, critically wounded in the Omagh blast in August, dies from his injuries in Belfast, bringing the blast’s death toll to 29. Another 29 people wounded in the attack remain hospitalized, two of them in critical condition.

Sept. 5

Sept. 6

Reports confirm that torrential rains in India caused the Ganges River to flood, killing more than 1,000 people. . . . North Korea announces that Kim Jong Il, son of the late North Korean paramount leader Kim Il Sung, was reelected chair of the National Defense Commission. The announcement calls that position “the highest post of the state,” indicating that Kim Jong Il, 56, has officially succeeded Kim Il Sung as head of state four years after the former leader’s death. Kim Jong Il’s official elevation is the first instance of hereditary succession in a communist country.

Mary Robinson, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, makes the first trip to China by a holder of that post.

North Korea announces that the country’s constitution will be amended so that the title of president will remain reserved for Kim Il Sung. The government also announces that Kim Yong Nam, formerly the foreign minister, will become president of the presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly, the country’s rubber-stamp parliament, and will represent North Korea in diplomatic functions. . . . Fenech Adami is named premier of Malta when returns from parliamentary elections show his Nationalist Party is the winner. The Russian Duma rejects Pres. Boris Yeltsin’s nominee for premier, former premier Viktor Chernomyrdin for the second time. . . . Protestant unionist leader David Trimble and Gerry Adams, head of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, talk directly to each other for the first time during a meeting of the Northern Ireland Assembly,

Sept. 7

Iran completes conducted military exercises known as Ashura 3, which began Sep. 1 about 40 miles (65 km) from the Afghanistan border.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 3–7, 1998—1173

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Sept. 3

Cook County, Illinois, prosecutors withdraw murder charges against two boys under the age of 10 accused of sexually molesting and killing Ryan Harris, an 11-year-old girl. Laboratory tests found semen stains in Harris’s underwear, and authorities believe that neither of the suspects, aged seven and eight, are physically capable of producing semen.

Alan Binder, the chief scientist of the unmanned Lunar Prospector spacecraft orbiting the moon, theorizes that the moon may hold as much as 10 billion tons (9 billion metric tons) of water frozen in its polar regions.

Police reveal that they have found the bodies of five more women in the house of Kendall Francois, who was arrested Sep. 2. . . . The “Million Youth March,” a controversial rally for black youths held in Harlem, New York City, ends in a clash when police officers rush the stage as Khallid Abdul Muhammad, the chief organizer of the event, concludes a speech in which he denounces the police and the city’s mayor, Rudolph Giuliani (R). Demonstrators pelt the police with chairs and bricks.

Sept. 4

Leo Penn, 77, actor who made his mark as a director, primarily in television, dies of cancer in Santa Monica, California.

An Israeli judge in West Jerusalem rules that Samuel Sheinbein, an 18year-old American wanted for murder in Maryland, may be extradited to the U.S. to stand trial.

Akira Kurosawa, 88, Japanese filmmaker widely regarded as one of the giants of world cinema who, in 1990, was honored with an Oscar for lifetime achievement, dies in Tokyo after a stroke. . . . Auto racer Alex Zanardi of Italy clinches his second PPG Cup in the CART world series. It is the earliest point in a CART season that a driver clinches the league title.

About 1,000 people attend a rally for black youths in Atlanta, Georgia, which draws prominent civil-rights leaders, including Rev. Jesse Jackson and Kweisi Mfume, the president of the NAACP.

In baseball, Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals hits his 61st home run in the Cardinals’ 144th game of the season. The homer ties the record set by Roger Maris in 1961.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 5

Sept. 6

Sept. 7

1174—September 8–12, 1998

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Serbian forces launch attacks against villages in northern and central Kosovo, where the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) remains in control. . . . In Northern Ireland, the so-called Real IRA, an extremist IRA splinter group that claimed responsibility for the August bombing in Omagh, declares a permanent cease-fire.

Sept. 8

Sept. 9

Sept. 10

Sept. 11

In South Korea, Hana Bank and Boram Bank announce that they will merge in January 1999, creating the seventh-largest commercial bank in the country in terms of assets. . . . New Zealand prime minister Jenny Shipley’s government wins a vote of confidence in Parliament. It is the first such vote ever conducted in New Zealand. . . . Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange plunges 21.5%, the largest single-day percentage drop ever recorded on the exchange.

In a last-ditch attempt to solve its serious financial problems, Britain’s Royal Opera House announces a shutdown, canceling all opera and most ballet performances in 1999.

Amnesty International chides both Israel and the self-rule Palestinian National Authority (PNA) for their arrests and unlawful detentions of thousands of Palestinians on politically motivated grounds as part of an effort to deter terrorism.

UN officials estimate the conflict in Kosovo that started Sep. 8 has sent 265,000 people fleeing from their homes, of whom 50,000 are living without suitable shelter. . . . Russian president Boris Yeltsin nominates former foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov, as premier. . . . In Northern Ireland, Protestant unionist leader David Trimble and Gerry Adams, head of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, hold face-to-face talks for the first time ever. Separately, the British government announces that British troops will halt regular patrols of Belfast.

In a surprise raid near the West Bank city of Hebron, Israeli commandos kill two brothers, Adel and Imad Awadallah, who are leaders of the military wing of Hamas and long wanted by both Israel and the self-rule Palestinian National Authority (PNA) for allegedly orchestrating several deadly bombings against Israeli civilians.

Drug lord Rafael Muñoz Talavera is found shot to death in his car in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. . . . Brazil’s São Paulo Bovespa stock index falls a record 15.8%.

Taliban officials disclose that the bodies of nine of the 10 Iranians missing since Aug. 8 have been found. Iran responds by announcing that it will hold another round of war maneuvers along the border. . . . In Bangladesh, more than 850 deaths are attributed to the floods, which have also left homeless approximately one quarter of the country’s population of 124 million.

The State Duma confirms former foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov as Russia’s new premier, ending a three-week-long period of political paralysis in the face of a collapsing economy. . . . Northern Ireland initiates a release inmates from prison in the province to benefit from the terms of a peace plan reached in April. . . . . In Germany, Volkswagen AG announces the creation of a $12 million fund to compensate surviving former slave laborers who had worked for the automaker during World War II.

In the midst of ongoing protests in Lesotho over the results of the country’s May parliamentary elections, pro-opposition members of the army arrest several senior officers. . . . Hamas supporters stage demonstrations across the West Bank and Gaza Strip, demanding revenge for the Sep. 10 killings of Adel and Imad Awadallah. . . . In a surprise move, Algerian president Liamine Zeroual announces that he will step down from office in February 1999 and calls for early elections.

Ricardo Ramirez, 67, one of the four top leaders of Guatemala’s former guerrilla factions better known to his countrymen as Commander Rolando Moran, dies of a heart attack in Guatemala City.

Fighting between Taliban forces and troops loyal to the displaced government continue north of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.

Thousands of civilians and troops work to fortify an embankment protecting Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital, from surging floodwaters. Ongoing monsoon rains have caused the worst floods on record in Bangladesh. . . . An elaborate parade in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, marks the 50th anniversary of the North Korean state.

Nikola Poplasen, the leader of the Serb Radical Party, is elected president of the Serb republic in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The vote is perceived as a setback to international efforts to restore peace in Bosnia because international officials strongly backed the incumbent president, Biljana Plavsic. . . . In Albania, Democratic Party aide to former president Sali Berisha, Azem Hajdari, and a bodyguard are shot by unidentified gunmen.

Sept. 12

Asia & the Pacific

Authorities in Beijing detain Shi Binhai, an newspaper editor and coeditor of a recent book on political changes in China.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 8–12, 1998—1175

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Jeremy Strohmeyer pleads guilty to the May 1997 murder of sevenyear-old Sherrice Iverson. The killing received national attention because Strohmeyer’s then-friend, David Cash, saw Strohmeyer struggling with Iverson but did not take action. . . . The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, Colorado, upholds the conviction and death sentence of Timothy J. McVeigh for the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The U.S. stock market surges 380.53 points, or nearly 5%, to 8020.78, marking its largest-ever point gain.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals hits his 62nd home run of 1998, breaking the single-season home-run record in the MLB. The record is considered by many to be the most celebrated mark in all of U.S. sports. The previous record holder, Roger Maris, hit 61 home runs in 1961.

Independent counsel Kenneth Starr delivers to the House of Representatives a report on his investigation of Pres. Clinton’s relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Citing the terms of the 1978 independent counsel law under which he was appointed, Starr attests that he has referred the matter to the House because he found “substantial and credible information. . . that may constitute grounds for an impeachment” of the president.

Sept. 8

Sept. 9

The House Rules Committee recommends that the full House vote to immediately release to the public the 445-page report delivered Sep. 9 by independent counsel Kenneth Starr.

In Washington, D.C., Judge Paul Friedman dismisses five of six charges the Justice Department had brought against Democratic fund-raiser Maria Hsia. . . . The Commerce Department reports that the nation’s current-account deficit jumped 21% to a record $56.53 billion in the second quarter, up from the revised first-quarter figure of $46.74 billion.

The House votes, 363-63, to release to the public the entire text of the 445-page report presented Sep. 9 by Kenneth Starr. The report accuses the president of having a sexual affair with a former White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, and of lying, obstructing justice, and abusing his presidential power in an effort to keep it quiet.

Sept. 10

Kenneth Starr’s 445-page report on the scandal involving Pres. Clinton and Monica Lewinsky is published in its entirety on the Internet global computer network. America Online (AOL) Inc., the U.S.’s biggest Internet service provider, reveals that its 13 million users are spending a record 10.1 million hours logged on to AOL, and that a single file containing the report was downloaded 750,000 times during the first 24 hours.

Many newspapers publish the full text of the Kenneth Starr report. Pres. Clinton’s lawyers issue a rebuttal accusing Starr of pursuing a “smear campaign,” noting that, after a four-year-long probe that cost $40 million, Starr barely mentions Whitewater, the original subject of his investigation, in his report. . . . George E. Danielson, 83, (D, Calif.), who served in the House, 1971–82, dies in Monterey, California, after a heart attack.

A negotiating team representing Northwest Airlines pilots ratifies a four-year contract agreement between the carrier and the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), ending a two-week-old strike against the airline by its some 6,170 pilots. The work stoppage was the longest at any U.S. airline since a 1989 strike by machinists at Eastern Airlines that lasted through that company’s closure and liquidation in 1991.

U.S. film director Steven Spielberg, whose 1993 Academy Award–winning film Schindler’s List deals at length with the Holocaust, is honored in Germany by being presented with a national medal of merit.

John Holliman Jr., 49, CNN correspondent who was one of three reporters to broadcast live coverage of the allied air raids on Baghdad during the 1991 Persian Gulf war, dies in a car crash in Snellville, Geogia. . . . Lindsay Davenport wins the women’s tennis title at the U.S. Open in New York City.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 11

Sept. 12

1176—September 13–18, 1998

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Angered by the Sep. 12 deaths of Democratic Party politician Azem Hajdari and a bodyguard, supporters of the opposition Democratic Party besiege government buildings in Tirana, the capital of Albania, forcing Premier Fatos Nano and his cabinet to flee amid flames and gunfire. One protester is killed and four of the premier’s guards are wounded during gun battles at his offices.

Sept. 13

The new Northern Ireland Assembly convenes for its first working session at the Stormont parliamentary building in Belfast, the province’s capital. . . . In Albania, armed supporters of former president Sali Berisha seize government buildings and commandeer at least four government tanks. The government retakes the buildings, killing three people and wounding 14. Clashes between opposition supporters and the government since Sep. 13 are described as the worst violence in Albania since 1997 riots over fraudulent investment schemes.

Sept. 14

The Taliban militia captures the town of Bamiyan, one of the last remaining strongholds of the antiTaliban alliance in Afghanistan.

In Lesotho, protestors grow increasingly angry when a report by the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) acknowledges “serious concerns” about the May voting but concludes that the elections should not be nullified. . . . . Data shows that 123 Palestinians have been injured in the violent exchanges since Sep. 11.

Unidentified gunmen shoot and kill Jorge Humberto Gonzalez, a Liberal congressional deputy, in Medellin, Colombia. . . . Air Canada’s 2,100 pilots vote to ratify a twoyear contract with the airline, ending a strike that started Sep. 2 and cost Air Canada an estimated C$200 million (US$133 million).

Three Norwegian banks announce plans to merge, in a deal that will create the country’s largest financial-services company, with a total market value as high as 28 billion kroner ($3.6 billion). . . . Some 3,000 opposition supporters defy a government ban and hold a peaceful march in Tirana, the capital of Albania.

Sept. 15

In Spain, ETA, the main Basque separatist group, declares a ceasefire, to take effect Sep. 18.

Sept. 16

Five men serving sentences for murder are the first convicted murderers set free in Northern Ireland under the terms of the April prisoner-release program. Their release brings the number of inmates freed in the province under the program to 24.

Sept. 18

Yang Shangkun, 91 or 92, veteran of China’s historic Long March of 1934–35 who was named in 1988 to the largely ceremonial post of president and was replaced as president in 1993, dies in Beijing. . . . The U.S. discloses that a North Korean rocket launch in late August failed to send a small satellite into space. . . . Feminist writer Taslima Nasreen returns to Bangladesh after four years of self-imposed exile in Europe and the U.S. Nasreen faces blasphemy charges, and her return renews Islamic militants’ demands that she be put to death. Thailand’s health minister, Rakkiat Sukthana, resigns after his ministry comes under scrutiny for corruption involving the misuse of 1.4 billion baht ($60 million) in ministry funds.

A UN panel finds that antigovernment Islamic radicals are responsible for an overwhelming number of the estimated 75,000 deaths that have occurred since the conflict began in 1992. However, the panel acknowledges that the government was guilty of “excesses” against civilians. Amnesty International characterizes the panel’s findings as a “whitewash” of government abuses. The two dominant Kurd factions in northern Iraq end their long-running feud in a U.S.-brokered agreement signed by Massoud Barzani of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. . . . Jewish settlers spray Palestinian high-school students with gunfire in a drive-by shooting in the West Bank town of Beitunya, near Ramallah. A Palestinian teenager is killed. A settler, Avshalom Ladani, surrenders to Israeli police, claiming that he opened fire after stones were thrown at his car.

Sept. 17

Asia & the Pacific

At a ranch compound outside Ensenada, Baja California, gunmen suspected of being affiliated with the Tijuana drug cartel drag 20 members of three families from their homes and shoot them, killing 18. The massacre is described as the most violent drug-related incident in Mexico’s history.

Funerals in Iran for seven of the Iranians killed in Afghanistan prompt mass protests across the country. In Teheran, thousands of protestors chant “Death to the Taliban. Death to Pakistan. Death to America.”. . . Some 3,000 Hamas supporters attend a memorial rally for the Awadallahs in the town of AlBireh. Later, 32 Palestinians are injured when Israeli soldiers fire rubber-coated bullets to disperse several hundred stone throwers.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 13–18, 1998—1177

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

George Corley Wallace, 79, former governor of Alabama, who became a national symbol of segregation in the South when he personally blocked the path of two black students trying to enroll at the University of Alabama in 1963 and who reached out to black voters in the latter part of his political career, dies of cardiac and respiratory arrest in Montgomery, Alabama. He had been confined to a wheelchair since being shot in a 1972 assassination attempt, and his health had steadily deteriorated

Cubs outfielder Sammy Sosa hits his 62nd homer of the season, making him the second player in MLB history to pass the 1961 record set by Roger Moris. . . . At the Emmys, Frasier wins best comedy series for a fifth consecutive year, setting a record. The Practice wins for best drama series. . . . At the U.S. Open, Patrick Rafter of Australia wins the men’s tennis title.

The Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) predicts that total annual spending on health care in the U.S. will rise to $2.1 trillion in the year 2007, from the 1996 level of $1 trillion.

The House passes, 401-1, a bill that will reauthorize for four years a program of inspecting and accrediting mammography facilities for the detection of breast cancer. The program was instituted by a 1992 law that expired in 1997. . . . Statistics suggest that Kenneth Starr’s eight-month-old probe of the scandal involving Pres. Clinton and Monica Lewinsky matter cost taxpayers $4.4 million.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Gen. Zhang Wannian, senior vice chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, and U.S. defense secretary William Cohen sign a military cooperation pact addressing environmental problems caused by the two countries’ armed forces.

Faced with competition, the National Human Genome Research Institute, which is directing a worldwide effort to decode the entire human genome, or genetic sequence, announces an accelerated timetable for the completion of the project, projecting that it will be finished by the year 2003, two years sooner than the goal set by the NIH when it began the project in 1990.

The Michigan Court of Appeals overturns the 1996 murder conviction and orders a new trial of Jonathan Schmitz, who allegedly killed Scott Amedure for admitting he had a crush on him during a taping of the Jenny Jones Show.

Reynold B. Johnson, 92, engineer who, while working for IBM, invented the world’s first commercial computer disk drive in the 1950s and who, when he retired from IBM in 1971, held dozens of patents, dies of malignant melanoma in Palo Alto, California.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., announces that comedian Richard Pryor will be the first-ever recipient of its Mark Twain Prize, an annual award to honor humor in the U.S.

The Federal Reserve Board reports that its industrial production index, which measures output at U.S. factories, mines, and utilities, rose 1.7% in August from July. The rise is the largest since January 1984, and it follows two consecutive monthly declines.

Florida governor Lawton Chiles (D) announces that the state will receive an additional $1.7 billion under the August 1997 settlement of its suit against the tobacco industry. . . . Pres. Clinton announces new regulations guaranteeing protections for patients who receive Medicaid benefits through health maintenance organizations (HMOs).

U.S. authorities in New York City unseal a criminal complaint charging Haroun Fazil of Comoros with a key role in an August bomb attack on the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. Wadih el Hage of Arlington, Texas, is charged in New York City with lying to investigators in connection with the case.

The Senate fails to override Pres. Clinton’s 1997 veto of legislation banning intact dilation and extraction (IDE) abortions when the 64-36 ballot falls three votes short of the two-thirds majority required.

Harvard University presents South African president Nelson Mandela with an honorary law doctorate. Mandela is the third individual ever to receive an honorary degree from Harvard outside the university’s annual commencement ceremony. . . . INS agents take into custody some 150 Chinese migrants from aboard a fishing boat at a San Diego, California, pier. The migrants reportedly planned to enter the U.S. via the Mexican border.

The House passes, 421-0, a stopgap spending measure to keep the federal government operating from Oct. 1, the start of the 1999 fiscal year, through Oct. 9. The Senate clears the stopgap measure by voice vote. Congress so far has cleared only one of the 13 appropriations bills for fiscal 1999.

Junius Kellogg, 71, college and professional basketball player who, after a 1954 car accident left him paralyzed, coached and helped popularize wheelchair basketball, dies of respiratory failure in New York City.

NASA and ESA scientists report that a sun-observing satellite was successfully realigned so that its solar panels once again face the sun. The craft, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), spun out of control and lost power in June. . . . Scientists report they have found that the height of the thermosphere, the outer layer of the earth’s atmosphere, has dropped by some 5 miles (8 km) over the past 40 years.

Sept. 13

Sept. 14

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Sept. 17

Sept. 18

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1178—September 19–24, 1998

World Affairs

Susan Barrantes, the mother of Britain’s Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, dies in an automobile accident outside Tres Lomas, Argentina. . . . Patricia Hayes, 88, comedic British actress who worked on stage, screen, television and radio, dies in London, England.

Sept. 19

Sept. 22

Sept. 23

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Government opposition leader Roosevelt Johnson takes refuge in the U.S. embassy in Monrovia, Liberia’s capital. Authorities are trying to arrest Johnson, a former militia leader who fought against nowPres. Charles Taylor in Liberia’s 1989–96 civil war, Fighting during the attempted arrest leaves 50 people dead.

Kidnappers release two British aid workers held hostage in Chechnya for nearly 15 months. . . . Premier Goran Persson’s ruling Social Democratic Party (SDP) wins a plurality of seats in Sweden’s parliament. . . . To protest plans to remove a cross used in a 1979 mass at Auschwitz, radical Roman Catholics erect four crosses in a field there. More than 200 crosses have been planted since the campaign began in June.

Sept. 20

Sept. 21

Europe

Asia & the Pacific In a goodwill gesture toward Iran, the Taliban frees five Iranian “military drivers” captured in Mazar-iSharif. . . . In Australia, the New South Wales Health Department announces that Sydney’s tap water is safe to drink for the first time since Aug. 25. . . . In the Philippines a ferry carrying more than 400 passengers sinks in stormy waters in Manila Bay.

In Colombia, seven people are killed in El Rosario in a shootout between government troops and FARC rebels. Separately, a bomb planted inside a corpse undergoing an inquest explodes, killing one person. . . . Hurricane Georges, the fourth hurricane of the 1998 Atlantic Ocean hurricane season, reaches Antigua and Barbuda, St. Christopher (St. Kitts) and Nevis, Guadeloupe, and Montserrat.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban comes under fire as opposition forces under Gen. Ahmed Shah Massoud rain rockets on Kabul, killing 180 people. . . . In Malaysia, an estimated 40,000 people attend the largest antigovernment protest ever staged during the 17-year tenure of P.M. Mahathir bin Mohamad. Malaysian police arrest recently ousted Deputy P.M. Anwar Ibrahim on charges of sexual indecency hours after he addresses the rally.

A working group comprised of the U.S., Russia, Iran, Pakistan, China, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan meets in New York City with the aim of forging a diplomatic initiative that will avert the possibility of armed conflict between Iran and the Taliban. . . . The 53rd session of the UN General Assembly opens at the UN’s headquarters in NYC. South African president Nelson Mandela delivers what he calls a farewell address to the General Assembly as he plans to “retire to some rest and tranquillity” in his home village.

Reports claim that 212 villages in Kosovo have been burned by Serbian forces. . . . Ahmet Krasniqi, a member of Kosovo’s self-styled ethnic Albanian government, is shot dead in Albania. . . . Russian authorities announce that they have annulled the Soviet-era treason conviction of late ballet star Rudolf Nureyev, under a law protecting victims of political reprisals. . . . Margaret Jennings, 89, who, driving under her maiden name, Margaret Allan, won a number of car races on the male-dominated European circuit in the 1930s, dies.

Mustafa Mahmoud Said Ahmed of Egypt and Rashid Saleh Hemed, a Tanzanian, are charged with 11 counts each of murder in a court in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in connection with the August bombing of the U.S. embassy there.

Since Hurricane Georges struck on Sep. 20, two people in Antigua and Barbuda have died, and St. Kitts and Nevis has suffered four fatalities.

As many as 143 people are reported dead from the Sep. 29 ferry accident in Manila Bay, the Philippines.

Saudi Arabia, one of the three countries that recognizes Taliban rule in Afghanistan, suspends diplomatic ties to protest the Taliban’s harboring of Osama bin Laden, a Saudi dissident accused in August terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. That moves leaves Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates as the only countries that recognize Taliban rule in Afghanistan.

Amnesty International reports that both Serbian and Albanian forces committed war crimes during the Kosovo conflict. Amnesty cites the Serbian side as responsible for the majority of deaths and missing persons since the start of the fighting.

South Africa sends about 600 troops into neighboring Lesotho in an attempt to put an end to a military mutiny there. The South African forces meet unexpectedly fierce resistance from Lesotho’s rebellious army around Maseru, the capital. Nine South Africans and some 40 Lesotho troops are killed in fighting. The South Africans are joined later by 200 soldiers from Botswana.

Reports confirm that at least 25 people have been killed in another wave of attacks by leftist and rightwing forces in Colombia. . . . Hurricane Georges is blamed for at least 94 deaths in Haiti and at least 210 in the Dominican Republic. The region hardest hit is the island of Hispaniola. The hurricane also strikes Puerto Rico, stirring up winds of 130 mph (210 kph). Five people are killed. The storm forces 300,000 Dominicans to evacuate their homes.

Iran masses more than 200,000 troops on its border with Afghanistan as it opens military exercises in a threat of force against Afghanistan’s ruling Muslim fundamentalist Taliban militia. . . . In Myanmar, an antigovernment demonstration is held.

The UN Security Council endorses a resolution calling for a cease-fire in the troubled Yugoslav province of Kosovo. . . . The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, rules that Britain’s law on corporal punishment in the home includes inadequate protection of children’s rights.

Siemens AG, a German company facing a slave labor lawsuit, announces that it will set up a $12 million fund to compensate surviving former workers from the World War II-era forced labor.

South African soldiers gain effective control over Maseru in Lesotho.

Hurricane Georges passes Cuba, prompting the evacuation of 200,000 people. Three people lose their lives. . . . South African president Nelson Mandela visits Canada for the first time since June 1990.

Malaysian police ban political rallies.

Ugandan security minister Muruli Mukasa reveals that Ugandan authorities and U.S. agents from the FBI have thwarted an attempt to bomb the U.S. embassy in Kampala, the Ugandan capital. Authorities report that 20 people have been arrested in the plot. . . . The British and Iranian foreign ministers indicate they have reached a compromise on the issue of Iran’s decade-old death sentence against British author Salman Rushdie, and their countries will reestablish diplomatic relations.

Sept. 24

An unidentified assailant launches a rocket at a motorcade, narrowly missing the car of Cambodia premier Hun Sen. One bystander is killed.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 19–24, 1998—1179

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation announces the winners of the 1998 Albert Lasker Medical Research Awards. Awards for clinical research go to Dr. Alfred Knudson Jr., Dr. Peter Nowell, and Dr. Janet Rowley. Awards for basic medical research go to Lee Hartwell, Paul Nurse, and Yoshio Masui. The award for special achievement is presented to Daniel Koshland Jr.

Reynald Herren, 38, wins $14 million in Reno, Nevada, the largest jackpot ever won on a slot machine. . . . A new opera based on Tennessee Williams’s 1947 play A Streetcar Named Desire opens at the San Francisco Opera. . . . Boxer Evander Holyfield, the IBF and WBA heavyweight champion, successfully defends his IBF title, over challenger Vaughn Bean.

Muriel Humphrey Brown, 86, (D, Minn.), who served in the Senate, 1978–79, dies in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Pres. Clinton signs an appropriations bill allocating $8.45 billion for military construction spending in fiscal 1999. The military construction bill is the first of the 13 annual appropriations bills to clear Congress.

The House releases a videotape of testimony that Pres. Clinton gave before a federal grand jury investigating his relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Clinton’s testimony is part of the evidence independent counsel Kenneth Starr submitted to Congress Sep. 9 as possible grounds for impeaching the president. The House also releases 3,183 pages of evidence that Starr appended to his report.

Hundreds of U.S. farmers block a Canadian Pacific rail line near the town of Portal, North Dakota, just south of the Canadian border, to protest the influx of Canadian agricultural products. The incident is one of a series of actions taken in northern U.S. states by farmers and officials angry over Canadian trade policies. . . . Reports confirm that the U.S. State Department recently listed Iran as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorist activities.

The FCC announces that its chief of staff, John Nakahata, will step down at the end of October. . . . The Justice Department announces that DNA Plant Technology Corp. may be fined $100,000 for violating federal law by exporting specially bred high-nicotine tobacco seeds.

Japanese premier Keizo Obuchi meets informally for the first time with U.S. president Bill Clinton in New York City.

Joan Kroc, the widow of fast-food restaurateur Ray Kroc, donates $80 million to the San Diego, California, division of the Salvation Army. It is the largest donation in the Salvation Army’s 133-year history. . . . Kenneth Stewart, 44, convicted of murder, is executed by electrocution in Jarratt, Virginia. It is the first time since 1994 that the electric chair is used in Virginia. Stewart, who chose execution over lethal injection, is the 479th person to be executed in the U.S. and the 55th in Virginia since 1976.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals upholds the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on homosexuals and the military’s long-standing ban on homosexual activity. . . . Clark Clifford and Robert Altman agree to settle the remaining civil lawsuits related to the fraud-ridden Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), which folded in 1991. . . . Officials confirm that 18 people have been charged with smuggling in the Sep. 18 incident in San Diego, California.

The House passes, by voice vote, legislation that will guarantee Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Medicaid benefits to certain immigrants whose eligibility was cut off by a 1996 welfare reform measure. . . . A jury in Dedham, Mass., orders Ground Round Restaurants Inc. to pay $6.7 million in damages in an age discrimination suit. . . . The SEC adopts guidelines that for the first time ever spell out what constitutes professional misconduct for accountants involved in auditing corporate financial statements.

Surgeons in Lyons, France, attach the hand and forearm of an anonymous brain-dead donor to the arm of a patient whose forearm was amputated years before. A successful hand transplant has never before been carried out.

The U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in Eveleth, Minnesota, inducts Lou Nanne, Joe Mullen, Mike Curran, and the late Bruce Mather.

George Soros, a Hungarian-born philanthropist, announces that he will donate $1.2 million over the next four years to the Maryland State Department of Education’s Correctional Educational Program.

Reports reveal that the state governments of South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Minnesota, and Idaho have instructed local authorities to step up inspections of trucks hauling Canadian farm products. The action is prompted by anger over Canadian trade policies. . . . The House passes, 373-50, the fiscal 1999 defense authorization bill.

The House passes, 356-65, a $2.35 billion fiscal 1999 appropriations bill for the legislative branch. . . . The Census Bureau finds that the median household annual income, adjusted for inflation, was $37,005 in 1997, a 1.9% gain over 1996. . . . The EPA orders 22 states in the Northeast and the Midwest to curb smog-causing emissions of nitrogen oxides. . . GE reaches an agreement with the EPA to clean up a contaminated stretch of the Housatonic River. . . . The Treasury introduces a redesigned $20 bill into circulation.

Scientists report that they found coelacanths, a species of fish dating back some 380 million years, in Indonesia. Coelacanths, which only in 1938 were discovered not to be extinct, have so far been previously believed to inhabit only the waters off the eastern coast of southern Africa.

Jeffrey Moss, 56, Emmy and Grammy Award–winning head writer and composer-lyricist for the children’s educational television show Sesame Street, dies of colon cancer in New York City.

Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill that codifies a three-state agreement to dispose of low-level nuclear waste at a site in western Texas near the Mexican border. Texas, Vermont, and Maine are the three states represented in the bill.

Grupo Televisa SA shuts down its internationally known Cultural Center for Contemporary Art in Mexico City in an attempt to cut costs.

More than 1 million people view video portions of Pres. Clinton’s testimony on the Internet global computer network.

Some 22.5 million viewers watch parts of Pres. Clinton’s testimony. . . . Florence Griffith Joyner, 38, U.S. sprinter who won three gold medals at the 1988 Summer Olympics, dies in Mission Viejo, California; the cause of her death is being investigated. . . . Forbes lists Jerry Seinfeld, with earnings estimated at $225 million, as the world’s highest paid entertainer.

Sept. 19

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Sept. 22

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 23

Sept. 24

1180—September 25–29, 1998

World Affairs

Europe

Sept. 25

Sept. 26

Sept. 27

Seven southeastern European countries—Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Macedonia, Romania, and Turkey—sign an agreement creating a southern European multinational force of 2,000–3,000 troops.

A massacre kills more than 60 ethnic Albanians, many of them children, in the towns of Plocic, Golubova, and Gornje Obrinje.

NATO troops arrest alleged Bosnian Serb war criminal Stevan Todorovic. The arrest marks the first time that NATO has seized a suspected war criminal in Serbia.

Gerhard Schroeder of the left-ofcenter Social Democratic Party (SPD) ousts Helmut Kohl as German chancellor when his party wins a plurality in a national parliamentary election. Kohl has served as chancellor for 16 years, an unrivaled tenure in the country’s modern history, and he is the first German or West German chancellor since before World War II to be ousted in an election. . . . Four opposition parties announce that they will form a coalition government, after results from Slovakia’s national elections show that they won 58% of the vote. Together, the parties will control enough seats to oust Premier Vladimir Meciar’s ruling party, Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS).

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The U.S. airlifts government opposition leader Roosevelt Johnson out of Liberia after he took refuge in the U.S. embassy in Monrovia on Sep. 19. The airlift ends a standoff in which the U.S. evacuated most of the embassy staff and suspended regular embassy operations.

Explosions and fire in a gasprocessing plant in the southern Australian state of Victoria kill two people and seriously injure eight others. The explosions leave more than 1 million households and 100,000 businesses without gas.

South Africa sends an additional 450 soldiers and 100 armored vehicles to Lesotho to help quell the spreading disorder.

The Sri Lankan government launches an offensive to retake a strategic highway in northern Sri Lanka, where Tamil rebels have been waging a secessionist campaign since 1983.

Albanian premier Fatos Nano announces his resignation after telling Pres. Rexhep Mejdani that disagreement within Nano’s fiveparty coalition makes it impossible for him to put together an acceptable cabinet. . . . Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic announces a unilateral cease-fire in the Kosovo campaign, declaring victory over the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK).

Sept. 28

Sept. 29

Africa & the Middle East

Reports confirm that the IMF has approved an $850 million loan to Bulgaria.

Albania’s ruling Socialist Party nominates Pandeli Majko as premier. . . . Diplomats estimate that during the seven-month campaign against the UCK, Serb forces damaged or obliterated more than 200 villages in Kosovo.

The fighting between the Sri Lankan government and rebel forces launched on Sep. 27 eases, after leaving as many as 1,300 troops and rebels dead. . . . The Paris-based Doctors Without Borders charity group announces that it is suspending its operations in North Korea because the government has denied access to some of the country’s neediest and hungriest children.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 25–29, 1998—1181

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Census Bureau reports that the percentage of people in the U.S. who lack health insurance rose to 16.1% in 1997 from 15.6% in 1996. The That increase is much sharper than the average increase a year over the previous decade. . . . The Senate, by voice vote, clears a bill that will reauthorize for four years a program of inspecting and accrediting mammography facilities for the detection of breast cancer.

The Senate confirms Richard J. Danzig as the next secretary of the navy. . . Former CIA employee Douglas Groat is sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of attempted extortion. . . . The Defense Department orders sensitive information that may compromise national security or place personnel at risk pulled from its roughly 1,000 Pentagon Internet computer network sites accessible by the public.

The Senate passes, by voice vote, a $2.35 billion fiscal 1999 appropriations bill the for legislative branch. . . . Pres. Clinton signs the stopgap bill passed by Congress Sep. 17. . . . The House approves, 240-188, legislation that will reserve 90% of the budget surplus in a special Treasury account until a long-term plan is in place for Social Security. . . . The Senate passes, 92-1, a bill that will provide $5.6 billion in funding in fiscal 1999 for the FAA.

Hurricane Georges hits Key West, Florida, with winds of 105 mph (170 kph). Many of the Florida Keys are flooded in the storm, whose passing coincides with high tide. One Key West resident dies. . . . The FDA approves Herceptin, a drug for the treatment of some forms of metastatic breast cancer. Herceptin is the first genetically engineered drug to be approved for the treatment of breast cancer.

France’s Benoit Lecomte, 31, is the first person to swim across the Atlantic Ocean, reaching France’s Brittany coast after a 72-day-long journey from Hyannis, Massachusetts.

Tens of thousands of people gather on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., for a rally calling for increased funding for cancer research. Among the speakers at the rally are Vice Pres. Al Gore, civil-rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson and retired general H. Norman Schwarzkopf.

Betty Carter (born Lillie Mae Jones), 69, jazz vocalist who was presented with a National Medal of Arts award in 1997, dies of pancreatic cancer in New York City.

Baseball’s Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals hits two home runs in the team’s final game of the season to raise his record total to 70.

The House passes, by voice vote, a bill reauthorizing the 1965 Higher Education Act for five years. The legislation includes a provision that will lower the interest rate on new student loans to its lowest level in 17 years. . . . California governor Pete Wilson (R) signs a law moving the date of the state’s presidential primary up to the first Tuesday in March.

The House passes, 369-43, a $250.5 billion defense appropriations bill for fiscal 1999.

The house passes, 389-25, a bill that will provide $20.9 billion in funding for energy, water-development, and nuclear weapons programs in fiscal 1999.

Hurricane Georges hits the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Some 15 inches (40 cm) of rain falls in the Gulf Coast region, which comprises parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. Four people die. . . . The Senate, by voice vote, passes legislation intended to encourage companies to share information about solving the Year 2000 computer glitch by shielding them from lawsuits based on the data they disclose.

Publishers Weekly lists Rainbow Six, by Tom Clancy, as the top bestseller. . . . Fiamma di San Giuliano Ferragamo, 57, women’s shoe designer, dies of cancer in Florence, Italy.

The Senate clears, 96-0, a bill reauthorizing the 1965 Higher Education Act for five years. The legislation includes a provision that will lower the interest rate on new student loans to its lowest level in 17 years. . . . Tom (Thomas) Bradley, 80, (D) five-term mayor of Los Angeles, 1973–93, whose tenure as the first black mayor of Los Angeles oversaw the city as it became the U.S.’s second-largest metropolis, dies of a heart attack in Los Angeles. He suffered a stroke after undergoing coronary bypass surgery in March 1996.

The Senate clears, 94-2, a $250.5 billion defense appropriations bill for fiscal 1999.

The Federal Reserve Board announces a reduction in the federalfunds rate to 5.25%, from 5.5%. The discount rate is left unchanged at 5%. . . . California governor Pete Wilson (R) signs into law a bill intended to protect California from oil spills. . . . The Senate, by voice vote, passes a bill that will provide $20.9 billion in funding for energy, water-development, and nuclear weapons programs in fiscal 1999.

Scientists report that the intense five-minute wave of radiation emanating from a faraway star on Aug. 27 came from a star some 20,000 light-years away. They argue the energy burst is a possible indication of the existence of “magnetars,” a kind of neutron star believed to emit repeated gamma ray pulses.

The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., announces that photographer Gordon Parks has donated 227 of his original prints to the museum. Parks, 85, worked as a photo-essayist for Life magazine for 20 years.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

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1182—September 30–October 4, 1998

Sept. 30

Oct. 1

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World Affairs

Europe

The IMF forecasts a global economic expansion of 2% in 1998 and of 2.5% in 1999. The fund’s unusually gloomy projections stem from the impact of eastern Asia’s economic crisis. The IMF predicts that the U.S. in 1998 will register 3.5% economic growth but slow to a 2% expansion in 1999. EU economies will expand 2.9% in 1998 and 2.5% in 1999. The comparable figures for Latin America are 2.8% for 1998 and 2.7% in 1999. African growth is predicted at 3.7% in 1998, up from 3.2% the previous year, and at 4.7% in 1999.

A Red Cross vehicle runs over a land mine in central Kosovo and explodes, killing one doctor and injuring three aid workers. . . . Marius Goring, 86, British stage, screen, and television actor, dies of cancer in West Sussex, England.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas Pauline Julien, 70, French-Canadian vocalist and the musical standard-bearer of the separatist movement in her native Quebec, commits suicide in Montreal; she is said to have grown despondent over an illness that had eroded her language skills.

Hungarian-born financier and philanthropist George Soros states he will donate $300,000 to a fund administered by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. The governments of several nations, including those of Canada, Norway, and Ireland, also pledged contributions to the fund.

Prince Jefri Bolkiah returns to Brunei after five months of selfimposed exile.

A UN court convicts and sentences to life in prison Jean-Paul Akayesu, the former Hutu mayor of the village of Taba, for his role in the deaths of 2,000 ethnic Tutsis during a 1994 genocide campaign led by Rwanda’s Hutu government. It is the first genocide ruling by an international court. The conviction of Akayesu, accused of having incited others to rape Tutsi women, also marks the first time that rape and sexual violence are ruled as tools of genocide.

Addressing opposition accusations that the May election reinstating the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) was rigged, the LCD and opposition leaders agree to hold new elections in the following 18 months, quelling an army mutiny that started in September.

China implements a ban on the sale of blood in an effort to stem the rapid spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. . . . The Dalai Lama’s Tibetan government in exile acknowledges that during the 1960s their movement received $1.7 million a year from the U.S.’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

A Canadian Forces helicopter crashes and explodes on impact, killing all six crew members, a team from the 413 Search and Rescue Squadron. . . . Fermin Castro, said to be the primary target of the Sep. 17 executions in Ensenada, Baja California, dies after having been in a coma since the attack. His death brings the death toll from the massacre to 19.

Former Latvian premier Andris Skele regains the premiership when his People’s Party wins the largest percentage of the vote in national parliamentary elections. In a national referendum, Latvians also pass amendments that will ease restrictive immigration laws. . . . An armed group of men attack a house in Grozny, the capital of the separatist republic of Chechnya, and kidnap three British men and a New Zealander.

Oct. 3

In France, secondary-school students begin to stage demonstrations to protest classroom overcrowding, inadequate classroom equipment, and crumbling school buildings. . . . The death of Jean-Pascal Delamuraz, 62, long-time Swiss cabinet member who in 1996 served as Switzerland’s president in the rotating Swiss presidency, is reported.

Oct. 4

Asia & the Pacific

Mongolia’s outgoing minister of infrastructure and telecommunications, Sanjaasuren Zorig, is axed and stabbed to death by unidentified attackers.

Australian prime minister John Howard’s governing Liberal Party–National Party coalition emerges victorious in Australia’s national elections, defeating Kim Beazley’s Australian Labor Party by a narrow margin.

The U.S. holds its first bilateral military exercise with Algeria since that country gained its independence in 1962.The move ends U.S. president Clinton’s policy of refraining from involvement with Algeria. . . . Reports disclose that ethnic fighting over rights to an oil deposit in the Akpata region east of Lagos, Nigeria, has left hundreds of people dead and thousands more homeless.

Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso wins reelection to a second four-year term.

Reports confirm that Mou Paet, a former Khmer Rouge commander, has admitted responsibility for the kidnapping of three Western backpackers in July 1994. However, he asserts another Khmer Rouge officer is responsible for their murders. . . . Demonstrators protesting the Sep. 14 return of feminist writer Taslima Nasreen to Bangladesh clash with police in the capital, Dhaka.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 30–October 4, 1998—1183

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Pres. Clinton announces that the 1998 fiscal year resulted in the first federal budget surplus since 1969. Clinton reports the surplus to amount to about $70 billion. . . . NationsBank Corp. and BankAmerica Corp. complete their merger, holding 8.1% of U.S. bank deposits, more than any other bank. . . . A federal grand jury indicts Mark Jimenez on charges that he made $39,500 in illegal contributions to Democratic campaigns. Jimenez is the 12th person indicted as part of a Justice Department investigation of fundraising abuses in the 1996 elections.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Dan (Daniel Raymond) Quisenberry, 45, one of MLB’s most successful relief pitchers during the 1980s, dies of brain cancer in Leawood, Kansas. . . . Robert Lewis Taylor, 88, journalist, novelist and biographer who won the 1959 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, dies in Southbury, Connecticut.

Prompted by a letter from the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), which runs Medicare, refusing an HMO request to increase premiums or reduce benefits for their Medicare plans in 1999, several HMOs announce that they plan to drop insurance coverage for hundreds of thousands of Medicare beneficiaries in 1999.

The Senate votes, 96-2, to clear the fiscal 1999 defense authorization bill. . . . The Department of Defense merges three cold war defense agencies—the Defense Special Weapons Agency, the On-Site Inspection Agency, and the Defense Technology Security Administration—into one, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which will respond to threats posed by nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

Figures reveal that the purchasing managers’ index was 49.4 in September, the same figure as recorded in August. A reading below 50 is interpreted as an indication of a contracting manufacturing sector.

The House passes, by voice vote, legislation intended to encourage companies to share information about solving the so-called Year 2000 computer glitch by shielding them from lawsuits based on the data they disclose.

The state of Washington accepts an out-of-court $2 million settlement of its lawsuit against U.S Tobacco Co. of UST Inc. . . . The Senate votes, 68-28, to confirm the elevation of U.S. district judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals. . . . New York City agrees to pay $2.94 million to the family of Anthony Baez, who died during an arrest by police officer Francis Livoti in 1994. Officials claim it is the largest settlement the city ever made in a civil wrongful-death case involving police brutality.

Reports confirm that the Boeing Co. has agreed to pay a $10 million fine for failing to protect U.S. technology secrets when the company shared technical information with a Russian and a Ukrainian company without an official from the State Department present. . . . A federal grand jury in Miami, Florida, formally indicts 10 people, charging them with conspiracy to spy and acting illegally as foreign agents in an alleged plot to kill Cuban president Fidel Castro.

The House passes, 333-53, a $55.9 billion fiscal 1999 spending bill for the USDA; the FDA; and federal nutrition programs such as food stamps, school lunches, and Women, Infants and Children (WIC). The bill calls for 12% more funding than in fiscal 1998.

Scientists report evidence that worm-like animals lived more than one billion years ago.

Sept. 30

Oct. 1

Gene Autry (Orvon Gene), 91, whose career as a singing cowboy made him an emblem of the American West, dies in Los Angeles, California. . . . Roger Vivier, 90, French designer of women’s shoes who invented the stiletto heel (1954), dies in Toulouse, France.

Roddy McDowall (Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude), 70, actor best known in his adult career for roles in Planet of the Apes (1968) and several sequels, dies of cancer in Los Angeles, California.

Some of the ashes of Nobuo Fujita, the only Japanese pilot to have bombed the U.S. mainland during World War II, are scattered at the site in Oregon where the lone bomb landed. Since the end of World War II, Fujita had made four visits as a peace activist to Brookings, Oregon, whose city council named him an honorary citizen in 1997.

Oct. 2

Oct. 3

Oct. 4

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1184—October 5–9, 1998

Oct. 5

World Affairs

Europe

China signs the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a UN treaty that guarantees citizens freedom of expression, movement, and religion, as well as participation in elections and equality before the law. China is not expected to ratify the treaty for several years.

Swisscom, a formerly state-owned telephone-service company, debuts on stock exchanges in Zurich and New York City. The initial public offering, the year’s largest yet in Europe, is valued at 7.5 billion Swiss francs ($5.6 billion).

The Americas

Armed youths seize oil-pumping stations owned by the Royal Dutch/Shell Group, an Anglo-Dutch company, in the Niger Delta region in southern Nigeria.

Communists and workers stage strikes and protest marches throughout Russia to demand the resignation of Pres. Boris Yeltsin and the immediate payment of back wages.

Oct. 7

The Supreme Court of the Philippines overturns a 1993 corruption conviction against Imelda Marcos. The ruling overturns the only conviction won against Marcos in several corruption suits brought against her. . . . Gas resumes flowing to businesses and residences in the state of Victoria, Australia, nearly two weeks after an explosion at a gas processing plant.

Armed youths again seize oilpumping stations owned by the Royal Dutch/Shell Group, an Anglo-Dutch company, in the Niger Delta region in southern Nigeria.

More than 650,000 public-sector workers go on strike to protest the government’s proposed austerity package, still under consideration in Colombia’s Congress.

The IMF and the World Bank end an annual joint plenary session of their boards of governors. . . . Five members—Argentina, the Netherlands, Canada, Namibia, and Malaysia—are elected to fill half of the 10 rotating slots on the 15member UN Security Council. The new countries will replace outgoing members Japan, Costa Rica, Sweden, Portugal, and Kenya.

The government of Myanmar reports that 54 people, including 23 NLD members, have been arrested for staging antigovernment demonstrations. . . . U.S. Marine Corps corporal Randall Eskridge is arrested in Okinawa in connection with a hit-and-run automobile accident. . . . Pakistani general Jehangir Karamat resigns as head of the Pakistani armed forces in the wake of his Oct. 5 call for a national security council. Karamat’s resignation marks the first time in the 51-year history of independent Pakistan that an army chief has resigned instead of seizing power after a dispute. Japanese premier Obuchi offers South Korean president Kim an official apology for Japan’s colonial and World War II atrocities in Korea. Obuchi’s apology carries the weight of an official declaration.

The government of Italian premier Romano Prodi collapses as it loses a vote of confidence held in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Parliament.

Oct. 9

Asia & the Pacific In Lahore, Pakistani general Jehangir Karamat calls for the creation of a military-dominated national security council, which will increase the military’s role in setting government policy.

Frank O’Reilly, a policeman injured when a bomb exploded during Sep. 5 rioting by Protestants in Portadown, Northern Ireland, dies.

Oct. 6

Oct. 8

Africa & the Middle East

The Constitutional Court, the highest court in South Africa, strikes down sodomy laws left on the books from before the country’s 1994 post-apartheid provisional constitution. . . . Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu names Ariel Sharon as foreign minister. . . . An international arbitration panel finds that the Hanish islands in the Red Sea, over which Yemen and Eritrea clashed in 1995, belong partly to both countries.

The lower house of Pakistan’s Parliament votes to pass legislation that will give the government authority to impose sharia law, which is based on the Koran, the holy text of Islam.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 5–9, 1998—1185

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The Supreme Court begins its 1998–99 term, and about 1,000 civil-rights activists hold a rally, protesting the lack of minority law clerks employed by the justices. Kweisi Mfume, president of the NAACP, is among 19 protesters arrested. . . . David Schippers, the House Judiciary Committee’s chief GOP investigative counsel, presents to the panel a list of 15 potentially impeachable offenses by Pres. Clinton. . . . Roderick Abeyta, 46, convicted of murder, is executed in Carson City, Nevada. Abeyta is the 482nd person executed in the U.S. and the seventh in Nevada since 1976.

The House passes, 360-38, a bill to give $97 million in U.S. military aid to help prodemocracy forces in Iraq mount an armed insurrection against Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

Joseph Neale allegedly shoots five people in Riverside, California, including Mayor Ron Loveridge and two City Council members. All the injured people are expected to survive. . . . In its first study of an industrialized nation, Amnesty International accuses the U.S. of maintaining a double standard by attacking other countries’ abuses without complying with human rights ideals itself.

Seven Midwestern and Western U.S. states formally suspend, for 90 days, strict inspections of Canadian agricultural exports that the states imposed in September. The inspections, which effectively blocked exports of Canadian grain and livestock, are een by Canadian farmers and officials as a violation of NAFTA.

The Senate clears, 55-43, a $55.9 billion fiscal 1999 spending bill for the USDA; the FDA; and federal nutrition programs such as food stamps, school lunches, and WIC. . . . The House passes, 409-14, an appropriations bill that provides $93.4 billion in funding for the VA, HUD, NASA, EPA, and other independent agencies for the 1999 fiscal year.

Matthew Shepard, 21, a homosexual student at the University of Wyoming, is found hanging on fence after suffering a beating that put him in a coma. . . . The House passes, by voice vote, legislation outlawing identity theft. . . . Congress approves legislation extending existing U.S. copyrights by 20 years. . . . The Senate passes by unanimous consent a five-year reauthorization of the WIC and other nutrition programs. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a bill reauthorizing the 1965 Higher Education Act for five years. . . . Data show that nation’s death rate in 1997 was the lowest ever recorded.

Nilo and Linda Hernandez plead guilty to charges of serving as illegal foreign agents to Cuba. . . . The Senate clears, by voice vote, a bill to give $97 million in U.S. military aid to help prodemocracy forces in Iraq mount an armed insurrection against Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. . . . The House passes, 337-83, a bill reauthorizing the nation’s intelligence programs for fiscal 1999. Although the details of the bill are classified, its spending total is reportedly slightly higher than $26.7 billion, the amount authorized for fiscal 1998.

President Clinton vetoes a $55.9 billion fiscal 1999 spending bill for the USDA, the FDA, and other federal nutrition programs. The final bill called for 12% more funding than in fiscal 1998. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a bill that will provide $20.9 billion in funding for energy, water-development, and nuclear weapons programs in fiscal 1999.

The House approves, 258-176, an open-ended impeachment investigation of Pres. Clinton’s conduct in the Monica Lewinsky matter. Clinton is the third president in U.S. history to face a formal impeachment inquiry. . . . After a delay of more than three years, the Senate confirms, 57-41, William Fletcher to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. . . . The Senate passes, by voice vote, legislation to expand aid to “charter schools,” public schools exempted from some regulations. . . . The Senate, by voice vote, passes a five-year reauthorization of the Head Start program.

The Senate clears, by voice vote, legislation that will guarantee Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Medicaid benefits to certain immigrants whose eligibility was cut off by a 1996 welfare reform measure. . . . The Senate clears by voice vote a bill reauthorizing the nation’s intelligence programs for fiscal 1999. Although the details of the bill are classified, its spending total is reportedly slightly higher than $26.7 billion, the amount authorized for fiscal 1998.

The Senate, by voice vote, passes legislation overhauling federal vocational programs. . . . The Senate clears, 96-1,an appropriations bill that provides $93.4 billion in funding for the VA, HUD, NASA, EPA, and other independent agencies for the 1999 fiscal year. . . . Travelers Group Inc. and Citicorp complete their merger and officially combine to form Citigroup Inc., the world’s largest financial-services company in terms of assets, which stand at $697.5 billion in combined 1997 assets.

The House, by voice vote, clears a five-year reauthorization of the Head Start preschool program. . . . The House votes, 422-1, to pass a five-year reauthorization of the WIC program and other nutrition programs. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a bill that will reauthorize for four years a program of inspecting and accrediting mammography facilities for the detection of breast cancer.

Congress clears a GOP-sponsored bill designed to deter persecution of religious minorities in foreign countries.

The House, by voice vote, clears legislation overhauling federal vocational programs. . . . The House ethics committee reveals that Rep. Jay Kim (R, Calif.), who will leave Congress at the end of the term, has violated House rules and campaign finance laws. . . . Judge Paul Friedman rules that federal laws barring foreign nationals from contributing to U.S. political campaigns apply only to direct, “hard money” donations.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The House, by voice vote, passes a bill intended to encourage more commercial involvement in space exploration and promote competition in the development of spacerelated industrial products. . . . Reports confirm that NASA has agreed to buy Russia’s research time aboard the planned international space station for $60 million. The deal is intended to prevent the Russian Space Agency’s current lack of funding, due to an economic crisis in Russia, from causing further delays in the launch of the space station.

A photographic work by surrealist photographer Man Ray, Noire et Banche (1926), sells for a, world record $607,500 at a Christie’s auction in NYC. The previous record for a work of photography was set in 1993, when Alfred Stieglitz’s Georgia O’Keeffe: A Portrait-Hands and Thimble (1920), sold for $398,500 at a Christie’s auction.

Joseph Sandler, 71, British psychoanalyst who championed a scientific approach to his subject that takes neurobiology into account, dies of lung cancer in London.

Jerome Weidman, 85, novelist and playwright who, in 1960, won a Pulitzer Prize as coauthor of the musical Fiorello!, dies in New York City. . . . Mark Henry Belanger, 54, one of MLB’s best fielding shortstops of the 1970s, dies of lung cancer in New York City

The House clears, by voice vote, a bill that will overturn MLB’s exemption from antitrust laws in regard to labor relations. The exemption will remain in effect with regard to franchise relocation, league expansion, and the operation of the minor leagues.

The Senate, by voice vote, passes legislation updating copyright provisions for computer software and other works created in digital media. The measure will implement the provisions of two treaties adopted in 1996 by the UN World Intellectual Property Organization. . . . The Senate approves, 96-2, legislation barring state and local governments from imposing new taxes on on-line commerce for three years. . . . The Senate, by unanimous consent, clears a bill intended to encourage more commercial involvement in space exploration.

The Swedish Academy of Letters awards the Nobel Prize in Literature to Portuguese writer Jose Saramago, the first Portugueselanguage writer and one of only a few communists to win the prize.

Oct. 5

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Oct. 9

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1186—October 10–15, 1998

World Affairs

Europe

The Americas

At least 700 people are killed after a fire erupts at a ruptured gasoline pipeline in the Niger Delta region of southern Nigeria. The pipeline was spewing gas after being sabotaged Oct. 7. . . . An Iranian appeals court reaffirms a death sentence imposed on German national Helmut Hofer, 57, for having had sex with a 27year-old unmarried Muslim female. . . . Rebels capture the town of Kindu, a river port 235 miles (365 km) inside Congo, near the Rwandan border.

Oct. 10

Oct. 11

Oct. 12

Africa & the Middle East

NATO authorizes the use of air strikes against the Yugoslav republic of Serbia if Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic does not end his crackdown against ethnic Albanians in the Serbian province of Kosovo. . . . The WTO’s appellate body rules that the U.S. violated international trade law by applying arbitrary and discriminatory standards in banning shrimp imports from countries that utilize nets which trap sea turtles.

A human-rights investigator discloses that a team has exhumed as many as 274 bodies from a mass grave discovered in the village of Donja Glumina, 20 miles (30 km) east of Tuzla. The grave is reportedly the largest mass grave in Bosnia discovered to date.

Rebel troops shoot down a Congolese airliner in eastern Congo, outside Kindu. The plane’s wreckage is discovered with no apparent survivors among the 41 passengers and crew aboard.

Azerbaijan president Heydar Aliyev, a former Communist Party official, declares victory in a disputed presidential election marked by opponents’ allegations of fraud and a boycott of the balloting.

A military court sentences at least 24 to death after finding them guilty of treason for their roles in a May 1997 coup that ousted Pres. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. . . . The government and rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army agree to extend a cease-fire for three months to allow humanitarian relief in the faminehit southwest. . . . Protesters seize four Chevron Corp. workers, thereby shutting down a quarter of the company’s Nigerian production.

Reports confirm that China has revised the official death toll from summer floods to 3,656, up from the 3,004 deaths reported in September. Other revised flood-damage figures include 5.6 million homes destroyed, 64 million acres (26 million hectares) of farmland inundated, and economic losses totaling $30 billion.

Japan’s Diet passes legislation designed to overhaul Japan’s ailing banking system.

The body of murdered Saudi Arabian diplomat Abdullah Jamaan AlGhamadi, 54, is discovered in his apartment in Canberra, Australia’s capital. The murder is the first suspicious death of a foreign diplomat in Australia since 1981.

Oct. 13

Oct. 14

Asia & the Pacific

The UN General Assembly passes a nonbinding resolution calling for the U.S. to end its 36-year-old embargo against Cuba. . . . The WTO offers membership to Latvia and Kyrgyzstan, the first former Soviet republics to be invited into the WTO. . . . A UN report estimates that peacekeeping missions lost more than $23 million worth of equipment between 1993 and 1995. It finds that theft accounts for almost three-fifths of that loss.

The embattled government of Lesotho and the country’s opposition leaders agree upon a transitional structure to sustain the kingdom until new elections in 2000 and to guide the electoral process.

Some 500,000 secondary-school students march in cities in France to protest classroom overcrowding and inadequate equipment and buildings. The protests are the culmination of smaller ones begun Oct. 4. In Paris, a march attended by more than 25,000 students erupts into violence, as protesters vandalize cars and loot shops. . . . The upper house of Russia’s parliament passes legislation that will reestablish a public holiday commemorating the defeat of Japan in World War II on Sep. 3, 1945.

Oct. 15

Pres. Andres Pastrana Arango orders troops to begin pulling out of five townships in southeast Colombia, comprising more than 16,000 square miles (40,000 sq km) of land, so that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) will have control of the area. The withdrawal of troops, which will last for 90 days, is intended as a major step toward peace negotiations.

Koo Chen-fu, Taiwan’s chief official for relations with China, visits China, marking the highest-level contacts between Taiwan and China since 1949. . . . Australian law-enforcement authorities seize 180 pounds (400 kg) of pure heroin, three times the amount Australian authorities seized in all of 1997 and by far the largest in Australia’s history. Police arrest 18 people, 11 of whom are Indonesian and seven of whom are Hong Kong Chinese.

Lebanon’s pro-Syrian, unicameral National Assembly, the country’s parliament, unanimously elects Gen. Emile Lahoud, the military chief of staff, as president, succeeding Elias Hrawi.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 10–15, 1998—1187

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The House ethics committee drops the last three of 84 ethics charges Democratic representatives filed against House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.) since he led the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994. . . . The House clears, 36950, legislation to expand federal aid to “charter schools,” public schools exempted from some local regulations. . . . Clark McAdams Clifford, 91, lawyer, government official and adviser to four Democratic presidents, dies of respiratory failure in Bethesda, Maryland.

The House, by voice vote, passes a bill aimed at deterring persecution of minority religious groups overseas. . . . Declassified documents show that the CIA ignored reports that some 50 Nicaraguan contras or their supporters had links to drug trafficking during the war against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government in the 1980s.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Oct. 10

Spottswood W(illiam) Robinson III, 82, civil-rights lawyer who helped persuade the Supreme Court to declare racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional in the 1954 landmark case Brown v. Board of Education, dies in Richmond, Virginia, of an apparent heart attack.

Pope John Paul II canonizes Edith Stein, an Orthodox Jew who became a Roman Catholic nun and was killed in Auschwitz. The action draws anger from Jewish groups, who criticize the decision to declare Stein a Christian martyr of the Holocaust in which 6 million Jews died.

Matthew Shepard, 21, an openly homosexual student at the University of Wyoming who was beaten into a coma and left hanging on a ranch fence, dies at a Colorado hospital. Police charge Russell Henderson, 21, and Aaron McKinney, 22, with his murder.

In San Francisco, California, Judge Charles Breyer orders shut the Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative, which provided marijuana for medical use. . . . Jeremy Sagastegui, 27, convicted of the 1995 murders of a three-year-old boy, his mother, and another woman, is executed in Walla Walla, Washington. Sagastegui is the 484th person executed in the U.S. and only the third in Washington State since 1976.

The INS institutes higher fees for most immigration services, claiming that they will help the agency modernize and speed up the citizenship process.

Dwayne Allen Wright, 26, convicted of killing a woman when he was 17, is executed in Jarratt, Virginia. Wright is the first juvenile offender and the 56th person executed in Virginia since 1976. He is 485th person since 1976 and the 12th juvenile offender since 1985 to be executed in the U.S. . . . The Senate clears, by voice vote, legislation outlawing identity theft. . . . In Nevada, Jeremy Strohmeyer is sentenced to life in prison for the May 1997 murder of seven-year-old Sherrice Iverson.

The House clears a bill passed by the Senate in 1997 that requires the State Department to report to Congress each year the number of foreign diplomats suspected of committing a serious crime in the U.S.

Frank Caruso Jr., 19, is sentenced to eight years in prison for the beating of Lenard Clark, 13, a black teenager who rode his bicycle into a mostly white Chicago area in 1997. . . . The Senate passes legislation create a national strategy to combat money laundering. . . . The CDC issues recommendations for the testing for hepatitis C of patients who may have contracted the disease through tainted blood transfusions.

Reports confirm that the family of Joviane Waltrick, an American teenager killed in a 1997 traffic accident in the U.S. caused by Georgian diplomat Gueorgui Makharadze, has agreed to settle a civil lawsuit against the Republic of Georgia and two other defendants for more than $250,000. Makharadze who had been speeding in Washington, D.C., when he caused the accident, is serving seven to 21 years in prison.

The Senate, by unanimous consent, and the House, 319-82, clear legislation that will make federal courts the sole arbiter of classaction lawsuits involving fraud allegations against companies with volatile stocks.

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded to Robert Furchgott, Louis Ignarro, and Ferid Murad, all of the U.S., for their pioneering research in the early 1980s into the wide-reaching internal biological role of naturally produced nitric oxide. . . . The House, by voice vote, passes legislation updating copyright provisions for computer software and other works created in digital media.

Kenny Brack of Sweden wins the Indy Racing League (IRL) points title at the Las Vegas 500 in Nevada, where he finishes sixth.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded to Walter Kohn and John Pople, both of the U.S., for using quantum theory to calculate the behavior of atoms and molecules. The Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded to to three U.S. university professors—Daniel Tsui, Horst Stoermer, and Robert Laughlin—for their work in studies of a phenomenon called the fractional quantum.

Writer Isabel Allende receives the fifth annual Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize for the arts. . . . The NBA announces the cancellation of the first two weeks of the 1998-99 basketball season due to a labor dispute for the first time in the league’s 51-year history. The NBA had been the only major U.S. professional sports league that had not canceled games due to labor disputes.

The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences is awarded to to Indian-born Amartya Sen for his work in welfare economics, which addresses the economic theory behind famines and poverty.

Frank Yankovic, 83, accordionist and singer known as the “Polka King,” dies in New Port Richey, Florida.

In a surprise move, The Federal Reserve Board, cuts the federalfunds rate, the interest rate banks charge one another on overnight loans, to 5%, from 5.25%. The discount rate, the largely symbolic rate the Fed charges on loans it makes to commercial banks, is lowered to 4.75%, from 5%. A number of commercial banks quickly cut their prime rate to 8%, from 8.25%.

Pope John Paul II issues his 13th encyclical, in which he urges Roman Catholics to affirm that the union of religious faith and rational thought is possible and essential for the perpetuation of a vibrant faith. . . . Cleveland Amory, 81, writer and animal-rights advocate, dies in New York City of an aneurysm.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 11

Oct. 12

Oct. 13

Oct. 14

Oct. 15

1188—October 16–21, 1998

Oct. 16

Oct. 17

World Affairs

Europe

NATO extends by 10 days a deadline for the withdrawal of Serbian forces from Kosovo. . . . Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, the former military leader of Chile, is arrested in London after Spain requests his extradition on charges of ordering the murder of hundreds of Spanish citizens during his rule. . . . The Nobel Peace Prize is presented to John Hume and David Trimble for their work to bring an end to sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, which has claimed nearly 3,600 lives since 1969.

Macedonia holds a round of national parliamentary elections.

Reports confirm that Russian and Belarussian defense ministers plan to enhance military ties to counter eastward expansion by NATO. . . . The Chilean government demands the release of Gen. Pinochet, claiming that he is protected by diplomatic immunity as a member of the Chilean Senate. His Oct. 16 arrest is considered to have wideranging implications for the prosecution of human-rights abuses.

The ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) kills three Serbian police officers. . . . Joan Bogle Hickson, 92, British actress known for her portrayal of Agatha Christie’s sleuth, Miss Marple, in a BBC television series, 1984–92, dies in Colchester, England.

Oct. 20

Oct. 21

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific The foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan meet for the first extended negotiations on the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, to which both countries have laid claim, since 1963.

The Yugoslav government deploys two battalion-sized armored units in central Kosovo after reports of the Oct. 17 killings by the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK).

Nine people are killed by rebels in Hamma Bouziane, a village 212 miles east of Algiers.

Judge Baltasar Garzon of Spain, who issued the Oct 16 arrest warrant for Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, expands the accusations to human-rights abuses involving 94 people, including citizens of Chile, Argentina, Britain, and the U.S. The judge bases his arrest request on the European Convention on Terrorism, which requires member nations to assist each other in the apprehension of terrorists.

Soldiers opposed to the rule of Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze stage a revolt as they block roads with tanks and clash with government troops sent to put down the rebellion. They surrender after talks with government negotiators.

Sierra Leone executes by firing squad 24 soldiers, sentenced Oct. 12 for their roles in a May 1997 coup that ousted Pres. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. . . . Africa’s biggest airline, South African Airways (SAA), reveals that it has suspended its flights to Congo pending the results of an investigation into the Oct. 11 incident in which an airliner was shut down by rebel troops. . . . A West Bank Palestinian man carries out a grenade attack against Israeli soldiers in a crowded public bus station in Beersheba, wounding some 60 people.

To mark the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, China hosts an international conference. . . . Officials in Switzerland announce they have seized about $90 million controlled by Raul Salinas de Gortari, brother of former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari. Salinas allegedly received the money for protecting the passage of drugs to the U.S. during his brother’s 1988–94 term.

In France, about 300,000 students demonstrate for better learning conditions, and 25,000 march in Paris alone. Parents and teachers march with students for the first time. Riot police spray tear gas to break up a wave of vandalism in Paris, where about 100 people are arrested. . . . Reports reveal that 50 people were injured in the Oct. 19 rebellion in Georgia. At least one government soldier and four of the rebel soldiers were killed.

The military wing of Hamas takes responsibility for the Oct. 19 attack. . . . Reports confirm that the government’s commission is paying reparations to victims of apartheid in South Africa. . . . John Mowbray Didcott, 67, South African judge known for his commitment to human rights, dies in Durban, South Africa, of leukemia.

Jorge Ortega, who was vice president of the Unitary Workers’ Federation, Colombia’s largest labor organization, is assassinated by an unidentified gunman. . . . The Oct, 16 arrest of Gen. Pinochet in London continues to escalate tensions in Chile, and police arrest 117 people after violent clashes in Santiago, the capital.

Leaders of Turkey and Syria state they have signed an agreement aimed at staving off a possible military confrontation over Syria’s alleged support for Kurds in Turkey, easing tensions that have been rising since September.

Massimo D’Alema, head of the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS), is sworn in to succeed Romano Prodi as Italy’s premier. D’Alema is the first former communist to become Italy’s premier. . . . In response to student protests, French officials announce that the government will appropriate an extra four billion francs ($730 million) in funding for schools. . . . Lord (Alan John) Sainsbury, 96, chair, 1956–67, and joint president, 1967–98, of J. Sainsbury PLC, a leading British supermarket chain, dies.

The governments of Angola, Zimbabwe, and Namibia announce an agreement to support Pres. Laurent Kabila’s offensive in eastern Congo. The UN Children’s Fund states that it will pull out of the areas of Congo held by the rebels, as it lost $1 million worth of equipment due to pillaging. . . . A judge in Sierra Leone sentences 11 people to death for treason for their involvement in a May 1997 coup that ousted Pres. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah.

Alberta’s provincial government announces that a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officer who shot and killed a native woman and her nine-year-old son in March will not face criminal charges in connection with the incident.

Oct. 18

Oct. 19

Africa & the Middle East

A pipeline explodes in the northern Antioquia province of Colombia, killing some 40 people and leaving at least 60 injured.

Vietnamese premier Phan Van Khai visits China, making the first such trip by a Vietnamese head of government since 1991.

In South Korea, Kim Sun Hong, the former chairman of the Kia conglomerate, is sentenced to seven years in prison for embezzlement and dereliction of duty.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 16–21, 1998—1189

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The House passes a bill to create a national strategy to combat money laundering.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Social Security Administration announces that beneficiaries receiving social security checks in 1999 will obtain a cost-of-living increase of 1.3%, the smallest rise since 1987. That means that the average benefit paid will increase by about $10, to $780 per month.

Jon(athan) B. Postel, 55, Internet pioneer who helped create its address system and worked at the federally funded Internet Assigned Numbers Authority for 30 years, dies of complications from heart surgery in Santa Monica, California.

Maynard Michael Parker, 58, Newsweek editor since 1982 who joined the magazine’s staff in 1966, dies in New York City of complications from leukemia.

Flooding and deadly tornadoes begin to sweep through central, southern, and eastern Texas.

Joseph Machlis, 92, music author and educator whose book sold more than 2 million copies, dies in New York of unreported causes. . . . Marvin P. Gay Sr., 84, who shot and killed his son, late soul music singer Marvin Gaye, in 1984, dies of pneumonia in Los Angeles, California.

Oct. 16

Oct. 17

Oct. 18

Incumbent state senator Tommy Burks (D, Tenn.), 58, is found dead, shot in the forehead. . . . Victor Jasas, 18, and Michael Kwidzinski, 21, accused of beating black teenager Lenard Clark, 13, who rode his bicycle into their mostly white Chicago neighborhood, plead guilty to reduced charges and are sentenced to probation and community service. . . . Two black health organizations file a class-action lawsuit against the tobacco industry in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, claiming that cigarette companies violated federal civil-rights laws by targeting menthol cigarettes at black customers.

The Senate confirms the appointments of 17 federal judges nominated by Pres. Clinton. The confirmations bring the number of new federal judges the Senate confirmed in 1998 to 65. That number compares with 36 in 1997. . . . The Senate clears by unanimous consent a bill that will authorize $750 million in compensation for hemophiliacs infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, through blood transfusions. . . . The Senate confirms Kenneth Prewitt as director of the Census Bureau.

Pres. Clinton signs legislation intended to encourage companies to share information about solving the so-called Year 2000 (Y2K) computer glitch by shielding them from lawsuits based on the data they disclose.

The Nevada State Athletic Commission votes to restore former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson’s boxing license, which was revoked in 1997 after he bit both of opponent Evander Holyfield’s ears in a championship bout in Las Vegas. The ruling causes controversy, especially since Tyson is still on probation after serving three years in an Indiana prison for a rape conviction.

Pres. Clinton signs the intelligence authorization bill for fiscal 1999. . . . The House passes, by voice vote, a bill bringing U.S. law into line with an international antibribery treaty signed in 1997 by the U.S. and other major industrial countries that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. trade deficit expanded by 15.3% in August from July, recording a seasonally adjusted $16.77 billion gap in trade in goods and services. The August gap is the largest recorded since the department began tracking it in its present format. . . . The House passes, 333-95, an omnibus bill that will provide more than $500 billion for federal spending in the fiscal 1999 year.

The SEC formally charges 37 small brokerage firms with failing to file adequate reports on the Y2K glitch, the problems anticipated with computer systems in the year 2000. . . . Flooding continues in Texas, and in Victoria the Guadalupe River crests at almost 36 feet, breaking a record set in 1936 by nearly 5 feet.

The UN appoints Geri Halliwell, a former member of the Spice Girls, a British popular music group, as a goodwill ambassador for the UN Population Fund.

Pres. Clinton vetoes a bill to pay $1 billion that the U.S. owes the UN in back dues because it contains antiabortion provisions. However, part of the omnibus spending bill includes a dues payment of some $200 million to the UN that will allow the U.S. to retain its General Assembly voting rights. . . . The Senate passes, by voice vote, a bill bringing U.S. law into line with an international antibribery treaty signed in 1997. . . . Joseph Santos and Amarylis Silverio Santos plead guilty to charges of serving as illegal foreign agents to Cuba.

The Senate clears, 65-29, and Pres. Clinton signs an omnibus bill that will provide more than $500 billion for the fiscal 1999 year, which began Oct. 1. The bill incorporates eight of the 13 annual appropriations measures, as well as legislation authorizing $18 billion in new financing for the IMF and $20.8 billion dollars in emergency spending for farmers, the military and other uses. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a measure enacting a major overhaul of the nation’s public housing system. . . . Pres. Clinton signs an $93.4 fiscal 1999 bill for the VA, HUD, EPA, NASA, and other independent agencies.

The Senate ratifies by voice vote two treaties adopted in 1996 by the UN World Intellectual Property Organization. . . . The Senate confirms Pres. Clinton’s appointment of Dr. Jane Henney as commissioner of the FDA. . . . Arianespace, the commercial arm of the ESA, successfully completes its third and last test launch of the Ariane-5 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana.

The New York Yankees defeat the San Diego Padres, 3-0, to win 94th World Series in San Diego, California.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 19

Oct. 20

Oct. 21

1190—October 22–27, 1998

World Affairs

Oct. 22

Oct. 23

In Washington, D.C., Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yasser Arafat, president of the selfrule Palestinian National Authority (PNA), sign a long-delayed interim agreement on conditions for an Israeli military withdrawal from 13.1% of the West Bank.

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Yugoslav army soldiers fire on a group of 16 ethnic Albanians as the refugees cross the border from Albania to return to their village in southern Kosovo. Two men and three young children die in the shooting.

In Sierra Leone, a judge sentences five people to 10 years in prison for their involvement in a May 1997 coup that ousted Pres. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah.

Christopher Gable, 58, British ballet star and film and stage actor, dies near Halifax, England, of cancer.

In response to the interim agreement between Israel and the PNA signed in Washington, D.C., some 2,000 supporters of Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad burn Israeli and U.S. flags at a rally in the southern Gaza Strip. . . . Iranian voters elect conservatives to a majority of seats in the Assembly of Experts, which may select and advise Iran’s supreme leader. . . . In Sierra Leone, Foday Sankoh, founder and one leader of the RUF, is sentenced to death for treason for the1997 coup.

The Americas

Pakistan’s carpet makers sign an agreement with the International Labor Organization seeking to end child labor in the industry. . . . In Japan an initial public offering of stock in NTT Mobile Communications Network Inc. raises some 2.13 trillion yen ($18 billion). The sale is the largest IPO ever. . . . Kazuaki Okazaki, 38, a founding member of the Aum Shinrikyo religious cult, which released deadly sarin gas into Tokyo’s subway system in March 1995, is sentenced to death for the killings of four people in a separate incident.

A protest by some 2,000 people in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, turns violent as demonstrators clash with riot police. Several police officers and protesters suffer injuries, but no fatalities are reported. At least 240 of the protesters are arrested. . . . One of Japan’s largest financial institutions, Daiwa Bank, announces that it will close all of its overseas branches over the next 18 months.

Oct. 24

Oct. 25

Oct. 26

Oct. 27

Asia & the Pacific

Reports confirm that foreign ministers of the European Union have agreed to increase sanctions against Myanmar’s ruling junta. . . . NATO suspends the immediate threat of air strikes against Yugoslavia, after determining that Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic is in “substantial compliance” with NATO demands to withdraw Serbian police and military forces from the province of Kosovo.

The moderate Basque Nationalist Party wins the largest number of seats in a legislative election held in Spain’s Basque region.

In the PNA-controlled city of Ramallah on the West Bank, one Palestinian youth is killed when PNA military intelligence officers open fire on protest marchers.

Reports confirm that, in Peru, three protesters have been killed and eight seriously injured in clashes with police over the upcoming treaty designed to a 50-year-old border dispute that brought Peru and Ecuador to war in 1995.

Serbian police and army troops begin to withdraw en masse from Kosovo, just before the latest NATO deadline for Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic to comply with the terms of an agreement reached earlier. Thousands of refugees begin returning to their homes. . . . Reports confirm that Chechnya’s top official in charge of combating kidnapping, Shadid Bargishev, was killed in a bomb explosion outside of his office. Two bodyguards and several people in the area were injured.

Danny Vargas, a Jewish security guard from a settlement near Hebron, is shot to death. Later, a caller speaking in Hebrew tells Israeli police that he killed a Palestinian near Nablus in revenge for the Vargas slaying. Israeli authorities find the body of olive farmer Mohammed Suleiman Zalmut, 68.

Pres. Alberto Fujimori of Peru and Pres. Jamil Mahuad of Ecuador sign a treaty ending a 50-year-old border dispute that brought their countries to war in 1995. . . . Hurricane Mitch intensifies into a Category Five hurricane—the most powerful on the Saffer-Simpson hurricane scale—before hitting Central America.

Authorities raid and close down the China Development Union, an independent policy research organization founded earlier in the year by Peng Ming, a businessman and former government official.

In Kosova, in a booby trap left by Serbian forces, a 19-year-old man is killed. . . . The Bundestag votes to install Gerhard Schroeder as Germany’s chancellor. Schroeder and his cabinet are sworn in by Pres. Roman Herzog, formally ending the 16-year tenure of outgoing Chancellor Helmut Kohl. . . . Pres. Carlos Saul Menem of Argentina arrives in Britain, making the first official visit to Britain by an Argentine leader since 1960. . . . Rosamund John (born Nora Rosamund Jones), 85, 1940s-era British actress, dies in London, England.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 22–27, 1998—1191

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A consortium of 17 advocacy groups, led by the ACLU, files a lawsuit in U.S. District Court challenging the constitutionality of the Internet-pornography law passed Oct. 21 as part of the omnibus fiscal 1999 spending bill. Under the measure, operators of commercial websites are required to limit access to material deemed pornographic or “harmful to minors.”. . . Pres. Clinton signs a bill expanding federal aid to “charter schools.” . . . Francis W. Sargent, 83, (R, Mass.), governor of Massachusetts, 1969–75, dies in Dover, Massachusetts, of unreported causes.

Reports confirm that Alejandro Alonso has pled guilty to charges of being an illegal foreign agent to Cuba. . . . Declassified documents reveal that the CIA continued to support anticommunist forces in Honduras in the 1980s even though the agency knew of humans-rights abuses by the Honduran military.

A commission of Texas environmental regulators votes unanimously to deny a license for a low-level radioactive waste dump to be built on the outskirts of Sierra Blanca. . . . The world’s seven biggest manufacturers of diesel engines for heavy trucks agree to pay $83 million in fines and $1 billion in corrective actions to avoid a federal civil lawsuit on environmental charges. The settlement, brokered after nearly a year of negotiations, is the largest financial penalty imposed in an environmental-enforcement action in U.S. history.

Scientists report new evidence that oceans of liquid water exists below the frozen surfaces of two of Jupiter’s moons, Europa and Callisto.

Reports state that the death of Olympic track star Florence Griffith Joyner, 38, was caused by suffocation that resulted from a seizure. . . . Frank Bidart receives the 1998 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry. . . . Eric Ambler, 89, British author whose early works are credited with legitimizing the thriller, dies in London, England.

An unidentified sniper shoots and kills Barnett Slepian, 52, an obstetrician in Amherst, New York, who performed abortions as a small part of his practice. He is the third abortion doctor killed in the U.S. since 1993 . . . Police in Cookeville, Tennessee, arrest Byron (Low Tax) Looper, a Republican candidate for the state senate, on charges of murdering his Democratic opponent, popular incumbent Tommy Burks.

Two former University of Wisconsin radicals, Kurt Stand and his wife Theresa Squillacote, are found guilty of espionage in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, for spying for East Germany in the 1970s and 1980s.

James Lee Witt, director of FEMA, and Texas governor George Bush (R) visit Cuero, Texas, the site of recent flooding. Twenty counties have been declared federal disaster areas, and Witt states that five more counties are slated for the federal disaster designation. . . . Scientists report they have found that rhesus monkeys are capable of placing objects in serial order.

Data shows that the television ratings for the 1998 World Series averaged a record low of 14.1. . . . Winnie Ruth Judd, 93, infamous 1930s-era criminal known as the “trunk murderess,” dies in Phoenix, Arizona, of unreported causes.

Mary Steichen Calderone, 94, preeminent advocate of sex education who in 1964 cofounded the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States, dies in Kennet Square, Pennsylvania, while suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

INS officials estimate that 100,000 Chinese nationals arrive illegally in the U.S. each year.

Deep Space 1, an unmanned spacecraft that is to fly past an asteroid, is launched on a Delta rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Deep Space 1 is the first spacecraft to use an ion engine as its primary source of propulsion, allowing it to carry much less fuel than it would otherwise have to carry.

Oct. 23

Oct. 24

Admiral John Joseph Hyland Jr., 86, U.S. Navy admiral who commanded the Pacific Fleet from 1967 to 1971, dies in Honolulu, Hawaii, of unreported causes.

The Chicago Fire, an expansion team, defeats D.C. United, 2-0, in the championship game of the Major League Soccer playoffs in Pasadena, California. The win marks the first time that an expansion team in a major U.S. sport has won the championship in its first season.

A jury in Richmond, Virginia, finds that Columbus, Ohio–based Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. discriminated against black homeowners in Richmond by refusing to sell them home insurance policies, and it orders the company to pay $100 million in punitive damages and $500,000 in compensation to Housing Opportunities Made Equal Inc., a Richmond-based housing group.

Two Washington, D.C., think tanks, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Henry L. Stimson Center, release separate reports criticizing the U.S.’s foreign policy apparatus. Both reports find that U.S. diplomacy suffers from outdated computer technology and inefficient organization.

Mike Piazza, catcher for the New York Mets, announces that he will stay with the Mets after signing a seven-year contract worth a record $91 million. Piazza will average $13 million a season, making him the highest-paid baseball player in the major leagues.

Pres. Clinton signs a five-year reauthorization of the Head Start preschool program. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a measure extending U.S. copyrights by 20 years. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a measure barring close relatives from serving as judges on the same federal court. . . . Two independent counsels release a final report on their extensive probe into corruption and influence peddling, finding “a pattern of greed, criminal conduct and systematic corruption of the government process by HUD officials” during the 1980s.

Pres. Clinton signs a bill aimed at deterring persecution of religious groups overseas.

The flooding and deadly tornadoes that have swept through central, southern and eastern Texas since Oct. 17 begin to subside. The floods in 60 counties have caused 31 deaths and prompted the evacuation of 14,000 people.

Oct. 22

Pres. Clinton signs a bill to overturn MLB’S exemption from antitrust laws in regard to labor relations. . . . The Booker Prize is awarded to novelist Ian McEwan for Amsterdam. . . . The White House reveals the 19 cultural figures, a corporation, and a theater company that will receive National Medals of Arts or National Humanities Medals.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 25

Oct. 26

Oct. 27

1192—October 28–November 1, 1998

Oct. 28

Oct. 29

Oct. 30

Oct. 31

Nov. 1

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The Americas

A UN report forecasts a global population of 8.9 billion in the year 2050, down from the 1996 prediction of a 2050 population of 9.4 billion. . . . Britain’s High Court rules that Chilean general Augusto Pinochet Ugarte is immune from arrest in Britain and extradition to Spain, nullifying the Oct. 16 warrant. . . . Reports confirm that Belarus has rescinded a June eviction order that forced foreign diplomats from their diplomatic residences and prompted several countries to recall their ambassadors from Belarus.

Argentine president Carlos Saul Menem lays a wreath at a memorial to British victims of the Falklands War in London. . . . A Kremlin speaker announces that Russian president Boris Yeltsin will relinquish the day-to-day running of the government to focus on securing an orderly succession at the end of his current term. . . . . Thomas Harold Flowers, 92, British engineer who developed a machine that decoded German military communications during World War II, dies in London, England, of a heart attack.

Alleged Bosnian Serb war criminal Goran Jelisic pleads guilty to killing 12 Moslems and Croats in Brcko, northern Bosnia, but maintains that he is not guilty of genocide. Because Jelisic is charged with genocide, he will go on trial at the court in The Hague and will not be sentenced for the other crimes until that trial is completed. . . . The World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank announce a $2 billion loan package for Colombia.

Judge Sergei Golets in St. Petersburg dismisses the case of Alexander Nikitin, a retired Russian navy captain accused of espionage for his work on a report on the environmental risks posed by Russia’s nuclear submarines. It is the first time in Soviet and Russian history that charges of treason have been dismissed.

A Palestinian suicide bomber kills one Israeli soldier and himself in the Gaza Strip. . . . In its final report on human-rights violations during apartheid, South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission finds that the white-minority government sustained institutionalized violence and committed most of the apartheid era’s severe human-rights violations. However, the report also criticizes opposition groups, most notably the ANC, finding that it too was responsible for killings and torture.

Hurricane Mitch is downgraded to a tropical storm, but it continues to dump as much as 2 feet (0.6 m) of rain daily on parts of Central America.

Reports reveal that Japan has agreed effectively to forgive 90% of the debts incurred by 10 African countries over the previous decade. . . . A consortium of UN agencies, including the World Bank, UNICEF, and the UN Development Fund, announce the launch of an antimalaria campaign coordinated by the World Health Organization. . . . Despite the Oct. 29 ruling in Britain, Spain’s National Court rules unanimously that Spain has the right to charge and extradite General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, the former military ruler of Chile.

In Slovakia, Mikulas Dzurinda is sworn into office as premier, officially ending the tenure of Premier Vladimir Meciar. . . . Fire tears through a discotheque in Goteborg, Sweden, killing 60 people and injuring about 180 others. The fire is Sweden’s deadliest in decades.

South Africa states that it will withdraw 1,400 of its 3,500 troops stationed in Lesotho since the September violence.

In western Nicaragua, the crater on top of the 4,610-foot (1,405 m) Casitas volcano collapses, causing a slide of rock, mud, and debris down its slopes that buries at least four communities and up to 2,000 people.

To protest mounting Iraqi deaths as a result of the UN’s embargo, Iraqi Pres. Saddam Hussein halts Iraq’s cooperation with the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM), which is overseeing the dismantlement of Iraq’s missiles and its chemical and biological weapons programs. . . . Taiwan announces it will break diplomatic ties with Tonga, which plans to formally recognize China.

Brian Service, a Roman Catholic, is shot and killed by unidentified assailants in a Catholic section of Belfast, Northern Ireland. The murder is the year’s 55th slaying linked to the conflict between Catholics and Protestants in British-ruled Northern Ireland.

While on a shuttle diplomacy tour to seven African countries, U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs Susan Rice warns that the Congo fighting may reach genocidal proportions.

Data reveal that Hurricane Mitch, the deadliest hurricane to strike Central America since 1988, has caused more than 9,000 deaths in the region and left another one million people homeless since Oct. 26. Though most of the deaths are recorded in Honduras and Nicaragua, hurricane-related deaths are also reported in El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Jamaica, and Costa Rica.

Denis Halliday resigns as coordinator of the UN’s oil-for-food program in Iraq in protest over the impact of UN economic sanctions on Iraqi civilians, arguing that the sanctions are responsible for the deaths of 6,000–7,000 Iraqi children each month.

In Macedonia, the Coalition for Changes soundly defeats the ruling Social-Democratic Union of Macedonia party (SDSM). Ljupco Georgievski is named premier. . . . A Protestant guerrilla group called the Red Hand Defenders claims responsibility for the Oct. 31 attack in Belfast, Northern Ireland. . . Norbert Wollheim, 85, survivor of the Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp who, in 1951, sued the I. G. Farben company for payment for labor he was forced to perform, dies in New York City of a heart ailment.

The government of Guinea-Bissau signs a peace agreement with army mutineers, ending a civil war that has racked the West African country for five months.

Data reveals that Hurricane Mitch was the fourth-strongest hurricane of the 20th century. An estimated 7,000 people were killed and 600,000 people left homeless in Honduras, which bore the brunt of the storm’s force. Mayor Cesar Castellanos of Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, is killed in a helicopter crash while surveying the damage. . . . In Colombia, FARC begins an assault on Mitu, the capital of Vaupes province.

Asia & the Pacific

The 650,000 public-sector workers who struck Oct. 7 in Colombia end the job action when government officials agree to implement a 15% wage increase. . . . Winnipeg, the capital of Manitoba, becomes the first major Canadian city to elect an openly homosexual mayor, Glen Murray.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 28–November 1, 1998—1193

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Officials in Miami, Florida, arrest 18 people as part of a probe of vote fraud in the city’s 1997 municipal elections. . . . More than 400 historians claim that Pres. Clinton’s actions do not meet the impeachment criteria envisioned by the Constitution’s framers. A group of 200 constitutional scholars releases a similar petition.

Pres. Clinton signs a bill restoring Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Medicaid benefits to certain legal immigrants. . . . Pres. Andres Pastrana Arango and Pres. Clinton sign a pact to cooperate in combating drug trafficking in the U.S. and Colombia. The state visit is the first by a Colombian president to the U.S. in 23 years. . . . General James L. Day, 73, retired Marine Corps general who, in January, belatedly received the Medal of Honor, dies in Cathedral City, California, of a heart attack.

President Clinton announces a final, official budget surplus figure of $70 billion for fiscal 1998, which ended Sep. 30. It is the first federal budget surplus since 1969.

President Clinton signs a measure to encourage commercial involvement in space exploration. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a bill updating copyright protections for digital products such as computer software and compact discs.

The National Basketball Association announces the cancellation of two weeks of the season in addition to the games canceled Oct. 13. . . . Ted (Edward James) Hughes, 68, British poet laureate since 1984 and the winner of the the 1997 Whitbread Book of the Year Award, dies in North Tawton, England, of cancer.

Scientists report they have discovered for the first time new brain cells being generated in adults. . . . The FDA approves use of tamoxifen to help reduce the risk of breast cancer in women at high risk of the disease. Tamoxifen is the first drug approved by the FDA as a preventive measure against breast cancer. . . . The Discovery lifts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, with a crew that includes retiring senator John Glenn (D, Ohio), who, at 77, is the oldest space traveler ever.

Reports confirm that a fisherman has discovered a bracelet believed to have belonged to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the French author, near Marseilles. . . . A 10th-century manuscript of a work by the mathematician Archimedes is sold at Christie’s for $2 million. The text is the oldest surviving copy of a work by Archimedes.

A New Jersey judge sentences Melissa Drexler, 20, to 15 years in prison for killing her newborn son after giving birth in the bathroom at her senior prom in 1997. . . . Harry Mohr Weese, 83, Chicago-based architect who designed Washington, D.C.’s Metro subway system, dies in Manteno, Illinois, after a stroke.

Pres. Clinton signs bills to make identity theft a federal crime and to create a national strategy to combat money laundering. . . . Five abortion clinics in three states receive letters that claim to contain the deadly anthrax virus. . . . In the first government suit filed against the firearms industry, the city of New Orleans alleges that gun makers knowingly omit safety devices from weapons. . . . Anthony J. Celebrezze, 88, mayor of Cleveland, 1953–62, who, in 1962, was the first ItalianAmerican appointed to a presidential cabinet, dies in Cleveland, Ohio, of esophageal cancer.

Judge Carlos Cuevas of the federal immigration court in Chicago orders the deportation of Bronislaw Hajda, who served as a guard at a Nazi concentration camp in Trawniki, Poland, during World War II. Some 60 people have been stripped of U.S. citizenship in the Justice Department’s efforts to find Nazi war criminals in the U.S.

Pres. Clinton signs a bill reauthorizing the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition program.

Pres. Clinton signs a bill providing U.S. military aid to opposition groups in Iraq.

The World Boxing Council (WBC) votes to extend accreditation to women’s boxing. . . . Clyde (Bulldog) Turner, 79, Hall of Fame linebacker and center elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1966, dies in Gatesville, Texas, while suffering from lung cancer.

Pres. Clinton signs a bill overhauling federal vocational training programs. . . . Figures show that political parties and outside special-interest groups spent between $260 million and $330 million on issue advertising during the 1997–98 midterm election cycle. That amount—a record—is roughly twice as much as was spent on issue ads in the 1995–96 presidential election cycle.

Scientists report they have succeeded in isolating neural stem cells from a human fetus. In a separate study, scientists injected human fetal brain cells into the brains of rat embryos that have a genetic disorder causing their neurons to lack their protective myelin sheath. . . . The Royal Greenwich Observatory, founded in 1675 and the oldest scientific institution in Britain, closes due to government budget cuts.

Reports confirm that, according to genetic evidence, it is likely that Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the U.S., fathered a son by Sally Hemings, a slave who belonged to him. The new genetic evidence follows years of disputes among historians and adds a twist to discussions of the history of slavery and race relations in the U.S.

Boxer Prince Naseem Hamed of England defeats Ireland’s Wayne McCullough in Atlantic City, New Jersey, to retain his WBO featherweight title.

Golfer Hal Sutton wins the PGA’s Tour Championship in Atlanta, Georgia. . . . John Kagwe of Kenya wins his second consecutive New York City Marathon. Franca Fiacconi of Italy clinches the women’s title. . . . Auto racer Jeff Gordon clinches his third NASCAR Winston Cup title.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 28

Oct. 29

Oct. 30

Oct. 31

Nov. 1

1194—November 2–7, 1998

World Affairs

Nov. 2

Delegates from more than 160 nations open a conference in Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires, to work out plans for implementing the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 international accord that seeks to curb global warming.

Reports suggest that Pres. Laurent Kabila’s 30,000-strong Congolese army is being supported by some 4,000 troops from Angola, 3,500 from Zimbabwe, more than 1,000 from Sudan, 1,000 from Chad, and some 8,000 Rwandan Hutu extremists. The rebels are backed by several thousand Rwandan troops and 4,000 soldiers from Uganda.

Nov. 5

Nov. 6

Africa & the Middle East In the southwestern city of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, protesters demonstrate against poor economic conditions; 27 people are arrested and 20 injured when they confront police.

Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, a selfstyled, “professional revolutionary” known as “Carlos the Jackal,” launches a hunger strike in prison. Carlos, jailed in 1997 on murder charges, contends that he was unfairly placed in solitary confinement. . . . A court in Milan, Italy, convicts Patrizia Reggiani Martinelli and sentences her to 29 years in prison for hiring hit men to kill her former husband, Maurizio Gucci, the former chair of Guccio Gucci SpA, in 1995. . . . The official death toll from the Oct. 30 fire in Goteborg, Sweden, climbs to 62.

Nov. 3

Nov. 4

Europe

In Tajikistan, rebel forces led by former army colonel Makhmud Khudoberdyev launch an offensive by marching on the city of Khudzhand and taking over buildings and an airport. . . . The Yugoslav government turns down visa requests for investigators from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

A judge in Sierra Leone finds former president Joseph Momoh guilty of conspiracy in relation to the May 1997 coup that ousted Pres. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. . . . Riots break out in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, over economic concerns. Police, who break up the march, estimate that they arrested more than 50 people on suspicion of looting during the riots.

Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s vice president and minister of defense, admits that Rwandan troops are aiding a rebellion in neighboring Congo aimed at ousting Pres. Laurent Kabila. . . . A car driven by two suicide bombers apparently explodes prematurely near West Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda marketplace, killing the attackers and injuring 24 bystanders.

Nov. 7

Asia & the Pacific

Nicaraguan president Arnoldo Alemán Lacayo calls Hurricane Mitch the worst disaster to strike his country since 1972, as the storm killed an estimated 2,000 people and left 400,000 homeless. The International Committee of the Red Cross states it is tripling the amount of assistance it seeks for the area to $7.4 million. U.S. president Clinton pledges $3.5 million to airlift food, water, blankets, and plastic sheeting to Central America.

The corruption and sodomy trial of former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim in Malaysia’s High Court in Kuala Lumpur, the capital. Malaysian prime minister Mahathir bin Mohamad ousted Anwar in early September, prompting weeks of street protests unprecedented in Mahathir’s 17-year tenure. Some 200 Anwar supporters gather outside the courthouse. . . . Wang Youcai, a China Democracy Party leader, is detained by the Chinese government.

The Cerro Negro volcano erupts in Nicaragua, covering 90 square miles (240 square km) with lava and ash and causing $20 million in agricultural damage. . . . Reports confirm that Esperanza Luburic (formerly Nada Luburic), believed to have run a women’s detention camp during World War II, was extradited to Croatia from Argentina.

Several demonstrations are held by secondary-school students throughout France to protest classroom overcrowding, inadequate classroom equipment, and crumbling school buildings.

The U.S. is denied a seat on the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions, a UN committee responsible for financial oversight. Diplomats reveal that the denial is mostly due to negative sentiment regarding the sizable U.S. debt of more than $1 billion to the UN.

The Americas

In Colombia, the offensive started Nov. 1 by FARC is subdued after about 500 reinforcements are called in. During the assault on Mitu, the capital of Vaupes province, an estimated 150 soldiers and police officers were killed, and 45 police officers were taken prisoner.

Helmer (Pacho) Herrera Buitrago, considered by officials to be a leading member of the Cali drug cartel, is shot dead in a maximum security prison outside the city of Cali, Colombia.

The UN Commission on Human Rights reports that the Taliban, the militant Islamic movement that rules most of Afghanistan, systematically executed from 4,000 to 5,000 civilians when it overran the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif in August. . . . The Philippines formally complains to China, asserting that China is attempting to increase its territorial claims on the disputed Spratly Islands chain in the South China Sea by constructing piers on Mischief Reef.

Members of the Nisga’a nation, a native tribe of about 5,400 people whose ancestral lands are located in the province of British Columbia, Canada, vote to ratify a treaty that will give the tribe title to 745 square miles (1,930 sq km) of land in British Columbia’s Upper Nass Valley.

The Indian government allows private companies to compete against the state-run VSNL online service. . . . A senior U.S. official announces that U.S. president Clinton has decided to remove some sanctions on India and Pakistan imposed after nuclear tests in May to reward their progress on nuclear arms control and to encourage further progress. . . . Mohamed Taki Abdulkarim, 62, president since 1996 of the Federal Islamic Republic of the Comoros, dies in Moroni, Comoros, of unreported causes.

The military wing of Islamic Jihad takes responsibility for the Nov. 6 bombing.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 2–7, 1998—1195

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

In midterm elections, Republicans lose five seats to the Democrats in the House, reducing the GOP’s edge in the body to six seats—the smallest majority since 1953. Republican governors lose one of their 32 state when independent Jesse (the Body) Ventura, a former wrestler, wins in Minnestota. Voters in Washington State pass an antiaffirmative action initiative. Michigan rejects a measure to allow physician-assisted suicide. Voters back a measure that makes Oregon the first state in the nation to conduct elections solely by mail. Vice Pres. Al Gore announces new rules designed to make it easier for victims of domestic violence to get new social security numbers to help them evade their abusers. . . . Wendell Chino, 74, president of the Mescalero Apache Nation of New Mexico since 1964, dies in Los Angeles, California, of a heart attack.

A U.S. grand jury in New York issues an indictment against Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden, charging him and five members of his alleged terrorist–group, al-Qaeda, in the August bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The State Department offers rewards of $5 million—the largest ever offered by the U.S. for the capture of a terrorist—for information leading to the conviction or arrest of bin Laden and Muhammed Atef, described as bin Laden’s top military commander.

The Justice Department files a lawsuit against Louisiana for what it charges are inadequacies in the state’s juvenile prison system.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The parent company of the NASDAQ Stock Market, the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), and the American Stock Exchange (AMEX) complete their merger. Under the terms of the deal, the AMEX is folded into a new NASD unit, the Nasdaq-Amex Market Group, which also oversees NASDAQ. The two securities markets continue to operate independently, and their tables appear separately in newspapers.

The Los Angeles Opera names Spanish-born tenor Placido Domingo to the post of artistic director, starting in the year 2000. . . . The Path of Daggers by Robert Jordan tops the bestseller list.

President Clinton signs a bill curbing class-action lawsuits involving allegations of securities fraud. . . . The television corporation ABC locks out 1,600–1,800 off-camera employees after they walked off their jobs for a 24-hour strike.

Christie’s sells sports memorabilia for a total of $1.3 million. Included in the auction are mementos of “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, who in 1920 was banned from baseball for allegedly fixing the World Series. . . . Bob Kane, 83, cartoonist who, in 1938, at the age of 18, created Batman the Caped Crusader with his partner, Bill Finger, dies in Los Angeles.

A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., returns a 42-count indictment charging Franklin Haney with illegally funneling $80,000 of his own money to Democratic campaigns. Haney is the 14th person charged in the Justice Department’s campaign finance investigation.

Tropical storm Mitch hits the Florida Keys, southwest Florida, and Cuba, with heavy rain and high winds. Twenty storm-related injuries are reported.

Data from the Center for Responsive Politics finds that higherspending candidates won in 95% of the 1998 congressional races.

In the wake of unexpected losses by the Republican Party in Nov. 3 elections, House speaker Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.) announces that he is stepping aside as speaker and leaving Congress. . . . A federal grand jury in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, indicts former Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards (D), his son Stephen Edwards, and four others in an alleged racketeering conspiracy to extort bribes from casino companies seeking riverboat gaming licenses.

Nov. 3

Nov. 4

Pres. Clinton presents the National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal to 19 American cultural figures, a corporation, and a theater company.

Reports indicate that U.S. scientists have succeeded for the first time in isolating and cultivating human embryonic stem cells.

A study suggests that women infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, suffer more damage to their immune systems than infected males with similar blood levels of the virus. . . . The Discovery touches down at Cape Canaveral, Florida, after carrying out its mission with a crew that includes retiring Sen. John Glenn (D, Ohio), the first American to orbit the Earth.

Nov. 2

Nov. 5

Nov. 6

Awesome Again wins the 15th Breeders’ Cup Classic, the richest horse race in history, in Louisville, Kentucky.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 7

1196—November 8–12, 1998

World Affairs

Nov. 10

Nov. 11

Africa & the Middle East

Gerald Long, 75, general manager of Britain’s Reuters news agency, 1963–81, and the principal architect of its transformation into a highly successful international news organization, dies in Paris. . . . Jean Marais (born Jean VillainMarais), 84, French stage and film actor, dies in Cannes, France. . . . Lord (Henry Cecil John) Hunt, 88, British Army colonel who led the 1953 expedition in which Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first people to climb to the top of Mount Everest, dies in Henley, England, while suffering from a heart ailment.

Unidentified gunmen attack an Angolan diamond mine in the village of Yetwene, some 350 miles (560 km) east of the capital, Luanda. Eight people die in the attack.

At an emergency summit in San Salvador, Honduran president Carlos Flores Facusse, Nicaraguan president Arnoldo Aleman Lacayo, Salvadoran president Armando Calderon Sol, and Costa Rican president Miguel Angel Rodriguez, along, with Guatemalan foreign minister Eduardo Stein, appeal for international aid in the wake of hurricane Mitch.

The Tajik government, with the assistance of former opposition groups, drives a large band of antigovernment rebels into the mountains, ending an uprising in northern Tajikistan that was launched Nov. 4. A presidential speaker declares that 40 rebel soldiers and 10 government soldiers were killed during the uprising. However, other estimates put that figure at more than 200.

Rebels attack the town of Pendembu in the northern section of Sierra Leone.

In response to the Nov. 11 appeal, the French government cancels debts owed by Nicaragua and Honduras, and other nations soon follow suit. The World Bank reveals it will redirect $200 million earmarked for other projects to Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala, and other international aid groups make similar moves.

The British government frees the 200th inmate at the Maze prison to be released ahead of schedule in the government’s early-release program. It also announces that it will close the infamous Maze prison near Belfast, Northern Ireland. . . . Svetlana Beriosova, 66, a former leading ballerina with London’s Royal Ballet, dies of cancer in London.

At an international conference to discuss the Kyoto Protocol, Argentine president Carlos Saul Menem agrees to set binding targets for reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Argentina thus becomes the first of nearly 120 developing nations to commit to any emissions reductions. Kazakhstan follows with a similar pledge. . . . U.S. president Clinton warns Iraqi president Saddam Hussein that the U.S. is ready to attack Iraq without further notice unless Iraq permits the immediate and unconditional resumption of UN weapons inspections, halted Oct. 31.

Japanese premier Keizo Obuchi visits Russia, marking the first time that a Japanese premier has made an official visit to the country in 25 years. . . . Unidentified abductors kidnap a U.S. missionary, Herbert Gregg, 51, in Makhachkala, the capital of the southern Russian region of Dagestan.

Nov. 8

Nov. 9

Europe

Nov. 12

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific A Bangladeshi judge convicts and sentences to death 15 people in the 1975 assassination of Sheik Mujibur Rahman, the country’s independence leader and the father of current prime minister Sheik Hasina Wazed. He acquits four other people. Five of the accused assassins are present for the verdict. The rest are believed to be out of the country. After the verdict, thousands of Mujibur supporters celebrate the convictions on the streets of Dhaka. In Chittagong, dozens of stores and vehicles are damaged by people on a rampage after hearing the verdict.

Jennifer Smith, the leader of Bermuda’s Progressive Labour Party, is elected prime minister after Labour wins 26 of the 40 seats in the parliamentary assembly.

At least two people die in Dhaka, Bangladesh, during a strike called in response to the Nov. 8 verdict for the assassins of Sheik Mujibur Rahman.

Jennifer Smith is sworn in as prime minister of Bermuda.

Reports suggest that Chinese authorities have detained some 140 members of illegally unregistered Protestant groups and severely beaten some of them.

Workers stage the first of planned weekly general strikes across Zimbabwe. Zimbabwean soldiers in the eastern city of Mutare kill a 20year-old man.

Reports estimate that 11,000 people died from damage incurred by Hurricane Mitch, a storm described as the deadliest Atlantic hurricane in 200 years.

The Philippine navy is ordered to block any other Chinese vessels from entering Mischief Reef in the disputed Spratly Islands chain in the South China Sea. . . . Dozens of dissident Buddhist monks and their supporters occupy the Chogye Temple in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, to protest a move by its leader, Song Wol Ju, to seek a third term. The Chogye order limits its leaders to two terms.

Reports reveal that the Nov. 9 attack in Sierra Leone left approximately 100 people dead.

The Cuban foreign ministry gives the Associated Press permission to open a permanent bureau in Havana, the capital. Only one other U.S.-based news organization, Cable News Network (CNN), has a permanent bureau in Cuba.

A court in Guangzhou convicts a Hong Kong organized crime boss, Cheung Tze-keung, of kidnapping, armed robbery, and smuggling explosives, and sentences him and four associates to death. The court also hands down jail terms to some 30 other gangsters linked to Cheung, nicknamed “Big Spender” for his lavish tastes.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 8–12, 1998—1197

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

A U.S. Navy crew member, Lt. Brendan Duffy, is killed, and three others—Lt. Commander Kurt Barich, Lt. Meredith Loughran, and Lt. Charles Woodard—are missing and presumed dead after an EA-6B Prowler airplane crashes into a Viking S-3 plane on the flight deck of the USS Enterprise, 120 miles (200 km) off the coast of Virginia.

U.S. Customs officials seize 1,600 pounds (500 kg) of cocaine from a detained Colombian air force cargo plane in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. . . . An air force pilot, Major Gregory Martineac, is killed when his F-16 jet crashes 65 miles (105 km) west of Hill Air Force Base. . . . Reports reveal that three army officers— Sergeant William Westgate and Chief Warrant Officers David Guido and Daniel Riddell—have been charged with involuntary manslaughter for a crash that killed two of the officers’ wives. A state appeals court in Santa Ana, California, overturns a 1996 ruling that gave former football star O. J. Simpson custody of his two young children, Sydney, 13, and Justin, 10. . . . A jury in New York City convicts Corey Arthur, 20, of second-degree murder in the 1997 torture and murder of Jonathan Levin, his former high-school English teacher. However, the jury acquits Arthur of first-degree murder charges.

Pres. Clinton signs a bill providing $750 million in compensation for hemophiliacs infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, through blood transfusions. . . . Lewis Merletti, the director of the Secret Service, announces that he will step down. . . . The city of Chicago and Cook County, Illinois, sue gun manufacturers, distributors, and stores for $433 million, accusing them of knowingly flooding the city with illegal guns.

In tennis, Greg Rusedski of Britain defeats top-ranked Pete Sampras to win the Paris Open. . . . (Margaret) Rumer Godden, 90, British author who wrote novels and children’s stories, dies in Dumfriesshire, Scotland.

Several teams of researchers report that a gene injected into the hearts of patients with blocked blood vessels enables the heart to grow its own bypasses.

French author Paule Constant is awarded the Goncourt Prize, France’s most coveted literary honor.

Ground controllers turn on Deep Space 1’s ion engine, but the engine shuts down after running for only 41⁄2 minutes.

A group of several hundred conservative Baptists votes to sever ties with the Baptist General Convention of Texas. . . . Hal (Harold) Newhouser, 77, Hall of Fame baseball pitcher, dies in Southfield, Michigan, while suffering from emphysema and heart ailments.

Pennzoil Co., an oil company based in Houston, Texas, announces it has agreed to pay $6.75 million to settle an employment-discrimination lawsuit brought on behalf of 700 blacks who had worked at the company between 1994 and 1998.

Advanced Cell Technology Inc. announces it has fused a human cell with a cow egg to create hybrid embryonic stem cells. The possible creation of such a cell with a nonhuman species intensifies the ethical debate surrounding stem-cell research.

Kurt Masur, the music director of the New York Philharmonic, announces that, in the year 2000, he will also be the conductor for the London Philharmonic. . . . National Public Radio (NPR) names Kevin Klose its president and chief executive. . . . Patrick (Paddy) Clancy, 76, a member of the Clancy Brothers, a group that popularized traditional Irish music, dies of cancer in Carrick-on-Suir, Ireland.

Chrysler Corp. and Daimler-Benz AG merge to form DaimlerChrysler AG, the world’s third-largest automaker in terms of revenue and the fifth-largest in terms of unit sales. The deal, valued at $38.3 billion in May, creates the world’s fourthlargest company overall in terms of revenue.

Reports conclude that scientists have not been able to replicate a dramatic reduction of cancer tumors in mice reported by a researcher in May.

In New York City, Judge Robert Sweet in N.Y.C. approves a $1.03 billion settlement in a class-action lawsuit that investors brought in 1997 against 37 major brokerage houses. The settlement is called “the largest ever in an antitrust class action.”. . . A federal grand jury in Little Rock, Arkansas, indicts Yah Lin (Charlie) Trie on charges of obstructing the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee’s investigation of 1996 fund-raising abuses.

Pres. Clinton signs a measure bringing U.S. law into line with a 1997 international antibribery treaty. . . . Vice Pres. Al Gore announces the creation of a Vietnam Veterans Memorial website, which will list the 58,196 names of U.S. service members cited on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. . . . In response to the Nov. 9 seizure in Fort Lauderdale, officials report that drugs have never before been discovered aboard Colombian government planes.

Pres. Clinton signs a bill requiring the State Department to report to Congress each year the number of foreign diplomats suspected of committing a serious crime in the U.S.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Nov. 8

Nov. 9

Nov. 10

Nov. 11

Nov. 12

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1198—November 13–18, 1998

Nov. 13

Nov. 14

Nov. 15

Nov. 16

Nov. 17

World Affairs

Europe

The IMF and the U.S. announce a $42 billion aid package designed to stave off the collapse of Brazil’s beleaguered economy.

Chechen abductors free Valentin Vlasov, Russian president Yeltsin’s personal envoy who was kidnapped in May. . . . Both the minority government and the largest opposition party lose seats in Senate elections in the Czech Republic. . . . Edwige Feuillere (born Edwige Caroline Cunati), 91, French actress, dies in Paris. . . . Valerie Babette Louise Hobson, 81, British actress, dies of a heart attack in London.

Representatives from the 21 member nations of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) trade group gather in Malaysia for a summit. . . . Delegates from more than 160 nations endorse the “Buenos Aires Action Plan,” under which they agree to devise, by the year 2000, strategies for carrying out the emissions reductions called for in the Kyoto treaty.

The England rugby team defeats the Netherlands, 110-0, at the European World Cup qualifying match. The score sets a new English record for points in an international match, breaking a record set in 1881.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Canada reports that in the first nine months of 1998, it accepted 604 refugees displaced within the borders of their home countries by war or terrorism. . . . Michel Trudeau, 23, the youngest of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s three sons, drowns after being swept into a frigid mountain lake by an avalanche in Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park in British Columbia, Canada.

In Indonesia, police open fire on demonstrators in an effort to stop a mass march on the Parliament building in Jakarta. Sixteen students are killed at the National Monument.

Laurence Owen Vine Gandar, 82, South African journalist who was one of the first prominent journalists to challenge his country’s apartheid policies, dies in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, while suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

U.S. president Clinton announces that Iraq has “backed down” and promised to cooperate unconditionally with UN weapons inspectors, ending a crisis that started Oct. 31. U.S. and British forces, which aborted a planned air strike against Iraq, remain on combat readiness in the region. The Security Council instructs UNSCOM inspectors to return to Iraq. The International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia convicts Hazim Delic and Esad Landzo and Zdravco Mucic for crimes committed while running the Celebici prison camp in 1992. Delic and Landzo are the first alleged war criminals charged with committing crimes against Serbs and the first Moslems accused of war crimes. . . . Data reveal that record global temperatures were set from January through September. October was the first month of the year to fall short with an average global temperature was 58.14° F (15°C), just short of the record of 58.15°F set in October 1997. The UN Security Council adopts a resolution calling on Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic to allow international investigators into the Serbian province of Kosovo to gather evidence of war crimes.

Rebels claim to have seized the port of Moba on Lake Tanganyika, on Congo’s eastern border.

German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder meets with Russian president Boris Yeltsin during his first visit to the country as the leader of Germany. . . . Kurdish groups orchestrate several demonstrations in Rome to protest the arrest of Kurdish separatist Abdullah Ocalan in Italy. . . . A court in Versailles disqualifies right-wing politician JeanMarie Le Pen from holding political office for one year for assaulting a legislative candidate. . . . Jacques Medecin, 70, former mayor of Nice, France, dies in Uruguay.

George Saadeh, 67, the leader since 1986 of the right-wing Phalange Party, Lebanon’s largest Christian political faction, dies of colon cancer in a suburb of Beirut.

Reports confirm that the South African Parliament has passed legislation that will institute strict limits on smoking in public places and allow the health ministry to ban tobacco advertising. . . . As part of a series of weekly protests planned by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), workers stage general strikes across Zimbabwe, shutting down almost all of the country’s business and industry.

Nov. 18

Reports indicate that Christian leaders have cited about 40 violent attacks in the Indian state of Gujarat during the year.

Tara Singh Hayer, a prominent member of Canada’s large Sikh population, is shot dead in Surrey, a suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia. . . . The Roman Catholic Church in Cuba states the government has authorized the arrival of 19 foreign priests, bringing the number of Catholic priests working on the island to 305.

A UN report finds that 62% of North Korean children suffer from stunted growth due to undernourishment and that 16% of children are acutely malnourished. North Korea has been undergoing a food crisis for years. . . . In Indonesia, students are permitted to hold a memorial for the victims of the Nov. 13 protest at the National Monument in which police killed 16 people.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 13–18, 1998—1199

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Pres. Clinton agrees to pay $850,000 to settle Paula Corbin Jones’s sexual-harassment lawsuit against him. Clinton admits no wrongdoing and offers no apology to Jones. . . . In Little Rock, Arkansas, Judge Jerry Cavaneau voids a 1997 state Arkansas law banning the late-term abortion procedure known as IDE. Cavaneau states the law is so broadly worded that it could be used to bar all abortions in the state. . . . A court approves a $115.5 million settlement of two shareholders’ class-action lawsuits against Philip Morris, the nation’s largest cigarette producer. A New York City law requiring safety locking devices for handguns takes effect.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s Whitewater grand jury indicts Webster Hubbell, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s former law partner, for the third time.

Paleontologists report the discovery of a new species of spinosaur, Suchomimus tenerensis, in the Tenere desert region of Niger. It is the most complete spinosaur fossil ever found.

Charges of criminal neglect or abuse of a disabled adult and unlicensed practicing of medicine are filed against the Church of Scientology, stemmed from the 1995 death of Lisa McPherson. . . . Red Holzman (born William Holzman), 78, basketball coach inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1991, dies in New York of complications from leukemia.

Reports reveal that Clinton administration officials have acknowledged that one of the unspoken objectives of an August bombing raid on Afghanistan was to kill suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden and his associates.

Reports confirm that Carolyn Kizer and Maxine Kumin have resigned as chancellors of the Academy of American Poets to protest the “insularity” and “elitism” of the academy’s 12-member board of chancellors.

Kwame Ture (born Stokely Carmichael), 57, 1960s-era civilrights activist whose stance on racial issues grew increasingly radical as the decade progressed, dies in Conakry, Guinea, of prostate cancer.

Nov. 13

Nov. 14

Nov. 15

A California jury acquits gun manufacturer Beretta U.S.A. Corp. of negligence stemming from the death of Kenzo Dix, 15, who was accidentally shot by a friend in 1994. . . . Tyrone. Gilliam, 32, convicted of murder, is executed in Baltimore, Maryland. Gilliam is the 487th person in the U.S. and only the third in Maryland to be executed since 1976. . . . The attorneys general of eight states disclose the terms for a proposed $206 billion settlement of all outstanding state lawsuits against the tobacco industry.

In Wright v. Universal Maritime Service Corp., the Supreme Court rules unanimously that a union member has a right to pursue a discrimination claim in federal court, despite the fact that a clause in the union member’s labor agreement suggests that disputes should be resolved by arbitration.

A grand jury in NYC indicts six men on charges relating to a melee that broke out at the end of a September rally known as the “Million Youth March.”. . . . U.S. Supreme Court chief justice William Rehnquist issues a letter to three black members of Congress in which he rejects assertions that Supreme Court justices discriminate against minorities when hiring law clerks. . . . Reports state that three states— Arizona, Iowa, and Arkansas—have agreed to join the settlement terms disclosed Nov. 16 in suits against the tobacco industry.

The Federal Reserve Board reduces the federal-funds rate to 4.75% from 5%. The discount rate, the largely symbolic rate the Fed charges on loans it makes to commercial banks, is reduced to 4.5% from 4.75%. It is the Fed’s third such cut in seven weeks. A number of commercial banks cut their prime rate to 7.75% from 8%.

New York City honors 77-year-old Sen. John Glenn (D, Ohio) and the other six crew members of the U.S. space shuttle Discovery with a ticker tape parade in lower Manhattan.

Paleontologists announce the discovery of a dinosaur nesting site in Argentina that contains the richest trove of dinosaur eggs ever found. . . . In San Jose, California, U.S. district judge Ronald Whyte orders Microsoft to stop distributing the company’s version of Java, a computer-programming language created by Sun Microsystems Inc. . . . The Earth passes through a storm of meteors, most of which are the size of a grain of sand, trailing comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics announces that it will change the way the CPI is calculated in January 1999. The change, which will likely increase inflation calculations slightly, will involve the method the agency uses to assess the impact of pollution-control modifications on prices.

Esther Rolle, 78, actress known for 1970s TV shows, dies in Los Angeles, California, after suffering from diabetes and receiving dialysis. . . . Yefim Petrovich Geller, 73, Sovietborn chess grandmaster, dies in Moscow, Russia. . . . Weeb (Wilbur Charles) Ewbank, 91, pro football Hall of Fame coach, dies in Oxford, Ohio, of unreported causes.

The National Book Foundation presents its fiction award to Alice McDermott and the nonfiction prize to Edward Ball. John Updike receives the 1998 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 16

Nov. 17

Nov. 18

1200—November 19–24, 1998

World Affairs

Reports conclude that several international organizations and foreign governments, including Brazil, France, the U.S., Austria, Sweden, Britain, Canada, Spain, the IMF, the World Bank, and the UN World Food program, have pledged relief in the form of debt forgiveness, emergency funds, supplies, and military support for the countries ravaged by Hurricane Mitch in late October.

Nov. 21

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific A cruise ship carrying the first South Korean tourists to visit North Korea since 1950 docks in Changjon. . . . Two medical studies find that some 2,000 people die daily in China due to smokingrelated illnesses, and they predict that if present trends in smoking continue, the number will increase to 8,000 by the year 2050.

The ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (now known under the acronym KLA) allegedly ambushes a Serbian police vehicle, killing two Serbian officers and wounding three others. . . . Two unidentified assailants shoot and kill Russia’s leading female politician, Galina Starovoitova, in St. Petersburg. Her aide, Ruslan Linkov, is critically wounded in the attack.

Israeli occupation forces pull back from 9.1% of the Palestinian West Bank in the first of a three-tiered redeployment outlined in the Wye Memorandum, an interim agreement signed by Israel and the PNA in late October. In keeping with the accord, Israel also releases 250 Palestinian prisoners. . . . Reports confirm that the government of Zimbabwe’s Pres. Robert Mugabe has sent some 1,500 military police officers to control its approximately 6,000 troops in Congo.

Italian officials release Kurdish separatist leader Abdullah Ocalan, who was arrested earlier in Rome. Ocalan is the head of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the main Kurdish rebel group, which operates largely in Turkey, Iraq, and Syria. His arrest has been the subject of many protests.

Kenyan officials announce that the government has instituted a 2billion-shilling (US$34 million) bailout of the National Bank of Kenya Ltd. (NBK), one of the country’s largest commercial banks. . . . Israel and Britain commit to increased cooperation in weapons research.

The Pakistani government declares a state of emergency in the southern province of Sindh in an attempt to stop violence between ethnic rivals that has left as many as 1,000 people dead in 1998.

In Iran, veteran nationalist dissident, Dariush Foruhar, and his wife, Parvaneh are discovered stabbed to death in their home in Teheran, the capital. . . . College students demonstrate in West Jerusalem in continuation of a month-long strike for lower tuition costs and higher priority for education. . . . Senior Iraqi leader Izzat Ibrahim escapes injury during an attempt on his life in the city of Karbala, some 60 miles (100 km) south of Baghdad, the capital.

Nov. 22

Nov. 23

Africa & the Middle East

Officials at the Paris Bourse, France’s main stock exchange, reveal the market will participate in an electronic-trading alliance announced by Britain’s London Stock Exchange and Germany’s Deutsche Bourse in July.

Nov. 19

Nov. 20

Europe

The UN AIDS Program reveals that in 1998 the number of people infected with HIV rose to 33.4 million, from 27.6 million in 1997. The report predicts that some 2.5 million people will die of AIDS in 1998. Some 14 million people have died of AIDS since the disease was recognized. Some 95% of the new infections in 1998 occurred in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe. . . . The EU partially lifts a 1996 ban on British exports of beef off the bone from relatively young cattle.

Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, a self-styled “professional revolutionary” known as “Carlos the Jackal,” announces that he is ending a hunger strike begun in prison on November 3. Carlos, who was jailed in 1997 on murder charges, contended that he was unfairly placed in solitary confinement.

Thousands of mourners wait in the bitter cold for as long as five hours to view the coffin of Galina Starovoitova, murdered Nov. 20, as it lays in state. Starovoitova is buried on the grounds of the Alexander Nevsky monastery—one of the highest honors St. Petersburg accords to prominent citizens—and her funeral is attended by three former premiers—Sergei Kiriyenko, Yegor Gaidar, and Viktor Chernomyrdin.

Nov. 24

Israel allows the self-rule Palestinian National Authority (PNA) to open the Gaza International Airport in the southern Gaza Strip. . . . General Emile Lahoud takes the oath of office as the president of Lebanon.

Some 200 policemen in Mexico City, Mexico, are arrested on various criminal charges in a crackdown on police corruption by newly appointed police chief Alejandro Gertz.

U.S. president Bill Clinton concludes a trip to Asia that included stops in Japan and South Korea.

Retired Argentine admiral Emilio Eduardo Massera is arrested in connection with the abduction of babies from the Navy Mechanics School, which he had commanded in the 1970s. He was allegedly part of a system under which the newborn infants of female political prisoners were taken from them immediately following birth and given up for adoption to military couples. Many of the women were then killed.

Australian federal justice Malcolm Lee rules that the Miriuwung Gajerrong, an aboriginal group, holds native title over more than 4,350 square miles (7,000 sq km) of land across northern portions of Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Justice Lee’s decision marks the first determination of native title on the Australian mainland.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 19–24, 1998—1201

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

A three-judge panel rules that an admission policy based on race at a Boston public school is unconstitutional. It is the first time that a federal court rules on the constitutionality of race-based policies in a public school. . . . Independent counsel Kenneth Starr testifies before the House Judiciary Committee about his investigation of Pres. Clinton’s conduct in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. . . . The Postal Service plans to issue a stamp bearing the image of the late civilrights activist Malcolm X. In Washington, D.C., the FBI opens the $20 million Strategic Information and Operations Center at FBI headquarters. . . . Forty-six states, the District of Columbia, and four U.S. territories agree to the tobacco industry’s proposed $206 billion settlement, the largest civil settlement in U.S. history. The deal calls for the country’s four largest tobacco companies to pay the states $206 billion over 25 years to repay public health costs related to smoking.

U.S. government officials announce that INS agents arrested 21 suspects in connection with an international immigrant-smuggling ring that smuggled as many as 12,000 illegal immigrants into the U.S. in the course of three years. Officials claim the case is the largest in U.S. history and that it is the first time that such an operation completely uncovers and breaks up, from top to bottom, all those involved. . . . Data reveals that Mexico is the U.S.’s second-largest trading partner, behind only Canada.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Members of the Jersey City Education Association go on strike. . . . The National Labor Relations Board rules that the Nov. 3 ABC lockout, which affects a total of 2,200 workers, is legal. . . . William J. McCarthy, 79, labor leader who served as last president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters not to be chosen by the union’s rank and file, 1988–91, dies in Arlington, Massachusetts.

Tetsuya (Ted) Fujita, 78, Japaneseborn meteorologist who, with his wife, Sumiko Fujita, devised the standard scale for measuring the strength of tornadoes, dies in Chicago, Illinois.

Alan J. Pakula, 70, respected film producer and director whose films include Klute (1971), All the President’s Men (1976), and Sophie’s Choice (1982), dies in Suffolk County, New York, after a metal pipe crashed through the windshield of his vehicle, striking him in the head.

Elmer H. Wavering, 91, who developed the prototype for the first commercial car radio and later became Motorola’s president, 1964–72, dies in Naples, Florida.

Zarya, an unmanned Russian Proton booster rocket carrying a module of a planned international space station, lifts off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Christie’s and Sotheby’s close their NYC fall auctions with combined sales totaling $495 million, slightly lower than 1997 totals. . . . Israeli police state that they have found 10 of 75 members of Concerned Christians, an apocalyptic sect that left Denver, Colorado, in October in an attempt to escape an earthquake prophesied by their leader.

Nov. 19

Nov. 20

Nov. 21

The television show 60 Minutes airs footage of Dr. Jack Kevorkian administering lethal injections to Thomas Youk, 52, suffering from ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Youk gave signed consent to the killing. Kevorkian has assisted in more than 120 suicides since 1990, but it was the first time he had directly killed his patient. . . . A FBI report shows that 13.2 million serious crimes were reported to authorities in 1997, a 2% drop from 1996 and a 7% drop from 1993. It is the sixth consecutive decrease. The country’s murder rate of 6.8 per 100,000 residents in 1997 is lower than it has been for 30 years.

Henry Eugene Hampton, 58, documentary filmmaker best known for Eyes on the Prize, dies in Boston, Massachusetts, of bonemarrow complications stemming from lung cancer treatment. . . . Martina Hingis of Switzerland defeats Lindsay Davenport to win the season-ending Chase Championships. . . . Golfer Laura Davies of England wins the LPGA’s Pagenet Tour Championship in Las Vegas, Nevada. . . . . The English team captures England’s first World Cup of Golf title.

The Georgia Supreme Court strikes down, 6-1, the state’s 1883 antisodomy law on grounds that it violates privacy rights guaranteed by the state constitution. The Georgia court’s ruling leaves 18 states with some form of antisodomy law on their books. . . . Maryland politician Ruthann Aron, 55, is sentenced to three years in jail for her attempt to hire a hit man in June 1997 to kill her husband, Barry Aron, and a Baltimore lawyer, Arthur G. Kahn.

In Miami, Florida, Judge Donald Graham strikes down a ban against a late-term abortion procedure, ruling that it has “the unconstitutional effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of women seeking an abortion prior to the fetus attaining viability.”

In New York City, Judge Michael Mukasey sentences Mohammed Abouhalima to eight years in prison for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. . . . New York City judge Whitman Knapp sentences Ahmad Suleiman to 10 months in prison for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

A jury in Santa Monica, California, acquits Susan McDougal in an embezzlement case unrelated to Whitewater. . . . The Dow closes at a record high of 9374.27. That marks the 29th record high of 1998 and is a 24.3% rise in the Dow from its to-date 1998 low of 7539.07, recorded Aug. 31.

Judge Leonie Brinkema of U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, issues a permanent injunction forcing Loudon County, Virginia, to stop using filtering software to restrict access to Internet sites on computers in public libraries. The decision is the first ruling barring public libraries from restricting Internet access on terminals available to the general public.

In Washington, D.C., Judge Henry Kennedy orders Democratic fundraiser Howard Glicken to pay a fine of $80,000 and perform 500 hours of community service. Glicken, a supporter and friend of Vice Pres. Al Gore, pled guilty in July to illegally soliciting a $20,000 contribution to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 1993.

The ion engine that propels Deep Space 1, an unmanned spacecraft, is successfully restarted by a signal from ground controllers. . . . America Online Inc. (AOL), which provides access to the Internet, announces plans to acquire software firm Netscape Communications Corp. AOL also reveals that it has entered into a three-year marketing alliance with Sun Microsystems Inc., which owns a widely used computer-programming language called Java.

Nov. 22

Nov. 23

John Chadwick, 78, British classicist who in the early 1950s collaborated with Michael Ventris in deciphering the ancient Greek script known as Linear B, dies. . . . Rod McGeoch, who led the bid to bring the 2000 Summer Olympic Games to Sydney, Australia, resigns from the Olympic organizing committee.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 24

1202—November 25–30, 1998

Nov. 25

World Affairs

Europe

In a reversal of an Oct. 11 decision by Britain’s High Court, Britain’s highest court, the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords, rules that Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, Chile’s former military leader, is not immune from arrest. Pinochet was arrested in London in October after Spanish officials requested his extradition to face charges of torture, terrorism, and genocide. . . . The IMF announces that it has approved a financial aid package for Pakistan valued at $5.5 billion.

Amid allegations of corruption and links to organized crime, the government of Premier Mesut Yilmaz collapses when it loses a vote of confidence in Turkey’s parliament, the Grand National Assembly. It is the first time a government in Turkey has been brought down over allegations of corruption.

Tony Blair becomes the first British prime minister ever to address the Irish Parliament. . . . A Bosnian Serb team exhumes 55 bodies from two sites in a cemetery in Sarajevo. There is disagreement as to whether these sites represent a mass grave from the Bosnian war of 1992–95. It is the first suspected mass grave opened in Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital.

Nov. 26

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The British court’s ruling this day regarding the arrest of Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte sparks protests by pro- and anti-Pinochet demonstrators in Santiago, Chile’s capital, and in the city of Concepcion. Police, who use water cannons and riot shields to control the crowds, arrest some 120 people.

Chinese president Jiang Zemin makes the fist visit to Japan by a president of communist China. . . . Reports confirm that Premier Tofilau Eti Alesana, 74, the longestserving head of government in the South Pacific, has resigned 16 years after first taking office as Samoa’s leader. Samoa’s legislative assembly elected Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi as premier. . . . Cambodia’s National Assembly elects Prince Norodom Ranariddh as its president. . . . Reports reveal that a UN human-rights investigator was blocked entry to Myanmar by the government.

Two members of the UN World Food Program are shot to death, and another one is wounded in northern Angola. . . . In Iran, thousands of people attend the funeral of dissident Dariush Foruhar and his wife, Parvaneh, who were found dead on Nov. 22. Mourners chant “Down with despotism,” in an oblique accusation that the killings were politically motivated.

The Singapore government states it will lift restrictions imposed on Chia Thye Poh, an opposition politician who, since 1989, has been allowed to live on the island of Sentosa but is barred from any political activity.

In Dublin, Ireland, a three-judge panel convicts admitted drug dealer Paul Ward of participating in a plot to murder investigative journalist Veronica Guerin in 1996. Ward, 34, is sentenced to life in prison. . . . German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder states that his government will not seek the extradition of Abdullah Ocalan, a Kurdish rebel leader arrested in Italy and wanted in Germany on charges of arson and incitement to murder. . . . A Turkish military helicopter crashes, killing 15 soldiers and injuring one.

Nov. 27

Thousands of ethnic Turks demonstrate throughout Germany to protest the decision made Nov. 28 by German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to not seek the extradition of Abdullah Ocalan, a Kurdish rebel leader, from Italy. . . . The National Liberation Army of Kurdistan, the military wing of the PKK, claims that it shot down the helicopter that crashed Nov. 27. The incident is widely linked to Ocalan’s detention.

Nov. 28

A court in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, acquits 10 policemen charged with the killings of 21 residents of the Vigario Geral neighborhood in Rio in 1993.

Swiss voters overwhelmingly reject a proposal that would have legalized narcotics including marijuana, heroin, and cocaine.

Nov. 29

Nov. 30

Africa & the Middle East

The UN World Heritage Committee calls on the Australian government to shut down the Jabiluka mine, located within Kakadu National Park, while the government compiles a report to decide whether to list Kakadu, on the UN’s list of world heritage sites, as a “world heritage in danger” site. . . . Delegates representing 44 nations gather in Washington, D.C., for the second annual conference on efforts to recover missing assets from the Nazi Holocaust era.

The Chinese government decrees that state organizations and the ruling Communist Party will be required to relinquish their business enterprises. . . . In a dispute that has been escalating since Nov. 11, the Philippine navy seizes a group of 20 Chinese fishermen near Mischief Reef, an area in the disputed Spratly Islands chain in the South China Sea. According to the final results of the Palestine National Authority’s first official census, Palestinians in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip number 2,895,683. The report projects that the Palestinian population of the occupied territories will grow to 3.2 million in the year 2000 and to 7.4 million by 2025.

Chinese authorities arrest five activists involved in attempting to form an independent political party, the China Democracy Party. Two of those arrested, Xu Wenli and Qin Yongmin, are leading members of the party and among China’s most prominent dissidents. . . . Cambodia’s National Assembly approves a coalition government, electing Hun Sen as its premier.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 25–30, 1998—1203

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Michigan prosecutors charge Dr. Jack Kevorkian with first-degree murder for the videotaped euthanasia of Thomas Youk, 52, who was suffering from ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Youk’s death was nationally televised in a Nov. 22 airing of the CBS news program 60 Minutes. Kevorkian has assisted in more than 120 suicides since 1990, but this marks the first time in which he had directly killed his patient.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Kenneth C. Brugger, 80, an amateur naturalist who in 1975 discovered the location southwest of Mexico City, Mexico, where migrating North American monarch butterflies spend the winter months, dies in Austin, Texas, of unreported causes.

Flip (Clerow) Wilson, 64, the first black host of a successful weekly variety show on network TV, dies of liver cancer in Malibu, California. . . . The Anaheim Angels sign Mo Vaughn to a six-year, $80 million deal that gives him the highest annual salary of any professional baseball player. The New York Yankees match the largest contract in baseball history, signed by Mike Piazza with the New York Mets, in an offer to Bernie Williams.

Nov. 25

Nov. 26

Pres. Clinton responds to a list of 81 questions asked by a House panel regarding the evidence Kenneth Starr gathered in the scandal involving Monica Lewinsky. . . . Martin Gurule, a death-row inmate, escapes from a Texas prison complex in Huntsville, 50 miles (80 km) north of Houston. He is the first person to escape from death row in Texas since 1934. . . . An unidentified man shoots and kills a Seattle, Washington, bus driver, Mark McLaughlin, causing his bus with 35 passengers to fall 50 feet, crashing through the edge of a building roof.

A General Accounting Office (GAO) report finds that the U.S. Postal Service lost $84.7 million on new products it developed to compete with electronic bill-payment systems.

Dante B. Fascell, 81, (D, Fa.), who served in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1955–93, dies of cancer in Clearwater, Florida.

Pres. Clinton announces that HUD will allocate $822 million to nonprofit and housing agencies that help provide housing to lowincome people who are elderly or disabled.

Theodore Newhouse, 95, cofounder of a family-owned publishing empire whose properties include several dozen U.S. newspapers, dies in New York City.

Members of the Jersey City Education Association, a union that represents more than 3,500 publicschool teachers, secretaries, and teachers’ aides in Jersey City, New Jersey, votes to approve a new three-year contract, ending a strike that started Nov. 19.

Tennis player Alex Corretja of Spain wins the season-ending ATP Tour World Championship in Hanover, Germany.

Scientists report the discovery of a fossil that may be the oldest flowering plant ever found. The 142million-year-old fossil, found in northeastern China, preserves the woody stem and pea-pod-like fruit of an early flowering plant.

Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennesee, announces that it has received a gift of stock, currently valued at more than $300 million, from Martha Ingram, the chairwoman of Ingram Industries Inc. Observers suggest the Ingram bequest is perhaps the largest private donation ever made to a college or university in the U.S. . . . Police in Seattle, Washington, confirm that Silas Cool, a homeless man originally from Plainfield, New Jersey, shot bus driver Mark McLaughlin on Nov. 27 with a handgun and then shot himself.

Pope John Paul II announces that Roman Catholics may earn “indulgences,” grants of amnesty from punishment for sinful acts, by performing charitable works or by refraining from minor vices. The granting of indulgences prompted Martin Luther to rebel against the papacy, which ultimately led to the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.

A Man in Full, by Tom Wolfe tops the bestseller list.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 27

Nov. 28

Nov. 29

Nov. 30

1204—December 1–5, 1998

World Affairs

Dec. 1

Dec. 2

Dec. 3

Dec. 4

Dec. 5

Europe

Environment Minister Robert Hill reveals that the Australian government will defy an order issued Nov. 30 by the UN to close down the Jabiluka uranium mine in Kakadu National Park.

U.S. and NATO troops arrest Gen. Radislav Krstic, a Bosnian Serb who allegedly committed crimes against humanity during a 1995 Serbian campaign against Srebrenica, a Muslim enclave. Krstic is the highest-ranking official, and the first active military officer, arrested on war-crimes charges to date. . . . The World Bank projects that the average per capita income in the developing world will rise by only 0.4% in 1998, down from the 3.2% gain registered in 1997.

In Kosovo, three ethnic Albanians are killed in what is called an ambush. In a separate incident, one Serb is shot and killed at a KLA roadblock.

The WTO reveals that world trade in 1998 slowed to 4%–5%, from the previous year’s historic high of 10%. . . . The central banks of 11 European countries cut their benchmark interest rates, bringing nearly all of their rates to an identical level of 3%. . . . Nearly 1,000 delegates from Protestant and Orthodox churches worldwide meet in Harare, Zimbabwe, to mark the 50th anniversary of the World Council of Churches.

In the worst violation of the ceasefire to date, Yugoslav border guards kill eight ethnic Albanians.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Police in Cairo, the capital of Egypt, arrest Hafez Abu Saada, the secretary general of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR), the country’s main independent human-rights group.

The ruling Communist Party in Cuba recommends that Christmas, banned in 1969, may again become a permanent holiday in the country.

Lebanese president Gen. Emile Lahoud names Selim al-Hoss to serve as his premier. . . . Palestinian protests over Israeli-held Palestinian prisoners erupt, prompting days of clashes with Israeli troops on the West Bank.

The Supreme Court in Paraguay orders Gen. Lino Cesar Oviedo back to prison for his role in a 1996 military coup, ruling the presidential decree that freed him was unconstitutional. . . . Reports confirm that three former progovernment fighters in Guatemala were sentenced to death for their role in a March 1982 massacre in which 130 civilians were killed. The convictions are the first war-crimes convictions since Guatemala’s civil war, which ended in 1996.

A letter signed by 191 dissidents demanding the release of Chinese Democracy Party leaders Xu Wenli, Qin Yongmin, and Wang Youcai— arrested in November—is made public.

In Mexico, the minimum wage is increased by 14% to $3.40 a day. The increase compares to the projected 16% inflation rate.

China demands the release of 20 Chinese fishermen seized Nov. 29 by the Philippine navy near Mischief Reef, an area in the disputed Spratly Islands chain in the South China Sea.

NATO approves the creation of a so-called rapid reaction extraction force to evacuate cease-fire monitors in the Serbian province of Kosovo in case of emergency. . . . At a Franco-British summit, British prime minister Tony Blair and French president Jacques Chirac sign an agreement to work toward the creation of a unified European Union defense policy.

Reports confirm that Pres. Hafez al-Assad’s ruling National Progressive Front coalition has won all 167 seats its candidates ran for in Syrian legislative elections. The remaining 83 seats were captured by independent candidates.

Reports indicate that Cambodian premier Hun Sen’s coalition government has been given Cambodia’s seat, vacant since September 1997, in the UN.

Some 700 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails begin a hunger strike to protest their continued incarceration. Protests over their jailings continue. . . . Nigeria holds local elections, marking a major step in its transition to democracy. The country’s three biggest political parties take the top slots in the race for seats on 774 local councils.

In India, tens of thousands of Christians hold nationwide street demonstrations to protest a rise in attacks on Christians by Hindus. . . . South Korea’s armed forces accidentally launch an antiaircraft missile over the city of Inchon. The Nike Hercules missile selfdestructs automatically soon after launch, showering a residential area with fragments that injure three people. . . . Two organizers of the of the letter released Dec. 2 in China, Wang Zechen and Wang Wenjiang, are detained in Qishan. Reports confirm that Honduras has declared a national state of alert due to widespread epidemics resulting from damage incurred by Hurricane Mitch. Some 20,000 people are suffering from cholera, 31,000 from malaria, and 208,000 from diarrhea. . . . Juan Ramon Hernandez, one of Honduras’s most notorious alleged drug traffickers, escapes from jail by walking out of the front gate of the National Penitentiary to a waiting car.

In Taiwan, the Nationalists win 124 seats in the legislature. Citizens in the city of Tainan vote “no” in an unprecedented, nonbinding plebiscite asking whether they wish Taiwan to be ruled by Communist China. . . . Convicted Hong Kong organized-crime boss Cheung Tzekeung and four associates are executed. . . . The last remaining forces of the Khmer Rouge surrender to the Cambodian government. The troops’ surrender, broadcast on national TV, is presented as the end of the 30-year-old Khmer Rouge movement.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 1–5, 1998—1205

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

In Minnesota v. Carter, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that individuals who are temporary guests in someone else’s home are not entitled to challenge the constitutionality of a police search conducted at the home in which they are staying. . . . The House Judiciary Committee expands its impeachment investigation of Pres. Clinton by voting to subpoena materials relating to fund-raising practices in his 1996 reelection campaign.

U.S. secretary of defense William Cohen and Colombian defense minister Rodrigo Lloreda sign an agreement that establishes a permanent committee for consultation on issues of defense and security in the two countries. . . . In Brooklyn, New York, Judge Reena Raggi sentences Lee Peng Fei, a Taiwanese citizen who tried to smuggle hundreds of Chinese immigrants into the U.S. in 1993, to 20 years in prison. Lee is the 22nd and last person to be convicted in the case.

The FEC finds that both the Democrats and the Republicans violated federal campaign finance rules in 1996. . . . Exxon Corp., the largest energy company in the U.S., announces plans to buy Mobil Corp., the nation’s second-largest energy company, in a stock transaction valued at $75.3 billion. If completed, the deal will be the largest merger in history and will create the largest corporation in the world in terms of annual revenue.

In one of the most highly publicized and still unsolved case of the 1950s, the Ohio Supreme Court clears the way for the son of Sam Sheppard, convicted and then acquitted of the 1954 killing of his wife, to proceed to trial with a wrongful-imprisonment suit filed on behalf of his father, who died at age 46 in 1970. . . . Microsoft chairman William Gates announces a $100 million donation to the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH) to help accelerate the delivery of vaccines to children in developing countries.

Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif meets with U.S. president Clinton, marking the prime minister’s first visit to the U.S. since taking office in February 1997. . . . Kim Jong Che and Jiang Yong Zhu are convicted for an immigrant-smuggling incident in which a boat carrying 23 illegal Chinese immigrants ran aground in May. . . . Navy officials announce that Rear Admiral John Scudi was found guilty of violating Defense Department ethics rules and of several other charges including obstruction of justice and adultery.

A federal jury in Washington, D.C. acquits former agriculture secretary Mike Espy of 30 corruption charges involving his acceptance of gifts and favors from businesses regulated by his agency. The jury’s decision ends the four-year-long investigation into Espy’s conduct by independent counsel Donald Smaltz.

Rep. Henry Hyde (R, Ill.), the Judiciary Committee’s chair, abandons plans to extend the impeachment probe to allegations of Democratic fund-raising abuses in the 1996 elections. . . . Martin Gurule, the first person to have escaped from death row in Texas since 1934 with his Nov. 27 breakout, is found dead in a river, approximately one mile from the death row complex. Officials suspect that he drowned.

In Washington, D.C., Judge Emmet Sullivan reveals that a psychiatrist has found Russell Weston Jr., the alleged gunman in a July shooting spree at the Capitol building, mentally unfit for trial. . . . A sealed ruling made by Judge Norma Holloway Johnson in April is made public. The judge cleared Kenneth Starr’s investigators of allegations that they improperly prevented Monica Lewinsky from telephoning her lawyer when they confronted her with evidence of her relationship with Pres. Clinton in January.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Freddie Young, 96, British cinematographer who won the Oscar for cinematography three times, dies in London, England. . . . Janet Lewis, 99, poet and historical novelist, dies in Los Altos, California.

In a rare speaking engagement, Supreme Court justices Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer address a conference of the American Bar Association (ABA). . . . Albert Arnold Gore Sr., 90, (D, Tenn.), who served in the U.S. Senate, 1953–71, and the House of Representatives, 1939–53, and who is the father of Vice Pres. Al Gore, dies in Carthage, Tennessee.

Dec. 1

Dec. 2

Pres. Clinton announces new regulations aimed at cleaning up the nation’s drinking water supply, the first rules to be mandated under the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1996.

James M. Clark, a former student radical at the University of Wisconsin who had admitted in June to spying for East Germany from 1976 to 1989, is sentenced to 12 years and seven months in prison. . . .A report by the General Accounting Office (GAO) concludes that officers at Citibank violated internal money-laundering controls by aiding in the transfer of funds belonging to Raul Salinas de Gortari, the brother of a former Mexican president, without investigating the source of his funds.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) Pres. John Coates states that the AOC will have the right to search Australian Olympic athletes’ possessions for banned drugs at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.

The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour lifts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, to launch the second component of an international space station currently undergoing assembly in orbit, and to link the module to a unit put into orbit in November.

Dec. 3

Dec. 4

James Hoffa wins a mail-in election for the presidency of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters labor union after his main rival, Tom Leedham, concedes defeat.

Dec. 5

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1206—December 6–11, 1998

World Affairs

Europe

Dec. 6

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

In Yemen, tribesmen abduct four German tourists. . . . Police in Cairo, the capital of Egypt, release on bail Hafez Abu Saada, the secretary general of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR), the country’s main independent humanrights group, who was arrested Dec. 1. . . . Omar Bongo wins another term as president of Gabon in an election that many electoral observers call unfair.

Hugo Chavez Frias of the Patriotic Pole coalition, is elected president of Venezuela. Chavez had led an unsuccessful coup attempt against the presidency of Carlos Andres Perez Rodriguez in February 1992. . . . Reports confirm that Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz has signed a decree declaring that Christmas Day be restored as a national public holiday, as recommended by the ruling Communist Party on Dec. 1.

Asia & the Pacific

Dec. 7

The heads of four foreigners abducted from their residence in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, in October are discovered on the side of a road in the separatist republic. . . . The Estonian parliament votes to amend Estonia’s citizenship laws, making it easier for Estonia’s Russian-speaking minority—roughly 30% of the population—to obtain Estonian citizenship.

Dec. 8

Dec. 9

Dec. 10

British home secretary Jack Straw rules that the extradition case against Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, Chile’s former military leader, may proceed, drawing angry responses from Chile. At a summit of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), member nations Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, along with associate members Bolivia and Chile, sign a declaration that backs Chile’s position by supporting state sovereignty.

Switzerland’s parliament votes to install Interior Minister Ruth Dreifuss, a member of the Social Democratic Party, as the country’s first female president. Dreifuss will succeed Pres. Flavio Cotti.

Sudanese state radio reports that Pres. Omar Hassan al-Bashir has signed a law restoring a multiparty system effective January 1, 1999. . . . Reports confirm that missing dissident poet Mohammed Mokhtari was found dead in Iran. Mokhtari was involved in efforts to reestablish a banned writers union and to end censorship.

Riot police clash with demonstrators in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, where P.M. Jean Chrétien is speaking. At least four demonstrators are injured. . . . Shaughnessy Cohen, 50, who headed the Commons justice committee since 1995, collapses in the House of Commons and dies in Ottawa, Canada, of a massive brain hemorrhage. . . . In response to the British ruling regarding Gen. Pinochet, hundreds of demonstrators burn British flags, while police use water cannons to control the crowd in Santiago, the capital of Chile.

In Indonesia, state prosecutors formally question former president Suharto about the source of his vast personal wealth. It is the first such action in Indonesian history. . . . The Great Hural approves the appointment of Janlaviin Narantsatsralt as Mongolia’s new premier. . . . In Thailand, demonstrators protesting the construction of three power plants clash with police, injuring at least 70 people. Deputy Interior Minister Pinit Charusombat states he will not allow the plants to be built.

The UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia convicts Anto Furundzija, a Bosnian Croat paramilitary leader, of allowing a subordinate to rape a Bosnian Muslim woman and sentences him to 10 years in prison. It is the first time the Yugoslav court has considered war-crimes charges stemming exclusively from rape. . . . Judge Baltasar Garzon of Spain formally indicts Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, Chile’s former military leader.

Reports confirm that Bulgaria has voted to abolish the death penalty.

The U.S. Committee for Refugees reports that 1.9 million civilians have died in Sudan as a result of the 15-year-old civil war.

Police in Santiago, Chile’s capital, reveal they have arrested 51 Pinochet supporters who were trying to reach the residences of the Spanish and British ambassadors on Dec. 9.

Australia’s Parliament passes the Antipersonnel Mines Convention Bill 1998, which implements a UN treaty banning the use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of land mines.

Former dissident and Nobel Prizewinning author Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn declines to accept the Order of St. Andrew, Russia’s most prestigious cultural award from Russian president Boris Yeltsin, claiming that he cannot accept the award “from the supreme authority which brought Russia to its current disastrous state.”

Reports confirm that Muslim militants killed 81 people in an attack on three northern Algerian villages near Tadjena, approximately 125 miles (200 km) west of Algiers, the capital. The attack is one of the deadliest incidents to occur in the conflict over the past year. . . . Palestinian protests over Israeli-held Palestinian prisoners, that started Dec. 2 begin to ease after sweeping through Bethlehem, East Jerusalem, Ramallah, and Qalqilyah, leaving four Palestinians dead.

The Canadian government announces that it will pay a total of C$18 million to compensate Canadian veterans who labored in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps during World War II.

A Thai airliner crashes into a swamp and catches fire near the airport in Surat Thani, killing scores of people.

Dec. 11

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 6–11, 1998—1207

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Protesting farmers in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana block several entry points for Canadian trucks hauling farm products for several hours.

A letter by the Supreme Court’s chief justice, William Rehnquist, is made public. The letter, addressed to three black members of Congress, rejects assertions that Supreme Court justices discriminate against minorities when hiring law clerks. . . . Reports confirm that former Rep. Michael R. Huffington, (R, Calif.), who in 1994 made a failed bid for the U.S. Senate, admits that he is homosexual.

Pres. Clinton removes Iran from his government’s list of major drugproducing countries. . . . A Defense Department assessment finds that satellite maker Hughes Electronics Corp. revealed sensitive technological information to the Chinese, damaging U.S. national security.

In Trenton, New Jersey, Judge Anne Thompson strikes down a 1997 New Jersey law banning a late-term abortion procedure, ruling that the law is too vaguely written. . . . In Knowles v. Iowa, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that police officers do not have a right to conduct a full search of motorists’ vehicles after ticketing motorists for minor traffic violations. . . . White House lawyers begin to present their defense of Pres. Clinton to the House Judiciary Committee, which is considering whether to recommend impeaching the president.

Hamilton Hawkins Howze, 89, mastermind of helicopter warfare tactics pioneered by the U.S. in the Vietnam War, dies in Fort Worth, Texas.

The Kennedy Center presents awards to Bill Cosby, Andre Previn, Willie Nelson, Shirley Temple Black, John Kander, and Fred Ebb. . . . Cesar (Cesar Baldaccini), 77, French sculptor who worked in scrap metal, dies in Paris, France, of cancer. . . . The Swedish team wins golfing’s Davis Cup.

Martin Rodbell, 73, biochemist and cowinner of the 1994 Nobel Prize in medicine and physiology for research during the 1960s and 1970s into the communications system that regulates cellular activity, dies in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, of cardiovascular disease.

The U.S. Army charges Major General David Hale with 17 counts of misconduct for his “improper relationships” with the wives of four army officers under his command. . . . president Clinton announces increased funding for nongovernmental human-rights organizations and a new Genocide Early Warning Center in Washington, D.C. The announcement marks the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN in 1948.

The House Judiciary Committee approves three articles of impeachment against Pres. Clinton, accusing him of lying under oath and obstructing justice in an effort to conceal a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky. . . . A study finds the number of abortion providers in the U.S. dropped by 14% between 1992 and 1996. About 650 lateterm abortions were performed in the U.S. in 1996, out of an estimated 1.4 million procedures.

Scientists in South Africa announce they have discovered a skeleton believed to belong to a member of the genus of human forerunners known as australopithecines. The nearly intact skeleton, estimated to be between 3.2 and 3.6 million years old, is among the oldest australopithecine remains ever found . . . . Scientists in Japan reveal they have created eight calves cloned from a single adult cows. It is the third confirmed instance of the cloning of an adult mammal.

Archie Moore (born Archibald Lee Wright), 84, boxer who won the world light heavyweight title in 1952 and successfully defended it nine times, dies in San Diego, California.

The six-member Federal Election Commission (FEC) rejects recommendations by its own campaign auditors to take action against the Democratic and Republican 1996 presidential campaigns over their use of so-called issue advertising.

Former Rhode Island governor Edward DiPrete (R) pleads guilty to 18 charges of corruption for extorting bribes from contractors while he was in office between 1985 and 1991. Judge Francis Darigan sentences the former governor to one year in prison.

Dec. 6

Dec. 7

The FBI releases nearly all of its 1,300-page file on the entertainer Frank Sinatra, who died in May at the age of 82.

The Conservation Fund, a nonprofit environmental group, agrees to purchase nearly 300,000 acres (120,000 hectares) of forests and wetlands located in New Hampshire, New York State, and Vermont.

Prosecutors charge NYC realestate developer Abe Hirschfeld, 79, with hiring a hit man to kill his longtime business associate, Stanley Stahl. . . . In New York City, Judge Marcy Kahn sentences Corey Arthur, 20, to 25 years in prison for killing his former teacher, Jonathan Levin in May 1997. . . . The House Judiciary Committee debates the articles of impeachment against Pres. Clinton.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Dec. 8

Dec. 9

Dec. 10

NASA launches the Mars Climate Orbiter, an unmanned spacecraft, atop a Delta-2 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The craft is to orbit the planet Mars and collect data on its weather patterns. . . . Two teams of scientists report they have completed a map of the entire genome, or genetic code, of a microscopic worm. The mapping of the genome of the worm, Caenorhabditis elegans, marks the first time that scientists have deciphered the entire genetic map of a multicellular animal.

Dec. 11

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1208—December 12–16, 1998

Dec. 12

World Affairs

Europe

China severs its ties to the Marshall Islands, which in November switched recognition to Taiwan from China. Currently, 27 countries, including the Marshall Islands, recognize Taiwan.

Russian forces rescue Vincent Cochetel, a French UN official seized by masked gunmen in the southern region of North Ossetia Three of the kidnappers are killed and two of the Russian troops are injured in the raid.

Dec. 13

Dec. 14

Dec. 15

Dec. 16

Hutu death-squad leader Omar Serushago pleads guilty to genocide and crimes against humanity at the UN war crimes tribunal.

The Americas

Reports reveal that Mohammed Jafar Pouyandeh, 45, a writer who criticized the censorship in Iran, was found dead. . . . In Algeria, reports state that the bodies of some 110 people were found in a mass grave in the Mefta region southwest of Algiers, the capital. . . . PNA security officials arrest Abdullah Sharni, a Gaza-based Islamic Jihad leader, after Sharni stated on Palestinian television that he welcomed U.S. president Bill Clinton’s assassination.

In a plebiscite on Puerto Rico’s future relationship with the U.S., residents reject statehood as an option. It is the third plebiscite on statehood status in Puerto Rico’s history.

Serbian border guards kill 36 members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)—the ethnic Albanian group fighting for Kosovo’s independence—during a five-hour gun battle. In apparent retaliation for the border killings, masked gunmen open fire on a cafe in the southwestern Kosovo town of Pec, killing six Serbs and wounding about 15 others. The victims are among the first civilians targeted in the conflict since the cease-fire began.

The Palestine National Council (PNC), with U.S. president Clinton in attendance, votes with a near-unanimous show of hands to reaffirm its cancellation of all articles in the 1964 Palestinian charter that called for the destruction or nonacceptance of Israel. . . . Heavy fighting between Angolan troops and rebels in northern and central Angola leads UN secretary general Kofi Annan to declare that Angola has reverted to all-out war. . . . Algerian premier Ahmed Ouyahia resigns.

Statistics Canada reports that an ice storm that lashed eastern Canada in January caused economic losses of C$585 million (US$380 million) in Montreal, Quebec, and of C$114 million in Ottawa, the nation’s capital. An Environment Department official indicates that the ice storm was the most destructive storm in Canadian history.

Algerian president Liamine Zeroual names Smail Hamdani as the country’s interim premier.

Haiti’s Senate ratifies the nomination of Jacques-Edouard Alexis as premier. Haiti has not had a premier since June 1997, when Rosny Smarth resigned.

West Bank Palestinians denounce the U.S. and British assault on Iraq.

The body of U.S. journalist Philip True is found hanging in western Mexico.

Reports reveal that the government in the separatist republic of Chechnya has declared a one-month state of emergency to try to stem the growing lawlessness and kidnappings in the region.

Asia & the Pacific Thai officials report that, of the 146 passengers and crew aboard the plane that crashed on Dec. 11, 101 were killed.

Lord (Lew) Grade (born Louis Winogradsky), 91, British television and film producer, dies in London of a heart attack.

In a report to the UN, UNSCOM chairman Richard Butler reveals that, since inspectors resumed work after the November agreement, Iraq has failed to “provide the full cooperation it promised” and “initiated new forms of restrictions” on inspectors. . . . Leaders of the nine member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meet in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Prompted by Iraq’s failure to cooperate with UN weapons inspectors, the U.S. and Great Britain launch a campaign of air strikes against Iraq. Two permanent members of the UN Security Council, Russia and China, express fury at the U.S. decision to act without consulting the council.

Africa & the Middle East

The Japanese government announces that it will take over Nippon Credit Bank Ltd., one of Japan’s largest banks. Nippon Credit is the second bank to be temporarily nationalized under a recently enacted plan to prevent a collapse of Japan’s ailing banking system.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 12–16, 1998—1209

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The House Judiciary Committee approves a fourth article of impeachment against Pres. Clinton, a watered-down version of Kenneth Starr’s abuse-of-power allegations. . . . Lawton Mainor Chiles Jr., 68, governor of Florida (D) since 1991, who previously served in the Senate, 1971–89, dies at the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee, Florida, of an apparent heart attack. . . . Morris King Udall, 76, (D, Ariz.), congressman from Arizona, 1961–91, dies in Washington, D.C., of complications from Parkinson’s disease. The FBI reveals that serious crimes in the U.S. were down 5% in the first half of 1998. It is the sixth consecutive year in which a drop in serious crime has been reported.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Marc Hodler, an International Olympic Committee (IOC) official, reports of bribes accepted in exchange for their votes on which cities will host the Olympic Games, touching off the biggest ethics scandal in the century-old organization’s history. . . . Kevin Brown signs the biggest contract in MLB history with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

William D. Denson, 85, U.S. Army lawyer who, from 1945 to 1947, was the chief prosecutor of those accused of committing atrocities at Nazi concentration camps in Germany, dies in Lawrence, New York, of unreported causes.

In Calderon v. Coleman, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, to narrow the discretion that federal judges may exercise in deciding whether a trial error warrants the reversal of a state death-row inmate’s sentence. . . . A. Leon Higginbotham Jr., 70, federal judge and legal scholar known as a defender of social justice and civil rights who was only the third black jurist to preside over one of the 12 U.S. Circuit Courts, dies in Boston, Massachusetts, after a stroke.

Reports state that the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, an organization that supports public-television programming and awards “genius” grants to individuals who excelled in academics, the arts and other areas, has named Jonathan Fanton as its president.

Judge Manuel Real sentences Democratic fund-raiser Johnny Chung to five years’ probation for using “straw donors” to funnel illegal contributions to Democratic campaigns in 1996, including the reelection effort of Pres. Clinton and Vice Pres. Gore. . . . In Washington, D.C., Judge Stanley Sporkin approves a settlement under which the Department of Energy agrees to allocate $6.25 million to private groups conducting independent monitoring of federal nuclear waste cleanup programs.

Judge Deborah Batts strikes down a New York City law banning most outdoor advertisements for tobacco products and restricting tobacco advertisements in stores, arguing that federal cigarette-labeling law prohibits cities and states from imposing further restrictions on cigarette advertising.

The State Department warns U.S. citizens in seven nations in the Persian Gulf area of the possibility of terrorist attacks. Unidentified Clinton administration officials state that Osama bin Laden has ordered an attack on U.S. targets in the Persian Gulf to take place sometime in the following weeks. . . . Data shows that almost 300,000 immigrants have been deported by federal authorities since the passage of the 1996 Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. In both years, the INS exceeded its deportation goals.

Judge Jeff Hines in Paducah, Kentucky, sentences Michael Carneal, 15, to life in prison for killing three fellow students at a prayer session and wounding five others.

Federal prosecutors in the U.S. charge five suspects—Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, Fahad Mohammed Ali Msalam, Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan, and Mustafa Mohammed Fadhil—with murder and conspiracy in the August bombing of the U.S. embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. All of the new suspects are at large.

Norman Fell, 74, TV actor best known for his role on the situation comedy Three’s Company, dies in Woodland Hills, California, of cancer.

A report by Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that 47.8 million Americans will pay no federal income tax in the 1998 tax year, up from 46 million in 1997. The panel estimates that wealthier households with annual incomes above $100,000 will account for 62% of income taxes paid in 1998, compared with 56% in 1997. . . . The Nature Conservancy announces that it will purchase 185,000 acres (75,000 hectares) of Maine forestland from International Paper Co.

Dec. 12

Dec. 13

Dec. 14

Dec. 15

William Gaddis, 75, U.S. author whose books were thought by some critics to be among the most important literary works of their time, dies of prostate cancer in East Hampton, New York.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 16

1210—December 17–21, 1998

Dec. 17

World Affairs

Europe

The U.S. and Britain begin the campaign’s second wave of attacks against Iraq when almost 100 cruise missiles are launched from B-52 bombers. . . . Data shows that 1998, which ended Dec. 1 on the meteorological calendar, was the warmest year on record, with a global average surface temperature about 58ºF (14ºC). . . . A committee of the House of Lords voids a court decision that denied Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, Chile’s former military leader, immunity from arrest in Britain.

Serbian police launch an assault on the kosovo village of Glodjane, 6 miles (10 km) south of Pec. Two KLA members are killed and 34 are arrested. The KLA denies involvement in the Dec. 14 attack in Pec. Five masked assailants abduct and shoot to death Zvonko Bojanic, mayor of Kosovo Polje. . . . In protest of the U.S. strikes against Iraq, Russia recalls its ambassador in the U.S., Yuli Vorontsov . . . Britain announces that it will ease an arms embargo on Argentina imposed since the Falkland Islands war in 1982.

Dec. 20

Dec. 21

U.S. and British forces end their 70-hour-long air bombardment of Iraq, and U.S. president Clinton expresses confidence that the strikes, dubbed Operation Desert Fox, “achieved our mission,” as Pentagon leaders argue the bombardment weakened the government of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and set back his longrange missile program by at least a year. In response to the attacks, Iraqi officials reveal that Iraq will not permit UN weapons inspectors to reenter the country.

Bulent Ecevit, head of the Democratic Left Party, states he has ended his effort to form a new government in Turkey.

U.S. and British military sources reveal that aircraft from the two countries flew 650 sorties, including 250 bombing runs, as part of the Dec. 16–19 attack on some 100 designated targets in Iraq. Reports confirm that anti-U.S. protests have erupted in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, and the West Bank and Gaza Strip since the assault started. Morocco permits an officially outlawed Islamic movement to lead a demonstration of 100,000 protesters in Rabat, the capital.

Andre Lucien Charles Daniel Dewavrin, 87, director of intelligence operations for the French Resistance under Charles de Gaulle during World War II, dies in Paris.

The IMF revises its projections and forecasts 2.2% global economic expansion for 1999, down from the earlier prediction of 2.5%. The economies hardest hit by Southeast Asia’s financial crisis— Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines—are expected to contract by a combined 10.6% in 1998 and by 1.4% in 1999. Japan’s economy will contract 0.5% in 1999. The U.S. economy will grow 1.8% in 1999, rather than 2%. Growth in the EU nations is revised downward, to 2.2% for 1999 from the earlier estimate of 2.5%.

The Americas

Iraqi officials reveal that 25 Iraqis have been killed and 75 wounded in the first two rounds of attacks by U.S. and British forces.

The Polish parliament passes a bill that will open up Poland’s communist-era secret police files. . . . Parties in Northern Ireland attempting to implement an April peace accord reach a major agreement on the structure of governmental bodies in the province. . . . Reports disclose that the Latvian parliament has voted to approve Latvia’s membership in the World Trade Organization.

Dec. 18

Dec. 19

Africa & the Middle East

In Damascus, Syria’s capital, mobs angered by the attack on Iraq storm U.S. and British diplomatic buildings before being brought under control by Syrian security personnel and U.S. Marines.

Asia & the Pacific Some 4,000 protesters clash with Indonesian security forces outside the Parliament building in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. The demonstration is among the most violent of the protests that have crippled areas of the capital on a daily basis for more than a month. More than 100 demonstrators and 14 soldiers are wounded in the clashes. One student is shot dead.

Mexican lieutenant colonel Hildegardo Bacilio Gomez leads a group of dissident soldiers in a march in Mexico City to protest alleged abuses in military courts and economic conditions in Mexico. . . . The parliament in Haiti votes to approve the nomination of Jacques-Edouard Alexis as premier. The Senate ratified the nomination on Dec. 15. Haiti has not had a premier since June 1997, when Rosny Smarth resigned.

South Korean naval forces sink a small North Korean submarine in the waters off South Korea’s southern coast. . . . India expels an official from Pakistan’s embassy in New Delhi, India’s capital, on charges of espionage.

In Mexico, the army’s top prosecutor and others in command of the military denounce the Dec. 18 march of dissident soldiers and the movement, called the Patriotic Command to Raise the People’s Consciousness. The internal division in the military is described as being without precedent in modern Mexican history.

In response to India’s Dec. 18 expulsion of a Pakistani official, Pakistan expels an Indian official from India’s mission in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital.

China releases imprisoned labor activist Liu Nianchun on medical parole.

In raucous proceedings, the Israeli Knesset votes to dissolve the rightist Likud party-led government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The vote sets the stage for new general elections sometime in the spring of 1999.

The Indonesian government admits that dozens of women—most of whom are ethnic Chinese—were gang-raped in the May rioting that preceded Pres. Suharto’s ouster. . . . As many as 1,000 people flee the Cambodian town of Sihanoukville after becoming alarmed that a mound of some 3,000 tons of waste from a Taiwanese plastics company is toxic. . . . Nepal’s premier, Girija Prasad Koirala, resigns. . . . Prominent Chinese dissidents Xu Wenli and Wang Youcai are sentenced to prison terms of 13 years and 11 years, respectively.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 17–21, 1998—1211

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

As many as 3,000 people attend a rally outside the Capitol urging Republicans to halt the drive toward the impeachment of Pres. Clinton. . . . The CDC reports that hot dogs and cold cuts may have caused an outbreak of food poisoning that killed four people and sickened more than 35 others in nine states.

The U.S. announces that it has temporarily closed 38 of its embassies in Africa as a precaution against possible terrorist reprisals for the operation against Iraq.

Future Tech International Inc., a Miami, Florida-based computer sales company, agrees to plead guilty to two counts of tax evasion relating to illegal contributions it had made to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in 1994 and to Pres. Clinton’s reelection effort in 1995. The company will pay a $1 million fine, which will also repay back taxes and penalties it owes for falsely claiming the reimbursement costs as deductible payroll expenses.

The House debates the impeachment articles against Pres. Clinton for 13 hours. . . . South Carolina executes Andrew Lavern Smith, 38, by lethal injection in Columbia. Smith is the 500th convict executed in the U.S. since 1976. Texas has executed 164 inmates since 1977, more than any other state. Following Texas are Virginia, Florida, Missouri, Louisiana, and Georgia. Smith is the 20th convict executed in South Carolina since 1976. The most executions performed in any year since 1976 was 74, in 1997.

Francisco Gomez and Pedro Guevara, Cubans who reside in Florida, are arrested on charges of attempted immigrant smuggling after they are rescued along with seven other Cubans from a capsized boat in the Atlantic Ocean, 30 miles (50 km) from Miami. Officials believe the rest of the 23 passengers on board are dead. . . . David Sheldon Boone, a former cryptologist for the NSA, pleads guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage when he sold classified documents to the KGB from 1988 to 1991.

Figures reveal that U.S. banks’ credit losses on derivatives reached a new quarterly high in the July-through-September period. Losses in the third quarter rose to $445 million, up from the previous quarter’s $94 million in write-offs. Profits from derivatives in the third quarter dropped to $614 million, from the $2.6 billion figure recorded in April through June.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Dec. 17

Data shows that attendance at NCAA football games surpassed 37 million for the first time during the 1998 season.

The House votes to impeach Pres. Clinton for his conduct in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. In nearparty-line votes, the House’s Republican majority wins passage of two articles of impeachment accusing Clinton of committing perjury and obstruction of justice in an effort to conceal his sexual affair with Lewinsky. . . . Rep. Robert Livingston (R, La.), stuns his House colleagues by withdrawing his candidacy for speaker after admitting to extramarital affairs.

Nkem Chukwu, 27, a Houston, Texas, woman who underwent fertility treatment, delivers seven children. Because she gave birth to a daughter on Dec. 8, the frail infants are the first known set of octuplets born alive in the U.S.

Dec. 18

Dec. 19

Germany extradites to the U.S. Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, accused of playing a key role in the organization led by Osama bin Laden, alQaeda, which the U.S. believes was behind the August embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya.

NASA loses contact with the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft, an unmanned probe launched in 1996 to orbit the asteroid 433 Eros. . . . Sir Alan Lloyd Hodgkin, 84, British neurophysiologist and cowinner of the 1963 Nobel prize for research on the electrochemical mechanism through which nerve cells transmit information, dies in Cambridge, England.

In Des Moines, Iowa, Judge Robert Pratt strikes down the state’s ban on a late-term abortion procedure, ruling that the law is unconstitutional because its vague wording will likely lead doctors to “steer far wider of the unlawful zone” than the law intends.

The FDA approves the first vaccine against Lyme disease, a bacterial infection transmitted by tick bites. The FDA warns that the vaccine does not provide complete immunity from the disease. . . . NASA controllers relocate the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft, lost Dec. 20.

Dec. 20

A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe tops the bestseller list.

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Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 21

1212—December 22–27, 1998

World Affairs

Dec. 22

Dec. 23

Reports confirm that Kyrgyzstan is the first former Soviet republic to officially become a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Rev. Lord (Donald Oliver) Soper, 95, minister of the Methodist Church in Britain who was known for his open-air preaching at Tower Hill and Hyde Park in London, dies in London of unreported causes.

Israeli warplanes kill a woman and six of her seven children during an air raid in eastern Lebanon against suspected guerrilla bases. . . . About 100 UN relief workers return to Iraq to resume their aid activities.

Reports reveal that the Lithuanian parliament has abolished the death penalty in Lithuania. . . . Some 170 inmates implicated in acts of sectarian violence are released from Maze prison outside Belfast, Northern Ireland, on a 10-day Christmas leave. The release draws protests. . . . The Cour de Cassation, Belgium’s highest court, convicts former NATO secretary general Willy Claes and 11 other defendants in connection with a bribery scandal. All of the defendants receive suspended sentences.

In retaliation for the Dec. 22 Israeli attack, Lebanon’s Shi’ite movement Hezbollah fires dozens of rockets into northern Israel, wounding about 15 Israelis.

Asia & the Pacific

Pierre Vallieres, 60, whose 1968 book, White Niggers of America, was considered a manifesto of the early French-Canadian separatist movement in Quebec, dies in Montreal, Canada, after having slipped into a coma a week earlier; he never recovered from a heart attack suffered in 1997.

Prominent Chinese dissident Qin Yongmin is sentenced to a 12-year prison term. . . . The Cambodian government begins cleanup efforts in Sihanoukville and states that the waste from a Taiwanese plastic company will be returned to Taiwan.

Some 4,500 police officers wielding batons and tear gas raid Chogye Temple in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, and oust dozens of dissident Buddhist monks and their supporters, who have been occupying the temple since Nov. 11 to protest a move by its leader, Song Wol Ju, to seek a third term. Song states he will withdraw his reelection bid. . . . An Indonesian military court charges 11 soldiers in an elite army unit with kidnapping democracy activists between February and April.

Fighting in Kuito, Angola, the capital of the central Bie province, leaves 30 people dead and 37 wounded. . . . The PNA frees Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin from house arrest in Gaza City. . . . An appeals court in Teheran, the capital of Iran, reduces the jail sentence of Gholamhossein Karbaschi, formerly mayor of Teheran, to two years from five years.

Dec. 24

Russian president Boris Yeltsin and Belarussian president Aleksandr Lukashenko sign a declaration of cooperation that will more closely bind Russia and the former Soviet republic of Belarus. Separately, Russia’s lower house of parliament, the Duma, ratifies a friendship treaty with Ukraine, pledging closer ties between the two countries.

Dec. 25

Dec. 26

The Americas

Iraqi vice president Taha Yasin Ramadan warns that a squadron of U.S. and British warplanes on patrol constitutes a violation of Iraq’s airspace and will “be met by Iraqi fire.” Iraq later fires antiaircraft artillery near two British Tornado fighter jets flying in the southern zone.

Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, senior leaders of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge guerrillas, surrender to the government after negotiating an amnesty deal with Cambodian premier Hun Sen. The two leaders were among the chief architects of the Khmer Rouge’s radical communist regime, responsible for the deaths of more than 1 million Cambodians when it ruled the country from 1975 to 1979. . . . Militant Hindus launch a campaign against Christians in India.

Cathal Goulding, reported variously as 75 or 76, chief of staff of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), 1962–70, when a more violent wing of the organization, the Provisional IRA, split off from his “Official” IRA branch, dies in Dublin, Ireland, of unreported causes.

A state investigator in Mexico City reveals that two men—Chivarrer Lopez and Miguel Hernandez de la Cruz Juan—were arrested in connection with the death of U.S. journalist Philip True, whose body was found Dec. 16. The two men reportedly admitted to killing True.

Dec. 27

A Chinese court convicts Zhang Shanguang, a prominent labor activist, of “providing intelligence to hostile foreign organizations” and sentences him to 10 years in prison.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 22–27, 1998—1213

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Northern Brands International, a North Carolina-based marketing unit of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., pleads guilty to aiding cigarette distributors in a smuggling plan designed to evade excise taxes in the U.S. and Canada in the mid1990s. It is the first time that a tobacco company in the U.S. is convicted of a federal crime. Northern Brands is fined $5 million and directed to pay $10 million to the U.S. Treasury. Chastity Pasley, 22, pleads guilty in Laramie, Wyoming, to the charge that she was an accessory after the fact to first-degree murder in the October beating death of Matthew Shepard, a homosexual Wyoming college student. . . . In Stamford, Connecticut, Judge Martin Nigro sentences former fugitive Alex Kelly, who pleads no contest and is serving a 16-year sentence for the rape, to 10 years in prison for the rape of a 17-year-old girl in 1986.

The State Department announces that three Cuban diplomats stationed at the UN who are allegedly part of a spy ring have been ordered to leave the U.S. . . . Jewish Holocaust survivors and their relatives file a class-action lawsuit in New York City, accusing the U.S.’s Chase Manhattan Corp. and J.P. Morgan & Co., as well as seven French banks, of helping the Nazi German regime steal the assets of Jewish customers in France. The action is the first to name institutions based in the U.S. in connection with the theft of assets.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), located on Wall Street in New York City, reveals that it has reached a preliminary agreement with the city and state of New York on terms for its remaining in the city for at least 50 years.

An official of the American Basketball League (ABL) states the league will file for bankruptcy, leaving the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) as the only remaining U.S. league for professional female basketball players.

The Commerce Department reports that U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) grew at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.7% in the third quarter of 1998. That compares with an annualized gain of 1.8% in the second quarter.

Anatoly Rybakov, 87, Russian writer whose 1987 book Children of the Arbat went two decades without a publisher due to censorship in the former USSR, dies in New York City while suffering from heart ailments.

Pres. Clinton, in a Christmas Eve act of executive clemency, pardons 33 people convicted of nonviolent crimes.

Data reveal that since Dec. 21, freezing temperatures in the high teens and low 20s Fahrenheit—the most severe freeze in the area since 1990—have seriously damaged California’s lemon and orange crops. . . . A study finds that women tend to live longer if they bear fewer children and if they bear them later in life. . . . Raemer E. Schreiber, 88, physicist who helped the U.S. develop the atom bomb and the hydrogen bomb, dies in Los Alamos, New Mexico, of unreported causes.

Dec. 22

Dec. 23

Dec. 24

Dec. 25

Dec. 26

The smallest of the octuplets born Dec. 20 to Nkem Chukwu in Houston, Texas, dies of heart and lung failure.

William Andrew Lee, 98, U.S. Marine Corps colonel known as “Ironman” who won three Navy Crosses during campaigns to subdue leftist rebels in Nicaragua in the early 1930s, dies in Fredericksburg, Virginia, of cancer.

Dec. 27

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1214—December 28–31, 1998

World Affairs

Dec. 28

Dec. 29

Dec. 30

Dec. 31

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

U.S. jets fire Harm antiaircraft missiles north of Mosul in the northern no-flight zone of Iraq, in retaliation for several missiles the Iraqi battery had fired at the patrol.

In Yemen, 16 foreign tourists are kidnapped.

Iraqi vice president Taha Yasin Ramadan reveals that Iraq considers the restrictions placed on fly zones by the U.S., Britain, and France in 1991 to be null and void.

Three Britons and one Australian die in southern Abyan province when Yemeni security forces apparently botch an attempt to free 16 foreign tourists kidnapped Dec. 28. Three kidnappers are also slain.

U.S. fighter jets attack an Iraqi airdefense site in Iraq’s southern “noflight” zone after Iraq fires surfaceto-air missiles (SAMs) at a squadron of U.S. and British warplanes on patrol. . . . Data reveals that at the end of the trading year, Italy’s MIBtel Index surged 41%; Spain’s IBEX 35 index was up 35.6%; the French CAC 40 index closes up 31.5% ; Germany’s DAX index shows a gain of 17.7%; and the London Stock Exchange 100 ends up 14.5%. Japan’s Nikkei average ends down 9.3%. Canada’s Toronto Stock Exchange composite index ends down 4% .

The British government releases its list of New Year’s honors, which identifies 981 recipients of knighthoods, life peerages, and other honors.

Yemeni tribesmen release four German tourists abducted Dec 16 after the German government intervenes in negotiations.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Retired admiral Ruben Franco is arrested in connection with the kidnapping of infants born to political prisoners during Argentina’s “dirty war” against suspected leftists from 1976 to 1983. Franco is alleged to be the leader of the kidnapping ring and is the sixth senior officer arrested in connection with the investigation.

Although Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, leaders of the Khmer Rouge who surrendered Dec. 25, are targets of a possible international tribunal for genocide, Cambodian premier Hun Sen discloses that he will not force the men to face an international tribunal or a Cambodian criminal court. . . . South Korea’s composite index ends its trading year with a gain of 49.5% for 1998. . . . A severe storm with winds of 90 mph (144 kmph) strikes in the Tasman Sea off the southeastern coast of Australia, killing sailors competing in the 54th annual Sydney-to-Hobart yacht race. The storm forces the rescue of nearly 60 people by Royal Australian Navy helicopters. Riotous mobs of villagers attack military posts and soldiers in Indonesia’s Aceh province, on the northern tip of Sumatra. Eight troops are killed. . . . The National People’s Congress passes China’s first law governing securities markets. . . . Chinese officials reveal that Zhang Lin and Wei Quanbao, New York City-based Chinese dissidents who secretly entered China, have been sentenced to three years in a labor camp.

Mexican legislators pass one of the most austere budgets in the country’s recent history.

The EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, announces conversion rates that place one euro, the new EU currency, as equal to 6.56 French francs, 1.96 German marks, and 1,936.27 Italian lire. The euro is scheduled to come into existence on Jan. 1, 1999, although euro bills and coins will not be circulated until 2002. . . . The Dow global index shows the U.S. market up 26.34% from 1997. Data shows that, for the 1998 year, Mexico’s Bolsa index plunged nearly 40%; Brazil’s Bovespa index ended 1998 down 33.5%; Chilean stocks fell 28.1%; and Argentina’s Merval index finished down 37.5%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index showed a 6.3% year-on-year decline, and Australia’s All-Ordinaries index closed the year up 7.5%.

Reports confirm that Indonesian government investigators have linked former Pres. Suharto, members of his family, and some close associates to corrupt schemes involving hundreds of millions of dollars.

Reports reveal that 25 people were arrested after the Dec. 29 attack in Indonesia. . . . Reports confirm that Japan’s well-known high-speed “bullet” trains will be withdrawn from service in 1999. . . . Reports reveal that 12 churches, schools, and prayer halls in India have been demolished in fires set by Hindu mobs since Dec. 25. . . . Reports confirm that six yachtsmen died in the Dec. 27 storm off the coast of Australia.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 28–31, 1998—1215

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Robert Samuel Johnson, 78, U.S. Air Force pilot who shot down 27 German planes in an 11-month period during World War II, the second-highest total of all U.S. pilots flying in Europe and the third-highest total among all American pilots in World War II, dies in Tulsa, Oklahoma, of unreported causes.

Pres. Clinton announces that the Social Security Administration (SSA) has resolved potential computer problems related to the arrival of the year 2000, the anticipated Y2K glitch.

The Pizza Hut restaurant chain announces that it has settled for an undisclosed amount a precedentsetting case in which a black family sued the chain for racial harassment committed by its employees at an outlet in Godfrey, Illinois, in 1997. In the case, the presiding judge, William Hart of U.S. District Court in Chicago, ruled for the first time that a corporation may be held liable for hate crimes committed by its employees. The House Ethics Committee announces that outgoing Speaker Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.) has completed payment of a $300,000 fine for ethics violations. . . . The Justice Department announces it has joined a second lawsuit against the nation’s largest hospital company, Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp., alleging fraud in the company’s claims for reimbursement from federal health programs.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Dec. 28

The FEC reports that overall congressional campaign spending in the 1998 election cycle fell to $617.1 million, $9.2 million less than in 1996. The FEC attributes the drop to fewer closely fought House races in 1998 than in 1996.

INS officials announce that the U.S. will not deport illegal immigrants from Honduras and Nicaragua for at least 18 months, extending a January 1999 deadline announced in November in the wake of Hurricane Mitch.

Dec. 29

Jean-Claude Forest, 68, French cartoonist who, in 1962, created the comic-strip character Barbarella, which inspired the 1968 film, dies near Paris of a respiratory ailment. . . . Reports confirm that the body of U.S. movie producer David MacLeod was found in Montreal, Quebec, in early December.

A semiannual survey finds that the U.S. states are generally in fine fiscal health, largely because of the nation’s strong economy and prudent economic management by governors and state legislatures. The survey predicts that “virtually all states” will have a budget surplus in fiscal 1999, which for most states ends June 30, 1999. Fiscal 1999 will be the fifth straight year in which the states report healthy surpluses.

In a deal was valued at $52.41 billion, oil producer British Petroleum PLC (BP) completes its acquisition of the U.S.-based energy company Amoco Corp. . . . At the end of the trading year, the dollar closes at 1.6685 marks, down from the 1997 year-end rate of 1.7980, and at 113.45 yen, down from 1997’s final rate of 130.57. It finishes at $1.6595 per pound sterling, down slightly from the $1.6508 level in 1997. The dollar rose to 9.908 pesos from 8.07 pesos at the close of 1997. The Dow Jones industrial average closes at 9181.43, up 1273.18 points, or 16.1%, from the 1997 year-end level of 7908.25. The NASDAQ leapt 39.63% during the year to close at a record high of 2192.69. The ASE closes at 688.99, up 0.64% from its 1997 close of 684.61. The S&P 500 rose 26.67% during 1998, closing at 1229.23.

The FDA approves Celebrex, an arthritis pain reliever. . . . Official national timekeeping agencies around the world delay their clocks by one second to keep their atomic clocks synchronous with the slightly less regular rotation of the Earth. The “leap second” is added at 7:00 P.M. eastern standard time. . . . Reports confirm that 20,000 dead fish were found floating in Maryland’s Patapsco River. It is the largest fish kill in Maryland since an outbreak of the toxic microbe Pfiesteria piscicida killed thousands of fish in 1997.

Dec. 30

Dec. 31

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1999 Loaves of bread are handed out to Kosovar refugees in Albania, 1999.

1218—January–August 1999

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World Affairs

Europe

The EU’s new unified currency, the euro, comes into existence, and the ECU ceases to exist. The euro is launched in Austria, Belgium, Italy, Finland, France, Spain, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, and the Netherlands.

Pope John Paul II holds a private meeting at the Vatican with Italian premier Massimo D’Alema, a former communist who took office in October 1998. The event garners significant attention because the pope was a pivotal figure in bringing about the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe.

In reaction to the arrest of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, Kurdish separatists stage demonstrations in many nations, including Armenia, Belgium, Denmark, Italy Sweden, Australia, and Canada.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Fighting erupts in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone.

In Honduras, Brigadier General Mario Hung Pacheco formally hands over control of the armed forces to civilian Pres. Carlos Flores.

Indonesia reveals that it is prepared to grant full independence in East Timor if the East Timorese reject the government’s autonomy plan. It is the first time that Indonesia indicates that it will recognize an independent East Timor.

Russia’s Constitutional Court bans capital punishment until all of Russia’s 89 regions adopt a system of trial by jury. Because only nine of Russia’s regions operate a jury system, the ruling effectively abolishes the death penalty in Russia.

In his 46th year as Jordan’s monarch, King Hussein, 63, dies in Amman, the capital, of non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Prince Abdullah, 37, Hussein’s eldest son, takes the oath as monarch, becoming King Abdullah II.

Reports reveal that Cuba’s National Assembly has passed legislation strengthening penalties against criminals and against political activists opposed to the ruling Communist Party who “collaborated” with the U.S.

Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee visits Pakistan, meeting with Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif in aneffort to reduce tensions between their nations. The meeting draws protests in Pakistan.

NATO launches air strikes against Yugoslavia, prompted by the Serbian refusal to sign a peace accord with ethnic Albanians fighting for the independence of Kosovo and by Serbian violence against ethnic Albanians. The strikes are NATO’s first assault on a sovereign nation in its 50-year history.

A bomb explodes in Vladikavkaz, capital of the Russian republic of North Ossetia, killing at least 53 people and severely wounding more than 100 others.

Jailed leaders of Gamaa al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group), Egypt’s largest Islamic guerrilla organization, announce a permanent cease-fire, ending their seven-year-old armed campaign to replace the secular government of Pres. Hosni Mubarak with an Islamic regime.

Four unidentified gunmen assassinate Vice Pres. Luis Maria Argana in Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay. The killing prompts protests, and the lower house of Paraguay’s Congress votes to begin impeachment proceedings against pres. Raul Cubas Grau, who resigns. Senate president Luis Angel Gonzalez Macchi is sworn in as Paraguay’s president.

Afghanistan’s two warring sides— the ruling Islamic fundamentalist Taliban militia and the opposition Northern Alliance—announce that they have agreed in principle to form a coalition government.

British and U.S. fighter planes resume attacks against targets in northern Iraq.

As fighting continues in Kosovo under NATO fire, a UNHCR report claims that killings and numerous atrocities have been committed by both the ethnic Albanian KLA and the Serbs.

Niger president Ibrahim Mainassara Bare, 49, is assassinated, apparently by members of his presidential guard. An army junta led by Daouda Malam Wanke assumes power in the wake of Bare’s death.

Canada officially redraws its map to include the new territory of Nunavut, an Arctic area that was the eastern part of the Northwest Territories. It is the first time Canada has altered its map since 1949. The new territory has a population of only 25,000 people, roughly 85% of whom are Inuit.

The Cormoran army overthrows the government of the Comoros, a three-island nation in the Indian Ocean, in a bloodless coup. Col. Azaly Assoumani is named the country’s new leader.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia indicts Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic for “crimes against humanity” stemming from the forced deportation of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo. Louise Arbour is the first tribunal prosecutor to indict a sitting head of state.

The newly elected members of the Scottish parliament are sworn in, and the newly elected Welsh Assembly meets for the first time.

Former military ruler Olusegun Obasanjo is sworn in as Nigeria’s democratically elected president, making him the country’s first civilian leader in more than 15 years.

Mireya Moscoso de Gruber is the first woman elected president of Panama.

India launches a series of air strikes on a band of Islamic militants encamped in an Indian-controlled area of the disputed Kashmir region.

NATO formally ends its bombing campaign against Yugoslavia after verifying that the government has withdrawn all of its forces from the Serbian province of Kosovo.

Chechen rebels fire on Russian outposts along Chechnya’s border with the Russian republic of Dagestan.

Israeli warplanes pound Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure, and the Shi’ite Muslim guerrilla group Hezbollah fires rockets into northern Israel in the heaviest battles involving the two sides since 1996 in their continuing conflict along the IsraelLebanon border.

For the first time since Brazil returned to democracy in 1985, the military is under civilian control.

More than 100 million Indonesians go to the polls to vote in the country’s first fully democratic election in 44 years.

Zambian president Frederick Chiluba criticizes the UN for spending 11 cents on each African refugee from the Congo conflict while spending $1.50 on each refugee from the conflict in Kosovo, a Serbian province, calling the difference in spending “discrimination of the worst kind.”

Spanish police, customs, and naval officials seize a ship in the midAtlantic Ocean carrying about 10 tons of cocaine. The operation is believed to be the biggest cocaine seizure ever by European authorities.

King Hassan II of Morocco, 70, the longest-ruling monarch in the Arab world, who played a key role in the Middle East peace process, dies of a heart attack in Rabat. He is immediately succeeded by his eldest son, Sidi Mohammed, who takes the official title of King Mohammed VI.

Off the coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, 123 Chinese illegal immigrants are found smuggled aboard a fishing boat. The humansmuggling case is one of the biggest in Canadian history.

Commanders of military operations from India and Pakistan lay out a plan for ending the heaviest fighting in Kashmir in nearly 30 years.

Japan and the U.S. sign an agreement to conduct joint research on developing a missile defense system. That proposal is vigorously criticized by China, North Korea, and Russia.

A powerful earthquake strikes northwestern Turkey, killing more than 15,000 people and devastating several major cities.

The two rival factions of one of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s main rebel groups sign a peace agreement aimed at ending the country’s civil war.

Venezuela’s constitutional assembly approves measures that effectively strip the opposition-controlled Congress of the last of its powers. Venezuela’s constitutional assembly declares a “judicial emergency” and grants itself the power to assess and purge members of the nation’s judiciary, including Supreme Court justices.

Three major Japanese banks announce that they will merge to form what will be the world’s largest financial institution in terms of assets.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

January–August 1999—1219

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that the Census Bureau cannot use statistical sampling when it conducts the official national census, upholding a lower court decision in Clinton v. Glavin.

The Department of the Navy announces that it is lowering educational standards for recruits in an attempt to reverse a decline in enlistments. The navy will now require only 90% of its recruits to have high school diplomas, down from 95%.

The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. growth domestic product (GDP) grew at an inflationadjusted annual rate of 3.9% in 1998. That matches 1997’s revised GDP gain, equaling the fastest growth rate since 1984.

The NIH states that a federal ban on research on human embryos does not apply to human embryonic stem cells because the cells do not have the capacity to develop into human beings.

Pope John Paul II arrives in St. Louis, Missouri, and the pontiff addresses some 20,000 teenagers at the Kiel Center sports arena.

In general party lines, the Senate votes to acquit Pres. Clinton of impeachment charges in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, ending the second presidential impeachment in U.S. history.

Pres. Clinton pardons Henry Ossian Flipper, the first black to graduate from West Point. In 1882, Flipper was given a dishonorable discharge, and an army review board found that Flipper was unfairly prosecuted because of his race. Nonetheless, the U.S. Army did not formally exonerate Flipper until 1976, 36 years after his death. Clinton’s action is the first posthumous presidential pardon in U.S. history.

A cargo ship called the New Carissa, holding 400,000 gallons of oil, runs aground in stormy weather at Coos Bay, Oregon.

Reports disclose that scientists have succeeded in slowing the speed of light to about 38 miles per hour (61 kph) from its normal speed through empty space, 186,282 miles per second (299,792.458 km per second). The feat is seen as having potential for the advanced study of quantum mechanics and for the development of a variety of high-precision technologies.

In National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Smith, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that the NCAA cannot be sued for sex discrimination under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 simply because it receives dues from federally funded member schools.

Congress passes and Pres. Clinton signs a bill that will prohibit nursing homes from evicting patients solely because their bills were paid by Medicaid, the health-insurance program for the nation’s poor that the federal government and states fund jointly.

Major General David Hale, a twostar army general who retired in 1998 while under investigation for allegations of sexual misconduct, pleads guilty to eight counts of misconduct. He is the first army general to undergo a court-martial since 1952 and the first general ever to be court-martialed in retirement.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above the 10,000 level for the first time ever. It is the seventh time in just over four years that the benchmark stock average breaks through a so-called millennium level.

As Y2K fears persist, the White House reveals that 92% of the federal government’s critical computer systems have been repaired and updated in preparation for the year 2000 (Y2K) computer glitch. The Senate votes, 99-0, in favor of a bill that will provide $900 million worth of loans for small businesses to make Y2K computer repairs.

Joe (Joseph Paul) DiMaggio, 84, star center fielder for baseball’s New York Yankees who became an icon of an idealized Ameica, dies in Hollywood, Florida, after suffering from lung cancer and pneumonia.

Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, storm Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, and, in a fivehour rampage, use guns and bombs to kill 13 people and wound more than 30 others before killing themselves. The attack is the deadliest such incident in U.S. history.

The House passes, 249-180, a measure that will force Pres. Clinton to secure approval from Congress before sending ground troops to Yugoslavia.

Recent statistics show that women on average earned 74% as much as men in 1997.

In a landmark observation, two teams of astronomers announce the first discovery of a system of multiple planets orbiting a star other than the sun. Three large planets are orbiting Upsilon Andromedae, about 44 light years away in the constellation Andromeda.

Eric Ross donates $5 million to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and helps dedicate its administration building to his parents, Albert and Regina Rosenberg, both of whom died at Auschwitz. It is the largest gift to the institution since its opening in 1993.

The Senate approves, 73-25, a juvenile crime bill that includes several amendments aimed at strengthening gun-control laws. It is the first major gun-control initiative to gain legislative approval since 1994.

In INS v. Aguirre-Aguirre, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that foreigners are ineligible for refugee protection in the U.S. if they committed a “serious nonpolitical crime” in their own country, regardless of whether they might face political persecution if deported.

The Justice Department files an antitrust lawsuit against American Airlines that accuses the carrier of using predatory pricing. The suit is the first predatory pricing action brought against a U.S. carrier by the government since 1978.

The FBI shuts down its sites on the World Wide Web after computer hackers illegally enter the site.

Three spectators are killed by flying debris from a car crash at an Indy Racing League event. The deaths are the first fatalities in the 40-year car racing history of Lowe’s Motor Speedway.

Congress awards its highest honor, the Congressional Gold Medal, to Rosa Parks, whose 1955 refusal to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama, sparked a 381-day-long bus boycott that ended when the Supreme Court found bus-segregation unconstitutional.

Pres. Clinton invokes a seldomused provision of the Constitution to directly appoint James Hormel, as ambassador to Luxembourg. The confirmation makes Hormel the first openly gay ambassador in U.S. history.

In West v. Gibson, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) possesses the authority to award federal employees compensatory damages in cases of discrimination by other government employers.

A study finds that Raloxifene, a drug prescribed for the bone disease osteoporosis, significantly reduces the risk of developing breast cancer in women past menopause.

The Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame opens in Knoxville, Tennessee. It is the first hall of fame dedicated to any women’s sports.

The Senate, 53-45, reinstates Senate Rule XVI, which bans adding unrelated legislative “riders” to appropriations bills.

Pres. Clinton imposes economic sanctions on the Taliban militia in Afghanistan for allegedly harboring Saudi Arabian exile Osama bin Laden.

On his tour of some of the nation’s most economically depressed areas, Pres. Clinton visits the Oglala Lakota Sioux reservation in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, the nation’s secondlargest Indian reservation. He is the first sitting president to visit an Indian reservation since 1936.

A study finds that by the end of 1998, more than 40% of U.S. homes had a computer, 25% were connected to the Internet, and 94.1% had phones. The report also notes a growing “digital divide” in information access drawn along financial and racial lines.

John F. Kennedy Jr., 38, the only surviving son of former president John F. Kennedy and the editor of the political magazine George, dies in an airplane crash with his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and his sister-in-law Lauren Bessette.

California enacts a ban on the sale and manufacture of “unsafe” handguns. The law is primarily aimed at cheap, powerful handguns called “Saturday night specials.”

Pres. Clinton offers to commute the sentences of 16 members of the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN), a Puerto Rican independence group that waged a bombing campaign in the U.S. from 1974 to 1983. The move sparks controversy.

The Department of the Interior removes the peregrine falcon from the endangered-species list, due to its steady population growth. There are currently more than 1,650 peregrine breeding pairs in North America, up from 39 breeding pairs at the peregrines’ low point in 1970.

The final crew of the Russian space station Mir departs the station in a Soyuz capsule. Mir, the Russian space program’s only remaining independent manned flight project, has been in space for 13 years, longer than any other space station, and it is scheduled to fall from its orbit and burn up in the lower atmosphere in the year 2000.

In a historic pact, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America approves a proposal to unite with the Episcopal Church.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

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1220—September–December 1999

Sept.

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Dec.

World Affairs

Europe

The UN Security Council votes unanimously to authorize the deployment of a multinational force to restore peace and security in the Indonesian territory of East Timor.

Russia’s air force begins bombing targets on the outskirts of Grozny, the capital of Russia’s separatist republic of Chechnya.

According to UN experts, the global population reaches 6 billion, doubling since 1960.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Iranian officials announce the discovery of the country’s largest oil find in 30 years.

A series of powerful explosions rip through a central section of the Mexican city of Celaya, killing at least 56 people and injuring 348 others.

Referendum returns show that residents of East Timor have overwhelmingly voted for independence from Indonesia. In response to the official results, pro-Indonesia militias launch an assault on the East Timorese capital, Dili, killing independence leaders and forcing thousands of East Timorese to flee into the neighboring Indonesian province of West Timor.

Five gunmen open fire on a session of Armenia’s parliament in Yerevan, the capital, killing Premier Vazgen Sarkisyan, 40, and seven other government officials.

An Israeli official announces the end of a policy under which Palestinians had to prove they lived in East Jerusalem for seven consecutive years in order to maintain their residency rights.

Buenos Aires mayor Fernando de la Rua of the center-left Alianza coalition is elected president of Argentina. It is the first time that the Peronists lose a presidential election since the party was founded in the 1940s.

The People’s Consultative Assembly, Indonesia’s national legislature, elects Abdurrahman Wahid as the nation’s new president. Wahid’s election is the first democratic transfer of power in the nation’s 49-year history.

The UN issues a report in which it assumes considerable blame for failing to stop the massacre of thousands of Bosnian Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica in July 1995. The UN report breaks new ground by condemning an international organization for attempting to remain neutral in a civil conflict.

Pope John Paul II visits Georgia. It is the first trip to the Caucasus region by a pope and only the second time that a pope has visited a predominantly Eastern Orthodox nation in more than 1,000 years.

Some 2,000 Nigerian troops begin deploying in the Niger River Delta region to quell ongoing clashes between members of the Hausa and Yoruba ethnic groups.

The foreign ministers of Chile and Peru sign a pact that settles the last territorial dispute between the two nations.

Pakistan’s military rulers charge ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif with treason, kidnapping, hijacking, and attempted murder, incidents which they claim sparked the recent bloodless coup.

Leaders of the EU member nations agree to create a European rapidreaction military force of about 60,000 troops that can respond to regional and international military crises.

Britain’s Parliament officially devolves political power over the province of Northern Ireland to a new provincial government, granting Northern Ireland home rule for the first time in decades.

Members of the military oust Pres. Henri Konan Bedie in a largely nonviolent coup in Ivory Coast. Gen. Robert Guei takes over as the new president.

Panama assumes control of the Panama Canal and the surrounding canal zone from the U.S., culminating a transfer of sovereignty outlined in a 1977 treaty.

Foreign ministers from Vietnam and China sign a treaty that resolves outstanding border disputes between their two countries.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Islands, except Hawaii.

September–December 1999—1221

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Health officials in New York City confirm that an ongoing outbreak of a mosquito-borne viral illness in the city, initially identified as St. Louis encephalitis, is in fact caused by the West Nile virus, never before found in the Western Hemisphere.

In the wake of allegations about massacres in South Korea during the Korean War, Secretary of Defense William Cohen orders the U.S. Army to open a new investigation. South Korea states it will open an investigation as well.

Northeast Nuclear Energy Co. pleads guilty in Hartford, Connecticut, to 23 federal felony counts of falsifying environmental records. The company agrees to pay $10 million in fines, the largest penalty ever levied against a U.S. nuclear plant. Northeast is only the second nuclear power company in the U.S. to be charged with felonies.

Smithsonian Institution officials announce that Steven Udvar-Hazy, a Hungarian-American businessman, has pledged $60 million to the National Air and Space Museum, which will be the largest grant the Smithsonian has ever received.

The Smithsonian reveals that its Arthur M. Sackler Gallery has received a collection of Chinese artifacts—donated by New Jersey psychologist Paul Singer—worth between $50 million and $60 million.

A prosecutor in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, files charges against a rapist known only by his DNA, which was found in semen samples from three separate 1993 rapes.

In a largely partisan vote, the Senate rejects, 48-51, ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which would prohibit nuclear weapons testing. It is the first time since 1920—when the Senate failed to ratify the Treaty of Versailles—that the U.S. Senate defeats a major international security agreement supported by the president. The vote draws international criticism.

Pres. Clinton signs a bill creating a new national park in Colorado, known as Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.

EgyptAir Flight 990, a Boeing 767 jetliner bound for Cairo, Egypt, crashes into the Atlantic Ocean about 30 minutes after taking off from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, apparently killing all passengers and crew aboard.

A controversial exhibition of contemporary British art opens at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York City, despite the opposition of and threats to cut the museum’s funding by the city’s mayor, Rudolph Giuliani.

Nathaniel Abraham, 13, is convicted for a killing he committed when he was 11. He is the first person tried under Michigan’s new juvenile justice law, which allows a juvenile of any age to be tried as an adult, and he is thought to be the youngest person ever tried as an adult in the U.S. for first-degree murder.

A six-year-old Cuban refugee, Elian Gonzalez, is found off the coast of Florida in a case that sparks extended controversy.

United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) issues shares to the public for the first time in its 92-year history. The sale, worth $5.47 billion, is the largest initial public offering (IPO) ever in the U.S.

Astronomers announce the discovery of six new extrasolar planets, or planets orbiting stars other than the sun. The discoveries bring the total known number of extrasolar planets to 28.

Golfer Tiger Woods caps the most successful season by a PGA player in 25 years when he wins the World Championship.

In Washington, D.C., Judge Royce Lamberth rules that the government mismanaged a trust fund that held $500 million belonging to 300,000 Native Americans.

More than 400 people protesting the ongoing World Trade Organization (WTO) talks in Seattle, Washington, are arrested.

Texas governor George W. Bush’s campaign reports that it has raised more than $67 million since January, far more than any presidential candidate has ever raised in the entire final 18 months of the nomination process.

An international group of researchers announce that for the first time they have established the chemical sequence of about 97% of chromosome 22, the second-smallest human chromosome.

Footballer Rae Carruth of the Carolina Panthers faces first-degree murder charges in the death of his pregnant girlfriend, Cherica Adams, 24. He is reportedly the first active NFL player to be charged with murder.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

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1222—January 1–6, 1999

World Affairs

Jan. 1

Jan. 2

Europe

The EU’s new unified currency, the euro, comes into existence, and the ECU ceases to exist. The initial value of one euro is equal to the value of one ECU. The EU countries in which the euro is launched are Austria, Belgium, Italy, Finland, France, Spain, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, and the Netherlands. Greece is the only EU country that failed to qualify for participation. Although coins and bills denominated in euros will not begin circulating until the year 2002, the euro is legal tender dispensed through personal checks, travelers’ checks, and credit cards. Iraq notifies UN officials in Baghdad, the capital, that it will not renew visas or issue entry permits to U.S. or British citizens working for UN aid agencies in Iraq.

Africa & the Middle East A car bomb injures two people in Cape Town, South Africa.

Rolf Liebermann, 88, Swiss-born opera house director and composer credited with revitalizing the Paris Opera as its general administrator, 1973–80, dies in Paris, France, of unreported causes.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The Mexican government ends its subsidy on tortillas, its last remaining control on food prices. . . . An avalanche crashes into a school gymnasium where 400–500 people have gathered for a New Year’s Eve celebration in Kangiqsualujjuaq, a small Inuit village in northern Quebec, Canada. Snow slides from a 250-foot (75-m) hill above the gymnasium, tears through a wall of the building, and kills nine people, five of whom are children under the age of eight. Twenty-five people are injured in the incident.

In the face of criticism, Cambodian premier Hun Sen asserts that he is not opposed to having former Khmer Rouge leaders face trial for crimes against humanity.

Reports find that an estimated 200,000 troops are stationed along the 600-mile (970-km) border between Ethiopia and Eritrea. . . . The UN states that one of its chartered cargo planes, transporting seven UN workers from the embattled central city of Huambo to Luanda, crashed in war-torn Angola.

In response to killings in late December, the Indonesian military launches security sweeps in search of Ahmed Kandang, leader of the separatist Free Aceh movement.

Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori appoints Victor Joy Way Rojas, a long-time ally and the leader of Congress, as premier, touching off an extensive cabinet reshuffle.

Jan. 3

In Pakistan, a group of gunmen open fire on worshipers at Shi’ite Muslim mosque in Quereshi More in Punjab province, killing 16 people and wounding 25 others. No group claims responsibility for the attack, which is among the deadliest incidents in an ongoing sectarian rivalry between Pakistan’s Sunni and Shi’ite Muslim communities.

Jan. 4

Jan. 5

In response to the military’s Jan. 2 security sweeps, some 3,000 separatist supporters set fire to police stations and other buildings in the Indonesian village of Kandang. Indonesian security forces open fire on demonstrators in Aceh, a province located on the northern tip of Sumatra. . . . In Pakistan, a bomb explodes under a bridge across which P.M. Nawaz Sharif is scheduled to travel, killing four people and injuring three others. The blast, in a suburb of Lahore, the capital of Punjab province, is widely viewed as an attempt to assassinate the prime minister.

Two U.S. warplanes fire missiles at, but fail to hit, Iraqi MIG jets that enter the “no-fly” zone in southern Iraq which the U.S. and its allies have declared off-limits to Iraqi military aircraft. The Iraqi jets do not return the fire. A second, similar air confrontation occurs some 15 minutes later about 60 miles (100 km) away, also in the southern no-fly zone. It is the third armed clash involving the U.S. and Iraq since Dec. 28, 1998, and the first to directly involve U.S. and Iraqi jet fighters in six years.

Romanian coal miners go on strike to protest low wages and government plans to close loss-making mines.

Henrietta Moraes (born Audrey Wendy Abbott), 67, British model who posed for several well-known artists working in London in the 1950s, dies in London while suffering from a liver ailment.

Jan. 6

Reports reveal that 16 people died when Indonesian security forces opened fire on demonstrators in Aceh on Jan. 3. About 170 people were arrested. . . . Reports disclose that the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi, the capital of India, has been shut down every night since mid-December 1998, due to air pollution. Separately, Reports indicate that 12 people were killed in a fire sparked when a girl committed suicide by self-immolation in Madras, the provincial capital of Tamil Nadu. Eight victims were children. Reports indicate that 500 people have been killed in the remote eastern Congo village of Makobola. The rebels insist that the victims were 400 Hutu militiamen killed in battle. . . . Rebels force their way into Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, and set fire to sections of the city. . . . British prime minister Tony Blair makes his first visit to South Africa since he took office in 1997. . . . Ntsu Mokhehle, 80, prime minister of Lesotho, 1993–98, dies in Bloemfontein, South Africa.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 1–6, 1999—1223

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Jan. 1

Reports indicate that the Nevada Supreme Court has eliminated the $10 million in punitive damages awarded in a 1995 breast implant lawsuit to plaintiff Charlotte Mahlum of Las Vegas.

Jan. 2

NASA launches Mars Polar Lander, an unmanned spacecraft intended to look for signs of water on the surface of the planet Mars. The 639-pound (290-kg) spacecraft lifts off aboard a Delta-2 rocket at Cape Canaveral, Florida

A federal jury in Washington, D.C., awards $10 million in damages to Brenda Meister, who claims she was made ill by silicone breast implants. . . . Elizabeth Dole, 62, the wife of former Sen. Robert Dole (R, Kans.), announces her resignation as president of the American Red Cross, a nonprofit aid organization she led since 1991.

The National Society of Film Critics selects the film Out of Sight, directed by Steven Soderbergh, for best picture honors. . . . Jerry Quarry, 53, heavyweight boxer who tallied a career record of 53 wins, dies in Templeton, California, after experiencing complications of pneumonia brought on by boxing-induced brain damage, a condition known as dementia pugilistica.

Officials announce a plan to dispose of millions of gallons of napalm stored at a naval base in California since the early 1970s.

Figures reveal that U.S. firms announced 11,652 mergers and acquisitions worth a record $1.61 trillion in 1998, 78% more than the $919 billion announced in 1997. Worldwide, announced merger volume was $2.49 trillion, up 54% from 1997’s $1.63 trillion in deals. It is the fourth consecutive year that U.S. and worldwide merger volume has reached record levels.

U.S. president Clinton announces measures designed to ease the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba by increasing contact with the communist country without directly supporting the government of Cuban leader Fidel Castro Ruz.

The USDA announces that it has reached a settlement with a group of black farmers who in 1997 filed a lawsuit charging the agency with race-based discrimination.

The FDA announces the approval of the use of two drugs to treat mentalhealth problems in dogs. . . . Paul Maurice Zoll, 87, heart specialist whose research in the early 1950s led to the development of heart monitors, pacemakers, and defibrillators, dies in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, of respiratory failure.

Nolan Ryan, George Brett, and Robin Yount are elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

The Dow closes at a record high of 9544.97. That marks the first record high of 1999.

Astronomers suggest that dim “dwarf galaxies” may far outnumber the more commonly detected bright “giant galaxies.”

National Basketball Association team owners and players reach a tentative collective bargaining agreement that will end a player lockout that started in July 1998.

The 106th Congress convenes, and eight new senators are sworn in, four Republicans and four Democrats. House Representatives approve, by voice vote, a change easing the rules governing the gifts they may receive. The new change, effective immediately, allows members to accept noncash gifts worth up to $50 and up to $100 in total gifts from a single source in one year. Gifts worth less than $10 do not count toward the annual total.

Iron Eyes Cody, 94, Native American actor who appeared in some 100 films and numerous TV shows and was best known for a 1970 public service announcement in which he looked stoically upon a polluted American landscape and shed a tear, dies in Los Angeles, California.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

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1224—January 7–12 , 1999

World Affairs

Jan. 7

A U.S. fighter jet patrolling the no-fly zone in northern Iraq fires a missile at an Iraqi antiaircraft battery that locks its radar on the American fighter.

French NATO troops shoot and kill a Bosnian Serb war-crimes suspect, Dragan Gagovic, while attempting to arrest him in the eastern Bosnian town of Foca. Gagovic was accused of raping and torturing Muslim women during a Serb campaign to “ethnically cleanse” eastern Bosnia of all Muslims in 1992–93. After he is shot, a crowd of roughly 100 people gathers outside the office of the UN International Police Task Force in Foca and attacks UN monitors. Five monitors are injured, two seriously. In Kazakhstan, voters reelect Nursultan Nazarbayev as president in early general elections.

Jan. 10

Africa & the Middle East The London-based Iraqi opposition group Center for Human Rights reports that 81 political detainees suspected of plotting to overthrow Pres. Hussein were slain in Baghdad in mid-December 1998. . . . Sierra Leone president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah states that he and jailed rebel leader Foday Sankoh have agreed upon a cease-fire and on plans for subsequent negotiations. Active rebel field commander Sam Bockarie, however, contends that the fighting will continue.

The KLA takes eight Yugoslav army troops hostage near the northern town of Podujevo. . . . Pope John Paul II holds a private meeting at the Vatican with Italian premier Massimo D’Alema, a former communist who took office in October 1998. The event garners significant attention because the pope was a pivotal figure in bringing about the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe.

Jan. 8

Jan. 9

Europe

Jan. 11

Jan. 12

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the government of Pres. Andres Pastrana Arango begin negotiations aimed at setting an agenda for peace talks, the first such talks in seven years. The United Self-Defense Forces launches a series of attacks across several provinces in northern Colombia for allegedly sympathizing with FARC.

Indian police arrest Sayed Abu Nasir, a 27-year-old Bangladeshi reportedly carrying four pounds (1.8 kg) of explosives and five detonators, in New Delhi, the capital. . . . The inspector general of Malaysia’s national police resigns, taking responsibility for the injuries that ousted deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim suffered while in police custody. . . . Cambodians celebrate Victory Day, marking the 20th anniversary of the invasion by Vietnam that ended the Khmer Rouge regime.

Reports reveal that four mining personnel were killed in an ambush on a diamond mine in Angola’s Lunda Norte province. . . . At a rally in Cape Town, South Africa, hundreds of protesters demonstrate against recent U.S. and British air strikes in Iraq. A conflict with police leaves one man dead and several others injured. The protest is timed to coincide with a visit by British prime minister Tony Blair. . . . Abdel-Latif Baghdadi, 81, Egyptian military officer and politician, dies in Cairo, Egypt, of liver cancer.

One farmer is reportedly killed by an exploding tear-gas canister during a battle with police in ongoing protests against local taxation in China. . . . Malaysian prime minister Mahathir bin Mohamad appoints Abdullah bin Ahmad Badawi to succeed Anwar Ibrahim as deputy prime minister. The post has been vacant since September 1998, when Anwar was ousted by Mahathir and subsequently arrested on charges of illegal sex acts and abuse of power.

Nigeria holds state elections, the second of three scheduled rounds of voting in the transition to civilian rule.

The Indonesian military mounts further security raids on Aceh villages.

Progovernment allies reportedly bomb Kisangani, the third-largest city in Congo and the rebels’ military headquarters.

Reports state that during the Jan. 9 raid in Aceh, the Indonesian military beat to death four people who were taken into custody; 20 others were injured.

The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission denies amnesty to Gideon Nieuwoudt, who in 1997 killed antiapartheid activist Steve Biko while Biko was in police custody. . . . U.S. State Department officials reveal that, according to unconfirmed reports by Iraqi opposition sources, the Hussein regime in the previous two months carried out some 500 summary executions of suspect military officers in Baghdad, the capital, and of dissidents in the Shi’ite-dominated region of the country.

Lt. Col. Hildegardo Bacilio Gomez, who in December 1998 led a march of some 50 dissident soldiers in Mexico City, is charged with sedition. . . . Haitian president Rene Preval announces that he will bypass the legislature and establish a new government by decree. Haiti has not had a functioning government or a budget since the resignation of Premier Rosny Smarth in June 1997.

Conflicting reports put the death toll from the Jan. 12 attack on Kisangani, the third-largest city in Congo, at 17 civilians and 40 people.

Reports confirm that the United SelfDefense Forces have killed some 140 people in Columbia since Jan. 7 for allegedly sympathizing with FARC. . . . Unidentified gunmen on a motorcycle fire on a car carrying the sister of Haitian president Rene Preval, Marie-Claude Calvin, wounding her and killing her driver . . . . Reports confirm that a new autopsy has found the death of U.S. journalist Philip True was caused by blows to the head and chest. That report supports officials’ original assertions that True fell to his death in a canyon in Mexico.

Indonesian military leaders disclose that some 30 soldiers have been arrested in connection with the Jan. 9 deaths in Aceh. . . . Australian minister of foreign affairs Alexander Downer announces what he describes as “an historic shift” in Australia’s policy on East Timor, a former Portuguese colony annexed by Indonesia in 1976, when he reveals that Australia will now urge Indonesia to agree to “an act of selfdetermination” by the East Timorese.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 7–12, 1999—1225

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

U.S. Supreme Court chief justice William Rehnquist formally opens Pres. Clinton’s impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Astronomers present a new estimate of the number of galaxies in the observable universe, 125 billion, based on images taken by the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope.

The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, Colorado, reverses a ruling that made it illegal to offer witnesses leniency in exchange for testimony. . . . Brian Stewart, 32, convicted in December 1998 of injecting his son with the HIV virus so that he would not have to pay child support, is sentenced to life in prison. His son, now seven, was diagnosed with AIDS in 1996.

The Labor Department reports that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the U.S. dropped to 4.3% in December 1998, matching April 1998’s rate as the lowest since 1970. . . . The Dow closes at a record high of 9643.32. That marks the second record high of 1999.

Carl A. Elliott, 85, (D, Ala.), who served in Congress, 1949–65, and in 1990 received the first Profiles in Courage Award, an honor that recognizes members of Congress who take principled stands despite the risk of political defeat, dies in Jasper, Alabama, of unreported causes.

Researchers report that contraceptive pills pose no long-term danger to women’s health. . . . Astronomers report the discovery of three more nearby stars orbited by planets. The newly found planets bring the total number of known extrasolar planets to 17.

Jan. 7

Jan. 8

Jan. 9

The U.S. Postal Service raises the price of a first-class stamp one penny to 33 cents.

Jan. 10

In Seattle, Washington, Judge Barbara Jacobs Rothstein dismisses a lawsuit filed against the tobacco industry by a consortium of Blue Cross & Blue Shield of America health insurance plans, seeking compensation for the costs of treating smoking-related illnesses.

In Washington, D.C., the U.S. and China hold their first talks devoted exclusively to human rights since 1995.

The dollar reaches a 28-month low value of 108.21 yen during trading in New York City, down 27% from August 1998, when it stood at an eight-year high.

Naomi Mitchison (born Naomi Mary Margaret Haldane), 101, British author who produced more than 70 books and numerous articles and papers, dies on the Mull of Kintyre, Scotland. . . . Brian Moore, 77, Irishborn writer who published 19 novels, dies in Malibu, California, of pulmonary fibrosis.

In Buckley v. American Constitutional Law Foundation, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that the state of Colorado unconstitutionally hindered free speech in its efforts to regulate the process by which initiatives were placed on state ballots. . . . Data reveals that the income gap between male and female doctors in many specialties had widened between 1996 and 1997. . . . Pres. Clinton sends a check for $850,000 to Paula Corbin Jones, settling a sexualharassment lawsuit she filed against him in 1994.

Leo Cherne, 86, chair of the International Rescue Committee, 1951–91, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1984, dies in New York while suffering from a pulmonary ailment. . . . The U.S. imposes economic sanctions on three Russian scientific institutions after concluding that they exported technology to Iran that may help Iran develop nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

Figures suggest that the net income at major U.S. corporations was $86.4 billion in the third quarter of 1998, falling 5% when compared with a year-earlier figure of $90.7 billion.

The 70th home run baseball hit by St. Louis Cardinal first baseman Mark McGwire during the 1998 baseball season is auctioned for a record $3,005,000 at Guernsey’s auction house. . . . William Hollingsworth Whyte Jr., 81, author and urbanologist, dies in New York City of unreported causes.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 11

Jan. 12

1226—January 13–19, 1999

World Affairs

Jan. 15

Jan. 16

Efforts to oust all 20 members of the EU’s European Commission evaporate as two motions to censure the body fail to pass in the European Parliament, the EU’s legislative arm. Instead, the members vote to investigate the commission for widespread mismanagement and corruption.

German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder discloses that Germany’s two ruling parties have reached an agreement on altering German law to accommodate a planned phasing-out of the use of nuclear power to generate electricity. . . . Jerzy Grotowski, 65, Polish-born theater director, dies in Pontedera, Italy, while suffering from leukemia and a heart ailment.

U.S. president Bill Clinton for the sixth time implements a six-month waiver blocking a controversial provision of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which seeks to tighten the U.S.’s economic embargo of Cuba. Clinton has waived the provision every six months since the law’s passage, which was opposed by several nations.

Serbian forces kill 45 ethnic Albanian civilians in southern Kosovo, delivering the most serious blow yet to a cease-fire agreement between the Yugoslav government and ethnic Albanians fighting for the independence of Kosovo, a Serbian province. In a separate incident, unidentified gunmen shoot and wound a British observer and his translator near the southwestern town of Decani. . . . Betty Evelyn Box, 83, British film producer who made some 50 films, dies of unreported causes.

The UN condemns the Jan. 15 killings in southern Kosovo.

The Italian government reports that Abdullah Ocalan, a Kurdish rebel leader whose November arrest spurred protests and nearly led to a major diplomatic crisis, has left the country.

Jan. 19

ECOMOG troops regain control of the center of Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, and secure surrounding areas as well. . . . In South Africa, Bennie Lategan, one of the chief investigators in a police operation to infiltrate the vigilante group People Against Gangsterism and Drugs, is assassinated.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The mayor of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Mel Lastman, declares a 72hour snow emergency after the city is hit by its fourth major snowstorm in less than two weeks. Toronto has already received 44 inches (113 cm) of snowfall in 1999, far more than the city’s historical average for the entire month of January.

A report released by the Australian government on the effects of prawn trawling in the Great Barrier Reef finds that illegal trawlers have inflicted serious damage on the reef’s environment. The reef is listed as a United Nations world heritage site.

Human Rights Watch accuses Mexican authorities of human-rights abuses such as condoning the use of torture, illegal arrests and detentions, forced confessions, and fabricated evidence. . . . Reports confirm that former army chief Cristino Nicolaides was arrested after refusing to testify in an investigation into the kidnapping of infants born to political prisoners during Argentina’s “dirty war” against suspected leftists.

A landslide and stampede kills 51 pilgrims near the popular Sabarimila shrine in Kerala state in India. . . . Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Liberal Party, a small opposition party, form a coalition government.

Pres. Pastrana makes a state visit to Cuba, the first such visit by a Colombian president in some 40 years. . . . The British Columbia Supreme Court rules that a six-year-old law prohibiting the possession of child pornography violates Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Reports from China reveal that thousands of farmers in the southern province of Hunan clashed with police during protests against local taxation.

Fighting between KLA and Serbian forces erupts in Racak, Kosovo, and surrounding villages, halting the burial of the victims of the Jan. 15 attacks. . . . A new government headed by Democratic Left Party head Bulent Ecevit wins a confidence vote in Turkey’s parliament, the Grand National Assembly. The vote formally installs Ecevit as premier. . . . Russian president Boris Yeltsin is admitted to a Moscow hospital for the third time since October 1998.

Armed tribesmen in northern Yemen kidnap four Dutch and two British citizens.

A seven-member appellate committee of Britain’s highest court, the Law Lords, opens a hearing to determine whether Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, Chile’s former military leader, should be granted immunity from arrest. The question has touched off protests since his arrest in 1998.

Romanian coal miners who have been striking since Jan. 5, march on Bucharest, the capital, to protest low wages and government plans to close loss-making mines. . . . Serbian forces remove 40 bodies of the 45 victims from the Jan. 15 attacks and transport them to Pristina for autopsies. Yugoslav Pres. Slobodan Milosevic refuses to allow the chief prosecutor for the UN war crimes tribunal, Louise Arbour, entry into Yugoslavia to investigate the Racak killings.

Zimbabwe’s former president, Rev. Canaan Banana, is sentenced to 10 years in prison for sodomy and indecent assault.

The New National Party in Grenada wins all 15 seats in the country’s Parliament, returning Prime Minister Keith Mitchell to his position.

Officials from North Korea, South Korea, the U.S., and China meet in Geneva, Switzerland, for the latest round of four-way talks aimed at reaching a peace treaty to formally end the 1950–53 Korean War.

Russian officials reveal that Russian industry currently emits 35% less air pollution than it had in 1991, and 15%–18% less waterborne and other kinds of pollutants.

King Hussein, Jordan’s ruler since 1952 and a key player in ArabIsraeli peace efforts, returns home to a tumultuous welcome following six months of cancer treatment in the U.S.

In Grenada, returning prime minister Keith Mitchell is sworn in.

Jan. 17

Jan. 18

Africa & the Middle East

The KLA releases the eight Yugoslav army troops taken hostage Jan. 8 near the northern town of Podujevo, Kosovo.

Jan. 13

Jan. 14

Europe

A bomb explodes aboard a bus in Changsha, China, injuring four people.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 13–19, 1999—1227

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Sen. Pete Domenici (R, N.Mex.), chair of the Senate Budget Committee, names Dan Crippen to replace June O’Neill as director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), effective Feb. 1.

The 13 House Republicans acting as “managers” for the House’s impeachment case against Pres. Clinton open their arguments to the Senate. . . . Daniel Leroy Crocker, 38, who confessed to killing Tracy Fresquez, 19, in 1979 in Kansas, is sentenced to serve a minimum of 10 years in prison.

Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre reveals that 81% of the Defense Department’s critical computer systems are prepared for glitches associated with the coming of the year 2000, or the Y2K problem.

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C., rules that the administrators of the mental hospital treating John W. Hinckley Jr., who in 1981 shot Pres. Ronald Reagan and three other men, has the authority to grant him supervised outings away from the hospital. . . . NYC mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R) discloses that he has abandoned a goal of shifting all the heroin addicts receiving methadone treatment at city hospitals to abstinence programs.

The Department of the Navy announces that it is lowering educational standards for recruits in an attempt to reverse a decline in enlistments. The navy will now require only 90% of its recruits to have high school diplomas, down from 95%.

The Labor Department’s consumer price index (CPI) report finds that the government’s index of consumer prices in 1998 rose 1.6%, incrementally down from the 1.7% increase registered in 1997. The 1998 rate is the lowest yearly rate since 1986, as inflation continues at historically low levels.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Michael Jordan, considered by many to be the greatest player in the history of the NBA, announces his retirement from professional basketball.

A study finds that women considered to be at risk for developing breast cancer who have both of their still-healthy breasts surgically removed reduce their risk of the disease by 90%. The study confirms for the first time the effectiveness of the operation, called a bilateral prophylactic mastectomy.

Alfredo LaMont, director of international relations for the U.S. Olympic Committee, resigns amidst reports that he had a business relationship with the Salt Lake bid committee.

Data shows that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a record 151,024 patents for inventions in 1998, up 33% from the 113,720 issued in 1997. IBM, for the sixth consecutive year, led all other companies in U.S. patents received, with a record 2,657 patents in 1998, 54% more than in 1997.

A chain of tornadoes strikes western Tennessee, killing nine people and injuring at least 100.

In professional football, the Denver Broncos defeats the New York Jets, 23-10, to win the AFC title. The Atlanta Falcons upsets the Minnesota Vikings, 30-27, to win the NFC title.

Lucille Kallen, 76, one of the few female television writers and the only one in a group writing for a 1950s show, dies in Ardsley, New York, of cancer.

Lawyers open their defense in Pres. Clinton’s impeachment trial. . . . Pres. Clinton delivers the annual State of the Union address to both houses of Congress. He avoids any direct mention of his ongoing impeachment trial in the Senate. Republican representatives Jennifer Dunn (Wash.) and Steve Largent (Okla.) deliver the Republican response. . . . The Supreme Court rejects an appeal by a convicted killer from Florida that electrocution is a cruel and outdated execution method

Gerland Squires, 21, a female army private based at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, pleads guilty to aggravated assault for having unprotected sex even though she knows she is infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Squires is sentenced to three years in a military prison, demoted, and receives a bad-conduct discharge from the army, which will deprive her of her pay and her benefits.

In Pres. Clinton’s State of the Union address, he proposes investing some Social Security funds—for the first time ever—in the U.S. stock market.

The NIH states that a federal ban on research on human embryos does not apply to human embryonic stem cells, which scientists in 1998 isolated and cultivated for the first time, because the cells do not have the capacity to develop into human beings. . . . Charles Gordon Zubrod, 84, physician who pioneered the use of chemotherapy as a treatment for cancer patients, dies while suffering from spinal meningitis and pneumonia in Washington, D.C..

Jan. 14

Jan. 15

Mike Tyson knocks out South African heavyweight Francois Botha in the fifth round of a match held in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is Tyson’s first match after being suspended for biting the ears of opponent Evander Holyfield during a bout in June 1997. A jury in Wilmington, Delaware, convicts prominent Delaware attorney Thomas J. Capano of killing his mistress, Anne Marie Fahey, 30,and disposing of her body at sea.

Jan. 13

Pirjo Haeggman of Finland is the first International Olympic Committee (IOC) member to step down in ongoing bribery scandal about the selection of Salt Lake City as the host of the 2000 games.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 16

Jan. 17

Jan. 18

Jan. 19

1228—January 20–25, 1999

World Affairs

Jan. 20

Jan. 21

Europe

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Police announce that they recaptured one of the most wanted fugitives in South Africa, Colin Chauke, a former antiapartheid guerrilla fighter, who escaped from prison in late 1997.

The Barbados Labour Party wins 26 of 28 seats in the country’s Parliament, the largest electoral margin of victory in the history of the nation. The election returns P.M. Owen Arthur to his post. . . . Former military president General Reynaldo Bignone is arrested in the kidnapping of infants born to political prisoners during Argentina’s “dirty war” against suspected leftists.

Indian police and U.S. officials announce that four men have been arrested in India as suspects in a plot to bomb U.S. consulates in Madras and Calcutta. . . . Reports confirm that Indian and Pakistani troops clashed in the disputed territory of Kashmir, leaving four Pakistani soldiers dead. . . . A Shanghai court sentences Lin Hai, 30, to two years in prison for giving 30,000 Chinese e-mail addresses to a U.S.-based dissident on-line publication. It is the first sentence handed down in China for alleged dissident political activity conducted over the Internet.

Reports confirm that clashes between striking Romanian coal miners marching on Bucharest, the capital, have injured more than 150 people since the protest march started Jan. 18. . . . The KLA abducts a group of five elderly Serbians.

Two Zimbabwean journalists—Mark Chavunduka, 34, and Ray Choto, 36—are released from military custody on bail, and they allege that they were tortured by authorities in an attempt to force them to reveal their sources for an article about an alleged plot by members of the army to overthrow Pres. Robert Mugabe.

In Nicaragua, a military plane crashes, killing all 28 people aboard. . . . Raul Salinas de Gortari, brother of former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, is convicted of masterminding the killing of politician Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu in 1994. Judge Ricardo Ojeda Bohorquez sentences Salinas to 50 years in prison without parole, the maximum sentence allowed. Salinas is the highestranking official charged with and convicted of such a crime in modern Mexico.

Reports confirm that Russian premier Yevgeny Primakov has launched a government crackdown on corruption.

In Zimbabwe, police detain Clive Wilson, 62, a newspaper publisher who printed the article on an alleged military plot to overthrow Pres. Robert Mugabe. The article’s authors were released from custody Jan. 21.

The government of Nicaragua declares a nationwide day of mourning in memory of the victims of the Jan. 21 crash of a military plane. . . . Government officials announce that Barbados will seek to end the monarchical system on the island, replacing it with a republican constitution presided over by a president. The head of government will remain the prime minister. . . . Pope John Paul II makes his fourth visit to Mexico before traveling to the U.S. in the 85th foreign tour of his pontificate.

Pres. Lee Teng-hui reappoints Vincent Siew as Taiwan’s premier.

Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien embarks on a visit to Europe that includes stays in Poland and Ukraine, marking the first time that a Canadian prime minister has made official visits to those countries. . . . The government releases a group of nine KLA members taken hostage while crossing the border from Albania in December 1998, and KLA forces release a group of five elderly Serbians kidnapped Jan. 21. . . . Lord Lewin (Terence Thornton), 78, British Royal Navy admiral, dies in Woodbridge, England, of cancer.

Sifiso Nkabinde, a high-level official of the United Democratic Movement (UDM), a multiracial political party, is assassinated in KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa, which is facing its second democratic elections since the abolition of apartheid. Hours later, 11 people are murdered in Richmond township in what is widely seen as a revenge killing. . . . Reports confirm that West African forces have rescued Freetown’s Roman Catholic archbishop and four missionaries kidnapped by rebels earlier in January in Sierra Leone.

An earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale strikes western Colombia, killing hundreds of people. In the chaos, inmates at Armenia’s San Bernardo prison set fire to the structure and prevent firefighters from entering to extinguish the blaze. . . . Pope John Paul II holds a mass to a crowd of 100,000 at Mexico City’s Aztec Stadium.

An explosion in a farmers’ market in Yizhang, in Hunan province, China, kills eight people and injures some 65 others. Separately, reports reveal that a township in Sichuan province held China’s first direct election for a township chief in December 1998. Tan Xiaoqiu won the election with 50.19% of the vote.

In response to fighting between the Yugoslav government and ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, NATO stages a show of force by sending a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier to the Adriatic Sea and ordering several other warships to the Italian port of Brindisi, at the mouth of the Adriatic. NATO also reduces a deadline to 48 hours from 96 hours before it may launch air strikes.

The UN Security Council unanimously votes to seek to continue its mission in war-torn Angola, despite UN secretary general Kofi Annan’s recommendation that the organization withdraw its forces from the country because he believes that the recently shattered peace in Angola is the fault of both UNITA and the government.

Jan. 22

Jan. 23

In South Africa, a group of ANC officials are ambushed in the center of Richmond, but no one is injured. The deputy chair of the UDM, Valindlela Matiyase, is shot to death by two gunman near Capetown. . . . Jordan’s King Hussein unexpectedly names his eldest son, Abdullah, as his designated successor. . . . In Sierra Leone, rebels kidnap 11 Indian businessmen, including Kishoie Shakandas, Japan’s honorary consul.

Jan. 24

Jan. 25

Africa & the Middle East

U.S. jets fire missiles that strike one or more civilian sites around the city of Basra in southeastern Iraq. Iraqi general Ahmed Ibrahim Hammash, Basra’s governor, claims that U.S. missiles killed 11 civilians and wounded 50 others.

Polish farmers barricade nearly 100 roads and border crossing points to protest falling produce prices.

In Zimbabwe, police release Clive Wilson, a publisher detained since Jan. 22, after the attorney general’s office states there is insufficient evidence to arrest him. Wilson’s newspaper published a story about an alleged military plot to overthrow Pres. Robert Mugabe.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 20–25, 1999—1229

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

A California state jury awards $116 million in punitive damages to Teresa Goodrich, the widow of a cancer patient, in a suit against health insurer Aetna Inc. Together with compensatory damages of $4.5 million awarded earlier, the verdict is believed to be the largest ever against a HMO. . . . In Humana Inc. v. Forsyth, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that health insurers are not immune from prosecution under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).

The National Basketball Association and the players’ union sign a six-year collective bargaining agreement, formally ending a 204day player lockout. . . . Eugene Smith Pulliam, 84, newspaperman based in Indiana, dies in Indianapolis, Indiana, of unreported causes.

Opening presentations in Pres. Clinton’s impeachment trial close. . . . The nation’s four largest tobacco companies announce that they will establish a $5.15 billion fund to aid tobacco farmers who face a reduced market following the industry’s settlement of states’ tobacco-related lawsuits. . . . Federal authorities announce they made one of the largest seizures of cocaine in U.S. history. The cocaine, found concealed in a freighter under a load of iron ore, carries a street value of $186 million.

In the impeachment trial of Pres. Clinton, senators begin to question both sides.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The FEC fines longtime Democratic fund-raiser Howard Glicken $40,000 for illegally soliciting a donation from German national Thomas Kramer. The FEC penalty is in addition to an $80,000 fine Glicken was ordered to pay in 1998 in a criminal case brought by the Justice Department’s task force.

As many as 38 tornadoes strike central and eastern Arkansas and western Tennessee, killing seven people in Arkansas and one person in Tennessee. Meteorologists reveal it is the highest number of tornadoes ever recorded in one state on one day. . . . A study of some 88,000 women suggests that a diet high in fiber does not lower the risk of developing colon cancer, as is widely believed . . . . The FDA requests the voluntary recall of dietary supplements containing the substance gamma butyrolactone (GBL).

Kurt Stand and his wife, Theresa Squillacote, are sentenced to 17 and 21 years in prison, respectively, for spying for East Germany. The couple was found guilty in October 1998. . . . Defense Department officials reveal that the number of recruits discharged for being homosexual came to 1,145 in 1998, which is nearly double the total in 1993, the year before the Clinton administration’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was implemented. It is the fifth consecutive increase.

I. Michael Heyman, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., states he will retire by the end of 1999.

Jay A. Pritzker, 76, U.S. businessman who founded the Hyatt hotel chain and who, in 1979, endowed the Pritzker Architecture Prize, dies in Chicago, Illinois, after a heart attack.

In AT&T Corp. et al. v. Iowa Utilities Board, the Supreme Court overturns, 5-3, a lower court ruling that curbed the authority of the FCC to set policy on opening the $100 billion local telephone market to competition. . . . . The Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that the Census Bureau cannot use statistical sampling when it conducts the official national census, upholding a lower court decision in Clinton v. Glavin.

Susan Strasberg, 60, actress and daughter of renowned acting instructors Lee Strasberg and Paula Miller, dies in NYC of breast cancer.

Statistics suggest that sales of existing homes in 1998 jumped 13.5% from the previous year to 4.8 million units, marking a third consecutive yearly record.

A gamma ray burst, an immense eruptions of energy in space whose exact sources remain unknown to scientists, occurs near the constellation Bootes.

Jan. 20

Jan. 21

Jan. 22

Jan. 23

Pres. Clinton surveys damage from the Jan. 21 tornados in Little Rock, Arkansas, and declares at least five counties natural disaster areas, making them eligible for federal aid.

At the Golden Globes Awards, the film Saving Private Ryan wins as Best Drama while Shakespeare in Love wins for Best Musical or Comedy. . . . The International Olympic Committee recommends the expulsion of six of its members on bribery charges. At least three members of the IOC under investigation already resigned.

Surgeons in Louisville, Kentucky, complete the first hand transplant to be performed in the U.S. . . . Pharmaceutical maker Eli Lilly & Co. agrees to pay $4 million to settle a lawsuit challenging its patent on the popular antidepressant drug Prozac.

Sarah Louise (Sadie) Delany, 109, bestselling coauthor of the 1993 book, Having Our Say, dies in Mount Vernon, New York. . . . Robert (Lawson) Shaw, 82, conductor whose recorded performances garnered him 14 Grammy Awards, dies of a stroke in New Haven, Connecticut.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 24

Jan. 25

1230—January 26–31, 1999

Jan. 26

Jan. 27

World Affairs

Europe

Rescue teams from the U.S. and Japan travel to Colombia to assist local efforts. Reports confirm that the European Commission has committed $1.1 million in aid to Colombia in the wake of the Jan. 25 earthquake.

A human-rights advocacy group estimates that paramilitary groups in Ireland have been responsible for 37 punishment beatings and shootings since the beginning of the year.

Taiwan reveals that it has established diplomatic ties with Macedonia. That brings the number of countries that formally recognize Taiwan to 28.

The body of Eamon Collins, a former member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), is found near the town of Newry, Northern Ireland.

Jan. 28

Jan. 29

Jan. 30

A contact group of six nations orders the Yugoslav government and KLA forces to participate in peace talks under threat of military action.

Africa & the Middle East Reports indicate that rebels in Sierra Leone have abducted 12 foreigners. . . . In Angola, UNITA captures Mbanza Congo, 190 miles north of Luanda. . . . Jordan’s King Hussein surprises Jordanians by publicly changing the line of succession and swearing in his eldest son, Prince Abdullah, as crown prince and regent. Minutes later, the king departs for the U.S. for medical treatment. . . . In Zimbabwe, police break up a demonstration by lawyers and journalists protesting the alleged use of torture during the detention of journalists who were released Jan. 21.

Britain’s Prince Charles and his longtime companion, Camilla Parker Bowles, make their first public appearance as a couple.

A bomb explodes outside the main police station in Cape Town, injuring 11 people. It is the third bomb to explode in the city over the past five months.

Serbian forces attack a suspected KLA stronghold in Rogovo, southwestern Kosovo, killing 24 men— mostly civilians.

Authorities disclose that more than 4,000 people have died in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, since the start of fighting in early January. . . . Data shows that Ethiopia has forcibly deported some 52,000 Eritreans since May 1998, when fighting broke out in a border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Legislators vote to approve constitutional changes that will put the Honduran military under civilian control. . . . Reports reveal that three military officers have been charged with organizing a plot to kill Guatemalan anthropologist Myrna Mack Chang, who was investigating human-rights violations by the military before being stabbed to death in 1990. Sergeant Noel de Jesus Beteta was convicted in 1993 of carrying out the murder. . . . Some 15 aftershocks of the Jan. 25 earthquake are recorded in Colombia.

In Honduras, Brigadier General Mario Hung Pacheco formally hands over control of the armed forces to civilian president Carlos Flores. . . . In Colombia, residents of Armenia and Pereira loot stores and clash with police and soldiers in the wake of the Jan. 25 tremor. . . . The British Privy Council grants a reprieve to two inmates on death row in Trinidad and Tobago, pending a ruling by the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights.

Indonesian foreign minister Ali Alatas announces that the government of Pres. B. J. Habibie is prepared to grant the province full independence if the East Timorese reject the government’s autonomy plan. It is the first time that Indonesia indicates that it will recognize an independent East Timor. . . . Reports disclose that feminist author Taslima Nasreen returned to exile in Sweden after Islamic militants in Bangladesh renewed death threats against her.

Data shows that at least 878 people died in the Jan. 25 quake in Colombia and that more than 3,410 have been injured. Military police use tear gas to control looters in Armenia, and Pres. Pastrana reveals that some 2,700 soldiers and police will be sent to the city to restore order. . . . Cuban foreign ministry official Alejandro Gonzalez confirms that two Cuban men, Sergio Antonio Duarte Scull and Carlos Rafael Pelaez Prieto, have been sentenced to death by firing squad for the 1998 killings of two Italian tourists.

Chinese authorities in the predominantly Muslim province of Xinjiang execute two leaders of a separatist movement, Yibulayin Simayi and Abudureyimu Aisha. They were convicted of planning and carrying out riots and bombings that took place in 1997.

Reports indicate that more than 200,000 Bangladeshi women have been smuggled into Pakistan to serve as prostitutes since the late 1980s. . . . The Court of Final Appeal, Hong Kong’s highest court, unanimously rules that children born in China to parents who are Hong Kong residents have the right to live in Hong Kong. The ruling overturns a law, passed by Hong Kong’s China-appointed legislature in 1997.

The UN Security Council agrees to a plan to review all aspects of Iraq’s relations with the UN, with the aim of reformulating the UN’s Iraq policy.

About 1,000 supporters of Malaysia’s ousted deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, gather outside the courthouse in Kuala Lumpur.

Some 200,000 people march in Paris, France, to protest legislation that would create new rights for unmarried couples. The demonstrators argue that the law will effectively legalize homosexual marriages, which they claim will endanger traditional family values.

Jan. 31

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

January 26–31, 1999—1231

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

A court of appeals in Washington, D.C., reinstates independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s tax fraud case against Whitewater figure Webster Hubbell. A federal court dismissed Starr’s case against Hubbell in July 1998.

The Senate votes to proceed with the impeachment trial of Pres. Clinton and to summon three witnesses, including Monica Lewinsky. The identical 56-44 votes are split by party lines. . . . Florida’s Miami-Dade County files a suit against the gun industry seeking compensation for the costs of treating gun-related injuries and of investigating gunrelated crimes. A similar suit is filed by Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Pope John Paul II arrives in St. Louis, Missouri, where he is welcomed by tens of thousands of cheering supporters. The pontiff addresses some 20,000 teenagers at the Kiel Center sports arena. . . . The Whitbread Award is given to British poet Ted Hughes. Hughes is the first person to win the award posthumously and the first to win it twice.

NASA reports that for the first time scientists have photographed light emitted by the gamma ray burst caught Jan. 23 near the constellation Bootes. . . . Two studies find that many ordinary daily activities may improve physical fitness as much as structured exercise regimens.

Ben Margolis, 88, lawyer known for defending Hollywood personalities accused in the 1950s of belonging to the Communist Party, dies in Portland, Oregon.

Missouri governor Mel Carnahan (D) commutes the death sentence of a convicted triple murderer, Darrell Mease, 52, after a personal request by Pope John Paul II, who is visiting St. Louis, Missouri.

A Florida state appeals court vacates a June 1998 $1 million jury verdict in a smoking-related liability lawsuit against Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. and orders that the case be retried in either Palm Beach County or Broward County.

Jan. 26

Jan. 27

Jan. 28

Louise Woodward, a British au pair convicted in 1997 of killing the baby in her charge, settles a civil wrongful-death lawsuit brought by the baby’s parents. The settlement bars Woodward from profiting from the case.

The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. growth domestic product (GDP) grew at an inflationadjusted annual rate of 3.9% in 1998. That matches 1997’s revised GDP gain, equaling the fastest growth rate since 1984. . . . The CBO projects there will be $2.67 trillion in budget surpluses over the years 2000 to 2009. The CBO predicts that surpluses in non-Social Security accounts will total $787 billion over the years 2000–2009.

An analysis suggests that women with HIV can nearly eliminate the risk of transmitting the virus to their newborn babies by taking AZT during pregnancy and undergoing a Caesarean section delivery.

Mills Edwin Godwin Jr., 84, Virginia’s only two-term governor since the Civil War, who served his first term, 1966–70, as a Democrat and his second term, 1974–78, as a Republican, dies in Newport News, Virginia.

Lili St. Cyr (born Willis Marie Van Schaack), 80, striptease artist who, in 1951, was acquitted of indecent exposure in a well-publicized case, dies in Hollywood, California, of a heart attack.

Huntz (Henry) Hall, 78, one of a group of young actors who appeared in the 1935 play Dead End, dies in Los Angeles after a heart attack. . . . Lawrence Taylor, Eric Dickerson, Tom Mack, Ozzie Newsome, and Billy Shaw are named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. . . . At the Australian Open, Martina Hingis of Switzerland wins her third consecutive tennis title. Customs agents near Niagara Falls, on the New York State-Canadian border, foil an attempt to smuggle four Chinese women into the U.S. from Canada.

Claude Vealey, 55, convicted of the 1969 shooting murders of United Mine Workers of America reformer Joseph Yablonski and Yablonski’s wife and daughter in Clarksville, Pennsylvania, dies at a prison in Laurel Highlands, Pennsylvania, of cancer.

Scientists report they have discovered the origin of the predominant strain of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. They argue that it spread to humans from a subspecies of chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes troglodytes, that lives in western Africa.

The Denver Broncos trounce the Atlanta Falcons, 34-19, to win pro football’s Super Bowl XXXIII. Police in Denver, Colorado, have to use tear gas for the second year in a row to disperse violent Broncos fans. . . . At the Australian Open, Yevgeny Kafelnikov of Russia wins the men’s title. . . . At the Sundance Film Festival, Three Seasons, directed by Tony Bui, wins the Grand Jury Prize.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Jan. 29

Jan. 30

Jan. 31

1232—February 1–6, 1999

World Affairs

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Populist Hugo Chavez Frias is sworn in as president of Venezuela in Caracas, the capital.

Chee Soon Juan, leader of the small opposition Singapore Democratic Party, is convicted of making a public speech in December 1998 without a police permit. Chee is ordered to pay a fine of S$1,400 (US$827) or face a week in prison. . . . A survey reveals that only 19% of Australia’s working-age population is adequately literate to cope with the needs of their jobs.

Deutsche Bank AG, the largest bank in Germany, confirms that it helped finance the Nazi German regime’s construction of Auschwitz, a World War II-era death camp in Poland.

Canada’s federal government, nine of its 10 provinces, and both of its territories sign a “Framework to Improve the Social Union for Canadians,” creating a partnership between federal and provincial governments in the implementation of social programs.

A Chinese court in Hangzhou hands down a four-year prison sentence to Wang Ce, a Chinese dissident who had resided abroad but slipped back into the country in 1998. Separately, the official Chinese newspaper reports that 1,000 soldiers were transferred in January to the city of Yining in Xinjiang, where they arrested hundreds of suspected separatists.

Serbian officials announce that after reviewing a 1991 sale, they have determined that the government actually owns a 65% stake in ICN Yugoslavia, a subsidiary of U.S.based ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc. In 1991, Milan Panic, who was premier in 1992, purchased a 75% stake in Galenika, a state-owned company that then became ICN Yugoslavia. They claim that Panic paid only $50 million of the agreed $270 million purchase price, and they have reduced his stake accordingly.

The Supreme Court in Paraguay demands that Pres. Raul Cubas Grau return Gen. Lino Cesar Oviedo to prison, repeating a request made in December 1998.

The Philippines executes by lethal injection Leo Echegaray, a man convicted in 1994 of repeatedly raping his stepdaughter. Echegaray is the first person executed in the Philippines since 1976. The country outlawed capital punishment in 1987, but it restored the death penalty in 1993. . . . Neville Thomas Bonner, 76, Australia’s first aboriginal parliamentarian who served in the federal Senate, 1971–83, dies of lung cancer.

In Moldova, Premier Ion Ciubuc resigns, citing political divisions that have hindered his reform efforts. . . . Marion Boyars (born Marion Asmus), 71, British independent book publisher, dies in London of pancreatic cancer.

Feb. 1

Some 146 Israeli writers, artists, and intellectuals issue a statement in support of a Palestinian state in all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with its capital located in East Jerusalem. . . . Police officer Rifat Joudah is shot and killed while trying to arrest Hamas suspect Raed al-Attar.

Alleged World War II criminal Esperanza Luburic, arrested in Argentina in July 1998, is released from custody. Croatian officials disclose that a trial found no evidence proving the allegations that Luburic committed war crimes while allegedly running a women’s block at the Stara Gradiska detention camp in Nazi-controlled Croatia from 1942 to 1945.

Feb. 2

Reports confirm that Russia’s Constitutional Court has banned capital punishment until all of Russia’s 89 regions adopt a system of trial by jury. Because only nine of Russia’s regions operate a jury system, the ruling effectively abolishes the death penalty in Russia.

Feb. 3

Feb. 4

Feb. 5

Europe

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, sentences Omar Serushago, a Rwandan militia leader, to 15 years in prison for participating in the deaths of 37 people. He is the third person sentenced for genocide by the tribunal. Serushago cooperated with prosecutors and is the only one of the three to receive less than a life sentence.

Representatives from ethnic Albanian political and military groups and the Serbian government, under heavy pressure from the West, attend peace talks at the chateau of Rambouillet, France, some 32 miles (50 km) outside of Paris. Separately, armed Serbian police seize ICN Yugoslavia, a subsidiary of U.S.-based ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc., in which the government claimed a 65% share Feb. 5. Serbian Deputy Health Minister Marija Krstajic appoints herself general manager of the company and orders the police to evict ICN’s previous management.

Feb. 6

Heavy fighting breaks out between Eritrea and Ethiopia in an ongoing border dispute. . . . Zimbabwe’s Pres. Robert Mugabe claims that four of the country’s top judges should resign and threatens action against the independent press. Mugabe’s comments are prompted by a letter by three of the justices that address the January arrest and apparent torture of two journalists. Representatives of the EU, Canada, Japan, Australia, and the U.S. have protested the treatment of the two detained journalists.

Isao Sasaki, a retired Japanese electronics executive, is arrested in connection with the alleged illegal sale to China of equipment that can be used in the development of nuclear weapons.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 1–6, 1999—1233

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Judge Lowell Reed grants a preliminary injunction against a law aimed at preventing children from viewing sexually explicit images on the World Wide Web. . . . The New Jersey Supreme Court upholds the state’s capital punishment law and rejects the contention that the state’s sentencing process is racially biased.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Pres. Clinton presents to Congress a $1.77 trillion budget proposal for the 2000 fiscal year, an increase of 2.2%, or $39 billion from the current year. . . . A natural gas buildup at a Ford power station in Dearborn, Michigan, causes an explosion, killing one employee and injuring 16 others. . . . Paul Mellon, 91, one of the U.S.’s most generous patrons of the arts and of environmentalist causes, dies in Upperville, Virginia, after suffering from cancer.

A study shows that a new shortterm drug treatment might substantially reduce the risk that pregnant women infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, will transmit the virus to their newborn children.

Southern Cross, by Patricia Cornwell, tops the bestseller list. . . . The Caldecott Medal is awarded to Mary Azarian, and the Newbery Medal goes to Louis Sachar. . . . A crowd of 375,000 celebrate the Super Bowl victory at a parade in Denver, Colorado.

A civil jury in Portland, Oregon, finds that the creators of an Internet site that features “wanted” posters listing the names of abortion providers made what amounts to a “hit list” that threatens deadly violence. The jury awards $107 million in damages to the Planned Parenthood Foundation of America and a group of doctors who brought the lawsuit.

The Senate votes, 70-30, against calling Monica Lewinsky or any other witness to testify in person at Pres. Clinton’s impeachment trial. Instead, the House prosecution team may present videotaped excerpts from depositions by Lewinsky and two other witnesses, Vernon Jordan Jr. and Sidney Blumenthal. . . . Atlanta, Georgia, seeks monetary reimbursement for the costs of gun-related violence in a lawsuit filed against 15 gun makers and two trade associations.

Feb. 1

Feb. 2

John Stewart Service, 89, Foreign Service officer who was the first of a group of experts on China purged from the State Department during the “Red Scare” of the late 1940s and early 1950s, dies of heart disease in Oakland, California.

Officials reveal that the IRS has cleared a conservative foundation of charges that it violated tax laws by funding a college course taught by former Rep. Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.) before he became House speaker in 1995.

Research indicates that there is an apparent link between certain antibiotic drugs and a lowered risk of heart disease. Scientists assert that the study does not prove that antibiotics cause the reduced risk, but it adds to current evidence that chronic infections might be a cause of heart disease.

NYC police officers kill Amadou Diallo, 22, an unarmed West African immigrant, hitting him with 19 of 41 shots fired at him. The incident draws national and international attention and triggers protests across the country as well as in the victim’s native country, Guinea. Because Diallo had no criminal record and was shot in the vestibule of his apartment building, the circumstances of the shooting are under investigation.

A cargo ship called the New Carissa, holding 400,000 gallons of oil, runs aground in stormy weather at Coos Bay, Oregon.

Several teams of scientists report that new testing techniques show that drug-resistant strains of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, are more widespread than previously thought. . . . Cosmonauts aboard the Russian space station Mir attempt to deploy a mirror intended to illuminate a portion of the dark side of Earth. However, the mirror’s panels become stuck in a cargo module.

An employee of Ford Motor Co. dies from burns sustained in the Feb. 1 blast at Ford’s River Rouge complex in Dearborn, Michigan, bringing the death toll to two.

After the Feb. 4 mishap, Russian space officials abandon the mirror project and send the Progress supply ship into the Earth’s atmosphere, where it burns up. . . . Wassily Leontief, 93, Russian-born economist and winner of the 1973 Nobel prize in economic science for developing a method adopted by most industrialized nations for planning and predicting economic progress, dies in New York City.

The board of fellows at the University of Notre Dame vote to continue to exclude sexual orientation as a basis for protection under its policy against discrimination. . . . Anthony Porter, 43, a convicted killer who has been on death row for 16 years, is freed on bond after an investigation by Northwestern University journalism students reveals his probable innocence. He is the 75th death row inmate since 1976 to be freed on appeal or to be proven innocent and the 10th death-row inmate released in Illinois since its 1977 reinstatement of capital punishment.

Feb. 3

Feb. 4

Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson is sentenced to one year in jail in Maryland for assaulting two motorists after a traffic accident in August 1998. Legal analysts suggest that the sentence may cause the revocation of Tyson’s probation in Indiana, where he served only three years of a six-year term on a rape conviction.

Reports confirm that the Chinese government has given the U.S.’s Walt Disney Co. permission to distribute the animated film Mulan, based on a legend about a Chinese warrior heroine, in China. The country had previously rebuffed Disney films and business ventures after the company distributed Kundun, a film about the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 5

Feb. 6

1234—February 7–11, 1999

World Affairs

Feb. 7

Feb. 8

Feb. 9

Europe

The death of King Hussein of Jordan prompts international response, particularly as he was a longtime mainstay in the Arab-Israeli peace process.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In his 46th year as Jordan’s monarch, King Hussein, 63, dies of nonHodgkins lymphoma in Amman. His eldest son, Prince Abdullah, takes the oath as monarch, becoming King Abdullah II. . . . Ethiopia accuses Eritrea of shelling civilians in an attack on the town of Adigrat, wounding seven. . . . Marius Schoon, 61, one of a small number of Afrikaners prominent in the antiapartheid movement in South Africa, dies of lung cancer in Johannesburg.

An array of world leaders—many of whom are at odds with each other— attend the funeral of Jordan’s King Hussein. They include Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat; Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu; former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres; Khaled Meshal, the Hamas political leader whom Israel attempted to assassinate in 1997; and Syria’s president, Hafez alAssad, who has never before attended an event at which Israeli officials are present. Other leaders include U.S. president Clinton British prime minister Blair, Sudanese president Omar Hassan Bashir, French president Chirac, and German chancellor Schroeder.

Nearly all of the Polish farmers who erected barricades on Jan. 25 end their protest . . . The first trial to be held under the 1991 War Crimes Act, which provides for the prosecution of alleged World War II criminals living in Britain, opens in London. The defendant is Anthony Sawoniuk, charged with murdering Jews in four separate incidents in 1942. . . . Serbian police arrest six executives and detain three vice presidents of ICN Yugoslavia, seized on Feb. 6. An estimated 1,000–2,000 ICN workers storm through police lines around the plant in protest.

Ethiopian warplanes attack Tsorona, approximately 100 miles east of Badme. Fighting also reportedly breaks out near Burie.

A three-judge panel in Esquintla, Guatamala, convicts three men— Cosbi Gamaliel Urias Ortiz, Rony Leonel Polanco Sil, and Reyes Guch Ventura—in the robbery and rape of a group of college students from St. Mary’s College in the U.S. The convictions come as a surprise to many observers, who note that similar crimes against Guatemalans are rarely punished. . . . Reports indicate that five police officers have been charged in the November 1998 death of U.S. graduate student Frederick McPhail Jr. in Mexico City, Mexico.

In response to the establishment of diplomatic ties between Taiwan and Macedonia announced Jan. 27, China discloses that it has cut its diplomatic relations with Macedonia.

Heavy snows cause a series of avalanches to strike the region around Chamonix in France.

An Ethiopian plane bombs the Eritrean village of Laili Deda, killing at least five civilians.

Reports confirm that Cuba has approved the country’s first 100% foreign-owned venture. Panamabased Genpower Cuba SA will build, own, and operate the venture, a diesel electric power plant valued at some $15 million, on Cuba’s Youth Island, off the main island’s southwest coast.

ICN Pharmaceuticals, a U.S. parent company of the firm seized by Serbia on Feb. 6, files a $500 million lawsuit against the Yugoslav government of Pres. Slobodan Milosevic and the state health ministry of Serbia. . . . Italy’s highest appeals court, the Court of Cassation, sparks controversy when it overturns a rape conviction handed down in 1998, asserting that the alleged rape victim’s blue jeans were too tight to be removed without her assistance.

Police break up an antigovernment demonstration by students at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare, the capital. The students are protesting Pres. Mugabe’s crackdown on journalists, the government’s corruption, Zimbabwe’s participation in the Congo conflict, and delays in student grant payments.

Taiwan reveals that China deployed more than 100 new ballistic missiles within firing range of Taiwan. . . . Heavy rains in Queensland, Australia, cause the Mary River to peak at 72 feet (21.95 m), its highest level in more than a century. The flooding results in seven deaths. . . . An armed gang shoots and kills 12 lowcaste, or “untouchable,” villagers in Narayanpur in the Indian state of Bihar. It is the second such casterelated massacre in less than three weeks.

Data reveals that a series of avalanches that struck Chamonix, France, on Feb. 9 left at least 10 people dead. Twenty people buried under snow were pulled out alive, and two people are missing. . . . Austria reveals it will return to the Rothschild family about 250 works of art stolen by Nazi forces between 1938 and 1945. . . . In response to the Feb. 10 Italian court rulingoverturning a rape conviction many female members of Italy’s parliament wear jeans to parliament in a demonstration.

The Ethiopian government apologizes for killing Eritrean civilians in a Feb. 9 bombing raid. The U.S. State Department orders nonessential employees at U.S. embassies in both Ethiopia and Eritrea to leave. It also advises U.S. citizens to depart.

A powerful storm, cyclone Rona, crosses over northern Queensland, Australia, bringing heavy rains that flood much of the region, forcing more than 1,800 people from their homes.

Feb. 10

Feb. 11

Four districts in southeastern Queensland, Australia, are declared disaster areas after nearly a week of heavy rains that are causing widespread flooding.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 7–11, 1999—1235

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Reports confirm that U.S. Border Patrol officials arrested 162 illegal immigrants in San Diego, California, in a dilapidated 1,500-square-foot (140-sq-m) house.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

NASA launches Stardust, an unmanned spacecraft, atop a Delta-2 rocket at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Stardust is intended to collect samples of dust from the comet Wild-2 and return them to Earth for study.

The AFC defeats the NFC, 23-10, to win the Pro Bowl, the National Football League’s annual all-star game.

The impeachment trial of Pres. Clinton enters its final phase as the Senate hears final arguments from the House prosecutors and the president’s White House defense team. . . . The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, rules, 2-1, that prosecutors may use a suspect’s voluntary confession even if that suspect has not been read his or her Miranda rights.

Statistics reveal that only 36% of eligible voters participated in the 1998 midterm elections—the lowest turnout for a nationwide election since 1942. . . . Georgia governor Roy Barnes (D) signs a bill barring a liability suit that the city of Atlanta filed Feb. 4 against gun makers. The law, which allows only the state to bring such a suit, is the first of its kind in the country.

Dame (Jean) Iris Murdoch, 79, British novelist whose more than two dozen novels reflect her training in philosophy, dies in Oxford, England, after a five-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease. . . . Todd McFarlane, creator of a best-selling comic book, reveals that he was the anonymous buyer who paid a record $3 million for the 70th home run baseball hit by Mark McGwire during the 1998 season.

Richard Holbrooke, a veteran diplomat named by Pres. Clinton in June 1998 as his choice for U.S. ambassador to the UN, agrees to pay a $5,000 fine to settle charges brought by the Justice Department that he broke conflict-of-interest laws.

June Gibbs Brown, the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, reports that overpayments to health-care providers by Medicare totaled an estimated $12.6 billion in 1998. That is a decline from the estimated 1997 total of $20.3 billion in excess payments. Spending by Medicare totaled $211 billion in 1998.

A panel investigating ethics violations in the bid to hold the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, releases a 300-page report . . . . Ch. Loteki Supernatural Being, a papillon, wins best-in-show at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.

Statistics show that 19 fatal shootings by police occurred in New York City in 1998, the lowest number since 1985. . . . A jury awards $50 million in punitive damages to Patricia Henley in a lawsuit against Philip Morris. When combined with compensatory damages awarded earlier, the total damages are by far the largest ever in such a case. . . . Truong Van Tran, who sparked controversy by hanging a picture of the late North Vietnamese communist leader Ho Chi Minh in his shop, is attacked by a group of 150 protesters in Orange County, California.

Crews from the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard set fire to the New Carissa, which ran aground in Oregon on Feb. 4, in an attempt to burn away thousands of gallons of oil over several days. . . . In Dallas, Texas, Judge Joe Kendall issues a temporary restraining order against the APA, requiring the union’s members to end a sick-out, which started Feb. 6 when an inordinate number of pilots at AMR Corp.’s American Airlines called in sick.

Reports confirm that former Moral Majority leader Rev. Jerry Falwell has argued that Tinky Winky, a character on the children’s TV show Teletubbies, is homosexual and therefore a poor role model for children.

A NYC jury finds a group of gun manufacturers liable for shootings carried out with illegally purchased handguns. The jury bases its unprecedented decision on the gun companies’ marketing practices, which it claims give youths and criminals access to illegal firearms. . . . A NYC jury acquits Montoun Hart, 27, in the 1997 torture and murder of teacher Jonathan Levin.

Despite the Feb. 10 order, some 2,400 pilots call in sick, the most since the disruption at American Airlines began. Due to the shortage of pilots, American cancels 1,170 flights, more than 50% of the carrier’s daily total. . . . Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman announces an 18-month moratorium on road building in more than 33 million acres (13 million hectares) of national forest lands in the Northwest, Alaska, and the Southeast.

Feb. 7

Feb. 8

Feb. 9

Feb. 10

Feb. 11

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1236—February 12–17, 1999

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

The Angolan government states it has recaptured Mbanza Congo, a provincial capital 190 miles north of Luanda, from the rebels.

Feb. 12

The Thai Senate votes to pass legislation that will establish a new bankruptcy court. . . . Due to floods, Queensland Emergency Services Minister Merri Rose declares a state of disaster in the regions of Cairns and Innisfail in northern Queensland, Australia.

Reports confirm that British author Salman Rushdie has been granted a visa permitting him to visit India, his native country.

Feb. 13

Eritrea reveals that it shot down an Ethiopian helicopter gunship over the front line, killing the crew. It also states that Ethiopian planes have killed 16 civilians and wounded 20 since the latest round of fighting began in early February. An Ethiopian plane bombs an area sparsely populated by civilians just outside the Eritrean port city of Assab. . . . Two separate Jewish groups, one composed of some 250,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews and the other comprised of some 50,000 secular liberal Jews, stage separate protests near the Supreme Court building in West Jerusalem.

Feb. 14

Feb. 15

Feb. 16

Feb. 17

Asia & the Pacific

Delegates of some 170 nations meet in Cartagena, Colombia, to draft and adopt a treaty governing international trade in genetically modified products. . . . Turkish intelligence operatives seize Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan in Nairobi, Kenya, and fly him to Turkey for trial.

Romania’s supreme court sentences coal-mining labor leader Miron Cozma in absentia to 18 years in prison on the charge of undermining state authority during a 1991 protest march. Cozma led miners through Bucharest and forced the resignation of then-Premier Petre Roman.

In reaction to the Feb. 15 arrest of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, Kurdish separatists stage demonstrations in many nations, including Armenia, Belgium, Denmark, Italy Sweden, Australia, and Canada. Some 1,000 Kurds hold a march in a Kurdish section of Istanbul, Turkey, setting cars on fire. Meanwhile, other people in Turkey celebrate his capture. At least three Kurdish nationalists in European cities set themselves on fire. They all survive. Kurds in Vienna take the Greek ambassador to Austria and four other people hostage. Kurds also take hostages in Bonn, Leipzig, The Hague, London, and Paris. All hostages are peacefully released within hours.

A Paris court convicts Hawa Greou and sentences him to eight years in prison for performing genital mutilation on 48 girls in France. The case is the largest ever of its kind in France. . . . At least six car bombs explode in Tashkent, Uzbekistan’s capital, killing at least 13 people and injuring about 120 others. . . . In response to the Feb. 15 sentencing of Miron Cozma, more than 2,000 miners begin marching towards Bucharest, Romania’s capital . . . . Northern Ireland’s provincial legislature formally approves a plan for the new government’s structure of the . . . . German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder announces the creation of a $2 billion fund to compensate victims of the Nazi Holocaust.

South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission denies amnesty to four former police officers implicated in the 1977 death of Steve Biko, an antiapartheid leader who died after an interrogation by the officers.

Protests over the Feb. 15 arrest of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan continue. Three Kurdish protesters are killed and 16 are wounded when Israeli troops guarding Israel’s consulate in the Berlin suburb of Wilmersdorf, Germany, fire on demonstrators forcibly entering the building.

Romanian police arrest militant coal-mining labor leader Miron Cozma, sentenced in absentia Feb. 15, amid violent clashes between police and miners that leave one miner dead and scores injured.

In Congo, rebels backed by Rwandan fighters near Kabinda, the last government-held position on the route to Mbuji-Mayi, launch a three-front offensive. . . . South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission grants amnesty to police officer Jeffrey Benzien, who was convicted of torturing antiapartheid activists.

A fire at an electrical substation in Buenos Aires, the Argentine capital, causes a power outage.

Nineteen candidates win election to the legislative assembly of Nunavut, a Canadian territory that will officially come into existence April 1. The creation of Nunavut will represent the first redrawing of the map of Canada since 1949.

Chinese authorities release Gao Yu, 55, a journalist imprisoned for her political writings, on medical parole some seven months before the end of her six-year sentence.

Jaime Hurtado, a founding member of the opposition Popular Democratic Movement, is murdered in Quito, the capital of Ecuador. Hurtado’s aide and his driver are also killed. . . . Reports confirm that the national map of Honduras will be redrawn to reflect changes in river routes and village locations that resulted in 1998 from Hurricane Mitch.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court rules unanimously that civilians cannot be tried in special military courts that P.M. Nawaz Sharif established in December 1998.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 12–17, 1999—1237

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The Senate votes to acquit Pres. Clinton of impeachment charges in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, ending the second presidential impeachment in U.S. history. The 45-55 tally for Article I, the perjury charge, is 22 votes short of the 67 needed for conviction. Article II, the obstruction charge, fails in a 50-50 vote, 17 short of the two-thirds majority. The fact that neither charge gains even a simple majority of 51 votes is seen as a humiliating defeat for the 13 House Republicans who presented the case to the Senate.

Kelly Therese Warren, a former U.S. Army clerk convicted in 1998 on espionage charges, is sentenced to 25 years in prison.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture places a ban on oyster harvesting until Mar. 4 because of the threat of contamination from the New Carissa, which ran aground the Oregon coast on Feb. 4. . . . A worker dies of burns from a Feb. 1 fire at a Ford Motor Co. power station at Ford’s River Rouge complex in Dearborn, Michigan, bringing the death toll from the accident to three.

At the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, in Salt Lake City, Utah, Danielle and Steve Hartsell win their first title in the pairs competition and become the first brother and sister pair to win the title since 1984. In the ice-dancing competition, Naomi Lang and Peter Tchernyshev win the gold medal for the first time.

In Dallas, Texas, Judge Joe Kendall finds the APA and its two highestranking officers, Pres. Richard LaVoy and Vice Pres. Brian Mayhew, guilty of contempt of court for failing to abide by his Feb. 10 return-to-work order. Kendall also rules that the union should reimburse American Airlines for its losses resulting from the sick-out.

Michelle Kwan, 18, wins her third U.S. Figure Skating Championship women’s title, becoming the first woman to win the title two years in a row since Jill Trenary in 1989–90. Michael Weiss, 22, wins the men’s title for the first time in the U.S. championships.

An employee dies from injuries sustained during a Feb. 1 fire at a Ford Motor Co. power station at Ford’s River Rouge complex in Dearborn, Michigan, bringing the accident’s death tally to four.

In Colorado, the World Alpine Ski Championships close, and Lasse Kjus of Norway becomes the first skier in the history of alpine skiing to win five medals in one world championship competition. . . . Jeff Gordon wins the 41st annual Daytona 500 automobile race in Daytona Beach, Florida.

John D(aniel) Ehrlichman, 73, top aide to Pres. Richard Nixon and a crucial figure in the Watergate scandal that led to Nixon’s 1974 resignation as president, dies in Atlanta, Georgia, while suffering from diabetes.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Henry Way Kendall, 72, physicist who shared the 1990 Nobel prize in Physics for works that confirmed the existence of the quark, dies while making an underwater photography dive in Florida’s Wakulla Springs State Park.

The San Francisco, California, public school system and representatives of racial minority groups reach a settlement that will end the city’s 15-year-old race-based school desegregation program designed to guarantee racial diversity in every public school.

Figures suggest that the net income at major U.S. companies rose 3% in the fourth quarter of 1998 from the corresponding period a year earlier. The rise in profits is a reversal from 1998’s third quarter, when corporate earnings declined 5%.

Seventy members of the House of Representatives send a letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary Donna Shalala protesting a decision to allow federal funds to be used for research on human embryonic stem cells.

Oregon’s Health Division reports that 15 people died in the state in 1998 by legal physician-assisted suicide. Oregon is the only jurisdiction in the world where assisted suicide is officially legalized. Thirteen of those who died suffered from cancer, one had a lung disease, and one had heart disease.

Feb. 12

Feb. 13

Feb. 14

Feb. 15

Five-year-old racehorse Skip Away wins the Eclipse Award for 1998’s horse of the year.

A study suggests that the consumption of tomatoes helps cut the risk of developing some kinds of cancer. . . . Kurt Robert Eissler, 90, psychoanalyst who cofounded the Sigmund Freud Archives after World War II, dies in New York City of unreported causes.

Feb. 16

Feb. 17

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1238—February 18–23, 1999

World Affairs

Feb. 18

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

A French court rules that 1960s antiwar campaigner Ira Einhorn may be extradited to the U.S., where he faces murder charges, provided that he will receive a new trial and will not face the death penalty. . . . The AP reports that Turkish troops have been crossing the border into northern Iraq in pursuit of PKK rebels since Feb. 15.

Reports confirm that rebels in Congo have resumed their drive to topple Pres. Laurent Kabila after months of reduced fighting in the conflict, which started in August 1998. . . . Israeli troops and an allied Lebanese militia seize the village of Arnoun, located on the northern rim of Israel’s security belt.

Finance ministers and central-bank governors from the Group of Seven (G-7) major industrialized nations agree to establish a twice-yearly forum aimed at averting the kind of economic crisis that has shaken southeast Asia for the past two years.

Feb. 21

Feb. 22

Feb. 23

Turkish authorities formally charge Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan with treason and “seeking to undermine the indivisible unity of the Turkish state.” Ocalan, head of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), was seized by Turkish intelligence operatives in Nairobi, Kenya, and his arrest prompted worldwide demonstrations by Kurds.

Asia & the Pacific

Reports reveal that Cuba’s National Assembly has passed legislation strengthening penalties against criminals and against political activists opposed to the ruling Communist Party who “collaborated” with the U.S.

Unidentified assailants shoot to death Iraq’s leading Shi’ite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr, in the Shi’ite holy city of Najaf, located 100 miles (160 km) south of Baghdad, the capital of Lebanon. Sadr is the third Iraqi Shi’ite cleric killed in the past year.

In India, at least 20 Hindus are slain by Muslim rebels in the disputed state of Kashmir. . . . Officials in Australia confirm that the resignations of four members of Queensland Parliament has lowered the representation of right-wing nationalist One Nation party to under 10 seats, thereby terminating the political party status of the group. . . . Reports confirm that communist rebels in the southern Philippines have kidnapped Brigadier General Victor Obillo and one of his officers. Obillo is the highest-ranking military official ever seized by the rebels.

Turkish military officials disclose that some 10 guerrillas have been killed during the attacks against PKK positions in northern Iraq that started Feb. 15. . . . Sarah Kane, 27, British playwright, dies an apparent suicide at a hospital in London while being treated for depression.

As part of the country’s transition to democracy, Nigeria holds elections for the National Assembly. The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) emerges as the dominant party. . . . Iran’s supreme court overturns a 1998 ruling that sentenced German national Helmut Hofer to death by stoning for allegedly having had sexual relations with an unmarried Muslim female. It orders a retrial.

Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee visits Pakistan, meeting with Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif in an effort to reduce tensions between their nations. Activists from Jamaat-i-Islami, Pakistan’s largest militant Muslim group, hold mass street demonstrations and stage a general strike in Lahore to protest Vajpayee’s visit.

An avalanche strikes the town of Evolene in Switzerland. . . . Turkish troops end nearly a week of air and ground attacks on PKK positions in northern Iraq.

Embattled president Robert Mugabe attacks Zimbabwe’s white minority, the press, the judiciary, Western embassies, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In Pakistan, to protest the visit of Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, protestors rally, and Pakistani police arrest about 100 activists, including several party leaders, in Lahore. . . . Gerry Adams, the leader of the political wing of the Provisional IRA, Sinn Fein, makes his first trip to Australia . . . . Walter Lini, 57, first prime minister of the 83 Melanesian islands of Vanuatu, dies in Port Vila, Vanuatu, of unreported causes. He had suffered a stroke in 1987.

Heavy fighting occurs in northern Kosovo as Serbian security forces and the KLA fight for control of the town of Bukos, populated by both Serbs and ethnic Albanians. . . . The German government announces that plans to ban the export of nuclear waste for processing have been dropped. The proposed ban was part of a controversial plan to phase out Germany’s use of nuclear power to generate electricity.

In response to the Feb. 18 attack in Arnoun, Lebanon, Hezbollah guerrillas kill three members of an Israeli commando unit in a three-hour battle.

Serb and ethnic Albanian representatives agree in principle to an accord that will end a year-old conflict in Kosovo. . . . An avalanche strikes a resort region of the Austrian Alps. Nine people are confirmed dead. At least 30 people buried in the snow have been rescued, and about 30 more remain missing. . . . Sir Anthony Nutting (Harold), 79, British minister of state for foreign affairs, 1954–56, dies in London of a heart attack.

Ethiopian troops launch an offensive on Badme. . . . South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission grants amnesty to four former police officers who in 1981 kidnapped and killed Sizwe Kondile, a leading antiapartheid activist.

Feb. 19

Feb. 20

The Americas

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 18–23, 1999—1239

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

Reports confirm that at least 14 letters that claim to contain deadly anthrax bacteria have been received by abortion clinics and Planned Parenthood Federation of America centers across the country since Feb. 18. They were mailed from Lexington, Kentucky.

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Pres. Clinton pardons Henry Ossian Flipper, the first black to graduate from West Point. In 1882 Flipper was given a dishonorable discharge after a court-martial convicted him of conduct unbecoming an officer, even though it acquitted him on embezzlement charges. That same year an army review board found that Flipper had been unfairly prosecuted because of his race. Nonetheless, the army did not formally exonerate Flipper until 1976, 36 years after his death. Clinton’s action is the first posthumous presidential pardon in U.S. history.

Truong Van Tran, who had sparked protests by hanging a picture of the late North Vietnamese communist leader Ho Chi Minh in his videorental shop, wades through a crowd of 300 demonstrators with the help of a police escort and puts the poster of Ho Chi Minh and the flag up. The store is in California’s back Orange County, home to more than 35,000 Vietnamese Americans, the largest Vietnamese community outside of Asia.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

A study suggests that, in most cases, U.S. produce has higher levels of pesticide residue than imported fruits and vegetables have.

Reports disclose that scientists have succeeded in slowing the speed of light to about 38 miles per hour (61 kph) from its normal speed through empty space, 186,282 miles per second (299,792.458 km per second). The feat is seen as having potential for the advanced study of quantum mechanics and for the development of a variety of highprecision technologies.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Feb. 18

The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. recorded a $168.6 billion deficit in trade in goods and services in 1998. That amount represents a 53% leap from the revised 1997 deficit of $110.2 billion and sets a new record for a calendaryear trade gap in the U.S. . . . Curtis L. Carlson, 84, founder in 1938 of a trading-stamp business that later became Carlson Cos., dies in Minneapolis, Minnesota, of unreported causes.

The policy council of the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., selects Sara Jane Bloomfield as the institution’s executive director.

Two employees of Ford Motor Co. die from injuries sustained in the Feb. 1 fire at Ford’s River Rouge complex in Dearborn, Michigan, bringing the death toll from the accident to six.

Gene Siskel, 53, who, with Roger Ebert, formed what was considered the most influential pair of film reviewers in the U.S., dies in Evanston, Illinois. He had had a brain tumor removed in 1998 . . . Willard R. Espy, 88, author of books about word games and rhymes, dies in New York City.

Wilmer David Mizell (Vinegar Bend), 68, professional baseball player and three-term Republican congressman from North Carolina, 1969–75, dies in Kerrville, Texas He had suffered a heart attack in October 1998.

Gertrude Belle Elion, 81, Nobel Prize-winning research chemist who developed drugs used to treat a variety of conditions and was awarded a National Medal of Science in 1991, dies of a cerebral hemorrhage in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

In Washington, D.C., Judge Royce Lamberth cites Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, and Assistant for Interior Secretary Kevin Gover for contempt of court, claiming they did not ensure that their departments produced documents in a lawsuit alleging mismanagement of American Indians’ trust funds. . . . Some 10,000 protesters gather in an area known as Little Saigon in Orange County, California, near the store of Truong Van Tran, who is displaying a picture of Ho Chi Minh.

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt announces the creation of a scientific panel that will monitor a restoration plan for Florida’s Everglades.

A Jasper county, Texas, jury convicts John William King, a self-proclaimed white supremacist, of capital murder for chaining a black man, James Byrd Jr., to a pickup truck and dragging him to his death in 1998.

Feb. 20

Feb. 21

The National Cancer Institute announces that chemotherapy, when combined with the standard radiation treatment for cervical cancer, may significantly reduce deaths from the disease.

David Hamilton Smith, 67, scientist and pediatrician who in the 1980s helped develop a vaccine that immunizes children against a bacterium, known as Hib, that causes meningitis, dies in New York City of malignant melanoma.

Feb. 19

Feb. 22

In National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Smith, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that the NCAA cannot be sued for sex discrimination under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 simply because it receives dues from federally funded member schools.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Feb. 23

1240—February 24–March 1, 1999

World Affairs

Feb. 26

China uses its veto power as a permanent member of the UN Security Council to block extension of the mission in Macedonia to prevent the spread of fighting from Yugoslavia. China argues that the force is no longer needed because the situation seems to have stabilized.

March 1

Data reveals that nine people have been confirmed dead from the Feb, 21 avalanche in Evolene in Switzerland. The death toll from the Feb. 9 avalanche in the region around Chamonix, France, has risen to 18.

The UN Security Council votes to withdraw peacekeepers from Angola in the wake of resumed fighting there. The UN will continue its humanitarian relief work in Angola.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific A China Southwest Airlines jet crashes in Zhejiang province, killing all 61 passengers and crew. . . . Chee Soon Juan, leader of the opposition Singapore Democratic Party, is convicted of making a public speech without an official permit. This is his second such conviction in February.

The Israeli Supreme Court rules that Samuel Sheinbein, 18, who is charged with murder in the U.S., cannot be extradited. He will stand trial in Israel. . . Four Hezbollah fighters are killed by Israeli forces. . . . King Otumfuo Opoku Ware II (born Matthew Poku), 79, leader of the Ashanti, a West African people whose centuries-old kingdom is now an administrative region in Ghana, dies of unreported causes in Kumasi, Ghana.

The first comprehensive investigation by an international panel into alleged abuses by the Guatemalan government its 36-year civil war estimates that 200,000 people, mostly civilians, have died. It blames the government and allied paramilitary groups for the majority of the killings and charges the government received support from the U.S. agencies, including the CIA. . . . Some 10,000 people are still without power due to the Feb. 14 fire in Buenos Aires, the Argentine capital.

Woo Yong Gak, 71, believed to be the world’s longest-serving political prisoner, is released in an amnesty marking the first anniversary of Pres. Kim Dae Jung’s inauguration. Woo had been jailed for 41 years after he was captured along with other members of a North Korean reconnaissance unit in South Korean waters. . . . . In a letter, a paramilitary group makes threats against Australian government officials and journalists, prompting at least 15 Australian aid workers to flee East Timor.

According to the Sierra Leone social welfare ministry, some 2,000 children between the ages of five and 14 vanished after the rebel invasion of Freetown, the capital in January. . . . Political reformers and other center-left candidates win all 15 seats on the city council of Teheran and score widespread victories in balloting nationwide in Iran’s first local elections since its 1979 Islamic revolution. . . . South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission denies amnesty to the members of the AWB who fatally shot four black people and wounded six others in December 1993.

Reports confirm that a federal jury in San Jaun, Puerto Rico, has convicted Angel Rodriguez, the mayor of Toa Alta, and contractor Jose Orlando Figueroa on charges of conspiracy and bribery.

Police in Hangzhou, China, detain Wu Yilong, a student and a founding member of a fledgling opposition political party, the China Democracy Party. Authorities in Beijing, the capital, inform the wife of Peng Ming, an academic arrested in January, that Peng has been sentenced to 18 months in a labor camp.

The KLA kidnaps two Serbs near the town of Orahovac, Kosovo, sparking a new spate of fighting. . . . In the Austrian Alps, the death toll from the Feb. 23 avalanche in Galtuer rises to 31. The death toll from the Feb. 24 Valzur avalanche is at seven.

Former military ruler Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo is elected president of Nigeria, implementing the country’s transition to democratic rule. Obasanjo, the candidate of the dominant People’s Democratic Party (PDP), will be Nigeria’s first civilian leader in more than 15 years. . . . Eritrea states that it will agree to an Organization of African Unity (OAU) peace plan that Ethiopia has already accepted.

A U.S. air strike damages a pumping station along the pipeline between Iraq and Turkey, halting the main channel for oil flow in Iraq’s oil-for-food program.

Serbs begin rooting out the KLA in villages near Kosovo’s border with Macedonia. . . . Data reveals that the latest avalanches made the 1998–99 winter one of Europe’s deadliest ever, with more than 70 people killed in avalanches.

A series of 14 bombs explode in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, killing one person and cutting off the city’s water supply. . . . Ethiopia declares that it has achieved “total victory” over Eritrea after winning a decisive battle in the Badme region, the sovereignty of which is at the core of their border dispute. . . . A Hezbollah bomb kills an Israeli general in Israel’s self-declared security zone in southern Lebanon. Israeli warplanes retaliate by striking Hezbollah bases deep in Lebanon.

The UN officially ends its 1,100member peacekeeping mission in Macedonia after China’s Feb. 25 veto of an extension of the mission’s mandate. . . . An international treaty banning the use and production of antipersonnel land mines goes into effect.

Turkey launches an attack against PKK rebels in Hatay province, located near Turkey’s border with Syria. Premier Bulent Ecevit announces that the government will provide $90 million in aid for the southeastern area of Turkey, which is dominated by Kurds.

Rwandan Hutu rebels kidnap and kill eight foreign tourists in a national park on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. Two of the dead were Americans, four were Britons, and two were New Zealanders. . . . A PNA-Hamas agreement ends a 36-day-old hunger strike by prisoners affiliated with Hamas and the more hard-line Islamic Jihad.

Feb. 27

Feb. 28

Africa & the Middle East

In the Austrian Alps, an avalanche strikes Valzur. One person is confirmed dead. . . . The KLA announces plans to form an unofficial provisional government in Kosovo. . . . Reports confirm that Bulgaria now recognizes the Macedonian language. . . . Viscount Eccles (David MacAdam), 94, British parliamentarian, 1943–62, 1970–73, dies of unreported causes. . . . Derek Robert Nimmo, 66, British actor and comedian, dies in London of pneumonia and complications from a December 1998 fall.

Feb. 24

Feb. 25

Europe

Doctors in Osaka perform Japan’s first legal organ transplant, a type of surgery approved in Japan in 1997.

Leftist senator Jean-Yvon Toussaint is fatally shot by an unidentified assailant in a suburb of Portau-Prince, the capital of Haiti.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

February 24–March 1, 1999—1241

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Census Bureau director Kenneth Prewitt announces plans to conduct two separate census counts in the year 2000: a traditional “head count” of the U.S. population to determine apportionment of seats in the House; and a second count, using controversial “statistical sampling” methods to determine the distribution of federal dollars and to redraw legislative districts. The Supreme Court ruled in January that sampling cannot be used in the apportionment of House seats.

The Senate approves 91-8, legislation that will provide the largest military pay raise since 1982. . . . A lawyer for former premier Pavlo Lazarenko, who left Ukraine amid charges of corruption, announces that Lazarenko has requested political asylum in the U.S.

John William King, a self-proclaimed white supremacist convicted of capital murder, is sentenced to death by lethal injection for chaining James Byrd Jr. to a pickup truck and dragging him to his death. Only one white man has ever been executed in Texas for killing a black person. . . . Data reveal that the number of people using food stamps fell to about 19 million as of November 1998, from nearly 28 million four years earlier.

The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, Colorado, upholds the conviction and life sentence of Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols. Nichols was convicted in December 1997. . . . An estimated 15,000 people hold a vigil in Westminster, California, to denounce what they call continuing human rights violations in Vietnam. It is the largest of a series of protests prompted by controversy started when Truong Van Tran hung a picture of Ho Chi Minh in his shop.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle At the Grammy Awards, Lauryn Hill wins five awards, setting a record for a female artist. The song and record of the year go to Celine Dion for “My Heart Will Go On.”

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a fast-growing unit of the AFL-CIO labor federation, wins the right to represent 74,000 home health-care workers in Los Angeles County, California. Union officials note the SEIU victory is the U.S. labor movement’s largest successful organizing drive since 1937. . . . The SEC sues 13 companies and individuals for on-line investment activities that allegedly misrepresent the prospects of 56 companies.

The FCC rules that calls placed to access the Internet computer network are interstate calls a and thus are subject to federal regulations. Internet service providers will continue to be exempt from paying perminute access charges to regional phone companies. . . . Glenn Theodore Seaborg, 86, Nobel Prize-winning scientist who led the research team that discovered plutonium and had element 106 named seaborgium in his honor, dies in Lafayette, California, of complications of a stroke suffered in 1998.

Pres. Clinton states that his administration will again “certify” Mexico and Colombia in the war against drugs. . . . An annual report by the State Department sharply criticizes China and, citing Sierra Leone, Congo, Angola, Serbia, Afghanistan, and Colombia, notes “the disturbing trend toward the widespread abuse of civilians trapped in conflict.” The report singles out the Taliban for “perhaps the most severe abuse of women’s human rights in the world.”. . . David Sheldon Boone, a former NSA cryptologist, is sentenced to 24 years in prison for conspiring to commit espionage.

Feb. 24

Feb. 25

Jose Benjamin Quintero, 74, Panamanian-born theater director who won a Tony Award in 1974, dies in New York City of cancer. . . . John L. Goldwater, 83, writer who in 1941 created Archie, a teenaged comic-book character, with partner Bob Montana, dies in New York City of a heart attack.

Rev. Henry J. Lyons, president of the National Baptist Convention USA, is convicted in Largo, Florida, on state charges of racketeering and grand theft.

Feb. 26

Feb. 27

Feb. 28

A study finds that the development of young children whose mothers work outside the home is not harmed by their mothers’ absence. . . . The American Academy of Pediatrics revises its position on the benefits and drawbacks of circumcising newborn boys, finding that “potential medical benefits” of circumcision are “not sufficient to recommend routine neonatal circumcision.”

Reports reveal that U.S. prosecutors have charged a Chinese citizen and a Chinese-born Canadian with attempting to purchase missileguidance equipment in the U.S. and smuggle it to China.

Pacific Lumber Co. agrees to sell 10,000 acres (4,000 hectares) of a redwood forest tract in northern California for $480 million. The U.S. will contribute $250 million, and California will pay $230 million. The deal concludes years of negotiations between the federal and California governments and Pacific Lumber, as well as more than a decade of protests and protracted legal action over the logging of the forests.

An independent panel criticizes a “culture of improper gift-giving” among members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in an investigation of the worst ethics scandals in the history of the Olympic Games. . . . The Testament by John Grisham tops the bestseller lists.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 1

1242—March 2–7, 1999

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Taiwan’s legislature defeats a motion of no confidence in Premier Vincent Siew brought by opposition parties. It is the first no-confidence vote to take place in Taiwan since the constitution was amended to permit such motions in 1997.

March 2

March 3

March 4

March 5

March 6

March 7

Asia & the Pacific

Jordan and Kuwait reestablish diplomatic relations, severed during the 1990–91 Persian Gulf conflict.

In Zimbabwe, Judge Yunus Omerjee rules that the government cannot prevent two journalists tortured while in detention from leaving the country for medical treatment.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin demands the dismissal of Boris Berezovsky, a politically powerful Russian tycoon, from his post as executive secretary of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Jordan’s King Abdullah II, in his first major political move, forms a new government, appointing AbdulRaouf Rawabdeh as prime minister and Abdul Karim al-Kabariti as chief of the royal court. . . . Reports state that Ugandan and Rwandan forces have killed 15 rebels in Congo, south of the site of the Mar. 1 kidnapping and murders of civilians. . . . South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission rejects a collective amnesty application by 27 senior ANC members, including Thabo Mbeki, the ANC president.

Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the longest-ruling political party in the world, celebrates 70 years in power. . . . The bodies of the three Americans kidnapped Feb. 25 in northeast Colombia are found on the Venezuelan side of the Arauca River.

Amnesty International estimates that more than 3,000 people have disappeared since 1993 after detention by security forces in Algeria. . . . Sheik Isa bin Salman al-Khalifa, 65, who was named crown prince of Bahrain in 1958 and assumed the title emir in 1971, the year Bahrain gained independence, dies in Manama, Bahrain, of a heart attack.

Reports from Canada indicate that the legislative assembly of Nunavut, an Arctic territory that will officially come into existence on April 1, has selected Paul Okalik, a 34-year-old Inuit attorney, as Nunavut’s first premier.

In South Africa, ANC councilor Zwelinzima Hlazo is shot to death en route to Nyanga. UDM member Mncedisi Mpongwana is shot and killed in nearby Guguletu, in what police think is a revenge attack. . . . Reports confirm that, as a goodwill gesture, rebels from Sierra Leone have released 31 children whom they had kidnapped. . . . Zimbabwean authorities arrest three Americans—John Dixon, Gary Blanchard, and Joseph Pettijohn— on charges of espionage, sabotage, and terrorism.

Francisco Flores Perez of the ruling Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) party is elected president of El Salvador, succeeding Pres. Armando Calderon Sol.

Carlos Westendorp, the international community’s top representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina, dismisses the hard-line president of Bosnia’s Serb Republic, Nikola Poplasen. Another international arbitrator decides to remove the disputed town of Brcko from Serb control, placing it under neutral administration. The dual decisions spark protests and violence. A U.S. soldier shoots and kills one protester after the soldier and three others allegedly are attacked by a larger group of Serbs.

Unidentified armed assailants kidnap Major General Gennadi Shpigun, the interior ministry’s representative in the separatist republic of Chechnya. . . . Swiss authorities report they have found the bodies of three people killed by a February avalanche in the town of Evolene, raising the death toll from the snowslide to 12. . . . Lord Denning (Alfred Thompson), 100, British judge who served as Master of the Rolls, the head of Britain’s Court of Appeals, 1962–82, dies in Winchester, England.

The Mar. 5 decisions by international representatives continues to spark protests and violence throughout the Bosnian Serb Republic, including an attack on a Western-funded radio station and attacks on UN vehicles.

The Bosnian Serb parliament votes to reject both Mar. 5 rulings by international arbitrators. After the votes, Carlos Westendorp, the international community’s top representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina, calls Nikola Poplasen’s dismissal “irrevocable,” and also states that the ruling on Brcko will not be overturned.

Reports reveal that hundreds of East Timorese have fled the region as violent clashes between supporters and opponents of independence escalate.

Estonians elect a new government led by a coalition of three centerright parties—the Fatherland Party, the Reform Party, and the Moderates. . . . The right-wing Freedom Party wins a regional election in Carinthia, one of Austria’s nine states. The election marks the first time that the anti-immigration party gains a plurality of votes in a statewide vote.

Cambodian military troops arrest Ta Mok, the last Khmer Rouge leader still at large, north of Anlong Ven. Ta Mok is the first senior member of the Khmer Rouge arrested for his activities in the group, which is blamed for the deaths of more than 1 million Cambodians in the late 1970s.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 2–7, 1999—1243

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The EEOC announces that a nursing home in Gladstone, Missouri, has agreed to pay $2.1 million to 65 Filipino nurses who complained that they were paid less than their U.S.born counterparts. . . . The House passes, by voice vote, a bill that frees $470 million in reserved funds for use as federal farm-loan guarantees in time for the spring planting season.

A Senate committee examining the year 2000 (Y2K) computer glitch reports that the U.S. health care industry and many small businesses are lagging behind other domestic entities in their efforts to address the problem. The Senate votes, 99-0, in favor of a bill that will provide $900 million worth of loans for small businesses to make Y2K computer repairs.

Dusty Springfield, 59, singer whose career spanned three decades, dies in England of breast cancer. . . . Orlando Cepeda, Nestor Chylak, Frank Selee, and Smokey Joe Williams are elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. . . . Thomas E. Hitchings, 52, publisher of Facts On File News Services who oversaw the company as it expanded into electronic publishing, dies in New York City of colon cancer. Monica Lewinsky appears in a TV interview. An estimated 70 million or more viewers watch at least part of the interview, making it by far the most-watched news program ever.

In Cedar Rapids Community School District v. Garret F., the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that public schools must accommodate disabled students who need special assistance during the school day, as long as the necessary assistance can be provided by an individual who is not a physician.

Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office file charges of manslaughter against Pedro Guevara and Francisco Gomez of Florida in the December 1998 smuggling deaths of 14 Cuban refugees. The boat, owned by Gomez, capsized 12 miles (20 km) from the Florida shore.

Gerhard Herzberg, 94, German-born Canadian scientist who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research in molecular spectroscopy, dies in Ottawa of unreported causes. . . . The House approves, by voice vote, a bill that will ban Concorde, the supersonic jet, from landing at U.S. airports.

Police in Coosa County, Alabama, reveal that Steven Mullins and Charles Butler have admitted to the February murder of a homosexual man, Billy Jack Gaither. . . . Harry A(ndrew) Blackmun, 90, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, 1970–94, who wrote the opinion for the majority in Roe v. Wade and who, by the time of his retirement, was regarded as a defender of the rights of society’s less privileged, dies in Arlington, Virginia, of complications after hip-replacement surgery.

Judge William Hoeveler reduces the prison sentence of Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, a former military president of Panama, to 30 years from 40 years. Noriega may be eligible for release in 2007 if he earns time off for good behavior. . . . A court-martial jury acquits U.S. Marine captain Richard Ashby of all charges related to a February 1998 incident in which a U.S. jet severed a ski-lift cable in Italy, sending 20 people plunging to their deaths. Ashby’s acquittal sparks outrage in Italy.

The NASA launches the WideField Infrared Explorer (WIRE), an unmanned spacecraft intended to study the formation of stars and galaxies, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

The Labor Department reports that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the U.S. in February edged up slightly to 4.4%, from 4.3% in January. The February climb is the first increase since November 1998.

NASA reveals that a malfunction has caused WIRE, an unmanned spacecraft launched Mar. 4, to overheat and its supply of frozen hydrogen to melt and disperse too quickly, causing the $79 million craft to spin out of control. . . . Scientists reveal they have detected a so-called blind thrust fault underneath Los Angeles that has the potential to cause a major earthquake. It is the first proof of the existence of that kind of fault beneath the city.

March 2

March 3

March 4

Richard Paul Kiley, 76, actor best known for his starring performances in the musical Man of La Mancha, dies in Warwick, New York, of a blood disorder.

Three Haitian refugees are rescued from a boating accident about 30 miles (50 km) from Palm Beach, Florida, when crewmen aboard a passing freighter hear calls for help and contact the U.S. Coast Guard. An unknown number of Haitians drown in the accident. . . . Reports disclose that China obtained secret information from the U.S.’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in the 1980s that allowed it to develop advanced nuclear warheads.

Alexandra Meissnitzer of Austria clinches the women’s overall World Cup alpine skiing title.

Sidney Gottlieb, 80, chemist who oversaw mind-control experiments for the CIA in the 1950s and 1960s, during which the agency created poisonous devices intended for use in assassination plots and administered mind-altering drugs, including lycergic acid diethylamide (LSD), to hundreds of unwitting subjects, dies in Washington, Virginia, of unreported causes.

In Seville, Spain, the World Indoor Track and Field Championships close after two unprecedented double gold-medal wins by Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia and Gabriela Szabo of Romania . . . . Stanley Kubrick, 70, film director considered one of the most talented and uncompromising artists in his field, dies in Hertfordshire, England.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 5

March 6

March 7

1244—March 8–11, 1999

March 8

Europe

The IMF and Brazil formally agree on revised terms for the release of the remainder of a $42 billion aid package for Brazil assembled in November 1998.

Reports reveal that Russia has removed all of its official representatives from Chechnya.

The UDM’s chair in Nyanga, Bhabha Dyonise, and UDM party member Zolile Tyandela are shot to death in Nyanga, South Africa. . . . Ugandan and Rwandan forces report they have killed 10 more rebels suspected in the Mar. 1 kidnapping and murder eight foreign tourists.

A French court acquits former French premier Laurent Fabius and his former social affairs minister, Georgina Dufoix, of manslaughter and negligence charges in connection with the accidental contamination of France’s blood supply with HIV in the mid-1980s. A third defendant, former health minister Edmond Herve, is convicted on two charges in the trial, although he receives no prison sentence Separately, police in Paris arrest six members of ETA, Spain’s main Basque separatist guerrilla group. . . . Sir Arnold Machin, 87, British sculptor who designed the image of Queen Elizabeth II that has appeared on every British definitive stamp since 1967, dies in Staffordshire, England.

Iran’s President Mohammed Khatami begins a visit to Italy and the Vatican, marking the first visit to the West by an Iranian leader in 20 years. . . . An article that discusses Zambia’s state of military readiness in the case of a war against Angola is published. In response to the article, police begin arresting the journalists who wrote the story, arguing that they exposed military secrets. . . . An official of the local branch of the UDM, Patata Nqwaru, is killed March 9 in the Cape Town area of South Africa. His death is the fifth murder of politicians in the Cape Town area since Mar. 7.

Prince Charles of Britain makes the first visit to Argentina by a prince of Wales since 1931. He lays a wreath at a memorial in Buenos Aires honoring some 650 Argentine soldiers who died during the war with Britain over the Falkland Islands in 1982. His visit sparks protests that result in the injury of two police officers and the arrest of 27 civilians. . . . The ruling Antigua Labour Party (ALP) retains power in Antigua and Barbuda, enabling P.M. Lester Bird to stay in office. It is the ALP’s sixth consecutive term of rule.

Spanish officials reveal they have arrested nine members of ETA in the area around San Sebastian, a Basque nationalist stronghold in northern Spain.

A PNA military court sentences Raed al-Attar, a suspected member of Hamas, to death by firing squad for the Feb. 1 killing of police captain Rifat Joudah. The court sentences the two other suspects to terms of life and 15 years. The ruling sparks street clashes in the Gaza border town of Rafah. . . . Because of the killings that have taken place since Mar. 7, the South African government sends troops of the South African National Defense Force and 300 additional police to Nyanga. . . . A British diplomat is expelled when Congo accuses him of spying.

In Ecuador, a general strike is held to protest the economic changes Pres. Jamil Mahuad made in the 1999 budget. . . . Pres. Bill Clinton travels to Guatemala, making the first visit by a U.S. president to the country in some 30 years. . . . In Colombia, in response to the Mar. 4 discovery of the bodies of kidnapped U.S. citizens, a FARC speaker admits that a low-level commander within FARC captured and executed the three Americans without the knowledge of senior commanders.

In the midst of a spate of religious violence, Indonesian troops fire on thousands of rioters in Ambon, killing at least two people and wounding about 50 others. . . . Some 4,000 exiled Tibetans hold demonstrations in Dharmsala, India, to mark the 40th anniversary of a revolt against Chinese rule in Tibet. Other marches of similar size are held in New Delhi, India’s capital, and in Katmandu, the capital of Nepal.

Four British officials and a U.S. State Department official on temporary assignment with the British government are expelled from the Democratic Republic of Congo after its government accused them of spying.

In Ecuador, the general strike that began Mar. 10 continues. Figures show that 19 people have been injured and 235 arrested during the strikes. Pres. Jamil Mahuad Witt announces a package of emergency austerity measures designed to lower the country’s inflation rate and stabilize the economy. . . . Thousands of students shut down Mexico’s largest state university, National Autonomous University, to protest a planned tuition hike.

Reports reveal that, since fighting in a religious conflict erupted in January in Indonesia, nearly 10,000 people have fled Ambon to escape the violence there.

March 9

March 10

March 11

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

A Paris court convicts five Libyan intelligence agents and a Libyan diplomat of orchestrating the 1989 bombing of a French airliner over Africa that killed all 156 passengers and 14 crew. The defendants, tried in absentia, are sentenced to life in prison. The conviction is symbolic, because the French legal system does not officially recognize trials conducted without the defendants present. The defendants include Abdallah Senoussi, the deputy head of Libya’s secret services and the brother-in-law of Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gadhafi.

The UN Security Council votes to extend until June 13 the mandate of its observer mission in Sierra Leone. . . . UN secretary general Kofi Annan announces that Indonesia and Portugal have agreed to allow East Timor to decide whether it wants status as an autonomous region of Indonesia or full independence. East Timor, a former Portuguese colony, was invaded by Indonesia in 1975.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 8–11, 1999—1245

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Urban Institute, a think tank, concludes that noncitizens’ use of cash welfare benefits dropped by 35% between 1994 and 1997, compared with a 15% decline among citizens. A similar pattern is reportedly observed in a decline in the use of food stamps and Medicaid.

In light of the Mar. 6 reports that China obtained secret information from the U.S. in the 1980s, the Department of Energy, which runs the national lab in Los Alamos, New Mexico, fires the suspected scientist, identified as Wen Ho Lee. . . . Pres. Clinton embarks on a visit to Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala to survey damage wrought by Hurricane Mitch in October 1998.

The Senate, by voice vote, clears a bill that frees $470 million in reserved funds for use as federal farm-loan guarantees in time for the spring planting season. . . . Navy demolition experts haul the bow of the oil tanker that ran aground Feb. 4, the New Carissa, nearly 300 miles (480 km) from the Oregon coast. A third of the vessel remains partially submerged just off the coast.

A federal court sentences Larry Matthews Jr., a veteran broadcast reporter, to 18 months in prison for distributing child pornography via the Internet in 1996. He is the first journalist prosecuted for trafficking pornography on the Internet under federal child pornography laws, and the case is seen as a test of the limits of the First Amendment for journalism on the Internet. . . . NASA reports indicate that WIRE’s hydrogen supply ran out, putting an end to the mission, which was launched Mar. 4 and planned to last four months. . . . The FTC states it has reached a tentative settlement of its antitrust case against computer microprocessor maker Intel Corp. The specific terms of the settlement are not released to the public.

The National Book Critics issue awards that for the first time considered authors who are not U.S. citizens. The awards go to Marie Ponsot, Gary Giddins. Sylvia Nasar, Alice Munro, and Philip Gourevitch. The Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in reviewing goes to Albert Mobilio. . . . Joe (Joseph Paul) DiMaggio, 84, star center fielder for baseball’s New York Yankees who became an icon of an idealized America and of dignified, graceful celebrity, dies in Hollywood, Florida, after suffering from lung cancer and pneumonia. . . In Time Warner Entertainment Co. L.P. v. Byers, the Supreme Court lets stand a ruling by a Louisiana State appeals court that permits a shooting victim’s family to sue the makers of the film Natural Born Killers. . . . In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Judge Ronald Buckwalter rules against the use of minimum test scores by the NCAA as a requirement for eligibility to play collegiate sports.

Outside police headquarters in New York City, a series of daily demonstrations begins in protest of the February killing of an unarmed African immigrant, Amadou Diallo, 22.

An international team of scientists reveal they have found a way to predict coronal mass ejections, the most violent kind of magnetic storm on the sun.

William Ivey, chairman of the NEA, cancels the foundation’s grant for a children’s book written by a Mexican rebel leader, Subcomandante Marcos, one of the top leaders of the leftist Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), for fear that some of the money might go to the Zapatistas. . . . George Polk Memorial Awards for excellence in journalism in 1998 go to Tracy Wilkinson, Donald L. Barlett, and James B. Steele. . . . The NCAA agrees to settle a class-action lawsuit challenging NCAA salary rules filed on behalf of some 1,900 assistant coaches.

The House passes, 398-12, a bill that will prohibit nursing homes from evicting patients solely because their bills are paid by Medicaid, the health-insurance program for the nation’s poor funded by both the federal and state governments. . . . In response to complaints over the dearth of minority and female law clerks employed by the high court, Supreme Court justices David H. Souter and Clarence Thomas defends the court’s hiring practices in testimony before a House subcommittee.

A study finds no evidence that a diet high in fat increases a woman’s risk of breast cancer.

The Lannan Foundation states it will fund the U.S. publication of a book written by a Mexican rebel leader who was denied NEA funding on Mar. 9. . . . Reports confirm that the 1999 John M. Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion will be awarded to Ian G. Barbour, a physicist and theologian who seeks to bridge the gap between science and religion.

The House, 330-90, and the Senate, 98-1, approve legislation giving states more flexibility to decide how to spend federal funding for schools. . . . Independent counsel Kenneth Starr reveals that he has asked the Justice Department to take over an investigation of improper leaks from his office.

U.S. Defense Department officials report that the navy has demoted and fined a group of 23 sailors after they refused to take a vaccination against anthrax bacteria, one of the deadliest biological agents known, for fear that it has not been adequately tested and may have serious unforeseen negative effects. . . . The House approves, 219-191, Pres. Clinton’s plan to contribute 4,000 U.S. troops to a potential NATO force for Kosovo.

The crew of a navy destroyer sinks the hull of a cargo ship stranded off the Oregon coast since Feb. 4. The ship, the New Carissa, has spilled some 70,000 gallons (265,000 liters) of fuel and bunker oil since it ran aground. Officials estimates that the New Carissa is holding 130,000 gallons of fuel oil when the crews sink the vessel in waters where temperatures never rise above 34°F (1°C), keeping the oil in a semisolid state.

A study finds that the incidence of the most common form of liver cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, rose by 71% between the mid1970s and the mid-1990s.

March 8

March 9

March 10

March 11

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1246—March 12–17, 1999

March 12

World Affairs

Europe

The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland officially join NATO. The three Eastern European nations are the first former members of the Soviet-allied Warsaw Pact to join NATO.

Moldova’s parliament approves a new premier, Ion Sturza.

Asia & the Pacific

Britain’s Prince Charles travels to the Falkland Islands, where he lays a wreath at a memorial marking the Falkland Islands war.

Reports confirm that that Taiwanese authorities have indicted Cheng Shiou, the captain of a Taiwanese container ship, on charges that he put three Romanian stowaways overboard in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in 1996 before docking in Canada. . . . The Indonesian government shuts down 38 debt-ridden banks in an effort to revive the country’s devastated financial sector and meet IMF loan conditions.

Two militant Kurdish separatist groups claim responsibility for the Mar. 13 attack in Istanbul, Turkey.

March 14

March 16

The Americas

In Zambia, the six journalists arrested Mar. 9 and Mar. 10 on espionage charges are released on orders from the High Court in Lusaka, Zambia’s capital. . . . The British government calls Douglas Scrafton, its ambassador in Kinshasa, Congo, back to Britain in response to the March 10 and March 11 expulsions.

Unidentified assailants hurl gasoline bombs into a crowded department store in Istanbul, Turkey, causing explosions and a fire that kills 13 people and wounds three others. . . . In Kosovo, three bombs explode in marketplaces in the towns of Podujevo and Kosovska Mitrovica, killing six people and wounding 58 others. A seventh victim is shot and killed at the time of the bombings. Both towns have predominantly ethnic Albanian populations.

March 13

March 15

Africa & the Middle East

A report by a five-member independent panel states that several members of the European Commission, EU’s executive branch, mismanaged programs under their control and hired friends for EU jobs. The panel adds that it found no evidence that commissioners were “directly and personally involved” in fraudulent activities, or had profited from fraud. . . . A UN helicopter crashes about 35 miles (56 km) northeast of Port-Au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. The 13 crew members and U.N. personnel are presumed dead. The team included six Russians, six Argentines, and an American.

A car bombing in Lurgan, Northern Ireland, kills prominent Roman Catholic attorney Rosemary Nelson. Members of the Red Hand Defenders, a hard-line Protestant guerrilla group that opposes the Northern Ireland peace process, claims responsibility. . . . The PKK warns tourists to stay away from Turkey in order to avoid being caught in a violent “war” between Kurdish separatists and the government.

The U.S. bombs air-defense installations in northern Iraq. . . . Prompted by the Mar. 15 report, all 20 members of the EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, announce that they will resign. It is the first time since the commission’s formation in 1958 that any commissioner has been compelled to resign, and the move is regarded as the most serious internal crisis ever in the EU.

The Turkish government announces that it is tightening security measures in response to an ongoing wave of bombings.

A Finnish forensic team that examined the bodies of 40 victims killed in January by Serbian forces in the town of Racak concludes that the killings were an organized massacre of unarmed civilians. . . . An automobile explodes on a road in southern Turkey, killing both of its occupants. . . . Jean Pierre-Bloch, 93, French Resistance organizer during World War II, close aide to Gen. Charles de Gaulle, and president of the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism, 1968–92, dies in Paris, France.

March 17

Afghanistan’s two warring sides— the ruling Islamic fundamentalist Taliban militia and the opposition Northern Alliance—announce they have agreed in principle to form a coalition government that will include shared executive, legislative, and judicial branches at an unspecified future date. Separately, UN relief workers return to the country for the first time since July 1998.

A state security court sentences two Jordanians to death for killing an Iraqi diplomat, Hikmet al-Hajou, and 11 other people in two separate incidents in 1998. Two other defendants receive 20-year sentences.

Allan Boesak, a former church leader who served as a high official of the antiapartheid ANC, is convicted by a High Court judge in Cape Town, South Africa, of theft and fraud involving more than US$400,000. . . . A three-judge panel of the Jerusalem District Court unanimous holds that Arye Deri, a key power broker in P.M. Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling rightist coalition and leader of an ultra-Orthodox group, is guilty of bribery, fraud, and breach of public trust.

Four prominent dissidents in Cuba are convicted of sedition and sentenced to jail terms ranging from three and a half to five years. The dissidents—Vladimiro Roca, 56, Rene Gomez Manzano, 55, Felix Bonne, 59, and Marta Beatriz Roque, 53—have been held in custody since August 1997 despite repeated international calls for their release. . . . Despite protests, Mexico’s largest state university, National Autonomous University, approves a tuition hike.

In Canada, a judge of the Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s Bench sentences federal senator Eric Berntson to one year in jail for defrauding taxpayers while serving as Saskatchewan’s deputy premier in the late 1980s.

North Korea agrees to allow U.S. officials to inspect a large underground site that the U.S. suspects is intended to become a nuclear weapons facility. The development of such a facility would violate an agreement signed by North Korea in 1994.

Lt. Col. Hildegardo Bacilio Gomez, who in December 1998 led a march of some 50 dissident soldiers in Mexico City, Mexico, is arrested by military police.

The group Human Rights in China claims that Chinese authorities have charged Fang Jue, a former government official who in 1998 called for democratic political reforms, with embezzlement and illegal business activities. Fang has been held since July 1998.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 12–17, 1999—1247

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Pres. Clinton visits Hope, Arizona, the town where he was born, to officially dedicate his boyhood home as an historical site.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Cleanup costs in the effort to dispose of the New Carissa, which ran aground Feb. 4, and its oil are estimated at $14 million. . . . The Labor Department reports that the government’s index of prices charged by manufacturers and farmers for finished goods fell a seasonally adjusted 0.4% in February from January. That is the index’s biggest drop since January 1998, and it follows a 0.5% rise in January and a gain of 0.4% in December 1998.

Bidu Sayao, 96, Brazilian soprano who made her U.S. debut at Carnegie Hall in 1934, des in Rockport, Maine. . . . Sir Yehudi Menuhin, 82, violinist and conductor of worldwide renown who was involved with hundreds of charities and cultural groups, dies in Berlin, Germany, after suffering a heart attack.

A bomb explodes outside an Asheville, North Carolina, abortion clinic. No injuries are reported. . . . Reports disclose that Ravenswood Hospital Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois, whose rules barred its staff from aiding a teenaged gunshot victim who died steps from its doors in 1998, has agreed to pay $40,000 to settle a federal complaint of “patient dumping.”

Garson Kanin, 86, Academy Award– winning director and writer, dies in New York City. . . . A fight between WBA and IBF heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield and WBC heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis ends in a draw, prompting an international outcry.

The Justice Department reveals that the number of people in U.S. federal, state, and local jails and prisons reached 1,802,496 as of June 30, 1998. The population of incarcerated people increased by 4.4%, or more than 76,700, during the period of July 1, 1997, to June 30, 1998. The 1998 increase is less than the average yearly increase of 7.3% registered in the period from 1985 to 1998. The Senate clears, by voice vote, a bill that will prohibit nursing homes from evicting patients solely because their bills were paid by Medicaid, the health-insurance program for the nation’s poor that the federal government and states jointly fund.

George Tenet, director of the CIA, announces the appointment of an independent panel to review the damage to national security caused by China’s alleged theft of nuclear secrets from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico in the 1980s. . . . In New York City, Judge Deborah Batts dismisses charges against two Chinese men accused of conspiring to sell human organs allegedly taken from executed Chinese prisoners. . . . The Marine Corps drops manslaughter charges against Captain Joseph Schweitzer, the navigator of a jet involved in a fatal 1998 ski-lift mishap in Italy that led to the death of 20 people.

Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill that frees $470 million in reserved funds for use as federal farm-loan guarantees in time for the spring planting season.

In Billings, Montana, Judge John Coughenour sentences LeRoy Schweitzer, the leader of the Freemen, to 22 years and six months in prison for trying to damage the nation’s banking system. Four other Freemen also receive sentences that range from probation to 15 years in prison. . . . A national panel appointed to devise ways to reform Medicare, disbands without endorsing any proposals. In Los Angeles, California, Gaby Vernoff gives birth to a baby girl after having been artificially inseminated with sperm from her deceased husband. It is the first known instance of such a birth in the U.S., and it sparks debate over the ethics of allowing the use of sperm to create a child without the consent of the father.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Senate approves, 97-3, a Republican-sponsored bill that expresses a commitment to deploy “as soon as technologically possible” a national missile defense system to protect the U.S. against a limited missile attack. . . . Major General David Hale, a two-star army general who retired in 1998 while under investigation for allegations of sexual misconduct, pleads guilty to eight counts of misconduct. He is the first army general to undergo a courtmartial since 1952 and the first general ever to be court-martialed in retirement. Hale is reprimanded and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine.

Robert Quarles Marston, 76, medical educator and director of the NIH, 1968–73, dies in Gainesville, Florida, of cancer.

Lasse Kjus of Norway clinches the men’s overall World Cup alpine skiing title.

Eleven passengers are killed and more than 100 are injured when an Amtrak train crashes in Bourbonnais, Illinois, some 50 miles (80 km) south of Chicago. Officials state it is among the deadliest crashes in Amtrak’s 26-year history. . . . The U.S. National Human Genome Research Institute announces an accelerated timetable, estimating that the year 2000 will mark the completion of the project to decode the entire human genome, or genetic sequence.

Chess player Maurice Ashley becomes the first black person to attain the rank of grandmaster. . . . Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Curtis Mayfield, Del Shannon, the Staple Singers, and Dusty Springfield are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. . . . Harry Morey Callahan, 86, photographer considered one of the most talented and influential artists in his field, dies in Atlanta, Georgia, of cancer.

A genetic study concludes that the lineages of African and nonAfrican humans split apart 189,000 years ago, some 70,000 years earlier than previously estimated. The researchers base their conclusion on their study of a gene controlling the production of an enzyme that plays a key role in glucose metabolism.

Rev. Henry J. Lyons, charged with federal fraud and tax evasion, resigns as president of the Baptist Convention.

A panel investigating the medical benefits of marijuana finds that the drug is moderately useful in treating such symptoms as the pain and nausea associated with AIDS. However, the report argues that the benefits of marijuana in its smoked form are extremely limited because of the toxicity of the smoke. . . . The FTC votes to accept a settlement it had reached in an antitrust lawsuit against computer microprocessor maker Intel Corp.

Doug Swingley of Lincoln, Montana, wins the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Alaska. He is the only non-Alaskan ever to win the race. . . . The IOC votes to expel six members who allegedly took gifts and cash payments in return for their votes in favor of holding the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. . . . Rev. Henry J. Lyons pleads guilty to federal fraud and tax evasion charges in Tampa, Florida.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 12

March 13

March 14

March 15

March 16

March 17

1248—March 18–23, 1999

World Affairs

Europe Ethnic Albanian representatives sign a peace accord aimed at ending a year-old conflict between Yugoslavia and the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Separately, officials reports that the fighting has spread along a nine-mile (15-km) front in northern Kosovo.

March 18

March 19

March 20

March 21

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Pres. Jamil Mahuad Witt reaches a compromise with opposition parties that enables the government to decrease a heavy surcharge on gasoline that exacerbated economic turmoil in Ecuador. . . . Reports indicate that former interim president Fabian Alarcon Rivera has been jailed on corruption charges.

Fiona Jones, a Labour Party member of the British Parliament, is stripped of her seat after being convicted for campaign malpractice. It is the first conviction of a sitting MP for electoral malpractice in 75 years. . . . A bomb explodes in Vladikavkaz, the capital of the Russian republic of North Ossetia, killing at least 53 people and severely wounding more than 100 others. . . . The Serbs reject the peace proposal accepted by the KLA Mar. 18. Officials estimate the conflict has forced 240,000 ethnic Albanians to flee.

Some 18,000 Iraqis, in defiance of UN travel and other restrictions, cross into Saudi Arabia for the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca after Saudi king Fahd agrees to pay the pilgrims’ expenses.

International cease-fire monitors begin withdrawing from Kosovo because of intensifying violence. Serbian forces launch a renewed offensive against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo’s central Drenica region, a KLA stronghold. In one incident, Serbian forces reportedly detain and kill 10 men in the village of Srbica. . . . Sir Michael Harris Caine, 71, British businessman who spearheaded the founding in 1968 of the Booker Prize, Britain’s most prestigious literary award, and who was knighted in 1988, dies in London of cancer.

Most of the pilgrims who crossed into Saudi Arabia on Mar. 19, return to Iraq, some citing Saudi mistreatment.

The left-of-center Social Democrats, the largest party in Finland’s ruling coalition, wins a plurality of parliamentary seats in a general election. . . . Ernie Wise (born Ernest Wiseman), 73, British comedian who with Eric Morecambe made up the comedy duo Morecambe and Wise, dies of heart failure and a chest infection.

Reports from Zambia confirm that three reporters have been charged with espionage.

Reports reveal that the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has called on the Australian government to suspend its implementation of the 1998 Native Title Amendments Act, which restricts aboriginal land rights.

In Zambia, newspaper editor Fred Mmembe is charged with espionage.

In Australia, P.M. John Howard’s cabinet approves a draft of a new constitutional preamble, which among other features will recognize the aborigines’ prior occupation of the land. Australians will vote on the preamble in November. . . . A powerful storm, Cyclone Vance, sweeps across Western Australia’s Pilbara coast, destroying infrastructure and hundreds of buildings.

March 22

March 23

Africa & the Middle East

NATO secretary general Javier Solana announces NATO’s decision to launch air strikes directed at stopping the Serb attacks on ethnic Albanians and “weakening their ability to cause further humanitarian catastrophe.”

Nicholas Steyn, a white farmer convicted of murdering a young black girl, is sentenced to five years in prison, but the presiding judge suspends the sentence, ruling that Steyn had no intention of harming the child. The case raises racial tensions in South Africa.

Jaime Sabines Gutierrez, 72, Mexican poet who was one of his country’s best-loved and most widely read writers and the winner of Mexico’s highest literary award, the National Prize for Letters, in 1983, dies in Mexico City of cancer.

Four unidentified gunmen assassinate Vice Pres. Luis Maria Argana in Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay. His driver is also killed, but his bodyguard survives the attack. . . . The Cuban government reveals that Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon, 27, has been convicted of terrorism and sentenced to execution for planting bombs at Cuban tourist locations in 1997.

Japanese premier Keizo Obuchi visits South Korea in the first trip to that country by a Japanese premier in five years. . . . Reports indicate that Chinese authorities have ordered an academic magazine known for its discussions of political reform to close. . . . Tofilau Eti Alesana, 74, prime minister of the Independent State of Samoa (formerly Western Samoa), from 1982 to 1985 and for some months in 1988, dies in Apia, Samoa, of cancer.

Japanese warships fire warning shots at two suspected North Korean boats that have entered Japanese waters, in Japan’s first naval engagement since 1953. . . . Australia’s stock market, the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX), breaks through the 3000-point mark for the first time in its existence.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 18–23, 1999—1249

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The House passes, 317-105, a bill that expresses a commitment to deploy a national missile defense system to protect the U.S. against a limited missile attack. . . . The parents of six men held by the INS begin a hunger strike. . . In Miami, Florida, Judge James King rules that payments owed by U.S. telephone companies to a Cuban-Italian phone company may be used to pay damages awarded to the families of four Cuban-American pilots killed by the Cuban military in 1996.

The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. trade deficit ballooned in January, registering a record $16.99 billion gap in trade in goods and services, up from December 1998’s revised $14.06 billion deficit. The gap exceeds economists’ expectations. . . . A federal jury in Akron, Ohio, rules that the nation’s four largest tobacco companies are not liable for the costs of treating smoking-related illnesses incurred by 114 union health plans in the state.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

March 18

House Republicans and Democrats attend a bipartisan retreat in Hershey, Pennsylvania, designed to foster greater civility in Congress after four years of partisan attack politics that culminated in Pres. Clinton’s impeachment in December 1998.

March 19

Roy Lee Johnson, 93, admiral of the U.S. Navy who commanded the Seventh Fleet in 1964, when U.S. ships fired on North Vietnamese gunboats in the Gulf of Tonkin, dies in Virginia Beach, Virginia, of respiratory failure.

Dr. Bertrand Piccard of Switzerland and Brian Jones of Britain complete the first-ever nonstop circumnavigation of the earth in a balloon, achieving what is regarded as one of the last major challenges in aviation. . . . Patrick Heron, 79, British abstract painter and art commentator, dies near St. Ives, Cornwall, England, of unreported causes.

Brigadier General Henry V. Graham, 82, National Guard general who in 1963 ordered Alabama governor George Wallace (D) to step aside and allow the entry of the University of Alabama’s first black students into a school building, dies in Birmingham, Alabama, while suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

At the Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles, the romantic comedy Shakespeare in Love wins seven Oscars, including the one for best picture.

The General Accounting Office (GAO) reports that federal and state officials often ignore complaints of abuse of nursing-home residents.

In Kumho Tire Co. Ltd. et al. v. Carmichael et al., the Supreme Court rules unanimously to expand the role of trial judges to act as “gatekeepers” in preventing unreliable or irrelevant expert testimony from reaching a jury.

James P. Hoffa is sworn in as president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union. . . . In Central State University v. American Association of University Professors, the Supreme Court rules, 8-1, that the state of Ohio may exempt from its contract negotiations with public university professors a policy that allows the state to determine the amount of time that professors are required to spend in the classroom.

Arthur Emmons Raymond, 99, engineer who led the team that designed the DC-3 twin-engine airplane for Douglas Aircraft Co. in the early 1930s, dies in Santa Monica, California.

The Senate passes, 58-41, a resolution supporting U.S. participation in the impending NATO strikes in Kosovo.

March 20

March 21

March 22

A United Methodist bishop lodges an official complaint against 69 ministers who, in an act of defiance of church law, jointly officiated at a union ceremony for a female homosexual couple in Sacramento, California, in January.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 23

1250—March 24–29, 1999

March 24

March 25

March 26

March 27

Europe

NATO launches air strikes against Yugoslavia, prompted by the Serbian refusal to sign a peace accord with ethnic Albanians fighting for the independence of Kosovo and by Serbian violence against ethnic Albanians. The strikes are NATO’s first assault on a sovereign nation in its 50-year history. Yugoslavia uses MiG jets in defense. . . . Britain’s highest court rules that the 1998 arrest of Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, Chile’s former military ruler, was lawful. . . . German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder announces that EU member nations have unanimously decided to nominate Romano Prodi, a former premier of Italy, as the president of the European Commission.

A deadly fire breaks out near the middle of a vehicular tunnel that connects France and Italy under Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps. The blaze traps dozens of cars and trucks in the seven-mile (11-km) tunnel.

A train traveling from Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, to the port of Mombasa derails in a safari park, killing 32 people and injuring 254. . . . Allan Boesak, a former church leader convicted Mar. 17 of theft and fraud, is sentenced to six years in prison.

NATO cruise missile and aerial bombardments strike some 50 targets in Yugoslavia. Yugoslav authorities report that 10 Yugoslav civilians were killed and 60 people were injured in the Mar. 24 attacks. Yugoslavia announces it is severing diplomatic relations with the U.S., Britain, France, and Germany. . . . EU heads of government approve a trade pact with South Africa.

In Macedonia, thousands of demonstrators launch protests at the U.S., British, and German embassies, denouncing the NATO strikes. Police use tear gas to dispel the protesters after they break windows and set fire to embassy cars. . . . In Estonia, Mart Laar of the Fatherland Party is sworn in as the new premier.

Jailed leaders of Gamaa al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group), Egypt’s largest Islamic guerrilla organization, announce a permanent cease-fire, ending their seven-year-old armed campaign to replace the secular government of Pres. Hosni Mubarak with an Islamic regime.

The 15-nation EU declares in a summit communiqué that it stands ready to recognize a Palestinian state “in due course.” It is the first time that the EU explicitly recognizes the Palestinians’ “unqualified right” to statehood and other forms of selfdetermination. . . . NATO planes shoot down two Yugoslav MiG fighter jets over Bosnia–Herzegovina.

The deadly fire that broke out March 24 in a vehicular tunnel that connects France and Italy is brought under control.

The PNA frees Mahmoud al-Zohar, a Hamas leader in Gaza who was jailed in February.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In the wake of the Mar. 23 assassination of Luis Maria Argana, the lower house of Paraguay’s Congress votes to begin impeachment proceedings against Pres. Raul Cubas Grau. . . . In response to Britain’s decision about the arrest of Chilean general Pinochet, several hundred anti-Pinochet demonstrators celebrate in Santiago, the capital of Chile. Police use water cannons on students who stage demonstrations, and some 20 people are arrested. . . . in Guatemala, Judge Henry Monroy, presiding over the case of the April 1998 killing of Roman Catholic bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera, becomes the third official to resign from the case, citing acts of intimidation.

In Paraguay, protesters clash with police and military troops outside the Congress building, where the Senate is debating Pres. Cubas’s impeachment. As many as 150 demonstrators are injured in the protests. . . . Haitian president René P´reval installs a new, 15-member cabinet by decree in an effort to end a political stalemate that has left Haiti without a functioning government since the resignation of Premier Rosny Smarth in 1997.

The Serbs for the first time shoot down a NATO plane, a U.S. F-117 stealth fighter, near Budjenovci, 35 miles (50 km) northwest of Belgrade. The plane’s unidentified pilot is rescued six hours later.

In Vienna, Austria, roughly 9,000 Serbs rally in a demonstration against NATO and the U.S. . . . A masked gunman tries to launch a grenade at the U.S. embassy in Moscow, sparking a gun battle with Russian authorities. No one is injured.

March 28

March 29

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

NATO begins the second phase of its campaign against Yugoslavia, launching strikes around the clock and expanding targets to include military support infrastructure such as headquarters and barracks, equipment, supply lines and depots, and munitions factories.

Reports reveal that four protestors injured in the Mar. 26 demonstrations died from their wounds. In response, Pres. Raul Cubas Grau resigns. Senate president Luis Angel Gonzalez Macchi is sworn in as Paraguay’s president.

In Israel, the finance ministry and the Histadrut trade-union federation signs a compromise wage agreement, ending a public-sector strike that has halted garbage collection and mail delivery, closed schools, and slowed public transportation and state utilities.

A protester dies from wounds received during the Mar. 26 demonstrations in Paraguay, bringing the death toll to 5. . . . Statistics Canada finds that 62% of reported Canadian sexual-assault victims in 1997 were under the age of 18, and that about one-third of all victims were younger than 12 years old. There were 30,735 incidents of sexual assault reported to the police in 1997, the fourth consecutive year that the number of such offenses had decreased.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 24–29, 1999—1251

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

A pair of separate studies link the growth of managed-care health insurance plans to a decline in academic medical research funding and in free physician care provided to the poor. . . . San Jose, California, police announce that the department will require officers to record the race, sex, and age of every motorist they pulled over. By doing so, San Jose becomes the second city in California to announce such a program, joining San Diego.

The U.S. and Russia sign an agreement to restart a $12 billion program under which Russia will convert uranium from dismantled nuclear warheads into fuel for U.S. nuclear power plants.

In Minnesota v. Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that several bands of Chippewa Indians in Minnesota retain fishing and hunting rights guaranteed to them in an 1837 treaty with the U.S. government.

In Helsinki, Finland, at the World Figure Skating Championships, Russians Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, the defending world champions, win the gold medal for pairs.

Pres. Clinton signs a bill that will prohibit nursing homes from evicting patients solely because their bills were paid by Medicaid, the health-insurance program for the nation’s poor that the federal government and states jointly fund.

The House, 221-208, and the Senate, 55-44, pass a Republican budget blueprint for the fiscal 2000 year and the coming decade.

At the World Figure Skating Championships, Russian Alexei Yagudin, 19, wins the men’s title. . . . Calvin Edwin Ripken Sr., 63, professional baseball player, coach and manager, dies in Baltimore, Maryland, of lung cancer.

A Michigan jury convicts assistedsuicide advocate Dr. Jack Kevorkian of second-degree murder for killing Thomas Youk, 52, a terminally ill man suffering from ALS, by lethal injection in 1998. The death, which Kevorkian videotaped, was broadcast on the CBS television news program 60 Minutes in November 1998.

A state jury in Little Rock, Arkansas, convicts Whitewater figure David Hale of lying to state regulators about the financial health of a company he owned, National Savings Life Insurance Co.

Astronomers report that a gamma ray burst detected by scientists in January occurred some 9 billion light-years away.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A United Methodist Church jury in Downers Grove, Illinois, convicts Rev. Gregory Dell of breaking church law by officiating at the union of two homosexual men in 1998. He is the first minister convicted under the Methodists’ rule. . . . At the World Figure Skating Championships, Anjelika Krylova and Oleg Ovsyannikov of Russia win the ice-dancing gold.

At the World Figure Skating Championships, Mariya Butyrskaya clinches the gold medal, becoming the first Russian to win that event at the World Championships. With her win, it is the first time that one country has swept all four events.

Data shows that, in the daily protests that have been taking place outside police headquarters in New York City since Mar. 9, more than 1,200 people have been peaceably arrested, including prominent public figures. . . . Lawyers for Donna and Richard Fasano reveal the couple will give up one of two twins recently born to Donna Fasano after she was mistakenly impregnated with another couple’s embryo by a fertility clinic. The Fasanos, who are white, will allow the child, who is black, to be raised by its apparent biological parents, Deborah PerryRogers and Robert Rogers.

A Marine Corps navigator, Captain Joseph Schweitzer, pleads guilty to obstruction of justice and conspiracy charges in the case of a 1998 military jet flight in Italy that resulted in a fatal ski-lift accident in which 20 people died. . . . A missile-defense system being developed for the Army known as the Theater HighAltitude Area Defense (THAAD) program fails its sixth consecutive interception test.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above the 10,000 level for the first time ever, streaking 184.54 points, or 1.88%, from the previous day’s close to 10006.78. It is the seventh time in just over four years that the benchmark stock average has broken through a so-called millennium level.

Sea Launch Co., an international joint venture formed to send commercial satellites into space from a platform at sea, conducts its first test launch when a Ukrainian- and Russian-built Zenit-3SL rocket carrying a dummy satellite blasts off from a converted oil-drilling platform in the Pacific Ocean. The dummy satellite successfully enters its planned geosynchronous orbit.

Baseball’s Baltimore Orioles win, 3-2, in a game against a team of Cuban players in Havana, the capital of Cuba. It is the first time a U.S. professional baseball team has played in Cuba since March 1959. Leader Fidel Castro Ruz attends the event.

More than 100,000 workplace computers are affected by a virus contained in computer documents attached to e-mail messages.

The Testament by John Grisham tops the bestseller list.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 24

March 25

March 26

March 27

March 28

March 29

1252—March 30–April 4, 1999

World Affairs

Europe

April 1

The Americas

The opposition headed by former Pres. Nicephore Soglo’s Renaissance of Benin (RB) party wins a majority in the 83-seat National Assembly. The legislative election is Benin’s third since the advent of a multiparty political system in 1990.

March 30

March 31

Africa & the Middle East

Asia & the Pacific Reports indicate that Chinese authorities have charged Wang Yingzheng, a 19-year-old prodemocracy activist, with attempting to subvert state power. . . . A Hong Kong court rules that 17 residents of mainland China who overstayed their temporary visas in Hong Kong have to return to China.

NATO members respond to the refugee crisis in Kosovo with an outpouring of aid.

Serb forces capture three U.S. soldiers patrolling the Yugoslav-Macedonia border. . . . Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari appoints current premier Paavo Lipponen to serve as caretaker premier while negotiations continue on the formation of a new government.

Zambia’s High Court rules that the founder and former president of Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda, is not a citizen of the country because, although he was born in the country, his parents were Malawian missionaries. Kaunda had voluntarily given up his Malawian citizenship years before.

Reports reveal that a Cuban court has sentenced Otto Rene Rodriguez Llerena, a Salvadoran charged with terrorism in a bombing campaign, to death by firing squad.

Iraq tells the UN Security Council that in the first two weeks of March, Britain and the U.S. flew 195 sorties over Iraq’s northern no-flight zone and 511 missions over the southern no-flight zone.

Monitors in Kosovo state they have received reports of at least 800 ethnic Albanian executions in the past week. A UNHCR report claims that killings and numerous atrocities have been committed by both the ethnic Albanian KLA fighting for Kosovo’s independence and the Serbs. . . . A jury in London, England, convicts Anthony Sawoniuk of two counts of murder for his involvement in World War II–era Nazi war crimes. Sawoniuk, 78, receives two life sentences. His trial is the first held under Britain’s War Crimes Act of 1991.

In light of the Mar. 31 ruling by Zambia’s High Court, founder and former president of Zambia Kenneth Kaunda is granted a court order preventing his arrest pending his appeal. . . . Businessman Nana Kwaku Dua is chosen as the new Ashanti king, succeeding King Otumfuo Opoku Ware II, who died in February. The Ashanti are a West African people whose centuries-old kingdom is now an administrative region in Ghana.

Canada officially redraws its map to include the new territory of Nunavut, an Arctic area that was the eastern part of the Northwest Territories. It is the first time Canada has altered its map since 1949. The new territory covers some 772,000 square miles (2 million sq km) and has a population of only 25,000 people, roughly 85% of whom are Inuit. . . . In Mexico, protesters attempt to impede the inauguration of Rene Juarez Cisneros as governor of Guerrero by blocking the entry to the government palace.

April 2

April 3

April 4

In its first assault on Belgrade, NATO fires seven cruise missiles at the Serbian and Yugoslav interior ministry buildings at 1:00 A.M. local time. NATO states it will send 6,000–8,000 troops to Albania to ensure the security of the refugees and assist in the emergency relief effort. In the face of the worsening refugee crisis in Kosovo, several NATO member nations state that they will airlift as many as 110,000 refugees out of the region. More than 400,000 ethnic Albanians have fled Kosovo since NATO started its bombing campaign on Mar. 24.

In Israel, clashes erupt between Muslims and Christians in Nazareth on Easter Sunday, amid Christian fears that Muslims will build a towering mosque with a minaret that might overshadow the Church of the Annunciation.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

March 30–April 4, 1999—1253

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

An Oregon jury awards $81 million in damages to the family of Jesse Williams, a deceased smoker, in a lawsuit against Philip Morris. It is the largest award in such a case. . . . Green Party candidate Audie Bock wins a seat in the California State Assembly, becoming the first Green Party member elected to a state legislature in the U.S. . . . Olsten Corp., a home health-care company, states it has agreed to pay $61 million to settle a federal investigation of alleged fraudulent Medicare billing practices. . . . Democrats in the Alabama State Senate end a dispute with Lt. Gov. Steve Windom (R) that shut down the chamber for a month.

Two of Mexico’s largest banks, Grupo Financiero Bancomer SA and Grupo Financiero Serfin SA, plead guilty in Los Angeles to criminal charges of international drugmoney laundering. It is said to be one of the largest money-laundering cases ever investigated by U.S. law enforcement.

New forecasts predict that Social Security and Medicare, the nation’s two biggest social programs, will remain solvent longer than expected. Social Security is predicted to be unable to meet its obligations beginning in 2034, two years later than previously forecast. Medicare is forecast to run short of funds in 2015, seven years later than the last estimate.

Researchers reveal they have found that a popular fertility treatment alters the ordinary process by which DNA from a sperm cell and an egg combine to form the genetic makeup of an embryo.

The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, grants the NCAA a stay of a lower court order that abolished its eligibility rules for freshman athletes.

The White House reveals that 92% of the federal government’s critical computer systems have been repaired and updated in preparation for the year 2000 (Y2K) computer glitch.

In Largo, Florida, Judge Susan Schaeffer sentences Rev. Henry J. Lyons to five and a half years in prison for bilking money from the National Baptist Convention, a leading black denomination in the U.S.

U.S. officials state that the soldiers captured in Serbia on March 31 are Staff Sergeant Andrew Ramirez, 24; Staff Sergeant Christopher Stone, 25; and Specialist Steven Gonzales, 24. . . . The Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) officially becomes part of the State Department, ending its 38-year existence as an independent armscontrol agency within the federal government.

An unusual snowstorm hits the mountains and canyons in and around the Cleveland National Forest, some 40 miles (65 km) east of San Diego, California.

Jesse Stone, 97, songwriter, arranger and producer, dies who in Altamonte Springs, Florida, of heart and kidney ailments.

A Marine jury at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, sentences Joseph Schweitzer, who Mar. 29, pled guilty to obstruction of justice and conspiracy charges, to dismissal from the Marine Corps. . . . Reports confirm that the unusual snowstorm in California on Apr. 1 resulted in the deaths of at least 12 Mexicans attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexican border and illegally enter the U.S.

New Jersey law-enforcement officials arrest David Smith, 30, a computer programmer, and charge him with creating and sending out a computer virus that spread to more than 100,000 computers around the world.

The administrative board of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops calls for the public, especially Roman Catholics, to seek an end to capital punishment.

A tornado estimated to be 300 yards (275 m) wide strikes the small town of Benton, Louisiana, 10 miles (16 km) north of Shreveport, destroying two mobile-home parks and killing six people. More than 100 people are injured, and some 200 are left homeless.

Helen Aberson Mayer, 91, writer who created the cartoon character Dumbo, dies in New York City.

Four NYC police officers—Sean Carroll, Edward McMellon, Richard Murphy, and Kenneth Boss—who are charged with murder in the February shooting death of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed African immigrant, are arraigned in the Bronx.

The CDC reports that in the year after Florida adopted an aggressive antismoking educational campaign, the smoking rate among middleschool students declined by 19%. That drop is larger than any national decline observed among youth groups since 1980. . . . In Lubbock, Texas, Judge Sam Cummings deems that a federal law prohibiting any person under a restraining order from owning a gun is unconstitutional when he dismisses charges against Dr. Timothy Emerson.

Early (Gus) Wynn, 79, baseball pitcher who won 300 games in a 23-year career in the American League, dies in Venice, Florida, of complications of a stroke. . . . Lucille Lortel (born Lucille Wadler), 98, theatrical producer whose Lucille Lortel Theater provided a forum for innovative theatrical talent, dies in New York City.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

March 30

March 31

April 1

April 2

April 3

April 4

1254—April 5–10, 1999

World Affairs

April 5

April 6

April 7

April 8

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Two Libyans charged in the U.S. and Britain with the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland—Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah—arrive in the Netherlands for trial there. . . . As many as three NATO bombs fall on two residential areas in the town of Aleksinac, 100 miles (160 km) southwest of Belgrade. It is the first time in the bombing campaign that NATO strikes have hit civilian buildings.

Reports confirm that 34 people have been killed in several days of clashes between Christians and Muslims in the eastern Moluccas archipelago, which forms Indonesia’s Maluku Province.

NATO focuses its attacks on Serbian troops and armored vehicles in an area near the Kosovo-Albanian border. NATO also launches a series of attacks against the Yugoslav Third Army, which is leading the offensive against ethnic Albanians in Nis and Pristina.

Violence flares between Muslims and Christians in Nazareth. . . . South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission denies a collective amnesty application submitted by 79 senior ANC members.

NATO loses an unmanned U.S. reconnaissance plane, apparently due to Serbian fire. It is the second NATO aircraft downed since the bombing campaign started. . . . The UN condemns Macedonia for forcibly relocating an estimated 30,000–45,000 refugees from a camp on the border with Kosovo.

Yugoslavia closes Kosovo’s borders with Albania and Macedonia. Officials report that Serbs have set fire to 50 villages since April 4. . . . Edgar Pearce pleads guilty at London’s Central Criminal Court to 20 charges related to a 31⁄2-year bombing campaign known as the “Mardi Gra” bombings.

South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission denies amnesty to Janusz Walus and Clive DerbyLewis, who killed Chris Hani, an antiapartheid leader who headed the South African Communist Party.

Iraq rejects the recommendations of three UN special panels established in January to end the impasse over the UN’s U.S.-led arms monitoring and sanctions regimes on Iraq. . . . The European Central Bank (ECB) lowers its main lending rate, the refinancing rate, to 2.5% from 3%. The ECB rate cut is the first interest rate change ever implemented by the institution, which controls monetary policy in European Union countries that adopted the EU’s new currency, the euro.

The death toll from the Mar. 24 fire in a vehicular tunnel that connects France and Italy stands at 40.

Reports reveal that Libyan Airlines has made its first international flight since the suspension of U.N. sanctions imposed in 1992. The flights come after the Apr. 5 handover of two Libyans charged in the U.S. and Britain with the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland.

The Yugoslav republic of Serbia reopens Kosovo’s borders with Albania and Macedonia, allowing refugees to once again flee Kosovo. Serbian forces begin a daily campaign of firing artillery at the KLA over the border.

Niger president Ibrahim Mainassara Bare, 49, is assassinated, apparently by members of his presidential guard in an ambush at the international airport. . . . Ismail Omar Guelleh is elected president of Djibouti.

Yugoslav officials disclose that since the NATO bombings began in March, more than 300 civilians have been killed and nearly 3,000 more have been wounded in the attacks.

Iran’s deputy chief of staff of the armed forces, Brigadier General Ali Sayyad Shirazi, 55, is shot to death in Teheran, the capital. The Iraqbased Iranian opposition group People’s Mujahedeen claims responsibility for the assassination.

April 9

April 10

Asia & the Pacific

An arrest warrant is issued for for Mario Villanueva Madrid, outgoing governor of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. He is the highestranked elected official in Mexico to be investigated on drug charges. . . . Pierre Lebrun, a former employee of a bus company based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, shoots and kills four workers and wounds one other before committing suicide.

As many as 57 people are killed in an attack on a church in Liquica in Indonesia.

A boat carrying 54 illegal Chinese immigrants runs aground on the north coast of New South Wales, Australia.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 5–10, 1999—1255

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Russell Henderson, 21, pleads guilty in the 1998 kidnapping and beating death of Matthew Shepard, a homosexual Wyoming college student. Judge Jeffrey Donnell sentences him to two consecutive life terms in prison. . . . . In Wyoming v. Houghton, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that police officers have the authority to search the belongings of automobile passengers even if the officers suspect only the driver of illegal activity. . . . The Supreme Court rules unanimously in Mitchell v. U.S. that defendants who plead guilty to criminal charges do not forfeit their right to remain silent at their sentencing hearings.

Reports reveal that three Mexicans have been arrested on federal charges of immigrant smuggling in connection with the immigrants who died in the Apr. 1–2 snowstorm.

Pulaski County circuit judge David Bogard formally imposes the jury’s recommended sentence of 21 days’ imprisonment on Whitewater figure David Hale.

Missouri voters reject a proposal that would have lifted a century-old ban on the carrying of concealed weapons. The vote, which receives nationwide attention, is the first referendum ever held in the U.S. on the issue. . . . In San Francisco, California, Judge John Munter in cuts in half the $50 million in punitive damages awarded by a jury in February to Patricia Henley in her suit against cigarette maker Philip Morris.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

April 5

Archaeologists announce they have discovered the frozen mummies of three Inca children atop a volcano in northern Argentina.

Red Norvo (born Kenneth Norville), 91, xylophone and vibraphone player credited with helping popularize and legitimize both instruments in the jazz community, dies in Santa Monica, California.

Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours, is named the winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

The U.S. announces plans to impose 100% tariffs on $191.4 million worth of European products in retaliation for what U.S. officials call unfair European Union restrictions on Latin American bananas.

On Equal Pay Day, recent statistics show that women on average earned 74% as much as men in 1997.

A working group of an advisory panel to the NIH releases its draft version of rules governing federal funding for research on human embryonic stem cells.

The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City rules that two labor-union health funds cannot proceed with a lawsuit against cigarette makers over smokingrelated illnesses suffered by their members. . . . Federal judge Loren Smith orders the U.S. government to pay $908.9 million to Glendale Federal Bank, a California thrift, for the government’s failure to honor financial promises made at the beginning of the savings and loan crisis in the early 1980s.

The FDA approves the use of eye implants called Intacs to correct mild nearsightedness. . . . A missile warning satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral aboard a Titan rocket but is put into the wrong orbit.

Julie Krone, the most successful female jockey in North American horse racing, announces that she will retire from the sport, effective Apr. 19.

April 6

April 7

April 8

April 9

Bobbyjo wins the 152nd running of Great Britain’s Grand National Steeplechase in Liverpool, England.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 10

1256—April 11–16, 1999

April 11

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

NATO states it has disabled half of Serbia’s air force, damaged all of its airfields, and destroyed roughly half of Serbia’s air defenses and two of Serbia’s three main army headquarters.

Serbian shelling of the northern Albanian town of Tropoja kills two Albanian civilians and wounds 12 others. Two masked men shoot and kill Slavko Curuvija, one of Yugoslavia’s most prominent independent journalists and a vocal critic of Pres. Slobodan Milosevic.

Niger president Ibrahim Mainassara Bare, assassinated April 9, is buried in his home village 125 miles (200 km) south of Niamey. An army junta led by the head of the presidential guard, Daouda Malam Wanke, assumes power in the wake of Bare’s death.

Two NATO missiles strike a passenger train as it crosses a bridge in southeastern Serbia, killing at least nine civilians and injuring 16. . . . Truck drivers throughout Britain blockade streets and highways to protest recent increases in fuel levies and vehicle registration taxes.

Tens of thousands of Iranians attend the military funeral of Brigadier General Ali Sayyad Shirazi, assassinated Apr. 10. . . . Niger’s 11 opposition parties express support for the new military junta.

In Colombia, a plane with 46 passengers and crew aboard is hijacked en route to Bogota, the capital, from the northeast city of Bucaramanga.

NATO begins escalating its air strikes against Yugoslavia.

French investigators blame Italian officials for exacerbating the effects of a tunnel fire in March that killed at least 41 people. . . . An estimated 60–100 Serbian troops raid an Albanian border post in the town of Kamenica, just inside Albania’s northern border. It is the first time since the NATO bombing began that Serbian troops enter Albania. . . . Willi Stoph, 84, premier of East Germany 1964–73, 1976–89, dies in Berlin of unreported causes.

Local newspapers report that 29 people were killed in Mascara province—some 250 miles (400 km) southwest of Algiers—a few days earlier by suspected Islamic rebels.

In Colombia, five elderly people and an infant—six of the hostages aboard the plane hijacked Apr. 12—are released to Red Cross workers. . . . In Venezuela, supporters of Pres. Hugo Chavez Frias rally outside the Congress building, calling for the dissolution of Congress. . . . In one of the most exhaustive investigations in Toronto’s history, a jury convicts Francis Roy, 41, of first-degree murder in the 1986 killing of 11-year-old Alison Parrott.

NATO launches missiles and bombs at targets throughout Yugoslavia in what NATO describes as its most intensive attacks since the bombing campaign began more than three weeks earlier. . . . The European Union meets to discuss diplomatic means of ending the conflict in Kosovo.

Yugoslav officials reveal that NATO bombed two convoys of ethnic Albanian refugees, killing between 64 and 85 people and injuring 25 others. . . . Edgar Pearce, labeled the “Mardi Gra” bomber, is sentenced in London’s Central Criminal Court to 21 years in prison for a series of bombings and threatened bombings perpetrated in the mid1990s.

British home secretary Jack Straw rules that the extradition case against General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, Chile’s former military leader, will be allowed to proceed.

Latvia’s parliament abolishes capital punishment. . . . A coalition of five political parties, headed by Premier Paavo Lipponen, is sworn in as the government of Finland.

Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who has the support of the army, is elected president of Algeria. He is the only candidate on the ballot. . . . Arye Deri, leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party of Jews of Middle Eastern and North African origin, is sentenced to four years in prison for corruption. . . . Israeli soldiers and the Israel-allied SLA seize the village of Arnoun, effectively absorbing it into Israel’s self-declared security zone in southern Lebanon.

At least 40 people are killed when two separate torrents of mud and rock triggered by weeks of rain bury several blocks of the western town of Argelia, 150 miles (240 km) west of Bogotá, the capital of Colombia. Separately, the ELN releases three of the 41 remaining hostages taken during the Apr. 12 hijacking of a commercial airplane.

Pakistan test-fires a missile able to carry nuclear warheads. Separately, former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, are convicted of corruption charges by a panel of two Lahore High Court judges in Rawalpindi. Both Bhutto and Zardari are sentenced to five years in prison.

The ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) turns over to Albanian authorities a Yugoslav army officer captured overnight near the town of Junik, in Kosovo. . . . Sir (Archibald) Laurence Patrick Kirwan, 91, director and secretary of Britain’s Royal Geographical Society, 1947–75, dies in London of unreported causes.

Thousands of demonstrators in Algiers and other cities protest the Apr. 15 election results.

An increase of some 30% in fuel prices, along with several other new taxes, prompts protests all over Jamaica.

Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) calls for a strike in Bhutto’s home province, Sindh, in protest of her Apr. 15 conviction for corruption.

April 12

April 13

April 14

April 15

April 16

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific India conducts a test launch of an intermediate-range ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and of striking targets in Pakistan.

Hutomo (Tommy) Mandala Putra, son of former Indonesian president Suharto, is formally charged with corruption in connection with a real estate deal.

Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysia’s former deputy prime minister, is found guilty of four charges of corruption and sentenced to a six-year prison term. Anwar’s 1998 arrest and subsequent trial sparked unprecedented protests against the government of P.M. Mahathir bin Mohamad. Riot police arrest 18 demonstrators and use water cannons and tear gas to break up protests that draw several thousand people. . . . In response to India’s April 11 tests, Pakistan conducts a test-launch of an intermediate-range ballistic missile that can carry a nuclear warhead.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 11–16, 1999—1257

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

In Little Rock, Arkansas, Judge Susan Webber Wright holds Pres. Clinton in contempt of court for giving “intentionally false” testimony about his relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky in the Paula Jones sexualharassment case. She orders Clinton to pay Jones “any reasonable expenses” incurred as a result of his false testimony. . . . The GAO reports that health maintenance organizations (HMOs) often give Medicare beneficiaries inaccurate and incomplete information on costs and benefits.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Data reveals that the IRS audited 20% fewer tax returns in the fiscal 1998 year than it had in fiscal 1997. Of the 120 million individual tax returns filed in fiscal 1998, one in 217 was audited.

At the Denver International Airport in Colorado, the FAA concludes full-scale test of its Y2K computer repairs and finds that the system “worked as it should, smoothly, efficiently and safely.”

José María Olazabal of Spain wins the 63rd Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Georgia. . . . British architect Sir Norman Foster is named the winner of the 1999 Pritzker Architecture Prize for lifetime achievement. . . . Shakespeare in Love wins for best film at Britain’s annual motion-picture awards.

A federal jury in Little Rock, Arkansas, acquits Susan McDougal of obstruction of justice for refusing to testify about the roles of Pres. Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Whitewater land development and other Arkansas business deals. The presiding judge, George Howard Jr., declares a mistrial on the criminal contempt charges. . . . In Washington, D.C., Judge Stanley Sporkin sentences Nolanda Hill, a former business partner of late commerce secretary Ronald Brown, to four months in prison for failing to report some $140,000 of income on her federal tax returns.

Researchers suggest that lycopene, a nutrient found in tomatoes, helps shrink prostate tumors and prevents them from spreading beyond the prostate gland.

Pulitzer Prizes are awarded to Michael Cunningham, John McPhee, and Margaret Edson, among others. Musician Duke Ellington receives a posthumous citation for his work in jazz during a career that lasted more than 50 years. . . . Boxcar Willie (born Lecil Travis Martin), 67, country-music singer and self-styled railroad hobo, dies in Branson, Missouri, of leukemia.

Judge Jessica Cooper sentences assisted-suicide advocate Dr. Jack Kevorkian to 10–25 years in prison for his role in the euthanasia death of Thomas Youk, 52, a terminally ill man he was convicted of killing in September 1998. The death, which Kevorkian videotaped, aired on the CBS television program 60 Minutes in November 1998.

Eric Ross donates $5 million to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and helps dedicate its administration building to his parents, Albert and Regina Rosenberg, both of whom died at Auschwitz. It is the largest gift to the institution since its opening in 1993.

Independent counsel Kenneth Starr tells the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee that he opposes renewing the 1978 law under which he was appointed. Starr defends his 41⁄2-year-old investigation of Pres. Clinton—which led to the president’s impeachment in the Monica Lewinsky matter—but argues that the independent counsel law itself is flawed.

The House approves, 220-208, vote the Republican majority’s budget resolution for fiscal 2000. The nonbinding resolution will serve as a blueprint for congressional appropriators during their negotiations with Pres. Clinton on the final terms of the 2000 budget.

Figures reveal that Vice Pres. Al Gore and Texas governor George W. Bush (R) have raised far more campaign money than their rivals for presidential nominations in 2000. Gore raised $8.9 million in the first quarter of 1999; Bush received $7.6 million in contributions in 28 days without holding a single fundraising event. . . . The Senate approves, 54-44, the budget blueprint for fiscal 2000. It is the first time since 1994 that lawmakers have passed the budget resolution in time for the Apr. 15 deadline.

April 11

April 12

April 13

April 14

In a landmark observation, two teams of astronomers announce the first discovery of a system of multiple planets orbiting a star other than the sun. Three large planets are orbiting Upsilon Andromedae, about 44 light years away in the constellation Andromeda. . . . Four studies suggest that a treatment of high doses of chemotherapy and a bone-marrow transplant does not help patients with advanced breast cancer live longer than they would with chemotherapy alone.

Scientists report they have discovered a species of bacterium that is larger by far than any previously known. The bacterium, named Thiomargarita namibiensis, was discovered in 1997 in sediment from the ocean floor off Namibia, is spherical in shape, and ranges in size from about 750 to 100 micrometers, visible to the naked eye.

April 15

Wayne Gretzky, considered by many to be the greatest player in the history of the National Hockey League, announces his retirement. . . . Skip Spence, 52, a member of rock bands Moby Grape and Jefferson Airplane, dies in Santa Cruz, California, of lung cancer. . . . Rapmusic producer Sean (Puffy) Combs is arrested in the beating of record executive Steven Stoute.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 16

1258—April 17–21, 1999

April 17

World Affairs

Europe

British and U.S. fighter planes resume attacks against targets in northern Iraq.

The KLA discloses that it captured two Yugoslav army officers and a soldier described as a Russian mercenary near Kosovo’s border with Albania. . . . A 515-mile (830km) oil pipeline running through Azerbaijan and Georgia to the Black Sea opens. A consortium of 11 companies from eight countries spent $1.5 billion over two years to build the pipeline. . . . An explosion wounds at least 40 people in the Brixton section of South London. The Yugoslav government breaks off diplomatic relations with Albania. . . . Premier Bulent Ecevit’s Democratic Left Party wins a plurality of votes cast in Turkey’s national parliamentary election.

April 18

April 19

NATO for the first time admits that it hit a column of refugees near the town of Djakovica, in southeastern Kosovo, the previous week.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific The 13-month-old government of P.M. Atal Behari Vajpayee collapses when it loses a vote of confidence in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India’s parliament.

A military tribunal in Cairo, the capital of Egypt, sentences nine militants of the outlawed Islamic Jihad (Islamic Holy War) group to death for conspiring to overthrow the secular government of Pres. Hosni Mubarak and replace it with a strict Islamic regime. In other tribunal decisions, some 11 defendants are given life sentences at hard labor; 67 are sentenced to prison terms ranging from one to 15 years; and 20 are found not guilty.

The Bundestag, the lower house of Germany’s parliament, holds its inaugural session in the recently renovated Reichstag building in Berlin. It is a major step in the ongoing transfer of the German government to Berlin, the country’s capital throughout most of its early history, from Bonn.

April 20

April 21

Two U.S. Marine Corps F-18 jets drop 500-pound (225-kg) bombs off target in Vieques, Puerto Rico, leaving one civilian security guard dead. The accident prompts Puerto Ricans to protest the U.S. Navy presence on the island. . . . In Jamaica, rioters block roads by burning tires, trees, and appliances, and they clash with police who try to remove the roadblocks. . . . Argentine farmers and ranchers carry out a three-day strike to protest new economic policies.

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II travels to South Korea in the first visit by a British monarch to the country since Britain established diplomatic relations with the former Korean kingdom in 1883.

Students of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the country’s largest university, launch a strike to protest a tuition increase. . . . Retired colonel Bernardo Ruiz, the former commander of the 20th Intelligence Brigade, which was disbanded in 1998, is arrested on murder charges in Bogota, Colombia.

In Peshawar, Pakistan, more than 20 people are arrested after police use tear gas to break up a demonstration protesting the Apr. 15 convictions of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari.

In response to the protests that started April 16 in Jamaica, Prime Minister P. J. Patterson announces that he will appoint a committee to suggest alternatives to the fuel tax.

Forces of the opposition Northern Alliance in Afghanistan’s civil war capture Bamiyan, a city 60 miles (100 km) west of the capital, Kabul, held by the ruling Taliban militia. The Taliban, which espouses a fundamentalist brand of Sunni Islam, controls some 90% of the country.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 17–21, 1999—1259

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

April 17

Golfer Allen Doyle wins the 60th PGA Seniors’ Championship. . . . Raghubir Singh, 56, Indian photographer whose pictures were published in Indian and U.S. periodicals and are on display at a retrospective exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, dies in New York City of an apparent heart attack.

In ApolloMedia Corp. v. Reno, the Supreme Court denies a First Amendment challenge of a provision in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that makes it a crime to send obscene electronic-mail messages or faxes. . . . A federal rule requiring federal prosecutors to comply with ethics standards set by state bar associations in the states where they are operating goes into effect. The rule was mandated by a provision in the fiscal 1999 appropriations bill for the Justice Department.

A study suggests that the chief executive officers (CEOs) of large U.S. companies earned an average pay of $10.6 million in 1998. The 1998 average represents a 36% increase over the corresponding figure in 1997, and a 442% hike over the average CEO compensation of $2 million in 1990.

Joseph Chebet of Kenya and Fatuma Roba of Ethiopia win the men’s and women’s races, respectively, in the Boston Marathon. . . . Actor Danny Glover donates $1 million to the TransAfrica Forum, a group that monitors U.S. government policies toward Africa and the Caribbean and seeks to promote democracy in Africa.

Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, storm Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, and, in a fivehour rampage, use guns and bombs to kill 13 people and wound more than 30 others before killing themselves. The attack is the deadliest such incident in U.S. history. . . . New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman (R) and New Jersey attorney general Peter Verniero admit that some state troopers have practiced racial profiling, pulling over black and Hispanic motorists solely because of their race.

In Unum Life Insurance Co. of America v. Ward, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that California state law regulating insurance supersedes a provision in the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) pertaining to insurance-claims deadlines. . . . The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. trade deficit soared in February, rising to register a record $19.44 billion gap in trade in goods and services. That is up from January’s revised $16.81 billion deficit.

Señor Wences (born Wenceslao Moreno), 103, Spanish-born ventriloquist who was a popular guest on U.S. television programs in the 1950s and 1960s, dies in New York City.

The Senate confirms Gary Gensler as undersecretary for domestic finance.

Buddy Rogers (born Charles Edward Rogers), 94, motion picture actor and band leader, dies in Rancho Mirage, California. . . . Liz Tilberis (born Elizabeth Kelly), 51, British-born magazine editor who became president of the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund in 1997, dies in New York City of cancer.

In the wake of the Apr. 20 attack at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, lawmakers withdraw two pending bills that would eliminate local gun controls and liberalize state rules for carrying concealed handguns. In Florida and Alabama, lawmakers postpone bills that would protect gunmakers from liability lawsuits arising from shootings. Arizona governor Jane Dee Hull (R) vetoes similar legislation . . . . The House, 368-57, and the Senate, 98-1, approve the “EdFlex” bill, giving states flexibility in using federal education funds.

The Senate confirms Timothy Geithner as undersecretary for international affairs and Edwin Truman as assistant secretary for international affairs.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 18

April 19

April 20

April 21

1260—April 22–27, 1999

World Affairs

April 22

April 23

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

In Venezuela, Congress approves legislation granting Pres. Hugo Chávez sweeping powers to reform the country’s economy. . . . Hernando Santos Castillo, 76, considered one of the most politically influential journalists in Colombia and an adviser to a number of Colombian presidents, dies in Bogotá of complications of a cerebral hemorrhage.

The heads of state and government of the 19 NATO member nations meet in Washington, D.C., to mark the alliance’s 50th anniversary. The leaders of more than 20 other nations that hope to join NATO also attend the ceremonies, Separately, NATO attacks the headquarters of Serbian state television at 2:00 A.M. local time, killing an estimated 16–20 people.

A Via Rail passenger train derails at a switching station in Thamesville, Ontario, Canada, and crashes into a set of stationary freight cars. The train’s engineer and a trainee engineer are killed in the accident. Six other crewmen and more than 90 passengers are injured.

The agriculture minister for the state of New South Wales, Australia, approves the slaughter of an estimated 1.5 million chickens afflicted with Newcastle disease.

Figures show that nine people have been killed and at least 70 people arrested in connection with the violence that started April 16 in Jamaica. Authorities acknowledge that police officers are responsible for seven of the deaths.

Arthur Merric Bloomfield Boyd, 78, painter considered one of the greatest Australian artists of the century, dies in Melbourne, Australia, after suffering from heart ailments.

Venezuelans vote overwhelmingly in favor of the creation of a national assembly to write a new constitution for the country.

More than 10,000 members of a quasi-religious sect gather for a silent protest outside Zhongnanhai, the compound where China’s highest-ranking officials live and work in Beijing, the capital of China. The protesters demand recognition from the government for their movement, known as Falun Gong or Falun Dafa.

An explosion injures seven people in London’s Brick Lane neighborhood, which has a large population of Bangladeshi residents.

April 25

April 27

Asia & the Pacific

NATO bombs a Belgrade residence of Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic at 4:00 A.M. local time, as NATO attacks on Yugoslavia enter their second month. . . . U.S. Pres. Clinton presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the U.S.’s highest civilian honor, to former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, who oversaw the reunification of East and West Germany.

April 24

April 26

The Americas

Finance ministers and central-bank governors from the Group of Seven (G-7) major industrialized nations meet in Washington, D.C. . . . The foreign ministers of the EU approve a voluntary embargo on oil shipments to Yugoslavia by the 15 EU nations.

Jill Dando, 37, a nationally known television news host who appeared on several BBC programs, is shot and killed outside her London home. . . . The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Cornelio Sommaruga, is allowed for the first time to visit three U.S. soldiers taken captive by Serbian forces nearly a month earlier.

NATO launches an attack on a transmitter on an office building housing the party headquarters of Slobodan Milosevic’s ruling Socialist Party of Serbia. Separately, NATO commander General Wesley Clark estimates that since NATO began its bombing campaign over a month earlier, Serbian forces have driven more than 700,000 ethnic Albanians out of Kosovo.

A NATO laser-guided bomb misses a target and hits a residential complex in the Serbian town of Surdulica, killing an estimated 16–20 civilians, including 11 children.

Businessman Nana Kwaku Dua is installed as the new Ashanti king, succeeding King Otumfuo Opoku Ware II, who died in February. He takes for his title King Osei Tutu II. . . . Officials disclose that Egyptian authorities have freed some 1,000 imprisoned members of the Gamaa al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group), the country’s largest Islamic guerrilla organization.

Indian president K. R. Narayanan dissolves the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India’s Parliament, and calls for a general election. . . . AntiAnjouan protests are unleashed in Moroni, located on Grande Comore on Comoros, a three-island nation in the Indian Ocean. . . . Man Mohan Adhikary, 78, the first Communist prime minister of Nepal, 1994–95, dies in Katmandu, Nepal, of unreported causes.

The Supreme Court in Paraguay rules that Pres. Luis Gonzalez Macchi, who took office when former Pres. Raul Cubas Grau fled the country in March, will remain in office until 2003, through the end of Cubas’s term.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 22–27, 1999—1261

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

North Carolina becomes the first state to enact a law requiring the collection of race data at all traffic stops. . . . Billboard ads for cigarettes are taken down across the country under the terms of a November 1998 settlement of state lawsuits against the tobacco industry. . . . In Washington, D.C., Judge Emmet Sullivan rules that Russell Weston Jr. is incompetent to stand trial for killing two Capitol police officers in July 1998. Sullivan orders Weston to be placed in a mental health facility.

A Black Hawk helicopter engaged in practice exercises crashes in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, killing seven people aboard and injuring the remaining four passengers.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

April 22

Thomas Koskovich is convicted for his role in the 1997 murder of Jeremy Giordano, 22, and Giorgio Gallara, 24. The murders of the two pizza deliverymen are called “thrill killings” by authorities who attest that Koskovich committed the murders to feel what it was like to kill someone. . . . The Maine Supreme Court upholds a previous ruling when it finds, 5-1, that state-funded school vouchers cannot be used to send children to parochial schools.

Scientists reveal they cannot confirm the findings of researchers who claimed to have found a genetic link to homosexuality in males. . . . A team of paleontologists disclose the discovery of a fossil skull in Ethiopia that they think belonged to a previously unknown species of human ancestor. The scientists name the new species Australopithecus garhi. Their claim that it is a possible immediate predecessor of humans is disputed.

April 23

Officials confirm that four 14-yearold students in Wimberley, Texas, have been charged as juveniles for allegedly plotting to kill students and teachers at their junior high school.

April 24

A memorial service attended by some 70,000 people—twice the population of Littleton, Colorado— is held for the victims of the Apr. 20 school attack. Local, state and national officials attend, including Vice Pres. Al Gore. . . . Roman Lee Hruska, 94, Republican congressman, 1952–54, and senator, 1954–76, from Nebraska, dies in Omaha, Nebraska, of complications from injuries suffered in a fall.

Lord Killanin (born Michael Morris), 84, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), 1972–80, dies in Dublin, Ireland.

Figures show that the 500 largest U.S. companies saw their aggregate profit fall in 1998 for the first time in seven years. Excluding a large one-time gain at Ford Motor Co., total profit at 500 companies fell 1.8% to $318 billion, from $324 billion in 1997. Aggregate revenue was $5.741 trillion, up 4% from $5.519 trillion a year earlier. The gain in total revenue, however, was down from 1997, when the rate of revenue growth was 8.7%. A federal grand jury in Little Rock, Arkansas, hands down a 133-count corruption indictment against several members of the state’s Democratic establishment. The indictment names 10 people, including two current and two former state senators and two former senior education officials. The defendants face charges of money laundering, racketeering, mail fraud, and other crimes.

The FDA approves the first of a new class of diet drugs that work by blocking the body’s absorption of fat from food. The drug is called orlistat. . . . A computer virus affects hundreds of thousands of computers around the world. The virus is called the Chernobyl virus because it is designed to strike on the anniversary of the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the former Soviet republic of Ukraine. A satellite intended to take highresolution photographs of the Earth for commercial use is launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Ground controllers lose contact with the satellite minutes late.

April 25

April 26

Reports confirm that poet Robert Pinsky has been named to a third term as poet laureate of the U.S. . . . Al(ois) Maxwell Hirt, 76, trumpeter whose music came to symbolize the New Orleans sound and who recorded 55 albums, dies in New Orleans, Louisiana, after suffering from liver ailments.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 27

1262—April 28–May 2, 1999

April 28

April 29

April 30

World Affairs

Europe

NATO launches its most intense air attacks to date against targets in Montenegro, Serbia’s junior partner in the Yugoslav federation, as it continues its air campaign against Yugoslavia.

Sir Alf(red) Ernest Ramsey, 79, manager of England’s national soccer team, 1963–74, dies.

Yugoslavia files cases against 10 NATO members, including the U.S., in the World Court, claiming that NATO’s air strikes contravene international law.

NATO planes hit Yugoslavia’s defense ministry headquarters in downtown Belgrade for the first time. . . . Russian president Boris Yeltsin endorses a blueprint planning for “the development and use of nonstrategic nuclear weapons.”

Since Apr. 29, NATO flies the most bombing runs in a 24-hour period than it has flown since the campaign against Yugoslavia started in late March. . . . Cambodia is inducted as the 10th member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) regional trade organization.

More than 11,000 ethnic Albanians enter Albania. . . . A nail bomb explodes in a bar in central London, killing two people and wounding more than 70 others. At least 13 people sustain serious injuries in the blast, including two people who lose limbs.

The Americas

NATO admits that a NATO missile struck a bus as it passed over a bridge in Luzane, Serbia. The missile cut the bus in half, killing an estimated 34–47 civilian passengers.

Asia & the Pacific

The Peruvian General Workers’ Federation (CGTP) leads a nationwide general strike, criticizing the government’s failure to improve living standards in Peru and protesting Pres. Alberto Fujimori’s intention to run for a third term despite a constitutional ban. It is the first general strike in the country since Fujimori took office in 1990. . . . A 14-year-old boy shoots two students at a high school in Taber, Alberta, Canada, before he is subdued and arrested. One of the students is killed in the attack. The Central Council of the PLO endorses Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s recommendation to delay a decision on Palestinian statehood, originally scheduled to be declared May 4, until after the outcome of Israeli national elections.

The Cormoran army overthrows the government of Comoros, a threeisland nation in the Indian Ocean, in a bloodless coup.

The Nicaraguan government yields to the demands of university students after nearly two months of protests when it agrees to raise the budget for the country’s universities.

Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic orders the release of three captured U.S. soldiers—Specialist Steven Gonzales and Staff Sgts. Andrew Ramirez and Christopher Stone—following an appeal by U.S. civil-rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson to make such a “bold diplomatic move.” . . . The death toll from the Apr. 30 nail bomb in central London climbs to three when one of the wounded dies from his injuries.

May 1

May 2

Africa & the Middle East

The Tokyo Stock Exchange holds its last trading session. Face-toface trading on the floor of the exchange is to be replaced by electronic trading systems. . . . The Cormoran army reveals that the military coup on Apr. 29 against the government of Pres. Tadjiddine Ben Said Massounde was launched to quell violence on the main island of Grande Comore and to prevent the country from falling into anarchy. Col. Azaly Assoumani is named the country’s new leader. Thailand detonates 1,000 land mines in compliance with an international treaty that bans use of the devices. . . . A group of American mountain climbers on Nepal’s Mount Everest finds the body of a man identified as George Mallory, who died in June 1924 during an attempt to be the first person to reach the summit of Everest, the world’s highest mountain.

NATO hits transformers at five separate locations in Serbia, disrupting electricity in much of Yugoslavia. NATO also bombs a hydroelectric plant in Obrenovac, cutting power to all of Belgrade and other parts of Serbia. . . . Pope John Paul II beatifies Padre Pio, a Franciscan Capuchin friar said to have borne stigmata, or marks resembling the wounds of Jesus Christ. The ceremony is attended by 200,000 people, among the largest crowds ever assembled at the Vatican. . . . A political crisis erupts in Turkey when member of Parliament Merve Kavakci arrives at the legislature’s swearing-in ceremony wearing a traditional Islamic head scarf.

Mireya Moscoso de Gruber of the conservative opposition Arnulfista Party is elected president or Panama. Moscoso is the first woman ever elected to the position.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

April 28–May 2, 1999—1263

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The National Center for Health Statistics finds that the overall 1997 birth rate was 14.5 births per 1,000 total population, down from 14.7 in 1996. The 1997 rate is the lowest since the government began keeping such records in 1909. The teenage birth rate fell 4% in 1997, to 52.3 births per 1,000 girls ages 15–19. That is the sixth consecutive annual drop in the rate, reflecting a 16% decrease from its peak level of 62.1 in 1991.

The House passes, 249-180, a measure that will force Pres. Clinton to secure approval from Congress before sending ground troops to Yugoslavia.

The Clinton administration eases food and medicine sanctions against Iran, Libya, and Sudan, stating that sales of such commodities to the three countries will henceforth be determined on a case-by-case basis.

Arthur Leonard Schawlow, 77, physicist who played a key role in the development of the laser and cowinner of the 1981 Nobel Prize in physics for his contributions to the field of laser spectroscopy, dies in Palo Alto, California, of congestive heart failure resulting from leukemia.

Rory Calhoun (born Francis Timothy Durgin), 76, film and television actor who appeared in scores of westerns in the 1940s and 1950s, dies in Burbank, California, while suffering from diabetes and emphysema.

Pres. Clinton signs into law the “EdFlex” bill, giving states flexibility in using federal education funding.

Japanese premier Keizo Obuchi visits the U.S. It is the first official visit to the U.S. by a Japanese premier in 11 years.

New Hampshire resolves a schoolfunding crisis without resorting to creating a statewide income tax. New Hampshire is one of only two states, with Alaska, that has no statewide income or sales tax. . . . The Labor Department reports that the employment-cost index, the broadest measure of labor costs, rose 0.4% in the first quarter, the smallest increase since the department introduced the index in 1982. . . . The Dow closes at a record high of 10,878.38. That marks the 13th record high of the month and the 21st record high of 1999.

Scientists reveal that the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft has detected strong magnetic fields on the planet Mars, suggesting that the planet once had a molten core.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) holds its annual convention in Denver, Colorado. The gathering has been scaled back to a one-day event in the wake of the Littleton attack at Columbine High School. Several thousand people protest the convention in a rally on the steps of the nearby state capitol building.

The U.S. State Department’s annual terrorism survey characterizes Iran as a country that plans and executes terrorist acts, but the survey drops its year-earlier designation of Iran as “the most active state sponsor of terrorism.” In addition to Iran, Libya, and Sudan, the State Department continues to identify Cuba, Syria, Iraq, and North Korea as sponsors of international terrorism.

April 28

April 29

A U.S. military communications satellite is launched by the U.S. Air Force from Cape Canaveral, Florida, but it is stranded thousands of miles below its intended orbit.

A federal jury in New York City convicts document dealer Lawrence X. Cusack III of mail and wire fraud for forging more than 200 documents that he attributed to Pres. John F. Kennedy. Cusack sold the forged documents to more than 100 investors for a total of $7 million.

An amphibious tour boat sinks on Lake Hamilton in Hot Springs, Arkansas, killing 13 of the 21 passengers on board. . . . J. John Sepkoski Jr., 50, paleontologist who, with a colleague, uncovered evidence supporting catastrophism, a theory that sees evolution as a series of mass species extinctions rather than a gradual process, dies in Chicago, Illinois, of heart failure related to high blood pressure.

Charismatic wins the 125th running of the Kentucky Derby in Louisville, Kentucky. . . . Three spectators are killed by flying debris from a car crash at an Indy Racing League event in Charlotte, North Carolina, Eight fans are injured. The deaths are the first fatalities in the 40-year car racing history of Lowe’s Motor Speedway.

Underwater explorers reveal they have found the Mercury space capsule that carried astronaut Virgil (Gus) Grissom back to Earth in 1961. The capsule sank when a hatch accidentally opened, and Grissom was rescued.

John Elway, considered by many to be one of the best quarterbacks in the history of the NFL, announces his retirement from professional football. . . . (Robert) Oliver Reed, 61, British film and television actor known for his formidable screen presence, dies in Valletta, Malta, of unknown causes after becoming ill while drinking at a bar.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

April 30

May 1

May 2

1264—May 3–7, 1999

May 3

World Affairs

Europe

U.S. and British planes continue their near-daily targeting of Iraqi air defense sites in the so-called northern and southern no-fly zones. . . . NATO reports that, in unrelated incidents, two NATO planes were struck by Serbian fire in May. The crews were not harmed. . . . Mohammed Daoud Odeh, a former PLO guerrilla who is known by his code name Abu Daoud and who is tied to the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 summer Olympic Games, is denied entry into France and put on a return flight to Tunisia.

Lithuanian premier Gediminas Vagnorius, steps down after Pres. Valdas Adamkus accuses him of being too authoritarian in handling the country’s privatization program.

May 6

May 7

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

French premier Lionel Jospin fires Bernard Bonnet, prefect of the French-controlled Mediterranean island of Corsica, in connection with allegations that the island’s police set fire to a restaurant frequented by Corsican nationalists. The controversy is regarded as France’s first major government scandal since Jospin came to power in 1997.

Kuwait’s emir, Sheik Jabir al-Ahmad al-Sabah, dissolves Parliament after lawmakers seek a no-confidence vote against the minister of Islamic affairs, Ahmed al-Kulaib. . . . Iraqi officials claim that seven members of one family were killed in late April during an air attack by U.S. and British forces near Mosul, located 220 miles (350 km) north of Baghdad, the capital.

The Nicaraguan government of Pres. Arnoldo Aleman Lacayo accedes to the demands of an estimated 10,000 transportation workers who have been striking for two months and who have set up roadblocks and clashed with police to protest an increased fuel tax and other government changes to the industry.

Reports confirm that a newly identified form of viral encephalitis that experts believe spread from pigs to humans have killed at least 101 people in Malaysia. The epidemic led the Malaysian government to embark on a mass slaughter of nearly 1 million pigs in the affected region, which is the largest pigbreeding area in Southeast Asia. About 200 pig farmers protest in Kuala Lumpur, calling for an increase in the planned amounts of compensation.

Indonesia and Portugal sign a UNbrokered agreement to allow citizens of East Timor to vote on whether to officially become an autonomous region within Indonesia. . . . The European Parliament votes to approve the nomination of former Italian premier Romano Prodi as president of the European Commission. . . . NATO experiences its first casualties of the mission against Yugoslavia when a U.S. helicopter crashes during a training flight in Albania, killing two U.S. soldiers, Chief Warrant Officers David Gibbs, 38, and Kevin Reichert, 28.

Macedonia closes its borders to ethnic Albanian refugees, saying it will take in only as many refugees as are airlifted out of Macedonia each day. . . . Major John Howard, 86, British commander of a gliderborne light infantry unit that seized two strategically important bridges in the first battle of the Allies’ June 1944 D-Day invasion of Normandy, dies in Surrey, England, of unreported causes.

In Nigeria, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, who took power in June 1998, signs a new constitution that will take effect with the May 29 handover to civilian rule. . . . A court in Yemen issues death sentences to three Islamic militants for their role in the abduction and killing of Western tourists in Yemen in December 1998. A fourth man is sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment. Ten others are acquitted.

Police find and destroy three cocaine-processing laboratories capable of producing eight tons of cocaine a month in Colombia.

Col. Azaly Assoumani is sworn in as president of Comoros, a threeisland nation in the Indian Ocean.

The foreign ministers of the Group of Eight (G-8) industrialized countries—Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the U.S.—agree on general principles for a diplomatic solution to the conflict in Kosovo.

British prime minister Tony Blair’s ruling Labour Party wins the largest number of seats in the first elections for the new Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. Although Labour will not hold a majority of seats in either body, the elections are seen as a victory by the party over nationalist parties that advocate greater home rule for Scotland and Wales.

Doctors identify a disease that recently killed 63 people in northeastern Congo as the Marburg virus.

Three Chinese citizens staying in the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia’s capital, are killed when a NATO plane drops at least three precision-guided bombs on the embassy. The dead are identified as journalists Shao Yunhuan and Xu Xinghu, and Xu’s wife, Zhu Ying. Another 20 people are wounded in the bombing, six seriously. The bombing sparks massive protests throughout China and strains the ongoing diplomatic effort to end the conflict in Kosovo.

NATO bombs hit hospital grounds and a marketplace in Nis, Yugoslavia’s third-largest city, killing 15 people and injuring as many as 70. . . . The Bundestag approves an overhaul of laws on the attainment of citizenship. . . . Pope John Paul II visits Romania, becoming the first pope to travel to a predominantly Orthodox Christian country since the Eastern and Western branches of Christianity split in the Great Schism of 1054.

In Guinea-Bissau, a rebel military junta ousts Pres. João Bernardo Vieira. Renegade troops led by former army chief Brigadier General Ansumane Mane attack the presidential palace in Bissau, the capital city. Some 70 people die during the fighting.

May 4

May 5

Africa & the Middle East

Reports reveal that since the beginning of May, a number of small clashes that erupted between militants and Indian military troops in the disputed Kashmir region have left some 300 people dead.

The National Liberation Army (ELN), a leftist rebel guerrilla group, releases seven more hostages whom the group has held since hijacking a commercial airplane in April.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 3–7, 1999—1265

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

In Colorado, Jefferson County authorities arrest Mark Manes, 22, a recent graduate of Columbine High School, in the town of Littleton, on a charge that he provided one of the guns used by two students in a deadly attack on the school in April.

In INS v. Aguirre-Aguirre, the Supreme Court unanimously rules that foreigners are ineligible for refugee protection in the U.S. if they committed a “serious nonpolitical crime” in their own country, regardless of whether they might face political persecution if deported. . . . The parents of men held by the INS end the hunger strike they started March 18. . . . Japanese premier Keizo Obuchi and U.S. president Bill Clinton announce a series of measures to deregulate the Japanese economy.

U.S. Economy & Environment

The governors of 10 states announce plans for a joint effort to improve middle-school students’ performance in mathematics, through the development of a common curriculum and standardized tests.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

As many as 76 huge tornadoes strike Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, and South Dakota, causing severe destruction and leaving at least 47 people dead. The two hardest-hit states are Oklahoma and Kansas, where most of the deaths occur. The tornadoes injure more than 700 people in those states and damage or destroy more than 2,000 homes.

The Baltimore Orioles host the Cuban national baseball team in Baltimore, Maryland. It is the first time a Cuban team plays a professional baseball team in the U.S. since Fidel Castro Ruz took power in Cuba in 1959. The Cuban team defeats the Orioles, 12-6. . . . We’ll Meet Again, by Mary Higgins Clark, tops the bestseller list.

An unmanned Delta 3 rocket carrying a communications satellite malfunctions shortly after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The rocket enters space, but fails to place the satellite in its intended orbit It is the fourth U.S. satellite launch failure to occur within a month. . . . Pres. Clinton declares 11 counties in Oklahoma and one in Kansas to be disaster areas. Officials in Oklahoma and Kansas estimate $200 million and $140 million in damages, respectively.

Cuban pitching coach Rigoberto Herrera Betancourt, 54, seeks asylum in a Baltimore, Maryland, police station after the May 3 game.

The storm system that hit Oklahoma and Kansas May 3 spawns destructive thunderstorms and high winds across Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

Wen Ho Lee, dismissed in March from his job at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico for allegedly divulging U.S. nuclear secrets to China, makes the first detailed rebuttal of the widely reported allegations through his lawyer. . . . The House votes, 311105, to approve $13 billion in emergency defense spending.

A jury in Newton, New Jersey, sentences to death Thomas Koskovich, 21, convicted Apr. 23 of murdering Jeremy Giordano and Giorgio Gallara. In a move called unprecedented, Judge Reginald Stanton imposes a five-year deadline for the state to carry out the execution. . . . A federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia, declares a mistrial in Kenneth Starr’s obstruction of justice case against Julie Hiatt Steele, a peripheral figure in the Monica Lewinsky case and the only person prosecuted in the investigation.

Science, Technology, & Nature

A Marine Corps jury finds marine captain Richard Ashby, the pilot of a Marine jet that caused a fatal ski lift crash in Italy in 1998, guilty of obstructing justice by helping destroy a videotape made during the flight. Ashby was acquitted in March of manslaughter charges in the accident that sent 20 people plunging to their death.

May 4

May 5

The May 5 storms begin to subside after damaging homes and power lines and leaving four dead in Tennessee. . . . The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California, upholds a lower court ruling that federal restrictions on the export of encryption technology violates constitutional freespeech guarantees.

Leon Hess, 85, founder of the Amerada Hess Corp. oil company and owner of the NFL’s New York Jets, whose personal fortune was estimated at $720 million in 1998, dies in New York City of complications of a blood disease.

May 3

May 6

A Michigan jury orders The Jenny Jones Show to pay $25 million to the family of Scott Amedure, a homosexual man murdered by Jonathan Schmitz after Amedure admitted on a 1995 episode of the talk show that he was sexually attracted to Schmitz. Schmitz’s criminal retrial is pending.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 7

1266—May 8–12, 1999

May 8

Europe

In response to the May 7 bombings on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, U.S. president Bill Clinton and NATO secretary general Javier Solana apologize for what they both describe as a “tragic mistake.”

Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski signs a law that will limit development and public gatherings within 100 yards (90 m) of former Nazi concentration camps. . . . The ruling center-right coalition of Premier David Oddsson wins a majority of seats in Iceland’s 63-seat unicameral parliament, the Althing. . . . Sir Dirk Bogarde (born Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven Van Den Bogaerde), 78, British actor, writer, and the biggest male sex symbol in the late 1950s, dies in London of a heart attack.

In response to the May 7 bombings, thousands of people launch daily demonstrations in front of the U.S. embassy in Beijing, effectively trapping U.S. ambassador James Sasser and his staff. . . . The first group of UN representatives acting as advisers arrive in East Timor in anticipation of a vote on the future status of the region. . . . Pakistani authorities arrest prominent journalist Najam Sethi, whose editorials were highly critical of the government of P.M. Nawaz Sharif.

Brendan Fegan, reputed to be one of Northern Ireland’s leading drug dealers, is shot and killed at a bar in the town of Newry.

The Cambodian government detains under protective custody Kang Kek Ieu, who served as a prison camp commander and chief of the secret service for the Khmer Rouge. Known as Duch, he had been presumed dead since he fled Phnom Penh, the capital, after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979. . . . Authorities seize 54 people of apparent Middle Eastern origin on an island off Australia’s northwestern coast.

May 9

May 10

May 11

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

NATO resumes its intensified attacks throughout Yugoslavia and in Belgrade.

A report by the U.S. State Department reveals evidence of mass executions committed by Serbian forces in at least 70 towns and villages. According to the report, more than 4,000 ethnic Albanians have been killed and more than 300 villages burned. . . . German prosecutors reveal that Barbara Meyer, 42, a member of the defunct Red Army Faction (RAF) left-wing guerrilla group, has turned herself in to police. The RAF is held responsible for the deaths of 50 people in the 1970s and 1980s, and it disbanded in April 1998.

The World Health Organization (WHO) sets its goal, and it makes combating malaria and reducing deaths from smoking top priorities. The report also lists the top causes of death worldwide in 1998: heart disease, stroke, and respiratory diseases. AIDS moves up to fourth place among all causes of death, from seventh in 1997.

The KLA and Yugoslav forces are reported to be engaged in fierce fighting. . . . Sir Ian Fraser, 98, British doctor who led a medical team that administered penicillin to wounded soldiers in World War II, dies in Belfast.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin dismisses Premier Yevgeny Primakov, threatening to plunge Russia into a new political and economic crisis Primakov is the third premier Yeltsin has fired in 14 months. . . . The newly elected members of the Scottish parliament are sworn in and vote to appoint Lord Steel as presiding officer in Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital. The newly elected Welsh Assembly meets for the first time. The body votes to install as presiding officer Plaid Cymru’s Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas.

May 12

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

India’s Supreme Court affirms the death sentences of four people convicted of conspiracy in the 1991 assassination of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. The high court commutes the death sentences of three defendants to life in prison. Two people are acquitted. . . . Protests that started May 7 in Beijing begin to break up. . . . Liu Lixian of Beijing is sentenced to four years in prison. Liu attempted to publish writings by China Democracy Party leaders. An Iraqi military spokesman contends that U.S. warplanes killed 12 civilians, including two children, in attacks on sites in Iraq’s northern no-fly zone.

An estimated 3,000 Indonesians gather in four cities across Indonesia to commemorate the deaths of four students killed during antigovernment protests a year earlier.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 8–12, 1999—1267

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

A Tennessee jury clears three tobacco companies of liability in the deaths of three smokers. It is the first court victory by the tobacco industry in such a case after decisions against cigarette companies in California and Oregon. . . . Amy Fisher, 24, who pled guilty to shooting her former lover’s wife in 1992, leaves a state prison in Albion, New York, on parole. Fisher was the subject of a storm of media attention at the time of her guilty plea. . . . Reports confirm that William Gates has donated $50 million to Columbia University’s School of Public Health.

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Nancy Mace becomes the first woman to graduate from the Citadel, a state-run military college in Charleston, South Carolina.

Sir Edward Penley Abraham, 85, British biochemist who, with his colleagues, discovered the enzyme penicillinase and aided the development of cephalosporins, a group of antibiotics that provide an alternative for patients allergic to penicillin, dies in Oxford, England, of unreported causes.

Dana Plato, actress who starred in the sitcom Diff’rent Strokes from 1978 to 1984, dies of an overdose of painkillers and Valium in Moore, Oklahoma.

Reports suggest that Peter Lee, a scientist working on U.S. weapons programs, disclosed classified information about a U.S. laser device used to simulate nuclear explosions to Chinese scientists in 1985.

A chartered bus en route from La Place, Louisiana, to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, crashes in New Orleans, Louisiana, killing 22 of the 46 passengers on board and severely injuring at least 17 others.

Shel(by) Silverstein, 66, children’s book author and illustrator whose three classics of children’s literature sold more than 14 million copies and were translated into 20 languages, dies in Key West, Florida, of a heart attack.

A Marine Corps jury sentences Captain Richard Ashby, found guilty of obstruction of justice on May 7, to six months in prison, as well as dismissal from the corps.

The FDA releases a report concluding that changes made by a 1992 law in its procedures for approving new drugs and medical devices have not resulted in a decrease in the safety of such products on the market.

Eqbal Ahmad, 67, scholar and political activist who taught at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, dies in Islamabad, Pakistan when his heart fails after undergoing surgery for colon cancer.

Virginia governor James Gilmore III (R) commutes the death sentence of Calvin Swann, 44, a convicted murderer, a few hours before the execution is scheduled to occur. Citing concerns about the inmate’s mental illness, Gilmore commutes his sentence to life in prison without parole. It is the first time that Gilmore has granted clemency to a death-row inmate, and the sixth time since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 that a Virginia governor has commuted a death sentence.

U.S. Economy & Environment

May 9

May 10

The Labor Department reports that the nation’s overall productivity in nonfarm business sectors rose by a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4% in the first quarter from the October-through-December 1998 quarter. That marks the indicator’s 11th consecutive quarterly increase and exceeds analysts’ expectations. A revised 4.3% gain was registered for the 1998 fourth quarter.

The INS orders the release of five Cuban-born felons detained according to provisions of the 1996 Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. Their release is ordered after the INS reviewed their cases; the reviews were prompted by a hunger strike carried out from Mar. 18 to May 3 by parents of the five detainees.

May 8

May 11

Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin announces that he is resigning. Pres. Clinton plans to nominate Lawrence H. Summers to succeed him. . . . The SEC charges 26 companies and individuals with trying to defraud investors through “outrageous or baseless promises” made over the Internet global computer network.

Saul Steinberg, 84, Romanian-born artist whose drawings often recast popular imagery to comment on urban life and life in the U.S., dies in New York City of unreported causes.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 12

1268—May 13–18, 1999

World Affairs

May 15

Sheik Abdelaziz Bin Baz, Saudi Arabia’s highest religious authority, who was believed to be in his late 80s, dies in Taif, Saudi Arabia, of cancer.

According to Swiss police, Saudi billionaire Osama bin Laden financed the 1997 killings of 58 tourists in Egypt. The slayings, which took place in an attack at Luxor, were carried out by Gamaa al Islamiya (Islamic Group), an Egyptian fundamentalist group.

British prime minister Tony Blair’s ruling Labour Party and the opposition Liberal Democrats agree to form a ruling coalition in the newly elected Scottish Parliament. The alliance is the first coalition to rule a major branch of the British government in more than 50 years. . . . The Yugoslav government returns the bodies of 10 local army conscripts killed in NATO’s attacks.

Abdulbagi al-Saadun, a deputy to the Iraqi army chief in the south of the country, discloses that antigovernment riots occurred in the city of Basra in March.

Finance ministers from the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) trade group meet in Langkawi, Malaysia. . . . NATO and the U.S. confirm that NATO dropped eight bombs on a village in the Serbian province of Kosovo on May 13, killing as many as 100 ethnic Albanian refugees. NATO states it was targeting military forces and installations in the area and was unaware civilians were in the village at the time.

Russia’s State Duma, votes not to launch impeachment proceedings against Pres. Boris Yeltsin. . . . Turkish premier Bulent Ecevit announces that Merve Kavakci, an Islamic activist elected to Parliament, is being stripped of her Turkish citizenship because she accepted U.S. citizenship without first informing Turkish officials, a rarely enforced requirement under Turkish law. Kavakci caused an uproar May 2 and never took her oath of office.

Iran’s Pres. Mohammed Khatami visits Saudi Arabia, becoming the highest-level Iranian official to visit the country since Iran’s 1979 Shi’ite Muslim revolution.

Thousands of women launch a series of demonstrations in the Serbian villages of Krusevac and Aleksandrovac, demanding that the government settle the conflict in Kosovo and release their sons and husbands from service in the Yugoslav army. The protests are sparked by the May 14 return of the bodies of 10 local army conscripts. While anti-NATO protests have been prevalent in Serbia, the current protest is the first directed against the government.

May 16

Queen Elizabeth II formally confirms Donald Dewar as Scotland’s first minister.

May 17

May 18

Africa & the Middle East

Three U.S. F-16 jets drop two laser-guided bombs and six gravity bombs on Korisa, a village in southwestern Kosovo. . . . Italian treasury and budget minister Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, a former premier, is elected president by Italy’s lawmakers and regional political leaders. Ciampi will succeed Pres. Oscar Luigi Scalfaro.

May 13

May 14

Europe

The U.S. releases two Serbian soldiers captured by the KLA and handed over to U.S. custody in April. . . . Iran and Britain agree to exchange ambassadors, normalizing their diplomatic relations for the first time since the establishment of Iran’s Islamic government in 1979.

In Israel, Ehud Barak, of the Labor Party-led center-left One Israel coalition, scores a resounding victory over incumbent prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In balloting for the Knesset, centrist parties score substantial gains, shifting the swing vote in the balance of power to Russian immigrants and others. That means that Barak, in the 45 days allotted him to form a new government, will not need the support of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties that wielded a near-veto over Netanyahu’s decision making.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Presidents Alberto Fujimori of Peru and Jamil Mahuad Witt of Ecuador dedicate the last boundary stone along a disputed area of the PeruEcuador border, formally resolving an issue that has plagued the two nations for more than 50 years. . . . King Abdullah II of Jordan visits Canada on his first trip to North America since he was sworn in as Jordan’s monarch following the death of his father, King Hussein, in February.

Canada’s largest copper mine, the Highland Valley mine in British Columbia, shuts down because of a contract dispute between the mine’s owners and its unionized workforce.

In Fiji, an opposition coalition led by the Fiji Labour Party (FLP) wins 54 of 71 seats in legislative elections. . . . A committee appointed by China’s central government votes to name Edmund Ho chief executive of Macao when the territory, currently a Portuguese colony, reverts to Chinese sovereignty in December.

Guatemalan voters, in a national referendum, reject 47 constitutional changes that would have given more rights to indigenous Guatemalans and changed the role of the military and of the judicial and executive branches of government.

Five civilians are killed in their homes in the rural village of Atara in East Timor.

Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) votes overwhelmingly in favor of holding a nationwide primary to choose a presidential candidate for the national election in 2000. The vote officially ends the traditional method of choosing the party candidate, routinely hand-picked by the sitting president. The PRI has been in power in Mexico since 1929. . . . The ruling Virgin Islands Party (VIP) wins seven of 13 seats in the Legislative Council in elections in the British Virgin Islands. The VIP has been in power for 13 years on the islands, a British territory.

Authorities seize 69 illegal Chinese immigrants off the south coast of New South Wales. . . . In the final round of balloting, voters in Nepal elect members of the Nepali Congress Party to a majority of the seats in the House of Representatives, the lower house of Nepal’s parliament.

Parliament confirms Rolandas Paksas as premier of Lithuania.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 13–18, 1999—1269

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California, rules that Border Patrol agents may use ethnicity as a factor in determining which cars to pull over at traffic stops. . . . A U.S. District Court jury in Kansas City, Missouri, decides that the tobacco company Brown & Williamson is not liable for the death of former smoker Charles Steele, who died in 1995 from lung cancer. . . . An Oregon state judge reduces to $32 million the punitive damages awarded in March to the family of a deceased smoker in a suit against Philip Morris.

In New York City, Judge Peter Leisure orders the release of thousands of pages of grand jury testimony in the case of Alger Hiss, a State Department official accused in 1948 of being a Soviet spy. Hiss was convicted of perjury in the case in 1950, but debate over whether he was a communist spy continues.

The Dow closes at a record 11, 107.19. It the third record high of the month and the 24th record high in 1999. . . . The Justice Department files an antitrust lawsuit against American Airlines that accuses the carrier of using predatory pricing and other illegal means to drive smaller competitors from its hub at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport in the mid-1990s. The suit is the first predatory-pricing action brought against a U.S. carrier by the government since 1978, when the airline industry was deregulated.

A study finds that a federal nutritional requirement has nearly eliminated folic acid deficiency in the U.S.

Gene Sarazen (born Eugene Saraceni), 97, considered one of the finest golfers during the 1920s and 1930s, dies in Naples, Florida, of complications of leukemia. . . . Meg Greenfield (born Mary Ellen Greenfield), 68, Washington Post editorial page editor since 1979 who won a 1978 Pulitzer Prize, dies in Washington, D.C., of cancer.

A Justice Department report finds that 18- to 20-year-olds—which make up 4% of the population— commit some 24% of gun-related murders. . . . Reports confirm that Wal-Mart Stores has decided not to dispense Preven, a morning-after contraceptive approved for sale in 1998, in its pharmacies. . . . Republicans in the Texas Senate block a bill aimed at protecting members of racial minorities and other specified groups, including homosexuals, from hate crimes. John Minor Wisdom, 93, judge of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, Louisiana, 1957–99, who, in 1966, wrote a ruling In U.S. v. Jefferson County (Alabama) Board of Education that is considered to have established the first legal basis for affirmativeaction policies, dies in New Orleans while suffering from a heart ailment.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District in California adopts strict rules designed to remove 22 tons (20 metric tons) of paint pollutants from the air.

May 14

Chih-Yuan Ho and Melissa Graham become the first women to graduate from the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), a state-funded military college in Lexington, Virginia.

Charismatic wins the 124th running of the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore, Maryland.

An FBI report discloses that serious crimes reported to the police in 1998 declined by 7% from the previous year. It is the seventh consecutive year that serious crimes have declined in the U.S.—the longest uninterrupted downward trend since the 1950s.

In Saenz v. Roe, the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that states cannot pay lower welfare benefits to newly arrived state residents than those paid to longtime residents. . . . In Florida v. White, the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that police do not need to get a search warrant before seizing a vehicle from a public place if they believe it was used in the commission of a crime. . . . In Hunt v. Cromartie, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that a lower court erred by declaring North Carolina’s 12th Congressional District an unconstitutional racial gerrymander without evaluating the motivations of state legislators who drew the district’s boundaries.

Robert (Bobby) Goldman, 60, World Bridge Federation Grand Master, dies of a heart attack while en route to a hospital in Lewisville, Texas. . . . The Czech Republic defeats Finland, 4-1, to win hockey’s World Championships in Lillehammer, Norway.

U.S. authorities charge Jean-Philippe Wispelaere, 28, a former employee of the Australian Defense Intelligence Organization (DIO), with attempted espionage and criminal forfeiture for his alleged efforts to sell top-secret U.S. documents to an unidentified foreign country.

According to financial disclosure forms, Pres. Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton had assets worth between $1.2 million and $5.57 million in 1998. The president’s legal bills soared in 1998 because of his impeachment in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. According to media estimates, the president ran up as much as $10 million in legal fees in the Lewinsky case and the Paula Jones sexual-harassment case. In their financial disclosure, the Clintons report that the president’s legal defense fund paid $2.6 million of his legal fees in 1998.

The House passes, 269-158, an emergency spending measure releasing $14.5 billion for the Kosovo air war, hurricane relief for Central America, and numerous other military and civilian projects added by members of Congress.

May 13

May 15

May 16

May 17

The American Society of Clinical Oncology recommends that doctors consider prescribing the drug tamoxifen to help prevent breast cancer in healthy women with increased risk of developing the disease.

Betty Robinson Schwartz (born Elizabeth Robinson), 87, sprinter and the first woman to receive an Olympic gold medal in her sport, dies in Colorado while suffering from cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 18

1270—May 19–24, 1999

May 19

World Affairs

Europe

The British Commonwealth, which primarily consists of Britain’s former colonies, states that it will readmit Nigeria on May 29. The Commonwealth suspended Nigeria’s membership in 1995 after Gen. Abacha’s military regime executed nine minority-rights and environmental activists, including the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa.

The government of Dutch premier Wim Kok collapses over a conflict concerning the proposed introduction of the use of popular referenda in the Netherlands. . . . The Russian Duma confirms Sergei V. Stepashin as premier.

May 22

During heavy attacks on Belgrade, Yugoslavia, a stray NATO bomb at 1:00 A.M. local time hits a hospital, killing three people. The bombing also damages the nearby residences of the ambassadors of Hungary, India, Norway, Spain, and Sweden, as well as the Libyan and Israeli embassies. Swedish premier Goran Persson lodges a formal protest, and NATO secretary general Javier Solana apologizes to those countries. . . . The UN Security Council votes unanimously to extend by six months the relief program that allows Iraq to raise money for its citizens’ humanitarian needs through the sale of exported oil.

In a mistaken attack, 20 NATO planes launch two strikes against Dubrava prison in Kosovo, killing 19 people, mostly prison inmates, including members of the KLA and political prisoners. . . . Germany’s Bundesrat approves an overhaul of laws on the attainment of citizenship. . . . Three Catholic nationalists are convicted and sentenced to prison terms ranging from 22 to 25 years in connection with a foiled plot to detonate bombs in London in 1998.

In response to the May 21 strikes against Dubrava prison, NATO explains that it targeted the facility in the belief that it was no longer being used as a prison. NATO confirms that it mistakenly bombed a base held by the KLA in the town of Kosare. The number of the dead from the attack vary from one to seven, and the number of wounded vary from 15 to 25.

Roughly 1,000 ethnic Albanian men, most in their late teens and early twenties, cross Kosovo’s border into Albania.

Victor Ricardo, the government’s chief negotiator with FARC, announces that a region in southwest Colombia ceded to FARC in November 1998 will remain demilitarized indefinitely. . . . In Toronto, Ontario, an escaped convict, Tyrone Conn, shoots and kills himself, ending a two-hour standoff with police and a nationwide manhunt. . . . The Supreme Court of Canada strikes down a definition of the term “spouse” in the Ontario Family Law Act under which homosexuals are denied the right to sue for spousal support.

South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission grants amnesty to 13 former members of the police or army for several killings in 1986, including the murder of ANC member Fabian Ribeiro and of a black homeland minister, Piet Ntuli.

Asia & the Pacific

Police discover the remains of eight people in six drums of acid stored in an old bank vault in Snowtown, South Australia.

Sen. Piedad Cordoba of the opposition Liberal Party is kidnapped by Colombia’s main right-wing paramilitary group in the northwestern city of Medellin.

In Germany, Johannes Rau, a moderate member of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s Social Democratic Party (SPD), is elected by lawmakers to serve as the country’s next president.

May 23

May 24

The Americas

Thousands of people gather at an election rally in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, as campaigning for June 7 parliamentary elections officially commences. All 48 parties launch campaigns in Indonesia’s first free elections since the 1950s. . . . Mahendra Chaudhry is sworn in as prime minister by Pres. Kamisese Mara, becoming Fiji’s first ethnic Indian prime minister.

Unidentified gunmen shoot and kill Massimo D’Antona, top advisor to Italian labor minister Antonio Bassolino. . . . In Germany, Alfons Goetzfried, 79, formerly a member of Nazi Germany’s Gestapo, is convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison. . . . Thousands of women end the protests that began May 16 in Serbia as the soldiers begin to return home. . . . In Turkey, a threejudge panel sentences Kurdish rebel Semdin Sakik and his brother, Arif Sakik, to death for their role in the separatist campaign. . . . Albanian president Rexhep Mejdani approves the dismissal of Interior Minister Petro Koci, averting a constitutional crisis.

May 20

May 21

Africa & the Middle East

Australian police find the body of a person in a yard in Adelaide, and they connect that victim with the eight others unearthed May 20 in Snowtown, South Australia.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia indicts Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic for “crimes against humanity” stemming from the forced deportation of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo. Louise Arbour is the first tribunal prosecutor to indict a sitting head of state. . . . The World Health Assembly, WHO’s governing body, votes to delay the destruction of the world’s known remaining samples of the smallpox virus until 2002.

South Korean president Kim Dae Jung carries out the first broad reshuffle of his cabinet since taking office in February 1998, replacing 11 of the 18 members of the cabinet. . . .The upper house of Japan’s Diet clears bills expanding Japan’s military cooperation with the U.S. in Asia.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 19–24, 1999—1271

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Former U.S. Army sergeant Ali Mohamed is indicted in New York City on charges that he trained members of a terrorist organization called al-Qaeda. The indictment marks the first time that the U.S. officially accuses al-Qaeda of responsibility for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Reports confirm that poet Andrew Motion has been selected as Britain’s new poet laureate. . . . James Blades, 97, British percussionist and writer on the history of percussion instruments, dies in Cheam, England.

The Senate approves, 73-25, a juvenile crime bill that includes several amendments aimed at strengthening gun-control laws. It is the first major gun-control initiative to gain legislative approval since 1994. . . . Thomas (T. J.) Solomon, 15, opens fire on an indoor commons area at Heritage High School in Conyers, Georgia, injuring six students before surrendering to school officials. . . . Pres. Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton address a crowd of almost 2,000 students, teachers and families in Littleton, Colorado, about the tragic school shooting that took place there in April.

The INS announces that the rules for granting permanent residency status to refugees from Guatemala and El Salvador will be eased, allowing as many as 240,000 immigrants from those countries to remain in the U.S. legally. . . . The Senate clears, 64-36, an emergency spending measure releasing $14.5 billion for the Kosovo air war, hurricane relief for Central America, and numerous other military and civilian projects added by members of Congress.

The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. trade deficit leapt in March, registering a $19.70 billion gap in trade in goods and services. That marks a third straight record high, and it is up from February’s revised $19.15 billion deficit.

A study finds that antibiotics given to animals raised for food are contributing to a rise in drug-resistant strains of disease in humans.

Stuntman Robbie Knievel, 37, makes a successful 228-foot (70-m) motorcycle jump over the mouth of a 2,500-foot-deep gorge of the Grand Canyon, setting a world distance record for motorcycle jumps. . . . Sir Robert Vidal Rhodes James, 66, British historian, biographer, and politician whose written works chronicle 19th- and 20th-century British history, dies of cancer.

The publisher of an instruction manual for hired assassins agrees to settle a civil lawsuit brought against it by relatives of three people killed by a man who consulted the book in the crime. The case raises the issue of free-speech rights, and many journalists’ organizations support the publisher, Paladin Press of Boulder, Colorado.

Pres. Clinton signs an emergency spending measure releasing $14.5 billion for the Kosovo air war, hurricane relief for Central America, and numerous other military and civilian projects added by members of Congress.

Yah Lin (Charlie) Trie, a longtime friend of Pres. Clinton, pleads guilty to two charges relating to his fundraising for Clinton’s 1996 reelection campaign and other Democratic causes. Trie is the second suspect in the fund-raising probe to agree to cooperate with prosecutors, after Johnny Chung.

The Clinton administration discloses that it will allow privately funded scientists studying the medical uses of marijuana to use marijuana grown for research purposes by the federal government.

Norman Rossington, 70, British actor who appeared in more than 40 motion pictures, dies in Manchester, England, of cancer.

May 19

May 20

May 21

May 22

At the Cannes (France) Film Festival, the Palme d’Or goes to Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne for Rosetta. . . . Canadianborn professional wrestler Owen Hart, 33, falls 50 feet (15 m) to his death during a World Wrestling Federation (WWF) performance in Kansas City, Missouri. In Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that a Georgia school board may be sued for damages under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 for failing to stop a student from sexually harassing a classmate. . . . In Hanlon v. Berger and Wilson v. Layne, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that police violate individuals’ privacy rights by allowing journalists and photographers to accompany them into private residences as they conduct searches or attempt to make arrests.

In Cleveland v. Policy Management Systems Corp., the Supreme Court rules unanimously that a Texas woman’s acceptance of Social Security disability payments does not preclude her from pursuing a discrimination case against her employer under the Americans With Disabilities Act. . . . In California Dental Association v. F TC., the Supreme Court rules unanimously that authority over the practices of nonprofit organizations is within the jurisdiction of the FTC.

Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson is released from a Rockville, Maryland, prison after having served 31⁄2 months of a 14month sentence.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 23

May 24

1272—May 25–30, 1999

May 25

World Affairs

Europe

The Inter-American Development Bank agrees to grant some $3.5 billion to countries in Central America hardest hit by Hurricane Mitch in October 1998. . . . NATO’s 19 members approve a plan for an expanded peacekeeping force that will enter Kosovo once Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic withdraws his troops from the province.

Data suggests that as many as 25,000 ethnic Albanians have fled into Macedonia since May 22 as Serbian forces accelerate their expulsion of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, a province of Yugoslavia’s republic of Serbia. . . . The U.S. agrees to give Uzbekistan $32.3 million in aid to bolster the country’s economic reforms.

The Americas

A UN report finds that a drought currently affecting Iraq is the worst on record in the country.

Queen Elizabeth II formally inaugurates the Welsh Assembly, a newly elected body with the power to legislate certain isolated matters within Wales. The legislature is Wales’s first-ever independent lawmaking body.

May 26

May 27

Africa & the Middle East

Former U.S. defense secretary William Perry, serving as a special presidential envoy, visits North Korea. Perry is the highest-level U.S. official to visit North Korea, a highly isolated communist country that has long had bitter relations with the U.S.

Great Britain’s Privy Council, which serves as the Supreme Court for many former British colonies in the Caribbean, rejects a final appeal by nine men convicted of murder in Trinidad and Tobago, clearing the way for the men to be hanged.

High Court justice Harry Ognall blocks an attempt by Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, a former military ruler of Chile, to appeal British home secretary Jack Straw’s April 15 ruling that Pinochet’s extradition case may proceed. . . . The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia’s May 24 indictment of Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic is made public.

May 28

May 29

May 30

Asia & the Pacific

India launches a series of air strikes on a band of Islamic militants encamped in an Indian-controlled area of the disputed Kashmir region. The strikes come because Indian aerial surveillance discovered that a force of some 500 heavily armed militants have taken up strategic positions in Kashmir. . . . Australian police locate a body of a victim connected to the eight corpses found May 20. . . . The Australian Senate passes a bill intended to shield children from pornography and violence on the Internet. In response, hundreds of people in Australia protest what they describe as censorship. Pakistan’s military forces shoot down two Indian jet fighters flying over the Pakistani-controlled area of Kashmir. Flight Lt. K. Nachiketa, a pilot of one of the downed Indian jets, is captured by Pakistani forces. . . . In China, Zhang Youjou is sentenced to four years in prison. Zhang was arrested in 1998 after posting fliers demanding that the government reevaluate its official position on the 1989 violent crackdown in Tiananmen Square.

The Belgian health ministry bans the retail sale of domestically produced chicken and eggs, which they believe may contain high levels of dioxin, a cancer-causing chemical. . . . About 200 Polish troops and police officers remove 300 crosses that radical Roman Catholics erected near Auschwitz. The police also arrest Kazimierz Switon, who claims to have planted explosive devices at the site. . . . Three parties, headed by Premier Bulent Ecevit’s Democratic Left Party, sign a coalition agreement to govern Turkey for five years.

General Abdulsalami Abubakar, who took power in Nigeria in June 1998 after the sudden death of Pres. Sani Abacha, announces the repeal of a 1984 decree that the military government used to detain hundreds of people without trial.

Rudolf Schuster, a member of Slovakia’s ruling four-party coalition, wins Slovakia’s first direct presidential elections. . . . A Yugoslav court sentences three aid workers accused of espionage to prison terms that vary from four to 12 years. The workers are Australians Steve Pratt and Peter Wallace and Yugoslav Branko Jelen. . . . A vehicular crash in Austria’s Tauern tunnel touches off explosions and a massive fire, killing at least 12 people and injuring about 50.

Former military ruler Olusegun Obasanjo is sworn in as Nigeria’s democratically elected president, making him the country’s first civilian leader in more than 15 years. Obasanjo’s assumption of the presidency completes a transition to civilian rule outlined in July 1998 by Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, who took power in June 1998 after the sudden death of Pres. Sani Abacha.

In Belarus, 52 people attending an outdoor concert in Minsk are killed and another 150 are injured when concertgoers rush into an underground passageway to escape a rain and hail storm.

In Nigeria despite the pledge of a truce by some of the militias engaged in ongoing conflict over ethnic rivalries and rights to oil revenues, fighting between the rival Itsekiri and Ijaw ethnic groups in the volatile oil-rich Niger River Delta region renews.

Suriname president Jules Wijdenbosch fires his entire cabinet in an effort to stem mounting protests and strikes, which began earlier in May in response to a steep drop in the value of Suriname’s currency, the gilder.

Leftist rebels in Colombia kidnap more than 100 churchgoers during a Roman Catholic mass in the southwestern city of Cali.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 25–30, 1999—1273

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Justin Volpe, a NYC police officer charged in the 1997 torture of Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant, in the restroom of a police station, pleads guilty to six federal charges against him. Volpe admits that he sodomized Louima with a stick after Louima’s arrest outside a Brooklyn nightclub. The incident received international attention and highlighted the issue of police brutality.

In a report, the U.S. House select committee investigating evidence of Chinese has espionage activities in the U.S. suggests that for some 20 years China has engaged in wide-ranging and successful efforts to obtain secret data from U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories. The report recommends 38 measures to strengthen counterintelligence and the security of secret information.

The Senate approves a series of measures to improve security at the U.S.’s national laboratories, where nuclear weapons research is conducted, and to restrict the export of sensitive technology. Separately, in a letter to Pres. Clinton, more than 80 members of Congress demand the resignation of National Security Adviser Samuel (Sandy) Berger.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A team of astronomers announces that observations by the Hubble Space Telescope suggest that the “Big Bang” explosion, believed to have created the universe, happened at least 12 billion years ago. However, the astronomers also note that the universe may be as old as 15 billion years, depending on certain facts about the universe’s composition that remain unknown.

May 25

In a civil lawsuit brought in a New York City federal court, the SEC charges 25 people with insider trading.

The FBI shuts down its sites on the World Wide Web after computer hackers illegally enter the site. The FBI starts to execute a string of search warrants at the homes of suspected hackers in several states. . . . Waldo Lonsbury Semon, 100, chemist and inventor who, as an employee of B.F. Goodrich Co., invented vinyl in 1928, dies in Hudson, Ohio.

Paul Sacher, 93, Swiss conductor, businessman, and founder of the Basel Chamber Orchestra, the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, and the Paul Sacher Foundation, who used his wealth to commission some 200 new compositions, dies in Zurich, Switzerland. . . . In soccer, Manchester United wins the European Champions Cup, defeating Bayern Munich, 2-1, in Barcelona, Spain.

Berek Don, a New Jersey lawyer who chaired the Bergen County Republican Party in 1996, pleads guilty to helping to illegally funnel a client’s contributions to the successful 1996 Senate campaign of Democrat Robert Torricelli, then a congressman. Don is the 18th person charged by the Justice Department’s Campaign Financing Task Force.

NASA scientists unveil the first three-dimensional map of the entire planet of Mars, revealing that its surface exhibits more extreme contrasts in elevation than previously known. . . . The U.S. space shuttle Discovery lifts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission to load supplies onto the international space station under construction in orbit . . . . The Senate shuts down its website after hackers illegally enter the site.

Alice Adams, 72, novelist and short-story writer praised for her artful depictions of women’s lives, dies May 27 in San Francisco, California. She had recently undergone treatment for a heart ailment.

May 26

May 27

May 28

Joao Carlos De Oliveira, 45, Brazilian track and field athlete who, at the 1975 Pan American Games in Mexico City, set a triple-jump world record of 58 feet, 81⁄4 inches (17.89 m), dies in Sao Paulo, Brazil, while suffering from pneumonia, hepatitis, and cirrhosis of the liver.

Auto racer Jeff Burton wins the NASCAR Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina. . . . Kenny Brack of Sweden wins the 83rd running of the Indianapolis 500 automobile race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indiana.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

May 29

May 30

1274—May 31–June 5, 1999

World Affairs

June 4

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Krishna Prasad Bhattarai takes office as Nepal’s premier. . . . Reports confirm that a group of 105 Chinese citizens, most of them relatives of people killed in the 1989 crackdown, petitioned the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, or national prosecutor’s office, to open an investigation into the Tiananmen Square killings. The relatives’ two petitions are the first effort to seek an inquiry into the crackdown through official legal channels.

Sir Christopher Sydney Cockerell, 88, British engineer who, in 1959, developed a hovercraft prototype that crossed the English Channel in 20 minutes, dies in Hythe, England.

An appeals court in Cape Town, South Africa, overturns former president Pieter W. Botha’s contempt conviction, which he received for refusing to testify before the Truth and Reconciliation commission.

Pres. Francisco Flores Perez of the ruling Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) party is sworn in as the 34th president of El Salvador. . . . After the National Assembly, Suriname’s parliament, passes a no-confidence vote, Pres. Jules Wijdenbosch offers to cut short his five-year term, due to end in 2001, and lead the country until new elections can be held.

South Korean president Kim concludes a trip to Mongolia, the first visit there by a South Korean president since the two countries established diplomatic ties in 1990.

In response to the May 28 ban by the Belgian health ministry, the EU bans the sale and export of Belgian-produced chicken and eggs and of products containing Belgian chicken or eggs, in the EU’s 15 member nations. . . . The International Court of Justice rules against suits brought against NATO members by Yugoslavia calling for an immediate suspension of the bombing. The court does not rule on the legality of NATO’s bombing campaign but claims it has no jurisdiction in the case.

A UN official notes that in some parts of Kosovo, 80% of the homes are destroyed.

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) wins an overwhelming victory in the country’s second multiracial democratic election since the end of apartheid in 1994. Two people are killed in KwaZulu-Natal just before polling stations open. . . . Figures indicate that the fighting between the rival Itsekiri and Ijaw ethnic groups in the volatile oil-rich Niger River Delta region have killed some 200 people in Nigeria since May 30.

A judge in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, finds Warren Glowatski, 18, guilty of second-degree murder in the November 1997 death of Reena Virk, a 14-year-old girl. The Virk case attracted much media attention because of the youth of Virk’s assailants and as an example of seemingly motiveless violence . . . . Paramilitary groups mount sporadic offensives in Colombia.

The Pakistani government frees from prison newspaper editor Najam Sethi, who was detained after delivering a controversial speech in India. . . . The Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China states that, in the month before the June 4 anniversary of the 1989 crackdown against prodemocracy students in Beijing, the Chinese government has detained about 80 democracy advocates, and that 28 remain in detention.

Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic and the Serbian parliament accept a peace accord that will end the 10-week-old NATO bombing campaign. . . . The EU expands its June 2 ban to include beef and pork. U.S. agriculture officials ban imports of chicken and pork from all EU nations. . . . Leaders of the EU’s 15 member nations agree to develop a common defense policy and to endow the EU with military capabilities.

Turkish human-rights activist Akin Birdal is sentenced to nine months in prison on charges of uttering subversive statements. . . . Russian president Boris Yeltsin signs a decree commuting all death sentences in Russia to life sentences or 25-year prison terms. The decree will affect 716 people sentenced to death. . . . Peter Brough, 83, British ventriloquist on a popular BBC radio series from 1950 to 1960, dies.

Nigeria’s new parliament, elected in a landmark vote that ended more than 15 years of military rule, convenes for the first time.

In clashes that started June 2 in Colombia, about 20 soldiers and rebels are killed.

North Korea’s second-ranking leader and other senior officials visit China. The visit marks the two countries’ highest-level contact since the late North Korean president Kim Il Sung visited China in 1991.

Trinidad and Tobago execute by hanging three gang members convicted in 1996 of killing a family of four in 1994. They are three of nine condemned prisoners. Prior to the hangings, only one prisoner had been executed in the nation since 1979, and none since 1994. . . . The leader of Colombia’s right-wing paramilitary forces release a senator kidnapped in May, Piedad Cordoba of the opposition Liberal Party.

The 10th anniversary of China’s violent crackdown on mass prodemocracy activists in Tiananmen Square passes with little incident in mainland China. However, 70,000 people gather in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park for a vigil commemorating the crackdown. The crowd for the annual vigil is much larger than it has been in recent years. . . . Flight Lt. K. Nachiketa, an Indian pilot captured May 27 by Pakistani forces, is released to Indian custody.

Trinidad and Tobago execute three members of a drug gang convicted in 1996 of killing a family of four in 1994. . . . In addition to the 80 churchgoers already released by the ELN, the guerrilla group frees five more of the hostages taken after a Roman Catholic mass in Colombia.

India surrenders the bodies of three Pakistani soldiers to Pakistani officials.

June 1

June 3

Africa & the Middle East

At the opening of his trial on treason charges, Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan stuns many observers by offering to work toward ending Kurdish separatist violence. Turkey’s government blames Ocalan for some 30,000 deaths in the PKK’s 15-year-old struggle for Kurdish independence. . . . Russian president Boris Yeltsin makes final appointments to the new government headed by Premier Sergei Stepashin.

May 31

June 2

Europe

EU leaders name NATO secretary general Javier Solana of Spain as its first security and foreign policy czar. . . . NATO and the U.S. Defense Department estimate that the alliance has killed or wounded between 10,000 and 15,000 Serbian soldiers during NATO’s air campaign against Yugoslavia. An IMF study projects that in the six countries surrounding Yugoslavia, the costs caused by the conflict will range from $1.25 billion to $2.25 billion. Pope John Paul II visits his native Poland. The trip is the pontiff’s eighth visit to Poland. . . . A pipe bomb explodes in Portadown, Northern Ireland, killing Protestant Elizabeth O’Neill.

June 5

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

May 31–June 5, 1999—1275

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The speaker for China’s State Council sharply criticizes the U.S. House committee report released May 25, known as the Cox report after the chair of the panel, Rep. Christopher Cox (R, Calif.). . . . Cuba files a lawsuit against the U.S. in Cuban civil court, seeking $181.1 billion in compensation for deaths and injuries incurred during what it terms a “dirty war” against Cuba. The suit also charges that U.S. aggression and anti-Castro plots have caused the deaths of 3,478 Cuban citizens. In Richardson v. U.S., the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that prosecutors must prove that a defendant committed each in a series of drug offenses in order to convict the defendant of operating a drug-trafficking business. . . . Reports reveal that women claiming Dow Corning implants made them seriously ill, or who want their implants removed, have voted to accept a proposed $3.2 billion settlement of their claims against the company.

Loewen Group Inc., North America’s second-largest funeral home and cemetery operator, files for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. and Canada after accumulating C$3.4 billion (US$2.3 billion) in debt.

A group of 20 Native American tribes file a federal lawsuit against the U.S.’s four largest tobacco companies, arguing that they were unfairly excluded from a November 1998 settlement of 46 states’ suits against the companies. . . . A state jury in Ellisville, Mississippi, rules that tobacco companies are not liable for the cancer death of Burl Butler, a barber who claimed that his illness was caused by inhaling his customers’ secondhand cigarette smoke.

Microsoft Corp. chairman William Gates and his wife, Melinda Gates, announce a donation of $5 billion to the William H. Gates Foundation, which funds programs to improve child and maternal health in developing countries. The gift is reported to be the largest-ever donation by living persons to a foundation.

John Julian McKeithen, 81, Democratic governor of Louisiana, 1964–72, dies in Columbia, Louisiana. His health had been declining since he underwent heart surgery in 1997.

Several leaders of the 1989 prodemocracy movement in China’s Tiananmen Square who live in exile gather at Harvard University in the U.S. Those present include Li Lu, Wang Dan, Wang Juntao, Wu’er Kaixi, and Wei Jingsheng. . . . Ending a protracted dispute, Canada and the U.S. announce a comprehensive treaty governing the conservation and sharing of Pacific Ocean salmon that migrate between the two nations’ waters.

Federal Reserve Board vice chair Alice Rivlin announces that she will leave her post July 16. . . . The NYSE, the largest U.S. stock market, decides to delay until the second half of the year 2000 offering extended trading hours to individual investors.

Three Illinois sheriff’s deputies— Thomas Vosburgh, James Montesano, and Dennis Kurzawaand— and a former prosecutor, Thomas Knightare, are acquitted of conspiring to frame Rolando Cruz, who was sent to death row for the killing of a 10-year-old girl. Cruz is one of 12 men on death row in Illinois who was found innocent and freed since that state legalized the death penalty in the 1970s. Judge William Kelly also acquits police officer Robert Winkler in a bench trial.

Pres. Clinton invokes a seldomused provision of the Constitution to directly appoint James Hormel as ambassador to Luxembourg. The confirmation of Hormel, an open homosexual, was blocked by conservative Republican senators. Hormel is the first openly gay ambassador in U.S. history.

Zachary Fisher, 88, a top executive with Fisher Brothers, a family construction business whose many office and residential buildings helped shape the NYC skyline who, in the 1970s, donated more than $25 million and set up a foundation to establish New York’s Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, dies in New York City of cancer.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Websites for the Interior Department and the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory in Idaho Falls, a federal computer facility, are invaded by hackers.

Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace, by Terry Brooks, tops the bestseller lists.

In Little Rock, Arkansas, an American Airlines MD-80 jet crashes and bursts into flames, killing nine people, including the pilot. They are the first deaths on a U.S. passenger flight since 1997. . . . Reports reveal that scientists have created a clone of a male adult mouse, succeeding for the first time in cloning a male adult mammal. Previous cloned adult mammals were created using genetic material from female reproductive cells. . . . Due to a spate of invasions by computer hackers, the Defense Department temporarily closes its website.

May 31

June 1

June 2

June 3

Ruth Whitney (born Ruth Reinke), 70, editor of Glamour, a women’s fashion magazine, 1967–98, dies in Irvington, New York, of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

The Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame opens in Knoxville, Tennessee. It is the first hall of fame dedicated to any women’s sports. . . . Mel(vin) Howard Tormé, 73, popular jazz singer dubbed the Velvet Fog, dies in Los Angeles of complications of a 1996 stroke. . . . In horse racing, Lemon Drop Kid wins the Belmont Stakes. . . . Steffi Graff wins her sixth French Open women’s title.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 4

June 5

1276—June 6–11, 1999

World Affairs

Asia & the Pacific

Armed youths take over the center of the southern town of Warri, the scene of ethnic clashes in the previous days. Warri is the main town in Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger River Delta region.

Trinidad and Tobago execute the last three of nine members of a drug gang convicted in 1996 of killing a family of four in 1994. . . . Officials at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the country’s largest university, back down on a proposed tuition increase in the face of student strikes that started Apr. 20, the longest strike in the school’s 89-year history.

More than 100 million Indonesians go to the polls to vote in the country’s first fully democratic election in 44 years. . . . Nuon Paet, a former commander of the Khmer Rouge guerrilla regime, is sentenced to life in prison for his role in the 1994 kidnapping and murder of three backpackers from Australia, France, and Britain. He is the first senior Khmer Rouge officer to be tried for crimes committed as a member of the guerrilla group.

A political crisis in the Netherlands eases as Premier Wim Kok and the members of his cabinet retract their resignations, tendered in May. . . . More than 30 children are treated at a hospital in the Belgian town of Bornem after having consumed Coca-Cola’s most popular product, Coke. . . . Christina Agnes Lilian Foyle, 88, owner of W. & G. Foyle Ltd., a massive London bookstore founded in 1904 by her father and an uncle, dies near Maldon, England, of unreported causes.

Two gunmen fire into a crowded courtroom in the southern coastal city of Sidon in Lebanon, leaving three judges and the prosecutor dead and wounding three other people. At the time of the shooting, eight men—four Lebanese and four Palestinians—were about to be sentenced for crimes including murder. . . . Iran’s state-run radio reports that 13 people, later identified as Iranian Jews from the southern part of the country, were arrested on spying charges.

Reports state that an attack in the Colombian province of Cesar has left eight policemen and 10 civilians dead.

A tense naval standoff begins when North Korean military and fishing boats start a series of incursions across a demarcation line, drawn by the UN, that runs between the North Korean coast and a group of South Korean islands. . . . In Australia, an inquiry into Queensland’s orphanages and juvenile-detention facilities concludes that there has been widespread neglect and physical and sexual abuse of children in those institutions over the past 80 years.

Yugoslavia signs an agreement with NATO, pledging to withdraw all of its forces from the Serbian province of Kosovo.

Reports confirm that the government of Croatia has stated that it will turn over alleged Bosnian Croat war criminal Vinko Martinovic to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. . . . The Turkish National Assembly backs Premier Bulent Ecevit’s new coalition government in a confidence vote.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II is crowned at a ceremony in Amman, the capital. Abdullah inherited the throne Feb. 7, taking the oath hours after the death of his father, King Hussein. . . . A truck bomb attack on the Iraq-based Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen kills seven people, including one Iraqi, and wounds more than 20 others.

NATO secretary general Javier Solana announces that NATO is suspending its 78-day bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. The UN Security Council adopts a resolution authorizing an international military force to enter Kosovo. NATO generals also officially authorize NATO forces to enter Kosovo (KFOR). . . . Louise Arbour, the chief prosecutor for the UN International Criminal Tribunal. is named to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Britain’s central bank, the Bank of England, lowers its base interest rate for the seventh time in eight months. The bank cuts its benchmark rate, the repurchase (repo) rate, to 5% from 5.25%, the lowest level since October 1977. . . . Henry Grunfeld, 95, German-born investment banker who helped form one of London’s most successful and innovative merchant banks, dies in London, England, of unreported causes.

Reports suggest that ECOMOG arrested two journalists during a raid on a newspaper in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone.

Elcio Alvarez, a former conservative senator, is sworn in as Brazil’s first defense minister. The occasion marks the first time since Brazil returned to democracy in 1985 that the military is under civilian control.

In China, Fang Jue, a former government official who in 1998 called for democratic political reforms, is sentenced to four years in prison on charges of illegal business activities. Reports reveal that in late May Li Zhiyou was sentenced to three years in prison. Li was arrested in 1998 after protesting a prison sentence given to a prodemocracy leader. . . . India concludes its series of air strikes, which began May 26 in the disputed Kashmir region.

The U.S., citing a contamination of dioxin, suspends the import of eggs, egg products, animal feed, and game meats from Belgium, France, and the Netherlands.

Pope John Paul II addresses the Sejm, Poland’s parliament. It is the first time the pontiff speaks to a national parliament during his 20year papacy. . . . Reports reveal that, in response to the June 8 illnesses, in Belgium, Coca-Cola has ordered the recall of 2.5 million bottles of Coke produced in Antwerp. . . . Britain announces nearly 1,000 recipients of peerages, knighthoods, and other honors to mark the birthday celebration of Queen Elizabeth II. . . . About 200 Russian troops enter Pristina in Kosovo. The troops are not part of the international KFOR.

Iraq holds Iran responsible for three surface-to-surface missiles allegedly fired across their common border, hitting an Iranian opposition base in Iraq.

Reports indicate that at least eight police officers and a civilian were killed after FARC attacked a small town in the Colombian province of Boyaca.

Authorities in China’s Hunan province arrest two of the leaders of an antitax demonstration staged by thousands of farmers in January. . . . South Korean ships ram four North Korean vessels in an episode that nearly erupts in gunfire.

Turkish officials reveal that 20 Kurdish rebels and one Turkish soldier were killed in fighting in the provinces of Van, Diyarbakir, and Bingol. . . . Ilya Aleksandrovich Musin, 95, Russian conductor and teacher who was prevented by antiSemitism from leading a major orchestra in the Soviet Union, dies in St. Petersburg, Russia. British NATO troops serving in Bosnia-Herzegovina apprehend alleged Bosnian Serb war criminal Dragan Kulundzija, indicted in 1995 for crimes committed against Muslims and Croats while he was commander of a detention camp in Bosnia during the war there in 1992–95.

June 8

June 9

June 10

June 11

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

June 6

June 7

Europe

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 6–11, 1999—1277

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The National Blood Data Resource Center in Bethesda, Maryland, reports that between 1992 and 1997, blood donations declined to 13.2 million pints while the number of blood transfusions performed increased to 11.5 million. The center predicts that if the trend continues, the need for donated blood will outstrip supply in the year 2000. Texas governor George W. Bush (R) signs a Texas law requiring that parents of unmarried teenage girls be notified if their daughters seek an abortion. . . . Illinois enacts a law requiring that any gun accessible to children under 14 either have a safety lock or be stored in a childproof location. Sixteen other states have similar laws. . . . In O’Sullivan v. Boerckel, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that state prisoners who want to challenge their cases in federal court must first make their appeals in the state supreme court, even if that court is unlikely to hear their case.

In Amoco Production Co. v. Southern Ute Tribe, the Supreme Court rules, 7-1, that a Native American tribe’s rights to massive coal deposits in the Western U.S. do not include rights to methane gas contained in those coalbeds.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The U.S. space shuttle Discovery touches down at Cape Canaveral, Florida, in a rare nighttime landing after carrying out a mission to load supplies onto the international space station currently under construction in orbit.

Andre Agassi wins his first French Open tennis title. . . . Golfer Juli Inkster wins the U.S. Women’s Open. . . . At the Tonys, Side Man wins for Best Play and Fosse wins for Best Musical. . . . Edward (Eddie) Raymond Stanky, 82, baseball player from the 1940s and 1950s, dies in Fairhope, Alabama, of a heart attack.

A computer program designed to erase stored data is found in Israel.

June 7

Los Angeles citizens vote to replace the city’s 1925 charter with one that gives greater power to the mayor. . . . Voters in Las Vegas, Nevada, elect Oscar Goodman, an attorney who defended notorious organized-crime figures, as their mayor. . . . A jury convicts Officer Justin Volpe, who pled guilty in May, of assault charges stemming from the 1997 station-house torture of Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant. The jury finds Officer Charles Schwarz guilty on three charges, It acquits Thomas Bruder, Thomas Wiese, and Michael Bellomo.

June 8

Pres. Clinton orders federal lawenforcement agencies to collect data on the race, ethnicity, and sex of individuals they detain for questioning, in order to determine the validity of allegations of racial profiling. . . . Giles S(utherland) Rich, 95, federal judge known as the foremost authority on U.S. patent law who, in 1997, became the oldest active federal judge in U.S. history, dies in Washington, D.C., of lymphoma. In Chicago v. Morales, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that an antiloitering ordinance that seeks to prevent gang members from gathering on Chicago streets is unconstitutional.

June 6

A study finds that hormone-replacement therapy does not increase the risk of the most common kinds of breast cancer in postmenopausal women. . . . The computer program designed to erase stored data found in Israel on June 7 has affected thousands of computers in Europe and the U.S.

An army missile defense system known as the Theatre High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) succeeds for the first time in intercepting a test missile after it had failed six previous tests. . . . A jury in Los Angeles convicts three Mexican businessmen and bankers of conspiring to launder money for drug traffickers. The jury acquits three other people. The defendants are among 167 suspects indicted in the investigation.

Federal government accounting regulators approve new rules designed to improve the accounting standards of state and local governments. The new rules are to take effect from 2001. . . . Patrick Bennett, a former chief financial officer of Bennett Funding Group Inc., is convicted of 42 counts of fraud and money laundering by a jury in New York City. The trial is Bennett’s second in what prosecutors call the largest pyramid-scheme case in U.S. history.

The death toll in the June 1 plane crash in Little Rock, Arkansas, rises to 10 people when a man who suffered a head injury in the accident dies. . . . A study shows that people who regularly smoke cigars are twice as likely as nonsmokers to develop cancer of the mouth, throat, or lungs. . . . In Dickinson v. Zurko, the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that a lower court improperly evaluated a decision by the Patent and Trademark Office to reject an application for a patent on a computer-security device.

A jury in Arenac County, Michigan, convicts Timothy Boomer, 25, of violating an 1897 Michigan law that prohibits swearing in front of children. . . . The Vermont Supreme Court rules that the use of vouchers to pay parochial-school tuition would violates the state’s constitution.

June 9

The Christian Coalition, the most powerful political organization on the religious right, announces that it has dropped its 10-year-old bid for tax-exempt status.

A jury in Nashville, Tennessee, awards former heavyweight boxer Randall (Tex) Cobb $2.2 million in punitive damages for a 1993 article that accused Cobb of fixing a fight and using cocaine. . . . DeForest Kelley, 79, actor in the science-fiction series Star Trek, a show that garnered a cult following, dies in Woodland Hills, California.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 10

June 11

1278—June 12–17, 1999

World Affairs

Asia & the Pacific

Former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari returns from self-imposed exile in Ireland to visit Mexico. It is his first visit since he left the country in 1995.

Ethnic violence erupts on Guadalcanal, the main island of the Solomon Islands, when a group of militant Guadalcanal residents attack a plantation, killing three people. The attack follows months of increasing tension between indigenous Guadalcanalese and settlers from Malaita, the country’s most heavily populated island.

Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gadhafi visits South Africa in a his first trip outside Libya since UN sanctions against the country were suspended in April.

Nearly complete election returns are released in Belgium, showing that Premier Jean-Luc Dehaene’s Flemish-speaking Christian People’s Party captured 14% of the vote, down from about 17% in 1995. The poor showing prompts Dehaene to resign. . . . The government of Belgium indefinitely bans the sale of bottled and canned beverages made by Coca-Cola, after those drinks are blamed for health problems in about 100 children.

The South African National Assembly elects Thabo Mbeki as president.

A federal jury convicts three former officials of the San Juan AIDS Institute in Puerto Rico of stealing $2.2 million in U.S. AIDS funds intended for AIDS patients.

In reaction to the June 14 ban, on Coca-Cola in Belgium, three of its neighboring countries—France, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands—issue broad recalls of Coca-Cola products.

Voters reelect Pres. Bakili Muluzi of the United Democratic Front in Malawi. . . . South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission grants amnesty to Eugene Terre’ Blanche, who headed the rightwing Afrikaner Resistance Movement (AWB). Terre’Blanche’s amnesty covers his role in a 1991 gun battle, but not other crimes attributed to him.

An earthquake measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale shakes central Mexico, killing at least 16 people and injuring more than 200. Seismologists report the epicenter of the quake is near the town of Tehuacan in the southeast state of Oaxaca, about 135 miles (220 km) from Mexico City, the capital. . . . The National Liberation Army (ELN), Colombia’s second-largest leftist guerrilla group, releases 33 hostages kidnapped in May from La Maria Church in Cali. The ELN retains some 20 hostages from the church.

U.S. president Bill Clinton addresses the International Labor Organization. He is the only U.S. president besides Franklin Delano Roosevelt to do so.

Pope John Paul II confers sainthood on 13th-century Polish queen Kinga. . . . The price of gold is fixed on the London market at $258.70 per troy ounce, its lowest price in 20 years. . . . Some 15,000 NATO peacekeeping troops are currently deployed in Kosovo. . . . . (Screaming) Lord Sutch (born David Edward Sutch), 58, British political candidate and sometime rock-and-roll musician, is found hanged in London in an apparent suicide.

Thabo Mbeki is inaugurated as South Africa’s second democratically elected president, succeeding Nelson Mandela. . . . . Saudi King Fahd shuffles his cabinet for only the second time in some 25 years.

Japan’s health and welfare ministry officially approves the sale of the oral contraceptive pill, nine years after pharmaceutical companies first applied for approval. . . . North Korea states it will suspend diplomatic contacts with South Korea.

The International Labor Organization (ILO) adopts a treaty that institutes a ban on the harshest forms of child labor. It includes a controversial provision that allows children under 18 to enlist in the military voluntarily.

According to NATO, some 95 suspected mass grave sites have been discovered in Kosovo. Officials estimate that 10,000 ethnic Albanians were killed in more than 100 massacres. . . . Chechen rebels fire on Russian outposts along Chechnya’s border with the Russian republic of Dagestan. Separately, Chechen rebels kill four Russian policemen. . . . The Latvian parliament chooses former Canadian citizen Vaira Vike-Freiberga as president. . . . Cecilia Danieli, 56, Italian steel magnate, dies in Udine, Italy, of cancer.

In a surprise move, South African president Thabo Mbeki names Jacob Zuma his deputy president.

Justice Terrence Higgins of the Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court sentences former senator Bob Woods to a suspended 18-month jail term for making fraudulent travel expense claims in 1994–95.

Election returns show that the European People’s Party, an alliance of right-of-center parties from several of the EU’s 15 member nations, has won the largest number of seats of any bloc in elections for the membership of the European Parliament, the EU’s legislative arm. As before the election, no political bloc controls a majority of seats in the 626member legislature.

June 15

June 17

The Americas

Swiss voters approve a ballot measure tightening restrictions on refugees’ attainment of permanent asylum. . . . Pope John Paul II beatifies 108 Roman Catholics who died in concentration camps under the Nazi regime. . . . The KLA takes over control of the Morini border crossing point into Albania. Aid agencies and journalists return to Kosovo. In sporadic violence, four people die. . . . Luxembourg’s Socialist Party, one of two parties in the country’s ruling coalition, suffers heavy losses in a general election.

June 13

June 16

Africa & the Middle East

The first NATO troops of the peacekeeping force enter the Serbian province of Kosovo in Yugoslavia, hours after Russian troops unexpectedly occupied the airport in Pristina, Kosovo’s capital. Ethnic Albanians begin returning to Kosovo from Albania and Macedonia.

June 12

June 14

Europe

In East Timor, UNAMET officials observe members of one prominent militia, the Besar Mera Puti (Red and White Flag), beating a man in the village of Leotela. . . . Amid a tense naval standoff that begun June 8, South Korean naval forces sink a North Korean torpedo boat during a firefight in disputed waters in the Yellow Sea. South Korean officials report that at least 20 North Koreans are killed in the clash, including the sunken ship’s 17 crew members. Seven South Koreans are reportedly injured.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 12–17, 1999—1279

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Center for Responsive Politics finds that the senators who received the top contributions from the NRA over the five previous years all voted against the gun controls approved by the Senate in May.

June 12

The Justice Department finds that drunk-driving arrests fell to some 1.5 million in 1997, from some 1.8 million in 1986. That difference is a decline of almost 18%. Between 1986 and 1997, the number of drivers on the road increased nearly 15%. Taking that increase into account, the rate of arrests per 100,000 drivers declined by 28% between 1986 and 1997.

In Greater New Orleans Broadcasting Association v. U.S., the Supreme Court rules unanimously to overturn a 1934 federal statute that bans television and radio advertising for casino gambling in states where the activity is legal.

June 13

The Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board submits a report on the security conditions at U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories to Pres. Clinton. The report includes a review of the measures taken to counter security threats.

In West v. Gibson, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) possesses the authority to award federal employees compensatory damages in cases of discrimination by other government employers.

Reports confirm that the computer program designed to erase stored data first discovered June 7 in Israel has spread to more than 12 countries and affected tens of thousands of computers.

June 14

Congress awards its highest honor, the Congressional Gold Medal, to Rosa Parks, whose 1955 refusal to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama, sparked a 381-day-long bus boycott that ended when the Supreme Court found bus segregation unconstitutional. Parks, 86, is the 121st person to receive the honor. . . .Maria Lydia Hernandez Lopez, 25, who recently woke from a six-week coma, gives birth to healthy twin daughters. . . . Jack M. Campbell, 82, (D, N.Mex.) governor of New Mexico, 1963–67, dies in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

June 15

Former leftist radical Kathleen Soliah is arrested on a 1976 indictment that includes charges of conspiracy to murder police officers and possession of explosives. Soliah, a fugitive since 1976, is arrested in Minnesota, where she has been living under the name Sara Jane Olson.

The Senate confirm tour-star army general Eric Shinseki as the U.S. Army’s chief of staff. . . . Prosecutors indict two men on charges that they assisted in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The two men, Ayman alZawahri and Khalid al-Fawwazare, said to be leaders of al-Qaeda, an organization linked to Osama bin Laden, a Saudi Arabian exile charged in U.S. court with masterminding the embassy attacks.

The Supreme Court rules that charitable organizations, even those that do not behave negligently, may be held liable if children in their care are sexually abused. . . . The CDC finds that during, the years 1987–96, for every 100,000 live births, 7.7 mothers died. However, for black women, the rate was 19.6; for white women, it was 5.3. . . . The New Jersey Supreme Court throws out Superior Court judge Reginald Stanton’s five-year time limit on carrying out the death sentence of convicted murderer Thomas Koskovich.

Canadian citizen Joseph Stanley Faulder, 61, is executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas. Faulder is the first Canadian executed in the U.S. since 1952, and his case received international attention and raised diplomatic tensions between the U.S. and Canada. He is the 14th person executed in Texas since the beginning of the year, and the 178th executed there since the reinstatement of the state’s death penalty in 1982.

The Senate votes, 99-0, to approve a bill that will allow disabled people to retain their government healthcare benefits when they become employed. . . . Energy Secretary Bill Richardson appoints retired air force general Eugene Habiger as the department’s first security czar. . . . At the end of a three-year probe, 85 stockbrokers are indicted in three separate cases on federal charges of stock manipulation, money laundering, mail fraud, and racketeering.

The death toll in the June 1 plane crash in Little Rock, Arkansas, rises to 11 when another victim dies. . . . A study finds that Raloxifene, a drug prescribed for the bone disease osteoporosis, significantly reduces the risk of developing breast cancer in women past menopause.

Lawrence Stone, 79, British-born social historian whose work ranges over many centuries of English history, dies in Princeton, New Jersey, of Parkinson’s disease.

Scientists reviewing seven longterm studies of chimpanzees report that the wide diversity of social customs and tool uses observed in the chimpanzees suggests that there are cultural variations among populations of the animal.

Cardinal Basil Hume (born George Haliburton Hume), 76, Roman Catholic archbishop of Westminster, dies in London, England, of cancer.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 16

June 17

1280—June 18–23, 1999

June 18

World Affairs

Europe

NATO and Russia reach agreement on Russia’s role in the Kosovo force (KFOR). . . . Leaders from the Group of Eight (G-8) industrialized nations meet in Cologne, Germany, to formulate a global economic agenda as NATO ends its bombing campaign to expel Serbian troops from the Yugoslav province of Kosovo. The G-8 leaders agree to an enhanced plan for cutting the debt obligations of the world’s poorest nations.

Attacks that started June 17 along the borders of the Russian republic of Chechnya leave seven Russian police officers and interior ministry troops dead. At least 14 others are wounded. Russia closes 50 of its 60 checkpoints along the border. . . . A demonstration against capitalism in the City of London financial district erupts into violence. As many as 100 people are injured in the melee, and 15 protesters are arrested. . . . Count of Paris (Henri Robert Ferdinand Marie Louis Philippe d’Orleans), 90, pretender to the French throne since 1940, dies in Dreux, France, of prostate cancer. Some 20,000 people gather in Cologne, Germany, to protest the G-7 plan announced June 18. . . . Prince Edward, the youngest child of Queen Elizabeth II, marries Sophie Rhys-Jones. Edward, the seventh in line for the throne, is the last of the queen’s four children to marry. . . . Mario Soldati, 92, Italian author and film director, dies in Tellaro, Italy.

June 19

June 20

NATO formally ends its bombing campaign against Yugoslavia after verifying that the government has withdrawn all of its forces from the Serbian province of Kosovo.

June 22

June 23

Congo files an appeal with the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the Netherlands, claiming that Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi are violating international law and Congo’s sovereignty in their support of the rebels. The appeal also accuses Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi of human rights violations in Congo.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific The Chinese official news media reports that the nine-year-old child designated by the government as the Panchen Lama, Gyaincain Norbu, has appeared in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, for the first time. The child is not the one chosen by the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet whom China condemns as a separatist.

Kamal Eddin Hussein, 77, Egyptian army officer who helped Gamal Abdel Nasser topple Egypt’s King Farouk in 1952, dies of liver cancer in Cairo.

In Kosovo, the KLA signs a disarmament pact, committing them to disarm completely within 90 days.

NATO suffers its first casualties since it entered Kosovo when two British peacekeepers and two civilians are killed in a munitions-clearing accident.

June 21

Africa & the Middle East

Some 100,000 people gather in Havana’s Revolution Square to take part in a Protestant celebration, culminating a month of Protestant festivities across the island of Cuba. Cuban leader Fidel Castro Ruz and other officials from the ruling Communist Party attend the event. Hezbollah launches a mortar attack on northern Israel, sending some 250,000 people fleeing to the safety of bomb shelters. . . . Pres. Bakili Muluzi is inaugurated in Malawi.

In Australia, the cabinet of the Queensland government approves a plan that will legalize and strictly regulate brothels in Queensland.

IRA member Patrick Magee is released early from Northern Ireland’s Maze prison, under a provision in the 1998 peace accord calling for the ahead-of-schedule release of inmates linked to paramilitary groups.

In Colombia, rebel soldiers attempt to attack the jungle hideout of Carlos Castaño, the leader of a coalition of right-wing paramilitary groups. Government soldiers are called in to stop the attack.

A group of Serbian civilians fire on U.S. NATO peacekeepers in the southeastern village of Zegra. In the ensuing gunfight, U.S. troops shoot and kill one Serb and wound two others. In the first arrest by NATO troops of a Serbian paramilitary suspected of participating in Serbia’s ethnic cleansing campaign against ethnic Albanians, Dragisa Peica is taken into custody. . . . Belgium lifts its ban on Coca-Cola products.

The fighting that started June 22 in Colombia continues, leaving at least 60 soldiers and left-wing guerrillas dead in clashes in the northern province of Cordoba. A military spokesman reveals as many as 32 government soldiers have been killed in the fighting, the largest number of army fatalities in a single clash since the government held brief peace talks with FARC in January.

In a retrial, South Korea’s Supreme Court sentences Kim Hyun Chul, a son of former president Kim Young Sam, to two years in prison and a $1.31 million fine for bribery and tax evasion. . . . Australia’s High Court rules that Heather Hill of the One Nation Party is ineligible to hold a seat in the Federal Parliament because she holds dual citizenship. Hill is the only member of the controversial party to have won such a seat.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 18–23, 1999—1281

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Gov. George W. Bush (R, Tex.) signs a law effectively banning Texas cities and counties from filing liability lawsuits against gun manufacturers. Thirteen other states have adopted similar laws. . . . Gov. George Pataki (R, N.Y.) states he will use his executive authority to require that vendors at gun shows on state property perform background checks on all buyers. . . . Three Sacramento, California, synagogues are burned in what authorities call a hate crime. . . . Robert D. (Bob) Bullock, 69, (D, Tex.) state comptroller, 1975–90, and lieutenant governor, 1991–99, dies of congestive heart failure in Austin, Texas.

June 18

According to the Anti-Defamation League, there have been 39 cases of arson at U.S. synagogues in the past five years.

Best-selling horror-fiction author Stephen King, 51, is hit by a minivan in Lovell, Maine. King suffers a broken hip, a punctured lung, and multiple breaks to his ribs and right leg.

Reports confirm that doctors at, Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, performed the first brain surgery on a fetus in March.

In Jones v. United States, the Supreme Court rules, 5-4, that jurors do not need to be informed that, if they cannot decide between a death sentence and life imprisonment, a 1994 law requires judges to impose a life sentence. . . . Judge Jacqueline Connor sentences Juan Chavez, 35, to five life terms in prison without the possibility of parole for killing five homosexual men in what he calls an attempt to stop the spread of AIDS. . . . Florida governor. Jeb Bush (R) signs into law a bill creating a school voucher program for students throughout the state. It is the nation’s first statewide school voucher program.

U.S. forest-products company Weyerhaeuser Co. announces plans to buy MacMillan Bloedel Ltd., a longtime icon of the Canadian forestry industry, in a stock transaction valued at US$2.36 billion (C$3.47 billion). If completed, the deal will make Weyerhaeuser one of the largest forest-products companies in North America, with estimated annual sales of $13.3 billion. . . . Four-star army general Eric Shinseki is sworn in as the U.S. Army’s 34th chief of staff.

Golfer Payne Stewart wins the U.S. Open in Pinehurst, North Carolina. . . . In professional hockey, the Dallas Stars beat the Buffalo Sabres, 2-1, to win the Stanley Cup. . . . Clifton Paul Fadiman, 95, author, editor, and radio and TV personality, dies in Florida of pancreatic cancer.

In Jefferson County v. Acker, the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that Alabama’s Jefferson County has the right to impose an occupational license tax on its public officials and other county workers. . . . Joseph Hazelwood, the former captain of the Exxon Valdez tanker, which ran aground in Alaska in 1989, begins to fulfill a sentence of 1,000 hours of community service by picking up litter along roadsides in Anchorage, Alaska. The Exxon Valdez, under Hazelwood’s command, spilled an estimated 11 million gallons (42 million liters) of oil into Prince William Sound.

June 19

June 20

June 21

In Olmstead v. L.C., the Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that the state of Georgia violated the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act by keeping two mentally disabled women in institutions, although they requested to be placed in less restrictive residential facilities. . . . A three-judge panel overturns the 1997 fraud conviction of former Arizona governor J. Fife Symington III (R). . . . In Kolstad v. American Dental Association, the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, that a lower court set too high a standard for individuals to prove they are entitled to punitive damages after violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The Supreme Court rules, 7-2, in three job-discrimination cases that the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act is not intended to protect individuals who have physical impairments that are corrected with medication or simple remedial devices such as eyeglasses. The cases are Sutton v. United Airlines, Albertson’s Inc. v. Kirkingburg, and Murphy v. United Parcel Service Inc. . . . The Commerce Department concludes that information-technology companies were responsible for more than one-third of the U.S.’s economic growth between 1995 and 1998.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra announces that its music director and conductor, Seiji Ozawa, will leave in August 2002 to become music director of the Vienna State Opera in Austria. . . . The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation of Chicago awards its annual MacArthur Fellowships, or “genius grants,” to 32 individuals in a wide range of fields.

The Supreme Court issues three vigorously contested 5-4 decisions in which the majority justices significantly curb individuals’ rights to sue states for their alleged failure to comply with federal laws. . . . A Hillsville, Virginia, jury convicts Barry Black, a Ku Klux Klan leader, of burning a cross with the intent to intimidate a group or individual.

In Amchem Products v. Windsor, the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, to set aside a landmark $1.5 billion classaction settlement against asbestos maker Fibreboard Corp. . . . Delegates to a meeting of the American Medical Association (AMA), the nation’s largest doctors’ group, vote in favor of supporting the formation of a labor union for some doctors.

Wayne Gretzky, Andy Van Hellemond, and Ian (Scotty) Morrison are elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame. . . . The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame elects John Thompson, Kevin McHale, Wayne Embry, the late Fred Zollner, and Billie Moore.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 22

June 23

1282—June 24–29, 1999

June 24

Europe

The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the World Bank, approves a controversial $160 million antipoverty loan package for China. However, the World Bank decides to delay the funding of the disputed portion of the package, a $40 million plan to resettle nearly 58,000 farmers from northeastern Qinghai province to an area further west in the province.

The Yugoslav parliament votes unanimously to officially end the state of war declared when NATO began bombing Mar. 24. The government announces that it is lifting 31 decrees imposed during the state of war that limited personal freedoms. . . . The French government authorizes the resumption of production at the Dunkirk CocaCola bottling plant.

Hezbollah fighters and troops of the South Lebanon Army (SLA), Israel’s proxy militia in the area, exchange fire in the security zone. Hezbollah retaliates with a rocket attack against Israeli civilians, prompting Israel’s caretaker prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to order largescale Israeli air strikes. . . . Human Rights Watch claims that battles earlier in the year for control of Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, saw the worst human-rights violations in the conflict thus far.

For security reasons, Britain temporarily closes its embassies in Gambia, Madagascar, Senegal, and Namibia. . . . The Bundestag, Germany’s lower house of parliament, approves plans for the construction in Berlin of a memorial to victims of the Nazi Holocaust. . . . The Netherlands and Luxembourg lift their bans on Coca-Cola. . . . Arthur Katz, 91, maker of the Corgi line of toy cars, dies in London, England. . . . Angus MacDonald, 60, preeminent Scottish bagpiper, dies of cancer in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Israeli warplanes pound Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure, and the Shi’ite Muslim guerrilla group Hezbollah fires rockets into northern Israel in the heaviest battles involving the two sides since 1996 in their continuing conflict along the Israel-Lebanon border. The fighting leaves eight Lebanese and two Israelisall civilians dead and scores of others injured.

June 25

Jiri Pelikan, 76, head of Czechoslovakia’s state-run television system in the 1960s, dies in Rome, Italy.

June 26

June 27

June 28

June 29

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Leaders of the 15-nation European Union (EU) and 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries conclude their first-ever summit with a vague commitment to forge “gradual and reciprocal trade liberalization.”

Italy’s political left loses a mayoral election in Bologna for the first time in more than 50 years. . . . George Papadopoulos, 80, Greek army colonel who helped overthrow Greece’s King Constantine in 1967, dies in Athens of a heart attack. . . . Lord Robens of Woldingham (born Alfred Robens), 88, British Labour Party politician and chair of Britain’s National Coal Board, 1961–71, dies.

Reports suggest that 100,000 people have been killed in Algeria since 1992.

The Swedish government announces that it will pay 175,000 kronor ($20,800) to each victim of a forced-sterilization program that the government operated from 1936 to 1976. . . . The Supreme Court of Uzbekistan sentences to death six men who orchestrated a series of bombings in February that killed 16 people and wounded 120 others. The court sentences 16 other people involved in the attacks to prison terms of between 10 and 20 years.

Reports indicate that Ethiopian forces have captured Garba Harre, a Somali regional capital 250 miles (400 km) northwest of Mogadishu. Winning the city gives Ethiopia control over much of the southern area of Somalia.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

A lower Hong Kong court issues rulings against the government’s efforts to deport mainland Chinese citizens. . . . Sir (Emil Herbert) Peter Abeles, 75, trucking magnate who founded TNT Ltd. after surviving a Nazi work camp during World War II, dies in Sydney, Australia, of cancer.

About 47,500 nurses in Quebec, Canada, go on strike.

The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s parliament, overturns a controversial ruling by a Hong Kong court on immigration from China. Prodemocracy and legal activists demonstrate in Hong Kong against China’s ruling, arguing that it sets a dangerous precedent for judicial interference by China. . . . East Timorese independence leader Jose Ramos Horta returns to Indonesia after a 24-year-long exile.

Vere Cornwall Bird Sr., 89, prime minister, 1981–94, regarded as the father of Antigua and Barbuda’s independence from Britain, dies in St. Johns, Antigua, of unreported causes.

A ship spills 70,000 gallons (270,000 liters) of oil off the coast of Adelaide, South Australia. . . . In the Soloman Islands, after two weeks of violence, which has forced as many as 20,000 Malaitans to flee, the federal government and the provincial governments of Guadalcanal and Malaita sign an accord setting out principles for ending the unrest. Those include the surrender of weapons by the militants and a review of the land question.

A court on Turkey’s Imrali Island convicts Kurdish nationalist leader Abdullah Ocalan for committing acts of treason and separatism and sentences him to death by hanging. Ocalan’s execution, if carried out, will be the country’s first since 1984. . . . Herbert Gregg, a U.S. missionary abducted in the Russian republic of Dagestan and taken to Chechnya in November 1998, is freed. . . . Karekin I (born Neshan Sarkissian), 66, leader of the Armenian Apostolic Church since 1995, dies in Etchmiadzin, Armenia, of throat cancer.

Two organizers of the China Democracy Party’s branch in Beijing, Zha Jianguo and Gao Hongming, are arrested. . . . More than 100 members of a pro-integrationist militia attack a recently opened UN office in Maliana, near the West Timor border. An unidentified diplomat from South Africa and at least a dozen East Timorese are wounded in the attack.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 24–29, 1999—1283

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The United Network for Organ Sharing approves new rules giving the sickest patients higher priority for receiving livers. . . . James Kopp, a fugitive suspect in the slaying of Dr. Barnett Slepian, who performed abortions, is indicted by an Erie County, New York, grand jury. . . . The House approves, 305124, a constitutional amendment that will allow Congress to ban burning or other desecration of the U.S. flag.

The U.S. State Department shuts six U.S. embassies in Togo, Gambia, Namibia, Liberia, Senegal, and Madagascar for security reasons. . . . Judge Joyce Hens Green orders Sheik Abdul Raouf Khalil, a wealthy Saudi businessman tied to the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) fraud, to pay nearly $1.2 billion in damages to investors.

Data shows that, since November 1998, some 1,700 people banned by law from buying guns have been able to purchase them anyway.

Vietnamese and U.S. trade negotiators announce they have reached an agreement to normalize trade between the U.S. and Vietnam.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The FTC notes it has identified 800 sites on the World Wide Web that promote unproven medical treatments.

Geoff Lawson, 54, British automobile designer and styling director of Jaguar Cars since 1984, dies in Coventry, England, after suffering a stroke.

Former Democratic fund-raiser Yogesh Gandhi pleads guilty in San Francisco, California, to violating federal election law by funneling a contribution to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) from a foreign source. . . . Frederick Christ Trump, 93, who made his fortune building residential housing in the New York City’s outer boroughs and who was the father of developer Donald Trump, dies in New York after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

The San Antonio Spurs win their first NBA title over the New York Knicks, 78-77, in the deciding game of the basketball league’s championship series. . . . Leaders of the 2.6-million-member Presbyterian Church vote to prohibit the church’s regional governing bodies from voting on the ordination of homosexuals.

June 24

June 25

June 26

Golfer Juli Inkster wins the LPGA Championship, becoming only the second woman in modern LPGA history to win a career Grand Slam. . . . Marion Motley, 79, who in 1968 became only the second black player inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, dies in Cleveland, Ohio, while suffering from prostate cancer.

New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman, a moderate Republican known nationally for her support of abortion rights, signs a law requiring parental notification for teenage abortions. The law is the first significant abortion restriction enacted in New Jersey in more than 20 years. . . . In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Judge William Mazzola sentences Marie Noe, 70, to 20 years of probation for murdering eight of her young children between 1949 and 1968.

The U.S. State Department reopens the embassies in Togo, Gambia, Namibia, Liberia, and Senegal. The embassy in Madagascar remains closed.

Pres. Clinton unveils a plan to restructure Medicare, the federal health-care program for the nation’s elderly and disabled.

A group of independent oil producers based in the U.S. state of Oklahoma lodge the first antidumping complaint ever filed in the U.S. against foreign oil producers. In a petition to the Commerce Department, the independents allege that the oil-producing nations of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, and Mexico are attempting to put U.S. producers out of business by selling oil in the U.S. at unfairly low prices.

Pres. Clinton unveils new economic projections that add $1 trillion to earlier forecasts of the federal budget surplus over 15 years. Based on assumptions that the nation’s economy will continue to grow, Clinton projects that the surplus will allow the government to pay off the national debt by 2015.

Hannibal, by Thomas Harris, tops the bestseller lists. . . . Sir John Woolf, 86, British film producer whose films won 13 Academy Awards, dies in London, England.

Data suggests that the NBA finals recorded an average Nielsen television rating of 11.3, their lowest since 1981. . . . Allan Carr, 62, film and stage producer whose most successful film was Grease (1978), dies of liver cancer in Beverly Hills, California.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

June 27

June 28

June 29

1284—June 30–July 5, 1999

World Affairs

June 30

July 1

July 2

Africa & the Middle East

UN undersecretary general Sergio Vieira de Mello swears in the first panel of judges in Kosovo as the UN sets up a court system for the province. The panel—consisting of five ethnic Albanians, three Serbs and one ethnic Turk—will hear the cases of people arrested by NATO. The courts will operate on the basis of the Yugoslav penal code, although NATO troops will make arrests based on their national laws.

The Inter-American Human Rights Court (IAHRC), the legal arm of the Organization of American States. orders a retrial for four Chilean political prisoners convicted of terrorist acts and sentenced to life in prison in Peru.

The Bundestag holds its final session in Bonn before moving to Berlin. . . . Viscount Whitelaw (born William Stephen Ian Whitelaw), 81, British politician, dies. . . . Viktor Mikhailovich Chebrikov, 76, head of the KGB, 1982–88, dies in Moscow. . . . Queen Elizabeth II opens the Scottish Parliament. Scotland’s last legislature was dissolved by Britain in 1706. . . . A cable car in the French Alps plunges 260 feet (80 m), killing all 20 people on board. It is the worst such accident in French history.

A large majority of the 179 participating nations in a UN conference approve a plan to limit global population growth, although a small group of conservative Muslim and Roman Catholic countries object to provisions on abortion services and family planning.

French NATO troops arrest Dragan Marjanovic, suspected of committing atrocities against ethnic Albanians during NATO’s bombing campaign.

British NATO soldiers kill two members of the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and injure two others.

July 3

Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo, 82, African nationalist who played a key role in Zimbabwe’s struggle for independence, dies in Harare, Zimbabwe, of prostate cancer.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Canada, Tyrell Dueck, 13, a 13-year-old Saskatchewan boy whose refusal of treatment for bone cancer ignited a nationwide ethical debate, dies of his illness. Dueck refused treatment because he believed God and alternative medicine would cure him of his disease.

A fire sweeps through a three-story summer camp building in Hwasung on South Korea’s western coast, killing 19 children and four adults.

Sola Sierra, 63, Chilean humanrights activist, dies in Santiago, Chile, of a heart attack during surgery for a recently sustained back injury.

Japan’s National Police Agency reports that 32,863 people committed suicide in 1998, up 35% from 1997. The 1998 figure is the highest since Japanese police began keeping such records in 1947 and also represents a record per-capita suicide rate.

Canada’s National Assembly passes back-to-work legislation aimed at forcing the nurses who struck June 26 off the picket lines by penalizing their union leadership.

China Democracy Party member Liu Xianbin of Sichuan is arrested.

In elections for Kuwait’s parliament, Islamist candidates from both the Shi’ite and Sunni branches of Islam and Liberal candidates together win 34 seats of the 50 seats contested.

Former Singapore-based futures trader Nicholas Leeson of Britain, whose market losses led to the 1995 collapse of Barings Bank PLC, is released from a prison in Singapore after serving a little more than half of a 61⁄2-year sentence for fraud and forgery related to his trading losses, valued at £875 million ($1.4 billion).

In, East Timor, a humanitarian-aid, convoy is attacked by armed militiamen. At least three people are injured, and another five are reported missing. . . . India claims that its troops have taken Tiger Hill, a strategic point that overlooks a military supply route in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.

In Turkey, a bomb in a garbage can at an Istanbul park explodes, killing one person and wounding 25 others. . . . A traditional Protestant parade in the Drumcree section of Portadown, Northern Ireland, proceeds peacefully. In previous years, the Drumcree march had frequently erupted in sectarian violence.

July 4

July 5

Europe

Russia and NATO agree on outstanding details of Russian participation in NATO’s peacekeeping force in Kosovo, easing tensions in Russian-NATO relations, which were strained by Russia’s opposition to NATO’s 78-day bombing campaign in Yugoslavia. . . . Papua New Guinea establishes diplomatic relations with Taiwan, bringing to 29 the number of nations recognizing Taiwan as a country.

A suicide bomber, apparently linked to the Kurdish separatist movement, kills herself and wounds 14 bystanders when she detonates a bomb in Adana. . . . An estimated 10,000–20,000 Serbs gather in Leskovac, a traditional base of support for Pres. Slobodan Milosevic, in a spontaneous protest against the Yugoslav president. The protest in Leskovac is one of many recent demonstrations against Milosevic throughout Serbia.

UN officials announce that they are withdrawing staff from the town of Liquica, some 28 miles (45 km) west of Dili, East Timor’s capital city, following a July 4 attack on a humanitarian-aid convoy.

The Algerian government releases thousands of jailed Islamic militants under the terms of an amnesty peace deal.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

June 30–July 5, 1999—1285

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in Boston rules that the state attorney general’s office is allowed to regulate handgun safety according to consumer protection laws. The unanimous decision is the first such ruling in the country. . . . California judge John Ryan sentences serial killer Charles Ng to death for murders committed in 1984 and 1985. . . . The 1978 independent counsel statute expires.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Texas governor George W. Bush announces that his presidential campaign raised an unprecedented $36.25 million in the first half of 1999. . . . Webster Hubbell, a friend of Pres. Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, enters guilty pleas in two cases brought against him by independent counsel Kenneth Starr, who asserts that the pleas close the Whitewater aspect of his five-yearold investigation of the Clintons. Judge James Robertson orders Hubbell to pay $125.

The Justice Department releases new rules that will govern outside prosecutors appointed after the demise of the 1978 independent counsel statute. . . . The American Association of Health Plans states that many health maintenance organizations (HMOs) that serve Medicare beneficiaries will raise premiums or reduce benefits in the year 2000.

Robert Polhill, 65, U.S. professor of business at Beirut University College in Lebanon who, with three colleagues, was held hostage kidnapped by Lebanese militias, 1987–90, dies in Washington, D.C., of complications of chemotherapy he was receiving for bladder cancer.

The Senate votes, 97-2, to confirm Lawrence H. Summers as secretary of the treasury. . . . A jury in Washington, D.C., acquits Franklin Haney, a longtime supporter of Vice Pres. Al Gore, of charges that he used “straw donors” to evade federal fund-raising limits. . . . Forrest Mars Sr., 95, candy magnate who helped build Mars Inc., dies in Miami, Florida, of unreported causes. . . . The CBO projects the 10-year total surplus at $2.895 trillion, or $1 trillion without Social Security.

A gunman wounds six Orthodox Jewish men in Chicago, Illinois, and then kills Ricky Byrdsong, 42, who is black, in Skokie, a Chicago suburb. Later he fires four shots at two Asian Americans. . . . A federal jury in Florida finds Jay Jarrell and Robert Whiteside, two executives at Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp., guilty of defrauding Medicare and other federal health-care programs of some $3 million. They are the first jury verdicts to result from a probe that started in 1997. . . . Data shows that almost a quarter of the 182,545 handguns sold in 1988 in California, 40,722, were bought as part of a purchase of two or more handguns by the same buyer.

South Korean president Kim Dae Jung visits the U.S., his third trip to the States since he was elected in 1997.

Pres. Clinton announces that the North American bald eagle will be removed from the list of endangered species, due to steady growth in the bald eagle population. There are currently 5,800 bald eagle pairs in the U.S., up from 417 in 1963.

June 30

A study finds that a heart condition known as mitral valve prolapse is less common and less dangerous than widely believed. . . . The House, 404-24, and Senate, 81-18, adopt legislation that will protect businesses from lawsuits stemming from problems caused by the year 2000 (Y2K) computer glitch. Many computers, if not reprogrammed, are expected to recognize the year 2000 as 1900, resulting in potentially severe disruptions.

Sylvia Sidney (born Sophia Kosow), 88, actress of the 1930s and 1940s, dies in New York City of throat cancer. . . . Edward Dmytryk, 90, film director best known for The Caine Mutiny (1954), who was jailed for refusing to answer questions during the McCarthy era, dies of heart and kidney failure in Encino, California.

Mario Puzo, 78, novelist and screenwriter who wrote The Godfather (1969), one of the most successful novels of all time, and cowrote the screenplays for the movies of the same name, dies in Bay Shore, New York, of heart failure.

The gunman who went on a rampage July 2 continues the violence when he shoots a black man in Springfield, Illinois, and another black person in Decatur. That night in Urbana, east of Springfield, he fires at a group of six Asian students, and one is wounded.

July 1

July 2

July 3

The gunman who went on a shooting rampage July 2 fires four shots into a crowd at the Korean United Methodist Church in Bloomington, Illinois. A 26-year-old Korean-American graduate student is killed. The suspected killer, Benjamin Nathaniel Smith, 21, kills himself during a police chase. Smith is a member of the white-supremacist World Church of the Creator, one of the fastest-growing hate groups in the U.S. His July 2–4 rampage leaves two people dead and nine wounded.

A heat wave rolls across states in the Northeastern and mid-Atlantic regions of the U.S., causing temperatures to soar in several cities on the East Coast, including Washington, D.C.; New York City; and Atlantic City, New Jersey.

According to Forbes, William Gates of Microsoft Corp. is the richest person still working with his assets in the world, with a fortune estimated at $90 billion.

Pete Sampras wins his sixth men’s singles title at the All England Tennis Championship at Wimbledon. Third-seeded Lindsay Davenport wins her first Wimbledon singles title.

In Kazakhstan, a Russian Proton rocket carrying a satellite crashes soon after liftoff. . . . C(larence) Walton Lillehei, 80, surgeon who while teaching at the University of Minnesota in 1952, performed the first successful open-heart surgery, dies in St. Paul, Minnesota, of cancer.

July 4

July 5

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1286—July 6–11, 1999

July 6

July 7

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

British NATO troops apprehend Radoslav Brdjanin on charges of war crimes committed against Bosnian Muslims and Croats during the 1992–95 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Brdjanin, a deputy premier of Bosnia’s Serb Republic, is the highest-level Bosnian Serb politician NATO has arrested on war crimes charges.

In accordance with the July 5 agreement with NATO, a contingent of Russian troops enter the Serbian province of Kosovo. . . . Joe Hyman, 77, British textile magnate, dies of unreported causes.

Ehud Barak takes the oath as Israel’s prime minister.

Britain announces that it is resuming normal diplomatic relations with Libya due to Libya’s agreement to cooperate with an investigation into the 1984 shooting death of British police officer Yvonne Fletcher. The British government severed all diplomatic ties with Libya five days after that incident.

Spanish police, customs, and naval officials seize a ship in the midAtlantic Ocean carrying about 10 tons of cocaine. The operation is believed to be the biggest cocaine seizure ever by European authorities.

Pres. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and rebel leader Foday Sankoh sign a pact to end Sierra Leone’s eightyear-old civil war. . . . In Iran, the conservative Special Court for Clergy that bans Iran’s leading moderate daily paper. The conservative-led Majlis parliament votes to restrict the reformist press. . . . In Bahrain, Sheik Abdul Amir al-Jamri is sentenced to a 10-year prison term. He has been imprisoned since January 1996.

Peru’s Congress votes to ignore the July 1 rulings of the Inter-American Human Rights Court (IAHRC), the legal arm of the OAS, that called for a retrial of four Chilean political prisoners.

Latvia’s parliament approves a controversial law that requires the use of the Latvian language at most public and business functions.

Members of Ansar-e Hezbollah, an Islamic vigilante group, attack students protesting the July 7 rulings at Teheran University in Iran. Riot police storm a dormitory, and students claim that as many as eight people are killed and scores injured . . . . A speaker for the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) reports heavy fighting in Kabinda, a government-held town . . . . In Bahrain, Sheik Abdul Amir alJamri, sentenced July 7, is issued an amnesty and freed from jail. . . . Shafik al- Wazzan, 74, premier of Lebanon, 1980–84, dies in Beirut of a heart attack.

In Colombia, FARC forces begin a series of raids against more than 20 towns and installations, including one on an army encampment only about 27 miles (40 km) from Bogota, the capital. Rebels kill 38 government soldiers in the attack on the military camp.

July 8

July 9

July 10

July 11

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Indian and Pakistani officials exchange allegations that their embassy staff members have been abducted and tortured. India claims it has retaken several peaks in the Batalik area of Kashmir. . . . Nearly 1,000 Falun Gong followers hold a rally inside the Communist Party headquarters in Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi province. The protesters demand that a provincial party publication retract an article denouncing their movement. . . . Dancer and film star Piseth Pelika is shot on a street in Phnom Penh, the capitol of Cambodia. Bill Skate resigns as prime minister of Papua New Guinea. . . . The Indonesian government states that it will send 1,200 additional police officers to East Timor to prevent further attacks on UN staff. . . . Leaders of 16 Islamic militant groups vow to continue fighting in Kashmir and reject recent claims made by Indian military officials that India had recaptured strategic positions in the region.

The Supreme Court of Canada rules that children cannot sue their mothers for injuries suffered while in the womb.

In an interview with a German radio station, Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui states that Taiwan should henceforth conduct its relations with China on a “state-to-state” basis.

A powerful earthquake strikes Guatemala, injuring at least 37 people and damaging homes and buildings. The quake registers between 6.1 and 6.6 on the Richter scale. The epicenter is about 20 miles (30 km) east of the city of Puerto Barrios on Guatemala’s Caribbean coast. . . . Colombia’s military states its troops have effectively put down the FARC attacks that started July 8, the largest guerrilla offensive in 40 years.

Commanders of military operations from India and Pakistan meet at a border point and lay out a plan for ending the current crisis, which has brought the heaviest fighting in Kashmir in nearly 30 years. . . . The Chinese foreign ministry calls Taiwan’s July 9 remarks regarding its relations with Chiha “an extremely dangerous step” and warns Taiwan’s government to “rein in at the brink of the precipice.”

The heads of six African nations with troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo sign a cease-fire agreement aimed at ending the civil war in that country. The signers are Congo and its allies—Zimbabwe, Angola, and Namibia—and the two main rebel allies, Rwanda and Uganda. However, a representative for the Movement for the Liberation of Congo, one main rebel group, asserts, “We have not signed so we are not bound.” The UNHCR reports that 200,000 people have left Congo since August 1998. Zambian president Frederick Chiluba criticizes the U.N. for spending 11 cents on each African refugee from the Congo conflict while spending $1.50 on each refugee from the conflict in Kosovo, a Serbian province, calling the difference in spending “discrimination of the worst kind.”

A bomb explodes in Van, a city in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeastern region. The blast injures 16 people.

Iran’s government officials claim that only one person was killed in the July 8 raid on a student dorm at Teheran University. At least one person has been killed in the ongoing unrest.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 6–11, 1999—1287

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Mark Potok, of the Southern Poverty Law Center, notes that members of the World Church of the Creator, the white supremacist group connected to alleged killer Benjamin Nathaniel Smith, who went on a rampage in Illinois July 2–4, has also been linked to a 1993 plot to bomb a Los Angeles African Methodist Episcopal church and to the 1993 bombing of a Tacoma, Washington, office of the NAACP.

Pres. Clinton imposes economic sanctions on the Taliban militia in Afghanistan for allegedly harboring Saudi Arabian exile Osama bin Laden. . . . Gay soldier Pfc. Barry Winchell dies after being beaten with a baseball bat at Fort Campbell army base in Kentucky. . . . Judge Joyce Hens Green closes U.S. forfeiture proceedings against the BCCI, stating that the U.S. government gained clear title to $1.2 billion in U.S.-based assets that BCCI forfeited. BCCI folded in 1991 after disclosures of many kinds of fraud around the world.

BankAmerica Corp. announces the creation of a $500 million “catalyst fund” to make equity investments in businesses in poor areas.

A power failure in Washington Heights, a section of New York City that is home to a mostly lowincome, minority population lasts 18 hours and cuts off electric power to 200,000 people and 700 businesses. . . . In response to the July 5 crash of a Russian Proton rocket, Kazakhstan suspends space launches from the Baikonur cosmodrome, from which Russia regularly launches capsules to Mir.

Joaquin Rodrigo, 97, Spanish composer best known for his Concierto de Aranjuez, dies in Madrid. . . . Thor Axel Appfjell, 32, who made daredevil jumps from buildings including the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building, dies in a jump from a cliff near Stavanger, Norway.

Reports confirm that Philip Morris, the nation’s largest cigarette company, ended its financial support of the National Smokers Alliance. . . . A Florida jury finds that the nation’s largest tobacco companies conspired to conceal the addictiveness and health hazards of smoking, and that they may be held liable for causing a variety of illnesses in smokers. It is the first class-action suit on behalf of injured smokers to reach trial.

Pres. Clinton imposes import restrictions on steel from Brazil and on lamb from Australia and New Zealand.

On his tour of some of the nation’s most economically depressed areas, Pres. Clinton visits the Oglala Lakota Sioux reservation in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, the nation’s second-largest Indian reservation. He is the first sitting president to visit an Indian reservation since Franklin D. Roosevelt visited a Cherokee reservation in 1936. The Pine Ridge reservation’s 38,000 residents suffer from 73% unemployment.

The American Red Cross, the U.S.’s largest blood supplier, names Dr. Bernadine Healy as its next president, effective September 1.

July 7

A study finds that by the end of 1998, more than 40% of U.S. homes had a computer, 25% were connected to the Internet and 94.1% had phones. The report also notes a growing “digital divide” in information access drawn along financial and racial lines. . . . Researchers report they have developed a vaccine that, in mice, prevents and reverses the accumulation of protein deposits in the brain associated with Alzheimer’s disease. . . . (Charles) Pete Conrad Jr., 69, the third man to walk on the moon, dies after a motorcycle accident in Ojai, California.

A jury in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, clears two cigarette companies of responsibility for the death of Robert Gilboy, a longtime smoker who had lung cancer. . . . James Leonard Farmer, 79, U.S. civil-rights leader who spearheaded the integration of public facilities throughout the South during the 1950s and 1960s, advocating nonviolent protest, dies in Fredericksburg, Virginia, while suffering from complications of diabetes.

July 6

Christie’s International PLC holds an $89.5 million auction of art and antiques owned by the Rothschild family in London. The sale is Britain’s highest-grossing art auction ever.

A Louisiana jury orders GM to pay $4.9 billion to six people burned when the fuel tank of their 1979 Chevrolet Malibu exploded when it was hit from behind in 1993. It is the largest damages award ever in a product-liability lawsuit. . . . In Chicago, Illinois Judge Blanche Manning sentences three former Archer Daniels Midland Co. executives to prison terms for their roles in a conspiracy to fix the price of lysine, a livestock-feed additive.

July 8

July 9

Cyrano Marks shoots six people to death in an Atlanta, Georgia, house before killing himself. The incident is the deadliest mass shooting in Atlanta in the 20th century.

The U.S. defeats China, 5-4, to win the quadrennial Women’s World Cup championship in Pasadena, California. The tournament sets an attendance record of 90,185 for women’s sports and sparks soccer fever throughout the U.S. . . . American John McEnroe and Australian Ken McGregor are inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

The Justice Department releases the first comprehensive survey of mental illness among inmates in the nation’s prisons. The study finds that there are 283,800 inmates with mental illness, or about 16% of the total state and local prison population. Slightly more than 7% of federal prison inmates are found to suffer from mental illness.

Golfer Dave Eichelberger wins his first U.S. Senior Open. . . . Helen Forrest (born Helen Fogel), 81, big band singer in the 1940s who recorded her last album in 1983, dies of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles, California.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 10

July 11

1288—July 12–17, 1999

July 12

July 13

July 14

July 15

July 16

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

The UN World Heritage votes not to place World Heritage–listed Kakadu National Park, Australia, on a list of sites “in danger.”. . . The UN Human Development Program urges tougher regulations to combat the negative effects of globalization. . . . A WTO arbitration panel authorizes the U.S. to impose $116.8 million in tariffs to penalize the EU for failing to lift its 11-yearold ban on the import of beef treated with growth hormones. The panel also rules that Canada is entitled to impose $7.5 million in tariffs.

Guy Verhofstadt, head of the freemarket Liberal party based in Belgium’s Flemish-speaking region, is sworn in by King Albert II as the country’s new premier. The king also swears in Verhofstadt’s government. . . . In Northern Ireland, several marches to commemorate a Protestant victory over Catholic forces in 1690 take place without incident. In previous years, the parades were often flashpoints of sectarian violence.

In Iran, protests that started Jul. 8 spread from Teheran, the capital, to the provinces, with demonstrations reported in 18 cities. Pres. Mohammed Khamenei appeals for calm in a speech broadcast on television and the radio.

The World Economic Forum’s annual global competitiveness report finds that Singapore remains the most competitive country among 59 surveyed. It is followed by the U.S., Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Canada. . . . Officials from Europe and the U.S. agree with a World Bank finding indicating that the damage wreaked on Kosovo is not as extensive as previously thought.

In Moscow, Russia, Nikita Krivchun, 20, repeatedly stabs a prominent Russian rabbi, Leopold Kaimovsky, 52, who is in “very serious” condition after the anti-Semitic attack.

In Algiers, 42 African leaders close the 35th annual summit of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). Among the attendees is Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gadhafi, whose last OAU summit appearance was in 1977. . . . The European Commission votes to end its ban on beef exports from Britain . . . Argentina and Britain agree to reinstate commercial flights between Argentina and the Falkland Islands, known as the Malvinas in Argentina, for the first time since 1982.

Latvian president Vaira VikeFreiberga vetoes a controversial law that requires the use of the Latvian language at most public and business functions, sending it back to Parliament for revision. . . . Reports indicate that Murat Bozlak, head of Hadep, the largest Kurdish party in Turkey, has been released from prison.

Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak in talks with U.S. president Clinton, outlines a 15-month deadline for peace in the Middle East.

Bernard Kouchner, the UN’s newly appointed administrator in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo, arrives in the province to officially take up his duties. Investigators report that, with the investigation not yet concluded, they have discovered 280 mass grave sites containing a total of more than 6,100 bodies.

A court in The Hague, the Netherlands, convicts Suriname’s former military leader Desi Bouterse in absentia on charges of cocaine trafficking. Bouterse, 54, who led military coups in Suriname in 1980 and 1990, was chief adviser to Suriname president Jules Wijdenbosch until the president dismissed him in April. The court sentences Bouterse to 16 years in prison and fines him $2.18 million.

Latvia’s parliament, the Saeima, elects former premier Andris Skele as the country’s new premier. . . . A UN-sponsored council comprised of ethnic Albanians, Serbs, and other ethnic groups—the Kosovo Transitional Council—holds its first meeting.

In Sierra Leone, rebels hand over 192 civilians abducted during the civil war. More than half of the civilians are children.

Donal McCann, 56, widely seen as Ireland’s greatest actor, dies in Dublin, Ireland, of pancreatic cancer.

Israel releases its longest-held Palestinian prisoner, Osama Barham, after he spent nearly six years in prison without being formally charged or brought to trial.

July 17

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Tens of thousands of riot police, government troops, and Islamic militants launch the most concerted crackdown against the protesters in Iran, sparking clashes that close down most businesses in Teheran. Paramilitary and vigilante groups fire tear gas into the crowd, discharge weapons in the air, and beat protesters. The unrest is reported to be Iran’s worst civil disturbance since the country’s Islamic revolution in 1979.

General Fernando Tapias, the chief of Colombia’s armed forces, reveals that government troops have killed more than 300 guerrillas since the July 8 rebel offensive began.

The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that militias have driven some 50,000 East Timorese—approximately 5% of the province’s population—from their homes. . . . Thousands of Cambodians gather in Phnom Penh, the capital, to mourn the July 6 death of dancer and film star Piseth Pelika. The massive outpouring of public grief is reportedly unusual in Cambodia.

After the July 13 violence, student leaders state that they ended the protest, but. they insist that the hard-line police chief, Hedayat Lotfian, be dismissed, and that the two officers fired July 11 be put on public trial. They also demand the release of the bodies of the students killed in the July 8 raid. Tens of thousands of Iranians—as many as 100,000 by some estimates— participate in a march in Teheran staged by conservative factions in Parliament, in support of the Islamic government.

Peruvian armed forces capture Oscar Ramirez Durand (known by the nom de guerre Comrade Feliciano), a guerrilla leader whom the government describes as the last remaining commander of Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), a Maoist insurgency group.

In Papua New Guinea, Parliament elects Sir Mekere Morauta, leader of the opposition People’s Democratic Movement (PDM) party, as the country’s new prime minister.

Statistics New Zealand reports that prices in New Zealand in the year to June 30 were 0.4% lower than in the previous year. The decline places inflation at its lowest level since the 1930s.

An appellate court judge in Toluca, Mexico, reduces the prison sentence of Raul Salinas de Gortari, the brother of former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, to 271⁄2 years, from a maximum sentence of 50 years.

Japan receives the first legal shipment of ivory since 1990, when a worldwide ban on ivory trading went into effect. In 1997, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species approved the one-time sale of 50 tons of ivory to Japan by Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 12–17, 1999—1289

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Justice Department files a lawsuit against Toyota Motor Co., alleging that Toyota violated regulations under the Clean Air Act when it installed faulty emissionscontrol equipment in 2.2 million vehicles in its 1996-through-1998 model years.

A suspected serial killer who allegedly murdered eight people in Kentucky, Texas, and Illinois surrenders to authorities in Texas, ending a weeks-long nationwide manhunt. The suspect is known by the name Rafael Resendez-Ramirez but uses a variety of aliases. His real name is said to be Angel Maturino Resendez.

A bipartisan congressional commission criticizes the U.S. for failing to take adequate measures to combat the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.

In response to the July 12 suit filed by the Justice Department, Toyota refuses an out-of-court settlement that would have required a recall of the vehicles. Toyota is the first carmaker to refuse to settle a pollution case with the U.S. government.

The school committee in Boston, Massachusetts, votes, 5-2, to stop using race as a factor in determining which schools public-school students may attend. The decision means that school busing in Boston is to end in the year 2000. . . . John Roy Steelman, 99, longtime aide to Pres. Harry S. Truman, dies in Naples, Florida, of pneumonia.

After intense debate on a rival Democratic bill, the Senate passes, 53-47, a Republican-sponsored bill establishing consumer protections for patients enrolled in health maintenance organizations (HMOs) and other health insurance plans. . . . George E. Brown Jr., 79, (D, Calif.) serving his 18th term in the U.S. House of Representatives and the oldest House member in the current Congress, dies of a postsurgical infection at Bethesda Naval Hospital. He had had a heart valve replaced in May.

July 12

The Vatican orders Rev. Robert Nugent and Sister Jeannine Gramick, a Maryland-based Roman Catholic priest and nun, to halt their national ministry for homosexuals. . . . The American League defeats the National League, 4-1, to win Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts.

U.S. and Ugandan scientists announce they have discovered a cheaper and more effective method of reducing mother-to-child birth transmission of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, in developing countries. The researchers reveal that a single dose of the drug nevirapine given to HIV-positive mothers during labor and to their newborns cuts the transmission rate to 13% of children four months after birth. . . . Kazakhstan agrees to allow the launch of a supply ship to Mir.

China releases a report rebutting allegations by a U.S. congressional committee that China has stolen U.S. nuclear and other weapons technology. The report contains China’s first acknowledgment that it possesses the capability to build a neutron bomb.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson recommends that Congress compensate thousands of workers sickened while making nuclear weapons. Richardson’s report to Congress marks the first time the government acknowledges a link between workers’ exposure to radioactive materials and cancer or other diseases. . . . Gov. George W. Bush (R, Tex.) announces he will not seek federal matching funds for his presidential primary campaign, releasing him from federal and state spending caps.

The House votes, 234-163, to endorse legislation that will institute trade benefits for Africa.

The Dow closes at a record high of 11,209.84. That marks the fifth record high of the month and the 29th record high in 1999.

In basketball, the Western Conference beats the Eastern Conference, 79-61, to win the inaugural WNBA All-Star Game before a sellout crowd of 18,649 in New York City. . . . During construction of a stadium for baseball’s Milwaukee Brewers, a crane collapses, killing three workers and injuring five others.

The House votes, 306-118, to pass legislation aimed at protecting individuals’ religious freedoms, even if the practice of those beliefs breaches local laws.

A jury in Bridgeport, Connecticut, dismisses claims in an antitrust lawsuit filed against Microsoft by a small software firm, Bristol Technology Inc. Bristol filed the lawsuit in August 1998, accusing Microsoft of seeking to gain a monopoly for its Windows NT system. . . . Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and others attend the 30th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11 at a reunion of mission personnel at the launch site at Cape Canaveral, known as Cape Kennedy in 1969.

Rep. Michael Forbes, a third-term Republican from New York, switches his allegiance from the GOP to the Democrats, criticizing the Republicans as an “angry, narrowminded, intolerant and uncaring majority, incapable of governing.” Forbes’s shift narrows the Republicans’ slim majority, boosting the Democrats’ chances of retaking the House in 2000.

John F. Kennedy Jr., 38, only surviving son of former president John F. Kennedy and editor of the political magazine George, dies in an airplane crash with his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and his sister-in-law Lauren Bessette. The plane, piloted by John Kennedy, plunges into the Atlantic Ocean near Martha’s Vineyard.

The Western Conference defeats the Eastern Conference, 6-4, in the 1999 MLS All-Star Game at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, California.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 13

July 14

July 15

July 16

July 17

1290—July 18–22, 1999

July 18

July 19

July 20

July 21

July 22

World Affairs

Europe

The U.S. Census Bureau’s International Programs Center estimates that the world’s population has reached the 6 billion mark.

Two U.S. soldiers taking part in NATO’s Kosovo force—Specialist Sherwood Brim, 30, and Sergeant William Wright, 27—die in an accident while on patrol near Gnjilane. The incident marks the first U.S. fatalities since the alliance entered Kosovo a month earlier.

The U.S. announces that it will impose tariffs of 100% on several high-priced items imported from Europe, in retaliation for the European Union’s refusal to lift its 11year-old ban on the import of beef treated with growth hormones.

The EU’s legislative arm, the European Parliament, elects French conservative Nicole Fontaine as its president. . . . Inspectors from the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, raid European offices of U.S.-based Coca-Cola Co. and its affiliated bottling companies in Austria, Britain, Denmark, and Germany, seeking evidence of anticompetitive practices.

Turkish premier Bulent Ecevit declares that Turkish Cyprus must maintain independence from the rest of the divided nation. . . . The Constitutional Court, Spain’s highest appeals court, rules that 22 imprisoned members of Herri Batasuna, ETA’s political wing, should be released. . . . A Russian military journalist accused of passing naval secrets to Japan, navy captain Grigori Pasko, is released from prison after a military court drops a charge of treason against him.

The new prime minister of Papua New Guinea, Sir Mekere Morauta, announces that he has reversed his predecessor’s decision to establish diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

Turkish premier Bulent Ecevit announces that Turkish forces have arrested Kurdish separatist Cevat Soysal in Moldova. . . . David MacKenzie Ogilvy, 88, British-born founder of Ogilvy & Mather, a major international advertising agency, dies near Bonnes, France, of unreported causes.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) officially appoints New Zealander Mike Moore, an economist and former prime minister, as its director general.

Claudio Rodriguez, 65, who was regarded as one of the best Spanish poets of the century and who published five books of verse, dies in Madrid, Spain, of colon cancer.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The Iraqi News Agency reports that 17 people were killed and 18 wounded in the Jul. 18 attack in southern Iraq.

A court in San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico, sentences 20 people convicted of participating in a December 1997 massacre in the Tzotzil Indian village of Acteal in the southern state of Chiapas. In the massacre, gunmen from neighboring Indian villages killed 45 people in Acteal. The court sentences each of the defendants to 35-year prison terms.

The Chinese government starts a roundup of dozens of leaders of the quasi-religious Falun Gong spiritual movement, prompting protests.

In response to the July 18–19 claims, U.S. defense secretary William Cohen states that there is no evidence that the U.S. attack in southern Iraq killed any civilians.

Off the coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, 123 Chinese illegal immigrants are found smuggled aboard a fishing boat. The humansmuggling case, one of the biggest in Canadian history, sparks a national controversy over Canada’s immigration and refugee laws.

In India, Muslim fighters kill 20 Hindus in three predawn attacks in the Himalayan foothills in the Doda and Punch districts of Kashmir. . . . Indonesian election officials postpone the release of an official tally of the country’s June 7 general election results. It is the latest in a string of delays following the historic June vote, the country’s first fully democratic election in 44 years.

Nurses in Quebec, Canada, vote to reject a labor agreement with the government and resume their 24-day-old strike. Separately, data shows that Canada’s overall crime rate in 1998 declined for the seventh consecutive year, down by 4.1% from 1997. The crime rate is at its lowest level since 1979.

Despite the July 11 agreement, Kashmiri guerrillas bombard an Indian army headquarters in Kashmir. India responds with artillery fire against some 150 guerrillas. Some 16 people are reported killed in several gun battles in Indian-held territory. . . . Tens of thousands of Falun Gong members gather in 30 cities in protest of the July 19 detentions in China. Hundreds of followers converging on the Communist Party compound Beijing are stopped by police and put onto buses.

Dozens of people are killed during ethnic rioting in the town of Shagamu, 36 miles (60 km) north of Lagos, Nigeria. The rioting reportedly occurs after a woman from the Hausa ethnic group violates a taboo by watching a ceremony of the Yoruba people. . . . According to Iraqi military officials, U.S. fighter planes kill 14 civilians and injure 17 others in Iraq’s southern no-fly zone.

In Mongolia, the Great Hural passes a no-confidence vote in the government of Premier Janlaviin Narantsatsralt. It is the third government to collapse in 15 months. . . . Japan’s Diet passes legislation granting official status to Japan’s de facto national flag and anthem. . . . The Chinese government issues a ban on the quasi-religious Falun Gong spiritual movement. Followers of the movement gather in Beijing before being hustled away by police.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 18–22, 1999—1291

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The Justice Department announces that the 1998 violent-crime rate decreased 7% from the 1997 rate. The 1998 level, 8.1 million violent crimes, is the lowest recorded since the figure was first measured in 1973. The data does not include homicides.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Pitcher David Cone of the New York Yankees pitches the 16th perfect game in Major League Baseball history in a 6-0 win over the Montreal Expos. . . . Golfer Paul Lawrie of Scotland wins the 128th British Open.

California governor Gray Davis (D) signs into law the nation’s strictest ban on assault weapons. He also signs a bill that makes it illegal for someone to buy more than one gun per month. Maryland, South Carolina, and Virginia have passed similar laws. . . . An arbitration panel sets the value of Abraham Zapruder’s famous home movie of Pres. John F. Kennedy’s 1963 assassination at $16 million when it rules that the federal government should pay that sum to Zapruder’s family in return for ownership of the 26-second film. The Assassination Records Review Board awarded the government permanent ownership of the film in 1997.

Hewlett-Packard Co., the world’s second-largest computer maker, announces that Carleton Fiorina, 44, has been named the company’s president and chief executive. Fiorina is the first woman to run one of the U.S.’s 20 largest publicly held companies.

A heat wave rolls across the midwestern, southern, and eastern states. . . . Ludwik Gross, 94, cancer researcher who won the prestigious Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation prize in 1974 for his discovery in the 1950s of a virus that induced cancer in mice, dies in New York City of stomach cancer.

A(aron) Stanley Tretick, 77, photographer best known for his candid White House photographs of Pres. John F. Kennedy and his family, dies in Gaithersburg, Maryland, of pneumonia after suffering several strokes in recent years.

The House approves, 239-185, Republican-sponsored legislation that will authorize $2 billion in annual spending for five years, starting in fiscal 2000, on teacher hiring and training. It will also give states and school districts significant control over how to spend the funding.

The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. trade deficit in May rose to a record high, registering a $21.335 billion gap in trade in goods and services. That is up from April’s revised $18.591 billion deficit.

Vice Pres. Al Gore presents the Langley Medal to Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins, the crew of Apollo 11, the first mission to land men on the moon. The ceremony takes place on the 30th anniversary of the mission’s moon landing. . . . Ocean explorers recover the Mercury space capsule that had carried astronaut Virgil (Gus) Grissom to earth after he became the second American to travel in space in 1961.

Public TV officials tell a House subcommittee that many public-TV stations have shared donor information with political organizations, including the Democratic Party. The revelations give new life to efforts by some Republicans to end federal support for public television.

The Senate votes, 96-1, to approve legislation that would create a semiautonomous agency within the Energy Department to oversee the nation’s nuclear weapons research programs.

In Mobile, Alabama, Judge Robert Kendall rejects a class-action settlement by cigarette maker Liggett Group Inc. intended to resolve claims against the company by people made ill by its cigarettes.

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., the world’s second-largest cruise line, announces that it will plead guilty to illegally dumping oil and hazardous chemicals at sea and lying about it to the U.S. Coast Guard. The cruise line agrees to pay $18 million in fines in the largest settlement ever recorded against a cruise line. . . . General Motors recalls 3.5 million pickup trucks, vans and sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) because of potential problems with antilock brakes. The House votes, 223-208, to approve a Republican-sponsored major tax-cutting package that will reduce federal taxes by $792 billion over 10 years.

The bodies of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and his sister-in-law Lauren Bessette are found and recovered from the Atlantic Ocean following the July 16 plane crash near Martha’s Vineyard. More than 10,000 mourners stage a vigil outside the Kennedys’ apartment in New York City.

Data shows that hundreds of thousands of people have lost electrical power in New York City and that 31 of the city’s residents have died from the heat wave that started July 4. . . . As many as 500,000 dead fish are found floating in Virginia’s Bullbegger Creek, a tributary of Maryland’s Pocomoke River, in the Chesapeake Bay area’s worst fish kill in the past decade. Biologists attribute it to oxygen deprivation caused by drought conditions and algae.

The ashes of John and Carolyn Kennedy and of Lauren Bessette are committed to the sea in a private ceremony aboard the U.S. Navy destroyer Briscoe.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 18

July 19

July 20

July 21

July 22

1292—July 23–28, 1999

July 23

World Affairs

Europe

The foreign ministers of member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) convene in Singapore for the 32nd annual conference on regional economic and security issues.

British NATO peacekeepers in the Serbian province of Kosovo discover the bodies of 14 Serbian farmers in a field when they investigate the sound of gunfire. The attack on the farmers marks the single worst incidence of violence in Kosovo since NATO entered the province six weeks earlier.

July 24

July 25

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

King Hassan II of Morocco, 70, the longest-ruling monarch in the Arab world, who played a key role in the Middle East peace process, dies of a heart attack in Rabat. He is immediately succeeded by his eldest son, Sidi Mohammed, who takes the official title of King Mohammed VI. . . . Sierra Leone officials state that the government has pardoned 98 leaders of a rebel military junta that temporarily held power after a 1997 coup. Those pardoned include a former president, Joseph Momoh.

A U.S. Army reconnaissance plane crashes in southern Colombia.

In Japan, six former executives of the failed Nippon Credit Bank Ltd. are arrested for allegedly concealing bank losses of more than $830 million. Separately, a hijacker reported to be Yuji Nishizawa, 28, fatally stabs Naoyuki Nagashima, the pilot of an All Nippon Airways domestic flight. The pilot disarms the hijacker before dying, and the plane is landed safely by the copilot. Nagashima’s death is the first to occur in a hijacking of a domestic Japanese flight. . . . Some 200 Falun Gong followers gather in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to protest the July 22 ban.

In an offshoot of the July 18 violence in Shagamu, Nigeria, more clashes between the Hausa and Yoruba occur in the northern city of Kano, Nigeria.

In Canada, Quebec nurses end their 26-day-old strike and decide to return to work.

Reports suggest that Chinese authorities have detained more than 4,000 people in Beijing alone since the July 19 beginning of the crackdown. Most of those arrested have been released after being held in stadiums used as detention centers, but some have been charged with serious crimes.

Several world leaders, including U.S. president Clinton, French president Jacques Chirac, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, Jordan’s King Abdullah, Israeli president Ezer Weizman, former Israeli prime minister. Shimon Peres, and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, attend a funeral procession for King Hassan II of Morocco. Hundreds of thousands of mourners march in Hassan’s funeral procession in Rabat.

July 26

July 27

July 28

Africa & the Middle East

Thousands of Muslim fundamentalists demonstrate in the streets of Lahore, Pakistan, to protest the Sharif administration’s agreement to retreat from Kashmir. . . . Raul S. Manglapus, 80, Filipino politician, dies in Alabang, the Philippines, of cancer.

Shares of Freeserve PLC, a provider of service on the Internet computer network, debuts on the London Stock Exchange as the first initial public offering (IPO) of a large European Internet company. . . . General Phaidon Gizikis, 82, president of Greece, 1973–74, dies in Athens, Greece, of unreported causes.

Ahmed Qurie, speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, makes an historic visit to the Knesset. He is the highest-ranking Palestinian ever to visit Israeli’s parliament. . . . Reports confirm that, in the continuing unrest in the Niger River Delta region, youths have taken hostage 64 Shell workers and seized a drilling rig. Separately, the Nigerian government sends troops to restore calm to the clashes that started July 24 in Kano.

In Switzerland, a flash flood kills 21 people engaging in the adventure sport of “canyoning” in the Saxeten Brook near Interlaken. Six survivors of the incident are injured. . . . Amaryllis Fleming, 73, British cellist who became a leading soloist in the 1950s and early 1960s, dies in Nettlebed, England, of unreported causes.

Simon (Mahlathini) Nkabinde, 61, South African musician and singer in a popular Zulu music group during the 1960s and 1970s, dies in Johannesburg, South Africa, of diabetes.

The European Court of Human Rights finds France guilty of torturing Ahmed Selmouni, a drug dealer, while in police custody. It is the court’s first-ever conviction of a Western European nation on torture charges. The court orders France to pay the victim 613,000 francs ($100,000) in compensation. . . . Nearly 100 countries, international organizations, and aid agencies pledge a total of $2.1 billion to help rebuild Kosovo.

Brazilian truck drivers launch a nationwide strike to protest increased roadway tolls, inadequate protections against cargo thieves, recent hikes in fuel prices and what they call draconian penalties for traffic violations.

Indian military officials reveal that their forces have driven Pakistanbacked Muslim insurgents from Indian-held territory in the disputed region of Kashmir. The officials state that they are restoring the 1972 Line of Control that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan. . . . A human-rights group claims that some 1,200 Chinese government officials who are Falun Gong practitioners were rounded up over the previous weekend. New South Wales premier Bob Carr announces the opening of Australia’s first legal heroin-injecting room for a 12-month trial period. The government of the Australian Capital Territory also announces that it will open a trial injecting room.

Rescue teams in southern Colombia recover the bodies of four U.S. military personnel from the U.S. reconnaissance plane that crashed July 23. The U.S. soldiers, who were based at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, are the first U.S. military personnel to be killed in an antidrug operation in Colombia. . . . Eight Chinese boys from the group of 123 illegal immigrants found July 20 off of Vancouver Island, Canada, are released to child-welfare authorities.

The Muslim fundamentalist Taliban militia, which controls 90% of Afghanistan, launches an offensive aimed at taking control of the remaining 10% of the country. . . . Reports confirm that Indian Pres. K. R. Narayanan has issued a declaration that bars Balasaheb K. Thackeray, leader of the Hindu nationalist Shiv Sena party, from voting or seeking public office for six years. The start of the ban is backdated to Dec. 11, 1995.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 23–28, 1999—1293

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Frank M(inis) Johnson Jr., 80, U.S. District Court judge in Alabama, 1955–79, and member of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, 1979–92, dies in Montgomery, Alabama, of pneumonia that developed after a fall a week earlier.

The U.S. space shuttle Columbia lifts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, to deploy the Chandra X-ray Observatory, an orbiting X-ray telescope.

The Cherokee Nation, the secondlargest Native American tribe in the U.S., elects Chad Smith as its new chief. . . . Reports confirm that Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity (CRACK), a group that claims to want to stop the birth of unwanted children to drug-addicted mothers, is offering $200 to female addicts who undergo sterilization or obtain long-term contraception.

Reports disclose that federal investigators found that the author of two 1997 studies purporting to show a link between electric power lines and cancer had falsified the studies’ results.

The Reform Party chooses Jack Gargan of Florida as chair. Gargan is backed by Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura rather than by the party’s founder, Texas billionaire Ross Perot.

Russian premier Sergei Stepashin visits the U.S. in a trip aimed at repairing strained relations between the two countries. The visit is Stepashin’s first to the U.S. since he replaced Yevgeny Primakov as premier in May.

July 23

July 24

In a remarkable comeback, U.S. cyclist Lance Armstrong wins the Tour de France after battling testicular cancer in 1996. . . . Nolan Ryan, George Brett, Robin Yount, Orlando Cepeda, and Smokey Joe Williams are inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. . . . Martin Zama Agronsky, 84, host of a public affairs program, 1969–97, dies in Washington, D.C. of congestive heart failure.

The Senate, 53-45, reinstates Senate Rule XVI, which bans adding unrelated legislative “riders” to appropriations bills. The bill is passed in a near-partyline vote. . . . Cary Stayner, 37, is charged with the murder of Joie Armstrong in California’s Yosemite National Park. Stayner reportedly confesses to the February murders of three other tourists in the park.

Federal grand juries in Indiana and Georgia indict Jay Ballinger, 36, on charges that he set fire to 17 churches in several states. Ballinger has already been charged with setting fire to 12 other churches.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The House votes, 260-170, to defeat a resolution that would have rejected Pres. Clinton’s June decision to renew “normal trade relations” with China for another year.

Carnival Cruise Lines reveals that it recorded 108 accusations of sexual assault and sexual misconduct aboard its ships during a five-year period ending in August 1998. . . . In a wrongful-death suit, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, jury orders fugitive 1960s antiwar activist Ira Einhorn to pay $907 million to the family of Holly Maddux, whom he was convicted of killing in 1997 in absentia. Einhorn is currently fighting extradition from France.

Data shows that the number of near collisions on airport runways in 1998 has increased by 11%, to 325, since 1997. The figure has risen 75% since 1993.

Walter Jackson Bate, 81, Harvard University English professor who won Pulitzer prizes for his biographies, dies in Boston, Massachusetts, of unreported causes.

The U.S. space shuttle Columbia lands at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, after carrying out a mission to deploy the Chandra X-ray Observatory, an orbiting X-ray telescope. It is the first shuttle mission commanded by a woman, air force colonel Eileen Collins. . . . The FDA approves the sale of Relenza, a new prescription drug to treat influenza, despite the fact that an advisory panel earlier in the year had recommended the agency reject it. Relenza is the first drug approved to treat both the A and B strains of the flu.

Harry (Sweets) Edison, 83, jazz trumpeter and a key member of the Count Basie Orchestra, 1938–50, dies in Columbus, Ohio, of prostate cancer.

Researchers report that for the first time they have turned healthy human cells into cancer cells by altering their genes. . . . Russian cosmonauts Viktor Afanasyev and Sergei Avdeyev conduct the last spacewalk from Mir.

July 25

July 26

July 27

July 28

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1294—July 29–August 2, 1999

World Affairs

July 29

July 30

July 31

Europe

The Financial Reconstruction Commission imposes sanctions on Credit Suisse Group of Switzerland for helping Japanese companies hide losses and for obstructing regulators’ investigation of Credit Suisse’s practices. Among the penalties leveled against the Swiss banking group, the commission revokes the banking license of its derivatives unit, Credit Suisse Financial Products. It is the first time that Japan has revoked a banking license in the post–World War II era.

The leaders of 39 Western countries converge in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, to attend a summit on bolstering political and economic stability in the Balkans. . . . The U.S. and China agree that the U.S. will pay $4.5 million in compensation for the victims of the embassy bombing during an air campaign conducted against Yugoslavia by NATO.

Charles Bennett, 22, a Catholic man, is found murdered in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In South Africa, hundreds of thousands of state workers stage a two-day strike, the largest publicsector strike since the end of apartheid in 1994. . . . Salisu Buhari, the former speaker of Nigeria’s House of Representatives, is convicted of forgery and perjury.

After winning some government concessions, Brazilian truck drivers end a nationwide strike that started July 26. During the strike, in Sao Paulo state, truckers blocking roads clashed with riot police. . . . Rescuers are unable to locate the three other passengers—two Colombian air force officers and a fifth U.S. serviceman—from the U.S. Army reconnaissance plane that crashed July 23. in southern Colombia. They are presumed dead.

A suicide bomber in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, kills Neelam Tiruchelvam, a moderate Tamil politician seeking a legislative solution to the country’s 16-year-old conflict. . . . China’s public security ministry issues an arrest warrant for Li Hongzhi, the founder of the Falun Gong spiritual movement banned July 22.

In Nigeria, fighting between ethnic Ijaws and Yoruba-speaking Ilajes renews.

FARC guerrillas begin to bombard the western town of Narino, Colombia, with homemade missiles.

Parliament approves the appointment of former foreign minister Rinchinnyamiin Amarjargal, 38, as the new premier of Mongolia.

A study finds that global carbon emissions declined 0.5% in 1998, marking the first drop in carbon emissions since 1993. Global economic growth expanded by 2.8% in 1998, disproving claims by some governments and private industries that reducing carbon emissions will hinder economic growth. The greatest drop in emissions in 1998 was in China, where emissions declined 3.7%, despite economic growth of 7.2%.

China’s coast guard seizes a Taiwanese ship carrying supplies to military forces stationed on a small Taiwan-held island near the coast of China.

Data show that FARC guerrillas have killed at least 17 people in an attack on the Colombian town of Narino that started July 30, using homemade missiles.

Aug. 1

Aug. 2

NATO troops in Bosnia-Herzegovina arrest alleged Bosnian Serb war criminal Radomir Kovac, 38, in the southeastern town of Foca. The UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia indicted Kovac in 1996 for allegedly enslaving and sexually assaulting several Muslim women in Foca in 1992–93, during the Bosnian war.

In a Turkish village in Diyarbakir province, gunmen fire on a bus carrying farm workers, killing six people. Two children are among those killed by gunfire.

In the Philippines, severe rains begin to fall. . . . Taliban forces seize the opposition’s only air base at Bagram in Afghanistan. . . . Nirad Chandra Chaudhuri, 101, Indian writer who in 1951 published The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian a massive memoir that received wide praise in the West, dies in Oxford, England, after a stroke.

Two passenger trains collide headon in eastern India, killing nearly 300 people and wounding at least 500 others. . . . South Korea and Japan hold joint naval exercises for the first time. . . . In China, democracy advocate Gao Hongming is sentenced to nine years in prison, and Zha Jianguo is given an eightyear sentence. . . . In Afghanistan, the Taliban captures the towns of Charikar, the capital of Parwan province, and Mahmud-i-Raqi, the capital of Kapisa province. . . . Gen. Sunthorn Kongsompong, 68, Thai military commander who led a 1991 coup that toppled the government of Gen. Chatichai Choonhavan, dies in Bangkok, Thailand, of lung cancer.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

July 29–August 2, 1999—1295

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

California governor Gray Davis (D) announces that the state has agreed to drop its appeals of court rulings that invalidate nearly every provision of Proposition 187, a 1994 ballot measure that denied illegal aliens access to government services. . . . Judge Susan Webber Wright orders Pres. Clinton to pay about $89,000 to cover legal expenses that came from “intentionally false” testimony given concerning his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. It is the first time a sitting president is punished on contempt-of-court charges.

The House passes, 412-8, an appropriations bill allocating $8.4 billion for military construction spending in fiscal 2000.

In the deadliest spree at a U.S. workplace, day trader Mark Barton kills nine people and injures 13 others in two buildings during a shooting rampage in Atlanta, Georgia. It is the third mass shooting in the Atlanta area since May. Barton kills himself, and the bodies of his wife and children are found in his apartment.

Deep Space 1, an unmanned spacecraft, flies within 10 miles (16 km) of the asteroid Braille (formerly known as 1992 KD), in the closest encounter of a spacecraft with an asteroid. While the craft fails to aim its camera correctly and sends back to Earth photographs of empty space, the probe successfully collects other data on the asteroid, including observations of heat, infrared light, and charged particles.

(Ina) Anita Carter, 66, Member of the Carter Family music group, dies in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, while suffering from rheumatoid arthritis.

James Hoffa, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union, hires Edwin Stier, a former state and federal prosecutor, to oversee the Teamsters’ anticorruption initiative. . . . The Senate votes, 57-43, to approve a tax-relief package. In contrast to the House’s July 22 bill, the Senate’s bill is weighted less heavily toward a reduction in personal income taxes. . . . United Air Lines announces it will extend benefits to its employees’ samesex and opposite-sex domestic partners.

The FDA announces measures intended to combat the illegal sale of prescription drugs over the Internet.

A Maryland grand jury indicts Linda Tripp, whose secret tapes of her telephone conversations with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky led to Pres. Clinton’s 1998 impeachment, on two criminal charges of illegal wiretapping. Tripp is the only central figure in the Lewinsky scandal to be criminally charged.

Officials disclose that all 50 states are in compliance with the 1996 welfare act’s welfare-to-work requirements.

The Clinton administration discloses that the number of people on welfare nationwide stands at 7.3 million, down from 14.1 million in 1993, when Pres. Clinton took office, and from 12.2 million in 1996, when the welfare bill was enacted. Separately, a study on the 2.1 million women who left the welfare rolls between 1995 and 1997 finds that welfare reform was largely successful at reducing the welfare rolls but left many of the poor still trapped in poverty.

The EPA places restrictions on two pesticides widely used to protect fruits and vegetables commonly consumed by children. The action is the first major initiative under the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act, which charges the EPA with reassessing its pesticide safety standards.

July 29

July 30

NASA scientists intentionally crash Lunar Prospector, an unmanned spacecraft launched in 1998, onto the moon’s surface in an attempt to throw up lunar debris that telescopes can analyze for evidence of water vapor. . . . According to the National Weather Service, rainfall in all of the eastern U.S. during June and July was the lowest in more than a decade.

In Winnipeg, Canada, at the PanAmerican Games, heads of 42 delegations issue a statement denouncing the media’s and sports agents’ treatment of the Cuban delegation, who have been allegedly hounded by sports agents trying to lure Cuban athletes into defecting.

Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman notes that a drought in the East Coast farm belt is the worst in the U.S. since the Great Depression of the 1930s. . . . Data show that the heat wave that started July 19 has resulted in at least 200 deaths and contributed to severe drought conditions in several states. Many cities have recorded temperatures of 100°F (38°C) and above.

Ervin Duggan, president of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), tells a meeting of the Television Critics Association that all of the nation’s public television stations will immediately stop sharing donor information with political groups.

Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman declares West Virginia a disaster area due to drought and prolonged heat that scorched fields and ruined crops. The declaration automatically applies also to all 33 counties in Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania that borders West Virginia. Pres. Clinton declares six states—Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia—agricultural disaster areas due to the drought.

Hannibal by Thomas Harris tops the bestseller list. . . . Willie Morris, 64, writer and magazine editor credited with revitalizing Harper’s in the late 1960s and early 1970s, dies in Jackson, Mississippi, of a heart attack.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

July 31

Aug. 1

Aug. 2

1296—August 3–8, 1999

World Affairs

Aug. 3

Aug. 4

NATO appoints British defense secretary George Robertson as its secretary general, the organization’s highest civilian post.

Aug. 5

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan calls on his fellow PKK members to “end the armed struggle and withdraw their forces outside the borders of Turkey” starting September 1. It is Ocalan’s firstever formal endorsement of an end to the armed campaign.

Salisu Buhari, convicted July 29 in Nigeria, is sentenced to one year in prison, although he will be able to pay a fine of 2,000 naira ($19) instead. . . . Abdul Wahab al- Bayati, 73, Iraqi poet known for his innovative style, which departs from classical Arabic poetry in both form and content, dies in Damascus, Syria, of a heart attack after being hospitalized following an asthma attack.

Pres. B. J. Habibie formally ratifies the results of Indonesia’s June elections, in which his Golkar party was outpolled by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the party of his rival, Megawati Sukarnoputri. . . . In Afghanistan, a speaker for the Northern Alliance claims as many as 200,000 civilians have fled since July 28. . . . Dozens of people are killed in a landslide in the Philippines. . . . A tanker spills 80,000 gallons (300,000 liters) of light crude oil into Sydney Harbor in Australia.

The German government announces that it will continue to ban the import of British beef while it studies whether the beef is safe to eat.

Rebels take more than 30 hostages, including aid workers and UN observers, during a meeting in which they were to negotiate the release of up to 200 women and children seized during Sierra Leone’s civil war. . . . Iran’s conservative Special Court for Clergy orders the country’s leading moderate newspaper, Salam, closed for five years and suspends its publisher from journalism for three years. The July closure of the paper sparks violent protests.

China Democracy Party member She Wanbao is sentenced to 12 years in prison. . . . Heavy rains and Typhoon Olga cause the deaths of 42 people in North Korea, at least 63 people in South Korea, 24 people in Vietnam, and five in Thailand. . . . Officials report that the death toll from the Aug. 2 train collision in India stands at 282.

In response to the Aug. 3 appeal by Abdullah Ocalan, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the main Kurdish rebel group, states that it will end its armed struggle and pull its paramilitary forces out of Turkey. . . . Montenegro, Yugoslavia’s smaller republic, presents the Yugoslav government with a draft plan that will accord greater independence to Montenegro and place it on equal footing with the country’s main republic, Serbia.

P.M. Ehud Barak appoints Nawaf Masalha, an Israeli Arab, to the post of deputy foreign minister, the highest political position attained by an Arab in Israel. . . . South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission grants amnesty to 17 people for a 1998 bombing in Johannesburg. Included in the pardon are Eugene de Kock, Adriaan Volk, and Gen. Johan van der Merwe. It also grants amnesty to Ontlametse Bernstein Menyatsoe, a member of a black homeland police force whose killing of three white extremists in April 1994 was televised around the world.

Immigration officials free 78 of 123 Chinese illegal immigrants found July 20 smuggled aboard a fishing boat off the coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada.

In Afghanistan, the forces of the opposition Northern Alliance, led by Ahmed Shah Massoud, launch a counteroffensive to drive the Taliban out of Parwan and Kapisa provinces, back to within 35 miles (55 km) of Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital.

Liu Xianbin is sentenced to 13 years in prison, the harshest term given to a China Democracy Party member since December 1998.

Aug. 6

Russia launches an air assault against militants seeking an independent Islamic state in Dagestan.

Aug. 7

Reports confirm that China’s Yangtze River Valley has flooded, causing some 725 deaths and leaving 5.5 million people homeless since June. . . . In Afghanistan, the opposition Northern Alliance reclaims the Bagram air base and key towns in the provinces of Kunduz and Takhar, recapturing most of the territory it had lost in the Taliban offensive that started July 28. In Guyana, Pres. Janet Jagan announces that she is resigning because of illness. P.M. Samuel Hinds of the Civic Group becomes temporary president.

Aug. 8

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 3–8, 1999—1297

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

A study finds that children who participate in the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program widely used by elementary schools are about as likely to use drugs and alcohol 10 years later as students who received drug education in ordinary classes.

The Senate unanimously clears an appropriations bill allocating $8.4 billion for military construction spending in fiscal 2000. It is the first of the 13 annual appropriation bills to clear Congress.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Utah businessman David Simmons pleads guilty to a misdemeanor tax violation. The criminal case is the first to stem from a federal probe into allegations that the IOC accepted bribes to vote in favor of Salt Lake City’s bid to host the 2002 Olympics. . . . Richard Olney, 71, who wrote more than 35 cookbooks, is found dead in Sollies-Toucas, France.

The New Jersey Supreme Court rules that the Boy Scouts of America’s exclusion of homosexuals violates the state’s antidiscrimination law. The New Jersey court is the first state high court to rule against the Boy Scouts’ exclusion of gays. . . . Data shows that 1.8 million children of single mothers live in families with annual incomes that were less than half the poverty line in 1997, up 374,000, or 26%, from the 1996 figure.

Alan Eugene Miller allegedly kills three employees at two firms where he worked in Pelham, Alabama.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Victor John Mature, 86, film actor who starred in numerous Hollywood movies of the 1940s and 1950s, dies in San Diego County, California, of cancer.

The Senate confirms Richard Holbrooke as ambassador to the United Nations.

A Texas jury orders American Home Products Corp. to pay $23.3 million in damages to Debbie Lovett, who claims that the company failed to warn doctors and patients of a risk of heart damage from a diet drug commonly known as Fen/Phen, it sold until 1997.

The House, 221-206, and the Senate, 50-49, approve a Republicandesigned tax initiative that will reduce federal taxes by $792 billion over 10 years. . . . The House, 36749, and Senate, by voice vote, clear a $2.5 billion fiscal 2000 appropriations bill for the legislative branch. . . The SEC fines brokerage firm Bear Stearns $38.5 million for fraud with now-defunct A.R. Baron & Co. . . . American Airlines states it will extend benefits to its employees’ same-sex and opposite-sex domestic partners.

New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman (R) declares a drought emergency in New Jersey and imposes statewide mandatory restrictions on outdoor water use.

St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Mark McGwire hits his 500th career home run in a game against the San Diego Padres in St. Louis, Missouri. He is the 16th player to have hit at least 500 home runs, and he reaches the milestone in fewer atbats—5,487—than anyone else in Major League Baseball history.

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California, invalidates a $4.3 billion judgment against Charles Keating Jr. former chair of Lincoln Savings & Loan and a central figure in the S&L scandals of the 1980s. . . . Edward L. Morgan, 61, who in 1974 pled guilty in a scheme to obtain a fraudulent $576,000 tax deduction for Pres. Nixon, dies in Santa Monica, California, of heart failure.

The CDC reports that death rates from cardiovascular disease fell by 60% between 1950 and 1996.

Kathryn Murray, 92, ballroom dancer who, with her husband Arthur Murray, built a successful chain of dance studios in the 1940s, dies in Honolulu, Hawaii, of unreported causes.

Eric Dickerson, Tom Mack, Ozzie Newsome, Billy Shaw, and Lawrence Taylor are inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

John Dortch Lewis, 84, World War II pilot whose repeated, and ultimately successful, attempts to escape from a Nazi German prisoner of war camp are dramatized in the film The Great Escape (1963), dies in Goldsboro, North Carolina, of pancreatic cancer.

The Pan-American Games, which attracted more than 5,000 athletes representing 42 countries, close. The U.S. won the most medals, followed by Canada and Cuba.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 3

Aug. 4

Aug. 5

Aug. 6

Aug. 7

Aug. 8

1298—August 9–14, 1999

Aug. 9

Europe

A Yemeni court in the southern port city of Aden convicts eight Britons— all of Pakistani or Arab origin—and two Algerians for their roles in bomb attacks on the British consulate in Yemen and an Anglican church and hotel in 1998. The trial has strained relations between Yemen and Britain.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin unexpectedly dismisses Premier Sergei Stepashin, less than three months after Stepashin was confirmed in the position. Stepashin is the fourth premier Yelstin has fired in the past 17 months. Yeltsin names Vladimir Putin, a loyal supporter and 15-year veteran of the Soviet-era KGB intelligence agency, as Stepashin’s successor.

Figures confirm that dozens of people have been killed since July 30 in fighting that erupted between ethnic Ijaws and Yoruba-speaking Ilajes in Nigeria. Much of the violence, which occurs 100 miles (160 km) east of Lagos, is sparked over rights to an oil deposit.

Lieutenant Colonel Ernesto de Melo Antunes, 66, Portuguese military officer who was the chief architect of a nearly bloodless 1974 coup, known as the “carnation revolution,” that ultimately restored democracy in Portugal, dies in Sintra, Portugal, of cancer.

A Palestinian man drives his car into a group of Israeli soldiers outside of Jerusalem, injuring as many as 12 people. Israeli police shoot and kill the driver. . . . Rebels in Sierra Leone release an estimated 200 civilian hostages—half of whom are children— seized during the war. They also release the last of more than 30 hostages taken Aug. 4.

Aug. 10

Aug. 11

Aug. 12

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

The UN Security Council approves the appointment of Swiss lawyer Carla Del Ponte as chief prosecutor for the international war crimes tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. . . . A total solar eclipse visible in Europe and in western and southern Asia occurs. The moon’s shadow traces a path— 112 kilometers (70 miles) wide at its widest point—across the Atlantic and then to the southeast over Europe, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and India. UN officials announce that the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, has indicted a woman, Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, for rape. Nyiramasuhuko was the minister of family and women’s affairs during the 1994 massacres of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda and is accused of allowing her subordinates to rape Tutsi women. She is the first woman to be tried in an international tribunal for a rape charge as a crime against humanity.

Turkey’s predominantly secular parliament approves legislation that will allow prominent Islamist Necmettin Erbakan to reenter politics. The government in January 1998 banned Erbakan from politics for five years. . . . David Maurice Graham, 87, BBC broadcaster and commentator, 1939–71, dies at an undisclosed location of unreported causes.

Violent protests erupt throughout Northern Ireland as Protestant activists hold traditional parades in Londonberry, Belfast, and Lurgan. The controversial parades commemorate Protestants’ victories in 17th-century battles that determined the sovereignty of Northern Ireland. In Londonderry, Catholic protesters hurl bottles, bricks, and gasoline bombs at riot police. In Belfast, scuffles injure several people, including 19 officers. Five people are arrested in Lurgan. . . . Russia announces that it has bombed suspected rebel bases inside Chechnya.

Aug. 14

Asia & the Pacific

In Canada, two workers are killed in a fire at Hub Oil Co. Ltd., a Calgary oil-recycling plant. The blaze forces 2,000 local residents to evacuate their homes.

Hong Kong’s Roman Catholic bishop, Joseph Zen, announces that Hong Kong’s government has rejected a proposed visit there by Pope John Paul II.

An Indian fighter jet shoots down a Pakistani naval aircraft, killing all 16 people aboard. The incident occurs in a border area near Pakistan’s southern state of Sindh and India’s Gujarat state.

An unmarked ship unloads 131 smuggled Chinese immigrants on a remote beach in the Queen Charlotte Islands before being seized by the RCMP. It is the second major case of Chinese migrant smuggling in Canada in three weeks. . . . Bharrat Jagdeo, 35, is sworn in as president of Guyana. He is the youngest head of state in the Americas.

UNICEF finds that child mortality rates for children under the age of five have nearly doubled since the mid-1980s in areas under the control of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

Ignatz Bubis, 72, whose father, brother, and sister died in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II and who was elected president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany in 1992, dies in Frankfurt, Germany, of unreported causes.

Aug. 13

The Americas

Jean Drapeau, 83, mayor of Montreal, Canada, 1954–57, 1960–86, dies in Montreal of unreported causes.

Jaime Garzon, 39, Colombia’s most popular political satirist, is shot and killed by two motorcycle-riding gunmen on a street in Bogota, the capital.

In Iran, a group of five armed men and women abduct four European tourists—two Spanish priests, another Spaniard, and an Italian— and an Iranian citizen from a hotel in the southeastern city of Kerman.

Pakistan fires surface-to-air missiles at Indian aircraft flying to the crash site of the Pakistani plane downed Aug. 10. No casualties are reported. . . . Data shows that at least 160 people have died in floods and landslides caused by nearly two weeks of torrential rains in the Philippines.

South Korean president Kim Dae Jung grants amnesty to some 3,000 convicts, including Kim Hyun Chul, the son of former president Kim Young Sam. The amnesty includes 56 political prisoners and is granted to mark the 54th anniversary of the end of Japanese rule over the Korean peninsula.

Thousands of mourners gather in Bogota’s Plaza de Bolivar to pay their respects to Jaime Garzon, killed Aug. 13, and to display indignation at the rising tide of violence in Colombia.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 9–14, 1999—1299

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Pres. Clinton awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to former president Jimmy and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, at the Carter Center, a human rights organization in Atlanta, Georgia, founded by the Carters.

The Department of Commerce decides it will not proceed with a formal investigation of oil-dumping allegations lodged in June against Mexico, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. . . . A van carrying 15 farmworkers home from tomato fields near Five Points, California, crashes, killing 13 of the van’s passengers and injuring the other two. All of the crash victims are Mexican nationals. The accident raises concerns about dangerous working conditions faced by migrant workers from Mexico and other Latin American nations.

US Airways Group Inc. announces that it will extend benefits to its employees’ same-sex and opposite-sex domestic partners.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Aug. 9

Buford Furrow Jr., a white supremacist gunman, wounds three children and two staff members at a Jewish community center in Los Angeles. He then kills Joseph Ileto, a letter carrier. . . . A study suggests that the current decline in crime is linked to the legalization of abortion. The authors argue that women who had abortions in the 1970s came from demographic groups that suggest that, based upon statistics, their children would have been more likely to commit crimes. The Kansas Board of Education votes to remove the theory of evolution from the state’s science curriculum. The decision neither outlaws the teaching of evolution nor requires the teaching of creationism. . . . Buford Furrow Jr., the white supremacist who went on a shooting spree Aug. 10, surrenders in Las Vegas, Nevada. . . . A judge in Georgia rules that Thomas (T. J.) Solomon 15, who allegedly shot six students during a high-school shooting spree, will be tried as an adult.

John Hinckley Jr., the man who shot Pres. Ronald Reagan in 1981, takes a day trip escorted by Secret Service agents from the mental hospital in Washington, D.C., where he has been confined for the past 17 years.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Jennifer Mary Paterson, 71, British cook and cohost of a cooking show syndicated in 10 countries, dies in London, England, of lung cancer. . . . Whitney Darrow Jr., 89, cartoonist who published more than 1,500 cartoons in the New Yorker magazine, dies in Burlington, Vermont, of unreported causes.

Pres. Clinton offers to commute the sentences of 16 members of the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN), a Puerto Rican independence group that waged a bombing campaign in the U.S. from 1974 to 1983.

A tornado strikes Salt Lake City, Utah, killing one person and injuring more than 100 others. The lone fatality is the first tornado-related death ever reported in the state. . . . R(obert) T(homas) Jones, 89, aerospace scientist who designed innovative swept-back airplane wings in 1944 and who, in 1981, received the Smithsonian Institution’s Langley medal,, dies in Los Altos Hills, California, of unreported causes.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson requests punishment for Siegfried Hecker, Terry Craig, and Robert Vrooman, three senior officials of Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, for failing to adequately enforce security at the lab, where nuclear weapons secrets were allegedly stolen and given to China.

Former Democratic National Committee (DNC) fund-raiser John Huang pleads guilty to a single felony count of conspiring to defraud the FEC in relation to two improper donations he arranged for California Democrats. U.S. district judge Richard Paez sentences Huang to one year’s probation and orders him to pay a $10,000 fine and to perform 500 hours of community service.

The Defense Department unveils guidelines to enhance compliance with the Clinton administration’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which permits homosexuals to serve in the military as long as they do not reveal their sexual orientation. The number of service members dismissed annually for being homosexual—which was 1,145 in 1998— has nearly doubled since the policy went into effect in 1994.

Alaska files a civil suit against the cruise-ship line Royal Caribbean for dumping chemicals in the environmentally sensitive Inside Passage and other Alaskan waters.

Nathaniel Kleitman, 104, pioneering sleep researcher who, with a colleague in 1953. discovered a stage of sleep, rapid eye movement (REM), that has close associations with dreaming, dies in Los Angeles, California.

(Joseph) Lane Kirkland, 77, president of the AFL-CIO labor federation, 1979–95, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994, dies in Washington, D.C., of lung cancer.

Pres. Clinton awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, to eight recipients in a ceremony at the White House.

Aug. 10

Aug. 11

Sir John Hale, 75, British historian of the Renaissance, dies in London, England, after suffering a debilitating stroke in 1992.

Aug. 12

Steffi Graf, a 22-time Grand Slam champion, announces her retirement from tennis, ending an illustrious 17-year career.

Aug. 13

Harold Henry (Pee Wee) Reese, 81, Hall of Fame baseball player considered a consummate team leader, dies in Louisville, Kentucky, while suffering from lung cancer.

Aug. 14

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1300—August 15–20, 1999

World Affairs

Aug. 15

Aug. 16

Japan and the U.S. sign an agreement to conduct joint research on developing a missile-defense system. That proposal is vigorously criticized by China, North Korea, and Russia. . . . The IMF demands that Indonesian president B. J. Habibie conduct a probe of a banking scandal involving one of Indonesia’s largest private banks and the ruling Golkar Party. The scandal threatens the continued distribution of more than $40 billion in loans from the IMF.

Aug. 17

Europe

Aug. 20

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov declares a month-long state of emergency. . . . At least 10,000 people gather in Omagh, Northern Ireland, to commemorate the first anniversary of a bombing that killed 29 people. . . . Patrick Joseph (Paddy) Devlin, 74, Northern Ireland politician who, in 1970, cofounded the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), dies of complications of diabetes. . . . Sir Hugh Maxwell Casson, 89, British architect and president of the Royal Academy of Arts, 1976–84, dies in London.

Rebel allies Uganda and Rwanda begin fighting each other over control of the northern Congolese city of Kisangani.

Russia’s parliament confirms Vladimir V. Putin as premier.

Ali Hassan Deeb, also known as Abu Hassan, is killed outside the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, when two roadside bombs are detonated simultaneously, striking his vehicle. The Israeli media reports that Deeb was on Israel’s “most wanted” list for his role in Hezbollah attacks against Israeli forces in Lebanon.

A powerful earthquake strikes northwestern Turkey, killing thousands of people and devastating several major cities. The tremor measures 7.4 on the Richter scale, and the quake’s epicenter is located just south of Izmit, an industrial city of nearly 1 million people about 55 miles (90 km) east of Istanbul. The earthquake touches off a massive fire at Turkey’s largest oil refinery. Turkish premier Bulent Ecevit characterizes the quake as the worst natural disaster he has ever seen.

Rebel allies Uganda and Rwanda agree to a cease-fire in the fighting that started Aug. 15. During the battle, dozens of people were killed, and Rwanda reportedly seized control of the Congolese town of Kisangani. . . . The Shi’ite Muslim guerrilla group Hezbollah (Party of God) launches a raid against Israeli forces in Israel’s self-declared security zone in southern Lebanon.

Singapore’s Presidential Elections Committee announces that S. R. Nathan, 75, is the only candidate eligible for an election scheduled for Aug. 28, and that the election is therefore canceled.

The UN discloses that Somalia, which has no working government, has become a “black hole” of anarchy.

In light of the Aug. 17 declaration regarding the canceled election, S. R. Nathan, a former diplomat, is proclaimed Singapore’s new president. . . . The Australian Supreme Court rules that the leadership of One Nation, a controversial ultranationalist party, fraudulently registered the party in 1997.

Aug. 18

Aug. 19

Africa & the Middle East

In response to the Aug. 17 earthquake in Turkey, at least 15 foreign countries, including the U.S., Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Jordan, and Pakistan have sent workers, equipment, or financial assistance. Several European countries, even Greece, a country with a bitter historical rivalry with Turkey, have sent aid as well.

An estimated 50,000–150,000 Serbs attend a rally in Belgrade, the capital of both Yugoslavia and Serbia, to demand the resignation of Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic. It is the largest rally in the capital since protests held in 1996–97 against Milosevic, who was then the president of Serbia. . . . In Turkey, initial estimates state that the Aug. 17 earthquake caused some $40 billion in damage. In Izmit, 1,700 people are confirmed dead, and another 3,000 are wounded. The massive fire at Turkey’s largest oil refinery begins to be brought under control by firefighters.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, charges a Rwandan Roman Catholic bishop, Augustin Misago, 56, for his alleged role in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

Data reveals that the total number of people confirmed dead from the Aug. 17 earthquake in Turkey stands at 10,059. More than 45,000 people were injured in the quake, and as many as 35,000 others remain missing.

Chinese authorities in Qinghai province arrest Daja Meston of the U.S. and Gabriel Lafitte of Australia, both Tibetan-rights advocates.

Venezuela’s constitutional assembly declares a “judicial emergency” and grants itself the power to assess and purge members of the nation’s judiciary, including Supreme Court justices. Under the decree, the assembly assumes the right to suspend or dismiss judges accused of corruption or other misdeeds. Roughly half of Venezuela’s 4,700 judges face such allegations.

In light of the Australian Supreme Court’s Aug. 18 ruling, One Nation, a controversial ultranationalist party, is officially decertified as a political party in the state of Queensland.

Three major Japanese banks, DaiIchi Kangyo Bank Ltd. (DKB), Fuji Bank Ltd., and Industrial Bank of Japan Ltd. (IBJ), announce that they will merge to form what will be the world’s largest financial institution in terms of assets. . . . .Tens of thousands of people demonstrate in Manila, the Philippines, to protest Pres. Estrada’s attempts to remove a constitutional provision that limits a president to one sixyear term.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 15–20, 1999—1301

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Data shows that the federal and state prison population increased 4.8% during 1998, lower than the average rate of 6.7% per year since 1990. At the end of 1998, there were 1,302,019 inmates in state and federal prisons. There were also 592,462 adult inmates in local jails. Thus, the total number of people incarcerated in federal, state, and local facilities was more than 1.8 million.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Golfer Tiger Woods wins the PGA Championship at Medinah in Medinah, Illinois, in a thrilling one-stroke, victory over Spaniard Sergio García. García, 19, is the youngest person ever to play in the championship. Woods, 23, is the youngest player to have won two major tournaments.

DaimlerChrysler AG recalls more than 2 million vehicles for faulty doors and fuel pumps.

Pres. Clinton signs an appropriations bill allocating $8.4 billion for military construction spending in fiscal 2000. It is the first of the 13 annual appropriation bills to clear Congress and become law.

Aug. 16

Cassini, an unmanned spacecraft launched to orbit the planet Saturn, flies within 727 miles (1,170 km) of Earth at a speed of 35,000 miles per hour (56,000 kmph) in a maneuver that boosts the craft’s speed for its journey to Saturn. Cassini, a joint U.S.-European mission, was launched in 1997 and is scheduled to reach Saturn in 2004.

Aug. 17

Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. agrees to pay as much as $1.7 billion to compensate millions of customers who allege that its agents used deceptive sales practices, including providing misleading information about the cost of policies. The fund settles more than a dozen lawsuits and three class-action suits brought against Met Life. Texas governor George W. Bush, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, indicates that he has not used illegal drugs at any time in the past 25 years. Bush makes the statement in response to a growing media storm over rumors that he used cocaine. It is the first major controversy in Bush’s campaign. . . . The CDC reveals that a drug-resistant strain of staph bacterium has killed four children and made more than 200 other people sick in Minnesota and North Dakota since 1997. The drug-resistant bacterium previously was thought to be confined to hospitals and other medical facilities.

Reports disclose that federal investigators are examining whether Russian criminals laundered billions of dollars of illegally obtained money through accounts at the Bank of New York Co. The case is believed to be one of the largest money-laundering operations ever uncovered in the U.S.

The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. trade deficit in June rose to a new high, recording a $24.62 billion gap in trade in goods and services. That marks an increase of $3.45 billion from May’s revised $21.17 billion deficit. . . . A state court in Raleigh, North Carolina, approves the creation of a fund to aid tobacco farmers who face a reduced market following cigarette makers’ 1998 settlement of states’ smoking-related lawsuits.

Washington, D.C., adopts a plan to track the number of new cases of HIV infection by anonymous numbers rather than the patients’ names.

Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet reveals that he has suspended the security clearance of his predecessor, John Deutch, for improperly storing classified documents on his personal computer during his tenure as director. It is the first time in the 52-year history of the CIA that a former director has lost the right to access the agency’s classified data.

The Department of the Interior removes the peregrine falcon from the endangered-species list, due to its steady population growth. There are currently more than 1,650 peregrine breeding pairs in North America, up from 39 breeding pairs at the peregrines’ low point in 1970.

Aug. 15

Aug. 18

In a historic pact, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America approves a proposal to unite with the Episcopal Church. . . . Archbishop Spyridon resigns as leader of the Greek Orthodox Church of America. Metropolitan Demetrios Trakatellis is selected to succeed him. . . . Kim Perrot, 32, a WBNA point guard, dies of lung cancer in Houston, Texas.

A study of 160 patients treated in various ways with pig tissue finds that the patients are not infected with a virus commonly found in pigs. The results are seen as evidence that the transplant of pig organs into humans may not result in infection by pig-borne viruses not previously found in humans.

Aug. 19

Aug. 20

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1302—August 21–26, 1999

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

An antiterrorism court convicts and sentences to death Ahmed Saeed, 29, and Muhammad Saleem, 39, for the shooting deaths of four U.S. businessmen and their Pakistani driver in a November 1997 ambush in Karachi, Pakistan. Two other gunmen believed to have participated in the ambush reportedly remain at large. . . . Tibetan-rights advocate Gabriel Lafitte of Australia, who was arrested Aug. 15 in China, is released and put onto a plane to Australia.

Aug. 21

Patrick Lowry Cole Holwell Rance, 81, British cheese merchant and author of the definitive work on his nation’s traditional raw-milk cheeses, dies in London, England.

Aug. 22

Aug. 23

Aug. 24

Aug. 25

Aug. 26

Asia & the Pacific

Pres. Ali Abdullah Saleh announces that Yemen’s first direct presidential elections will be held in September.

In severe winds and rain caused by a typhoon, a China Airlines jet flips over and burst into flames after crash landing at Hong Kong International Airport, killing two people and injuring more than 200 others.

In Kosovo, hundreds of ethnic Albanians block roads leading to the town of Orahavoc to prevent Russian troops from taking up assigned positions. . . . Rebels announce that they are withdrawing from Dagestan to redeploy their troops. . . . German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder formally inaugurates Berlin as Germany’s capital for the first time since the end of World War II. . . . Hundreds of Islamic militants enter Kyrgyzstan from Tajikistan and take 13 hostages, the start of an offensive in which they seize several villages.

South Korean defense minister Cho Sung Tae visits Beijing, China’s capital, for talks with his Chinese counterpart, Chi Haotian. The talks are the first between defense ministers of the two countries, enemies during the 1950–53 Korean War.

Alexandre Lagoya, 70, French classical guitarist who achieved renown both as a soloist and as part of a duo, dies in Paris, France, after a long illness.

In the southern town of Kandahar, Afghanistan, a truck bomb explodes near the home of Sheik Mohammed Omar, the leader of the Taliban militia, which controls most of Afghanistan. The blast kills between seven and 10 soldiers and civilians and injures scores of other people.

Austrian police arrest the chief of staff of the Bosnian Serb army, Gen. Momir Talic, on allegations that he committed war crimes during the 1992–95 war in BosniaHerzegovina. His capture marks the first time that a suspected Bosnian war criminal is arrested outside the territory of the former Yugoslavia.

The official death toll from the Aug. 17 earthquake in Turkey stands at 12,514. . . . The Russian military states that it has driven Islamic militants out of Dagestan, ending nearly three weeks of fighting. Russia claims that 47 of its soldiers and 12 policemen were killed. A Chechen official contends that 38 rebel fighters died. Each camp claims that the other lost as many as 1,000 troops.

In Venezuela, a power struggle between Congress and the constitutional assembly begins when the assembly declares a “legislative emergency” and takes over most of Congress’s functions.

The leaders of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan pledge to bolster cooperation, economic integration, and regional security along their borders.

The official death toll from the Aug. 17 earthquake in Turkey reaches 13,009. The number of people confirmed injured stands at about 26,000, and another 35,000 are thought to be missing. . . . Four Northern Ireland teenagers are ordered, through an intermediary, to leave the province by the end of Aug. 28, or they will be killed. The order and the death threats are widely attributed to the IRA.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, to call for the resignation of Pres. Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

In Dili, East Timor’s capital, at least six people are killed in clashes with militias. Separately, the Habibie administration states it will release from house arrest East Timorese independence leader Jose Alexandre Gusmão, popularly known as Xanana. . . . Tibetan-rights advocate Daja Meston of the U.S., who was arrested Aug. 15, is allowed to leave China after consenting to a confession. . . . Australia’s Parliament approves an historic motion that expresses regret for mistreatment of Australia’s aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. It is the first such national expression.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 21–26, 1999—1303

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

A study indicates that the poorest Americans may have grown poorer since the enactment of federal welfare-reform legislation. The study finds that, on average, the poorest 20% of those households had annual incomes of $8,047 in 1997, down $577 from 1995. The poorest 10% of families in the study saw their annual incomes drop by an average of $814 over the same period.

U.S. Economy & Environment Pres. Clinton announces the completion of a deal to acquire roughly 9,000 acres (3,600 hectares) of land adjacent to Yellowstone National Park’s northern border. The government purchased control of the land from a church for $13 million.

Statistics show that the combined federal, state, and local adult correctional population reached a record high of 5.9 million people in 1998. The figure includes all people incarcerated, on probation, or on parole. At the end of 1998, the number of adults on probation, or parole was greater than 4 million for the first time. The 1998 figure of 4.1 million is an increase from 3.2 million at the end of 1990. The California Supreme Court overturns a ballot initiative that backs expanding legalized gambling on Indian lands. . . . Judge Allen Yenior orders Timothy Boomer, who violated an 1897 Michigan law against swearing in front of children, to four days of community service and to either spend three days in jail or pay a $75 fine. . . . Reports indicate that Microsoft chair William Gates and his wife, Melinda Gates, donated $6 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, increasing its endowment to more than $17 billion as the U.S.’s largest charitable foundation.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Leo Castelli (born Leo Krause), 91, art dealer who greatly influenced contemporary American art and helped U.S. artists gain international acclaim, dies in New York City of unreported causes.

U.S. boaters and Japanese drivers encounter navigational problems when the Global Positioning System’s current calendar resets back to week zero.

The money-laundering investigation revealed Aug. 19 widens with a report that some of the money may have been diverted from International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans intended to bolster Russia’s economy.

Judge Solomon Oliver Jr. issues a temporary injunction suspending a state-funded school voucher program in Cleveland, Ohio, arguing that the program might violate the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state because it allows the use of government funds to pay for tuition at parochial schools. The decision is considered particularly notable because it temporarily blocks a voucher program in place for several years. The FBI admits that the agency used military-type pyrotechnic tear gas canisters during a 1993 assault on the compound of the Branch Davidian cult, near Waco, Texas. However, officials affirm that the canisters did not start the deadly fire that ended the assault in which some 80 cult members died.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura referees a televised World Wrestling Federation match in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Ventura, a former professional wrestler, responds to critics of his appearance at the event by saying, “I’m proud of wrestling. I’m proud I was a wrestler, and I’m proud to be here tonight.”

Martha Rountree, 87, television producer and a cocreator of Meet the Press, dies in Washington, D.C., while suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. . . . Norman Wexler, 73, screenwriter whose film credits include Serpico (1973) and Saturday Night Fever (1977), dies in Washington, D.C., after a heart attack.

The Federal Reserve Board’s Open Market Committee votes to raise the federal-funds rate by a quarter of a percentage point, to 5.25% from 5%. The panel also boosts the discount rate by a quarter of a percentage point, to 4.75% from 4.5%. In response, three of the nation’s largest banks—First Union Corp., Bank of America Corp., and Bank One Corp.—announce that they will increase their prime lending rate to 8.25% from 8%. After a pair of two-year investigations, federal agents arrest dozens of American Airlines employees who work at Miami International Airport in Florida for allegedly participating in a smuggling ring. Authorities indict 58 people in the investigation.

NYC mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R) announces that the city is denying the organizers of the Million Youth March, a rally for black youth which erupted in violence in 1998, a permit because they failed to submit a proper application on time.

The Dow closes at a record high of 11,326.04. That marks the second record high of the month and the 31st record high in 1999.

Aug. 21

Aug. 22

Aug. 23

Aug. 24

A study finds that women infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, have a 10% chance of transmitting the virus to an infant through breastfeeding over two years. It is the first study to show that HIV can be passed on through milk for as long as a mother breast-feeds, although the risk is greater in the child’s earlier months.

In Los Angeles, California, Judge Ernest Williams reduces a punitive damages judgment that a jury handed down against General Motors in July to $1.09 billion, from $4.8 billion. . . . Raymond Vernon (born Raymond Visotsky), 85, U.S. economist who worked for the federal government on such projects as the Marshall Plan, which guided the economic revival of Europe after World War II, dies of cancer in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Aug. 25

A Michigan jury convicts Jonathan Schmitz, who killed Scott Amedure, a fellow male guest on The Jenny Jones Show, of seconddegree murder. Schmitz was convicted in 1996, but that verdict was overturned on appeal.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Aug. 26

1304—August 27–September 1, 1999

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Hundreds of supporters of Pres. Hugo Chavez Frias gather in front of the Congress building in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, to prevent members of Congress from convening a special session. . . . Archbishop Helder Pessoa Camara, 90, Brazilian cleric who was in the vanguard of the Roman Catholic liberation theology movement in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, dies in Olinda, Brazil.

Aug. 27

Aug. 28 Aug. 29

The four Northern Ireland teenagers ordered Aug. 26 to leave the province depart on a ferry bound for Scotland.

Hutu rebels attack Bujumbura, Burundi’s capital, killing 38 civilians. Many of the victims are children.

The IRA allegedly orders two teenagers to leave the province, under threat of execution. . . . Russian forces begin a campaign against the Wahhabis, a puritanical Islamic sect with headquarters in central Dagestan.

Hutu rebels clash with the army in fighting that results in 20 Hutu fatalities. The Hutu rebels target the minority Tutsi population in Bujumbura, Burundi’s capital, burning houses and shooting civilians. Government troops drove the rebels from the capital.

Jordanian security forces raid and close the offices of three senior Hamas leaders in Amman, Jordan’s capital, and arrest 12 members of the group. . . . An orthodox Jewish couple is found stabbed to death near the Israeli-West Bank border.

Venezuela’s constitutional assembly, a body dominated by supporters of Pres. Hugo Chavez Frias, approves measures that effectively strip the opposition-controlled Congress of the last of its powers.

Hundreds of thousands of East Timorese turn out for a UN-sponsored referendum that will determine whether East Timor becomes an autonomous region within Indonesia or an independent nation. More than 98% of the eligible voters reportedly turn out for the poll, defying intimidation and threats of retaliation from proIndonesia militias. The only election-day death occurs in the village of Ermera, where Joel Lopez Gomes, an East Timorese UN worker, is stabbed to death.

In Russia, an explosion in Moscow’s Manezh shopping mall injures 41 people but causes no fatalities. . . . Two moderate earthquakes strike the area hit by the August 17 quake in Turkey, killing at least one person. In Izmit, seven buildings collapse, and 166 people are treated for injuries. . . . A small crowd gathers outside Kensington Palace in London to mark the second anniversary of Princess Diana’s death.

The two rival factions of one of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s main rebel groups sign a peace agreement aimed at ending the country’s civil war. Infighting among members of the group, the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), had prevented both the RCD and the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), the other main rebel group, from signing an international peace accord in July. . . . The group of four European tourists abducted Aug. 14 in Iran are released unharmed.

A passenger jet crashes just after takeoff at Jorge Newberry Airport in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, killing at least 74 people. It is one of the deadliest aviation disasters in Argentina’s history.

In Indonesia, militia members resume their campaign of violence, signaling that they will not accept a vote for independence in East Timor. Eurico Guterres, commander of the Aitarak militia, states that his group will block those who voted for independence from leaving the territory.

Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic pardons and frees Peter Wallace and Steve Pratt, Australian aid workers convicted as spies in May. . . . An Italian magistrate indicts four military generals and five other people in connection with a 1980 airplane crash. . . . A French magistrate rules that Alois Brunner, a convicted Nazi war criminal, will be tried for a third time in 2000.

Ethiopia and Eritrea fight a ninehour battle at Zalambessa, some 220 miles (350 km) north of Addis Ababa. . . . The military wing of Hamas claims responsibility for the killing of a Jewish couple found stabbed to death Aug. 30. . . . An airplane carrying 10 U.S. tourists, a Tanzanian tour guide, and a pilot crashes on Mount Meru, Tanzania, killing all those on board.

Mireya Moscoso de Gruber is sworn in as Panama’s new president at National Stadium in Panama City, the capital. Moscoso is the first female president in Panama’s history. . . . Reports reveal that at least 10 of the fatalities from the Aug. 31 plane crash in Argentina were motorists and pedestrians caught in the path of the skidding jet.

In Indonesia, militia members attack a neighborhood near a UN compound in Dili, East Timor, indiscriminately firing automatic weapons and burning houses. UN workers, foreign journalists and some 200 local villagers flee into the compound. At least one person is killed before Indonesian security forces arrive and regain control of the area.

Aug. 30

Aug. 31

Sept. 1

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

August 27–September 1, 1999—1305

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Organizers of the Million Youth March, a rally for black youth, sue New York City in federal court, alleging that a refusal to grant a permit for the demonstration is a violation of their First Amendment free-speech rights. . . . California enacts a ban on the sale and manufacture of “unsafe” handguns. The law is primarily aimed at cheap, powerful handguns called “Saturday night specials.”

Reports suggest that several federal agencies, including the FBI, have flatly turned down petitions for clemency brought since Pres. Clinton’s August 11 offer to commute the sentences of 16 members of the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN), a Puerto Rican independence group that waged a bombing campaign in the U.S. from 1974 to 1983.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Scientists reveal they have found liquid water embedded in a meteorite, the first discovery of water in an extraterrestrial object. . . . The final crew of the Russian space station Mir departs the station in a Soyuz capsule. Mir, the Russian space program’s only remaining independent manned flight project, has been in space for 13 years, longer than any other space station, and it is scheduled to fall from its orbit and burn up in the lower atmosphere in the year 2000.

Aug. 27

A baseball team from Osaka, Japan, defeats Phenix City, Alabama, 5-0, to win the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The World Track and Field Championships close in Seville, Spain. The U.S. won the most medals with 17. Russia won 13 medals, and Germany won 12. . . . Tiger Woods wins the World Golf Championships NEC Invitational, becoming the fifth golfer to win five PGA events in one year. The CDC reports that 17,047 people died of AIDS in 1998, down 20% from 1997. That decline is less than half the decline of 42% in AIDS deaths between 1996 and 1997.

Common Cause reports that the Democratic and Republican parties raised a record $55 million in soft money in the first half of 1999, up 80% from the first half of 1995. GOP committees raised nearly $31 million by June 30, compared with $24 million raised by Democratic committees.

Judge Denny Chin orders NYC to allow the Million Youth March, a rally for black youth, to proceed. . . . NYC mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R) serves as foreman on a New York State Supreme Court jury. Giuliani is the first New York City mayor to sit on a jury while in office. . . . A study finds that a youth in a two-parent family who has a poor relationship with the father is 68% more likely to smoke, drink alcohol, or use drugs than one in an “average two-parent household.” The same teenager is at more than 60% greater risk of substance abuse than a child reared by a single mother who has an “excellent relationship” with the mother.

The Detroit Federation of Teachers, which represents 7,200 teachers, strikes, defying a 1994 Michigan law that makes it illegal for teachers to walk out. . . . Henry Earl Singleton, 82, engineer who cofounded and was chief executive of Los Angelesbased Teledyne Inc., 1960–91, dies of brain cancer in Los Angeles, California.

Hurricane Dennis skirts the coastal areas of North Carolina.

Black Notice by Patricia Cornwell tops the bestseller list.

Aug. 28 Aug. 29

Aug. 30

Aug. 31

Federal regulators close the First National Bank of Keystone (NBK) in West Virginia after finding evidence of alleged fraud. NBK, with $1.1 billion in assets and $880.9 million in deposits, is the fourth U.S. bank to fail in 1999. The collapse is expected to cost the federal government $500–$800 million, making it one of the costliest bank failures ever.

In the Olympic bribery scandal, Kim Jung Hoon, also known as John Kim, is indicted on federal charges of fraud relating to a sham employment arrangement as a favor for the IOC to vote in favor of Utah’s bid to host the 2002 Winter games.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 1

1306—September 2–6, 1999

World Affairs

Sept. 2

Sept. 3

Sept. 4

Sept. 5

Sept. 6

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

A Bosnian Muslim official announces the discovery of two mass graves containing 28 bodies each. One site is near Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital. The other grave is near the northern Bosnian town of Teslic. The 56 victims are believed to have been of Bosnian Muslim and Croat civilians.

Reports reveal that Ethiopia shot down a civilian jet near the border with Eritrea, killing both men on board. . . . Tel Aviv District Court convicts Samuel Sheinbein, 18, of the U.S. of premeditated murder after he pleads guilty to 10 charges in the slaying of Alfredo Enrique Tello Jr., 19, in the U.S.

The eighth biennial summit of La Francophonie, an alliance of 52 French-speaking states, opens in Moncton, New Brunswick, in Canada.

Two French magistrates dismiss all charges against press photographers under investigation for their role in a Paris automobile accident that killed Britain’s Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997. The magistrates conclude that the crash occurred largely because French driver Henri Paul, who died in the crash, was legally drunk. . . . The UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) declares that Kosovo will now use the German mark as its official currency, although the Yugoslav dinar will still be considered legal tender. The UN mission also inaugurates a customs service.

At the summit of La Francophonie in New Brunswick, Canada, the delegation from Congo leads a demonstration against protesters who criticize Congo president Laurent Kabila’s regime. One unidentified diplomat is arrested, as are two Canadians.

A car bomb is detonated outside an apartment complex in Russia’s southern region of Dagestan, killing at least 64 people and wounding more than 100. . . . Police in Hamburg, Germany, arrest fugitive U.S. financier Martin Frankel, who disappeared in May with hundreds of millions of dollars of insurance companies’ money. Frankel’s arrest ends a four-month-long international manhunt.

The foreign ministers of the EU’s 15 member states unanimously agree to provide Turkey with 30 million euros ($31.5 million) in aid to help the country recover from the August 17 earthquake.

In an unexpected incursion of Islamic militants into western Dagestan from the republic of Chechnya, an estimated 1,000–2,000 Chechen militants surge across the border and seize six villages and a town. . . . Alan Kenneth McKenzie Clark, 71, British Conservative Party politician who served in Parliament, 1974–92, and won reelection to Parliament in 1997, dies at Saltwood Castle, Kent, England, after having undergone surgery for a brain tumor three months earlier.

Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat sign an accord that sets a February 2000 deadline for completing a broad framework for a permanent peace accord. Separately, two car bomb explosions occur nearly simultaneously in the towns of Haifa and Tiberias, in northern Israel. Several passersbys are injured and the occupants of both vehicles are killed.

The International Labor Organization (ILO), a UN agency, reports a study, the first of its kind, that examines productivity, unemployment, and other facets of the labor market in more than 230 countries between 1980 and 1997. The ILO concludes that U.S. citizens worked the most when compared to any other industrialized nation. Americans worked an average of 1,966 hours in 1997.

Russian troops participating in KFOR shoot and kill three Serbs attacking a group of ethnic Albanians in eastern Kosovo.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II visits Kuwait. It is the first time a Jordanian leader has traveled to Kuwait since the Persian Gulf war in 1990–91. . . . An assailant attacks Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in Port Said, slightly wounding him with a knife. The assailant is shot and killed. . . . Israel’s Supreme Court unanimously bars the use of prisoner interrogation methods that critics claim amount to torture.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Canada, about 700 relatives of victims of Swissair Flight 111 attend memorial services in Halifax, Nova Scotia, marking the first anniversary of the plane crash that killed 229 people. . . . Reports disclose that, of the 131 Chinese migrants discovered on Aug. 11 in Canada, 57 have been ordered deported.

In Indonesia, the militias seize control of the western towns of Maliana, Gleno, and Liquica.

In Canada, Dave Stupich, a former British Columbia finance minister, is sentenced to two years’ house arrest for orchestrating a bingo and lottery scam—dubbed Bingogate—that led to the 1996 resignation of then-British Columbia premier Michael Harcourt. Separately, seven people are killed and 45 are injured in one of the worst highway collisions in Ontario history. The disaster includes an 82car pileup and an intense fire that melts parts of the pavement and burns 29 cars.

UN officials confirm that the militias who seized control of the western Indonesian towns of Maliana, Gleno, and Liquica burned 200 houses in Maliana and killed more than 20 people in the town, including at least two UN local employees. Indonesia’s military commander, General Wiranto, sends extra battalions to East Timor.

The UN reveals that the residents of East Timor overwhelmingly voted for independence from Indonesia in the Aug. 30 referendum. ProIndonesia militias launch an assault on the East Timorese capital, Dili, killing independence leaders and forcing thousands of East Timorese to flee into the neighboring Indonesian province of West Timor.

Reports confirm that Panamanian president Moscoso has annulled presidential pardons granted to Eduardo Herrera, the former governor of the province of Panama, and 33 former government officials who served under Manuel Noriega’s regime in the 1980s. Moscoso’s predecessor, Perez Balladares, issued the pardons on his last day in office.

China’s Pres. Jiang Zemin visits Australia, marking the first trip ever by a Chinese president to the country. . . . UN officials reveal e that 25,000 people are seeking refuge from the militias in Dili, East Timor. Militias attack the home of Bishop Carlos Belo, a cowinner of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize. Belo escapes unharmed, but the 5,000 refugees at his home are taken to an unknown site. Reports suggest that 120 people have been killed in the towns of Suai and Atsabe.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 2–6, 1999—1307

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The White House announces that Pres. Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton have signed a deal to purchase a $1.7 million house in New York’s Westchester County. The purchase will establish New York residency for the first lady, who is considering running for one of the state’s U.S. Senate seats in 2000. The home will be the first the Clintons will own since Bill Clinton’s second election as Arkansas governor in 1982.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Scientists report they have genetically engineered a strain of mouse that consistently performs better than ordinary mice in a series of learning and memory tests. The creation of the “smarter” mice confirms a long-held theory about the brain’s basic mechanism for forming memories.

In White Plains, New York, Judge Barrington Parker Jr. sentences John Gotti, the alleged acting boss of the Gambino crime family, to six years and five months in prison. . . . NYC mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R) reveals that at least one city resident has died of St. Louis encephalitis, a viral disease spread by mosquitoes, and that several other cases are suspected. The city sprays malathion, an insecticide, over Queens. . . . A Florida state appeals court rules that the jury in a class-action lawsuit brought against cigarette makers has to determine damages in the suit on a case-bycase basis.

Workers at the Department of Energy’s uranium plant in Paducah, Kentucky, file a class-action lawsuit against three government contractors—Lockheed Martin Corp., Union Carbide Corp., and General Electric Co.—charging that they have deliberately exposed the workers to radioactive and toxic materials since 1952. The classaction suit seeks $10 billion in compensation, including $5 billion in punitive damages. It is reportedly one of the largest damage claims ever filed by workers.

The Million Youth March, a rally for black youth in New York City that turned violent in 1998, takes place without incident.

A study finds that the U.S. income gap in 1999 is the widest it has been since 1977. The top 20% of households are projected to receive half of all after-tax income in 1999, while households in the other income brackets are expected to receive a share of the national aftertax income that is as small as or smaller than it has been at any point since 1977.

Sept. 2

Sept. 3

Hurricane Dennis brings torrential downpours in the eastern part of North Carolina and spawns two tornadoes in southeastern Virginia.

Sept. 4

The Western Conference basketball champion Houston Comets win their third straight WNBA title, defeating the Eastern Conference champion New York Liberty, 59-47, in Houston, Texas. . . . Allen Funt, 84, creator of the TV show Candid Camera, dies in Pebble Beach, California, from complications of a 1993 stroke.

Gregory Smith, 10, begins his freshman year at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia. Smith entered the second grade in 1996 and completed a high-school curriculum in 22 months before being awarded a full, four-year scholarship to Randolph-Macon.

Sept. 5

Sept. 6

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1308—September 7–12, 1999

Sept. 7

Sept. 8

Sept. 9

World Affairs

Europe

Reports reveal that, as violence in Indonesia continues, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, France, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Thailand have offered to contribute peacekeeping troops.

The government of Bosnia’s Serb Republic bars ousted president Nikola Poplasen from using Bosnian presidential offices, cars, telephones, and security. . . . A strong earthquake strkes Greece, killing scores of people in and around Athens and injuring hundreds more. The quake, which measures 5.9 on the Richter scale, is the most powerful tremor to hit the Athens area in over 80 years.

African leaders meet for a special Organization of African Unity (OAU) summit in Sirte, Libya. . . . In response to international offers, Indonesian foreign minister Ali Alatas rejects any foreign intervention, saying that East Timor is Indonesia’s responsibility.

The Turkish government announces that the death toll in the Aug. 17 earthquake has reached 15,303. According to current totals, 23,954 people were injured, and some 250,000 survivors remain homeless. . . . The government of Lithuania plans to shut down the first of two nuclear reactors at the Ignalina nuclear power plant by 2005. International safety experts in 1997 recommended closing the plant until improvements were made.

Representatives from the 21 member nations of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) trade group gather in Auckland, New Zealand, for the group’s annual summit.

A bomb explodes in a Moscow apartment complex, killing 94 people. . . . The official death toll from the Sept. 7 earthquake in Greece stands at 75, and some 1,600 people have been treated for injuries. About 45 people are thought to be trapped in the rubble. . . . Ethnic rioting between Serbian and ethnic Albanian residents of the town of Mitrovica, Kosovo, erupts. Nine French peacekeepers and 37 civilians are injured slightly.

Sept. 10

Sept. 11

Sept. 12

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Mcwayizeni Ka Dinizulu, 67, prince of the Zulu people of South Africa and a close ally of the Zulu monarch, King Goodwill Zwelithini, dies in Johannesburg, South Africa, of unreported causes.

Asia & the Pacific In Myanmar, British activist Rachel Goldwyn, 28. is arrested when she ties herself to a lamp post and shouts prodemocracy slogans in Yangon, the capital. . . . A UN speaker estimates that the violence in Indonesia has caused as many as 200,000 East Timorese— nearly one-quarter of the province’s 850,000 people—to flee their homes. Pres. Habibie imposes martial law in East Timor. Indonesian authorities release Jose Alexandre (Xanana) Gusmao, who is expected to become East Timor’s first leader after independence, into UN protection in Jakarta.

Adrienne Clarkson is named as Canada’s new governor general and ceremonial representative of Queen Elizabeth II of Britain. Clarkson, a former Chinese refugee who fled Hong Kong during World War II, will be the second woman and first immigrant to hold the nation’s top ceremonial post.

Reports reveal that at least four East Timorese working for UNAMET have been killed by militiamen. Five other UNAMET local employees have disappeared. The UN states it will evacuate almost all of its remaining staff from the province, leaving a skeleton presence at the Dili headquarters. Some 1,000 refugees who gathered at the UNAMET compound in Dili flee.

Israel releases 199 Palestinian prisoners.

The Canadian navy intercepts a ship carrying scores of smuggled Chinese migrants off the coast of British Columbia, bringing the total of detained Chinese boat people to more than 600 in less than two months. The discovery continues a public outcry over Canadian immigration laws since the first boat was intercepted in July.

The efforts by pro-Indonesia militias, often supported by government troops, to destroy East Timor’s infrastructure begins to ebb, and militia violence is estimated to have left hundreds dead. Dili is largely deserted.

Violence flares again in Mitrovica, Kosovo, when a group of 300 ethnic Albanian youths attempt to cross the Ibar River, renewing the Sep. 9 clashes. . . . Alfredo Kraus, 71, Spanish lyric tenor known for his refined phrasing, dies in Madrid, Spain, of pancreatic cancer.

In Uganda, the army steps in to halt fighting between members of the Bokora, Jie, and Tien ethnic groups and the Matheniko ethnic group. The ongoing violence is occurring some 150 miles (250 km) north of Kampala, the capital. . . . Zimbabwe’s High Court convicts three Americans—John Dixon, Gary Blanchard, and Joseph Pettijohn— of illegal arms possession and attempting to smuggle guns onto an airplane.

In Canada, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal overturns a stay of nine sex-related charges against former Nova Scotia premier Gerald Regan. The decision allows provincial Crown prosecutors to proceed with indecent assault charges against Regan, who was acquitted in December 1998 of eight counts of sex-related offenses, including rape, attempted rape, and indecent assault.

About 300 UNAMET staff are evacuated from their compound in Dili, East Timor’s capital. Some 80 UN staff and several foreign journalists remain in the compound with nearly 1,000 East Timorese who sought refuge there.

NATO troops and ethnic KLA forces restore order in Mitrovica, in the Serbian province of Kosovo after ethnic rioting erupted Sep. 9. Altogether, 184 people were injured in the rioting. . . . Momcilo Djujic, 92, Serbian priest who commanded a group of Serbian fighters in World War II, dies in San Diego, California, of unreported causes.

Madzorera Meki, Zimbabwe’s vice consul in South Africa, is shot to death in a Johannesburg suburb by thieves stealing his car.

Eight employees of Edmontonbased United Pipeline Systems, and four tourists are abducted from a job site near the Ecuador-Colombia boarder by suspected Colombian guerillas.

An appeals court in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, upholds a 1997 contempt conviction against Canadian journalist Murray Hiebert and sentences him to a six-week jail term. The court’s ruling in the closely watched case draws sharp criticism from human-rights groups and foreign leaders.

The 11th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Africa opens in Lusaka, Zambia’s capital. The forum is the largest AIDS conference ever held in Africa. . . . Indonesian Pres. B. J. Habibie yields to international pressure and agrees to permit foreign troops to enter East Timor.

Field Marshal Mohammed Ali Fahmy, 77, Egyptian military commander who served as commander in chief of the armed forces, 1975–78, dies in London, England, of kidney failure.

Some 3,000 antigovernment demonstrators stage a protest in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, calling for the resignation of P.M. Sheikh Hasina Wazed and for early elections. Demonstrators explode bombs, set vehicles ablaze, and attack government offices. At least 150 people are injured in the melee.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 7–12, 1999—1309

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Alstory Simon pleads guilty to killing Marilyn Green and Jerry Hillard and is sentenced to concurrent prison terms of 37 and 15 years. Anthony Porter has spent almost 17 years on death row for committing those murders. . . . Ambrose Harris, a deathrow inmate at the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton, beats to death fellow inmate Robert Simon. Some people believe that it is the first incident in which one death-row inmate has killed another since 1976. . . . Los Angeles County bans sales of weapons or ammunition on county property.

The White House announces that 12 jailed members of a militant Puerto Rican independence group has accepted the terms of a clemency offer made by Pres. Clinton. The offer has been supported by Hispanic leaders and human rights groups but opposed by lawenforcement agencies and many Democratic and Republican politicians.

Former housing secretary Henry Cisneros pleads guilty to one misdemeanor count of lying to the FBI about payments that he made to Linda Jones between 1989 and 1994. His plea ends a four-yearlong independent counsel investigation. . . . Ford Motor Co. reveals it has settled a sexual-harassment complaint brought by the EEOC on behalf of 19 female workers at two factories in Illinois. . . . Eighteen current and former employees of First Union Corp., the nation’s sixth-largest bank, sue the bank over its administration of its 401(k) retirement program.

Viacom Inc. announce plans to acquire CBS Corp. If completed, the merger will create the world’s second-largest media and entertainment company in terms of market capitalization after Time Warner Inc. The deal will also be the largest-ever media merger.

Pres. Clinton is questioned under oath in an investigation of allegations that Labor Secretary Alexis Herman was involved in an influence-peddling scheme. Herman is accused of illegally soliciting $250,000 in contributions to Clinton’s 1996 campaign. . . . The Detroit Federation of Teachers ratifies a new three-year contract, ending a strike that started Aug. 31. . . . Herbert Stein, 83, economist who chaired the President’s Council of Economic Advisers,1972–74, dies in Washington, D.C., of a heart ailment.

The Smithsonian reveals that its Arthur M. Sackler Gallery has received a collection of Chinese artifacts—donated by New Jersey psychologist Paul Singer—worth between $50 million and $60 million.

James Augustus (Catfish) Hunter, 53, Hall of Fame baseball pitcher who, in effect, became MLB’s first free agent, dies in Hertford, North Carolina, of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease . . . . Ruth Roman, 75, actress who appeared in more than 30 films from 1948 to 1965, dies in Laguna Beach, California.

Atty. Gen. Janet Reno names former Sen. John Danforth (R, Mo.) to head an independent investigation into the 1993 assault by federal agents on a compound of the Branch Davidian cult near Waco, Texas. Reno orders the outside investigation after the recent emergence of evidence that the FBI used pyrotechnic tear gas during the compound assault. . . . A report finds that about 70% of users of illegal drugs hold full-time jobs, in contrast to the popular perception of drug users as poor and unemployed. Federal agents arrest 13 workers employed at Miami International Airport, and two others on charges of conspiracy to import cocaine. . . . Pres. Clinton announces an initiative that will make $15 million in federal grants available to police and local officials for gun buyback programs. States have instituted similar programs in the past, but this is the first federal effort.

The House passes, 311-41, a GOPsponsored resolution condemning Pres. Clinton’s clemency offer to the FALN members. . . . The State Department issues its first annual report on global religious freedom and persecution. The report, which includes data on 194 countries, lists Afghanistan, China, Cuba, Iran, and Iraq among the nations where religious persecution is most severe. The report also cites U.S. allies Saudi Arabia and Egypt for religious persecution.

The House, 208-206, approves an appropriations bill allocating $429 million for the District of Columbia in fiscal 2000.

Judge Robert Potter orders the school district in Charlotte, North Carolina, to halt the use of student busing to achieve racial balance in schools, arguing that the school district “eliminated, to the extent practicable, the vestiges of past discrimination in the traditional areas of school operations.” Charlotte’s busing program, launched in 1969, was one of the first in the nation. . . . The Denver Classroom Teachers Association, a union representing 4,300 teachers in Denver, Colorado, overwhelmingly accepts a two-year merit pay plan that will, for the first time in the U.S., link some teachers’ pay to the performance of their students.

The Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico states that it has disciplined Siegfried (Sig) Hecker, Terry Craig, and Robert Vrooman for failing to adequately enforce security at the lab. The lab is the center of alleged Chinese espionage at U.S. nuclear weapons facilities. . . . Eleven members of the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN), which carried out more than 130 bombings in the U.S. between 1974 and 1983, are released from prison as part of a controversial clemency deal offered by Pres. Clinton. None of the 11 were convicted in attacks that resulted in deaths or injuries.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and the governors of four states with nuclear weapons plants sign an agreement in which they pledge cooperation to clean up the nation’s nuclear waste. The four governors who sign the pact are Bill Owens (R, Colo.), Jim Hodges (D, S.C.), Don Sundquist (R, Tenn.) and Gary Locke (D, Wash.).

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Sept. 7

Sept. 8

Sept. 9

Sept. 10

In tennis, Serena Williams wins her first Grand Slam singles title, at the U.S. Open. . . . Otto A. Silha, 80, president and publisher of the Minneapolis newspapers during the 1970s and 1980s, dies in Minneapolis, Minnesota, of complications of a heart attack.

At the Emmys, The Practice wins for best drama, and Ally McBeal wins for best comedy. David E. Kelley is the first person in the history of the awards to have produced shows that win both awards. . . . At the U.S. Open, Andre Agassi wins the men’s singles tennis championship. Sisters Venus and Serena Williams win the doubles title.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 11

Sept. 12

1310—September 13–17, 1999

World Affairs

An earthquake hits northwestern Turkey, killing at least seven people and injuring more than 300. The epicenter of the quake, which measures 5.8 on the Richter scale, is in the province of Kocaeli. . . . A bomb in a Moscow apartment building kills at least 118 people. The explosion reduces an eightstory building to rubble, and it occurs on a day of national mourning for victims of previous bomb blasts.

Sept. 13

Sept. 14

Sept. 15

Sept. 16

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Asia & the Pacific

Hurricane Floyd passes directly over several Bahamian islands.

Reports confirm that China courtmartialed and executed two military officers—Major General Liu Liankun and Colonel Shao Zhengzhong— for selling state secrets to Taiwan. . . . In East Timor, Indonesia, the UN abandons its Dili headquarters. Several dozen UN workers and some 1,500 displaced East Timorese are flown to Darwin, Australia, some 400 miles (640 km) southeast of East Timor.

Reports confirm that Jacinto Arias Cruz, the former mayor of Acteal, a town in Chiapas, Mexico, where 45 unarmed Indians were massacred in 1997, and 23 of his associates have been sentenced to 35 years in prison. . . . Quebec’s Roman Catholic Church refuses to compensate or apologize to 3,000 former orphans in Quebec, Canada, who claim they were physically and sexually abused for years in church-run institutions. Separately in Canada, a lockout that shuts down an Inco Ltd., a nickel mine in Thompson, Manitoba, begins

China’s state-run news media announce that authorities have arrested 100,000 criminals in an effort to ensure “social stability and safety” during the 50th-anniversary celebrations of the establishment of communist rule in China.

In Uganda, a senior army official reveals that up to 400 people have been killed in ethnic fighting some 150 miles (250 km) north of Kampala, the capital.. . . . Jordan’s King Abdullah II visits Lebanon, in the first visit to that country by a Jordanian head of state since 1969. . . . In Zimbabwe, a judge sentences the three U.S. nationals convicted Sept. 10 to six months for weapons possession and 21 months for attempting to take the weapons on a plane. The sentences are unusually light.

The UN General Assembly’s 54th session opens, and delegates elect Theo-Ben Gurirab, Namibia’s minister of foreign affairs, as president of the General Assembly. . . . The World Bank announces a $3 billion program to help fight AIDS in Africa, where 11.5 million people have died of the disease, accounting for about 80% of the world’s total AIDS deaths.

Greek deputy foreign minister Yannos Kranidiotis and five other people are killed when a government airplane plunges 18,000 feet (5,500 m) while flying over Romania. The plane subsequently levels off and lands in Bucharest, Romania’s capital. Three of the seven survivors on the plane are injured. . . . Charles Ainslie Crichton, 89, British film director, dies in London.

The European Parliament, the EU’s legislative arm, approves the proposed new membership of the European Commission, the EU’s executive panel. . . . The UN Security Council votes unanimously to authorize the deployment of a multinational force to restore peace and security in the Indonesian territory of East Timor. Australia will lead the multinational force. . . . Swiss lawyer Carla Del Ponte takes office as chief prosecutor for the international war crimes tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.

Reports confirm that the death toll of the Sept. 7 earthquake centered near Athens, the Greek capital, has risen to 137, with six people believed to be missing and presumed dead.

Israeli police arrest Maher Dasuki, a Palestinian talk show host, shortly after guests on his show criticized Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. . . . At a roadblock near Jowhar, some 60 miles (100 km) north of Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, gunmen mortally wound the chief health officer of UNICEF when they open fire on a vehicle carrying six of the fund’s workers. The five other workers are wounded in the attack, which appears to be an attempted robbery.

NATO commander General Wesley Clark presents the results of a three-month study of NATO’s military successes during its recent 78-day bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. The study shows that NATO damaged or destroyed roughly a third of the Yugoslav army’s weapons and vehicles.

A bomb explosion in a Volgodonsk, Russian, apartment building kills at least 17 people. Volgodonsk is located 200 miles (320 km) south of Moscow. With those deaths, 229 people have been killed in bombings in Russia since Sept. 9. . . . Viktor Gonchar, the vice speaker of the Belarussian parliament that Pres. Aleksandr Lukashenko disbanded in 1996, and publisher Anatoli Krasovsky disappear from Belarus.

Sibusiso Madubela, a black South African army lieutenant, shoots to death six white soldiers and a white civilian at a South African army base outside of Bloemfontein. A fellow soldier then kills the lieutenant. . . . Ayub Sheikh Yarow, 41, the chief health officer of UNICEF shot Set. 15, dies of his wounds. . . . In a nationwide referendum, Algerians overwhelmingly approve a government plan that will provide amnesty to many Islamic rebels fighting in the country’s civil war.

Frankie Vaughan (born Frank Abelson), 71, British popular singer who at the peak of his career as a teenage idol in the mid-1950s became known as “Mr. Moonlight,” dies in Buckinghamshire, England, after having recently undergone surgery for a heart ailment.

In Zambia, a high court sentences 59 soldiers to death for their roles in a failed 1997 coup. One soldier is sentenced to 21 years in jail for failing to disclose his knowledge about treason. Eight officers are acquitted.

Sept. 17

The Americas

In Myanmar, British activist Rachel Goldwyn, arrested Sept. 7, is sentenced to seven years in prison for staging a solitary democracy protest in Yangon, the capital.

In Canada, the Supreme Court rules that a 1760 treaty between Britain and the Micmac Indians guarantees the band’s right to make a living by fishing, hunting, and logging year round. The decision sparks controversy because it allows the Micmacs to fish out of season and because it is seen as a landmark victory for natives’ commercial fishing and hunting rights.

During a month-long poll in India, a leader of Kashmir’s ruling National Conference party is killed and 26 people are injured in attacks allegedly carried out by separatists.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 13–17, 1999—1311

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

In Denver, Colorado, Judge Richard Matsch refuses to grant convicted Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols a new trial. . . . The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California, orders a U.S. district judge to review his 1998 ruling shutting the Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative, which provides marijuana for medical use.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

IBM agrees to pay $15.5 million to a group of former employees in Louisville, Kentucky, who sued the company in 1992 for converting pension plans without informing them.

The National Bioethics Advisory Commission recommends that the government allow federal funds to be used to support research on human embryonic stem cells.

The Smithsonian Institution’s Board of Regents unanimously selects Lawrence Small as the museum complex’s next secretary.

The House votes, 252-177, to pass a bill overhauling the nation’s campaign finance laws.

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) states that one of its former officers, Rafael Perez, admitted that in October 1996 he and his partner, Nino Durden, shot and framed Javier Ovando, an unarmed gang member who was subsequently sentenced to a long prison term. Bernard Parks, the chief of the LAPD, announces that 12 officers were either suspended or dismissed. . . . Larry Ashbrook shoots to death seven people and wounds seven more in a Baptist church in Fort Worth, Texas. Immediately following the rampage, Ashbrook commits suicide by shooting himself in the head.

The House approves, 375-45, a $288.8 billion fiscal 2000 defense authorization bill. . . . Mexico’s former chief antinarcotics official, Mario Ruiz Massieu, is found dead at his home in Palisades Park, New Jersey, where he was under house arrest for the past four years. Ruiz Massieu, 48, was scheduled to be arraigned Sept. 17 in federal court in Houston, Texas, on charges of money laundering. The Justice Department announces that Ruiz Massieu died “of an apparent overdose of antidepressants” in a likely suicide.

Javier Ovando, the gang member whom former LAPD officers admitted Sept. 15 that they framed, is released from prison at the request of the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office. It is the first time in the history of Los Angeles County that prosecutors ask a judge to free a convicted man. . . . W(endell) Arthur Garrity Jr., 79, federal judge who in 1974 mandated busing in Boston as a means of desegregating the city’s schools, dies of cancer in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

The U.S. and South Africa reach an agreement ending a trade dispute over drugs to treat AIDS.

Judge Wendy Potts sentences Jonathan Schmitz to 25–50 years in prison for killing acquaintance Scott Amedure, a homosexual man who admitted during a 1995 taping of The Jenny Jones Show that he had a crush on Schmitz.

Local 54 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International, which represents about 14,000 workers in Atlantic City, New Jersey, goes on strike.

Hurricane Floyd brings heavy rainfall and strong winds to states along the East Coast of the U.S. The storm prompts the largest mass evacuation in U.S. history, as more than 3 million people in coastal regions are ordered to move inland.

DaimlerChrysler reaches an agreement with the UAW after 48 hours of around-the-clock negotiations. . . . The Senate votes, 52-39, to clear an appropriations bill allocating $429 million for the District of Columbia in fiscal 2000. . . . The Senate votes, 54-38, to clear a $28.2 billion appropriations bill to fund the Treasury Department, the U.S. Postal Service, the Executive Office of the President, and other agencies. The measure includes the first presidential pay raise in 32 years, the fifth presidential pay increase in U.S. history.

Hurricane Floyd comes ashore near Wilmington, North Carolina, and pours as much as 2 feet (60 cm) of rain in some areas as it moves to southeastern Virginia and north through the mid-Atlantic states.

Local 54 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International, which represents about 14,000 workers in Atlantic City, New Jersey, tentatively agrees to a new five-year contract, ending a strike started Sept. 15.

Rainfall from Hurricane Floyd causes scores of rivers and creeks in eastern North Carolina to overflow, flooding thousands of homes and making roadways impassable.

Sept. 13

Sept. 14

Sept. 15

Sept. 16

In New York City, Judge Denise Cote sentences Lawrence X. Cusack III to nine years in prison for selling forged documents that he claimed were written or signed by Pres. John F. Kennedy. The judge orders him to pay $7 million in restitution to those who purchased the papers.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 17

1312—September 18–23, 1999

Sept. 18

Europe

Reports confirm that Iraq’s air force commander has stated that 187 civilians have been killed in the U.S. and British strikes against Iraq since they began in December 1998, and another 494 people were wounded. The disclosure marks the first time Iraq gives a full casualty toll for the strikes. . . . The new European Commission approves plans to overhaul its administrative structure. It also enacts a code of conduct aimed at preventing the kinds of missteps that led the previous commission to resign.

Leo Valiani (born Leo Weiczen), 90, Italian antifascist who helped lead the resistance in Italy during World War II and who, in 1980, was awarded the title of life senator of the Italian Republic, dies in Milan, Italy, of cancer.

In a month-long poll in India, election-related violence erupts in the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir and in Bihar. At least 40 people are killed, and dozens of others are injured. . . . An antiterrorism court in the southern port city of Karachi acquits three men— Saulat Mirza, Arif Tutu, and Pervez Salman Haider—charged in connection with the March 1995 murders of two U.S. diplomats. Despite their acquittal, Mirza, Tutu, and Haider remain jailed in connection with other crimes.

Pope John Paul II beatifies Anton Martin Slomsek, a 19th-century Slovene bishop who championed Slovene language and cultural identity under the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The pontiff’s stop in Slovenia, a former republic of Yugoslavia, marks his second visit to the predominantly Roman Catholic nation since it gained its independence in 1991.

Some 10,000 protesters demonstrate in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, demanding an investigation into recent assertions by Anwar Ibrahim, the country’s jailed former deputy prime minister, that he is being poisoned in prison.

Sept. 19

Sept. 22

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

The ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), signs an agreement with NATO. . . .Raisa Maximovna Gorbachev, 67, wife of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last president of the former Soviet Union, dies of leukemia in Muenster, Germany.

Austrian president Thomas Klestil visits Iran, marking the first time a leader from a European Union member country has visited Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. . . . Due to generally dangerous conditions for aid workers in the area, UNICEF has suspended its operations in Somalia.

Reports confirm that authorities in Myanmar have sentenced a BritishAustralian activist, James Mawdsley, 26, to 17 years in prison. . . . The first contingents of a UN peacekeeping force arrives in the Indonesian province of East Timor to help end to violence launched by pro-Indonesia militias after East Timorese voted at the end of August to declare independence from Indonesia.

NATO defense ministers meet in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

The protesters, organized by Serbian opposition parties, begin holding daily rallies to demand the resignation of Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic. Separately, the KLA, which for more than a year has fought for the independence of Kosovo, formally disbands. . . . Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak visits Germany, making the first official state visit to Berlin since the German government moved there from Bonn in August. The visit is regarded as symbolically significant because Berlin was the capital of the Nazi German regime, which carried out the executions of millions of European Jews in the 1930s and 1940s.

Due to the Sept. 15 UNICEF attack and what they cite as dangerous conditions for aid workers, international aid agencies suspend operations in Somalia.

A major earthquake strikes Taiwan, killing thousands of people and devastating towns and villages. The earthquake also causes significant damage in the western coastal city of Taichung. . . . In the Philippines, more than 100,000 demonstrators hold street rallies in Manila and several other major cities to protest Pres. Estrada’s attempts to remove a constitutional provision that limits a president to one six-year term. Transit strikes disrupt business in four cities. . . . Reports confirm that Chinese police have detained Yongyi Song, a U.S.-based Chinese scholar who was visiting China to conduct research on the Cultural Revolution.

The UN Population Fund projects that the global population will reach 6 billion people on Oct. 12— declared “The Day of Six Billion”— and will likely near 8.9 billion by the year 2050. That is 500 million fewer people than the fund predicted for that year in 1994 and 1996. . . . The IMF predicts that Malaysia’s economy will grow by 2.4% in 1999, and some economists put that figure at 5.5%.

Serbian leaders announce that they will no longer participate in the multiethnic Kosovo Transitional Council, a civilian advisory group, claiming that it is essentially the same rebel army under a different name.

Jordanian police arrest Khaled Meshal, Ibrahim Ghosheh, and Mousa Abu Marzook—three senior leaders of the militant Islamic group Hamas.

An aftershock measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale shakes Taiwan. . . . Vice Pres. Hu Jintao, the youngest of China’s senior leaders, is named vice chair of the Central Military Commission. The appointment is widely seen as a confirmation of Hu’s status as designated successor to Jiang, who is chair of the commission.

Russia’s air force begins bombing targets on the outskirts of Grozny, the capital of Russia’s separatist republic of Chechnya.

Pres. Ali Abdullah Saleh is reelected in Yemen’s first direct presidential election. He is the only candidate. Political opposition groups boycotted the election because Yemen’s parliament did not approve the nomination of their candidate for president.

Sept. 20

Sept. 21

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Sept. 23

In Brazil, Hildebrando Pascoal, a first-term congressman accused of heading a death squad in his home state of Acre surrenders to federal authorities.

The total number of people confirmed dead from the Sept. 21 earthquake in Taiwan is 2,103. Nearly 8,000 people are injured, about 1,600 people are believed to be trapped, and 210 others are listed as missing. . . . The Indonesian parliament passes a bill that will broaden the power of the military during “emergency situations.” Passage of the measure sparks massive street protests in major cities across Indonesia. . . Ri Jon Ok, 83, North Korea’s premier for six years and its vice president, 1984–88, dies.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 18–23, 1999—1313

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Metropolitan Demetrios Trakatellis is enthroned as head of the Greek Orthodox Church in the U.S.

A memorial service for the victims of the Sept. 15 shooting spree at a Baptist church in Fort Worth, Texas, is attended by more than 10,000 people, including Gov. George W. Bush (R).

Data shows, that, due to Hurricane Floyd. numerous counties in states from Florida to New York State have been declared disaster areas by the federal government, making residents and local authorities eligible for federal emergency funds.

New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman (R) names Carson Dunbar, a former FBI agent, as head of the state police. . . . A jury in Bryan, Texas, convicts Lawrence Brewer, 32, a white supremacist, of beating and dragging James Byrd Jr., a black man, to death.

One of several companies working to decode the entire human genome, or sequence of genes reveals that human cells have about 140,000 genes. Previous estimates ranged from about 70,000 to 100,000 genes. . . . North Carolina officials estimate that Hurricane Floyd caused damage in the state of at least $6 billion.

Connecticut officials reveal that mosquitoes trapped at two sites in that state are carrying the St. Louis encephalitis virus. The state plans to begin insecticide spraying in some areas the following week.

Pres. Clinton, in a letter read at a congressional hearing, defends his offer to commute the sentences of 16 members of the FALN, a Puerto Rican independence group that carried out a series of deadly bombings in the U.S. in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The Justice Department files a lawsuit against the U.S.’s major tobacco have companies, alleging that the firms have conspired since the 1950s to defraud their customers and mislead them about the addictiveness and health hazards of smoking cigarettes.

The Senate votes, 93-5, to clear the $288.8 billion fiscal 2000 defense authorization bill.

A jury in Bryan, Texas, sentences Lawrence Brewer, 32, to death for murder in the beating and dragging death of a black man, James Byrd. . . . .Senate majority leader Trent Lott (R, Miss.) announces the creation of the task force to investigate the Justice Department. . . . Stanley Fleishman, 79, lawyer who specialized in First Amendment cases, successfully arguing a number of them before the U.S. Supreme Court, dies in Los Angeles, California, after surgery for a benign tumor; he contracted pneumonia.

The Commerce Department reports that the seasonally adjusted U.S. deficit in trade in goods and services in July reached a record $25.18 billion. The July figure marks a $579 million increase from June’s revised $24.6 billion trade deficit. . . . US Airways Group Inc. reaches a tentative labor agreement with its 7,000 mechanics and cleaners after four years of negotiations.. . . . The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, finds that, even under the ERISA, patients may sue HMOs in state courts for medical malpractice, on the grounds that the insurers’ control over treatment amounts to the provision of medical care.

Sept. 19

Sept. 20

The FDA approves the use of an antibiotic drug that can kill a strain of bacterium resistant to currently used antibiotics. The drug, Synercid, is the first of a new class of antibiotics known as streptogramins to be approved in the U.S. . . . Tropical Storm Harvey, formed in the Gulf of Mexico, brings heavy rains and some flooding to Florida’s Gulf Coast.

North Carolina officials report that 30,000 homes have been flooded statewide, and 10,000 residences are still without electrical power. . . . The FTC announces it has obtained a preliminary injunction against three individuals who operated a scheme that forcibly redirects World Wide Web users to pornographic sites and holds them captive by disabling their browser functions. FTC officials refer to the activities as “page-jacking” and “mouse-trapping.” Pres. Clinton vetoes a Republicanbacked plan for a $792 billion tax cut over 10 years, arguing that it will jeopardize the future of Social Security and Medicare. . . . Former Connecticut state treasurer Paul Silvester (R) pleads guilty in Hartford, Connecticut, to accepting kickbacks for steering state pension funds to private equity funds. . . . The antitrust division of the Justice Department gives its approval to a long-discussed plan to convert U.S. stock trading to decimals from fractions.

In a publicized boxing match, Oscar De La Hoya loses his WBC welterweight title to challenger Felix Trinidad Jr., by a majority decision. . . . Lindsay Davenport clinches tennis’s 1999 Federation Cup championship for the U.S.

Sept. 18

Sept. 21

NYC mayor Rudolph Giuliani threatens to end city subsidies to the Brooklyn Museum of Art because of a planned controversial exhibit. . . . George C(ampbell) Scott, 71, best known for starring in Patton (1970), dies in Westlake Village, California, of a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm.

Due to Hurricane Floyd, 42 people in North Carolina are confirmed dead. . . . . Officials at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, reveal they lost contact with Mars Climate Orbiter, an unmanned spacecraft. . . . Reports reveal that archaeologists in China have discovered what is to believed to be the oldest still-playable musical instrument, a flute made from the wing bone of a crane that is about 9,000 years old.

Sept. 22

Sept. 23

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1314—September 24–28, 1999

World Affairs

Sept. 24

Sept. 25

Finance ministers and central-bank governors from the Group of Seven (G-7) major industrialized nations meet in Washington, D.C. The G-7 financial leaders reveal they have agreed to establish a new Group of 20 (G-20) nations that will include both industrialized and developing countries.

Sept. 26

Sept. 27

The European Court of Human Rights rules that a law barring homosexuals from serving in the British armed forces violates the privacy rights of military personnel. . . . The board of the World Bank reappoints former U.S. investment banker James D. Wolfensohn as the bank’s president. Wolfensohn will be only the second World Bank president—out of a total of nine since the organization was formally established in 1946—to serve a second term.

Sept. 28

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Tens of thousands of farmers and workers march through Warsaw, the capital of Poland, to protest the government’s restrictive economic policies. . . . Former Italian premier Giulio Andreotti is acquitted of conspiring in the murder of Mino Pecorelli, a journalist, in 1979. The verdict concludes one of the most widely publicized trials in Italian history. Andreotti remains on trial in Palermo on charges of associating with the Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mafia.

The total number of people confirmed killed by the Sept. 21 earthquake in Taiwan stands at 2,160, with 8,432 people injured. A sixyear-old boy is freed from a collapsed apartment building in the town of Dali.

In Chechnya, Russia attacks Grozny’s oil refinery and its gas distribution facility.

Gunmen kill nine people, including Roman Catholic clerics, in a rural area near the town of Los Palos in East Timor. . . . Pres. Lee Teng-hui declares a state of emergency in response to the Sept. 21 earth quake in Taiwan.

In Chechnya, Russian attacks destroy Grozny’s oil refinery and severely damage its gas distribution facility. . . . Violence erupts at the Ulucanlar prison in Ankara, Turkey, when prisoners attack guards. The guards retaliate, killing 10 prisoners. In the riots, 23 other inmates and seven guards are injured. News of the deaths in Ankara sparks similar violence in seven prisons across the nation.

Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak is reelected to a fourth six-year term as president in a referendum in which he ran unopposed.

French peacekeepers in the town of Kosovska Mitrovica announce they have arrested four suspects after unearthing a mass grave containing 28 ethnic Albanian men earlier in the week. . . . The Turkish military launches an incursion into northern Iraq to attack PKK guerrillas there.

A bus carrying British tourists crashes near Lydenburg, a town northeast of Johannesburg, killing 26 of the passengers. Reports indicate that this is the fifth fatal bus accident in South Africa in a week. . . . Israeli forces fire a barrage of missiles at a Hezbollah stronghold in Iqlim al-Tuffah after a top official of the pro-Israeli militia in Lebanon dies in a roadside bombing.

Indonesia turns over security in East Timor to the International Force for East Timor (INTERFET), a UN peacekeeping force deployed there a week earlier. . . .A court in Bombay, India, finds Harshad Mehta, a former stockbroker, guilty of securities fraud in connection with a 1992 Bombay stock market scandal. Mehta is convicted of siphoning $9 million from an Indian automobile company.

Two people are killed and roughly 40 are wounded when two grenades explode in a Serbian marketplace in Kosovo Polje, Kosovo. . . . Reports confirm that voters in Tajikistan have approved a change to the country’s constitution extending the president’s term to seven years from five. . . . Sir Nigel Broackes, 65, chair of the Trafalgar House conglomerate, 1969–92, dies in London, England, of unreported causes.

Iranian officials announce the discovery of the country’s largest oil find in 30 years. The oil is in an onshore oil field in Khuzestan province, roughly 6 miles (10 km) from Iran’s border with Iraq.

In Bombay, India, Harshad Mehta, a former stockbroker found guilty Sept. 27, is sentenced to a fiveyear jail term.

In central Mexico, a series of powerful explosions rip through a central section of the city of Celaya, killing at least 56 people and injuring 348 others. Celaya is located 120 miles (195 km) northwest of Mexico City, the capital of Mexico. . . . One of the 12 people taken hostage Sept. 11 by suspected Colombian guerillas is released.

Reports confirm that six demonstrators and one police officer died in the protests sparked by legislation passed Sept. 23 in Indonesia. Separately, aid workers and UN officials find that pro-Indonesia forces are systematically laying waste to villages as they withdraw from the region. . . . An aftershock measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale strikes Taiwan, killing at least three people and injuring 58 others.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 24–28, 1999—1315

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

A jury in Annapolis, Maryland, acquits former Maryland state senator Larry Young (D) of corruption charges. . . . CDC officials identify the West Nile virus as the virus that has killed an unusual number of birds in New York City, raising the possibility that it is that virus, rather than St. Louis encephalitis, which may be infecting people in the area. . . . The eighth Circuit appeals court in St. Louis, Missouri, strikes down bans in Arkansas, Iowa, and Nebraska of a controversial abortion method known medically as intact dilation and evacuation (IDE).

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Reports confirm that doctors have implanted a woman with parts of her ovaries, which were removed earlier in her life and frozen. The woman, who was made infertile by the previous operation, has reportedly ovulated and menstruated normally since the ovarian tissue was reimplanted.

Judith Campbell Exner (born Judith Eileen Katherine Immoor), 65, who gained notoriety when she claimed she had been romantically involved with both Pres. John F. Kennedy and Chicago Mafia boss Sam Giancana, testimony that was later challenged, dies in Duarte, California, of breast cancer.

A twin-engine sightseeing airplane crashes into a slope of the Mauna Loa volcano on the island of Hawaii, killing all 10 people aboard.

Oseola McCarty, 91, Mississippi woman who in 1995 attracted attention when she gave away $150,000, most of what she had saved working as a washerwoman, to endow a scholarship fund at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, dies of cancer in Hattiesburg. . . . Donald Gilbert Sanders, 69, lawyer who played a key role in events leading to the 1974 resignation of Pres. Richard Nixon, dies of cancer in Columbia, Missouri. California passes a law expanding patients’ ability to sue insurers in state court. . . . Alexander Pogosyan, 18, is sentenced to five consecutive life terms in prison for the September 1998 shooting deaths of five people in Aurora, Colorado . . . . Health officials in New York City confirm that an ongoing outbreak of a mosquito-borne viral illness in the city, initially identified as St. Louis encephalitis, is in fact caused by the West Nile virus, never before found in the Western Hemisphere. The total number of confirmed cases in the area is 37, and four people have died of the West Nile disease.

The 1999 Albert Lasker Medical Research Award for clinical research goes to David Cushman and Miguel Ondetti for finding a way to design drugs based on protein structure. The award for basic medical research goes to Clay Armstrong, Bertil Hille, and Roderick MacKinnon for their work on ion channel proteins. The award for special achievement goes to Seymour Kety for his groundbreaking contributions to neuroscience.

Texas governor George W. Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War comes under scrutiny when Ben Barnes, former speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, reveals that in late 1967 or early 1968 he personally asked the senior official in the Texas Air National Guard to help secure a pilot’s slot for Bush, exempting Bush from being drafted to serve in Vietnam.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress finds that 22% of fourth-graders, 26% of eighthgraders and 21% of 12th-graders demonstrated strong proficiency in writing, and 1% of students in each grade were judged to be writing at an “advanced” level in the 1998 tests. Some 16% of students in the fourth and eighth grades and 22% of high-school seniors demonstrated a lack of the most basic writing skills. The remainder are found to have basic, though not sophisticated, writing skills.

Sept. 24

Sept. 25

In golf, the U.S. Ryder Cup team mounts a record comeback, overcoming a four-point deficit to defeat the two-time defending champion European team in Brookline, Massachusetts, sparking a celebration on the golf course that the Europeans criticize as unsportsmanlike.

Pres. Clinton announces that the surplus for fiscal 1999 is a record $115 billion. The surplus is an offbudget surplus that required borrowing from Social Security. . . . The House passes, 327-87, an appropriations bill for energy, water, and nuclear weapons programs for fiscal 2000. . . . Northeast Nuclear Energy Co. pleads guilty in Hartford, Connecticut, to 23 federal felony counts of falsifying environmental records. The company agrees to pay $10 million in fines, the largest penalty ever levied against a U.S. nuclear plant. Northeast is only the second nuclear power company in the U.S. to be charged with felonies.

Spanish-born tenor Placido Domingo opens the Metropolitan Opera House’s season for the 18th time since 1971, breaking the record set by the late Enrico Caruso for the most opening-night performances at the Met.

Pres. Clinton vetoes the District of Columbia fiscal 2000 appropriations bill because it contains “unwarranted intrusions into local citizens’ decisions about local matters.”. . . The House, 421-2, and the Senate, 98-1, passe a stopgap spending measure to keep the federal government running after the 2000 fiscal year begins Oct 1. . . . The Senate clears, 96-3, a fiscal 2000 appropriations bill for energy, water and nuclear weapons programs. . . . The SEC files charges against 68 individuals at 15 public companies, accusing them of accounting fraud. . . . GM and the UAW reach a tentative four-year agreement.

In a controversy over an exhibit of contemporary British art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art files a preemptive lawsuit, claiming that cutting off city funding will violate the museum’s free-speech rights. However, the administration of NYC mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R) freezes the city’s contributions to the museum’s operating budget. . . . A groundbreaking is held for the National Museum of the American Indian, the last museum run by the Smithsonian Institution to be constructed along the Mall in Washington, D.C.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Sept. 26

Sept. 27

Sept. 28

1316—September 29–October 3, 1999

World Affairs

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

Serbian police forcefully disperse an estimated 30,000 protesters in Belgrade, Yugoslavia’s capital, as they attempt to march to the residence of Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic. It is the first time that the daily protests, which started Sept. 21, have been broken up by police.

Sept. 29

Russian ground forces enter Chechnya to secure a buffer zone that will prevent Islamic militant incursions into other areas. Russian officials estimate that 78,000 people have fled Chechnya in the past week. . . . The violence that spread to seven prisons in Turkey after the Sept. 26 riots calms when inmates release the 93 guards seized in the uprisings. . . . Dmitri Sergeievich Likhachev, 92, Russian intellectual who survived four years in a Soviet labor camp and the 900-day Nazi German siege of Leningrad, dies in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Sept. 30

Mustafa Zubari, the deputy chief of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinians, returns to Israel for the first time in 32 years.

Kazakhstan premier Nurlan Balgimbayev, resigns amid criticism of his handling of the country’s slumping economy. . . . France’s Food Safety Agency decides to continue the country’s longstanding ban on the import of beef from Britain, prompting a sustained trade dispute between Britain and France. . . . Russian premier Vladimir Putin appoints Chechnya’s pro-Russian parliament as the “sole legitimate authority” in Chechnya.

Oct. 1

Oct. 2

Oct. 3

Assailants throw two grenades at a rally for leftist presidential candidate Natalya Vitrenko in Inguletsk, southeastern Ukraine. Vitrenko and 33 other people are injured in the explosions. . . . Reports confirm that a group of nine Kurdish rebels from the nationalist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) surrendered to Turkish forces near Turkey’s border with northern Iraq.

Reports indicate that King Mohammed VI has allowed well-known political exile Abraham Serfaty, a Marxist leader banished by Hassan, to return to Morocco after eight years of exile.

The Freedom Party, an extreme right-wing anti-immigration party led by Joerg Haider, registers the second-largest share of votes in a elections for Austria’s lower house of parliament. It is the strongest electoral showing by a far-right party in Western Europe since the end of World War II. . . . In what he calls an assassination attempt, Serbian opposition leader Vuk Draskovic suffers minor injuries in a car crash that kills Draskovic’s brother-in-law and three bodyguards. . . . (Hector) Alastair Hetherington, 79, British editor of The Guardian newspaper, 1956–75, dies in Stirling, Scotland.

Foday Sankoh, the leader of the rebel Revolutionary United Front, returns to Sierra Leone from Togo, where he has been since May.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Nortel Networks Corp., becomes the first Canadian company to reach a market value of more than C$100 billion when its stock temporarily reaches an all-time high of C$74.30 (US$50.60) a share on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The company’s stock closes at C$74 a share, reducing Nortel’s market capitalization to C$99.84 billion. . . . Gen. Gustavo Leigh Guzman, 79, Chilean air force general who was a member of the four-man military junta led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte and who broke with the junta when Pinochet proclaimed himself president in 1978, dies in Santiago, Chile, of a vascular ailment.

INTERFET forces discover the charred remains of at least nine bodies piled in the bed of a torched pickup truck on the outskirts of Dili in East Timor. . . . Aum Shinrikyo, a religious cult linked to the March 1995 nerve-gas attack in the Tokyo subway system, announces that it will suspend its recruitment of new members, close its branches, and discontinue the use of the Aum Shinrikyo name.

A powerful earthquake strikes southern Mexico, killing at least 20 people. The quake’s epicenter is located between the resort towns of Puerto Escondido and Huatulco, about 275 miles (445 km) southeast of Mexico City, the capital, and it registers a 7.5 on the Richter scale. . . . Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori signs into law a bill that makes military service voluntary. . . . Canadian mining technology specialist Manley Guarducci is abducted by Nicaraguan rebels in Bonanza, Nicaragua.

Workers at a Japanese nuclear fuel-processing plant in Tokaimura accidentally set off an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction, causing radiation levels to skyrocket in the plant and releasing radioactive gas into the surrounding area. The IAEA gives the accident a preliminary rating of four on a scale of seven used to measure the magnitude of nuclear mishaps. Separately, Masato Yokoyama, 35, a member of the Aum Shinrikyo religious cult, is sentenced to death by hanging for his role in a 1995 nerve-gas attack in Tokyo.

Heavy rains and massive mudslides begin to wreak havoc in several Mexican states along the nation’s Gulf Coast and in the Sierra Madre Oriental Mountain range.

The Chinese government stages an elaborate parade in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to mark the 50th anniversary of the proclamation of communist rule over China. The anniversary pageantry is dominated by an unprecedented public display of Chinese military equipment. . . . Japanese officials reveal that at least 55 people were exposed to radiation in the Sept. 30 incident in Tokaimura. Three plant workers were hospitalized.

In reaction to a Sept. 17 ruling by the Canadian Supreme Court that allows the Micmacs to fish out of season, nonnative fishermen in about 150 boats damage more than 2,000 of the natives’ 4,200 lobster traps by cutting the lines or breaking trap doors to free the catch in Miramichi Bay, off the coast of New Brunswick. About 100 nonnative fishermen and supporters allegedly cause C$25,000 (US$17,000) in damage to a fish plant in Pointe-Sapin, New Brunswick, where native-caught lobster is sold.

Akio Morita, 78, who cofounded Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corp., renamed Sony Corp. in 1958, dies of pneumonia in Tokyo, Japan.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

September 29–October 3, 1999—1317

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

A California appeals court reinstates a lawsuit against a gun maker that manufactured the weapons used in a 1993 mass shooting at a San Francisco, California, office building, leaving nine dead and six injured. The 2-1 ruling is the first by an appellate court to approve a liability lawsuit against a gun maker. . . . Applications from Housing Works stages a public rally and files a class-action lawsuit against NYC mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R) and two administration officials on behalf of homeless people living with AIDS. . . . The Chicago Community Trust, the third-largest U.S. foundation and the nation’s second-oldest community foundation, names Donald Stewart as its next president and chief executive. . . . Walter Bergman, 100, Michigan civil-rights advocate who was one of the first Freedom Riders, a group of blacks and whites that rode buses through the South in the early 1960s in order to desegregate interstate bus travel, dies in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The AP reports that a dozen U.S. veterans of the 1950–53 Korean War described in interviews the killing of a group of South Korean civilian refugees by U.S. troops early in the war. If the massacre occurred as described, it would be one of two known orchestrated killings of civilians by U.S. ground troops in the 20th century. . . . Pres. Clinton announces a plan to write off all of the remaining $5.7 billion owed to U.S. federal aid agencies by the world’s poorest nations. The plan will require debtor nations to prove that they are using the money for poverty-reduction efforts.

Pres. Clinton signs the fiscal 2000 Treasury-postal spending bill. . . . Pres. Clinton signs the fiscal 2000 legislative branch appropriations bill. . . . The Senate confirms, by voice vote, the appointment of Roger Ferguson to the post of vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board. . . . Pres. Clinton signs an appropriation’s bill for energy, water, and nuclear weapons programs in fiscal 2000 . . . . The House passes, by voice vote, a bill to overhaul the nation’s crop insurance program.

Smithsonian Institution officials announce that Steven Udvar-Hazy, a Hungarian-American businessman, pledged $60 million to the National Air and Space Museum, which will be the largest grant the Smithsonian has ever received.

Pres. Clinton, in a White House ceremony, presents the National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal to 18 American cultural figures and one performing-arts school. . . . The Senate passes a nonbinding resolution that calls for a stop to the Brooklyn Museum’s federal funding if the museum does not cancel a controversial exhibition of contemporary British art. . . . Rev. Cotesworth Pinckney Lewis, 86, longtime rector of the Bruton Parish Episcopal Church in Williamsburg, Virginia, dies in Williamsburg of unreported causes.

The House votes, 254-172, to approve legislation that will grant limited federal protection to a human fetus. Under the bill, it will be a federal crime to harm or kill a fetus during the commission of another crime. Although the measure does not criminalize consensual abortion procedures, prochoice activists attack the bill for treating fetuses as humans with rights independent of the wishes of the women carrying the fetuses.

In the wake of Sept. 29 reports about alleged massacres in South Korea during the Korean War, Secretary of Defense William Cohen orders the army to open a new investigation. South Korea states it will open an investigation also. . . . A federal grand jury in New York City indicts investment adviser Martin Armstrong on 14 counts of securities fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy in connection with the disappearance of as much as $950 million in Japanese corporate investments.

Pres. Clinton signs the stopgap measure. . . . The GAO reports that Kenneth Starr’s probe cost $47 million through Mar. 31. Starr’s office spent $7.2 million from October 1998 through March 1999, the period covering Pres. Clinton’s impeachment. . . . The Illinois Supreme Court issues a decision that suggests that, even under ERISA, patients can sue HMOs in state courts for medical malpractice, on the grounds that the insurers’ control over treatment amounts to the provision of medical care.

The House passes, 304-91, a $49.5 billion fiscal 2000 appropriations bill for the Department of Transportation. . . . Data shows the purchasing managers’ index reached 57.8 in September, a five-year high. . . . The House passes, 240175, a $69 billion fiscal 2000 appropriations bill a for agriculture and food programs. . . . Ted Arison, 75, American Israeli who founded Carnival Cruise Lines in 1972, dies in Tel Aviv, Israel, of a heart attack. Francis Cutler Turner, 90, engineer and administrator considered by many to be the chief architect of the U.S.’s interstate highway system, dies in Goldsboro, North Carolina, while suffering from cancer and dementia.

A ground-based interceptor missile successfully hits and destroys a target missile in the first major test of a limited national missile defense system. The system is a smallerscale version of the Strategic Defense Initiative that Pres. Ronald Reagan pursued in the 1980s.

The Swedish Academy of Letters awards the Nobel Prize in Literature to German novelist Guenter Grass.

A study fails to confirm a link between fen/phen use and heart valve damage.

In the midst of an ongoing dispute over whether subsistence fishers, including native Eskimos, Indians, and Aleut, should be given priority over sport and commercial anglers in gaining access to Alaska’s rich fish stock, federal officials take partial control of Alaska’s fisheries.

The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, inducts John Thompson, Kevin McHale, Wayne Embry, Billie Moore, and the late Fred Zollner.

A controversial exhibition of contemporary British art opens at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York City, despite the opposition of the city’s mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, and the U.S. Senate.

The Census Bureau reports that the number of people in the U.S. who did not have health insurance rose in 1998 by 833,000 from the previous year, to 44.3 million. That is 16.3% of the country’s population, up from 16.1% in 1997.

Sept. 29

Sept. 30

Oct. 1

Oct. 2

Oct. 3

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1318—October 4–9, 1999

World Affairs

Oct. 4

Oct. 5

Oct. 6

More than 600 delegates from 25 nations attend the first International Conference on Federalism in the Quebec, Canada, resort of MontTremblant Village.

Oct. 7

Oct. 8

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific In South Korea, a leak of radioactive water at a nuclear power plant exposes 22 workers to radiation.

A Croatian court convicts Dinko Sakic, a commander of a World War II death camp in Nazi-controlled Croatia, on charges of committing war crimes. A seven-judge panel sentences Sakic to the maximum 20 years in prison. Sakic, 78, is the only known Nazi concentration camp commander still living. . . . Bernard Buffet, 71, prolific French painter, is found dead in the Var region of southern France in an apparent suicide; he was suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

Israeli police release a Palestinian talk-show host, Maher Dasuki, arrested Sept. 15, without filing charges against him. . . . Sir de Villiers Graaff, 85, leader of South Africa’s United Party (UP), 1956–77, dies outside Cape Town, South Africa.

As the violence that started Oct. 3 against the native population in New Brunswick, Canada, continues, a cabin is burned.

In Kosovo, one Serb is killed and roughly 20 other people, including NATO peacekeepers, are injured in ethnic fighting in Kosovska Mitrovica. . . . Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov declares martial law in the republic. . . . Two commuter trains collide in London, England, killing dozens of people and injuring scores more. It is described as Britain’s worst railroad accident in at least 40 years.

Palestinian and Israeli negotiators sign an agreement to open a transportation corridor through Israel, allowing Palestinians to travel between the Palestinian-controlled West Bank and Gaza Strip. . . . Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak retakes his oath of office, and he names Atef Obeid as his new prime minister, replacing Kamal alGanzouri.

As violence that started Oct. 3 against the Mimac in Canada continues, a gazebo-like structure used by natives as a religious shrine is set on fire, and a boat belonging to a nonstatus Micmac is partially sunk. . . . Due to heavy rains that started Oct. 1 in Mexico, an avalanche of mud buries people and houses in the Puebla town of Teziutlan.

Sir (D’arcy) Patrick Reilly, 90, British ambassador to the Soviet Union, 1957–60, and to France, 1965–68, dies in Oxford, England, of unreported causes. . . . Amalia da Piedade Rebordão Rodrigues, 79, Portuguese singer considered the queen of fado, a traditional musical style, dies in Lisbon, Portugal, of unreported causes.

Native leaders from 35 bands in Atlantic Canada ask natives to observe a 30-day moratorium on lobster fishing beginning Oct. 9, to ease tensions that started Oct. 3.

Police raid the Tokyo offices of JCO Co. Ltd., operator of a nuclear fuel-processing plant in Tokaimura, the site of Japan’s worst nuclear accident on Oct. 1. The police raid the plant and JCO’s Tokaimura office, searching for evidence of possible negligence and violation of regulations by the company.

The confirmed death toll from the Oct. 5 train collision in London, England, stands at 33.

Celvin Galindo Lopez, the prosecutor investigating the April 1998 murder of Roman Catholic bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera, resigns and flees with his family to the U.S. after receiving death threats. He is one of several officials who have resigned from the case, in which Gerardi was killed two days after releasing a report that accused the Guatemalan military of widespread human-rights abuses during the country’s long-running civil war.

A 24-party coalition led by Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is declared the winner of India’s parliamentary elections. Its newly formed National Democratic Alliance coalition will enjoy a solid parliamentary majority, with 294 seats.

In response to the heavy rains and massive mudslides that are wreaking havoc in several Mexican states along the nation’s Gulf Coast and in the Sierra Madre Oriental Mountain range, Pres. Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon describes the devastation as the “tragedy of the decade” for Mexico. . . . Peruvian premier Victor Joy Way Rojas resigns in order to run for reelection to Congress.

Reports suggest that China has released Liu Xiaobo, a dissident sentenced to a labor camp in 1996 for writing a letter in which he called for the impeachment of Pres. Jiang Zemin.

A magistrate at London’s Bow Street Magistrates’ Court rules that former Chilean military ruler Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte can be extradited to Spain, where he faces charges of torture and conspiracy. The decision, the latest in a series of British court rulings concerning Pinochet, is praised by humanrights groups and condemned by the general’s many supporters.

João Cabral de Melo Neto, 79, Brazilian poet widely regarded as one of the major Portugueselanguage poets of the 20th century, dies in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, after a long illness.

Oct. 9

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 4–9, 1999—1319

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Data shows that the average annual cost of tuition and fees at fouryear colleges and universities in 1999–2000 is $3,356, up 3.4% from the previous year. It is the smallest percentage increase in four years. . . . The Senate rejects Pres. Clinton’s nomination of Judge Ronnie White to sit on the U.S. District Court in St. Louis, Missouri. It is the first time the full Senate rejects a judicial nomination since 1987.

The House passes, 214-21, a $12.7 billion fiscal 2000 foreign operations spending bill. . . . Officials reveal that a grand jury has indicted three people—Lucy Edwards, Peter Berlin, and Aleksey Volkov—on charges of illegally transmitting and receiving money. It is the first indictment handed down during a probe of whether Russian criminals laundered billions of dollars through accounts at the Bank of New York.

A survey shows that life expectancy for children born in 1998 was 76.7 years, up from 76.5 years in 1997. AIDS was not among the top 15 causes of death in the U.S. in 1998, for the first year since 1987. Heart disease remains the nation’s leading cause of death.

The Senate clears, 51-49, the $12.7 billion fiscal 2000 foreign operations spending bill.

The House passes, 275-151, a bipartisan bill establishing consumer protections for patients enrolled in HMOs and other health-insurance plans. It offers more consumer protections than the one passed by the Senate July 15. . . . Judge Robert Ruehlman dismisses a liability case filed by the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, against the gun industry. The case is one of 28 such lawsuits filed in courts across the country. . . . Reports confirm that a prosecutor in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, has filed charges against a rapist known only by his DNA, which was found in semen samples from three separate 1993 rapes.

A federal grand jury in Bridgeport, Connecticut, indicts Martin Frankel, a U.S. financier who fled to Germany, where he is currently facing extradition. Frankel is indicted on 36 counts of money laundering, fraud, conspiracy and racketeering.

The New Mexico Board of Education votes, 14-1, to end the state science curriculum’s requirement that teachers teach alternative theories to the theory of evolution. New Mexico is the first state in years to move to discourage the teaching of creationism in science classes. . . . In Oklahoma, in a resentencing mandated by an appellate court, Judge G. Thomas Van Bebber again sentences Michael Fortier to 12 years in prison for failing to inform officials about his knowledge of a plan that resulted in the 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people.

Prosecutors in New York City charge a Tanzanian man, Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, with murder and conspiracy in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Mohamed is the first suspect in custody believed to have had “direct operational responsibility” for the bombing in Tanzania.

The director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr. Harold Varmus, announces that he will leave the post at the end of the year.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Senate clears, 88-3, a $49.5 billion fiscal 2000 appropriations bill for the Department of Transportation. . . . State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. is ordered to pay $456 million to policyholders for requiring body shops to use lower-priced generic parts when making repairs. . . . About 400 labor unions and environmental concerns unveil an alliance. . . . Leonard S. Shoen, 83, who in 1945 founded the company that became U-Haul International Inc., dies after driving his car into a utility pole in Las Vegas, Nevada, in what is called a suicide.

Martin S. Davis, 72, CEO of what became media giant Paramount, 1983–94, dies in New York City of a heart attack. . . . Art Stewart Farmer, 71, pioneering jazz musician, dies in of cardiac arrest in New York City. . . . At the top of the bestseller list is Hearts in Atlantis, by Stephen King. . . . In a nonbinding resolution, the House of Representatives calls for a stop of federal finds to Brooklyn Museum if it does not cancel the show opened Oct. 2.

MCI WorldCom Inc. and Sprint Corp., the nation’s second- and third-largest long-distance telephone companies, respectively, announce plans to merge in a stock transaction valued at $115 billion. If completed, the deal will be the largest merger in history, eclipsing the pending $75 billion combination of oil companies Exxon Corp. and Mobil Corp.

Alex(ander) Stewart Lowe, 40, whose unmatched record in mountain ranges all over the world has made him the best-known American mountaineer of his generation, disappears in an avalanche in the Tibetan Himalayas.

Oct. 4

Oct. 5

Oct. 6

A jury in New York City finds American Airlines Inc., of AMR Corp., liable for passengers’ emotional distress on a turbulent flight in 1995 and awards the plaintiffs $2 million in damages, the highest amount ever awarded by a jury for primarily emotional, rather than physical, injuries. . . . American Home Products Corp. agrees to pay a total of $3.75 billion to settle thousands of lawsuits brought by people claiming that they were injured by two diet drugs known as fen/phen.

Richard Hough, 77, British historian and novelist who penned more than 90 books, dies in London, England, while suffering from a heart ailment. . . . Rev. Bruce Ritter (born John Ritter), 72, Franciscan friar who in 1969 founded Covenant House, a shelter for runaways, and who was later accused of sexual misconduct, dies near Decatur, New York, of Hodgkin’s disease.

Laila Ali, daughter of boxing great Muhammad Ali, knocks out opponent April Fowler in just 31 seconds in Ali’s professional boxing debut in Verona, New York.

Pres. Clinton signs the fiscal 2000 appropriations bill for the Department of Transportation and other federal transportation programs.

Morris Langlo West, 83, Australian author who wrote 27 novels, dies in Sydney, Australia, of a heart ailment. . . . Milt(on) Jackson, 76, jazz musician known for his technical virtuosity and his warm, bluesy tone dies, in New York City of liver cancer.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 7

Oct. 8

Oct. 9

1320—October 10–14 1999

World Affairs

Oct. 12

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Three of the 11 remaining captives from the Sept. 11 abduction by suspected Colombian guerrillas are freed. . . . In Mexico, unofficial tallies of the death toll from heavy rains and mudslides exceed 400 people, with some reports putting the total as high as 600. Flood victims protest perceived government incompetence. Police in Villahermosa clash with a group of protesters, beating them with batons and arresting about 100 people. . . . Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori appoints Alberto Bustamante Belaúnde as premier.

South Africa signs a free-trade agreement with the EU that will eliminate tariffs on most trade between the two partners.

A Bulgarian member of the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) is shot to death in the city of Pec. He is the first member of UNMIK killed since the UN began operating in Kosovo in July.

Reports confirm that the Israeli government has deported 26 members of the “Concerned Christians” cult, after they tried to enter Haifa without visas. The group is suspected of being a “doomsday cult” that authorities fear may incite violence or mass suicides in the year 2000.

Canadian journalist Murray Hiebert is released from a Malaysian prison after serving four weeks of a sixweek prison sentence. His case raised international concern over freedom of the press. . . . Reports suggest that Chinese police beat to death a woman who refused to refrain from practicing Falun Gong meditation exercises while in custody.

UN secretary general Kofi Annan attends a ceremony in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, to mark the day that the global population reaches 6 billion, according to experts. Annan congratulates a Bosnian Muslim woman, Helac Fatima, on giving birth to a baby boy designated as the earth’s 6 billionth human inhabitant. According to experts, the global population has doubled since 1960.

Kazakhstan’s parliament confirms Foreign Minister Kasymzhomart Tokayev as the country’s new premier.

Israeli officials reveal the Supreme Court has ruled that Mohammed Abul Abbas, the alleged mastermind of the 1985 seizure of the Italian ship Achille Lauro, is immune from prosecution in Israel. . . . Hutu rebels attack members of a UN aid convoy in southern Burundi, killing nine people. The attack takes place at the Muzye refugee camp, 90 miles (140 km) southeast of Bujumbura, Burundi’s capital.

Pakistan’s armed forces stage a bloodless coup d’état, toppling the democratically elected government of P.M. Nawaz Sharif. Soldiers seize control of airports, television stations, and other communications facilities, and place Sharif and several cabinet ministers under house arrest in Islamabad, the capital. The military takeover is the fourth coup in Pakistan’s 52-year history.

The National Assembly, France’s lower house of parliament, approves legislation that will give legal status to unmarried couples, regardless of their sexual orientation. France is the first predominantly Roman Catholic nation to formally recognize same-sex unions. . . . In the Czech Republic town of Usti nad Labem, the city council builds a barrier to protect Czechs from what they claim is lawless behavior from the town’s Gypsy residents. . . . In London, England, a delegation of aborigines meets privately with Queen Elizabeth II. It is the first such meeting in 200 years.

Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak reaches agreement with settlers in the Palestinian-controlled West Bank to close 10 of 42 settlements that Israelis have established since late 1998, when the Wye land-forpeace agreement was approved.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee is sworn in for his third term as prime minister of India. . . . In response to plans to deregulate Australia’s universities, students begin to stage demonstrations across Australia. . . . Reports from China reveal that Liu Janguo, the leader of an outlawed religious cult called Supreme Deity, was executed in Hunan province. Liu, 44, was convicted in June of raping 11 women—two of them under age 14—and of defrauding cult members.

A NATO-led force raids a building in Bosnia-Herzegovina that NATO officials claim is a base of operations for Croatian intelligence agents attempting to influence local politics and undermine the Bosnian peace accords signed in Dayton, Ohio. . . . Josef Locke (born Joseph McLaughlin), 82, Irish singer who became one of Britain’s most popular entertainers of the 1940s and 1950s, dies in Clane, Ireland, of unreported causes.

Julius Kambarage Nyerere (born Kambarage Nyerere), president of Tanzaniai, 1964–85, dies in London, England; he had leukemia and also suffered a major stroke in the week before his death.

Oct. 13

Oct. 14

Africa & the Middle East

Portuguese premier Antonio Guterres’s ruling Socialist Party wins a second consecutive term in government in a general election. . . . A St. Petersburg arbitration court orders foreign shareholders to give up their stakes in Russia’s Lomonosov Porcelain Factory, in the first decision of its kind since Russia launched its privatization program in 1992.

Oct. 10

Oct. 11

Europe

Many world leaders express dismay at the Oct. 13 failure of the U.S. Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Nations expressing concern include Japan, France, China, Russia, and Germany. . . . Germany’s Daimler-Benz Aerospace AG (DASA) and Aerospatiale Matra SA of France agree to merge their aerospace businesses, creating Europe’s largest aerospace and military contractor.

Hurricane Irene, bearing high winds and heavy rains, strikes western Cuba, flooding roads, destroying buildings, and flattening tobacco fields. The storm passes over the Bahamas, where it causes the deaths of four people. . . . Canadian immigration officials reveal that 22 smuggled Chinese migrants—six of whom tested positive for tuberculosis—were found at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport one week earlier.

Police in Karachi, Pakistan, arrest more than a dozen demonstrators chanting support for ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif. A small protest staged by Sharif supporters in Lahore is also broken up by police. . . . Two major Japanese banks, Sumitomo Bank Ltd. and Sakura Bank Ltd., announce their plans to merge by April 2002. The resulting combined bank will be the second-largest in the world.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 10–14, 1999—1321

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

Reports confirm that California governor Gray Davis (D) has signed a bill establishing required nurse-topatient staffing ratios in all departments of hospitals. California is the first state to set such requirements. . . . Reports indicate that Colt’s Manufacturing Co. has decided to discontinue production of its seven cheapest civilian handgun models and to concentrate on socalled smart-gun technology. Smart guns are designed to fire only when used by their authorized owners.

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The U.S. Justice Department announces that it has deported Saudi Arabian dissident Hani Abdel Rahim al-Sayegh to Saudi Arabia, where he is expected to stand trial for his alleged role in the 1996 truck bombing of Khobar Towers, a U.S. military complex in that country. The bombing killed 19 U.S. servicemen.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Sea Launch Co., an international joint venture formed to launch private satellites from a platform at sea, conducts its first commercial launch when a Ukrainian-and Russian-built rocket lifts a satellite for U.S. satellite-television company DirecTV Inc. into orbit.

Margaret MacGregor defeats male opponent Loi Chow in boxing’s first sanctioned mixed-gender bout in Seattle, Washington.

The Karolinska Institute for Medicine in Stockholm awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to German-born U.S. scientist Guenter Blobel for his research into mechanisms used by proteins to locate their correct places within a cell.

The Supreme Court refuses two appeals challenging the constitutionality of a Maine voucher program that subsidizes students in private schools but bars subsidies to students attending religious schools. . . . New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman (R) signs a gun-safety law requiring all new handguns to be sold with trigger locks that, when enabled, will prevent them from firing. New Jersey is the fourth state to pass such a law.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded to Ahmed Zewail for developing a technique to photograph steps in chemical reactions that occur too quickly to be observed any other way. The Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded to Gerardus ‘t Hooft and Martinus Veltman for their work on a mathematical description of the link between two of the four fundamental forces believed to exist in the universe.

The Massachusetts Governor’s Council votes to approve the elevation of Justice Margaret Marshall to chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court. Marshall is the first woman to head the court. . . . Reports confirm that cigarette maker Philip Morris has acknowledged for the first time that scientific evidence shows smoking is addictive and can cause cancer and other deadly diseases. . . . Colorado prosecutors announce that they will not file charges in the 1996 murder of six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey, a child beauty-pageant winner whose murder was covered extensively by the media.

In a largely partisan vote, the Senate rejects, 48-51, ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which would prohibit nuclear weapons testing. It is the first time since 1920—when the Senate failed to ratify the Treaty of Versailles—that the U.S. Senate defeats a major international security agreement supported by the president. . . . The House passes, 372-55, a $267.8 billion fiscal 2000 defense appropriations bill. . . . Judge Kevin Duffy resentences four men convicted in a 1993 bombing at New York City’s World Trade Center to more than 100 years in prison each.

Pres. Clinton announces a new initiative that will ban the building of roads in at least 40 million acres (16 million hectares) of federal forest land, in a move aimed at preventing the commercial development of those lands. . . . Vice Pres. Al Gore wins a key endorsement from the AFL-CIO labor federation in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000. . . . The Senate clears, 74-26, an appropriations bill allocating $69 billion for agriculture and food programs in fiscal 2000.

Scientists report that they did not detect signs of water vapor in the debris kicked up by the crash of an unmanned probe, Lunar Prospector, into the moon in July. . . . The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics is awarded to Canadian-born economist Robert Mundell for his study of how the international flow of capital affects the economies of individual countries.

Senate Republican leaders agree to disband a controversial task force assembled on Sept. 23 to investigate the Justice Department.

In response to the Oct. 13 vote against the CTBT, Pres. Clinton states, “By this vote, the Senate majority has turned its back on 50 years of American leadership against the spread of weapons of mass destruction.”. . . The Senate clears, 87-11, a $267.8 billion defense appropriations bill for fiscal 2000. . . . U.S. investigators find that the U.S. military failed to return valuables seized during the war to victims of the Nazi Holocaust.

The House passes, 406-18, a $99.5 billion appropriations bill allocating fiscal 2000 funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and 17 independent agencies.

The U.S. Geological Survey states there is a 70% probability that a large earthquake will strike the San Francisco Bay area sometime in the next 30 years.

Oct. 10

Oct. 11

Wilt(on) Norman Chamberlain, 63, Hall of Fame basketball player considered by many to be the most dominant player in the history of the NBA, dies in Los Angeles of an apparent heart attack. He had suffered ill health and dramatic weight loss in the weeks leading up to his death.

Oct. 12

Oct. 13

Playwright Arthur Miller is awarded the sixth annual Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize at a ceremony in New York City.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 14

1322—October 15–20, 1999

Oct. 15

World Affairs

Europe

Jamaica, Mali, Tunisia, Bangladesh, and Ukraine are elected as temporary members to the UN Security Council, replacing Bahrain, Brazil, Gabon, Gambia, and Slovenia. . . . The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to the aid organization Doctors Without Borders, a group of medical personnel that responds to health crises around the world. . . The UN approves a resolution to impose economic sanctions on the Taliban militia unless the group hands over after alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden to the U.S. by Nov. 14.

Russian military commanders announce they have established a security zone in the separatist republic of Chechnya, concluding the first phase of a campaign against Islamic militants in the republic. . . . Reports from Germany confirm that construction workers accidentally dug up the concrete bunker in which Adolf Hitler, the World War II-era ruler of Nazi Germany, committed suicide at the end of the war.

Oct. 17

Oct. 18

Oct. 20

South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission grants amnesty to nine former South African security policemen in the 1982 bombing of the London offices of the ANC. Included in the amnesty are Eugene de Kock, Craig Williamson, and Gen. Johannes Coetzee. . . . Israel releases 151 Palestinian prisoners, bringing to 350 the total of prisoners freed since September signing of an accord. . . . Yosef Burg, 90, German-born Israeli politician known for his efforts to heal rifts between religious and secular Jews in Israel, dies in Jerusalem.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Cuban officials confirm that two people have died from electrocution in Havana and a handful of other victims are missing and feared drowned from the Oct. 13 storm. . . . Canadian fisheries minister Herb Dhaliwal appoints James MacKenzie as mediator in discussions to broker a permanent fishing agreement between the federal and provincial governments and the native bands of Atlantic Canada.

Voters reelect the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) as the majority party in Botswana’s National Assembly.

Oct. 16

Oct. 19

Africa & the Middle East

Police and antigovernment protesters clash in Minsk, Belarus’s capital. Scores of people are injured in the incident, which occurs when some 5,000 protestors break off from an authorized demonstration of 20,000 and begin an unauthorized march toward the presidential palace. The demonstrators are protesting a proposed reunification of Belarus and Russia.

Yemen executes by firing squad Islamic militant Zain al-Abdin Abu Bakar al-Mehdar (known as Abu Hassan) for his role in the abduction of 16 Western tourists in Yemen in December 1998. Four of the hostages died in a failed rescue attempt. Yemen’s Supreme Court commutes the death sentence of another of the kidnappers to 20 years. . . . An Israeli official announces the end of a policy under which Palestinians had to prove they lived in East Jerusalem for seven consecutive years in order to maintain their residency rights.

Gen. Pervez Musharraf outlines his plans for governing Pakistan in a nationally televised address. Musharraf states he will replace Parliament with a six-member national security council made up of civilian and military leaders. The general also reveals that Pakistan will return to civilian rule, but he specifies no timetables for this return. . . . A Chinese ferry burns and sinks near Dalian, resulting in three deaths.

Chinese president Jiang Zemin makes the first state visit to Britain by a Chinese president.

South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission rejects an appeal by Eugene Terre’Blanche, who headed the right-wing Afrikaner Resistance Movement (AWB), for amnesty in a 1997 attempted murder conviction. . . . Reports disclose that thousands of settlers are protesting the Oct. 13 agreement with rallies outside Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak’s home in Jerusalem.

Australian prime minister John Howard announces that the government will not implement plans to deregulate Australia’s universities, following strong opposition voiced by universities and students since Oct. 13.

The UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia convicts alleged Bosnian war criminal Goran Jelisic on 31 counts of torture and murder but acquits him of genocide charges.

Koichiro Matsuura, Japan’s ambassador to France, is nominated as the new director general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

In an ongoing trade war between Britain and France, hundreds of British farmers in Poole, England, confront two truck drivers transporting French beef to British markets. The protesters blockade the road in front of the trucks, forcing them to return to the ferry. . . . Jack (John) Mary Lynch, 82, prime minister of Ireland, 1966–73, 1977–79, dies in Dublin.

Madeleine Albright becomes the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Nigeria in almost 13 years.

The Federal Court of Canada rules against the federal government in a 15-year-old pay-equity dispute. The decision is seen as a major victory for the women’s movement and is expected to have far-reaching implications on pay structures in Canada and in the neighboring U.S.

Peace forces recover the remains of as many as 20 people from a site near Liquica in East Timor.

Israeli police raid the home and office of former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, seizing dozens of expensive items that they suspect him of keeping illegally after being voted out of office in May.

In Canada, Quebec court judge Danielle Cote overturns parts of a law stipulating that French must be the predominant language on signs in the province. Cote’s ruling touches upon a major focus of the Quebec sovereignty movement, the contentious issue of preserving the French language to promote cultural identity. Separately, the Quebec Court of Appeal unanimously overturns the conviction of Michel Jette, a deceased man, marking the first time Canadian courts clear a convicted killer posthumously.

The People’s Consultative Assembly, Indonesia’s national legislature, elects Abdurrahman Wahid as the nation’s new president. Wahid’s election caps 17 months of political uncertainty that followed the collapse of rule by former president Suharto. It is the first democratic transfer of power in the nation’s 49year history. Violent street protests erupt in Jakarta, the capital, moments after Wahid’s victory is announced. At least one person dies, and dozens of others are injured. Rioting is also reported in several other cities.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 15–20, 1999—1323

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

In Los Angeles, California, Judge Richard Paez strikes down a ban on gun sales that Los Angeles County enacted in September. Paez argues that the ban was an attempt by county officials to circumvent state law, which allows firearms to be sold under certain restrictions.

In New York City, Judge Michael Mukasey sentences Siddig Ibrahim Siddig Ali to 11 years in prison for participating in a failed plot to bomb New York City landmarks, including the United Nations building. Siddig Ali receives a reduced sentence for aiding prosecutors in the case— which resulted in the conviction of 10 people in 1995

The Senate clears, 93-5, a $99.5 billion appropriations bill allocating fiscal 2000 funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and 17 independent agencies.

Hurricane Irene goes ashore in southwestern Florida, downing power lines and spawning a small tornado in Fort Lauderdale. The storm leaves more than a million people without electricity in Miami-Dade and Martin counties. Five people perish. . . . Scientists reveal they have found evidence that adult monkeys’ brains regularly produce new cells. If the finding proves true in humans as well, it will challenge the long-held view that adult brains do not generate new cells.

An Olympic official reveals that some 250,000 tickets to premium Olympic events in Sydney have been withheld with the intent of selling them to companies willing to pay at least 300% more than normal prices for the tickets, and they were not included in a random national ticket ballot, as previously claimed.

The national board of the NAACP unanimously approves a tourism boycott of the state of South Carolina to protest the state’s continued flying of the Confederate States of America flag over the state capitol building in Columbia.

A powerful earthquake rocks the Mojave Desert area of California. No serious injuries are reported, and there is relatively little property damage considering the size of the temblor, which registers a 7.0 on the Richter scale. . . . A plane evacuates Dr. Jerri Nielsen from Amundsen-Scott South Pole Research Station. Nielsen, unable to leave Antarctica, has been treating herself for suspected breast cancer at the science station.

Jean Shepherd, radio performer and author described as the “first radio novelist” whose age is variously given as 70 and 78, dies in Sanibel Island, Florida, of unreported causes.

Orville Lynn Majors, a former nurse, is convicted of killing six patients at a rural Indiana hospital where he worked. Judge Ernest Yelton sentences Majors to six prison terms of 60 years each, amounting to a sentence of life in prison without parole. . . . An FBI report shows that violent and property crimes were each down 6% in 1998 from the year before. Homicides in 1998 decreased 7% from 1997, a drop entirely accounted for by a decline in killings with guns.

The U.S. Geological Survey reveals that the Oct. 16 earthquake in California’s Mojave Desert exposed a 25-mile-long fault line, dubbed the Lavic Lake, that seismologists had previously considered inactive. . . . Hurricane Irene moves out to sea after dumping a half-foot (15 cm) of rain on southeastern North Carolina.

American Greg Ray clinches his first Indy Racing League (IRL) title by finishing third in the seasonending Mall.com 500 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas.

In Flippo v. West Virginia, the Supreme Court rules unanimously that police officers must obtain warrants before conducting searches of murder scenes. . . . Independent counsel Kenneth Starr resigns his post. Starr’s five-year investigations—which culminated in Pres. Clinton’s impeachment—cost more than $47 million. Robert Ray is sworn in as Starr’s successor.

Pres. Clinton vetoes the $12.7 billion fiscal 2000 foreign aid appropriations bill, saying that it contains too little funding and reflects growing isolationism on the part of congressional Republicans.

Members of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan sues NYC on grounds that it is violating their First Amendment free-speech rights by denying the group a permit to rally. . . . The American Medical Association (AMA) withdraws its endorsement of legislation outlawing intact dilation and evacuation (IDE) abortions, arguing that it cannot support legislation that will make doctors criminally liable for performing a medical procedure. Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal reverses a September ruling in which it held that damages in a class-action lawsuit brought against cigarette makers have to be determined on a case-by-case basis. . . . In response to the lawsuit against New York City filed by the Ku Klux Klan on Oct. 19, black civil-rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton reveals that his National Action Network has filed a brief supporting the Klan’s right to demonstrate.

In Newark, New Jersey, Judge William Walls rules that the use in court of classified terrorism as evidence against immigrants is unconstitutional, and he orders an immigrant, Hany Kiareldeen, to be released. Kiareldeen has been held by the INS for 18 months because government agencies claim to have evidence that he associated with terrorists but refuse to release the evidence to Kiareldeen or his lawyers . . . . Reports reveal that the U.S. secretly deployed some 12,000 nuclear weapons in 18 countries and nine territories during the height of the cold war.

Oct. 15

Oct. 16

Oct. 17

Oct. 18

Senate Republicans block campaign finance-reform legislation for the fourth year in a row. . . . Groups of college students launch an antisweatshop campaign against Nike, a major maker of sportswear that has licenses with five large U.S. colleges to produce their athletic wear.

The Florida Department of Agriculture reports that Hurricane Irene caused estimated crop damage in the state of at least $100 million.

Penelope Mortimer (born Penelope Ruth Fletcher), 81, English novelist, dies in London of cancer. . . . Nathalie Sarraute (born Natasha Tcherniak), 99, Russian-born French novelist who prefigured and profoundly influenced a 1950s French literary movement, dies in Paris.

The Senate, by voice vote, and the House, 215-213, pass a $39 billion bill fiscal 2000 appropriations measure for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a $99.5 billion appropriations bill allocating fiscal 2000 funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and 17 independent agencies.

The FTC releases new rules designed to prevent commercial child-oriented World Wide Web sites from collecting personal data from children under age 13 without “verifiable parental consent.”

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts awards its Mark Twain Prize for humor to comedian Jonathan Winters. . . . Calvin Griffith, 87, longtime baseball team owner known for his old-fashioned, tight-fisted approach to the business of baseball, dies in Melbourne, Florida, of heart ailments and a kidney infection.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 19

Oct. 20

1324—October 21–26, 1999

Oct. 21

Oct. 22

World Affairs

Europe

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reveals that the Earth’s ozone layer appears to be in the first stages of recovery because NASA readings show that the 1999 hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica is slightly smaller than in 1998.

Roughly 150 people are killed in a series of explosions in a marketplace in Grozny, the capital of the separatist republic of Chechnya.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific Much of the street violence that started Oct. 20 in Indonesia subsides when the legislature elects Megawati Sukarnoputri, the sole rival of Abdurrahman Wahid in the presidential election, as vice president. The appointments mark the first time in Indonesian history that the Golongan Karya (Golkar), or Functional Group party—the party of former president Suharto and his successor, B. J. Habibie—have not headed the nation’s government.

The UN votes to send 6,000 peacekeeping troops to Sierra Leone to oversee a controversial peace plan signed in July.

East Timorese independence leader Jose Alexandre (Xanana) Gusmão returns to Dili, the capital of East Timor, after seven years of exile. In an address to 3,000 supporters, Gusmao urges East Timorese to work together to rebuild their communities, devastated by violence in the wake of the August referendum. A three-judge panel in Palermo, Italy, finds former premier Giulio Andreotti not guilty of collusion with the Mafia, ending a four-year trial. . . . Andras Hegedus, 76, Hungarian premier, 1955–56, dies after suffering from heart disease in recent years.

Oct. 23

Oct. 24

Oct. 25

Africa & the Middle East

The UN Security Council approves a resolution establishing a UN force that will assume administrative authority over East Timor. The force—the UN Transitional Administration for East Timor (UNTAET)—will replace the INTERFET. . . . Delegates from more than 170 nations open a conference on global warming held in Bonn, Germany. . . . Health officials from 109 nations open the first round of talks on creating an international treaty to regulate tobacco.

In Kosovo, roughly 4,000 ethnic Albanians in the town of Orahovac hold a rally to protest the deployment of Russian peacekeeping forces in the town. . . . The Swiss People’s Party, a far-right, nationalist party, makes significant gains in parliamentary elections. . . . Islamic militants free four Japanese geologists and an interpreter after holding them captive since Aug. 23. Since then, the militants who entered Kyrgyzstan from Tajikistan have released seven of the hostages, and one has been killed.

Tunisian voters reelect Pres. Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali to a third term in office by an overwhelming margin. . . . A three-judge panel in Tel Aviv sentences Samuel Sheinbein, 18, a U.S. teenager convicted of murder, to a 24-year prison term for killing Alfredo Enrique Tello, Jr., 19, in the U.S.

Albanian premier Pandeli Majko resigns, two weeks after losing a vote to retain the leadership of his governing Socialist Party.

Israel officially opens a safe passage route for Palestinians traveling between the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Separately, an Israeli soldier shoots and kills a Palestinian street vendor near a Jewish holy site in Bethlehem, sparking three days of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli troops guarding the site.

Buenos Aires mayor Fernando De la Rua of the center-left Alianza coalition is elected president of Argentina. It is the first time that the Peronists have lost a presidential election since the party was founded in the 1940s. . . . Millions of Colombians march in antiwar protests in hundreds of cities across the nation. The marches coincide with the resumption of formal peace talks, and they are part of a series of peace demonstrations begun in May.

Pakistan’s military rulers announce the appointment of seven civilian leaders to the government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in an Oct. 12 bloodless coup. . . . Followers of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement begin to gather in small groups in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, the capital of China, to protest the drafting of a new anticult law aimed at their group. Police detain the protesters as they trickle into the square.

In retaliation for protests and boycotts in Britain, French farmers blockade the French exit of the English Channel tunnel, which links the two countries. . . . Members of the House of Lords, Britain’s upper chamber of Parliament, approves a bill that will abolish the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the chamber.

Oct. 26

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 21–26, 1999—1325

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

The House approves, 358-67, a bill that will reauthorize the Title I program, which provides federal aid to disadvantaged students. The House also passes, 213-208, a bill that will allow some states to convert Title I funding into lump-sum payments. . . . The Senate passes, 63-34, a bill outlawing a controversial procedure known medically as intact dilation and evacuation (IDE). . . . A District Court panel orders New York City to allow a Ku Klux Klan rally to proceed.

The Senate, by voice vote, and the House, 225-200, clear a $14.5 billion interior spending bill for fiscal 2000. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a second continuing resolution. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a bill creating a new national park in Colorado, known as the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. . . . A federal jury in Miami, Florida, convicts former Miami-Dade County Commissioner James Burke for accepting a $5,000 bribe from financier Howard Gary.

Texas governor George W. Bush, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, misses the first televised debate of the 2000 presidential campaign, held in New Hampshire.

Pres. Clinton signs into law a fiscal 2000 appropriations bill for the Department of Agriculture and other agricultural programs.

Science, Technology, & Nature

John Bromwich, 80, Australian tennis star who won the Australian Open twice (1939, 1946) but especially excelled in doubles play, dies of a heart attack in Geelong, Australia.

Scientists report they have identified an enzyme that possibly plays a role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease. The enzyme, betasecretase, is involved in the creation of protein fragments that form deposits, known as amyloid plaques, that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

Members of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan hold the first-ever Klan rally in New York City The 18 Klan members at the rally wear no masks, because of an 1845 state law prohibiting masks at public demonstrations. The Klan members are vastly outnumbered by an estimated 6,000 protesters, 2,000 onlookers, and hundreds of riot police. At least three police officers are injured in scuffles with counterdemonstrators, and 14 of the protesters are arrested. One Klan member is injured. . . . The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation announces that it has received a $20 million gift from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the largest gift in the foundation’s history.

Pres. Clinton signs the $267.8 billion fiscal 2000 defense appropriations bill.

The U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals rules, 5-4, that bans on intact dilation and evacuation (IDE) abortions in Illinois and Wisconsin are constitutional. . . . Stanford University announces a $150 million donation from James H. Clark, a former faculty member now involved in high-technology companies. Clark’s gift is the largest ever given to a university by a former faculty member.

Oct. 21

Oct. 22

Rev. Jerry Falwell and 200 of his evangelical Christian supporters meet with gay minister Mel White and a group of homosexual Christians. The meeting draws dozens of protestors, including Rev. Fred Phelps, who gained attention when members of his congregation harassed homosexuals at the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student killed in 1998.

John Lester Hubbard Chafee, 77, Republican governor of Rhode Island, 1963–69, and senator, 1976–99, dies in Bethesda, Maryland, of congestive heart failure.

The National Center for Health Statistics reports that the rate of births to teenage mothers fell from 1997 to 1998. It is the seventh consecutive annual decline.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Teamsters union begins a strike against Overnite Transportation Co., the nation’s largest nonunion trucking firm, to pressure the company into granting union recognition to its 8,200 workers.

Moroccan Khalid Khannouchi runs the fastest marathon in history, winning the Chicago Marathon in two hours, five minutes, and 42 seconds.

Pres. Clinton vetoes the fiscal 2000 appropriations measure for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State.

(William) Payne Stewart, 42, golfer who won U.S. Open titles in 1991 and 1999, dies aboard a plane that crashes near Mina, South Dakota. Five others are also killed in the crash. . . . The Booker Prize is awarded to J. M. Coetzee of South Africa. Coetzee is the first author in the history of the prize to win it twice.

Dow Jones & Co. announces that four companies—Microsoft, Intel, Home Depot, and SBC Communications—will be new components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The four outgoing companies are Chevron, Goodyear Tire & Rubber, Sears, Roebuck & Co., and Union Carbide. With the reshuffle to take effect Nov. 1, the Dow the first time will include stocks that are not traded on the NYSE.

Abraham Lincoln Polonsky, 88, screenwriter who was blacklisted during the 1950s, dies in Beverly Hills, California, after a heart attack. . . . Hoyt Axton, 61, songwriter whose biggest hit was “Joy to the World” (1971), dies near Victor, Montana, after recently suffering two heart attacks.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 23

Oct. 24

Oct. 25

Oct. 26

1326—October 27–November 1, 1999

World Affairs

Oct. 27

Oct. 28

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Russian air force bombs Grozny, the capital of Chechnya. The bombing kills 116 people, according to Chechen officials. . . . Five gunmen open fire on a session of Armenia’s parliament in Yerevan, the capital, killing Premier Vazgen Sarkisyan, 40, and seven other government officials. The gunmen hold dozens of people hostage in the parliament. . . . Iranian president Mohammed Khatami makes the first trip to France and only the second visit to Western Europe by an Iranian head of state since 1979.

Reports suggest that fighting broke out in Sierra Leone in mid-October.

The five gunmen who killed Premier Vazgen Sarkisyan and seven other government officials in Armenia Oct. 27 release their hostages and surrender to police. . . . Rafael Alberti, 96, Spanish poet who was awarded the Cervantes Prize, Spain’s highest literary honor, dies in El Puerto de Santa Maria, Spain.

Israel begins deporting a group of foreign-born Christians suspected of being involved in “doomsday cults,” which authorities fear may incite violence or mass suicides in the year 2000.

In Chechnya, Russian forces bomb a convoy of civilians, killing 25 people and wounding 70 others near the village of Shami-Yurt, west of Grozny. The Russian military denies the incident. . . In Belfast, Northern Ireland, Garfield Gilmore is convicted and sentenced to life for murdering three boys in a gas bomb attack in July 1998.

Oct. 29

In face of the Russian military’s denial of the Oct. 29 incident in Chechnya, the Red Cross confirms reports of civilian deaths.

Oct. 30

Reports reveal that in recent months, Australian officials have seized 28 ships—all bound from Indonesia—carrying nearly 1,000 people.

Five Israelis are injured when gunmen fire on a bus traveling through the West Bank, near the crossing point for a newly opened safe-passage route between the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

A powerful cyclone packing winds of 160 miles per hour (260 kmph) slams into India’s eastern coast, devastating the state of Orissa and killing thousands of people. The cyclone destroys hundreds of thousands of dwellings, leaving millions of people homeless.

The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s parliament, approves a new anticult law. Reports suggest that some 3,000 people have been arrested across Beijing since Falun Gong practitioners renewed protests on Oct. 25. Most of them were forcibly returned to their home provinces.

Tabare Vazquez, the candidate of the opposition leftist Broad Front coalition, wins the most votes in Uruguay’s presidential election, garnering 39% of the ballots cast. However, because Vazquez falls short of a majority, he will face the second-place finisher, Sen. Jorge Batlle of the ruling Colorado Party, in a runoff election.

Saudi Arabia’s finance ministry announces that the country will for the first time open its stock market to investment by foreigners. . . . An Israeli-developed Arrow-2 missile successfully hits and destroys a target missile over the Mediterranean Sea in its first major test.

Nov. 1

Asia & the Pacific

In Canada, tensions between aboriginal and commercial fishermen over out-of-season fishing rights flares when nonnative fishermen set fire to Micmac natives’ clothing and boots on shore in an attempt to disrupt their fishing expedition.

In Colombia, Luis Alfredo Garavito, 42, tells prosecutors that he killed 140 boys between ages eight and 16 over a five-year period that ended in April with his incarceration on an unrelated rape charge. If Garavito’s claims prove true, he will be among the most prolific serial murderers on record.

Georgia’s ruling Citizens Union party wins a majority in parliamentary elections. . . . In Armenia, funerals are held for Premier Vazgen Sarkisyan and seven other officials killed on Oct. 27. . . . Lord Jakobovits (Rabbi Immanuel), 78, chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth (1967–91) and the leading spokesman for British Jews, dies in London, England, of a brain hemorrhage.

Oct. 31

The Americas

Chinese state media reports that authorities have charged four leading Falun Gong members—Li Chang, Wang Zhiwen, Ji Liewu, and Yao Jie—under the new anticult law passed Oct. 30. . . . A fire sweeps through a three-story building in Inchon, South Korean, killing at least 54 people. At least 71 other people are injured.

The ruling military regime in Myanmar free British activist Rachel Goldwyn, who was sentenced to seven years in prison on Sept. 16. . . . Torrential rains and flooding begins in central Vietnam.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

October 27–November 1, 1999—1327

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

Congress awards Congressional Gold Medals to former president Gerald Ford and his wife, Betty Ford. . . . The House votes, 271156, to make it a federal crime for doctors to prescribe drugs for the purpose of helping terminally ill patients commit suicide. . . . Vice Pres. Al Gore and former senator Bill Bradley (D, N.J.) face each other in the first televised debate in their contest for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000.

Texas governor George W. Bush, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, misses a debate held in New Hampshire. The other five GOP presidential contenders attend the forum. Bush’s absence causes some New Hampshire Republicans to question whether he is taking their support for granted.

Lieutenant Commander Kieron O’Connor, 35, and Lieutenant Kevin Colling, 32, members of the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels precision flying team, die when their jet crashes while making a routine landing at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia. Their deaths raise the number of Blue Angels pilots who have died during air shows or training since the team’s 1946 founding to 23. The accident is the first Blue Angels crash since 1990, and the first fatal incident involving the team since 1985.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Georgia, overturns the federal death sentence of David Chandler, the first person sentenced to death under the 1998 AntiDrug Abuse Act. . . . Police arrest and charge four students in an alleged plan to bomb their Cleveland, Ohio, high school.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Pres, Clinton, citing final figures from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), announces that the federal government posted a $123 billion budget surplus in fiscal 1999.

Robert L(aurence) Mills, 72, U.S. physicist who, with colleague Chen Ning Yang in 1953, developed a mathematical theory explaining the behavior of nuclear forces that came to be known as the YangMills theory, dies of prostate cancer in East Charleston, Vermont.

The New York Yankees defeat the Atlanta Braves, 4-1, to win MLB’s 95th World Series. By sweeping the Braves, the Yankees post the first back-to-back World Series sweeps since the Yankees accomplished the feat in 1938 and 1939.

The Commerce Department announces that it has adopted new methods for calculating economic data. . . . The House passes, 218211, an appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services (HHS) in fiscal 2000. The $317 billion Labor-HHS measure is the biggest of the 13 annual spending bills.

Oct. 27

Oct. 28

Pres. Clinton signs a third continuing resolution keeping money flowing to government agencies at fiscal 1999 levels.

The Senate approves, by voice vote, the authorization of funds for the Library of Congress’s planned $20 million purchase of the private papers of the late civil-rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. If the House concurs, the purchase price will be the highest ever paid by the Library of Congress for a single collection.

Oct. 29

Oct. 30

The Iraqi National Congress (INC), an umbrella group of exiles opposed to Pres. Saddam Hussein, closes a conference in New York City. The New York assembly is the INC’s first in seven years. . . . The U.S. Air Force entirely vacates Howard Air Force Base in Panama.

Yah Lin (Charlie) Trie, a friend of Pres. Bill Clinton, is sentenced to four months of home detention and three years of probation for violating political fund-raising laws. Democrats returned more than $600,000 in donations after learning that Trie might have collected the money from foreign donors. . . . Lobbyists Vernon Clark and Ann Eppard plead guilty to misdemeanor charges over illegal payments made in connection with a construction project in Boston, Massachusetts. The pleas end a long-running federal investigation.

EgyptAir Flight 990, a Boeing 767 jetliner bound for Cairo, Egypt, crashes into the Atlantic Ocean about 30 minutes after taking off from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. Hours after the accident, U.S. Coast Guard ships and U.S. military aircraft locate debris from the 767 floating in an area about 50 miles (80 km) south of the Massachusetts island of Nantucket, but they find no survivors.

Australian Jesse Martin, 18, becomes the youngest person to sail around the globe unassisted and nonstop. . . . Golfer Tiger Woods wins the PGA Tour Championship in Houston, Texas. . . . Leaders from the Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches sign an accord ending a centuries-old doctrinal dispute over the nature of faith and salvation that sparked the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century.

After an intensive search, authorities state that all 217 people on board Egypt Air Flight 990, which crashed in the Atlantic after taking off from New York City Oct. 31, are presumed dead. . . . Theodore Alvin Hall, 74, scientist who worked on the U.S.’s World War II atombomb project at Los Alamos, New Mexico, dies in Cambridge, England, of kidney cancer.

In Brooklyn, New York, Judge Nina Gershon issues a preliminary injunction ordering New York City to restore $7.2 million in funding to the Brooklyn Museum of Art that the city cut over objections to a controversial exhibition that opened in October. . . . Walter Jerry Payton, 45, Football Hall of Fame running back who set at least three NFL career records, dies in Barrington, Illinois, of bile duct cancer. . . . Pop Goes the Weasel, by James Patterson, is at the top of the bestseller list.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Oct. 31

Nov. 1

1328—November 2–6, 1999

Nov. 2

Nov. 3

Nov. 4

Nov. 5

Nov. 6

World Affairs

Europe

Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and U.S. president Bill Clinton meet in Oslo, Norway, in the first IsraeliPalestinian-U.S. meeting in 11 months. It is the first official visit to Norway by a U.S. president, and Clinton attends ceremonies commemorating the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Israeli prime minister Yitzak Rabin. . . . A Spanish judge issues an international arrest warrant for 98 former Argentine military officers, whom he indicts on charges of torture, terrorism, and genocide. The charges relate to the officers’ actions during Argentina’s so-called dirty war against leftwing activists from 1976 to 1983. The judge, Baltasar Garzon, brought the criminal charges that led to the arrest in Britain of former Chilean military leader Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte.

French author Jean Echenoz is awarded the Goncourt Prize, France’s most coveted literary award. . . . The Swedish government announces that more than 500 victims of the government’s forced sterilization program, which operated from 1936 to 1976, have applied for compensation. An official reveals that 178 people have been compensated with $21,250 each.

The appeals chamber of the war crimes court, located at The Hague, the Netherlands, orders that genocide suspect Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza be released because his rights were violated by a prolonged detention. Barayagwiza, charged in February 1998 with six counts of genocide and crimes against humanity, was arrested in Cameroon in November 1997.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Lamontville, south of Durban, South Africa, unidentified gunmen shoot to death Cyril Zulu, 35, a Zulu prince and an African National Congress (ANC) leader. The slain prince was a key figure in peace negotiations between warring political factions in the volatile KwaZulu-Natal province. . . . An apparent missile attack against the Iraq-based Iranian opposition group People’s Mujahedeen kills at least five Iranians and wounds 78 others.

Scouts Canada establishes a new scouting troop in Toronto for homosexuals ages 18 to 26. The troop is believed to be the first of its kind in North America. . . . The Alberta, Canada, provincial government announces that it will compensate 247 people sterilized against their will. The C$82 million (US$55 million) package includes an “expression of regret” by the government. . . . The Honduran congress ratifies an accord with Colombia that divides between them sovereignty over 12,000 square miles (31,000 sq km) of Caribbean coastal waters . . . . Demetrio Lakas, 74, president of Panama, 1972–78, dies in Panama City of a heart ailment.

An earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale strikes off the eastern coast of Taiwan, causing little reported damage. . . . Australian authorities seize an Indonesian ship carrying 352 illegal immigrants—the most people ever apprehended at one time in Australia. . . . Guerrillas from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam rebel group launch a surprise offensive in northern Sri Lanka. . . . The Hong Kong government announces that it has struck a $4.1 billion deal with the U.S.’s Walt Disney Co. to jointly develop a theme park on Lantau Island, west of central Hong Kong.

Lithuania’s parliament, the Seimas, confirms Andrius Kubilius as the country’s new premier, succeeding Rolandas Paksas, who resigned in October in protest over a deal to privatize the state-owned Mazheikiu Nafta oil refinery. . . . Armenian president Robert Kocharyan appoints Aram Sarkisyan as the country’s new premier . . . . . The government of Montenegro designates the German mark as its official currency, replacing the Yugoslav dinar.

In Zambia, unidentified gunmen shoot to death Wezi Kaunda, 47, an opposition leader and a son of former Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda.

P.M. Jean Chrétien appoints Justice Beverley McLachlin as the first female chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. . . . Mining technology specialist Manley Guarducci is released after 34 days in captivity in Nicaragua. Guarducci was abducted by Nicaraguan rebels at a mine site operated by Hemco Nicaragua SA in Bonanza, near Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast.

Hyundai Securities Co. chairman Lee Ik Chi is convicted on charges of manipulating the stock price of Hyundai Electronics, and given a suspended two-year prison sentence. . . . Keizo Saji, 80, president, 1961–90, and chair since 1990 of Japan’s Suntory Ltd., one of the world’s foremost alcoholic beverage companies, dies in Osaka, Japan, of pneumonia.

The European Central Bank (ECB) raises its benchmark interest rate to 3.0% from 2.5%. It is the first interest hike in the brief history of the ECB, which controls monetary policy in the European nations that have adopted the euro, the European Union’s new currency.

Police in Northern Ireland seize weapons, ammunition, and pipe bombs from Protestant paramilitary groups that oppose the peace process. The police also arrest six men in a local office of the Orange Order, the province’s largest Protestant organization. . . . Charles Wintour, 82, British editor of London’s Evening Standard, 1959–76 and 1978–80, dies.

Iran marks the 20-year anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy with a rally in Teheran, the capital, that is attended by about 7,000 people.

Health Canada, a government agency, approves the sale of Preven, a contraceptive pill intended to prevent unwanted pregnancy hours after unprotected sexual intercourse. The approval touches off a heated debate between prochoice and antiabortion groups. . . . Malcolm Denzil Marshall, 41, cricket player considered largely responsible for the ascendancy of the West Indian team that dominated the sport for more than a decade in the mid-1970s, dies in Bridgetown, Barbados, of colon cancer.

While there is no official death toll from the cyclone that slammed into India’s eastern coast on Oct. 29, several government speakers estimate that at least 3,000 people perished in the storm. D. N. Pandhi, Orissa’s special relief commissioner, states that food and aid supplies have not yet reached some 60% of the people affected by the cyclone.

NATO officials disclose that NATO will delay its planned reduction of troops from Bosnia until after municipal elections scheduled for April 2000.

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) charges Igor Sutyagin, an arms-control researcher at the Institute for the Study of the U.S. and Canada, with spying for the U.S.

Pope John Paul II visits India for the first time since 1986. The pontiff lays a wreath at the national memorial site for legendary Indian pacifist Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

The Rwandan government suspends cooperation with the UN war crimes court because of the court’s Nov. 3 decision to release genocide suspect Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, who was detained for two years without a trial.

Voters choose to retain the British monarch as Australia’s head of state, in a national referendum on whether the country should become a republic. Voters reject a new preamble to the country’s constitution which would have, among other things, recognized Australia’s aborigines as the country’s prior occupants and honored them for their “deep kinship” with their lands.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 2–6, 1999—1329

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

State and local elections produce no clear partisan trend. Republicans capture control of both houses of the Virginia legislature for the first time in the state’s history. However, Democrats prevail in several key mayoral races. Paul Patton, Kentucky’s Democratic governor, becomes the first governor of that state to win reelection in 200 years. Residents of Maine defeat a proposed ban on late-term abortion and approve a measure that will legalize the use of marijuana for certain medical conditions. Residents of Mississippi reject a measure that would have instituted term limits on members of the state legislature. Mississippi is the first state to reject such a referendum proposal. . . . The House, by voice vote, passes a bill that will set penalties for companies that distribute deceptive notices of sweepstakes and other contests through the mail.

The People’s Provincial Court in Havana, the capital of Cuba, orders the U.S. government to pay Cuba $181 billion in compensatory and punitive damages to redress the effects of a U.S. policy that Cuban agencies claim was devoted to “destroying the Cuban revolution.” Observers note that it is unlikely that Cuba can compel the U.S. to pay the award, especially because there are no U.S. funds or assets in Cuba that the government might seize.

Abbott Laboratories agrees to pay a $100 million civil penalty to the federal government to settle accusations that it violated quality standards for manufacturing medical testing kits for years, despite warnings from the FDA. It is the largest fine ever imposed by the FDA. . . . A copier repairman, Byran Uyesugi, shoots to death seven coworkers at a Xerox Corp. office in Honolulu, Hawaii. He is captured after an hours-long standoff with police at a nearby nature preserve. . . . The Senate passes, 49-48, a $317 billion fiscal 2000 appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services (HHS) The. Labor-HHS measure is the biggest of the 13 annual spending bills. . . . In a referendum, residents of Washington State approve a measure abolishing the state’s system of taxing automobiles, replacing it with an annual fee of $30 per car. Washington is the only state to have approved such a mandate, which observers argue marks a fundamental change in tax-writing power.

A jury in Laramie, Wyoming, convicts Aaron McKinney, 22, in the October 1998 beating death of a homosexual college student, Matthew Shepard. . . . A gunman kills two men and injures two more in an office building in Seattle, Washington. . . . Real-estate developer Herman J. Russell states he will donate $1 million apiece to four colleges to boost entrepreneurship programs. It is the largest donation ever given by a black American to expand such programs.

The Senate approves, 76-19, a bill promoting trade with African, Caribbean and Central American nations. . . . Seven of the world’s largest pharmaceutical firms agree to pay $1.17 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit that charges the companies with fixing vitamin prices. It brings to a close the largest price-fixing case ever pursued by the U.S. government. The companies are based in Switzerland, Germany, France, and Japan.

Pres. Clinton vetoes the $317 billion fiscal 2000 Labor-HHS spending bill. . . . The Justice Department, on behalf of the EPA, files lawsuits against seven large utilities for violating the 1970 Clean Air Act. . . . The families of four victims who died in a 1994 USAir crash reach a collective $48 million settlement. The sum includes a $25.2 million payment to the family of Marshall Berkman, the largest single settlement in U.S. commercial-aviation history.

In Laramie, Wyoming, Judge Barton Voigt sentences Aaron McKinney, 22, to two consecutive life terms in prison for the October 1998 beating death of a homosexual college student, Matthew Shepard. . . . The CDC reports that 24.7% of U.S. adults smoked in 1997, the same as the 1995 rate. . . . Daisy Bates, 84, civil-rights leader who, in 1957, gained national attention when she counteracted attempts by Arkansas governor Orval Faubus (R) to prevent black students from entering Little Rock’s Central High School, dies in Little Rock. She had had a number of strokes. The Supreme Court grants a request to permit the state of Ohio to continue its school-voucher program until a federal appeals court rules on the program’s constitutionality. . . . The U.S. Civil Rights Commission decides to hold a hearing into the recent deaths of Native Americans in South Dakota. . . . Kristen Price pleads guilty to a misdemeanor in the 1998 death of Matthew Shepard. Judge Jeffrey Donnell sentences Price to 180 days in jail, 120 of which are suspended and 60 of which are credited to time served.

The Senate, by voice vote, ratifies the treaty signed by the International Labor Organization in June. The treaty bans the harshest forms of child labor, including slavery, forced labor, prostitution, and pornography. It also bans forced recruitment of children into the military, but it allows voluntary military enlistment by those under 18.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Three Dutch Old Master paintings stolen in 1978 from the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco, California, are anonymously left at the William Doyle Galleries in New York City. One painting stolen in the heist is still unaccounted for.

Nov. 2

Nov. 3

The Senate, 90-8, and the House, 362-57, pass a bill that will overhaul federal regulations governing the financial services sector. The bill is known as the Financial Services Modernization Act. . . . Congress passes a fourth stopgap measure.

The National Federation for the Blind files a lawsuit against Internet service provider America Online Inc. (AOL) under the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. The group claims that AOL discriminates against the blind because its system is not compatible with special computer programs used by the blind to help convert written text into synthesized speech or Braille. . . . FBI officials test its main computer database and find that the system is ready for the year 2000.

Pres. Clinton signs a fourth stopgap measure.

Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, in preliminary findings in an antitrust lawsuit against computer software maker Microsoft Corp., finds that the company enjoyed “monopoly power,” which it used to the detriment of its competitors and consumers. The judge presents his findings following a yearlong nonjury trial pursued by the Justice Department and 19 states.

Nov. 4

Nov. 5

In horse racing, Cat Thief wins the 16th annual Breeders’ Cup Classic at in Hallandale, Florida . . . . George V(incent) Higgins, 59, U.S. author best known for a series of crime novels set in and around Boston, Massachusetts, is found dead in Milton, Massachusetts. His death is attributed to natural causes.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 6

1330—November 7–12, 1999

World Affairs

Tajik president Imamali Rakhmanov is elected to a second term, receiving 96% of the vote in an election that Western diplomats claim is marred by electoral irregularities.

Nov. 7

Nov. 10

Michel Camdessus, the head of the IMF, reveals he will step down in 2000. . . . Germans gather in Berlin, the capital, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Speakers at the ceremony include German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, former U.S. president George Bush, and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Three bomb explosions in the Israeli town of Netanya causes minor injures to 14 people.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Peru, a landslide sweeps over the remote Andean village of La Púcara, 400 miles (640 km) northwest of Lima. At least 34 people are missing. . . . Alfonso Portillo Cabrera wins the most votes in Guatemala’s first peacetime presidential election in more than 30 years. However, because Portillo does not capture a majority, he will face a runoff against second-place finisher Oscar Berger. . . The British Columbia Maritime Employers Association locks out 2,000 workers when they refuse to vote on a final contract offer.

A human-rights group claims that about 500 Falun Gong members have recently been sent to labor camps in Hebei, a northern province in China.

Reports suggest that, in the offensive launched Nov. 2, guerrillas from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam captured 10 key military bases in northern Sri Lanka. The rebels claim they killed more than 1,000 soldiers; official government figures put the loss at 101 troops. . . . An estimated 1 million people rally peacefully in Banda Aceh to call for independence from Indonesia.

Russia imposes a ban on foreign trade with Chechnya and bans flights between southern Russia and Azerbaijan, Georgia, and several Middle Eastern countries. . . . Reports confirm that Moldova’s parliament have given the ruling coalition a vote of no confidence, ousting Premier Ion Sturza.

A report by the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia claims that 2,108 bodies in 195 grave sites were found throughout the province before exhumation work stopped for the winter. There were a total of 529 known grave sites at the time of the report.

A plane crashes west of Mexico City, the Mexican capital, killing all 18 people on board.

The Israeli cabinet approves the transfer of 5% of the West Bank to Palestinian control. Israeli soldiers and police forcibly remove a group of Israeli settlers from the Havat Maon settlement in the West Bank.

Russia denies the OSCE access to a “security zone” in northern Chechnya. . . . Britain’s House of Lords grants final approval to a bill that strips the right of almost all of the chamber’s “hereditary peers” to sit and vote in the House. . . . At least 52 people are killed in Italy when a building collapses. Officials blame the disaster on poor construction. . . . Sir Vivian Ernest Fuchs, 91, British explorer who led the team that in 1957–58 made the first surface crossing of Antarctica, dies in Cambridge, England.

Nov. 11

Nov. 12

Africa & the Middle East

Pope John Paul II visits Georgia. It is the first trip to the Caucasus region by a pope and only the second time that a pope has visited a predominantly Eastern Orthodox nation in more than 1,000 years. . . . A federal appeals court in Leipzig upholds the 1997 conviction of former East German leader Egon Krenz on manslaughter charges for his role in the shootings of East Germans trying to escape to the West.

Nov. 8

Nov. 9

Europe

Members of the Commonwealth, a 54-nation association of Britain and its former colonies, opens its biennial meeting in Durban, South Africa. During the summit, the organization votes to suspend Pakistan’s membership in response to an October military coup in that country.

Fighting in the disputed border region of Kashmir flares. . . . A court in Hangzhou convicts four founding members of the China Democracy Party, a small illegal opposition party, of subversion and sentences them to prison sentences ranging from five to 11 years. . . . Humanrights groups estimate that nearly 2,800 civilians have been killed in Aceh province in Indonesia in the past decade. Indian military officials reveal that 21 people have been killed in the fighting in the disputed border region of Kashmir that renewed Nov. 9.

Venezuela’s National Constituent Assembly suspends 75 judges and dismisses five others, bring to 200 the number of judges removed from the bench since the constitutional assembly declared a “judicial emergency” in August. . . . Jacobo Timerman, 76, Argentine journalist whose open criticism of the human-rights abuses perpetrated by his country’s military regime during the latter part of the 1970s led to his imprisonment and torture, dies in Buenos Aires, Argentina, of a heart attack.

A powerful earthquake hits Turkey, killing hundreds of people. The epicenter is just south of Duzce, about 115 miles (185 km) northwest of Ankara. The quake measures 7.2 on the Richter scale. . . . A plane chartered by the UN World Food Program crashes in the Serbian province of Kosovo, killing all 24 passengers and crew aboard. . . . Russia takes control of Gudermes, Chechnya’s secondlargest city. . . . Gaby Casadesus (born Gaby L’Hote), 98, French pianist, dies in Paris, France.

Pakistan’s military rulers charge ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif with treason, kidnapping, hijacking, and attempted murder in connection with an incident that sparked an October military coup led by armed forces chief Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Sharif has been in military custody since the army seized control of the country. . . . Reports reveal that Australian authorities have seized six ships carrying a total of 717 attempted illegal immigrants off the northwestern coast of Western Australia since Nov. 2. The death toll from a cyclone that devastated the Indian state of Orissa in late October rises to nearly 9,400. The storm, the worst to hit the region in a century, also caused some $3.94 billion in crop damage. . . . Several rockets are launched at U.S. and UN offices in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. One person is injured in the attacks. . . . A court in Haikou, in Hainan province in China sentences four Falun Gong followers to prison terms ranging from two to 12 years.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 7–12, 1999—1331

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

The Labor Department reports that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in October dipped to 4.1%, down from the 4.2% recorded the previous month. The October jobless rate is the lowest recorded since January 1970 and is coupled with a meager one-cent increase in hourly wages for the month.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Golfer Tiger Woods caps the most successful season by a PGA player in 25 years when he wins the World Championship. . . . Kenyan Joseph Chebet and Adriana Fernandez of Mexico win the men’s and women’s titles, respectively, in the New York City Marathon. . . . Primo Nebiolo, 76, president of the International Amateur Athletic Federation since 1981, dies in Rome, Italy, of a heart attack.

Amid a series of lawsuits against managed-care companies, UnitedHealth Group, a large managedcare health insurance company, announces that it will no longer require its member physicians to obtain prior approval from the company for treatment decisions.

Republicans on the House Government Reform Committee accuse Pres. Clinton of being affected by political considerations when he offered to commute the prison sentences of 16 members of the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN), a Puerto Rican separatist group responsible for several bombings between 1974 and 1983.

Angela Wood pleads guilty in Indianapolis, Indiana, to arson and conspiracy in the burning of seven churches in that state. In her plea, Wood, 24, agrees to testify against former boyfriend Jay Scott Ballinger, 37, in exchange for immunity from prosecution for her part in church burnings in 19 other states.

The House, by voice vote, reauthorizes fiscal 2000 funding for the CIA, NSA, and the intelligencegathering activities of nine other federal agencies, including the FBI. Historically, the funding levels of the intelligence authorization bill are not released to the public. However, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet in 1998 disclosed the fiscal 1998 intelligence budget to be $26.7 billion.

United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) issues shares to the public for the first time in its 92-year history. The sale, worth $5.47 billion, is the largest initial public offering (IPO) ever in the U.S. . . . New York State governor George Pataki (R) tightens restrictions on a widely used gasoline additive that makes gasoline burn more cleanly.

In Eugene, Oregon, Judge Jack Mattison sentences Kipland Kinkel, 17, to 112 years in prison without parole for killing two students during a shooting spree at a Springfield, Oregon, high school in 1998. Kinkel, who was 15 at the time of the murders, shot his parents to death before the school killings. He pled guilty in September.

The Senate confirms former Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun (D, Ill.) as ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa, and retired Admiral Joseph Prueher as ambassador to China. The confirmations clear the Senate as part of a deal between Republicans and Democrats to end blocks that each side had placed against nominees favored by the other.

Pillowtex Corp., the parent company of Fieldcrest Cannon Inc., drops a 25-year legal challenge and accepts its 5,200 workers’ vote to unionize.

Felix Galimir, 89, violinist and music teacher affiliated with such prestigious music schools as the Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute, dies in New York City.

Amid pressure from students from more than 100 colleges, Nike Inc. agrees to take college students to its overseas factories to show that they do not operate under sweatshop-like conditions. Students had launched the anti-sweatshop campaign on Oct. 19.

An art auction at Sotheby’s totals $144.2 million, the house’s most profitable since 1990.

Judge Allen Schwartz rules that the administration of NYC mayor Rudolph Giuliani improperly downgraded grant applications from Housing Works, a nonprofit community group that provides services to people with AIDS.

Leaders from four Jewish seminaries send a letter to Rev. Paige Patterson, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, asking him to stop recent attempts to convert Jews. . . . . Lester Bowie, 58, jazz trumpeter whose career spans at least 30 years, dies in New York City of liver cancer.

Nov. 7

Nov. 8

Nov. 9

Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill that codifies a sweeping overhaul of the regulatory framework governing the financial services industry.

Nov. 10

Nov. 11

Nov. 12

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1332—November 13–17, 1999

Nov. 13

Nov. 14

Nov. 15

Africa & the Middle East

World Affairs

Europe

Jacques Diouf is reelected head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Peter Wildeblood, 76, British homosexual-rights pioneer, dies in Vancouver, Canada, of complications of a stroke.

The foreign ministers of Chile and Peru sign a pact that settles the last territorial dispute between the two nations. Under the agreement, Peru will gain the exclusive use of a pier in the Chilean port of Arica, a port that Peru had controlled prior to the 1879–83 War of the Pacific. Chile agrees to construct the pier and a Peruvian customs office there. The facilities will remain under Chilean sovereignty.

The UN imposes economic sanctions on the fundamentalist Taliban militia that controls most of Afghanistan, after the Taliban refuses to hand over alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden to the U.S. Tens of thousands of Afghanis participate in demonstrations against the UN and the U.S. throughout the country. Demonstrators throw stones at UN offices, and in some cases raid them and destroy equipment. A UN office in Farah is set on fire.

Macedonian deputy foreign minister Boris Trajkovski, a Methodist minister trained in the U.S., is elected to the largely ceremonial post of president in a runoff election. . . . Ukraine’s Pres. Leonid Kuchma is reelected to a second five-year term in a runoff presidential election.

Hurricane Lenny, a powerful lateseason hurricane packing heavy rains and high winds, strikes the Caribbean islands.

The UN issues a report in which it assumes considerable blame for failing to stop the massacre of thousands of Bosnian Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica in July 1995. The fall of Srebrenica became a major symbol of the UN’s failure to prevent bloodshed in conflicts worldwide. The UN report breaks new ground by condemning an international organization for attempting to remain neutral in a civil conflict. . . . The ninth annual Ibero-American Summit opens in Havana, Cuba.

Queen Elizabeth II flies to Mozambique, becoming the first British monarch to visit that country.

U.S. Court of Appeals judge Patricia Wald, 70, becomes a judge on the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal.

Asia & the Pacific

In Canada, the port of Vancouver, British Columbia, and other Canadian Pacific ports reopen when 2,000 longshoremen return to work, ending the Nov. 7 lockout that cost about C$90 million (US$60 million) per day in lost trade.

In Canada, British Columbia Supreme Court judge William Stewart sentences five self-proclaimed skinheads to 12- to 15year prison sentences for their roles in the 1998 beating death of Nirmal Singh Gill, 65, an IndoCanadian caretaker of a Sikh temple. It marks the first time in Canadian history that a court has been asked to rule that a killing is a hate crime and to issue a more severe prison sentence as a result.

Nov. 16

Nov. 17

The Americas

Several thousand people gather in the town of Memici for a funeral for victims exhumed from the largest mass grave so far discovered in Bosnia. A total of 274 bodies were unearthed from the site. . . . The Russian navy’s Arctic Fleet testfires two ballistic missiles from a submarine in the Barents Sea, striking targets on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s Far East.

An Islamic woman is executed by being shot three times by a Taliban soldier before a crowd of thousands. It is the first time a woman is publicly executed in Afghanistan since the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban militia took over control of most of the country in 1996. . . . In China, police quickly round up some 20 Falun Gong followers who unfurl a banner in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

In Pakistan, military police arrest at least 21 business leaders and politicians who failed to meet a deadline to pay delinquent taxes and other debts.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 13–17, 1999—1333

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The New York Department of Environmental Conservation orders GE to clean up PCBs in the soil around one of its defunct factories along the Hudson River, in the village of Hudson Falls. The cleanup, of 700,000 cubic feet (19,800 cubic meters) of soil, will cost GE an estimated $28.4 million.

The Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope shuts down when one of its three remaining working gyroscopes—which maintains its orientation—fails.

Lennox Lewis defeats Evander Holyfield by unanimous decision in Las Vegas, Nevada, to become the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. . . . Donald Mills, 84, last surviving member of the Mills Brothers singing group, dies in Los Angeles, California, of complications of pneumonia.

The USDA seeks to quarantine 365 sheep in Vermont because they may have come in contact with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad-cow disease.

Reports confirm that U.S. researchers have found examples of alphabetic writing in Egypt at least 200 years older than the earliest previously known examples. The inscriptions are believed to have been written between 1900 and 1800 B.C.

Golfer Se Ri Pak of South Korea wins a three-way playoff to capture the LPGA PageNet Tour Championship in Las Vegas, Nevada. . . . Dale Jarrett clinches his first NASCAR Winston Cup title when he finishes fifth in the inaugural Pennzoil 400 in Miami, Florida.

In Waco, Texas, Judge Walter Smith orders the Justice Department and the FBI to reenact the last day of its 1993 siege of the Waco compound of the Branch Davidian religious sect in order to determine whether FBI agents fired at the Davidians during the standoff, which ended in a fatal fire.

Pres. Clinton embarks on a nineday tour encompassing several Western and Eastern European countries. . . . China and the U.S. sign a wide-ranging agreement in which China agrees to significantly reduce obstacles to imported goods and foreign investments.

New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer files a lawsuit against General Electric Co. (GE) over PCBs polluting the Hudson River.

A Michigan jury convicts Nathaniel Abraham, 13, for a killing he committed when he was 11 when he murdered Ronnie Greene, 18, in a Detroit suburb. Abraham is the first person tried under Michigan’s new juvenile justice law, which allows a juvenile of any age to be tried as an adult. Abraham is thought to be the youngest person ever tried as an adult in the U.S. for first-degree murder.

The House passes, by voice vote, a bill intended to improve long-term health care for veterans.

The Federal Reserve Board votes to raise the federal funds rate to 5.5% from 5.25%. The committee also boosts the largely symbolic discount rate by a quarter of a percentage point, to 5% from 4.75%. In response to the Fed’s action, commercial banks begin raising their prime lending rates by a quarter of a percentage point, to 8.5%. . . . Energy Secretary Bill Richardson announces the permanent closing of a nuclear reactor at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York.

Data shows that at least 44 states have passed juvenile justice laws that allow juveniles to be tried as adults in a greater number of cases. . . . A lawsuit accusing a developer and a transportation authority in western New York State of race-based negligence in the 1995 death of a black teenager, Cynthia Wiggins, is settled. The agreement gives $2.55 million to Wiggins’s son, Taquilo Castellanos. . . . A study finds that, between 1986 and 1996, the number of women jailed for drug crimes rose by 888%. Over the same period, the increase in incarcerations of women for nondrug crimes stood at 129%.

Nov. 13

Nov. 14

Nov. 15

Daniel Nathans, 71, molecular biologist who developed a cutting technique for analyzing DNA for which he was awarded a share of the 1978 Nobel Prize for Medicine, dies in Baltimore, Maryland, of leukemia.

Research indicates that an ice mass floating in the Arctic Ocean appears to be about 40% thinner than it was 20–40 years previously.

Nov. 16

The National Conference of Catholic Bishops call for tighter church control over Roman Catholic colleges and universities in the U.S. . . . The United Methodist Church defrocks Nebraska minister Jimmy Creech for officiating at a wedding ceremony of two homosexual men. . . . National Book Awards are presented to Ha Jin, John Dower, a poet known as Ai, and Kimberly Willis Holt. In addition, Oprah Winfrey receives a special 50th Anniversary Gold medal for encouraging people to read through her televised book club. . . . Time Warner Inc., one of the world’s largest media and entertainment companies, announces that it will no longer make “soft money” donations to political parties.

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 17

1334—November 18–23, 1999

World Affairs

At the close of a summit in Istanbul, Turkey, the 54-member Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) adopts new limits on conventional arms in Europe.

Asia & the Pacific Australia’s state Parliament of New South Wales passes legislation that will establish an operating license for Australia’s first legalized heroin-injecting room.

Some 2,000 Nigerian troops begin deploying in the Niger River Delta region to quell ongoing clashes between members of the Hausa and Yoruba ethnic groups. In addition, local youths have been waging armed protests against a government economic policy that they claim returns too little oil revenue to the area.

Amintore Fanfani, 91, one of the most prominent figures in postWorld War II Italian politics, dies in Rome after a month’s hospitalization for flu-related health problems.

Algerian security forces report that 15 people were killed and eight more wounded at a false roadblock 37 miles (75 km) south of Algiers.

A bomb blast in Lahore, the capital of Pakistan’s Punjab province, kills at least five people and injures nearly 20 others.

Quentin Crisp (born Denis Pratt), 90, British-born author and actor, dies in Manchester, England.

Jordan releases some two dozen members of the militant Islamic group Hamas that it detained in a crackdown in August. . . . Reports suggest that some 20 people were slain in the previous week in Algeria.

A militant group of ousted p.m. Nawaz Sharif’s supporters claims responsibility for the Nov. 20 bombing Pakistan. The militants call themselves the Al-Nawaz group. Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League denounces the group’s action. . . . China announces that it test-launched an unmanned space capsule, and that the craft returned to Earth and was retrieved. It is the first time that China has lofted and recovered a craft designed for manned space flight.

The Rwandan government refuses an entrance visa to the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Carla Del Ponte. The action follows a controversial decision by the court to release a genocide suspect, JeanBosco Barayagwiza.

A crowd of more than 10,000 people gather in Nevsky Square in Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital, to welcome U.S. president Bill Clinton.

Due to plans to build a mosque next to the Christian Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth, several Christian churches throughout Israel close in protest. . . . Abdelkader Hachani, one of the leaders of the banned Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), is assassinated in Algiers, the capital of Algeria.

Convicted serial rapist Larry Fisher is found guilty of first-degree murder in the 1969 rape and slaying of Gail Miller, a nurse’s aid in Saskatchewan, Canada. The verdict ends a 30-year legal saga during which another man, David Milgaard, now 46, was wrongly imprisoned for the crime for nearly 23 years.

The South Korean government grants official recognition to the Korea Confederation of Trade Unions (KTCU), the more militant of South Korea’s two main trade union umbrella groups.

The Joint UN Program on HIV/AIDS estimates that by year’s end, 5.6 million people will have become infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, bringing the total number of infected people to 33.6 million. The report projects that 2.6 million people will die of the disease in 1999, raising the total number of deaths from AIDS to about 16.3 million.

The Constitutional Court, Russia’s highest court, strikes down part of a law that prevented some religions from legally operating in Russia.

In Nigeria’s Niger River Delta region, reports claim that 43 people have died since the army moved in. Military officials reject that figure as too high. . . . Kuwait’s parliament rejects a May decree issued by Sheikh Jabir al-Ahmad Al-Sabah that would have extended political rights to women. . . . Muslims lay the cornerstone for a mosque next to the Christian Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth. . . . Reports suggest that, since the beginning of November, more than 100 people have died in Algeria.

U.S. president Bill Clinton declares a disaster area in the U.S. Virgin Islands, allowing the disbursement of federal aid to the territory. Virgin Islands officials estimate losses from Hurricane Lenny to be at $31.5 million, mostly on the island of St. Croix.

Reports confirm that Iran has reopened the Iran-Afghanistan border, which was closed in response to the August 1998 slaying of nine Iranians in an offensive by the Taliban. . . . Thailand executes a woman, Samai Pan-intara, 59, convicted of numerous drug-trafficking offenses. She is the first woman executed in Thailand in more than 20 years. Her execution brings the number of death sentences carried out in Thailand in 1999 to 16, a record for a single year.

Nov. 21

Nov. 23

The Americas

Reports reveal that Russia’s shelling has killed more than 4,100 civilians, according to Chechen officials. Reports also suggest that the campaign has caused more than 200,000 Chechens to flee their homes.

Nov. 20

Nov. 22

Africa & the Middle East

The official death toll from the Nov. 12 earthquake in Turkey stands at more than 600. . . . Rescue workers are still pulling bodies from the building that collapsed Nov. 11 in Foggia, Italy, killing at least 52 people. . . . Russian forces take control of the town of Achkhoi-Martan in the separatist republic of Chechnya. . . . Gladys Yang (born Gladys Taylor), 80, British translator of Chinese literature, dies in Beijing, China, of unreported causes.

Nov. 18

Nov. 19

Europe

Data shows that Hurricane Lenny, a powerful late-season hurricane that struck the Caribbean on Nov. 14, has wreaked havoc on its course over more than 16 Caribbean islands. The storm killed at least 12 people and inflicted property damage estimated in the tens of millions of dollars.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 18–23, 1999—1335

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

A jury in Jasper, Texas, convicts Shawn Allen Berry of capital murder in the dragging death of a black man, James Byrd, and the jury sentences him to life in prison. . . . A preliminary report by the FBI reveals that it received reports of 7,755 hate-crime incidents in 1998. . . . A tower of logs stacked for a ritual bonfire collapses on the campus of Texas A&M University, killing 11 students and one recent graduate and injuring 27 others. . . . The House passes, 418-2, a bill that that will allow disabled people to retain their government health-care benefits when they become employed.

The Senate clears, 95-1, a bill that will allow disabled people to retain their government health-care benefits when they become employed . . . . The Senate clears, by voice vote, a bill that will set penalties for companies that distribute deceptive notices of sweepstakes and other contests through the mail. . . . The Senate approves, by voice vote, a bill that will create a new federal agency to administer truck and bus safety programs. . . . In Deming, New Mexico, Victor Cordova Jr., 13, allegedly shoots to death classmate Araceli Tena, 13.

The Senate, by voice vote, clears a bill reauthorizing the nation’s intelligence programs for fiscal 2000. Historically, the funding levels of the intelligence authorization bill are not released to the public. However, in 1998 Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet disclosed that the intelligence budget for fiscal 1998 was $26.7 billion. . . The Senate, by voice vote, clears a bill intended to improve long-term health care for veterans.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The House approves, 296-135, a year-end omnibus spending bill for fiscal 2000, which began Oct. 1. The legislation allocates $385 billion in federal spending and incorporates five of the 13 appropriation bills. It allocates $14.9 billion for the Interior Department and related agencies and $6 billion for the State Department. . . . By voice vote, the House and the Senate pass a fifth stopgap measure. . . . Boeing agrees to pay $4.5 million to settle a government case claiming that the company discriminated against female and minority workers. The settlement is the largest ever reached under an affirmative-action compliance program operated by the Labor Department.

Research indicates that the drug thalidomide may slow or reverse multiple myeloma, a kind of bone cancer, in some patients.

Sotheby’s and Christie’s close their major fall New York City sales, raising $334 million and $252 million, respectively. . . . Doug(las Wayne) Sahm, 58, versatile Texas musician and singer, is found dead in Taos, New Mexico. He reportedly died of natural causes. . . . Horst P. Horst (born Horst Paul Albert Bohrmann), 93, photographer often referred to simply as Horst, dies in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. . . . Paul Bowles, 88, U.S.-born author and composer, dies in Tangier, Morocco, after a heart attack.

The Senate approves, 74-24, a year-end omnibus spending bill for fiscal 2000, which began Oct. 1. The bill incorporates five of the 13 appropriation bills and allocated $385 billion in federal spending. . . . Pres. Clinton signs the stopgap resolution. . . . A federal grand jury in New York City convicts William Hamilton Jr., the former political director of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union, on charges that he illegally funneled $885,000 in union money into the 1996 reelection campaign of former Teamsters president Ron Carey.

Alexander Liberman, 87, editorial director of Conde Nast Publications, 1962-94, dies in Miami Beach, FL.

Officials in California auction items recovered from the Heaven’s Gate cult, whose members committed suicide in March 1997. The sale draws approximately $33,000. The FBI reveals that the number of serious crimes reported to lawenforcement agencies in the U.S. fell 10% in the first half of 1999 from the same period in 1998. It is the seventh consecutive year in which a decline in serious crime has been reported. . . . Four of a caravan of six buses carrying hundreds of students back to Pennsylvania State University crash into each other on a Pennsylvania highway, killing two people and injuring 106 others.

D.C. United wins the MLS title, defeating the Los Angeles Galaxy, 2-0, in Foxboro, Massachusetts.

A major survey of race relations in the U.S. military finds that. although race relations are better in the military than elsewhere in American society, there are significant gaps between the views of whites and blacks on how they are treated. Approximately 75% of blacks and other minorities reported experiencing racially offensive behavior. At the same time, however, large majorities of respondents report that they are comfortable establishing friendships across racial boundaries.

The Synod of the Northeast lets stand a New Jersey church’s decision to admit an openly gay man to a ministerial post and upholds a New York State church’s authority to hold marriage ceremonies for gay couples. . . . Wayne Gretzky is inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, Canada.

Alex Witmer, 18, and Jason Powell, 19, white teenagers in Indiana, are charged with murder for the shooting death of black teenager Sasezley Richardson, 19. Reports indicate that that Powell committed the murder to qualify for membership in the Aryan Brotherhood, a whitesupremacist prison gang. . . . The Justice Department finds that juvenile crime rates declined 30% between 1994 and 1998. It is the fourth decline in a row, and the 1998 rate is the lowest since 1987.

Nov. 18

Nov. 19

Nov. 20

Nov. 21

Nov. 22

Nov. 23

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1336—November 24–29, 1999

Nov. 24

World Affairs

Europe

Trade officials from Mexico and the EU sign a tentative free-trade accord that will apply to industrial and agricultural goods and services as well as to issues of public procurement, investment, and dispute-settlement policies.

Montenegrin authorities declare the airport, which is also used as a Yugoslav air base, to be property of the republic. The declaration is the latest in a string of unilateral decisions by Montenegro to increase its autonomy from Yugoslavia. . . . In the face of criticism, the city council of Usti nad Labem demolishes a wall erected Oct. 13 to separate Gypsy residents from their ethnically Czech neighbors. . . . Sir John Foster Wilson, 80, British founder of the organization that became Sight Savers International, dies in Brighton, England.

Nov. 27

Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) trade group meet in Manila, the capital of the Philippines.

Nov. 28

Nov. 29

Bosnian Serb Maksim Sokolovic, 59, is sentenced to nine years in prison by a war crimes court in Düsseldorf, Germany. Sokolovic led a paramilitary unit during the Bosnian conflict. His trial was held in Germany to ease the caseload of the UN tribunal in The Hague, the Netherlands.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In Canada, Jack Ramsay, a Reform Party member of Parliament (MP) from Alberta, is convicted of attempting to rape a 14-year-old girl in 1969 when he was a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer on a northern Saskatchewan Indian reserve.

A ferry traveling across Bo Hai bay in northeastern China catches fire and sinks, killing scores of people. . . . Four miners die in an accident at the Northparkes gold and copper mine near Parkes, New South Wales, in Australia.

In Niger, voters elect Pres. Tandja Mamadou, a retired army colonel. The election ends a period of military rule in place since an April coup. . . . Li Peng, a former Chinese premier and the current speaker of China’s parliament, visits Israel. Li, the second-highest-ranking official in China, is the most senior Chinese official to make a diplomatic visit to Israel since 1992.

The Supreme Court of Canada upholds a law protecting the confidentiality of a sexual-assault complainant’s counseling documents. The court also states for the first time that the sensitive nature of sexual assault puts victims at a greater disadvantage to claim redress than victims of other crimes.

Ukrainian authorities restart the only working reactor in Chernobyl, the site of a major nuclear accident in 1986, after five months of repairs. . . . The Constitutional Court, Croatia’s highest court, declares Pres. Franjo Tudjman “temporarily incapacitated,” transferring his powers to the speaker of parliament, Vlatko Pavletic, for a renewable 60-day term. Tudjman, 77, has been hospitalized since Nov. 1 for complications from stomach cancer.

Reports find that Iran’s intelligence ministry has arrested 34 religious extremists accused of planning to assassinate Pres. Mohammed Khatami and other major Iranian political leaders. Twenty members of the group, the Shi’ite Muslim Mahdaviat movement, have been subsequently released on bail. . . . Sudanese president Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir and the Umma party, a major Islamic opposition group, reaches an agreement on a peace proposal aimed at ending the country’s ongoing civil war.

In Canada, Alberta’s Court of Queen’s Bench rules in favor of two lesbian couples adopting the sons they have raised since birth. The decision, seen as a controversial challenge of the province’s adoption law, allows same-sex partners to become parents. . . . The smoldering Guagua Pinchincha volcano, just west of Quito, Ecuador, belches out a column of gases and ash, which coat the capital and force authorities to close schools and the airport. It is the latest in a series of eruptions from the volcano, which awakened from 339 years of inactivity in 1998.

Macedonia’s Supreme Court orders that a presidential election between Boris Trajkovski and Tito Petkovski be rerun, due to irregularities in the runoff. . . . Alain Antoine Peyrefitte, 74, French statesman, author and journalist, dies in Paris, France, of cancer.

Iran’s Special Court for the Clergy sentences Abdullah Nouri, a reformminded cleric and newspaper publisher, to five years in prison on charges of insulting Islam and defaming Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s spiritual leader and supreme political ruler. The charges are among the most serious a senior politician has ever faced in Iran. In another trial, Iran’s Press Court sentences publisher Mashallah Shamsolvaezine to three years in prison on the charge of questioning Islam.

Reports confirm that the French government plans to compensate Jewish children orphaned during the Holocaust with either an undisclosed lump sum or a monthly pension of about $484. . . . The Basque separatist group ETA announces that it will end a 14-month ceasefire. . . . The Russian government announces that a safe-passage route for Chechen citizens to flee from Grozny will be opened.

A pipe bomb explodes in a restaurant near Cape Town, South Africa, injuring at least 43 people.

A group of ethnic Albanians attack three Serbs and kill one of them, amid celebrations of a major nationalist holiday in Pristina, the capital of the Serbian province of Kosovo. Ethnic Albanians reportedly watch the attack and obstruct police and NATO forces from intervening. . . . International authorities announce they have dismissed 22 officials for obstructing the enforcement of the Bosnian peace accords.

Guinea-Bissau completes the first presidential and parliamentary elections since a military coup ousted Pres. João Bernardo Vieira in May. Voters elect opposition parties to the majority of seats in Parliament. . . . Palestinian authorities detain a total of 11 people who were among 20 signers of a letter denouncing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. . . . Reports state that in Lagos, Nigeria, clashes between members of the Hausa and Yoruba ethnic groups have left nearly 100 dead.

Nov. 25

Nov. 26

Africa & the Middle East

Indonesian investigators exhume the bodies of 25 East Timorese from a site in West Timor. The victims are believed to have been killed in a Sept. 6 raid in the town of Suai. . . . The death toll from the Nov. 24 ferry accident in Bo Hai bay in northeastern China stands at 118. Twenty-two of the vessel’s 302 passengers and crew have reached safety. Authorities state that there is little hope that any of the missing people missing to have survived. It is China’s worst maritime disaster since 1994.

Labour Party leader Helen Clark is elected prime minister of New Zealand, ending nine years of conservative National Party government rule. Clark is the country’s first elected woman prime minister. Georgina Beyer, a member of the Labour Party, is elected to a seat in Parliament, becoming New Zealand’s first transsexual member of Parliament.

Sen. Jorge Batlle of the ruling Colorado Party wins the Uruguayan presidency in a runoff election.

Malaysia’s ruling coalition of P.M. Mahathir bin Mohamad scores a decisive victory in snap parliamentary elections. The win will extend the 18-year tenure of Mahathir by another five years.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 24–29, 1999—1337

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

The Commerce Department reports that gross domestic product (GDP) grew at a revised, seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.5% in the third quarter of 1999. The rate compares with an economic expansion of 1.9% in the second quarter. . . . Native American farmers and ranchers file a class-action lawsuit accusing the Agriculture Department of discriminating against Native Americans in the approval of loans.

Reports confirm that Golda and Gilmore Reynolds, a local couple from the town of Osgood, Indiana, willed their $23 million estate to benefit Osgood’s schools, libraries, and other public institutions. The couple lived in Osgood, population 1,688, for their entire lives and amassed their fortune through shrewd stock picks and a modest lifestyle.

Nov. 24

Elián González, a six-year-old Cuban refugee, is found with two adult survivors clinging to inner tubes off the coast of Florida. Their boat had sunk a few days earlier, and all of the other passengers, including González’s mother, drowned. The case receives much media attention.

Nov. 25

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rules, 3-2, that medical interns, fellows, and residents working in private hospitals are employees, not students, and are therefore permitted to form or join labor unions. The NLRB’s decision overturns the board’s 1976 ruling.

A single-engine aircraft crashes in a Newark, New Jersey, neighborhood, killing all three people aboard and injuring 25 people on the ground.

Ashley Montagu (Montague Francis) (born Israel Ehrenberg), 94, anthropologist, author, and commentator, dies in Princeton, New Jersey, while suffering from a heart ailment.

Nov. 26

Nov. 27

Cuba’s foreign ministry announces that it has asked the U.S. government to return Elián González, recently found off the coast of Florida. If returned, he will live with his father, Juan Miguel González Quintana, who was divorced from his mother. Elián González is currently living with relatives of his father in Miami, Florida.

Data shows that errors made by health-care providers cause between 44,000 and 98,000 deaths per year in the U.S. The report’s authors call for a nationwide system for collecting and analyzing data on medical errors and their consequences.

An Egyptian man, Nasser Ahmed, is freed from a NYC jail where he has been held for three and a half years on secret evidence that the FBI claims links him to terrorist activity. He is one of some 20 Arab or Islamic suspects held in U.S. prisons on the basis of secret evidence. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a bill that will allow the U.S. to provide food aid to rebels in southern Sudan who are trying to overthrow the Islamic government.

Hsing-Hsing, a male giant panda given to the U.S. in 1972 by former Chinese leader Mao Zedong, dies. His companion, Ling-Ling, died in 1992. . . Golfer Aaron Baddeley, 18, wins the Australian Open, the youngest champion in the event’s 95-year history and the first amateur champion in 39 years.

Pres. Clinton signs a massive omnibus spending bill for fiscal 2000, which began Oct. 1. The bill incorporates five of the 13 annual appropriations bills that the government is required to enact each year. Prior to signing the bill, Clinton signes five continuing resolutions to keep government departments operating after the fiscal year began.

Astronomers announce the discovery of six new extrasolar planets, or planets orbiting stars other than the sun. The discoveries bring the total known number of extrasolar planets to 28. The newly found planets orbit stars ranging from 65 to 192 light-years from Earth.

Timeline by Michael Crichton tops the bestseller list. . . . The Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition is given to British composer Thomas Ades, 28, the youngest such winner. . . . Gene Rayburn (born Gene Rubessa), 81, television game-show host dies in Gloucester, Massachusetts, of congestive heart failure.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Nov. 28

Nov. 29

1338—November 30–December 5, 1999

World Affairs

Nov. 30

Dec. 1

Trade ministers from the 135 member nations of the World Trade Organization (WTO) meet in the U.S. city of Seattle, Washington. Tens of thousands of demonstrators gather in Seattle to protest unfettered trade and the power of the WTO. The protests delay the formal opening of the WTO when tens of thousands of protesters prevent delegates from entering the convention center.

The UN AIDS program and UNICEF report that more than 11 million children have been orphaned by AIDS since the epidemic was recognized in 1981. The UN projects that the number will reach 13 million by the end of the year 2000. The report defines AIDS orphans as children under 15 years of age whose mother or whose mother and father have died of the disease.

Dec. 2

Dec. 3

Europe

The Rwandan government agrees to allow the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Carla del Ponte, to enter the country, reversing a Nov. 22 decision. The move comes after del Ponte asked a judicial appeals panel of the war crimes court to reconsider the release of JeanBosco Barayagwiza, founding member of the Hutu extremist party coalition for the Defense of the Republic.

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

The first soldiers of a UN peacekeeping force arrives in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. Amnesty International reports that killings, rapes, and kidnappings have increased in Sierra Leone since the cease-fire was signed. Reports indicate that two formerly allied rebel factions have started fighting in the north. . . . Kuwait’s parliament narrowly rejects a bill that would have given the country’s women the same political rights as men, including the right to vote.

Mexican authorities estimate that 208 people, including 18 U.S. citizens, have disappeared in the Juarez area since 1994. . . . German Arciniegas, 98, Colombian historian, newspaper columnist, and social critic, dies in Bogota, Colombia, of a lung ailment.

In Namibia, voters overwhelmingly elect Pres. Sam Nujoma to his third term in office. . . . Italian premier Massimo D’Alema becomes the first Western leader to visit Libya since 1991. . . . Unidentified gunmen shoot and wound Muawiya Masri, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC).

A jury in Dangriga, Belize, convicts Alan Cal and Estevan Sho of killing Anna Lightfoot, a British aid worker, in 1998. They are sentenced to death by hanging.

Independence leader Jose Ramos Horta returns to East Timor after spending 24 years in exile and is greeted by thousands of supporters in Dili, East Timor’s capital.

Britain’s Parliament officially devolves political power over the province of Northern Ireland to a new provincial government, granting Northern Ireland home rule for the first time in decades. The province’s new cabinet, the Northern Ireland Executive, holds its first meeting. Membership in the cabinet is divided equally between the province’s Protestant and Roman Catholic factions. The Republic of Ireland renounces the goal, stated in its constitution, of uniting Northern Ireland with the republic. . . . Mike (Michael Robert) Ockrent, 53, British stage director, dies in New York City of leukemia.

Matt Cohen, 56, Canadian author who, in November, won the Governor General’s Award, Canada’s most prestigious literary prize, dies in Toronto of lung cancer.

In Australia, a commuter train collides with a transcontinental express train in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, New South Wales’s capital, killing seven people and injuring 51 others. . . . In Thailand, a group of 572 skydivers from 39 countries hold a jump in Bangkok, the capital, to honor King Bhumibol Adulyadej for his 72nd birthday. Among those who participate in the jump is Gen. Henry Shelton, the chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff. . . . A wave of torrential rains causes more flooding in Vietnam, which has been deluged with rainfall since November.

Russian military forces encircle Argun, the third-largest city in Chechnya. . . . Some 50,000 people gather in Prague to call for the removal of Premier Milos Zeman and Speaker of Parliament Vaclav Klaus. It is one of the largest street protests in the Czech Republic in 10 years. Similar rallies are held in more than 20 cities. . . . Nilde Iotti, 79, who in 1979 became the first woman president of the lower house of Italy’s parliament, dies outside Rome after a heart attack. . . . Edmond J. Safra, 67, billionaire and philanthropist, dies of smoke inhalation in an apparent arson at his home in Monaco.

Statistics reveal that Canada’s unemployment rate for November hit 6.9%, an 18-year low.

The Court of Final Appeal, Hong Kong’s highest court, reverses a controversial January ruling on immigration from mainland China. The ruling is widely seen as an acknowledgement that the central government has the power to overrule the Hong Kong court. Hundreds of mainland Chinese, who protested regularly during the court case, attempt to storm the Hong Kong government headquarters, but they are repelled by riot police. . . . Reports from China confirm that U.S. scholar Hua Di has been convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Ukrainian authorities shut down the only working reactor in Chernobyl, the site of a major nuclear accident in 1986, because of a cooling system leak. Despite international pressure to shut it down, the reactor, labeled No. 3, was restarted on Nov. 26.

Russian television and Radio Liberty, a U.S. government-funded service, broadcast interviews with refugees from Chechnya who claim that Russian troops gunned down some 40 civilians trying to flee Grozny. Russian military officials deny the reports, claiming that, while 30 vehicles were destroyed, all of the cars contained rebels, not civilians.

Dec. 4

Dec. 5

Asia & the Pacific

Indonesian troops open fire on activists rallying for an independence referendum in Aceh province. At least 12 people are wounded in the incident, which occurs in the town of Sigli, where thousands of people gathered to mark the 23rd anniversary of an Islamic-based independence movement in Aceh.

Boris Trajkovski is elected president of Macedonia in a partial rerun of the presidential runoff election held in November.

Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz demands that Elián González, a sixyear-old Cuban refugee found off the coast of Florida in November, be returned to Cuba from the U.S. within 72 hours. Tens of thousands of Cuban demonstrators march on the streets of Havana, the Cuban capital, in ongoing rallies to demand that the U.S. release González to his father’s custody.

Transit officials open the Skytrain, a 16-mile-long elevated rail system in Bangkok, the capital of Thailand. . . . The chief minister of the Indian state of Orissa, Giridhar Gamang, is dismissed by Congress (I) party leader Sonia Gandhi. Party leaders criticized Gamang’s handling of relief efforts in the wake of a devastating cyclone that hit Orissa in October. The storm killed nearly 10,000 people.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

November 30–December 5, 1999—1339

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens issues an order that will temporarily block the enforcement of laws in Illinois and Wisconsin that prohibit late-term abortions medically known as intact dilation and extraction (IDE).

The U.S. hands over its last military base in Panama, the army’s Fort Clayton. The event effectively ends the U.S.’s 95-year control over the canal zone. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a waiver lifting restrictions on federal funding to foreign-aid organizations that perform abortions or advocate abortion rights. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a bill expanding the availability of long-term health care to veterans.

The FTC approves Exxon Corp.’s $81 billion acquisition through stock transactions of Mobil Corp. The acquisition creates the world’s largest company in revenue, combining Exxon, the U.S.’s largest oil producer, with Mobil, the secondlargest. Upon the deal’s approval, the two companies close their deal. The newly formed company is called Exxon Mobil Corp.

Sam Bard Treiman, 74, physicist who, with his colleague Marvin Goldberger in 1958, deduced a relationship between strong and weak forces, previously thought of as distinct, a relationship that came to be known as the Goldberger-Treiman Relation, dies in New York City of leukemia.

MLB owners unanimously approve a business merger between baseball’s New York Yankees and basketball’s New Jersey Nets. NBA owners unanimously approved the deal in September. The business merger is the first of its kind in North American professional sports and is expected to generate as much as $600 million a year in revenue.

The findings of a five-month study of airport security reveal lax security controls at major U.S. airports.

More than 400 people protesting the ongoing World Trade Organization (WTO) talks in Seattle, Washington, are arrested. . . . Judge Hector Laffitte dismisses all charges against Alfredo Otero, a Cuban exile accused of plotting to assassinate Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz in 1997.

The National Education Goals Panel, created in 1989, announces that none of the eight goals it set for the year 2000 have been achieved. One member, Gov. Tommy Thompson (R, Wis.), observes, “We’re going in the right direction, but we’re going at a very slow speed.” . . . The six candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000 square off in a debate in Manchester, New Hampshire. The nationally televised forum marks the first time in the election campaign that Texas governor George W. Bush participates in a debate with his rivals. Bush failed to attend the first three televised GOP debates.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson reveals that he will start reissuing waivers allowing foreign scientists to visit U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories. A moratorium was declared on visits to major labs following allegations of Chinese nuclear espionage.

An international group of researchers announce that for the first time they have established the chemical sequence of about 97% of chromosome 22, the second-smallest human chromosome.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) finds that the fiscal 2000 appropriations bills signed earlier in the year will require the federal government to use $17 billion of the Social Security Surplus, from which lawmakers vowed not to draw. The CBO also reports that the government’s fiscal 2000 spending commitments exceed by $37 billion the spending limits set by a balanced-budget agreement enacted in 1997. . . The NYSE votes to begin quoting stock prices in dollars and cents, abandoning the existing fractional system.

Pres. Clinton orders a permanent end to live-fire military exercises on the island of Vieques and the closure of the Vieques bombing range within five years unless Puerto Rico’s residents agree to allow the military to continue using the land. . . . Mexican naval vessels and U.S. Coast Guard ships seize a fishing boat off Mexico’s Pacific Coast transporting nine tons of cocaine. . . . A charter airplane carrying 138 passengers is the first direct passenger flight leaving New York for Havana, the Cuban capital, since 1961. . . . Pres. Clinton signs a bill authorizing the nation’s intelligence programs for fiscal 2000.

Nov. 30

Dec. 1

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) publishes draft guidelines governing federally financed research on human embryonic stem cells.

Charlie (Charles Lee) Byrd, 74, American jazz guitarist who recorded more than 100 albums, dies in Annapolis, Maryland, of cancer. . . . Joey Adams, 88, stand-up comedian, dies in New York City of heart failure.

NASA officials lose radio contact with Mars Polar Lander, an unmanned spacecraft intended to look for signs of frozen water on the planet Mars.

Madeline (Gail) Kahn, 57, U.S. stage and screen actress nominated for several Oscar and Tony awards, dies in New York City. . . . Tori Murden, the first American to ski to the geographic South Pole in 1988, becomes the first American and the first woman ever to row across the Atlantic Ocean alone.

Six firefighters in Worcester, Massachusetts, die in a burning warehouse. It is said to be the deadliest blaze for U.S. firefighters since 1994. . . . A van carrying 17 people crashes near Albuquerque, New Mexico, killing 13 passengers and injuring the other four. . . . Rose Elizabeth Bird, 63, first woman to serve on California’s Supreme Court, dies in Stanford, California, of breast cancer.

Dec. 2

Dec. 3

Dec. 4

Australia defeats France, three matches to two, in the finals of the 100th Davis Cup tennis competition. . . . The 22nd Annual Kennedy Center Honors are awarded to Stevie Wonder, Sean Connery, Jason Robards, Victor Borge, and Judith Jamison. Wonder, 49, is the youngest person ever to receive the honor.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 5

1340—December 6–11, 1999

Dec. 6

World Affairs

Europe

The UN court convicts former Hutu militia leader Georges Rutaganda of genocide and crimes against humanity in a 1994 war in which more than 500,000 people, mainly Tutsis, were killed. The court sentences Rutaganda to life in prison. . . . Two reports by the OSCE provide overwhelming evidence of a Serbian campaign, organized by the state, to drive nearly 1 million Albanians from Kosovo. It also shows that continued violence and terrorism in Kosovo was at times perpetrated by ethnic Albanians motivated by revenge against Serbs.

Russian military forces shower the city of Grozny, the capital of the breakaway republic of Chechnya, with leaflets warning residents to flee the city by Dec. 11 or risk death. . . . Ted Maher, the U.S. nurse of Edmond Safra, who died Dec. 3 in a fire at his home in Monaco, confesses to lighting the fire, hoping that he would rescue Safra from the fire and be considered a hero.

Africa & the Middle East The Sudanese government pardons and frees two Roman Catholic priests, Hilary Boma and Lino Sebit, along with at least 18 other men. All of the men, arrested in August 1998, were accused of planting bombs in Khartoum, the capital.

Dec. 8

Dec. 9

Dec. 11

Leaders from the 15 member nations of the EU meet for discussions in Helsinki and invited seven nations—Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, and Turkey—to apply for membership, expanding its list of current applicants to 13. . . . The 15-member UN Security Council unanimously votes to extend for six months its existing “oil-for-food” program, which lets Iraq raise money for its citizens’ humanitarian needs through the sale of exported oil.

Russian president Boris Yeltsin and Belarussian president Aleksandr Lukashenko sign an agreement to form a political and economic confederation between their nations. . . . In response to Montenegro’s Nov. 24 declaration, armed Yugoslav troops seize control of the airport in Podgorica, the capital. . . . . France announces that it will retain its ban on British beef indefinitely, despite a round of negotiations in which Britain made concessions regarding meat inspections and labeling.

Pres. Omar Hassan Ahmed alBashir of Sudan and Pres. Yoweri Museveni of Uganda sign a peace pact in which each agree not to support rebel groups trying to overthrow the other’s government. The deal also restores diplomatic ties between the two nations that were broken in 1995.

A Serbian court sentences Flora Brovina, a poet and women’s rights advocate, to 12 years in prison on charges of terrorism during the NATO bombing campaign in Kosovo. . . . The U.S. State Department claims that an estimated 10,000 ethnic Albanians were killed by Serbs between March and June in Kosovo. . . . Yugoslav troops reopen Montenegro’s airport, ending a standoff started Dec. 8 with Montenegrin police.

Heavy fighting flares in the Israeli security zone in southern Lebanon when Lebanon’s Shi’ite Muslim Hezbollah movement attack Israeli fighters. . . . Reports confirm that Mengistu Haile Mariam, a former military ruler of Ethiopia accused of genocide, has returned to Zimbabwe from South Africa.

Thirty-seven people are arrested in Canada and the U.S. in an international police operation intended to bring down an Eastern European organized crime ring based in Toronto. The suspects face more than 100 charges, including fraud and drug trafficking.

Pres. Franjo Tudjman, 77, who had led Croatia’s secession from Yugoslavia and served as its first president since 1990, dies in Zagreb of stomach cancer. . . . Niccolo Tucci, 91, Italian-born author who wrote in Italian and English and was known for his autobiographical fiction, dies in New York City.

The Vatican announces that Iraq has rejected plans for Pope John Paul II to travel to Iraq in 2000 because of current sanctions on Iraq and UN no-fly zones in the north and south of the country.

Fernando De la Rua of the centerleft Alianza coalition is sworn in as president of Argentina. . . . In what is called the largest demonstration in Cuba since Castro took power in 1959, an estimated 2 million protesters march to demand that the U.S. release Elián González, a sixyear-old Cuban refugee found off the coast of Florida in November, to his father’s custody in Cuba.

Leaders of the EU member nations agree to create a European rapidreaction military force of about 60,000 troops that can respond to regional and international military crises.

Asia & the Pacific In the Indian state of Orissa, Hemananda Biswal is sworn in to succeed Giridhar Gamang, who was dismissed Dec. 5 in the midst of criticism over his handling of a devastating cyclone that killed nearly 10,000 people. . . . Reports from Vietnam suggest that more than 100 people have been killed in rains that started Dec. 2.

Inco Ltd., Canada’s largest nickel producer, reaches a tentative contract agreement with 1,100 mine workers after a lockout that started Sept. 15.

Dec. 7

Dec. 10

The Americas

Data reveals that nearly 600 people have been killed in the torrential rains and flooding that began Nov. 1 in central Vietnam. The flooding, said to be the worst ever recorded in the country, has caused $50 million in damage and left millions homeless.

Prosecutors formally charge Pakistan’s ousted prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, with hijacking, kidnapping, attempted murder, and conspiracy to wage war against the state. Sharif and six others are indicted in a special antiterrorism court in Karachi.

Labour Party leader Helen Clark is sworn in as New Zealand’s prime minister.

Former army commander Lino Cesar Oviedo, who fled to Argentina in March after he and then-Pres. Raul Cubas Grau were accused of plotting the assassination of Vice Pres. Luis Maria Argana, reveals he has returned to Paraguay.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 6–11, 1999—1341

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

An unidentified 13-year-old boy shoots four schoolmates, none of them fatally, when he opens fire in Fort Gibson, Oklahoma. . . . Reports from Chicago confirm that Judge Jennifer Duncan-Brice has ruled that a private liability lawsuit against the gun industry may proceed. . . . A federal jury in Miami, Florida, convicts SabreTech Inc., an airline maintenance company, of improperly packaging and handling hazardous materials linked to the fatal 1996 crash of ValuJet Flight 592 in the Florida Everglades. Two SabreTech employees are acquitted.

Despite ongoing protests in Cuba, the State Department rejects Fidel Castro’s Dec. 5 demand that the U.S. immediately return Elián González, a six-year-old Cuban refugee found off the coast of Florida in November.

A federal advisory panel argues that the government is underestimating how long future Social Security beneficiaries are likely to live in their budget forecasts. . . . A Michigan environmental group and six Michigan residents file a lawsuit in Kalamazoo seeking an injunction to stop a plutonium shipment from passing through the state. . . . Robert A. Swanson, 52, cofounder, chief executive, 1976–90, and chair, 1990–96, of biotechnology company Genentech Inc., dies in Hillsborough, California, after a yearlong battle with brain cancer.

In the wake of a report finding that medical mistakes cause as many as 98,000 deaths a year, Pres. Clinton orders a series of measures intended to reduce the number of such injuries and deaths. . . . In LAPD v. United Reporting Publishing Corp., the Supreme Court rules, 7-2, to uphold a California statute that prohibits the release of information contained in police records to companies that seek to use the information for commercial purposes.

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Dec. 6

In response to the suit filed Dec. 6 in Michigan, Judge Richard Enslen issues a 10-day restraining order blocking the shipment of plutonium. . . . Cendant Corp., a U.S. franchising and direct marketing company, announces that it has agreed to pay $2.83 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit over a 1998 accounting scandal. The settlement is said to be the largest ever reached in a shareholder class action.

Dec. 7

A jury in Memphis, Tennessee, rules that the 1968 slaying of civilrights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was part of a conspiracy involving a former Memphis restaurant owner, Lloyd Jowers, and “others, including governmental agencies.” It awards $100 in damages to the King family. The trial received little publicity, and some observers question the reliability of the proceedings.

FBI counterintelligence agents in Washington, D.C., arrest Stanislav Borisovich Grusev, a Russian diplomat believed to have been spying for Russia. . . . . A federal jury in San Juan, Puerto Rico, acquits five Cuban exiles accused of plotting to assassinate Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz in 1997. . . . A U.S. military jury convicts Private Calvin Glover for the fatal beating of a gay infantryman, Barry Winchell, 21, with a baseball bat while Winchell slept.

The SEC unanimously approves plans to provide all trading firms access to trade New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) stocks. The proposed move will be accomplished by opening up the Intermarket Trading System (ITS), an electronic order-routing system that links the NYSE with the NASDAQ Stock Market and regional markets.

A committee of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) meets to discuss the safety of clinical trials of experimental gene therapies.

Pres. Clinton signs a bill creating a new agency that will administer truck and bus safety programs. . . . Hawaii’s Supreme Court rules that a 1998 amendment to the state constitution banning gay marriages is legitimate and enforceable. . . . Tens of thousands of firefighters from around world travel to Worcester, Massachusetts, to attend a memorial service for the six who died in the Dec. 4 blaze there. Pres. Clinton and Vice Pres. Al Gore also attend the service.

A U.S. military jury sentences Private Calvin Glover to life in prison with the possibility of parole for the fatal beating of a gay infantryman, Barry Winchell, 21, with a baseball bat while Winchell slept.

The National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), which runs the NASDAQ Stock Market, announces that it will adopt an electronic trading system.

David Smith, 31, of Aberdeen Township, New Jersey, pleads guilty to state and federal charges that he created and sent out the “Melissa” computer virus in March. Melissa spread to more than 1 million computers worldwide and was called the most rapidly spreading, costly, and disruptive computer virus ever.

Connecticut Superior Court judge Robert McWeeny dismisses a gun liability lawsuit filed by Bridgeport, arguing that victims of gun violence rather than municipalities are the proper plaintiffs to bring such lawsuits.

A federal grand jury in New Mexico indicts Wen Ho Lee, the chief suspect in a government investigation into alleged Chinese espionage at U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories.

Scientists report new evidence that there was a large ocean in the northern region of the planet Mars some 2 billion years ago. Scientific opinion remains divided on the issue, however.

The State Department issues a warning to Americans abroad that they may be the target of attacks around the millennial new year. . . . Pres. Clinton admits that the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy toward homosexuals in the military has failed to end discrimination and harassment against gays in the armed forces. He pledges to work with the Defense Department to find a way to revise military policy toward gays.

Sir Rupert Charles Hart-Davis, 92, British publisher, editor, and writer, dies in North Yorkshire, England.

Dec. 8

Dec. 9

Early Wright, 84, Southern black disk jockey, dies in Clarksdale, Mississippi, after a heart attack. . . . In Inglewood, California, Panamanian jockey Laffit Pincay Jr. wins his 8,834th race, surpassing the record set in 1970. . . . Rick Danko, 56, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, dies in Marbletown, New York.

In the wake of scandals, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) overwhelmingly approves 50 reform measures aimed at overhauling the IOC’s practices and restoring public faith in the 105-year-old Olympic governing body.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 10

Dec. 11

1342—December 12–17, 1999

World Affairs

Dec. 12

Dec. 13

Dec. 14

Dec. 15

Dec. 16

Dec. 17

Europe

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

In France, a tanker carrying about 8 million gallons of oil breaks up during a storm off the Brittany coast, spilling 1.5 million gallons (5.7 million liters) of oil into the ocean. The 26 crew members are rescued.

Sudanese president Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir declares a threemonth state of emergency and dissolves the parliament.

Socialist Ricardo Lagos, the candidate of the governing Concertacion coalition, is locked in a virtual tie with conservative challenger Joaquin Lavin after first-round voting in Chile’s presidential election. The results mean that Lagos and Lavin will compete in a runoff in January 2000.

Unprecedented peace negotiations between Corsican nationalists and the French government begin. . . . Romanian president Constantinescu dismisses Premier Radu Vasile. . . . Croatian president Franjo Tudjman, who died Dec. 10, is buried in Zagreb. An estimated 100,000 people watch the funeral procession. . . . Stane Dolanc, 74, second in command to Josip Broz Tito during most of the 1970s and a member of the joint presidency that assumed control of Yugoslavia, 1984–89, dies in Ljubljana, Slovenia, several months after suffering a stroke.

Israeli forces kill two men they claims are members of the Palestinian militant Hamas group during a raid in the West Bank town of Beit Awwa.

Canada’s House of Commons votes, 217-48, in favor of a bill that will give the native Nisga’a people in northwestern British Columbia the right to self-government. If cleared, the legislation will turn into law the Nisga’a Final Agreement, a land treaty negotiated over a period of 20 years between the aboriginals and the British Columbia and federal governments. The agreement will give the Nisga’a people the powers of self government they have sought for over 100 years.

João Tavarres, leader of pro-Indonesia militias, orders the groups to formally disband. . . . A court in Osaka, Japan, orders Isamu Yamada, governor of Osaka prefecture, to pay $107,000 damages to a 21-year-old woman in what is Japan’s largest sexual-harassment verdict ever.

The U.S. hands over control of the Panama Canal to Panama in a public ceremony held at the canal’s Miraflores Locks. Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter heads the U.S. delegation, and he states, “Today we come together with mutual respect to acknowledge without question the complete sovereignty of Panama.”

Japan states that it will lift its ban on food aid to famine-stricken North Korea, and open negotiations with North Korea on establishing diplomatic relations.

Venezuelan voters overwhelmingly approve a new national charter drafted by the country’s constitutional assembly and aggressively supported by Pres. Hugo Chavez Frias. The new charter—Venezuela’s 26th constitution since it gained its independence from Spain in 1821—includes 350 articles that drastically reshape state institutions and their assigned powers. Separately, torrential downpours begin in Venezuela’s coastal region.

Hong Kong’s highest court reverses a lower court’s ruling that overturned the convictions of two men under a law prohibiting the desecration of the flags of Hong Kong and China.

Reports reveal that, since Dec. 15, torrential downpours have caused widespread flooding and numerous mudslides throughout Venezuela’s northwestern coastal region, leaving thousands of people dead and 150,000 homeless. The devastation is described as Venezuela’s worst natural disaster in modern times. . . . Luis Alfredo Garavito, who admitted in October to having killed 140 children since 1992, is found guilty of murdering an 11year-old boy in 1996 in Tunja, Colombia, and of raping another victim. He is sentenced to 52 years in prison.

Police kill five men in a gunfight following an unsuccessful bank robbery attempt in Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia sentences Goran Jelisic, a Bosnian Serb shift commander at a prison camp in northern Bosnia in 1992, to 40 years in prison for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The sentence is the stiffest imposed by the six-year-old UN court.

German government officials and industry representatives agree to establish a fund of 10 billion marks ($5.1 billion) to compensate people forced into slave labor during the Nazi regime.

Iraq fails to meet a deadline to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to examine the country’s uranium supply, raising questions about its commitment to disarmament.

A court in Bavaria, Germany sentences Djurdadj Kusljic, 44, a Bosnian Serb police chief, to life in prison for ordering the killing of Muslims in Bosnia.

Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Syrian foreign minister Farouk al-Sharaa meet in the first direct meeting between the two countries in nearly four years. . . . A Lebanese court acquits popular Arab singer Marcel Khalife on all charges of blasphemy for including a verse of the Koran, the Muslim holy text, in a song.

A UN panel faults the UN and major powers, especially the U.S., for failing to take action to prevent the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, despite signs that it was imminent. In the 1994 genocide, some 800,000 people—mainly ethnic Tutsis—were killed. . . . Data shows the 1990s were the warmest decade on record, and the 1900s the warmest century in 1,000 years. . . . . The U.S. agrees to pay China $28 million for the May bombing of the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia by NATO forces. China agrees to pay the U.S. $2.87 million for damage done to the U.S. embassy during demonstrations after the bombing.

Padraic Wilson, a leader in the IRA, is released from Northern Ireland’s Maze Prison, where he completed eight years of a 24-year sentence for possessing explosives. . . . Romanian president Emil Constantinescu appoints Mugur Isarescu as premier.

As many as 20 children are wounded when an Israeli mortar shell explodes near a school in Arab Salim as fighting that flared Dec. 9 in the Israeli security zone in southern Lebanon continues.

Representatives from more than 50 nations and international groups meet in Tokyo and pledge $520 million in aid to East Timor to fund reconstruction and humanitarian projects there. . . . A divided UN Security Council approves a resolution creating a new arms-monitoring regime for Iraq, ending a year-long deadlock. The new body is called the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC).

Gunmen hurl grenades and open fire on a cafe in a Serbian enclave in the town of Orahovac in southwestern Kosovo. One man is killed and at least eight people are injured in the attack. The incident is the latest in a string of revenge attacks apparently perpetrated by Kosovo Albanians on Serbs in Kosovo. . . . In a move that ends a 500-year link, the Swedish government states that on Jan. 1, 2000, it will officially divorce from the Lutheran Church of Sweden. . . . Cardinal Paolo Dezza, 98, Italian Roman Catholic churchman and interim head of the Jesuit order, 1981–83, dies in Rome, Italy.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 12–17, 1999—1343

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill barring companies from mailing deceptive notices of sweepstakes and other contests.

In Miami, Florida, Judge Amy Dean dismissed a liability lawsuit filed by Miami-Dade County against the firearms industry. . . . Data shows that states have executed a record 96 prisoners since the beginning of 1999. That is more executions than in any other year since 1976. . . . In Brooklyn New York Judge Eugene Nickerson sentences former city police officer Justin Volpe to 30 years in prison for the 1997 stationhouse torture of Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant.

Pres. Clinton signs into law a bill allowing disabled people to keep their government health-care benefits when they become employed. . . . Ken W. Clawson, 63, director of communications during the final months of the administration of Pres. Richard M. Nixon, dies in New Orleans, Louisiana, after a heart attack.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Paul Cadmus, 94, painter who generated controversy in the 1930s by depicting military personnel in compromising situations, dies in Weston, Conn. . . . Joseph Heller, 76, author best known for Catch-22 (1961), a classic U.S. novel about World War II, dies in East Hampton, N.Y., after a heart attack.

At a jail in Louisiana, four Cuban inmates and a Bahamian detainee take over the warden’s office and the jail’s command post. . . . The U.S. reveals that approximately 12 suspects allegedly linked to Osama bin Laden were arrested in the Middle East during the previous two weeks. The suspects are accused of planning attacks on Americans celebrating the new year.

Scientists report that a house cat gave birth to a rare wildcat in the first successful transfer of an embryo to the womb of an animal of a different species. The scientists suggest that the procedure might be used to bolster the population of endangered species.

Dec. 13

U.S. customs officials arrest Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian-born man caught entering the U.S. at Port Angeles, Wash., from Victoria, British Columbia, with over 130 pounds (60 kg) of bomb-making materials in the trunk of his car. . . . The Cuban inmates who took control of a prison in Louisiana Dec. 13 demand that they be freed from detention in the U.S. and sent back to Cuba.

The Department of Agriculture announces that food processors will be allowed to irradiate raw beef, pork, and lamb to eliminate potentially deadly microbes, such as the E. coli O157:H7 bacterium.

Jordanian officials announce the arrest of 11 Jordanians, an Algerian, and an Iraqi suspected of planning attacks on Americans and other nationals in Jordan. U.S. officials reveal that those arrested are believed to be followers of suspected Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden.

New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) reaches a tentative three-year contract agreement with the Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents the city’s 33,000 bus and subway workers. The deal, brokered after five days of around-the-clock negotiations, narrowly averts a strike of the nation’s largest mass-transit system, which serves 3.5 million riders daily.

The INS reveals that the inmates in the standoff that started Dec. 14 at a prison in Louisiana had been convicted of committing crimes in the U.S. and had completed serving their sentences. Normally, foreign criminals who served their time are deported, but the U.S. has no repatriation agreement with Cuba. Currently, there are about 2,400 Cuban convicts under INS detention in the U.S. Of those, about 1,400 are incarcerated in local jails.

The Commerce Department reports that the U.S. trade deficit swelled in October, to a seasonally adjusted $25.94 billion, a record. That marks the seventh time since January that the deficit reaches a record high. The rise follows a revised deficit figure of $24.15 billion in September. . . . The Justice Department files a class-action lawsuit against the St. Louis-based Adam’s Mark hotel chain, accusing it of discriminating against black customers by charging them higher rates than white customers and renting them inferior rooms.

Carolina Panthers football coach George Seifert releases wide receiver Rae Carruth, who is a suspect in the shooting death of his pregnant girlfriend. The NFL also suspends him indefinitely from the league.

The U.S. announces that it will close indefinitely its embassy in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, along with two consulates because the offices received unspecified threats against their security.

Pres. Clinton appoints NLRB member Sara Fox to another five-year term. . . . In San Francisco, California, Judge Susan Illston entences former Democratic fund-raiser Yogesh K. Gandhi to one year in prison on charges of using foreign money to contribute to the Democratic Party, mail fraud, and tax evasion. . . . A federal judge lifts a temporary restraining order issued Dec. 10 regarding a shipment of plutonium. . . . The EPA orders 392 power plants and other facilities in the South and Midwest to reduce their emissions of nitrogen oxide by nearly half.

Grover Washington Jr., 56, jazz saxophonist who pioneered a form of crossover jazz, dies in New York City, after collapsing from a heart attack at a TV studio. . . . C(omer) Vann Woodward, 91, historian who win the 1982 Pulitzer Prize, dies in Hamden, Connecticut.

A federal judicial committee bars the posting of federal judges’ financial statements on the Internet computer network.

Dec. 12

Cartoonist Charles M. Schulz, 77, the creator of the “Peanuts” comic strip, reveals that he is retiring because of ill health. “Peanuts” currently appears in roughly 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries and has an estimated 355 million readers.

Dec. 14

Dec. 15

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 16

Dec. 17

1344—December 18–21, 1999

Dec. 18

World Affairs

Europe

Iraq rejects the new weapons monitoring regime formed Dec. 17, the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC).

Serbia’s Alliance for Change opposition group, which for 89 consecutive days has held rallies to protest Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic’s regime, announces that it will end its daily protests.

Russian voters favor centrist and progovernment parties over leftand right-wing parties in elections to the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament.

Dec. 19

Dec. 20

British NATO troops in northwestern Bosnia-Herzegovina arrest Major General Stanislav Galic, a former Bosnian Serb general charged with war crimes committed in the 1992–95 war in Bosnia.

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific At a campaign rally in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, a suicide bombing kills more than 20 people and injures more than 100 others., including Pres. Chandrika Kumaratunga. . . . In Bhutan, 200 prisoners are released from prison in a mass amnesty by King Jigme Singye Wangchuck. The monarch releases all prisoners regarded by human-rights groups as political detainees.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat releases six people arrested in November for signing a letter that criticized him. Two other signers of the letter remain in jail.

During a routine traffic stop in the town of Calatayud, Spanish police discover 950 kilograms (one ton) of explosives and a detonator in a van reportedly bound for Madrid, Spain’s capital. . . . In Serbia, Judge Zoran Ivosevic of the Supreme Court and Judge Bozidar Prelevic of a municipal court are ousted for their membership in a nongovernmental union.

The Serbian parliament fires Judge Slobodan Vucetic for criticizing the Yugoslav government. . . . Gordon Brown, Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer, announces that Britain will forgive the debt owed to the government by 41 of the world’s poorest countries.

Dec. 21

Africa & the Middle East

Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat meet in the West Bank city of Ramallah. The meeting marks the first time an Israeli prime minister attends peace negotiations in the Palestinian-controlled occupied territories. . . . Israeli and Hezbollah forces observe a ceasefire to allow Red Cross workers to retrieve the bodies of five Hezbollah fighters killed in recent clashes in the security zone in Lebanon.

Eight people are freed after being abducted Sept. 11 near the Ecuador-Colombia boarder by suspected Colombian guerillas.

The territory of Macao reverts to Chinese sovereignty at midnight local time, ending 442 years of Portuguese colonial rule. A ceremony is attended by Portuguese president Jorge Sampaio and Chinese president Jiang Zemin. Some 30,000 people gather in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China’s capital, to celebrate the occasion. Macao police break up a gathering of about 40 members of Falun Gong, a spiritual movement banned in China. . . . Hisashi Ouchi, 35, one of three workers made seriously ill by exposure to radiation in a September nuclear accident in Japan, dies.

A Cubana de Aviacion plane crashes into a low-income neighborhood located next to the airport in Guatemala City, Guatemala. Six passengers, eight crew members, and nine people on the ground are killed. . . . The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel group declares a cease-fire scheduled to last through Jan. 10, 2000. The announcement comes after intense fighting between FARC guerrillas and government forces that reportedly led to the deaths of more than 230 government soldiers and guerrillas. . . . Panamanian president Moscoso signs an executive order that abrogates two 1978 laws that restrict journalistic freedom.

International peacekeepers discover two mass graves in East Timor that they predict will contain the bodies of more than 100 victims killed in rampages launched by militias that oppose East Timor’s independence referendum.

In regard to the floods from rains that started Dec. 15, Angel Rangel, Venezuela’s civil defense director, notes that “there are unfortunately thousands of people buried in the mud, and the final number [of deaths] we will never know. The forecast is that we could have maybe 25,000 or 30,000 [fatalities].”. . . A group of protesters throw rocks and bags of paint at the U.S. embassy in Panama City to mark the 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Panama.

Sri Lankan president Chandrika Kumaratunga of the ruling People’s Alliance coalition is reelected to a second six-year term in office. In an outbreaks of poll-related violence, at least five people are killed.

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Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 18–21, 1999—1345

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

In response to the standoff that started Dec. 13 at a prison in Louisiana, Cuba and the U.S. State Department agree to a deal under which seven Cuban detainees involved in the hostage crisis will be allowed to be deported to Havana. The Cuban inmates—now numbering five—and one Bahamian detainee release their seven remaining hostages and surrender to authorities.

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle Joe Higgs, 59, pioneering reggae performer, dies in Los Angeles of cancer. . . . Robert Bresson, 98, French film director and screenwriter, dies in Droue-sur-Drouette, southwest of Paris.

In an interview, former first lady Nancy Reagan reveals that the condition of her husband, former president Ronald Reagan—who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease— has deteriorated to the point that he is no longer able to hold a coherent conversation.

Authorities in Beecher Falls, Vermont, arrest an Algerian man and a Canadian woman—Bouabide Chamchi, 20, and Lucia Garofalo, 35—as they try to enter the U.S. from Canada when dogs smell residue of explosives in their car. No explosives are found. . . . Reports confirm that the VA has documented almost 3,000 medical errors that occurred in department hospitals in the previous two years. The department noted that 710 deaths resulted from medical mistakes in that period.

The Vermont Supreme Court orders the state government to offer homosexual couples the same benefits and legal rights afforded to heterosexual married couples. . . . In Denver, Colorado, Judge Jeffrey Bayless sentences Nathan Thill, 21, a white supremacist, to life in prison without parole for the 1997 shooting death of Oumar Dia, an African immigrant. . . . Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo reveals that HUD will seize control of a program that allocates federal grant money for NYC homeless programs in response to a November court ruling that city officials had unfairly denied grant money to a group critical of NYC mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R). . . . In Cleveland, Ohio, Judge Solomon Oliver Jr. rules that Cleveland’s school-voucher program is unconstitutional because it violates the separation of church and state. . . . Sen. James Inhofe (R, Okla.) states that he will block every nominee that Pres. Clinton offers for federal judgeships until Clinton leaves office in 2001, as a protest against the Dec. 17 appointment of NLRB member Sara Fox.

In a letter, Senate majority leader Trent Lott (R, Miss.) and five other senators ask Pres. Clinton to delay any INS action in the case of Elián González, a six-year-old Cuban refugee rescued off the coast of Florida in November, until Congress returns in January. . . . Six Cuban inmates involved in the Dec. 13 hostage standoff at a jail in St. Martinville, Louisiana, are deported to Havana, the Cuban capital. . . . Wen Ho Lee, a physicist indicted for mishandling nuclear weapons information, files a lawsuit against three U.S. agencies for violating his privacy and wrongfully portraying him as a spy in the news media.

Pres. Clinton authorizes the largest pay raise for federal workers since 1981. Beginning January 2000, white-collar federal civil servants nationwide will receive a 3.8% wage increase. Local government workers will receive a an increase that varies by metropolitan area and falls between 4.69% and 5.59%. . . . The NYSE issues its largest fine ever against a firm for day-trading violations when it levies $1.5 million against Schonfeld Securities LLC and several of its officers. . . . Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. (BN) of the U.S. and Canadian National Railway Co. (CN) announce plans to merge in a US$6 billion (C$8.8 billion) transaction that will create the largest railroad company in North America. The new company, to be called North American Railways Inc. (NAR), will provide nonstop freight service across Canada and to every U.S. state west of the Mississippi River.

In Washington, D.C., Judge Royce Lamberth rules that the government mismanaged a trust fund that held $500 million belonging to 300,000 Native Americans. Lamberth characterizes the mishandling of funds by the Interior and Treasury departments as “fiscal and governmental irresponsibility in its purest form.” . . . American Home Products agrees to pay at least $350 million to settle 1,400 injury cases over the diet drug combination fen/phen.

The Clinton administration gives a $51 million check to the UN With the check, the U.S. pays enough of its back dues to the UN to save its vote in the General Assembly. . . . The U.S. government reports that the Bahamian detainee involved in the Dec. 13–18 standoff at a Louisiana prison will be repatriated to the Bahamas under routine procedures.

Pres. Clinton announces new EPA standards that require the oil industry to produce cleaner gasoline and that tighten emissions regulations for the “light truck” category of vehicles.

The space shuttle Discovery lifts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, to repair and replace equipment on the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, which shut down Nov. 13.

Desmond Llewelyn, 85, British actor in 17 James Bond films, dies in East Sussex after being involved in a car crash. . . . After fleeing the state, football player Rae Carruth, of the Carolina Panthers, returns to Charlotte, North Carolina, to face firstdegree murder charges in the death of his pregnant girlfriend, Cherica Adams, 24. He is reportedly the first active NFL player to be charged with murder.

Hank (Clarence Eugene) Snow, 85, Canadian-born country music legend who recorded more than 80 albums, dies in Madison, Tennessee, after recently being treated for pneumonia.

Dec. 18

Dec. 19

Dec. 20

Dec. 21

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1346—December 22–27, 1999

Dec. 22

World Affairs

Europe

UN investigators call on the UN Security Council to set up an international war crimes tribunal to investigate the military’s role in human-rights abuses committed in East Timor. Indonesian president Abdurrahman Wahid states his administration will not sanction the trial of military officers by an international tribunal. . . . A three-member WTO panel rules that Section 301 of U.S. trade law, which allows the U.S. to take unilateral action against trading partners it accuses of unfair trade practices, does not violate international trade agreements.

Ukraine’s parliament approves Victor Yushchenko as premier.

Four militant separatist groups on the French-controlled island of Corsica announce an unconditional cease-fire. In the past 10 years, Corsica has seen more than 4,000 bombings, most of them attributed to nationalist organizations that favor Corsica’s official separation from France. . . . Italy’s parliament gives Italian premier Massimo D’Alema’s new, slightly different government coalition a vote of confidence.

Dec. 23

Dec. 24

Dec. 25

Dec. 26

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

A military uprising ignites when troops, upset over their pay, rampages through Abidjan, the capital of Ivory Coast.

A ferry carrying 650 passengers and crew members sinks after its hull strikes a rock in shallow waters. Some 590 people are rescued from waters near Bantayan Island, about 300 miles (480 km) southeast of Manila, the capital of the Philippines. At least nine people are killed, and 58 others are missing.

In Ivory Coast, members of the military oust Pres. Henri Konan Bedie in a largely nonviolent coup, which comes after the Dec. 23 military uprising. Gen. Robert Guei, a former armed forces chief of staff, takes over as the new president and announces that democratic rules will be “closely respected.”. . . The Dec. 21 cease-fire in Lebanon ends when Hezbollah begins firing on Israeli forces.

Five heavily armed men commandeer an Indian passenger jet en route from Katmandu, Nepal, to New Delhi, India. The hijackers reroute the jet to Afghanistan.

Russian military forces advance into Grozny, the capital of the breakaway republic of Chechnya. The civilian population still remaining in Grozny is estimated at around 50,000. . . . Due to rough weather conditions, the oil slick from the Dec. 12 tanker accident near Brittany reaches the French coast, trapping about 10,000 sea birds.

A jet operated by Cubana de Aviacion, Cuba’s government-run airline, crashes into the side of a mountain near Valencia, Venezuela, killing all 22 people on board. It is the second deadly accident in less than a week involving planes operated by Cubana de Aviacion.

The heavily armed men who hijacked a plane on Dec. 24 land at an airport in Kandahar, Afghanistan. There, the hijackers threaten to kill more than 150 passengers and crew members unless India frees imprisoned Pakistani militants, including Masood Azhar. Militants in Kashmir kill at least 10 people, in several raids viewed as expressions of support for the hijackers. . . . Reports confirm that some 230 bodies have been recovered in East Timor since international peacekeepers were deployed in the region in September.

A storm sweeps hurricane-force winds of up to 125 miles per hour (200 kmph) across France.

Alfonso Portillo Cabrera of the opposition rightist Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG) wins the Guatemalan presidency in a runoff. He will be the first president elected in Guatemala since the end of the nation’s 36-year-long civil war in 1996.

A court in Beijing, China’s capital, sentences four followers of the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual movement to prison terms ranging from seven to 18 years. The sentences, handed down to the four—Li Chang, Wang Zhiwen, Ji Liewu, and Yao Jie—are among the longest given to any political or religious dissidents in China in recent years.

Government-owned BC Rail Ltd., Canada’s third-largest freight transporter, locks out 1,600 unionized staff and shut down operations to preempt a walkout by workers.

Indian foreign minister Jaswant Singh leads a 52-member team to Kandahar, Afghanistan, to negotiate with the hijackers who took control of a plane Dec. 24.

Israel releases five Lebanese prisoners, including four members of the Shi’ite Muslim guerilla group Hezbollah, in the first release of Lebanese prisoners since mid1998. The freed prisoners have been held without trial for between 10 and 13 years. The release is widely seen as a gesture of goodwill before Israel enters into a further round of peace talks with Syria in January 2000.

Dec. 27

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 22–27, 1999—1347

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

A Boston, Massachusetts, grand jury indicts former FBI agent John Connolly on charges that he conspired to commit crimes with two Boston mob leaders who were FBI informers. The indictment also charges the two mob leaders, James Bulger and Stephen Flemmi. . . . A jury in Newton, New Jersey, convicts Jayson Vreeland, 20, for his role in the 1997 murders of two pizza delivery men, Georgio Gallara, 24, and Jeremy Giordano, 22. . . . The Justice Department announces it will appoint a monitor to oversee the New Jersey State Police, due to evidence of discrimination by the use of racial profiling.

The INS reveals that it has postponed its inspection interview with a six-year-old Cuban refugee, Elián González, whose case has given rise to a tense dispute between the U.S.’s Cuban exile community and the Cuban government, which demands the boy’s return.

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle A federal appeals court in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, reverses a lower-court decision and rules that the NCAA may use minimum test scores to determine which students are eligible to compete in collegiate athletics and receive athletic scholarships.

Dec. 22

Dec. 23

Dec. 24

Pres. Clinton announces $900 million in new grant money to fund programs for the country’s homeless.

Dec. 25

Dec. 26

The space shuttle Discovery touches down at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, after carrying out a mission to repair and replace equipment on the earthorbiting Hubble Space Telescope.

Dec. 27

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Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

1348—December 28–31, 1999

World Affairs

Dec. 30

Africa & the Middle East

The Americas

Asia & the Pacific

Turkmenistan’s parliament votes unanimously to allow Pres. Saparmurad Niyazov to serve as leader of the country for life. Niyazov, 59, was first elected president in 1990. . . . A storm sweeps through France. When coupled with the Dec. 26 storm, the winds killed 68 people and damage several historical landmarks. The storms also kill about 40 other people in neighboring nations.

Israel hands over to Hezbollah the bodies of two of their members slain in recent fighting in Israel’s security zone in southern Lebanon.

Reports reveal that Pakistan’s military government has ordered the arrests of 33 bureaucrats and politicians for financial corruption. . . . South Korea’s composite index closes up 82.8% for 1999.

UN secretary general Kofi Annan announces that Major General Jaime de los Santos of the Philippines will serve as commander of a 9,000-member UN peacekeeping force for East Timor.

Judge Sergei Golets of the St. Petersburg city court in Russia acquits retired naval captain Alexander Nikitin of charges relating to his leaking state secrets about nuclear pollution to a Norwegian environmental group. Separately, officials claim that Russian troops have captured all of Grozny’s suburbs in Chechnya.

Israel releases 26 Palestinian prisoners in an apparent gesture of goodwill at the start of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month. Separately, the Israeli army tears down a shrine erected at the grave of Baruch Goldstein, a U.S.-born Israeli settler who killed scores of Palestinians in an attack on a mosque in Hebron in 1994.

The Indonesian military takes over security on Ambon island, where religious violence has flared sporadically throughout the year.

Germany’s Frankfurt DAX 30 exchange closes up 39% for the year. The London Stock Exchange 100 closes with a year-end gain of 17.8%. Finland’s HEX 20 shows a 162% surge in 1999, the biggest rise of any market. Mexico’s Bolsa index in Mexico City rose a record 80% for the year. In Japan, the Nikkei average on the Tokyo Stock Exchange closes up 36.8% from one year earlier. . . . Taiwan reveals that it has agreed to establish diplomatic relations with Palau, an island nation in the Pacific Ocean. That brings the number of countries that recognize Taiwan to 29.

Russian officials claim that Chechen rebels have given up key positions in Grozny and the southern mountains of Chechnya. Reports place the number of rebels still holed up in the capital at between 2,000 and 5,000.

A car bomb is detonated on Lebanon’s Qlaia highway, killing the driver of the van carrying the bomb and injuring 12 Lebanese civilians and an Israeli soldier. Hezbollah claims responsibility for the attack. . . . Israel releases seven Palestinian prisoners—most of whom are allied with Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction of the PLO. The seven prisoners are from Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, marking the first time since 1994 that an Israeli prisoner release includes residents of East Jerusalem.

Dec. 28

Dec. 29

Europe

Russian president Boris Yeltsin unexpectedly announces his resignation, naming Premier Vladimir Putin acting president. Yeltsin was first elected president of Russia, then a Soviet republic, in 1991, and subsequently presided over the dismantling of the Soviet Union.

Dec. 31

The foreign ministers of Honduras and Nicaragua sign an agreement to defuse military tensions pending a World Court decision regarding sovereignty over 12,000 square miles (31,000 sq km) of Caribbean coastal waters.

Foreign ministers from Vietnam and China sign a treaty that resolves outstanding border disputes between their two countries. . . . Javed Iqbal, the target of a mass manhunt in connection with the alleged rape and murder of 100 boys, surrenders in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province in Pakistan.

Panama assumes control of the Panama Canal and the surrounding canal zone from the U.S., culminating a transfer of sovereignty outlined in a 1977 treaty between the two nations. Thousands of Panamanians attend a ceremony held inside the zone in front of the headquarters of the Panama Canal Commission, a U.S. government agency that oversaw the operation of the canal. The commission is succeeded as canal administrator by the Panama Canal Authority, an autonomous corporation. . . . In Canada, the Toronto Stock Exchange composite index closes with a 29.7% increase from 1998’s closing figure.

The crisis that started Dec. 24 when five men hijacked an Indian passenger jet ends when the Indian government releases three jailed Pakistani militants, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, Ahmed Umar Saeed Sheik, and Masood Azhar. . . . Reports reveal that some 300 people have been killed in several days of clashes between Christians and Muslims in the Moluccas island chain, which forms Indonesia’s Maluku Province.

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Includes developments that affect more than one world region, international organizations, and important meetings of major world leaders.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Europe, including the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, and Malta.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Africa and the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran and excluding Cyprus, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Includes all domestic and regional developments in Asia and Pacific nations, extending from Afghanistan through all the Pacific Island, except Hawaii.

December 28–31, 1999—1349

U.S. Politics & Social Issues

U.S. Foreign Policy & Defense

U.S. Economy & Environment

Science, Technology, & Nature

Culture, Leisure, & Lifestyle

Dec. 28

Data shows that, in fund-raising totals for the year, Sen. John McCain (R, Ariz.), has raised about $13.6 million since January, including $6.1 million in the final quarter. The campaign of Democratic vice president Al Gore states that Gore raised $4 million in the fourth quarter of 1999, increasing his annual total to nearly $29 million. Former senator Bill Bradley (D, N.J.) raised more than $8 million in the quarter and about $27 million since January. The last U.S. flag over the Panama Canal is lowered in a small ceremony at the Panama Canal commission headquarters.

Data shows that a total of 24 members of the U.S. House of Representatives do not plan to run for reelection in the year 2000.

Texas governor George W. Bush’s campaign reports that it has raised more than $67 million since January, far more than any presidential candidate has ever raised in the entire final 18 months of the nomination process. Former senator Robert J. Dole (R, Kans.) had held the previous record, raising $31.3 million in that period.

Reports confirm that Thailand’s censorship board has barred the release of a U.S.-made film, Anna and the King, claiming that the film’s depiction of 19th-century Thai king Mongkut is insulting.

Technicians with the FAA scramble to fix a previously undetected Y2K bug in systems at its 21 en-route air-traffic-control centers.

Silvio Izquierdo-Leyva shoots to death four fellow workers and one other person at the Radisson Bay Harbor Inn, in Tampa, Florida. He wounds three people. . . . The U.S. dollar ends 1999 at 1.9423 marks, up from the 1998 year-end rate. The dollar closes 1999 at 102.12 yen, down from the previous year’s final rate. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes at 11497.12, up 2315.69 points, or 25.22%, from the 1998 year-end level of 9181.43. The 1999 closing figure also marks the Dow’s highest trading-day close over the 12-month period. NASDAQ closes at a record 4069.31, an 85.5% increase from 1998. AMEX closes at 876.97, up 27.28% from its 1998 close of 688.99. The Dow global index shows the U.S. market up 18.9%. The S&P 500 closes at 1469.25, a 19.5% increase for the year, the fifth consecutive year it has double-digit percentage gains.

In England, former Beatle George Harrison is stabbed twice in the chest by an intruder in Harrison’s Henley-on-Thames mansion. Harrison is wounded by the attack.

In England, news reports identify Michael Abram, 33, as the man who stabbed George Harrison on Dec. 30. He reportedly believed the Beatles to be witches.

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Includes formation and debate of U.S. foreign and defense policies, veterans’ affairs, and defense spending. (Relations with specific foreign countries are usually found under the region concerned.)

Includes business, labor, agriculture, taxation, transportation, consumer affairs, monetary and fiscal policy, natural resources, and pollution.

Includes worldwide scientific, medical, and technological developments; natural phenomena; U.S. weather; natural disasters; and accidents.

Includes the arts, religion, scholarship, communications media, sports, entertainments, fashions, fads, and social life.

Dec. 29

Dec. 30

Dec. 31